Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Day/Night Cycle

We'll have to disagree here. Strongly.
It set up a lot of stuff in BG 1 and 2.
Unique monster/enemy encounters that happened only at night (or more rarely only during the day), questlines that could be progressed/completed only in certain time windows, etc.

Not to mention the NOT negligible impact it had on the whole atmosphere, anyway.
We already talked about this extensively, but it's hard to overstate what a FUCKING BUMMER it will be to have the city of Baldur's Gate perpetually frozen in an eternal noon, as the rest of the world is right now in EA.
No walking for the city' streets at night, not making unsavory encounters in its dark alleys, no city lights turning out one by one at dusk, etc, etc, etc.



No, what they actually do is expect from the game to rewrite (and often re-voice) a lot of redundant stuff from multiple perspectives.
It's a lot of time and I money I would have loved to see spent elsewhere for a feature that is almost quintessentially redundant. I wonder how many people played BG2 and thought "Wow, if only I could replay this entire thing, but as Viconia".

A day system is already implemented, the issue is that it is completely disconnected from the actual time flow in the game. Go to the dialogue tab in the journal window and you will see that the recorded dialogues are split in days. My current run is on day 3, despite the fact that the party went through something like 10+ rests already, and each rests implies sleeping through the night. So for me this is an immersion problem, because the dialogues are an important part of the narrative, and the way the journal tracks them isn't reflecting what happened in the game. By comparison, the day & night system was used in BG2 to build the narrative, because certain events (vampire and thieves guild war) would happen only at night.

Also, the actual time flow in BG3 is just weird. For example, you can trigger the grove gate fight with a summon, and then get rid of the summon. The fight will then proceed without the party in real time, while you can go adventuring. At some point when my party returned to the gate the bodies of the fallen were gone. Yet in another example, when I've triggered the druids - tiefling fights by stealing the idol, the fight would start but never proceed unless the party joined in. Both the druids and tieflings would just stand there in fighting poses.

I don't remember day and night doing a whole lot in BG1, but it sure did a few things in BG2. Some merchants disappeared at various times, some appeared, a number of quests had requirements related to the time, and another number of quests literally had "do this within x hours or quest fails" conditions.

And don't forget the shadow temple where it had quite the impact that the game automatically switched to night time, playing directly into the shadow mechanic in the exterior.

That was frankly quite nice, even if it wasn't the most complex implementation. And it sure blows BG3's "everybody is always standing in the same spot" approach out of the water. The druid grove was sort of bad, with those tieflings always screaming at that apprentice guy. Or that other fellow who left his job after three days, in the middle of his shift. Now imagine how awful Baldur's Gate, the city, is going to be, with a swarm of NPCs that are all rooted to the same place and constantly and without any kind of interruption screaming the same thing, over and over and over and over and over, never even taking a potty break.

If they're going to implement time are they also going to have time limits or visible effects in quests or tasks?

I mean in open word type games the quest giver is happy regardless if you return to them a half hour later (in real time) or 40 hours later.

Unless there's a specific time for the quest like meet me at 4:00 PM tomorrow.

BG 1/2 D/N Cycle was as meaningful as any D/N cycle in games: some new enemies, some quests were time locked, some routine changes.

90% of CRPGs have D/N cycle, it is the standard. Removing it just shows how out of touch with the originals Larian is. Sometimes I think Larian thinks that Dragon Age is Baldur's Gate.

Even a simple day-night cycle would be a huge increase to immersion, and it really wouldn't be that hard to implement it.

Simplest day-night cycle: either based on an in-game clock or after X short rests, the game turns to 'night'. No fancy transition is needed. Simply the next time you exit a loading screen, it becomes night. NPCs are either still present or missing (sleeping), and potentially Larian could add new NPCs/monsters. When you long rest, it becomes the morning of the next day.

Quests should only care about whether it's night or day, and possibly the # of days. E.g., "meet me during the day or during the night" and possibly the rare "quest fails if you rest after beginning it: e.g., Waukeen's Rest burns down." Time-limited quests should be very rare and explicitly marked as such.

No matter what Larian chooses, the journal's timer should be changed. Currently, I believe it only updates when you have conversations/encounters..? It should certainly update when you long rest.

I don't know. Personally I think it's odd that they have a day/ night or time and they don't reflect it in the game.

Skyrim for example I forgot the names but the first quest for the mages' guild. Tolfdir I think(?) wants you to meet shortly at wherever. 40 hours(real time) later they're all still standing there waiting.

The day/night cycle in the original BG I & II was very important for characters such as thieves, rangers, and monks with Hide in Shadows abilities. I don't know the numbers, but I suspect night stealth activities were twice as likely to succeed ... huge bonus!

Day and night cycles can actually do a lot for a game, just as indoors versus outdoors, on an emotional level. Entering a forest with the rays of dawn filtering through the trees, climbing up to a fog-shrouded temple on a moonlit night, etc., can all set an emotional tone for an adventure. A picture is worth 996 words (we just lost a few due to inflation).

Time would also give us some real restrictions on full resting as opposed to inventory managing a bunch of food items.

Short resting could fill in the gaps and allow for partial healing.

I would also assume at some point we will be resting at Inns?

Not having night time or weather in BG3 is such a huge mistake. Just thinking how much they brought the world alive in BG1&2 when night fell and music changed, or thunder rumbled in the wilderness.

And then there are the scenes that simply need to be written for night time to work at all. Goblins and Drow attacking the Druid Grove in broad daylight? They have darkvision and a disadvantage of getting shot from the palisades when they can be seen miles away in the light. Nonsensical and dull visually. Stealing the idol of Silvanus during the day when everyone is there? Seriously, which thief would do that? Don't make me do stupid things when I play a thief. What if we get a cool storyline with Cazador and his vampires later in the game? Is it going to take place entirely indoors to be able to create any kind of real atmosphere for it? Undead rise at night. Shady dealings are done after dark. But not in BG3 where it's always bright and sunny and scripted.

How cool would a sunset/sunrise, rain or thunder look and feel with the visual fidelity of BG3? It's such a huge missed opportunity that I can't begin to understand why Larian don't understand this. It's much more important to have this than have NPC's act exactly like in the real world during night.

I can still remember my first time down on the Nashkel mines with my human mage. It was so frustrating to switch from Khalid, who had infravision, to my mage, who couldn't see anything in the dark and thus could not target with certain spells, and then I got pelted with arrows from unseen assailants. I went back to the fairgrounds and bought that Ring of Infravision! I admit I was frustrated at the time, but I was also impressed that infravision actually meant something in terms of gameplay. I have hated mines ever since.

I loved the encounters with vampires at night in BG2 - very appropriate and scary. Also, drow should have disadvanatge in sunlight, so if they are attacking above ground it would be at night. I 100% agree that day/night would transform the game.

Good thread! Great title!

I agree completely, especially with the 5 posts above

Lighting changes, and ambient sound changes due to the passage of time/weather is a hallmark of the original game. I honestly think that's a big part of why it worked so well, even if you were just standing around, playing with the inventory, changing colors and then suddenly it would start raining or get dark, and clue you in to time to move on lol. In the crashing nautiloid then sure I buy into the no time thing, but when we hit the beack the hourglass and sundial should start kicking in from that point on. Feels strange not to have it in a Baldur's Gate game.

Also better torches, and torch lit roaming about by the party at night. Infravision and Darkvision always feel a little too overpowered to me. They tend to just redshift the lighting color for everything in most games, but it might be cooler if they had more of a predator type visual effect for that stuff. Like a larger cone of normal vision, and then beyond that the player sees more like traces and contour flashes. Just so it felt more like heightened senses, as opposed to just playing with monitor levels blown out. Group infravision was like the default after the Sword Coast expansion wasn't it? Like they realized how annoying it was, and put in the ring and that helmet in right away, and then eventually a button in the game settings. Cause they kind of just gave up on it I guess lol

Why would it need a point ?

The gameplay would be funnier, more deep and interresting with a point (or more)... But even without any point it would be more immersive.

And don't forget how often it came up in the Witcher games.

Especially in a game featuring so many creatures from the Underdark, not implementing Day/Night mechanics is odd.

Maybe they're thinking of doing it, Knights of the Old Republic style, every area will have a different time of day; so the slums will be in perpetual twilight, the docks night time etc.

If every area is 20+ hours... It's makes a huge difference^^

Um... what?
I'm tempted to ask if you have actually played BG2. It's slightly more understandable to say it's useless in BG1, but I would still think you just lack sophistication. But THEN you shouldn't need sophistication to notice all those things that happen during the day and the night in BG2...
Ah well I'll just chalk it up to a difference of opinion.

Agreed. I'll like it if it's good and I won't if it's bad. I will repeat this about just about every single feature of the game. But here's where it gets interesting: "meaningful" to whom? That's where we get aaall the problems in the world...

Didn't they already do that? In DOS1 in the camp it's eternally bright and clear, but just walk 20 steps outside the gate and that particular region is perpetually dark and raining.

Uh, there is a point. Atmosphere and immersion, and :

Some enemies OR NPCs just appears during night.
Music and sound effects are different during the night. Extremely well done.
Some quest lines only appear during the night.
Some items can only be used in darkness.
Different In-party banters for some during the night.

and Im sure Im forgetting other things too.
Oh and the night art style looks freakin awsome. Lamps/stuff turn on, lighting/shadows are different...not just <<brightness down>>.
Not having <time> BG3 feels LIFELESS and STALE in comparison.

Imagine THIS beginning:
Its BG3 after the ship crashed you are stranded, as normal. But is dusk. The sun is setting. Its getting darker and darker; a quick rain shower passes by...you wait a bit. But too long, it goes dark. You need to move ASAP. Maybe find some shelter...who knows what creatures pop out at the night at your current location. You hear what sounds like goblins? in the distant...you hear screams. You run and find Shadowheart sourrounded by Gibberlings!! Combat begins...
THIS is what it feels like when playing BG2.

Are there going to be night and day cycles where you might actually be fighting during twilight or at night?

What if I want to sleep during the day and make my companions camp as well, vampires aside?

Thanks,

Slatr

Ahh yes here we go again.

Honestly, we don't know. But it seems the answer is "no". At best - "doesn't seem likely".