Gameplay: Ideas on Day/Night, Night Vision and Certs

Dov · 2011-07-28, 12:16 PM

Since there will apparently be a bad-a night cycle -- I came up of how this could maximize fun in PS2, IM(humble)O

Since continents on earth are at different latitudes they have different lengths of day-light and night-time. This could be true of Auraxis (unless there's two suns, near moons, etc). Varying the amount of daytime on each continent can further each place's uniqueness.

In terms of seeing at night I think the quality of night vision could be linked to a cert tree. Everyone should get a basic night vision if wearing armor with a visor. Going up a cert tree could increase the night vision's field of view or allow for IR/thermo vision. (I imagine the best being a blend with night-vision and IR -- see Splinder Cell or modern military research).

Thanks for the platform for my thoughts.

Vancha · 2011-07-29, 10:03 AM

This kind of rolls into the other thread...

http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36841

No matter which kind of night we get, I think a night "vision" would be bad. Keep it to scopes or flashlights, or something.

And as usual, absolutely, positively, requiremently...no grainy green night vision.

I'm not sure if it's popped up in any of the night time threads either, beyond a stray comment from Nukem, but there could also be a fair amount of ambient light sources at night, be they from luminescent trees, plants and creatures or lighting on armours or vehicles...perhaps even irradiation from plasma and such.

Imagine similar lighting for the head of a MAX suit, for example.

As far as night vision "skills", I could see that being tied into particular classes (infiltrators, recon etc.) rather than having it's own tree.

Bruttal · 2011-07-29, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by Vancha

This kind of rolls into the other thread...

http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36841

No matter which kind of night we get, I think a night "vision" would be bad. Keep it to scopes or flashlights, or something.

And as usual, absolutely, positively, requiremently...no grainy green night vision.

I'm not sure if it's popped up in any of the night time threads either, beyond a stray comment from Nukem, but there could also be a fair amount of ambient light sources at night, be they from luminescent trees, plants and creatures or lighting on armours or vehicles...perhaps even irradiation from plasma and such.

Imagine similar lighting for the head of a MAX suit, for example.

As far as night vision "skills", I could see that being tied into particular classes (infiltrators, recon etc.) rather than having it's own tree.

you dont put lights near your eyes if your in the dark. it makes visability even worse. you direct the light where you wanna see.

and i dont fully agree with your post either. i dont wanna see some green spec night vision or white on gray thermal but i think some kinda. ambient tint brighting with a peice of equipment would be alright.

NewSith · 2011-07-29, 12:32 PM

Quote of myself:

Originally Posted by NewSith

A little pause for my little "imagine if"; this is something I'm dreaming about but is not obligatory (most very not) to have in the game.
My idea is ES "night" vision: TR - (Red) Endless Stationary Motion Tracker, VS - Endless (Pueple) Nanite-vision (enemies are purple clusters of intense light, giving no option to aim precisely), NC - (Blue

) Battery-Fueled Nightvision
+ Flashlight as a weapon attachment.

Vancha · 2011-07-29, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by Bruttal

you dont put lights near your eyes if your in the dark. it makes visability even worse. you direct the light where you wanna see.

I think you just confused realism with gameplay. You'd see MAX units with lights there, you wouldn't have them glowing in your own face and they wouldn't be there to help you see. There'd be there to help others see them.

Originally Posted by Bruttal

and i dont fully agree with your post either. i dont wanna see some green spec night vision or white on gray thermal but i think some kinda. ambient tint brighting with a peice of equipment would be alright.

I can't tell if you think I didn't want night vision at all and are objecting to that, of if you didn't like my objection of night vision in a non-restrictive sense.

What I was saying was, if you have night vision in such a way that your entire view becomes night vision, then there's no reason to ever switch it off. You don't have day and night, you have day and night vision. If you restrict night vision to scopes or something, it gives people a choice between wide-angle and hard to see, or narrow-view but easier to see.

And considering Planetside 2 isn't bound by the rules of realism, I'd like to see a night vision effect that looked a hell of a lot cooler than a colour tint.

EASyEightyEight · 2011-07-29, 05:06 PM

Just gimme a flash-light. It looks cooler to see all the beams, and means even at night (if it ever gets dark enough and playing with gamma/brightness doesn't muck with it anyway) a rexo could be all sneaky sneaky. No one really needs to have realistic lighting from another person's light (unless maybe if they have the hardware to compute all that) just their own.

Infils should be the only ones with night vision (again, if it ever gets that dark.) A flashlight would be a dead give away. Like the old school VS knife.

FIREk · 2011-07-30, 05:39 PM

I wonder if we'll have implant slots and have to choose between a Darklight implant and a low-light implant for the "eyes slot"...

EASyEightyEight · 2011-07-30, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by FIREk

I wonder if we'll have implant slots and have to choose between a Darklight implant and a low-light implant for the "eyes slot"...

What if darklight was an attachment to your gun? Imagine being an infil and seeing the purple beams glancing over everything...

Beats seeing the icon for me at least, and I don't even infil!

Vancha · 2011-07-31, 06:15 AM

Originally Posted by EASyEightyEight

What if darklight was an attachment to your gun? Imagine being an infil and seeing the purple beams glancing over everything...

Beats seeing the icon for me at least, and I don't even infil!

Aye. I'm not sure what thread it appeared in, but I loved the idea of a darklight flashlight attachment.

FIREk · 2011-07-31, 08:53 AM

Originally Posted by EASyEightyEight

What if darklight was an attachment to your gun?

But it won't. I may be wrong, but it seems like a complete pain in the ass to implement and optimize for performance. It's a cool idea, but I think client-side vision modes are more realistic.

Vancha · 2011-07-31, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by FIREk

But it won't. I may be wrong, but it seems like a complete pain in the ass to implement and optimize for performance. It's a cool idea, but I think client-side vision modes are more realistic.

I'm not willing to put anything past this Forgelight engine from what we've heard so far. Every time someone's gone "it'd be too big a performance hit" it's ended up being in-game.

EASyEightyEight · 2011-07-31, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by FIREk

But it won't. I may be wrong, but it seems like a complete pain in the ass to implement and optimize for performance. It's a cool idea, but I think client-side vision modes are more realistic.

It actually wouldn't be too resource intensive if it was done the L4D way. From a 3rd party perspective, you only see the beams but they don't really light anything, meanwhile from FP view, it would.

And see above. The Forgelight engine was designed for MMO's, which may or may not include multiple dynamic sources of volumetric (flash)lights.

FIREk · 2011-07-31, 05:32 PM

Originally Posted by EASyEightyEight

It actually wouldn't be too resource intensive if it was done the L4D way. From a 3rd party perspective, you only see the beams but they don't really light anything, meanwhile from FP view, it would.

And see above. The Forgelight engine was designed for MMO's, which may or may not include multiple dynamic sources of volumetric (flash)lights.

I thought about it for a bit after posting (on a train at the time) and of course never assumed actual light sources being projected by other players. Still, particle effects have a way of killing framerate and in L4D you're only seeing three "beams", not a dozen or more.

**Malorn** · 2011-08-02, 12:55 AM

I like the prospect of tactical use of day/night, but not prohibitively so. I dont' want to see anything like the BF2 expansion where it was pitch black unless you were using nightvision, in which case a third of the time you're playing the game it is in an ugly green tint or some other vision type. We can have Auraxis have some bright mooons and the bases emergency lighting.

I'm mostly worried about the game either turning into something prohibitive where night/day becomes an annoyance to deal with, and people just cranking up their gamma or tweaking other video card settings to help them see. That's not all that fun either. But ranging from moonlight to full on sun would be cool.

Tactically I like reduced visibility at night, but have it so it is still easily visible without changing settings. Just fog it out more or something. Make sure the fog effect can't be bypassed or disabled so everyone is on the same playing field. Same thing goes for sandstorms, etc. If we just have reduced visibility and some mood lighting changes then its still a tactical benefit but it isn't prohibitive. The result will be more reliance on instruments / minimap / radar at night. Flashlights and such would be cool also, but again, not prohibitively so.

EASyEightyEight · 2011-08-02, 09:24 AM

Originally Posted by FIREk

I thought about it for a bit after posting (on a train at the time) and of course never assumed actual light sources being projected by other players. Still, particle effects have a way of killing framerate and in L4D you're only seeing three "beams", not a dozen or more.

You have played Planetside before right? Y'know, the game with hundreds of players online, all creating their own streams of bullets and making large explosions, with each vehicle having headlight beams... etc. etc.?