Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Resting at camp not taking food from the camp stash

Timed quests were one of the very few things I REALLY hated about D:OS2.

Having to rush towards the square of Fort Joy because of the elf vs. mafia situation or having to rush towards this incompetent "tactical genius" who captured a magister in act 2 were always things I never really liked, it felt like a chore on each playthrough.

If it was for me, that whole limitation on resting could be gone for good anyway, it just makes me fetch stuff I wouldn't fetch otherwise and send it to camp.

Less clicking, more thinking - that would be the right way to go, which is also why I'm so vocal about QoL issues in the game (inventory management, shopping).

Well, I'm glad it's not up to you, then.

You either build a system that doesn't expect the player to manage limited resources and rests to begin with (like Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire did) or you have to limit a system where classes are explicitly balanced around the idea of having different requirements in terms of rest to run at full efficiency.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Well, you can, if what you want is garbage system design.

"Timed" quests are actually great, as long as the timeframe allowed is forgiving enough to push the players just a bit without forcing them to rush anything and as long as the terms and conditions of how much time you are allowed to achieve a goal are made clear enough.

They get a bad rep just because some games didn't exactly handled these two factors flawlessly and because a certain portion of the user base is simply rabidly phobic about them on mere principle, without any actual consideration of how the system is affecting them.
Ironically enough I think BG3 has already some timed events that are more unfair/easy to miss than in some other games of the past that made people mount an uproar about timers.

For instance the fact that as soon as I enter the druid groove I HAVE TO rush to defuse a couple of events triggered that I may even not be aware about or miss them entirely is far more annoying than being told upfront "Here's a mission. You have two weeks/a month to complete it".
Or as Wrath of the Righteous is doing now: "Here's a bunch of quests that need to be completed before you trigger the ending event of this chapter or be missed entirely".

An example I already mentioned several time in the past year is the first MAIN quest in Kingmaker: you are asked to defeat a brigand baron in a three months timeframe (which is WAY more than you'll ever actually need if you are not a complete inept who rests after every two cobolds killed) but you'll get a bonus reward if you do it below a month. Which is still absolutely doable while cleaning 100% of every map in in the area accessible to the player, but requires for you to A) travel light B) try not to rest too often if it's not necessary C) optimize your traveling patterns at least a bit without going continuously back and forth between already-visited areas.

Agree! I also hate timed quests.

Agreed ...
It would require recreate whole world ... it would be odd if some events would have timer, and others would be waiting there for our arival ...

If you would like to add some sence of time to this game, it would need to apply on whole world, not just some quests. :-/
That would be odd.

You cant ...

Just make them grow in the middle only... Problem solved.
What is written may not be set in stone... (it probably is).

Timed events would make sense and would make the world alive.
I guess no one would complain if timed events would mean "different story" rather than only "missing content".

Just because something is immediately convenient to the player it doesn’t necessarily make for a better game in the long run.
In fact it’s often the opposite. Dealing with the restrictions of the hand you’ve been served is precisely what makes some scenarios engaging.

A classic example would be your first descent to Blight Town/Queelag’s lair in Dark Souls. If the game didn’t prevent you from having a convenient way to warp in and out of the area it wouldn’t become so memorable and daunting. And getting the Lordvessel for the first time hours later wouldn’t feel a moment of triumph.
That’s one thing a lot of the sequels/derivates got wrong when they started giving the equivalent of the Lordvessel to the player from the get go. They failed to realize how that daunting sense of isolation and distress when you were slowly pushed far away from your safe hub was part of what made the adventure worth remembering.

In the same way having unlimited respec or the option to turn your companions in whatever class you want (two features that were praised in DOS 2) gives the player an immediate advantage but in the long run it heavily cheapens the value of the "commitment" you put into your decisions while progressing through a game.
Another example would be having a omniscient minimap/GPS system that know exactly where to lead you at any given time, which kills a lot of value in exploring the environment, interacting with it and so on.

This broad idea that whatever is convenient is good for a game more often than not turns out to be just incompetent design.
Quoting someone I know: "You know what's also convenient? Being immune to damage".
And I bet many would welcome to have that as an option, somehow.

I have litteraly no idea what does this means.

The world ... yes, sure, absolutely ... but only if whole world would be actualy alive. :-/

I would love it, honestly ...
In one playthrough i would went East (Goblin Camp) from Blighted Willage ... then, when i would return and went south, i would find Marina Brothers allready dead ... then, when i would return and went Norht, i would find Zhentarim agents allready eaten by Gnolls, and only remains of Gith encounter with Flaming Fist ...
In another one i would went either to South or Norht ... and presuming it would take me simmilar amount of long rest, i would find Druid Groove under siege when i would return there, bcs Minthara allready get the information she wanted from the prisoner.

Another example ...
In one playthrough i would went straight to Druid Groove ... and i would find Aradin and his group running from the goblins (just as we do now).
In another one, i would go explore the crypt and it would take me longer (lets say i used 3 Long rests there for example ... not sure why would i, but lets say i did) ... when i would get to the Grove, i would find only bodies.
(It would be awesome, if Game would also roll some random number generator for who of Aradins group would survive, if you ask me. :P )

That is what i imagine when someone say "make the World alive" ...
Everything is happening in its time, and its up to us wich way we will pick and what adventure we will experience ... but we would never be able to see everything in single gameplay.

To imagine that in one gameplay i would be unable to expose Kagha as Shadow druid bcs "i explored the world around, therefore it took me too long, and the quest limit expired" ...
And in another one i would be totally able, bcs "i first explored whole world around and THEN i speak to Kagha, wich started the timer" ...
And yet in both cases Halsin was patiently waiting in his cage, while goblin kids was also patiently waiting to throw their stones ... bcs that is something completely unrelated to *THIS* timer, and therefore not affected by it ... that is just odd. :-/

Same thing goes other way around ...
That is why games usualy contain Dificiulty settings in the final release.
- you want restrictions to have engaging scenarios ... you have them.
- you want to be imune to damage ... you have it.

No, it doesn't.

Oh man, I'm so glad the game is making me pull food out of a box, then put it into another box before I can rest. This is SO engaging!!!

Yes, it does.

Thank you. This was exactly the mic drop that was needed here.

The attempts to derail this whole conversation into an "anti-rest-too-often" trollfest are annoying as hell.

Your response, on the other hand, says everything that needs to be said. And I think you'll agree with me that MANY parts of the game are affected by nonsense like this (inventory management, shopping), too.

A stupid argument.
An underdeveloped system needs to be improved and expanded, not made even more vestigial.

A more pertinent complaint when it comes to improving inventory management is why do we even need 73 types of non-stacking food to begin with.

Who says that it is underdeveloped?

I do.

I say otherwise. For me it's mostly a "feature" that could easily be left out, but if it has to stay, then at least it should not annoy the hell out of me with additional micromanagement.

There is already about 10x too much micromanagement in this game (similar to D:OS2, and I'm a bit astonished / disappointed that, with all the engine polish since then, nobody worked on overall UX so far).

I agree that this game has absolutely WAY too much inventory micromanagement, in general.
Conversely, I'm absolutely BAFFLED that people seem to think camp supplies are the problem, when it's arguably the most negligible part of inventory management currently.

In fact, food right now is mostly "fire and forget". You send it away in your stash with the the idea "I'll found it there if I'll need it again" but in reality chances are there won't EVER be any need to do so, because by that time you'll have other NEW stocks of supplies in your bag, sufficient for even more rests. The first act alone has probably enough food/supplies for two entire playthrough of the final game.

Managing scrolls, potions, swapping equipment, the vendor UI that makes unnecessarily inconvenient to change selected character.... These are ALL aspects of inventory management that in the current state of the game are in a far more urgent and dire need of a revamp.


But no, let's keep bitching because once every few hours we may be forced to walk 20 literal step to fish some food from the stash IF we were idiot enough to send ALL of our food there without keeping the tiniest bit of it with us.

How about creating them their own topic ...
And how about give that topic then all the so rightfull atention it needs, instead of (to use your own words) bitching here about something that concidering your own argument you dont really care about? O_o

To be fair, you're not required to put food into the box. It's entirely your choice whether to:
a) keep food in your bag, making it available for immediate use but contributing to your weight limit or
b) send the food to camp, freeing up inventory space but requiring you to remove it from the box to use it.

A big problem with the current system is that there is no reason to keep food in your inventory while actively exploring. As others have suggested, Larian could require food to short rest: maybe ~3 units per character. If they implemented this, then allowing long rest to automatically use food from the stash makes more sense balance-wise, as there remains an incentive to keep some food with you. As the game is now, food is only used when we have access to the stash, we find ~unlimited food, and different food types don't give different benefits, so what's even the point of having this mechanic?

Honestly I'd also be fine with Larian completely removing the camp stash during Act 1, assuming of course that they also remove many of the trash items, severely reduce the amount of food found, and consolidate all food into stackable "rations". In a more immersive world (namely where the dumb, gamey teleportation sigils are an out-of-universe player convenience and not an in-universe travel mechanic) our camp each night would be in a different location as we travel and explore. Keeping a stash of ~unlimited carrying capacity is then unfeasible.

We could only get access to a stash when we have a set base of operations - e.g., a tavern room in Baldur's Gate.

Not a fan of instanced camping in the first place, to say it all.
I said it countless times already, but if it was up to me I'd have favored a contextual system similar to the one used in Kingmaker/WOTR (where the player places his "camping spot" wherever it's appropriate).
Then again I understand the challenges of having that sort of dynamic system, especially if your terrain render is not suited for that type of modularity for whatever reason and considering how "packed" the diorama-like maps Larian loves to make tend to be.
So another alternative would be the Solasta system, where several "camping spots" are already distributed across the map and the player has just to make used of them.

I still find vaguely puzzling that Larian decided to favor the far more convoluted and wasteful solution of having a certain number of custom-made instanced camps, frankly. Especially since their number is inevitably going to skyrocket in the full game and despise all that effort the system will never stop feeling jarring and disconnected from the moment-to-moment adventure.

For the rest I mostly agree with the points you made.