Found people for extreme after 20 min of queueing and we got xeno stuck in the textures ruining our run

[Hostel]

Btw not the first time xenos got stuck after the last patch.. ffs

[The Grimm Reefer]

You know, i really wonder what's wrong in these situations. I'm 100+ hours in.. the wife, me and my bro have played through and finished basically everything. minus the crap that is bugged and won't unlock. .... grr.

Anyway. Every single time we have a xeno stuck, we're like, wtf why isn't this ending. We walk around find the xeno stuck inside a wall thanks to the motion tracker letting us know.. then after a short while it will just teleport somewhere. Every single time.

Not once in standard, extreme or intense campaign OR horde mode, did a xeno getting stuck last more than I'd say a minute or two before it teleported.

Really curious how a very extreme few they don't seem to correct for. Really sucks though.

[Hostel]

In our case xeno got stuck in the ceiling https://i.imgur.com/2SH0GRq.png
We tried to shoot him for about 3-4 mins with no success.

[Ryder.J]

Its an issue that should had never been here to beggin with, and if so should had been fixed 1 day after release.Its a simple thing to solve, if stuck, teleport.It has been done in UE 2 to UE 3 from UT 2004 to Killing Floor 1 and 2 to many others.

Its literally something modders have done for instance in KF 1 to prevent this issue and takes literally 20 mins to write the code for it.

Dont know what to tell you at this point, its a clown show.I dont know, head on over to discord and beg your benevolent overloads, maybe they can find 20 minutes to fix this issue lol

[Hostel]

We also used a chokepoint for this room and you can see xenos staying at this spot during the wave https://i.imgur.com/e3x6vjW.png

So maybe chokepoint strat is the reason of this problem.

[Hostel]

Originally posted by Ryder.J:

Its an issue that should had never been here to beggin with, and if so should had been fixed 1 day after release.Its a simple thing to solve, if stuck, teleport.It has been done in UE 2 to UE 3 from UT 2004 to Killing Floor 1 and 2 to many others.

Its literally something modders have done for instance in KF 1 to prevent this issue and takes literally 20 mins to write the code for it.

Dont know what to tell you at this point, its a clown show.I dont know, head on over to discord and beg your benevolent overloads, maybe they can find 20 minutes to fix this issue lol

They have their own priorities..

[BILLYREDNECK]

Originally posted by Hostel:

We also used a chokepoint for this room and you can see xenos staying at this spot during the wave https://i.imgur.com/e3x6vjW.png

So maybe chokepoint strat is the reason of this problem.

SHORT ANSWER: AI pathfinding is bad and should feel bad.


LONGER BUT NOT LONG ENOUGH ANSWER:

This is AI pathfinding. Way more of the xeno pathing is on rails than is readily apparent, but it basically works like this:


— The Basic Pathing System —

- match decides to spawn xeno = xeno1 at spawn location = Spawn1

- match chooses player/bot & sets selected player/bot = P1

- match sets P1’s location as coords = (x1, y1)

- match identifies what ‘grid’ coord (x1, y1) is located in and sets grid = Grid1; (each area/arena is divided into sections of a sort; each section has a set of predetermined paths for most xenos to follow to reach each section from each spawn)

- match chooses from a set of predetermined routes (Option1, Option2, or Option3) that connect Spawn1 to grid1 and sets selected route = Route1

- match spawns xeno1 at Spawn1
- xeno1 follows Route1 to Grid1
- when xeno1 reaches Grid1 Route1 end waypoint then xeno1 Pathing AI activates and attempts to route path from Grid1 Route1 end waypoint to coord (x1, y1)

Now;


— The Major Weaknesses —

- The predetermined routes are not all created equal and some are far more buggy than others (xeno traffic jams on a wall & none of them just go around). This is why the xenos always seem to form trains.

- There is also a system that paths between individual grids. So if P1 moves from Grid1 to Grid2 while xeno1 is enroute, the game updates coord (x1, y1) to coord (x2, y2). Once xeno1 reaches End Waypoint1 the match sets xeno1 to follow the predetermined route between Grid1 and Grid2. When xeno1 reaches End Waypoint2 then the xeno Pathfinding AI turns on again and the xeno starts ‘actively’ tracking P1 and attacking P1.

- Each area/arena has a sort of (this is a loose interpretation but close enough for our purposes) map grid. Each grid has a set of those predetermined routes that lead from each possible spawn for that area to each individual grid (mostly, some don’t have any). Each predetermined route has its own End Waypoint.

There’s a major problem with this system though, because not all arenas/areas have a map grid that covers the entire arena/area -AND- there are very, very, very few predetermined routes between individual arenas/areas (ever notice how very few spawn locations the game uses between arena battles? This is why. The number of predetermined routes required grows exponentially for each possible spawn location added and each possible area added.)

- Each arena is designed around the team operating primarily in the area immediately surrounding the ammo box. This means that the most predetermined routes from spawns lead to the ammo box grid. (Ever notice how much weirder ♥♥♥♥ gets when the team, and sometimes even one player, sets up away from the ammo box or the immediate surroundings of the ammo box? This is why. Sometimes there are 2 ‘defensive positions in an arena (the bridge gate where the dropship shows up is a great example). Ever notice how often xenos go sprinting by your position while staring at you, then pull a 180 and come back to attack you? This is why.)

- The xeno Pathfinding AI has issues kicking on if xeno1 is bumped off of its predetermined route before reaching the End Waypoint.


— The Major Issues —

- The xeno Pathfinding AI is pathetic. It struggles with obstacles (crates, low walls, anything that isn’t flat and straight). It struggles with transitions (where 2 ‘sections’ of wall or floor meet, but mostly wall; doorways, connections between areas <- these are usually marked by a doorway but are a little different because they activate loading of a new area and/or rolling dice for new spawns).

You can begin to identify where sections of wall/floor meet by watching areas where xenos regularly get stuck. There are some really obvious ones in the Pathogen missions.

- Not all areas have a predetermined route that leads to the adjacent areas. The Pathfinding AI is -not- designed to account for this and struggles to deal with it. (Ever see that collection of xenos on the Motion Tracker when you stayed in a hallway, even if the door isn’t designed to lock behind the team? This is why.)

- Not all arenas/areas have a map grid that covers the entire arena or area. This includes not covering the possible areas that a team can access -WITHOUT- forcing a door to remain open.

A great place to see this is C1M1, the arena after the first Warrior encounter (the arena that always has a Drone near it; right after turning on the generator, through the hall).
- let the final door close
- activate the arena by having a player run to the end of the hallway, then once the arena is activated have that player and the entire fireteam stand with backs to the final doorway
- You will see 2 things almost every single match;

1. xenos that spawn outside the player hallway will often run passed the hallway entrance and get stuck in a crowd to the right of the hallway entrance.

2. xenos that spawn inside the player hallway, from the door on the right closest to the players, the xenos will -always- run to the opposite wall of the hallway before turning to begin attacking the players, regardless of player position. The xeno’s heads will be tracking their target before they exit the doorway so you can tell which player each one is going to attack immediately.

Now, we need to expand on this to understand what’s happening with these permanently stuck spawns.

The spawn locations have a ‘spawn room’ behind them that the xeno Pathfinding AI can navigate (poorly). Some of these ‘spawn rooms’ are massive or have very unstable boundaries. Usually (when everything works correctly) the xenos spawn pretty much right inside the spawn portal so all they have to do is exit, but sometimes this doesn’t happen and the xeno spawns somewhere else in the room.

So xenos can either get stuck at a far corner trying to get out, or glitch through the room boundary and effectively get stuck outside the playable area & be trapped outside of the ‘spawn room’.

- If the match lacks a predetermined route to lead to the player’s grid, then sometimes the xeno Pathfinding AI activates before the xeno has passed through the spawn ‘portal’ (the vent/doorway or whatever).

- Because the xeno Pathfinding AI (and really all the Pathfinding AI in this game) couldn’t navigate its way out of an open unfenced field, the xenos often get stuck in the ‘spawn room’ behind the spawn portal.

- If a xeno glitches through a ‘spawn room’ boundary and can’t get back in, the match can’t identify that the Pathfinding AI can’t route the xeno to the player and therefore often fails to activate the xeno despawn/respawn script.


———

This is not totally comprehensive and leaves out things like updating coord (x1, y1) as P1 moves throughout the process. But I don’t want to write the whole freaking thing out.

[BILLYREDNECK]

And that’s my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dissertation.

[Hostel]

Wow. Thanks for comprehensive explanation.

[BILLYREDNECK]

Originally posted by Hostel:

Wow. Thanks for comprehensive explanation.

You’re very welcome.