R20: REALLY dark skys

There is a slider in the options that allow you to control how much of the target is highlighted. By default, it's turned all the way down. I had to turn mine up some because I couldn't notice it until I did. Might help you out a bit if you didn't try that yet.

 

This is a recurring complaint. :-(

You can turn on high dynamic range but then everything is too bright and washed-out during the day.

 

there is a tonemapping option in the video settings. It works pretty well.

 

In the game options under the section called 'Game' (if memory serves), there is still the option for the outline. It is a small slider right at the bottom of the list.

 

Thanks, Ravenclaw
I may give that a try, but I think SOTA just made me realize I'm no longer cut out for the daunting task of doing the same thing over and over and over again as this "Kickstarter" has done. Post wipes with no gold, no skills, no nothing?!?!?! If this is a test, open it up a bit if you know there is another wipe coming....c'mon guys, really!!! Not only do I feel I am going insane trying to level back to the point of being able to kill a wolf again, or for that matter, a rabbit; I find myself in the dark....literally, more often than I should be. I am cautiously optimistic that the communities (cough.....cough "Lord" Garriotts) vision may someday live up to all the expectations, but at this point I feel I am just chasing nostalgia and am over it.

R20 has finally made me see this.....thanks fellas.

Dread Lord Noob Sabot - UO Great Lakes - 97-2007

 

Part of not 'opening things up for testing' is that economic progression itself is being tested, which can only be tested by wiping and seeing how everyone progresses a few times. The Pre-Launch economy will wind up being used to populate the initial loot drops post-Launch, which is another reason to try to keep progression as natural as possible.
I suggest waiting for Launch to see the game in a more finalized state, if iterative testing and feedback isn't for you. They do tend to listen though, last release walking speed and random encounters on the overworld were adjusted a few times to specifically assist the speed of testing.
I have not experienced the darkness to be 'unplayable', for me it is beautiful. I do think there needs to be a little more ambient lighting inside houses though, to represent the 'reflective' quality of lighting in real life. At this time, lighting seems too directional, it only lights up things directly in the light-source's line of sight, when in reality light bounces and reflects filling up the corners of a room with a softer glow. (and when flames dance, its shadows should dance with it!)
They do remember your level from before each wipe, and give you double XP post-wipe up to your old experience level. So that's something.

 

We can gamma this and tone-map that all we want, which are marginally helpful. But the bottom line is that nights are too dark to play. Solution is for brighter nights, and/0r much shorter nights, and/or much brighter lights/torches/spells.

I no longer play at night, because basically, I can't play and still enjoy the game. All those beautiful scenes and graphics, and can't see a damn thing.

In UO, there was an option to turn off dark nights. Would be nice to have that in SOTA.

 

Absolutely, completely agree with Budner on this.

The nights are both too damn long and too damn dark. It is not fun to play or test. One of the people that I play with daily - the one who always finds a way to adapt to most anything - finally said that she just finds things to do around her RL house when it's night in Shroud. And she's probably the most "immersive" among us.

Not conducive to game testing - just plain ridiculous....

 

Turn on tone mapping in the video options, after turning everything else off, and turning that one: massive difference!!
I can now at least do stuff round town during the night now, and adventure during the day.

 

i like the realism of it however I agree that early testing is the wrong time for hurdles.

 

@Chris...please give us a gamma slider for R21

But yeah, gamma will allow us to normalize the darkness but that still doesn't mean the lighting/shaders are working as intended / optimized / polished / or even fully implemented. I wonder if they're even using the GI in Unity 5.

 

Let it be night, but let the moon shine or something.... This is silly.

 

I used to play at night, but I've tripped over the cat one too many times.

 

the thing about that is that the daytime sky is overblown with it on. the first couple of inches at the horizon are solid white. not worth keeping it turned off for, but if you're tweaking the skybox anyway...

 

@Chris
I've had it ON forever... The nights (in many areas, and certainly the overworld map around the NE and NW of Novia) are simply too dark.
Or, please, just take a night jaunt around - oh say - Deep Ravenswood for example - and see if you'd want to hunt/gather/harvest there at night.
Just sayin.......

 

I never turned tonemapping off but always felt that the nights were very dark. Especially on the overland map i had difficulties to not get lost.

 

I leave tonemapping on. What I don't get is that they don't seem to grasp that the reason this is a recurring complaint is because its a big problem. Because a some people like it super dark and are VERY vocal about it. So the wind has blown. Now that the rest of us are fed up, they just don't seem to understand why its an issue. Guys you need to listen up. The days are too short and the nights are too dark. We arnt saying make them like daylight. We want the effect of it being dark but we need to be able to see to get around and what you have done, though slightly better: Still... Just... Isn't.... Cutting... It. We know you have a lot on your plates and though you do listen on so many other things, its like you have decided not to on this. Its just puzzling.

 

I don't agree with the 'shorten the nights' request. If nights are adjusted visually to be playable, then why would the nights need to be shorter? From a gameplay perspective I hope nights are not shortened, because there will be many things (monsters/resources/etc) we can only do at night.. even one entire skill tree is based specifically on playing at night (the moon tree), so it seems to me that the game is being created around pretty equal amounts of day and night gameplay.

Look at what Chris said up above, they created a task for the gamma slider, and a lot of the lighting issues will be corrected naturally as the game is 'polished'. I think this is evidence that they are listening to feedback. Although the nights seem fine for some people (like me), let's see if the nights become more playable after the changes. Obviously if you have a light spell or a torch in hand, you should be able to see the ground you're walking on. I think it's odd some people say they can't see where they're going, but this is Pre-Alpha and if i can see fine and others can't, perhaps it is a bug. *Please post screenshots in the bug forum so they can see exactly how the lighting isn't working properly and fix it!*