I like torches because it seems to fit the mood of the game in general. A medieval fantasy land. I don't like because its too revealing and the greenish tinge annoys me. I despise night eye, it takes all the difficulty out of dark dungeons and gives a blinding monochrome effect.

Torches are the best IMO.

I RP stealth type characters, and they don't like Light spells or torches because using them gives their position away. Therefore, I go with Night Eye. I don't like constantly casting/dispelling a spell for it, so I enchant a ring or amulet with it, set it to a hotkey and toggle it as needed.

Depends on the character. Sometimes a light spell, sometimes a torch. And when I'm feeling really sneaky (and have a character appropriate for that), it'll be Night Eye, or some variant of that kind of thing.


edit: However, let it be noted that I use a lot of mods, some of which make light do what light should, and darkness be DARK. Really damn dark. You get the idea. Terrifying, at times. :ahhh: I love it! But sometimes, if I need to be stealthy, and I can't see otherwise, Night Eye (or something kinda similar) gets used, because it has to be.

I HATE NIGHT EYE. Not because that it breaks immersion. That's a reason. But my main reason is that it reminds me of a bet that I lost last year. My girlfriend bet me that if I can get a Tactical Nuke in Modern Warfare 2 without using a Primary Weapon within 24 hours, I would get 100 dollars. Guess who lost that bet. I had to wear Night Vision goggles all night and even through early morning. Night Eye just reminds me of that horror.

But in any case, I think it's cooler to go around with a torch or faint light spell. It feels like you're really in a cave, feeling your way with only a dim light to prevent you from bumping into walls. Then with the music all down and an enemy jumps at you from nowhere, you're really taken back and scared.

i agree w/ ur last paragraph, that way u r really up for some scares.
i dont agree w/ ur first, but its actually a funny story.

I want to be able to see the ambience of each dungeon and building, so I use nothing. And most of the time I can see well enough using nothing.

The only time I have trouble seeing is underwater. When my mage is underwater, she uses the Light spell. My warrior just squints very hard.

I always enchant a ring with Light. For every single team. XD I don't need to be sneaky. I just run into dungeons and kick butt!

Nighteye if my character is sneaking. Otherwise, I never go anywhere with any character without the "Bound Torch" spell from one of my magic-adjusting mods (LAME ftw). Instant torch for around 120 seconds, IIRC, and I can call it up or dismiss it any time. No flailing about because my torch went out, either. I love that spell.

I personally use light pretty well everywhere, however, really early in the game and in cities I like to use the torch. It just seems to be more authentic.

Just started to use touches more, have a major benefit, you light them up then you put away your weapon, press a key and you turn them off.
A spell gives more light but require a hot key and mages are very short of them.

I prefer torches unless I am fighting undead. Hell, I like to toss torches into rooms that I'm about to clear to illuminate prey as I wait in the shadow.

I'm all for the atmosphere, so for me it's torch or nothing, basically. I use a mod that removes ambient lights from dungeons, and it just cranks the dungeon-crawling experience up so much. Whether it's an RPG, an FPS or something else, I like my darkness dark. So yes, I've realized I could turn the brightness up (and disable the mod that makes dungeons darker), and I wouldn't do that, because I'm having so much more fun wandering around in the darkness. There's something seriously exciting about not being able to see everything. I swear, I've actually almost crapped my pants walking through a low-level dungeon, holding a torch, when suddenly a damn rat plunges at me from the impenetrable darkness outside the torch's radius. I don't like the look of the Light spell, although it's pretty handy sometimes. As for Night-Eye, I practically never use it in Oblivion, save for some Khajiit characters. I just love how the light of the torch's flame looks on dungeon walls. Cool.

Not to derail things too much, but it would have been more realistic if the lack of light affected both sides. It appears that all enemies in the game have night-eye even if you don't. Using darkness as an ally only works if it actually is one.

I absolutely agree. It's fine as long as I'm carrying a torch that a bandit can just fire an arrow at me from the shadows, but it really blows when I'm standing in darkness so deep I can't see my own nose, and an enemy can just knock me over the head as if the room was well lit. Maybe there's a way to fix it?

I use Night Eye but with a replacement shader to get rid of the blue effect. It's a desaturate effect and it works a lot better than the old one imo. You can't use it in daylight or near light sources because you can't see crap. When in darkness though it makes everything all crystal clear.

I usually play khajiits or vampires so they have the spell readily available. If not I just try to make my own potions of night eye or buy the ones Sinderion has.

Night Eye, I'm a sneaky Khajiit, so I'm set to go with the ability, plus torches and light make me not a sneaky sneak. I don't mind the violet tint, as long as it's not always.

I like light effects most. I don't want to be sneaky, as my character is a heavily-armored, long blade wielding knight who goes into fights with direct, powerful attacks.

I only use torches, anything else ruins the atmosphere for me.

Are you guys sure? Last night, I went into a fort, can't remember which one, anyway it was goblins. My sneak is 71, level 18. I walked through the door into the secondary caverns (read: loading screen) and as soon as I entered there were two goblin shamans and one war chief, standing right there, I could touch them. Still in sneak mode, I used the shadows in this cavern, and patience, to maneuver my way across the cavern, then set up two arrow shots at the shamans loaded with poison, and when they keeled over (one shot kill for each with the poison) I pounded on the war chief. What's your guys' sneak skills?

I don't think he talks about sneaking but normal running. Sneak takes light in consideration then calculating success however I'm not sure detecting you then not sneaking uses it. Know it uses line of sight, both cover and the way the enemy is facing.

To the bandits defence on open ground you can get close enough to hit him with a ranged attack before he reacts on even then not sneaking. My mage uses this all the time.

Light should have an impact on how fast the enemy see you then not sneaking, not sure about how hard it would be for the enemy to find you, probably a bit harder but not to hard.

With very high sneak you can regularly do multiple sneak shots against enemies, work best with undead, they have problems detecting you even on five meters range.

Torch and Night Eye.

I'm a Khajiit, so Night Eye.