82 replies to this topic

[Frank the Tank]

Night vision and thermal vision need to be reworked. As others have pointed out night vision is pretty bad, with the extreme glare and its inferiority to thermal vision from a game-play perspective. While it would be cool to have "realistic" night vision similar to what many have posted in this thread I don't think that would be wise from a game-play perspective. The grey FLIR night vision is like a blend of thermal and regular night vision. By switching to that form of night vision you just reverse the problem, now night vision is better than thermal. Rather than making the two vision modes more similar, PGI should make them more distinct. Forget realism, focus on game-play.

Because thermal vision sees the heat given off by mechs it should display only that. The one major issue with thermal is that you can also see the environment very well. Either the environment should be distorted with hots and cools reflecting of different objects or the grey environment needs to be blurred more. When using thermal vision you should only reliably see mechs, because they would be so much hotter than the environment. However, if you want to see the buildings, rocks, or whatever so you can pilot around them you would need to switch to normal vision.

Night vision on the other hand should be great at illuminating the environment. Fixing the glare would go a long way to making night vision more useful for this. Also night vision should be a lot sharper. What it shouldn't have is a lot of contrast; you should see the environment very well even in the distance, but it should be harder to spot a mech if it were standing still.

Basically thermal should be designed to spot mechs but not the environment, making it hard to maneuver or pilot. Conversely, night vision should be designed to see the environment very well but not so good at spotting mechs. Because night vision should only be useful on night maps it should have an advantage over thermal vision on those maps. Additionally, I think it would be cool if all mechs had headlights stock and thermal and night visions were separate modules. This would make the night maps even more interesting, and give night vision a little buff to spotting enemy mechs if they were using their headlights.

[xxREVxx]

Antony Weiner, on 14 January 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

This is what MWO night vision looks like (in year 3050):



This is what modern 3rd generation night vision looks like (in about 2000+):

The neurohelmet works a little different than a typical 3rd Gen NVG lens but I do agree the MWO NV needs the gain lessened.

[Cik]

Sable Dove, on 03 February 2013 - 06:04 AM, said:

Don't forget, this is the year 3050. Where We have weaponized lasers and Gauss cannons, but have apparently forgotten that CCTV exists, so we make our cockpits a liability instead of being the most armoured location on the mech.

And what about even a single, rear-view camera? How long before that technology is (re) developed?

the cockpit viewscreen is made out of the same armor that covers the 'mech. it's not armored as well because it's packed through with C&C and the DI itself, which is massive and hard to protect. besides, it's still armored really ******* well. it takes a massive weapon to headkill it in one shot.

Spoiler

besides, if you used cameras they would simply get blown off by a machine gun. or an explosion. seethrough FF is a much better option.

Spoiler

i wish people that don't know anything about battletech would stop complaining about it

[Gristle]

PoisonWolf, on 03 February 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

The neurohelmet works a little different than a typical 3rd Gen NVG lens but I do agree the MWO NV needs the gain lessened.

Yep, it's an input only device into the mechs systems, no input into the pilot. Mostly used to tap into the pilots sense of balance to help keep the mech standing.

[Galland]

You should have seen the night vision from the 3D accelerator versions of MechWarrior 2. It was just turning your monitor into an old-school green monochrome monitor from the early 80s. No light or contrast amplification at all.

Yes, the night vision isn't very well done at the moment, but I'd rather they fix the netcode, weapon balance issues, get DX11, get more 'Mechs, and release Community Warfare, before they work on night vision.

[Wintersdark]

Livebait, on 02 February 2013 - 04:37 PM, said:

Not to mention it is actually very painful on the eye balls. It is a horrible thing to look at. NV needs a fixin for sure.

This. I'm actually fine with the Night Vision implementation we have now except for the literally painful glare.

I can't use night vision around buildings in RC:N without getting a headache.

[LT Kinslayer]

Please remove the glare.

That is all

[MegaBusta]

I'm gonna have to agree with this one, night vision definitely needs an improvement.

It feels like it's totally useless outside of like 400m, making thermal flat out superior in virtually every instance. This shouldn't be the case, really.

[Trauglodyte]

Mordynak, on 03 February 2013 - 08:35 AM, said:

Agreed. The night vision is pointless atm. On the night map i just switch on thermal right away.



In theory it should be as simple as turning off or drasticly lowering bloom when the night vision mode is active.

Indeed.

[Syncline]

I'll +1 the comment that night vision is physically uncomfortable to use, so I don't use it.

[Sniper061]

+1 to this as well. I personally hate the night vision. It should look much closer to the 3rd Gen NV shown by the OP. That still gives the NV and Thermal two separate views with equal usability.

On a side note for everyone saying it is Lostech, etc:

Even in early battletech they had computers. Yes, much of the very advanced stuff was lost but most of the basic stuff stayed intact. So you are telling me that while most of the tech that was lost was the higher-end stuff (currently out of our real world capabilities) and most of the stuff still in use (In line with what we have), nobody has access to or has figured out how to make a decent light amplification device? NVG's are EXTREMELY simple devices that require very little in the way of advanced electronics to get a usable and much more clear image than what is currently in the game.

[jay35]

Galland, on 03 February 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

You should have seen the night vision from the 3D accelerator versions of MechWarrior 2. It was just turning your monitor into an old-school green monochrome monitor from the early 80s. No light or contrast amplification at all.

Yes, the night vision isn't very well done at the moment, but I'd rather they fix the netcode, weapon balance issues, get DX11, get more 'Mechs, and release Community Warfare, before they work on night vision.

And they could add map filtering so we don't have to play night maps in the meantime.

[Tice Daurus]

I have a question guys regarding this and maybe it can be answered by the military men here who have experience with night vision and infrared vision systems, since this isn't my area of expertise.

Since this is based from 20th century technology, how early was night vision and infrared vision systems in place for the military? Like night scopes and viewers and stuff like that? Because my thinking is this...

Maybe the technology was so bad in the 31st century where it had de-evolved so badly that maybe all they had was the earliest forms of technology when it came to night-vision and infra-red vision technology?

Because the stuff you are showing now is actually 21st century night and infrared-vision technology on the displays. It's not like I'm playing devil's advocate, but maybe the tech de-evolved that badly in the 31st century. Not saying that however but I do agree with the original assessment of the OP. The NV and IV systems for MW:O suck, and I can't use them too much because I actually get massive headaches. What's worse is when the River City night map comes on several times in a row, I literally have to take a 5 or 10 minute break due to extreme headaches because I'm forced to use the NV because it's the least harming to my eyes and gives me less headaches watching it. The IV system is just so blobular and unwatchable that I can't watch it.

PGI does need to do a better version of the systems.

[Furmansky]

Tice Daurus, on 04 February 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

Since this is based from 20th century technology, how early was night vision and infrared vision systems in place for the military? Like night scopes and viewers and stuff like that? Because my thinking is this...

First successful field use of Night Vision equipment took place in late period of WW2. I am not aware of any before WW2... Check Vampir btw... quite interesting if you into that stuff

Edited by Furmansky, 04 February 2013 - 08:43 AM.

[Gamgee]

The night vision is two scoops of *** with their rasinbrand that morning. I also concur it must be changed.

[Matthew Craig]

These effects are largely being used as they came with CryEngine we haven't done any tuning passes on them to date. I think it's safe to say they will get tuned eventually just been lower priority than other more pressing issues (like netcode etc.) I'll look to update the Command Chair shortly with more details about what's being tackled and when issues like this can get addressed.

[Melcyna]

Thank god, there's hope then that perhaps our retina won't burn out when trying to use NV in the future... for now we're just using the thermal since...

well...

since thermal is just the best and beats pretty much everything else...

[Furmansky]

Matthew Craig, on 04 February 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

These effects are largely being used as they came with CryEngine we haven't done any tuning passes on them to date. I think it's safe to say they will get tuned eventually just been lower priority than other more pressing issues (like netcode etc.) I'll look to update the Command Chair shortly with more details about what's being tackled and when issues like this can get addressed.

Thank you, always good to hear something from the staff. I at least won't be complaining about it for next couple of months
Or maybe I will...

[Tice Daurus]

Matthew Craig, on 04 February 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

These effects are largely being used as they came with CryEngine we haven't done any tuning passes on them to date. I think it's safe to say they will get tuned eventually just been lower priority than other more pressing issues (like netcode etc.) I'll look to update the Command Chair shortly with more details about what's being tackled and when issues like this can get addressed.

Thanks Matthew. I can tough it out knowing that NV and IV will be getting better updates. But I will say, I hope it's sooner rather than later. I understand netcode is priority #1, but I hope this is up on the tops of the list. Because it's really hard to play River City Night 5-6 times in a row and deal with the darkness and vision systems.

[Volume]

Bagheera, on 14 January 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

I just want the NV mode from closed beta back.

No screenies (cause, you know, there was an NDA), but it was more like this:



But with MW:O grain, less detail, yadda yadda yadda.

When did you join closed beta?

I remember when there wasn't film grain.