[Suggestion] Night is too dark

87 votes

Easily one of the most noticeable changes is the night time. It is, unrelentingly, dark. Without being about to dual wield a torch and [item], it is illogical to venture out at night.
Same goes for caves. I get there's a "cave effect" once you're in the cave where the light gets dimmer...but it goes from daylight to night time once you're inside.

Either reduce the darkness effect or let us dual wield a torch/lantern. Otherwise, we're just going to sleep through the night.

Under consideration QOL Suggestion Suggested by: LordDrol (10 Oct, '21) • Upvoted: 07 Dec, '23 • Comments: 28

Comments: 28

09 Oct, '21
dewitt Merged
Unable to see 5 feet in front of you is unrealistic. Or make lanterns actually work.
11 Oct, '21
Al
In particular, consider new players here. I started in BW4 and the night was miserable, especially since I hadn't figured out the mechanics to let me sleep. The shelter requirement for sleep particularly compounds with this issue. There's a couple issues here -- how the learning curve to the game works, and the experience for regular players.

I do ponder what the purpose of night is here - it seems really tempting to just sleep through the night now that I've got my bearings to how the game works. A few ideas:

- Rare animals (or resources) are more common at night.
- Movement speed is higher at night (some sort of gas in the air or something).

In short, there needs to be a reason for night (regardless of how dark it is) otherwise why not sleep through it as soon as we can?
11 Oct, '21
GurlzGame2
Agreed, me and my friend have to go together one works as light while the other gathers materials, not sure what changed but it is really, really dark out. If it stays this way then we need to be able to use both the hands god [the dev team] gave us. One to hold a torch and one to hold a tool/weapon. Or have the option to adjust the brightness in game.
11 Oct, '21
Sigil
I like the idea of different fauna at night and maybe more predator risk. I dont mind the idea of night. When at base camp its totally avoidable but similar to the mission risk of missing the drop ship off planet, maybe night time is a mini version of the same since its easy to be out exploring and that night creeps up on you while out and you have to make your way back to base and if you are out when it gets dark...you just carry the added risk being out at dark what ever that means ;)
1
11 Oct, '21
albert
I really liked the changes to night this time. The darkness makes it so much more dangerous.
1
11 Oct, '21
David Iannotti Merged
-At night look directly at a body of water (lake) then look down until you only see a little bit of the water remaining at the top of your view, the light changes on the lake. If there is light reflecting off the water it should always reflect not just when you are frowning at it.
-Had a campfire in the corner of my tiny house (4x4) and the light didn't reach across to the other wall, seemed strange.
-Light from a torch only travels a few yards, i think this should be further and should fade better
-Way too dark at night. I'm cool if it starts like this if it goes dark on your quickly and then slowly gets brighter (like your eyes are adjusting), but for it to just stay that dark isn't realistic. I could not see at all.
-I'm not sure we need to go as far as a brightness meter, as we know this can be taken advantage of, but would like some improvements in these areas.
11 Oct, '21
Elissa - Producer Admin
"Nighttime/caves too dark" (suggested by dewitt on 2021-10-09), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
11 Oct, '21
Elissa - Producer Admin
"Lighting needs work" (suggested by David Iannotti on 2021-10-11), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
12 Oct, '21
Mike
Nah, the darkness is waaay better now. The point isn't to make night-exploring easy, but to stay aware of your surroundings and truly consider if you want to risk the darkness to keep pushing. Push too hard, get caught in the dark? Yes you should be afraid :)
1
12 Oct, '21
Duckett
Agree, night way to dark.. then I pull out my torch and everything catches fire..
Hard to harvest / min anything at night if you cant hold torch/lantern and used axe or pick axe..
Even setting down the lantern, couldnt see very far.
Had to put a LOT of torches in cave to be able to mine..
Lost one of my torches in cave before I could put my other torches in cave to see and was totally lost.. I had to start destroying gear in my inventory to get enough stuff to create another torch to get out of the cave. If I had not had stuff on me (take everything off to reduce weight) then I would have been stuck in cave forever I fear.
12 Oct, '21
George
add gamma setting in game
12 Oct, '21
Mercy
BW 4 saw the nighttime get way darker. Seriously too dark. I actually started a forest fire by carrying my torch trying to see where I was going. I didn't drop the torch but simply walking through some tall brush, which caught fire. I can understand caves being pitch black. But the night should not be this dark. This planet has a moon, a really huge moon, so the forest should have natural moonlight illuminating the darkness. If I can see the moon in the sky then there should be some moonlight!
12 Oct, '21
Andre
I like that the night is actually night. Almost every game I played I had to go mod shopping to find a Darker Nights mod to add immersion to the game. We have torches and fires and lanterns for a reason. If it scares you not seeing past the glow of the fire, then the game has done right. If they make the game brighter, I will seek to make it darker.
16 Oct, '21
I love good survival games
The darkness of the night is ok, the length is not. Perhaps a more gradual darkening would be better, but in the middle of the night the darkness makes sense. The days are too short and the nights too long.
26 Oct, '21
Daniel Hejlek
I also believe the night is way too dark, same as it always was in ARK survival (sorry for comparison, there are some similarities between the titles)
In Ark, almost everybody dealt with it by using a command "gamma 2.2" or something to make it bearable. Night is never so dark that you cannot see anything , not even yourself. I understand if there is no moon to reflect the light that it makes the game realistic, or if there is a night vision headset way later in the game, but it feels like for a new player, there is nothing we can do besides sleeping and exploring even during the night.

TL:DR , I am not suggesting a gamma slider, but make it so that you can at least sort of see, like you would in a pitch black forest during the night. You can totally make it so you cannot see animal tags unless talented to be able to do so, or maybe have a talent "Night stalker" where you have better vision during the night.
08 Nov, '21
Norbu
Could it be, that the night is differently dark for the host compared to the clients?
I had issues seeing at night, while my host could see well enough.
And I read from another player, that he and his wife compared screens and switched hosting. Whoever was hosting could see well at night and the client saw it pitch dark.
08 Nov, '21
Falconburger
The darkness is too absolute. Cave entrances sort of have a line that you cross from total darkness to full light which is weird and really annoying if there happens to be a bear asleep outside the cave and you are standing on it by the time the line is crossed and the light switches to sunlight. I think there needs to be a more graduated light transition.
22 Nov, '21
shin0bi272
The problem I have with the darkness of the ground is that theres like 4 or 5 brightly lit moons (including the large blue planet that you can see continents on its so close) hanging out there in the sky. You ever go out here on earth on a full moon lit night? you can walk around just fine without a flashlight until you walk into a dense forest. Yet on this planet with all those moons you cant see 5ft in front of your face.
04 Dec, '21
Taku Merged
Add brightness slider
04 Dec, '21
大屌哥 Merged
As the title
04 Dec, '21
Mochnant
I'm less concerned with nightime (though it is dark!), rather than the extreme dark in shadows in the middle of the day. The light does not seem to reflect and bounce to illuminate. It is illogical that 3 trees can create such deep shadows at noon that I need a torch to see my feet.
06 Dec, '21
Elissa - Producer Admin
"Night is way too dark" (suggested by Taku on 2021-12-04), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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06 Dec, '21
Baru
I can see like it's a full moon every night. I can go out and hunt and see just fine. My friends with me said it was so dark out, he couldn't see me standing a few feet away from him. I didn't believe it, so after both taking a screenshot and comparing them, we can clearly see the difference.
I have an AMD 6700XT and him a Nvidia RTX 2080 super.
08 Dec, '21
Elissa - Producer Admin
"I can’t see anything at night I can’t see even when I walk under a tree during the day It’s too dark" (suggested by 大屌哥 on 2021-12-04), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
16 Dec, '21
Samantha
Have you seen the size of the moon? There should be more moonlight and the night shouldn’t be pitch black, unless there is a storm or cloud cover,
19 Feb, '22
Tovak
DON'T DO IT! Night time darkness is perfect. Those who think its too dark have obiously never been in a deep forest at night with only a fire going. This is a great immersive experience at night. Only thing I would suggest is you have more of an incentive to owkr at night, instead of sleeping.
1
07 Aug, '22
Shockwave
Disagree, nights ARE dark when there are no lights around. i mean really dark depending on the moon. I like that it is dark. Light sources should be better and brighter though. light options in this game need to be improved (when I mine I'd wedge my handheld torch upright not let it roll on the ground) but keep the dark.
16 Apr, '23
William V Hedden
Please do NOT listen to this suggestion. They probably live in a city and have such light pollution that they don't think it ever gets dark. The light levels in game are perfect in my view, because you can sort of pick you way around without a torch, but its much easier with light.
1