I mean you really cannot get immersed in a static world with no sense of distance, activity or time. I took a short rest in the druid camp and couldn't help but notice how literally nothing changed. The light in the sky never moved, the NPC's never changed to the point they were still in the same line of dialogue, I simply gained hitpoints, soooo meh.
The game is simply stuff plonked on a static map waiting for you to interact with it. Nothing moves around the map, no random animals, NPC encounters, weather or time. The goblins are supposed to be searching for a camp but never do anything. You can sleep a month of days and the goblins in camp are still celebrating the same day. No sense of urgency, danger or consequence for anything other than static interactions.
The underdark feels a bit better as you don't get a sense of time underground. However the NPC's still just hang about even though they are supposed to be "doing stuff".
There is a game made by Larian that has this exact inorganic feel about it, I just can't think of the name.
It kills me that Larian are so brilliant in many ways and then seem to completely not get it concerning immersion.
Just thinking how much day/night, weather and random Goblin patrols in the wilderness would make the world come alive. How much wandering monsters would help make the Underdark feel like a dangerous place.
Long Rest camp sites being weird unreachable non-locations further disconnect you from the world. Why aren't we using the existing campfires scattered here and there in logical locations for resting? How about a simple break where the party would sit down and chat during a Short Rest instead of just being a heal button?
Larian are somehow completely unable to capture the feeling of being on a D&D adventure. And it's baffling, really.
You know I am playing pathfainder kingmaker at the minute and the camping system in this game is done beeter than I actually thought possible in a game. Click camp to get a camp layout, click it somewhere it fits and rest in location with all the dangers, food etc. that intails. Simple but absolutely amazing at the same time. <<<< do that Larian.
Day/night is basically a single light source that moves across the sky periodically. Too much work apparently. Random enounters = dice roll followed by spawn stuff....Oh well.
