Bethesda and AI path finding, did someone figure out a fix?

[oyclo]

One thing is clear, and thats whoever does the path finding AI at Bethesda has been with them for years, and hasn't gotten any better.

 

Its just awful, and we all know that. Why, I couldn't tell you, no excuse at this point in time.

 

So for the first time in years I try Oblivion, I pretty it up with all the great mods that have come out, but the enemies still get stuck on, well everything.

 

Now obviously its long past the patch date for this sort of thing, but did anyone come with a clever way around this problem from a modding standpoint?

[MikeySix]

Actually the pathfinding is a HUGE improvement over the pathfinding in morrowind. If you don't believe me, just go get a follower.

 

But yeah, it could use some work, but still, you have to admit it's like night and day comparing the pathfinding of Oblivion and Morrowind.

[ub3rman123]

I know they use pathgrids in Oblivion and navmeshes in Fallout 3, what in Morrowind? Nothing?

[Vindekarr]

If you think this is bad, try an early '90s RTS and you'll realise how little you have to complain about.

 

Oblivion , speaking relatively has excellent pathfinding. A few examples of what actualy qualify as BAD pathfinding would be: champions online, AI will rush straight for you every single time, hover over a cliff, and they'll fall off chasing you, its that simple. But most embarrissing is in the very first playable area, a soldier you're sent to save will say "thanks for the rescue" then walk straight off a cliff and die. Also, the first supreme commander game had lousy pathing for boats, they were confused by shores, and while supcom AI is generaly very smart, it could get lost in complex seaside geometry, so you needed to manualy plot a course for your ships. Though this could be fixed by taking the 5 seconds needed to actualy give them a course to follow.

 

So really, its not bad pathing till the idiot runs straight off a cliff without seeing it. Compared to this and hundreds of other exmaples I can give, Oblivion is a wonderous jewel of pathfinding ability. Just be glad this really has advanced, those early games... /sigh

[ub3rman123]

Runescape's was exploitable, last time I recall it (I quit a long time ago, dunno if it's been fixed). There's no pathgridding, so you can just stand on the opposite side of a table and forever shoot arrows at a gigantic evil demon that wants to destroy the universe. Not very smart demon, I suppose, if a small wooden end table can stop it.

[David Brasher]

I think the Oblivion system is pretty advanced, but I have a couple of gripes.

 

(1) The combat AI has a slow reaction time. The actor will run straight at you and bump into the table you are standing behind. He will keep running against the table for what seems like three seconds or more before deciding he is stuck and consulting the path-gridding to figure out how to get around the table.

 

(2) Poor utilization of the existing system by modders and the original programmers at Bethesda. There are numerous problems with the path-gridding in vanilla Oblivion where actors are told to run through rocks and trees and walls. The situation is far worse in mods where many modders don't know about path-gridding and don't use it at all, or else don't know how to do it properly so it will work right.

[ub3rman123]

Don't stare at me on that one, I always do the pathgridding, even if I detest it.

[David Brasher]

I am not accusing ub3rman123 of not path-gridding. My esteemed colleague seems like a person who would have excellent path-gridding in his dungeons. I am just saying that I have opened a fair number of mods in the CS and seen non-existent or badly done path-gridding in many of them.

[ub3rman123]

Well, it does usually seem like a beginner's mistake. I've seen a few first mods in which the pathgrid was omitted. But few others lack it. I do wish there were an indoor pathgrid generator, but that'd be very hard to program due to there being collision everywhere.