This game looks so gorgeous I hate to turn alien flashlight on

hotd0g

Seriously, to be effective as an alien I have to turn it on all the time. But it ruins the visuals.
Why not gives all the marines a yellow outline instead of taking away all the pretty eye candy of the game?

BodyGuard

I think this is to force a trade between
- Knowing the map, where are the shadows and details you can't see with the flashlight ; but hving everything glowing
-Seeing every detail, but no having any glow.

Putting everything glowing AND the details would be a serious buff ; it's basically giving a permanenent flashlight without the malus of the flashlight, just for the sake of the game being pretty ^^


But i see your point, and i kind of agree with it. It would be nice, BUT unbalanced.

Gliss

there's a <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=98879398" target="_blank">mod </a> that already does this, but I believe it should be made official and made an option to choose what kind of flashlight you want. not all servers will have this file whitelisted.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/nyEmn.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

Volcano

odd i was going to link same mod Power but it says it removed by the author

Xarius

That flashlight mod would be amazing to have official.

Zek

<!--quoteo(post=2006327:date=Nov 2 2012, 07:55 AM:name=hotd0g)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hotd0g @ Nov 2 2012, 07:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006327"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Seriously, to be effective as an alien I have to turn it on all the time. But it ruins the visuals.
Why not gives all the marines a yellow outline instead of taking away all the pretty eye candy of the game?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agree 100%. The alien flashlight looks cool enough and is fine for dark areas, but default vision needs to be clearer for general purpose combat. Too often I switch the flashlight on simply to increase the contrast of the marines I'm fighting. That goes ESPECIALLY for the Fade, who has that extremely disorienting Blink effect that can be completely disabled by turning on the flashlight.

Fappuchino

<!--quoteo(post=2006336:date=Nov 2 2012, 05:59 AM:name=Princess_of_Power)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Princess_of_Power @ Nov 2 2012, 05:59 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006336"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->there's a <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=98879398" target="_blank">mod </a> that already does this, but I believe it should be made official and made an option to choose what kind of flashlight you want. not all servers will have this file whitelisted.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No it shouldn't. The devs intended for the trade-offs to be as they are, and I don't see any issues with it. Makes perfect sense.

Dusteh

<!--quoteo(post=2006336:date=Nov 2 2012, 12:59 PM:name=Princess_of_Power)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Princess_of_Power @ Nov 2 2012, 12:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006336"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->there's a <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=98879398" target="_blank">mod </a> that already does this, but I believe it should be made official and made an option to choose what kind of flashlight you want. not all servers will have this file whitelisted.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/nyEmn.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
^ pretty much this.

Agree that this mod should me made official or at least white listed on all servers. Default alien vision is pretty ugly imo.

Xarius

Not seeing the game's beautiful graphics is the trade-off? I'm sorry but that makes no sense. The only important things are visible in the alien vision, but it's silly that it darkens everything else for really no reason. You can play perfectly fine with just the alien flashlight, there is no trade-off, provided you don't mind missing beautiful graphics.

Blaxxun

I think its fine. By turning on the alien flashlight you get to see enemies much clearer while losing some visual range. Also i do not think its intended to be kept on all the time but rather as reaction to barely lit corridors or rooms with freshly cut power.

Codeine

Why does everything have to have a trade off....ffs

Cant you just make the game fun, and not some annoying trade offs just because.

blin

it's alien vision... not flashlight :-)))

blin

<!--quoteo(post=2006361:date=Nov 2 2012, 07:10 AM:name=Dusteh)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dusteh @ Nov 2 2012, 07:10 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006361"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->^ pretty much this.

Agree that this mod should me made official or at least white listed on all servers. Default alien vision is pretty ugly imo.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


and this looks awesome, what about in a pitch black room? still pitch black?

Xostean

You know you could always just edit the files in the game folders to ajust the alien vision.

Before they fixed it to look like it currently does, i did this manually. No mod required

rebirth

<!--quoteo(post=2006433:date=Nov 2 2012, 02:52 PM:name=Codeine)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Codeine @ Nov 2 2012, 02:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006433"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why does everything have to have a trade off....ffs

Cant you just make the game fun, and not some annoying trade offs just because.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

But trade offs are the cool thing to have these days!
You want to make those player choices as difficult as possible for them. That includes making all choices equally crappy trough trade offs and drawbacks so the player never really feels stronger or like he made any progress. Screw progress and vertical depth, we only need horizontal variety to make it look like it has depth!

I don't think the alienvision is supposed to have trade-offs and if it's supposed to have them, it already has them (worse hitfeedback when using vision, so you die easier). I'm kinda okay with the way alienvision looks right now, at least that way you have a great visual contrast compared to playing Marines.

Fappuchino

<!--quoteo(post=2006368:date=Nov 2 2012, 06:12 AM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Nov 2 2012, 06:12 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006368"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not seeing the game's beautiful graphics is the trade-off? I'm sorry but that makes no sense. The only important things are visible in the alien vision, but it's silly that it darkens everything else for really no reason. You can play perfectly fine with just the alien flashlight, there is no trade-off, provided you don't mind missing beautiful graphics.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why would you both: Allow aliens to see marine's, AND let them see in the dark (wait how does it even make sense to have thermal vision and still let them see the environment? Wouldn't they also not be able to see in the dark?).

We're talking about abilities that trade environmental detail for clear thermal view. It's like how you wouldn't use night vision under a bright light.

*IE, there's a reason why there's a key bind for alien vision, so you can turn it on when it's appropriate to do so.

rebirth

<!--quoteo(post=2006489:date=Nov 2 2012, 03:24 PM:name=Fappuchino)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Fappuchino @ Nov 2 2012, 03:24 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006489"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why would you both: Allow aliens to see marine's, AND let them see in the dark (wait how does it even make sense to have thermal vision and still let them see the environment? Wouldn't they also not be able to see in the dark?).

We're talking about abilities that trade environmental detail for clear thermal view. It's like how you wouldn't use night vision under a bright light.

*IE, there's a reason why there's a key bind for alien vision, so you can turn it on when it's appropriate to do so.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

But environmental details are without consequence to the gameplay. You are at no disadvantage (gameplay wise) for not seeing those detailed wall textures. In that regard Alienvision is basically just a high brightness hack that removes textures to clean up the picture.

And maybe i've missed it, but is the vision actually described as "thermal vision" anywhere? Afaik it's only called "alien vision" and because it's alien it could be based on anything UWE wants (scent, thermal, UV, Nanites or a combination of all of them).

You want to talk about consequences/drawbacks? Try adding an adren drain to using alienvision.. it's what UWE did a couple of builds ago and it didn't work at all.

Zek

As others have said, alien vision has almost no gameplay drawback. It's purely a user experience drawback because it covers up all the art assets, which makes the game less fun. The player is forced to choose between combat effectiveness and visual aesthetics, which is not a choice they should be forced to make. And the solution is not to give it a gameplay drawback - they tried that already. The solution is to mitigate the need for alien vision to see things clearly in the heat of combat.

azurescorch

I use the mod mentioned in this thread and I love it. A lot of servers I join don't allow it though.

I hope in future updates alien vision will be a bit more like that mod is.