@Taco:
Regarding the quest urgency: It's often pointed out that " it's not a big deal" but on the other hand it starts with " we must hurry " and goes to " maybe it's not so much of a problem". At this point if they were mistaken once they can be making a mistake again. Personally BG3 made me not trust any NPC i find in the game.
Regarding not using rest: I had the same issue. It could be solved by dialogues being based on how many rests were taken up to this point. Right now the whole game assumes I won't be able to beat all of the first encounters without sleeping even once. The fact you didn't rest so much though means they achieved their goal to some extent. See below for what I mean.
Regarding the comparison to pathfinder: I took it just as a comparison of how "timed quests" can be approached. Personally, I felt more engaged in the quest knowing I have a given amount of time to fulfill it than with how Larian approached it in BG3. But it's an intresting way too.
It looks like we deviate from the subject of " The issue with day/night cycle and how it can be addressed. " but in fact, we don't. Day/Night cycle impacts how time elapses in the game.
A dynamic night/day cycle puts the time passage out of player controls. In BG3 you are the one controlling when a day elapse. While it's 100% artificial( as you pointed out above) it's a quite interesting take at time management in a game.
What we have right now in BG3:
1)If you know how the game mechanic work, if you explore (aka find food, potions etc) you can rest very little. This way preventing time progress in the game. In your posts above you pointed out the possible issues with this fact(Characters pointing out few days past while...well...they didn't ^^).
2)On the other hand if you rest very often you get mind flayer powers, your characters point out at one point " they don't feel too well ". Despite the tadpole being in stasis you have reasons to think it's not a good idea to fuck around.
I feel in BG3 they wanted to create a timed quest without creating a hard limit for " game over".
3)If you rest too much you will probably get consequences due to this fact. But it won't be " you lost". Rather getting closer to the end of ceramorphosis process.
Good sides?
- You're not punished for exploring( you won't meet the nightfall while looking for hidden chests around the map).
- You're not punished for talking to NPC and taking your time[time can be paused during dialogues as a solution if we have dynamic day/night cycle].
- You're "punished" only if you rest too much but that's admitting gaining new skills is a punishment.
Downsides?
-Visuals[ Druid grove at night *.*]
-Immersion ( Some will agree, others won't. But if if the player is the "time master" then it totally goes against immersion).
-Combat mechanics are a bit more limited.
-Quests linked to "nightfall" are out of the question for obvious reasons.
Everything I wrote above looks like a system planned around dealing with consequences of the fact of NOT implementing a day/night cycle more than a good reason for not doing it. Doesn't it?
I think the main way of addressing this issue in BG3 is ask ourselves is it really that important for time to be under our control? Wouldn't it be better for a story where you fight against time to give you that feeling that the game won't wait for you ? Time goes onward regardless of your choices and EVEN if a day/night cycle would also be 100% artificial ( i don't think Larian wants to implement an in-game time to complete the main quest, not really their way of doing things) it would still make the world more believable wouldn't it. Even if it doesn't have impact on NPC scripts for the sake of simplicity.
Last edited by virion; 06/11/20 02:27 PM.
