Thoughts on visibility in certain areas right now?
Morph_Guy
Join Date: 2016-04-21 Member: 216034Members
Join Date: 2016-04-21 Member: 216034Members
Since I've seen some conversation about this topic lately so I figured I'd make a poll. How do you feel about the current lighting in certain areas such as caves and other deep sections.
Feel free to put your reasons as to why you think the lighting should or shouldn't be changed in certain areas and which areas you'd like to see changed.
Feel free to put your reasons as to why you think the lighting should or shouldn't be changed in certain areas and which areas you'd like to see changed.
Comments
It's probably too late for 1.0, but I was hoping for a large, dark section filled with spooky critters where sonar on the Cyclops and Seamoth would play a big role. It's too cool a mechanic to get so little use.
The other limit is the way light beams are rendered or the devs being able to put it into gameplay. For a far too long time the Cyclops light was very unsatisfying, so only until the different light sources are able to counter the pitch black a bit, I'd welcome the pitch black.
Technically the engine doesn't support different kind of reflection or illumination of water through microparticles and their different densities. The Lost River for example is a perfect example of a water that should have high bioparticle concentration, illuminating its own light. The engine is doing that with its own light green glow lightmap at the Lost River. But the light beams don't work differently. In such a water, the light should be very good, but the beam reflection should make it almost impossible to use beamlights and the range of sight shouldn't be too far and things in the distance be very fuzzy. Other pitch black places on the other side should have zero particles and beam lights should work without much reflection, but not be very broad and useful, so would need sonar.
With the engine and its limitations I'd wish to have different darkness zones with pitch black at the end. Then different countermeasures to the darkness, like:
Generally I'd also like the idea of the Lost River counteracting most light sources and even reducing sonar sight, because of the bioparticles interfering. The Lost River should have even more of its own glowish light and fogs.
Unfortunately the only near pitch black zones left in the game would be Blood Kelps and Inactive Lava Zones. I think the Inactive Lava Zones were greatly reduced to almost zero, because they would be the best pitch black zones and make sonar navigation mandatory.
Make flares craftable from deep sulfur as well as cave sulfur.
Sit back, watch and laugh diabolically as players soil their pants.
But the issue is that the sonar uses a ton of power. Entering the ILZ and LR for first time players, would fail a lot and rage quit. With the current power drain the sonar causes. I recently helped a friend who never navigated the LR and ILZ. He was still getting confused when I loosely helped him in areas. Another problem with complete darkness. Most people would avoid it. So than what do you do? Piss people off by forcing them to go there. Or just have it there for whoever wants it. Chicken and the egg problem. I'd solely stick to Warpgate travel for Lakes and ILZ. If it was total darkness.
I would love to see darker caves, but only if the devs rebalance the sonar to be a viable navigation tool instead of the novelty it is now with its excessive power usage. Some sort of sonar suit upgrade would be neat as well. We already have handheld sonar units IRL for divers.
Exactly what changes I'd like to see are below:
Caves like the Bulb Zone, Grassy Plateaus, Mushroom Forest, and other small caves should be made pretty much pitch black, with the only natural lighting being from the faint glow of bioluminescent plants. Right now they either have biome fog that's too bright or have a bunch of random light sources placed around coming from nothing.
The majority of the Lost River could also do with a decent bit of darkening. The Ghost Canyon lighting is a good example of about how dark I think the rest of the areas like Bone Fields and Ghost Forest should be. It could also be a little bit murkier, but not too murky.
The Inactive Lava Zone should get a little bit darker as well, with a lot of the lighting only coming off of those lava flows.
Above-ground areas like the Dunes, Grand Reef, and Mesas should all be a lot darker, mostly because their current night lighting is very inconsistent with the surrounding biomes. Every surface biome aside from maybe the Safe Shallows should have night lighting that's about the same as what you'd see in the Sparse Reef to make things more consistent.
- there's nothing in the tortuous tunnels worth using it for (ideally a resources you regularly have to go back to, but not often enough to remember the place).
- all other places are recognizable enough that you won't need one after a few dive.
- when you need it the most you never have the oxygen autonomy to allow yourself to get lost, not until you carry several UHC tanks.
- at which point the seamoth give you infinite O² and FIT INSIDE MANY TUNNELS
ex:
- An large open area full of smog where you can't see more than 2m away
- Tortuous tunnels where you can get lost
- magnetic place where electronics (like the Seaglide or markers) short-circuit
- artificial place that are MEANT to have corridors all alike, game design isn't only about purposefully making place memorable. (btw, you can get lost in a data center or a factory).
- natural place that have fauna and flora constantly changing pattern in a random ways (agreed it's actually hard to purposefully hide)
- Place where the players are encouraged to destroy/mine/scavenge what he used as markers.
- A mirror labyrinth.
- place with no light? (make the dive reel luminous?)
An earlier remark was that we basically rarely ever get lost, especially once we get the compass HUD, and we remember some place very easily. With a seamoth we can basically stay forever to remember the way, but while diving the air is so limited that adding a reason to use the flashlight would cause more frustration.
Whether it is light, or through another artifice, I think there's a lot of potential to improve the game by toying with player's visibility. Of course, other thing would be great to balance along it
Still probably gonna get removed. And even with the darkness, nobody's going to use it if they have a flashlight, lightstick or even a flare.
Even when I died sometimes because I went into a dark place without more lights than my flashlight or seamoth and then couldn't find the way back, I love those areas. I love pitch black, I love beeing lost and the feeling you get from it.
As someone mentioned, would love to have a really big underground area with 0 light where you could only see with the radar or hugging the walls with some light. Wish we see an area like this.
Cons:
Used to be this way until they slapped some misty glow in there. Mostly that grand reef (I got this from pictures they slapped on the main page...
Also, woulnd't ye olde "minecraft torch at point of interest" work?
I'm not sure if the engine is set up for having a lot of point lights, but imagine breeding these in the aquarium as 'torches'.
I think that flares, and divereels should just be cut entirely. Even with lightsticks, I hardly see people use them. It is mostly either a flashlight, or a vehicle light.
*Spotlights don't serve much of a purpose either.
I mean they're already fully implemented in the game with no more work needed, why remove something that doesn't need to be removed? And I understand feeling like flares are useless, I personally only use them for the aesthetic and fun of it, but the dive reel actually is really useful early on when you don't have a vehicle to explore every crevice with.
I remember when Flares used to be that nauseating red phosphor sickly glow. They were helpful in the early game but it gave me so much of a headache to use. Then in a recent update (I think May 2017?) the devs made Flares SO MUCH BETTER! They increased the lumen output so they were much brighter, and they covered a larger area. And best of all, it was a glorious white light instead of the horrible red glare!
I'm sure people will be like "So, it's a reliable source of light that's portable and needs no upkeep, why you complainin' brah?" And that's just it... Flares are wonderful for the early game, before you've unlocked the:
1. Flashlight - It now has volumetric lighting (covers more areas) but relies on Battery limits
2. Spotlight - It also gives a good amount of light, but only in a limited area and certain angles
3. Floodlight - Now powered by base energy (why does the tooltip claim it uses Batteries??) but only at fixed angles
Now you have this simple light source, with which you start with two from the beginning, which are trivially easy to craft. They put out far more lumens, cover a much larger area, can be easily carried around (eliminates Flashlight) and repositioned at will (eliminates Spotlight), and has an eternal power source (eliminates Floodlight). As much as I hated the old red phosphor Flares, they were far more logical. You could crack one open and it gave out a strong light, which would slowly diminish over time (with the flare "wick" getting weaker) until it finally burned out. I must admit that when they did go out the camera angle would go all wonky, but I would use those crappy weak flares over the pretty ones we have now. At least it wouldn't be taking advantage of a cheap exploit...
Don't agree with this part. If they remove, or shorten the barnacles and stalactites. So that the Cyclops doesn't jam on stuff. I'll accept it being darker.
So, other, both, and neither.
I don't want it to be pitch black, just a good bit darker than it is. You should still be able to see things like stalactites from a decent distance away.
But that's what I think. It's already fine at the level they're at now. Any darker, with the nature of the obstacles, will become annoying. I usually miss the stalactites at the current light levels. Because I'm focusing on avoiding the other obstacles.
Hmm I dunno, the creepvine lights seem to not have much issues. And yeah, that would be awesome if ya ask me!
Hmm, imagine one of "your lit up caves" with one of these "lights" WHICH IS NOT YOUR CAVE OR A CAVE AT ALL
If deep areas where darker, your sonar would be much more useful, but it would also need to be used almost constantly, meaning the excessive power drain would be even more noticeable.
I understand that sonar draws power, but far more power than the giant propeller? That is just silly.
Sonar could have other drawbacks such as the most obvious one: it cancels silent running and alerts any predators in its radius to your presence.
I think the inclusion of side-quests are a good solution for this. You don't have to go there, but eventually you probably won't resist chasing down a good lead.
That's not a problem, that's a feature.
You might as well be arguing against having to LOOK for fragment instead of them shining in a gamey "Interactive item here" style with giant arrow floating above them.
I would not be "pissed off" by having a challenging gameplay. Frankly I kind of hoped there would be a corridor that you can only navigate in if you have a sonar.
Same for the Diving reels by the way. You do not often have a gameplay based solely on marking your way.
You know what other game did that? MINECRAFT
Yes, Minecraft have completely dark cave that you must go in, and it didn't have flashlight so you needed to put torch along the way. AND YOU CAN STILL GET LOST.
There's always things that will drive some of the playerbase to despire. Jumping puzzles are mine, especially in 1st-person view, but also in 3rd-person view. (SWTOR, the game of great interest and irritating design and bugs, has them. Those jumping puzzles to get Datacrons...even with detailed guides with pictures, the time I wasted....)
The dark is something rather fearful to a lot of people. I have crazy-good night vision that adapts fast, so I've never thought so. But others.... People's fears in real life can affect them while playing games. I think it must be like doing that big bridge underside sequence in Half-Life 2. That was stressful to me. Was almost a relief the first time I fell. Didn't stop the stress I had before or the momentary massive spike of OHDAMNDAMNDAMN I felt just as I fell. Or stop the stress when I reloaded and started it again.
I still think there should be darker caves in Subnautica, just as I think it was right for HL2 to have the bridge underside sequence. But UWE is facing a game-design challenge here to make the game challenge just right.
It also was a very good and tense moment.
you can watch said sequence here :
There's really nothing making it hard for Subnautica to have absolutely 100% dark place. Every vehicles are equipped with light and yourself have more than one method of lighting the area (and all of which have easily replaceable battery). You even have light-spot for your own base.
So it would be more like a waste of potential to not use it, especially in a "submarine game" when submarine is absolutely associated with "dark ABYSS where you can only see 5 meter away by using a powerful lamp".
But I did go through all of Ravenholm only using the Gravity Gun and a lot of circular saw blades to get the Zombie Chopper achievement.
I agree, some places in Subnautica should be darker.