One thing I loved most about Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, is that there was a timer that told you the time of day.

Long rests stuck to their 8 hour time skip and short rests used 1 hour time skip. There was always a clock you could find on screen that told you the date down to the second. Even though I loved playing through BG3, one thing I did not like that was no matter what you did, you were always playing during "daytime" no matter how long you went without a rest. Even the way longer spells work is not handled well imo. For example, mage armor lasts "until you long rest" (instead of 8 hours) which means you cast it once and can continue to play through the entire first act without long resting once (yes it might be difficult but I feel like it could be done). There is no passing time in this game like many other D&D video games. I wish they would incorporate a timer in game that will continue to move forward, even if it doesn't do anything other than manage spell times or just to watch the dates. I even loved at the end of BG1 that I could look at my journal and see exactly how many days the journey took. I just feel like removing the timer is kind of a cop out on how to handle spells, rests and many of the mechanics in D&D that require time.

Especially short rests, they just force you to use an unspecified amount of Hit Dice, why am I not able to decide how many hit dice to use? Why, as a wizard, can I change my spells I have prepared mid game without resting? Even after playing Solasta, I think they handled the resting mechanic way better. Solasta incorporated these mechanics very well so I am surprised that a major company like Larian can not do the same thing. In case others haven't played Solasta, there is a permanent timer that is ticking on your screen. If you short rest, as 1 hour passes by, the game then asks if you want to regain any abilities that a short rest brings (attunement, hit dice to spend, arcane recovery, prepare spells, etc.). You are allowed to short rest whenever, but can only use those short rest recoveries only once for things like arcane recovery, but as long as you have hit dice you can keep benefitting from a short rest, that is until a long rest is done and after 8 hours everything is reset.

This is one of my biggest problems with the current vesion of the game. I wrote about this there, and several other threads. So, I can't help but +1 this.

I'd like to play through night as well as day, but if Larian invokes a "sorry, animation/light is too costly", I could be ok. Adventurers adventure during the day, and sleep at night. Or at least rest until the next morning every time they do a long rest.

Wouldn't it be nice, as far as the journal and story are concerned, to know that we're in the 5th day since the crash ?

The fact that time is so not accounted for in any mechanism (well, barely any, there are a few), but the story heavily relies on it, is such a big dissonance.

The way longer spells work is fine, imo. Mage Armour lasts until the next long rest and consumes a spell slot, which is a replenish-at-long-rest resource. Also, it's pretty much how the DnD 5E (tabletop) version of the spell works.

As for short rest, they are a joke in BG3. We now have 2 instead of 1 per long rest, woohoo ! Except that they are completely irrelevant without a restriction on long rests. Also, the way short rests work, you can take a short rest on your turn in turn-based mode : 1h lasts less than 6s !

I'm rather fine with the simplified HP-recovery system. This is one of the rare parts of 5E that feels convoluted (in an otherwise super-streamlined DnD), I'm happy to just regain the replenish-at-short-rest resources and a bit of HP (except that Larian has given a us a huge bit of HP).
Likewise, I'm happy to assume that if I change my memorised spells (only possible out of combat), it is implied that my party took a 1h break for this to happen.

I don't think it's a matter of big/small company. I think (hope) that Larian has just not properly worked on time and the resting mechanisms yet.

I think it's more a matter of design philosophy.

Given that resting and resource management is such a big part of DnD, it's baffling that they have given us access to a version of the game that doesn't have this mechanism sorted out yet. As if they considered that the fun of the game (5E or BG3) was all about being able to do crazy combos during one turn, or one round, or one fight, but that resource management was boring. And thus it made sense to let us play with the one-fight game, right now. I'm not saying it has no value for debugging purposes, but all the player data that they are collected (when we save, load, rest, etc) are certainly heavily influenced by the fact that resting is a joke.

Anyway, I'm hopeful they'll get round to sorting this out. And I'm in no hurry. So long as it's there and good at the end, it's fine.

yeah they could try keeping the food thing going but take the ability to eat during combat out, keeping to one short rest & limit the long rests or make it alot more difficult to long rest in any "dangerous" locations - another mechanic that just needs some fine tuning perhaps. Might see this one getting played around with over the course of EA I reckon as they look to how to best balance the game overall.

Aesthetically a day/night cycle would be great but I agree if it aint in already perhaps its just not somewhere Larian want to go for whatever reason they have - maybe that will be talked about in due course.

one more of many +1's to some kind of credible passing of time or day/night mechanisms. I'm more of a casual player coming from the old BG games (but having played some modern classics such as ACO, RDR2) so some of the things I would like to see different in BG3 are simply a matter of taste or individual preference;

The lack of day/night mechanism and associated NPC shedules (or even scripted movements- most just stand there as some kind of automaton statue), on the other hand, really really surprised me.

From my experience it has almost always been present in my +20 years of gaming (even total war had night battles option), so I have difficulty in understanding either the supposed technical limitations impeding them to implement it nor do I understand the narrative or design choices that made someone think 'hell yeah ethernal sunnny afternoon is 'the' most immersive and ambitious setting for an open ended RPG valuing player choice'.

I mean how are 'my choices' having real consequences if the game is worse than my mom ever was in terms of forcing me to go bed and not be awake when it's dark...

As far as I am concerned the lack of a day/night/weather cycle and calendar is such a desperately poor design choice; even more so when you consider one of the principle tenets of the story is that we have a tadpole in our heads that we need to be rid of as soon as possible, which inherently implies there is a limited amount of time to deal with this issue. But there is no means to measure time in the game.

I have said it several times in these forums in other threads but I think it's daft that the party is forced to camp (don't get me started on the fixed camp location mechanic, it's equally immersion breaking) only at night and that a rogue is only able to be active only during daylight hours. What if I wish to decide that my party travels at night and rest by day...to evade foes or whatever RP reasons I desire? My fear is that these mechanics are locked by the design choice to have all party interactions/cinematics happen at the camp.

As far as I know Larian have not commented on the repeated requests for a day/night/weather/calendar and that concerns me that come final release, they won't be there. It's such an integral part of immersion in a RPG for me.

Yeah, it's the same for me. I was rather very displeased when I read in an interview that there will be no day/night cycle.

I wonder why? In all the Dragon Age, Diablo etc. games and in D:OS2 there is no day/night cycle. I bothered me in those games, but not that much.

But in BG 1+2 you have time, and a diary with a date and time, and it's great! Helps Immersion a lot! For example, in BG 1, when you do the quests for the Thieves Guild, there it just made sense to meet certain quest givers in the night to break into a house in the city of Baldur's Gate.

I guess because they recycled the Divinity engine, that's why we won't get weather, day/night, etc.

Yeah, lack of tracking day/night and time is disappointing (i love games with npc day/night/weather schedules, the world just feels much more alive), one thing which could ease this a little for me if they give us the option to wait until night (one time per day) and still do things before going to camp (once you finished your nighttime activites you should go to camp before its daytime again) - just the option to use darkness as an advantage when i want (especially if i have a sneaky character with darkvision), its strange that (almost) everything happens during daytime.

Yes, this would be a compromise I could probably live with, although of course I would prefer proper day/night cycle as well as weather effects.

AS SerraSerra put it so elegantly:
'hell yeah ethernal sunnny afternoon is 'the' most immersive and ambitious setting for an open ended RPG valuing player choice'.
😂