I'm not interested in the game using a carrot and stick approach to control the narrative and turn the game into BG3: Zerg Rush. If you "push the player towards the main objective" all the time, you will end up with a game that tries to take the steering wheel from the player too often. I'd rather the game lets the player drive however they want.
The issue with the current design is that so much content is tied to camping, the narrative starts to break if you don't spam rests often enough. So the narrative is build around a specific playstyle. Changing this design so that npc content would become available as you travel in a party would go a long way, without limiting players too much.
Exactly. I think this is the misunderstanding a lot are having about my post. I'm not saying let's make BG3 into BG3: Zerg Rush. Maybe I'm saying that for the prologue, but it's a prologue with a burning nautiloid being attacked by dragons and Gith and demons and imps. You are 100% in a hostile environment with NO friends or allies that you can trust. It goes 100% against the story to have your PC roam around the ship like you aren't blazing through the Hells. So yes. For that prologue scene, it should maybe be a bit more like a "get your butt in gear" game.
But even with that, I'm not saying don't give players any ability to roam a little. See. That's where a lot of people are misunderstanding. I'm not saying that Larian should take away people's abilities to explore. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying give exploration a time limit when a time limit is being called for in the narrative. If you are on a blazing nautiloid with dragons and demons, etc. battling with one another all around you, you should not be casually strolling about searching every nook. Even if it is nothing more than a clock in the top corner like in Final Fantasy 7 counting down to let you know that you need to not take too long searching all the crap in every room, at least that's something to get the adrenaline pumping.
Final Fantasy 7 is actually the perfect example of what I'm talking about with creating excitement and tension. I remember the first time I played the prologue of that game and had to determine how much time I'd need to get out of the first reactor before it blew. Man! Every battle was freaking me out. I couldn't get through the battle fast enough because I knew I was on a time limit. It was SO exciting!
Why was Final Fantasy 7 such a good RPG? It did stuff like that. It got your blood racing, when the narrative called for it, tugged at your emotions, etc. If Larian wants BG3 to be the next best RPG, they need to also do stuff like that.
So what I'm suggesting is that in the prologue they get your blood pumping. Keep you moving. It's the prologue, for goodness sake. It's not supposed to be the time when you explore every little area of the map. Prologue's are for teaching the mechanics of the game and to hook you into the story. That's the purpose of them. You should naturally be more limited during the prologue while it is teaching you the basics of the game.
So yes. I was suggesting even limiting item slots so that people would get the hint that you can't pick up much anyway so don't waste too much time in the prologue on searching everything. This is also why I suggested an Auto-Search feature so that you could find the gear you might actually care about easier, so that you can keep the pace of the opening sequence of the game. Searching and exploring everything is not only not realistic but it slows the pace of the opening scenario down tremendously. An Auto-Search would quickly reveal what items are good, you could quickly pick them up, and then you could move on without too much treasure hunting in the opening sequence of the game.
Then, once you crash on the beach, now you should be able to explore, pick up stuff, etc. at your own pace, WITHIN REASON.
WITHIN REASON means that they remove End Day and replace it with 2 Long Rests per Day with still having 2 Short Rests for every Long Rest. This is more in line with D&D 5e anyway. Then I'm suggesting that they absolutely need to make it so that I can still trigger ALL the dialogue and character development whether I Long Rest a lot or not. Then I'm suggesting that for those of us who DO want to pick up the pace, Larian provides an OPTION in the OPTIONS SETTINGS allowing us to enable Auto-Search so that we can just have our characters make a Perception check to allow us to find all the good stuff in a room without having to sift through all the boring, useless junk. Still leave it so that players who want to search everything can do so, but give players who don't like this Hidden Objects style of gaming the ability to quick search. Then, lastly, I'm saying that yes, some events make sense to be triggered after a certain amount of time goes by.
But with this last item, believe me. I'm not trying to strip players from having the ability to explore the entire map and do all the side quests. That's completely contrary to my point. I myself still want to search and explore the whole map and do all the side quests. Certainly don't take that away from the game.
What I mean by time-sensitive events is really putting some sort of realistic limit on how many Long Rests (remember I'm saying 2 Long Rests now per day) you use before things start to happen in the game. Make it 3 days. Make it 6 days. Make it 8 days. Whatever Larian thinks is a reasonable amount of time before something truly bad happens, set some sort of limit on how many DAYS (2 long rests per day) that people can use. Then, add some story elements warning players that their time limit is nearing expiration. They'd better stop using Long Rests so much and start using their healing items and short rests more instead of always long resting to fully recover.
And yes, some events make no sense to allow players to long rest during those events. This is why I brought up Mayrina and the hag. You shouldn't be able to long rest when a hag is kidnapping a girl. The hag is not just going to wait for you to return. There should be some consequence for long resting during this scene. Maybe it isn't shipping Mayrina off to Baldur's Gate. Maybe it's the hag has more minions spawned when you come back because you spent 8 hours sleeping to recover magic and health. Maybe she has more traps laid. SOMETHING should be different when you return to face her because she had 8 hours to prepare for your return.
That is my point. Right now, you can long rest a thousand times and no gobbos attack, no druids kick people out, the hag just waits for you to get to her lair and face her, etc.
So, again, I'm not trying to take anything away from players. I'm trying to enhance the current gameplay. I'm trying to make it so that if I don't long rest all the time I can still enjoy all the elements of the game.
