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

I think I would prefer the more conventional hold and drag method with the mouse to select characters like in the or baldurs gate. Also it would be verrrryyy helpful if you could buff/heal party members by clicking on there character tab

erase the characteristics of the enemy ...
it would be like asking ... what level are you?

RTS style, that completely changes the style of the game. What part of an RTS style would fit inside this games mechanics for the better part of movement?

Literally EVERYTHING outside of the turn-based combat phase.

Exactly like plenty of other games in the same genre already did, by the way.
Not sure why you are even talking as if we were trying to figure out some weird mythological beast out of our imagination.


...Are you even actually following what we are talking about here? You seem to be be struggling to figure it out, somehow.

So for example what other game? I'm trying to see what you see.

Hopefully I can catch you before you reply, but we've almost said the same things in this thread. That being the most needed and wanted commands are a "group all (action)" list. Group all break, group all gather, group all stop current movement, group all enter/exit sneak. The only difference you are asking is the click and drag to select member. Which is somewhat of a good call, but I'd prioritize the group commands above that. It would make the group controlling so much more smoother, which I believe we agree on. So apart from the click and drag to select, is that the only RTS style commanding you think would help the game?

Temple of Elemental Evil, Pathfinder Kingmaker with the turn-based mode, Pillars of Eternity 2 always with the turn-based mode... And that's only if we want to keep the distinction between party controls during exploration and turn-based combat.
If we ignore this, it literally applies to ANY of the old Infinity Engine titles (Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 included) and the interminable legion of clones they received across the years.

Once again I can't help but wonder if you are keeping track of what's actually being discussed here.


The difference is that you keep suggesting to add a bunch of "do this for all" specific commands, where I'm asking "Just let me select whoever I want out of my party and give commands to that selection specifically, as this genre always did for more than 20 years".
There's a reason if "RTS-like" commands were introduced into the genre, it's not by chance: it's the genre that perfected making the control of multiple units at once as quick and intuitive as possible.

But you can already just select one character out of the party and position him here and there as you wish. So sorry if I'm confused but you are already saying you want things, that are already possible in game. Idk if my game is just bugged correctly, but when I put one character into sneak mode, only he ever moves and the rest of the party stands by for orders. So one by one, outside of where I'm planning my ambush, I select a character, enter sneak mode, move to position, and then select next character. One two three four, enter battle.

What in that process are you wanting to make more RTS like? When you say RTS I'm thinking like Total war and Starcraft, so maybe we're on different pages.

That's precisely the problem. You can ONLY select ONE character at any given time.
You can't give group commands to a subselection of your party, which is what an "RTS-like" system would allow.

And YES, you can painstalkingly give detailed commands to each one of your men separately... With an awkward, convoluted and slow-as-hell UI that makes the process severely more time consuming than it could be.

Seriously, are you trolling me? Wasting my time on purpose? Deliberately pretending to not understand what the entire thread is about?

Calm down bro, I'm not trolling you. You really are so impatient and bothered about moving your 4 units into key positions on the field. Each character is not a (trooper name lvl x) that you move en mass. Plenty of times i tired to position my mage in a spot with my ranger on a high ground, just to find out his low strength score couldn't make the damn jump. It made for a great role play because now I had to re adjust my plan and keep him on the floor level with my fighter.

I have to admit that I've not played the other rpgs you mentioned, my list of turn based games like this are DOS2 and Xcom. With DOS2 being Larian's, its methods to me, weren't broken. But as I've been pointing out, just need refinement.

You literally just sound impatient, my dude.

Yeah, it's official: you are wasting my time.

"How is that UI you are suggesting better"
"Here's a list of examples on how the alternative would work better".
"Well, I don't mind the current UI being worse anyway. You just sound impatient".


Way to miss the point. If this isn't trolling then I don't know what it is.

UI should be something you don't notice. If you notice it, there is a problem. There are a lot of elements to the UI in BG 3 which are like this, my biggest desire right now for this game is to have its UI overhauled, from the control scheme, to the hotbar, to the sorting options for the inventory.

Tuco i haven't had any opinions yet on the UI, I've only started with my opinion on how they should refine their group actions and controls. For their UI tho, it is very lack luster. It needs some further refinement.

Coming from DOS2 they had a pretty standard and useful character menu and inventory. I'm sure they are going to polish it up more. And this is feedback to say, keep what was good and make it better.

The worst of the menus so far was the quest logs, its generally just missing a lot of meat and filler space to look more presentable and like a log for a fantasy game. Log entries in general could use much more information. Its looks bad that its a log information for the PC but its just like a sentence or two long.

It's not just him alone. While we can't make up here numbers, I'm sure everyone will grow "impatient" sooner or later, IF they play this game a long time.

I had no problems at all first few hours, and found the elasticity simulation shown when splitting one character apart from the rest of the party really funny. I even took the time and played the joining and splitting minigame a few times, and was like a new toy. Could be a standalone game in itself maybe, I don't know. So no hating there.

But then after I had enough of the new toy, and started playing the real game - the Baldur's Gate 3 thing, the UI started to become the #1 enemy quickly. It was about fighting the interface, because have to try multiple times until allows me to split anyone from the party. Then to sort them in the proper order (my character 1st, and 2-3-4 sorted from tankier to squishier), and it's the same thing: elasticity, rubber UI chain mechanics, which every time needs multiple tries until finally allows me to succeed.

Quickly became clear that in this game, I will have to do this "minigame" very frequently. Since I take 1 and go ahead to scout, then move each character 1 by 1 into their best position, before starting any fight. Then I go through a door or have to teleport, or return to camp or many other cases when have to group them again. Then repeat.

The longer I played the game, the more annoying the UI became: because can't do it quick, the enemy moves and there's no pause to waste timer with UI minigames. I played almost 100 hours, or a bit over idk now, and already had enough: this UI system will drive me clinically insane. Luckily I can quit, not addicted or anything.

It's certainly not an efficient system.
It's actually the worse party UI I ever saw in any game. Fun in itself as a minigame, but a pain as a party management tool.

But I don't think we should worry about BG3 more than Larian does. If the UI is fine for them, I don't mind it. Can't help more.

By no means am I saying the current party management system is good. Its a bully to handle as is and yes I agree needs some serious refinement, one of the things being the rubber band effect your companions do when they follow you around. But going off what they had in DOS2 which I felt was good. Was when you entered a immediate battle, you could pre define your fighting formation and your companions would go to their spots. I hope they make that return here.

When engaged in conversation thats going to lead to a battle, you're other companions have complete free reign to move about and position themselves in prep. Makes since as if you were planning to battle a group that wanted to prattle along with conversation. You other teams mates could still move about and ready for a fight.

The linking and grouping mechanic is a absolute pain to mess with currently. The portrait panel positioning is so finicky and yes I agree is not their best item. I doubt its what its gonna be in the end product, as DOS2 had their pretty ok. They just need to expand on it ie. The all break/chain idea i said before.

When you go to break your companions apart in groups. Are you pulling the panel portrait of your character up from the group? I never have to many problems breaking the groups, its sticking then back together that sometimes gets annoying.

I don't follow you on the whole sort them out in proper order from tanks to squishy comment you said. Could you explain that, as your companions get positioned in a fight by you, so idk what you mean by that for order sorting.

Are we advocating to not even want BG3 to not be a turn based game anymore? My comparisons to BG3's UI mostly stem from DOS2. I'm thinking if maybe we're all just not seeing what we want on the same page.

Strongly agree with OP.

About half way through my first play through of existing content, I began separating (unlinking) my stealthiest or most charismatic character and had them do most of the exploration solo, simply because I did not like how the game automatically decided where the other party characters would move/arrange themselves.

In my opinion, Pathfinder: Kingmaker has the best character placement/control system I've played. It is easy to customize where characters should form, and the AI was apt enough to make adjustments to the form when a spacial limitation exists. Furthermore, the PF:KM system was much more lenient in character spacial geography - the buffer between characters/objects is much more fluid, allowing for better movement in confined spaces. Currently in BGIII I find myself using the jump/disengage bonus action far too often for simple movements between avatars that seem obviously accessible (unsure why disengage is a bonus action for all classes to begin with, but that's a separate issue).

No, we are not talking about turn based vs. real time with pause modes here, there's a different, huge topic for that.

What I mean by "sort them in the proper order (my character 1st, and 2-3-4 sorted from tankier to squishier)" is that in BG3 your character isn't automatically set all the time as the 1st character in the party UI and every time you separate them, and then group up or they are grouped up by the game, for example when you leave the camp: they end up in a random party order decided by the game and not in the same position I already arranged them before. This is about their order they are shown in the party UI. Same happens in the (parallel) inventory screen, which shows them in random order as well sometimes and there can't even drag to fix it.

This is important because in order to select them, both in party mode and separated, the easiest way is by clicking the F1 key for the first character, F2, F3 and F4 for the others. Selecting with the mouse may take a few tries since the game struggles to recognize correctly what was clicked, same when targeting something. So using the keyboard F1 to F4 shortcuts is the only reliable way to select.
The problem is that F1 always selects the first character in the UI, and I expect that to be always the same character, so I can act quickly.

Many times the enemy is moving around, so I have to issue orders fast, to put them in good positions, before the fight starts. During fights there is no need of quick reactions anymore since it's a turn based game, but outside the fight mode, turn based is off and a reliable way to direct your party members is needed, otherwise you will end up in a bad position at the start of the fight.

Here comes in the "impatience" you mentioned, and why the party management in BG3 is so frustrating, thus making the entire game less fun. BG1 & 2 had a fantastic party management UI: remembered the position of each member and never lost it during rest or entering another instance or anything; you set it once and stayed like that. Same in Dragon Age, Pillars of Eternity and every game I ever played. Even the console focused Dragon Age Inquisition, and clicking on any portrait once, selected it instantly, was no need to use keyboard shortcuts like F1 here. Not even talking about formations, following and so on.

The party UI it's so bad in BG3 that looks like was intentionally made to annoy the players. I just can't believe it that this can go past any programmer by mistake: it's like this by design. Only they know why. What isn't broken, don't try to fix it: every game before had a basic UI that worked great, from 2D to 3D, in every game. There was no need to anything fancy rubber chewing gum effect and aiming for a spot in the Guinness World Records for the worst UI ever made in an RPG game.

I think I have an answer has to why the UI in BG3 is so dreadful.
Larian does not use mouse devices when designing their games. Either design with game-pads, tablets or by voice command??!!
When all finished, they be : <<OH, but we need mouse functionality, uuuh lets see...haha now thats kinda cool, the way it SPRINGS...>>
It is the only logical explanation.

Oh I understand now what you mean by party ordering. Yes thats very important for them to address, assigning order 1 thru 4 to actual characters would make having the hotkeys much more reliable. Having them constantly shift in their order is pretty frustrating, the inconsistency is definitely a flaw. I personally changed the hotkey to cycle thru players to be "tab", makes the game much more smoother to cycle thru characters on the fly. But having the order sorting stay solid is again definitely important for them to add.

For the instance of being outside of combat, im still not following you on how its hard to set up your guy's before a fight? When ambushed, you're ambushed, so the fight begins wither you like it or not. I accept that as a game mechanic. But when I'm setting up the ambush, I think its incredibly easy to find positions that is best for my team. Move them accordingly, watch out for vision cones, take the high ground where possible, and stay in the shadows or out of sight as I move everyone else. The only part that would make it better is the mentioned addition above.

I've never played bg2 and I had to refresh myself on how DA:I looked like in combat. After watching some YouTube videos on both to remember how they play, they aren't even the same category of turn based as BG3 or any of Larian type games. The only other game that I can truly compare to Larian games as far as combat goes and to my gaming experiences, is Xcom. Everyone has a turn and its about strategizing positions, turns, and attacks to come out on top.

Is the point on combat you are trying to make, is to have bg3 characters have the "constant basic attack" and then with freeze play skill uses like bg2 and DA:I?

What is "hard" is selecting them quickly. Not really hard, but time consuming: have to play the UI "minigame" and fix the party first, every single time. That means keeping distance from enemy NPC's and doing stuff that needs to be done first, just because the UI is bad, instead playing the game fluently.

For example:
I just left the resting place instance, the camp. In this case the game gives me all 4 characters linked, partied up, and in a "random" order (not in the order I arranged them before entering camp).
That's bad already.

I need to re-arrange them in the "correct" order, and that because the way the selection keys work; I want to select my character, the Ranger, when I press the F1. F2 will be the Fighter. F3 will be the Cleric. F4 the Wizard.
It's already a lot of work to achieve that, but that alone would be fairly easy.

But I also need to take my Ranger alone, to go ahead scouting, and keep the rest of 3 characters linked (so don't have to move them one by one), left behind in a safe spot.

Now if I just drag the Ranger portrait out and unlink it, will be placed in 4th spot and can select it with F4, not F1. I want it to be F1 always, because otherwise I can't just press F1 and give orders, have to check first which is what and then press the correct key, that takes watching & thinking, it's like solving puzzles.

If I try to drag my unlinked Ranger into the first spot while the 3 other characters are linked, the game assumes I want the Ranger to rejoin the party, and won't allow me to take the F1 spot, can try forever, just won't let me. So I must unlink ALL of them first. Then while they are all solo, to drag their portraits around, until they are in the correct order, as I stated above: F1 Ranger, F2 Fighter, F3 Cleric, F4 Wizard. This will take a few tries, the game will fight back, but in the end after some minigame fun, they are in the correct order.

That's not what I wanted, but have to do it his way, in order to advance towards the planned configuration. Now I can drag the Cleric into the Fighter, and have them grouped up together, while my F1, F2, F3, F4 is in correct order. After that I drag the Wizard into them, and finally have a solo Ranger in first spot, ready to go ahead scouting, that can be controlled with F1.

Scouting went well, found out where I will start the next fight, so now I press F2, without the need to look at party UI or think about which key controls what. F2 will lead my 3 party members to a place nearby.
Now I unlink these 3, keeping them in same order, but everyone is unlinked.

Next, depends what is ahead, will start the fight with one of them, let's say with F4 the Wizard, will go close enough but out of vision range or by flanking and cast Sleep on their healer. Or any other character starts, and the others are moved to good spots, after the starting character enters turn based mode. Can't just walk up with a linked party into some ambush.

During fight I can select them easily using F1 to F4, focusing on what I will do next in the fight, instead trying to figure out which F key is my Wizard and which is my Ranger.

After the party UI minigame is solved, the game is "easy". Without this I could move the wrong character to the wrong spot.
The bad news is that I will have to start over all this sorting after every rest and every instance change. That's a lot of times, during a playthrough.


I explained all this for those without early access or those not playing with mouse & keyboard, because it's hard to imagine all these problems without playing it.