Vandraad said:Pierce said:Yes, but also keep in mind the races that have darkvision, infravision or ultravision and spells that function likewise.
So far, we do not know of any such benefits inherent to any race.
EDIT: If any race(s) were to have a bonus to seeing in the dark, they should have an equal penalty during daytime hours. Fair is fair.
agreed. If Gamma is a hax, maybe color washouts? brighntess close to max and un-able to turn down? where you see fragmented outlines. There is such a mechanic in a mission with "light" in it from a, recent expansion from rock things but on the dark end. i wonder if it can be mirrored on the light end.
*brainstorming* that would be a cool raid mechanic, and perhaps a way not to be completely cheesy about other moons or planets. Raid on a comet, Le Petit Prince- sort of. Raid has to keep eyes in the sky watching Terminus as the Comet makes its orbit...What is it?! *smash, boom* I think...I think its Waxing Gibbous! *clang, F-toom!* ...Waning Crescent! get ready to switch! (Skar and Dark elves begin rolling abilities)...We need More evils we barely have enough to hold while passing through the dark side!- careful! diamond ring coming up! *FLASH*...at the new eclipse entire raid is blinded for precious seconds...
I love the idea of distanced tab limiting depending on observable distances. Totally makes sense and would slow people down in darker areas. I would like to see this tied to other abilities of the player too. Perception and race traits. I would also like to see a soft red glow around mobs in dark places for races that can see in the dark. Anything for a more immersive game and anything to make races really distinct.
Vandraad said: ... That said, I don't want VR to do this if it even means delaying any further PA sessions and/or getting Alpha going and/or delaying Release by even a single day. Add it after release, if at all.
IMO:
Agreed.
Similarly, this is not the feature space to be trying to distinguish your game within. Think back to all the MMOs that have had this feature since 1995. Can't think of many? That's because it's not a good feature, objectively. Why not? It's not fun and it doesn't increase subscriber retention. It makes some customers want to stop playing at night and/or log out. The exact opposite of what you want in your game this is, players playing at night, and staying logged in. EverCraft Online had this feature in their recent community test. Community feedback was that night was too dark, some players just wanted to logout or went afk for the night time portion of the day/nightcycle.
They have torches, and it still wasn't enough to be able to see enough to actually play the game. So, they increased the ambient light enough that players can actually see the landscape by moonlight, and they have spells from certain classes to add a night vision buff to other players and for some classes, to themselves. They didn't double down on a bad idea and intentionally do the opposite of their community feedback, rather, they listened to their community and acted on that feedback in a way that improved the game for their target audience.
Where can the game distinguish itself positively, instead of negatively? Artistic style. Combat loop content. Additional Non-Combat loops & content. Lore. Story. High performance persistence layer. High performance server layer. High performance client. 99.5% service uptime, with multiplicative temporal credit for downtime outside that SLA. Tangible and distinct Role value, per class, beyond the combat loop. Complete Spell, skill, and ability customization, of all stats & parameters for each. Complete gear customization, of all stats, modifiers & effects on all slots. Soft/Hard stat caps, per level. Widely expanded grouping ranges. An appropriate economic design. No-box/no-bot optional servers with GeoIP+CC AVS for every login.
Try to achieve a few of those before making the game too dark to play. :)
no thank you, I don't mind night cycles but the ability to only see and target a few feet in front of me would make me simply not want to play during night cycles
having to be dependent on a "spell" or "buff" is silly as well, as it would just negate all the work they do to implement this in the first place
total waste of time that should be spent on other things
Just a random note about gamma adjustment:
There are games that are getting around this by making the game render "black pixels" - it's something very prevalent in MO2, and I'd say it's incredibly effective. Their dungeons are extremely admospheric and dangerous-feeling. And if you turn gamma up, it doesn't remove the black pixels, it just turns them more "gray" which honestly makes the image quality really terrible, and further disincentivizes boosting gamma at all.
I'd love to see VR do something like this, along with a lot of the suggestions in this thread. It would all come together to make the Pantheon dungeon/night time experience truly a unique and impactful one. I'm all for it.
vjek said:Vandraad said: ... That said, I don't want VR to do this if it even means delaying any further PA sessions and/or getting Alpha going and/or delaying Release by even a single day. Add it after release, if at all.IMO:
Agreed.
Similarly, this is not the feature space to be trying to distinguish your game within. Think back to all the MMOs that have had this feature since 1995. Can't think of many? That's because it's not a good feature, objectively. Why not? It's not fun and it doesn't increase subscriber retention. It makes some customers want to stop playing at night and/or log out. The exact opposite of what you want in your game this is, players playing at night, and staying logged in. EverCraft Online had this feature in their recent community test. Community feedback was that night was too dark, some players just wanted to logout or went afk for the night time portion of the day/nightcycle.
They have torches, and it still wasn't enough to be able to see enough to actually play the game. So, they increased the ambient light enough that players can actually see the landscape by moonlight, and they have spells from certain classes to add a night vision buff to other players and for some classes, to themselves. They didn't double down on a bad idea and intentionally do the opposite of their community feedback, rather, they listened to their community and acted on that feedback in a way that improved the game for their target audience.Where can the game distinguish itself positively, instead of negatively? Artistic style. Combat loop content. Additional Non-Combat loops & content. Lore. Story. High performance persistence layer. High performance server layer. High performance client. 99.5% service uptime, with multiplicative temporal credit for downtime outside that SLA. Tangible and distinct Role value, per class, beyond the combat loop. Complete Spell, skill, and ability customization, of all stats & parameters for each. Complete gear customization, of all stats, modifiers & effects on all slots. Soft/Hard stat caps, per level. Widely expanded grouping ranges. An appropriate economic design. No-box/no-bot optional servers with GeoIP+CC AVS for every login.
Try to achieve a few of those before making the game too dark to play. :)
"Too dark to play" is extremely dramatic. As many have listed various ways of compensation, not to trivialize a mechanic like this, but to give some amount of control. It's been emphasized that night time and darkness should feel dangerous - it's a big part of Pantheon. So, if this layer of danger and restriction is removed for the sake of some folks overdramatizing darkness as being unplayable simply because it's more difficult (due to these mechanics and others), I sense they aren't in line with Pantheon in the first place. If a player would log out because it's night time in a game because it is more difficult, more dangerous, and more restrictive (and, assumingly, more rewarding), rather than seeking help or playing around this system, I'm sure there's much more of the game they won't enjoy.
If night is simply too dark with none of the other mechanics or rewards, and isn't a fundamental part of the game, it makes sense for EverCraft to remove it. However, the tension that comes from this system as it's built into Pantheon creates an experience in line with the goals of the game. If Pantheon dropped this philosophy because people choose not to engage with the mechanic, it would be foolish.
Not to mention, night might not always be pitch-black, just like real life.
vjek said:They didn't double down on a bad idea and intentionally do the opposite of their community feedback, rather, they listened to their community and acted on that feedback in a way that improved the game for their target audience.
For once we in complete agreement. Ever since the recent stream revealing Darkness, the majority of response from fans & forum members has been positive. So I'm glad you agree that VR should listen to us and not change their plans due to a vocal minority :)
Desryn said: There are games that are getting around this by making the game render "black pixels" - it's something very prevalent in MO2, and I'd say it's incredibly effective. Their dungeons are extremely admospheric and dangerous-feeling. And if you turn gamma up, it doesn't remove the black pixels, it just turns them more "gray" which honestly makes the image quality really terrible, and further disincentivizes boosting gamma at all.
Thanks for posting that Dez. I had never heard about this method. It makes me happy that a simple screen adjustment won't allow others to bypass a meaningful game mechanic.
"Too dark to play" is extremely dramatic... Not to mention, night might not always be pitch-black, just like real life.If a player would log out because it's night time in a game because it is more difficult, more dangerous, and more restrictive (and, assumingly, more rewarding), rather than seeking help or playing around this system, I'm sure there's much more of the game they won't enjoy.
Totally agree with this.
As far as the OP's point, I agree that any mob that doesn't appear on a player's screen should not be tab targetable. I also believe that if darkness - or some other affect like fog, rain, fractures, etc. - obscures some (TBD) significant percentage or more of a mob's image on the player's screen, then the mob should only be targetable by the tedious process of searching one's screen with the cursor.
My reasoning is that a skilled hunter might see a small patch of a critter's coat thru cover and recognize it, perhaps just by its color, as a hidden enemy. But that shouldn't be a default target with tab. It should have a significant chance of not happening and take some time & effort by the hunter. So a player should have to recognize that "that patch of shrubs or especially dark shadow is big enough to be cover" and then work to expose it.
Desryn said: ... If night is simply too dark with none of the other mechanics or rewards, and isn't a fundamental part of the game, it makes sense for EverCraft to remove it. ...
IMO:
Happily, they didn't remove it, rather, they listened to their community and acted on that feedback in a way that improved the game for their target audience.
Specifically, they simply adjusted the implementation of outdoor darkness to be less stick and more carrot. Or if you prefer, less punitive and more Fun.
Hopefully, when the time comes, VR learns from history and does the same.
Embers Adrift had the same thing happen recently in beta where apparently enough people complained, that they made the night light enough to be able to see. It had torches and ground torches that you could plop down. They claim that some dungeons will still be dark.
There will be a ton of backlash from the mainstream gamers / "modern MMO players" if Pantheon sticks to it's guns on darkness. Which it sounds like it will for now, and recent references to the dark abyss of water in streams.
The black pixels idea is what is required, to make it an even playing field because people will simply tune monitor settings.
It would be seen as a forced non-fun way to play a game by "those" players hehe, don't doubt it.
The suggestion of fog and stuff, that's what Embers is supposedly going towards instead to capture the visibilty suspense. The dev mentioned trying the game on different monitors and noticiing how the default blackness for them was so varying that it was clearly an issue for dark nights since players will experience it in so many diff ways.
Embers is also made with Unity and I know that Unity's using a pretty sophisticated lighting system that's like physics based so not sure if the black pixels thing will work?\
And edit again
If you look back at some of the streams there are examples of Minus or someone turning up the gamma on the recroding. You can see the diff between the stream and whatever media clip. Was that Halnir Cohh stream maybe? Can't recall
It makes sense to me that if you can't see the target, you shouldn't be able to tab to it (including if it's behind the player).
As for darkness, it seems like everyone is going to need to account for a light source of some kind (or buff / Enchanter's light orb) at all times in the dark. If this is made clear to players in the tutorial, it shouldn't be too hard to maintain a stock of torches in your inventory. If the player is not prepared, well, just another element of danger out in the world of Terminus.
I do hope there is never a situation where light sources are limited in certain areas (ie. underwater you can't light a torch, so only people with buffs can go down there, etc.). I'm already worried that only the Dark Myr will be able to explore meaningful underwater content.
It would be an interesting element if the sound of a storm actually brought a feeling of relief from the tension in the dark, knowing lightning strikes are going to give you occasional visual snap shot of the area around you...unless that mist sets in.
But re this kind of truly dark areas, you would imagine they are only going to be in certain areas and on purpose, if the moon is a lightsource that is. Thinking about that though, if they had new moons in a cycle that would be like an event in itself throughout the world.
out in the middle of some nasty zone: "nights coming but I cant see the moon/s... oh s#!% the darkening is coming".
Jothany said:I also believe that if darkness - or some other affect like fog, rain, fractures, etc. - obscures some (TBD) significant percentage or more of a mob's image on the player's screen, then the mob should only be targetable by the tedious process of searching one's screen with the cursor.
My reasoning is that a skilled hunter might see a small patch of a critter's coat thru cover and recognize it, perhaps just by its color, as a hidden enemy. But that shouldn't be a default target with tab. It should have a significant chance of not happening and take some time & effort by the hunter. So a player should have to recognize that "that patch of shrubs or especially dark shadow is big enough to be cover" and then work to expose it.
The ability of someone vigilantly searching to see (target) further is good, but I want it to be related to in-game character actions. A character who is hidden / motionless / walking slow should get a bonus to this 'view' distance (with being hidden boosting it the most and slow walking the least). Also, Rangers and Rogues should have "Farsight" / "Look For Danger" abilities they can let them stand and concentrate to see further.
Also, we should have some class-specific light sources. Rangers should have a flaming arrow, Wizards a fireball that creates an ongoing fire, Summoners should have a "light" pet they can send off ahead, and Druuds should be able to summon fireflies to an area.
Counterfleche said:Rangers and Rogues should have "Farsight" / "Look For Danger" abilities they can let them stand and concentrate to see further.
we should have some class-specific light sources. Rangers should have a flaming arrow, Wizards a fireball that creates an ongoing fire, Summoners should have a "light" pet they can send off ahead, and Druuds should be able to summon fireflies to an area.
I agree that Ranger should be a tad better innately than other classes at spotting enemies before others in the group do. And Wizard has 'Sight of Sages' that lets them "see invisible beings within the mist." I would also agree with Chenzeme that maybe Perception skill should play a role.
VR has told us there will be various types of light sources, from items to class abilities. That's pretty certain at this point.
Geez, tough crowd for Rangers :)
Ok so I didn't express it well for sure. I don't think Rangers should be better than all others, I think some classes will do better than others. I particularly mentioned Ranger because I was replying to a quote about Rangers (and Rogues). I'm not sure if I support Rogues having superior targeting - or against it. Wizards will do well and I think maybe high Perception skill should affect this, at least some of the time.
Counterfleche said:Flavor / lore wise, I can see something like this...
Rangers: spotting natural creatures / dangers
Rogues: spotting sentient, intelligent creatures / traps
Clerics / Paladins: spotting undead
Summoners: spotting summoned creatures
Shamen: spotting spirits
There will be a range to tab targeting, with or without darkness.
To suggest further that tab targeting shouldn't be an 'exploit' to overcome darkness or fog or other visibility features is surely hardly controversial?
If you can't see it, you shouldn't be able to target it. Reducing the range would be a simple way to address it, but there should be pretty easy ways to code it to better match what you can actually see on the screen and to be more sophisticated mechanically and, so, more meaningful and interesting.
Naturally, some are seeing (no pun intended) that if it's going to be added to avoid a gamey exploit, just a little more effort could make it a worthwhile 'feature' in itself.
If there are a load of ways to effect visibility, then, of course, that will effect what you can easily (tab) target.
As for modern gamers not liking it... well, if we are going to worry about that, may as well can the project now.
Anyone who gets so annoyed by needing to use torches, magic items, spells, potions, racial innates, or the probably many more interesting ways of mitigating darkness, are going to get annoyed by anything vaguely restrictive that can't be easily 'gamed' away. Ugh, we need to climb to get up there?! Ugh, we need to acclimate to get over there?! Ugh, we need to group with others to go in there?!...
disposalist said:There will be a range to tab targeting, with or without darkness.
To suggest further that tab targeting shouldn't be an 'exploit' to overcome darkness or fog or other visibility features is surely hardly controversial?
If you can't see it, you shouldn't be able to target it. Reducing the range would be a simple way to address it, but there should be pretty easy ways to code it to better match what you can actually see on the screen and to be more sophisticated mechanically and, so, more meaningful and interesting.
Naturally, some are seeing (no pun intended) that if it's going to be added to avoid a gamey exploit, just a little more effort could make it a worthwhile 'feature' in itself.
If there are a load of ways to effect visibility, then, of course, that will effect what you can easily (tab) target.
As for modern gamers not liking it... well, if we are going to worry about that, may as well can the project now.
Anyone who gets so annoyed by needing to use torches, magic items, spells, potions, racial innates, or the probably many more interesting ways of mitigating darkness, are going to get annoyed by anything vaguely restrictive that can't be easily 'gamed' away. Ugh, we need to climb to get up there?! Ugh, we need to acclimate to get over there?! Ugh, we need to group with others to go in there?!...
Let's not worry about maybe putting off some players a bit. That's how we got to the point of being so desperate for a game like Pantheon.
So there are going to be many ways to mitigate it yet they should spend time coding up things that....are just going to have many ways to be mitigated away anyway
Let's not worry about getting a game released, let's worry about adding "features" to remove tab targeting that will just get mitigated anyway?? Seems like a huge waste of time to me
Like I said before.. Great ideas but if done correctly...This would cause so much Latency with players,mobs, and light sources steaming data non-stop with "vision/target" numbers. Using my 3rd grade math skills: thousands of players + thousands of mobs and light sources= Server crashing every night cycle. The easy way is just add a tab target reducation to the "darkness fracture" or whatever they are calling them these days. Race balance would need to be completed before release because if I wanted to be a pulling class and didn't choose a race with night vision then i'd be a subpar puller.
MFR1 said:Like I said before.. Great ideas but if done correctly...This would cause so much Latency with players,mobs, and light sources steaming data non-stop with "vision/target" numbers. Using my 3rd grade math skills: thousands of players + thousands of mobs and light sources= Server crashing every night cycle. The easy way is just add a tab target reducation to the "darkness fracture" or whatever they are calling them these days. Race balance would need to be completed before release because if I wanted to be a pulling class and didn't choose a race with night vision then i'd be a subpar puller.
I don't really see why it would be so much more calculation for the server than everything that will already be done (every attack of players, ennemies, LOS of monsters, aggro range). It's just another line.
Point taken for the subpar puller thing, however buffs, spells and items can counter that.
TheBus88 said:disposalist said:There will be a range to tab targeting, with or without darkness.
To suggest further that tab targeting shouldn't be an 'exploit' to overcome darkness or fog or other visibility features is surely hardly controversial?
If you can't see it, you shouldn't be able to target it. Reducing the range would be a simple way to address it, but there should be pretty easy ways to code it to better match what you can actually see on the screen and to be more sophisticated mechanically and, so, more meaningful and interesting.
Naturally, some are seeing (no pun intended) that if it's going to be added to avoid a gamey exploit, just a little more effort could make it a worthwhile 'feature' in itself.
If there are a load of ways to effect visibility, then, of course, that will effect what you can easily (tab) target.
As for modern gamers not liking it... well, if we are going to worry about that, may as well can the project now.
Anyone who gets so annoyed by needing to use torches, magic items, spells, potions, racial innates, or the probably many more interesting ways of mitigating darkness, are going to get annoyed by anything vaguely restrictive that can't be easily 'gamed' away. Ugh, we need to climb to get up there?! Ugh, we need to acclimate to get over there?! Ugh, we need to group with others to go in there?!...
Let's not worry about maybe putting off some players a bit. That's how we got to the point of being so desperate for a game like Pantheon.So there are going to be many ways to mitigate it yet they should spend time coding up things that....are just going to have many ways to be mitigated away anyway
Let's not worry about getting a game released, let's worry about adding "features" to remove tab targeting that will just get mitigated anyway?? Seems like a huge waste of time to me
There would be many ways to mitigate it just like there are many ways to mitigate climate effects, many many ways to mitigate risk level of an encounter, etc. The whole point of the game - any game - is to work out ways to mitigate problems - to overcome challenges, no? A good feature is not a waste of time.
Some are more fundamental to the experience than others, but as long as a feature or mechanic is interesting, meaningful, etc. then it would be a worthwhile thing to have in game, just like climbing, acclimation, group content, etc.
Let's not worry about putting good things in the game, though, let's just get it released? I just turned your statement around to help make the point - I don't mean to be sarcastic.
Personally, I've waiting since 2014. The last thing I want VR to do is now to rush and/or miss out features that would make it better and a bigger hit.
Seriously, though - this is a forum for discussing stuff related to Pantheon. No one is suggesting this particular feature must be included or the game will fail - we're just talking here.
I wish people would stop with the whole "VR shouldn't do anything that might delay the game release" stuff (including the instant criticism features get when VR announce them. Just because we haven't heard about them before doesn't mean they are 'new' and pushing the release further away).
*Everything* developed is a 'delay' to the game release. It's up to the devs to decide cost-benefit of everything, new, old or whatever, that gets included, and only they know how much effort goes into what. For all we know, the concept of restricting tab-targeting based on visibility might be trivial to achieve. It might actually make it easier and quicker than normal.
How about, in meantime, we just try and enjoy this forum for discussion?
@Counterfleche Loving the idea of class-based visibility and/or targeting/spotting related bonuses. Race-related stuff like infravision is pretty common and I hope is included, but the class-based stuff has great potential. Also the idea of increasing target range if concentrating/standing still. I suppose running would also make it harder.