Wow, some people in this thread could do with a chill pill, LOL. It's a video game y'all. Anyway.

The tone and delivery of the criticism aside, I agree with the content of it. Well, in the original opening post and first pages there's lots of talk about companions randomly walking through fire which I *mostly* can't observe in the current version, so I assume that's mostly fixed, with few remaining glitches. (In about 100h play time, it happened to me maybe about a dozen times that companions ran through health hazards, and one or two times where someone fell down from a high place.)

But the example above that Tuco quoted definitely still holds and is a perfect example of the issues with the current system. It's way too cumbersome to unlink/relink characters from/to the group when you need individual control. There's actually a few ways that involve no dragging around of character portraits:

1. Stealthing only some of your characters makes the stealthed ones and the unstealthed ones behave like two separate groups without needing to unchain them. Oftentimes, a single stealthed character separating from the group is all you want, in which you case you select them, press 'C', and move them around. Easy.

2. You can set up a keyboard shortcut to unlink/relink the entire group. (Don't remember if it has a default setting, I put it to Alt+G.) Only problem with it is that it messes up the order of the companions. (I use number keys 1 through 4 for selection, so changed order is annoying.) Oh and to relink, they have to be in proximity I think. (Or is the keyboard shortcut special-handled? Will have to test later.)

So it's all not *that* terrible most of the time, but still leaves much to be desired.

I think the following system might be superior:

- Introduce the concept of multi-selection of characters, like in the Infinity Engine games. Important: this is for outside of combat only.
- Multi-selection can be done via keyboard shortcuts like in the old games. So not only a shortcut for select all, but also for 1+2, 3+4, and maybe more.
- Multi-selection can also be done by dragging a box with the mouse as per tradition, though not sure how well that works in 3D?
- Multi-selection can also be done via mouse-based actions like e.g. Ctrl+Click for "add to selection." (Or right-click, or middle-click. Configurable.)
- Optional: Configurable shortcuts for selecting specific characters as one group, like 1+3+4 or 2+3 or 2+3+4. Maybe overkill but neat for powergamers.
- The selected group of characters move as one group, the same way they do in the current implementation. (AI just needs a little more polish.)
- Optional: But maybe add some formation options so that in certain terrains you can have your backliners keep more distance from the frontline.
- The stealth action applies to the whole currently selected group of characters, not just one.

I find this proposal pretty obvious so I'm probably not the first to make it in this thread...

https://bg3.wiki/