After a thread on reddit popped up about darker nights, I figured I’ll chime in with my own ideas about how the atmosphere of the game could be improved a lot (IMO).
It focuses on 3 key points:
- Darker nights (I know this is a touchy subject for some, but read below)
- Dynamic weather effects in most zones
- Night-dependent enemy behavior / map effects
Darker nights
Now, in the past this was a point commonly met with apprehension as if you play in a bright room and you got a rather shiney monitor, you can easily not see anything at all if the night is dark enough.
In the past, I would have agreed. However, nowadays we got Light Adaptation in the graphics options, eliminating the need for the night to be bright enough to see just as well as during the day.
So what I would do is reduce light further during the night. Especially with distance from the character, so that a “visible radius” effect is created, simulating how difficult navigating at night can be.
This would significantly increase atmosphere in many rather bright zones, like Kryta or Ascalon.
Dynamic weather
So… these snow maps.. their snow is hardcoded. That’s a shame. In a snow zone, I’d imagine I would get a mix of light snow, clear skies, mushy sleet and really bad snow storms.
This in turn could enable more fancy effects, like NPCs seeking shelter from the weather along the road or a snowstorm impacting visibility ala the night effect above.
Which again, would add a ton of atmosphere. And we got plenty zones to use for this, as some already show hardcoded weather effects.
Night-time effects
Remember playing Majora’s Mask? The NPCs had a defined day/night cycle and to catch them at a specific spot you had to be there at the right moment.
Of course, lacking the ability to modify time I wouldn’t do this here, but the enemies… during the night, focus on larger groups of enemies moving together for protection. Skeletons and ghosts would be on the rise, spawning more frequently. Some animals withdraw, others come out more at night.
None of these effects should exclusive, just vary the relative amount by up to 100% (that is, twice as many skeleton spawns during the night, for example).
Anyhow, those are my ideas in regards to atmosphere. Thanks for reading.