Feat: Cave Watcher

[Willy Pete]

Bottom line: this Feat would increase the brightness of caves so that you could navigate them without a light source.

The effect itself would be minimal, it would still be better to just light your lantern but you would now be able to see enough in a cave at night or otherwise in total darkness to make your way through without relying on memory or by using right click and your sleeping bag to guide you.

To earn it, you could do something like spend X number of hours in total darkness or in caves. It would not affect how bright it is at night outside of caves.

[SpanishMoss]

This is a good idea, but is should be more general: 

Night Vision. You've been in darkness (not sleeping) for over xx hours, you can now see better in the dark

[Willy Pete]

@SpanishMossThat's a little too powerful, I think. Just in caves seems a little more balanced (and honestly darkness outside is never really that bad). Regardless, I agree that it'd need to be awake time. Maybe even something like you need to travel X distance in a cavern instead of a time limit. 

[I_eat_only_wolf_meat]

I'd be happy if I could see indoors when it's full light outside, like early morning.  There really should be more penetration of outside light to the indoors, at least when there are windows.

Also, the light from a fire should extend beyond a six foot circle indoors.  That is, at least the entire room should be visible to some degree.

The only lighting improvement I would disagree with is your original suggestion, OP.  Have you ever been way down deep in a cave?  The blackness is absolute, and no amount of good night vision would help.

[ChillPlayer]

I like the idea very much, the only concern I have is that it would impact Interloper because you'd have access to a much bigger area right from the start without the need to find matches or any other lightsource first. You could reach the summit in TWM very quickly if you're spawned near the AC cave without the danger of running into a bear or wolves (via cave from secluded shelf) and if you're on the right loot table where the hacksaw spawns on the summit (the chance is 50:50), you have won interloper. Or reaching montain town from HRV right at the start where you have a better chance to survive.

Therefore it would probably needed to be locked for interloper but then on stalker and below I think it is not a huge benefit.

Edited December 16, 2021 by ChillPlayer

[SpanishMoss]

Honestly, I think this feat would be perfect for this game, I agree, in no-light level environments, it shouldn't work (an enterable cave away from a light source for example) but indoors during the night, it would be helpful. The hardest part is finding the right amount of brightness award the player, and there isn't an easy solution without testing different options first (if this such feat is even possible in the game). In so many occasions, you would find yourself stumbling around in the dark, unable to do anything because you don't have a light source or are not willing sacrifice a match or use some lamp oil. Because of the helpfulness of this feat, I'd say 25-50 days of not sleeping in darkness would be a good amount.

[Old Hermit]

i think it's unnecessary.

there are tons of resources to overcome the dark in any game mode except Interloper (in which that would be a balance-breaker).

remember that light is a key resource in The Long Dark

[SpanishMoss]

I don't know about that. On interloper especially, this would've a wonderful feat. This would also replace the kinda-cheesy method of using the placement outline of your bedroll to navigate. An intentional game mechanic like this would be welcome. As for balance, you really can't be sure how balanced it would be until you see if for yourself, I'm sure the devs could balance it so it's not OP.

[Willy Pete]

All these folks saying it makes Interloper too easy...

If that's your concern then don't take it, feats are optional.

[Leeanda]

What about the brightness levels in the options?  🙂 Tried them myself once, too bright for the most part but still couldn't see anything indoors at night!

[SpanishMoss]

The brightness settings are kinda wonky. When I set brightness to max, anything that was dark appeared green, even when lit, things looked very green. This feat should just be a general brightness increase, but rather something more akin to a (very) low strength but high range storm lantern.