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Originally Posted by Elebhra
Lack of day/night cycle does nothing to my immersion in the game since it is clearly stated that I'm ending the day when I rest.
Which is irrelevant.
No one was wondering "where did the nightly hours go according to canon", but why we can't experience that part of the game (and the adventure) ourselves.

Last edited by Tuco; 01/06/22 12:44 AM.

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Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by Elebhra
Lack of day/night cycle does nothing to my immersion in the game since it is clearly stated that I'm ending the day when I rest.
Which is irrelevant.
No one was wondering "where did the nightly hours go according to canon", but why we can't experience that part of the game (and the adventure) ourselves.

What's relevant is whether or not it breaks immersion. And it clearly doesn't for some people as mentioned in the very quote you selected: "...does nothing to my immersion..."

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Well I find the lack of das/night circle immersion breaking. I like to go adventuring by night and for some stuff, it makes sense - for example all the vampire related quests. I did like in BG 1&2, that you could break into a house at night and the inhabitants were asleep. I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense to break into a house in bright daylight.


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Originally Posted by IdPreferNotTo
Originally Posted by Maximuuus
I guess we could agree to say that cRPG, besides the gameplay (obvious part of a "game"), are mostly foccused on the characters, the story and the world.

But is a world in which time and NPCs are completely frozen immersive ?
Is a world in which distance are "compressed" immersive ?
Is a world in which cows can climb ladder immersive ?
Is a story in which an army cannot find something that's right next to them (and not really hidden) immersive ?


The stuff you listed doesn't really detract that much from my immersion(or lack of it) though, since it's the story and the characters(if they're any good) that elicit most of the immersion for me. The world that most RPGs offer is hardly ever very complex, spacious or alive, so I equate it mostly with a theater set, and in theater most of the stuff you listed, despite being silly, doesn't really break immersion.

Well, most games have a D/N cycle and a notion of time.
Most games have random encounters and/or creatures that repop after a while and/or NPCs routine and so on.

Larian is one of the only studio that creates worlds in their RPG that doesn't feel alive AT ALL (completely frozen) if the player is not involved.

It doesnt have to be very complex. As an exemple the NPCs routine in BG1 and 2 are not very complex... for most of them they just have 2 positions (1 for day, 1 for night).
Things are obviously different on true open world.

Immersion in the world (the FR here) is as important to me and when I was talking about characters, I included NPCs.

Last edited by Maximuuus; 01/06/22 11:25 AM.

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I dont remember either (time flow, or random encounters) in RPGs i played. O_o
And it never bothered my immersion ...


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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
I dont remember either (time flow, or random encounters) in RPGs i played. O_o
And it never bothered my immersion ...

Well. Rag, you don't really care about immersion as you've proven before but please list some rpgs that you've played and liked, and we maybe can point out that time flow/random encounters you don't remember smile

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Daytime was a huge thing back as far as the old Ultima games. Also mattered in the Gothic series and when looking at modern RPGs Skyrim and Oblivion. Pillars of Eternity had it to a certain degree, but more limited like in Baldur's Gate.

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Originally Posted by Maximuuus
Larian is one of the only studio that creates worlds in their RPG that doesn't feel alive AT ALL (completely frozen) if the player is not involved.

It doesnt have to be very complex. As an exemple the NPCs routine in BG1 and 2 are not very complex... for most of them they just have 2 positions (1 for day, 1 for night).
Things are obviously different on true open world.

Immersion in the world (the FR here) is as important to me and when I was talking about characters, I included NPCs.

Yes, Larian takes simplifying some things to often hideous extremes. But the immersion is mostly broken for players like me, even if they implement the D/N cycle, since immersion would require a (overly) complex game world. Still, since lack of D/N cycle seems to bother lots of people, I hope Larian implements it.

For me the level of complexity in the original BG-series is just not enough. One of the things that didn't really immerse me into the original BG-series was precisely the fact that the NPCs had very little in the way of a daily routine, unlike in the ultima 7(parts 1-2), that was my first contact with the cRPG genre. Apart from doing away with the exploration/'open world' aspect of Ultima 7, In BG1 and BG2 you had day and night which pretty much just amounted to differing rng encounters, some thieving opportunities and NPCs alternating between their nightly and daily positions. Which I guess would have been immersive, if the world in this physical sense, hadn't felt so unimmersive and a downgrade into a 'theater set', even in comparison to the much older Ultima 7: serpent isle, where the NPCs at least had a semblance of daily routines.


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Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
Well. Rag, you don't really care about immersion as you've proven before
I will be the judge of that if you dont mind. smile
Well, actualy, even if you do. laugh wink

Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
but please list some rpgs that you've played and liked, and we maybe can point out that time flow/random encounters you don't remember smile
Okey, this can be interesting ...

Dragon Age: Inquisition
Vampyr
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic I. & II.
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
Diablo II. & III.
Whole Mass Effect Trillogy
+ Andromeda (In Andromeda there are "kind of" random encounters tho, since you are often attacked by raiders who just arived.)
Lord of the Fallen
Batman: Arkham city
Rise of the Tomb Raider

And of course Baldur's Gate III. laugh laugh laugh

Last edited by RagnarokCzD; 01/06/22 02:37 PM.

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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Okey, this can be interesting ...

Dragon Age: Inquisition
Vampyr
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic I. & II.
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
Diablo II. & III.
Whole Mass Effect Trillogy
+ Andromeda (In Andromeda there are "kind of" random encounters tho, since you are often attacked by raiders who just arived.)

Lord of the Fallen
Batman: Arkham city
Rise of the Tomb Raider

And of course Baldur's Gate III. laugh laugh laugh
Scratched games that I would personally not consider an RPG.

Underlined what I would consider hybrids - games that adopted some aspects of RPG, but do/focus on something else. Like Mass Effect has some light RPG stuff, but is mostly clunky space gears of war (especially starting with ME2). Diablo is lazer focused on one specific aspect of D&D - loot aquisition and progression.

I didn't play Inquisition so can't comment on it.

Two that I would feel comfortable discussing as RPGs:
KOTOR1&2 were stripped down Baldur's Gates for consoles.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is what I would consider a very solid RPG pick, and ideed doesn't have neither. Personally, I am not as fond of it as other people are but it is a good game nonetheless. An example, of an RPG that doesn't have neither and is still good.

Last edited by Wormerine; 01/06/22 04:34 PM.
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Well, true ... i admit that not all of them was "ideal examples" laugh but quite honestly i dont play too many games in general, so i took whatever reminded RPG even if not exactly. smile
And didnt contain those two aspects we were talking about ofc ... there is really many RPGs with some kind of timeflow, that alone rule out many titles from my list. smile

Last edited by RagnarokCzD; 01/06/22 05:17 PM.

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Originally Posted by Wormerine
Scratched games that I would personally not consider an RPG.

Underlined what I would consider hybrids - games that adopted some aspects of RPG, but do/focus on something else. Like Mass Effect has some light RPG stuff, but is mostly clunky space gears of war (especially starting with ME2). Diablo is lazer focused on one specific aspect of D&D - loot aquisition and progression.

I didn't play Inquisition so can't comment on it.

Two that I would feel comfortable discussing as RPGs:
KOTOR1&2 were stripped down Baldur's Gates for consoles.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is what I would consider a very solid RPG pick, and ideed doesn't have neither. Personally, I am not as fond of it as other people are but it is a good game nonetheless. An example, of an RPG that doesn't have neither and is still good.

You could have added that diablo 2 has a D/N cycle.
That many creatures respawn in DA:I (somewhere between time flow and random encounter).
That the Mass Effect Trilogy is full of "random events" (not ideal exemples but not totally off topic).

Being immersed in living worlds without even realizing it !
Good job !

Last edited by Maximuuus; 01/06/22 06:12 PM.

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Originally Posted by Maximuuus
You could have added that diablo 2 has a D/N cycle.
Rly? O_o
I totally forgot that in that case ... i know there are some zones in dark, and others in day ... but i thought time was stopped. laugh


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Originally Posted by IdPreferNotTo
Originally Posted by Maximuuus
Larian is one of the only studio that creates worlds in their RPG that doesn't feel alive AT ALL (completely frozen) if the player is not involved.

It doesnt have to be very complex. As an exemple the NPCs routine in BG1 and 2 are not very complex... for most of them they just have 2 positions (1 for day, 1 for night).
Things are obviously different on true open world.

Immersion in the world (the FR here) is as important to me and when I was talking about characters, I included NPCs.

Yes, Larian takes simplifying some things to often hideous extremes. But the immersion is mostly broken for players like me, even if they implement the D/N cycle, since immersion would require a (overly) complex game world. Still, since lack of D/N cycle seems to bother lots of people, I hope Larian implements it.

For me the level of complexity in the original BG-series is just not enough. One of the things that didn't really immerse me into the original BG-series was precisely the fact that the NPCs had very little in the way of a daily routine, unlike in the ultima 7(parts 1-2), that was my first contact with the cRPG genre. Apart from doing away with the exploration/'open world' aspect of Ultima 7, In BG1 and BG2 you had day and night which pretty much just amounted to differing rng encounters, some thieving opportunities and NPCs alternating between their nightly and daily positions. Which I guess would have been immersive, if the world in this physical sense, hadn't felt so unimmersive and a downgrade into a 'theater set', even in comparison to the much older Ultima 7: serpent isle, where the NPCs at least had a semblance of daily routines.

I'm really sad because I never played Ultima so I cannot talk about it in this very interresting discussion.
But I'm not sure to understand, and I'd really like to.

Are you only refering to the NPCs routine or where there something else ? You're talking about the "world in this physical sense", what does that mean ?

According to me the original Baldur's Gate series, which was my first contact with the cRPG genre did a very good job.

The day and night cycle was a simple transition through a cutscene but time was a part of the world.
Time / sun / moon is one of the most basic rule of any worlds or universes and whatever how it was done, it was there.

The lack of any sense of time as we have in BG3 is a big deal to me because without such a basic thing the world you're playing in shout "video game" at any time.
It's the same about NPCs routine. I don't really care that they're having a very interresting or "realistic" routine. I'm playing my own adventure and never follow them for hours. What I notice is that life is different at different time of the day which is also a basic of every universe.

Sure, night in BG1/2 is mostly about other "rng creatures" (not only, especially in towns but whatever) but it created a feeling that the night was less of a "confortable" time than day... which is often true in the Forgotten Realms.

I have plenty other exemples of, according to me, immersion breaking things in BG3.
- We already talked about arrows trajectory (not sure it's the good word in EN)
- The VFX when you're using "basic" actions (earthquake/shockwave when you jump/shove/dash)
- Potions that give you their positive effects even if you don't drink them (walking on the "surface liquid")
- It's also true with pure gameplay mechanic like shove that, as a bonus action occur way too often for it to look "natural".
- The fast travel system with runes that shout "teleporting" in a world in which teleportation is not something everyone is doing everywhere at everytime.
- The main camp that is absolutely nowhere on the map and that is safe despite being "somewhere" in a supposed "living" and "dangerous" area.
- The sneaking mechanic that doesn't make sense at all (they even can't ever hear you)
- The surfaces effects that I really find interresting but unimmersive as is (the sand will burn but the wooden cart on it will not)
And so on.

I cannot deny that there are also good things in the game for immersion like the tons of details or items everywhere. I can obviously live with compromises that serves the gameplay but in my opinion, the world created by Larian lacks basic features that make a universe come alive as well as the main basic rules that govern the Forgotten Realms.


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Originally Posted by JandK
What's relevant is whether or not it breaks immersion. And it clearly doesn't for some people as mentioned in the very quote you selected: "...does nothing to my immersion..."
When someone attempts to use an argument to dismiss the grievances of other players about a feature (or the lack of it, in this case), what should be relevant is if the logic conclusion of their argument makes or not their point. Which this one does not.
Ergo it's IRRELEVANT.


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Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by JandK
What's relevant is whether or not it breaks immersion. And it clearly doesn't for some people as mentioned in the very quote you selected: "...does nothing to my immersion..."
When someone attempts to use an argument to dismiss the grievances of other players about a feature (or the lack of it, in this case), what should be relevant is if the logic conclusion of their argument makes or not their point. Which this one does not.
Ergo it's IRRELEVANT.

You don't have a complicated argument.

You say x breaks your immersion.

Others say x doesn't break their immersion.

Pretty neat. And while I'm sure your opinion is valuable, it's not a universal objective truth.

Again, what's relevant is whether or not immersion is broken. No one is trying to tell you whether or not *your* immersion should be broken. No one is trying to reason with you about how you're wrong about the way *you* feel. Your feelings are acceptable and real. Immersion is broken for you. No one disputes that. It's just a you problem, not a game problem for everyone else.

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"Not having nights is not a problem to immersion because nights happen when you sleep and can't see them" is a pretty fucking terrible argument.
especially in an a game about traveling during a long adventure and crossing dangerous territories and creatures.

One can have abysmal personal standards and so be happy with it, but any pretense to sell it to others as some compelling reasoning is doomed to fail.

Not my problem if you can't spot its limits.

Last edited by Tuco; 01/06/22 07:35 PM.

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I never dismissed anyone's grievances about a lack of feature. If you read it that way, I must have worded it wrongly. I just pointed out why lack thereof does not affect my immersion.

Additionally, being unhappy about lack of adventuring in night time and being unhappy about lack of day/night cycle breaking suspension of disbelief are not necessarily the same thing.

Last edited by Elebhra; 01/06/22 07:43 PM.
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Originally Posted by Tuco
"Not having nights is not a problem to immersion because nights happen when you sleep and can't see them" is a pretty fucking terrible argument.
especially in an a game about traveling during a long adventure and crossing dangerous territories and creatures.
Personally, I could get behind this design, though at the moment it is undermined by the issue of camping not happening/feeling connected to world map. "We decided that you travel during day, and rest at night" is a fine design - there is of course potential in being able to travel at night, but not many games actually live up to the potential. But the transition between adventuring and resting just doesn't feel good.

I don't think the following would work but, what if there was some time limited that would force us to go to sleep? It could be time based, or like in disco elysium, activity based. Something to make the it feel lke the the world is not completely static.

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And one more thing:

I find it problematic to talk about games being immersive, because a process of being immersed is something that depends to a far greater degree on the user than on a product. Even the most immersive cRPG you and I could imagine wouldn't feel the same to someone new to the genre or gaming as a whole. Having played a lot of games already infuses you with the ability to ignore certain leaps of logic that a newbie has a problem with. I once tried to introduce my partner to gaming and after some time of being bombarded by question: "Why can't I do that?" I just gave up. Being immersed is more of an ability that might be made harder or less hard depending on a product.

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