Night time darkness levels and lighting

I really want to hear if anyone has any great reasons why night time shouldn't be so dark sometimes that lighting is important.

It's not incredibly relevant to gameplay, though it would add some very interesting dynamics. I just think it's one of the coolest things you can do in a game, a very immersive feature. It works out fantastically in minecraft and terraria, though they are very different games I could imagine it working just fine in AoC.

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Warth

I want a dark night that requires light and greatly reduces the viewing distance.

PherPhur

Warth wrote: »

I want a dark night that requires light and greatly reduces the viewing distance.

Well, it certainly is nice to see I'm not alone.

Sure, you're probably going to want to black out your game room windows and turn off the lights when it's night time, and it'll be a little bit of a pain in the butt trying to see when it's difficult to, but like I said it works out in Terraria and Minecraft. The benefit really does seem to heavily outweigh the cost. At least from my perspective.

Caww

no thank you, please provide enough ambient lighting to prevent pitch-black screens...

Voxtrium

Every 31 days I wouldn't mind a single night without any ambient lighting, although i have not read how many moons Verra will have.

PlasticLemons

Voxtrium wrote: »

Every 31 days I wouldn't mind a single night without any ambient lighting, although i have not read how many moons Verra will have.

THIS is a fun idea.

I think having *every* night be so dark it's hard to see would be enjoyable but it's a pretty niche enjoyment that we have lol. BUT having the moon cycle allowing for one "dark" night an in-game month would be so freaking fun.

Hopefully Vek have special dark seeing capabilities

SongRune

ChipsAhoy007 wrote: »

I really want to hear if anyone has any great reasons why night time shouldn't be so dark sometimes that lighting is important.

It's not incredibly relevant to gameplay, though it would add some very interesting dynamics. I just think it's one of the coolest things you can do in a game, a very immersive feature. It works out fantastically in minecraft and terraria, though they are very different games I could imagine it working just fine in AoC.

It is extremely relevant to gameplay, and is absolutely a core balance/design consideration.

As a Bard, if I see you from 20 seconds away, I start the fight buffed and we have a fair fight when you attack me. If I see you from 5 seconds away, I just die.

I'm all for a real, good cosmetic day/night cycle, with lighting effects, but I need night to not nerf my class specifically. Sure it'll hurt everyone a bit, but Bard by nature has to spend time buffing in advance in order to match the other classes power. Stopping me from doing that is a major nerf.

Strevi

Imagine a raid with 40 ppl holding torches in hand.

Galvyr

Strevi wrote: »

Imagine a raid with 40 ppl holding torches in hand.

Would look like an angry mob from a Frankenstein movie.

hapy

I dont think every night being pitch black would be practical.
But lets say there is storm and dark clouds, it would be cool to see significant change in visibility. And when lighting strikes it would illuminate whole sky and ground.
If there is already weather and season tech, it would be cool to have moon phases and those with clouds would influence how dark nights are and it would cast big shadows that would move on the ground, slightly changing visibility.
I guess I am not fan of pitch black outside areas. But dark enough to have some torch or light magic gameplay would be cool.
Having pitch black parts of dungeons, even elite or raid fights, I am fan of.

CROW3

Totally agree, @ChipsAhoy007 - (https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/46512/a-light-in-the-dark)

SkylarckTheBotanist

From CROW3's post, back in 2017 there was a great video that displayed what Intrepid's original thoughts on light abilities might be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=5YFb-S9ublQ&feature=emb_title

I think this is a great idea and I hope they continued to refine and expand on it.

Scarbeus

I like the idea of how dark it actually gets at night time (you city folks might not know) as it makes it feel very immersive. In settlements there will be lighting from torches but out in the middle of nowhere you better hope for clear night skies to grant you moonlight otherwise it will be hard to see. I don't think it should be impossible enough that players feel the need to adjust their gamma every cloudy night time though.

Strevi

Darkness caused by magic for longer time... could destroy crops, drive animals away...
The devs could create special events which players may cause of try to prevent, once in a while.

Mag7spy

Honestly I'm fine with dark but this isn't a survival game i want the feeling of nighttime but i want to see what the hell I'm doing. Maybe with the exception of night and a crazy storm with downpour rain making it a bit harder to see.

Are they even going to have night and day cycles in the game? If night is too dark everyone normally just turns up their brightness settings.

Obamanizer

Ultimate reason why we won't get pitch black or even close is because you can adjust the gamma setting on your pc and massively game the system for huge advantage. While I think we should still have pretty dark nights and not some joke of a night where you still see like you got sun glasses ln, I hope we get cycles of 75% reduced light nights to 90% reduced light nights.

Tyranthraxus

The occasional "new moon" (moon-less night) might be an okay feature; I'd hate for the night to be so dark that you couldn't see the details of the world around you, EVERY night.

Dolyem

Played this survival multiplayer Faction PVP game called REND awhile back. It was basically Valheim with faction wars. But there were small caves you could explore for resources and while during the day there was low light (the caves werent crazy deep), during night time it was absolutely pitch black inside and you needed a torch to see anything, including the monsters and resources that spawned in those caves. It was actually an awesome dynamic, and it also made it dangerous since seeing a bright torch light in the dark from a distance was basically a beacon for others to see.

akabear

Caravan night runs with a well lit caravan and dimly lit road could be interesting

Asgerr

I think for me it would depend on the time and place. If the moon waxes and wanes with the days and seasons, then some days should be much darker than others. However, with a clear sky, starlight and moonlight offer incredible visibility. Especially with no light pollution to hinder it.

Now, if you're in a forest, short of having a lamp attached to your backpack (like in the game Outward) it should be quite dark.

Different mobs and gatherables should appear based on time of day IMO. Would also incentivise exploration for sight-seeing. In FFXIV you have sightseeing logs you can achieve by being at certain locations at certain times of day and with certain whether conditions. When you do, you get the Log for it, providing extra bits of lore about the world.

This could be a very cool way to promote travelling across the world at least once, before or after settling down in a specific node.

WHIT3ROS3

Ambiance, Atmosphere, Environment and Immersion are all super important. All are superseded by gameplay. Not being able to see what you are doing is not fun.

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