Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Day/Night Cycle

I can understand your struggle if you are a JRPG fan. But cosmetic or not, it adds to immersion and is pretty standard for virtually any CRPG. It is no surprise that many non-rpg games (and JRPGs) have nowadays. The way it is now, there are no night quests and it seems ridiculous that a D&D campaign will have minimal night quests.

BG2 had some night-locked questions and I would have no problem if Larian wanted to improve to full day/night cycle routines, but keeping the minimum on the industry seems fair.

I want a day/night cycle as part of a system that coherently represents the passage of time.

Right now, it becomes night whenever you feel like taking a long rest, which could be two minutes or 50 hours after you've woken up. You are able to sleep away the majority of the day or stay awake for days on end with no repercussions. There's no verisimilitude there. It would be nice if resting made some sense - "as much as you want, whenever you want" is lazy design and boring (not to mention unbalancing).

Right now, the world freezes when you aren't looking at it. Let's have those goblins find the grove on their own some number of days after you first arrive. If you don't move fast enough, you're either too late to win favor with Minthara or you aren't in a position to help defend. If you prioritize rescuing Halsin, you can be better prepared to defend the grove (or assassinate the goblin leaders), but it means you're not focusing on finding the gith for Lae'zel and maybe they're gone (or reinforced?) by the time you get to the bridge. Maybe that chest needs to get to the Zhent hideout in three days or the buyer will have moved on.

And night vs. day doesn't have to be a cosmetic thing at all. How about having the behavior of NPCs and other creatures change over the course of the day? Want to rob a shop? Go for the brash smash 'n grab in full daylight or try to sneak your way in when people go to sleep at night. Looking for a trophy from some rare animal? Fight it when it's alert and hunting at night or try to sneak into its lair while it sleeps through the day. Ambush the goblins late at night, when most of them have passed out from drinking, but knowing that your humans without darkvision won't be able to see as well.

Oh man, grysqrl! Your suggestion would be cool. It might double the game's size on our hard drives, but it would be awesome.

Bringing it back to my main points and trying to keep it simple.

Story requires end day camp long rest. Not good. Story dialogue character interactions need different triggers. Not end day. Otherwise, to get story you have to end day too frequently. Playing from scratch, I am getting it all over again. Crash on shore, meet Shadowheart, fight a few monsters, long rest for story dialogue with Shadowheart. Meet Astarion, Gale, get into ruins, Astarion says, I need a bedroll in my near future. Long rest and dialogue. Before I even get into the heart of the ruins, TWO days have gone by in order to not skip dialogue.

So I don't mind giving people full control over end day, but don't force me to end day so frequently or I might miss out on fun character dialogue.

Here's another idea:

Use D&D 5e rules for rests. Give people unlimited short rests with Hit Dice. You use up hit dice, you don't heal at short rest. Apply arcane recovery rules, etc. Limit healing items to force people to use rest more, especially long rest. Long rest doesn't end day, it changes day to night and night to day. Make dialogue occur whenever you either long or short rest.

Bam. Problem solved.

This is definitely what the game should be...

But I fear it will stay this unliving world in which everyone is patiently waiting for you.

Wait WHAT?? Cosmetic?! In BG2 ?!! My god so many people are ignorant regarding the previous BG games. Why in hell do you thing its one of the greatest games ever??!!
In BG2 day/night cycles where FAR from cosmetic. Some quests/events could only be started during the night! Some creatures changed during the night! Some vendors/NPCs also only appeared during the night. One quick example, THE GRAVEYARD DISTRICT. Also Vampires would show up etc etc...
Man this forum... Did NO ONE even bothered to play and finish BG2 before testing BG3 EA?! (including Larian employees...).
Day/night cycles including PASSAGE OF TIME should of been on the devs to do list from day one. But I guess multi-million dollar cinematic dialogues and sex scenes is a lot more important to <rpg gamers> now.

Larian doesn't really do veris..verymilishtattude, doesn't do immerchion, as long as it perceivably intervenes with the most cheesy perception of fun.

You can for instance camp the merchant selling invisibility potion, pickpocket, and rest. Rinse and repeat 100 times. Pickpocket is a brokenly overpowered legalized exploit and blatant screw you to even the slightest hint of risk vs reward mechanism. It allows players who don't care to roleplay (or that roleplay kleptomaniacs), to break the economy totally. One might argue people who don't want that kind of cheese/roleplay a moral character, can ignore it - but you get punished for having scruples since you're less likely to afford the ready supply of (in practice) free stuff from merchants/NPCs. The unlimited rest/eternal day comes with its own set of issues; balancing, immersion and narrative dissonance.



Realistically it DOES have to be somewhat cosmetic though. Larian has explained their lack of a day/night cycle on the grounds that implementing one would be a humongous endeavor that would constitute a waste of resources for what it gives in return. I tend to agree a Skyrim level of complex AI would be wasteful in a mostly linear game. That said, there are compromises that are good enough to provide the illusion of passing time. NPCs can react to time while still being mostly frozen in space. Add some campfires and sleeping foes depending on diurnal/nocturnal behaviour. Add extra sleeping enemies to balance encounters as needed. This wouldn't have to effect every encounter/every NPC, just enough to provide us with the cosmetic illusion.

In addition to somewhat remedying the many glaring issues with the current lackluster implementation, we would open up for more diverse environments and more varied tactics and combat. Well worth it in my opinion.

Ok. So. I love this game. It saddens me when things get too negative. Overall, this is only a small item on my BG3 wish list. Really think about it. Is how they are handling day/night really that bad?

Again, bringing it back to the point. Although having some living, breathing world would be awesome, I don't want to break Larian. Lol. Also, programming day/night realtime clock in a game 20 years ago is not as intensive as today. Think of ALL the things they'd have to redo, ALL the various dialogue options and scenes reworked. This isn't just a rework the dialogue text or whatever. They have to have a daytime version of every dialogue cutscene and a nighttime version as well. What many seem to overlook is that this game is a whole lot more complex than BG1and 2 and even previous D&D games like Neverwinter. Just look at the hard drive space requirements. They aren't requiring that much hard drive bcause they think its a great idea and they want to upset people.

All this post was about is if you are going to link dialogue/ character development to end day then you force people to end day too frequently or you punish them by missing out on fun dialogue.

Honestly, it isn't that bad, as far as day/night cycle goes. I am replaying and retesting this. I went without end day until the crypt fight. Not much difference in dialogue between when I rested more frequently and this. Continue without calling it a day until the druid camp...same. Not much missed dialogue.

So, would we rather have day/night or Half-orc and barbarian and sorcerer and Paladin options, or more story?

Still, it would be cool to just implement a few tweaks on the camp end day long/ short rest functionality, and that was more the point. The natural tendency is to push on as long as possible without calling it a night,and I can practically go the whole first act without 1 night's rest, thus missing out on a lot of character development.

How in the world could anyone consider RDD2 less narrative than BG3? Have you even played RDD2? Or any Rockstar game for that matter?

You seem to argue out of feelings rather than a more rational approach and have disregarded the plethora of more or less well-reasoned criticisms. I guess being less analytically-minded would be an advantage when it comes to ignoring aspects that are not so good, or downright detrimental to the game.

If it makes you feel any better though, most if not all the criticisms comes from a good place from people who have recognized the potential of the game, respect the legacy Larian was keen to take on, and are passionate about it. Not that I feel entitled to it, but Larian could quell much of this building criticisms by actually communicating with the community. If we are flogging a dead horse and this issue is set in stone (like the RTwP vs RT and 6 vs 4 member party admittedly were), then all but the least reasonable of critics could re-focus their criticisms for the betterment of the game. This is the purpose of the early access after all. "Isn't that bad" is a rather poor defense of such an important aspect though.


Resources are finite and a matter of priority. A lot of people rightfully see this issue as a pretty huge deal, for objectively very good reasons (that you ignore). But this needn't be the all-consuming project you seem to think. Larian has already been playing around with lighting on various cut-scenes and not every moment needs be re-touched to reflect a multitude of lighting variations.



You are not doing a service to your sentiment by deceptively cherry-picking examples. Let me rephrase this to...what would you prefer? Day/night cycle (that also address balance issues, lack of immersion, narrative dissonance) or climbing bulls, throwing boots, throwing enemies, shoving enemies, dipping weapons. All these were prioritized ahead (though some were assets from DOS2) of everything you mention and everything else so far, and who knows what next unimmersive shenanigans Larian prioritize over BASIC FEATURES...especially when we're not allowed to call them out for it?

Yes, in my opinion it is bad; walking around in permanent midday sun is jarring and creates the sense of a world that does not change. Others are not bothered by it, I am. I want to roleplay; to sneak around a settlement at night (not jump from shadow to shadow on a summers day), to explore a wilderness in a storm, to hear the sounds of the city of Baldurs Gate in the evening (BG2 did a wonderful job of this), to break into houses when its dark, to have a night time mission to hunt vampires for example, etc. Do you see how many wonderful opportunities to RP are taken away by having no day/night cycle?

I assume there could be an issue in that by insisting on using costly cinematics for pretty much every interaction (whether every interaction needs such cinematics is for another discussion), it makes implementing a day/night cycle very difficult because they need to be relit for evening scenes. I can only assume that is resource heavy.

Also, I really don't think having a day/night cycle inherently means not having Paladins or Half-Orcs in game; as far as I know they are in the core rules of DnD. There'd be an uproar if they weren't included. Anyway, at this juncture it's something of a fruitless discussion; they were quoted as saying there won't be a D/N cycle months ago.

It looks like they now have way more money than expected... So they can change their mind about a feature MANY (all) players would like.

I'm getting tired of hearing about what Larian said in an interview. It really isn't our job to worry about how they can work features into their budget or how malleable something is that they said in a random interview months ago. If they've made decisions about things that are set in stone then they should tell us about them very clearly in the game launcher or in a stickied post in this forum. Otherwise, I don't care what some people have heard - mentioning something in an interview on a stream somewhere isn't how you communicate with playtesters.

Our job is to play the game and tell them what works and what doesn't. It's their job to figure out how to fix things within their budget - that should never be a factor for us.

This is going a bit off topic, but regardless of day/night cycle, i'd much rather have fewer and more detailed classes/races than a lot with only slight amounts of flavour to them.

In spite of what you might think, I did not post out of emotion and lack of reason or logic. I am just letting people know that I love the game. This thread was not meant to be a criticism of the game and to invite people to be all negative about Larian and the job they are doing.

The game is beautiful and fun to play. I enjoy it a lot. If they cleaned it up, finished it, added some classes and races, I'd be perfectly happy with the game as is without any changes for Day/Night. That was the point of my last comment.

That said, I question the reason/logic of those who are demanding some serious Day/Night Realtime features in this game. Again, let me point out that the FIRST ACT is already taxing on the hard drive space. You start adding features like a true Day/Night Realtime clock with weather affects and enemies attacking at specific times if you don't accomplish your goals in time, and the game is going to get even chunkier. So reasonably and logically speaking, I'm saying I'd rather have them add more classes and races than worry about a full Day/Night Cycle Realtime clock etc. I'd rather them finish the story than worry about these more minor details.

If it isn't too much work for them, then sure. 100% agree. Day/Night cycle with Realtime clock, make each Short Rest 1-3 hours, Long rest is 8-10, there is no end day, you just keep short/long resting your way through, have enemies attack the grove and such at specific days/times, have specific dialogues happen at specific days/times, have the tadpole start to take you over at specific days/times, have weather effects, random encounters, the whole works.

I was just trying to get people to be more realistic. BG1 and 2 were awesome, but their graphics pale in comparison to this game. The fact that you have scripted, voice-acted dialogue cutscenes for each and every dialogue, etc. All that is WAY better than BG1 and 2. That's the point I was trying to make.

It's like trying to repair a car from the 80s versus trying to repair a car from today. In the 80s, you didn't have all the computers like you do today laced throughout the entire thing. One minor repair is actually a lot more complicated today than it was then. Likewise, one minor change in BG3 is a lot more intensive than BG1 or 2 because those were made like 20 years ago.

I'm very impressed with everything Larian has done. Now, that said, IF they give us Day/Night Realtime with all those bells and whistles they'll turn this game into something so much more incredible than anything it is right now...but at what cost? Are we going to have a finished product that takes up a 500 gb of hard drive space? It's already at what...and it's not even finished!!!

Having a lot of narrative is not the same as being narrative-focused. Rockstar games such as GTA & RDR are generally focused on the experience of "being in the world", and the story is a vehicle for experiencing what that world has to offer. Contrast this with The Witcher 3, where the world is mainly a vehicle for experiencing the story being told about Geralt

If that's what you'd describe as "meaningful" then I would argue you're rather easily impressed.

A game I've played with a day/night cycle that mattered was Dying Light. The day/night cycle wasn't about having to wait for an NPC to spawn or for a shop door to unlock. The day/night cycle was something you had to constantly keep in mind and the change from day to night fundamentally changed the gameplay (basically, you would try to do everything you needed to do in the limited amount of daylight because it gets really dangerous at night).

Metal Gear Solid 5 also almost had an interesting day/night cycle, but in that game the daytime just made it a lot harder to do any stealth stuff. It was okay for a bit of extra challenge, I guess.

Anyway, I just want to also point out that it's not enough for the day/night system to matter. It also needs to be actually making the game better.

Why shouldn't they be?

My gosh. The gatekeeping in this thread. lol.

I don't care if Baldur's Gate 3 meets anyone's arbitrary definition of what an RPG is allowed to be. I'm just here for a good time with a fun game. Call it whatever you want.


I think you're misunderstanding the problem here. The problem isn't relighting the scene. That's easy. Most of the time the natural lighting that's already built into the game should be sufficient. If you need specific mood lighting though then you just make sure the event occurs at a specific time of day -- usually by forcing the PC to wait around for 10 hours or whatever. (You can have a daytime 8 hour nap or something.)

Waiting is very immersive!

Anyway, the hard part is when you try to take on grysqrl's suggestions:

I just want to point out how silly this comment is. A day/night cycle of what -- two hours would be immersive? I don't know how long the days are where you live, but here sunlight lasts 12 hours on average. If you're able to play BG3 for over 12 hours straight without any long rests then congratulations.

If you're unhappy about being able to skip time... I mean... If you want to watch your party sleep for 8 hours straight, I guess we could ask Larian to implement that feature.

So you want timed quests. Or rather, you want most of everything to be timed?

I'll pass on that one.


So yeah. It's not enough for Larian to simply design a goblin encounter, they have to set up multiple versions of the encounter (you've identified 2 versions). At what time of the day are they having their drinking party? How do these scenes all transition? What if you walk in while they're in the middle of the party? What about breakfast?

To say that this is a lot of added work is an understatement.

You're putting words in my mouth. Of course a 24-hour real-time day would be boring - I don't know how you're getting that from what I wrote. I'm asking for a day to feel like a reasonable, consistent measure of time.

It depends on what you mean by "timed quests". I want the world to be alive and change, not just sit there waiting for me. When given lots of choices about what to focus on, I want my choice to have consequences. I'm not suggesting that you should have to speed run in order to get anything done, but if you decide that the stuff going on with the grove doesn't matter to you, and you spend all of your time looking for those gith and then decide to wander around in the Underdark for a while, maybe the druids should have completed their ritual when you get back. As it is right now, the world doesn't change on its own - it doesn't feel alive; this makes it much less interesting.

I'm spitballing, but yes, something like that (though you're exaggerating what I'm asking for to make it seem unreasonable). This addresses two issues:
1) I find it difficult to care about most of the NPCs in this game because they feel like cardboard cutouts at a theme park. They sit in their spot and do nothing, or move back and forth between two set points, or rehash the same conversation over and over again. Varying their activities based on time of day will make them feel more alive.
2) Many of Larian's home brew rules and mechanics are pushing us towards fixed strategies and removing the differentiation between classes. If the world changes (both environmental changes and NPCs moving around and doing different kinds of things), it gives players more opportunities to take advantage of their character's strengths.

And yes, making a game is a lot of work. As playtesters, that is in no way our concern. We are here to tell them what's good and what's bad (and this is a place where the game falls on its face). It's Larian's job to figure out what is feasible for them to do to fix it.

lol. You are right there. It is definitely their job to make the game good. I wholeheartedly agree with you. I've been saying the same thing. Let people make their suggestions and let Larian decide if they're going to implement and if they can implement. Totally agree.

I'm just trying to provide multiple potential solutions, which was one of the points of this thread. I'm trying to suggest multiple solutions that could at least work better than the current thing they're doing, because that doesn't really work well; especially when I play the game for 10 minutes and don't even get into a fight and Astarion needs his bedroll already AFTER picking up from an end day long rest. So sleep eight hours, adventure for 10 minutes, need to end day again? Come on. That's not gonna fly at all. I can handle the concept of adventuring, getting into some major fight or two, and then calling it a day to recover from the fights, but if I didn't even get into a fight that reduced health or required magic to be expended, why would I long rest? Just for story?

No. No. And that is the whole point. I can deal without having realtime day/night, which would be the absolute ideal, and if they gave us events that occurred at specific times, like if you don't kill the gobbo leaders in three days or something they attack the grove, which would again turn this game from awesome into ABSOLUTELY ONE OF A KIND INCREDIBLE, then at the very least give me more of an illusion of real time and day/night and so forth. I'm struggling a lot with the whole "I'm tired" bit coming from my party members when they've hardly done anything.

That is what this thread was about. Ya gotta give me reasons to long rest if you want to make character development and dialogue happen only at camp. Ya gotta make it a tad more believable as to why I would only adventure for maybe 10 minutes and then spend the rest of an entire day resting at camp when I have a mind flayer tadpole in my head.

Standing and clapping right now.

The difference between early access and beta testing:
Beta testing doesn't mean you own the game. It means you help them out by testing it in return for an early look. Early access means you're buying the game to play even before it's done.

Just FYI. We are Early Access not beta testing. There is a difference. Larian will do what they do, but we are not testers, we are early access players. I mean we can put our wish list up, but it seems a lot of people are confusing beta testing with early access.

My personal take on day/night...yeah it would be cool and I think better for the game, but it doesn't ruin my play with it not being available. It is more like the cherry on the sundae for me.

Putting something in italics to make it look like it has some authority doesn't actually give it any authority. It doesn't help that you're quoting a random reddit user. The distinction pointed out in the quote also sounds more like it's about the financial arrangement than whether or not they're looking for feedback.

Now, from the Early Access FAQ in these forums: (https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=677277)
Between that and the fact that we're having this discussion in the "Suggestions & Feedback" forum that they created, it sure seems like they want our feedback. The distinction between Beta and Early Access is both irrelevant to whether we are giving feedback and not particularly germane to the statement of mine that you were responding to, which is about how we get our information and what assumptions we can make.