We have seen Bethesda creating a more living environment with Fallout 4 by adding in weather effects to the game. What if they were to do something similar with the lighting during night hours? By that I mean them making the world much darker than nights in 3 and New Vegas. In those games, nights were still quite bright as you could easily traverse the wasteland without the use of any lights or night vision. There could be potential for interesting gameplay if Fallout 4 made nights more dymanic in terms of game mechancs. For instance:

- The game could introduce enemies that have great perception at night which would require the player to be on alert while walking in the darkness. Other enemies would have lower perception at night.

- Light sources would become brighter to offset the increased darkness

- Interiors receive more realistic lighting so that lights would be needed to scavenge structures

- Light sources could be destroyed to darken areas and make stealthy movement easier

Features like this can add an intimidating factor while walking around at night and make late hours feel more immersive. Would you say this would be a good idea? If so, what other mechanics could be implemented to make nights more dynamic and interactive?

I would like to actually have it be night instead of "extremely cloudy day" as it was in some regions in Skyrim (like the Reach).

Yeah, I'd be a fan of darker nights, caves and other unlit structures.

Maaaybe, but I've played with dark night mods in prior games and in my experience it's just a huge pain in the ass. They showed off a working flashlight in the power armor demo, though, and the Pipboy should still have its own light, so it might turn out all right.

I'd rather they only use pitch blackness for certain locations though, instead of doing it globally.

Sure, I'd be down for that. Would make the wasteland much more intimidating I imagine. It would also make the character think twice about doing quests at night. Currently, when I play Bethesda games I try to get my tasking done during the day and stay in towns or camps at night. It makes me feel like a real adventurer and more imposing night sequences would enhance this playstyle of mine.

Pitch black would be going a bit far for me but if it limited your sight range a bit, unless you had some sort of illumination like you suggest, then it wouldn't be too bad. Just darker than it was in FO3 and FO:NV.

They have been in mods that is, and most likely will be again.

My sneaky characters would love for nights to be darker! Night vision gear would be fun to use for stealth raids on raider encampments under cover of darkness!

with a good flashlight this would be amazing, lets throw in caves and other abandoned places while we're at it, skyrim was all together way to bright.

As far as I'm concerned all of Bethesda's games are too bright. None of them have represented dark nights very well.

A flashlight would be incredible with darker nights. As an attachment to armor or even weapons, or with a pistol we could hold a flashlight in the other hand at the cost of reduced accuracy.

I don't know. The Deathclaw Sanctuary in 3 was plenty dark; in fact, I found it to be the scariest location in the entire game, since it's hard to be scared with Vengeance strapped to your back. If they made nights really dark, people would probably just end up skipping over night time.

Changing the brightness settings works pretty well for me in making nights darker though it takes a couple of tries to find that brightness sweet spot haha

I'd like darker nights if it actually effected the enemy. So if you kill the lights in the building it not only blinds you but blinds everyone else. (unless they or you have night vision). My main beef with the various darker night mods is the NPC's aren't hindered can can shoot you just fine.

That can depend on which platform you are using, Skyrim's default brightness on the 360 was half of that on the PS3.

360 is what i played skyrim on, it was far to bright, especially in places that had no lighting at all but were somehow as bright as an inn

Maybe, if it was phases of the moon. I have seen some of the darkness mods in let's plays (console player), and they can be pretty unrealistic at times. I think that if moon-phases or really accounting for sources of light were taken into effect, than some serious darkness could be really cool for some areas.

GTA 5 did something with this and Todd Howard has said they liked some elements of GTA.

It was quite different on my buddies 360, I set his brightness to maximum and it was half as bright as Skyrim on my ps3. (using the same TV). Maybe it depends on the model.

as he said

and since they not complicated mods you probably will see them on the Xbox aswell

and the next thing people will scream for is brighter torces/ lights or night vison gogles/ helmets

Should be dark like Last of the Mohicans that way you cant even what the hell is going on

Then I'd wait till dawn.

A classic case of to much immersion, in the end most folks would find it more bothersome then fun and immersive and just use the wait function all the time to make it daytime.

There is a reason nighttime in most media is not as dark as rl.

I wouldn't want nights to be dark to the point of being unable to see anything, but darker than other Bethesda games I'd like. NPCs should have different perception at night, too, such as humans losing some and something like deathclaws (or some nocturnal creature) gaining some. There could be a sneak-related perk that eliminates the nighttime perception loss for the player. That could make it easier to sneak around most enemies at night, but also more dangerous to be around some wildlife.

Personally, I've never been a fan of those "hey, super dark!" mods. What's the point in having fancy graphics / cool ruins / vast undergrounds / etc, if you can't see them? (that's the most disappointing thing about many of the ENB mods I run into on the Nexus - so many of them have interesting combinations of effects, but then toss in "and super dark shadows/night!" /sigh)

And maybe it's just my eyes or my monitor, but I've still used flashlights/torches in FO3/SK/OB, when searching rooms in ruins/etc. Sure, it's bright enough to maneuver & see furniture & enemies, but finding loose junk under tables & in piles of rubble? I turn on a light...

Uber-dark also makes playing a Sneak character problematic - if you need a light to be able to see anything more than 5 feet away, it's kind of hard to sneak up on anything in 90% of the game (at night, or indoors)

depends who you ask , some people like complete immersion others prefer a more 'light ( immersion

and allowing the modding community to vome up with immersion mods both sides win just moo at some pf the best immersive mods for sky rim

f or the one for new< vegas those are some of the most populair and most downloaded mods

you as a player can choose to download them or not and bethesda doesn't have to worry about upsetting people who prefer a more casual game

I did not like super-dark games in the past ---- in Everquest I, human characters were basically blind at night and either had to wait, or use a light source ---- and in Fallout games I did not usually mind the "bright" nights. But then I got into modding and got a darker night mod.... that was too dark, though, so I got another mod that placed more lights in the game world (and I think brightened the night a little bit in general) and then another mod that made the streetlamps affect a wider area, etc... bottom line is that it's still pitch black ~at a distance~ but I can see a shaft of light beaming down into an area under a streetlamp and as I get closer to it, the lighting gets brighter (obvs).

In caves, though, I had to use my Pipboy flashlight (once I figured out how to turn it on, since I never USED to use it!)... and seeing the light play over the slimy rock walls, only illuminating a small area around me... and hearing noises and seeing the red enemy markers on the compass and wondering whether there was a rock wall between us or if they were RIGHT THERE in front of me, in the darkness.... those were some good times.

And I will admit, even mundane settings like an old schoolhouse were a LOT more scary when it was dark (thanks to realistic interior lighting mod)... with only a flickering neon light from a Nuka-Cola vending machine to light up a hallway. The power of lighting and sound can really change a game.