But I 100% think there should be some visual indication of time of day in the environment. It would be highly confusing for players to see a fully lit background at the dead of night.
Agreed! But note that in many cases players will not be affected by day & night, which is why I suggest leaving these players completely ignorant of the time of the day. As such, they will not be confused by a fully lit background at the dead of night, because for starters they will not know that it is night!
And even for predators, imagin that you see some motile plants that suddenly stop moving at all. YOu donāt understand why, but they do it consistently. And then, you unlock day/night perception, and finally realize that they operated very logically; they simply knew more than you! I for one find it very engaging an idea.
I think most players would perceive that as broken AI rather than something interesting.
Iām sorry, I just donāt think itās sensible to hide this from the player, for a couple of reasons at least.
We advertise the relevant update as having a day/night cycle, people flock to play it, they donāt see a day/night cycle happening, they complain. Based on current experiences with realistic but unclear mechanics (budding reproduction in particular), this will certainly happen many times.
When players evolve photosynthesis, they probably wonāt be expecting the environment to start cycling in light level, and wonāt be prepared for it. When they consequently die during the night, they will absolutely perceive this as the game being unfair. Showing them the cycle before they make such a change would prepare them a lot better.
These points are fair, but again then we will just encounter similar issues when weāll start introducing senses: they will move to a species being able to perceive everything to one not being to perceive anything, or soā¦ I agree what I propose is not perfect, but I find your proposal just to be delaying the problem - for when it will require a major overhaul.
We advertise the relevant update as having a day/night cycle
Why couldnāt we specify it to be specific to plants? Also, using an icon to tell daytime (but markedly disabled for non relevant species) is one way to show it is there, and explain how it works in the tooltip.
When players evolve photosynthesis, they probably wonāt be expecting the environment to start cycling in light level, and wonāt be prepared for it.
Here, a warning for photosynthesis organelles (in the tooltip) could be a way to make them aware of it. Also, the aforementioned icon could help too.
Even better would be a button to switch between night and day conditions in the editor to show compound balance in both conditions. Maybe then if the player tries to exit the editor with photosynthetic organelles but hasnāt checked the night view, we warn them in a popup like the āATP too lowā warning.
I guess I just fundamentally disagree with sacrificing clarity for realism here (seems to be a theme in things Iām arguing about today). Iāll wait to see what the others say.
Agreed, although Iāve been trying to point out that the other choices comes, too, with losses of clarity (more info to proceed while not useful, not getting prepared for likely future mechanisms about sensesā¦). Furthermore, I think it could provide some interesting gameplay (sacrificing energy for more information that could be helpful in chasing plants, seemingly weird behaviors that find an explanation - which is a very interesting part of IRL biologyā¦).
In the end, realism is more of a balance tiper. But yes, letās see what other thinks of it.
I think it should always show the day/night cycle, but only in patches that are actually affected. At the bottom of the ocean you wonāt be able to tell if it is night or day so I donāt think those visuals should change. I remember reading that light only goes down a few hundred meters in water so any patches below that should just look the way they always are as there isnāt any sunlight down there anyway.
Iāve tested whatās on the branch so far and itās very cool. I think the total cycle length is maybe too short, and I think the transition periods are way too quick. Would be better if they were more gradual.
This looks like a pretty clear result to me Iām afraid @Maxonovien.
More seriously, I still think there are ways to get the best of both worlds, but nothing prevents going along with the majority (quasi-unanimity, even) right now and see how players react to it. I think day/night cycle is a great addition anyways.
I might perhaps try my hand at a fleshed out proposal later on so that people can judge on piece, but thatās nowhere near a priority. It will always be time to reopen these discussions when weāll have to deal with senses (and that wonāt be before some time, probably).
I do think it warrants more discussion and thought, because I agree with you that itās kicking the senses question down the road. But right now it makes much more sense to stick with the simpler option. Iāll look forward to your expanded concept.
Played around with it for about 10 minutes and really liked the changes. I really liked seeing the visual change of lighting.
Only thing was that I felt like the transitions happened too quickly. You go from dark to light in 5-ish seconds. I would slow that down to 20-30 seconds.
Other than that one point it all looks and plays well for me.
One thing that did stand out to me is that the cells and compound clouds donāt change colour based on the lighting. Before it was less noticeable, but now you notice it more during dawn and dusk since the light level is actively changing. But I think thereās nothing we can do about that in the Day/Night PR.
I can implement that, I already did actually. I just didnāt push those changes because, they are not acceptable to me right now. If you look at an old screenshot I took with the purple cell, the lighting is totally different than normal
