Use upcoming custom match bot pathing algorithm to calculate hook distances?
Thinking ahead a bit, one interesting possibility with the upcoming custom match bots is that, since presumably part of their programming involves calculating the shortest walking distance between points on a map, it might be possible to leverage that pathing routine to calculate walking distances between hooks for purposes of random hook placement on maps.
Right now hook distances are (I think) calculated as point-to-point coordinate distances in space, ignoring all obstacles and floors and such. The issue with this is that on multilevel maps like Midwich, etc, sometimes you can have the game think a hook covers a spot on the map but it's actually effectively unreachable because it's really on the floor directly above or below you with no easy way to get there in time.
Hypothetically though I'm wondering if it might be possible, once the custom match bots are working well, to take their shortest path routines and apply them to hook placement. So it could be something like the hook generator algorithm might place a hook, check for a spot on the map that isn't within walking distance of any hooks yet, and then select a hook spot that is within walking distance of the point that didn't have one yet, repeating that process until the entire map is within walking distance of a hook.
In fact, looking even farther ahead, if the pathing distance calculations are quick enough, then the game could even potentially use them to replace aura ranges for things like Boons or Terror Radius. So instead of, for example, an effect working within 32 meters point-to-point of something, it could work within 32 meters walking distance of something. That could help with issues where things like Circle of Healing or certain killer auras that depend on terror radius get mucked up a bit on multilevel maps.
This is all speculation though on my part. But it's an interesting thought experiment that could in principle be possible depending on how easily importable the pathing routines are to other parts of the game.
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radius based detection methods are very easy to do, but they are also one of the reasons why these problems happen. Having distance detection use pathing detection (like waypoint nodes) would be a wonderful way to fix the issues with hooks on indoor maps especially, especially since they would force the game to have to recognize "blocked" pathing (breakable doors, unpowered ones like on the game, etc) as long as the calculation is done in the right order. I know its somewhat repeating the original post but it is a very good avenue to attempt to address it. Admittedly I'm not super familiar with the pathfinding detection methods of UE4 (my understanding is they have to do with using meshes to railroad pathing) but as it only needs to be done once at map generation instead of dynamically like it will for the proposed bots, it should hopefully be able to piggyback the same system.
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