Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback More reason to rest at camp early for story triggers

I feel like the game needs more encounters early on that require us to camp early on, so that we can get the story triggers.

Level 3 to 4 are loaded with so many cutscenes that play out of order most of the time.

Just one example of how out of order the story cutscenes play between companions.

I just find the early game so easy, there is no need to sleep at camp more than once; but once you get to level 3 and 4, there are so many fights that all the cutscenes just tumble at you. It would be nice to have at least one story cutscene between companions per camp, there have been some camps where there is story to show me, but I see nothing .

In my opinion, the game should communicate somehow that you should go to the camp. A short information from the character that we should return to the camp would be enough.
Events in the camp should not overwrite one another and should be triggered in the order they are unlocked (even if you have to rest a few times in a row) the only exception should be the death of characters.
At this point, some events are almost impossible to unlock in a normal game without meta-knowledge, the problem is that you lose a lot of really important information and characters development.



Despite losing a lot of hours, I have no idea how to unlock it. I would not be surprised if there were more such events.

I agree.

I had similar triggers too.

I'd personally prefer if there was less long rests though, and more short rests, but that short rests also was done at camp. (need more short rests for balance between classes, Warlock is nerfed hard by the current rule)

Same goes for how some information is put forth. If you ask me, we should be introduced to the Absolute at the beach, before we meet the goblins.

Story should not depend on you going to the camp.
Buts its likely too late to change that.

I just rest at camp more than I do short rests which "fixes" the issue for me.

Spoke of this before but... character stubs his toe and loses 1HP? Rest at camp. Uses random spell by accident? Rest at camp. I think I rested at camp 8+ times before I arrived at the grove. 9 if you count after the gate fight.

This is especially so when I did a playthrough using the tadpole since its once per full rest? So I just rested at camp after each use of that. Im suspecting this mechanic of once per rest with tadpole is to encourage people to do full rests but considering I didn't even use tadpole powers my first go around dunno. I wonder how the full game will react to that bit proper.

I only *just* got that scene! I have no idea what triggered it either, it was pretty cute though <3. I've always found Gale the most easiest person to get approval from, but I only just saw that scene with him :X.





This is a workaround I guess :X, but it sort of ruins the immersion and role playing element for me.

It did make me laugh about stubbing his toe and he goes straight to resting at camp though! XD

There is probably no chance of a camp change. It would require a massive makeover.
Most of my problems with EA (story-wise) are broken triggers.
Better such a change than none.

For some things its okay to trigger in camp, but they could also use the exclamation point a lot more too.

Yeah on my first go around I actively AVOIDED rest as much as possible given that... tadpole in your head. You probably don't want to waste days. I was kind of scared that you will actually have to resource manage the days you have, which is both great thematically and a good way to naturally limit the amounts long rests you use. I play RPGs to be as fully immersed as I could be, but my second playthrough was more testing the limits of the game and seeing what happens if you rest a lot. I never saw that object of desire girl, I thought it was a thing not implemented yet. But thats partly cause I didn't use the tadpole even once.

That was until I realized the game not only doesn't care but encourages you to spam long rests. In my long rest abuse playthrough the game was super easy and I saw all the cutscenes and character interactions before I even explored half the map. As opposed to my first playthrough where I saw like... 1 scene tops with each companion. I got Raphael cutscene when I hit underdark.

So to me it feels like they want to encourage you to not only use, but spam long rests. It's not really balanced at all so far. It's just a full heal button. If you cant use it where you are just fast travel. You can do it from basically everywhere. Things don't respawn (thank god) so its not like you'll encounter more resistance by trekking back. You can rather easily play on the hardest difficulty and do this to essentially lower it to nothing. Things just take longer rather than being harder.

Conversely, I typically hardly ever do long rests, which means I can go through the almost entirety of the EA content barely seeing characters interactions.
Since I learned how much content I was missing I had to purposely break my habits to see more.

Yeah uhh its a rather confusing choice to tie such important stuff to camp.

Which is discouraged by the story itself because.. well you don't have time. So why waste a day (since it technically progresses a day in the players mind)? Odd choice.

Lae'zel even discourages you from resting. I tried resting pretty early in a run, and she said something like: "I didn't realize you were so weak, to need rest this early. Do you not understand the danger of ceremorphosis!?!" and I had to make a dialogue check to placate her.

I was shocked at how many people really thought they had to hurry. Maybe I've been playing games too long, but I thought everyone knew mechanics and history always branch off.
When the game tells you that you need to hurry up because the evil dragon is about to burn the city, you know that you can clear the entire map because it will wait at least until you get closer to the city.
This mechanic is probably older than BG.
If Larian really dared to introduce time limits, the amount of hatred on the forums would quickly catch up with RTWP vs TB

Not necessarily. P:Km had (much more generous) time limits that matched with the story. Obviously I didn't think I would game over if I didn't remove the tadpole in a day, but I was worried I might start accumulating small penalties. Also, most of those time limits in other games refer to non-character events: e.g, an army approaching a city, the Arl of Redcliffe needing aid, etc. It is a BIG difference when the game tells you "your character is literally turning into a mindflayer, a process which happens on a timescale of days."

I also assumed that:
-The Gith Creche would be reachable within a day or two of traveling
-People I found in the world (e.g., Gith Creche, Nettie) would do something to at least temporarily slow down the ceremorphosis. It's counterintuitive that I only discover that the infection is slowing by sleeping, which involves freely giving the tadpole 8 hours to do things inside your head.

Would you even be able to sleep knowing that you might wake up as a Mindflayer? I probably wouldn't...

As already mentioned, may RPGs, mostly the good ones, do have time limits. Kingmaker, Mask of the Betrayer, etc. Even old Gold Box Games changed when you took so long.
Yes, it was obvious that in BG3 there is no time limit because its a "modern" (dumbed down) mainstream design. You can also bet that you will never remove your tadpole because its your special superpower.

It is still very bad design to pretend to have a time limit and then expect the player to loiter around.

Pathfinder is probably the only game in the last 10 years that I know that has any serious time limits (I haven't played myself). Most of the time limits in games are that when you reach a location and ignore a certain event, it will disappear after a certain time(it's still rare).
In big games, the hard limits will not pass, especially if players find out about it after the premiere.

Eh, there's a lot of the "general audience" that basically HATES good game design.
Most of their requests for "immediate convenience" seem to be almost deliberately aimed at making games actively worse.
"I want to fast travel anywhere at any time" no matter that it trivializes both distances and perilous situations.
"I want a minimap, a GPS and quest markers to tell me exactly where I need to go and what I need to do" because god forbid reading the context and figuring out something.
"I want 20 pieces of loot for every kill" because skinner boxes and replacing everything every 15 minutes are so much better than giving a single appropriate reward after a meaningful accomplishment and treasuring its benefits for hours, right?
"Tell me explicitly the level of these enemies" because who doesn't hate to read between the lines and deduce by context if a fight is supposed to be hard or not.
"Never give me a time limit of any sort or I'll start throwing a temper tantrum" because no matter how actually rather forgiving it may be, any attempt to make you feel that taking a month-long detour before saving your kidnapped friend from the serial killer is an unfair restriction. Somehow.
Etc, etc.

Good game design is quite a broad concept.
I don't see time limitations as an example of "good design", but that's just my opinion.
As for other simplifications, times have changed, now people don't have as much time and will as they used to.
Small games have the advantage of targeting a specific audience, so they don't have to worry about compromises.

But I do, if properly applied.
Not even just time restriction, but taking into account the notion of passing time in general.


I don't buy it for a second. People spend more time than ever playing games and not rarely disproportionate amounts of it on a single one.

I love the whole idea of the growing camp with more and more "camp followers". This has huge potential as the game progresses. It gives the player a home base and place to hang their hat- a crucial element to any exploration rpg, and the concept of "getting to know" your companions there in camp is an addition in content that DOS II sorely lacked.

On my first run through, I was conserving spells and trying to last as long as possible in the wilds to avoid "Tadpole time" as much as possible, as others mention. There does need to be something to encourage players to use camp often, because there is logic to the idea behind not wanting to "turn" and trying not to sleep more than one needs to.

It's easy enough to think of ways that camping can be encouraged. No doubt many of these are already planned and underway by Larian.

1. Crafting/cooking tables/stations will go a long way towards making camping obviously important. Larian should make outside crafting tables rare or non-existent to players.
2. A very fun mini-game in camp, be it Orcish poker for coin with the Bard or something else absorbing that would add spice at home.
3. The ability to decorate Camp with heads, trophies, etc. to make it your own would really mark it as "yours".
4. Meaningful XP for Camp interaction with your companions would entice some players to rp and be in camp more.
5. More threats per square foot outside of camp, (which DOS has), adds up to more camping.
6. All that crafting paraphernalia and copious ingredients needing picked up and hauled around will bring folks to camp more often.
7. XP for crafting, which has to be done in camp, etc.
8. It appears that the basic bones of the camp might be designed for rebuilding the ruined building that sits on it for a future lab or other more advanced facility. That would be great!

The Camp is one of my most favorite things in the game. Kudos for the devs putting the time and effort into it. In most games, homes are afterthoughts that receive minimal attention and are among the last things that receive real design thought. Here is a rare game where your home is integral in the actual progress and characters of the game. Good stuff!