25 replies to this topic

[PocketYoda]

Has anyone tried this map since the patch.. Its like pitch black now, can't see 5 feet in front of your mech.. They go to all the trouble of apparently fixing maps and this one gets bugged i think.

Edit from Lockheed_

Lockheed_, on 19 February 2021 - 06:04 PM, said:

Old caustic testing grounds:


and this is how it looks now!!

Thanks exactly great pics, The reason i brought this up is dark maps are hard with my poorer eyesight.. so this effectively stops me voting on this map even more.

Edited by Samial, 19 February 2021 - 06:23 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

The patch didn't change Caustic Valley, you just got an unlucky drop at night.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Another imaginary change by the February Patch. Everything okay with you Samial?

[PocketYoda]

Miss Greene, on 18 February 2021 - 10:01 PM, said:

The patch didn't change Caustic Valley, you just got an unlucky drop at night.

I have never seen that map before this patch.. It was dead black.. I've been playing for years is it really that rare or was there changes?

Aidan Crenshaw, on 18 February 2021 - 11:13 PM, said:

Another imaginary change by the February Patch. Everything okay with you Samial?

Honestly i'm fine.. Also isn't caustic always at night?

Its a bug i wonder.

Edited by Samial, 19 February 2021 - 05:58 PM.

[Wolfos31]

Caustic isn't always at night. But it's a volcano so there is always a bit of haze/ash.

Did you try thermal vision?

[D V Devnull]

Everyone... I am getting rather unlucky then as well. Every time that I have been on Caustic Valley so far since the Patch happened, that Map has been rather dark for me too. Unfortunately, this fault is on PGI as it happens that I run the Repair Tool with every Patch and do a verification pass in order to ensure that my files are not messed up. The last verification pass that I did showed that I have no errors, so the problem is definitely not on the player side. The best that I can tell is either the Time Of Day is unspecified in the game's files, or they did not mention that they would throw us an evil sidewinder with a hellishly dark version of Caustic Valley to play for a while.

By the way... It hits me... Would it have been better for this thread to be over in the "Caustic Valley" Discussion Board instead?

~D. V. "also ending up suffering from repeated dark battles on Caustic Valley too" Devnull





[Minor Edit by the Post Author for a few missed words...]

Edited by D V Devnull, 19 February 2021 - 03:43 PM.

[PocketYoda]

Wolfos31, on 19 February 2021 - 06:33 AM, said:

Caustic isn't always at night. But it's a volcano so there is always a bit of haze/ash.

Did you try thermal vision?

Yes it was the first thing i had to do. I'm pretty sure i've never seen Caustic this dark before?

Lockheed_, on 19 February 2021 - 05:49 PM, said:

So I just dropped on caustic and it was super dark. I have seen night mode on this map BUT it felt like usually the sky has more of a glow or something, it felt weird.
This can totally be coincidental and I was just primed by this thread, but I'll keep voting for this map an see what happens.
Edit:
ALSO in testing grounds its super dark now too and THAT IS NEW!
so I guess Samial was right.
they somehow broke Caustic

Thanks for the check i completely forget to check the testing grounds, i wonder if others could check.

Edited by Samial, 19 February 2021 - 05:56 PM.

[BTGbullseye]

Was the patch after the 10th? If not, then I have had at least 2 matches since that had one effectively pitch black, and one near sunset.

[PocketYoda]

BTGbullseye, on 19 February 2021 - 06:07 PM, said:

Was the patch after the 10th? If not, then I have had at least 2 matches since that had one effectively pitch black, and one near sunset.

For me Caustic was fine before the 17th patch.

D V Devnull, on 19 February 2021 - 03:42 PM, said:

Everyone... I am getting rather unlucky then as well. Every time that I have been on Caustic Valley so far since the Patch happened, that Map has been rather dark for me too. Unfortunately, this fault is on PGI as it happens that I run the Repair Tool with every Patch and do a verification pass in order to ensure that my files are not messed up. The last verification pass that I did showed that I have no errors, so the problem is definitely not on the player side. The best that I can tell is either the Time Of Day is unspecified in the game's files, or they did not mention that they would throw us an evil sidewinder with a hellishly dark version of Caustic Valley to play for a while.

By the way... It hits me... Would it have been better for this thread to be over in the "Caustic Valley" Discussion Board instead?

~D. V. "also ending up suffering from repeated dark battles on Caustic Valley too" Devnull





[Minor Edit by the Post Author for a few missed words...]

Yes thinking now it maybe better in the Caustic maps area, even if it sees less traffic.

Edited by Samial, 19 February 2021 - 06:20 PM.

[LordNothing]

i noticed this too, but when i looked to see if the map was updated it wasn't. but it seems like they removed a lot of the blue fire and the night vision caldera trick doesn't work anymore. so maybe something they changed had unintended side effects.

[LordNothing]

Lockheed_, on 19 February 2021 - 06:32 PM, said:

I think it's good where it is. I feel like nobody ever visits the map specific forums anyway and I think this needs to get lots of posts and attention to get it fixed

yea its sort of how the suggestion subforum is where ideas go to die. they dont get any traffic and having a moderator move your post there effectively kills it. i figure the map subforums are the same.

[BTGbullseye]

Lockheed_, on 19 February 2021 - 06:08 PM, said:

patch was on the 17th

Ok, I haven't played it since the change then to be able to tell. I use an HDR monitor though, so if there's a skybox glitch, it should be glaringly obvious to me.

[D V Devnull]

Pulling in a few quotes here, so that fellow constructive discussers can easily catch the update...

Samial, on 19 February 2021 - 06:03 AM, said:

I have never seen that map before this patch.. It was dead black.. I've been playing for years is it really that rare or was there changes?

Honestly i'm fine.. Also isn't caustic always at night?

Its a bug i wonder.

Lockheed_, on 19 February 2021 - 05:49 PM, said:

So I just dropped on caustic and it was super dark. I have seen night mode on this map BUT it felt like usually the sky has more of a glow or something, it felt weird.
This can totally be coincidental and I was just primed by this thread, but I'll keep voting for this map an see what happens.
Edit:
ALSO in testing grounds its super dark now too and THAT IS NEW!
so I guess Samial was right.
they somehow broke Caustic

Samial, on 19 February 2021 - 05:54 PM, said:

Yes it was the first thing i had to do. I'm pretty sure i've never seen Caustic this dark before?

Thanks for the check i completely forget to check the testing grounds, i wonder if others could check.

LordNothing, on 19 February 2021 - 08:27 PM, said:

i noticed this too, but when i looked to see if the map was updated it wasn't. but it seems like they removed a lot of the blue fire and the night vision caldera trick doesn't work anymore. so maybe something they changed had unintended side effects.

Hello, everyone. I have just been to the Testing Grounds Version of the Caustic Valley Map having gone insanely dark, and I've just found some more shockers. Have a look...

• While in this super-dark version, all the paint color on the Mech drowns out to ultra-dull shades or flat black, unless you walk under an active light or fire any variant of PPC that's equipped. There may be additional ways to light things up, but my lowered graphics settings (which prevent my computer from running far too slow) do not reveal it.
  
• If you have Decals equipped on your Mech at all, they will also vanish & disappear without any form of lighting present to reveal them. This particularly includes ones that are laid on the unpainted gunmetal areas. The only exceptions to this are a bright Mech paint job with any color of Decals that are laid on the painted sections, or bright Decals which are present on any painted section without regard to the selected color of the underlying painted section.
  
• Walking near certain bright items that glow & flicker in the battlezone happens to result in a wildly trippy bright lighting effect which shows on a Mech's surface. At the moment, they appear to be heavily accentuated by the lack of the normal overhead sun-like lighting that we all used to see before.
  
• Many of the Cockpit Items happen to look unusually dull when the Cockpit Light is switched off. They are likely being affected in near the same way as the paint and Decals on the outside.

...and that is all of what I could quickly discover at this time. This makes me think in terms of an impression of what things might be like if our own local planetary sunlight suddenly went away. I can definitely say that I would never want this darkness to happen in Real Life to our planet. It would be hell.


Maybe the Developers at PGI should call this the "Apocalyptic Caustic Valley" variant of that battlezone? It feels like the only proper name for it.


~D. V. "feeling like they just saw someone's idea of a hellish apocalypse with Caustic Valley's super-dark form" Devnull

[LordNothing]

the way i see it, if the time of day is essentially just a number that tells the engine how to set up the lighting, then you could in theory make the map any time of day. like the old hard coded day/night maps, just have different time versions of the maps on the vote screen.

[Mochyn Pupur]

D V Devnull, on 19 February 2021 - 03:42 PM, said:

Everyone... I am getting rather unlucky then as well. Every time that I have been on Caustic Valley so far since the Patch happened, that Map has been rather dark for me too. Unfortunately, this fault is on PGI as it happens that I run the Repair Tool with every Patch and do a verification pass in order to ensure that my files are not messed up. The last verification pass that I did showed that I have no errors, so the problem is definitely not on the player side. The best that I can tell is either the Time Of Day is unspecified in the game's files, or they did not mention that they would throw us an evil sidewinder with a hellishly dark version of Caustic Valley to play for a while.

By the way... It hits me... Would it have been better for this thread to be over in the "Caustic Valley" Discussion Board instead?

~D. V. "also ending up suffering from repeated dark battles on Caustic Valley too" Devnull





[Minor Edit by the Post Author for a few missed words...]

Map has been messed up like you say - even using it as a practice drop to check loadouts it is nearly pitch black - working as intended PGI?

[PocketYoda]

D V Devnull, on 20 February 2021 - 01:53 AM, said:

Pulling in a few quotes here, so that fellow constructive discussers can easily catch the update...


Hello, everyone. I have just been to the Testing Grounds Version of the Caustic Valley Map having gone insanely dark, and I've just found some more shockers. Have a look...

• While in this super-dark version, all the paint color on the Mech drowns out to ultra-dull shades or flat black, unless you walk under an active light or fire any variant of PPC that's equipped. There may be additional ways to light things up, but my lowered graphics settings (which prevent my computer from running far too slow) do not reveal it.
  
• If you have Decals equipped on your Mech at all, they will also vanish & disappear without any form of lighting present to reveal them. This particularly includes ones that are laid on the unpainted gunmetal areas. The only exceptions to this are a bright Mech paint job with any color of Decals that are laid on the painted sections, or bright Decals which are present on any painted section without regard to the selected color of the underlying painted section.
  
• Walking near certain bright items that glow & flicker in the battlezone happens to result in a wildly trippy bright lighting effect which shows on a Mech's surface. At the moment, they appear to be heavily accentuated by the lack of the normal overhead sun-like lighting that we all used to see before.
  
• Many of the Cockpit Items happen to look unusually dull when the Cockpit Light is switched off. They are likely being affected in near the same way as the paint and Decals on the outside.

...and that is all of what I could quickly discover at this time. This makes me think in terms of an impression of what things might be like if our own local planetary sunlight suddenly went away. I can definitely say that I would never want this darkness to happen in Real Life to our planet. It would be hell.



Maybe the Developers at PGI should call this the "Apocalyptic Caustic Valley" variant of that battlezone? It feels like the only proper name for it.


~D. V. "feeling like they just saw someone's idea of a hellish apocalypse with Caustic Valley's super-dark form" Devnull

Thanks for this.

[Y E O N N E]

Sounds like another case of PGI Spaghetti Code maybe breaking things. The patch notes do not mention any changes to Caustic and I have definitely gotten night drops on it before (and yes, they do suck).

[Y E O N N E]

Lockheed_, on 20 February 2021 - 01:17 PM, said:

but was it ever so dark? i was quick to chime in I have had night drops but i remember the sky having some sort of volcanic glow to it. now it just is pitch black. I almost looks like some sky texture and light sources are just missing.

Yes, it was that dark. There was always a pitch-black and a sunset time; you are probably remembering the latter. What is different, however, is the lack of haze now. So it's actually easier to see than before.

[MrVaad]

Time of day is stored in an XML in the level.pak of the map. You set a curve for each setting (lighting, shadows and more). Each curve will set the setting's value depending on the current time.
It seems the map was not changed (i've compared the xml files), but i've also experienced that the map is now very dark/dull/flat at night.

Edit1: Ok, there's also ToD files in gamedata.pak but only rivercity was changed.

Edit2: Caustic training ground seems set to midnight now. I've made a test with 10am and the light is correct.

MechLab is very dark after loading caustic which means some values are changed by loading caustic ?

Edited by MrVaad, 21 February 2021 - 04:28 AM.

[PocketYoda]

Miss Greene, on 20 February 2021 - 12:54 PM, said:

Sounds like another case of PGI Spaghetti Code maybe breaking things. The patch notes do not mention any changes to Caustic and I have definitely gotten night drops on it before (and yes, they do suck).

You believe me now then that it is bugged.