The guards are not navigating the map or patrol paths like they did before update to 36.0 or possibly 36.10.
Please select what you are reporting on:
Unreal Editor for Fortnite
What Type of Bug are you experiencing?
Devices
Steps to Reproduce
Set the game mode to teams, with at least 2 teams.
Set up a guard spawner in one corner of a blank template, about five small squares from the edge.
Set the option to spawn multiple guards.
Set a patrol path to the center of the map.
Add a player spawner in the opposite corner.
Allow player to fly in the settings options.(just for easily checking the distances mentioned below)
Place a marker at team 1 spawner.
Start game, you should be about 320 meters from the marker.
Move to the below mentioned distances to see the problems mentioned.
Expected Result
The guards should move to the patrol path, navigate to the end and return, and continue the pattern.
Observed Result
When you look at the map at the below mentioned distances, the guards are not navigating the map, and at times are completely randomly repositioning. Somewhere between 325 and 250 meters, guards start randomly spreading out, repositioning into random locations. If given enough time at this distance, they will sometimes wander right off the map.
Somewhere between 325 and 400, guards will not move from their position at all.
Somewhere between 250 and 200, the guards will regain their navigation sense and return to the patrol path.
When at the 325+ distances during initial spawn, the guards will spawn nearly on top of each other and be stuck at that location.
If the guards begin patrolling, but if you then move 250-325 meters from the guard spawner deviceās location, the guards will stop navigating when they reach the next patrol point. Even if you are closer to the next patrol point, they will clump up on that point if the original spawn point is 250+ meters away.
These distances are slightly higher (by about 50 meters) when I tested on the tilted towers map.
If a second team of guards are spawned within visibility range of team one at the start, and the player is out of range, then the guards will shoot at each other, but still be stuck in their location, not moving around the map in any way.
Platform(s)
Windows 10
Additional Notes
Iām almost positive that before update 36.0, the guards were much more active at much greater distances. Iād be surprised if this was the intended functionality, and when going thru the forum, I noticed there are recent issues with world streaming functioning correctly after recent updates. It was said that this type of issue might be caused by this same world streaming bug. Thank you.
Update to this issue.. I opened a map I made in creative 1.0, and the guards are navigating at 500+ meters from the player with no issues. The problem only seems to be in my uefn maps. I even opened the stronghold example and the faulty navigation behavior was happening there as well. If itās not a bug, then Iām hoping someone can tell me if thereās a setting I need to check in uefn?
This issue can also be replicated with an npc spawner. I swapped out the guard for an npc spawner device in the original replication instructions, set it to guard behavior and assigned it to the same patrol path. The behavior was identical to that is the original guard spawner.
To the development team:
First off thank you! Since this is now in que, Iād just like to say..
When trying to get votes for this issue to be looked at, I was told by some that it wasnāt that important. āWho needs NPCs at 250+ meters doing anything?ā..
It was looked at as logical optimization implemented by the developers.
But I see that as the wrong direction (and for me, game breaking)..
NPCs, AI, the new persona device, the verse coding which controls all types of interesting behaviors.. this is a big part of the future in my opinion.
I think epic knows that, but I just wanted to reinforce the thought, because with that in mind, I built an impressive simulation type of experience. And only because of the outstanding tool set youāve made available.
What Iām Asking: is that this player distance issue, as well as total NPC count and anything else related, be pushed to the max, as opposed to tampered down in the aim of optimization.
Please, make it a trade off option if you have to..
Because I would trade all types of other cool features to give that processing power to the NPCs, guards, wildlife ect.. and I truly believe this direction will become itās own new genre, as well as give creators a wonderful new way to make maps which are a ton of uniquely replayable fun, even with only one active player present, as it offers a truly organic and unpredictable environment with each play.
Thanks for your time and efforts, I hope you donāt mind the rant, cheers to the future, and I hope this comment helps itās direction come to life. Iām looking forward to it! Thank you!!
Iām checking the bug in game now.. both the NPCs, and guards are stuck in place, unable to navigate a patrol path when the player is more than 250 meters away, so the problem is still behaving the same as I originally documented. Even when Iām at 249m from the path starting point, and the NPCs begin navigating the path towards the player, once they reach the second point on the path, thereās a 50/50 chance lose navigation again on the way back to the first patrol point. I appreciate you checking into this! I enthusiastically built an elaborate simulation which relies on this functionality and have been checking with each update, going to get back to it. Iām not sure if itās a lot compared to other creations, but I wrote 100,000 lines of code in this project and itās been devastating to have it become unusable with this bug. Iām new to this, so if thereās a work around, Iād happily get to working it in.. and Iām still super excited to bring this project to the community at whatever point this can be worked out. Thanks again!!
I wasnāt sure how to identify which logs are the exact ones, so I noted the time of date modified. The NPC test is at 8:30am.. the Guard test is at 8:45/8:46am.. there seems to be two files for each test. One labeled UnrealEditorFortnite.log, and the other is cef3.log.. these are the guard test.. the NPC test is labeled UnrealEditorFortnite-backup 2025.12.11-13.30.56.log and cef3-backup-2025.12.11-13.30.50.logā¦ I will now send the two YouTube links of the videos for each case. These tests are in a bare map with no added code, just the exact recreation method I originally detailed when I made this post. thank you!!
The guard bug test video is extended to show that after the initial bug is shown, and then after I move within the 250 meter range to show them regain navigation.. on their way back to the original patrol point, I move back out of the 250 meter range, and their navigation breaks again. I just wanted it to be seen that itās not an initial loading issue of some sort, but a consistent bug that reappears whenever the 250 meter distance is put between the guard/NPC and player. If you need anything more let me know. thanks again!!
One last observation I just noticed.. it might actually be the distance from the patrol path point, and not the guard/npc actor.. it seems as though when the player is less than 250m from the path point, even the guards/NPCs which remain further away still regain their navigation ability. If so, maybe itās some type of issue with the rendering distance of the patrol path point, and not the guard/npc actor itself? I donāt want to say this is definitely the case because I donāt have enough knowledge on this level, but the observation seems consistent and I figured it would be worth putting out there for consideration at least. Again, thank you!
