Nice one " dim the brightness" 
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Just look at my profile picture, I’m as gentle as a big, black bull 
Anyway, regarding my night walk, I was rather grateful that I didn’t hear a twig snap from between the trees, followed by heavy, fast paced stomping towards me … 
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Swedish militant shouting ‘HUNTER IMBOUND!’
This game would make an insane movie.
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I completely agree with the ideas on how to make this game scarier. My most memorable moment playing this game was terrifying, it was early in the game where I was walking into a town that was covered by fog, and I heard something big. I hid in the nearby church and watched in fear as a tank slowly came out of the fog, walking down the road I had just come down from. I decided to run, but it noticed me. It blared it’s siren and I heard the footsteps getting louder as I ran blindly through the fog, and when I looked back, the only thing I could see was that red light staring at me.
This moment was amazing, and absolutely terrifying. I do wish that they made the game scarier, with more ambience and mystery surrounding the machines.
Our greatest fear is fear of the unknown, and the devs should absolutely take this into consideration. I like to use Subnautica as an example of how to scare the literal shit out of someone. It’s the fear of the unknown that makes that game great, and with Generation Zero, it would be amazing if given a ‘fear of the unknown’ treatment. 
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I think that “Alien” used that to perfection. You never really saw the monster until the very end of the movie. Yes, after playing the game for so long, it isn’t scarry anymore. “They” should definitely do something about that.
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I thought exactly about that. Or use shades… this way you wouldn’t need to hassle with the monitor settings 
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Or switch off the monitor if you can’t find your shades.
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Intelligence 10000000
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I agree with most points mentioned by the TS.
However: Making the game more dark (darker nights), will only make it darker.
It would not add much in terms of scaryness. Just makes things harder to see, but if you crank up your Gamma settings… the whole point is lost again.
Improved AI and machine combat routines and especially navigation would certainly make a bigger impact.
A more immersive and post apocalyptic world would certainly add to the atmosphere.
But the most important thing, I think, is Player Skills.
The weapons are not massively OP, which is good. (No idea about the Experimental weapons however, since I hate them and do not use them for personal reasons that have nothing to do with this topic )
But once the player gets a high enough skill level/points, more damage is dealt to the machines, making the game easier. A lot easier.
I think that this is the main cause of the “problem”.
Making the machines act differently, more aggressive and more damaging could be a partial solution to it.
But that would affect new / low skill level players in a bad way.
Or it could turn the machines themselves into bullet sponges, which also is very bad.
And I think it is also related to how people play GenZero.
Some folks only run around in the open, amidst whole packs of hunters and runners while others play a tactical game, picking fights, avoiding fights, fighting from cover (like houses).
I could imagine that to this last group - which includes me, the game is quite easy.
To me, it is.
I can not think of any proper solution at this point, sadly.
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If the nights were dark, the low-light sights would be useful and at the moment they are not. If a starlight scope was the only way to see, that would also be scary.
I even lowered my brightness in game to get more of that dark feeling and because of that I never get dazzled by the amazing sunshine that appear from time to time…
But now the IR and nightvision add-on feels useful and is needed to see far in the dark.
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I’d prefer that it were done by the game, and in such a way that you could not simply raise the gamma in order to see, but that you needed the starlight scope. Dawn would then come as a great relief, or darkness as a relief if you were waiting to do a difficult raid…
One way to make game scarier, or harder. Designate special robot(s) to hunt player. They would start at random location of map. And every time you have been spotted or engaged combat they would start to move direction of the player.
Maybe time based event, this group could be alive certain amount of play minutes or hours. Or until player kills them.
Only staying hidden or avoiding combat would give breather to player.
Now robots only fight you when they see you or you engage them. After all you are resistance guerrilla fighter, logical would be that robots try to hunt the resistance also.
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Good point, right now NV does not feel very useful and the projected image on screen is quite poor resolution.
(Which is quite fitting for Nightvision back in the 80’s).
The most useful of all vision modes currently to me, is Thermal.
But that is offtopic.
Darker nights >could< be helpful, but I do not see (no pun intended ), how that would make the game more scary.
Since you can see most machines coming from a good distance away - if not; hear them.
And once the detection indicator on screen pops up from white to yellow, you know the game is on.
Most machines are pretty visible with their lights everywhere.
Their camo however, in daylight, is quite excellent.
Only Harvesters are not as visible in the dark, because they have very few lights.
So, I conclude that for example Hunters and Tanks, should have less lights in order to up their scare factor.
Or have those lights switch on once they found you. Something like that.
Most machines can see/hear in the dark anyway, so why do they have their lights?
If I would not have Thermal or Nightvision/Low Light Amp, and be running around at night in a forest, to stumble upon a group of Hunters who are not lit up like christmastrees, yeah… I’d be having a proper brown alert moment. If you know what I mean.
#Screamlikeagirl
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That’s a pretty cool idea! They could have lights so bright that when they do turn them on, they would dazzle the player for a while. Machines could also shoot light flares to light up the area where the player is during the night.
However, I guess they really don’t need lights at all, don’t they all “see” with IR tech or something?
Yes please! This idea, or variants thereof, have been talked about before - I like it! 
These should do exactly that and be called “Rivals”. i.e., that’s what Rivals shoud do. There’d be a real decision to make if you were in a house for instance and fighting from it, when you glanced at the map and saw three Rivals closing - do you finish the fight quickly? Do you hide in the lavatory? Do you run away?
The sense of all the Rivals being aware of you and coming after you would make sense, rather than they are just random “Bosses”. It would also be quite intimidating, especially if you have ten or twenty alive on the map, all closing towards you, every time you slot a Runner…
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My thoughts exactly! Then Rivals would suddenly make s lot of sense to me.
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With current means, there is a way to make game harder and scarier as well: just disable the proximity arrow from game settings. 
Without it showing you close-by machines and pointing towards them, you’re only left with visual sight and sound. And depending on where you are, you may not even see or hear the machine until it has aggrod to you and shooting at you.
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Well, they’re a bit like leopards - they cough or bark when they’ve got the scent…
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It’s peoples lack of imagination and too much co-op farming that makes the bots stop being ‘scary’.
After my early day exploits in gold weapon farming, and multiple maxed chars, due to the one shot one kill mechanic that happened when fast traveling back to the ‘war zone’ I lost the respect for the bots.
I simply took to the woods sneaking around and tried to pick up garden gnomes, practically unarmed with my stealth char(s). They turned quite scary again after a while of doing that.
Having to yet again farm for time limited items, experimental weapons (that now have a drop-rate/chance, that is so low that it is almost scary in itself, almost killed off any respect I had for the bots again… even more so when doing it with 2 co-op mates that are CS-GO veterans.
The game can be played in many ways. Forcing others to hopeless drop-rates and 4 hour online(!!!) loot-box timers is not the way to get back the feeling of the atmosphere. (remember the days they counted the adrenaline shots in your inventory and hid them from lootboxes if the game considered you had too many?)
Making (all) the Tanks almost defenseless on mid-range, as they are now, is in my opinion no real problem in either way, as they don’t often come alone, and when they do, and you get the jump on them, you at least get one quite easy kill.
Scariness is all in ones mind. With the wrong mindset this game is just a mediocre shooter at best, no matter how one goes about it…with nice Swedish fictional locations.
With the right mindset you’re back in Sweden in 1989, wondering why you’re sober on such a nice day… and why the evil stomping metal thingies are disturbing your little stroll in the woods… and where did the rest of yesterdays party-goers go… and why the heck are you even in the woods when the pubs are unattended.
Set your own rules, play with people that play it your way. (2 maxed chars running full speed doing only farming, are a bit overkill most of the time now I have to admit, 3 are like throwing metal puppies in a blender)
Don’t force any nerfs or buffs or huge invasions onto others that play the game as they like.
Play-styles are different. I don’t want to restrict the CS-GO crowds ‘Chaaaarge’ mentality.
And if their loud complains restrict my ‘strolling in the woods and get scared by a squirrel’ play-style further I’ll get a bit disappointed.
The damn missions where you have to kill hundreds of ticks… and current drop-rate of experimental stuff are just an invitations to gather an overpowered party to get it over with, even as I don’t even want the clothing or titles they give.
Give it different difficulty settings, with no further reward from using it! And everyone can play it as they want? Use mods to remove every HUD info?
Or get into the right mindset.
At the age of 47 I still can’t watch the 1979 movie ‘Alien’… no other movie have scared the heck out of me as that one (Aliens 2 is… fun), as I now lack the right mindset for movies.
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