[Request] Allow AI to open doors.

HeroicSpur

Hey everyone,

I know there has already been a request for better AI, but I thought I would deal with this problem specifically.

In some fights it's possible to exploit the AI by entering a room and then closing the door. In many cases the AI then can't/won't open the door.

This allows considerable room for exploitation (I remember killing mind-flayers in Bg2 this way), when really there's no reason why the AI shouldn't be able to open doors and pursue the party into the room beyond.

I think it would add considerably to the immersion and quality of the game if the AI would open doors.

kamuizin

I always gave praise to the fact monsters can't open doors. That saved my life a lot of times XD!

AlexT

That is actually fairly simple to accomplish. The AI of creatures with an Intelligence score above 4 can already do that in my mods:

IF
    Allegiance(Myself,EVILCUTOFF) // the creature is an enemy
    CheckStatGT(Myself,4,INT) // with an Intelligence score greater than 4
    !AreaType(OUTDOOR) // and it is not in an outdoor area
    !Range(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),30) // and there are no opponents in its visual range
    Range(NearestDoor,15) // if the nearest door is in visual range. note: this seems to auto-skip locked doors
    OpenState(NearestDoor,FALSE) // and it's not currently open
THEN
    RESPONSE #100
        MoveToObject(NearestDoor)
        OpenDoor(NearestDoor)
END

You can find more details in this thread on SHS. If you want to see this in action, you can install one of the PnP creature components of aTweaks.

AndreaColombo

@aVENGER

Unfortunately, Beamdog cannot employ the same code/solution unless they have your written permission. Everything that ends up in the game will be intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast so the devs will never re-use the same code as found in any mod without explicit written consent of all modders involved.

AlexT

@AndreaColombo

I'd be happy to hand over my code, if the developers are interested.

technophobe

It's not like there are alternate ways to write that code. If they ask permission for anything, it's surely out of courtesy than legal necessity.

Tanthalas

I think it would be funny if PCs with an INT score below 4 also couldn't open doors. But I'm not sure if its even possible to make a PC with 3 INT.

HeroicSpur

@Tanthalas: Lol!

@aVENGER: That's very noble of you sir.

AzL0n

@HeroicSpur

Great suggestion. Humanoids should definitely be able to open doors.

Communard

@HeroicSpur I think it's a good idea, but with the caveat that you should be able to lock a door using either the specific key for that door or a thief's lockpick ability. Desperately trying to barricade yourself into a room while the monsters whose strength you misjudged are on your tail is pretty fun...

ElectricMonk

@HeroicSpur

Good suggestion, I hope this gets fixed. Enemies being unable to open doors is just excessively easy to exploit (as well as being quite unrealistic).

Razor

I know it's a little unrealistic but I certanly like that when I close a door it stays that way (and the horde does not follow) And when I say doors I include Loading doors/Changing area.

PhillipDaigle

Maybe we'll add this for the higher difficulty levels.

PhillipDaigle

Or it could be a gameplay option checkbox: Cheese (Y/N)

AzL0n

''Cheese (Y/N) ''

LOL

smeagolheart

@HeroicSpur I think it's a good idea, but with the caveat that you should be able to lock a door using either the specific key for that door or a thief's lockpick ability. Desperately trying to barricade yourself into a room while the monsters whose strength you misjudged are on your tail is pretty fun...

Sounds like a classic movie zombie survival situation there with the locked door and the horde trying to break it down.

GrungeChlapec

@smeagolheart Nice one Walking dead rullez

Tanthalas

Even if you lock the door the mob should have a check to see if they can bash the lock, just like PCs can.

Coriander

@aVENGER I really like that INT check. Also I've got this image in my head of a really smart mage putting the party to sleep and then leaving.

Ardanis

Posted code may occasionally open locked quest doors and thus break something. The chance is very slim, but it is there.

A flawless solution is to ignore unlocked closed doors in the pathfinding code, but I suspect is not very possible.

AlexT

Posted code may occasionally open locked quest doors and thus break something.

From my testing, NearestDoor() already auto-skips locked doors, so they will never be opened by the script I posted. Maybe one of the BGEE developers can confirm this.

Anton

@HeroicSpur I think it's a good idea, but with the caveat that you should be able to lock a door using either the specific key for that door or a thief's lockpick ability. Desperately trying to barricade yourself into a room while the monsters whose strength you misjudged are on your tail is pretty fun...

@Communard idea with thief is really awesome! It would definitely makes more players to include thieves into their party to be able to lock the doors.

Ardanis

From my testing, NearestDoor() already auto-skips locked doors, so they will never be opened by the script I posted. Maybe one of the BGEE developers can confirm this.

I didn't know that.

I would still keep it optional though, since a percentage of players may be too fond of hiding from monsters this way.

AndreaColombo

Just my .02: I'm fine either way, though I would like it better if this was made standard rather than optional. It just makes plain sense for the AI to be able to open doors, and God knows if Baldur's Gate's AI needs some improvement to become challenging. There are parts of the game that constitute a challenge just because the AI cheats or the enemy is given illicit bonuses and resistances/immunities. If you're doing so bad you need to hide from Orcs behind a door, either cheat or reload.

Then again, as I said, I won't cry if this is made optional: I'll just turn it on for my own games :-)

HeroicSpur

Something else just occured to me about doors. There are certain abilities which work well in conjunction with closed doors, in particular the glyph of warding. When I use that spell I tend to chuck it into the middle of the enemy and watch it explode. To plant one on a door instead, with the knowledge that the ai will pursue and open it, opens a much greater array of tactical opportunity for that, and other spells.

O_Bruce

I can say that this request is an epic win. I just want to note that not any creature is intelligent enough to open doors. I cannot imagine doing so by spiders, for example.

caruga

As long as certain monsters can be flagged as not intelligent enough to open doors, I'm all for it.

How about we allow the PC to re-lock doors, while we're at it--it just uses up a fair amount of game-time? While closing doors that monsters can't re-open is cheap and easily abused, I can see working the locking of a door into the overall strategy of a battle, sacrificing one of the thieves to frantically lock it in time.

Lunever

Generally a smarter AI much enhances the tensions ans thus the entire gameplay experience.
I replayed a tweaked BG with the Sword Coast Statagems, and the experience of fighting smart opponnents who cast the right spells in the right situation was marvelous!

Anton

@Coriander @PhillipDaigle
May we hope that this great feature has been already implemented?

Anton

Anton said:

@Coriander @PhillipDaigle
May we hope that this great feature has been already implemented?

Any news on implementation status? @AndreaColombo @aVENGER

Kenji

Hot damn, community's elite modders are here to fulfill all our wildest Infinity Engine dreams