43 replies to this topic

[GreyFox23]

Hi there fellas,

First time poster here. I took quite a long break from the game and recently came back. I'm sure this discussion already happened while I was gone but... what's with the new heat vision? The old heat vision made sense, shade of blue for cold ranging up to warm colors showing levels of heat. You know...heat vision. This new one is just grey vision. Mechs are indistinguishable from the background terrain. Have the snow be grey, and an overheating mech be grey...is pretty lame to honest. I would rather strain to see through the blowing snow, because then at least the enemy will be a different color than the snow. I wasn't here for the change so I don't know what the reasons were, but there has to be a better answer.

[blinkin]

i was one of those that liked the old night and heat vision modes.

heat vision was good for range but in close there was lots of ghosting and blurring for anything that traversed the screen quickly, also you could not easily tell which direction an enemy was facing or tell separate mechs apart when they were in close proximity to each other. night vision was very precise and had no ghosting or blurring giving perfect vision but limited range (night vision was ideal for brawlers. some of my best matches came from those days roaming around regularly murdering 4-5 enemy mechs with my SRM catapult). now there is no difference between the two and both are incredibly dull. then there is also the fact that river city night slowly transformed over time into river city cloudy day.

[GreyFox23]

Exactly, now its just harsh to look at and not even helpful really. It honestly is just entirely a downgrade.

Edited by GreyFox23, 11 September 2013 - 11:05 AM.

[theblackdeath]

If you ever used an actual thermal optic, it's much like the current one. I just wish they would allow filtering from black/white to white/black like in real optics.

[Iron War]

yes the old version had way more advantages . . . i think i ran in it on all maps . . . even caustic . . . u see blue shot. That is why the new version is better and more balanced and besides the US military uses Flir . . . r u saying they should use something else? it must have its advantages.

[BlueVisionWarrior Online]

Yeah! Bring me back, baby!

[Solomon Ward]

It was horrible - running in Heat vision 24/7.
I don´t want the old one to ever return.
Getting rid of it was the best of all game changes until today.

The new Heat vision is visually much more appealing, not mandatory as the old one but situational.
It needs some tweaks tho.

[GreyFox23]

They also could have just adjusted the old one. Change its vision range like the current ones or something.

Either way the new one is terrible. If it's here to stay then it really needs to be changed. More contrast at least! Everything is just washed out grey, If you see an overheating mech it is barely distinguishable from the background. That's ridiculous!

[theblackdeath]

They could improve on the image quality, good thermals have pretty good detail. The thermals they have now I feel I could build in my garage. Filtering would be nice (Page up/down) same with the nightvision. I'd suggest that the devs to play around in ARMA2 for a bit and get a feel of how Heat/IR vision should really work in a game.

[GreyFox23]

Yeah I would be fine with the new thermal if they could at least make it look better. It just doesnt feel useful cause everything is so blurry

If they could get it closer to the quality in that video, then it really would be an improvement, also with the switching

That would be nice

Edited by GreyFox23, 11 September 2013 - 01:25 PM.

[Bhael Fire]

The new Thermal is better for the game and looks more authentic.

[rdmgraziel]

I preferred the old heat vision for pretty much the same reasons you did. Frozen City is all kinds of awful now, as the only map where heat vision is necessary, and you're looking at grey on grey. A lowered sight radius would have accomplished the goal better, and I recall a point where it would almost blind you with "hot" colors on Caustic (since, you know, super hot map and all that; it DID get changed so it just made MECHS colorful which was a bad thing, and it was followed by the gray-on-gray nonsense). And it's great if we have the grey on grey for thermal vision in present day, but is the colored version LosTech in 3050? I'm actually OK with mechs being blurry blobs in Heat Vision. Combined with the lowered sight radius, it prevents it from being the go-to vision mode.

[Tweaks]

I've already posted a suggestion relating to the heat vision no later than yesterday. I don't agree that the old night vision should be brought back as it was, but we do need more contrast and more "steps" in the current mode to show differences in temperature better at close range. See my suggestion for more details.

[Bhael Fire]

Right now, the only issue with Thermal is that they need to go through the maps and do a polish pass on the temperatures.

For example, Frozen City should pretty much be black to dark grey with subtle shades of lighter grey to outline buildings and obstacles. It's way too blown-out in Thermal vision.

...for how cold it is supposed to be, that is.

[Tweaks]

Iron War, on 11 September 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

yes the old version had way more advantages . . . i think i ran in it on all maps . . . even caustic . . . u see blue shot. That is why the new version is better and more balanced and besides the US military uses Flir . . . r u saying they should use something else? it must have its advantages.

The military pretty much only needs to know where the enemy is. They don't care that much for the heat scale to be contrasting as long as they can see contours properly enough to identify the shape. In MWO however, heat is a huge factor. A 'Mech that is about to overheat is less of a threat than one that is fully cooled for example. For this reason, I think it should not only show a sort of binary mode like we have now (no heat colour scale), but show more contrast so we can easily tell what is cold, what is hot and what is hotter.

Edited by Tweaks, 11 September 2013 - 08:08 PM.

[Typhoon Storm 2142]

GreyFox23, on 11 September 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

Hi there fellas,

First time poster here. I took quite a long break from the game and recently came back. I'm sure this discussion already happened while I was gone but... what's with the new heat vision? The old heat vision made sense, shade of blue for cold ranging up to warm colors showing levels of heat. You know...heat vision. This new one is just grey vision. Mechs are indistinguishable from the background terrain. Have the snow be grey, and an overheating mech be grey...is pretty lame to honest. I would rather strain to see through the blowing snow, because then at least the enemy will be a different color than the snow. I wasn't here for the change so I don't know what the reasons were, but there has to be a better answer.

I voted yes and no, because it was possible. Great job on making this poll multiple choice...

Of course the old predator night vision was "better". What kind of question is that? It had a much better range and 'Mechs were easily visible. The new one has a low range and is more like the current military night vision.

The old one was so good in fact, that I used it ALL THE TIME. No, don't bring that old one back, ever. Scrapping it was the best decision PGI could have made.

[aniviron]

Typhoon Storm 2142, on 12 September 2013 - 12:04 AM, said:

I voted yes and no, because it was possible. Great job on making this poll multiple choice...

Of course the old predator night vision was "better". What kind of question is that? It had a much better range and 'Mechs were easily visible. The new one has a low range and is more like the current military night vision.

The old one was so good in fact, that I used it ALL THE TIME. No, don't bring that old one back, ever. Scrapping it was the best decision PGI could have made.

I was going to post, but you hit both my points head on. I voted yes and no because lol polls, and any vision mode that is always 100% better than any other vision mode means it is too good, and that's what old heat vision was. Blue heat vision let you see targets at better range, made it easier to spot mechs on foggy maps, and let you know how close your opponent was to overheating, all with no downsides. No reason to ever turn it off means it needed to be changed.

I personally feel that the current incarnation is fine, but could use a bit of a range bump. Leave the close end of the fog (that's how the range limit is implemented- a black fog) where it is, but set the far end much further out. As is, there's no reason to ever use heat vision right now except to get some vision on River Night, but anyone who is good just cranks their gamma to max as soon as they drop there, since the hard limit of 750m makes heat vision worthless. If you've ever wondered why people can hit you so far out of heat/night vision range, there's your answer. It sucks getting shot from past where you can see, and the only fix is to exploit as well.

[Modo44]

It was too good, to the point where everybody used it all the time. The current one could use more range and better framerates, though.

[Sexport]

My suggestion is to make the old night/thermal view a module.

[GreyFox23]

Okay if you guys read through the posts I've conceded that the new vision is fine, but if you look at the video that was posted of the actual military thermal vision you will notice how clear the image is. In game currently the vision is just blurry. I'm quite sure the reason the military uses this is BECAUSE it is such a clear image. They can easily tell from from foe, see the body laguage of possible enemies, etc...

1: The new vision would be perfectly fine if the clean it the hell up, cause right now its all washed out white. In the snow maps mechs should stick out like a sore thumb, but they don't.

2: Mechs don't NEED to tell friend from foe based on what they look like, that's why the old thermal vision still makes sense. All you need is a heat blob, cause if they were an allie you on board computer/hud would know already. So it's safe to fire. Now as far as game balance goes they could have just taken down the visibility range of the old vision to make it more fair.

So once again I don't really care if they bring back the old heat vision anymore. I just want them to GREATLY improve the current thermal vision, cause it looks crappy right now.