I want a day/night cycle as part of a system that coherently represents the passage of time.
Right now, it becomes night whenever you feel like taking a long rest, which could be two minutes or 50 hours after you've woken up. You are able to sleep away the majority of the day or stay awake for days on end with no repercussions. There's no verisimilitude there. It would be nice if resting made some sense - "as much as you want, whenever you want" is lazy design and boring (not to mention unbalancing).
I just want to point out how silly this comment is. A day/night cycle of what -- two hours would be immersive? I don't know how long the days are where
you live, but here sunlight lasts 12 hours on average. If you're able to play BG3 for over 12 hours straight without any long rests then congratulations.
If you're unhappy about being able to skip time... I mean... If you want to watch your party sleep for 8 hours straight, I guess we could ask Larian to implement that feature.
You're putting words in my mouth. Of course a 24-hour real-time day would be boring - I don't know how you're getting that from what I wrote. I'm asking for a day to feel like a reasonable, consistent measure of time.
Right now, the world freezes when you aren't looking at it. Let's have those goblins find the grove on their own some number of days after you first arrive. If you don't move fast enough, you're either too late to win favor with Minthara or you aren't in a position to help defend. If you prioritize rescuing Halsin, you can be better prepared to defend the grove (or assassinate the goblin leaders), but it means you're not focusing on finding the gith for Lae'zel and maybe they're gone (or reinforced?) by the time you get to the bridge. Maybe that chest needs to get to the Zhent hideout in three days or the buyer will have moved on.
So you want timed quests. Or rather, you want most of everything to be timed?
I'll pass on that one.
It depends on what you mean by "timed quests". I want the world to be alive and change, not just sit there waiting for me. When given lots of choices about what to focus on, I want my choice to have consequences. I'm not suggesting that you should have to speed run in order to get anything done, but if you decide that the stuff going on with the grove doesn't matter to you, and you spend all of your time looking for those gith and then decide to wander around in the Underdark for a while, maybe the druids should have completed their ritual when you get back. As it is right now, the world doesn't change on its own - it doesn't feel alive; this makes it much less interesting.
And night vs. day doesn't have to be a cosmetic thing at all. How about having the behavior of NPCs and other creatures change over the course of the day? Want to rob a shop? Go for the brash smash 'n grab in full daylight or try to sneak your way in when people go to sleep at night. Looking for a trophy from some rare animal? Fight it when it's alert and hunting at night or try to sneak into its lair while it sleeps through the day. Ambush the goblins late at night, when most of them have passed out from drinking, but knowing that your humans without darkvision won't be able to see as well.
So yeah. It's not enough for Larian to simply design a goblin encounter, they have to set up multiple versions of the encounter (you've identified 2 versions). At what time of the day are they having their drinking party? How do these scenes all transition? What if you walk in while they're in the middle of the party? What about breakfast?
To say that this is a lot of added work is an understatement.
I'm spitballing, but yes, something like that (though you're exaggerating what I'm asking for to make it seem unreasonable). This addresses two issues:
1) I find it difficult to care about most of the NPCs in this game because they feel like cardboard cutouts at a theme park. They sit in their spot and do nothing, or move back and forth between two set points, or rehash the same conversation over and over again. Varying their activities based on time of day will make them feel more alive.
2) Many of Larian's home brew rules and mechanics are pushing us towards fixed strategies and removing the differentiation between classes. If the world changes (both environmental changes and NPCs moving around and doing different kinds of things), it gives players more opportunities to take advantage of their character's strengths.
And yes, making a game is a lot of work. As playtesters, that is in no way our concern. We are here to tell them what's good and what's bad (and this is a place where the game falls on its face). It's Larian's job to figure out what is feasible for them to do to fix it.
