A light in the dark...

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?

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Laethus

It seems like Intrepid plan to include truly "dark" caves that require either item or abilities to traverse. This can be seen in one of the Mage archytype videos (found here: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Mage#:~:text=Mage is an archetype in,ask a Mage to help.)
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.

Archaeon

I think good usage of 'night' can add a lot to an atmosphere in any game. Tying it to game mechanics in an MMO? I'm not saying it can't be done, just that I haven't seen it done effectively

.

Also Massive + Complex Lighting doesn't sound like a good time for anyone's PC lol!

Hurf Derfman

Not gonna lie, in atmospheric games like Resident Evil and Witcher, I turn the brightness up three clicks past whatever the recommended setting is.

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.

Merek

Yeah, anything that makes the game more immersive and moves it away from themeparkin', I'm all for.

Hurf Derfman wrote: »

Not gonna lie, in atmospheric games like Resident Evil and Witcher, I turn the brightness up three clicks past whatever the recommended setting is.

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.

lunarsky

I am in favor of day/night cycles and weather/seasonal changes but I think it would get annoying to have to sacrifice a weapon every night cycle just to see in your a nonmagic class or a class without a spell for such a thing. Especially if days cycle through pretty quickly during a gaming session. It would lower your battle effectiveness for X% of your time playing and if you use a 2H weapon it would be useless during a significant portion of your time playing. That's simply not fun imo. More immersive sure, but not fun.

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.

Hystorix

I just assumed it would have a day/night cycle ... I hope they don’t forget

DioTheHero

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Environments#Day_and_night_cycle

There is a day/night cycle in Ashes of Creation.[30]

Different monsters will spawn at different times.[31]
NPCs and mobs may be awake at different times of the day.[30]
Different emissive effects may be more prevalent on night creatures.[30]
...
Darkness as an environmental obstacle is being considered as part of the game mechanics.[34]

How deeply we take this though is really going to come down to how much fun it actually is, which we’re still in the process of discovering. As long as we can nail some interesting mechanics, and it’s not more frustrating than fun, make sure you bring your torch.

Whatever class you're playing, it's not going to suddenly become broken because you have to switch from a 2H to a 1H--Intrepid are not designing skills that way. As for bow (primary) users, you'll probably have some Nightvision skill to offset darkness's effects, if there even are any.

maouw

Laethus wrote: »

It seems like Intrepid plan to include truly "dark" caves that require either item or abilities to traverse. This can be seen in one of the Mage archytype videos (found here: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Mage#:~:text=Mage is an archetype in,ask a Mage to help.)
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 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:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5YFb-S9ublQ

PlagueMonk

While I can't relate to some of the other games mentioned above, I do know that the nights in DAoC were DARK. It was great (and sometimes annoying) that if you didn't bring a torch with you, you would be stumbling around, just like in real life.

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!

Khronus

For "instanced" dungeons and raids, I think a really cool mechanic would be hard mode = Night raid.

Kneczhevo

Sitting in my tent for four hours, waiting for daylight, was not fun and a waste of game time.

Did Azeroth go dark with night? I never noticed.

CROW3

Kneczhevo wrote: »

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.

neuroguy

Diocles wrote: »

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Environments#Day_and_night_cycle

There is a day/night cycle in Ashes of Creation.[30]

Different monsters will spawn at different times.[31]
NPCs and mobs may be awake at different times of the day.[30]
Different emissive effects may be more prevalent on night creatures.[30]
...
Darkness as an environmental obstacle is being considered as part of the game mechanics.[34]

How deeply we take this though is really going to come down to how much fun it actually is, which we’re still in the process of discovering. As long as we can nail some interesting mechanics, and it’s not more frustrating than fun, make sure you bring your torch.

Whatever class you're playing, it's not going to suddenly become broken because you have to switch from a 2H to a 1H--Intrepid are not designing skills that way. As for bow (primary) users, you'll probably have some Nightvision skill to offset darkness's effects, if there even are any.

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.

Hurf Derfman

Kneczhevo wrote: »

Sitting in my tent for four hours, waiting for daylight, was not fun and a waste of game time.

Did Azeroth go dark with night? I never noticed.

It was originally much darker at night. They literally nerfed night.

Hurf Derfman

Since mage light is a thing Tunlar should have enhanced night vision. Maybe the Dünir as well?

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.

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