Light Radius - How could we make this more intriguing in Diablo IV?

General Discussion
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Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 were masterpiece works, right? Remember how they captured you? The mystery of items, the darkness of Tristram and it’s cathedral, and that music. There is, of course, much more you could talk about, but let’s leave that for another time.

There were a few things I was pondering recently. One of these was ‘light radius’. I was wondering “How could it earn its own significant role in the upcoming game?”

One of the first things we heard upon the announcement of Diablo 4 was their assurance of ‘returning to darkness’. Shivers, in the adventure of creating this game, you know they have started in the right direction.

Light radius was always sort of a neglected child among the more engaging features like skill points, equipment slots, character attributes, and so forth. What I mean by this is “light radius didn’t do much”, and nor should it have, to be fair. But in this game, there are opportunities to bring features forward, and explore how they can be truly intriguing. One example being ‘stamina’, but I’ll leave that for another post.

Light radius has the opportunity to add to the player experience, and it doesn’t just have to be making the area less dark. Visually and immersively, you could implement systems of light as artforms that complement the feeling of being in a dark world. Here are some thoughts and questions I have…

How can light reveal the design of an enemy? (and not only from light sources outside of itself). This introduces the possibility that enemies themselves can have their own sources of light AND darkness which can affect their appearance, but more importantly, how they operate in battle.

How might they behave in/around different strengths/qualities of your light radius? For example, some may have a much higher chance of behaving super aggressively in the midst of a powerful light radius. How could this branch out to inspire interesting possibilities in gameplay? And to extend this further, how might their behaviour change when you attack them a certain amount, or attack/kill nearby enemies, particularly from their own family? (This is deviating from light radius, but keeping with exploration of how the world/enemies could work)

How might they sound, or behave when in darkness of varying depths?

Can the presence of enemies affect your light radius? How could the state of your character also be affected? Could a certain kind of fear take hold? Where the more darkness overwhelms your presence, the less chance you have to land hits effectively. And even further, the less effective your hits are, the stronger that darkness can become. How could your character counter these situations?

Could the qualities of your light radius affect your character’s performance? Could your character have levels of faith, which help them to resist overwhelming powers of darkness, and to stand strong in its presence? Could they have a level of courage, helping them to land mighty hits despite the darkness?

These are some of the thoughts I have had in exploring light radius, and how systems can be introduced that have a deep and intriguing influence on how the game feels, and how your character operates in combat.

I hope I have communicated these thoughts clearly.

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Yes, the experience of being frustrated at not being able to see what you’re doing.

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Um…what?

Everything can look “atmospheric” if you reduce visibility. It’s a trick of the light.

And let’s not forget D2’s bright and colorful moors and jungles.

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Totally. It’s vital to be able to see what you’re doing. I understand there are challenges with keeping an excellent gameplay experience while pursuing a feeling of darkness, and the team would understand this as well. I believe they are exploring ways to make it work as great as it can, that’s why I was thinking about how to expand the role of light radius and consider the possibility of developing it into an intricate system. Does this make sense?

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Immersion with lighting isolation can be also achieved by simulating the character’s field of view. So not illuminating rooms that are not in the character’s sight.
My detailed answer is in this specific post:

PS: While enjoying giving feedback, I don’t want to contribute in any means to take the situation lightly. I hope writing on the forums don’t distract readers from assessing the seriousness of the health situation.

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There is a lot of difference between players on this and many other topics. Some don’t like the dark, some do.
I like immersion and role playing, yes even in an ARPG, So I like dark and creepy. I’m not trying to race through everything in a timed fashion but the developers make me do it. I hope D4 does not take this approach. I understand other players feel different about this.

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You remove it. That’s how.

The original function of light radius was to make the games seem darker and scarier, but let’s face reality here - it hinders more than it helps. Not being able to see things just makes you frustrated.

If you’re after being scared or startled every turn and want a real dark atmosphere then you’re playing the wrong games. You want to be playing survival and psychological horror games. Not isometric RPGs.

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no, please do not defile my beloved D1 with that garbage!

Also light radius in D2 might as well not have been implemented since, except the eclipse quest, all dungeons and outside areas are brightly lit. (this is why they didn’t bother with it in D3)

For me light radius should exist inside dungeons (outside makes little sense, but this allows for outside exploration gear v dungeon exploration gear) and all the enemies outside the light radius should have their health bars, names and elite affixes concealed (they also shouldn’t glow in warning). Other than that maybe having illusions appear in the dark areas to encourage wasting attacks might be interesting, especially for the “scary” dungeons.

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To me the current light radius is fine

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Yeah, easiest and best solution.

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I think there is light radius alreadу in D4 demo:
We can see very dark areas lit by hydra’s fire, for example, and while projectile flies through the darkness, we can see monsters over there and other details. I think lighting is good in D4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKzD1NZwUmw&feature=youtu.be&t=5418

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Well, they could start by not using the Looney Toons-esque shaders that D3 uses for its “light radius”. Seriously, in some of the “dark” D3 rifts you can see how utterly 8-bit the shaders look. You can clearly see the circular outline of the gradients. Ditching that would be the very first thing I’d do for D4.

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Ahhh, nostalgia. So wonderful.

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Blizzard needs a better light radius cause hiring streamers is only putting them more in the dark.

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Yeah, if it gets in the way of playing the game properly, I totally agree. I’m wondering how atmosphere can be formed beautifully while keeping the game as ground-breaking an ARPG as D1 and D2 was - meaning you don’t get frustrated at not being able to see things unless it very specifically is part of the ARPG GAMEPLAY, not JUST the feel - I think that relates to what you said re the example of psychological horror games, which is a very good point you made by the way. I am also coming at it from an artist’s perspective - I believe there are ways of working with light and dark to create a masterpiece of an atmosphere system, but more importantly to serve the practicalities of a game that is FIRST and foremost an ARPG.

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“Darkness” and “Atmosphere” works only in a certain way of gameplay. If you are about to faceroll everything (as we’ve seen from D4 demo) - “Darkness” and “Atmosphere” becomes annoying instead of satisfying.

All modern ARPG tend to be facerolling. We’ll see if that will be the case with D4, but it certainly is with D4 Demo. There is even no hit recovery, lol.

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As long as it’s readable while not being lit well then light radius affixes would be fine. If it’s so dark you can’t see anything without a certain amount of LR, then forget about it.

It looks like some dungeons will be lowly lit and effects can illuminate areas. Which is a nice change and everything looks clearly readable. Not sure if LR is in D4, but I kind of like the lighting direction.

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Yes to light radius. Light radius means “you have to explore this area, you dont know what’s under it, you can get caught with a bad mob type and die, you can get lost trying to explore your quest that you are on, and like, get cornered, bc the light radius (and lack of yellow blinking arrow) dont hold your hand where to go”

Light radius, along with no-yellow-arrow, AND no-quest-blnking-circle, are the defintion of not hand holding.

Most people didnt like the hand holding D3 did, well, Radius, No-arrow, and no-circle on the minimap is how you not-hand-hold.

It’s astonishing how many people think light radius is ‘bad’ and ‘worthless’ and ‘annoying’. instead of looking at it as “ok, this is a challenge, it provides for challenge, death, corpse fetch is synergized with light radius being in the game” Light radius makes it harder to survive, harder to find the quest goal.

But the game has to be about quests in the first place, and not greater rifts ONLY, like diablo 3 is. See, the whole thing has to be a ‘good game’ unlike greater rift, in meta comp, benchmarked by a LB, turning it into PVP, or dont play. Every second not in a greater rift, in a meta comp, is “losing” in diablo 3, and that is probably the most horrible design result of a patch up around.

IE everything has to come together for an experience of “you dont want to die in non-hardcore play”. D3 is fine die in non-hardcore play, it never matters, outside of 1st to epeen rush beginning of season, or in a greater rift.

Light radius is mega important, and one of the most misunderstood features of Diablo 1/2.

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I think you’re confusing challenging with frustrating.

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It isn’t that it’s bad, worthless, or annoying. When all you can see is a small circle around your character and everything else is black or unreadable it’s bad. I have no problems with rooms and areas behind doors not being seen until you open them, but not seeing past 5ft around you unless you stack LR is just wrong.

Specific quests, encounters, or events sure, but not constantly. That’s why I think D4 is going in a good direction with this. It’s readable, inside environments are darker and can be illuminated by effects.

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