1.69 Pathfinding

[Box]

This suggestion has major pros and some obvious cons as well, but I know that the new 1.69 pathing is a double edged sword.

On one hand we have the ability to actually bottleneck, cut off, and prevent NPCS or PCs from surrounding us and all attacking at the same time.

On the other, we have PC's who have died to the 'dance of death', where their PC is cut off by another PC or NPC's movement, making their PC automatically run around in combat to get a better spot. Sometimes this gets a player killed by AoO's, or makes them walk on traps, or on rare occasions jumps a player right into a horde of enemies and completely surrounding them.  We also have some cases where the PC will simply stop attacking, leaving them flat footed and open to be crushed.


My suggestion is to give player characters and certain NPCs, the Cutscene Ghost effect.  What this effect does, is allows a PC to 'override' the nwn pathing and allows them to pass through NPCs or PCs. This effect does not allow them to pass through objects or placables, only creatures.  This would effectively eliminate the dance of death and I'm sure make many people happy, since almost all of us have died or nearly died because of it. It also means those of us unfortunate to suffer collision jumps into hordes of enemies, can escape without being effectively trapped.

On the other hand though, there are some problems with doing this. Obviously it allows players to surround NPCS much easier, and makes it nearly impossible for NPCS or other PCs to effectively surround a PC and block an escape by doing so.  However, this effect could either be limited to quest areas if desired, or possibly disabled for DM supervised PVP, which would limit, but not eliminate any issues about surrounding a PC in PVP.




This suggestion has some major pros, but also has some big cons.

Thoughts?

[Nyx]

I don't want that at all. The ability to block players or creatures is wonderful.

[Divine_Barbarian]

Sounds like a big bundle of potential problems for a problem that can be worked around by smart click and keyboard.

[Caddies]

If we could get rid of this stupid pathfinding it would basically be amazing. 1.69 pathfinding is ludicrously lame.

[BrittanyPanthas]

Despite the value one can see in blocking PCs in PvP combat, the merit of removing the pathfinding seems to far outweigh it, and can prevent some rather lame situations where one is trapped.

I say remove it.

[Decimate_The_Weak]

Honestly, I've been victim to being killed since I couldn't move around my allies. Regardless, that is only a minor problem - not being able to move through your two buddies can be rather annoying at times.
 
Nothing like being a big, tough, Garagosian Priest of Doom... if you can't even walk between a boar, and a chicken. :\
 
HOWEVER...
 
I think, instead of removing it entirely, just... decrease it somehow. Having the ability to block somebody's escape is priceless.

[putrid_plum]

SO FOR IT!

[ScruffyMcSmirkalot]

Wait, is 1.69 pathfinding what is responsible for the glitch where I tripped that deadly firetrap when I told it to disarm and the DM didn't let me free-rez?
 
In that case, get rid of it!
 
But wait, trying to understand here, Box... Currently we're using 1.69 pathfinding, right? And you're suggesting we replace it with the old pathfinding and implement ghosting? or did I misread that?
 
As for the ghosting... I'd say quest-only areas... however, I could see this in a non-abuseable fashion for the other areas if it was somehow crafted into an activated ability that ran some sort of check allowing you to ghost or some such, most likely related to tumble. However, I've no idea how work-intensive that is. Just throwing it out there though.

[Gippy]

I've gotten used to it. I'd really not want to see it go away, at this point.

[Damien]

remove the ability to push around chars like bumper cars plez

[Porkolt]

Against because PCs should not be ghosts.
 
Also because this would eliminate the RP moments where you get into PVP because someone was blocking the path. And who wouldn't want that?

[derfo]

I hate the 1.69 pathfinding, but I don't think turning everyone into ghosts is that great of an idea! Props for trying to alleviate this problem though.

[ScottyB]

It's called CutsceneGhost. It's not that much different from the (default NWN) spell Darkness applying an invisibility effect.

FWIW, NWN is the only multiplayer CRPG I've played that uses the "bumper car" collision, and I find it annoying more often than not. Imagine a crowd being able to crowd around something, rather than everybody getting bumped around until they're uniform distances apart.

If you've ever played the SoU and HotU campaigns, CutsceneGhost is used during almost all cutscenes so that characters can move with fewer pathfinding issues. How bad is that, when you can't even script a scene without your own game's pathfinding fucking up? Navigating by mouse is suicide.

[putrid_plum]

Seriously, you can bump a PC around all over the place accross the map.  It is HORRIBLE and causes so many problems like having to run around 5 people because a PC side stepped in your bubble in combat, causing 10 AoO's.  Even spaces that your character 'should' fit through, you often don't.  Like being a halfling but needings 10 feet to pass between two PCs, it's so wrong.

[Caddies]

Dude, if someone can remove 1.69 pathfinding...IT NEEDS TO BE DONE.