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

If the player had just completed a hard battle, a balanced game would mean the next battles they face should be relatively easy. Thus, a player could get through them with basic attacks and cantrips.
In addition, there are potions and scrolls to heal and cast leveled spells. With the current rest system, after Larian fixes it so that only magic-users can cast scrolls (as in 5e rules), scrolls will be pretty useless aside from increasing your wizard's known spells. If you can long rest infinitely, then you'll have access to all your spells for every battle and thus why would you use scrolls? (Again, assuming Larian will fix the scoll-usage rules)

In the case of such a limited rest, fights such as the bulette or the minotaurs would be much less frequent. Instead, you have to put in simple fights with trash mobs (which are usually much less interesting).
Now how are you going to balance them? Do you assume that the player will be approaching the fight with some resources or maybe he had bad luck in the previous match and will have to rely on cantrips?
If you assume that a player has no more resources then fights can be trivial.
If you assume that the player still has some spells left, the fight may be too difficult.
Now we are adding difficulty levels on which we need to balance it.
Too easy or too difficult fights are an easy way to get bored.
In terms of design, it is a nightmare. You have to consider possible group compositions and a few other factors.
In the game, you are not able to choose next fight depending on how the player is currently doing.

Was this directed to me about my "fatigue meter" idea? I'm not sure how fast it would grow, but Larian is pretty proud of all the analytical data they're collecting, and they might have a rough idea how many encounters they think players should have in a day, and they can figure out the distance between encounters in their game.

I have no doubt that Larian will reject my idea for being overly complicated. I'm not sure they'll find a better way to balance long and short rests, and I'm not even sure if they'll even try.




This is part of the problem with adapting an attrition-based game which requires human management to a game managed by an algorithm. At the moment, Larian is using an infinite free long rest system, which removes the attrition part of the attrition based game, and that also has balance implications.

I sincerely doubt whether they will try to balance it at all, it seems to me doomed to failure.
I suspect that it will eventually end up with a bg2 system with (maybe) some modifications.
The fact that the camp is related to the plot doesn't help.

@Rhobar121 I agree that those are potential problems. Incorporating a fatigue (or other long-rest limit) system would require more work for the design team (not necessarily a bad thing if it results in a better game).

However, most of this game can be done in different orderings. Larian doesn't have to exactly tune every encounter. If the player doesn't have enough resources to fight the Minotaurs, then they can go another path to find easier enemiese:
1.) jumping to another region of the underdark, bypassing the minotaurs
2.) going back to the overworld and exploring the Hag's lair, Waukeem's Rest, the Inn with those Paladins, the Creche, the cursed route to the Tower, or more.

Something your points don't fix is the current balance of short-vs-long rest classes. IF Larian wants every fight to be taken at max or near-max strength after a long rest, then they should also adjust the classes to strengthen short-rest classes and/or weaken long-rest classes. Given the options of Larian either implementing a long rest limit or making further changes to the classes, I'd prefer the former.

An attrition system will never happen, there is plenty of data to back up the fact that the majority of mainstream rpg players do not like them, so I doubt Swen would ever take the risk. It doesn't change the fact that I would really like one though and I bet that this is something that there will be a mod that fixes it. It isn't going to stop me from asking for 1 though, even if I will be highly surprised to see 1 implemented.

At least at present, the player would not have such an option.
There are not that many fights in the game.
Currently, practically most paths end with difficult fights except paladins or a few fights with goblins, as long as you are not actively trying to spoil the game.

That won't address anything, most of these end up in pretty tough fights too. So you'd wind up clearing all the easy stuff everywhere, and then nothing but hard stuff to do, and no way to rest between them. I wouldn't call that particularly balanced either.

@Rhobar121

Sure at present options are more limited. But given the explicitly available areas (2 other paths to Moonrise) that will be in the full game, I'm operating under the assumption that there will ~always be multiple paths and opportunities to find/sneak past different fights.

@robertthebard

I'm assuming that if Larian implements a system like this, then they'll explicitly tell you about the importance of resource management. If people were intentionally attempting to manage resources, then they'd try to do harder encounters when they were full and try to get through easy encounters without spending many resources.

Also, again, this is just a suggestion of a single way to implement a long-rest mechanic. It would obviously require further fine-tuning by Larian. Larian would, for example, reduce the number of supremely hard encounters where you're expected to use all your resources.

Agree with OP. These suggestions are actually very similar to how resting was implemented in BG1 & 2. You could get attacked at camp, negating rest. Quests would fail, companions might bail, and lots places made camping off limits. It worked.

That's a depressing thought.

Whatever happened to making the games they wanted to make instead of the ones driven by the marketing departments of big publishers? That was one big reason why Larian went all in on Divinity: Original Sin 1 through Kickstarter.

Doesn't have to please any "majority" or minority in a way that creates a less fun game. All that matters is creating an experience based on mechanics that leads to fun for everyone. In this case, related to resting, this can be done through a more or less complex difficulty setting: from no restrictions (as they are now) to a more complex fatigue & camping BG2 style, or just some limits set, if it's too much work to add all that BG2 system.

The key is to make all these optional.
We can advocate for what we feel as fun, but these kind of games also need to please as many newcomers to genre as possible, in order to make them a financial success and allow more games to follow.
Options. That's all about the difficulty side.

But the camp is far more than a difficulty slider... Should be. Larian, don't forget about the "magic" that can be created in there. Add some minor interactions to camp: allow to cook, make a tea, share a song, something to happen. Or just to stare the fire and share the moments.

These camping moments are more than just some boring difficulty balancing options: they can be great fun. Watching that cheap camp fire cut scene in BG1 gives so much satisfaction. Nothing complicated, and still means a lot. These parts add to the soul of a game, the feeling that remains long after we finished playing. They create unforgettable memories. These games are not about the fights alone, nor the characters we meet, or the story we live through: but all small details that just complement each other. They are key ingredients, otherwise the food feels tasteless. Make us want more of it, and wish to return forever. Make us feel good, and we will never forget Baldur's Gate 3.

The idea that a game should be as easy as humanly possible because otherwise some people will feel "frustrated" about it seems rather flawed to me. At the same time people will feel frustrated and bored when a game does nothing to challenge them. Difficulty system will probably ber implemented but the idea that somehow limiting rest spam should be reserved for higher levels of difficulty seems ridicolous. Let the "rest whenever you want" option for the easiest setting, normal needs to offer at least some challenge.

I totally agree that the current resting system is hurting some classes a lot more than others.

The Warlock is a "short rest" class, and is designed by WoC around this idea. They get very few spell slots because of this. Fighters too are balanced around the short rest.

Wizards and Clerics are designed around the long rest, and only regain powers then.

DnD 5e is at it's core a game where you are supposed to have several sort rests before you take a long rest. The Long rest is "end of the day". Not taking this into account because it's "difficult to implement" etc is a bit silly. Right now there's no reason not to long rest after each encounter, but it makes my Warlock seem a lot less effective than my Wizard because of it. (The Waclock in effect only has 4 spell slots...)

This, Day/night cycle offers a solution to both the rest issue as well as the complaints about the world being artificial and inherently 'good'

The game doesn't have to be easy or challenging, but adjustable by the players, so can be both. No more frustration then related to difficulty.

Everyone likes a different level of challenge, and if it's too easy or too hard compared to that subjective expectation, then the game becomes less fun to play. We are very different. I can't even decide for myself, what level of challenge I want; depends on my mood when starting a playthrough. Usually need mods in most games to adjust difficulty properly, which is fine, since mods can do far more than just that.
We just need the base game to provide a good enough foundation for mods, but the more adjustable it is the default difficulty settings, the better.

When you put difficulty modes into a game you start by the "normal" one. That's the benchmark for the others. So I ask you: in your opinion how should rest work in BG3 normal mode?

What's wrong with how it's working now, for Normal? What other difficulties are we confirmed to have? Usually there are at least two higher, Hard and Nightmare types. If they set the bar too high here, with people already complaining about "bullet sponges", what else are they going to add? What if they plan to add an "Iron Man" mode? What are they going to be able to do, if they set the bar too high in Normal? Normal is usually that setting where the mobs are "what you see is what you get", and the same applies to the PC. Hard they start adjusting the rules ever so slightly to favor the mobs, Nightmare is progressed upwards from there, and an "Iron Man" mode has all the Nightmare stuff, and usually things like rest and save restrictions as well as permadeath. These aren't concrete, but are a generalization of how these settings have worked over the years.

They have to have somewhere they can realistically go from Normal. I'm not sure how things work going down from Normal, I've never played a game below Normal, and usually I tend to play at least hard, depending on the genre. But let's be real here, shall we? What are the odds that, even if the harder modes align with what people want, this thread would still be here? Maybe you wouldn't be the OP of that fictional thread, but you can bet it would still exist. What makes me say that? I've seen it before. For all the "but it's not good for the game" we see here, that excuse can, and has, been touted when people start being mad that people that aren't as "good" at the game as they see themselves are still able to beat it. Now, and I'm not implying that anyone is asking for this, in a game like Dark Souls, or Cuphead, I fully agree with them on there not being lower difficulties, as these games are aimed at a specific kind of player. If I'm not one of those players, I'm not going to expect them to "lower the bar" to accommodate me. Here, it's not aimed specifically at that kind of player, so yes, there are multiple difficulties, in order to get as many players as possible. The beauty of this system is that if one feels like Normal is too easy, they don't have to play Normal, and can jump up to Hard, or higher. Now that's not an option in EA, yet, and I can't say it will be, but I'm fairly certain that there will be higher and possibly lower difficulties at launch. I sure don't expect them to "balance" Normal so high that Nightmare would be unplayable by most players, probably more than a few posting here about this scenario. That's not how this kind of system generally works.

I don't mind if they name it "normal" and adjust it based on their testing and feedback. Default difficulty still needs a detailed description to help picking, because not many will bother searching elsewhere and no matter how will be set, will still feel too difficult for some and too easy for others, as usual, nothing new there

What I would like to see beyond the usual Easy, Normal and Hard (maybe Very Hard) is something similar to what even BG 1 had back then; which is specific and detailed extra option to further customize the given difficulty setting. Doesn't have to be exact copy paste of those options, but being able to have -25% incoming damage for your party or have double hit points for example, while leaving AI unchanged, it is a better "easy" mode, instead making AI more passive on easy. Similar for harder.

Of course "Normal" should be challenging enough while still doable, so there is a reason for adding Easy and Easiest, with extra custom options defining what exactly will those mean, same for Harder. It's quite difficult to set in stone something like "after how many fights should resting at camp be allowed" because that depends how every fight went; but adding a limited resource that is needed in order to camp, tied into the difficulty setting, makes sense, on Normal and above at least, otherwise feels quite easy for an experienced player.