Patrols falling through world

giovith

So I just started work on my 2nd quest, spent a day on the decorations. And just started setting up my encounters. First couple went fine, set up a group of mages around a portal that disappears when you kill em, very cool. Anyways, when I started adding encounters that spawn near the portals and walk away they started falling through the terrain. Very confused here, would like some suggestions.

obbu

Im not sure of the exact cause - however, i can list a few tricks for troubleshooting the problem:

Check the Y value (vertical height) of the spawns (layout & detail individual - they can differ) isn't incorrect, or clipping the ground.

Try moving the spawn, patrol points and all, into an empty spare room (make sure its a different room) and see if it works in there. There are some art assets that are not working correctly, at present time: check you haven't used a broken room or object. I have another map made for testing stuff.

Check the spawn path for objects: are they colliding with something that makes this happen? In my experience, the patrols are very finnicky about crates, doorways and so on. Also, re-arrange the original spawn spots (detail) of the creatures into a formation that will have a greater likelihood of 'surviving' the obstacles on the way intact. Single file can work great: if they are going to aggro at the end anyway, it wont matter too much. If the patrol needs to go through a doorway, try to make the path as painless as possible.

Lastly, you could try the same path, but with a different encounter.

giovith

The map I'm using is an external mountain map. And they are disappearing at
A. end of first patrol point
B. first incline of note
C. the stone path ( a flat surface)
D. Underneath an archway.
The first time I spawned them in a test run 2 of the 3 made it (1 got stuck on an arrow in the ground)
The rest they started vanishing at the above junctures, and I rarely get 1 to arrive at the guards they are programmed to
run head long into.

obbu

So, just to clarify, are these inclines, archways and so on all custom-added architecture?

tilt42

Be aware that the patrols will work differently when the quest is published. I had a talk with the devs about this very issue at the end of the closed beta, and (IIRC) they told me that patrols dropping through the floor was a result of the missing pathing information in unpublished quests.

Having said that, patrols certainly don't work perfectly when published either. I had this awesome little set-piece in The Lanaar Legacy where you hold a position against attacking orcs. You'd stand alongside your troops as the orcs came marching in from around a corner down the street and then turned and came directly at you. It worked perfectly. Then I published it, and the orcs stopped after rounding the corner. After tweaking it for a while I realized that they didn't seem to be able to path up a set of stairs that are built into that map, despite me not adding anything that could risk blocking the path. I eventually ended up having to spawn the orcs right next to the player, which was hugely disappointing to me as an author.

So make sure you test your patrols after publishing. What you see in the Foundry Preview might not at all be representative of their final behavior.

izatar

Yeah, patrol is dodgy. Whatever you do, don't put a patrolling encounter as a kill objective. Sometimes a mob will spawn under the ground or who knows where, and the players can't find it to kill it, so they can't complete the quest. If they can't complete the quest, they can't review it, and since they are fed up, they will never go the extra mile to tell you, so maybe hundreds of players fail to finish your quest and you never know about it.