Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about

Oh, right, I misunderstood. Yes, that sounds like it would work without really affecting the MP flexibility. So that's one less reason for not adding D/N.

So that just leaves player popularity and engine limitations as excuses

I'm not sure if player popularity would work in their favor as an argument.
I mean, imagine if they made a survey asking if people wanted it or not. How would you expect it to go, in all honesty?

it would be more like "Do you want more SEXY SEXY and MEMES!! or a day/night cycle (BORING)"

and yes, people would choose SEXY SEXY

My estimate would be 30-60-10. I mean I would like to see a day/night cycle, but don't care either way. Considering the small amount of games that actually have it, most would not miss it, and see it as an "oh cool" kind of thing.

I think that unless they would put it as a loaded question in some form it would probably be closer to 75-10-15, with a more detailed breakdown that would look something like:

- YES for several degree of "Fuck yes" and "Sounds cool".
- DON'T CARE mostly consisting of "I don't really understand what that means. LOL dunno, who cares then".
- And most of the NO being a mix of "I was traumatized by the dark closet in my room as a kid so I'm afraid of the night" (vast minority) and a bunch of tossers sticking to the "Nu-uh" only because "Larian said it would be difficult for them and I don't want them to overwork". Basically they already made fools of themselves in the past and so they would feel invested in sticking to the same narrative for the sake of consistency.


Jokes aside, it would be somewhat unfair since it's the type of feature that panders a lot even to casuals and doesn't demand any understanding of the implications to sound desirable.

A more honest and engaging question would be if Larian asked "Would you give up on [EXTRA FEATURE X] to get a a cycle of night and day?". At that point it would depend a lot on what they offered as counterpoint.

In all honesty, I don't have a clue. If you asked the question flat "shall we add feature X", you will usually get a positive response. If you highlight tradeoffs, then maybe not.

Larian and Bioware ( and probably others ) seem to use exclusively event-driven games design, presumably in order to improve control over the overall narrative ( if you consider "linear story-driven" and "open-world" to be the extremes of narrative control ). I don't know whether any developer has publicly explained this choice ( or the data used to make the choice ), so my assumption has always been that financial return is the main driver.

Personally I prefer realistic open worlds with plausible behaviour and character interactions, but as a software engineer myself, I know that the ability to realise this with current techniques and hardware is limited. It's much easier to develop improved visuals to make things look shiny than to construct a better conversation algorithm, or a plausible information diffusion mechanism; so better visuals get the attention.

The last poll on reddit about D/N was 65% PRO vs 35% CON.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat..._medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Can't really understand why anyone would say "no" to a D/N cycle and weather effects.
I guess those 35% are 30% that just don't care and 5% that say no for the sake of it.

It's the shitty subreddit and the very first post in the thread is someone rushing to tell anyone that "the devs don't want to do it".
And these people would bend over backward to please Larian no matter what. They are exactly the ones I was referring about in my last reply here.

But be assured that if Swen Vincke went on record saying "We decided we actually want this feature because you'd need to be a completely idiot to dislike it" two hours later they'd be patting each other on the back for not being idiots and totally wanting it.

The only reason that the right option even got the majority is because it's simply too appealing compared to the alternative, despise their bias.

I think people are saying no maybe because dos2 didnt have it

but yeah we need D/N cycles

Weather effects generally don't inhibit play ( i.e. they are just visual ), so it is difficult to see why anyone would actively dislike that unless they just want to always see happy, sunny vistas all the time ( for mental health reasons, perhaps ).

D/N cycle isn't always so obviously a good thing for everyone:
- If the cycle brings no obvious game interest ( i.e. it's just visual ), it can be annoying to not be able to see properly at night.
- If there are too many activities tied to time of day or night it can be annoying even when there is a wait/sleep feature available.
- If the cycle time is too fast or slow, it can be annoying if it detracts from immersion.
- It can be annoying for players that just want a static environment ( for whatever reason ).

All recent Bethesda single-player games have D/N cycles, whereas all recent Bioware single-player games do not. Most people probably play them without often thinking much about the D/N aspect, because it is not particularly important to the design philosophy of either set of games. But, a badly thought-out and badly implemented D/N cycle is probably worse for some people than not having the cycle at all.

Personally, I do prefer to be reminded that time is passing in the game world in some way, and I think BG3 will be considered a lesser game if there is no mechanism to achieve that.

There's also the fact that day/night alternation and the general notion of passing time have always played a meaningful role in D&D.
Not just because you can meet different creatures at night, but even more specifically in terms of resource management and so on.

I mean, there's a reason if "short and long rest" are even two distinct options in the first place.

When I remind people on that subreddit that DOS2 is not a D&D game I get downvoted.

Yep. That sounds like the subreddit I know.

Way back in the olden days, I turned off weather because it adversely affected the way my 3/486 computers, you know, those PCs that had less HDD space than most modern rigs have RAM, ran the games that had it. It eventually became force of habit, even when it didn't affect my PC's performance.


DA 2 let you toggle D/N on the map, while you were quick traveling between locations, with different things happening in each time frame. I've read the argument that it wouldn't matter if the NPCs didn't have appropriate schedules, but I'm going to call foul on that argument, because I've actually seen complaints about the lack of these schedules, and how it makes the game feel "lifeless". W/out a schedule, day or night, that merchant is going to be standing in the same spot, no matter when the player stops by. Some people find that jolting too. I don't care either way, it's not going to destroy my enjoyment of the game if it has it, or not.

The overwhelming majority of games going for a day/night cycle actually does it without offering any complex variation on NPC scheduling. The two previous BG included.
And most people were more than reasonably satisfied with that compromise over the idea of giving up to the feature entirely.
This is especially true in games where the content is designed rather than "systemic" (i.e. procedural generation and so on).

If anything one would be hard pressed to point the notable exceptions, like Ultima VII, Gothic 1 and 2, etc.

So "Calling foul" doesn't change facts, really.

As I recall Ultima V - Warriors of Destiny, which was published in 1988 had the first day night cycles with NPC schedules - that I can recall. But I agree Ultima VII was the absolute best game at the time.

Sadly EA purchased Origin Systems and the technology was lost after that, and we have not seen its like since. Probably in a vault somewhere in the depths of EA. /s

Gee, I read your comment, and before I even finished the first sentence I was thinking "What about Skyrim"... I then wondered "At what point were the players given an option about whether or not it existed". So I wasn't particularly hard pressed to come up with one, and I have never seen a poll from a developer asking "do you want D/N cycles w/out NPC schedules, or do we need to add them". It would be fun, I guess, to look back on these to see the results, so can you provide some links to official polls that you're apparently citing here?

So let's see the facts, instead of your statements? I'm not a fan of "it's on the internet, so it must be true".

I would assume the fact that 90% of open world games nowadays have a d/n cycle is enough to guess players at large prefer that to the alternative. And now that i think about it the only games lacking that are from Bioware, which i guess goes hand in hand with BG3 being more of a spiritual successor to Dragon Age than Baldur's Gate.

I have no idea of what you are even attempting to say, since hardly anything of your answer ACTUALLY relates to what I talked aboput.
I didn't cite any "poll", but a long track record of games in the genre doing things.
And "Would you prefer complex NPC schedule or NO NPC schedule?" would be a damn stupid loaded question to put to an audience, in general. You aren't really offering any trade off, just asking people "WOULD YOU LOVE TO GE MORE FOR THE SAME PRICE? YAAAY".

Also, aside for the fact that TES/SKyrim is one of these series that rely on systemic content (like their shitty procedurally generate quests) almost as much as designed one, finding ONE notable question isn't exactly enough to defuse an argument.
I said one would be hard pressed to list exceptions, not that they don't exist. Otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned two myself.

If you didn't cite any official polls, then you provided no "facts", but simply made some assertions, and then tried to claim they were facts. I asked you to provide the sources that make your assertions facts. You did state that calling foul on one of your assertions doesn't change the facts, so support the assertion, and lay out the facts, instead of just claiming they're facts, regardless, because you posted it on a forum. That's not how facts work.

Assertion 1: The overwhelming majority of games with a Day/Night cycle don't do it. Citations needed. You're claiming this is a fact, surely you can support it, yes?
Assertion 2: And most people were more than reasonably satisfied with that compromise over the idea of giving up to the feature entirely. Citations needed.
Assertion 3: So "Calling foul" doesn't change facts, really. This needs to be supported. Because looking at what you provided in 1 and 2, and what you're claiming in 3, nothing adds up to "facts", just "but this is what I think, so everyone needs to just agree with me".