Night is too long and useless

[Vinolik]

1. Its too dark, almost impossible to do anything
2. Its too long
3. Imo it takes away all my will to play the game. I didn't buy it to just sit around and wait for day.
4. Doesn't have to be permanently shortened, but maybe an option to disable/shorten it for every user perhaps

[J128MM]

Darkness is common during the night in most places on this planet, so that's realistic at least. The night takes a lot less time and doesn't require much waiting around once you craft a place to sleep. If you time it properly you can wake up at sunrise and pick up right where you left off before you slept. When I play this game, my nights last around 5-10 real life minutes, sometimes less.

Cases like these it's often best to attempt to change your strategy first, rather than altering the entire game to suit your specific play style. I suppose if you choose to stay awake all night, then putting up with a long period of darkness should just come with the territory.

[Nova225]

Originally posted by VUP Kenneth:

1. Its too dark, almost impossible to do anything
2. Its too long
3. Imo it takes away all my will to play the game. I didn't buy it to just sit around and wait for day.
4. Doesn't have to be permanently shortened, but maybe an option to disable/shorten it for every user perhaps

Easy way to shorten it.

1. Make a bed / shelter
2. Sleep

Voila! Night has now been shortened! You might even wake up when the sun is back up!

[Vinolik]

Well sleeeping doesn't really fix it. I go to sleep when the sun's gone down, and then I wake up and its still black

[Foxen]

I too do think that the night is too long...but I think it's caused by the fact that if you decide to sleep you have to rest a fixed amount of time.
If one could decide how long one want's to rest...that wouldn't be an issue.
But atm in order to use all of the daylight, you have to go to bed at a specific time...and I think that's just terrible for a game like SD.
It's like playing a game based on a char living in a correctional centre ^^
...and it would be more realistic if the nights would be shorter by (at least) one (more likely) two or three hours...and if dusk and dawn wouldn't happen as suddenly as it is by now.
That's one of the reasons I didn't play the game recently...
And btw.:That has nothing to do with 'personal preferences'...it's just one of several gamebreaking issues.

[J128MM]

6am to 6pm. That is your typical day near the equator. The transitions from day to night and night to day take a lot less time around the equator as well. I'm doubting those who live in this region feel like prisoners living in a correctional facility.

It's best to design these things based on reality rather than the opinions of a few. It's hard to argue realism and facts. If you folks were actually stranded on one of these islands, that time in darkness before bed and when you wake up would be your most cherished. I wouldn't want to crash out for the night under the hot sun, nor would I want to be waking up to that thing beating down on me.

It's hard for me to find a reason to complain about these things. In the evening when it's dark I'm usually preparing food or water so it's ready for the morning or building my house. Go to sleep around 9, wake up with the sun. If it's still dark in the morning I might get the fires going again or prepare for that days adventures. If I had to do all of this during daylight hours, then I'd be concerned about wasting valuable daylight.

[TouriStarr]

I agree here on this, that the day/night and wake 'timings' aren't well balanced.

- The player is not that tired to sleep every night. Every second night is enough to keep your wake stats up.
- That means also that the days are to short! Too short to be tired in the evening.
- The sleeping time is also to short to wake up at daylight again.

I think this could be nicely balanced over 2/3 daylight, 1/3 night and 1/1 waketime cycle. :-)

Fatique and other stats could shorten or lengthen the waketime cycle and reduce/increase our action radius therefore. ;-)

PS. It's ok to relate to 'reality', but repeating here constantly 'in reality' arguments is just killing good 'gameplay' ideas. ;-) No one needs explained that nights are dark...

PPS. I don't mind to use the night as an integrated game aspect, like hunting bats e.g.
therefore it would be nice to time your wake time, so to say... :-)

[J128MM]

Survival equals the human vs the elements. The race to get as much done before the sun sets is crucial to this game. Other than an annoying shark, what other challenges are there? If we set the game up to be 2/3 day and 1/3 night that would mean 2/3 of the time we can do whatever we want without a challenge or deadline and then just sleep the remaining 3rd. This game is already overly simple...I don't think it's a good idea to remove one of the only challenges there is in the game.

One thing I would like to see though.....since I'm wearing a watch, I'd like to be able to set an alarm to wake up to. If I end up going to sleep a little late, I don't like waking up around noon. I'd prefer to have a short nap, be a little tired, wake up early...and not waste any time.

[Vinolik]

Originally posted by NoNamesLeftToUse:

It's best to design these things based on reality rather than the opinions of a few.

Well there are huge amounts of players complaining about the nighttime. And as I wrote before, it should be added as an option, not a complete game-change

[TouriStarr]

Yes, it's against/with the elements...totally agree on that priority in real and in game.
But you cannot put the whole reality into a game engine. Using here causality and there not, is not logic and not needed for a video game. ;-)
I am pleading for different balanced day/night cycle, giving me a better game experience over the gameplay session. I am not sure and I don't want to determine what 'time' is good.
Will try to give here better feedback with more gameplay experience...

[Vinolik]

In my opinion the devs could add an option for all players to choose the length of the night for themselves. Like 0-10hrs so everyone gets what they want. Just my 0.2$

[lucyrocketdog]

I would be happy with something as simple as a "fast-forward to dawn" approach.

Right now, I keep track of the time and go to sleep at the same time each night in order to wake up at dawn.

[TouriStarr]

Just to prevent missunderstanding here, I am not talking about changing the game difficulty (in terms of resource consuption and respawning rates)!

I'd like to see a timescaling option, maybe where we can adjust the gamespeed independently for the day and night, or just double/half it.
The current gamespeed feels a bit 'stressful' to me.

I am testing now a 'nighttime x1' and 'daytime x0.5' timescale (credits to BIM, positiv7 ;-), which should make no difference in game difficulty (besides players moving speed, I'd guess). That should give me a good opportunity to see how the different timelapsings feels and would be the 2/3, 1/3 ratio, I've mentioned above.

[lucyrocketdog]

Originally posted by TouriStarr:

The current gamespeed feels a bit 'stressful' to me.

I completely agree! I find it odd that it takes half a day to walk around a small island. It should take only an hour or two. I can hardly accomplish anything in a day, and the days feel abnormally short --even taking into consideration it might be near the equator and have 12-hour long days.

[Go_Rongor]

I also would welcome an option given to the player to select how long he wants to sleep. At the same time the whole game-time/real-time ratio could be shifted towards real time. For example if a whole day/night cycle ingame would take 2 hours real time, we would could enjoy enough daylight to actually achieve some stuff. Nighttime being also longer wouldn't be a problem since the player could then go to bed ingame.

Btw, those of you (apparently there are some) who assume that there are mainly 12/12 hour day/nighttime shifts near the equator may want to think about this misconception again and realize that this is not the case. The ecliptic (virtual movement of the sun across the sky) is tilting at the equator as much as anywhere else on the planet throughout the year. It might not have the significant impact alike at the poles, but it still works the same way. Not that this plays any role in the game. Just wanted to correct this as I read it being stated repeatedly.

[TouriStarr]

+ timescale option
+ sleep timer/wake up alarm
:-D