Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The issue with day/night cycle and how it can be addressed.

I was going to make this post in one of the other threads about the topic of wanting a day/night cycle, but then I decided that it probably needs to be its own discussion, because I'm going to identify a specific problem with it.

I guess it's time to address the elephant in the room when it comes to day/night cycle, the actual reason Larian probably thinks it's too much of a hassle to handle: MULTIPLAYER CO-OP..
Multiplayer makes a challenge to manage a variable passing of time since the point of reference isn't "one player character" anymore, but ALL the player characterS.

I see three possible scenarios here (and this is all assuming Larian would be interested to address the issue, which is anything but a given at this point in time):

Solution 1- the Larian Way: the entire world is frozen in a single moment in time and the variable isn't taken into account at all.

Solution 2 - an MMO-like fixed cycle of passing hours: all the players involved are forced into a certain cycle of light and dark hours. There's no way to alter the length of the day.

Solution 3 - We have a day/night cycle AND the option to alter its speed (wait/rest) like in most games of this type, but ONE player, presumably the host of the multiplayer session, needs to be in charge of it and everyone else willing to accept what he decides about resting or skipping time.

No one of the three solutions is flawless and without its share of problems, but for how I see it, the third is by far the most reasonable compromise of the three, the one that makes the comparatively minor "sacrifice" between giving up some individual agency or simply giving up on a world that would feel at least a bare minimum more alive, immersive and dynamic.

There are a couple of things that need to be accepted as premises here.

- It's fine to have someone in charge, because let's face the truth: no matter how much Larian could love to claim that "competitive co-op" can be a thing in their games, there's just NO way to have anything resembling a decent playthrough if the different players involved can't accept to collaborate to some degree.
- Even "Solution 1" as it is comes with its fair amount of incongruences already (why can a group of two players "go to camp and rest", having cutscenes and social interactions in the process, when the other two can roam freely in a world where time is frozen).

Possible objections to this system:

"What about the moment-to-moment gameplay where one player can enter a turn-based battle in an area while others are roaming freely?"
I actually find this somewhat of a fake problem and something relatively trivial to address: time doesn't "pass" while even just one of the players is involved in combat. Easy, right? You "pause the clock". Period.

"But that would make the length of the day erratic"
Yeah, so fucking what? Is a fictional world where time is NEVER a thing a more elegant solution in any way, shape or form?

So far I think this covers most points on this proposition, but I'd like to hear more opinions about the pros and cons. At least as far as pertinent to the attempt to solve the matter and address its structural weaknesses rather than dismiss it.


I'll say outright that arguments about "Not wanting Larian to waste money on this" shouldn't be any of our concern (that's for Larian to worry about).
On top of that let me say bluntly that no one cares if "you don't care" or "it's not a bid deal for you".
That's not the point of this discussion to begin with. Go on the other more generic threads on the same topic to express that opinion, if you really must.

good suggestions, but personally couldn't care less about multiplayer just make it simple maket it frozen XD

Doesn't BG3 already kind of have the mechanics to implement your #3? Currently, any player can try to rest for the night, but the other players have to accept? (This is true in my 2-player game. I assume it's the same in a 3-4 player game)

Seems like Larian could easily just extend ^ and allow anyone to suggest waiting for night, but the whole party has to agree via pop-up. Again, D&D is collaborative and you have to assume that the players will cooperate to some degree.

To solve your "what about moment-to-moment gameplay where one player can enter a turn-based battle in an area while others are roaming freely?" objection:
-You could also have time pass according to the host's clock. If the host is in combat, the clock is frozen for everyone (like how the game currently works all the time). If the host isn't in combat, time passes.

To make it further easier for Larian, I'd be fine with it not changing from day to night until you change loading zones. If the "clock" reaches 6pm while you are exploring, it stays lit out. However, when you enter a building/go to camp/fast travel, the time would then update.

While I'd be *mostly* incline to share share the sentiment (I have hardly anything more than a vague curiosity to try it with friends every now and then, but I consider this primarily a single player experience) we also can't pretend this is something Larian can give up on and/or ignore entirely, with all the resources they already poured into developing the feature.

I find this approach too prone to break things.
Imagine a turn-based battle for one of the other players dragging beyond the point where the host (playing in real time) is already experiencing the swap between day and night and I guess you'll see why it could turn into a mess quickly.

Then again, I'll stress that this isn't a big deal at all.. Extending the day's length by a bit because the clock is paused doesn't cause anyone real troubles... And frankly how often and for how long will players involve themselves in lengthy and complex battles without having the other players participating in any way, shape or form?

Agreed, it is a must-have.

Players should be able to agree to go to camp/pass time/wait until evening if internal clock is not feasible.

My last point would somewhat solve this: only updating the world after a loading screen. Although I guess the host could go through loading screens while other players remain in combat...
So yeah, your solution is probably more stable. But if Larian has coded the game to make everything already depend mostly on the host player (idk hpw they've done things), then it might be easier to control a day-night cycle based on their actions.

As you say, these edge cases aren't a big deal and would be outweighed by the benefits of a day-night cycle.

Oh, to be clear, I would STILL count the host as main reference. It's just that everytime someone enters a turn-based combat his "background clock" would stop ticking.
Frankly it's not even something the player needs to be acutely aware of, just a minor hidden tweaking in the grand scheme of things. Let's say that you'd set for a full 24H cycle in game being the equivalent of, dunno, 3-4 hours?

In this example as the host roams around it's 11:00am, he walks some more and it's 11:15am, etc... but then someone enters combat and while he stays in real time, his "background clock" will freeze at 11:23 and stay there until the combat is resolved (be that with or without his direct help).

The actual swap between night and day is a different matter. That at Larian's discretion and according to what the engine actually permits, could either be a dynamic and gradual change of lighting OR a completely binary swap to a "night version" of the map, with a short dusk/down videoclip hiding the loading. Which is pretty much what BG1 and BG2 did back then.

Solution 3 seems best to me.

Well, yeah, personally I don't think it's even a fair contest between these, as that one strikes me as the best compromise by a LANDSLIDE.
But I started the thread specifically to hear what people think of it and if other can point issues I'm overlooking.

I think the simplest solution is what you mentioned: if anyone in FTB -> stop clock (I actually suggested this some time ago) and all players must agree to rest. I may be missing something, but I don't even think with this we'd need "host clock"? All time passage would be solved either automatically (FTB clock-stop) or by player agreement (rests).

I'm also very much for "wait" option. (Perhaps could be treated as short rest? And long rest could have an option to increase the time, so anywhere from 8 to 23 hours.) This would allow for more strategic use of time of day (should Larian decide to do this and spare some extra work beyond cosmetic day/night).

When it comes to time scale: I think a factor of 15 would be fine. It's the one The Witcher (1) uses and I found the time of day to not change too quickly. It's 96 minutes per the full day cycle (similar to TW3 with 90); Skyrim is 72 from what I found. Though one full cycle in BG1/2 was 2 real hours and it could be good for BG3 as well (since you skip time often anyway by resting, so there's less need for quick day cycle for variety).

I wouldn't want the day/night cycle to move that quickly. That would make it feel even MORE like we were wasting tons of time when we're supposed to be dealing with urgent matters. Maybe 6 or 8 hours for a full 24 in-game hours.

The technicalities around the passage of time isn’t the reason Larian aren’t implementing the day/night cycle. They’ve clearly said it’s too much work making their hundreds of NPCs have activity cycles that reflect time of day and thus it won’t happen for BG3.

They actually mentioned both reasons at different moments in time (and it's not a new topic either, since it was a debate for DOS 2 as well).
Also, the problem with scheduling has already been addressed on the other "mega-thread" on this specific topic: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=727626&page=5

The short of it: this conviction from Larian that they'll either have to go "all in" or not even bother is not shared by many.
Complex scheduling for NPCs would be welcomed, but it's in no way a basic requirement.
And the assumption that "It's better to have nothing at all than doing it in bare-boned way" is what many are already contesting.



That's too much It basically forces the player to hardly ever experience a cycle in one single session unless skipping time. As I said 3-4 hours would be more balanced. But well, we are arguing about flavor here. It's not of genuine relevance, really.

Also, not sure what urgency you are referring to. We aren't exactly in a rush (we learn pretty quickly that the tadpole is frozen by magic) and we will probably end up spending months adventuring anyway.

I wouldn't be opposed to that. But I'd like to point out that while it seems that those are short cycles (even the 2 hour one), in game it feels much longer. I rarely notice time passage in BG1/2 unless travelling/resting. Since one wastes more time on movement in open worlds, perhaps 3 or 4 hour cycles might work. But I think longer ones would be unnecessary; it's also cool to notice the time passage without time skips and those 2 hours are enough to not make it seem like it just zips from dawn to dusk to dawn. Also note that we'd spend a considerable amount of time in TB - so frozen.

During the original Divinity: Original Sin crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, the very last stretch goal mentioned a day and night cycle, NPC schedules and weather systems. All of these could have impacted NPCs, monsters and magic. Do you still discuss the possibility of making a truly simulated game world at some point in the future?

Adam: I do in my own head constantly. I think it's a very different game. One of my favorite games of all time is Ultima Seven and it was the first game that I played that had proper NPC behaviors. You could wait for someone to go to the pub and then you could rob their shop. I love stuff like that, but a game that's built like that does very different things. We are very, very story focused as well and there's things that you lose. Also: multiplayer. We're a multiplayer game and day-night cycles in multiplayer becomes incredibly complicated. We're doing so many really complex things already that we know are going to be really good that, on top of that, it wouldn't fit this game.

I love simulated worlds and we have a lot of that stuff in there. We don't do the day-night cycle but we do the things where things in the world happen because you caused them to happen and they can happen off-screen. So, there are things happening off-screen. The world isn't just what you see on your screen. There are events that happen and things that will, because of the choices you've made, things will happen elsewhere. Those are real, those are systemic. Our systems are running in the background the whole time. There are incredibly deep systems. Some of them don't make sense for this game, but yeah, we think about it and we've talked about it.

https://wccftech.com/baldurs-gate-3-pax-east-interview-listening-to-fan-feedback-adding-raytracing/

Yeah, I remember reading this interview months ago. I just realized the article also had one of my comments, where I was basically making the same exact suggestion even back then.

What about it?

I don't get Larians position on this.
Having cycles and weather doesn't necessarily means you need a complete <simulated world> as they call it. I wouldn't call BG2 a simulated world, yet it takes care of day/night cycle quite simply.
They are WAY overthinking the issue.

BTW playing poe2 deadfire right now, the dynamic weather/ time cycles in that game as so great....(a bit too fast though, slowed down with a mod). Adopting these systems makes that much difference to your world's atmosphere.

I'm all for day/night cycle and sincerely hope Larian will rethink this issue. I *hate* the idea that multiplayer interfering that much with creative decisions on a game the huge majority plays singleplayer. I think implementing such a cycle would be a great fit for BG3 given the passing of time would walk in lockstep with the narrative of ticking timebombs (tadpole + Gale's destruction orb) as well as tie into the D&D resting mechanics - which at present is a utter mess in my opinion. The situation we have now that are even permissive of long resting in between pockets of goblins while in the process of genociding their stronghold, destroys immersion - and breaks class balance on top of that. Day and night cycles, on the other hand, would aid immersion, facilitate more stealthy gameplay and variety.

It wouldn't really require full realistic activity cycles either. Just light a campfire, perhaps have someone resting, carry on as before. Even just a fatigue system or companions being more vocal on resting would be a significant improvement over what we have now.

I have said it a few times now, McGuffin forced mechanics and story is derivitive, annoying and lazy. Every lore conflict or common sense brain eh? It's because of the tadpole. Vampire in the day? No problem, the tadpole did it. Drow walking about in daytime with no penalties? Tadpole did it. Can't be arsed adding a core D&D mechanic? Tadpole did it. Camp warp mechanics from literally anywhere? Tadpole did it. There are absolute loads of BS "tadpole did it" nonsense.

You want to make the third installment of THE best single player IRPG in the history of gaming? "I can't be arsed the tadpole did it". Lets make DOS3 and plagiarize class, race and feat mechanics because they are better than DOS and use the exact same assets from DOS2 and call it BG3. That way we can cut and paste, fudge a few numbers before relying on DOS2 fanbois and console speed runners to up the ratings.

Basically the "tadpole" seems to have been created as a means to homebrew the franchise not write a decent story. Don't get me wrong, it does piss me off but I do trust Larian to make a great IRPG otherwise I wouldn't have paid for EA, it just wont be BG3. When you agree to take on a legacy like BG there is no such thing as "we can't be arsed", oh sorry too much work. A bedoll and a generic script to lie in it when a lightsource goes away isn't going to take 4000 man hours.

Already spoken to a few modders and they say it shouldn't be too difficult once the game is released so I am not bothered. Sad that modders need to be relied on to make the game as it should be imo.