View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0004713 | Valley 1 | Gameplay Issue | Oct 8, 2011 6:50 am | Oct 27, 2011 8:46 am | |
| Reporter | zebramatt | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Status | closed | Resolution | no change required | ||
| Product Version | 0.521 | ||||
| Summary | 0004713: Emit light of too obvious utility | ||||
| Description | Emit light is so useful - compared with both NOT using it, and with its alternatives - that it's borderline TOO useful. That is, at the moment (especially given how easy it is to acquire) there's absolutely no reason not to use it whenever it's dark. So why have it as something you need to acquire and use at all? Just automatically emit light whenever you're in a cave environment - job done. Except, for me, part of what makes the caves unique is that they're dark and gloomy and (using one of the other methods) you have to light your own way around them. I think I might be just about the only person who uses ball of light almost exclusively, for that reason. Maybe this is intended, or maybe it's an artifact of emit light scrolls being too readily available. But right now, things just seem a bit... confused. If it's ALWAYS the smart choice to use emit light, why are there alternatives? In case you run out? Then why are the scrolls so common? I'm not actually proposing a solution - just, at this point, trying to clarify the intent. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | New | ||||
| has duplicate | 0004891 | closed | Emit Light scrolls seem a little unnecessary |
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It's funny, because I have some other folks saying "I never see a need to use them," I can get around in the darkness just fine. In terms of the emit light scroll, it's simply kind of like the lantern in zelda or the toches in minecraft or similar, except less annoying than the latter. Why have something you have to acquire and use? Well, why have bullets in guns in an FPS, or a MP meter at all, etc? Why have the darkness if you're usually expelling it away? Because you _know it's there_ and that adds something, I think. |
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Perhaps - and I mean perhaps - this would be more fun if at the start you only had craftible lights; then you could learn ball of light relatively early; then later (gated on a certain ingredient) you could learn an inherent ability (like ride the lightning or storm dash) called "Emit Light" which casts a permanent glow of varying distance and varying magic drain (depending on its level) around your character. That would be more in keeping with the Zelda analogy, anyway. |
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In Terraria you can get a personal light source but its range is limited, it doesn't light up the whole screen. You can place or throw other light sources to see more of the cave. You will still want to have a personal light source but sticking torches or glowsticks everywhere is still a good idea even when you have one. |
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The only reason I mentioned this at all is because I find the light game to be pretty compelling for the atmosphere. Having a "click here every couple of minutes to remove all darkness" spell doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. I think I'm pretty much the only person still using ball of light, therefore! If emit light was useful but also limited - as in your example, KDR - and I had a variety of tools to banish the dark but no obviously best one, the light game would be far more compelling. Having a flashlight with a battery life, or a night vision mode which impares you in some other way (like making your motion sensor inactive and blinding you in bright areas), or flares to throw about which only last a certain amount of time, or a lamp which attracts the attention of all nearby enemies - all that stuff - encapsulates some of the most atmospheric video game experiences I've ever encountered. In short: I think the light mechanics, with regards to Chris's points above, are certainly good enough for now. But I'd love to see the playoff between light and dark expanded later, as there's really so much potential there! |
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Yeah, I'll agree that more could be done for certain regions in particular. For instance, in The Deep it might be interesting to make the normal rules get circumvented. The problem is, that sort of light-play only fun in small doses, to me and a lot of players -- and that's not even a problem, because we have places like The Deep where we can bend the rules just for that region type. But for normal exploration, I feel like having to lay "torches" all over the place like in Minecraft is pretty annoying and just slows everything down in terms of the regular gameplay. When there's a mechanic like that with this game where it's annoying if overused, and yet it's fun in smaller doses, then to me that's something that should have a special area of the game where it can be fun and different rather than ubiquitous and annoying. |
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The Deep's already pretty trippy, though. Maybe a new region type altogether could be included later in which light and dark play a far more active role. But I think we're getting ahead of ourselves now! :-) |
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Yeah, you're really right -- a different sort of region all together would be warranted for something like this. |
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I also feel pretty strongly about emit light scrolls and their making the entire issue of light and darkness and spells related to it trivial. And I can't say I feel it adds any flavor for them to be there, not in the current state. It's just a bland little button you click to turn on the light periodically. I'd prefer for them to be replaced by something like adaptive low light vision, where darker rooms are relatively dark at first, but it gets gradually easier to see stuff when you spend some time in them (without the need to use an item). Now that actually adds flavor. And in regions of total darkness, you'd actually need the light spells. You could also make some enemies or spells (as a trade-off) ruin your night vision. You could *even* add instant low light adaption scrolls, should you still want to keep them around :) Even if you are really sure about keeping them much like they currently are (usable thingies that you find in abundance), I'd call them night vision scrolls or something, so it actually, uhm, makes sense that they wouldn't work in specific region, where there's no light at all. I really feel quite strongly that their current form detracts from the quality of the game. I actually assumed them to be a placeholder mechanic, really. |
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LCinn -- this issue is something that's been well-trodden in the opposite direction, with overwhelming comments from players in the past to the opposite of what you are saying. E.g., that they hated when it was too dark, that it was annoying when emit light was running out all the time, and so forth. And given the reactions yesterday when the darkness was accidentally disabled, it's clear that most folks generally like the darkness, as do I. In terms of it being a "bland little button you click to turn on the light periodically," I don't really know what to say. You could argue the same for healing or whatever -- they are bland little buttons that you press every so often to accomplish some effect. Something like adaptive low light vision is riddled with problems, because -- while realistic -- it would not make for fun gameplay. The net effect there would be that rooms are dark when you come into them, and that you are rewarded for simply standing around waiting for your vision to adjust. That in turn slows down the game, and gives an optimal path to MP/scroll conservation that involves just having your character sitting around. Just having your character stand around should never be a valid gameplay choice, even if there are other options that take MP/scrolls or other consumables, because some players will always take the standing around option as a way of playing "optimally," and then complain to me about how boring that is. For example, see a lot of the stuff with knowledge raiding in AI War, and how people would put themselves through misery to play "optimally" when the game design had something like this that could be used in an unintended way. Regarding light and darkness spells and so forth, those are a different matter all together, and we've not fully designed them out yet. But suffice it to say, this whole game is centered around _magic_, so I don't think there's anything unusual at all about having one kind of magic counter another. When the darkness magic is overwhelmingly strong, the light magic can't cope. Makes sense to me. My intent wasn't to come here and debate you on this, as I'd already said most of my piece, but based on your comments in 0005007 I felt I had to come give a fuller explanation of why I don't agree. I'm sorry I don't agree, but in this case I simply have a different design direction I'm heading in compared to what you're apparently looking for. Having the darkness be something that is there but _very_ unobtrusive in the main is what I've found to be the most fun in the main, as well as through alpha and beta tester feedback on what the ideal light range should be, etc. |
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Thanks for your elaborate reply. Little nitpick: You can not argue the same with healing, unless you'd have huge amounts of potions without cooldowns that automatically fully heal you whenever necessary or something (i.e. make healing meaningless, except for flavor). But that's not really relevant. I think I agree with your comments about low light vision. Shows I'm not a game designer. I still don't like it as it is, but there's enough in AVWW I do really like so far (seriously, this game is going to be great!). Anyway, please keep in the alternatives like Ball of Light for weirdos like zebramatt and me, so we can at least pretend the emit light scrolls don't exist ;) |
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Fair enough on the healing -- that is a good point. And no worries on the adaptive low light vision -- in another game, that could be really cool. But the game has to be balanced around that sort of thing for it to really work. And also no worries on things like ball of light, I'll be keeping those of course and also adding in more light options. As the game progresses I'd like to have more options on ways to do interesting things with light, so if you have ideas in that direction feel free to make mantis issues for them. I'm not going to take out emit light, but that doesn't mean I'm averse to adding alternatives -- boy do I love alternatives! ;) One thing to bear in mind with the darkness/light design thoughts is "how central is this to the game?" When I first started working on AVWW undergrounds and interiors, I'd been fresh off playing a lot of Minecraft and my main thought was pretty much to do what Minecraft did. Hence ball of light, and I had some darkness that was really soupy, pulsing, and evil-feeling. There was a bit of a Link To The Past feel to it, too, with your dimmer "vision area." If you followed the old videos, you can see what I mean. The more I playtested with those mechanics, though, and the more people saw the videos and complained about the darkness, and then when alpha hit and people still complained, the game just moved away from that. I absolutely adore the lighting model used in Minecraft and I think the one in Link to the Past is pretty cool, but what I was realizing is that neither model really fits with this game. This is a game about being much more magical and powerful than in either of those other two games in a lot of respects, and so when you can fling massive fireballs every half-second it seems odd that something like the dark would be any substantial obstacle at all. And, as you say, there's just enough other things going on in the game that the darkness play -- which has been done, and done very well, elsewhere -- kind of took a backseat to stuff that was more unique to this game. That said, magical darkness play where the dark is literally a malevolent magical force that is after you, is something that really interests me as a mechanic for some specific region or so on. Whew, didn't mean to write that much, but there you go. :) |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 8, 2011 6:50 am | zebramatt | New Issue | |
| Oct 8, 2011 6:51 am | zebramatt | Description Updated | |
| Oct 8, 2011 8:31 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Internal Weight | => New |
| Oct 8, 2011 8:31 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0016207 | |
| Oct 8, 2011 8:31 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => closed |
| Oct 8, 2011 8:31 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Oct 8, 2011 8:31 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => no change required |
| Oct 8, 2011 12:13 pm | zebramatt | Note Added: 0016227 | |
| Oct 17, 2011 8:08 am | zebramatt | Relationship added | has duplicate 0004891 |
| Oct 17, 2011 12:03 pm | KDR_11k | Note Added: 0016685 | |
| Oct 17, 2011 12:52 pm | zebramatt | Note Added: 0016693 | |
| Oct 17, 2011 12:56 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0016695 | |
| Oct 17, 2011 12:59 pm | zebramatt | Note Added: 0016696 | |
| Oct 17, 2011 1:00 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0016697 | |
| Oct 25, 2011 9:26 am | LCinn | Note Added: 0017110 | |
| Oct 25, 2011 10:04 am | LCinn | Note Edited: 0017110 | |
| Oct 26, 2011 8:53 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0017145 | |
| Oct 27, 2011 3:34 am | LCinn | Note Added: 0017216 | |
| Oct 27, 2011 8:46 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0017232 | |
| Apr 14, 2014 9:28 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Category | Gameplay - General Complaint => Gameplay Issue |
