Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
A light in the dark...
CROW3
Member, Alpha Two
From what I’ve read, Intrepid hasn’t gone into great detail on night & darkness yet.
I enjoy having darkness be an issue to mitigate. A handful of games set the bar for doing this well in my experience: Ultimate VII, the Elder Scrolls, and Gothic I/II. EQ2 even gave certain races infra- or dark-vision. Most of them force you to make tradeoff’s so you can see (e.g. drop my shield for a torch, etc.)
So, I’m curious: what have your experiences have been? Do you like the dark being an obstacle?
How did having to hold a torch (or other vision types) impact that experience in a positive or negative way?
I enjoy having darkness be an issue to mitigate. A handful of games set the bar for doing this well in my experience: Ultimate VII, the Elder Scrolls, and Gothic I/II. EQ2 even gave certain races infra- or dark-vision. Most of them force you to make tradeoff’s so you can see (e.g. drop my shield for a torch, etc.)
So, I’m curious: what have your experiences have been? Do you like the dark being an obstacle?
How did having to hold a torch (or other vision types) impact that experience in a positive or negative way?
2
Comments
Within the video, a mage enters a dark cave and has to use one of their light abilities to see. Even with the light, the cave is rather dark, and creatures can ambush the player.
I personally enjoy these types of mechanics in more casual games, and abhor them in more competitive games. For example, in WoW when I'm doing a high level mythic + dungeon, I think it would be actively annoying to have to be thinking about lighting the dungeon while also contenting with doing optimal dps, positioning correctly for a boss, and avoiding random 1shot mechanics from mobs.
In Ashes of Creation, I would personally love to see this sort of darkness used, but sparingly.
Also Massive + Complex Lighting doesn't sound like a good time for anyone's PC lol!
Having to not use my two handed weapon, shield or bow every 4 hours in lieu of a torch would drive me up the wall.
I'm ok with the idea of visibility being an obstacle with inclement weather like fog, blizzards or sandstorms infrequently but every time the sun goes down would be a bit much.
A severe thunderstorm on a moonless night however, that could be pretty cool.
Guess you better bring along someone who can cast light then, haha.
If it was mechanic in a more limited sense like the inside of certain parts of dungeons or caves or something then fine for group content but I don't want to have to deal with that while I'm out trying to quests or gather every hour or whatever.
Future Crafting Plans: Herbalism > Alchemy & Scribe or Mining > Metalworking > Jewel cutting (Pending)
Also reading the mage's skills:
Mage's Detection - Reveal secret passages and magically hidden terrain around you. Casts light and reveals magical explosive hazards.
That suggests that casting light is a thing, but then the reference is just a comment Steven made that "the light spell will reveal magical explosive hazards" which doesn't really answer this question.
EDIT:
Discord has a video that CLEARLY shows the spell in use:
I can only hope they opt for something like that instead of something like WoW where 'night' was more like perpetual dusk. /yawn
Please make the environment count!
Did Azeroth go dark with night? I never noticed.
No, at best it was a bright twilight. To your point, I don't think sitting in a game tent would be fun either, but there are other ways to mitigate darkness besides hiding under the blankets.
Yeah as mentioned by Diocles, they initially were playing around with lighting and requiring you to take torches etc in some dark caves. The conversation at the time was pretty much how do we balance realism and fun. Some mechanics can sound fun in concept but get very old very quickly. The torch thing will feel super cool the first few times but then how rewarding will it be the 10th, 30th, 100th time? It's too homogenous a solution for the problem to be interesting, there is nothing more to it than having a spell or a torch around. Since I've not heard anything about it for a while I think they decided to move away from it.
I personally loved the concept but if I'm being honest with myself, I think it would get old fast. Plus with ~no fast travel, getting stuck in a dark cave with your light source running out would be a design challenge that may either trivialize it or make it too hardcore/frustrating.
It was originally much darker at night. They literally nerfed night.
Since there is literally nothing mentioned for the tank skill Perception being able to see mob aggro range in the dark or something would be cool. Or just the red outline of mobs even. I assume the skill will help detect stealth in some way so figuring out where the bad guys are in the dark really isn't much of a stretch.