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#668533 18/06/20 08:57 PM
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Do we have concrete information on all of the restrictions on long resting yet? It's obvious from the gameplay we've seen that you can only long rest in safe places, but doesn't the implementation of long rest & traditional spell slot uses sort of degrade the balance of the game?

There's nothing to stop a party from backtracking to a safe location after every fight to fully replenish HP & Spell slots that we've seen so far, which completely trivializes the difficulty of subsequent encounters, which is a big part of D&D typically. The pressure from the DM as well as the setting usually prevents players in an actual game from backtracking to long rest all the time; time passes, situations in the game change, certain factors can prevent backtracking; it's very inconvenient to do so, and since the game is flexible thanks to having a DM, players can be prevented from taking such advantage of the system. Such a thing couldn't be put into place for Baldur's Gate 3, though, because it could result in situations where the game is purely "unwinnable", i.e. you are not allowed to long rest or backtrack, you're out of spell slots, and can't possibly win the next encounter.

This means that if combats are balanced around having a full kit available to take on enemies, those who don't spend the time to backtrack and long rest after every fight will be at a significant disadvantage in fights. If it's balanced around the idea that people will take on fights consecutively, then those who backtrack and long rest will experience trivial difficulty.

The way it's implemented almost makes it seem like spell slots should just recover after combat, though that wouldn't be true to the D&D ruleset. In a video game setting, though, that's essentially what we're getting with no restrictions on how often you can long rest.

The only way I see around the issue is if enemies respawned after long rests, which of course is an odd idea for a multitude of reasons and wouldn't work well within the universe, not to mention XP implications.

What does everyone else think about this? I've not played the previous Baldur's Gate games, but from what little I've researched, it seems like resting after every available encounter is pretty normal. Seems kind of contrived to me. Wouldn't it be easier just to let characters replenish resources outside of battle instantly,. even against the ruleset of 5e?

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I imagine the game wil have some sort of ration requirement for rest like many others, probably with a hefty weight or limited supply. You said you have not played the prior BG games....well friend let me introduce you the wonderous F5 button. You (hopefully) will need to save after every fight, every skill check, and before making any decisions. Baldur's Gate 1, the very first fight in the 'real world' you would come across was pretty much guarantee'd to kill you if you didn't have in-depth game knowledge, knew how to kite, or just absurdly lucky rolls. This was pretty much every fight from then on. You could crank down the difficulty but there wasn't a single 'easy' fight on normal and above even if you had ultimate game knowledge and built your character perfectly. Dice do not care. Even with sub-normal difficulty, you could just run into a string of bad rolls and die. That was all with the fairly easy ability to rest.

Resting also gives you a chance to interact with your party members, maybe craft, maybe scribe scrolls, maybe alchemicalize some potions and it will definitely be used to progress party member romances and quests. Requiring rest for spells and abilities instead of just making it gameplay pointless means you get to experience these things no matter your playstyle. Cool-downs instead of hard limits is the Divinity Games style, which means you develop rotations and rarely have to adapt to what you have available, and (no offense) is extremely easy and monotonous. Once you got your core spells, every fight was pretty much the same. Leap to a ledge for advantage, cast a few skills, auto-attack a few times, rinse repeat until all mobs are dead. In Baldur's Gate (and other dnd games) if you blow all of your high level spells right of out of the gate, what if you can't rest afterwards? What if a gelatinous cube is going to bust through a wall like the kool-aid man mid combat? You find yourself saving spells, because you know at some point you're going to need them. This adds artificial difficulty to every unknown encounter but rewards you in your gameknowledge and subsequent playthroughs because you'll know just how far you can push your group before you do have to rest.

Or when you do have to use your higher level spells, they all roll 1's anyways and you begin to better understand alcoholism.


Last edited by macadami; 19/06/20 04:20 AM.
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I see your point, but If you feel that long-resting without limits it´s too much you could just limit yourself to not rest as often but let the others rest as many times as they want if the zone is safe.

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Anybody can do a long rest anytime or anywhere if out of danger. (The question is how much time passes?) If you long rest after a long rest, does a whole day pass?)

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By D&D 5e rules set, a long rest is 6 hours of sleep and 2 hours of light activities.

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Originally Posted by macadami

Resting also gives you a chance to interact with your party members, maybe craft, maybe scribe scrolls, maybe alchemicalize some potions and it will definitely be used to progress party member romances and quests. Requiring rest for spells and abilities instead of just making it gameplay pointless means you get to experience these things no matter your playstyle.


This is a fantastic point. Even if on the bottom line it feels pointless, it gives you an opportunity to see all of these interactions on a regular basis and consider these things. Considering that, I wouldn't have it any other way either.

As for saving spells for what's ahead, that's what I was sort of trying to get at. Simply backtracking to rest looks easy enough. You make a good point in "sudden encounters", though. If there's another, unexpected fight right after another one, there is no chance to rest. Having that happen quite often would be a pretty major hassle, though...

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The D&D 5e rules set is built like this on purpose. Shorts rests gives you back some of your ressources, some classes make use of short rests to recover some of their class features and every class can regain hits points using their hit dices during a short rest.

Last edited by Krytopsy; 19/06/20 06:05 AM. Reason: autocorrection went wrong
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i told you this was gonna be a problem.

Resting is realy hard to implement in video games. Somehow i doubt larian will add timers to quests. So the only way i can see resting be "Balanced" is if the game doesnt LET you rest during certain parts of the game.

But since fast travel is an option, i see this beeing essentialy broken

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Originally Posted by Sordak
i told you this was gonna be a problem.

Resting is realy hard to implement in video games. Somehow i doubt larian will add timers to quests. So the only way i can see resting be "Balanced" is if the game doesnt LET you rest during certain parts of the game.

But since fast travel is an option, i see this beeing essentialy broken


I agree; however, I am fairly certain their fast travel is only going to be in the 'open-world' portion so if there are long dungeons or places like the goblin camp, with many possible encounters they likely won't have those fast travel obelisks. But I guess you could always just back-track to a safe spot a get a long rest so yea, maybe broken.

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Originally Posted by Sordak
i told you this was gonna be a problem.

Resting is realy hard to implement in video games. Somehow i doubt larian will add timers to quests. So the only way i can see resting be "Balanced" is if the game doesnt LET you rest during certain parts of the game.

But since fast travel is an option, i see this beeing essentialy broken

Didn't Swen mention 7 days deadline for the tadpoles to finish their ceramorphosis? There was a cut-scene where Lae'zel shamed the player character for wanting rest when they were pressed for time. Sounds to me like Larian opted for a time limit of sorts, but one where you are clearly made aware of the urgency of the situation. This can both serve as a tool of balance and as a plot device to really lend into the desperation strongly hinted at with the devil, Raphael, offering you a deal - your life possibly in return for your soul. Maybe even a device to further the story into BG4?

Last edited by Seraphael; 19/06/20 05:59 PM.
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Originally Posted by Seraphael
Originally Posted by Sordak
i told you this was gonna be a problem.

Resting is realy hard to implement in video games. Somehow i doubt larian will add timers to quests. So the only way i can see resting be "Balanced" is if the game doesnt LET you rest during certain parts of the game.

But since fast travel is an option, i see this beeing essentialy broken

Didn't Swen mention 7 days deadline for the tadpoles to finish their ceramorphosis? There was a cut-scene where Lae'zel shamed the player character for wanting rest when they were pressed for time. Sounds to me like Larian opted for a time limit of sorts, but one where you are clearly made aware of the urgency of the situation. This can both serve as a tool of balance and as a plot device to really lend into the desperation strongly hinted at with the devil, Raphael, offering you a deal - your life possibly in return for your soul. Maybe even a device to further the story into BG4?



So you're thinking we get 7 long rests until we turn in illithids? I'm not so sure about that since there is no time mechanic in the game that we know of yet

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even if thats the case, it doesnt sound like the entire game is gonna be completed in 7 days, so thats probably only act 1

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I was thinking about the 7 days theme as well, but I figured that long resting doesn’t actually interact with any time deadline. After all, if you thought you were able to complete the objective after taking your “last long rest,” but made a mistake, you could actually put your game in an unwinnable state. No way to recover HP or spell slots, and no way to win the next sequence of required fights. Unless you had an earlier save, you’d have to start the entire game over. I don’t think they would implement something like this.

Unless of course seven days did pass and there was as an unavoidable story choice made for you forcing you into a particular path. I.e. the demon who said “when you’ve exhausted all of your options” he will solve your problem. Now you’re indebted to a demon for taking too long.

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imagine...the entire illithid story line is only act 1...that would have to be a crazy amount of content. and still 2 acts to go..that may be larger than act 1....big game.

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Originally Posted by Seraphael

Didn't Swen mention 7 days deadline for the tadpoles to finish their ceramorphosis?


No, the deadline for normal ceramorphosis is 7 days, and even that is incredibly crippling almost at once. The player character version is much slower, and tied to plot, presumably, not on some arbitrary schedule of long rests.


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