Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Anonona]

It's easy to always be able to advance the plot when nothing you do even matters.

Just put a open ended objective and allow the player different avenues to achieve them. They did it in D:OS2 both in how to escape Fort Joy and better in the next chapter where you had to gain enough source to avdance to the next chapter. How you do it is your choice and you can kill even important NPCs like Meister Siva. Each quest has their own choce and consequences and even some of them you can end up not gaining new source if you refuse to commit the atrocities they ask of you.

Sure you cannot change the end and overall plot, but not even games like PF:KM, Disco Elysium or AoD allow you to change that. Most C&C are in the sidequests. At the end you will arrive at the same place, just with different vignettes at the ending.

 

[Larianshill]

Other than, say... mantaining the standard that both the previous games had it, and it meant something... ?

Other than this meaningless shit, yes, I don't see any reason for day/night cycle.

 

[Anonona]

Other than this meaningless shit, yes, I don't see any reason for day/night cycle.

I guess in this case the stealth and the lightning system may had actually be a reason to do them. Though it should be done well, or players would end up just playing at night with races with darkvision, kind of like what it happens in Solasta with so many fights in the dark. Also it should be significative enough too. Solasta's system almost do work well in this instance, but some issues with when the game recognizes who is under light or not, and some moments were they force you to fight at certain hours kind of diminish the strategic utility of day/night cycles.

 

[Gargaune]

Since there is a time and budget aspect of this, you as an AA+ developer have to prioritize. If you want proper day/night mechanics, you have to sacrifice something else to achieve this. They have decided to focus these resources on something else.

A basic time of day isn't an exceptional resource drain, we're not talking Bethesda's scheduling ecosystem. There are associated costs, of course, but none of the graphical, scripting or balance overheads are the sort to break the bank even for a smaller developer, while Larian seem to be running a large, well-funded production with BG3. And it's not unreasonable for us, as consumers, to be disappointed with the absence of this feature or prefer it over others.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

noo not my heckin screen darkerino, how will I live without the screen getting dark?

 

[The_Mask]

I guess in this case the stealth and the lightning system may had actually be a reason to do them. Though it should be done well, or players would end up just playing at night with races with darkvision, kind of like what it happens in Solasta with so many fights in the dark. Also it should be significative enough too. Solasta's system almost do work well in this instance, but some issues with when the game recognizes who is under light or not, and some moments were they force you to fight at certain hours kind of diminish the strategic utility of day/night cycles.

Turns out it's not so meaningless.

Problem is: it's too hard to dedicate manpower to this when you're dealing with multiplayer.

Swen dipped in the pool at 2 players, now he's diving pretty hard. And it's starting to show.

 

[Desiderius]

belgian man bad!

Belgian man Belge is bad enough tbh.

 

[Anonona]

Turns out it's not so meaningless.

Funny enough, the lightning system is also an argument against day and night. Besides what I had say about people just playing always in the dark with darkvision, you will see games like Splinter Cell and Thief always take place at certain hours of the day, without time passing. This is because the developers craft the levels carefully with the idea to offer a challenging and fun experience to the player. In this instance then, by locking the hour of the day you can then make a better done level where stealth actually plays like a real stealth game. You can compare for example to two great real time party based stealth games made by the same company: Desperados III and Shadow Tactics. In those games levels are always locked at certain hours of the day and both daylight and nighttime offer different advantages and disadvantages.

The focus of Swen in stealth in all the gameplay demostration makes me think this may had been a main reason why the had chose to do it this way.

 

[Desiderius]

noo not my heckin screen darkerino, how will I live without the screen getting dark?

Why shld I have to when they managed it fine in 1998 for fuck’s sake? Just because they’re deranged doesn’t mean the clown you put all your hopes in doesn’t suck too.

Many such cases.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I guess in this case the stealth and the lightning system may had actually be a reason to do them. Though it should be done well, or players would end up just playing at night with races with darkvision, kind of like what it happens in Solasta with so many fights in the dark. Also it should be significative enough too. Solasta's system almost do work well in this instance, but some issues with when the game recognizes who is under light or not, and some moments were they force you to fight at certain hours kind of diminish the strategic utility of day/night cycles.

Turns out it's not so meaningless.

Problem is: it's too hard to dedicate manpower to this when you're dealing with multiplayer.

Swen dipped in the pool at 2 players, now he's diving pretty hard. And it's starting to show.

The thing is: the "complications" multiplayer introduces to the equation are vastly overstated as well.
What would be the issue, here? That one player can be in real time while the other is "frozen" in a turn-based combat? It's absolutely trivial to solve: stop the "clock" in the background for both. "Bu-but that would make the the day/night slightly longer for the player who was always in real time". Ok? So fucking what?
Also, all players would need to agree with when a long rest is going to happen. But guess what? That's already the fucking case right now.

Larian is pretending this is some big design challenge to overcome, but it's another case of the their brilliant game designers drowning in a glass of water.

It's like when one of their gameplay designers went on a stream claiming "Yeah, the Battlemaster is supposed to decide to spend a superiority dice only when a hit lands, but that would interrupt the combat in our system so we removed it". ...Ok? Aside for the fact that I'm not sure "interrupting the combat" is this terrible evil, what about just making so that the "superiority dice" is not spent if the hit misses? It would solve both issues without a "Fuck you and your dices" to the class.

 

[Larianshill]

what about just making so that the "superiority dice" is not spent if the hit misses?

I'm pretty sure that's how it works right now.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

what about just making so that the "superiority dice" is not spent if the hit misses?

I'm pretty sure that's how it works right now.

Unless it was updated recently, last time I played a battle master the SD was spent regardless of landing the hit.

 

[Reinhardt]

Lol, just play it as always if you have people with darkvision in your party or turn off your monitor and play by sound if you don't for half of the time.

 

[Ontopoly]

Lol, nigga, 10 years from now codex will be busy replaying Mass Effect ReRemaster.

Not true. They'll praise mass effect for being a classic and call anyone who plays either of the remasters a casual who doesn't know good gaming.

I’ll sacrifice cinematic blow jobs and origin system for day/night cycle.

I'm willing to just sacrifice cinematic blow jobs and the origin system. Don't need anything in return

 

[d1r]

DivOS2 actually had a day/night cycle mod.

So I'd assume that BG3 will sooner or later get the same treatment, though of course it's an absolute shame that a team of more than 300 devs just can't seem to bother to implement such an immersive feature into their game.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

Doesn't Wasteland 3 has multiplayer? I have not played it yet since I'm waiting for all the dlc to release before doing that, but I'm still wondering how does it compare to Larian's games. Does it have day and night cycles? Are the companions just as boring as D:OS 2? Is the story a complete mess that lacks any semblance of consequence or is it just what Larian has been trying to achieve since then?

 

[smaug]

Wait, BG3 doesn't have a day/night cycle?

 

[Drakortha]

No Day and Night cycles in BG3? BG1 from 1998 on Windows 98 had them. Even MMO's have them. This is a disgrace!

 

[fantadomat]

No Day and Night cycles in BG3? BG1 from 1998 on Windows 98 had them. Even MMO's have them. This is a disgrace!

Nah everything is cool brah,because now it is TB brah,don't you know that now it is fateful to the tabletop brah,now simpletons fat D&D fans can play it brah

 

[Drakortha]

No Day and Night cycles in BG3? BG1 from 1998 on Windows 98 had them. Even MMO's have them. This is a disgrace!

Nah everything is cool brah,because now it is TB brah,don't you know that now it is fateful to the tabletop brah,now simpletons fat D&D fans can play it brah

brah I played Morrowind in 2003. It had static NPC's that didn't go anywhere or do anything but at least the world had day and night cycles. Holy hell Larian is so shit, a potato could do a better job!

 

[Larianshill]

Nah everything is cool brah,because now it is TB brah,don't you know that now it is fateful to the tabletop

Yes.

 

[fantadomat]

No Day and Night cycles in BG3? BG1 from 1998 on Windows 98 had them. Even MMO's have them. This is a disgrace!

Nah everything is cool brah,because now it is TB brah,don't you know that now it is fateful to the tabletop brah,now simpletons fat D&D fans can play it brah

brah I played Morrowind in 2003. It had static NPC's that didn't go anywhere or do anything but at least the world had day and night cycles. Holy hell Larian is so shit, a potato could do a better job!

Well they weren't that static,they went to bed during the night. Most rpgs do have a day night cycle lol,it is not some amazing new tech.

PS: I was mocking the lariantards and agree with you lol.

 

[underground nymph]

Turns out it's not so meaningless.

Funny enough, the lightning system is also an argument against day and night. Besides what I had say about people just playing always in the dark with darkvision, you will see games like Splinter Cell and Thief always take place at certain hours of the day, without time passing. This is because the developers craft the levels carefully with the idea to offer a challenging and fun experience to the player. In this instance then, by locking the hour of the day you can then make a better done level where stealth actually plays like a real stealth game. You can compare for example to two great real time party based stealth games made by the same company: Desperados III and Shadow Tactics. In those games levels are always locked at certain hours of the day and both daylight and nighttime offer different advantages and disadvantages.

The focus of Swen in stealth in all the gameplay demostration makes me think this may had been a main reason why the had chose to do it this way.

This certainly makes sense. But this could’ve been easily managed be Larian not an adepts of theme park level design. In the end this all boils down to level design. Is it harder to implement? Yes. Is it impossible? Absolutely not.

 

[Lacrymas]

I always get a little bit dumber when I read about how important day/night cycles are for some people.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I always get a little bit dumber when I read about how important day/night cycles are for some people.

They aren't important, they're just grasping at straws. Larian derangement syndrome, sad!