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.
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.
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.
Fragments are in utility boxes. Those are this games version of indicators. Wrecks, and lifepods are also indicators. The game goes out of its way to help you gather the fragments. By having natural markers, fragments are found within the same area. The only one that isn't able to be found easily, is Water Filtration. But even that is gonna soon have multiple spawn locations.
Minecraft can place endless amounts of torches, that don't cost a lot to build, don't run on fuel, nor lag the game. It also has a mapping function. Thanks to its modders. I can't put endless amounts of lights in caves. Unless I want the area to lag like junk. I can also carve out a cave for my liking, to create a shortcut. Here, you're stuck with the default routes. The teraformer is now gone. If Sub was in Minecraft. I'd cut out a tunnel leading to the PCF, from the surface. Minecraft comes with endless amounts of tools to make jobs easier and fun. While with Sub. Too many limitations make areas annoying. Which causes people like me to ignore them. I said before. I'm not against pitch black areas. The Sonar has to stop being nerfed to make it viable early game.
Sonar is like the old X-Men games. Where they had Wolverine's claws hurt him or drain his energy. Because they where OP for all the enemies in the game. Till they finally stopped doing that. And worked the games around his abilities. The Sonar has to work with the game. Not be an OP ability. Even allowing us to fight and kill Leviathan's would work for this game. The ability to use say the Cuddle fish. Level it up. It turns into a similar sized creature. So that you can attack and kill the enemy Leviathians. Clear the area out to gather the resources. Than they respawn. It's a repeatable challenge. VS I can't kill them. It wastes time for me to avoid them. Build useless decoys, or torpedoes. I'll just get resources from another location. So basically those sections of the map don't really exist. Once you activate the Warpgates. We already just ignore the Sea Kings and Ghosts anyway. Why not have a reason to actively attack them to get resources. Leviathan's can still be scary. While at the same being allowed to go on an offensive attack against them.
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.
Slight difference though...
Getting lost in MineCraft means, oh, I need to dig my way out.
Getting lost in MineCraft means, oh, I need to dig my way out.
Getting lost in Subnautica means ARGHHHhh....*
*I'm out of oxygen and dead.
Oh very dramatic. You never played in Survival mode or heard "shhhhh....." ? There's a rule in minecraft : "NEVER DIG STRAIGHT UP".
Since we are on the topic of removing things that require any preparation from the player, why not make it impossible to run out of oxygen? Or remove the need of tools to open a locked door?
Sarcasm aside, let's not act as if it was a SURE DEATH, ULTRA HARD DIFFICULTY EUROPEAN EXTREME, DARKSOUL EDITION.
No one said to make every area below 300m effectively pitch black, even if it's basically what "NIGHT" do.
The difference is that instead of day happening and making it easy as hell to do anything, you would have place where this stay a nontarnishable gameplay feature.
note: right now to die in Subnautica I'll have to try hard. In minecraft that's called Monday.
Fragments are in utility boxes. Those are this games version of indicators. Wrecks, and lifepods are also indicators. The game goes out of its way to help you gather the fragments. By having natural markers, fragments are found within the same area. The only one that isn't able to be found easily, is Water Filtration. But even that is gonna soon have multiple spawn locations.
Minecraft can place endless amounts of torches, that don't cost a lot to build, don't run on fuel, nor lag the game. It also has a mapping function. Thanks to its modders. I can't put endless amounts of lights in caves. Unless I want the area to lag like junk. I can also carve out a cave for my liking, to create a shortcut. Here, you're stuck with the default routes. The teraformer is now gone. If Sub was in Minecraft. I'd cut out a tunnel leading to the PCF, from the surface. Minecraft comes with endless amounts of tools to make jobs easier and fun. While with Sub. Too many limitations make areas annoying. Which causes people like me to ignore them. I said before. I'm not against pitch black areas. The Sonar has to stop being nerfed to make it viable early game.
Sonar is like the old X-Men games. Where they had Wolverine's claws hurt him or drain his energy. Because they where OP for all the enemies in the game. Till they finally stopped doing that. And worked the games around his abilities. The Sonar has to work with the game. Not be an OP ability. Even allowing us to fight and kill Leviathan's would work for this game. The ability to use say the Cuddle fish. Level it up. It turns into a similar sized creature. So that you can attack and kill the enemy Leviathians. Clear the area out to gather the resources. Than they respawn. It's a repeatable challenge. VS I can't kill them. It wastes time for me to avoid them. Build useless decoys, or torpedoes. I'll just get resources from another location. So basically those sections of the map don't really exist. Once you activate the Warpgates. We already just ignore the Sea Kings and Ghosts anyway. Why not have a reason to actively attack them to get resources. Leviathan's can still be scary. While at the same being allowed to go on an offensive attack against them.
I kind of lost your point in the end.
Fragment act as "gating mechanic" to make sure players can't get a tech/ability before they accomplished a specific feat (and get the reward). Since at some point the player is MEANT to have a Tech, it's an anti-frustration feature to make it so the players have more chance of finding it (when they are already supposed to have it) if they accidentally missed it earlier.
So "Fragment rarity" isn't a Difficulty setting like one could believe "dark place that need light" to be, so this is nothing similar to casual-game "let's railroad the player until they don't have to play a game" which is how most "illuminated item" act nowadays.
Next, Minecraft not letting you dig would actually be easier (less fun of course), since you would never find new cave to get lost in, never dig down into lava or up into a water-source (washing away many torch), and you would spend a lot less time plugging any dark hole so Mobs don't get in this way. It would be a literal RAILROAD (tunnel edition)
Don't confuse "limitation" with "gameplay mechanic". If a game was just a big room with your goal visible 1km away, it's limited. If the same game had the room totally dark and you would have to look around with a torch, it's LESS limited, because now you have something to do.
Game mechanic are born out of restricting a players ability in a way they find interesting, and using a flash-light methodically is interesting.
Then, "Sonar being nerfed" (something I agree on) is a direct result of having too much visibility. It's OP because thanks to high visibility you only need it once, then you can navigate by sight for the rest. So I don't understand why you would defend "Visibility is fine how it is" when it's the source of the problem.
For the rest... well it require a lot of different changes and rebalance. I could (and already did) spend hours suggesting solution for those, but it's out of topic.
Fragments are in utility boxes. Those are this games version of indicators. Wrecks, and lifepods are also indicators. The game goes out of its way to help you gather the fragments. By having natural markers, fragments are found within the same area. The only one that isn't able to be found easily, is Water Filtration. But even that is gonna soon have multiple spawn locations.
Minecraft can place endless amounts of torches, that don't cost a lot to build, don't run on fuel, nor lag the game. It also has a mapping function. Thanks to its modders. I can't put endless amounts of lights in caves. Unless I want the area to lag like junk. I can also carve out a cave for my liking, to create a shortcut. Here, you're stuck with the default routes. The teraformer is now gone. If Sub was in Minecraft. I'd cut out a tunnel leading to the PCF, from the surface. Minecraft comes with endless amounts of tools to make jobs easier and fun. While with Sub. Too many limitations make areas annoying. Which causes people like me to ignore them. I said before. I'm not against pitch black areas. The Sonar has to stop being nerfed to make it viable early game.
Sonar is like the old X-Men games. Where they had Wolverine's claws hurt him or drain his energy. Because they where OP for all the enemies in the game. Till they finally stopped doing that. And worked the games around his abilities. The Sonar has to work with the game. Not be an OP ability. Even allowing us to fight and kill Leviathan's would work for this game. The ability to use say the Cuddle fish. Level it up. It turns into a similar sized creature. So that you can attack and kill the enemy Leviathians. Clear the area out to gather the resources. Than they respawn. It's a repeatable challenge. VS I can't kill them. It wastes time for me to avoid them. Build useless decoys, or torpedoes. I'll just get resources from another location. So basically those sections of the map don't really exist. Once you activate the Warpgates. We already just ignore the Sea Kings and Ghosts anyway. Why not have a reason to actively attack them to get resources. Leviathan's can still be scary. While at the same being allowed to go on an offensive attack against them.
Don't confuse "limitation" with "gameplay mechanic".
Then, "Sonar being nerfed" (something I agree on) is a direct result of having too much visibility. It's OP because thanks to high visibility you only need it once, then you can navigate by sight for the rest. So I don't understand why you would defend "Visibility is fine how it is" when it's the source of the problem.
Because making areas darker to me isn't a game play mechanic. With the Sonar the way it is now. That's why I defend the worlds current lighting as fine. To make it darker, you have to make the sonar functional as a normal piece of equipment. You can't have one or the other. If you do do that. Than I simply will take easier routes to do my goals. If the Dev's make areas darker, keep the power drain on the Sonar the same, and required you go to said area(s). It becomes a forced limitation. Like when the Cyclops lost its invulnerability for the first time. I didn't complain about that. But the Dev's thought it was okay that everything in the world could damage it. No matter the size. That was wrong. That's a forced limitation.
They relented after people complained. So that only large animals could damage the Cyclops. Than it became a proper sub again. That was artificially making the game harder. When you do that. The game becomes not fun. I can't speak for everyone. But for me, when a game makes you replay a whole stage. Because you fucked up on a boss battle. That's a forced limitation. I failed the boss fight. Not the stage. But some people like that. "It's apart of the challenge" Not to me. That's a waste of my time. If I screwed up and died. That is my fault and I have no problem replaying that. But don't waste my time. Which would be in the case of these darker areas killing power cells, constantly early game. That's my time waster. I know you can argue anything in this game could be a time waster. Charging and changing power cells is my time waster. Why can the Moon Pool charge power cells within 1 minute. But the charging station takes forever. Both have to be the same. But if you make the Moon Pool be as slow as the charging station. All you're doing is wasting my time. With me staring at a progress bar. I'm not playing the game anymore. Balance the game out more. I'll accept darker caves. Don't, I want the lighting the way it is.
We are in agreement on the problem, but have differing opinion of philosophy over possible solution.
If we took your approach the Dev would never introduce any mechanic if it make the game any harder than the previous one. No matter if it's necessary to test how it actually play out and rebalance it after.
The entire point of video game is to create "artificial difficulty", else we would just watch a movie called "subnautica" that cannot possibly fail.
Early-Access & Independent game development gave us the ability to support "untested" game-concept, one of the price for that is the lack of dedicated game-tester or "failsafe" mechanic to fall back on (I will insist that pitch dark + light area, are very basic game mechanic)
Also you have the developers asking you to test specific things
Let's take the Cyclops (even if out of topic), it created a balance problem only because it gained a tons of feature. You are only criticizing the devs because they changed your playstyle and didn't get the new one right in the first pass (with shield, noise & decoy). Aside, it was silly for it to be invincible.
For the Moonpool & charging station that's also another topic, I wasn't the first to suggest reworking Charger as the main-storage (rebalancing everything), and I have my own idea to use "limited O² in submarine" to MAKE THE GAME MORE FUN & EASIER, but that's again out of topic, don't comment on that here.
Let's just say that lightning & sonar & power consumption is an example of 3 interdependent mechanics, you can't get one right without accepting to change the other.
Myself I'm ok with letting the game grow (negligibly) harder just so we pinpoint exactly what need rebalance. It will never be possible if the game gave you a mean to go around without testing the feature.
you are offered systematically a 'path of least resistance'.
I think that certain areas should be lighter and other areas darker. Some too light areas should be darker for the sake of ambience, but there is some too dark areas, where you can't see well enough. So I don't vote, because I can't vote 2 times.
I've been spending some time in areas like the Jellyshroom and Deep Grand Reef and I think the background lighting of those could do with some darkening a well, mostly just to put more attention to how much bioluminescence the local flora are giving off.
To be more specific myself, 90% of the area can stay just as they are. Plus, the bioluminescence of mushroom do a good job already of making it hard to see the little stuff.
What I have in mind is just a corridor or an area meant to be crossed strictly using your own Light&Sonar, and dream would be another place/corridor where a fog make it 100% sonar only. Even just a corridor like the ILZ.
The above is for the submarines, for divers : Tunnel which aren't lit by flora or wreck area not lit by electric arc, fog would be good as well but for this a dive reels would become necessary, and considering it's likely to be dropped, so would be that pipe dream.
Most of you people are out of your gourds. Pants-on-head cuckoo nutso wacked out nonsense.
There are already parts of Subnautica (not even deep, mid- or late-game parts, but early-game surface parts) where you basically have to stand like an idiot for 20 minutes because you can't accomplish anything at night for it being so inky pitch black you cannot see anything at all. And you want less visibility? How would you achieve that? Turn off your monitor?
If you are well-stocked for Quartz and food and/or don't have to hand-catch fish for food, there is literally nothing you can accomplish at night for it being so dark. You can pass within arm's length of resources and not see them. Predators can hit you before you even know they are there. You can get completely lost.
It's just not reasonable that a spot in the Shallows at night where the surface is less than 20m up and you can see the ENORMOUS FREAKING MOON above you, that there's no light whatsoever in the inky depths barely a few strokes from the surface. Even places like the Dunes, which, while deep, are exposed to the surface, have virtually no visibility for more than half the "daytime" while the sun is still up, just not directly overhead.
Of course we expect areas like the Blood Kelp trench and Deep Grand Reef and whatnot to be dark. I'm just tired of the shallow surface biomes being PITCH BLACK for all but 5 minutes out of every in-game day.
Most of you people are out of your gourds. Pants-on-head cuckoo nutso wacked out nonsense.
There are already parts of Subnautica (not even deep, mid- or late-game parts, but early-game surface parts) where you basically have to stand like an idiot for 20 minutes because you can't accomplish anything at night for it being so inky pitch black you cannot see anything at all. And you want less visibility? How would you achieve that? Turn off your monitor?
If you are well-stocked for Quartz and food and/or don't have to hand-catch fish for food, there is literally nothing you can accomplish at night for it being so dark. You can pass within arm's length of resources and not see them. Predators can hit you before you even know they are there. You can get completely lost.
It's just not reasonable that a spot in the Shallows at night where the surface is less than 20m up and you can see the ENORMOUS FREAKING MOON above you, that there's no light whatsoever in the inky depths barely a few strokes from the surface. Even places like the Dunes, which, while deep, are exposed to the surface, have virtually no visibility for more than half the "daytime" while the sun is still up, just not directly overhead.
Of course we expect areas like the Blood Kelp trench and Deep Grand Reef and whatnot to be dark. I'm just tired of the shallow surface biomes being PITCH BLACK for all but 5 minutes out of every in-game day.
What? All of the early game areas like the Safe Shallows, Kelp Forest, and Grassy Plateaus are very bright at night, same for areas like the Dunes and Grand Reef. Almost every other area has enough bioluminescent flora that brightness doesn't even matter.
The only biomes that I'd consider near pitch-black at night are the Sparse Reef, Crag Fields, Crash Zone, and Mountains, but even those have a couple bioluminescent flora here and there to light the way.
I'm just of the opinion that the Lost River is absurdly bright. All the deep caves (maybe not jellyshroom) should be a bit darker, but in the process you'd have to do a QOL pass on the Cyclops headlights, so they don't just reflect off the water half the time and make it harder to see instead of easier.
in the process you'd have to do a QOL pass on the Cyclops headlights, so they don't just reflect off the water half the time and make it harder to see instead of easier.
This, a lot.
Other than that, I don't mind a biome so luminous you forget you are underwater, so long as other biome remind you that you are alone in a dark abyss where even light is pointless.
That's already been fixed. I'm not sure if it's in stable, but it's in experimental.
It seems to still be inconsistent. I was getting glare on experimental in one of the tunnels between lost river levels, to the point I could barely see the wall of the tunnel in front of me as I descended. (I F8'd the spot, so if it's location based maybe they can figure out what's up).
Comments
Fragments are in utility boxes. Those are this games version of indicators. Wrecks, and lifepods are also indicators. The game goes out of its way to help you gather the fragments. By having natural markers, fragments are found within the same area. The only one that isn't able to be found easily, is Water Filtration. But even that is gonna soon have multiple spawn locations.
Minecraft can place endless amounts of torches, that don't cost a lot to build, don't run on fuel, nor lag the game. It also has a mapping function. Thanks to its modders. I can't put endless amounts of lights in caves. Unless I want the area to lag like junk. I can also carve out a cave for my liking, to create a shortcut. Here, you're stuck with the default routes. The teraformer is now gone. If Sub was in Minecraft. I'd cut out a tunnel leading to the PCF, from the surface. Minecraft comes with endless amounts of tools to make jobs easier and fun. While with Sub. Too many limitations make areas annoying. Which causes people like me to ignore them. I said before. I'm not against pitch black areas. The Sonar has to stop being nerfed to make it viable early game.
Sonar is like the old X-Men games. Where they had Wolverine's claws hurt him or drain his energy. Because they where OP for all the enemies in the game. Till they finally stopped doing that. And worked the games around his abilities. The Sonar has to work with the game. Not be an OP ability. Even allowing us to fight and kill Leviathan's would work for this game. The ability to use say the Cuddle fish. Level it up. It turns into a similar sized creature. So that you can attack and kill the enemy Leviathians. Clear the area out to gather the resources. Than they respawn. It's a repeatable challenge. VS I can't kill them. It wastes time for me to avoid them. Build useless decoys, or torpedoes. I'll just get resources from another location. So basically those sections of the map don't really exist. Once you activate the Warpgates. We already just ignore the Sea Kings and Ghosts anyway. Why not have a reason to actively attack them to get resources. Leviathan's can still be scary. While at the same being allowed to go on an offensive attack against them.
Slight difference though...
Getting lost in MineCraft means, oh, I need to dig my way out.
Getting lost in Subnautica means ARGHHHhh....*
*I'm out of oxygen and dead.
Oh very dramatic. You never played in Survival mode or heard "shhhhh....." ? There's a rule in minecraft : "NEVER DIG STRAIGHT UP".
Since we are on the topic of removing things that require any preparation from the player, why not make it impossible to run out of oxygen? Or remove the need of tools to open a locked door?
Sarcasm aside, let's not act as if it was a SURE DEATH, ULTRA HARD DIFFICULTY EUROPEAN EXTREME, DARKSOUL EDITION.
No one said to make every area below 300m effectively pitch black, even if it's basically what "NIGHT" do.
The difference is that instead of day happening and making it easy as hell to do anything, you would have place where this stay a nontarnishable gameplay feature.
note: right now to die in Subnautica I'll have to try hard. In minecraft that's called Monday.
Hulkie2345 :
I kind of lost your point in the end.
Fragment act as "gating mechanic" to make sure players can't get a tech/ability before they accomplished a specific feat (and get the reward). Since at some point the player is MEANT to have a Tech, it's an anti-frustration feature to make it so the players have more chance of finding it (when they are already supposed to have it) if they accidentally missed it earlier.
So "Fragment rarity" isn't a Difficulty setting like one could believe "dark place that need light" to be, so this is nothing similar to casual-game "let's railroad the player until they don't have to play a game" which is how most "illuminated item" act nowadays.
Next, Minecraft not letting you dig would actually be easier (less fun of course), since you would never find new cave to get lost in, never dig down into lava or up into a water-source (washing away many torch), and you would spend a lot less time plugging any dark hole so Mobs don't get in this way. It would be a literal RAILROAD (tunnel edition)
Don't confuse "limitation" with "gameplay mechanic". If a game was just a big room with your goal visible 1km away, it's limited. If the same game had the room totally dark and you would have to look around with a torch, it's LESS limited, because now you have something to do.
Game mechanic are born out of restricting a players ability in a way they find interesting, and using a flash-light methodically is interesting.
Then, "Sonar being nerfed" (something I agree on) is a direct result of having too much visibility. It's OP because thanks to high visibility you only need it once, then you can navigate by sight for the rest. So I don't understand why you would defend "Visibility is fine how it is" when it's the source of the problem.
For the rest... well it require a lot of different changes and rebalance. I could (and already did) spend hours suggesting solution for those, but it's out of topic.
Because making areas darker to me isn't a game play mechanic. With the Sonar the way it is now. That's why I defend the worlds current lighting as fine. To make it darker, you have to make the sonar functional as a normal piece of equipment. You can't have one or the other. If you do do that. Than I simply will take easier routes to do my goals. If the Dev's make areas darker, keep the power drain on the Sonar the same, and required you go to said area(s). It becomes a forced limitation. Like when the Cyclops lost its invulnerability for the first time. I didn't complain about that. But the Dev's thought it was okay that everything in the world could damage it. No matter the size. That was wrong. That's a forced limitation.
They relented after people complained. So that only large animals could damage the Cyclops. Than it became a proper sub again. That was artificially making the game harder. When you do that. The game becomes not fun. I can't speak for everyone. But for me, when a game makes you replay a whole stage. Because you fucked up on a boss battle. That's a forced limitation. I failed the boss fight. Not the stage. But some people like that. "It's apart of the challenge" Not to me. That's a waste of my time. If I screwed up and died. That is my fault and I have no problem replaying that. But don't waste my time. Which would be in the case of these darker areas killing power cells, constantly early game. That's my time waster. I know you can argue anything in this game could be a time waster. Charging and changing power cells is my time waster. Why can the Moon Pool charge power cells within 1 minute. But the charging station takes forever. Both have to be the same. But if you make the Moon Pool be as slow as the charging station. All you're doing is wasting my time. With me staring at a progress bar. I'm not playing the game anymore. Balance the game out more. I'll accept darker caves. Don't, I want the lighting the way it is.
If we took your approach the Dev would never introduce any mechanic if it make the game any harder than the previous one. No matter if it's necessary to test how it actually play out and rebalance it after.
The entire point of video game is to create "artificial difficulty", else we would just watch a movie called "subnautica" that cannot possibly fail.
Early-Access & Independent game development gave us the ability to support "untested" game-concept, one of the price for that is the lack of dedicated game-tester or "failsafe" mechanic to fall back on (I will insist that pitch dark + light area, are very basic game mechanic)
Also you have the developers asking you to test specific things
Let's take the Cyclops (even if out of topic), it created a balance problem only because it gained a tons of feature. You are only criticizing the devs because they changed your playstyle and didn't get the new one right in the first pass (with shield, noise & decoy). Aside, it was silly for it to be invincible.
For the Moonpool & charging station that's also another topic, I wasn't the first to suggest reworking Charger as the main-storage (rebalancing everything), and I have my own idea to use "limited O² in submarine" to MAKE THE GAME MORE FUN & EASIER, but that's again out of topic, don't comment on that here.
Let's just say that lightning & sonar & power consumption is an example of 3 interdependent mechanics, you can't get one right without accepting to change the other.
Myself I'm ok with letting the game grow (negligibly) harder just so we pinpoint exactly what need rebalance. It will never be possible if the game gave you a mean to go around without testing the feature.
you are offered systematically a 'path of least resistance'.
What I have in mind is just a corridor or an area meant to be crossed strictly using your own Light&Sonar, and dream would be another place/corridor where a fog make it 100% sonar only. Even just a corridor like the ILZ.
The above is for the submarines, for divers : Tunnel which aren't lit by flora or wreck area not lit by electric arc, fog would be good as well but for this a dive reels would become necessary, and considering it's likely to be dropped, so would be that pipe dream.
There are already parts of Subnautica (not even deep, mid- or late-game parts, but early-game surface parts) where you basically have to stand like an idiot for 20 minutes because you can't accomplish anything at night for it being so inky pitch black you cannot see anything at all. And you want less visibility? How would you achieve that? Turn off your monitor?
If you are well-stocked for Quartz and food and/or don't have to hand-catch fish for food, there is literally nothing you can accomplish at night for it being so dark. You can pass within arm's length of resources and not see them. Predators can hit you before you even know they are there. You can get completely lost.
It's just not reasonable that a spot in the Shallows at night where the surface is less than 20m up and you can see the ENORMOUS FREAKING MOON above you, that there's no light whatsoever in the inky depths barely a few strokes from the surface. Even places like the Dunes, which, while deep, are exposed to the surface, have virtually no visibility for more than half the "daytime" while the sun is still up, just not directly overhead.
Of course we expect areas like the Blood Kelp trench and Deep Grand Reef and whatnot to be dark. I'm just tired of the shallow surface biomes being PITCH BLACK for all but 5 minutes out of every in-game day.
What? All of the early game areas like the Safe Shallows, Kelp Forest, and Grassy Plateaus are very bright at night, same for areas like the Dunes and Grand Reef. Almost every other area has enough bioluminescent flora that brightness doesn't even matter.
The only biomes that I'd consider near pitch-black at night are the Sparse Reef, Crag Fields, Crash Zone, and Mountains, but even those have a couple bioluminescent flora here and there to light the way.
This, a lot.
Other than that, I don't mind a biome so luminous you forget you are underwater, so long as other biome remind you that you are alone in a dark abyss where even light is pointless.