Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback BG3 and the 5 minute adventuring day issue

My first playthrough I only rested 3 times throughout the entire thing and I missed all of the illithid dialogue stuff. Which is ok I guess, but I would prefer if the game had a proper time cycle and some of that stuff would trigger after a fixed amount of time had passed, rather than being entirely related on when you go to camp. You could then also add exhaustion status effects, for people who go to long without resting, to also encourage going to camp and resting as well.

Id love that as well. I noticed characters mention that they are tired sometimes so I assume some sort of 'tiem progression' effect beeing added at some time. BG1 and 2 also had a day and night cycle. And with the amount of effort that they added to light and visibility beeing in the game a lack of night times would be a real shame imo.

It also opens up tactics for the players that they normally wouldnt have. Raiding the goblin camp at night for example would be alot easier if you want to do the sneaky approach. I did it in the daytime and by the gods is it tedious and a pain in the backside!

Also, some *cough* activities in Baldurs Gate should probably be limited or at least somewhat limited to night time activities in the final game. Chance to be attacked by muggers/bandits should raise when traveling at night and finding certain vendors (like thief guilds for example) could also be tied to night time. A complete lack of it in the final game would be a very big shame!

Balancing in this way is great, in an MMO, where everyone can affect everyone else. But "balance" in this scenario? Not seeing it as an issue, as I said, what George is doing over in Spain has no affect on me here in NA. Speaking of ignoring arguments, what about the argument that in higher difficulties, this feature may not work like it does here, in this one?

"But Rob, it's balanced this way in TT". Of course it is? In TT, there are other people affected by that one player that feels like they have to have a long rest after squashing a few rats. I ask this again, because this is the crux of a "balance" argument: How does whatever George is doing in whatever region adversely affecting you in whatever region you're in? House Rules for MP will cover this adequately, by disallowing it from the start, so that everyone knows it's not going to be a thing, and can base whether they stay in that party or not on that, if it's an issue for them. Hell, we can carry this "balance" argument to the extremes, can't we? Why is there more than one difficulty in games that are fully released? Isn't that "unbalanced", because someone may have an easier time beating an encounter than I did? Which brings me back to my initial argument: The rules are different in different difficulties. Why expect that it would be any different here? So no, I don't see this as a balance thing. I can, and do, completely ignore the fact that you can do it. I also, however, realize that this isn't the final product that's going to "hit the shelves", virtually or otherwise, and don't think it's one of the things they need to spend a lot of time on.

Maybe the simplest "solution" to this "problem" would be to outline the basic rules for each difficulty, with an outline of what each one is. I also think we should have access to monitoring after it goes live, so we can see how many people coming to the forums complaining about it are actually abusing it themselves, in the privacy of their own SP campaign. You know, as a frame of reference for relevance of feedback? Maybe I'm more than a bit skeptical? I mean, I've seen this before. DDO is my best example, where they insisted for years that they needed a higher difficulty because the game was too easy. I was against it, because I knew what would happen. I knew it wouldn't take very long before people insisting they needed this higher difficulty would be calling for nerfs to that difficulty, and it took about 2 weeks for that to come true. I was permanently banned from their forums, initially, for pointing and laughing, and "I told you so".

So yeah, before we start throwing out the bath water, let's be sure the baby's not still in the tub, and that there aren't different rules for this in higher difficulties, which are intended for those that are looking for a challenge.

There's something similar, I guess? Comps will start complaining about being tired. I ignored this initially because of the tadpole, and not knowing what it would mean to rest too often. Now, if it happens when I'm close to done with that character for that session, I'll do my LR, any dialogs that spring up, and then save and quit.

When you can long rest in the middle of the goblin stronghold while in the process of genociding them, is a sign of the current resting mechanics just being temporary.

I would argue Larian should implement a day/night cycle as part of their solution to resting and that this solution should be mindful of the class balance concerns. For me the lack of signs of the passing of time directly detracts from the storyline which dictates there the party is ticking time bombs (twice for Gale).

In games, the passage of time is practically always a conventional thing, not affecting the plot.

The thing I find most troublesome is the incentive to rest to experience party/character story progression. If fewer of those story moments were locked behind the rest mechanic and instead possible to experience out of the camp I wouldn't feel the push to rest more than I actually had to based on my resource use.

The short version of my proposal for resting is a fatigue system based on average distance traveled per party member, and healing received from every source except short resting. You cannot long rest until after you have accumulated a certain amount of fatigue. If you exceed a high threshold of fatigue, you get a point of Exhaustion, and contining to exert yourself will increase your fatigue and exhaustion points until you reach 5, at which point you're forced into a long rest as soon as you're out of combat/conversation. Long rests remove all points of Exhaustion.




This is not a case where "let players play how they want" applies, because it does effect overall game balance. D&D 5e is based on an attrition-based system where resources are depleted over time. It is not balanced around being fully healed and fully charged up for every encounter.

Given that we'll have a party of 4 which will be fixed at that size, that makes every party slot a precious resource which must be filled carefully.

Take the Warlock class. They get almost no spell slots, but they gain them all back after a short rest instead of a long one. In a system where you can only short rest once between long rests, but can long rest at will without limit, that makes Warlocks completely inferior in every way to Wizards. Wizards get a lot more spells known and a lot more spell slots and if they can use all their spells in every encounter and still be charged to fill for the next fight, that gives them no reason to hold back the power.




If Larian has different rules for different difficulty levels in mind, then that needs to be communicated to the player. But based on the things they've said about how many different iterations of rule variations they went through even before EA, I'm pretty sure that Larian does not have any such rules firmly in mind yet. Until such time as Larian communicates on that topic, it's better not to assume there will be any such rules.

I think that a way of dealing with it would be to do like how Pathfinder Kingmaker does it, require rations to rest outside of certain zones like the Grove.
It'd add a level of inventory management too, you'd actually have to plan ahead and it'd add a whole other level to the gameplay.

They could make the food utems count as a ration. Like an apple is 1/4 ration or something. And then remove the part where you can consume to regain hp.

Helps balance resting and the REEEEE'ing people that say food arent hp potions should also be satisfied

This is legendary Baldur's Gate, not just some game. We should expect more, especially given the original title had a day/night mechanic with tangible gameplay effects as well as some time sensitive quests. This is a step down in realism/immersion. Besides the illusion of a thing is oftentimes just as effective as something more tangible.

The lack of visual cues as to time passing has indirectly a profound effect on gameplay even inadvertently. For instance, I played all the way to the druid grove without even a short rest feeling like we were pressed for time and like my real time pretty much corresponded to game/story time. Others rest after each battle, in very close proximity of enemies that should be searching/attacking them, seemingly without issue. This thing needs to be *much* better communicated to the player than it is presently.

I agree that it should ultimately be up to each player to enjoy the game as they see fit. It’s their $60. If someone wants to rest after every battle, who cares, it’s their dime and their time. So what if it’s not the same as 5E or table top. Lorian has never said the rules will be the same as 5E or table top. The game mechanics are BASED on the 5E ruleset not an exact enforcement of the ruleset.

Anyone who has ever played tabletop should know that D&D rules are a base set of rules for a DM to manipulate and change to provide the best play experience for the players. Restricting the ability for people to play BG3 how they enjoy playing the game just because others don’t think it’s right, is the wrong way to design a role playing game. Freedom of choice to do what you want is what it’s all about.

With that said, if John Doe can’t determine a tactical approach to a battle to provide an edge and make the fight easier, that doesn’t mean they should be punished in their play experience by making it even harder by including random encounters while resting. I don’t know how many times during a session of tabletop that a group of new players charged into a battle they should have avoided. As a DM, should I have killed them or made the experience even harder? It’s all about having fun. Not forcing an experience on someone.

I think if players want to include random encounters into the game while resting or just in general while traveling, that could be an added option in the game that a player could enable at the start of the game, but adding this may allow people to exploit experience gains and offset the expected player level per area. But, if someone wanted to employ that exploit, again it’s their dime and their time

That's the real bitch about snipping posts to reply to them, I literally said they should outline the rules for the difficulties and what those are, but, I noticed you managed to snip that out to try to make an "original" argument? WTAF?

I'm not sure if I can say I have really abused the rest mechanic too often in my playthroughs. Sure, maybe every now and then, but not a regular thing. Even maining as a wizard, with a level cap of 4 and limited spells, I did not necessarily have to rest after every 2 battles. I did have to march out of Auntie Ethel's lair after defeating her captives and recharge my heals and spells, but that is really the only time I recall actively having to rest for the reason of my spells/abilities. Very occasionally, I would out of combat take a rest after burning enough misty steps or featherfalls used for exploration or puzzles to prep a different spell. I may have rested to recharge a heal so I could use it on the guy in the tunnel under the druid grove.
Not too sure if this had any effect on my feeling of urgency with the tadpole or not. Probably not, but I am also someone who when playing videogames where there is an urgency put in (get to the hospital, escape the burning buidling or ship), realizes that there is usually a checkpoint that triggers something scripted and takes time to enjoy the set pieces.

@Stabbey This could be an interesting solution despite being a disguised time constraint. There is one major problem and one major benefit I see here.


Let's see how this could work :
In this case we want to have a fatigue treshhold giving you exhaustion points, up to 5. At 5 we go to sleep.

We have a cooldown that you cannot bypass (for now) for long rests. Long rests being the only way to get back your spells as a mage/wizard.
Short rests give us back our hp + special actions.

It brings us to the logic of D&D when you won't long rest twice in a row cause only 2 hours elapsed in your role play. It also forces you to use your spells carefully and to scout before engaging in a fight. You cannot end up in a fight not knowing what awaits you later on. It forces you to use more mechanics from D&D, including certain spells like invisibility( even if it already has an application right now).

Sooner or later you will deplete all your spells. Let's take the goblin camp as an example.

You cleared the gate and sneaked inside. You executed everyone inside. Outside you have 18 enemies awaiting you. You already killed around 20 of them and you're low level so you're in need of replenishing your spells. You have 3 fatigue points(for now we don't know how they are generated).

At this point we are down to short rest and let's go. This encounter is doable with cantrips only for mage and you still have your melee/archer characters that can do the damage. After the fight we have 5 fatigue points. Long rest, and let's go.

The major issue I see here is -> Sooner or later you might end up against the wall with no possible solution.
If you replace the 18 super simple to kill goblins with a boss where your wizard is actually required there is nothing you can do to fight the boss in question. Or rather your mage will be borderline useless during that fight. That will be super difficult all of sudden and might become frustrating. Unless you balance the game around cantrips and melee characters.

You can eventually leave and come back for him later. That would make sense, you're not in power to kill who you want when you want at your level. And that's the wall I'm speaking off. In D&D it would make sense story wise to leave this fight, do something else and you're still playing.

In a PC game you're loosing content. If you have to skip some fights or have serious issues during them because " you're can't rest yet" that would ( based on the current form of BG3) become an issue.

Not sure what you think 'bout it? I love the aspect of resource management in games, I like how it was implemented in hoi4,wasteland 3 or XCOM 2 while it was insaley frustrating in case of Pillars of eternity 1. Those examples I provided are for the most part not even RPG games but it doesn't matter. But they approached the same subject and they were praised for it. Apart from POE1. In bg2 it was ignorable.


I think the solution would be not to limit how often you can replenish your ressources to 100% but where you can do it. I think the best way would be to provide "camping kits" exactly like in POE1 but give you like 5 of them. More than enough to clear one of the zones of the map. After this time you could come back to the town and buy more of them.

Now you made the player come back to the town and...what for exactly? There should be some kind of gameplay there. In wasteland you had your base to manage, upgrades to make etc. In case of BG3 you have items to sell, others to identify( hopefully!). So it would make sense to some extent. But then you're effectively making an illusion of resource management while in reality you're never in the risk of running low on anything. In wasteland it worked because you were buying ammo type for each gun , upgrading them etc. If it sums up to " buy this item 5 times" it will be pointless.

Yes, i have no solution for this. Yours is the closest one to become a good idea BUT we would need to find something for the " wall" i mentioned.

I see that you associate the system with PoE1. You know how annoying and pointless this system was at times. This was especially noticeable when you tried to clear the dungeons under the castle.
Rest-restricting items make no sense in a game where you can return at any time.
In the game we have a fast travel system which, even if it is limited from one point to another, will practically invalidate the possession of items.
In that case, we might as well remove them.

I think my quote above accurately captures your argument. If I missed something, I apologize.

Can you elaborate how one would be "losing content" in this case? With @Stabbey's fatigue system, you gain fatigue through walking. Thus, you simply leave (sneaking if necessary) and do something else before you rest. It causes some time lost, but that is not terribly punishing because
a) It will incentivize you to be a bit more cautious in your spell usage in the future, which I think agrees with 5e's focus on resource management
b) This provides a perfect opportunity to go to camp, where Larian has a bunch of cutscenes/camp dialogues they want you to see.
c) After you walk away, rest, and come back, that encounter will still be waiting for you! You haven't "lost content." It has just been delayed.
d) Presumably you would go find an easier encounter to do before resting. So it doesn't even delay content, it just rearranges it. You now do B (other easy encounter) before A (hard boss encounter), instead of A before B.

Difficulty setting.

My proposal (which I detailed here) was to have a fatigue meter. Once it crosses a certain threshold, you are permitted to long rest, but have no penalties at that time. Once it hits the maximum, the party gets a point of Exhaustion. The meter continues to count up, but you can take a long rest to clear any accumulated Exhaustion points.


The Exhaustion system I mentioned was the one 5e uses, which progressively increases the penalties. With 5 points of Exhaustion, movement is reduced to 0 - you can't move at all, which is why I set that as the point at which a long rest is automatically forced. Practically speaking, the penalties for Exhaustion in 5e are bad enough that it's highly encouraged to long rest long before getting any, never mind 5 points:

1 Exhaustion point is Disadvantage on ability checks.
2 Exhaustion points cuts movement speed in half.
3 Exhaustion points is Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws.
4 Exhaustion points cuts maximum HP in half.
5 Exhaustion points reduces speed to 0.
At 6 Exhaustion points you die.

Of course, the actual rules also say that you can only lose 1 point of exhaustion per long rest, but that would be tedious in videogame format which can't gloss over time so easily, so in my system you lose them all upon taking a long rest.




Correct, there will be a cooldown you can't bypass. The reasoning is that long resting too frequently breaks the attrition-based balance of D&D, and gives no incentive to use a Warlock, which is based on long rests being a lot rarer than short rests.




I was in a hurry when I posted my idea, so I didn't go into a lot of detail, but the idea I have in mind is that once you get to about 67% of your first Exhaustion Point, you can long rest again. Difficulty settings could possibly change that, so 40% for Easy and 80% for Hard. Once you're past that "67%", you can long rest whether you have 0 or 4 Exhaustion points.

You really wouldn't want to have any exhaustion points, never mind entering into an enemy encampment and starting a fight with 3 of them. So yes, if you have 3 exhaustion points and are tapped out with a ton of enemies outside, you're pretty screwed. However, if you have crossed the (arbitrarily chosen) "67% Fatigue" threshold on the first exhaustion point, you can take a long rest. If you have not yet crossed it, you can walk around more to increase it and tip it over, or use healing to tip it over.

Whether long rests in enemy territory are allowed is a different question which my idea does not address.




My idea was that simply walking around increases fatigue to allow crossing the threshold and allowing a long rest. This to me is less likely to get players stuck than a system based around consuming food or rations, which could run out. I also think it's better than a "random encounter" system which could either block players because they're in too bad a shape to win the fight, or, if the encounter happens after a long rest, could tap them enough that they'll feel like they need another long rest to recover from the random encounter they just had by having a long rest.

Walking around would increase fatigue less than receiving healing would. Healing from short rests would not count towards the fatigue meter, because I want to encourage more use of short rests, and you would be limited to 2-3 short rests per long rest anyway.




Again, this is my fault for poorly explaining my idea in limited time, but fatigue increases from walking around outside of combat (it probably does not increase from movement inside combat, which would disadvantage melee-heavy parties more), so you wouldn't get stuck being unable to rest as long as you can still move.




The idea of resting in specific areas isn't terrible, but because there are no respawning enemies, it would ultimately end up being a lot of backtracking to the safe area, resting then returning to the place you left off from, all without any new encounters along the way. That would start to feel like a waste of time, which would only increase the more you play.




What the different difficulty settings each do still needs to be determined, then balanced, then tested and re-balanced.

It all depends on how fast it grows.
What if the player is left without spells and hp after a hard battle
(I suppose the larian bends and remove the healing from the food).
In my opinion, this is terribly overcomplicated.