[request] getting creeps to follow the waypoints guide?

[MrLorz]

can someone do a guide to getting your creeps to follow a specific path??
i have all my waypoints set up just like in caldavar map but for some reason my creeps always seem to take the shortest route possible to the enemy base.
they dont follow the road they are supposed to walk down and they certainly dont walk to the first waypoint.
need help!

[FlameStick]

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showpost.php?p=12768245&postcount=50

[MrLorz]

yeah ive done that.
heres the thing.. say i have a path for them to follow. and that path is the shape of an S
now imagine i want the creeps to follow that S shaped path.
but the reality is the available space for them to move is more like $
rather than follow the way points that are placed along the S path they will take the | shortcut to the enemy base.
so basicly they are ignoring two waypoints in the process.

[dandylion]

The way the units work is partially through acquiring targets. If you're familiar with WC3 at all, they are set on an "attack-move" command, meaning, that if a target within range is acquired, they will proceed to attack that target, provided pathing is available. I don't know what acquisition range for creeps is at all. Beyond that, even after destroying their target, they *should* proceed to move to the next waypoint that was intended for them to go to. If they're not behaving in that fashion, there may be some other bit programmed into the game that modifies priority of a predetermined path and the waypoints along the way. I couldn't say for sure what else might be going on there.

[Oloko]

Creeps can sometime skip waypoints in special case. I don't know exactly how the system works since its hard coded.
For example, you can make the top creeps skip the first tower waypoint by pulling them in the jungle or you can even take them to the river. They won't turn back to get to the waypoint.

Maybe they will go to the closest waypoint to them that is in their waypoint list.
That would explain why they follow a straight path if the closest waypoint is are the ones in a straight line. Maybe you could upload a picture of your map with the actual nodes of the creeps.

[MrLorz]

thanks Oloko,

your post kinda gave me some ideas on what might be going on.
either way here is a pic of the map.
the yellow line indicates the path i would like them to take. problem is i want to have some more paths for the heroes to take. if i open up the trees at all then they follow that opening (aka the red path).

[Luke_Allstar]

i just tested it because i wanted to try if it works, and it's fine on my little testmap, the creeps take the 'S' path even if there are other open paths the creeps could take

the thing with the closest waypoint could be possible, would still be a bit strange, but it's true there are some strange issues on caldavar when pulling creeps far away or blocking them via behe fissure or something like that
maybe try adding more waypoints, could work
if everything else fails you could upload your map and someone takes a look into it

[MrLorz]

yeah after looking at the overhead its very obvious that the waypoint near the enemy tower is much closer than the first waypoint. so i'll try adding some more waypoints and see if that fixes it.

[MrLorz]

welp problem solved. so i slowly added more and more waypoints till they eventually started following the path without deviating.
now i can get to work and actually make a map! thanks for the help guys.

[Oloko]

i just tested it because i wanted to try if it works, and it's fine on my little testmap, the creeps take the 'S' path even if there are other open paths the creeps could take

the thing with the closest waypoint could be possible, would still be a bit strange, but it's true there are some strange issues on caldavar when pulling creeps far away or blocking them via behe fissure or something like that
maybe try adding more waypoints, could work
if everything else fails you could upload your map and someone takes a look into it

Well I kind of guess why it works that way. I mean, you wouldn't want your creep to do half the map and then turn around to get the first waypoint they missed.

It might not actually be the distance between the unit and the closest waypoint, but maybe the pathing distance required to get to the end from each waypoint. I guess you could test it out by creating a node closer than the first one but that has a greater walking distance to get to it (like on top of a cliff).


welp problem solved. so i slowly added more and more waypoints till they eventually started following the path without deviating.
now i can get to work and actually make a map! thanks for the help guys.

It's something nice to know, maybe a wiki would help resolve those kind of issues in the future.

[dandylion]

welp problem solved. so i slowly added more and more waypoints till they eventually started following the path without deviating.
now i can get to work and actually make a map! thanks for the help guys.

Something you may want to test at some point (because I'm curious as well) is doing something like a creep pull. After they defeat the neutral creeps, I'd be interested to see if they went back to the next node, or jumped to a different node way out of the way. I've seen it happen once on my own map (pulling from top lane to creep pull, they cut through the river and started going to the mid lane afterwards!) and I have no idea why. I've never been able to replicate it.