As the title suggests, the contrast in thermal viewing modes has changed quite significantly. Before, landscape elements could be made out somewhat easily, showing rock walls, buildings, the ground etc., as well as "Hot" entities, being their usual White/Black hot colours respectively. Now, all you see is a sea of black, with hot signatures being slightly harder to see at a distance, but certainly contrast the sea of black.
This is definitely a server-side issue, as in the editor I was not able to replicate the same view we get in I&A Thermals. (And no, the weather does NOT significantly contribute to the Thermal viewing experience.)
I've even got some pictures to demonstrate.
This is Lakka, a town just outside Base. This view is from the southern hill, so not the "Military Hill" everyone knows and loves.
This is the Thermal view from the ENVG-II NODs, notice that while landscape elements aren't exactly crisp, they can still be made out somewhat. This image was taken inside the Eden Editor.
Now, this is the Thermal view from ENVG-II's currently in I&A. As you can see... SEA OF BLACK. The heat signatures on the bottom of the screen are rabbits. It's so black, you can't even make out the edges of the actual viewing lenses.
As you can see, not exactly ideal. This has affected all Thermal sights, such as gun optics, Tank optics and even further.
I highly doubt that this is intentional, as there were no patch notes and despite thermals being the usual culprit for blue-on-blue incidents, this ain't exactly a solution.
This came about a few weeks before the 2.04 update and the fact that it's normal in the editor further indicates a server-side change.
While this isn't some game-breaking bug, it would be very nice if it returned to normal.