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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Too bright? Needs to be darker in nighttime
Serazeus
Member, Alpha Two
I think even though it was only 7:30PM it should have been abit darker, hopefully when it gets to midnight it's muhc darker and perhaps you need skills or items to be able to see that far into the dark mists. Having a wolfs eyes just start to glow at you before you know how many mobs come from the darkness would be so good. Just seems you can see forever and have a spotlight currently on you even though it's suppose to be dark. The moon just seems too bright, hopefully it gets a change for the future. Also mob densisty needs a big increase 
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Did they actually say it was directly linked and temporally locked with server time? I thought the way Steven phrased it meant that we were looking at a day/night cycle measured in "hours", rather than a one-to-one time with the day itself. I'll admit I was distracted at the time, though.
However, this remains unclear, since server time could also be accelerated, example 4 Verra days per actual real-time day, so I am unsure atm.
Regardless, night time is a third or a fourth of the time if we take a 24 hour cycle, more or less. Which is a lot for it to be that dark outside!! Imho
Maybe a peak darkness between midnight and 1 am ok that would be more acceptable.
Yeah, would be happy with that. Not the whole night for it to be dark, but in some areas, such as a graveyard, would have some cool benefits!
And it leaves room to go darker in some places, like underground or inside close spaces with no windows. Places where there are pools of lights and deep shadows.
The goal shouldn’t be for the day - night schedule to have an effect on gamplay, where most of the population doesn’t want to play because they logged in during nighttime.
What if I can only play during the hours of 8pm and 10pm each night and most of those hours tend to be in game dark. Should I have a less visible game-play experience than the person who can play from 6 pm to 8pm?
Heavy darkness closes things in and hide items in the world. Again that works great in Ark when the pace is meant to be very slow and methodical. But in an MMO you don't want that.
Most open world single player games have settings that can be adjusted for this sort of thing so you can tailor your experience, MMOs do not have that luxury and lots of people don't want to play a game with heavy darkness. MMOs have to appeal to a much wider audience to survive. Open world survival and open world MMOs are simply not the same animal and they cannot be treated the same.
I'd be just fine if Ashes had a moon cycle where it becomes a bit darker once a week or so, but please, people, don't go yelling that it's too bright in the game when the game literally copies reality (and when the change would add nothing to the gameplay and would only hinder it).
Because you live in a city with thousands or maybe milions of light sources?
If you got to the country or to the middle of a road between two cities, it will still be dark enough
This!!!!!
AoC is doing the Perfect move, visible nights 👌
I have an entirely different complaint about this sort of thing in games actually.
Even if your game's soundscape is quite good, it doesn't compare to human senses in specific ways, particularly when characters are supposed to be quite honed.
Humans hear REALLY well. They notice movement in shadows so well it scares them. They literally have echolocation subconsciously after enough training sometimes, not like 'superhero' level, but we DO get this ability.
A game's visuals can't give me any of that. Not scent, not echoes, not mild thermal shifts, not 'perfect soundscape'.
It's not immersive to me when it's darker because you've 'taken away one sense but not given any of the others that are naturally available to compensate for it'. I don't much mind if you give the 'pulse scan' style awareness or expect me to be able to see well on the minimap, but even this still doesn't feel right. The night 'not being dark' to me is a representation of something a lot of the time, not to mention how well our eyes actually DO adjust sometimes.
I could rant a ton about this, but I'm not gonna. If someone wants the night darker, I want an ability to 'pulse magic or sound' to make it 'visible greyscale'. Don't even care if this makes me detectable to mobs. If you want visual immersion, I want echosonic immersion to make up for it.
I think that with the latest UE updates this kind of stuff might be way more widespread in the upcoming games, but I'd assume those would still be a few years off from now. And I don't think I've heard about games that have done stuff like this in the past.
I'd looooove if Ashes had a spooky location with these effects, though it could definitely be an "in a later expansion" thing rather than a release one.
Actually yeah, I didn't think of monitor gama rolf. So unless Intrepid make objects just not render in certain lighting conditions players will find a way to see them, haha.
The OP was suggesting that it would be so dark that we would even need abilities to see. That is why it's getting repeated.
Saying it could be a bit darker than what was show isn't unreasonable, and thus far in this thread was not suggested, but you shouldn't be so sensitive about it.
Forums threads will turn into mosh pits at times. Just think about it like a New Yorker, throw a few jabs back. It's not a big deal. One thing about this group is even the vitriol has some substance and the debates center around game features instead of personal attacks like in other places.
In the end we'll all be battered and bruised by launch, but if we keep throwing enough good punches we might just wind up with a good game for once.
Personal thoughts though, for general areas the ambient light was great for day and night.
However, I do like the idea of, which was partly hinted at, that deepest parts of forests, ravines, caves, spaces between built structures to have a considerable difference in lighting than just open spaces.
Do like the idea, raised in another thread, for some additional variance to castle siege mood and even impact by having a night and day cycle that did not always align to the same time as a seige and thereby create the potential for different tactics, advantages, and disadvantages.
And then for daytime, well, not much beyond weather, and cloud effects making it vary just how dim / bright.
While I agree, that it's good when darkness during night is not annoyingly dark, this super bright like in the stream is also not necessary. It could be alot darker without being frustrating.
Also could give racial bonuses on how far you can see too aka night vision for elfs and crap human vision for example. I did like that about old EQ 1 where different races had better or worst vision at night.
Now there are 2 different takes:
1. How immersive, it’s dark and creepy like a real cave.
2. I’m being hit with ranged attacks and can’t see jack. This blows, I’m leaving.
Asmon was number 2, and I think a lot of players would feel the same.