ps. Also to points made on the previous page regarding the desire for a more organic or non robotic presentation of these characters during party movement...

I feel like there has to be a way to achieve that without foregoing actual control of the party - as a party... I mean right?

Otherwise it seems like the only way they could figure out how to make things like traps or hazards actually hazardous, was to just kick the controller out of our hands at precisely the moment when we'd want to be fully in control. It's much more annoying than it is immersive, probably, depending on how recently you saved your game. I also enjoy a little chaos and the occasional random idle for flare. Our Party members don't have to stand at attention the whole time, or feel like lifeless automatons just to avoid breaking a general formation. We should be able to maintain some semblance of the 'god-mode' full party control, while still having naturalistic movements for the individual PCs.

That said, how many times do I have to watch 3 people jump across a gap and then immediately jump back, blocking the space for the 4th party member who for whatever reason couldn't find a spot to land? How realistic is that? Or why can't I make someone just look my direction occasionally without a bunch of cam snaps? Why can't I quickly issue a command for everyone to just stand still, while I do what needs doing with the selected character, without having to go through the tedium of ungrouping and regrouping constantly? Watching someone B-line into noxious fumes might be amusing if it only takes 20 seconds to reload from that same point, it's a bit different if you just lost 20 minutes of progress over some rando controls error or an AI pathing snafu. I think the biggest problem is not differentiating between Hostile and Friendly space for movement purposes, which forces jump actions or going the long way round, when it shouldn't really be necessary. Like maybe they could start there?

I have to stress again the targeting sequence issue and the camera pitch thing, since this will affect stuff that's happening both inside TB mode and outside of it. (Most of my issues with BG3s party movement concern stuff outside of combat, since inside TB combat there really isn't such a thing as party movement.) Targeting cam/controls are used in both situations though.

If the targeting preceded the action/spell confirmation, then we could do what many games have done, and allow the player to quickly cycle between available/visible targets in range (PC remains stationary). A hotkey could then switch to the visible targets in-range if the PC uses their full movement. Click again to cycle interactables or to lock coordinates on a ground plane. Double click or hold confirmations for actions/spells to avoid misfires. Also, for confirmations we really need to be able to do this from the status portraits, though currently this is unreliable. Many actions/spells require us to click into the field of view on an avatar, even when a portrait is hovering above or to the side. Both should highlight (the avatar and the status portrait) if that character is being targeted currently.

Overall I have a pretty positive impression of BG3 and there are many things about this game that I absolutely love, but the party movement mechanic is not one of them. I don't begrudge anyone who finds this current scheme sufficient, and I'm glad it's working well enough for some, but this is one of the main things that gets under my skin with BG3. It hasn't stopped me from clocking another 500 hours since the full release dropped, but I swear, every time I hit the "quit game" button, it's because of a party movement type kink.

Virtually every session ends that way for me. Not because I'm bored, or satisfied, like "this is a great place to stop, camp and unwind." Instead it'll be because someone just casually walked into lava, or misfired a spell, or accidentally aggro'd the whole village by mis-clicking some random red chest that popped into view at the last second. This is rarely followed by a chuckle and a slap on the knee for me, instead it just leaves a sour taste. It's not hyperbole, this is what goes down most nights to prompt the log off. Otherwise I'd probably never sleeep lol. They're always rage quits though, like pretty much every time. Then I have to come grumble about it here instead of thinking about Portraits or cool builds, or other actually 'fun' stuff that might have me preoccupied with the warm and fuzzies. If they had nailed the controls from the get-go I might never even have signed up for these boards, cause I'd be way too busy just enjoying the game. Hence, feedback... lol

[Linked Image from i.ibb.co]

Last edited by Black_Elk; 17/09/23 11:16 AM.