Server Time: Which game time to real time ratio do you prefer

[gedweyignasia]

based on this poll, which was based on this poll (edit: er, this poll, sorry wrong link before)

How many minutes per ingame hour do you prefer?

For clarity:
- The current rate is 15 minutes per ingame hour (4:1)
- This would change how long it takes the sun to rise/set in game
- This would not change our ingame lore rate of 1 day = 1 realtime day (1:1)
- DMs have the ability to change the ingame time when they need to for events

Balance Note:
By default, this would impact the duration of spells/abilities, but does not have to. It's possible, with some work, to add a scaling constant to spell durations so that 1 hour for spell/ability durations still equals 15 minutes, even if we have 60 minute ingame hours or 5 minute ingame hours.

Cheat Sheet:
Ratio gives the fraction of ingame hours to real-time hours. (i.e. a ratio of 5:2 means 5 ingame hours elapse for every 2 real-time hours.)

Min/Hr	Ratio	Ingame Day Length	Notes
5	12:1	2 hours	NWN2 default
10	6:1	4 hours
15	4:1	6 hours	BGTSCC current
20	3:1	8 hours
24	5:2	9.6 hours	ingame time-of-day varies for same IRL login time
30	2:1	12 hours
60	1:1	24 hours
90	2:3	36 hours	ingame time-of-day varies for same IRL login time

Most time ratios are consistent: if you log in at the same time each day, you will see the same ingame time. That's because 24 (hours per day) divided by the time ratio will give you a whole number of ingame days per IRL day. The server clock is set to persist day/night cycle across resets and can do this computation for any ratio, so you don't have to worry about reset mechanics when considering day/night cycles.

A ratio of 5:2 means that every day the server's day/night cycle will have shifted forwards by 12 hours relative to what you last saw. So if you log on every week at Monday at 7pm, you will log in during the daytime on one week and the nighttime on the next. Every week it will alternate. It also means that roughly 1 ingame day/night cycle elapses per server reset.

A ratio of 2:3 means that every day the server's day/night cycle will have shifted backwards by 8 hours relative to what you last saw. So if you log on every week at Monday at 7pm, you will log in at noon on one week, at 4am (near sunrise) at the next, and at 8pm (near dusk) the next week. On the 4th week, you'll be back to noon.

This choice of Monday at 7pm is arbitrary; I don't know your time zone, I'm just giving a for-instance of the relative shifts. I wanted this information to be available for players who might only have a little bit of time to play, or might otherwise always log in at the same hours each week, so nobody accidentally votes for a time ratio that would put them in perpetual night time or perpetual daytime.

This is only an opinion poll, and no changes have been discussed; it's just been a long time since the last poll and we have basically an entirely different playerbase, so I thought I'd refresh our data on how people feel. I am not advocating for any changes, and personally I'm very happy with our 4:1 ratio.

[DiceyCZ]

Admittedly I feel like it doesn't matter what the IG time conversion is, because you can't really use it. When someone IC says "last night" you never know if it was meant "yesterday" or if it meant today but last light cycle. On top of that, reset rols time like 12h forward? So it creates even bigger nonsense discrepacy.

While I get that why we have the 1:1 lore-wise that doesn't reflect ingame, maybe the only way to care about this would be to create a homebrew lore, where we say a "day" consist of 4 sun cycles. So you could say "second cycle today" or "second cycle yesterday".

Right now day/night IG is just graphical thing, you can acknowledge it but it makes no sense and it feels like meta gaming.

[gedweyignasia]

On top of that, reset rols time like 12h forward? So it creates even bigger nonsense discrepacy.

The reset should not roll time forward 12 hours; each reset should have the same ingame time before and after. The ingame day should reset to the current date each day (since it may advance up to 2 days in the previous reset), but the ingame time should be consistent across resets.

If the date or time are not properly setting themselves ingame, please verify this and let me know so we can fix it. I wrote the code that fixes that, so I know it should be working. Dae refactored some code over the summer and forgot to re-add that, but Dalo should have fixed it a few weeks ago by reinserting my original code.

[DiceyCZ]

On top of that, reset rols time like 12h forward? So it creates even bigger nonsense discrepacy.

The reset should not roll time forward 12 hours; each reset should have the same ingame time before and after. The ingame day should reset to the current date each day (since it may advance up to 2 days in the previous reset), but the ingame time should be consistent across resets.

If the date or time are not properly setting themselves ingame, please verify this and let me know so we can fix it. I wrote the code that fixes that, so I know it should be working. Dae refactored some code over the summer and forgot to re-add that, but Dalo should have fixed it a few weeks ago by reinserting my original code.

Ah ok, if that is fixed then good, sorry I have been on rather sporadically last... 2 months or so, so I might have just not noticed, but I will check it!

[gedweyignasia]

Ah ok, if that is fixed then good, sorry I have been on rather sporadically last... 2 months or so, so I might have just not noticed, but I will check it!

No worries! If it's not fixed, please let me know, because I absolutely hate that extra immersion-breaking nuisance of day/night skips.

[Hullack]

Mechanically 1:1 seems great except that I as a person behind a computer only really am able to play evenings EST. So in effect my character would only ever be out at a specific time of day IG making him some kind of weird RP vampire that never sees the sun/moon.

I suppose I'd like day/night to pass a little slower than current; but not by much.

[blazerules]

1:1 seems great since a spell that says it lasts 1 hour lasts 1 hour not whatever it does now. At least if that's how it works.

Otherwise doesnt matter to me. So long as I get both day and night its just background.

[DaloLorn]

Mechanically 1:1 seems great except that I as a person behind a computer only really am able to play evenings EST. So in effect my character would only ever be out at a specific time of day IG making him some kind of weird RP vampire that never sees the sun/moon.

I suppose I'd like day/night to pass a little slower than current; but not by much.

This is my main concern too. We can introduce mechanical scaling to move hour/CL spells to actual hours independently of any change to the ingame clock.

[EasternCheesE]

While i would love to have 1:1 time frame (and, prolly 30 min/cl for spell duration), my concern matches previous concerns.
I am in eastern Europe which means i will always be a morning bird and this deffo sucks.

Though, to be meaningful, time should be 1:1 so we can refer "last night" etc.

It's a hard call.

To me, 2:1 or 3:2 are the best we can get to while having people "shifting" time. And, honestly, 3:2 feels weird, so i vouch for 2:1.

[Kitunenotsume]

I support time-drift, and a longer day/night cycle.

While I understand the interest of having hour/level spells actually last for RL hours, I am personally hesitant regarding such changes without a similar increase to the duration between general resting (currently capped at about 20 minutes). If resting were less frequent, increasing the duration of an 'hour' for spell buffs seems much more reasonable.
However, increasing the duration between rest-periods I suspect would have an adverse effect on lower levels and decrease the value of direct-effect spells compared to long-term buffs; while further incentivizing the use of consumables.

[selhan]

I support time-drift, and a longer day/night cycle.

While I understand the interest of having hour/level spells actually last for RL hours, I am personally hesitant regarding such changes without a similar increase to the duration between general resting (currently capped at about 20 minutes). If resting were less frequent, increasing the duration of an 'hour' for spell buffs seems much more reasonable.
However, increasing the duration between rest-periods I suspect would have an adverse effect on lower levels and decrease the value of direct-effect spells compared to long-term buffs; while further incentivizing the use of consumables.

You stay away from this thread we aint want to spend RL days just to ride a caravan someplace! Get back to cookin or sumthin your slackin!

[gedweyignasia]

While i would love to have 1:1 time frame (and, prolly 30 min/cl for spell duration), my concern matches previous concerns.
I am in eastern Europe which means i will always be a morning bird and this deffo sucks.

Though, to be meaningful, time should be 1:1 so we can refer "last night" etc.

It's a hard call.

To me, 2:1 or 3:2 are the best we can get to while having people "shifting" time. And, honestly, 3:2 feels weird, so i vouch for 2:1.

I'm assuming by 2:1 you mean 1:2, since 2:1 doesn't have shifting time. It'd be the same time ingame if you log in at the same time IRL; you'd just have a full ingame day from noon-to-midnight IRL instead of from midnight-to-midnight IRL.

If you want to stay as close to real-time as possible while switching day/night every day, you would want 40 minute ingame hours, a 3:2 ratio. (This wasn't listed in the options, so I'm guessing you meant 2:3? Which could feel weird because it's slower than realtime, but we also type slower than we speak, so it might not be so weird in practice for how quickly things play out ingame.)

You can get closer if you're okay with a longer rotation. For instance, a 15:14 ratio (while mathematically very ugly) would mean that you slowly advance ~1.7 hours per day, until after one week you're 12 hours ahead, and then after two weeks you're back to the same alignment.

[gedweyignasia]

While I understand the interest of having hour/level spells actually last for RL hours, I am personally hesitant regarding such changes without a similar increase to the duration between general resting (currently capped at about 20 minutes). If resting were less frequent, increasing the duration of an 'hour' for spell buffs seems much more reasonable.
However, increasing the duration between rest-periods I suspect would have an adverse effect on lower levels and decrease the value of direct-effect spells compared to long-term buffs; while further incentivizing the use of consumables.

Last time we changed time from 12:1 to 4:1, it was based on a QC discussion where they talked through the balance implications. I would expect something similar if the community wanted to change things again. (Last time I believe they decided it was fine to buff casters with longer duration for 1 hr/lv spells because the dispel fix coincided with it, but iirc some spells were ultimately changed from 1 hr/lv to 1 turn/lv some time later.)

[DaloLorn]

I would currently favor 15-20 minutes, absolutely not 60+. While I am in favor of mechanically extending the durations of hour/CL spells, some RP (and some mechanics like light sensitivity) is only viable by day, and other RP is only viable at night. Options that result in certain days having a restriction of "only midday RP" or "only midnight RP" thus strike me as deeply unsatisfactory, and doubly so if they result in all days being like that unless you screw with your sleep cycle IRL.

[EasternCheesE]

While I understand the interest of having hour/level spells actually last for RL hours, I am personally hesitant regarding such changes without a similar increase to the duration between general resting (currently capped at about 20 minutes). If resting were less frequent, increasing the duration of an 'hour' for spell buffs seems much more reasonable.
However, increasing the duration between rest-periods I suspect would have an adverse effect on lower levels and decrease the value of direct-effect spells compared to long-term buffs; while further incentivizing the use of consumables.

Last time we changed time from 12:1 to 4:1, it was based on a QC discussion where they talked through the balance implications. I would expect something similar if the community wanted to change things again. (Last time I believe they decided it was fine to buff casters with longer duration for 1 hr/lv spells because the dispel fix coincided with it, but iirc some spells were ultimately changed from 1 hr/lv to 1 turn/lv some time later.)

Oh, by 2:1 i mean 2 ig days vs 1 rl day. 3:2 also means 3 ig days vs 2 rl days.
Honestly, 4:1 and 2:1 are quite same in fractions.

Also, on a sidenote, i myself measure time basing on RL day so when i RP with people, i say "evening" and mean rl evening, not IG one.
So, for me there won't be much change as my playtime is pretty much same and given we tie IG days to RL days mechanically, i always get same IG "playtime" anyways. On my general view, i perceive IG time as "1 FR day has 4 sun/moon cycles cause days are counted not with them" and base on that.
Now i'm a bit lost with it because, to my knowledge, not much people really care about sun/moon position and people normally just tie to 1:1 calendar dependency and speak time related to it.

There is also an option of untying IG time and RL time, but it can have bad consequences on RP and also make devs-builders strained as we'd have to prepare for all newcoming lore events asap