Better Approach to Pathing

DISCLAIMER This is a blatant repost of my post in gameplay from like a month ago. It predictably sank straight to the bottom of that cesspool, so I'm hoping it's ok to put it back here. If not, rip :( . /DISCLAIMER

Right now, the way pathing works is that if you try to move, attack, or use a targeted (unit/location based) ability, the game will:

• Check to see if you're in range of what you're trying to do
• Do the thing if you're in range
• If you aren't in range, YOU WILL START WALKING THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE ROUTE TO THE EXACT LOCATION OF WHATEVER YOU TARGETED
• Repeat from step 1

This drives me bat shit insane because a lot of times the shortest route to the exact spot you targeted isn't the shortest route to getting in range of that spot. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, here are some examples:

You're in midlane. You walk behind the wall on the side of your lane to try to ward over the wall into the brush. You click where you want your ward, but (because the river is "lower" than the surrounding terrain and your range indicator doesn't map to terrain height) your click is just barely out of range. So your champ says "WELL GUESS WE GOTTA WALK RIGHT THE @%#& OVER THERE DON'T WE" and heads back towards the lane so he/she/velkoz can go into the river, which is the opposite direction that you were moving over to ward in the first place.

You're chasing a low-hp enemy through the jungle. They flash over a wall, but with your elite skills you throw a ward immediately over the wall, too. Now you can see them but they're just barely out of ability range (or AA range or whatever). However, the jungle paths mean they can't run directly away from you any more. You foolishly click on them while saying aloud "Hehehehe gotcha b----!" Only to watch your champion do an about-face and walk towards the nearest entrance of that path, which is behind you. You then have to go buy a new keyboard because you broke your current one in half.

You're csing in lane as one of the nifty "big" melee champs that has a nice, healthy reach with their auto attacks. You right click on a creep. You're barely out of range, but instead of walking up behind your neat little row of melee creeps, reaching over their heads, and bonking your target to coin-jingling death, you do several figure 8's around your own creeps because now you're trying to get close enough to put the creep on like a shoe. While your champion fumbles around like an idiot, your melee creeps finish tickling your target to death and you miss CS.

"Alright Goose, if you're so smart, what should happen instead?" I'll tell you.

MOVEMENT to a location should STAY this way. It's nice to have the game optimize your movement for you, especially across long distances with multiple routes without one obvious choice.

TARGETED ABILITIES, when the target (unit/location) is out of range, should force your champion to walk in a straight line towards the target until it encounters an obstacle, at which point it can figure shit out from there using the old method.

Although in some cases this change may result in sub-optimal pathing for targeted abilities, the vast majority of these cases would be over long distances and time scales (e.g. telling your champion to ward a bush from a long way away) and could be avoided by ordering movement first (which would use the old pathing method) and then ordering the ability once you're closer or in range. This is a small price to pay to eliminate the mind-blowlingly awful scenarios described above. It's simply better game design.

Cheers.