Author Topic: PvP night maps. Remove or leave?  (Read 20433 times)

Offline BlackenedPies

  • Member
  • Salutes: 134
    • [Duck]
    • 30 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: PvP night maps. Remove or leave?
« Reply #15 on: September 08, 2017, 10:22:32 pm »
Edit: Missed sarcasm, blame Irma

Offline Urz

  • Member
  • Salutes: 75
    • [MM]
    • 45 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: PvP night maps. Remove or leave?
« Reply #16 on: September 09, 2017, 01:53:20 am »
Players with lower quality monitors/laptops are more heavily impacted, which makes night maps unfair.
Players with shittier internet get more ping, that makes multiplayer play unfair. Plz remove multiplayer.
Players with shittier computers have more lag making the game unfair. Remove medium and high graphics settings
Players with shittier headphones get worse audio maaking it harder to hear enemy ships moving, making the game unfair. Plz remove sound.

Network latency and graphic rendering performance are inherent factors in a competitive video game. While these factors can be engineered around to reduce the requirements or impact on the quality of play, the limitations are a result of real world physics.

Implementing brightness as a skill-defining variable is a deliberate and unnecessary design decision which will impact players differently: based on their monitor or laptop LCD quality, lighting of the room, and any afflictions on one's eyes that may impact said person's ability to make out objects in areas of poor contrast. Being forced to increase your monitor brightness for specific maps increases eye strain, another negative.

If there was actually some upside to the night maps, such as aesthetically looking cool or fostering of different tactics (as Ravioli suggests), then there might be an argument in favor. Neither has been the case from my experience.

Offline Corporal Ravioli

  • Member
  • Salutes: 8
    • 38 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: PvP night maps. Remove or leave?
« Reply #17 on: September 09, 2017, 08:17:31 am »
I'll pose an example where I believe the night maps positively affected strategy: buff and chem spray.

As Long Max stated in the spyglass thread, sometimes you only notice an enemy ship in the distance if they have applied chem spray or activated a buff. This makes it imperative for the engineer team to /not/ use these tools until it is clear they are spotted and prepared to engage the enemy. When that moment comes, they are now faced with a significantly tighter margin of error for applying these improvements in time for combat. To me, this is a fascinating dynamic, because typically glowing components pose very little risk, and may actually serve as an intimidating signal rather than a revealing one. Nighttime flips that upside-down.

The brightness for blackcliff or paritan seems to be the optimal level for compromise. More static lights similar to blackcliff may also improve play experience, because then there would be light and dark regions to intentionally travel to or avoid depending on strategy.

A hull-mounted strobe may not feel very "wartime," but may introduce a dynamic where you would want to jump from feature to feature to hide yourself, at the trade-off of your own visibility. It could also serve to periodically illuminate the immediate area to assist in navigating tough portions of the map.

I'm just trying to continue introducing ideas where night maps would require new thinking, as opposed to a flat and stubborn limitation.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2017, 08:26:03 am by Corporal Ravioli »