I have been playing and enjoying Baldurs Gate for a few days now and thinking what a great game. That is, until I hit the dungeon under the Firewine bridge. Now I have to let off some steam.

Was there EVER a path following algorithm this rubbish?

I have a low-level party and it's damn near impossible to survive when characters:

* cluster and block each other (why wouldn't you move out of the way when you can?)
* go the wrong way (that's right, set off in the opposite direction to all your party mates)
* decide to sneak attack through walls (yes that is the shortest path to the target, but don't you remember THERE'S A GODDAMN WALL THERE!? Maybe you'll notice when it's right in front of your nose... No!?!)

And probably a bunch of other heinous stuff.

I have tried every formation and they're all rubbish under these conditions.

I have gone from thinking "What a great old game" to "Dear god I don't think I can bear this any longer" in the space of an hour.

Really, if you can't design a path following algorithm that works in them then why design cramped & twisty turny levels that would require one? Unless you're looking to punish players?

Damn frustrating is what it is!

Matt

Yep the firewine maze is a nightmare at times because of this. Even with the more advanced pathfinding of BG2 (BG-tutu or BGT) the firewine ruins are bad. It's not without reason I think that there are no such areas in Baldur's Gate 2 (or Icewind Dale, Planescape etc.)

I haven't made it to that part of the game yet but I've read you can tweak the AI.

In the Baldur.ini file change the search nodes line.
Path Search Nodes=32000

Default is 4000, the suggestion is 32000

I gather that 32000 would stress out the CPU on computers when the game came out - that's not an issue now!

That's a great suggestion, I'm going to try that out now.

Many thanks!

Matt

Tweaking the path nodes may help, but I doubt it will fix the issue entirely. That area is just really bad for that. But rejoice! IIRC, it's the only really crappy area in the game as far as that's concerned. I just move each character individually in that area, which helps me keep my sanity.

Well increasing that to 32,000 seems to have made a slight improvement to general movement but I have to say it's made no appreciable difference to the stupidity of the party in Firewine.

Fortunately it seems to be a pretty small dungeon. I think if it was the size of the Narkel mines I'd surely give up on it.

I might try doubling it again to 64,000 as I surely have CPU to spare. But I think this is just a case of an algorithm & party formation system not fit for this level.

The game is good enough that I do forgive it with only mumbled cursing :)

Thanks again.

Matt

I've got it on 400,000 (seems to be the maximum) and it's still pretty damn terrible. In every dungeon or maze.

The pathfinding in this game has had me screaming out in rage due to the retardedness of the whole thing. People bumping into each other and then going off in the OPPOSITE direction of where I ordered them, or in completely new directions, through fog or war, which of course sets off traps if there are any. The guy coding the pathfinding must have been on hard drugs and thought this was a hoot.

Even inside small houses they can be meatheads. For example, inable to walk around a bed to check a new nightstand for loot. Imoen (in my case) will just stand there by the bed and bump into it like some mindless zombie.

Does my head in.

Is there any kind of mod out there that does something with it? In most cases it would be better to just stand still instead of flying off in a new direction. It's just sheer stupidity in every way, shape and form.

This, and the difficulty of finding traps without inching forward like a turtle is what annoys me with the game, and makes me hate dungeons - which I sadly have heard there is quite a lot of in BG2 :((( Other than that the game is pure brilliance though. Just wish pathfinding was a heck of a lot better than it is.

does this work with IWD games I wonder.

good trick though, thanks.

In most of the Infinity Engine games, 32000 nodes is the max, and if you set it higher than that, it'll either reset down to 32000 or it'll reset down to 4000, depending on the game. BG1, IWD1, and PST have the "old" pathfinding algorithm, which is the TERRIBLE one. It's one of the reasons I prefer smaller parties in those games... because more people get in the way a lot more than they help out in combat.

BG2 and IWD2 use the "new" pathfinding algorithm, which isn't perfect, but it's VASTLY superior to the old one. In these two games, you can get the nodes up to 400000, which combined with the new algorithm, makes life substantially easier. Characters will still get caught behind each other if there's a difference in their movement speeds (like the guy with the boots of speed being unable to go around the slowpokes) but they generally won't act retarded.

This is also one of the advantages to using Tutu or BGT, because you get the better pathing along with all the other engine improvements.

thanks for the clarification bevinator

As bad as BG pathfinding can be, I think the worst I've ever experienced was in Fallout 1. Nothing like being stuck in a bathroom, blocked by an NPC who *never* moves. :(

Brings a whole new meaning to her oft-repeated phrase, "I am gone!" doesn't it? ;^)

Amen to that. Fallout had some much worse issues in this regard, but they were also a bit rarer.

I use either the "Pentagon" formation or the staggering two line formation, Usually works, and I tend to also repeatedly click the location I want them to go to keep them on track.

I think nodes are bad when it comes to path calculation in games. I think and have seen that the better way to do path calculation is programming it like in real life. Instead of nodes, I use circle levels and grids. It somehow reduces instances where the player character takes a longer route when the path is blocked momentarily, and offers faster results because of lesser numbers to crunch. With nodes you have to make unnecessary trial-and-error checks to find the least possible path.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_%28mathematics%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra%27s_algorithm