Hi there,

Been playing Skyrim for about 45 hours now and aside from a few niggles (most quests I've found can only play out in one particular way, etc) I'm really enjoying it!

I do have a question though - has anyone found a real, practical use for night vision yet? As a Kahjiit Vampire Assassin I have night vision powers coming out the wazoo, but I haven't yet found a single place in the game dark enough to need it. Even the darkest and most subterranean of caves still has enough ambient light to see the environment and enemies by with no problems. Similarly, I have used a single torch so far, and I used them constantly in Oblivion.

If anything, Night Vision is more of an annoyance than a useful ability. For example, using embrace of shadows gives me 180 seconds of invisibility and night vision, but while I may end up cancelling the invisibility after a few seconds when I backstab someone or open a door, the super washed out effect of Night Vision continues on for what feels like an age, making it harder to see detail in the game world.

As it stands, a detect life type spell in NV's place would be far more useful.

Thanks.

Since you're a Khajiit have you tried equipping the night vision power and toggling it back off? Might help.

Turn down your brightness settings

yeah, I dont find night vision useful either. Something i will adjust with mod in the future. I miss torch being actually important in Oblivion

Heheh.. turning the brightness down was the first thing I tried, and while it helped a little it still didn't make much of a difference. There are just so few dark areas in the game, plus there seems to be some sort of brightness adjustment going on all the time to simulate your eyes getting used to the available light, so bright areas automatically get a little darker and dark areas get a little brighter.

To be fair, I didn't use night vision in Oblivion either - not because there weren't any dark areas, but because Night Vision just gave everything a blueish tint that made it much harder to see compared to a torch. The effect of Night Vision in Skyrim is a lot better, there is just isn't much of an opportunity to use it.

As for the Khajiit power toggling, there's no way I'd mistakenly leave it on. The effect from Night Vision is hardly subtle.

For me Night Eye is only useful when i play in bright daylight. But since most of the time it's dark around here this time of the year, light spells, torches and Night Eye are utterly useless.

Oh well, a darker nights mod will be one of the first made once the Creation Kit is out

I use it reasonably regularly, I've found a couple of caves and mines and stuff that I've barely been able to see in at points - a big upgrade from Elder Scrolls IV: Luminous Cave Fungi Oblivion. I do make the occasional mistake of forgetting to set it, and instead of seeing in the dark Whirlwind Sprint directly into the path of various enemies.

LOl night vision in skyrim ya have to of seen a filn where some squadie is running around with night vision goggles on & the target just turns a light on & the squadies blind thats how i feel when i use skyrims night vision

oblivions was a little mor freindly on the eyes & as stated above the world of skyrim isto light theres even in the deepest darkest time of night ya can still see

hopefully the patch will sort out the world lighting

I'm waiting for mods for both darker nights and darker dungeons.

Good to there there may be some mods on the way to make things a dungeons a bit less bright. I guess your perception of how dark an area is will depend on the brightness and contrast of your monitor, but it does still seem a bit odd that ancient dwarven ruins buried deep below the earth that have been undisturbed for centuries still have fires and torches burning everywhere. It would be cool if the some of the dungeons were pitch dark by default, and you could put torches into wall brackets and relight old fires to brighten things up.

The night vision is really for after the Creation Kit is released and the game is modded to have actual darkness. I have yet to even a need a torch for any of my characters, much less night vision.

However, this isn't new. A darker dungeons and nights mod has ALWAYS been needed in Bethesda games.

I assume night eye is to cater for people who have pathetic monitors/screens

Skyrim has WAY too much light available at night. Even if you turn down brightness

We need a 'darker darkness" mod like there was for Oblivion to be honest

But even so, without some light source, I fail to see some things at night that are in bushes, near rocks, etc