Can anybody tell me why my npc is dumb?

[plush crag]

I am using pathfinding service, the waypoints are LITERALLY on screen and the npc refuses to follow it, the other parts of the script im still working on. ive asked ai and im quite stumped. Please help

The script is the txt file

im a beginner to pathfinding

[agile juniper]

You made it that way

Qnd ai wont do shit

[plush crag]

so like what can i do

[agile juniper]

Idfk im on phone rn

Someone else gotta help

[plush crag]

dang

[old solstice]

From what I can see in the video, your pathfinding script, is doing what its supposed to do

Pathfinding finds the shortest point between your character and the npc

and the npc follows it

It might be a problem with how you visualized the npc movements

But I might be just jumping to conclusion

there wasn't any obstacles

infront of the npc

So if you could try like to make a wall and see if the npc tries to dodge it or not

@plush crag

[quick pike]

** You are now Level 1! **

[plush crag]

idk what i did wrong but its never following the waypoint path

@old solstice

[old solstice]

OHH

Your not waiting till the npc finished the movement

you should do

Humanoid.MoveToFinished:Wait()

@plush crag

[plush crag]

ohh thanks

but it kinda gets stuck if it keeps waiting

like if a wall suddenly appears its never gonna finish it

[old solstice]

just recompute the path

You can add like a Timeout

if the npc doesn't reach the player after like some times

you recompute the path

[plush crag]

npcHum:MoveTo(waypoint.Position)
timeOut = npcHum.MoveToFinished:Wait()
if not timeOut then
findPath(npc, target)
timeOut:Disconnect()
break

        end

like this?

[old solstice]

Bro timeout in like time

[plush crag]

huh wdym

[old solstice]

after like 40 seconds

you check if the npc

has reached the player

if it hasn't you just recompute the path, using find path

[plush crag]

how do i implement that

[old solstice]

You can just do for example

task.delay(40, function()
  Distance = --Distance between player and npc (magnitude)
  if Distance > 20 and Attempts < 5 then -- You might want to add a certain number of attempts
    Attempts += 1
    findPath()
  end
end)

[unborn seal]

this is a huge, massive newb trap. recommend this only to debug stuff, but it should never be left that way, always do it properly

but also you correct, movetofinished is missing so it just instantly skips to the final waypoint 👍

[old solstice]

Lol I don't mess with pathfinding much, what is the correct way

[unborn seal]

you need to do this annoying state-sensitive thing it's kinda long

so that movetofinished can handle any kind of move

plus the 8 second timeout innate to humanoid:moveto

[old solstice]

Oh so there is an 8 second timeout anyways

[unborn seal]

specifics and code samples found here https://create.roblox.com/docs/characters/pathfinding

[old solstice]

I see, so thats inside of the docs ye?

[unborn seal]

the page i just linked shows a full and complete pathfinding pattern

[unborn seal]

https://create.roblox.com/docs/reference/engine/classes/Humanoid#MoveTo

The reach goal state of a humanoid will timeout after 8 seconds if it doesn't reach its goal. This is done so that NPCs won't get stuck waiting for Humanoid.MoveToFinished to fire. If you don't want this to happen, you should repeatedly call MoveTo so that the timeout will keep resetting.

you don't have to repeatedly call moveto if you handle movetofinished properly

[old solstice]

    local success, errorMessage = pcall(function()
        path:ComputeAsync(character.PrimaryPart.Position, destination)
    end)

    if success and path.Status == Enum.PathStatus.Success then
        -- Get the path waypoints
        waypoints = path:GetWaypoints()

        -- Detect if path becomes blocked
        blockedConnection = path.Blocked:Connect(function(blockedWaypointIndex)
            -- Check if the obstacle is further down the path
            if blockedWaypointIndex >= nextWaypointIndex then
                -- Stop detecting path blockage until path is re-computed
                blockedConnection:Disconnect()
                -- Call function to re-compute new path
                followPath(destination)
            end
        end)

        -- Detect when movement to next waypoint is complete
        if not reachedConnection then
            reachedConnection = humanoid.MoveToFinished:Connect(function(reached)
                if reached and nextWaypointIndex < #waypoints then
                    -- Increase waypoint index and move to next waypoint
                    nextWaypointIndex += 1
                    humanoid:MoveTo(waypoints[nextWaypointIndex].Position)
                else
                    reachedConnection:Disconnect()
                    blockedConnection:Disconnect()
                end
            end)
        end

        -- Initially move to second waypoint (first waypoint is path start; skip it)
        nextWaypointIndex = 2
        humanoid:MoveTo(waypoints[nextWaypointIndex].Position)
    else
        warn("Path not computed!", errorMessage)
    end```

so this basically

[unborn seal]

yeah that

[unborn seal]

this is probably the most important part lua humanoid.MoveToFinished:Connect(function(reached) if reached and nextWaypointIndex < #waypoints then -- Increase waypoint index and move to next waypoint nextWaypointIndex += 1 humanoid:MoveTo(waypoints[nextWaypointIndex].Position) else

moving to the next waypoint should ideally always be handled in movetofinished.

[unborn seal]

getting a constantly changing path into this function is a bit annoying and kinda state-sensitive so it's kinda long

[old solstice]

So instead of looping through the waypoints, you just use the movetofinished connection

[unborn seal]

yea and that is what does the looping, since it essentially calls itself

[old solstice]

Now this is interesting, I get how you it might be a newb trap, since all the youtubers do the for loop thing

instead of actually doing it correctly

[plush crag]

whats the difference between iterating through it using a for loop, and just moving to the next waypoint?

[unborn seal]

yeah you can't change how the npc moves in the middle of a pathfind

or you're stuck waiting for a while until it reaches the next waypoint and then maybe, so the whole thing runs slow

big newb trap, those threads show up all the time

[old solstice]

I see what you mean now, I see you texting about this newb trap all the time, but since I don't use pathfinding much, I never really got what you mean, anyways thanks for explaining

[unborn seal]

i'm no expert, but i did spend a few weeks messing with the pathfinding for my first public game, a monster-in-a-maze game

[old solstice]

I'm yet to release a game 😭

[unborn seal]

i've released 2

[old solstice]

But the project I'm working on is really exciting

[unborn seal]

they're not good games, but they are games and completely functional aside from maybe a stray bug here and there

i needed the practice :p

[old solstice]

So basically, it just prevents delays caused by being blocked randomly which is the issue you had highlighted before

[old solstice]

Tbh, its better than nothing, finishing a project helps you gain alot of experience, though I can't really say since my hours on studio where either working with percentages with other groups, and like small commisions here and there

[plush crag]

so i should just index through the next waypoint, right

does that work when handling multiple npcs on a single script?

[old solstice]

Using humanoid:movetofinished, yes

[unborn seal]

you can't interrupt the movement like when the path updates (like the player moves) or you end up with other funky issues where attacks are slow or something because it's one gigantic loop with really long waits in the middle of it. it causes a whole range of problems.

so a for loop is not the way to go.

[old solstice]

What I'm wondering though is, lets say the player is moving and the zombie is faster than the player, will the zombie be able to reach the player, or because there is a delay, especially if you doing pathfinding through the server, the zombie will never reach the player

I've seen alot of people with that zombie problem especially

[unborn seal]

that's a different problem, and much harder to solve

[old solstice]

mhm, how would you go about solving it

[unborn seal]

not surprised. the short of it is you are facing 2 problems, the first is the fact that pathfindingservice takes time to generate a new path, very easy to solve that by just making the npc run directly at the player if they're in line of sight (otherwise use pathfinding). the second part is much, much harder because of latency, your character on your screen has moved by the time an npc (with infinite movespeed) reached your last known position on the server (and this eventually appears on your screen). classic prediction problem.

no simple solutions.

just having the first part of that solved is usually good enough though, but the hitboxes might be a little off

[old solstice]

You'd probably have to give the zombie longer range won't you

and use spatial query or raycasting

for the hitdetection

instead of touched, though ofcourse nobody really uses it for hitdetection

[unborn seal]

naw the zombie will hit you, it's just, it'll appear as though you're being hit from a larger distance than you might expect.

coz while your character moves on your screen, you'll be standing still on the server, so to speak.

[old solstice]

Ye because it takes time for the character to replicate on the server

[unborn seal]

since the server sees the world in the past, and so does your client for everything other than your client and allat

idk im not going into it here, prediction is a big subject with no easy answers.

[plush crag]

does having the pathfinding function run continously in a while loop interfere with anything? or is it just the regular way of having active pathfinding

[old solstice]

Tbh, predicting where the player is about to move, is going to be kind of tough, and resource heavy if you want it to be accurate

Maybe not resource heavy, since tbh, I wouldn't know the algorithm for it even if I tried 👀

[old solstice]

Not a problem I believe

Just make sure it doesn't compute a path

unless the npc is far from the player

You don't want it to endlessly compute a path forever

[unborn seal]

i'd prefer not to go into it right now

[plush crag]

does running npcs on a local script desync for other players? Like i have information in the server script of the position it's supposed to go, then firing it to all clients to compute the pathfinding and spawning

[quick pike]

** You are now Level 2! **

[unborn seal]

the cheapest solution there is to give the player network ownership of the zombie and do the pathing on the client, but that's not always practical

...and extremely vulnerable to exploiters

lol boss.position=vector3.new(0,-10000,0) --death plane

[old solstice]

ahh exploiters, can't we just delete the from the earth

[old solstice]

Like most of the exploiters in roblox are braindead

They wouldn't even think of that line

[unborn seal]

it's a shame that roblox's efforts to lock down the platform and restrict things like access to coregui and debug.getregistry is what enables exploiters to run so rampant unchecked, makes it so much harder to make anticheats

[unborn seal]

nah they would i assure you

[old solstice]

But I think that most exploiters use already made scripts really

But ig, that still wouldn't prevent the problem

[unborn seal]

if your game gets big enough, someone will eventually make instantbosskill.lua for the skiddies

...and probably charge robux for it

[old solstice]

For your first question, the npc would not even move on the other player's screen beside your own client, now for the replication idea its not bad, though I do not know if the npc will follow the same path on each player's screen

[old solstice]

Like I find hacking into games really interesting actually, like I would like testing different script of my own, to do some finicky stuff in game

though just me saying that would probably get me banned

[unborn seal]

if you're gonna hack anything, http://hackthissite.org or go screw with singleplayer games. keep it out of multiplayer.

[old solstice]

Yup, wouldn't wanna ruin the experience for other people

[unborn seal]

discord has terms against helping anyone with disassembly so i can't give you much more than that

[old solstice]

Thanks anyways

Tbh, you could make money out of finding backdoors

in game

or things that are hackable

[unborn seal]

and people do

[old solstice]

Anyways it was nice having this convo with you