re darkness in game

I noticed that the general darkness in game was lifted a few weeks ago and that this is not r45 specific; that said, I did enjoy the previous darkness in the game much more than what we have now.

 

you want it.... darker?

 

The only times the game is really dark for me is when there is little or no moonlight or when I'm in an underground maze.

Prefer it this way since the old extreme darkness heavily impacted our POT at night, given the limited lighting you could placd on village and row lots.

At least our crafting garden now has more than enough light to go around. I had to resort to the light spell previously - no one wants to craft in the dark.

 

This is current night time at Ulfheim w/ out any light sources:



And this is w/ a light source:



That's a lot of light in the nights darkness on the first one that has no light source; too much for me. And the second one where there is a light source, what's the point as there was so much light before?

Maybe it is the outside nights (as opposed to the interior areas which are darker), but the game seems too bright and the idea of a night is more of a pretend thing or a joke; it was more challenging before.

 

Maybe it's the difference between Clouds/Moon light vs. Clear Sky/Moon light?

 

Ok so this was bugging me, since I looked at your screenshots @fonsvitae and thought it looked like you just had your gamma turned up or something since my experience was so different.

So i hopped on and did a little test and found that the issue is not that its too light or too dark, its both!

The real problem is that it's not consistent among all the zones, and some are lit up like a cloudy day and some are so black you cant see a rabbit in front of you. I checked a few random places along my path from brit up to ulfheim and found them to be mostly highly lit, as well as the overworld in that area being well lit.

Then i ran down and hopped over to the hidden vale and noticed immediately that the overworld was darker. I hopped into a few different scenes there and they are all darker than the mainland ones.

These were all checked within minutes of each other just now, on the same in-game night, and with the same sky conditions (clear sky, stars moon etc.) so the lighting SHOULD be similar in all of them.

Here's what I saw:

East Sanctus Forest

Spoiler

Brekken Bay

Spoiler

Ulfheim

Spoiler

Novia Overland Map

Spoiler

Hidden Vale Overland Map

Spoiler

West Ravenswood

Spoiler

Kingsroad

Spoiler

South Ravenswood

Spoiler

Note that it is not just a matter of forest areas being darker either, as you can see on the kingsroad screenshot that everything is just shaded more heavily. Also if you look at the shots of the bright zones around Ulfheim and look between the trees you can see that areas are illuminated more brightly in between and underneat the trees, whereas in the shots of the hidden vale zones, the light doesnt spread at all under the trees and everything is black shadows.

The screenshot of south Ravenswood in particular, it doesnt show in the shot but I am standing on the road and above is a large gap to the sky yet still the whole road and everything around it is dark, there is no light coming down from the sky.

So it seems that its not a matter of 'too dark' or 'too light' but rather one of inconsistency.

 

Here are some more embarrassingly lit up areas on a cloudy evening w/ no light sources being used...

Here is the overworld in Novia:



And here is Ulfheim, again:



I remember when a light source was necessary on the overland map; now?

And in Ulfheim there is no need for a light source at night nowadays provided one doesn't face the border walls of trees, which do have an impenetrable darkness. The rest of the zone is lit bright as a night can be... even in these cloudy conditions.

Yes, you are correct that there exists inconsistency in application but that is not the only issue. There is also an assumption that one of these two (lighter or darker) will be delivered game wide; I suspect the designers are going to go lighter, as they have in Novia, being that this was a move to appease complaints re darkness. I make these posts to show that this lighter Novia is imho is an embarrassment which dilutes challenge and overall experience.

Btw, thanks for doing the legwork and checking the diff zones and posting your findings.

 

Whenever the subject is brought up I have to sigh and shake my head...



The amount of darkness (like many aspects of this game) is a nuisance. I don't care if I can't see in the distance or even if I can't see 10 meters away; I want to see my immediate area (at least 2 meters).

Learn from Diablo, a game from 1996, and add a god damned light radius!

Nothing has changed...

 

one of you posting screenshots has shadows on and the other doesn't. that'll make things a bit variable.

 

Yeah forgot to say for reference im on highest possible graphics settings for everything.

I agree with the OP that places like Ulfheim are too light where it seems the light from the sky ignores anything that should block it like clumps of trees.

The dark spots where it's the opposite are too dark. I would prefer to see something in the middle of the 2 regions myself.