Temporary Solution for Dynamic Lighting

I've seen a lot of suggestions relating to different aspects of dynamic lighting, and all of them are great, but require quite a bit of development time. I might have a temporary solution that could work fairly well, and solve a lot of problems that people are having with dynamic lighting. The feature would be called something like "Memory", and would function very similarly to the fog of war (as far as how placing the fog of war works). Areas that aren't marked as memory function exactly as roll20 works now; if you don't have vision of an area for any reason, the area is simply black. However, areas that would have otherwise been black will instead show a dimmed version of whatever is on the map layer. This would allow for the dm to change around any tokens on the token layer in areas that they players aren't currently in without needing to mess with the dm layer at all, or worry about the players knowing that the area is being changed. It also solves the issue of players feeling stranded in a black abyss of nothingness, which is really the primary issue with dynamic lighting as it is now.

Your topic is very vague and you don't specify a problem to which is being fixed as it implies a solution for all aspects of Dynamic Lighting. Your "easy fix" involves creating a new feature that needs to be programmed throughout the system (like making sure it doesn't break the jukebox for some reason) instead of just using what is already available with minor modifications. You even described it as similar to fog of war, so why not use fog of war as the "memory" function instead of creating something new? Since i got here from this Fog of War post and you are talking about memory, i'll assume the solution is for players to be able to see where they have been but not where they haven't been. So to think about what tools we have available now that can "almost" do what we want, it would be line of sight. Line of sight is the only thing that prevents a player from seeing into an area that they have been that is out of sight. Simply making it so that line of sight has the option to not apply to the map layer would allow players to see the map through walls. Then the DM just needs to place dim light with "all players can see light" into areas explored and you would have your effect. Even with your memory feature, they still have to reprogram line of sight to do the same thing and allow "memory objects" to be seen through walls.

Dragonphire said: Your topic is very vague and you don't specify a problem to which is being fixed as it implies a solution for all aspects of Dynamic Lighting. Your "easy fix" involves creating a new feature that needs to be programmed throughout the system (like making sure it doesn't break the jukebox for some reason) instead of just using what is already available with minor modifications. You even described it as similar to fog of war, so why not use fog of war as the "memory" function instead of creating something new? Since i got here from this Fog of War post and you are talking about memory, i'll assume the solution is for players to be able to see where they have been but not where they haven't been. So to think about what tools we have available now that can "almost" do what we want, it would be line of sight. Line of sight is the only thing that prevents a player from seeing into an area that they have been that is out of sight. Simply making it so that line of sight has the option to not apply to the map layer would allow players to see the map through walls. Then the DM just needs to place dim light with "all players can see light" into areas explored and you would have your effect. Even with your memory feature, they still have to reprogram line of sight to do the same thing and allow "memory objects" to be seen through walls. That would also be a solution. I have no idea how roll20 is programmed, so I don't like to make assumptions. Based on how I would have programmed the feature (which could be vastly different from how the roll20 team did it, which is why I'm not making assumptions), adding in a second "fog of war" feature would be very easy. However, it could not be, as you already pointed out. I had actually thought about your solution, and the reason why it is less than ideal is because it would require changing how existing features operate, instead of adding another feature that works in tandem with what is already there. And yes, to answer your question, the problem is my players feeling isolated and trapped in a sea of blackness.

Red-Beard said: +1. I refuse to use dynamic lighting or playing a game with it, as it is in the current state. It ruins the game for me. However, if dynamic lighting kept already revealed through fog of war left shaded when not in line of sight.... I could handle that. This would be a huge improvement for dynamic lighting, and actually live up to the name. As of now Dynamic Lighting should be called Line of Sight, because it is not dynamic at all. It is dynamic... it reveals only what you can physically see. Not what you have seen.

Basically DL needs to work like it does in Maptool. Essentially the players should know the map of areas they have already been to. Currently in Roll20 players need to do it old school and draw where they have currently been on graph paper.