Tough call. Worst case scenario, if you throw it out there, and people start letting you know it's buggy, you can always edit or unpubish it to fix it. But, you take the chance of a rep hit for your mission not being up to snuff.
Dec out.
Just let me make sure I understand: you have custom bosses that are non-unique but don't travel in pairs?
For unique custom bosses, I put mine in a separate group so they wouldn't show up unless I hand-placed them. But I can't imagine that you didn't think of that already.
I'm sure that once I see the characters it'll make sense, but I'm having a hard time envisioning non-unique bosses that are never in the same room together.
My schedule is unpredictable but I'd be delighted to volunteer as a tester if we can get it together. PM me or look for @Zombra in game.
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Just let me make sure I understand: you have custom bosses that are non-unique but don't travel in pairs?
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The custom bosses are unique. Let's call them Boss #1, Boss #2, Boss #3 and Boss #4. All of the bosses are added as separate Fight a Boss objectives. All of the bosses are in separate custom groups (Boss Group #1, Boss Group #2, etc.).
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For unique custom bosses, I put mine in a separate group so they wouldn't show up unless I hand-placed them. But I can't imagine that you didn't think of that already.
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I did. The problem I have is that higher difficulty settings or larger teams appear to spawn two or more of a custom boss.
For example, last night I got a friend to help me test and critique the arc. We ran through the entire thing, beginning to end. In the first mission, Boss #1 spawned properly, one copy of the boss. In the second mission, Boss #2 and Boss #4 spawned properly, one copy of each boss. However, Boss #3 spawned improperly, there were three copies of that one boss. Each of these boss fights is separate, unique Fight a Boss objectives, all spawned at different points on the map.
The source of the problem is... partially the way I need to get the boss fights to work in order for the story to work, and partially the limitations imposed by the current tools available.
What I mean by that is, on the first two maps, the bosses have to be "rogues". They have to be unaffiliated with either the player or the "general" enemies I have populating the maps. The only way to do that is to set them to Rogue and specify at least one other critter to spawn with them. The story doesn't involve any of these bosses traveling with friends, allies or support troops, but the architect tools don't support spawning anything without additional critters. If a boss group doesn't have anything but the boss in it, it spawns multiple copies of the boss when the difficulty increases (higher diff. settings, larger teams).
Something I've tried to work around that problem is adding one underling to each of the custom groups. That's where it gets flaky. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Last night, it worked for two custom boss spawns on the second map, but it failed for the third custom boss spawn. Instead of spawning some underlings, the boss spawned with two more copies of himself. The other two bosses spawned with underlings, exactly what I wanted.
I think I might be able to fix it using minions instead of underlings, or stronger underlings, but I'm still concerned that a team of 8 will run the map at Invincible and end up spawning three copies of every boss. I have no way to explain that in the story, or the powers of the bosses, it's just going completely shatter immersion. And honestly, the story is the only reason I have for doing this. I didn't create the arc to provide a challenge, I created the arc to tell a story. If players are running the arc and the story falls apart because there are three copies of Boss #1 spawning for them, it's just pointless.
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I'm sure that once I see the characters it'll make sense, but I'm having a hard time envisioning non-unique bosses that are never in the same room together.
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It's a bit of a departure from the standard CoH mission fare. Which is also giving me a bit of a problem, because the action climaxes in mission #4, but the story isn't complete until the end of mission #5. I published the mission for last night's test, then forgot to unpublish it before going to bed, and woke up today to find that someone had run it and 1-starred it because he didn't want to read the story and wasn't paying attention in the final mission (missed the two glowies set as mission objectives). I'm still trying to think of a reasonable way to spice up the last mission and make it easier for players like that to follow and complete, without throwing the story out the window.
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My schedule is unpredictable but I'd be delighted to volunteer as a tester if we can get it together. PM me or look for @Zombra in game.
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Logging in now to see if I can catch you. 
I vote you set it loose and see what happens. You will get the feedback you need, and can tweak as you wish.
Enjoy your day please.
OK, as I suspected, you were wayyy ahead of me in terms of using the system 
It sounds like this is a flaw in the MA system. I have strong doubts that you're intended to place a boss fight, "Fight Archon Sammy", and have him spawn with two more Archons all together. That just seems weird. So hopefully that will get fixed at some point.
If that's how things work, and I again recognize that you've probably already thought of this, you might want to name your "base" custom boss with a generic-type name, in case multiples do spawn. It still won't make sense for Candyfloss Joe to spawn with two more Candy Kings, since he's supposed to be the only Candy King there is, but it will still look better than three Candyfloss Joes. See what I mean?
Another idea is to load generic enemies into your custom group to discourage multiboss spawns. Maybe Joe hangs out with Freakshow lieutenants a lot in his time off. Again, I recognize that this may not be story-appropriate, but again, it's a lesser of two evils thing.
And again, I'm sure you're way ahead of me on all this
(I'm at work right now and probably won't be online again at least until late tonight - maybe 8 hours from the time of this post ... so I'll talk to you in-game later.)
I only skimmed the thread so I hope I'm not being unhelpful, but have you checked the villain group boss three is set to spawn alongside? By default it should set itself to 'same as boss' but more often than not it doesn't and won't let you forward without selecting a villain group directly. At least in my experience.
It could be that boss three was the one example of such you ran across, and you neglected to change it. If Boss three was set to spawn with 'same group as boss' and he was the only thing in the group. Well you get where I'm heading.
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I only skimmed the thread so I hope I'm not being unhelpful, but have you checked the villain group boss three is set to spawn alongside? By default it should set itself to 'same as boss' but more often than not it doesn't and won't let you forward without selecting a villain group directly. At least in my experience.
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I manually set all of the enemy groups for boss spawns to Custom, and selected the custom groups containing the specific boss for each spawn. That forces them to spawn with whatever's in their custom groups, instead of the "general" critters you select for the map (which is what happens when i leave it at "same as boss"). Solo or in a Heroic duo, or even a duo at the second difficulty level, this works fine, the bosses spawn just one boss and one to four of the underlings I've assigned to their custom groups.
Some of the spawns are working for duos above the second difficulty level. I suspect that might be a result of the level ranges of the underlings. Meaning, if they don't go above 50, they won't spawn when the team starts encountering level 51+ bosses. If that's correct, then I should only see this problem on that Boss #3 spawn, because the underling I assigned to his custom group only goes up to 50. If that is the case, I can work around it, I've got a couple of other options for things I can spawn with him (i have a little flexibility with this particular boss, due to the powers i selected for him. there is one minion i can use, if i have to, but i also located the same underling with a level range up to 54, so i may be able to swap that in and fix this completely... still don't know if it'll work on large teams, though).
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you might want to name your "base" custom boss with a generic-type name, in case multiples do spawn. It still won't make sense for Candyfloss Joe to spawn with two more Candy Kings, since he's supposed to be the only Candy King there is, but it will still look better than three Candyfloss Joes. See what I mean?
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Can't do that. I PMed you, you'll understand when you read it.
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Another idea is to load generic enemies into your custom group to discourage multiboss spawns.
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That's exactly how I've got it set up now. I use underlings, specific underlings which fit the concept for each boss and can be explained within the context of the boss' powers. I'm trying to avoid making each boss seem like a controller/mastermind with multiple pets, if at all possible. Something small and weak which acts more like a temp power or toy, fine. A boss with his own personal army, that doesn't work for this.
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(I'm at work right now and probably won't be online again at least until late tonight - maybe 8 hours from the time of this post ... so I'll talk to you in-game later.)
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I'll be awake. Yay for insomnia.
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Another idea is to load generic enemies into your custom group to discourage multiboss spawns.
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That's exactly how I've got it set up now. I use underlings, specific underlings which fit the concept for each boss and can be explained within the context of the boss' powers. I'm trying to avoid making each boss seem like a controller/mastermind with multiple pets, if at all possible. Something small and weak which acts more like a temp power or toy, fine. A boss with his own personal army, that doesn't work for this.
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I hear ya, but again, lesser of two evils. If the system doesn't *want* to spawn a boss and underlings, and has no minions or lieuts to choose from, it may be more likely to spawn two bosses instead. Which breaks concept least?
Haha, saw your PM, I'll read it when I get home tonight. Will also try to find your insomniac [censored] in-game.
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I only skimmed the thread so I hope I'm not being unhelpful, but have you checked the villain group boss three is set to spawn alongside? By default it should set itself to 'same as boss' but more often than not it doesn't and won't let you forward without selecting a villain group directly. At least in my experience.
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I manually set all of the enemy groups for boss spawns to Custom, and selected the custom groups containing the specific boss for each spawn. That forces them to spawn with whatever's in their custom groups, instead of the "general" critters you select for the map (which is what happens when i leave it at "same as boss"). Solo or in a Heroic duo, or even a duo at the second difficulty level, this works fine, the bosses spawn just one boss and one to four of the underlings I've assigned to their custom groups.
Some of the spawns are working for duos above the second difficulty level. I suspect that might be a result of the level ranges of the underlings. Meaning, if they don't go above 50, they won't spawn when the team starts encountering level 51+ bosses. If that's correct, then I should only see this problem on that Boss #3 spawn, because the underling I assigned to his custom group only goes up to 50. If that is the case, I can work around it, I've got a couple of other options for things I can spawn with him (i have a little flexibility with this particular boss, due to the powers i selected for him. there is one minion i can use, if i have to, but i also located the same underling with a level range up to 54, so i may be able to swap that in and fix this completely... still don't know if it'll work on large teams, though).
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Yeah the only way I've found around this issue, unfortunately, is to make the unique boss an EB so that they aren't spawned whenever the MA says "Need to put a boss here".
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Yeah the only way I've found around this issue, unfortunately, is to make the unique boss an EB so that they aren't spawned whenever the MA says "Need to put a boss here".
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I made this work by putting the unique bosses in a custom group called Bosses. Then I put all my other custom mobs in another group, let's call it Enemies. Do not put your unique bosses into the Enemies group.
When you define the Boss encounter, specify the Bosses group, select the unique boss and then make the surrounding group Enemies.
Your unique Boss will always spawn singly this way. If you define Enemies with other bosses they will spawn multiply as normal. Just be sure to omit your custom boss from Enemies.
I'm putting the polishing touch on my Secret Project. Picking out misspelled words, clarifying a bit of dialog here and there, cleaning up nav text or shortening objective names, little things of that nature to get it to shine. I'm on my last run-through and I think it's ready to go gold, but there's one thing I haven't done yet...
I haven't tested it with a team larger than two. And I don't know if I can. My only real concern is whether certain custom boss spawns will pop up twins or triplets for larger teams (which would be inexplicable in light of the story, thus something i would need to prevent).
Set it loose in the wilds of published arcs, or hold on to it until I can scrape together some volunteers?