Night Vision is too effective

meteors work

 

Doesn't anyone fight at night ?
I don't think it's "too effective" by any means.

 

Really like this thought! When the moon is out, night vision is reasonable. Then we're not bothered too much about day/night cycle. But lets make the dungeons dark and scary.

 

I tried it out after reading this thread and I don't see anything wrong with it. Can't we worry about something else? Oh well if you must

 

@Stundorn

Yea, well, I do think it makes some sense for Moon Magic to work well underground if we're talking about the stealth aspects of the school that sync well with darkness, even though the celestial aspects of the school don't make as much sense underground.

On the subject, I still have two hopes that well help the skill tree,

- Darkness and cover play a strong role in stealth and aggro, so monsters are following the same rules as players and can't see you walking around in pitch blackness. Even in darkness, there is a chance to be noticed though through other cues like noise, which is why skills like "Silent Movement" make sense. Some monsters would be exempted for various reasons like night sight. This would benefit of course stealth skills in the Subterfuge tree and in the Moon tree.

- Moon skills be more strongly effected by celestial events and astrology than other forms of magic, especially those like Meteor Shower. Like, seeing major celestial events increase the power of Meteor Shower severalfold.

 

Moon magic works fine underground (even meteor shower) but night vision won't lift the darkness without a light source present.

I like the idea of the Moon having an effect on night vision.

 

I think Night Vision works fine. Instead of breaking it, I think they should find ways to improve other light sources.

 

Over the past year or two, one of the most common complaints with SOTA was that it was too dark at night. I don't know how many posts/threads were made about how dark it is.

Now that Night Vision finally works well enough to see in the dark, I don't want to see it made less effective at all! This will help anyone who feels the night time is too dark, with tradeoffs (monochrome scenery and harder to see resource nodes). I don't think it's too powerful, I think it's just right.

For one thing, it is a Moon Magic tree spell. By definition, these are supposed to be better when the moon is on the horizon. Therefore, when the sun is down and it's dark, it SHOULD BE better than the light spell at helping see in the dark... just like Light Magic tree spells are better during the day.

I'd say leave it alone, but I agree with others that increasing the skill should also add in additional colors to the spectrum to make it even better. Give us a reason to put points into it besides extended duration. At Level 20 (the minimum you need to get lower tier spells) it already lasts about 15 minutes so not a real need to raise it above 20 except maybe for attunement.

To be fair, I think the Light Spell in Sun Magic tree should also increase in brightness and/or range with skill increases and not just the duration of that one.

 

I believe this is the thing that could use an improvement. In fact, two light sources could use an improvement.
Currently, the three primary means of seeing in the dark are:
Torch: Costs money (however cheap), occupies a precious hand slot, depletes gradually but quickly enough that it can be a bother.
Light: Used at will (even in battle on the Utility bar), no fizzle, lasts "long enough" at Level 20, illuminates roughly the same radius as the Torch
Night Vision: Used at will (even in battle), lasts much longer compared to Light, makes everything perfectly visible (except it's all green)
Torch and Light step on each other's toes, they perform the same task, but one is effectively free to use (even if you don't use Sun magic, a Level 1 Light is superior to a Torch).

Rather than nerf Night Vision, the two things that could use a tuneup are the Torch and Light.
Torch could gain a whole set of crafted torch types. From a simple wooden stick that could be made with scraps, to an array of metal bars with a sconce on the end, unlimited light but they degrade from another use.
Allow for these sturdy metal Torches to double as a bludgeon/fire weapon. Rather than taking up a precious offhand slot only for light, a battle-ready Torch could be great for dual wielders.

Light could have an alternative mode of use - you can have it hover over your head as usual, or you can cast it into the distance.
This will differentiate it from the Torch (which gets both a combat and crafting presence) and give it a unique utility of distant point illumination.

Night Vision could get a bit of love, too. As its Glyph count improves, higher level Night Vision could go from that washed out green to more clear color recognition, until X4 or X5 makes pitch black environments look almost as clear as day.
Give NV and Light a reason to be leveled above 20.
Something like that.

 

Night Vision is too effective only if you compare it to the little circle of light in the sun line, which ends up just making one stand out more and unable to hide.
Light(sun), seems to be more of a role playing thing then have actual utility.

 

I think the duration of Night Vision is too long. The game seems to be in perpetual night time and with a long duration on Night Vision, I sometimes miss the daylight entirely. I have grown so sick of seeing everything in Night Vision, I have gone to enchanting my armor with Moonlight, and now that is my primary light source at night. I would be happy if Moonlight had a bit of a greater range, or if you could cast the Light spell on objects or make it stationary so you could light up more of an area. I have not tried the Sunlight enchantment yet as the armor I wanted to use it on does not allow for gems.

 

Now this is what I'm talking about! Excellent ideas here!

 

Torch of Jerik already exists in the game and is a bludgeon.

And honestly, people wielding torches should be able to do fire damage with them, but I really doubt it will lead any people to use torches... much less encourage the kind of class differentiation you'd expect with non-mages using torches. I would continue using a low-level Light spell, and a low-level Flame Fist spell, because its easier for me to use and cheaper for me to use, and the fire magic also lets me branch out to Ignite Weapon. Players can also use Ignite Weapon on their bludgeon, too. But as for a bludgeon in my off-hand, me, I can always use my shield, which has stun/knockback skills like Shield Bash and Charge. I have no idea why I should prefer swapping my shield for a torch, and unlearning Light, Flame Fist.

Light would also be better if it improved with level, too, btw. Extensions of the Light spell will likely come with combos, including things I hope like being able to fire a Light spell like an arrow, or being able to drop falling Light spells down a dark pit in a dungeon to illuminate it. That will all be cool.

Yet, if Night Vision makes everything clearly visible, it will always be better. I really like the look of the new Night Vision spell during the night btw; its a little less impressive during the day, but that's as you'd expect.

I guess I'm saying that there's a lot that can be done and added to the different light sources that will be cool, but avoiding putting limits on players isn't going to be helpful at all to balancing them in the game to the point they have clear trade-offs. The carrots-only approach simply won't work, if there are plenty alternatives that all work fine, people will just go with what's easiest.

 

I was thinking about this again....

I think Night Vision looks really great in the dark actually, it looks less impressive in full daylight. There are some suggestions that players get blinded by light sources. How about just if there's a way to fade out the Night Vision filter the more light there is around the player ? Would that possibly work well ?

So lets say you're in pitch blackness and you have perfect Night Vision, but then braziers or torches half light up the room, and the Night Vision filter fades out 50%. Then more are lit so the room appears to have full daylight, and it fades out 100%.

The explanation would be that your eyes adjust between day vision and night vision.

(Btw, guys, part of the reason Night Vision has a green filter is because you pick up UV and can see otherwise invisible objects in the game, which appear in a greenish tint)

 

How long have you been using the Night Sight skill?

Ive been using it since it existed. Its one of my favorite skills in the game, but its not as all-around useful as you think. You lose visual cues in a lot of areas (in a way that makes sense / is immersive), you also have a harder time finding certain resources (torches / mining helmet / light spell more effective there), etc.

Pls dont nerf this skill. its come a long way. it still needs more work. I level it up for RP only, but as far as the in game benefit is concerned, see no point to leveling skill in it. So if anything, reduce the luminescence / add a lot more darkness around the edges at lower level, and then let advancing the skill from 40-80 make it as luminescent as it is now. This skill used to be a lot worse, recent changes made it really viable to use now, so I cant imagine having > 80 skill in it resulting in less clarity from it when dark.

As far as RP is concerned, it would make sense that having a decent investment in the skill (>= 80) would make it more effective than light-to-little investment (<= 40). My avatar isnt exactly "magical," but I use skills like Night Sight to RP having innate traits or feats from other aspects of my character's physique.

 

@Black Tortoise

Yea, I agree and the same thing can be done with Light where the more you level it up the brighter it is. I think people are talking new Night Vision filter which is a bit better than it used to be though and where you can see blues and oranges.

My view is that it shouldn't be nerfed, in fact I wouldn't mind if it were improved even still. But at the same time we wouldn't even have to worry about nerfing this or that if we had things like reagent reqs which created a trade-off for using these skills. So if Light required certain reagents, and so an associated cost, for players who were not playing as Sun Mages (with staffs, wands, etc.), then we wouldn't even be asking questions like "Is Light too good compared to torches?" etc, or in this case, "Is Night Vision too good compared to Light?"

The devs could then could afford to just make them as effective and enjoyable as possible, and not worry about the balance so much.

 

I like it the way it is.

 

Same.

 

Ya'll are crazy. Night vision is awful. I don't know how anyone can play the game with Night Vision on.

 

I don't play the game with night vision on but there is a maze that you need to put on night vision to see the borders. It does have its uses. It looks different than when it was first implemented, imo better than it was. Anyway lighting is still getting work done on it so I'm sure feedback is appreciated.