The 'Enhanced Flashlight' ruins my experience ...

[Saulinthegame]

(Translated from French to English via ChatGPT, sorry for approximations )

Hello, the changes to the flashlight in the latest updates are causing me real problems in the game...
It’s too powerful,

I’m experiencing a real discomfort in gameplay because the light is blinding indoors (literally, it hurts my eyes), and I constantly find myself turning it on and off during searches and fights.

I also find that it greatly affects the immersion and visuals. Lighting up the bell tower of a church with a flashlight feels strange to me, the rendering of interiors becomes awful, and slowly approaching an infestation to spot a Feral no longer gives me chills.

I understand that increasing the flashlight’s power was a request from many players, but for me, it makes the game almost unplayable. Literally, I quit the game after a few minutes.
It’s not a small detail, the flashlight is something that’s often used in the game, and I now find it annoying.

I know updates have ended, but I wonder if it would be possible to add an option in the menus to keep the original flashlight? (Like the night lighting – lighter or darker)
Would this be complicated for the developers? I have no idea.

What do you think?

[shmodzilla]

They went from one extreme to the next with it. It doesnt end game it for me but yup, its bad. I have to turn the lights off in the vehicle before i get out for sure. Im pretty sure theres mods to change it back.

[Protectron]

The problem is with how lighting works in the game overall.

It is incredibly difficult to get it right when people play with different resolution and graphics settings, and in different levels of light in the room they sit in and play.... and then they have coded lighting so that all textures in the game are brightening to the level that they approach whiteout conditions, which is a very odd way of doing that.

What resolution and detail settings do you play with?

Since the low sun conditions when the sunlight hits surfaces (like roads) in Cascade Hills and Drucker County hurt my eyes, I lower Gamma to 30% or so during the day, and during the night I increase it to 70-100% depending on how bright my room is.

[jamesglen7]

The flashlight is mandatory for night ops but I avoid it unless I need orientation.
Avoid direct aim if all else fails when intense light bleaches a target.

There's a night light booster setting in the gameplay menu if that helps and you could change some video settings. Make adjustments one at a time & check results.

When you're navigating a river canyon at night with no moon and no compass, except for waypoint marker, it's pitch black and you'll feel better about its intensity.

[WarBucks]

Ultra shadows blocks the lighting causing more shadows quite a bit more than high. Sometimes that change requires turning off the lights or possibly even a reboot of the game. Depends on the light i think?

[Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ]

strange...
I was used to play with a flashlight mod. Then I realized that this is no longer necessary and deleted the mod.
I was surprised that it now works so well without the mod. So I'm absolutely happy with the flashlight.
But if you can make a flashlight mod with more light, then the reverse should also work. I would ask the guy who made the mod on nexusmods.com.

[worm_master]

lol i got a surprise, hadent played in quite a while, nearly blinded my self when I turned the torch on. That said I LUV the new flashlight, we have bright torch's, very bright, un RL, I wanna keep the new torch.

[Letterit]

I don't see how the torch is too bright, no other game using torch that I played has a less efficient torch.

I don't see either how this game is a thrill game, at night or not, it's not this kind of game, and good for me I don't like them in general or most often.

But player options for the torch and for night duration would make sense. Myself I'd set best torch and shortest night, fight in night is a garbage and not for my fun.