My Experience with Lighting

[D4RK1]

So far, I absolutely love the Lighting function for FGU and have recently playtested my first map with my players with it and it is a very large map (100x100 squares). The players love the ambience the lighting can create, but we also ran into a few issues I thought I'd bring up here.

1. This may be an actual bug? But when adding token vision while in session, some of my players said that they still were unable to see anything. This specifically happened with Darkvision, not sure if that matters, and I'm not sure if this is a bug or if it was just connectivity issues, but I thought I'd bring it up just in case.

2. Dim Light seems non-functional? or at least I can't really see what Dim Light is doing really when in-game for 5E rules, Dim Light is supposed to just impose Disadvantage on Perception Checks. So perhaps a good way to handle this would be to give silhouettes/shadows to any creatures that are just in Dim Light and perhaps have Dim Light automatically reveal that area of the map as though the players have explored that area before? Just a thought because right now for 5e the lack of correctly functioning Dim Light for the system means that vision for the players is much more limited than it is supposed to be.

3. Distance-based recognition. Another thing we ran into was that because of how Lighting works, players could specifically see any tokens in light and hover their mice over it to see what it was even if they were over 300 feet away. Would it be possible to perhaps add a Toggled option that makes it so that any tokens beyond a certain specified distance would be turned into a shadow or silhouette that doesn't reveal the name or real image of the token? While i don't believe many DMs will have maps as large as mine, I feel as though combat at a distance isn't out of the question since it just takes one invocation to make Eldritch Blast have a range of 300 feet. While players are decent at not metagaming at my table, I just feel as though this distance problem takes away just a bit of immersion. Adding this function would also mean that you could add an Eyes of the Eagle vision for players as well which maybe could remove this effect out to a specified distance maybe?

[Moon Wizard]

1. There is currently a bug where lights added to tokens do not always update on the player side. There will be a fix coming.

2. There is no "automation" of affecting rolls for various lighting levels. That's up to the GM to adjudicate.

3. We don't have any plans to add anything like this; and it's the first time it has been asked. You can also add a global mask to limit visibility to shorter distances; or keep the remote tokens non-visible until players get closer. You can also add your suggestion to the wish list in my sig.

Regards,
JPG

[D4RK1]

Ok, thanks!

https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/fgapp?ia=136427

[LordEntrails]

IMO, I don't see an issue with being able to see and identify something at 300 or even 1000 feet. If their is not an occluder to block line of sight, in the real world you can easily see such things. Even at night if they are standing under a street light (or similar). If you don't want the token identified, use the ID function on the combat tracker. IMO, there are too many factors to automate recognition of a token. Depends upon lighting yes, but also depends upon terrain, what they are wearing, the characters familiarity with what they are seeing, size of the 'target', smoke/fog etc. And I'm sure lots of other things too.

[D4RK1]

I disagree. While indeed in the real world you would be able to see something under a street light or something at 300 feet away, but you wouldn't necessarily be able to identify what it is or what it looks like.

You say I could just use the ID function on a token, but PC tokens do not have an ID function. And it really doesn't matter if I use the ID function for an NPC with their own token and the PCs can just look at the picture to identify them. I mean unless I was to make another silhouette token for literally every creature and NPC and then swapped them out or duplicated them just for this purpose?

And I absolutely disagree with this whole line of factors of automating the recognition of a token. I was suggesting to literally just leave it to the DM to specify a distance at which they can, this way the DM can manually account for fog, etc... As for say body shape or size, the DM can just narrate that. I'm literally just suggesting that there be a function to basically obscure the image of tokens and their names with this function.

[Lo Zeno]

And I absolutely disagree with this whole line of factors of automating the recognition of a token. I was suggesting to literally just leave it to the DM to specify a distance at which they can, this way the DM can manually account for fog, etc... As for say body shape or size, the DM can just narrate that. I'm literally just suggesting that there be a function to basically obscure the image of tokens and their names with this function.
Yeah, but where do you specify the distance? On the map? Every token on the same map is identifiable at the same distance? That would not be ideal, since different part of the map can have different visibility constraints. Heck, even approaching the same character from 2 different directions might have you be able to identify the character at 2 different distances.

Personally, I would instead suggest to improve the ID function to "anonymize" the token with a generic token when the token is anonymized, and allow the ID function to be applied to PCs as well. This way the DM can adjudicate, case by case, when to toggle the ID, and reveal the token. Having a set distance at which it happens doesn't seem like the right solution to me.

[D4RK1]

Yeah, but where do you specify the distance? On the map? Every token on the same map is identifiable at the same distance? That would not be ideal, since different part of the map can have different visibility constraints. Heck, even approaching the same character from 2 different directions might have you be able to identify the character at 2 different distances.

Personally, I would instead suggest to improve the ID function to "anonymize" the token with a generic token when the token is anonymized, and allow the ID function to be applied to PCs as well. This way the DM can adjudicate, case by case, when to toggle the ID, and reveal the token. Having a set distance at which it happens doesn't seem like the right solution to me.

On the Map. And again, with the lighting update also came a Vision function/effect, an "Eagle" vision can be added to tokens so that DMs can modify any changes on an individual basis. I believe this would be ideal as this gives just enough automation for combat purposes if need be. I feel as though every concern you have can be addressed with just these two functions. When you are talking about approaching a character from different angles or directions, again, just having the Eagle vision function means you can show this visually if needed, but from a Role Play standpoint, a DM can just describe to a character exactly how much or little a character recognizes a silhouette or a distant character.

Again, this function is mainly to obscure the token in the case that we're say seeing a cornered human in the middle of a bunch of zombies at a distance or in bad lighting.

This suggestion to "improve" the ID system I feel is more cumbersome. If this generic token was automatic, then what of situations where PCs can obviously see the creature in question, but they don't know what it is (which I'm pretty sure is what the ID function is meant for in the first place)? If it isn't automated, then this means they need to add an additional toggle to the ID function which would just slow things down IMO. If you need to add an additional token to have this happen, then now you need to make token or at the very least manually add tokens to make this function, probably the better of the situations, but still not ideal.

[Lo Zeno]

I feel as though every concern you have can be addressed with just these two functions. When you are talking about approaching a character from different angles or directions, again, just having the Eagle vision function means you can show this visually if needed, but from a Role Play standpoint, a DM can just describe to a character exactly how much or little a character recognizes a silhouette or a distant character.

So, having the DM just describe how much or how little a character regognizes is fine, right? Then why can't the DM do that with a generic anonymized token? All he needs to do is tell the PC how much or how little they see of the creature. Or, you know, share a picture to show it.



If it isn't automated, then this means they need to add an additional toggle to the ID function which would just slow things down IMO.

I could say the same right back at your solution: if the DM has to explicitly set different Eagle vision distances for his players, depending on the conditions that each player has to see a certain creature, it's just as cumbersome and just as slowing down as having to toggle the ID of the token.

[Moon Wizard]

Just a note that a new version was pushed with several fixes; including the visibility of light additions on player clients.

Regards,
JPG

[D4RK1]

So, having the DM just describe how much or how little a character regognizes is fine, right? Then why can't the DM do that with a generic anonymized token? All he needs to do is tell the PC how much or how little they see of the creature. Or, you know, share a picture to show it.

I don't really know what your argument here is? My suggestion is to automate having a silhouette or shadow of a token, i suppose a generic token would work as well? Again this is distance based so when players move within a certain distance, they would then be able to make out a creature's features, at this point they would be able to see the "Token" as it is, but may not be able to Identify the creature, as they might not have met a certain NPC but have met another?


I could say the same right back at your solution: if the DM has to explicitly set different Eagle vision distances for his players, depending on the conditions that each player has to see a certain creature, it's just as cumbersome and just as slowing down as having to toggle the ID of the token.

"Just as cumbersome?" Sorry, but your argument makes absolutely no sense. Your attempts at making examples that give these really obscure situations for poking holes in this is really just terrible argumentation. Most DMs would be able to make do with just a single specified distance for obscurement. For example, Fog is a common enough situation and a DM could set the distance to 30 feet as PCs have to save Humans from Zombies in a town covered in Fog. In this situation, you're saying the better solution is to manually reveal each token as they pop up? then possibly hiding them again based on distance? Not to mention, another problem is that when you reveal tokens this way, you reveal the token to ALL players and can't automate in on an individual basis such as with Lighting and Vision.

Even with your suggested situation on the suggestion page, you set up "What if approaching the token from the North I can identify it at 300 feet, but approaching it from the South I can identify it at 150 because there's a cloud of smoke due to a large nearby fire? What if approaching it from the east there's mist coming from a swamp that makes its shape identifiable only at 100?" I'll break it down for you.

"What if approaching it from the east there's mist coming from a swamp that makes its shape identifiable only at 100?" If you can't even identify the shape, then that's what the Line of Vision function is for? I'd just set up terrain for this and describe to the players they might hear voices or something if that is applicable.

"What if approaching the token from the North I can identify it at 300 feet" So this is the longer distance, you give the creatures approaching from the north 300 eagle vision.

"but approaching it from the South I can identify it at 150 because there's a cloud of smoke due to a large nearby fire?" You set the map to 150 because this is the shortest distance creatures can see.

If we were to use your solution, then when you reveal the token to creatures within 300 feet, now tokens from the South can already identify that token as well. Your solution doesn't even hold up in your own scenarios whereas at least mine gives a solution to each of these situations. Yes, it is a little cumbersome to have to put eagle visions of different types on different tokens, but at least it automates it as much as possible to just allow the DM to take over when needed. And again, these really obscure situations as unlikely to happen and I've given an example of a relatively common example with the Fog above. If you disagree this is common, then what about obscurement in Water? literally the same situation because seeing under water is difficulty. What about in smoke? It could be a burning house with zombies in it and the PCs need to save Humans. Again, my solution would automate all of this and keep immersion as it would be on an individual basis for each PC.

[anathemort]

Just a note that a new version was pushed with several fixes; including the visibility of light additions on player clients.

Regards,
JPG

:o just in time, thank you! That client lighting fix is just what I needed!

[HywelPhillips]

I know it is not quite a solution to the "I can see there is something, but not what it is" request for a token silhouette, but you can limit the range of vision for normal vision.

Try VISION: 150

for example. That might get you some of the way to what you want? You could set up a series of such effects and drag-and-drop them to the party tokens when you add them to a map, so the smoke example might have VISION: 150 where the clear night might have VISION: 300 and a foggy day VISION: 30.

Cheers, Hywel

[D4RK1]

I know it is not quite a solution to the "I can see there is something, but not what it is" request for a token silhouette, but you can limit the range of vision for normal vision.

Try VISION: 150

for example. That might get you some of the way to what you want? You could set up a series of such effects and drag-and-drop them to the party tokens when you add them to a map, so the smoke example might have VISION: 150 where the clear night might have VISION: 300 and a foggy day VISION: 30.

Cheers, Hywel

So definitely something I've been doing, but this is also basically just the Lighting and Vision update in a nutshell XD

[LordEntrails]

The beauty of the wish list is everyone can vote, then the devs can compare it to other features to get a relative importance to the community and can use that to help determine their development priorities.