Hello everyone,
just want to point out that shortening night duration is not that obvious for me. I'm new to the game (lvl 10) but the night moments were the most appealing for me so far. It creates an atmosphere of mysteries and danger (going to mistcrawlers zone at night was very scary, seing a strange veiled shape poping in the horizon was disturbing), it suggests that surnatural paralel world has more gates/access to our world when the sun is down. I really like this feeling. Also, the fact the some quests are night-related is very nice.
Also, night time combines well with the 'light and shadow' concept of the game. I wonder if pulling out a torch at night could be more than just cosmetic/quality of life feature : bringing light into darkness could create an interaction/response from surrounding environement like for e.g drive away creatures that were born and breed in darkness, trigger an event because you brought light in the shadow at a specific location, perk abilities against shadow creatures if there is like a ground torch in the range (like 'pls smile, i'm using my Flashing Blow and you're shadow armor is being dislocated)... . I don't have much imagination but there is a lot of cool ideas with the interaction light/shadow.
Personal opinion is that zones have less flavor during daylight because the colour palette is quite flat and environnements are very 'forest-ish'. Forest is amazing at nightime (gives scary primal feeling) but during daylight its more motoneous, and when you have seen a forest you have seen them all.
Last thing is about performance issue, i have an average-good setup and struggled to find the settings that gives me smooth feeling (=> all volumetrics, vegetation.. on low, overrall quality on balanced, and distance view set to 60%, shadow 40%). Anyway, at night-time I have the feeling that the game runs smoother, its a more pleasant experience with less stutterings.