Pathfinding BG2 vs. BG1

HexWrench

Is it just me or is the pathfinding of the party members in BG2 worse than in BG1? If my party should go to a certain place, often 4 go the straight way and 2 others use a completely different way. Also, while they are walking and I just want to change the position (e.g. move the formation), some stop using the straigt way and walk an other way. This is so disturbing, I always have to watch out that some won't run into some enemies.
Any other persons here who have the same problem?

Flashburn

It's awful in both games. I dont know why but regular BG2's pathfinding is better than BG1EE or BG2EE.

qwert_44643

yeah the pathfinding leaves much to be desired.

cervanntes

Pathfinding has always been a problem in the series. The main problem I've seen in situations like you describe is that a party member tries to move forward, is blocked by the party member in front of them, so they turn around and look for an alternate rather than waiting for their companion to take a step forward. I've found that if I'm just trying to move a group from Point A to Point B on a map, clicking 2-3 times a second or two apart will usually get all the characters moving that way as a group since those too crowded together will start to turn back, gain some space, and then get pulled back to the route everyone else is taking by the followup click. Usually it only takes clicking twice, but if the area is especially crowded or tight, it may take a bit more.

sarevok57

the original bg2 had enhanced path finding plus it went up to 400 000, while I believe these enhanced editions only have 32 000, it baffles me why they would lower it to 32 000, but to make up for this you can use shift+ right click to set way points and that helps out tremendously, and in the original bg2, I never had path finding problems, a lot of people said it was still bad, but for me it was flawless, granted they couldn't walk through blackened area but other than that, it was great

Kurumi

Yup.. it's really sad, that this major flaw wasn't enhanced so far.. I still haven't give up hope though, that this will be taken care of in the future.

elminster

Kurumi said:

Yup.. it's really sad, that this major flaw wasn't enhanced so far.. I still haven't give up hope though, that this will be taken care of in the future.

Trying to fix pathfinding as I understand it created too many additional problems in the game.

MrSexton

I can only agree, it's like trying to herd a bunch of inebriated cats...

FFG

So here is my question: is there actually a game, be it a strategy game or a top-down RPG or whatever, that actually has good and reliable pathing? I don't think I've ever seen a game that actually had perfect/nearly perfect pathing. I think the one game that actually came close is Warcraft III.

Just a thought.

ryuken87

I think it's worse in BG2 because of the nature of the environments i.e. BG1 has lots of wide open outdoor areas and BG1 has narrow streets and dungeon corridors.

It is pretty annoying that this couldn't be remedied in the EEs.

xzar_monty

Pathfinding in BG2EE is clearly much, much worse than in the original BG2. In fact, it is the single most annoying aspect of the game (so far, for me). Considering how technology has advanced since the original BG2 was released, pathfinding in BG2EE is abysmally poor.

I enjoy the game a great deal, don't get me wrong, but this particular aspect simply sucks. No other way to put it.

Mechalibur

Yeah it's weird, the pathfinding actually seemed to work pretty well in BG:EE. Not sure what happened in this once, because now my party is just running around like a bunch of drunken monkeys.

jackjack

I upped my path finding nodes to 400,000 - not sure why the default is still 32,000 all these years later. I THINK it's making a difference.

HexWrench

@jackjack How/where can I change this value?

jackjack

It's somewhere in your Baldur.ini file - there's a stickied thread somewhere around here that explains how to access and edit it better than I could, but basically, you can't have the game installed in program files or it will be read only.

Kurumi

Best to open the ini with WordPad.. it's under
'Program Options', 'Path Search Nodes', '400000'

shrekdj

I think Developers somehow missed to bring pathfinding as in the BG2 for EE.
An oversight hopefully gets patched in future.

nsr

I definitely feel like pathfinding is worse in BG2EE than BG1EE. It may just be that there are more closed in spaces in BG2EE. It also seems like the characters are anticipating too much- it almost looks like when 3 characters block a door, the other 3 think that the door is not passable and then try to find another way around.

Tsyrith

I found that the underdark drow party illusions like to stop and revise their routes alot, and with the narrow streets of Ust Natha it's almost like shuffling vinegar-soaked razorblades when you have a full party of 6.

I actually remember having this problem way back when, and resorted to removing the drow illusion entirely. This is after like 2 new computers, so I can't be the only one who notices it...

Thunder

There is one party formation where everyone follows the leader which is great for getting through narrow areas

HexWrench

So, after updating the "Path Search Nodes" to 400000 it got better, but it is still it not very satisfying.
For example, I wanted to gather my party in front of the tanner shop in the bridge district, and at least one party member tried the long way using the stairs behind the shop.

But as far as I remember, in BG2 vanilla it wasn't better than that.

Dunhart

I was tempted to give everyone boots of speed via the console to make travelling in the city less of a pain.

jukaga

Dunhart said:

I was tempted to give everyone boots of speed via the console to make travelling in the city less of a pain.

That's a pretty heavy cheat XD, just cast haste. It's what I do, makes the city shuffle less tedious.

LiamEsler

I should probably point out that anyone who says pathfinding has changed between original BG2 and BGII:EE is incorrect. Pathfinding hasn't been altered, it's the same as it was in the original ToB.

nietzschelives

LiamEsler said:

I should probably point out that anyone who says pathfinding has changed between original BG2 and BGII:EE is incorrect. Pathfinding hasn't been altered, it's the same as it was in the original ToB.

This.

Rhik

I'm not sure if the following thing can help in any way, but there is one missing option about pathfinding in baldur.ini (bg2ee) and i don't know if it's enabled by default.

'Game Options', 'Enhanced Path Finding', '1',

Here is the french description of this feature and the google trad below (sorry, i'm bad in english !)

"Cette option permet de forcer l'ordinateur à constamment recalculer le chemin emprunté par les personnages. Mais si cela peut les aider à toujours prendre la meilleure route, cela peut également nuire aux performances sur des machines peu puissantes."

"This option will force the computer to constantly recalculate the route taken by the characters. But if it can help them to always take the best route, this can also affect performance on less powerful machines."

DinsdalePiranha

HexWrench said:

Is it just me or is the pathfinding of the party members in BG2 worse than in BG1?

I though long and hard about this, mostly when realizing that I damn near always run BG1 with a full party, while even the mention of 4+ char parties in BG2 sends me into a panic attack, and I guess the answer is... BG1 had a lot more open spaces. that's about it.

in the first game, a lot of time was spent in the wilderness, or in places where chars couldn't possibly bump into each other, and very little in dungeons... and it was oftentimes very painful going into said dungeons.

BG2 however is narrow corridor after narrow corridor, intermixed with dungeons where you can barely see where you're going... hell, even the wilderness areas tend to have narrow corridors.

and that just makes pathfinding go tits up in BG2 compared to BG1.

AnotherLife

Does that ini option really do anything ?

BlueSorceress

nietzschelives said:

LiamEsler said:

I should probably point out that anyone who says pathfinding has changed between original BG2 and BGII:EE is incorrect. Pathfinding hasn't been altered, it's the same as it was in the original ToB.

This.

QFT

Pathfinding was always the pits. Cries of "You dumb m'er f'er what the hell are you doing over *there*!?!" were often overheard in my house during my time with original recipe BGII.

On the other hand, if you have a couple of party members get stuck bumping into one another and an object like a table, or a wall, it looks like they're humping. I find that this is always good for a laugh.

Deltharis

It might be placebo (I didn't have what it takes to properly test it), but using both the additional ini line and changing to 400,000 indeed did help. That is, 100% less lost sheep in district_border-Cromwell (on two tries there and back), 50% less lost sheep navigating Brynlaw street.

Unum

Yes, the pathfinding in both games makes a solo playthrough even more enjoyable when you don't have to herd a party of six characters tripping over eachother.