Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion Will this game FINALLY take world simulation to the next level?

I'm not sure how many here remember, but originally DOS 1 -strong of its declared inspiration from the Ultima series- was supposed to have NPC scheduling and a full nday/night cycle.
It was suggested as a stretch goal for the Kickstarter campaign, the goal was reached, the feature was promised... And then late in production canned because too challenging to achieve.

Then we got to DOS 2 and it was more or less the same. The feature was TENTATIVELY promised as something they were trying to accomplish at first, then canned because too expensive and challenging to achieve.

And then it was the time to reveal Baldur's Gate 3. The biggest, most expensive Larian game to date, the follow up of a series that made of the day/night cycle a core feature. One that could occasionally influence gameplay, too, with enemies that showed up just at certain conditions (i.e. vampires were roaming the city roads just at night). One would think that BOTH the increased budget and the legacy of the series would be strong arguments in favor of developing the feature, but NOPE.
We were told pretty early in production (months before the EA even started) that one of the first major design decisions the studio made was to can the feature once again. Too complex and too expensive to realize (no matter that dozen of RPG with budgets that were a FRACTION of BG3 managed just fine for two decades).

Now we are moving to the next Divinity. In their own words their most complex and ambitious RPG to date, built over new and improved technology, over the foundations of everything the studio learned so far from the previous titles....

SO... Should we expect an improvement in this area?
Will we FINALLY be able to get this bare minimum of credible world building this time? Or is the cinematic angle the only side of the production that will cannibalize the overwhelming majority of the budget?

Oh, and just ot be clear I'm fully expecting the answer to be a resounding "NO", but I'm starting the discussion about it just to put the question out there, because I'd like this to be confirmed as soon as possible so I can put my hopes to rest.

I would love this: people are in different places at different times, day/night circle, time actually going by and not doing a quest will autofail it at some point (where it makes sense).

That is one of the things, I miss in BG3: the passing of time. Yes, you can go to camp and sleep and then the next day, a situation is still there (for example the gnolls still threatening the Zhentarim trapped in the cave. Or Orin, who just waits patiently the whole game that you will come to get your comrade.

I would like for things to change, having consequences. There are some few ones, but not a lot. And I really want npcs to have a life and doing stuff.

I remember that one of the "big" things they talked about in their early demo's was, that the party could split up, scatter all over the map and do different things in different places. I don't know if anyone ever used this feature, but combining this with a time system is hard, as you would have to be able to travel back in time when you switch from one patrol to another. I always assumed this was the reason of not having the day cycle.
(Oh, and the ability to throw your boots at an enemy. I remember that one also being promoted as a sign that showed how versatile this game was, in early demo's. )
Maybe these are things to look out for in the upcoming demo's.

It was used, mainly to cheese encounters by dialoge locking enemies and then position the rest of the party and place barrels.

It added nothing to the game, just subtracted from it.

I also remember that we "solved" this design problem with 15 minutes of brainstorming on this very forum:
You just "pause the clock" for everyone when one of the players/split party is entering a turn-based battle and let it progress only when everyone is in real-time mode.
Except the suggestion was never embraced, of course.

I did not see that discussion, but the implication given in the demo's and interviews went further than just battle.
A made up example : You could in principle send a scout to the mountain pass (and discover it was guarded by Githyanki) while at the same time another scouting party went down the ladder to the underdark to see if that path was protected.

Edit : and as said before, I don't know if anyone actually used the feature like this, and Larian never provided a concrete example either, as far as I know.
(Though they did show the boot-throwing feature in a demo )

Yeah, But I'm SPECIFICALLY talking of how this feature (splitting the party and doing different things at the same time) could cohexist with a day/night cycle.
NOT of what you could do when splitting.

To be clear, personally I don't even value co-op and being able to splitting the party that much - and I would gladly trade the feature with a day/night cycle given the choice- but it's pretty clear that Larian considers it a cornerstone of their design and an a valuable feature to offer players, which is why I make an attempt to find a compromise.

I think we're not understanding eachother. I was also referring to day/night cycles and how it is complicated by doing 2 things at the same time. The game must handle both sides being unable to rendez-vous back at the same point at the same time.

If they add a day/night cycle, I hope they actually use it properly.

I've played way too many games where there was a day/night cycle and it meant nothing. Other than the game being slightly more annoying to play half the time (For example, Titan Quest, where night just makes it annoying to see enemies when outside).

This would entail having actual mechanics tied to day and night respectively. Such as NPC behaviours, enemy spawns (Though this is complicated if we have their standard non-respawning enemies and the need to kill EVERYTHING to suck up all the experience points possible... Meaning having different enemies spawns means having to clear out places twice, once to kill all the daytime enemies and once to clear out all the nighttime enemies) and time sensitive interactions (Though this can be very annoying depending on how frequent and/or large the impacts are)

Another thing to consider is stuff like lighting, especially at night.

I found the general lighting behaviours in BG3 really cool. Both how torches worked, but also the ability to ignite candles and braziers in locations to provide more light (Both with interactions, as well as hitting them with fire spells), with this being even more notable for characters who lacked Darkvision and thus had worse accuracy without it. Environments looked rad with the actual mechanics of lighting.

However, such things really gimped you for actually using them. Torches suck and prohibited use of 2 handed weapons, shields and off-hand weapons. Spending spells/turns simply turning on lights was terrible. Playing the like 2 races that don't have Darkvision was also not particularly great...

That and the whole actually needing light also was not a thing. With dark places still being plenty bright enough to see properly. Heck, even the zone where it has another mechanic specifically about light... You immediately get rid of the mechanic because Isobel blessed you and then you instantly were sent to go get the Fairy who then also blesses you and makes the entire mechanic redundant.

I mean, yeah... I just suggested precisely how to solve THIS issue in my previous reply.
You stop the clock for both players/split parties every time one of the two enters in a turn-based mode that could create incongruences. When both players are moving in real time, on the other hand, it simply doesn't matter where they are and what they are doing.

IEh. I'd take a "shallow" day/night cycle over its complete absence any day, anyway.
At very least it would still add a lot of potential flavor (admiring the same scenario in different light conditions, for instance) and set up a foundation modders could expand on.

I really would love a day/ night cycle too. I want to experience the difference if you try to tackle a quest at daytime versus nighttime

A Day/Night cycle in games that pioneered it wasn't simply a feature to consider, naturally.

It was games that, as the title of the thread suggests, aimed for a world simulation. As such, time passing belongs to the general idea. Ultima VII for instance is at least as much of a single-player RPG as it is a world simulation. That said, often even in games where time passing doesn't impact much, I tend to enjoy it. Even in BG1, where they even had specific music for nighttime... wandering the plains when it's dark outside and a thunderstorm hits is different to doing the same on a sunny day. Video games are audiovisual experiences, after all.


Does every game NEED this though? This not. Honestly getting the impression though what Larian /Vincke like about games such as Ultima 7 isn't the full-on world simulation as such, with people "living" their daily lives. Just a portion of it, such as the way you can interact with any object/NPC. And on that front, the more they go "Immersive Sim-Like", the better. People classing this as "cheesing the game" be damned. They don't have a clue anyway.


"The fact that you can do things in so many different ways, it's a big mess of systems, of storytelling. Because on the other side of that, you have games that are very funnelled, very controlled, very safe. You arrive into a place, the doors close around you, boss fight. I can't stand that, because I'm the guy who prefers to come in, and they haven't seen me yet."

Colantonio cites Baldur's Gate 3 as a major step forward in this regard; while that is distinctly an RPG rather than an immersive sim, he says the game "shares a lot of the same values" and has opened many players' eyes to the notion that any given situation may have multiple solutions based on their playstyle and abilities unique to their characters.People appreciate all the choices that they had, they notice all the consequences, or they notice all the permutations of things that can happen. They appreciate that they can cheat the game through the systems by doing some weird stuff that was not planned by the designers. Those are amazing realisations from a gamer standpoint.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/why-raphael-colantonios-next-game-is-and-isnt-like-dishonored

If they do a day-night cycle, I hope they tie it in with event triggers, not with real-time progression. Kind of how Persona 5 had the times of day.

Should Larian keep a short-rest + short-rest + long-rest system. Then before the first short rest could be morning, between the first and second short rest could be afternoon, and after the second short-rest but before long-rest could be evening. Lighting conditions could be different, so planning what to tackle when becomes interesting. Need to take on some vampires? Best take them out in the afternoon when it's sunny. Need to sneak about the enemy camp? Best take that on in the evening when shadows lengthen.

If they want a slightly more complicated system, you could have four times of day: morning, afternoon, evening, and night. And long resting uses up the next time of day from the one you are in. So, it's morning, you long rest, which means sleeping the afternoon away, but then you do have evening and night to sneak about. Each time of day can have slightly different lighting conditions and advantages and disadvantages. Short rests still only progress you to the next time of day. This system would need a way to progress time of day that's not limited to two, so you can manipulate which time of day you will use for long rests, so if they go for this, you can maybe have three short rests but generally are expected to use two before long resting.

All-in-all, event-driven systems are a lot more robust, they avoid the problems stated in this thread, and are less stressful for players. It also fits a turn-based game much better: time to think, time to plan, action only when all considerations have been made, at the control of the player.

Not sure about NPC schedules. If they can build a system for that, sure, but if you have to put all the schedules in manually it seems to me to be A LOT of work for relatively minimal reward. One simple thing they could do for basic NPC schedules is having a sleeping time-of-day for different groups of creatures, so that if you are raiding say, a vampire castle during the afternoon, most of the vampires there are asleep with the exception of the guards. Some creatures would wake up easily on sensing or hearing danger, others not so much. The guards for any locating could either be different creatures (very human vampire thralls, for instance) or simply creatures that are tagged "guard" who have a sleeping-time-of-day offset of two (so vampires normally sleep in the afternoon -> vampire guards sleep at night).

There's a lot of interplay that can happen here. If you're raiding a camp of soldiers at night, maybe they all sleep soundly and don't wake up easily, but the guards can go blare horns or beat drums to wake them all up. Like in the Goblin camp in BG3. They can also shove their comrades awake if need be. A silence sphere spell to keep the commander of the garrison from being woken up also seems useful at that point.

I really enjoyed the resting system in BG3 so I hope they keep it, and a day-night cycle is a good way to expand on that system.

I'm fairly sure they won't.
They clearly half-hated having to implement it in a D&D-based game, where it's supposed to be a core mechanic, and and it feels like they added it to the game almost begrudgingly (not to mention in a form that I can't honestly say I particularly liked, as it felt extremely artificial and disconnected rather than a natural part of adventuring around the world).
That's what happens when you remove the passage of time and a "tiredness" system and tie their absence to a rest that take place in a separate and instanced "pocket dimension".

I can't imagine them wanting to introduce something similar in their own custom ruleset.
Especially since they are already boasting in few interviews that they didn't like having to deal with the tabletop roots of D&D and they want to do something less focused on feeling an adventure and more on feeling "videogamey" (UGH).

It's the same reason for which I have almost absolute confidence their own ruleset won't include anything resembling interrupts/reactions.
We had to basically pry these out of their hands in Bg3.

Considering that Divinity has never been based around "Spell Slots" and "Per X Rest", there would be literally no reason for them to use a rest system at all.

Since that's the primary reason for its existence in D&D, it exists as a method to limit resources. While Divinity has always lacked such a limit (Which is preferable in my view, I've always hated D&D's daily limitations especially when it always makes low level casters feel absolutely awful to play)

At best I could maybe see them shoehorn in a long rest system, if they decide they liked the whole "Camp" thing and wanted to produce a way to trigger interactions again.

Great! Glad not to have per a rest spells!

I did this at Rosymorn Monastery. My Githyanki Tav and Lae'zel went in looking for the Crèche while Gale and Wyll "investigated" the winery.

What made me think that the passage of time was actually planned was seeing how the sun rolls into its afternoon position when you made the loading screen invisible or how many places in Act III have working lights that only make sense after dark. It could have been morning/afternoon/night with 5e's short/long rest system.

I don't personally consider what Divinity "did before" particularly relevant in this case, but even putting that aside, "Spell slots" and vancian magic are not the only reason to have a rest system in your game/ruleset.
Especially if you are going for a coating of "world simulation" (which personally I think every good RPG should at least aspire to, as "immersion/simulation + narrative + engaging gameplay" is what I'd consider the sacred triad of the genre).

You can simply have a fatigue system, for instance. Especially if your game involves a world map, passing time and various forms of long distance traveling.
Plenty of games in the past included one without using the D&D ruleset.

But yeah, as I said I absolutely DO NOT expect Larian to go there. I'd be just happy with the day/night cycle, which is what this thread is supposed to be about.

Source points in DOS2. Cards/population/commanders in Divinity: Dragon Commander.

And even if they never had those, the next game is Divinity, not D:OS2 2, they should learn from BG3 and to create new systems altogether.


I disagree. There is a tiredness system: you can literally do less as time goes on, by running out of resources/abilities unless you rest. That seems rather natural to me. I also don't think going to a camp is heading into a pocket dimension. People who go camping don't disappear into another plane of existence.


That would be a loss. I really like the reaction system. Actions and bonus actions too. More different resources means more varied ways to optimize your build. One fundamental problem D:OS2 had is that there was one way to optimize your build: physical damage and more physical damage, because that was the one variable you could multiply together. Meanwhile BG3 has many optimized builds and more reasons to pick something less optimal because of reactivity. So I definitely hope they are learning their lessons from BG3 and not just tossing systems aside because they think they are getting in the way instead of seeing how they improve the feeling of adventure.

You don't think a developers past iterations are relevant to their newest iteration of the same formula?

Strange.


I never said they were. But this is why it exists in D&D and as a result, BG3.

The only reason resting is a thing in D&D is because of resource limitation. There used to also be an exhaustion system, but that was done away with several editions ago.

With Divinity lacking said resources, there's no reason to consider there being a rest system that has only ever been used by Larian because it is part of D&D and they couldn't homebrew their way out of its inclusion in BG3.

They could try and force in some new mechanics purely to add this feature into their next game. But we have no reason to expect that. The expectation is that there won't be a rest system.

Hence you feeling the need to make this thread in the first place requesting some sort of dynamic time feature that could thus lead into resting mechanics, because in lieu of an expectation, you are providing feedback of a desire for such.


Ehh... I don't put much stock in day/night cycles or resting as "World simulation"

I've played WAY too many games where such things existed and they added literally nothing to the world simulation at all, or even detracted from it (Having day/night cycle every few minutes does not make a world seem real, it makes it seem video gamey. Since in no actual world does it take several days to walk down a street...)

Meanwhile, I've also played a LOT of games that have immersive worlds that never included such things, with it never feeling noticeably strange or out of place for lacking such.

Which is why I'm not sold on shoving in a random and shallow day/night cycle for the sake of it. Without proper care, it only serves to detract from the actual immersiveness and general atmosphere all for what? So you can take pretty nighttime pictures before you time skip back to day so actually playing the game is less annoying?


Source points I sucked out of people at will. It was a literal core plot point for the game.

I don't think they should DICTATE their future output, no.
ESPECIALLY when they declared themselves that they are going to delpoy an entirely now one for this game without recycling anything from their previous systems.

No, you didn't. It may be that you played them and you didn't appreciate what they added to the mix, on the other hand.

Flavor, cosmetic variety, immersion, NPC scheduling, varietty of possible encounters or what else.

You can long rest at will as well. It is literally a core mechanic for the game.

Limited resource with an at-will replenishment mechanic that you have to go out of your way to make use of.

Yes I did.

You don't get to dictate what games have done just because it doesn't fit in your narrow view that simply slotting in some mechanic magically makes a game better.

Keep in mind, in another thread you were going on about how you hate "Classless Systems". Do I get to start saying "No, you never played a game where a classless system made it worse. You just didn't understand what it added to the game!"

As with every game mechanic, it all depends on how well its implemented.

Like you mention, if it adds flavour, cosmetic variety, immersion, NPC scheduling, variety of possible encounters, it can actually provide something to the game.

But if it doesn't add any of that and it's merely just "Game becomes an eye strain for a few minutes" then it's not providing anything positive to the game.

This is why I said I've played too many games that have featured day/night cycles and they added nothing. They didn't provide flavour, immersion, NPC scheduling, variety of encounters. It was shallow and did nothing but make things harder to see for no reason. All this added to the game was making it more annoying (And headache inducing from eye strain).

That isn't to say that all games are like this. No, I've played my fair share of games where day/night cycles were done properly and they did add things to the game. For example, Skyrim alters NPC scheduling (Including humanoid enemies). Tainted Grail both alters NPC scheduling, adds special loot drops at night and replaces currently despawned enemies with new encounters.

But again, these had to actually do something with the mechanic besides slap it in. They had to use it as a vehicle to add those additional game alterations to give it meaning.

I didn't reject a claim that you didn't like these games, because that would be highly subjective and consequently irrelevant, as there would be nothing to discuss.
I rejected the specific one you made about how these day/night cycles you experienced added (and I quote) "literally nothing" to these games, because that's highly unlikely. And I gave you direct examples of what even the most basic, bare-boned implementation of the feature would add.

But hey, you are free to start listing them so we can dissect these examples.

Anyway, I'm going over the entire conversation so far and I'm still not sure what you are trying to argue here.

Do you have a specific objection against Larian adding a day/night cycle to their next game or are you arguing for the sake of it?

And I didn't respond saying you did.


Which is literally what I said you did.

I have played games where day/night cycles were implemented and they didn't literally nothing.

You claim that these games don't exist or they did things they did not.

This isn't about whether I liked the games or not. This is purely me saying that they didn't add all these additional features you keep talking about.


No you didn't.

You gave examples of ADDITIONAL things beyond the most basic, bare-boned implementation would add.

Literallly, the most basic, bare-boned implementation adds... The screen is darker for a few minutes.

That's it. That's all. No NPC changes. No change of enemy spawns. No immersion. Just, every few minutes, the screen goes darker.

This is exactly how it's implemented in a game like Titan Quest. It adds nothing else. There are no NPC changes. No enemy spawn differences. No immersion. Just, the screen is darker. Not in a way where you get any cool visuals from things being lit up from well placed light sources to provide some nice visual aesthetic, no, just the screen is dark.


My point, is that I don't want just a basic, bare-boned implementation just for the sake of implementation.

My point is that if a day/night cycle is implemented, I would want it to have actual things beyond just a darker screen. I want those things that give the mechanic meaning, things like proper aesthetic differences, immersion from the world feeling more real, NPC's that shift behavour or changes in enemy spawns.

Things that make the inclusion of such a mechanic relevant. Not just "Screen goes dark" and nothing more.

Titan Quest isn't a CRPG. It's an hack' n slash.
Are you pulling my leg or what?

What's next? FIFA or Madden?

What's genre got to do with anything?

Games implementing a day/night cycle transcends CRPG's my guy.

Also, I like how you only bring this up now when it doesn't support your point compared to when I brought up Skyrim or Tainted Grail (Which are also ARPG's). Also I brought up Titan Quest in my initial post on this topic... Funny how you didn't latch onto it then.

Perhaps you're just clutching at straws because you have no counter to being shown that your mindset that day/night cycles MUST at BARE MINIMUM include a whole bunch of other stuff that makes the mechanic actually worth something, when the reality is plenty of games do the actual bare minimum, which is "Darker screen" for a few minutes periodically.

Either way, it's becoming increasingly more obvious with every interaction with you that it's absolutely pointless to engage with you.

Consider this my last post that ever does.

If you really can't see the difference between Titan Quest and Skyrim you are not arguing in good faith.

If you really can't see what the mechanic is being used for, you're not arguing in good faith.

Skyrim is an ARPG that utilizes day/night cycle to provide some actual mechanics to the game. Titan Quest is an ARPG that utilizes day/night cycle for literally nothing.

You can cry all you like about how the games are different... But it's all just mechanics. Yes, there are some differences in some mechanics, but it's not like they're incomparable.

It's also not like Titan Quest's isometric viewpoint and focus on random loot necessitates it having a useless day/night cycle. It could still have NPC's change, could still have enemy spawns differ, could still have some level of immersion. It just doesn't.

I've played isometric ARPG's that actually do utilize day/night cycles for aforementioned mechanics.

For example, Ravenswatch is an isometric ARPG that has day/night cycles. With it being tied to the overall mechanics of the game (It being similar to Nightreign in that you go do things on a map and then after a certain amount of time you have to fight a boss and proceed to the next area), but night time also alters enemies, both what enemies that appear as well as enemy movesets. It also can alter your own skills, several characters have alterations to skills based on day/night (Most notably the Werewolf character who's human during the day and werewolf during the night. But also the Pied Piper character has his attacks change completely based on day/night)

Meanwhile, I've played first person ARPG's that don't do anything with day/night cycles. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't change NPC's at all based on day/night. Enemies don't change. There's no immersion from having to actually rest or anything. It's just there for "Look how pretty the city is at night" and that's it.

Genre, or specific viewpoint within a genre means abosultely nothing in regards to this "Argument"

It all comes down to "How it is used". When used properly and tied to other mechanics, day/night cycles can be actually interesting and add to the game. When used poorly and implemented in a very bare-bones way with no additional mechanics, it's just visual fluff where you're lucky if it actually has any visual appeal inherent to it.

Simply day/night cycles on their own, are not in of themselves an interesting mechanic. As all it encompasses is the screen becoming dark every now and then. That's it, that's all the base mechanic for day/night is. Screen going dark.

It's only when it is combined with other mechanics, like lighting systems to make it visually appealing, changes to NPC behaviours based around time, alterations to enemies (Enemy types, enemy density, enemy behaviours etc), some sort of fatigue or other such "Survival" mechanics (Like a temperature mechanic where you become cold at night) etc. Does the concept of "Day/night cycles" actually become interesting.

But as mentioned, these are not defacto aspects of the mechanic. Many games don't include them and just put in the base mechanic of "Screen goes dark". This goes for many genres of games, from CRPG, ARPG, FPS, MMO, JRPG, Walking Simulators, Puzzle games...

Many different genres have utilized day/night cycles. Some, it works well as it's complemented by other associated mechanics. Others, its useless fluff that just makes the game unpleasant to play.

If you cannot see this incredibly basic concept of how game mechanics function, then there's something to wonder about whether you're capable of understanding the "Argument" in question.

By your logic chess and beach volleyball are the same, the differences are just mechanics.....

Has there ever been any GENUINELY GOOD argument against having a D/N cycle in a game that it didn't boil down to "maybe it's hard to do", anyway?

Has there ever been any game that was made actively worse by its addition, for instance?
And I mean genuinely made worse, putting aside weak attempts at dismissing the feature as "not really adding that much".

The list of games that was actively improved by its inclusion is fairly extended, on the other hand.

Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Ultima, Gothic, Kingdom COme Deliverance 1 and 2, Darklands, Pathfinder, Realms of Arkania...

I TOTALLY AGREE!

It's time to create a alive world!

▶ Day/night cycle
▶ Weather
▶ NPCs with behaviors/routines
▶ NPCs/enemies migrations
▶ Rare enemies or events depending on the time of day or weather
▶ Some changes in certain areas are happening because of something you did

That would be AMAZING!
They have a large budget now
Static HUBs again would be disappointing.

I'm ambivalent about day/night cycles and NPC schedules. They can contribute to the sense of adventuring in a living world. Then I think about waiting for shops to open and looking all over for some an NPC who happens to visit her grandmother in another town on Thursdays, and I'm not so sure.

My guess is no. Cinematic approach of BG3 was clearly compelling to its audience so I expect Larian to double down on it, rather then adding more systemic behaviours to NPCs that might make cinematic presentation more challenging.

And to be honest, I think there is so much work that could be put into enhancing integration of existing systems and scripted events, that adding day&night cycle on top of what we already got is low on my priority list. Just imagine BG3 that would actually make regular use of systemic tools it gives to the player, rather then forgetting about most of them for the majority of the scenarios (cough, non-lethal strikes, cough).

Many open-world work this way. And it's never been a problem for me.
I will always prefer a alive world, I want immersion, BETTER than a static world. 👍

Given that Sven has talked at length about how the Ultima games inspired him I am quite surprised that day/night and npc schedules have not featured in the games that he makes.

Me neither.
It's also OBVIOUSLY responsibility of the game designers to model things to work sensibly.

It's fine to be refused the services of a shopkeeper if you visit him in the middle on the night.
It's another thing entirely to have an NPC who's waiting for some life-or-death update about a certain urgent situation to refuse to talk to you because he's a bit sleepy.

Some dialogues are obviously meant to override scheduling/NPC availability in terms of urgency.