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

Wow, I'm sure this condescendant attitude is way more constructive

So this will be less a D&d simulation and more of a choose your own adventure with in depth turn based combat? Sounds like a Japanese rpg to me, which I am not really interested at all.

Wait, what? In what way a D&D simulation is not exactly that: your own adventure with in depth turn based combat? It sounds like you've never played tabletop D&D or something to state such nonsense.

honestly, it sounds like a big miss to me to present a vampire spawn option without day and night cycle... It's like a huge missed opportunity...

Japanese RPG in the vein of Divinity: Original Sin being made for the PC market, nearly 50% of which appears to prefer RTwP and whose name is apparently an attempt to attract players with gaming interests that may not overlap with any of the aforementioned. Also it's supposed to be an accurate reflection of 5E D&D but not always (!), depending on where the devs can cut corners. Hey, they're doing it because Pillars of Eternity 2 failed from a sales and marketing perspective, which is undeniable proof you have to reinvent the series in order to succeed.

Freedom of choice, sounds to me like they're putting more emphasis on narrative and less on player choice. You're getting a collection of scenes, much like in a movie or a book rather than have freedom to choose what order you'd like to complete the game in (like you could in Balder's Gate 1 & 2, Fallouts etc. western RPG's).

I'm not saying one if better than the other, but as video game writing and acting is almost always sub par, getting forced to follow a b-movie plot and watch extended exposition scenes just to reach that next scripted combat area does not sound fun to me.

^This, I absolutely agree on this, the more I think about what features are they focused on the more it smells to me like a linear narrative story with less emphasis on player agency(something like ME series(not MEA, that poop doesnt exist)). Like no actual mechanics for Camp other than for talking(Sry Im not impressed with Vamp managing his hunger only in camp section) as oppose to Pathfinder kingmaker (also not saying that pathfinders D/N cycle is perfect but at least it interacts with u in some way, giving u some random events as Pathfinders Camp does with ambushes). Tadpole is there perfectly placed for not having a D/N cycle which also we will not see a none tadpole playthrough if we would wished so not to mention Specials post >



To me BG3 gone from must buy to meh.. I will wait & see...

I am surprised multiplayer is the issue. If two players are in the same party then I would expect them to mostly stick together. And if they are apart, well they both should pause and go into combat. Otherwise what's stopping the other player from running half way across the map to help out in combat while his buddy waits on his turn with frozen enemies? Or "freezing" a group of enemies as the other player freely moves around the encounter radius.

It's also curious since when I first heard of no day night cycle I just assumed it was because stealth uses shadows and if the light is not baked into the map then you will get odd calculations as the shadows move. Or likewise have shadows that are darker then they should be just to visually show clear stealth borders.

Well, to answer part of it; if your friend is across a map, he doe snot go into turn-based mode.
If he gets close enough to fight; he goes into TB mode. Thus, he can't run around freely inside the combat.

That was an issue of the setting, not of the game itself.

The amount of superstition is appalling. It's as if no one read scientific literature or papers on here. Let's say BG3 fails commercially, does that mean no one should ever try making a CRPG again? Or a CRPG with turn-based combat for that matter.

Well this is good then.
So if BG3 setting is good, then sales will be good. Excellent, let's focus our forum attention on that then

I am fairly certain that is what the people who commissioned this game are banking on.

50% of PC market prefers RTwP over TB....I doubt this very, very much.

Fair enough. 46.4% do. PC Gamer ran a poll recently where more than 33,000 people cast their votes. That's as good a sample as it will ever get as far as video game surveys with respect to the PC market. I don't doubt their data.

TB/RTwP topic, just as a reminder. Stray posts may be deleted.

It's not *the issue*, it's (potentially) *an* issue.

I don't see why people in group aren't just "on the same clock" regardless of where they are.


Frankly, I'd put them all into turn based combat once combat began. It's what I do in PNP games when groups split. I bounce between the group until combat starts... at which point everyone is in the init order and can act only on their turn (even if they're really far away from the action.)

I know they don't want players to be ridiculously far away and unable to make it to combat, but I don't have a problem with that. Groups should stick together if they want to support one another. And if you're not, there are consequences.

But, that said, even if they wanted to give players that were a certain distance away "double moves" so that they have a more realistic opportunity to get into combat faster (combined with allowing waypoint travel when a certain distance away) they could mitigate the issue enough as far as I'm concerned.

So... yeah... that's not really one of the more complicated issues with day/night cycles.

I know larian is maximalist, but still I would not even mind a less complex day and night time cycle. Seeing people going to bed, is not something, what I would miss...
If you do not meet the kids in bigger cities and some specific characters at night, that is enough for me. So some streets, become a bit more emptier.
They go to sleep using their own "waypoints", when not seen on screen.

Weather effects could be something very rare. Rain could cause wet on characters for many turns or just a couple of very-very small spots on the map if any,
to avoid too much elemental effects...

In DAO2 some places are just always very-very bright, that is a way more stranger for me, than seeing, that people not sleep at night in their own apartment...

Where you want a Day/Night Cycle:

Open World RPG

MMO RPG

BG3 is neither


Peoples are just throwing features into the ring that make no sense from a game design perspective to be disappointed. In a linear story based RPG you want lighting etc as part of game design to establish the mood of a scene. I am equally furious now because I don't have Force Feedback on my console controller when I crash vehicles into the wall while driving a horsecart in BG3.

You realise BG1 & BG2 had a day & night cycle right?
People are various degrees of non plussed or dissapointed, but there is a reason.