Guild Wars 2

Hi,

there is something that bothered me since the first time i was playing: the night.
Its not dark at all.

On my first day in game in a night i set the gamma in the options all the way down an thought how much better the night feels when its rly dark.

At the moment there is no big difference between day and night.
My suggestion is to make the nights darker.
Seems like some players dont like dark nights but if you add it as an otional setting it should be fine.

Playing an area in a dark night would be a whole new experience.

And here some screens how it could look like:
http://imgur.com/a/g7yrx

edit: changed “make nights darker” to “give us an option for dark nights”

Ugh. Maybe if this were a quick and easy thing for ANet to add as an opt-in option in the graphics menu — but I sure don’t want to play the game that way. I appreciate realism where appropriate, but not at the cost of my ability to see what’s going on or where I’m going. Being unable to see for half the game does not equal a good time.

+1. I like this, and would love to see it implemented, even if just as an optional feature for graphics.

The legit-night technics (IE torch and whatnot) would be cool as well, but may be too fundamental of a gameplay change to implement at this point. Maybe for certain regions, but adding that universally? It could potentially throw certain balance elements out of whack. Events and stuff that haven’t been designed to accomodate it and whathaveyou.

I’d like it; It’d be fun! But I’m not holding my breath on such a massive change. The graphic one (sorta like bottoming out gamma, only at night) would be really cool and fairly easy as a toggled option, though.

added this pic: http://i.imgur.com/zon6h.jpg

And i dont know where the problem with “not seeing stuff” is.

Its not as dark where you would run into every mob and get stuck at every tree because you dont see it.

If it doesnt get dark… they could remove the day /night cycle in my opinion.

The torch was meant for players that say they dont see anything ^^

crouze.3078:

If it doesnt get dark… they could remove the day /night cycle in my opinion.

+1 to your OP suggestion, would definitely like to see the nights darker. Make stuff as dark, or even darker by choice, than Skyrim.

And agreed, makes little sense wanting to keep a day/night cycle when you hardly notice the difference running around in the world.

+1 this has potential,

Make the Cycle in line with real time, that way if people want to play at 3 am, then they can but it wont be as easy to see as if it was at 3pm.

I am not suggesting that the screen be black and players have a difficulty playing, what i am saying is, be more realistic.

Though I can see the difference between day and night in GW2, I agree that it could be a little darker in some areas. I’d also like to see a lot more variety in mob spawns between the two cycles. Different creatures should appear at night and disappear in the day, and visa versa. I did read that this happens in some places, though I have not witnessed it yet, but I would like to see this a lot more, so that you notice the difference between day and night. Perhaps some areas can become more dangerous at night (and visa versa), so that more and/or tougher mobs spawned.

I play minecraft in survival mode quite a lot, and one of the things I really like about it is how it makes you feel scared to go out at night, and I would love to have that feeling in GW2 sometimes. Not necessarily everywhere, but it would be cool to have certain areas that people just don’t wonder around in at night.

I think moon phases with relative illumination of the land would add to the realism.
During a full moon you can see pretty much far at night, while on new moon it gets much more darker.
Of course, under a new moon it could be harder to go out and fight at night, so why not have perhaps bonuses on magic find for the darker nights?

Hermes.7014:

I think moon phases with relative illumination of the land would add to the realism.
During a full moon you can see pretty much far at night, while on new moon it gets much more darker.
Of course, under a new moon it could be harder to go out and fight at night, so why not have perhaps bonuses on magic find for the darker nights?

I think they wont make it any darker for everyone since someone told me they got to many complaints about how dark the night is. So an option for “dark night” in the graphic settings would be the best we can get.

And if we only get it as a graphic setting, there wont be anything like bonus magic find at night, torch night mechanic or any other special mechanic at night.

Though a bonus magic find at night for the players using “dark nights” would be nice
But a dark night does not make it that much harder to fight to justify the magic find bonus. It would need other mechanics like stronger enemys at night and that is again not possible if it is just an option in the menu.

Fyrebrand.4859:

Ugh. Maybe if this were a quick and easy thing for ANet to add as an opt-in option in the graphics menu — but I sure don’t want to play the game that way. I appreciate realism where appropriate, but not at the cost of my ability to see what’s going on or where I’m going. Being unable to see for half the game does not equal a good time.

I’d actually rather have an op-in option to disable the nighttime effects so I don’t have to wait for 40 kitten minutes after every 70 minutes of daytime before I can take a normal screenshot for GW2W again… But maybe that’s just me. (screenshots during nighttime aren’t as clear as screenshots during daytime)

However if this get’s into the game, let it be an opt-in option

Regards

+1 for an opt in option as well. I’d like to see it implemented first in the cities though and see what the response is. We could also have multiple escort events with torches setup along major paths where we have to guard the light bearer as he/she makes their nightly rounds.

Nights are not long enough to be a problem, I don’t see how making night actually dark would be a problem and it would definitely be nice for WvW if night were to also remove name-plates.

Thanks World of Warcraft for removing darkness…. /le sigh.

Or rather, make the current nights darker, with an option to use the illuminated night setting, for those who feel it’s too dark to enjoy the game. Don’t let the occasional complaint affect the beauty of GW2’s design.

I like those pictures. Also noticed how everything has the same shadow regardless of the day cycle? And the grass is still green.

I added a picture to show other areas as well.

Sylvari areas at night would be awesome with their luminescent plants and flowers.

http://i.imgur.com/jmE1a.jpg

like the snowblind fractal in FotM. me likey

crouze.3078:

I added a picture to show other areas as well.

Sylvari areas at night would be awesome with their luminescent plants and flowers.

http://i.imgur.com/jmE1a.jpg

This would add so much atmosphere into the game!

When I started playing this game, I didn’t even notice there was a day/night cycle. I didn’t even notice that it was night because it was still so bright and I thought it was just one of those regional environmental effects you get when you enter a region like swamps and it sorta gets darker and foggy. Also the zones don’t seem to have a synchronized day/night cycle. It’s bright and sunny in LA and then zone somewhere else and its night.

While I don’t mind if its darker during the night, I would like to see some changes like maybe different monsters or gatherable resource that appear. Maybe the aggro distance for monsters increase a little bit during the night or extra Lion Guard patrols with torches.

Dondarrion.2748:

crouze.3078:

If it doesnt get dark… they could remove the day /night cycle in my opinion.

+1 to your OP suggestion, would definitely like to see the nights darker. Make stuff as dark, or even darker by choice, than Skyrim.

And agreed, makes little sense wanting to keep a day/night cycle when you hardly notice the difference running around in the world.

It’s funny, I thought of Skyrim as well. LOVED to be an archer hunter at nights! Awesome feeling. Miss that in GW2.

Real night is tough for games though. Remember the jump puzzle in Eternal? There’s a part there where they apply real darkness, and your light source isn’t ambient lighting. It’s super dark and would make it pretty hard to play.

Also, real night means you lose out on the stylized/pretty night scenarios the game has currently. Since most of the maps are not in areas where there are torches and bright lights, real night will be REALLY dark. If you know what dark is like, go camping out in the woods. It gets pitch black out there lol.

kenshinakh.3672:

Real night is tough for games though. Remember the jump puzzle in Eternal? There’s a part there where they apply real darkness, and your light source isn’t ambient lighting. It’s super dark and would make it pretty hard to play.

Also, real night means you lose out on the stylized/pretty night scenarios the game has currently. Since most of the maps are not in areas where there are torches and bright lights, real night will be REALLY dark. If you know what dark is like, go camping out in the woods. It gets pitch black out there lol.

I even know who made the dark part of the jumping puzzle :P
But a closed room is not the same as being outside under the nightsky.

It doesnt need to be as dark as in the jumping puzzle.

I think this could work for future content, but not for old content unfortunately. As it is curruently I completely forgot there was a day/night cycle…

Why should it not work for old content?

If it is just a visual thing without special mechanics, everything should be fine.

Added human area pic as well now: http://imgur.com/d64ed

The biggest quibble I have with the night/day cycle is that there’s little or no transition between the two. In FFXI, a much older game with a shorter cycle, time of day was very clearly reflected in atmospheric light, changes to the sky, ect. While I’d prefer a darker night, it still wouldn’t feel quite right to me if the difference is marked by Dwayna flipping the lights on and off. :P

Bonefield.9813:

The biggest quibble I have with the night/day cycle is that there’s little or no transition between the two. In FFXI, a much older game with a shorter cycle, time of day was very clearly reflected in atmospheric light, changes to the sky, ect. While I’d prefer a darker night, it still wouldn’t feel quite right to me if the difference is marked by Dwayna flipping the lights on and off. :P

The transistion in GW2 is 5 Minutes and a full transistion would be really nice.
At the moment the sun / moon is at a fix spot and only moves in the 5 minutes transition time. But a moving light would need alot of perfomance with the good graphic of GW2.

Didnt play FF XI but in the videos i saw the graphic is way worse then GW2 and a moving sun wouldnt eat as much performance as in GW2.

Another game with full day / night transition would be minecraft :P

But thats nothing i ask for since it would need a lot more work then just making the night darker