Overwhelming darkness at midnight

If implemented right low lighting at night will be great for roleplaying. I hope compromises don't easy it mode too much. Contrast and camera contribute a lot to the playability of ultra darkness of fearfull DOOM!

 

I have to agree that the low lighting is too much. Even with my video setting at maximum brightness and during a full moon on a clear night, I still cant see any detail. It's like looking at a molten blob of licorice thru a microscope. If you cant see at all at night, I would consider this a major flaw. Mood lighting is great, but hard to force on users when the wide variety of video cards and monitors creates such a wide range of lighting. I would rather be able to see at night even if it means giving up mood lighting than than only be able to play 50% of the time when its daylight.

 

I also can't see anything @DarkStarr @Chris can you please take a look?

 

We're opening a whole bag of worms if we're going with the idea that a skill or two is enough to excuse a very important issue.

 

Except if you're way out in the country and it's a full moon or even close, it's actually pretty light out.

 

Even on a night with low to no moonlight, there's plenty of starlight... As one who lives in the country... And if you look at Novia's sky, there are multiple moons. Unless there was a major storm, I fail to see how it would *ever* be as dark as it is currently in-game.

 

When I'm out in the country I can see better outside at night than when I'm home in the city.

Pitch blackness outside at night isn't realistic or fun.

 

I've noticed it depends some on the scenes as well. Some are better at night than others, so that may be why some people aren't understanding the problem.

 

Hate the extra darkness. I have brightness and anything else maxed to make it possible to see and I still have trouble. Now with light nerfed again(not sure why they keep trying to sneak this in) Knights cloak light spell and can barely see. If you really like it dark then lower brightness all the way down. Like others have said(including guildies) with so many moons such utter darkness isn't very realistic. Oppressive darkness is NOT FUN. This game is supposed to be fun. HATE THE DARKNESS. If you are going to FORCE such utter darkness on us at LEAST make the brightness slider give us more light so that those of us who need to see can actually play this game. To make it horrifically dark like this to appease a few people is hardly conducive to making this game playable and enjoyable.

 

The truth is that the devs are playing on equipment that does not show the darkness most of us see. Proof is the development postings on various underground scenes. Even here on the forum, you can barely make out all the art work in these static pictures. I don't know what the answer is, but until they look at their computers and wonder if everyone else sees what they do, there is no hope. I really cannot believe that an artist that is showing off their work here on the forums would be satisfied to know that most who look at the pics can only see 50% or less of what they are trying to show. A work-around that I use is to reset my video card brightness right before logging on. Unfortunately it is a hassle, but I have gotten used to it and can play at all hours. For sure, setting your brightness every time you play is much less irritating than waiting for one scene change.

 

@DarkStarr @Chris
Some people love the darkness of nights, others are less enthused.

From the standpoint of someone who spends 90% of their time fighting mobs, the extra darkness is not welcomed.

Night can still be night- but like it was prior to these recent changes.

My brightness has been cranked to maximum since prior to wipe, in order for me to continue fighting all night long in wooded scenes as long as I also used my Light skill ( and my Knights cloak didn't hurt either).

This latest attempt at reaching a common ground on degree of "darkness" acceptable is very, very close to being "unacceptable" to those of us who fight at night.

Please reconsider the current "state" of mid-night darkness Portalarium.
Remember, many of us don't spend all our time in town or in our homes - so darkness is much less appreciated than it is by others...............

 

Light enough that you can see your own moon shadow and walk without a flashlight, and that is with a single moon that does not even come near the size of the fantasy moons in this game. Realism would account for all the moons in the sky and if there is any sky cover. The forest with no moons on a dark and stormy night, or one with magical darkness should absolutely require a torch.

Skyrim mods also like to pretend to be hardcore by darkening the night, and it completely breaks immersion when their fantasy sky is often very colorful and bright. There is a time and place for darkness.

 

I actually do not have the problems some of you are talking about. Visibility during night is on both of my PCs suitable. Yes it is indeed darker than before but I do not see it as a problem…actually I do not even use light spells most of the time even in this darker novia…but fiddling on the monitor is never a good solution and no one should try that.
But actually I really think the monitors are the problem as some described even with maximized brightness they couldn’t see much and that could be in my opinion evidence that the monitor simply cannot display the color gradation of the dark night and mixing some more white into the picture will not change that.

And regarding reality and the light of moons and stars...well, you are assuming that the celestial bodies will be like the ones we know but actually the moons we can see over novia are much darker than e.g. our earth’s moon. Our moon is mostly light grey and therefore reflecting a lot of light but the main moon of novia is broken with a lot of dark cracks and will reflect that way a lot less light. Also we do not know the intensity of the novia sun...maybe the sun isn’t as bright as our sun. Same is true for the stars in the sky maybe novia is even more outside of the galaxy than earth and this way the starry sky isn’t as bright.
In my opinion it could be realistic that the night is darker than on earth if the condition on novia are different.

 

Just to be clear, I agree that adjusting the monitor is a bad choice and will not work well anyway. In my previous post I was talking about adjusting the video settings on the graphics card. In my case, right clicking on the desktop brings up the Nvidea settings page. On that page I click on "display" and on the resulting page adjust the brightness slider. In my case normal brightness is at 60. I slide it to 77 right before logging on. That page also allows for gamma and contrast changes, but I don't have to change those. I fudge the saturation a bit at times because that IMO is overdone in our game but that is another OP.

 

Especially the cheaper monitors are terrible for rendering dark scenes. Deep forrests should be very dark at night even with moon out. Plains should be well lit even on moonless night unless there are clouds. Dungeonds should be pitch black and even Night Vision should not help you there, unless there are light sources. I would wish for a game where light was vital resource, torches and lanterns consumables you better take with you. Light spells costing you some reagents and having varying degrees of duration and area of effect... would probably work better in first person game, but still. The night and darkness have so much gameplay potential that is being overlooked.

 

Every time the light gets adjusted it seems like there is a "too dark"/"too bright" thread. I don't mind the dark, especially since I can keep the light spell glyph on my screen at all times now. Although it is problematic in stealth, night vision makes me slightly queasy.

 

It would be nice if the darkness would change according to the weather and moon phases.

 

You are overeaching here to justify the feature as being realistic. It is not realistic. We are humans in the game lore and our eyes are non-linear devices that adjust so that white is the brightest thing we see. This is why our moon is bright white at night, but barely visible dull gray during the day. It is why you can see even in only starlight, even though starlight is magnitudes lower than moonlight. We do lose saturated color vision, but we do not lose the ability to see. We should only see dark where there is no light for our eyes to adjust to it being white.

You can achieve the same hardcore mode of 'DERP I should have brought a torch or spell' by making it dark in the overcast dark magical forest or underground where nobody lives that needs light to see. In fact it is more hardcore to make that happen some of the time rather than all the time, because it becomes easier to catch people unprepared when the weather was fine when they left the house.

 

This is something that should be "fixable" by using the in-game brightness settings by a player for preference/need.

My eyes are sensitive to bright, so I am the person that has darkened my brightness settings on my monitor and graphics card for all other use of my computer. I am NOT going to change those settings for one game, even if I spend a lot of time playing that game.

I find that it is hard to play this game now during the "night phases". Now from Evening to Late Night I have trouble navigating the pot where my home is, it is very difficult to decorate my lot without 4 lights and the light spell by me, and seeing details on the overland map at night so I can get from point A to point B without getting lost.

This has made it difficult for me to play the game and it is unacceptable that I should have to change system settings outside of the game just for when I play this game.

 

I like the requirement of having some external light source to see well at midnight. I also agree that the celestial bodies should provide a bit more light to our surroundings in most cases.