Pathfinding and Collision [TW4 Megathread]

EricEric Member, Administrator

Do units get where you want them to go?

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Comments

  • lomteslielomteslie Member

    The fact that my hero can't walk "through" my other units feels pretty bad. It keeps me from collecting resources, and it seems like the other units maybe take a little too much space. Perhaps the other units could move over when I keep clicking near them and I'm clearly trying to get through them – at least when they're idle.

  • XaszXasz Member

    @lomteslie said:
    The fact that my hero can't walk "through" my other units feels pretty bad. It keeps me from collecting resources, and it seems like the other units maybe take a little too much space. Perhaps the other units could move over when I keep clicking near them and I'm clearly trying to get through them – at least when they're idle.

    Agreed - also, the collision box (at least on Grath and Eris) seems like it's a little larger than it should be visually, having my expectations set by SC2/HotS/LoL.

  • When I show up to a fight even a little after my allies in my experience as Hydros, all of my melee units, mainly my Scuttleguards and Aquadillos would get stuck behind my allies' ranged attackers, and my units would not go around nearby terrain to flank unless I made them do so specifically, and even then if there was anybody behind me, I would get stuck even further. Additionally, my Aquadillos were perpetually out of range of their Cannonball ability when this happened. This made me fell frustrated because I wouldn't be able to participate in the fights, and my melee units weren't able to soak up the damage for the squishy ranged units I was stuck behind.

  • I found that when I issue a right click command to move my hero to get a gem, if one of my other units is on the way to his target; he simply gets stuck until I move him manually out of the other units' trajectory and then go for the gem once he has a clear path.

  • KirkulesKirkules Member

    In battles my allies' units will often surround my hero. If I'd like to retreat the hero (either for micro or to move out of the battle entirely) I'm screwed unless my allies agree or move their units for some other reason.

    If you guys do end up having units be able to "push aside" friendly units without disrupting the ones pushed aside too much, I think heros should definitely be prioritized in this.

  • RealJoyRealJoy Member

    @Kirkules said:
    In battles my allies' units will often surround my hero. If I'd like to retreat the hero (either for micro or to move out of the battle entirely) I'm screwed unless my allies agree or move their units for some other reason.

    If you guys do end up having units be able to "push aside" friendly units without disrupting the ones pushed aside too much, I think heros should definitely be prioritized in this.

    I completely agree with this, it feels like your ally is working against you when you're trying to run away and your allies units block the way.

  • SlammeRSlammeR Member

    @RealJoy said:
    I completely agree with this, it feels like your ally is working against you when you're trying to run away and your allies units block the way.

    While it can be frustrating to be blocked by your ally keep in mind this is with bots, I think in pvp taking engagements with your allies could be a really interesting tactical situation as both of you need to be aware not only of your own units but also avoid blocking your allies units.

  • WickedWicked Member

    When I tried to join other bots in combat it feels really sluggish and laggy. The response is too slow. The best thing about sc2 is that it's snappy and quick, same thing with League. Having responsive controls is really imperative for an RTS game. Even a 100ms-250ms lag time is inexcusable.

    The pathing in this game is frustrating, my allies have killed me more than once. I also have a hardtime microing my spells because of the lag and pathing. Once heroes are in range they should attack, not wander around. It's the worst when attacking creeps.

    Just imagine playing a marine split challenge in Atlas.... There are aoe spells that are dodgeable. I know what to do and can't, not because of skill, but because of responsiveness and pathing.

  • KepterKepter Member
    edited May 22

    The problem of collisions extends beyond just blocking heroes, from my experience large (and even small) melee units like Bramblethorn Giant just feel really frustrating to use since they get stuck in the pile of units and can't attack or move efficiently. This feeling is amplified when fighting in tight spaces like around the generators. While I have only played with bots, I feel like either the map should be opened up a bit or the collision boxes made a bit smaller.

    Edit: After PvP I found collisions a hate-love relationship. Its really crucial to playing melee T1 charcaters like Grash, but its still a tad annoying. With enough practice I think I will get used to it though.

  • NonordonNonordon Member
    edited May 22

    Like others have said. I feel frustrated, and even a bit annoyed when my hero can't get where I want him to go because of my own units being in the way.

    I would like for my hero to either be able to move through my own units, move them out of the way, or figure out a path that doesn't send me directly at the units to just run in place forever (the last one is probably the least favorable). However, I do think that not being able to move through your units is an interesting decision because you can end up trapping yourself between friendly and enemy units and you can't escape without having units stop attacking (having units auto move out of the way might be beneficial to keep this middle ground).

    The pathing gets incredibly frustrating when talking about melee units (especially a melee hero). Sometimes there will be only a couple melee units, but that ends up being too many to get everyone into the fight at once causing some units to die and getting replaced by those in line.

    The last thing is, the bounding boxes on the units seem larger than the circles that the units have (which is annoying).

    To reiterate i feel at least frustrated and sometimes angered by the fact that my hero can be stuck from moving to where I want it to go due to other units. I don't mind as much really when any other unit has pathing problems though.

    EDIT: I have since played a bit of PvP and talked to Sean a little on this subject. I have been informed that the positioning/collision is one of the intended mechanics to raise the skill cap. Which I think is really nice! I had a lot of fun blocking heroes in and a bit annoyed when I'd get blocked in by friendlies (but I understood that it is an intended risk). This brings me to the point that it probably should be mentioned somewhere in the tutorial and I will go over this in the tutorial section. I get a lot of pleasure and feel very rewarded when I get some kills by locking people and their units in. When I lose units from it, it is frustrating because I lost them, but I know that it was probably my fault.

    So the first section is my first impressions and everything past the edit are my current impressions. It's very solid! I'm very happy with the collision and body blocking! However, some of the pathing I think still feels very weird.

  • I just want to echo that it feels really shitty when your big dudes (and your hero) get blocked by the little dudes.

    I think that larger, more important units should be able to push aside other units, especially if they're melee. It usually ends up with my hero getting surrounded which doesnt let me retreat. Of course, I can back up my whole army but I basically can't micro back hurt units

  • BaconBacon Member

    same for me, having the hero unit blocked (and behaving like an sc2 marine surrounding a building) feels really frustrating,

    for your own units at least, I feel the hero should be able to get around them easier

  • PL55PL55 Member

    Just have to agree with everyone else, the collision has been so annoying to deal with. I got killed a few times just because my hero had to walk around the army to get to the back line. If you want the army to act like a wall that could be used as a tactic during a battle, fine, but there should be a mechanic added in so you are able to, let's say, jump over the army.

  • WontonGGWontonGG Member
    • In tutorial, larger minion was blocked was smaller minion and danced for a good minute until I microed every single small minion and then the large one.
    • It made me smile because Atlas is facing same challenges as other games haha
    • bigger units should have movement priority over small ones, specially when you rally units behind your existing army.
  • JammrockJammrock Member

    It makes playing melee heroes way too hard. You can't move in and out of battle, and end up getting trounced.

  • IapetusIapetus Member
    edited May 21

    I'm getting a lot of collision issues when trying to gather scrap after clearing enemy monsters, especially when allies are near. The hero just seems to get stuck a lot. It feels very clunky.

    I've also taken advantage of enemy heroes being stuck in front of their units by sniping them while they can't get away. Since there are situations where micro and fine movements are extremely important I really think that heroes and big units should just push away friendly units or walk over them, at least.

    I personally think that the collision feels bad because the collision boxes for each unit appears to be slightly larger than the actual unit itself, so it often looks like there is space but there isn't.

    For an instance of the clunky movement, see replay G846ddfd389644d18b88940206e4f3462, at around 6:50 in game time. My hero just dances around and moves back and forth when trying to gather scrap.

  • TieronTieron Member

    The pathing needs to take into account other units nearby. Some of my units are getting killed because of the pathing taking them through the other units other than around. Also the units should push each other around a bit more for better movement and flow of the larger armies.

  • patwoldpatwold Member

    Replay ID: Ga38ec05d2cf845679293d620298b35a3

    At about 6:00 one of my units got stuck behind one of the easy NPCs and couldn't move out. I had to attack the NPC to get it to move away from my unit before my unit could move freely again.

    At about 20:40 my hero got stuck between the front of the enemy army and some of an ally's units and I couldn't move him out; my ally's units wouldn't let my hero pass.

  • As1eepAs1eep Member

    Replay ID: Gde0c009da69a48ac98d5611454580b77
    At about 3:00 i got pinned on the stairs. Maybe i just got outplayed but oh my i was annoyed.

  • loulou Member

    Pathing seems pretty good. I played five or so games, and in each game I would lose a unit or two because they got trapped by the units behind them pushing them into the enemy. I felt OK with that, though, because I came from Starcraft and it happens there, too. For the most part the pathing felt good.

  • When I'm trying to micro in battle, it seems like the graphical representation of the unit doesn't match the size of the collision box. This makes me feel confused and frustrated because units that don't look like they're physically touching are prevented from moving. I'd like to feel as though the visual representation accurately matches the collision box size. One way to improve might be to see if you can dig up how WC3 matches collision boxes to unit representation and targeting circle size. If there is supposed to be a "buffer zone" around the unit, that's fine, but the targeting circle should clearly represent this.

  • G2a504ef7314a4719990a2c4a1cd64824 0:49 bottom right unit gets stuck even though there is clear path

  • bIu3b1rdbIu3b1rd Member

    So far, I like the pathing. I've really taken to Hydros in particular, and I've found that the pathing+collision situation drives me to make a totally melee and healing-focused build (forget any ranged attacks with him) that operates separately from the other teammates. Joining a fight as support after it's started or doing my own thing (like supporting a Titan) while my 2 teammates focus on another area seem to always be the best choices. Fighting someone head on or working in tandem with an ally for a joint attack doesn't work well (unless I flank from behind). It took some adjustment to shift my brain from expecting to be a tank when Hydros is really a support character, but I'm finding that I now feel pretty happy with it.

  • When A large battle happens and there are a large number of units everywhere I found it very hard to micro the units how i would have liked.
    It was slightly upsetting when you are trying to move but you can't due to collision or the path that the units will try to take and end up just going back and forth.
    I fill like the main problem is that the hit box on most of the units that I have encounter is slightly to big, this causes for a larger mess of units as well as it doesn't look as clean as if they were more tightly packed.

  • Do units get where you want them to go?

    In a comparison with the Play Test Week 3 for unit pathing. I'd say the Atlas crew is working out all the problems at a very rapid pace and I commend you guys for that. In addition the pathing is certainly fixed it's self quite a bit as I was able to escape many team fights without losing my entire army. Its not as disappointing or depressing when you lose everyone of your units in a fight as a result of not finding a way out. However the unit collisions are still a minor problem when trying to pull out of a conflict or when trying to angle your melee fighters infront of the ranged fighters. They tend to hug each other when bunched up and refuse to let go of each other. I found this rather funny and annoying at the same time as i'd watch the units go into pairs in the cluster, but then stop each other from escaping resulting in either one or both dying.

  • ShannondShannond Member

    Replay ID: G4642fb6138504f54b115d449bc8493de
    1:55 Hydros fighting the middle easy camp. scuttleguard try to walk between him and the wall. 7:55 make it happen again.

  • tedstertedster Member
    1. Some units seem fatter than their sprites would indicate, though I appreciate that units don't feel like they are made of liquid (a la SC2). Micro requires some awareness and while I think it could use some tweaking I'm ok with the direction it is going so far.
    2. Units still have a tendency to split up and take different paths to the same location which I'd love to see tweaked a bit. If you're attentive it's easy to correct but sometimes 1-2 units will slip away and die for depressing reasons.
    3. The current code for clicking on a gem feels really, really punishing and frustrates me every single game I play. The entire army runs off to grab a gem which is fine when you're clicking from far away but typically once you're on top of the gems you only want your hero moving around. The easiest correction I can see for this is to give heroes a "collect nearby gem" button that you can mash so you don't have to manually separate your hero every time you want to grab multiple gems.
    4. Units are unable to fire back at enemies in tall grass a huge percentage of the time, especially with attack move commands. This feels incredibly punishing, especially when your army decides to treat an attack-move command as a "move" command and runs right up next to an attacking enemy force that proceeds to kill your entire army in a few seconds. Having temp vision work on enemies firing from blocked sight I think is vital to making the game feel fair.
  • DargDarg Member

    The creep-block makes me feel frustrated more than excited about possible scenarios for trapping an opponent. Some of the pathing is wonky as well. When trying to engage a fight, melee units will sometimes take the long way around a bad guy.

  • WherewolfWherewolf Member

    I just want to echo that units felt a bit larger than models indicated. It was difficult to pull individual units back, so eventually I just peeled back clumps of units instead of just the damaged guy. It made jungle camps take a bit longer to do, but it was less frustrating.

    I also saw a few melee units freak out and spins in circles a few times. Don't have any examples on hand though..

  • IsaiahIsaiah Member

    A couple times while I was playing I would be chasing people just out of range with my raptors, and an ally would come, and get behind me trapping me in between their mass of units, and the enemies mass of units which would result in my army being decimated, I felt like I didn't have anything I could do in that situation.

    I like trapping people with my scuttleguards, but sometimes I felt like they would get stuck on things for a moment, as well as not figure out how to group on enemies even though there was a clear spot for more of them to fill.

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