[Ubi Official] Pathing Changes

[BB_Katealyst]

Updated the original thread with why we had to change pathing. I hope that it clears at least some things up.

We are currently working on a new developer diary with updated dates so keep your eyes peeled for that.

I also wanted to emphasize that this change did not adversely affect development. Our development team is not small. They do not all work on a single feature. Some are tasked with bug fixes, while others are tasked with feature creation, and others are tasked with item creation etc. Just because one feature comes out before the others doesn't mean it is more important. It just may have been finished and tested on the test server sooner. As you can imagine, bigger features require longer development time and a longer time on the test server.

I encourage everyone to check out the test server regularly, as that is the perfect time to give feedback on new features.

[Wimpy]

If I missed it, I am sorry. But no where in the list of the changes and the reasons do you mention that the leader camps now have agro. While this looks like a minor change it can cause serious problems when trying to figure out pathing.

[Toughguylol]

Kate, your reasons for changing the pathing seems to be good reasons. And i now know that the old pathing is impossible to revive, because the "new pathing" has also been impletemented on British, German, and all other European servers. However, the new pathing was put on the German servers ages before it was put on the US servers, right? So i'd imagine that you guys would have had plenty of prior knowledge about this imminent change.

Most players are adapting to the new change. My only suggestion, and i believe many players will agree with me, is to warn us beforehand about drastic changes such as these

Oh yes, and thank you for being so courteous in spite of the vast amount of hate you've seen on these forums. People, including myself, are just frustrated by some of the recently added features.

[EpsilonSilver]

I am glad that the fix is in.
Those issues in adventures were unacceptable.
The guides are being amended.
However, I had a sftr invite disappear.
It came, I accepted, and it went to cyberspace limbo.

[Ubi Official] Pathing Changes
Hey all,

As many of you are aware, the recent patch on 7/12 has changed the behavior your generals will take on their way to battle: this change was intended by the patch.

• The path the general takes now corresponds to the preview
• The general now takes a straight path to his destination
• A bug that made the general jump back to the start of his route
is fixed

These changes were needed in order to fix some of the existing bugs in the game. Not all blocking has been removed. The only thing that has changed is pathing. You can still use an advanced blocking technique, just be aware that the pathing in many cases HAS changed.

The old pathing system solution wasn’t an optimal solution. The old system was too taxing on the performance of the game and caused some side effects like:
a. Running settlers
b. Difference between preview and path taken
c. Jumping general in adventures
d. Invisible generals (impression that he disappeared)
e. Unnatural routes

This needed to be addressed in order to push forward with development. We do, however, apologize that the change affected users the way it did. We do not want to take the strategy out of the game, but issues that create bugs or could create potential future bugs need to be addressed. I hope you will bear with us through this change.

As noted in a different thread, the new path finding will probably not significantly affect adventures where all camps appear after each other and that cannot be skipped, even if some pretty advanced blocking methods have been made for them, e.g:

• The Island of the Pirates
• Witch of the Swamp
• Traitors
• The Dark Priests
• Wild Mary

However, the new path finding will affect existing guides for adventures where you today can skip camps, e.g:

• Horseback
• Stealing from the Rich
• Outlaws
• Victor the Vicious
• Sons of the Veldt
• The Nords

We are now hosting a Guide Creation Contest so we can work through the changes together. This contest can be found here.

I am sorry if this wasn't the answer you were looking for. Feel free to discuss the changes in the thread below.

-Katealyst

[sagminor]

Would a general with a whole bunch of troops really take the most direct route??? I understand this is a strategic vs tactical game, but the concept of choosing to attack weak positions and by-pass strong ones is nothing new and not cheating or unrealistic. It does make one wonder if the ultimate objective is to prolong the battles and force more resource consumption, with the hopeful goal of increasing gem sales. Personally I'll just take longer. I've not yet done any adventures (on vacation and recoverying from last one), but it will be sad if it is now just a "slug" fest. Also as one of the other respondent's put the cost of creating some of units versus their effectiveness is unbalanced (see soldiers vs elite soldiers). I don't have a formula to adjust it, but the cost in terms of time, raw materials for weapons and ale/beer/wine etc should be reviewed.