Developer's Blog : Monster Movement Improvements

Greetings Saviors!    This is Tree of Savior Dev. Team.    In this post, we are going to introduce the work we are currently doing to improve the quality of monster movement.   Current Issues with Monster Movement   Engaging in battles against swarms of enemies with a variety of skills has been a core element of Tree of Savior's gameplay. For that reason, how monsters move and position themselves has a significant impact on the combat flow.   However, due to the limitations of the existing pathfinding algorithm and synchronization, multiple monsters moving along the same route tended to clump together and appear as a single mass. When dozens of monsters stack into a single spot, it becomes difficult to tell how many enemies are actually present. This also makes battles look less dynamic than intended. In addition, since you end up facing enemies gathered at a single point, almost any skill leads to a same result, which made the combat feel monotonous.   To improve this, the Dev. team is working on introducing a collision avoidance feature to monster movement, and in this post we would like to share an update on our progress so far.   Improved Monster Movement   When monsters move, they now recognize the positions of other monsters around them in real time and naturally move aside so as not to collide with one another.   Before & After Comparison  Before:                                                                                         After: Before applying the feature, once monsters spawned, each would move in a straight line toward a specific target point, overlapping with nearby monsters and even passing straight through monsters from other groups. After applying the collision avoidance feature, monsters maintain their formation while securing their own space, so they no longer collide with one another while moving toward their target. You can also see them slipping through the gaps when passing by monsters from another group.   As shown in the comparison video, we are optimizing monster behavior to reduce excessive clustering during collision checks and pathfinding in large-scale combat scenarios involving many monsters and players.   Plans Going Forward Unlike a single-player game, monster movement in MMORPG must account for both large numbers of monsters and unpredictable player actions. As a result, applying collision avoidance to every monster at all times can significantly increase the server-client load and make it difficult to guarantee a stable play environment. Furthermore, this is still a feature with much room for tuning and many exceptional cases, so a process of securing sufficient stability is required. Therefore, we plan to continue optimizing performance in parallel and to activate this feature step by step, starting with the content where it has the fewest side effects and the clearest benefits.   Once this work is settled in, we expect that various types of skills, such as wide-area skills that cover a broad range and high-power piercing skills with a narrow range, will be able to deliver more differentiated effects than they do now. As a result, we believe this will lead to further strengthening the individuality of each class and the visual impact of hits.   The Dev. team aims to provide a better play experience not only through episode expansions and new content, but also through engine improvements. We will continue refining this system and monitoring its impact on combat as development progresses.   Thank you.   ※ The contents described in this Developer Blog are still in development, and details may be added or changed when applied to the live service.