Is in-game time TOO fast?

[Serpiko82]

As shown at 13:30 in this breakdown, during the quest part of the Deep Dive trailer the time in game appeared to pass much faster than we were used to:

https://youtu.be/IgAeFmwZTmQ?si=FhuOvgLKAuE-TiEk

A full 24h cycle in 1h of real time, instead of ~2,5 hours as in the old games.

We don't know if that's a placeholder setting or an intended feature (maybe to increase the feeling of vastness of the Zone, by making every journey seem to take longer?), but either way, IMO this way it's going to be too fast to be enjoyable.

First, with 1h long days we're going to have no more than 30 mins of continuous daylight. This is already a serious restriction, because going out for a sortie any later than at dawn will mean, most of the times, eventually finding ourselves out in the dark before being able to come back. Not nice, especially early in the game without proper night vision devices and with basic gear.

Second, shorter days mean that Skif will need to take care of his basic needs more often. Eating shouldn't probably be a problem, since food isn't usually hard to find. But sleeping? Will we be supposed to, say, reach the location of an X-lab, find the entrance, clear the lab from threats, search for a particular item/document and come back to a safehouse in 60 minutes or a little more, lest Skif's sight starts being blurry until he falls asleep on the spot? That sounds not enough time for a proper exploration to me.

Third, but not negligible, shorter days also mean that we'll have a much smaller time frame to do time-limited missions.

[Napoleon Solo]

Originally posted by Serpiko82:

As shown at 13:30 in this breakdown, during the quest part of the Deep Dive trailer the time in game appeared to pass much faster than we were used to:

https://youtu.be/IgAeFmwZTmQ?si=FhuOvgLKAuE-TiEk

A full 24h cycle in 1h of real time, instead of ~2,5 hours as in the old games.

We don't know if that's a placeholder setting or an intended feature (maybe to increase the feeling of vastness of the Zone, by making every journey seem to take longer?), but either way, IMO this way it's going to be too fast to be enjoyable.

First, with 1h long days we're going to have no more than 30 mins of continuous daylight. This is already a serious restriction, because going out for a sortie any later than at dawn will mean, most of the times, eventually finding ourselves out in the dark before being able to come back. Not nice, especially early in the game without proper night vision devices and with basic gear.

Second, shorter days mean that Skif will need to take care of his basic needs more often. Eating shouldn't probably be a problem, since food isn't usually hard to find. But sleeping? Will we be supposed to, say, reach the location of an X-lab, find the entrance, clear the lab from threats, search for a particular item/document and come back to a safehouse in 60 minutes or a little more, lest Skif's sight starts being blurry until he falls asleep on the spot? That sounds not enough time for a proper exploration to me.

Third, but not negligible, shorter days also mean that we'll have a much smaller time frame to do time-limited missions.

In fact, it only makes sense to talk about it after the game is released. Without having played the game, it's all just speculation.
Maybe it's the most cofmortable option.
The difference in time compared to previous games is noticeable, but we don't have enough information to discuss anything in details

[Belmont]

The simple solution would be a time-scale slider to set it to everyone's preferred time pacing, but that's probably an unrealistic pipe dream.

Yes, the time passage in the video does strike as odd. It's much too fast, but as Napoleon said it's all speculation until we actually have the game and can see it for ourselves. We have no idea if time pacing was accelerated in the deep dive to showcase weather transitions better in the video time allotment, or if that is indeed what the natural time pacing is.

Chalk it up to another item that I wish was explained and expanded upon in the deep dive.

[Stalker2010]

Interesting detail.

[Serpiko82]

Originally posted by Belmont:

The simple solution would be a time-scale slider to set it to everyone's preferred time pacing, but that's probably an unrealistic pipe dream.

I suspect that the speed of the night-day cycle may be linked to the functioning of A-life and AI routines. If so, different pre-arranged settings are a possibility, but a slider is probably out of the question.

[piet11111]

It does seem extremely fast especially if the sleep/eat cycle is attached to it.
I expect it to be slower in the final game but we cant be certain unless GSC weighs in on this.

[BlueSpark]

Originally posted by Belmont:

as Napoleon said it's all speculation until we actually have the game and can see it for ourselves.

Man, has it really been that long? I didn't realize STALKER 2 was announced in the late 18th century. It really is true we've had some massive delays.

OK, excuse the bad joke with reference to his excellency Bonaparte. On topic, I somewhat share the OP's worries about the timescale now that I think about it. Mainly with regard to needing to sleep.

Long forays into the wilderness of the Zone (without any friendly bases around), like to X18 or the Brain Scorcher, were my favorite parts of SoC. And I like the addition of the character's need to sleep in STALKER 2 overall. However, if nightfall starts after like 40 minutes of real time, the game needs to support this by either having a LOT of beds (or makeshift sleeping locations) scattered across the Zone or a portable sleeping bag.

Then again, as others have pointed out, it isn't like this timescale is set in stone just yet. It could be totally different in the release version.

[Bandy]

Originally posted by Belmont:

The simple solution would be a time-scale slider to set it to everyone's preferred time pacing, but that's probably an unrealistic pipe dream.
...

What??? Setting\adjusting time scale should be an edit of a single number in an .ini file or console command, at least it is in other games, but I do not know unreal engine.

[BlueSpark]

Originally posted by Bandy:

What??? Setting\adjusting time scale should be an edit of a single number in an .ini file or console command, at least it is in other games, but I do not know unreal engine.

Keep in mind what increasing frames per second beyond 60 does in Bethesda games (Skyrim, at the very least): It completely wrecks the physics engine. Changing the timescale in STALKER 2 might do something similar to A-Life. There can always be baffling consequences like this, depending on how the fundamental structure of the game is coded.

[Bandy]

Originally posted by BlueSpark:

Originally posted by Bandy:

What??? Setting\adjusting time scale should be an edit of a single number in an .ini file or console command, at least it is in other games, but I do not know unreal engine.

Keep in mind what increasing frames per second beyond 60 does in Bethesda games (Skyrim, at the very least): It completely wrecks the physics engine. Changing the timescale in STALKER 2 might do something similar to A-Life. There can always be baffling consequences like this, depending on how the fundamental structure of the game is coded.

Uh, no.

We are not talking about making a change to timescale that would affect the physics engine, your analogy to skyrim and 60 fps is not the same thing at all. See for yourself, there are plenty of pages on topic: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Time

Time scale simply is a ratio of real time to in game time. In skyrim game time passes faster than real time by a factor of 20 (i.e., 1 minute real time = 20 minutes game time), it has nothing to do with frame rate or physics engine.

[Serpiko82]

Originally posted by Bandy:

Originally posted by BlueSpark:

Keep in mind what increasing frames per second beyond 60 does in Bethesda games (Skyrim, at the very least): It completely wrecks the physics engine. Changing the timescale in STALKER 2 might do something similar to A-Life. There can always be baffling consequences like this, depending on how the fundamental structure of the game is coded.

Uh, no.

We are not talking about making a change to timescale that would affect the physics engine, your analogy to skyrim and 60 fps is not the same thing at all. See for yourself, there are plenty of pages on topic: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Time

Time scale simply is a ratio of real time to in game time. In skyrim game time passes faster than real time by a factor of 20 (i.e., 1 minute real time = 20 minutes game time), it has nothing to do with frame rate or physics engine.

Even if i's not the same as scaling FPS, if (as it would seem plausible) AI routines and A-life will have a schedule built around the timescale, altering the speed of time may still have adverse effects. In example, time passing too fast may prevent a group of AI to complete a designated route in time, or an area getting overcrowded with instances of X item/entity because it keeps spawning faster than it's gets collected/killed.
On the contrary, time passing too slowly may cause a shortage of X due to it spawning too rarely.

[[GSC]Super_PropheT]

Originally posted by Serpiko82:

Originally posted by Bandy:

Uh, no.

We are not talking about making a change to timescale that would affect the physics engine, your analogy to skyrim and 60 fps is not the same thing at all. See for yourself, there are plenty of pages on topic: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Time

Time scale simply is a ratio of real time to in game time. In skyrim game time passes faster than real time by a factor of 20 (i.e., 1 minute real time = 20 minutes game time), it has nothing to do with frame rate or physics engine.

Even if i's not the same as scaling FPS, if (as it would seem plausible) AI routines and A-life will have a schedule built around the timescale, altering the speed of time may still have adverse effects. In example, time passing too fast may prevent a group of AI to complete a designated route in time, or an area getting overcrowded with instances of X item/entity because it keeps spawning faster than it's gets collected/killed.
On the contrary, time passing too slowly may cause a shortage of X due to it spawning too rarely.

Well, without going into technical details and without sharing any NDA info or confirming something, I can say that Monolith appreciates some of your thoughts in some way.

[[GSC]Super_PropheT]

Originally posted by GSCSuper_PropheT:

Originally posted by Serpiko82:

Even if i's not the same as scaling FPS, if (as it would seem plausible) AI routines and A-life will have a schedule built around the timescale, altering the speed of time may still have adverse effects. In example, time passing too fast may prevent a group of AI to complete a designated route in time, or an area getting overcrowded with instances of X item/entity because it keeps spawning faster than it's gets collected/killed.
On the contrary, time passing too slowly may cause a shortage of X due to it spawning too rarely.

Well, without going into technical details and without sharing any NDA info or confirming something, I can say that Monolith appreciates some of your thoughts in some way.

If I'm not mistaken, those who will play demo on Gamescom 2024 or Pax West will have a chance to take a look at a time change. But I'm not sure, need to double-check.

[PhamTrinli]

Originally posted by Serpiko82:

As shown at 13:30 in this breakdown, during the quest part of the Deep Dive trailer the time in game appeared to pass much faster than we were used to:

https://youtu.be/IgAeFmwZTmQ?si=FhuOvgLKAuE-TiEk

A full 24h cycle in 1h of real time, instead of ~2,5 hours as in the old games.

We don't know if that's a placeholder setting or an intended feature (maybe to increase the feeling of vastness of the Zone, by making every journey seem to take longer?), but either way, IMO this way it's going to be too fast to be enjoyable.

First, with 1h long days we're going to have no more than 30 mins of continuous daylight. This is already a serious restriction, because going out for a sortie any later than at dawn will mean, most of the times, eventually finding ourselves out in the dark before being able to come back. Not nice, especially early in the game without proper night vision devices and with basic gear.

Second, shorter days mean that Skif will need to take care of his basic needs more often. Eating shouldn't probably be a problem, since food isn't usually hard to find. But sleeping? Will we be supposed to, say, reach the location of an X-lab, find the entrance, clear the lab from threats, search for a particular item/document and come back to a safehouse in 60 minutes or a little more, lest Skif's sight starts being blurry until he falls asleep on the spot? That sounds not enough time for a proper exploration to me.

Third, but not negligible, shorter days also mean that we'll have a much smaller time frame to do time-limited missions.

Ya this doesn't seem ideal

I think a good timing for in-game days would be 1 real-world-hour of daylight and 30 real-world-minutes of night. That ratio is very close to real life, at least during the summer.

[BlueSpark]

Originally posted by Bandy:

Uh, no.

We are not talking about making a change to timescale that would affect the physics engine, your analogy to skyrim and 60 fps is not the same thing at all.

If you read my post carefully, you'll notice that's not what I'm saying. I referenced Skyrim FPS <-> physics as an example and drew a possible analogy to STALKER 2 timescale <-> A-Life bevahior. See Serpiko's post below yours for detail, they explained it more thoroughly.

[Serpiko82]

Originally posted by GSCSuper_PropheT:

Originally posted by Serpiko82:

Even if i's not the same as scaling FPS, if (as it would seem plausible) AI routines and A-life will have a schedule built around the timescale, altering the speed of time may still have adverse effects. In example, time passing too fast may prevent a group of AI to complete a designated route in time, or an area getting overcrowded with instances of X item/entity because it keeps spawning faster than it's gets collected/killed.
On the contrary, time passing too slowly may cause a shortage of X due to it spawning too rarely.

Well, without going into technical details and without sharing any NDA info or confirming something, I can say that Monolith appreciates some of your thoughts in some way.

I'm glad to see that my homemade psy-emitter works well enough to let me catch at least some blurred glimpses of the C-Consciousness thoughts. XD

Seriously though, I don't know if the timescale is final, but I really hope either it will be like in old games, or there will be a choice between at least 2 presets (faster and slower).