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

I fully agree, BG3's party control management is the absolute worst. It's bad at pathing, its bad at character placement before encounters and it doesn't allow party formations.

I also agree that, mechanics wise, Larian's communications have been less than ideal, to say the least.

+1
It is my number one feedback/request since day 1, or should I say since I finished DOS 1 :P

The ungroup keybind (toggle group/ungroup) does help though !

I also hate that I keep accidentally clicking on one of my party members whenever I'm just trying to move around. Drives me nuts.

And how do you feel about selecting a character just to cast something and having your entire party re-shuffle their positions for no reason?
Double fun if there is a ladder involved.

Oh so fun.

Same and same again.

I made a thread regarding "Cancel Action"in feedback (that has so far caught no replies, predictably lol) But basically how this game forces a constant intermediate click simply to cancel UI stuff, like anything selected (action/icons) from the UI in order to select something else, such that to do practically anything from the interface requires a clickathon. It's like the funhouse mirror nightmare impression of how I feel regarding the default party movement and selection scheme lol. OK so within the UI I have to click-cancel action constantly, right? click-select/cancel, cancel to select, select then cancel, on and on.... with these intermediate delays on everything, even the most basic UI selection... But then you get to left click selection stuff for movement, within the main environment or the character avatar selection and it's like 'boom done! you're hosed! You clicked once too many, just this time in the wrong spot fool! it's already happening now. Good luck trying to stop or prevent the impending calamity!!!' hehe. The contrast in extremes is just so pronounced.

Now take that click crazy impression to the most basic movement commands for navigating around the map. Not even for the "party" per se, just even the single character. How in order to get from one place to wherever else, you have to tunnel using left click constantly to increment across short distances. Usually just at the end of the line of sight, or risk pathing doom or triggers or convos by charging ahead via ghost cam. Wherever you've set your camera tilt like 3 seconds ago, or wherever the camera has moved since (either through your own input or the game taking over)... the camera is still in constant motion/reorientation, so shooting way ahead with the camera to try and kinda waypoint far out is like wildly precarious (to say nothing about how it dispels the immersion or any sense of POV) and then players are going to be all fanned out in loose formation for this too for this? Just for navigating around?

Like couldn't they at least just give us a basic Line formation for navigation? with the leader walking point and everyone else just tracing in their footsteps? Or the tightest possible square at least? Something, just anything, to make this most mundane of movement requirements more tolerable?

I mean that's not all I want, obviously not even close, but for now it's hella ridiculous where chain movement is concerned, that purely from the navigation exploration standpoint, it would feel so much like tossing horseshoes all time. And entering/exiting combat only compounds all the problems to a wildly inordinate degree. I really think they really need to step back, and revisit the implementation of a true driving type camera and movement control for the exploration appeal and a more RTS style camera for tactical party movement appeal. How to bridge that with what they've already got, I honestly don't know. I feel like they need to just make new systems and give the player some kind of choice in the options called "Party Movement" settings, and just start trying to experiment. Like with anything. Anything else. Just something

Honestly, after being introduced to shortcut to "group/ungroup all" I think I can deal with the system. However, it needs to work properly - better then it does not, and better then it ever did in D:OS1&2

1) Followers fail to follow you. The get lost stuck, ladders confuse them (even if laders themselves don't bug the hell out). So often I find myself having to herd everyone on by one, and current system just makes it very tedious to do so.
2) overall unresponsivenent. It seems that I can't switch between characters, or issue new orders while the old one is still happening. Is it some kind of leftover of turn based system? I remember same happening in D:OS2 - you tell someone to buff and need to wait for him/her to finish before you can switch to another character. Order someone to jump and you need for them to finish stomping before you can switch to the second character.
3) action cueing? I think it is similar problem to the previous one, but for example, if character starts climbing the ladder I can't succesfully tell him where to go next after he finishes.
4) some annoying order cancelling. I tell character to move to a position and then hover over enemies to see what my chances to hit are - nah, can't do that, character will stop.

I am sure there is more. And of course, many of those would be fixed by "traditional" system. Being able to tell everyone where to go and what to do, instead of AI having to read my throughs (and failing miserable). Pathfinding is bad, but I heard it is a difficult thing to do, so I will give Larian more time on that one.

I have little hope for Larian to rewrite movement and party control system for something more sensible, but they really need to make, what they have easier to interact with. Shouldn't basics like that be solved during vertical slice? One thing I hear over and over again, when hearing about game making is that basics like movement are one of the first things devs need to figure out - aka. if it's not fun to more around, you can't build on that. I worry that Larian is building a lot on shoddy foundations, and there is no way back without demolishing a lot of their work.

Seriously, the UI and this... feature. I can't take it anymore!

Combat ends... everyone rushes straight into my Cloud of Daggers without me issuing any movement commands.

Ungrouping and re-grouping is so awkward. At least have one button to do this for the entire party. The only time I want everyone to follow me like spastic idiots is when I'm just running through familiar territory to go sell loot or something (and can't see the party twitching and running in circles behind me). And even then I would rather just press a "select all" button and move the party normally.

Just.... why?? Other games have none of these issues.

It is indeed torture. Pathing? Sucks.

Something that i noticed happening to me after patch 6. I point to the place my party wanna go , while im looking around the area with my camera to see whats going around. When im going back to my party suddenly there are only 2 or 3 members there , while the rest are stuck somewhere at the beginning of their path.

When leading party member goes into stealth and moves around the rest of the group acts like they had a brain fart or a stroke and they just stay there doing nothing. So here comes the "lets try and drug the portraits away" in order to do what should be way simpler and easier.

Oh here i detected those traps , let me avoid them with my party leader , im sure the rest of the goon squad will avoid them. Right? Well... boom boom boom boom. nope.

quick edit*

oh the times that the non controlled characters are climbing up and down ladders etc going back and forth... torture.

It's been said all throughout this mega-thread, but it needs to continue to be said, "The movement mechanics in this game are so freaking annoying. Especially in more enclosed spaces, the point and click movement has to go. I am travelling through the Underdark, and I can't tell you how many times my party members are getting in my way. I am constantly accidentally clicking on them and initiating dialogue. It's getting so that I want to just boot them all from the party just so I can explore the Underdark. I'm trying to click on a corpse or loot and one of them runs in the way and stands right on it, I click, and another dialogue is initiated.

We really really need WASD to be movement mechanics so we can just run around the map without so much clicking on everything, and we need jump to be automatic when outside of combat and we need group stealth and we need the camera controls to allow us to tilt the camera so when we zoom in we can actually see where we're going. Half the time, in the Underdark, I can't see ten feet in front of me because the land rises up and blocks my view. Then I'm clicking and holding my mouse and my character starts up the hill, turns around, and starts running in the opposite direction or something.

And Patch 6 IS absolutely having issues with party members following you. I can't tell you how many times I've had to click on Shadowheart or Glut or Lae'zel or Astarion and had to manually make them run to catch up to the party because they weren't moving, which I think was mentioned just above. And the jumping mechanics and so forth often have you doing weird things you don't want to do, and if I accidentally highlight an enemy I stop moving, and so on and so forth. I feel like the whole party movement mechanics need a complete overhaul. We need better climbing mechanics, jumping... everything. And the camera tilt! Please! Please! Please! It drives me crazy not being able to see where I'm going.

Yeah its horrid. The most frustrating thing for me personally is that I just can't get beyond this issue. Nothing else they do to the game is going to matter for me until this one is addressed. Truly, they need to prioritize, because this one is a massive barrier to entry.

Nothing else really matters by comparison. They could raise the level cap to 5, include 5 more companions, add 5 more new areas to explore and the missing classes, and none of it will make a difference because the way they handle basic movement is so infuriating that I just can't play the game for more than an hour before party movement woes completely eclipse everything else. It's really too bad. I'd like to like the game, and there are things that I do like, but the negative here outweighs all the positives. I can't believe its been a year and the camera is still locked and no progress has been made on this core complaint.

Ok. I don't like it. It drives me crazy, but for me, it's not game shattering. I really really hope they improve it, but I really do think the game has come a long way in a year. It's a great game that needs some basic, fundamental fixes, but it is, for me, the best D&D game out there.

I know. I know. Others might not think so, and I've certainly done my share of pointing out the flaws, but I'd still play it again and again even if they never fixed another thing I didn't like.

That said, the party mechanic and stuff, as I said before, is frustrating and annoying, and I do want them to fix it soon.

Oh, and I'm in no way saying your opinion is wrong btw. I'm just saying I don't share your more extreme hatred for it. I'd actually rather have an item management and UI overhaul first and a six person party and day/night. Well... Maybe item management and UI, then party movement and camera, then 6 person party, then day/night.

Ugh. I can't decide. It is pretty bad, the party movement mechanics, but item management is SO time consuming and boring... And the UI hotbar is such a mess... And 6 person party is SO needed. SO needed. Oh, but day/night.

I'm losing my mind. They need to fix all these things for their next patch. PLEEEEEEEAAAAAASE!

At a minimum the game should support WASD for movement of the selected character, and provide a true orbital cam. That would not be my ideal scheme for a party based game, where I'd prefer to actually control the whole party, but it would at least be serviceable for general movement outside of combat, and allow me to play the game without wanting to pull my hair out every 5 seconds. I would not object to lazily playing this game with a controller, even if I had to padmap it myself, but currently that's impossible, because the controls here are so rigid. I'd prefer that the functionality which is required to make controller support viable eventually, be accessible through the keyboard and mouse scheme as well. This is the only game I've ever played where the movement and camera controls felt this punishing and this inflexible, and where I couldn't adapt it to something more comfortable via keybinds or some kind of options setting.

Most of my irritation in BG3 occurs during movement outside of combat, or during the transitions into/out of combat, so a driving character and orbital cam would at least make that portion of the game (which is actually most of the game) a lot more tolerable. I'd prefer over-the-shoulder for roaming outside of combat, but I'd even settle for POV over what we have now. You can tell from the way the current camera functions that there's nothing that would fundamentally prevent them from adopting such a scheme if they wanted to.

They desperately need to unlock the Z axis for their cam. Even if its not a full 360 orbital, the pitch on swinging the Z Axis is currently ridiculous. They have the Z axis camera angle pegged to the zoom distance, which is brutal. I can look down at almost 90 degrees if I zoom out fully, but can't even look up 10 degrees?

Right now the title of this thread remains a misnomer. It implies that there is a "Party Movement Mechanic" that actually exists in BG3, when there really isn't. All we have is a single character movement mechanic. Otherwise it's follow the leader with arbitrary AI pathing that we have no input or control over in the moment. You can cycle the leader position, but that's it. If it's going to play like that anyway, they might as well provide an orbital cam and control scheme that suits that sort of style more naturally, like virtually every other 3d rpg out there. Again, not my ideal, but it would be better than this.

Toggle ungroup all isn't nearly as helpful as I made it out to be initially. I wish that was the panacea here, but it's just not enough, and too unwieldy to be practical for the duration. The movement control scheme in this game is really ill suited for scouting and ambushing, to the point where I wish I could just drive from one combat to the next and have the party effectively disappear in a line behind me until the battle is joined or an encounter is initiated.

Love this game - spent about 5-10 minutes real time yesterday trying to link my party but only getting 3 ..it’s not game breaking but it’s bloody annoying - fix this and the camera a bit more …add animations for block and parry - best game ever !
And it’s still in EA - 249.2 hours in

Lately I have been more or less trying to play ungrouped most of the time individually moving party members. It’s a lot more pointing and clicking but at least I have full control.

I really hope this issue gets resolved but I’m not optimistic that they’ll drop something that they seem to fully believe in.

3 games with the chain... I guess they fully believe in it even if most players don't like it at all.

This and camera the two things that with work will make a huge difference to the overall enjoyability factor of the game.
Having said that 250 hours in this game is really hitting its straps but these two things would really help

I don't see why they should ditch the current system as a whole, they simply need to adjust it (both camera and party control) to work better on controllers (YSK on stadia you can play with controller although not really supported or working at the moment) but they also REALLY NEED to develop a way to control the camera and the party specifically for M/K players without forcing them into a control scheme which seems to be developed primarily for playing with a controller because right now it feels like M/K players are handicapped because of being forced to play within the limitations of a controller based system without any of the advantages (e.g. no wasd movement for M/K , while on controller you can at least move around with the joysticks) which feels like forcing a handicap on players for no good reasons (M/K in theory would give most options for full control of both party and camera movement to the player).
TLTR: keep (but also improve !) current system for people using controllers to play BG3, but also develop a M/K control scheme in line with PC gaming tradition (instead of console/controller) which gives full camera (Z-axis !) and party control

Oh no. We need WASD. I've been playing for like 500+ hours and I'm STILL struggling with the darn movement controls. Last night, party members kept getting in my way, AGAIN. Just wanted to move forward and, "hi. So what can I do for you?". Ugh!

Another time, just came out the crypt. Tried to move forward. Nope. Right back down into the crypt. Camera angle made it so that anywhere I clicked on the screen, it would send me right back down. Second time, tried spinning the camera. "Hi. So what can I do for you."

Unless you remain zoomed out constantly, and even then it is still an issue, this point and click system is frustrating.

Or they should playBG1/2 enhanced edition on console.
Just to notice that the classic system is better with M/K, better with a controler and that it works well with a stick/WASD.

The camera is not the main problem of their system. The unexpected movements of every characters is. The only solution with this chain is to make more click to chain/unchain.