Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Resting system - The Final Solution

Sheesh, OP is another kind of salty.

Your "solution" still is just very bad. Imagine an encounter that should only give some of your strange points, but something goes awry. I have 0 points before and it was supposed to be pretty easy, but some crits or what not make me want to take a break. But I only get like 20 points or so. Now I am forced to find storypoints that I can get without risk of an encounter since I am pretty much not going to survive without a rest. Congrats, you promote railroading and metagaming in one system. (Even more than any PC game is already doing, given the plattform).

Trading insults is not adding anything constructive to the conversation; let's please try to keep things civil and positive folks ^.^

As of the recent patch, it seems as though, at least in some regards, you can experience several companion dialogues in a single rest - I had a rest where I engaged Lae'zel, Shadowheart and Gale on the same evening, one after the other. this doens't seem to always be the case, but it is a sign that they might be working towards disentangling companion progress from needing to spam rests, perhaps.

YAWN...

What does that do for the tadpole? Oh, nothing...

2/10...

Edit:


That'll help for the comps, for sure, especially if it's consistent, but won't address issues with the tadpole.

Let's hit the short rest button and play nice, please.

It doesn't need to. There are only a few, people will take those rest. And if you wanna play the game without a single long rest, you *shoudn't* experience that content. There, no problem.

So, the question I have for the OP is this:

I'm a player who likes to take my time with things, and be thorough. Now, when this new system was explained to me, I took it as an analogue for the adventuring day, so, every time I DO accrue 100 points, I rest, because I feel like that's supposed to be in line with the rhythm of time progression that's being simulated here... so as I explore and fight, I rest relatively often.

Now, we're in a video game, so the actual space I have to play with, and its contents, are limited, even if they make an attempt not to seem so.

The trouble is, I'm now at a situation where I have explored everything I can reach at the moment, and achieved all of the non-combat points that I have available without tackling a boss fight - I have boss fights in three directions, but I need to do at least one of them to progress at this point... Except, I don't have enough points for a rest right now, and my party is partially worn down and light on resources. I cannot beat any of the boss fights in my current condition. I also cannot rest.

What do I do, to prevent my game from being completely broken, and needing to restart it? Your system seems to allow for a broken game situation; how does it avoid that?

You know what? The "Final Solution" all seems to go back to just letting the player long rest as much as they want. Why? Because then you can play the game however you like. If you're like me. You aren't going to abuse the system anyway. I'd you want to ignore story elements and long rest your brains out, that's your choice.

That said, I still have a problem with dialogue tied to camp, forcing people to long rest frequently in order to have character interaction.

I appreciate the question. Someone else pointed something similar above. And it's a valid point, unlike crying about the companions.

This system does put pressure on a player to use their rests strategically, plan what they can fit into a single adventuring day and not paint themselves into a corner. Which I don't think is a bad thing, but there also shouldn't be situations you can't recover from, so I will grant this system would require the game to provide some ways of always gaining Rest Points. Some things that immediately come to mind are earning Combat Points by practicing on dummies, or Story Points by brewing potions, crafting items, fishing, etc., if any of those mechanics will be in the final game.

That also might not be perfect, and you might say, well, that's functionally the same as free rests, but if you make this free Points grinding tedious enough, but not prohibitively so, you make it an option for getting out of those sticky situations but disincentivize its abuse. I would also say, with pretty good story branching in the game, I wouldn't expect players to get stuck in these situations very often as there's almost always something else to do.

The next thing to consider is that, while incentivising thoughtful play might be a positive thing, there is a line between that and over-valuing it. When you reach the point where players are being - or even just feeling as though they are being - forced to play in a particular way, even if it's not their preferred style, and as though they are being punished (even if it's with something like repetitive grind) for not playing that way... then ultimately, your system will have failed, no matter its other benefits; I'd strongly caution going too far in that direction with your proposal. (Max's comment below partially illustrates this - in real time ^.^)

==

Are you imagining that 100 points would be an upper cap, or would the points accrue past that, and build up? If they cap, then running into the broken game situation and having to grind your way out of it becomes far more likely, and the system looks weaker and less desirable. If they accrue past it, then it breaks further from any sense of realism, because you will end up with a large excess, potentially, and have multiple back-to-back rests 'banked' in a row, which is a return of the concept you're trying to discourage.

==

If you're spending the same points to short rest as to long rest, that also leaves you in a position where your hard working day, where you have taken breaks in between your labours, leaves you, paradoxically unable to get a good night's sleep. What's your comment or solution to this?

I'm reading with a lot of attention but to be honnest,
I would dislike A LOT to be in such a situation : "I'm stuck so I'm going to fish (or anything else) until I can rest".

No, this is not like new economy or currency, it's like an XP bar that gets filled up as you play the game. You don't actually "spend" the points to perform the rest, so there's no need to weigh whether to do a short rest or not. You start your day at 0, when you pass, say, 35, you can use a short rest and you stay on the same number of points whether you perform it or not. The ability to do this short rest goes away as soon as you acquire more points. You get another chance for a short rest at, say 70 points. Or, they could even implement 3 short rests this way, at 25, 50, and 75. You can't accrue more than 100, unless they want to specifically implement penalties for playing after you should go to bed.

It would work really nicely with a D/N cycle, as to even implement a D/N cycle, you have to anchor it to something. D/N cycle makes no sense with free rests.

Agree, but is it worse than this, where rest, and especially short rest, have no meaning whatsoever? And this is where game difficulty could come into play. For lower difficulties, give lots of points and make even the free Points "grinding" easy. On higher difficulties, make players play smarter.

Worse or not is not what I care about when I'm reading suggestions, especially about such an important mechanic.

I want to play on harder mode and I'm absolutely fine with "playing smarter", but I don't want at all :

- to be eventually stuck if I don't choose well my last combat (let's say the one that gives me 20 points instead of 30)
- to grind points in a "mini game" to get the 10 missing points.

The answer you gave to the problems that are raised are not convincing me at the moment. I don't want to be punished and eventually loose hours if I didn't do the right things.

An option to "replenish your points" would be better, even if it does not make a lot of sense.
I'd personnaly try not to use it, but I'd be able to if I really have to.

The big + of your system is that it can give a notion of time passing, which is probably the biggest and maybe the only issue with the system in BG3.
Time is the key and if time does not exist in the game (which is a HUGE mistake), it could probably be managed trough something that looks like your suggestion.

But to me it really looks more complicated than adding a clock and a button to wait when you're at camp.

I certainly didn't mean hours, but certainly more difficult than a simple mouse click. I'm aware it's not the perfect solution to the "getting stuck" problem and I'm open to suggestions. However, I think you are overestimating how often that would actually occur. To me, this only seems possible if you only have exactly one plotline left to follow, and how often is that going to be?

Another solution for this problem that just came to mind would be something akin to Withers, where you go and pay to end the day. Perhaps you pay Halsin to perform a druidic ritual for the rest of the day to soothe you before the coming battle. Or whatever makes sense storywise. And the more Points you are missing, the costlier it is.

The clock thing, honestly, to me sounds exactly like free rest, with an additional click on the clock to set the time, and a few seconds of animation to watch the time-lapse. You could still spend your "adventuring" days doing absolutely nothing.

Why is it a problem ?

I want the game to tell me when I can long rest.
I don't want the game to choose what I must spend my time for.


It's not because the game decide when you can rest, exactly like in your suggestion.

You can play with the restriction but players can also wait until the game allow them to rest if they have to or if they want to.

Right now you're the only one to define when time has come. This is exactly why long rest in BG3 is an issue.

You're not thinking about it how you should imo.
No one should care if someone wants to spam long rest. What you want is mechanical restrictions. One does not prevent the other.

For one, because it makes absolutely no sense story-wise. More importantly, short/long rest balance.


But in your case, the game is *not* telling you when you can rest, it's telling you only that it needs to be dark, and you are the one deciding if it's dark or not.

I agree the free point grinding was a bad idea. I would like to change that into a suggestion to have a character similar to Withers in the camp, whom you could pay to end the day. Wrap it into storytelling flavor of your choice. Or, heck, even reuse Withers for this. He's a super interesting character, having more opportunities to interact with him would be great. This way, you have a way out if you get stuck, but since it costs money, you are incentivized not to rely on it and to play strategically.

Furthermore, another solution I've just come up with to reduce the chance of getting stuck even occurring, perhaps the Resting Point system doesn't have to be that exact, but have more of ranges. So, say, you go from 0 to 1000 every day. You can short rest between, 200-250, 450-500, 700-750, and long rest 850-1000. At 1000 the game forces you to go to bed.

Story wise is not at all a problem. Just help the player to understand early that they won't turn soon.
Problem solved.

Change the tone of everyone with these "7 days" and "we don't have time" and "it's so urgent" and...
Problem solved.

This problem is not related to the rest mechanic but to the story telling. GM4 has made interresting comments about this but I don't really remember where.

Don't get the short/long rest balance "argument"


You probably have missunderstood.
The game is telling me when it's dark. But if it's not, I can always "click a button" to wait until it is.

Ok, fine.


I mean... if you can take a long rest whenever you want, and with the clock, you can, there's no reason to ever pick a warlock over a wizard.


Which is basically the same thing. Tomejto - tomato.


It's *definitely* related to both. And while the storytelling problem is a lot more obvious how to solve - by disentangling all the companion interactions that can be disentangled from the sleeping mechanic (plus, having more cut-scenes per sleep as it seems now, something you also mentioned - ugly yellow exclamation marks in the camp), the mechanics of how rest should work are, unfortunately, not quite as obvious how to solve.

There is in my games and in yours because we'll always try to avoid the "wait" button or try not to use mini games to earn "resting points".

Why should I care if there's no reasons in someone else's playthrough ?


It's not at all the same.
In your system or with a clock defining when you can rest, the game gives you a challenge (you can eventually bypass)

At the moment it doesn't at all. Which is sad because that's exactly why the resting system and the spellslots management are interresting for.

Yup. The long rest system right now kind of sucks. Should be far more limited.

While I would definitely prefer your clock to what we have, I don't feel it adequately encapsulates the concept of a D&D adventuring day in a video game. I would argue that it would be harder to decide which amount of time represents a day, than deciding how much content one should cover in order for one day to have passed. Like, what is one in-game day? 2 real-time hours? 3? Half an hour? How does that translate to quests of various lengths?