Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The Camp Predicament

right now, there is a conflict in the game between us, knowing that we'll turn into mindflayers any second, and camp being the place where most of the interactions with companions happen.
I did a playthrough the other week where I purposefully went to camp as little as humanly possible, and unsurprisingly, I know NOTHING about my companions. This is really unfortunate. For me, going to camp after every fight just to see what my companions think about it, is immerion breaking, but just as important if you want to build relationships.

How could Larian solve this problem?

Well they could do it the way bioware does: 'stack' conversations... so you could just see everything in one go(one camp rest) if you previously neglected your comps.

They could also let you know when your comps want to talk to you at the camp so you don't have to check it every time yourself.

They could also 'force' a campsite rest on you at the end of each day and link some companion convos/cutscenes with it, but problem here is..what if someone take 2 days to complete act1 and someone takes 10?

A night/day cycle with lack of darkvision problems would encourage resting to get through the night. But I don't find it very problematic that you won't get to know them if you don't spend time in camp with them. They have some interjections along the way so you still get a feel for who they are. Inter-character development belongs in the camp IMO

If gotten the impression that companions talking about being tired is the line used when they're ready to discuss something of importance. I'm certainly not sure about it, but since they don't get any tired debuffs (and there is no day/night cycle) or similar it doesn't fill any other purpose.

You can go to camp and not rest actually.

But yes there's a disconnect between game mechanics, which is what long rest is, and the story of "sleep and your brain will pop"

I personally would like someome PC "True Soul" who joins you and argues for the parasite not being dangerous early on, that way you actually have a feeling you aren't going to die?


Game mechanicwise the long rest and short rest system needs tuning. At the tabletop you can't really long rest every hour because it's considered a "once per day" sort of thing. But in a computer game, with no day cycle, it becomes a "spam it" option. This significantly buffs Long Rest based classes (Wizards Clerics etc), and nerfs short rest based classes (Warriors and Warlocks).
Right now short rest is almost meaningless. I can eat all the apples I want to top off health, so it's a "one time use topp off Warrior and Warlock abilities" (Not to mention it doesn't follow 5e short rest rules)

Is someone else missing the idea of camping in different spots along your journey instead of always going back to a same camp? It removes that sense of "travelling". I prefer the way Pathfinder Kingmaker does it, where you either find a safe spot outside or pay at an inn... much more like old school D&D where camping was a big part of it.

I don't think it's true about all the companions... Shadowheart's character development actually requires you to have her in your party during your travels and most of the revelations concerning her are a direct result of going to specific places on the map with her... Astarion is probably the one who's interactions in the camp are the most significant, but you have some interactions in the world map with him as well.

Yeah, I also experienced this problem, to some extent.
I always rest as little as possible in these games. For me resting is something reserved to when your characters are tired (if the game includes that as a mechanic) or when you are in a genuinely bad shape and you know some significant challenge is ahead.
As a consequence, across this entire alpha, I learned most of the "companion reveals" through this forum first and first-hand only in a second moment, because I had hardly any in-game chances to have interactions with them (outside of the optional "on-the-road" conversations".

+1. Wish they did it this way. I don't mind a central camp for NPCs but their should be a rest system where you can find campsites around the place that you can use. Or you could buy firewood to place it yourself even. That way their can be random encounters in the night and such depending on where you are.

+1. They made Long rests the new Short rest

Oh, that's me. Definitely. Completely not a fan of this idea of an "instanced" camp that exist in a pocket dimension separate from the game world.
I honestly would have gone for something a bit more "contextual" with this. Or in alternative a simpler (on a technical level, but still more complex, rewarding and immersive) system like the one used in Pathfinder Kingmaker.
Of course, the latter isn't a great match, since Larian apparently think that introducing the notion of passing time and day/night cycles in their games is "too much of a technical challenge".

I don't want to start sounding too bitter about this, but sometimes I DO wonder what happened to the same Swen that blogged about the dream of "building the greatest RPG to dwarf them all" and constantly mentioned Ultima VII as a model and an inspiration.

The problem is, the campsite itself is immersion breaking. There is no conceptual grounding on how the hell we teleport from the middle of a dungeon.. to the surface level... sleep for 8 hours then teleport back and the monsters are just chilling in the same place.

This is D&D, there is every kind of magical craziness that you can imagine here. Is camp a pocket dimension? a demiplane? do we legitimately teleport there with some Gale magic (even if hes not in group, maybe he summons you to camp). The immersion is shattered because there is no explanation of what is going on when we go to camp. Pocket dimension would make the most sense lorewise... but just explain what a pocket dimension is so it feels less immersion-breaking

+1 would prefer non pocket dimension camp as well!