The game is too dark
Siege
Join Date: 2016-07-07 Member: 219769Members
Join Date: 2016-07-07 Member: 219769Members
Is there a particular reason why it gets pitch black at night? Is that normal? I assume that's deliberate and not a display bug.
It was a little much for the floating island. You have bioluminescent flora all around and a brightly lit moon overhead and I can't see my hand in front of my face.
It might be realistic for the depths but I don't find it particularly engaging or fun, especially considering the lack of navigation aids. The Seamoth can be upgraded with a sonar scanner but the Cyclops doesn't even have that limited workaround. The lights on the vehicles don't seem to provide much illumination, the Cyclops moreso than the Seamoth. I think the Cyclops could use a light angled down so you can see the ground better while driving. In addition you could add some extra vision modes like infrared, etc or perhaps even a heads up display on the vehicle view screens that has a terrain overlay. Perhaps you could also have fragments and other interesting pieces of loot throw off a flash of reflected light when the vehicle lights illuminate them.
I would prefer to simply increase visibility settings though. As it stands my enthusiasm for the game is greatly reduced. The point is exploration and I can't see what I'm exploring. At times I can't even tell if I'm moving or not. I have never enjoyed games with such limited visibility mechanics. I simply don't find playing blind to be an enjoyable experience.
It was a little much for the floating island. You have bioluminescent flora all around and a brightly lit moon overhead and I can't see my hand in front of my face.
It might be realistic for the depths but I don't find it particularly engaging or fun, especially considering the lack of navigation aids. The Seamoth can be upgraded with a sonar scanner but the Cyclops doesn't even have that limited workaround. The lights on the vehicles don't seem to provide much illumination, the Cyclops moreso than the Seamoth. I think the Cyclops could use a light angled down so you can see the ground better while driving. In addition you could add some extra vision modes like infrared, etc or perhaps even a heads up display on the vehicle view screens that has a terrain overlay. Perhaps you could also have fragments and other interesting pieces of loot throw off a flash of reflected light when the vehicle lights illuminate them.
I would prefer to simply increase visibility settings though. As it stands my enthusiasm for the game is greatly reduced. The point is exploration and I can't see what I'm exploring. At times I can't even tell if I'm moving or not. I have never enjoyed games with such limited visibility mechanics. I simply don't find playing blind to be an enjoyable experience.
Comments
You can craft a flashlight that allows you to see better
The Seaglide also have an integrated light that you can use both inside and outside of the water
Theres the Led Lights you can use as a portable lantern with you
Theres the Flares that you can use in the deep sea that makes all the surrounding redd'ish and amazing
Theres the Floodlights you can use for around seabases for better lighting (its the lightsource i use the less personally, but its there)
I do agree that the pitch black'ness is intentionnal to give off the feeling of being alone on this planet, in the darkness and helpless .... at first, then you get all those pieces of tech to help you feel less helpless. You simply need to take advantage of them all.
Personally, i think the level of darkness in the game is perfect and i love it. Altho i would agree that it could be too much for others and they could maybe add a way to adjust the darkness level for night maybe but in my opinion doing so would ruin the experience the Devs want us to live in their game.
In any case my problem is that I've started exploring the world beyond the shallows and I can't see where I'm going. I can't tell if I'm moving or not. There could be fish or wreckage out there and I'd never know. I don't see how that provides for an engaging experience. There's no mapping tool so I can't track my progress or tell where I am. The Cyclops doesn't even have the sonar option the Seamoth does. I'm flying blind and I'm not enjoying it.
All the lighting options like flashlights and lamps are useful to an extent, but they all take up resources and inventory. Where a flashlight or a flare takes up one inventory spot, an LED stick or floodlamp takes up three (I think), and they don't have on/off switches, and are also stationary. Stationary light sources are next to useless for exploring unless I'm in a confined space like a wreck.
What I would like to see (and I have no idea if the game's engine is capable of rendering) is ambient light and backscatter. The moon and all the bio-luminescent life should probably provide more ambient light than they do now. The only fauna that produces an ambient glow is that little green worm you find on the bottom sometimes (unless I'm missing one, anybody?). A whole lot of the flora appears bio-luminescent but doesn't provide an ambient glow.
For backscatter, I mean the light reflected off the main spot of light from your lamps should provide a little bit of ambient light around you. It's too easy to get a spotlight or head lamp too close to a wall and lose all peripheral vision. It should work something like this:
Or this:
I know from personal experience on night dives that artificial light is absorbed by water at really close ranges. But the light gets scattered around in that close range, and provides some ambient illumination.
Adding a light shaft to the Seamoth's headlamps (like the Cyclops and the seabase spotlight) would probably make it a lot easier to find the Seamoth in the dark, too. I lose the Seamoth's beacon and marker lights against the background of too many other beacons and general bio spots at night. Even adding a low-light glow to the cockpit would be nice.
J
I know it's technically correct. I'm not sure from a gameplay perspective it's the best choice. I understand if they're reluctant to increase night time visibility by increasing the ambient light but I think technological upgrades to assist visibility would be in keeping with the setting and a good compromise.
It being dark is kinda the point. It's all a part of the "terrifying ocean" atmosphere. It being less dark would have the same affect as the Reaper making rubber ducky sounds instead of the horrifying roar it makes now.
Agreed. We already have a flashlight, but a suit mounted toggleable light would be a nice addition.
The SeaMoth absolutely needs lights on it's exterior. I've died quite a few times because I knew the SeaMoth was very close but I couldn't find it in the dark.
No. I go out and hunt down whatever that is. Then I use its bones to build equipment to take down even bigger creatures. Then I keep going until there's nothing left to hunt me.
In all seriousness, the darkness doesn't bother me at all. I just bring a spotlight or something or point the lights of whatever vehicle I'm using at any point of interest.
In the deeper biomes there often are just not enough plants to increase the light, so most of your light comes from the ambient lighting which seems to be emmitted from the biome itself, like seen in the lost river and lava zone.
I think you're on to something there. Let's take it and run with it into the upcoming Science Patch/Expansion (there is an upcoming science expansion, right?) Let's make bioluminescence a genetic trait that can be learned with our DNA analyzing gizmos. Once learned you get a formula for the color and intensity of that species, be it plant or animal.
Then we can either inject that DNA sequence into a different plant or animal and give it that same bioluminescent property itself! By the way, this would be soooo easy to code, to. No different that assigning light values to lanterns in the old Elder Scrolls Creation Kit. Three digits for color, one for intensity, and fifth for radial range. That's it, and I'm betting all those values are already in the game & attached to every glowing thing already. It's really just a copy/paste job that the player can do themselves for fun.
But wait, let's make it better! Why copy/paste when you can screw with it even more? Take your genetic manipulation to the next level and just make up whatever values you want for your little monstrosities. Make a new breed of kelp with a color value of (255,255,255), an intensity of 255 and a radiance of 300m. Shazaam! Ouch, where's my flash goggles? Now plant a couple of those bad-bright boys outside and you'll be able to reliably find your way back to base from space.
But wait, it gets better still! Ever notice how aquarium critter you release into the wild tend to hang out wherever you released them? Turn that to your advantage and raise a bunch of Defensive fish with intense glowing and let them loose in areas you want to explore. Ta-da, all natural, battery free flashlight hovering behind you. Turn a batch of Peepers into living light bulbs and carry them into deep caves with you in lieu of flares or light sticks. If it gets to dark just release another fish (and hope nothing eats them).
Oh, and before anyone says, "Dude, you're insane... that's not how genetic engineering works."
Actually, that's totally how it works.
Meh. What do I have to do? Make some underwater highways with floodlights and power transfers going everywhere.
I know this.
Realistic does not always equal good gameplay though.
oh no. he said the thing. RUN!!!!
>I can't see in the dark
First I would try changing your gamma settings on the hardware side of things, on your monitor or TV. If defaults are 50/50, I like to bump my contrast up to 60 and brightness to 80 if I want to be able to better see in dark games. I have no trouble seeing on the island. If I'm playing at nightIRL, or I want a dark spooky atmosphere, I also can set brightness down to 20 and contrast up to 80.
>Lack of navigation aids
Beacons that you can rename
Compass
Pipes as landmarks
>Reflected light
More bounces, exponentially more calculations, lower framerates
>Limited visibility
As if there aren't items to help you see better in the dark, such as the flashlight, spotlights to craft all over your base, floodlights, seamoth highbeams
>Exploration isn't fun unless you can see
Survival/Horror wouldn't be as fun for me if it weren't for the spooky atmosphere and the risk of getting eaten by some monster lurking in the shadows
We got the tools to break apart the dark and it gives a really good atmosphere being alone in the dark trying to survive. Things also get real pretty with all the bioluminiscense going on.
Also cant you just turn up the brightness in options? If not, well then that should be a choice.
While this works, it's kind of cheap and asks the question "Why is the even necessary?"
Good ideas, and I had never even considered using pipes as navigation markers before. I'll have to try that.
Beacons still need work. They have no range or depth indicators and they can only be turned on and off manually. Suggest Devs head over to Space Engineers and steal some (but not all) of their ideas for navigation. Ideally beacons should be controllable from the HUD, and should also exist as a furniture item that can be affixed to seabases.
Sad but true. Still a good idea as an option for people who's systems can handle it, though.
Very true, but unless you're in Creative Mode the power drain from running all those things in any meaningful number is going to be very high and may conk-out a solar powered base in the middle of night (which is when light is needed most).
First suggestion: Again stealing from Space Engineers, put lights on controllable timers. It doesn't have to complicated, just a day/night/always switch will suffice. That way you're not wasting power during the daytime near the surface.
Second suggestion: New lighting items that harness the power of bioluminescence beyond simply stuffing exterior grow beds with mushrooms and kelp. Even just a smaller, one plant sized version of that grow bed (outdoor flower pot, basically) would be a start. Expand with higher tech light-amplifying crystal covers to put around them to increase their visible radius. Extract their DNA and make purely artificial "torches" that are made from force-shaped corral; self-sustaining power free light.
Very true. The downside, at least here, is that due to unchanging map and fixed creature behaviors, a lot of that fear wears off very quickly once you download a map and/or memorize the workarounds to the baddies. Not sure how to fix that without making a whole new game, however.
The lights in this game are still severely lacking for exploration, but I have faith in the development team they will fix this as time goes by.
Also, seeing 5 meters or 10 meters ahead of you are both still very scary, but one improves the playability by a lot. I think tweaking can be done for sure, but I agree the game should keep the dark atmosphere.
As a last point: gamma/brightness was talked about. I have no idea why this game doesn't have a gamma setting yet. A game based around correct moody lightning should definitely have this. Some monitors are inherently darker or some people just prefer more/less brightness/gamma (out of the game, monitor setting), so this game just needs gamma settings. People don't have the same experiences at all. Some can't see their hands in bright daylight. Some can see miles away deep underground at night. I have both on different pc's. Think this is a very easy improvement.
You have more control over changing it on your hardware than you do in game. You probably also have Nvidia or AMD settings.
That said, my guess is that with the game's release, some sort of gamma/darkness slider will be added to the options to let players decide just how creeped out they want to be...
Knives thousands of years in the future is perfectly realistic. Hominids have already been using knives or knife-like objects for tens of thousands 2.5 million years. They're really handy afterall.