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

Larian explicitly said there won't be one, and that's before the EA even started.

Many of us expressed malcontent or at very least disappointment with that. And I mean MANY. Across countless threads and several months of discussions: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=760211#Post760211

Will Larian change its stance in an attempt to address the feedback? No one knows, since Larian never seems to be willing to talk in advance about changes they are working on.

But realistically speaking it seems very unlikely. I would make peace with the notion that the game won't have any day/night cycle.

Personally? I still think it's a fucking bummer and that the people who say "it's not a big deal" will start realizing what they are missing only after the release, when waking for hours through the streets of a Baldur's Gate permanently stuck in an eternal noon.

My mistake for missing that.

It is a beautiful game for sure. It just seems strange at times for the color never to shift, whether fighting or in a cut scene.

There is no change in color temp. shift showing sunset, rain cover etc.

It won't stop me from playing the game at all, but it would add to the feel/immersion.

Slatr

Yep. Totally agree, and some scenes and battles would be 1,000 times better and make SO much more sense at night. Fingers crossed. The only hope I have is they did redo an opening cutscene and made it night. So they CAN do it and maybe they WILL for scenes that make sense at least.

Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous. One more wasted opportunity to make something legendary with this franchise.

That's the problem in this day and age, practically every developer out there is so strict on the cost-benefit analyses that absolutely nothing can ever be better than "sort of good", because anything beyond that is too expensive in terms of resources relative to the marginal benefit.

Will a time system and day/night cycles add complexity and cost more resources? Yes. Will it sell more copies? Probably not that many. Right, idea rejected. Let's just go with weird static time that leads to eternal noon everywhere. Everybody will love that, right? And never mind that BG1 had a time system with day/night cycles well over 20 years ago.

Lol. Yeah, but at the end of the day, Larian has to make enough profit to make it worth their time. I would totally LOVE a day/night cycle, but if they won't sell more copies because of it, then I get it. It's unfortunate, but there needs to be SOME sort of payoff. Otherwise, it's just a waste of their time. Again, as much as I'd love a real day/night cycle, I'd rather have more games in the series that are even more awesome, and I'd rather have them focus on crafting SOME night scenes that make sense.

So, for example, if they don't do day/night, but they make it so that We don't need a full day/night cycle as long as they have SOME semblance of time AND appropriate scenes are nighttime scenes.

Let's say we get attacked by vampires in Baldur's Gate once we get there. Don't make that a weird daytime scene and give us excuses as to why every vampire can walk around by day. Give me a full blown nighttime scary undead horror scene with lots of darkness and fog and jazz. I don't care if I can go to the spot during the day or night as long as when I go there, it is the right ambiance for the scene.

Thank you for reminding me that I still didn't play Banner Saga3 for some reason...

Only Larian would think it is reasonable for a massive AAA CRPG in 2023 to not have D/N cycles.

I was thinking of something snarky to reply with, but I am struggling to come up with a great or even half decent RPG that didn't have day&night circle.

Maybe you guys are on something after all 😅

Diablo 1 and 2 didn't have a D/N cycle. Can't remember since it's so long ago, but I think Divine Divinity 1 also didn't have one. I don't think the Borderlands games had a cycle either.

Right, you sayd half decent RPGs. Well, VTM: Bloodlines didn't have a cycle either.

Wasteland 2 does not have a D/N cycle.

But seriously a journey across the Forgotten Realms without a D/N cycle would be a shame.
This is a Baldur's Gate game... not Wasteland, Diablo or DoS...

Duuuuude it does. Divine Divinity - my very first cRPG that introduced me to both the genre and Larian - does have D/N cycle. I can't even begin to describe to you what it felt like every time when it got dark I would teleport back to the Blue Boar Inn, next to the pumpkins and the chicken houses, entered the inn through the back, said hi to Lanilor as I passed through his room, then grabbed some chicken drumsticks and beer from the inn owner, hanging for a bit before resting till next morning, all the while listening to the hauntingly beautiful music. The track that started right after the teleporting would usually be The Song of the Wind, then it changed to the lively Drunk with Dwarven Mirth. These memories are so vivid it's almost to the point of being painful every time I recall them.

Yeah, the point being, I don't know what others play games for, but I play precisely to search for such powerful memories and feelings. It's cRPG and immersion is a big deal, and the D/N cycle is a big part of it. Wish I could be more eloquent here but eh.

Oh man! I know how you feel on that one. I would still so much love, and I still hope for, a true Day/Night cycle for this game. Even if they just implement a simple mechanic where you can have 2 long rests a day instead of 1. Click the button and instead of End Day it is a switch from Day to Night, that's all we need. It doesn't have to be some sort of realtime clock or anything. Chances are, you're not going to adventure for 12 hours straight and slowly watch the day go by. Either you'll adventure by day or night.

But the one good thing about a true Day/Night realtime clock is you can have variations in the time of day, which was super awesome in BG1 and 2. You could be exploring a map at dawn and have it slowly transition to morning, or you could adventure at twilight and have it somewhat darker but not fully night. Those were really awesome experiences. I also loved how it might just start thunderstorming on you while you were in the middle of exploring some dark woods; like Cloakwood. It REALLY added to the experience and made the game so much more fun.

It iS called a roleplaying game for a reason. You are SUPPOSED to feel like you are in the world. That's the whole point of it. The more you are able to immerse yourself in the world, the better it is at being an RPG.

For me part of BG, after a major plot point or combat encounter, was just standing and admiring the party for 20 minutes... equipping the looted equipment, making sure everyone's colors were working well, or preparing spells... And then it would suddenly change to dusk!

And the ambient sounds would change to crickets. Or a wind kicks up and it starts raining. Or maybe it's deep night but then suddenly changes to first light dawn. The game constantly had those nice little breaks and mood setting elements that seem absent here. Here everything feels like a set scene frozen in time, instead of a subtle hourglass in the background that's constantly turning over. I don't know that the game needs strictly to keep time, like the party has been venturing for "3 weeks 4 days and 22 hours" or the like. Maybe the brain worm fucks with our ability to reckon time accurately? lol but I'd still like for there to be a sundial, you know. Something for shadows that give the impression that the sun or moon and stars in the heavens are actually moving across the sky, so the world feels like its changing and alive.

I think the D/N cycle and a full party was the main thing that distinguished Baldur's Gate from Diablo, where in principle and playstyle the games were very similar. BG clearly copied a lot of ideas from the first Diablo. But Diablo was a crawler, and practically the whole thing took place underground. So really less need for the outside elements there. Baldur's Gate had plenty of underground crawler stuff too, but the main sweep in BG was wandering the open road and wilderness outdoors. It's something BG did really well, that set it apart from other games. I think Might and Magic 3 Isles of Terra kinda had a similar vibe before that but it was static, MM 4/5 the Xeen games did something kinda like Day and Night, but more Zelda link to the past style, with a perpetually Light and Dark world. A less developed kind of day and night. Baldur's Gate was one of the first games I can remember where the day and night cycle really stood out as a thing that was possible in games, and it was done so well I think its hard not to expect it here, as party of the legacy of the game.

My main Day/Night idea is simple. I think Larian could implement it fairly easily.

1. Game starts on beach in early morning. Sun has just risen after the nighttime fall from the nautiloid.
2. 1st Short rest moves from early morning to noon. A quick fade out and fade in reveals a change in lighting. Instead of the source of lighting being in the east, it is now directly above.
3. 2nd Short rest moves from noon to late afternoon. A quick fade out again and fade in reveals source of light is now in the west. Shadows are now cast in the opposite direction.
4. Long Rest Button replaces End Day button.
5. If you Long Rest without using any short rests, moon is in the east.
6. If you Long Rest after using 1 Short Rest, moon is directly above.
7. If you Long Rest after using 2 Short Rests, moon is in the west.
8. Each time you Long Rest, you must decide whether or not to fully recover, just like with End Day. This is done via Camping Supplies. If you use them, you receive the full benefits of a Long Rest (meaning recovering spell slots, HP, etc. in full). If you don't use Camping Supplies, or you only use some of them, you only recover in part.
9. Every 10 Camping Supply points allows you to recover 1/4th of your HP lost, spell slots, etc. Thus, 40 Camping Supplies allows you to recover in full.
10. The more people you have in camp, the more it costs for Camping Supplies. Every person forces you to increase your Camping Supply total cost per Long Rest by 10 Camping Supplies. So if you have your MC and all origin characters at camp, that is 60 Camping Supplies per Long Rest.
11. 1st Short Rest at night moves the moon from east to midnight. 2nd moves from midnight to west. If the moon is already in the west and you short rest, it becomes dawn, etc., etc., etc.

So, you can Long Rest all you want, switch from day to night, etc. without sleeping at all simply by not using Camping Supplies. Using Camping Supplies is what limits you from doing tons of Long Rests and relying more on Short Rests. 2 Long Rests, then, constitutes a single day.

In this way, they are using mostly what they've already implemented. All they'd have to do is tie lighting to the buttons they already have in place.

The gameplay “issue” with D/N that seems to pop up (I.e. not the technical MP issue Larian have mainly quoted), is this concept of NPC’s/vendors at night.

If you’re traveling and it turns to night the game either has to keep everyone in place (which feels immersion breaking), so you can continue to play, or you are putting in schedules and the players have to wait or rest for the vendor / quest giver etc… to be available.

Either way you do have these niggles that frustrate one player or another. A few have said how they were annoyed in Witcher3 for example having to rest in order to set the clock to a certain time for specific quests.

Personally I prefer D/N cycles with schedules for npc’s, it just feels more immersive and either I look to use the night for quests/ nefarious activities, or yeah, I sleep to get the vendors to reappear.

But even if we don’t get the d/n cycle, we need ambient weather!!!

Well, isn't this a bit of a "No shit" moment?

Everyone would "prefer" the most complex, nuanced day/night cycle imaginable, but the issue here is that Larian doesn't want to have one AT ALL precisely under the claim that "To make it VERY GOOD would be a lot of work".
Which is precisely why we had to argue for and point over the months that in fact even the MOST BASIC implementation of a day/night cycle would already be a net improvement over not having one at all.

Sure, I'll take nuanced and detailed NPC scheduling that changes their behavior and reactions in context... But if the alternative is "nothing at all" I'd take even "Signpost vendors" who never leave their spot even in the middle of the night. Or any intermediate compromise between the extremes, really.

@Tuco

100% agree! Even just a very basic day/night is better than what we have.

With what's in early access, BG3 doesn't have enough combat encounters and NPCs for a day/night cycle to be interesting.

I care much more about player freedom and reactivity, and the game is doing an excellent job with that (can attack any NPC, can steal anything you want, can do most things out of order, and there's special dialog for all those situations). So I think it's fine if they don't want to spend resources on day/night.

Reactivity doesn't really matter if the world is boring and unimmersive. And combat encounters aren't the only thing of interest. This is supposed to be a Baldur's Gate 3, not an Icewind Dale 3.

on the topic of day and night, i think time limit on some quests would be a great addition, especially on the tadpole. it gives more feeling of urgency and would also lessen the spammability of long rests - making short rests more important. The food mechanic works but i guess i just don't like convoluted inventory.