Anyone having problems with the pacing of the story?

[LeFrench]

everything is happening too fast. the companion characters get randy too fast, and gale reaches critical mass too fast, meanwhile the dark urge story competes with every other special snowflake origin event (wyll, karlach, astaron).

(i've been restarting a lot due to patch updates, friend co-op sessions, the arrival of honor mode, and just generally figuring out which build i want to experience the main storyline (the dark urge) with. So i'm familiar enough with act 1, but nothing beyond. i've always tried to limit my longrests during these, but i came to realise that's a HUGE mistake as i realise how many cutscene have to play out.

i finally got a recent honor mode, dark urge session going and was determined to have more long rests to pace things out. but i still totally underestimated just how often you have to do it to pace the story out.

i did about 3 or 4 longrests while completing just the basic exploration. didn't go near the goblin camp and thus avoided the artefact trigger, ignored the southern forest (hag and khaga meeting) and the north corner (the gith). Been doing everything else, and thought i was pacing myself with short rests and then those few longrests, and its been pretty easy to do (on honor mode), but I still failed. Gale has hit critical mass already!? Shadowheart, Gale and karlach think i'm the bees knees, gushing like simps... ugh. it feels so unnatural. its like i should have long rested after each fight just to maintain a decent sense of pace.

i'm now resorting to spamming longrests just so all the cutscenes can catchup to the unatural responses of the companions. this is really piss poor story plotting by the writers. there should have been a warning; longrest after each fight or the story emotional beats become forced and absurd which will break immersion. Larian has to stop bragging they have great writing. Plotting and pacing are very important parts of great writing and they have failed miserably at that.

[hermit0wl]

Yeah, the amount of long rests you need to do for all the camp interactions is very unintuitive, especially if you do well in combat.

[LeFrench]

Originally posted by 󠀡󠀡:

Since food is abundant in the game the default experience likely is to short or long rest after every major encounter. Doing a lot of long rests makes sence from a minmax or roleplay perspective.

yes, there is more than enough food. even on honor mode with the doubling. and i expect if you triple it up on the custom mode you'd still be fine. BUT i have to question the wisdom of trying to make long rests more food costly (as if it is a resource you must balance, since that is what i assumed when i noticed the foods costs can be raised) but the 'story' DOES NOT want you to treat it as a resource or else the 'story' suffers. So, it's in your best interest to long rest as much as possible so the story feels properly paced, and characters sound LESS deranged.

even if i long rested lets say 8 times in the first half of the first act (so before you go goblin camp, khaga investigation or githyanki), which in my opinion is now the minimum times you should long rest to get adequate pacing, you'd still end up with shadowheart gushing that you are unlike anyone she has ever met, and is ever likely to meet, etc. So pretty much in one week, she went from stranger to stalker-like. And the others are not any better. ugh.

anyway, point is, Larian should have a warning notation at the start of the game, that you MUST long rest as much as possible inorder to experience a story that is less immersion breaking and has better pacing. I would have found such a note very useful and it would have improved my experience and perception of the story significantly.

[LeFrench]

Originally posted by 󠀡󠀡:

Partial long rest is free an does progress the story.

useful note, to spam longrests for story progress. thanks. but still doesn't solve the pacing problem.

possible solutions are further distances. so when you move from one area of the map to another (eg, the lower beach/upper cliffs to the grove area) a cutscene plays showing that days passed as you hiked thru the forests to eventually find the grove.

similar with moving from the grove to the first ruin of a town, a cutscene plays to represent a few days of travel. ie. divide the act 1 map locations up with travel distance cutscenes.

sure once you unlock the travel gates, you can bypass this, however the first time you travel/explore the map these cutscenes of passing days would add a LOT to the sense of pacing (in addition to the recommendation to long rest as often as possible).

[♂Warrior of Gachi♂]

Yes, if you play the game well (better than an average IGN "journalist") it skips over many story events. Some are permanently lost.

It's really bad and nobody talks about it because most ppl are really really bad at video games.

There should've been a fatigue and/or day night cycle system to force you to long rest (you know like how BG games worked 25 years ago) and see the story events when they are relevant.

[God Queen 158]

This has actually been a problem since early access. So much so that long resting to "clear the cue" of the camp cutscene backlog used to be the default way I'd play Act 1.

Additionally, there was a patch in early access that made approval easier to hold on to, and eventually Larian also softend companions' demeanor as well. Both factors make getting to know the companions feel too fast.

[attiladafun]

I'm replaying and long resting right after finding each companion in Act 1. 6 long rests in a row before even reaching the blighted village and I'm seeing new dialogue I've never seen before. It seems a lot gets skipped about them just meeting and not trusting each other. Most of the time it skips right to where everyone is best friends after the artifact scene.

[attiladafun]

Why does it feel like EA had a lot more going on in Act 1, but was removed for the final edit? It feels so empty like there were supposed to be many more encounters

[LeFrench]

Originally posted by attiladafun:

I'm replaying and long resting right after finding each companion in Act 1. 6 long rests in a row before even reaching the blighted village and I'm seeing new dialogue I've never seen before. It seems a lot gets skipped about them just meeting and not trusting each other. Most of the time it skips right to where everyone is best friends after the artifact scene.

oh wow. nice! thanks for the insight. but ffs, now you making me want to restart.... yet again. i'm never going to get past act 1 it seems :)

[attiladafun]

Originally posted by LeFrench:

Originally posted by attiladafun:

I'm replaying and long resting right after finding each companion in Act 1. 6 long rests in a row before even reaching the blighted village and I'm seeing new dialogue I've never seen before. It seems a lot gets skipped about them just meeting and not trusting each other. Most of the time it skips right to where everyone is best friends after the artifact scene.

oh wow. nice! thanks for the insight. but ffs, now you making me want to restart.... yet again. i'm never going to get past act 1 it seems :)

Its not your fault. The one really negative thing about bg3 is the narrative pacing and story. Its a mess

[Яeplicant]

Originally posted by attiladafun:

Why does it feel like EA had a lot more going on in Act 1, but was removed for the final edit? It feels so empty like there were supposed to be many more encounters

Act 1 feels exactly like it did during EA. Only thing that was added was the transition to the shadow-cursed forest and the creché.

But yeah, overall the pacing can be a bit off, if you're not doing some long rests here and there. Especially during launch, some scenes triggered way too early if you've had high affinity with partymembers.

I'll never forget the first long rest I took and Lae'zel mounted me like a dragon almost instantly. It was magical.

[attiladafun]

Must of been boring, playing the same 10 fights over and over

[LeFrench]

Originally posted by attiladafun:

Must of been boring, playing the same 10 fights over and over

its not too bad. the thing Larian got right was the gameplay. I have no complaints about that, and when you co-oping with friends (we always do max difficulty and no karmic dice) so things can go sideways in new unexpected ways. those 10 fights i've experienced from different physical directions, sometimes peaceful resolutions, sometimes new dialogue, and sometimes hilarious, barely recovered, combat fumbling.

y'know, now that you mention it, it won't be so bad to restart one last time, and this time, long resting after every fight, and companion encounter, as long as the food holds out.

[Draknalor]

Originally posted by hermit0wl:

Yeah, the amount of long rests you need to do for all the camp interactions is very unintuitive, especially if you do well in combat.

Whenever i start a new playthrough i play for like 4-5 hours and then take 4-6 long rests in a row to trigger everything.

Using the "Partial rest" will trigger story cutscenes if you don't want to use supplies.

[hermit0wl]

Originally posted by attiladafun:

Why does it feel like EA had a lot more going on in Act 1, but was removed for the final edit? It feels so empty like there were supposed to be many more encounters

There are a couple differences, but it's largely the same, as I remember. One thing I miss from EA is Wyll's interactions with the goblins, but now we have Karlach and Mizora. And the Dream Visitor/Guardian stuff is different.

[Detective Costeau]

The overabundance of events that happen on Long/Partial rest (in act 1 anyway, the problem mostly goes away after that) is one of the parts of the story that really could have been done better, yes.

The sheer amount of stuff most people probably don't see because of it is remarkable. There's a specific story bit for the Dark Urge that I'm willing to bet 95% of people who play Durge don't see, because so far as I can tell to trigger it you have to rest right after getting off the Nautiloid, before you ever speak to any of the other party members, and I can't think of any reason why you would do that other than 'I heard about this cutscene and want to see it.'

Having some of the event triggers be a little less restrictive and/or letting more than one event trigger per night when that makes sense would have gone a long way.