Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Day/Night Cycle Poll Take # 2

Hard disagree and counterpoint:

even the most basic, lazy, half-assed implementation of a day/night cycle used almost exclusively as a cosmetic variable would already be a massive improvement over the alternative to have your fictional world permanently stuck in a perpetual noon.

And this is without even beginning to consider all the mechanical options that having one could potentially open if they wanted to go the extra mile, like context-sensitive encounter design, a PROPER tracking for the passage of time (instead of abstract hyper-time in Daylight Land), variable NPC scheduling and more.

That aside, aside for the specificity of my preference here, I'm with GM4Him even in principle. I don't see the point in voting according to a "prediction of what it will most likely happen".
No one is asking you guys to guess the winning number for the lottery, but to talk about features you would prefer in the game.

Case in point: I predict that Larian will never implement a decent control scheme in this game, but sure as fuck I'm not happy in the slightest about it and I won't go defending that choice.

No, I meant it was the worst option available by a landslide.
I wasn't strictly commenting on how well it was doing (even if it's still doing far more well than it deserves, anyway).

I know I put out 5 options and some are like, "Why not 2? Day/Night or No Day/Night."

The point is obviously made that options 2-5 are all people wanting Day/Night. It's not hard to see that and tally up numbers. If they literally can't do that, they shouldn't be making a video game.

I mean, I knew beforehand that most would vote FOR Day/Night. So I included as many options as I could think of to show which implemention of Day/Night was most popular. I felt a simpler poll would be pointless.

I'm honestly hoping for option 2 or 3, and voted for 3 mainly because I think 2 is a bit too time focused and unnecessary. Option 3 allows for a more ambiguous passing of time that isn't so focused on a clock. I honestly never cared what time it was in BG1 and 2 or icewind Dale etc. I only cared whether it was Daytime or Nighttime and whether I got bonuses or negatives to rolls. I also like 2 Long rests per 24 hours so time passes a bit slower than current. Makes more sense from an adventuring standpoint.

Option 2 would require a ton of extra work for not a ton of impact to game functionality besides immersion. Don't get me wrong. It would certainly be a LOT more like BG1 and 2 if they did option 2, but I don't think it's worth it. Option 3 does pretty much the same job with much less complexity.

I suppose I just don't care the much for day&night as you do. Control system actively lessens my enjoyment of the game, while I don't notice lack of day&night while playing BG3.

voted 2 , but would have voted the 'any way you want it Larian, just try to do some kind of D/N thing, please it's really important IMO' option if there were one... I agree this post is mixing up questions and would better be split in two questions: do you want D/N ? & how do you want D/N ?

Except that by voting for ANY option but 1, you are saying you want day/night - any form of day/night, but your preference is 2.

Except that I like your idea to poll people's opinion on D/N but I regret you ignored people rightfully asking to stick to more univocal, one concept at the time questions and answer categories as besides being just bad practice, it also makes any argument you'll try to distill from these polls less valid, more open to criticism and might confuse or shun potential participants thereby further biasing your results. Anyway, not here to discuss survey methodology or go on a pedantic rant, there's more than enough resources available online for you if you want to learn more about how to design better questions/answer categories.

Isn't it a sad state that we are debating in 2022 if a cRPG called <Baldur's Gate> should have Day/Night - passage of time?? unbelievable.

It really is and them recently announcing that the game is going live in 2023 means well probably not get it.

My apologies that you feel that I ignored you. Honestly, I wasn't trying to ignore anyone or be rude. It's all about what I wanted to know. I knew a majority of people wanted SOME form of Day/Night - or at least I suspected as much. So I thought why create a poll for something I already figured people wanted as a majority? Besides, if I really wanted to know what the majority wanted, whether Day/Night or no Day/Night, I could just tally up the options that wanted SOME form of Day/Night.

Like so:

24 votes for Day/Night. (86% of the votes)
4 votes for no Day/Night. (14% of the votes)

More specifically, people want a Realtime clock experience like BG1 and 2.

This really surprised me, actually. I didn't realize that Realtime clock was so important to a majority. I knew people wanted it, but I thought people would gravitate towards one of the more simpler Day/Night Cycle approaches.

Anyway, I can't edit polls once they're made, so the only thing I can do at this point is create a 3rd Day/Night cycle poll - or someone else can if they really want a more accurate Day/Night vs. No Day/Night poll. Is that really worth it? Probably not, but I would certainly vote if someone created one.

The problem with calling it "real-time clock" is that basically anyone is going to imagine something different.

Personally, what I would (ideally) like to see is simply having a full cycle (not just binary day/night switch, but the day going from dawn to dusk and vice-versa for the night).
To what degree of compression, what an in-game hour should correspond to, etc, etc..? That's all secondary, all fine-tuning that becomes somewhat relevant only once the core mechanics are in place.

My previous suggestion that the "clock should freeze" when even just one player is in turn-based mode is not even strictly a "preference" as much as a *NECESSITY* to make multiplayer work with a day/night cycle.
Why it is important to make it work? For several reasons, but above all for two main ones:
1) Because MP is a selling point for Larian and they are not going to give up on it, so it's mandatory to address the issue.
2) Because Larian itself in the past used the excuse of the problem with "syncing players clocks" as one of their main arguments to NOT have a day/night cycle, so suggesting a *feasible* design solution that would satisfy both parties is a necessity to even begin this conversation.

But these are all points I already argued more than a year ago when I made a thread about this same topic: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=94314&Number=728467#Post728467

And then countless times again since then...

One of the main benefits of Day&night is creation of feelng of passing time. real time clock more or less makes it feel natural - having time passing tied to arbitrary actions, like resting, which may happen often or very rarely would result in the system not fulfilling its function, even if it was implemented in it's most basic, cosmetic way. I see little difference between time of day changing when resting, and it being always day when we explore, and it being always night when we go to sleep in camp. You could theoretically find an intuitive thing to tie passing of time to, like DIsco Elysium does with conversations, but I can't think of anything that would fit.

Number Two is time tested...If it aint broke...

I want immersive chickens though...and night owls.

...and other immersive impressiveness!

This. It's bizarre, really. Even Icewind Dale had nights.

And Neverwinter Nights1&2 had days! [am actually not sure about NWN1 - it's been a long time]