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Here's a comparison of SC pathing vs war3 pathing. From watching gameplay vids, it SEEMS to me, that units are using war3 style pathing, except clumping together more heavily. Someone who went to Blizzcon can confirm this.
Edit: Seems like some people can't read, so I'm going to emphasize this very important point with some bold italic underlining: THE FORMATION BUTTON IN WARCRAFT 3 CHANGES THE PATHFINDING SO THAT YOUR SELECTION MOVES AT THE SPEED OF THE SLOWEST UNIT. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH UNITS GETTING CLUMPED UP INTO A NICE LOOK GRID, AND THERE IS NO WAY TO DISABLE THIS ASPECT OF THE WAR3 PATHING!!!
SC pathing: units move parallel to each other, unless they're going down a ramp or something else is obstructing their path, or the formation is outside of the "magical boxes".
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc2.jpg)
It's a little inaccurate at times, but it generally gets the right idea.
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc4.jpg)
(edit) If the units are outside of the magic boxes, they all converge on a single point, regardless of whether or not the point is inside or outside of the unit formation.
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc9.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc10.jpg)
War pathing: units fall into a nice looking box
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_war1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_war2.jpg)
Oh no! All that time I spent setting up a nice little formation to protect my archmage was completely wasted.
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_war3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_war4.jpg)
It doesn't matter if they are tightly packed or spread out, they still fall into the same spread box formation. You might also want to take note that the position of the box is dependent on the direction you clicked the command in.
This box may look nice, but it has huge implications on unit formations, in other words, you can't set one up! Toggling the formation button does nothing - that sets it so that a group of units moves at the same speed as the slowest unit.
Someone from Blizzcon can probably answer this. I've noticed big units like siege tanks tripping up as they try to rotate around each other, instead of moving parallel to one another so they wouldn't have to get around each other. It also seems like no matter what the player does, marines travel in huge boxy clusters.
That box may LOOK nice, but it plays horrible, and out of all of the features that you can argue newbie up war3, this is by far the biggest one. The most optimal pathing formation is one where all your units move parallel to each other - refer to 1,000 vods of players setting up zergling surrounds, moving perfectly set up zealot walls to charge tank lines and block zerglings from hitting your templar, and deliberately calculated tank formations. With war3 style pathing, these formations would immediately be broken up in a single move command.
I don't understand why anyone else hasn't brought this up but me, and whenever I posted about it during war3 beta, I got ignored. This is a HUGE FUCKING DEAL and we need to make a lot of noise about it to get this fixed as soon as possible.
Unlike a lot of other comments about war3 in this forum, this is not a blind "war3=noob" flame, it's a serious issue that's gone without discussion.
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Try adding a dragoon or templar to that first photo and see if it's just because they walk at different speeds.
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On August 15 2007 15:11 5HITCOMBO wrote:
Try adding a dragoon or templar to that first photo and see if it's just because they walk at different speeds. In the second photo I'm only commanding footmen around, but I'll go check it out
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I remember that there was a scattered option on War3. In fact, I believe you have it selected, and I have no idea why your units still get into position.
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On August 15 2007 15:13 Axsynthe wrote:
I remember that there was a scattered option on War3. In fact, I believe you have it selected, and I have no idea why your units still get into position. Addressed it. Having formations on moves your units at the speed of the slowest unit in the selection.
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Having two different units in your group doesn't seem to have any effect.
However, the pathing may take an extra few seconds to get sorted out in its final formation if a slower unit is blocking a faster one. I can't exactly screenshot this, but it happened to me here.
I also forgot about the "magical boxes" - if the group of units is a certain distance apart, then they converge on a single point.
Personally i feel that the best UI setting for the "magical boxes" would be to define them as a box bounded around your current selection - anything inside the box converges, anything outside the box goes parallel.
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CA10828 Posts
yeah, i really agree. when i saw the rines and reapers running around i was like "wow they'd get owned by storm" since they clump together so much.
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On August 15 2007 15:41 LosingID8 wrote:
yeah, i really agree. when i saw the rines and reapers running around i was like "wow they'd get owned by storm" since they clump together so much.
Haha^^..
I totally agree with the topic starter. Pathing and unitmovement is one of the biggest, maybe the biggest deal in an RTS.
I mean - all graphics and good gameplay ideas don't help anything when you can't control your units you like want to.
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Yeah you're probably right. It definately should be like in SC1. But as we know, nothing is final yet, and maybe Blizzard considered this as a minor issue (not important for their demos/presentations -> include WC3 pathing and leave it untouched for now) which they can change later on.
They were in a hurry to make a playable version for Blizzcon, and people first want to see the graphics, units and so on, so I guess that this was low priority but will be changed before release.
A neat thing maybe would be an option to set different formations (e.g. horizontal row, vertical row, clump together, spread, keep this formation [SC1]).
But it's good that you made this thread... this is one easily overlooked but important issue.
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Don't get into a fit about path finding stuff you guys see so far.
Blizzard is really working on pathing issues to the best of their abilities and I have no doubts that they'll pull through.
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On August 15 2007 17:01 MYM.Testie wrote:
Don't get into a fit about path finding stuff you guys see so far.
Blizzard is really working on pathing issues to the best of their abilities and I have no doubts that they'll pull through. I'm mostly getting into a fit because I couldn't convince anyone in war3 beta that the pathfinding system was inferior to SC just because it automatically moved ranged units to the back ranks ;_;
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Germany1302 Posts
You are probably right, but it's still valid to post such things. It's one thing to have faith in Blizzard to do things right (which I have), but if everyone would simply rely on that faith and noone would post his thoughts and ideas anymore I'm pretty sure Sc2 will not be as good as it could be. We know Blizzard listens to us and they do it for a reason.
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Pathfinding should be fixed. But no auto-formations.
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they should keep pathfinding same as sc1 and have no "stupid" pathfinding units , for example: goliaths
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CA10828 Posts
On August 15 2007 17:41 x_woof_x wrote:
they should keep pathfinding same as sc1 and have no "stupid" pathfinding units , for example: goliaths we terran users have no right to complain when protoss have the dragoon
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This is really interesting, I knew how units moved in starcraft but never knew how it worked in warcraft 3. Definatly something someone at blizzard should pay attention to.
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Warcraft 3's set pathing is toggleable btw. You can click one of those buttons by the minimap to have freeform pathing.
Just another example of a UI change that makes it easier for the masses but allows the pros to show off skills. The UI change is intended for noobs to have easier control their army of varying speeds (so your catapults don't lag behind your main army, in SC that was be your vultures not moving too far ahead of your tanks.)
But a pro would have precise control over his units anyways and not need such a feature.
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...and this is exactly the difference between pros and n00bs!
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Path finding is problematic especially in a 3D environment, this is why games like counter strike uses nodes on the map to help bots navigate around because its an extremely difficult task to do. it requires more computations to process where a unit can and can not go in 3D space and how it gets there, in SC it was a relational 2D block algorithm. Where the square the unit occupies is non walk able by other units, simple and works great... for 2D
WC3 being 3D used invisible 3D bounding boxes to help a unit know its place in 3D space, so it could move accordingly over the different height terrain the issue there is that the bounding box could rotate with the unit and if it would touch another unit's bounding box then it would want to separate itself because as pointed out with the tank example spinning around - if they were too clumped together then any rotation of this invisible box would cause a 'hit' to trigger and the unit would have to recalculate how it should move to get to its destination and possibly spin around in frustration when the box just touches slightly. The way around this (how players get surrounds on heros) is to constantly tell units you want it to go HERE and constantly issue the order, slowly the path becomes clear for the unit and it will move as intended.
SC2 is going to focus on height which raises more issues like how does a unit like the colossus find its way around a group of units to move up a cliff? Could it step over them? all or some? Step on them? Then what if another colossus was blocking its path from the top of the cliff, does it wait, move around? What about when the group moves together how does it move in relation to the group? There are many issues for blizzard to consider when programming how a unit interacts with its surroundings.
I'm not convinced we'll see an exact SC1 type pathing due to the nature of the environment but like everyone else I do hope a similar approach could be worked out as WC3 was somewhat annoying having to constantly issue orders to get the units where you wanted them.
I hope this post has pointed out some of the issues blizzard will be considering behind the scenes.
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On August 15 2007 20:18 FlyingHamsta wrote:
Warcraft 3's set pathing is toggleable btw. You can click one of those buttons by the minimap to have freeform pathing.
Just another example of a UI change that makes it easier for the masses but allows the pros to show off skills. The UI change is intended for noobs to have easier control their army of varying speeds (so your catapults don't lag behind your main army, in SC that was be your vultures not moving too far ahead of your tanks.)
But a pro would have precise control over his units anyways and not need such a feature.
did you even read the post? this is exactly the problem, it was NOT toggleable in wc3 and they had stupid pathing (possibly because of the 3-D environment)
i would find this disturbing if it occurred in SC2 as it didn't matter quite as much in wc3 (more time spent watching units and less units to control meant pros were better able to constantly micro their armies)
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EPT![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc5.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc6.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc7.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/pathing_sc8.jpg)
