Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Options for balancing (long) rests

I didn't see this as a topic listed in the pinned feedback compendium, so I figured I'd start a new thread. Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere.

Goal of this post:
• Invite Larian to consider options for devoting more balance mechanics to resting
• Invite discussion/feedback on the topic
• Perhaps provide one or two options Larian hadn't considered

Context:
• Feedback as a player that loves cRPG’s on max difficulty & DMs D&D 5e and PF2.
• Loving the game! Hope this will become my next 400hr+ game.
• Resource management is very fun and a major balance impact factor in D&D and deserves more attention.
• The best resting system of any game is tabletop D&D: one rest allowed per 24 hrs, players can decide to stop adventuring and go rest at any point, but the cost is TIME, and a world (DM) that reacts to that.

Current situation:
• Resting is “unrestricted” from a mechanical standpoint. That means that tactically the strongest party is a bunch of casters that go all out every combat. This is quite immersion breaking & unbalanced.
• Resting can “unlock” content. That means that you’re invited to camp a few days in a row at a certain stage to make sure you don’t miss anything, which is also quite immersion breaking
• The combination of no time or day/night cycle in-game and no (long) rest limitations makes it feel too “mechanical” to rest.
• It feels weird to not have the world react to resting. Building on fire? Nah I’ll just camp out for a few days and I’ll save people later.
• Abundance of healing food drastically reduces the need for resting & resource management.
• I actually like the fact we don't have to walk to a specific place on the map to camp, this is a nice quality of life upgrade that just saves time in real life.
• Balancing “resting” is left entirely up to the player at the moment. This can have two undesired effects:
. . . o Option A: resting way too much, throwing off caster/martial balance further
. . . o Option B: resting way too little, messing up (companion) story progression and less fun because you can’t go all-out in any combats “at the end of the day” (more likely option for me as a player)

Options for changes to the rest system (in arbitrary order):

1. Require a limited resource for resting
• Description: Consumable “camp supplies” required for a rest
• Examples: Pillars of Eternity 1, D&D, PF:KM
• Pros:
. . . i. Easily able to scale availability with difficulty
. . . ii. Can “solve” food issue by merging it into this mechanic
• Cons:
. . . i. Restricting access to supplies feels arbitrary after first interaction with a “civilisation”, could be countered with other factors (f.e. Weight)
. . . ii. Resource cost becomes trivial fast, making resting arbitrary after early levels
• Fun Factor: BORING

2. In-game clock/timer
• Description: have a calendar, hours and days that progress as you explore/rest
• Examples: the only RPGs without an in-game clock I can recall are yours. With DOS 1 & 2 it felt like a concession for not being able to pause the gamer and improve the multiplayer experience. In BG3 it feels like a holdover from DOS.
• Pros:
. . . i. Best immersion of all options, a day spent exploring a town or travelling large distances without combat can also be cause for a rest
. . . ii. Can implement fatigue based on time spent awake
. . . iii. Much better control over time/story pacing related to resting
• Cons:
. . . i. Probably have to make “night version” of (some) parts of the world, expensive
. . . ii. Probably have to rebalance the timing of some long-duration spells (can be a plus as well!)
. . . iii. Doesn’t really balance well or scale with difficulty
. . . iv. Like most of the following options as well, can discourage exploration, could be solved as Kingmaker did it by creating points where you have to wait for something & you can go exploring in the meantime (f.e. “it will take us a week to get everything ready, feel free to take care of your own business”)
• Fun Factor: AWESOME. Immersive & new gameplay options created by nightfall (f.e. waiting for dark to attack). Probably not realistic in scope though.

3. Rest limits tied to story events/reacting world
• Description: “the ritual will take 3 days, make sure to return before then”; “The mindworm will start weakening us in a week, we need to find a way to remove or delay it before then”; “Save Mayrina before the hag takes her baby” “You went to sleep while the building was on fire, did you expect the flames would also take a nap???”
• Examples: BG3 (sort of now, but really soft), PF:KM
• Pros:
. . . i. Can scale with difficulty (if willing to change story elements slightly, remove on lower difficulty levels)
. . . ii. Creates urgency
. . . iii. Can affect ending slides depending on timing of certain tasks
. . . iv. Can give pop-up message that encounters/dungeons will evolve if you choose to leave, rest and return later
. . . v. No need to make the “night world”
• Cons:
. . . i. Need to define clear balance for timed quests
. . . ii. Time “stops progressing” meaningfully while not on a timed quest
. . . iii. Should avoid hard stops that end the playthrough (5 rests and your head explodes)
. . . iv. Need to give clear warning/insight in what “timers” are running at the moment
• Fun Factor: FUN! (probably personal preference if I’m being realistic)

4. Milestone resting
• Description: Have rests at fixed story points (more strict version of option 3 essentially)
• Examples: Bannerlord
• Pros:
. . . i. Good control over story pacing & “intended” combat balance
. . . ii. Fairly immersive
• Cons:
. . . i. Could cause frustration not being able to rest when you want to, could get stuck
. . . ii. Not knowing when your next rest is going to be is not fun
• Fun Factor: MEH, OK I GUESS

5. Timer system tied to number of encounters
• Description: Have rests at fixed story points
• Examples: Bannerlord
• Pros:
. . . i. Good control over story pacing & “intended” combat balance
. . . ii. Can assign weights to different combats (f.e. a hard encounter has a different weight than an easy one for filling up the rest counter)
• Cons:
. . . i. Not immersive, seems like arbitrary game mechanic
. . . ii. Can be tricky to figure out right balance for all party compositions
. . . iii. Messing up a fight could cause you to get stuck
• Fun Factor: PROBABLY NOT FUN FOR MOST PLAYERS

6. Triggered by companions
• Description: “I’m feeling tired, let’s go to camp”; “I have something to share when we have a quiet moment in camp”
• Examples: “fatigue” mechanic does this a bit in cRPGs
• Pros:
. . . i. Good control over story progression
. . . ii. Gives player a reference point for when to rest
• Cons:
. . . i. Need to tie the triggers from companions to a different system. (f.e. Number of spells remaining? Story triggers? Number of encounters?)
• Fun Factor: OK



Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Please weigh in with your personal opinions, other options you see & preferences so we can hopefully put this topic in Larian's radar and find a better solution (if you believe we need one)!

p.s. omg I'm in formatting hell.