Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Suggestion on How To Improve Spammable Long Rests and Encourage Item Usage

Oh yes. This is a kinda, but not really, whole separate issue. I mean, it pisses me off to no end, and is a HUGE downside to this game, that companion dialogues are tied to long rests. HUGE downside to this game. Basically, if you want a lot of companion interaction and you want to get to know them, you need to long rest after every dang fight.

So yeah. The first time I played the game, I was in the same boat. I barely knew any of the companions at all. When a bunch of them suddenly wanted to have sex with me at the camp during the celebration, I was floored. It was like 0 to 60 in the romance department. I didn't feel like I knew any of them.

They ABSOLUTELY need to tie dialogues to short rests or simply to trigger points in your journey.

For example, after meeting Shadowheart, you take a short rest. This triggers her dialogue about "I'm not sure this is such a good idea." It still fits with a short rest. After all, typical ceremorphosis should have the tadpole eating the person's brain within a few hours after infection. So although she may not totally know this, she at least feels that every moment could be their last. Taking an hour break might not be wise. This helps to keep the player moving in the game. Although they're taking a short rest, which is fine, the player is urged to keep moving and not long rest anytime soon. Also, a long rest shouldn't be available to use right away. The game should be set to not allow it until at least the player has used 1 short rest, at least at the beginning so that the dialogues are triggered first.

Another example is after meeting Gale, after you enter the crypt - IF you enter the crypt - when you reach the chamber with the fireplace, suddenly he gets an exclamation point over his head, indicating he has a dialogue, and he says, "This looks like a good spot for a rest." If you click on him, cutscene. He's standing before the fireplace. You approach. "Go to hell," he remarks. Cutscene continues where he talks about being in the hells, etc. Note: It's a short rest that does not use up your 2 short rests nor does it give you any HP back or anything. It's just a short rest for dialogue purposes.

Another trigger point. You're about to head into the Silvanus Grove area, just before triggering the battle at the gate. It happens again. Gale gets that exclamation over his head. "Say. Let's take a break. Shall we? I've got something I want to talk to you about." You trigger it. Cutscene. Takes place in broad daylight instead of night.
He's looking at a mirror image of himself as you approach. He then launches into his explanation of ceremorphosis and why it's weird you haven't started changing yet.

This would be SO much better than the current system. SO much better.

And again, it would really help to keep people from long rest spamming. If they get these dialogues outside of long resting, they imply that although it might be okay to long rest, it's definitely not a good idea to do so frequently. Sure, Gale's saying that you aren't changing as fast as you could, but he also explains how horrible ceremorphosis is. He then says that you still could change at any moment, and when you do change, it could be swift and sudden and far more terrible instead of taking a whole week. After that warning, psychologically, the player is thinking "Okay. I can long rest. However, the more I do, the more likely that I could turn suddenly and horribly."

And then - this is the most important part - Larian has the game follow up on the threat - just a bit, though. Just enough to remind players that "Hey. You might not want to just spam long rest." After 2 long rests from the time you landed on the beach, you have your first Dream Lover sequence. Boom. Right there. If you know that you're going to have a Dream Lover sequence potentially at any point when you Long Rest, HECK YEAH, most players are going to associate that with the tadpole and think, "Dang! The more I long rest, the more likely I will have one of these weird Dream Lover sequences. I'd best avoid long resting if I can help it." And if the player is all into the Dream Lover, then they will long rest more which is totally fine at that point. Let them. Then they can embrace the Dream Lover.

And I'm not talking every 2 long rests. I'm just saying that maybe the first one is after 2 long rests. The next Dream Lover dream could be 8 long rests later, or something like that. It would be like a reminder. "Hey. Keep long resting and you'll get more of me, your Dream Lover." The next dream could be 10 long rests later, or if you use your tadpole powers, it comes sooner. Whatever. The point is that they could EASILY use this system to dissuade Long Rest spamming, it wouldn't be a hard time limit at all, you'd actually eventually get to see the Dream Lover sequences even if you aren't using tadpole powers, and so forth.

That, to me, is a MUCH better system for "limiting" long rests than camping supplies and such. You wouldn't even need to do other consequences but the dream lover to discourage long rest spamming. I still think other consequences, like Lae'zel leaving temporarily, make sense and would be fun and provide even more replayability to the game, but at the very least the dream lover being a consequence would make sense, and it would work to deter people more. Especially after the second or third dream where the party starts to show signs of transformations, and you are given even more illithid powers. Yeah. I think players would be a bit less long rest spam happy if they thought, "Holy crap! We're transforming into mind flayers!" Even if they aren't.