Yeahhhh this is completely terrible reasoning, way overcomplicating a possibly simple implementation.
Larian could - Put all players on the same clock. If someone is in combat and someone isn't, it's not the end of the world times passes the same for both (I vote either tie it to the host have time slow down for all players if any player is in TB) - Not have a real clock. Have the day progress based on clicking a button (1st short rest -> afternoon. 2nd short rest -> night) or by milestones (entering a new area, etc) - Not have complicated cycles for NPCs. A subset of NPCs simply disappear at night, and others come out. Easy. The story can be enhanced with day/night cycles. Story and day/night aren't mutually exclusive..???
So sure, Larian is not going to implement Day/Night in exactly the unnecessarily overcomplicated way Adam describes. But they could---and should, in many of our views---implement Day/Night in a simpler way.
Bingo,
In a way mirrors (and it's the direct cause of) what they did with the rest system:
they could have a contextual one that either allowed the player to place camps in some patches of ground (Pathfinder method) or an even more basic one where the player was allowed to make use of camps already placed here and there along the map (Solasta method), but instead they chose to have this convoluted "instanced system" where your camp is in some separate, magical pocket dimension, which is something that - breaks the sense of continuity of the world creating a strong disconnect between where you are and where you are supposed to be. - becomes a bizarre pre-requirement for dialogue progression between party members for some weird reason. - requires a large (and at the same time clearly insufficient) amount of custom assets to differentiate between the countless areas and regions to not come off as completely jarring.
To be clear, these are NOT issues that I expect to see solved (I pretty much gave up on most of the issues I'm bitching about, at this point), but man, I DO hope they'll learn from their past mistakes when the time to work on their next title (which is probably ten years away) comes.
Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
