Importance of pathfinding

This article has been written as a part of fixing Loftenwood Cementery due to serious pathfinding issues. As part of this, we have decided to summarize problems with pathfinding during the creation of the new NWN locations.

It suppose to help WB to create locations which don't hve this kind of issue.

Pathfinding is crucial mechanism in NWN supporting the click-to-move action of the players. Players usually navigates character via mouse clicking.

NWN engine will try to calculate right path which leads from the current location to the clicked destination.

When mouse clicking doesn't work properly in some location then players get frustrated and instead they have to switch to use the “WASD” keys to navigate. This worsens the gaming experience.

Also, pathfinding is used as well to properly navigate NPCs in the location. With bugged pathfinding, both the NPC and the players can get stucked in front of some obstacle.

It can be simply said that pathfinding works in this 2 steps. When player clicks on the map:

1. The NWN engine calculates the correct path to the target location based on the tiles only.
2. Then the character starts to move, where during the traveling it will try to avoid placements which appeared in the path

Based on the above knowledge, we have to ensure, that:

1. The tiles on the map are not bugged
2. The solid placements on the map are properly organized

There is several “rules of thumb” which will be described in this article.