Pathing

Gridian

Guys,

Sorry if that has been discussed before, but I just watched the screenies in Beamdog again and a question came up: I remember from the first Baldurs Gate that the partymembers used to block each other's paths. In later D&D computer games that got fixed and the partymembers pushed each other out of the way to get where they were supposed to get.
Do the party members in BG:EE push each other out of the way too or do they block each other?

TheCoffeeGod

Since it's using the BG2 engine, I would assume it would use the BG2 Path Search Nodes options (max 400000) over the BG1 max of 32000.

Cheesebelly

Seeing as they are using the Throne of Bhaal style of the Infinity engine, they most probably will push each other out of the way. Which is much better!

Gridian

Cheesebelly said:

Seeing as they are using the Throne of Bhaal style of the Infinity engine, they most probably will push each other out of the way. Which is much better!

I SO agree. I vaguely remember getting upset at my guys and gals always becoming a pile of arms, weapons and the occasional leg without order. *chuckle* I sometimes wondered how they managed not to kill each other all the time

raclariu

Gridian said:

Cheesebelly said:

Seeing as they are using the Throne of Bhaal style of the Infinity engine, they most probably will push each other out of the way. Which is much better!

I SO agree. I vaguely remember getting upset at my guys and gals always becoming a pile of arms, weapons and the occasional leg without order. *chuckle* I sometimes wondered how they managed not to kill each other all the time

Well those are the type of wounds you see when you rest, somethng like "aaah let's rest here, let me get this armor off, oh look, blood, haha, *fainted*"

purebredcorn

Excellent question, Gridian. I had forgotten about how annoying that could get in tight spaces. Good to know that it's most likely been corrected.

j0lssoni

Now that we live in the 21st century, will the characters require few fractions of a second to "think" about where to go and how after each click? In BG 1&2 they did, a few clicks alone resulted often in seconds of downtime during which your companions just stood still, thinking about their path to the green crosshair.

Zeckul

Even with the ToB improvements, the pathfinding could use a complete rewrite. Take inspiration of how units move in groups in RTS games, like Age of Empires 2 or Starcraft 2. I believe IE uses a purely individual approach to pathfinding where characters recalculate their path every time they bump into someone else, causing them to lose much time and sometimes re-plan incorrectly. A good pathfinding engine uses group heuristics to ensure characters walk together without hindering each other; see flocking ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(behavior) ) and other common techniques.

Good pathfinding would go a long way towards more realistic behaviors for both NPCs and monsters, less frustration for the player, and better performance.