Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Timed events

Here we go again. Let me first say that this is not a post about long rest mechanics even though that will play A Part. It is also not a post about timed quests, though I'm sure that we will touch on that also.

This is a post about timed events. To be clear, what I mean is that after a certain number of long rests, things happen.

Before you opposed this, consider that the game already has what I'm talking about, I just want there to be more of it where it makes sense.

An example of what I'm talking about that is already in the game is after you rescue The Grove, the tieflings leave and you can no longer buy and sell things or talk to them. Nobody seems to have a problem with this event because it makes sense. You saved the Grove, and they leave. Time has therefore transpired.

The changing of time via timed events makes it so that the choices you make have an impact in the world of the game. That is all I am asking for. Your decision too long rest should impact the game in some way. Again, let me reiterate that I am not saying that after x number of days quest should be locked out. All I'm saying is that there should be some semblance or passage of time based on the number of long rests that you use.

A perfect example of what I am saying could be done very simply. You complete the quest to rescue people at the inn. After a short or long rest, the inn is no longer burning.

Another example, you slaughter the goblins at the Grove gate. You long rest. The bodies are gone. If you didn't take items from the bodies, the local merchants now has them in their inventory.

After three or four long rests after you first visit the Grove, something happens to disrupt The druids ritual again. After three or four days, you encounter a goblin Patrol searching for The Grove entrance or the weapon. After you meet the gith Patrol, a few days later, you spot another Patrol along the road or in the village. You can either avoid them or attack them.

It's the little things that give you the feeling that the world is alive. Even something as small has having animals milling about different areas at different times that scamper off when you come upon them oh, it makes a world of difference.

And for the love of God, can we at least have different conversations occurring in the background at different times or just more obscure conversation background noise that loops. It has been one year since I started playing this game, and I'm still hearing Rolan arguing about how he cares about their lives and their futures. It never changes, day after day. I'm stuck in an endless loop of timelessness.

I like the idea but it's too late for big changes in my opinion.

- A few new encounters without dialogs : ok
(Looters in the goblins camp, wolves in the forest,...)

- The ever burning inn that stop burning : ok

- The 2 zentharims dead next to the gnolls : ok

- A few new dialogs/encounters/"side quests" during long rests : ok
(Ambush, thieves, someone asking for help,...)

- New story arc : not sure it's reasonable to ask.
(Disrupt the ritual grove, new gith patrol, goblins attacking the grove, and other things that would require a lot of new dialogs, cinematics, or that would have story consequences).

I really agree that the world is way too frozen and I'm all for suggestions to make it more alive. But at this point I'm not sure it's still reasonable to suggest anything else than "simple" things.

Still thinking that what's missing the most in this world is a constant notion of time passing. D/N cycle, in other words. Of course both suggestions would be the best.

Another simple suggestion : pools of blood spilled during combat should disappear after a time. It feels weird that light still reflects off bloody puddles days after the blood should have dried or seeped into the ground.

The world changing in response to completing quests and choices made during quests is great.

What I don’t like is a quest failing or having a bad outcome because of taking three rests instead of two, for example. I don’t want any quest outcomes tied to number of rests!

Agree!

There already are outcomes affected by (a single) rest, are you aware of that?

How many are there? I know of a few, and I might have missed some, too!

I know Icelyn. I had you in mind when I said that this isn't a timed quest suggestion.

I also don't want to be locked out of quests because of taking too many long rests.

What I don't want and agree with you on: You meet Ethel. You don't go to the forest path heading towards the bog. You don't get to do any of the Hag quest events at all because you did several long rests and didn't go towards the bog until like day 3 or 4. Well. Guess you have to start over and play from the beginning if you want to play the hag quest stuff.

What I do want: You meet Ethel. Regardless of when you go to the forest, Ethel is there with the two guys. Things play out. Dang! After the fight with the hag and the redcaps, you need to long rest. You long rest and find that the bodies are all gone.

If you went into the lair immediately, things would play out as they do now. If you long rested, the hag taunts you. "Needed a bit of a rest after that first bout, eh? Were ya tired, Precious? That's okay. I knew you'd be back, and I've been waitin' for ya. I'm actually quite grateful. Ya gave me time to properly prepare for ya. Now we're REALLY going to have a lot of fun." Then she cackles and vanishes.

You proceed into the lair as normal except maybe there's an extra trap or two or encounter or something fun to show a difference between going in right away and long resting. The hag had more time to prepare, so now there's something more that you have to do. It's not locking you out of the quest. It's adding flavor and showing that your action effects the world in the game. You chose to long rest, so something different happens. Nothing big, mind you. Just something to show a variation in paths.

An RPG is like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. Each choice you make should have some varying path that you take, and that should include long rests. The path doesn't have to, and shouldn't lead to, a direct "Dead End", but it should have some sort of varying situations so that it shows that your choice made a difference. Otherwise, if my choice isn't going to effect anything, don't even give me a choice. Just have me do something and give me a valid reason as to why I did it. Don't give me a choice and then make that choice pointless, as if it really had no impact at all.

Right now, time and long rests have no real impact on the game. You might as well provide the characters with some sort of alternative full restore solution than long rest because taking a long rest doesn't impact the world in any way other than to fully heal you and restore your spell slots. So Larian might as well provide those nice mind flayer restoration pods like you have in the beginning, and have them everywhere so after every battle you can just tap on one and be fully healed.

That's the point many of us have been trying to make about long rests. Without some form of impact, you might as well just skip long resting altogether and have restoration chambers that people can endlessly use to recover to full strength. By not having long rest impact anything, it is pretty much the same thing.

Long Rest in Current BG3 = Mind Flayer Full Restore Pods. There is no game world impact.

As far as I know, NPCs knocked out by non-lethal attacks are gone after a long rest, presumably because they awoke and left. Is there anything else?

+1 for timed events/reactive world

Obviously you shouldn't be locked out of quests (especially ones you haven't even started) because you took too many long rests to reach something you had no idea was happening.

However, if you encounter something in game that shows you or tells you about an event (burning inn, literally watching Minthara gathering her goblins to go attack the grove, druids prepping for their ritual) then the game should react to you taking a while to respond. And by "react" I mostly* mean change the quest/event instead of entirely locking you out of content with no replacement content. E.g.,

• If you see the burning inn and decide to long rest first, the inn should burn down. But there are still survivors in the area to talk to, bodies to surreptitiously search.
• If you watch Minthara leave to raid the grove and decide to long rest first, then you should arrive mid-raid. You don't get to start up in the safe position atop the wall, and the goblins have already killed a few defenders and are 1 turn away from busting down the gate. You still get the choice to join in with the goblins or fight them.
• Hag - See @GM4Him's example above.
• Druid Ritual - I can already see this example being controversial. When you first talk to the Kagha, she could mention an estimate for ritual completion timeline. A very lenient estimate, measured in-game as long rests. As you long rest, they get closer to finalizing the ritual, but the player perhaps is given options to slow it down: convincing the druids that you're about to find Halsin so they should wait, stealing the Idol, etc. But if you're continually slow and don't make an effort to delay the ritual, the druids leave. The tieflings remain though, and this could potentially add content in the form of changes to the tieflings' social structure/hope/attitudes, that the player would have to navigate/resolve. Or a Minthara quest on the evil storyline to perform a ritual breaking into the Druid's secret dimension.

tl;dr: Delays in responding to certain events you know are happening should change the world, but still leave the player with (different) content.

If you contact Nere telepathically and then long rest twice...

If you get close enough to spawn that dying True Soul and his two dimwit acolytes but don't interact with them, a long rest will result in the acolytes moving to the goblin camp and leaving his dead corpse lying there. They'll be hanging out at the courtyard party.

A similar thing can happen with Ethel and the brothers if you don't step in. She'll leave their corpses behind and head to her house.

Also, Dhourn in the underdark with his drow party, whichever ones happen to be unpetrified, that is.

If you take a long rest without talking to Dhourn then they'll be gone when you come back. I'm not sure where they go, I just know they're not there anymore.

In my opinion, after talking to Kagha, if you long rest 7 times without stopping the ritual, then the druid's grove should be grown over with thorns and vines.

And a trail of dead tieflings should be found here and there, indicating that they had to leave and many have already been killed.

Keep it simple.

The last thing I would like is this solution.
This is literally an example of why I don't like timeouts.
I'm fine with the burning inn, or any other temporary quests (especially as they are well done at the moment and don't require a fight from you) but this is too much.
Especially since in the case of these limited quests, you really lose nothing.

NOT FOR AUTOFAIL IN THIS GAME.

You'd rather the druids just stood there forever chanting? That's weird.

Also, it's not a fail if the druids complete the ritual. A fail would be the main character dying and the story ending.

This is just a consequence of not stopping the ritual. Because the ritual wasn't stopped... it finished. What could make more sense than that?

Yes, until a quest choice is made that advances the story. For me that seems normal because that is how most video games I play work. It feels unexpected and cheap if a quest suddenly fails because a random amount of time passed.

That's why I proposed an alternate solution. Someone interrupts the ritual, like Arabella did. Buys you more time.

It's not a random amount of time.

Let's say you learn it takes 7 days to complete the ritual. That would give you 7 long rests, one per day. If you don't stop the ritual, the ritual completes. Easy, simple, makes sense.

As opposed to a landscape forever stuck in time.

(As for @GM4Him's solution of something stopping the ritual, I'm fine with that *if* the players initiate whatever stops the ritual. Otherwise, not so much. I want actual consequences.)

And that's the thing, I suppose. Consequences, a sense of realism and progressing time. This idea of a static world of challenges that players can get to when they want doesn't sound like as much fun to me. It sounds like playing on super easy mode, whereas I'd prefer a challenge and reactions within the world that make reasonable sense.

I can stretch my disbelief just like anyone else, but it'd be nice if the game could manage to finish a ritual it started.

What does "random" mean here? Does it mean an amount of time unknown to you? Because that's easily solved by the druids informing you "we think it will take X days to complete the ritual."

I like the idea in theory. However, long rests being tied to dialogue triggers could really complicate that. It already results in issues when game events impact camp triggers (ie, Raphael linked to Nettie screwing up Asterion’s dialogue order). Having camping impact in-game timelines could cause some major headaches.