Waypoints & Guidance

Guidance is what leads a player to where they are going: a trail on the ground, an arrow at their feet, an arrow on the edge of the screen, a marker standing on the destination, and the same route drawn on the minimap. Five parts, each on or off on its own, each with its own art, color, size, glow and motion — so guidance in your game looks like your game.

Out of the box an untouched world already guides: a dotted trail, a ring on the destination and a screen-edge arrow, toward the player's tracked quest.

What Guidance Leads To#

When more than one is live, an event waypoint wins, then the player's pin, then the tracked quest.

The trail follows ground the player can walk. It bends round walls, cliffs and water instead of pointing through them, and re-routes when the player wanders off it. The guide arrow points along the trail's next step, so it turns the corner before the player does.

Across maps. When the destination is on another map, guidance leads to the exit that starts the shortest route there. Once the player is through, the next map points them on, all the way.

Where to Author#

• UI / HUD Editor → Minimap → Waypoints — the looks, the presets, which destination gets which look, and the rules.
• Quest editor → Setup tab → Waypoint style — one quest's look. Objectives tab → Waypoint style — one objective's look.
• Event editor → Scene & Map → Set Waypoint / Clear Waypoint — point a player somewhere from an event.

Set It Up#

1. Open UI / HUD Editor → Minimap and switch to the Waypoints view.
2. Look being edited starts on World style — what guidance looks like unless something says otherwise. Each part below it has its own On / Off.
3. Click a part to open it and shape it. The Preview on the right plays the look on a path that goes round a wall, so you see the spacing, the flow and the arrow's bearing as you change them.
4. For a second look, press + New preset, name it, and change only what should differ. Presets you might want: a gold trail with a beam for the main quest, a quiet arrow with no trail for side errands.
5. Under Which look each destination gets, pick a look and a color for each kind of destination.
6. Under What gets guidance, decide whether the tracked quest, the player's pin and event waypoints guide at all, and how close counts as arrived.
7. Save, then publish the UI config.

Give one quest its own look#

1. Open the quest. On the Setup tab, set Waypoint style to a preset, to World default, or to No guidance.
2. For a single objective, open the Objectives tab, expand the objective, and set its Waypoint style. Same as the quest follows step 1.

These save the moment you pick — there is nothing else to press.

Point a player somewhere from an event#

1. In the event editor add Scene & Map → Set Waypoint.
2. Choose Lead the player to: a tile on a map, a Location, or an NPC.
3. Optionally give it a Label and a Style (one of your presets).
4. Add Clear Waypoint wherever the waypoint should end early. It also ends by itself when the player arrives.

The Parts#

Every part has On / Off, and every color can be left clear to follow the destination's color (and, with that clear too, your HUD theme's accent).

Floor trail#

Guide arrow#

Screen-edge arrow#

It appears only while the destination is out of view, and hides as soon as it is on screen.

Destination marker#

Minimap route line#

Drawn on the minimap and on the map screen, along the same path as the trail.

Presets and Who Gets Which#

A preset is a named look. It starts as a copy of the world style and keeps only what you change, so re-tuning the world style later carries into every preset except where it differs. Duplicate copies one; Reset to the world style empties it; Delete removes it.

The most specific choice wins:

1. a Style set on a Set Waypoint command, or an objective's Waypoint style;
2. the quest's Waypoint style;
3. the look picked for that kind of destination;
4. the world style.

No guidance at any level means that destination is not guided at all.

Rules#

What Players Get#

• Tracking. Guidance follows the quests pinned to the player's tracker (the quest log's track button). With nothing pinned it follows their first accepted quest that has somewhere to go.
• Their own pin. A click on the minimap or the map screen drops a pin; a click on the pin, or Clear your pin at the top of the map screen, removes it. It is also used up on arrival. The pin is remembered per character on that device.
• Switches. Settings → Interface → Guidance has one switch per part, for the parts you allow.
• Reduced motion. With Reduced Motion on, the trail stops flowing and nothing bobs or pulses.

Gotchas#

• The trail is drawn on what the player's game knows of the map. Ground they have not been near is known only roughly until they get close, so a far-off trail can cut a corner it later corrects. Across ground it has never seen at all it runs straight, and fixes itself as the map streams in.
• A very long or walled-off route ends in a straight stretch. The search for a path is capped; past the cap the trail goes as far as it found and then points straight at the goal. It re-searches as the player gets closer.
• Guidance needs a place. Collecting, crafting, using an item and objectives advanced by an event have no single spot, so they get no guidance. A "reach this place" objective needs a placed Location marker, or it only knows which map.
• Another map needs a known way there. Portals, border crossings, and events that run Transfer Player to a fixed tile on another map all count as exits. A transfer whose destination comes from a variable cannot be read ahead of time, so a map reachable only that way cannot be routed to — guidance simply does not appear.
• An event waypoint lasts for the play session. It is not saved with the character; if a quest step depends on one, set it again from an autorun page that checks the same switch.
• Set Waypoint to an NPC follows the NPC while they are in view, and points at where the server last saw them otherwise.
• A preset chosen somewhere and later deleted falls back to the next level down. The Waypoints view lists these under "Worth a look".
• "Your own image" with no image picked draws the built-in dots, and is listed under "Worth a look".
• Images point right. Trail pieces and arrows are turned to face along the path; draw them facing right or they will travel sideways.
• Publish to see changes. Looks and rules are part of the UI customization document and reach players on the next UI config publish. Quest and objective styles save immediately but reach players the same way.
• The whole system sits behind the Waypoint Guidance feature flag. Off = nothing is drawn, the pin cannot be dropped, the Set Waypoint command does nothing, and this editor view, the quest editor's Waypoint style fields and the two event commands are hidden. Everything you authored is kept.