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

Ok. Taking back what I've said somewhat. Larian allowing long rest at will still doesn't work. There are so many short rest mechanics negated by unlimited long rest.

So, unlimited short rests are fine. Players should short rest after every battle to recover using Hit Dice. Hit Dice prevents HP recovery abuse. That's their purpose. Short rests reset superiority dice, Action Surge, Second wind, etc., thus adding meaning and purpose to the fighter. They can endure a lot more punishment and may even carry the team until long rest is available. Short rests allow other abilities to reset too. Wizards can even use Arcane Recovery to regain a set number of spell slots. So it's not just HP recovery. Short rests make it so the heroes can keep fighting longer in a single day without rest.

Long Rest, therefore, should be what is limited. My suggestion here is that Larian makes Long Rests earned and cumulative.

I played Tabletop using BG3 characters, True D&D 5e stats, items, rules, etc. and what I learned from the Afflicted story playthrough of BG3 is that you dont need to long rest after every fight. The story was completed up through the harpy fight and the whole grove, and the Long Rests were as follows:

Long Rest allowed after Intellect Devourer fight on the beach. That's a nasty fight. Even though Day 1 wasn't very long, after that fight, it makes sense to rest especially if the devourers are done right. Again, you need at least 4 level 2 PCs to defeat 3 Devourers using genuine 5e stats. Day 1 can be explained as heroes finding a good campsite, etc. after their stressful journey through Hell.

Second Long Rest should be after fighting Marli and Barton. Until you fight them, Long Rest should be restricted unless you saved it from earlier.

Third Long Rest after Grove is totally completed, harpies, goblins and all.

So, I suggest players earn long rests as they adventure, like rewards for good gameplay. You beat intellect devourers and earn 1. You don't have to use it, but you can. Let's say you dont. You save it. You fight Marli and Barton, Now you have 2 long rests you can use at any time. Lets say you even make it through the grove without a single long rest. After Nettie, you gain a 3rd long rest, but you use 1. You still have 2 saved.

Then things go bad. The owlbear almost kills you. You spend another long rest. Gobbos in Blighted almost kill you. Long rest again. Now you are out. No more long rests. Fight Spider Queen. Get 1 long rest. Use it. 0 Long Rests again. Can't long rest again until another milestone completed.

And again, every time you long rest, things change. Maybe the three tieflings are no longer caring about their lives and futures but are doing something else...etc. Someone nee like Mol interrupts the ritual, buying more time.

As usual, is a ROLE PLAYING game, that means the palyer decides how to interpret any due character. What if I want MY (MINE not YOURS) Tav lead his party making long rests after one or two or whatever number of battles he decides for?

The game DOESN'T force anyone (specially the skilled tactical players) to make use of long rests so why this relentless push to make it harder for everybody else?

I do agree that due to fact that a long rest means a night of sleep (or meditation) something must happen to justify the frozent moment that we see in the game, reasons for the ritual to be postponed, for the Goblins not to attack, the location where you can find the two brothers or the number of preys in the Owls bear cave etc etc.. ...

I fully understand it is a ROLE PLAYING GAME. In fact, that's why I suggested what I did. As a DM, I would never let my Players long rest willy nilly all over the place after every battle. Long rests need to male sense. The DM should be like, "Um. You sure you want to long rest? You have a tadpole in your brain. Plus, there's a ritual gonna be completed any day now."

So, my suggestion is to help keep spamming long rest from happening. Since there is no live DM to stop players, there needs to be some limitation to prevent it. Otherwise, it negates other important features of the game.

Anyone else's hopes for D/N thing raised now with the new resting mechanics including localized camps ? I really hope that their fix of the immersion breaking pocket-plane campsite, means we will also have the ability to freely choose ourselves whether to sleep at night or during the day (after a night full of evil-doing). The more I think about it the more I consider Larian's decision (as a DM/GM) to only allow us to do stuff during the day as extremely patronizing and limiting in terms of RP, alternative strategies and immersion.

EDIT: I just can't get my head around why in this game supposedly intrinsically evil characters who have significant benefits from the night (e.g. drows, surprise element from attacks when everyone sleeps) and significant disadvantages during the day (being seen by villagers, no surprise attacks at grove, no stealing from sleeping characters), still are confined to either do everything out in the open under the blistering midday sun, or to exist only in subterranean or other closed spaces without sunlight (e.g. goblin camp).

Cause Sven didn't think they will outsell DOS2 in less than 24 hours -\0/-

We'll see. I lowkey hope it's actually in the works. Apart from immersion and graphic aspect of the thing there is a lot of ways it can contribute to gameplay just like you mentioned. I lowkey hope they changed their mind with the amount of extra money they got for the project and are just keeping a low profile in regards to this in case something goes wrong.

There should be a day and night cycle in Baldur's Gate III.

Larian decided not to do this with Divinity: Original Sin 2 and they remained firm on this throughout that game's development. They may very well have been right—but I think they should give it a go for BG3. I don't think the night time ambience of the campsite is sufficient, by the way. And I'm not suggesting they get carried away with it.

Here's why:

- Even though there was little substantive difference between day and night in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, the change in mood and feel was enormous, and it added a great deal to the atmosphere of those games. And even though quests didn't "expire" if you waited too long, there was a sense that time was marching on in the world, even if you just sat there. In other words, the world is much grander than the scope of this one adventure story, and it will move on regardless of what you do.
- In D&D, night time is a big deal. Traveling through a forest after sunset. Arriving in a small town in the dark. Battling an army of the undead near a ruined temple in the hope that dawn will bring some salvation. In D&D, just as in the real world, you can do things during the day that you can't do (or, might have more difficulty doing) during the night—and vice versa. This is a very important part of the game's flavour. In fact, if a player asked a DM to wait until darkness to enact some plan, and the DM said, "no, I don't do night time." Well, I can't imagine a DM ever saying that.
- More specifically, some classes may excel during the night. Obviously, the rogue might have an easier time sneaking around. even if most merchants pack up their stuff at the end of the day. But what about a fallen paladin who prefers darkness to the vengeful light? Or a monk with a ninja flavour, who specializes in darkness? Or a warlock bound to a lunar patron? The possibilities not just for NPCs and storytelling, but for roleplaying on the part of the player, are endless.

There are more reasons why this should be implemented, and feel free to add them.

I appreciate some of the arguments against a day/night cycle. It could add a massive amount of workload for the developers. It could be frustrating for players who just want to have that fight, or complete that quest, right now. I get it. But you don't have to create an entire parallel universe for night alongside the day. Why not just start with a different mood and music, before getting carried away with the idea that every NPC will react differently at night? Why not have merchants go away at night, with their items locked up, before writing entire nighttime quest lines? Yes, a day/night cycle could add so much more depth and complexity to the world, but I am not necessarily asking for that.

Thoughts?

I think most have already expressed their desire for a true day/night in multiple threads, so don't lose heart if not many respond to this one. A LOT of us want it.

Shoot. Drow should receive disadvantage because of the sun, so even creating Drow characters should immediately call for night traveling and fighting because most Drow would not journey in the bright light of day.

Then there's stealth reasons, for who sneaks into a goblin camp in broad daylight.

But, my big thing is ambiance. Spooky forests at night with monsters jumping out at you is one of the fun elements of D&D. They need more night encounters.

Come on. If you can make levels like the Underdark all dark, you can allow travel above ground in the dark too.

But I get it. It will require a lot more work to make that happen.

That sounds like a substantive difference to me. I think what you meant is little gameplay difference, but all the night encounters/events feel significant enough to me. Not to mention a plot point which is that Bodhi can only show up at night, naturally...

I think most who say this don't actually have a good idea just how much work, exactly, is involved here. We just guess so. Saying this sounds to me like Larian is just too lazy to walk the extra mile (again, just how far is this extra mile, really?) to give their players something that is not just really, really cool aesthetically, but also adds a lot of immersion and gameplay values. They've got a substantial amount of fund for this game; I can't imagine them not being able to do this from a technical angle. To me it's just a matter of whether they want to do it or not. And I can't imagine why they would not want to do it.

We have been requesting this for more than a year.

Still didn't find a reason why a AAA CRPG doesn't have D/N cycle.

Not fussed personally - camping is night cycle - I don't find it immersion breaking - good feature if they want to spend the money on it but there are better things too - so I guess I'm on the fence.

Preaching to the choir.
We've been arguing in favor of D/N cycle since before the EA even started (given that they confirmed its absence months prior to its launch) with very little luck so far.

We also have a(nother) mega-thread going on about this specific topic in the "Megathreads and guides" subforum.


Camping is a night cycle in the same way putting your hands inside your pants is having sex, more or less.

If you aren't going to create a true Day/Night cycle, can we at least have more moments where it is night?

For example:
Anyway, I still think SOME sort of day/night trigger would be awesome for this game. Some scenes would just be so much more visually appealing at night. Imagine
I mean, part of the true fun of D&D is the fear you feel when you are roaming through the darkness. You never know what's going to jump out at you and attack you. A dark forest at night suddenly turns into a dark and sinister woods. It's much more fun when a few goblins pop out at you in the dark than in broad daylight.

I still love this game, but there are things like this that I just think would make it SO much more fun. Give us at least a button that allows us to skip to Night. Instead of End Day button, give us a Day/Night button. If it is day, and we hit the Day/Night button, we go to camp and it becomes night. Then we can trigger dialogues more often without having an entire day go by. We would have 2 chances every day to trigger camp dialogue scenes, thus increasing the potential of us triggering all the dialogues. Then, if it is Night, and we hit Day/Night, we go to camp and have our nighttime dialogues and finally click on the bedrolls to sleep.

Come on, Larian! This would make the game SO much more awesome. SO much more fun!

I have those fond memories of BG1 and BG2 when the day progressed, you had encounters at dusk or dawn your characters got tired (-1 to-hit and saving throws, iirc?).
It was so damned immersive and I really started looking out for a small in to give my heroes a well deserved rest in a proper location.

If you don't want to break any sense of immersion without a real full cost day and night cycle make it like it was done 20 years ago.

1) 1 atmosphere during the day with NPC doing their NPC's stuff.
2) night has come. Beautifull cinematic to make the transition.
3) 1 atmosphere at night with NPC's doing their.NPC's things at night. You don't need a bed for everyone. Some activities in the night doesn't require a bed. Life does not stop at night in the Realms.
4) day has come. Beautifull cinematic to make the transition.

Making such a game without a day and night cycle is a shame. Really.

So much money allowed to cinematics models, voices and so on... But it does not have such a basic feature.

A day and night cycle makes a world feels alive and realistic. Time management is not something you can cut off to make an immersive world.

On top of that, it's an amazing opportunity to increase the variety in the gameplay.

And, for me, bottom line is, NIGHT and D&D go hand-in-hand. This game is great. Really. I love it, but I LOVE even the old D&D dungeon games where you are walking around in a dark forest and suddenly an evil monster comes out to eat you.

I would give up all the hours of animated voice overs for a simple time mechanic.

In 2021 this game doesn't have a day / night time cycle.

OG Baldurs Gate did this in 1998.

Oh yeah, we had weather too.

Problem is, how do you measure the time? And what should be the effects?
The original Baldurs Gate had little difference between day and night. A few things where night only, but the rest was static. This kind of day and night cycle is.. pretty meaningless.

For a meaningful cycle, we would need a fatigue mechanic and a dayly routine for npcs. Otherwise all you do is to make the screen darker for x minutes.

Don't get me wrong, I do not mind a day-night circle, it would really add to the immersion, but only if there is a point for it.
It would also give us the chance to have arguments about the best time of adventuring, in the sun or the night? =D

Also, another problem is that the prayers of clerics need to be during different times, also an issue.
It would help against rest-spam though. But, then again, it would need some sort of waiting mechanic, since you can hardly just let your pc run until the day is over and you can take your long rest.

Bottom line, I am all for a day and night cycle and a time mechanic, as long as it is meaningful.


EDIT for the weather:
I am pretty sure we will get weather. Considering how much Larian loves their surfaces and statusses like "wet", it would be more surprising if we would not get any weather system..

That's a fake problem.
And yes, even a basic implementation of the feature would already be a massive improvement over not having it at all, if nothing else for atmosphere/immersion reasons.

This s ALL stuff we already argued for months in the dedicated mega-thread on this very same topic, anyway.
Well, actually we argued it across of dozens of different threads that got merged over time. So the redundancy is strong with that one.

An even better trade-off would be that I would gladly give up on the useless and probably very costly bullshit that are "playable origins", by the way.

Sorry, not very long in this forum, so I probably have missed a lot. And you guys write way to fast and to much for me to ever catch up. x_x

Anyways, no. A empty light/darkness system would take me out of my immersion. It was useless in BG1+2.
Unless you implement an actual day and not jsut the framework, the discrepancies would be even more visiable. The static world is a bit off, a mostly static world with just some paint over it will be even worse.

I do not understand your dislike for origins. I had no use for them, and still don't, but all they do is to allow you to play a companion instead. Since the character exist regardless of him or her being a playable character, I also rather doubt it is that expensive to create them.
And I do not see how they damage immersion, if you see the problem there, please tell me. (Since it is a bit offtopic, just send me your opinion or links to your statements instead, if you prefer..)