Nighttime ecosystem

Players play at night for two reasons:

• They want to avoid combat and get to a loot or quest item with the least amount of resistance. rushing to bag loot and then keep it when they touch it (this is why the casuals made all these arguments how pouch nerf would increase hatchet running, it was a lie. They do not want it so they can keep hatchet running).

• They want to try out a specific piece of gear for night combat. This can be night vision, suppressed weapons, lasers.

These are opposites.

Loot harvesting at night is done with very little gear. Combat is avoided.

Trying out a high-tech and expensive night time thing is supported by heavy armor and heavy weaponry to protect the expensive item. And these items are used to test them on other players, so players are actively looking for targets, and expect them to be inferior. No one goes into night combat with heavy armor and expensive thermal optics to have a fair fight.

The mid-range gear gap

What is missing is mid-range gear. The players with class 3 armor, a slightly modded gun, a flashlight. Because there is no incentive to play at night with mid-range stuff. Because the game does not incentivize going in with low-tech night combat gear (flashlights).

• The economics of the game make it too easy to avoid night time.

• The economics of the game make it too easy get enough money fast to go in with the best night combat gear, night vision or thermal vision.

• When everyone only goes into night combat when they have the best gear, then it is not night combat, it is just green daylight combat. BSG might instead give every player a free night vision set every time they play at night.

Too many systems keep the player safe from low-end gear. This is a problem in every feature of the game.

• Pouch-looting prevents players from having to play a full raid. Pouch nerf would have fixed it.

• Scav mode every 20 minutes is still too short. It is a free cash button that is used instead of playing PMC in harsh conditions. This „last resort“ help system has turned into the main way of playing.

A player who has 50k. What is he going to do? Buy an SKS and go in with no armor and try to survive? Or buy a pistol and a paca? Or buy 2-3 guns to plan ahead for other raids? No, is going to press FREE CASH every 20 minutes until he can buy exactly the gear he wants and then he will go into combat. This cuts out all low-end gear gameplay.

How fix?

Incentivize players to play at night. One possible solution is to remove the daytime selector, so everyone will sometimes have to play at night. This would press players into going in at night and bring a flashlight.

Another way would be to keep the daytime select, but make it pass time slower. Currently it takes only a little more than one hour realtime to go from sunset to sunrise ingame. This means unless a player plays exactly at sunset, half his raid will be daytime.

The second part of the fix is to force players into low-end gear at night and keep high-end gear rare. This means most night gameplay is flashlights, with a rare encounter of NVG or even thermal. Only then all of the gear for night remains in the game.

Nighttime should not be a luxury cruise for rich players

Players refusing to play night unless with nvg turns night combat into a luxury cruise for rich players. And cuts out 90% of gear. Which is a waste. The game is very immersive at night with flashlights. Players have to be forced into low-end night gear, if they choose to play at night.

And how to do that?

Free market. Make every single night combat item find-only. Everything. Flashlights, NVG, thermal, suppressors. Then make rare items spawn almost never at daytime, but at night. So if players want to fish for suppressors or NVG, they have to go in at night and survive on flashlights. (NVG should still be very rare, even at night). Then night time is for those who dare fight in the dark with flashlights. And they get to find stuff daytime players won't find.

The find-only part is important, because it allows price to float with inflation. A thermal costing 500k at level 4 trader will only be rare for a week. If it is find-only, anyone can find it. And its price can match the purchasing-power of players.

It is very simple economics, if the price of high end night gear is too close to cheap night gear, then no one will go in at night with cheap night gear. NVG should not be the „bare minimum“ accepted to even go in at night. It should be flashlights.

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