Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides BG3 Party Movement Mechanic

I start a new game Yesterday After a few weeks and yes... These controls definitely sucks.

They did a great job about cantrips and I really really hope they'll also listen to all of us about this.

Something more usual would greatly improve their games for the future : this chain mechanic has no advantages from a player point of view, only disadvantages.

The chain mechanic works well on consoles in the DOS games, especially when playing co-op. But yeah hopefully they give us more options.

I also wish this game was made on Infinity Engine

I have to be perfectly honest, for most of the 2000 hours I played D:OS 2 I played a lone wolf build, this game is fully capable of being beat as a solo runner which some people like myself like as it's very challenging and less time consuming. My best guess is that Larian are trying to keep everyone happy who are Larian fans since D:OS 2 as lets be fair it's their biggest seller to date due to the lone wolf system at $90M+ revenue to date, It's their version of party management that got them there from a crowd funded start up, and it is their stamp on a game long abandoned by Bioware. Bioware themselves are making terrible games these days as the good devs retired rich. To defend that statement has anyone actually played SW Squadrons and not shouted uncontrollably at the screen as controls are that bad, or rage quit the old republic as they nerfed everything except Knight, or even cursed the controls in fallen order as it was a fallen order alright, which involved you being the fallen as the controls typically registered in the wrong order?. Let Larian be Larian as Bioware are terribad these days churning out short term tested kiddy fodder is the message there.

Try to remember Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax invented DND for SINGULAR characters to move through Fearun in 1974 USING companions for their...Well, use. DND is a tabletop you could actually play by yourself, or with friends as a choice not dictation. Before nostalgia tripping also remember Shadows of Amn came out in 2000 when party split was not a possiblity due to technological restriction and Bioware as mentioned above were ruined by EA almost as much as Blizzard by Activision.

I will admit solo rogue is proving Impossible for me at the moment as it's a bit flimsy due to being forced not to invest in enough constitution and can be one shot by so many creatures it's frustrating, that's truly my only gripe other than my last post.

(edit) Also to keep solo runners happy they will need to up the timer on a certain trapped lady in a cage without creating a spoiler.

Other classic systems works well on other games on console too
The chain is just a "follow"... Select 2 characters and the result is the same except that one is a mess while the other one is accurate, which is important in a strategy game.

Pathfinder Kingmaker, Pillars of Eternity, Solasta, Dragon Age, Temple of Elemental Evil, Wasteland 2 and 3, Tyranny,...
We could also talk about most RTS games like Total War, Age of Empire, Company of Heroes and so on...

All those strategy games have the same control system and that's because it's way better than Larian's chain...

They have to admit that.their way of doing things is not the best (is not good) and they have to work on that if they want to reach the sky.

The chain has absolutely 0 pro if you compare with the other system, only cons.

+1 for total rethink.

This patch improved things but we don't need to prune around the edges -- kill this movement system at the root and plant something new. Even patch 3 is much worse than PoE. Getting to the ancient mud mephit encounter is still difficult and getting there in stealth mode actually got more difficult.

If you think it has no pros, you’ve never played it with a controller – and probably never played co-op either judging by that list of games you’re comparing this to.

There is literally no design goal achieved by this system, even on the "controller" side of the argument, that couldn't be replaced for the better by simple "everyone follow/stop following" toggle, like Dragon Age did in 2009.

And to be clear I still think Dragon Age Origins had a subpar control scheme compared to other of the titles mentioned across this thread as good examples (Kingmaker, Poe 2, etc).
Which makes kind of telling that it's STILL lightyears ahead of the chain/unchain system.

Please, feel free to enlighten me about it because no, I don't see any PRO whatever we're talking about PC/console or solo/multiplayer.

Did you ever played one of the games I named on console ?
I did... And in exemple in Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition on Nintendo Switch you can control your companions with 2 solutions :

- The classic mechanic : your right stick point a location, you click A, your party move in formation. You can easily select the character(s) to move.
- But you can also use your right stick to directly control the main character (stick to the left, character moving to the left). Every selected companions just follow.

If you want to select more or less companions, just press L then select the characters on a wheel.
In a way... that's a little bit the same except that you don't always have to chain/unchain. Even on console, this "old" system has been adapted and is still cleaner, easier and faster.

I also bought and played DoS2 on Nintendo Switch but to be honnest only a few hours because controls are a mess even more.
About MP no, I never tried but I can't see the point. You can individually select who follow you or not...

Seriously, give me your PRO because I can't see a single one if compare both mechanics (I just launched the two games on my switch to be sure I remembered well...)

I'm not for the purpose of arguing, just to make sure that I understand the problem right:
The main problem with controls for you (Maximuuus, Tuco, others maybe) is that there are too many moves needed to switch between controlling one character or the whole group / part of the group?
Also, did you notice that you can group/ungroup characters by right click on their portrait?

I'm honestly on board with the controls being bad, I've had it multiple times now where follow seems to break, the long story short is if I want to set up positions for any kind of strategy I'm doing way more clicks than I should be doing leading to an exercise in frustration, also the following of characters combined with automatic dialogue triggering upon proximity often leads to my companions being treated as the main character for dialogue cause my player character was out of position at the end of combat. It's honestly annoying having to chain and unchain people every time I setup my characters cause I'm effectively tripling my clicks if I consider I have to unchain, click, tab to other char, unchain click, etc etc. a good UI is supposed to reduce the amount of clicks/interactions needed to do anything, the UI is also laggy in that regard often leading to me having to double click because the game's not giving me proper feedback to inputs.

Yeah, it has been explained over and over across the entire thread at this point, so it's a bit weird to come in with that request of clarification, but to be clear, the discussion here is not about what kind of maneuver the Larian UI allows you to do, but ab out how convoluted it makes it.


Things that with an "RTS-like" control scheme would literally take a couple of clicks here takes an inane amount of unnecessary intermediate steps.

Lets' take a scenario as an example:

PLAYER 1 is at the gates of a hostile camp and decides he wants to set up an ambush. As a starting maneuver he decides to put his party in stealth, move each one of his party members in a specific corner of the area, then he opens the dances, wipes the enemies (let's sya the brigands) from the face of the planet and goes back to move his entire party as one.

In a traditional system:
He will select the whole party, click/press the "stealth" command, then with literally just two clicks for each, he will select and move every character exactly where he wants it.
When the fight will be done, a quick click and drag on the whole party or a press the "select all" shortcut and and he will go on his way.

With the Larian system:
Click stealth. Oh right, only the selected character goes in stealth, so repeat the process for each one of the four men (imagine if it was a party of six, sigh). Time to tell each one where to...
Wait a second, why is everyone moving every time the selected character does? Oh right, time to UNCHAIN each one of them, either by dragging the portrait or right clicking on it and selecting the equivalent function.
Now he can tell each one where to go, have the exact same fight and be on his wa- Wait a second, why is everyone standing aroud like an idiot?
Oh right, before that he needs to re-select each one of them individually, relink them to the party (which by the way works only if they are already in the proximity, so maybe he needs to move everyone more closely before) and then finally be able to go on his way again.

And please, don't make the similar word count fool you, what we have on the latter is not "from 30% to 50% longer", the description of these actions may be somewhat comparable in length but this second process takes almost four times the amount of work of the first one in practical terms.
Can you see why this system is garbage no matter from what angle you may look at it?

EDIT- Edited the post a bit because I was constantly going from second to third person and that made it particularly messy to read.

I notice sometimes I click somewhere, and the member goes else where, or will not stop moving immediately.
IF there could be a immediate stop movement button.

And I think I read somewhere that Larian has a invisible roof over the world.
I wonder if that is getting in the way when clicking locations?

There are at least minimum one more click to do whatever you right click or drag the chain to break it (usually two click when you try to break the chain because it's buggy...).

It's a problem, especially because it's often 1 or 2 per character (see tuco's exemple with a full party).

As I said I just tried both BGEE and DoS2 on switch and if you compare : one is fluent, clean and easy. You click and move.
The other is a mess hard to understand, slow and often buggy. You spend way more time to link your ranged together, then your melee, then...

Larian's chain is something you have to manage and we shouldn't have to manage the characters control mechanics.

But that's not the only problems.
The companions run like chickens everytime.

You climb a ladder and select another character that is still climbing -> the first one go down...
Your party is standing but you select another character -> the 3 other are moving
You spot ennemies and walk back not to engage -> Your companions are going a little bit closer and the battle start.
That's only a few usual exemples.

(Way) more click + useless and (often) unexpected movements = slow and inaccurate control of your characters... Which is a shame is a """strategy game""" (that's what steam say about the game)

Thx for your answers.
And yes, Tuco, I see the problem. To explain me being weird: most of the thread was like "it's garbage", "that game did it better". And I played those games long ago or never. So I wanted to see the exact phrasing of the problem without spending a lot of time searching through 17pages in case someone already did phrase it.
I'm composing my suggestions on UI and controls. And I'm trying to keep my suggestions aligned with popular feedback. That's it.

Well-illustrated. This makes it very clear.

Woeful pathfinding and ‘running around like chickens’ aside, it doesn’t actually sound like we need to throw out the chain system entirely (as that does work well on consoles where multi-selecting would be clunky). What would help is:
1) A command to chain/unchain all with no range limit
2) Stealth to apply to all currently chained party members (I can’t think of a situation where you wouldn’t want to stealth any of the PCs following you if you’re going into stealth yourself)

I actually don’t think formations are too important for a turn-based game like this. In fact, having all my party frog-marching around doesn’t feel very D&D to me. I’d rather it went more the other way, like Dragon’s Dogma’s pawns, where they have a bit more independence and your druid might automatically harvest plants for you while you’re walking around, perhaps your barbarian likes smashing crates and saving you having to check all the containers yourself (all within reason of course, and hopefully with better AI and inventory management). To me that cuts down on the repetition and feels far more immersive. Gives you more opportunities to have companions say things too, making the game feel more alive.

There are only 2 formations I can see if the party only has 4 pcs: the Square and the Line.

The only thing that really matters there is whether you want the PC leading from the front, or taking up the rear.

The square just becomes a wedge with fewer than 4 in the party, basically whether you want leader up for scouting or running interference, or behind for guarded ranged or casting etc, its similar just with one exposed flank in the front or the rear.

Square/Diamond should be the all purpose formation for free roaming outdoors or above ground.

The Line is better for dungeon crawling, or hazardous terrain, sneaking or avoiding traps and the like.

Obviously its more interesting with more PCs like say 6. It still doesn't feel gold box caliber to me without 6 PCs, or a clean dozen with summons. Then you can get cooler formations with rings or wings maybe, but the environments are too small or else cam doesn't let us zoom out far enough to really make much use of the formations idea.

A follow mechanic is good, but the chain just feels clunky. Dragging portraits out and back into each other is obnoxious and click intensive. Especially since you don't really interact with the portraits for anything else, like say casting spells. Its also not the easiest to tell the leader position, I think vertical portrait orientation is better. Leader at the top. In any case its just not simple enough to group/ungroup select all. I don't see myself doing much co op but if it was well designed I might use a controller to play this game. Its too bad they don't have much controller support for the EA except stadia I guess? Cause this seems like it would be a good time to get that dialed too, if they're hoping to go that way. Anyone tried a pad mapper for xbox controller or anything like that? I don't feel like I'm getting all that much from the mouse and keyboard. I'd probably just go for DA or Kotor style and bumble about with the thumbstick.

maybe if they add keybinds for unchaining + being able to box select or select multiple portraits so the amount of clicks get reduced from triple to 1 box select - > key bind to toggle chain/unchain -> position x4 clicks -> engage combat with good positioning

box selection or ctrl+A or other keybind to select all characters again post combat to gather up and hit keybind toggle for chain/unchain party again would alleviate a LOT of my problems here, I dunno how feasible it is to implement for them technically but I'm very much noticing I'm missing some controls or I feel that some of the keybinds or party management is needlessly clunky.

"Maybe this, maybe that. We could do X rather than Y" and so on.

Do we even realize that every suggested compromise so far boils down to making a terrible system somewhat less obscene to use, without any genuine hope to make it actually good?
Every time a partial modification that keeps the chain system around is suggested, it boils down to being a a proverbial case of trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Yeah, a quick keybind ot chain/unchain everyone on a button press WOULD make things better, and it was suggested since the beginning of this very thread even by myself. But when you think about it, its only function would be insisting to salvage a garbage control scheme.
It would be far better to approach this from the exact opposite position: what about giving us a decent control scheme that makes sense, to begin with, and THEN include an "everyone autofollow!" function as a toggle for people with dysfunctional hands who really, REALLY want to control only their MC.