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

Yes, the amazing and lovely accordion effect.

This happens because the movement is based on the poor idea of :

• The selected character follows the player's commands, and so will move to the given destination when the player asks (and even that isn't clean, since there's a delay for the character to start moving),
• The other characters (in the same group) are tracking the selected character at all times.

I don't know how their tracking algorithm works (aside from "poorly"). Sometimes, if the selected character merely turns around, everybody moves to go to the back of the selected character. Sometimes, the selected character can move quite away from the others before they figure they should perhaps try to catch up.


As I suggester earlier, Larian should replace the concept of Groups by that of Selections.


What is a Selection ? Well, as far as the code/logic is concerned, it's exactly the same as a Group. Just by a different name. But the way you form it is different :

A Selection/Group is formed simply by ... selecting characters. No need to add a tedious extra step to lock down the current selection as a Group.

Also, what happens when you issue an order to a Selection is different :

• When the player issues a Move command, all the Selection/Group receives the command and moves at once. (No "track the leader" thing.)
• They remain as much in formation as possible during the trip between the starting and the ending points.

Note that this does not necessitate developing a UI for the Selection. As far as the portrait and the Actions Bars (left and right of the portrait) are concerned, it still shows the same as for one character.


Consequences :

• If I use Select All and click somewhere, everybody goes there.
• If I select 1 character, now it's a Selection of size 1, and if I move the character, only this one moves.
• If I select the other 3 characters, now it's a Selection of size 3, and if I move them, only these 3 move.
• If I select just 1 of these 3 characters, now it's a Selection of size 1 and I can use his/her abilities. Nobody else moves, since they're not selected anymore.

You know, how as it has been over the past decades in dozens of games allowing you to control groups of characters. (Also how it works in many softwares, including the omnipresent file browsers of every operating system. Selecting several objects don't lock them in a group.)