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IDProjectCategoryView StatusDate SubmittedLast Update
0006276The Dark ModSaving/Loadingpublic21.03.2023 03:3720.02.2024 02:41
Reporterwellingtoncrab Assigned To 
PriorityhighSeveritymajorReproducibilitysometimes
Status newResolutionopen 
PlatformPCOSWindows 11 
Product VersionTDM 2.11 
Target VersionTDM 2.13 
Summary0006276: Frequent saving and reloading/"idle_animations_interval" manipulation po causing ai to path find into monster clip and get stuck
DescriptionOn two missions I have worked on Iris and Seeking Lady Leicester we have had ghost players report instances of ai getting stuck in some corner of the map just repeating a loop of their walking animation. I tired a lot back when I was working on Iris to reproduce this but always struggled to do so. I never saw it in the course of a normal play through and I would open the map and leave it running for hours at a high time scale and never reproduced anything reliably. The screenshots would show the ai usually in a position of the map that would place them inside of a monster clip brush and it would happen often in their playthroughs.

We have been running into this problem again beta testing Seeking Lady Leicester. A tester on SLL pointed out to me that as result of their "ghost" play style they are constantly quick saving and reloading the game sometimes over and over again even if they get a minor alert. This reminded me that the player I was troubleshooting this issue with in Iris was also a ghost player. So I tried starting the map and just really regularly hitting the save and reload keys every few seconds while cruising around the map in noclip and within about five minutes I started to find AI getting stuck in this loop. I reloaded the mission repeating the process and found another one (but only one in this instance) that was stuck in about 10 minutes. If the stuck ai gets an even minor alert level they will revert to their normal patrol - so typical play styles are perhaps less likely to encounter this, but if a player is eagle eyeing the stealth stats and saving and reloading constantly it seems more likely to occur and potentially ruin the experience for them.

I also think this issue may related or exacerbated by manipulating the "idle_animations_interval" spawnarg on ai. I tend to decrease this quite a bit from it's default value of 40 seconds as this makes the ai produce ambient sounds more regularly and provides more variety and character in their animations while they are moving about the map. I believe I had this set at about 18 and was able to produce stuck ai in a reasonably short play time - resetting this 40 and after about 20 minutes I had not encountered any. The kind of random nature of the bug and difficulty of checking all the ai in a given mission makes it hard to say with certainty unfortunately.
Steps To Reproduce-Start a mission
-Save and reload constantly
Tagspathfinding, save
Attached Files
seeking (2023-03-20 19-15-25) (3335.99 -2.12 56.71).jpg (445,236 bytes)

Activities

Daft Mugi

Daft Mugi

08.12.2023 02:50

developer   ~0016225

Last edited: 08.12.2023 03:27

 Bumping this to high priority for 2.12 as it keeps showing up during YouTube/Twitch playthroughs.
It's quite gamebreaking.

Seeking Lady Leicester:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK9UVXG9Pw0&t=10873s
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK9UVXG9Pw0&t=11117s

Iris:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtKqFnX84Z8&t=16258s
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtKqFnX84Z8&t=21648s
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtKqFnX84Z8&t=22781s
Daft Mugi

Daft Mugi

08.12.2023 02:55

developer   ~0016226

Last edited: 08.12.2023 03:13

 This doesn't just affect ghost players. This bug is also present in FenPhoenix's recent playthroughs.
nbohr1more

nbohr1more

08.12.2023 16:15

developer   ~0016231

Hmm.

A quick brainstorm on a fix:

On save, record the last path node the AI traversed
On reload, take the saved AI position and move it away from pathfinding obstacles towards the last node until it is at the minimum safe distance from all obstacles
Maybe elevate the AI a little so it drops to the ground on reload too.
Frost_Salamander

Frost_Salamander

08.12.2023 22:07

reporter   ~0016238

Yep, a few players complained about this happening in High Expectations as well.
nbohr1more

nbohr1more

20.02.2024 02:40

developer   ~0016536

The scope of the fix for this is too large and risky at this phase in the beta and we have yet to determine the best solution.
Moving to 2.13 but it may be included in a 2.12 hotfix if something sensible can be designed.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
21.03.2023 03:37 wellingtoncrab New Issue
21.03.2023 03:37 wellingtoncrab File Added: seeking (2023-03-20 19-15-25) (3335.99 -2.12 56.71).jpg
08.12.2023 02:37 Daft Mugi Priority normal => high
08.12.2023 02:37 Daft Mugi Severity normal => major
08.12.2023 02:37 Daft Mugi Target Version => TDM 2.12
08.12.2023 02:50 Daft Mugi Note Added: 0016225
08.12.2023 02:55 Daft Mugi Note Added: 0016226
08.12.2023 03:13 Daft Mugi Note Edited: 0016226
08.12.2023 03:27 Daft Mugi Note Edited: 0016225
08.12.2023 16:15 nbohr1more Note Added: 0016231
08.12.2023 22:07 Frost_Salamander Note Added: 0016238
11.02.2024 05:10 Fiver Tag Attached: save
11.02.2024 05:10 Fiver Tag Attached: pathfinding
20.02.2024 02:40 nbohr1more Note Added: 0016536
20.02.2024 02:41 nbohr1more Target Version TDM 2.12 => TDM 2.13