Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Long Rest Mechanics Poll

Here. I'll try another one. Let's see if I can get this one right.

Long Rest Unlimited Poll
1. No limits at all to Long Rests.

2. Limits to Long Rests.

Long Rest Limited Poll - What should limit Long Rest? (IF they limit Long Rests, how should they limit? Multiple choices can be selected, so if you think Camping Supplies and Long Rest Locations are good together, you can select both.)
1. Camping Supplies (Whether they limit how many you get as you travel or not, that's not the point. The point is simply whether you like Camping Supplies limiting Long Rests. Maybe you'd like them to still use it but increase the cost, or maybe you'd like them to still use it but you'd like them to make Camping Supplies harder to come by. Doesn't matter. It falls into this category if you want them to do SOMETHING with Camping Supplies to limit Long Rests.)

2. Specific Long Rest Locations (Such as camping spots on the map. How exactly they limit Fast Travel in regards to Specific Long Rest locations is not a part of this particular poll. Just some basic form of using Long Rest Locations to limit Long Resting.)

3. Some Form of Exhaustion System - Basically, the specifics are not a part of the poll. The idea is that you think it'd be a good idea for them to implement some form of point system where the more you adventure the more a certain exhaustion meter fills up. You cannot Long Rest until you reach a certain level on the meter. In other words, you fight the 3 intellect devourers. That's a certain amount of exhaustion on the meter. You fight the fishermen and gain more on the meter. You meet Astarion and your meter goes way up because he's exhausting to a lot of players. You lose a lot of HP. Exhaustion goes up. You spend a lot of spell slots. Exhaustion goes up. At some point, the game has one of the characters who are exhausted tell you that they need to call it a day. And again, until some sort of exhaustion point is met, you can't long rest because the game has determined that you still haven't endured enough adventure for that day to warrant a Long Rest. SOMETHING like this falls into this category. (This could be LATER combined with penalties for not resting after a certain exhaustion point, but that's not a part of this particular poll.)

4. Random Encounters - A chance of random encounters might occur any time you Long Rest. The chance is determined based on the danger of the area you are trying to rest in. (This implies, again, that they do something to limit Fast Travel so that you can't just Fast Travel out of danger. But again, that's not within the scope of this poll.) Rough Example: Rest in the grove would be 0% chance of random encounter. It's a safe zone. Rest in the hostile goblin camp after killing the three leaders would be something LIKE a - oh I don't know, 60% chance of encountering random monsters. Why? You pissed off the goblin camp and they're looking for you fervently. You can't just teleport to some mystical camp somewhere to escape them and then teleport back after 8+ hours of resting. (Note: Exactly how they are implemented is not a part of the poll. The poll assumes that Larian would make Random Encounters fun, interesting and exciting - not just boring mob battles with endless goblins just coming at you forever and ever until you actually succeed in resting in a dangerous area or you die and have to reload. IF they can pull off interesting Random Encounters, you'd like this idea.)

5. Crafting - Before you can rest, you have to craft a Camping Supply pack. Similar to Camping Supplies, you have to gather various items as you adventure. Until you've acquired all the items necessary for camping, you cannot Long Rest. For example (and this is just an example so please don't get hung up on this being the specifics), before you can long rest, you have to find 4 Food, 4 Drink, 4 Armor Repair Kit, and 4 Healing Kit. This allows you to craft 1 Camping Supply Pack which allows you to Long Rest. Druids can use Goodberry to supply Food and Healing Kit limitations for the pack, but they don't have Drink or Repair Kits. Individuals with the Mending cantrip (they could add this spell) can negate the Armor Repair Kit "ingredient". Essentially, treat it more like you are needing all the proper equipment to fix up your wounds, strengthen yourself, etc. in order to receive the benefits of a Long Rest. Again, the specifics aren't important. The overall idea is that you have to continually have to create Camping Supply packs to long rest, and you may not always find the ingredients so readily accessible. You may have to go to the store and hope they have that particular item.

6. Time Sensitive Events - We've discussed this at great lengths. If after X number of days you don't do a certain something, stuff happens. Maybe it's something you don't care about. Maybe it's negative. Maybe it's even positive. Who knows? The point is, things happen if you Long Rest. Example: You go to Waukeen's Rest. You see it burning. You ignore it. You long rest. Waukeen's Rest is no longer burning and you can't do the mini-side quest to save the Counselor because you saw a burning building and decided to ignore it.

7. Something else because I just don't like any of these.

Long Rest Unlimited single choice
	No Limits at all
	Limits to Long Rest
Votes accepted starting: 22/04/22 09:07 PM
View Results

Long Rest Limited multiple choice
	Camping Supplies
	Long Rest Locations
	Exhaustion System
	Random Encounters
	Crafting
	Time Sensitive Events
	Something esle
Votes accepted starting: 22/04/22 09:08 PM
View Results

Voted for no limits at all! That is what works best for me.😊

If there have to be limits, then my choice is camping supplies.

The absolute worst for me is time sensitive events!!! I hate those.

Thanks for the feedback, Icelyn.

I tried to remember as many limits that people suggested as possible. I hope I didn't forget any.

I honestly am curious to see how many people really want some sort of limitation or not, and to see what kinds of limits people are interested in. We've done SO much talking about this, but I have no idea what ideas people REALLY like... other than you not wanting limits on resting at all.

Edited the exhaustion system out of my post because I hadn’t read the description completely and so misunderstood.😆

Limits to long rest AND a healthy combination of most of the other mechanics (with neither of them being particularly restricting nor forgiving to the point of being vestigial) would be the ideal solution.

A big YES for:

- Having some sort of limit to how often it would possible/advisable to long rest, without making it TOO punishing.
- Having specific spots suitable for long rest, or "contextual camps" rather than the current crappy pocket dimension that exists in a limbo out of space and time
- Having an exhaustion system that from time to time could discourage me from playing the entirety of the EA portion of the game with one single rest.
- Having some occasional "time sensitive event" tied to secondary objectives, as long as forgiving enough to keep the players on their toes without forcing them to rush the game (Kingmaker had few excellent examples of this, for instance).
- Requiring attunement for some magic items.


I don't see any particularly desirable use for crafting, on the other hand.

First of all I think there is this big issue, where in other cRPGs is it desirable to use resoures wisely and rest as little in possible, while in BG3 that results in missing key content. So I don't think the game can encourage not resting too much, without shooting the narrative team in the foot.

That said, yeah I voted for limited resting. And went for random encounters as they sound most fun to me (and suggest limiting fast travel in dungeons, as well as manipulating where players could rest). BG3 lacks the feeling of adventuring and dungeon crawling - venturing into a tomb or goblin stronghold should feel as such.

Good job on the poll. The options are generic enough to include implementations, and you include an "other" option. The split polls between yes/no and the different implementations is also useful.

I voted yes for everything but random encounters and crafting.
-random encounters should be added to fast traveling (or walking through areas you've already cleared out), not long resting, if added at all.
-Larian games have terrible crafting. pls no. Quest-based crafting only

I voted for no Limits ... since i dont believe i need the game to tell me when is my group tired, sory but not sory ...
I get used to restrict myself in this matter ... and it kinda suits my needs. :P

And yet it allowed me to vote in second poll ...
So i took as "if there WILL be restrictions, even tho you didnt want them ... wich would be acceptable for you?"
And i voted for:

Camping Supplies
- I just like the curent system ... players who want rest twice as often as most hardcore people around here have the option ... all i would do would be adjustable amount of supplies needed for both Long and Short (even tho its not the topic here) rests in difficiulty settings ... including none for Icelin. ^_^

Exhaustion System
- I supported the idea in the past and suggested something simmilar too ... even tho im not quite sure when our characters *should* be exhausted. :-/

Crafting
- I would like this option, especialy tied to Camping Supplies and a little to Time ...
I believe i have read around here some suggestion that Fresh food should give our characters more nourishment, BUT should decay after some amount of long rests ...
But players should have crafting option to make the food durable, by drying it, salting it, etc. but also make it less nourishing ...
- I also believe that certain amount of long-lasting food should be packable to camp supplies, to save space.
- And this should include raising Camping Supplies use of Goodbery to 1 per character, per rest, no matter the amount needed ... yes its a hack, but this is how this spell is supposed to work (since you like this sentence so much ). :P

Time Sensitive Events
- There is not much to say ... i just love the idea.
I also believe that all events on the map should happen simultaneously (or really close to each other).
Meaning inn is burning, and gnolls are attacking at Zhentarims ... you either make in time one, or another ... but never both (unless you split).

👍😊

According to me, limitation = you cannot rest when you want to.
I don't want strict mechanical limitations.

I kind of like the food supply mechanic even if they could really overhaul it (There's something between "food limitations" and "food overdose").
Random encounters and long rest location doesn't prevent you to rest when you want to.

SO I vote "no limit", food supply, random encounter and rest location. In my opinion it's not incompatible.
I also like the "time sensitive exemple but to me it has nothing to do with "limiting" long rest. Kingmaker really limit long rests through timed events. And I really don't like it

Yes. I don't want hard long rest limits either. For time sensitive events, the hard time limits would be only where it makes sense. Like Waukeen's Rest. It makes no sense once you see the burning building that if you long rest it's still burning. Likewise, it makes no sense if you trigger Minthara going to attack the grove that night, if you long rest, she still hasn't attacked the grove.

But I totally agree. I don't want "You have 5 days to defeat the goblin leaders. If you don't do it in 5 days, game over."

I also agree that multiple "limiting" elements make the most sense for long rest. They need to cut down on how much food you can find so it's a bit more restrictive and therefore a bit more meaningful that you might have to conserve your resources. I also like rest locations and random encounters IF, as we've discussed before, the encounters are done well. No trash mobs please.

I also think random encounters would be good for fast travel limitations, but that's a whole other topic.

I have no idea why it would need to be "five days" on the other hand.
Kingmaker had THREE FUCKING MONTHS to complete the first main objective in the campaign (Beating the robber baron in control of the region). You had to be basically mentally impaired and deliberately lazy to miss the goal.
It also had an OPTIONAL but very juicy bonus reward for people who made it under a month. A month was still more than sufficient to explore every single map in the starting region and complete it at 100% with some rests to spare, if you knew what were doing and didn't abuse the rest mechanic.

That's an example of time limit implemented well and of SYSTEMIC, organic incentive to not abuse a convenient mechanic (rest) for your own sake.

P.S. It also tied very well with their weight/rest system, that actively encouraged a party to travel light since the benefit was greater than carrying tons of trash loot and going at a snail pace.

Pathfinder : Kingmaker is already on my lists of games to play so I didn't need any convincing to add it, but I was happy to learn that. It just makes me think even more that I'll enjoy this game.

Baldur's Gate 1 had some early-game companions give you a limited time to go to Nashkel. Like in Kingmaker, you really had plenty of time to clean few maps, find additional companions, level-up and gear up before going, if you wanted to. After postponing visiting Nashkel for too long, the companions would give you a first warning, then a few days later a second. If you still didn't go there despite all that, these companions would just leave. It really added some credibility and immersion to the game. (Thinking about it now, the design in BG1 was only a "negative incentive", whereas Kingmaker's design also uses a "positive incentive" on top, which is even better.)

I don't think many people want "finish this quest within X days or Game Over". That's harsh. Fortunately, as exemplified above, and as can be exemplified at length with so many more examples from so many games, that's not the only way time-sensitive quests can be done.

I think a general recipe for time-sensitive quests that work well is :
- If you (attempt to) complete the quest in time, then you can choose its outcome.
- Otherwise, i.e. if you don't complete the quest in time, a default outcome is enacted by the game.

Annway, all this discussion is futile if there no concept of time in the game ...


Coming back to Long Rests, I just wanted to add something about option 2 : Long Rest Locations. An alternative formulation, which is equivalent but sheds a slightly different light on it is this. Long Rest Locations : in some areas, you cannot take a Long Rest.

Of course, these areas are the complement of the areas where you can take a Long Rest.

But instead of the game saying "you can Long Rest here, it's a safe spot with enough space to make camp", the game says "this place is a Goblin stronghold (or a spider-infested cavern, or else) so, no —of course!— you cannot Long Rest here".

I so very much disagree - Kingmakers timers are indeed mostly irrelevant but that’s information that is not available for the first time players. So we have timers that serve little to no purpose except for stressing out new players by pretending they matter.

On top of that they don’t prevent spamming rests - most of Kingmakers consists of small, barren maps with a single encounter. Travelling at snails pace over the world map and quests forcing players to travel all over the place pretty much means that player will rest more times throughout the campaign then fight. You are more likely to be exhausted from not resting enough, then being short on resources. And when you engage in combat you will learn you don’t have the very specific protection spell that game demands that you have, so you reload, swap companions, re-rest to change spells and do the encounter again.

The only time Kingmaker limited rests is in dungeons and its camp supply system is single works implementation I have experience in a cRPG.

I have to say, I don't like Kingmaker as much. I got to the part where I visited the shrine and the cleric was like, "Wait for the most to clear.". So I went wandering around and lost interest because I had no real direction anymore and I kept revisiting the inn and talking to people but nothing is happening.

I don't know. Maybe I'll try to pick it up again.

Kingmaker has bunch of moments where it is not clear what you are supposed or can do. Sometimes you need to explore, sometimes you need to sit on your ass, manage the kingdom and wait. In this case you need to finish the objective (find and defeat the bandit lord) - so just walk around, kill what you can, until you find him. If you pick it up again, I recommend playing with walkthrough. Most of its content is incoherent mess demanding metaknowledge. At the very least you will save yourself a lot of walking back and forth.

Yep, it seems we very much do.

Both statements are questionable at best.
They aren't "irrelevant" because it's still entirely possible to be too wasteful and fail them (especially since kingdom management becomes a factor or when travelling heavy and moving slowly) losing the chance to do something.
They simply aren't too punishing. And that brings us to the second point: the information not being available. Usually when something is time-sensitive you are more than explicitly told so, even if admittedly the game could be a bit more transparent on expiration dates.

When the premise is incorrect, so is the conclusion you draw from it.
Also, what's even more questionable here is the implied assumption that "stressing" (meaning "pressuring to any degree") the player is inherently a bad thing. This is the dreadful school of design that thinks that anything INCONVENIENT for the player is inherently a bad part of the experience.
But sometimes overcoming or preventing inconveniences through good planning and good habits is precisely part of the sense of being part of a bigger adventure with some stakes in it.

False. In fact, most of these are relegated to road encounters. For the rest there's a certain number of small maps, sure (which personally beats the diorama-like "bonsai world" in BG3 where everything is five meters away from the previous point of interest), but also a lot of wider areas or even proper dungeons.

Which is not even remotely a problem, if the game is tuned around it. Not to mention that if someone is travelling at "a snail pace" it usually means they are over-encumbered, since travelling light comes with a SIGNIFICANT change of pace in travelling speed.


That's:
- hyperbole
- more tied to the fine tuning and the Pathfinder ruleset than to the travel/rest system-
- ...and consequently not really pertinent to this specific topic

No idea what you are even trying to say here.
If that "work" was supposed to be a "worst" as I'm guessing, then yeah, once again we STRONGLY disagree.
In fact, I feel pretty much the opposite. They have arguably the BEST rest system I experienced in CRPG since the '90s. One that makes sense in context, it's mechanically meaningful, it maintains the immersion, but it's rarely (if ever) particularly punishing, if not as consequence of genuinely poor planning.

yeah, you already know you are my personal Anti-Christ and nemesis when it comes to discuss game mechanics.
Most of what you advocate for is most of what I absolutely despise in modern CRPGs (and occasionally in games in general).

I know how traveling works - by "snail pace" I mean how much bloody time it takes to move from one place to the next, do random encoutners, go through the resting process (which takes way too long for how often players are expected to do those). Rinse and repeat.

I stopped paying attention to timers. I was usually waiting for timers to run out (well doing kingdom mangement, which was horrible system in its own right)

There needs to be a point to it. If pressure leads to interesting choices, then sure. Kingmakers parades with meaningless "hardcore" designs, but it is just shoddily designed, empty campaign. Because here is the thing: remove the timers. How does it affect the game? It doesn't. It's like if Baldur's Gate3 had "find a way to remove tadpole within 1000 rests". Sure, you will probably wont rest 1000 so it doesn't matter, but you will only stress out some people who will fear that they will run out of them. Straight up better solution is Hellblade which tells you there is death limit, but it doesn't actually exist - though I still see it as unnecessary hardtry move.


-true

Sure. My issues are as follow:
- for vast majority of the game supplies are useless - you can rest outside, you can hunt for food. So they don't limit your resting. Most of the maps will allow you to rest and hunt. You are in a two or three maps deep dungeon? Just jog outside and rest.
- So when they do come across one of the few dungeon from which you can't go back to: you might not know that before you enter. Nor know how long they are. Nor what monster you might encounter. It's tied to a wider "inventory problem" problem - having too choose what to take with you, is not a compelling mechanic if there is no way to know what you could benefit from taking. To see a good implementation of the system, see: Darkest Dungeon - you have both an idea of how long the escapade will be and dangers you might encounter (and therefore items you will need), so you make a concious decision. Or PoE1 where devs control your maximum camp supplies so they can pace dungeons. No such think in Pathfinder. And sure, on second playthrough you might remember that in this specific dungeon there is no way back, and there might be one spider encounter, and couple scrolls that might be handy, and 3 rests at the very least. On the first playtrhough though, it is a thoroughly shitty experience, no matter if you do and don't have what you need to have. You just don't know. You will find in 2 hours.

If I didn't already, I should stress that in my opinion Kingmaker is one of the worst cRPG campaigns I have ever played, matched only by NWN1 base campaign. I assume that you disagree, and have no intention to change your mind. I am glad you are enjoying it. But there is not a single thing that I would like to see adopted from that game. I just don't think it is well put together.