Hello again everyone,
It’s been a while since I posted here but my last major post was this: Pathfinding
Since then the pathfinding was improved a few times while there was still the odd glitch or unit having a meltdown it was much better.
This patch, the terrible pathing has returned. I don’t know what line of code, what cog, what strange witchcraft happened but units have gone back to being utterly incompetent again.
Villagers are bumping into each other far more and getting confused trying to pass each other. I have to manually correct them.
Villagers are unable to properly fish from shore fish in African Clearing. I’ve had this happen multiple times and allies as well. North Western fish pools are the offenders, the villager will try to gather stop moving, get confused, then go to another fish pool or stop entirely and go idle.
Units unable to path through gaps for some reason even though it’s clear and looping back on themselves repeatedly (not as bad as before). Units being told to attack something and having some issues.
I did not want to come back post about the same topic again almost a year later. Maybe the next patch will revert whatever happened this one I’m worrying too soon. Things were okay, not perfect. I think most of us can handle okay but we’ve gone back a step or two again. Hey at least Trebs obey orders unlike last time I posted, refusing to pack or unpack unless you told each one you loved them one by one.
Maybe I’m being a bit over the top but, if we could get any insight from the devs that would be great. I’m generally optimistic and sing AoE2’s praises but when the pathing breaks I get a bit grumpy. If anyone else noticed issues or feels things are a little bit “off” it would be nice to know.
PS I’ve seen a couple of threads pop up on the Steam forums about the pathing and I myself noticed things were off compared to the previous patch, I don’t think I’m crazy.
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Devs are solving pathfinding puzzles eternally.
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It seems that way. Every patch they say “improved pathfinding” it always feels like a coin toss.
Reduce collision box sizes of vils…
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I’m sure I saw a video on this but I can’t find it. I don’t think smaller hit box helps with the villagers doing two people trying to pass each other in a hall and both keep picking the same direction. Also does not help with the fish pool bug.
There are some positives to it. Also wary about the negatives.
You maybe refer to this:
Something I would be maybe useful is an option that let you see the path that one or more units is taking. Just a sorf dark line
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That is indeed the video, thanks for finding it.
He does some interesting thought experiments on units but most of the changes are a little too radical. It does showcase pathing issues though when he tasks villagers to move across the map and some just go idle. I’ve had this in team games where I’m running away with my villagers because my defences have fallen and about 10-20% just stop along the way.
Some key differences between how military units and villagers act. Honestly wish villagers could behave more like military units it would make controlling large groups of them less awkward. As is the inability to tell them to attack move. Pipe dream of attacking with army of Spanish villagers, dashed.
What I would really love to see is units finally understand the difference between inside or outside (their own town, for example)!
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Only Khmer villagers know that
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This might not solve the entire pathing problem but its needed since a long time ago. They should just make villager collision size something like 0.1 or something extremely low. Bumping and getting stuck because there’s other vills nearby is totally unnecessary and I don’t see any downsides of villager collision size being too low.
Reduces skill expression for attacking blocking villager escape routes. It will always be funny to me seeing mineral walking (Starcraft 2, think Starcraft 1 could do it but it was less blatant). Where you’d click your workers on a mineral patch outside your base and your workers would no collision glide through any enemies and/or your own army. Very useful tactic to escape none AoE attackers. It looked daft though.
They could reduce is slightly or just make villagers not be so easily confused.
