Caves should be dark as fook again.

[sMartins]

We should look at that with the eyes of a new players ... he discovers that there are...

he discovers that there are...
...players that appear out of the darkness far out from light radius somehow knowing where you are.
he discovers that there are...
...light hacks and he should be using them on top of a light source
he discovers that the...
existence of darkness only hinders him as a new player

I like this game

We everybody know that the devs of this game are just 2, usually first you make a good, fun game .... then only later you deal with security issues.
And btw it's already like that in many fields.

[azrid]

I don't have so little faith in our 2 devs.
While they have brought us a lot of imbalanced things such as curio melding or gems they have been quick to fix it.
A healthy discussion on the forums probably helps them see which ideas make more sense.

[sMartins]

I don't have so little faith in our 2 devs.
While they have brought us a lot of imbalanced things such as curio melding or gems they have been quick to fix it.
A healthy discussion on the forums probably helps them see which ideas make more sense.

Tbh I don't understand what you are saying ... cause, for example, having alarms on player sight or not having alarms is the same thing for you?
Dark caves would be exactly the same thing.

[azrid]

If I understood you correctly you think adding fun things is more important than fixing the imbalances that might come with it.
My point is simply that a lot of obvious errors in new mechanics are fixable in the conception of the idea.
Don't jump head first into unknown waters.

[sMartins]

Yeah exactly, a game should be fun first of all, then if can be efficient also it's only better.
What also I was meaning is there are already huge imbalancing between default and custom clients ... adding one more would not change anything if not being beneficial to have a more immersive game and more fun, specially for new players. (that is what we need to target to have more players, and in general more success for the game, and if the game would have more success, devs would have more resources also to fix the technical side of the game later on)
If I had to follow your reasoning we should remove many features cause they are exploitable by customs clients (and some on the default also). And that it's not fun.

[azrid]

You could argue that no balance is no fun.
Maybe adding one more imbalance between clients wont change much but adding balanced content will.
New players are also not always clueless. They will eventually catch on that there are ways to go around some mechanics. It will leave the game looking poorly thought out and shallow. I think it will decrease player interest if you add broken things to the game.
Very reckless to just add content with the hopes of it being fun.

I am not against new mechanics. I loved legacy dark caves and I want it back too.

[sMartins]

Yeah I agree that would be better to have both, the fun feature and the balance, but on the other side would be a shame not implementing cool features just cause they could be hacked .... the game would benefit having a good feature more than one less for sure.

Also this kind of games benefit if the community encourage the fair play ... nothing is better than an oversight provided by the players themself, in a sandbox kind of game. Idk if you can see what I mean ...

[Granger]

A bump to bring this up again.

While the server can't enforce what the client does with the data it gets (and culling the objects in an area is too CPU expensive) it can very well enforce darkness by modifying the interactions that are out of control of the client - simply through adding effects that make stuff harder the darker it gets:

• actions with hourglass getting slower
• chance of accidently dropping stuff while transfering between inventories
• chance for no (or massively quality reduced results) when building/crafting
• chance for actions resulting in an accident (the more likely the darker):
  • faceplant for a nice concussion (miner helmet won't help with both the stumbling and the concussion) when moving, the more likely the faster you run
  • pinch your fingers with chest lids or cupboard doors
  • stumble over objects instead of being pushed out by them
  • bite your fingers (or the cutlery) when eating stuff
  • [add more interesting but unwelcome consequences here]
• complete inability to interact with the world, and to fight back in combat, in a fully unlit area

Having Cave Hermit could lower the chances/effects but should never completely rid the character of them, no benefit from it in full darkness.

TL;DR: make the ones who want to venture (or live) underground work for it through making sure they have to have light so they can see.

[MagicManICT]

While the server can't enforce what the client does with the data it gets (and culling the objects in an area is too CPU expensive)

Culling is a relatively inexpensive operation in 3D processing. It's been a few years since I've messed with a rendering engine, but it's a relatively simple formula to calculate, even more so when it's a 2D map. For our purpose here, it'd be a single distance calculation relative to the bounding boxes of the object and light range. In a fresh world with little player clutter, this wouldn't be a huge issue. Later in a world filled with stockpiles and such, it might be something that could slow the server significantly. (Good reason for bigger stockpiles, better object management.)

The server already culls objects by not sending everything on the loaded maps in sight, yet those objects are in memory and being managed. What's the difference between a 91x91 tile area (or somewhere around there) vs a 10 tile radius?

[sMartins]

yeah ... how the game hides curios or forageables right now when you don't have the stats?
Is not possible do the same with dark caves? I mean you can light it up but you wouldn't see any items ... cause you don't have the stats, in this case light source.