This game is so unrealistically dark it hurts the fun value badly

[lockwoodx]

Gamma and brightness doesn't help. Something is broken with AA and Shaders. You stand in a field looking around and it dims and brightens randomly. UE5 was a mistake.

[Greymantle]

Looks great to me. There is gamma, brightness, contrast for a reason. :)

[2ugly]

Origineel geplaatst door serotoninpack:

It's because of "eye light adaptation" effect. Another crap effect meant to eat your gpu memory along with vignette, motion blur and chromatic aberration etc. Somehow this visual garbage MUST be included in every "modern" AAA game.

They used to have an option in games so the player could turn that effect off. I have never seen that option in any UE game. Your inside... it looks bright out... you go outside and it gets dark. You look up at night... it gets brighter, but then you look straight ahead and it dims again. This effect and the bloom effect coupled together constantly make the player feel like they just woke up after a long sleep.

[Sparhawk122]

Origineel geplaatst door IceFoxX:

i find it funny how it is blamed on lumen from ue5 by alleged stalker fans.... yes have you even played the other parts? it's just pitch black.... just search for stalker shadow of chernobyl night images... you can see even less in the dark except what is illuminated with the flashlight... that's why it needed nightvision back then... where people also howl around... my goodness just wait a few more updates and the devs are at least open in their communication and they know the criticism.

but about nightvision or thermal vision.... how long would they be operational in a contaminated area? i mean the radiation would have to affect the battery and electron tube.

Does not seem to hurt the Batteries of the headlamps/flashlight....

[Takiro]

Origineel geplaatst door DeadBeat:

I like the dark. It makes it easier to scout locations and launch attacks on guarded installations.

Not sure what game you play but on my Stalker 2 enemies see me in pitch black darkness from 75m (that's where the game starts rendering them) away, whit lamps off, and even through solid walls. If lighting would affect the enemy as it does the player, it would be actually awesome.

[opt33]

like others have said, you have to increase gamma in settings until you can see fairly well at night, once you do it looks fine even at night.

if you adjusted gamma as game suggested at beginning (where you can barely see the far left image) the game is way to dark.

[gRim_Reaper II]

If you have it set to Rec 709, change it to sRGB. That'll make it a little less dark. Should be under display settings.

[ParatrooperGR]

Origineel geplaatst door Takiro:

Origineel geplaatst door DeadBeat:

I like the dark. It makes it easier to scout locations and launch attacks on guarded installations.

Not sure what game you play but on my Stalker 2 enemies see me in pitch black darkness from 75m (that's where the game starts rendering them) away, whit lamps off, and even through solid walls. If lighting would affect the enemy as it does the player, it would be actually awesome.

Bingo. This.

There is another thread where this topic was discussed exhaustively. You can deal with the darkness through settings - another member gave a very helpful breakdown of exactly what settings to use, across both the "core" gamma/brightness and HDR, to get something less dark and not cartoonishly gray.

That is not the problem. Vision is, which is completely broken. Enemies see you in pitch black darkness or through obscuring foliage, as long as they are within the "activation bubble" (another broken part of the game) and you have "been detected" (detection seems to be automatic as long as you spend a certain amount of seconds within the bubble and their "LOS"; this time gets increased a tiny bit if you are in stealth stance). They see you in darkness even when they have a bright light two inches above their eyes and you are 50 meters away, behind cover and in pitch black darkness.

LOS is just as broken. With a very mild spoiler: During the SIRCAA fight, an enemy not only kept LOS to me but also managed to keep shooting me through a foot long reinforced concrete wall. Yes, the enemy stayed inside the building and I was outside it. Lolz.

[IceFoxX]

Origineel geplaatst door SHOKKERZ91:

....

If you had read everything, you might have noticed that I was talking explicitly about complete darkness outside the light sources. It was this darkness that made the flashlight and Nightvision necessary in the first place. After all, people also complain that the darkness is too dark away from any light source!

I didn't say anything against the criticism of the flashlight itself, but merely questioned how radiation would affect the electronic components.
They could make the flashlight a little brighter, but headlamps don't really have a lot of lumens for the most part. maybe they could add a portable flashlight to the game later, which has a larger light radius and lumens

yes then i even mention that you should wait for a few updates and that the devs are guaranteed to come... they also take care of A-Life... they have also noticed criticism of the day/night cycle... the devs also know that night vision is part of the game, but it's one of the little things that has certainly been pushed to the back of the priority list after they were thrown far behind in their work due to the fire. no, i'm not trying to make it sound better, just that it's a feature that's guaranteed to come.

Learn the difference between questioning something and criticizing it. Well, thanks for the way and you “people howling around” confirmed that directly. You must have felt attacked by my words, which was not the case. Lol

[Praesi]

Would be ok if the Flashlight wasnt a useless piece of junk. I use the ReShade Fleshlight in the open.

[Chip56]

Origineel geplaatst door ParatrooperGR:

There is another thread where this topic was discussed exhaustively. You can deal with the darkness through settings - another member gave a very helpful breakdown of exactly what settings to use, across both the "core" gamma/brightness and HDR, to get something less dark and not cartoonishly gray.

Could you share the thread name and the post you are refering to please?

[lnomsim]

Origineel geplaatst door icemanwes7:

Use your mind to fill in the darkness. Looks great on an OLED since total darkness has pixel turned off. Looks more realistic, imho. Weird to get used to.

Looks more realistic?

Dude, I'm photophobic, where people see sun light, I see pain, I can't go out without special protection sunglasses, even when it's cloudy.

So when I'm home, I have the blinds and shutters closed and shut.

It's NEVER completely dark, it's almost never dark at all as a matter of fact, unless it's a moonless night.

What realism are you talking about?

To have a room pitch black, it needs to be completely cut off from any light source, (so no windows, no door still, and preferably underground. And even then, a low position light is enough to see where you are going and see your environment after some time.

You sound like people who never took a walk at night and think night should be pitch dark and impossible to navigate. You need to turn off your computer and look at real life from time to time before talking about "realism".

[Bloodwest]

And here I thought it was too bright compared to previous trilogy.

[lnomsim]

Origineel geplaatst door Bloodwest:

And here I thought it was too bright compared to previous trilogy.

As grim reeper II said, it depends on which color output you chose. One of them is extremely dark, even in broad daylight you need your flashlight to see anything.
Try changing it if you find the game too bright.

EDIT: for comparison

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3395015816

[BRT Cobra]

cant say the game being too dark even entered my thoughts.
seems very well balanced in terms of light. you do have a flashlight too you know.

[Sparhawk122]

Origineel geplaatst door BRT Cobra:

cant say the game being too dark even entered my thoughts.
seems very well balanced in terms of light. you do have a flashlight too you know.

You mean the old yellow light that only illuminates 5 feet in front of the player lol.