Headlights

LordReaver · 2011-06-02, 09:24 AM

It would be crazy if they didn't add nighttime in PSN. So assuming they do, it would be nice to be able to turn headlights and stuff off. Basically "go dark". Would hopefully make ambushes possible.

duck · 2011-06-02, 03:15 PM

Would be quite interesting to have night/day cycle, but I would imagine it can be very annoying for some players.
I would think a weather cycle would be a better option

Raymac · 2011-06-02, 04:01 PM

I gotta say, I don't really even notice the headlights on other vehicles. When I'm driving mine, obviously I see them, but I don't notice it from anyone else.

Maybe if they have an actual day/night cycle instead of the current day/purple cycle and cool lighting effects, then this would be a cool and useful feature. I really like the idea of "going dark" on a flanking sneak attack.

Rbstr · 2011-06-02, 06:30 PM

I've always found night cycles to either be too dark and thus impossible to see anything at all or too light and it's just like day but different colored.

Plus people can just turn up the gamma and contrast. It's one of the few features I'll let the cheaters take away, simply because everyone can do it without any effort.

Impossible to see + default night-vision equip could be interesting, if you make it cut down on visible area, freak out between interior/exterior transitions and muzzle flashes. I just can't see PS making that effort when nearly no one else has done it well.

Furret · 2011-06-02, 07:00 PM

I definitely like the tactical implementations of nighttime. Sneak attacks are fun in general, but they'd be a blast at night. I've also always enjoyed playing the night vision missions on CoD for some reason, although I'm not sure how well a large scale firefight would work with night vision. Would the goggles work as well as regular vision even at a distance or would your vision become unclear or completely impossible (like darklight except with a larger radius).

If they did a day/night cycle though, they would have to make daytime much longer than nighttime (45 minutes day 15 minutes night?), and give a reason for it, like having two suns.

Traak · 2011-06-05, 01:30 AM

I'm all for night, if there is NO night-vision provision, but the only light you get is whatever your or another's headlights illuminate. Or weapons and ammunition flashes.

I wonder if there is a way to code it so that anything NOT being illuminated by said light sources is just an endless, featureless black nothing, impossible to gamma-correct into anything else?

DviddLeff · 2011-06-05, 03:12 PM

That's the key Traak; if they dont everyone will just up their brightness as night falls. Its got to be do-able in this day and age.

But yeah, night fights would be awesome with explosions, tracer fire and searchlights...

Senyu · 2011-06-06, 01:23 AM

Should there by night and day cycles, if so at what speed? Real time or sped up. Or rather continent or two that are purely dark.

And yes to making night fair for all, no gamma

DviddLeff · 2011-06-06, 12:34 PM

Can't have it on a "Earth" cycle, otherwise you will have people never experiencing the other conditions if they can only play at a certain time of day.

Needs to be an odd amount, like 16 hours or something that would mean that it cycles through during a week, so everyone lays with different conditions. Being as its a different planet (presume so...) means that it would have a different day length anyway.

Rbstr · 2011-06-06, 04:30 PM

If you're going to have long cycles it needs to be such that week to week the same play times don't see the same conditions.
So if you only get to ply substantially on sunday and saturday afternoons you still get to have variation, including the transition periods.
16 works, but seems awfully long, and it's close enough to 12 that you're likely to see the same conditions at the same time for extended periods.
4 hours each + 30min transition on both sides. That's a 9 hour total cycle...and longer than most reasonable people have to play. but it'll rotate though faster and if you play at 6pm every day you won't often get stuck in the same light multiple days.

Personally I think I'd like to have a chance to see a cycle in a 2.5 hour block.
60/60+15/15 of day/night and dawn/dusk. This keeps things from being the same every day and week, plus any given play time is likely to see more than one light level.

Raymac · 2011-06-06, 04:41 PM

Whats the day / purple cycle now? Because it seems to have pretty good timing.

Vancha · 2011-06-07, 04:49 PM

Did anyone ever play Oblivion with the "darker nights" mod?

http://www.oblivionmodwiki.com/images/3/38/80nights.jpg

With people getting lit up by explosions and gunfire, I could see night fights being truly spectacular so long as it was dark enough.

Edit: Weather is also a given, even if it's purely aesthetic.

LordReaver · 2011-06-08, 01:31 AM

I like that Oblivion photo.

Headlights should be slightly brighter than that fire, and cover a pretty big area.
The sky there is perfect, you would be able to make out aircraft still.
All shots fired would have to light up a large area around the shooter, except for snipers. That way its not impossible to locate people.

You could have it so that sometimes it's darker, and other times it's lighter. That way it mixes up tactics more, and doesn't totally piss off people who don't like night time.