Then the Khajiit's ability would actually be a good bonus for picking that race. Thats if you can be a khajiit.

Meh.

Sure, in a survival-horror game like Silent Hill, having just your cone of light from a flashlight can add suspense in dark places.

But mostly - I like to be able to see what I'm doing. All those various "make things freakin' dark!" mods..... never wanted to even try one. Just not interested. :shrug:


I found the dungeons in OB and FO3 to be fine.

I used a mod for OB that made night pitch black and dungeons you def needed a torch. It was awesome! It really added so much to the atmosphere, specially when I didnt have music to tell me a zombie was creeping up on me.

darker dungeons yes nights no unless theres no moon or its overcast moonlight is suprisingly bright

This; that's what I wanted to point. It's not only the torches, but the fact that underground dungeons with no daylight passages had TOO MUCH ambient light. Serously, did any of you use torches or a light spell in a vanilla dungeon playing Morrowind or Oblivion?

Also, nights in the wilderness should be darker too; if any of you have ever gone camping, you'd notice that, unless there is full moon, nights are dark, really dark. I don't mean to be impossible to see 1 meter in front, but sure it's unnatural to see a hundred meters ahead outside at night.

On my non-stealth characters, yes. I did. I generally wanted more light.

I've learnt that things that add to the atmosphere of stealth don't necessarily benefit stealthy gameplay. Let me elaborate: I installed 'cava obscura' some days ago. This is an oblivion mod that, as the name suggests, darkens caves. The atmosphere it creates when there are fires/torches around is absolutely beautiful (no arguing there). However, playing a stealthy character becomes significantly more difficult. Why? There are not enough light sources in dungeons so you need a torch to see. If you carry a torch, enemies see you from the darkness and you don't see them so sneaking around gets impossibly hard to accomplish. Also, carrying a torch means no bow can be equipped. Then the torch is a bad idea, perhaps using night eye instead? I'm afraid not because it ruins the nice atmosphere created by the mod. The only thing left is a constant detect life effect, which is also bad because a) you see the enemies but not the surroundings, meaning that you don't know if an enemy can see you or there's a wall between you and him and b ) fighting uniformly pink skeletons/zombies/whatever is not as satisfying (specially if you've downloaded a HD texture pack for creatures).

So if bethesda wants to darken caves in skyrim, I hope that they don't forget to add a good balance between (more or less) well-lit zones and dark zones.

i am all in favor of complete darkness where there is no light sources

i only have one reason for my choice.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow Of Chernobyl

Yeah this has always been a big one for me, I hate how useless the torches were in Oblivion, they could have made it the darkness so much better. Remember that one quest in Oblivion? Through a Nightmare Darkly. one of the challenges was walking along a broken stone walkway in a dark abyss with falling rock traps and such. Good use of lighting there.

you do realize that there already is weird glowing light sources. Checkout the scene in the gameplay vid where you use a staff in a cave. Just before he shoot the bolt it is still light.

Nail. On. Head. It will not be changed because of this right here.

I see it as a non issue. I used torches all the time in oblivion, and felt I needed them in order to see. At least until I learned a good night eye spell.

They definitely need to be darker, and torches need to light up a larger area, but the farther away the less it lights up the area (If you get what I'm trying to say).

the main problem to change is this.

if they change the darkness level, it also needs to effect AI's perception as well.

just turning down your brightness doesnt do this, it only puts you at a disadvantage, and its the opposite if you turn UP your brightness, they need true darkness in this game imo.

sure thats understandable during the night out in the fields that there be some lighting, but a game that doesnt feel hazardous by running through the wilds at night doesn't warrant any immersion at all to me.

You know what else might be cool? In Daggerfall, the player had a very faint parented light glowing around them. Walls and other objects, which were pitch black in the darkness, would light very faintly if you got close enough to them. It was probably an attempt to represent how you can (sort of) make out things in the darkness more easily if you get close enough to them. Few if any games have attempted that since.

Just imagine running through a pitch black hallway, when you round a corner and are suddenly face-to-face with a Draugr. Yes, a Draugr, not some mysterious jaggedy black blob - a grue! I'm not asking for absurd levels of brightness, but just a faint, say, 24 RGB increase could look interesting. The thrill being that you'd only be able to make out these figures when they were already in your face and possibly hacking you to pieces.

Obviously if we're talking about ancient subterranean catacombs that haven't been opened in hundreds of years, perhaps the effect would look unrealistic.

Exactly. You turn down the brightness and guess what? YOU CAN'T SEE! Even with a torch.

AKA we need, darker dungeons, brighter torches.

What would be interesting is a dungeon that was so dark you couldn't see without a torch or a spell of some sort

There is only such a thing as 'Complete Darkness' and most light sources give you a degree of visibility even in 'Complete Darkness'

And you can't get anything darker than 'Complete Darkness'

There needs to be some light in dungeons. Im fine with a requirement of a torch or light spell to be able to see,
but Im not fine with turning the ambient light down compared to previous games.
Both in Morrowind and Oblivion I absolutely needed a torch or spell to see by.
You have to realise not all people have 20/20 vision or modern monitors and it needs to remain playable.

My doom scenario would be if they made it like Silent Hill: Homecoming. I bought that game, and it was a waste of money.
I cant play it. Id like to play it, but for me to be able to I need more than a black screen with grey bits.
I cant do combat on sound alone.
So my Silent Hill game sits on a shelf gathering dust, because it is simply way too dark to play.

I did too. Then i added some excellend sound mods. It improved the game experience so much.

This...


...and this...


...and definitely this...


...and finally this...


...with a whole lot of this!

You sad, sad little man

I don't want to take up any move slots with Flash though :confused:

Also, this isn't going to happen. People who are using 2-H fighting would not be able to walk around with a torch out.

Oblivion dungeons:

http://images.devshed.com/dh/stories/Oblivion_Review/oblivion_dungeon.jpg

http://www.gameandplayer.net/images/inset/inset3_08_0115_fcom.jpg

Oblivion nights:

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/7500/oblivion5wp5.jpg

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/3337/oblivion16yx6.jpg

Seriously, if you needed torches there, you have a "vision problem". No offenses.

You obviously haven't played Doom 3.