Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General NO DAY/NIGHT CYCLE confirmed by devs?

Hah! It would seem that a game from 1998 is more technologically sophisticated than the stuff we see coming out in 2020. Now I'm getting *really* nostalgic.

Not having darkness is a drag. DDO has spoiled me, don't get me wrong it has its problems. Still a solid experience IMO after 14 yrs

I love DDO but Turbine gutted it so bad to make money off of almost every quest. The game is 10% content and 90% paid DLC.

I'd kill for a newer 3D D&D MMO that implemented branching dungeon paths & rewards exploring, while using almost 100% of the 'Edition Rules' (IE: DDO was 3.5, a new one would be 5E)

Neverwinter was a very lazy cash-in meant to sell more microtransactions.
But part of that could have been the 4E ruleset it had to use, which already felt way too video-gamey on paper.

The lack of night/day cycle is a real heresy, a true immersion breaker. What reason can justify such a choice, except the copy/paste of Dinivity?

It's more important that a throwing of shoe IMO...

Way to be over dramatic.

Not every game needs a day/night cycle. And nothing about 'copy/paste' would be the choice to add or not add it.

A lot of presence or lack of features in BG3 have for explanation the copy/paste of DO mechanics, the day/night cycle is just a another exemple of that.

For exemple, the "Origin Companions" is a good illustration of this mindset and a result is a less immersive story for no-origin main character and a smaller number of NPC compared to BG.

DDO was sold to different management at that point it drastically went downhill. I fondly remember the great community DDO once had and the DDO podcast that was fantastic. Still take a moderate amount of pride soloing the iron maiden on hardcore difficulty. (I believe that was what it was called) People kept abandoning the quest at the slightest mistake so finally decided to complete it on my own. Took me a few hours and I reported the event to my clan. One of my guild leaders offered a reward of a million gold if I could beat it. I thought I was a goner once I got to the boss, but almost miraculously I survived. Before that I had to use a trick, that the devs later resolved, where my artificer's dog would pick up my soul stone to resurrect me. No such escape would work in the boss fight. I came out of it a million gold richer, which I spent on a crossbow that would lower an enemies constitution with each shot...which soon after the devs nerfed much to my chagrin.

You do realize a day/night cycle is one of the easier things to create in a modern engine? Not many biomes have too many different creatures between night & day in your average D&D setting (And I'm speaking of PC. A DM around a table can add all sorts of creatures).
So it's as simple as dimming the lighting over time, or setting a timer that says 'At <x>, use Dusk lighting'. 'Now use night lighting for night at <x> time.' then 'At <x> time, use the Sunrise lighting' 'Now use the daytime lighting at <x> time'

I'm oversimplifying but it's not all that difficult, compared to many other things.

The choice is artistic and has nothing to do with copy/pasting.

Edit: For a day/night cycle to be all that worth spending money & time making, it would have to have a PURPOSE. I mean, it could be fluff and do nothing; monsters stay the same, NPCs don't sleep, so you can still buy things at night.
But that would be a bit down on the list of 'things to implement', I'd think.

I think their reasoning has been spelled out fairly clearly earlier in the thread.

For starters, they indicated that the complexity of their story-telling would go to some very problematic places if they added another dimension (day/night). If you take a moment to think about how much more complex the behaviour of each NPC has to be during a fully realized day/night cycle then it's not too hard to understand why they might not want to chew on those particular problems this time around.

Having a convincing "night" would not just be a matter changing the lighting. For starters NPC's would have to have more complex schedules and actions, there would have to be a bunch of additional NPC's to populate the nightscapes (different guards, inn/bar keepers and patrons, monsters would be expected to do different things at night, etc.)

That said, while I respect that might be a bigger mouthful to chew on from that perspective, I do think they could certainly start introducing some "scripted" night events and side adventures. Some "not so random" camp encounters might be a nice place to start with such a thing... anything to start laying the ground work for a more convincing illusion of a day/night cycle even if the entirety of their core persistent world isn't constantly cycling.

I'm agree but it's BALDUR'S GATE3 , note a low cost projet game didn't it?

It's a RPG and ambiance is fundamental, it's not a gadget like a hungry shoe. So we will have only darkness in cave and interior and only zone with a sunny beach ambiance and maybe one zone with rain all the times? It's the philosophy of a Dragon Age Inquisition game (an also too colorfull and without a soul high fantasy setup IMO...)

A good regression from a 1998 game and a huge immersive breaker (ho vampire only in deep crypt, ho no assassination and Thieve style in city...).

The only reason is DOS copy/pasting like 4 party member, origin companion, colorful ton, throwing shoe, animal talking, etc.

Maybe even map construction will be DOS copy/past like a big map without any coherence for each act and no world map and liberty of back in old cities.

in codex.. someone actually explained the reason why day & night couldn't work in a DOS *ahem* BG3 game. it was due to simultaneous turn-based and real-time which very much the design goal for a multiplayer co-op game. when engaging combat.. it's in turn-based. time is actually locked during turn-based but other players could be venturing the world in real-time where the time is actually ticking. unless they remove the time transition during turn-based but seems kinda awkward when everyone in the world is frozen but the day & night cycle still happens. what it all means is that.. folks engaged in a fight could be still in daytime when the other players in real-time that join the fights could be already at night time.

Very interesting point and another proof of the impact on the gameplay that can have a DOS setup. I think the good compromise is no pause for weather during frozen fighting...

It's not ideal but it's a necessary concession by this choices of DOS copy/paste, BG3 will be saved by modding.

No day/night cycle doesn't mean it's an eternal day in the game. You camp at night, so most of the stuff in the camp is probably during evening. You could get ambushed, thus fight during the night. There could also be quests where some events such as mounting an offensive against enemy fortress could be at night etc.

I do admit it's a bit of a bummer not to have it, but it's hardly a deal breaker. There are pros and cons either way.

If I recall that correctly:

Dragon Age: Origins
the 'by BioWare' developed
and 'by BioWare' described as a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate
and 'by BioWare' due to the lack of the license not named Baldur’s Gate X
game

did not have a day/night-cycle.

And it was great!
Or am I just blind for something where a day/night-cycle would have significantly added to the game?

I am by the way very happy that BG3 seems to take on style of the party camp of DA:O.
I'm excited to see how Larian does it.

Indeed it didn't. Lothering was perpetually late afternoon; Denerim was always in broad daylight; the campsite was always early evening(ish). As much as I prefer a day/night cycle, it took me a while to notice it didn't have one.

Of course even if you do have a day/night cycle, nobody can ever agree what's the ideal multiplier for the passing of time.

The multiplayer aspect is a decent reason and if the locations and missions give the illusion of time, then that could work.
I would be happy with a time choice for quests, I.e. "let’s do task A at night" and when you time changes to what you chose to simulate that you prepared in the mean time.

Bioware stopped doing day/night cycles with KoTOR in 2004. They prefer set time of the day for each areas, sometimes changing them based on quests or story steps. Or like DA2, manually changing it.

Ah ok, you're right, didn't even thought of that.

If they don't end up adding a day/night cycle then it'll be pretty disappointing. It's 2020, Larian has grown a bit since DOSII and different monsters/races behave differently at night. I hope they've at least added the potential for camps to be attacked at rest and for certain races (Elves for instance) to gain advantages at night since they require less sleep and have better night vision.

Sorry man but they want this game to be as true to 5E DnD as possible.