Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Long rest and missable events?

You literally shot your own argument in the foot because guards feeding the prisoners was the only way for it to make sense. Because it is a flimsy and inconsistent mechanic. If you rest outside of the invisible lines that separate quest skipping rests there are no consequences...you could leave the place alone for in-game years and nothing would happen...which by your logic the prisoners should die of dehydration or starvation...but they don't. That only happens if you rest after you crossed some invisible and unknowable line that means if you rest the game skips the quest...a line that is never communicated. So in your attempt to come up with very tortured and contrived reasonings for a bad mechanic you invalidated your own point. The ONLY hope you had for your argument to hold water was to say: guards feed prisoners but if you go in and kill the guards then nobody feeds them anymore so if you then take too long the prisoners would eventually die.

Okay you're getting heated for all the wrong reasons.

I think there are two scenarios going on.

1) A quest that you found and made active, which is what I'm talking about. If you have a quest that is active and urgent and you mess around for too long, then the quest ends and you fail the mission.

2) Which I think you are referencing, is a quest that you miss completely because you triggered some "Invisible line" and do something that ends the quest before you see it. Which literally happens all the time in games. It's a butterfly effect and it's done all the time. Like the Cat in Divinity. You reach this certain area in the map and the cat follows you till you get to another certain point and keep it or the cat dies. Elden ring did this too. It's an invisible line, but was impacted by your choice. There are giant games like this where tons of people miss something which is the point. It makes everybody's experience different based on your play style without min-maxing.

As someone who plays DnD irl, our DM has told us after campaigns sometime that we missed hours of story he made because we chose a different path in the story. Are we mad? No. And that's content that we will literally never see.

This is a reloadable/replayable video game. Don't wanna miss something from an invisible trigger? Get a guide book.

Yes....I wouldn't want such a popup either. However, if in this game, the passing of the seasons is not generally simulated, a quest designed to be missable this way comes across as arbitrary and artificial. After all, there is no compelling reason why the farmer has to harvest his apples just after you were passing. Meanwhile, if the game simulated time, and communicated to you in some way that the harvest time was ending, and you later discovered you missed that apple because the farmer harvested it, that would be consistent by in-world logic and as a player, you'd be more likely to react with "Wow....cool that the game simulates that".

So it all depends on whether the game globally simulates the passing of time in a more or less consistent way, and communicates time to the players with some in-world messaging.

How many of these hidden timer quests even exist in the game as it is now?

1) What you are talking about isn't really want this thread or topic is about.

2) No, it doesn't...at all. I cannot even remember the last time I played a game where quests ended by themselves without explanation or had timed quests without the timing being clearly communicated to the player in terms of when it started and how long the player had to do the quest. That sort of stuff just does not happen in videogames...but even if they wanted to implement hidden timing mechanics the LEAST they could do is make them consistent. Not if you wait across the road you have infinite time but as soon as you cross the road you're on a very tight schedule without any explanation of when or why the change happened.

Also no, bad comparison...the progression of a videogame cannot be compared to a D&D tabletop game. Also any half decent DM would dop some clear hints about the kind of timing you have for specific quests.

I don't think there is one. Just things that play out differently.

I remember when I first played early access and missed pretty much the entirety of the party's character progression and dreams because I only long rested 4-5 times. Truly great design.

You know that caps lock dont make you corect?

Yes you are.
In grymforge you long rest 3 times and Nere suffocates ... all Duergars leave and take Gnomes with them. Therefore you just lost whole Barcus Wroot questline.
In Goblin camp, if you kill all 3 leaders before you talk to Halsin he escapes by himself. (I wonder how he knew.) Therefore you just lost conversation.
If you run around Waukeen's Rest but dont do anything there (dont even look) and Long Rest ... Flaming fist leave, and that blpnde dude dies.
If you reach Githyanki patrol without Lae'zel and Long Rest befre fight, they kill her.
And many, many more.

And there are no indications that this can happen.

None of theese situation where you picked something, they all "just happens".

That's fair. A good DM would rule the same way.

Yes, you can miss out on Minthara's questline that way, too. It just plays out differently. It does so because you took a different approach. If you attack the Gobbo's next to Halsin, he escapes, too, but helps you out. IF you do the battle-at-the-grove thing, he escapes on his own, too.
Yes, becasue it is on fire. Oh, but "We'll come back tomorrow!" ... No. This is entirely fair.
Really? Didn't know that. That is an awesome attention to detail.

Shall we do a second round?


No, these are things that make total sense within the world, it's just not what you're used to in video games.

Like 'I choose to put out the fire, but I'll do so next week.' Yeah, I gotcha.

There is one thing I noticed. If you wait too long to kill the harpies (i. e. you do not know about them, like me), the kid is nowhere to be seen. Probably eaten.

Also, I read that if you wait too long after telling Minthara where the Druids are, they will win that battle without you.



(both make sense, of course, but I read your sentence like an order to give you more.. =P )

Both things are awesome in my book.

Look. You can never enter the druid grove or goblin camp at all; kill the spiders in the cave, cast Featherfall - jump in the Underdark, head straight for the boat and leave the Underdark at level 2. You could, technically, do this 'by accident' on your very first run.

I think the point of the invisible line is that the event in question isn't *actually* happening *until* you cross the invisible line. And then it's happening.

It's just an unreasonable amount of work to program in all the events leading up to the event, so everything is in place waiting for the crossing of the invisible line. Then the event begins happening.

I don't think making the invisible line visible is desirable, but I understand that you feel otherwise.

I also think the argument that it is "inconsistent" is questionable. There are *numerous* moments in the game where this happens, and I would suggest that it happens much more than you realize in BG3. But that aside, if it's not happening enough to be considered "consistent" then I would put forward that the solution isn't to lessen the number of times it happens, but rather to increase them.

Personally, I appreciate the reactivity of those moments. I'd also suggest that all of us talking about this topic means we all noticed it in the game, so the game did its job in that sense. Once bitten, twice shy. I go through the game knowing that events aren't just sitting around in perpetuity waiting on me, so it aptly informs my playstyle.

Well, the first one made total sense. I was just very confused when I learned that there is a kid to rescue there..

I am curious though, do you have any idea if the Goblin/Druid situation resolves itself if you do that? Or if waiting long enough also does that?

Still working through how I feel about this, but it’s worth pointing out that the “invisible lines which trigger timed scripts” aren’t all that invisible: it’s gates and bridges. It’s not 100% always how it works, but by and large players should be wary of crossing any kind of threshold.

This is entirely correct, so yet another reason to NOT play the game for long while after its release to give adequate time for game guides to be written through which someone like me can totally metagame all of this.

I dont think i understand you ...
Are you telling me that good DM would present a problem before you, let you run around like Energizer Bunny and trying hard to find solution ... only to tell you at the end, if you would finaly find some and bring it there: "Hey, too late, everyone is gone now." ?

We clearly have different deffinitions of good DM.

In my book "Good DM" would clearly warn you that there is time limit for this quest ... like i dunno.
Sergeant Thrym (or whatever is that barefoot Duergar called): "If this is like other cave ins, we can presume there will be deadly gas ... i dont know how much time they have left!"

See? It wasnt that hard.

Sadly, Larian have pasion and some good ideas, but they are not good DM ... and that is why you only find out about this limit, if you run right to that cave in and try to talk with someone on the other side trough your tadpole.
Why would you do what, especialy if your character is one of those who are trying really hard to resist the tadpole rather than use it?
How would you do that, if you are up on those racks, and have no idea what is even happening down there?
I dont know ...
But if you call that good writing, its clear we wouldnt agree.

I dont think you understand what im saying here ...

You cant "miss" Minthara Questline ... certainly not bcs Long Rest (you have noticed topic name, right?) ...
All you can do with Minthara Questline is either pick that, or the other one (Halsin in this case).
"miss" =/= "pick"
See the difference?

"If you attack the Gobbo" ... then you picked, i hope we allready cleared that.

"if you do the battle at the groove" ... then you picked, same pattern over and over ... two routes, you can walk only one of them at same time.

BUT!!!

When you go for Halsin ... and meanwile you kill all 3 Goblin leaders ...
Halsin *somehow* knows ... and for some unknown reason he decides that there is no longer any reason to stick there ... and so he escapes.
Therefore you loose dialogue with him ...

I never said its not fair ...
I only say its timed event tied to your Long Rest, that you will miss, if you dont deal with imediately ...

You claimed its impossible to miss events due to Long Rest, the very existence of this event that is missable due to Long Rest, prooves you wrong.

Also ... this countdown start far sooner than when you reach it, i know that once i was fighting Gnolls, and when i come to save Floric, nobody was around anymore.

My grandfather allways said:
Dont ask for extra, until you eat what you have.

Making or not making sense is not the point ...

More like "I choose to go to the right on this road ... oh shit, pack of gnolls ... *one fight later* we better rest ... now i choose to go left instead ... hmm, tavern burned to the ground."
So nope ... you didnt gotcha. :-/

This game should absolutely shatter the trend of most people only playing one playthrough. I've said this before but for BG3 absolute minimum number of playthroughs should be five and average should be around 10-12. Though I really hope that in the final release they clean up all confusion surrounding when the quest you're on is on a timer and when you're not on a timer...that is not good or fun.

Look. I just want things to make sense in the world. That's the DM's job; to present the world and it's our job is to navigate it. Do you want to take your sweet time and not notice urgency in quests, that's your prerogative. Yes, the Inn will burn down. Yes, the Dwarf will die. Yes, all those things happen due to your inaction. If you only play this once, you'll never notice it. But. Did things not work out the way you wanted it to? Reload and try a different approach. The option is there for you.

I'm just done with the Bethesda-approach; "Whiterun is under attack! At least, it will be the second you get there. Go and build a house first, if you want, no rush."

No, not a clue. I mean, I totally expect this to be possible, as there is no in-game reason why it shouldn't be. I haven't tried it, though.


Imagine all the fun! No surpise, no tedious excitement of discovery, just everything playing out exactly as you want to. It's like rewriting the movie you're going to watch and then watching it! Yay!


Perhaps. Still, the game is priced as any other AAA game. The EA version alone already has roughly the amount of content as say, Jedi Fallen Order, which is most definitely not a game I would play ever again. It was satisfying for the length it ran and was sufficient. If that's your experience with BG3, then, it's all good if one leaves it at that. You don't *have* to experience everything that's there to appreciate it. For most people, getting around 40-50hrs of fun out of soemthing is enough.

I too am sick of quests and side quests where they seem urgent but they're not.

"Help! My husband is poisoned! Would you go to this cave to get the antidote?" 100 hours later. "Thank you!"

It's funny watching this thread play out on reddit, where the OP says "You can't 'miss' content, it's a personal experience" and the responses that try to have some nuance are completely downvoted, but the "yea durr, it's amazing" get upvoted. i enjoy reddit sometimes, but man, it's not great for balanced discussion.