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Feedback yeah.. its dark.

is this feedback?

darbok

New Member
I'm sure I'm not the target audience as I'm almost 50. Trying to pick out things in that extreme dark is difficult and frustrating and not fun. The thing is night is just too dark and/or too long, maybe if one was changed. I played this weekend for the first time and it felt like it was dark a lot more then it was light. I hear that's not the case but it seemed dark a lot. So I get the whole real dark nights is a throw back to Everquest, I remember it back in the day. MMOs that came after it were less enthusiastic about that particular aspect for a reason. It's not a great nostalgia to go back to. The game is great otherwise but the frustration with that cause me to just stop for the weekend. I get this has possibly been debated more then once, but feedback is feedback.
 
It has been brightened up a lot from what it is use to be. If you were playing on a night where they were no moon it will be much darker than normal.
 
It has been brightened up a lot from what it is use to be. If you were playing on a night where they were no moon it will be much darker than normal.
Umm no, its always dark pretty much every night.
Also saying "oh it used to be darker" is not a help either.
 
Umm no, its always dark pretty much every night.
Also saying "oh it used to be darker" is not a help either.
The moon makes a huge difference for me. I agree no moon nights can be painfully dark sometimes. And it “use to be darker” until a lot of feedback was giving about the night until we got to where we are now which most people felt was a good balance.
 
You can probably get around the dark to a degree with graphics settings (in and out of game settings) + you definitely want to be viewing your monitor at the right angle and distance.

Other than that, the darkness really gives you a reason to use ground torches and adds worth to the provisioner. Torches and Lanters (so worth the 10 silver) are fun, but you can't fight while holding one.

The only problem is that you have but 4 quick slots to access items and very limited bag space. I never tried to use items like pots or torches directly from my bag, but it probably works. It's just that when you want to have a food, a tea, hp potion, smelling salts, kunai, torches, etc etc all accessible and neatly tucked away.... well you can't.

I didn't have much time to really learn the various professions and all the items in the game to come up with a big-picture plan, but if I had to wager a guess...

Torches (at least at night), HP pots, Smelling salts, and Kunai would be the 4 most important items to have on quick access. Food only needs to be used once in awhile and can be kept in your bag or simply at camp/stash and eat a good meal before leaving for adventure, maybe bringing one more of each re-up with you and then having bag space back once used or cheap to discard. Just be wary of carrying too much in your bags into an adventure, as being unable to recover your bag means you lose it!
 
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You can probably get around the dark to a degree with graphics settings + you definitely want to be viewing your monitor at the right angle and distance.

Other than that, the darkness really gives you a reason to use ground torches and adds worth to the provisioner.

The only problem is that you have but 4 quick slots to access items and very limited bag space. I never tried to use items like pots or torches directly from my bag, but it probably works. It's just that when you want to have a food, a tea, hp potion, smelling salts, kunai, torches, etc etc all accessible and neatly tucked away.... well you can't.
Torches are always available by hitting “T”. They do not take up any bag space or ability bar slots.
 
Those and potions can be consumed from your bag last time I used them.
Yep, but then it becomes a question of which items should be prioritized on your bar for quick access vs what's left in your bag for slow access and risk of loss in the event you can't recover bag. I think since food items aren't needed as often or in an emergency, they can be in the bag. As a tank, I really depend on Kunai for pulling mobs carefully. Ground torches kinda need a spot and also HP pots + Smelling salts are super important in a pinch. I don't know what other items there are, specifically consumables.

Since the topic is about seeing in the dark and being able to see is VERY important, I'm suggesting that you as a solo (to the OP) or at least one person in the group keeps a stack of ground torches on their bar for ease of access and to give some light through the dark of night.
 
Ground Torches are not useful to most people, they cost resources and take extra time to place.
Why are they not useful? Because you can only see like 15m of light with them, you move away far to often for them to be effective. Refreshing them often sucks.

Hand torch/lantern is also not very useful. Being it's free at least you can whip it out anytime you want but the range isn't even long enough to see a mob in from of you before it aggros. Also these things do not help with travel whatsoever, as this game has chosen to use only landmarks to see where the freak you going.

Saying "Oh it's not as dark with the moon" means you likely play with your gamma high on your monitor and the minor change in lighting doesnt effect you as much as it does others. Plus these people who say this already really like the darkness.

Try this, try streaming the game, when they can't even see what you are doing 1/2 of the game where you get asked over and over that they can't see anything and why, you will notice it a lot more.

Me I'm tired of talking about it, it's likely the most brought up topic after the compass and dot on the map. So what I do is every hour, I turn my gamma up to 2.3 so I can see just fine. Then when its light out I turn it right back down to normal (1.0).
This is a silly fix but the feedback is here, a few people saying "oh but its so immersive".
 
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Me I'm tired of talking about it, it's likely the most brought up topic after the compass and dot on the map. So what I do is every hour, I turn my gamma up to 2.3 so I can see just fine. Then when its light out I turn it right back down to normal (1.0).
This is a silly fix but the feedback is here, the devs are choosing to go with their "vision" with a few people saying "oh but its so immersive".
It often seems as though you don't read our responses. Not once have I said that we are sticking with pitch black nights; in fact, I have said the opposite. Numerous times I have mentioned that pitch black nights are not fun and it is something we are working on improving (even in this very thread) with the new skybox tech.
 
It often seems as though you don't read our responses. Not once have I said that we are sticking with pitch black nights; in fact, I have said the opposite. Numerous times I have mentioned that pitch black nights are not fun and it is something we are working on improving (even in this very thread) with the new skybox tech.

Updated it for you. =P
 
The brightness difference between a full moon and non-full moon is pretty considerable. Adjusting the night is something we are working on and should have ready in a few weeks.
It's good to hear you guys will be adjusting the light levels. I do like nights to be dark, but I think it might be too much at the moment.

It honestly might not be a bad idea to add some additional light fixtures to the newbie woods, just to ensure that players' first experiences with the game aren't in extreme darkness.
 
@Undone a few idea-rs

You could add a form of inactive ember stone to the game environment (not a harvested crafting or otherwise usable resource) that absorbs sunlight in the daytime and releases it at night, a non-destructible environment enhancer. Add them to the game world like trees or have trees sprouting out of some of them and the entire tree glows faintly.

Something to do with lore and the main 'ember' theme of the game + work toward solving the problem of difficult night-time navigation. Certain points of interest could contain a higher density and/or variety of these enhancements to grab players' attention to the area as well as facilitate night-time combat.

I like that guarded roads have the lanterns hanging along them. Maybe there could be a few watchtowers with signal fires lit on top of them for night time navigation or ground-level guard camps with a bonfire. Each one could have a sort of framework structure around in varying shapes, animals, or other symbols to help the player identify where they are or at least which one they are looking at as opposed to them all looking the same.

Fireflies are also great, perhaps a smaller version of them that is non-combat/inactive and roams around at night illuminating tiny areas around them. Swarms of them hovering half a meter above ground level would be effective but may cause a performance hit.

There could be various regionally based sources of light in addition to reducing the overall darkness in most places while intentionally leaving some areas quite dark.

Who says we are limited to only one moon and sun? Maybe there is an ember-star that is visible from one side of the planet at 'night' that isn't nearly as luminous as the 'day' star. Hard to say without knowing the physics of the world we play on :p

Moonstone.

Enchanted/special materials crafted helmet, necklace, other equipment items intended to provide a hands-free glow or forward light source for the player.

I suppose you could make some of these resources harvestable and only at night, that would actually be interesting. You already have the tech for adjusting spawn tables of mobs based on time, so how about resources? Could make it so they are only visible or spawn at night.

I mentioned elsewhere the idea of an adventuring/survivalist profession which would include camping, perhaps higher tiers of the skill offer more amenities around camp, one of which would be a larger fire providing more light to the surrounding area (and a faster recovery rate of battle fatigue, hp/stam, more crafting options, repair, etc). I think having such a profession and more total trade skills while holding the character limit per account constant would go a long way toward combatting 'one player does allts' when it comes to professions (one player doing every skill across a number of alt characters). Naturally this profession would pair well with forestry!

Variety and unique biomes are fun.
 
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