Removed Custom Group - Size didn't go down?
By
AngryRedHerring,
Posted on: 2009-05-04 05:13 in Mission Architect
First I removed anywhere they existed in the arc. Then I went to the My Groups tab and deleted them there.
I had the same problem. I removed two custom critters from my first arc, but the file size didn't go down. Even though the critters were no longer listed in My Groups or My Critters tabs, they were still listed in the .storyarc file itself, when I looked through it in Notepad.
I just ended up deleting the arc and starting over, after making sure I had the exact custom critters I wanted. -_-;;
I'm sure there's a better way to do that. <_<
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I had this problem before, and it was very difficult to fix. I can't remember the specifics, but it had something to do with multiple character versions of the same character -OR- you had to delete the custom group entirely (not any of the characters, just the group) and create a new custom group and add the characters in from your custom character list.
It was either one of those or a combination of the two factors 
Yikes, I really don't want to redo this arc entirely. It wouldn't take nearly as long to do and I suppose I could copy/paste everything into a doc and redo it, but still, that would be a lot of needless work.
However, if I can't get this file size to correct itself I'll have to. I deleted that group thinking I could add some more baddies to my "Huvan" group. As it stands Huvan only has 2 minions and 1 lieutenant. Without being able to add to the Huvan group, my arc is pretty bland.
Are you sure all references to it are gone? Every single "Enemy Group" and so on? I think your best bet would be to open your local file in a text document editor and look for references to the group name/critter names.
Try adding some standard NPC's to the mix, their size is trivial, and they can add a lot to a mission.
I had this same problem, and ended up deleting the entire arc to start over. I think it must be a bug.
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Go to your mission file, in the Missions folder, in your City of Heroes folder. Open the text file for your mission.
Do a Ctrl+F and put in the name of the group you're trying to delete. If it still exists in the file-- and it almost surely does-- this will point you to any places where it still remains. You might also want to check for the names of any characters associated with that group-- if even one guy remains, he brings his entourage. Then you can go back into the editor and attack those details, or if you're comfortable with it, you can delete the detail from the text file itself, though you risk borking it if you don't know what you're doing.
There was some change made to the game that affected manually-edited text files, but I don't know the details. I do know, though, that I have moved details around, edited various things, etc. via the text file, and I haven't had the game complain about it.
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I fixed the problem. I read over the storyarc file and found a mention of the thought to be removed custom group after the last mission of my arc.
I was hesitant to delete it, but I figured if this didn't work I would have to redo everything anyway. I deleted then checked it out in game and my file size is now 77%, woot!
This is my biggest frustration with editing. I've had to redo my current arc twice because of sudden ballooning for no clear reason than I can see.
I'll try the search and destroy tactics mentioned above and see if it helps. I'm skating at 93% right now and I've got two more mishes I wanted to fill out before I release it into the wild...
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Since I'm not in a COx dev-friendly mood today owing to Positron's recent threats, I'll say this...
The MA system is sloppy as hell from a programming standpoint. There are plenty of aspects that were obviously half-done or briefly implemented then never removed when the method was abandoned.
Example - each critter outside of its own .critter file has a reference to the original critter file in SPITE of the fact that the entirety of that critter file is included in any such file. The custom villain group files have this, as to the storyarc files. This would make sense (barely) if the arc editor planned to update the information it has using the content of the .critter file later (which would, of course, beg the question as to why it includes the entire file within itself, but nevermind that) but it DOES NOT. If you edit a storyarc file, and have updated the critters used in it since the last time you saved the storyarc... it DOES NOT UPDATE THE STORYARC with the new information.
The files themselves have a format developed by someone's dog or cat. Some sections begin and end with a word, some are enclosed in braces { }... strings are unquoted unless they have a space, quoted if they have a space, and then surrounded by a totally different quoting system if they contain quotes.
Even the defaults for various fields are nonsensical. The default for time limit on a mission is not "none", the default is "30 minutes". The default for many of the text fields is not blank, its artifact text strings left by the programmers such as "This is the text the PC will see when they enter a mission".
All in all the MA system looks thrown together by a 15 year old. Its unsurprising people run into stupid problems like this.
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Example - each critter outside of its own .critter file has a reference to the original critter file in SPITE of the fact that the entirety of that critter file is included in any such file. The custom villain group files have this, as to the storyarc files. This would make sense (barely) if the arc editor planned to update the information it has using the content of the .critter file later (which would, of course, beg the question as to why it includes the entire file within itself, but nevermind that) but it DOES NOT. If you edit a storyarc file, and have updated the critters used in it since the last time you saved the storyarc... it DOES NOT UPDATE THE STORYARC with the new information.
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Are you sure? My testing showed that it does, in fact, update the mission file from the .critter file if the latter has changed. I've had opportunity to test this because I have multiple story arcs that reference some of the same custom critters.
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Even the defaults for various fields are nonsensical. The default for time limit on a mission is not "none", the default is "30 minutes". The default for many of the text fields is not blank, its artifact text strings left by the programmers such as "This is the text the PC will see when they enter a mission".
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I also haven't ever seen these problems. Defaults are blank for me, and I've never had a missiond default to being timed. I wonder if something else is going on that you haven't realized is significant.
I agree that the system is confusing; this is one of the things I complained about in closed beta. However, in the devs' defense I think that there are other things I would fix about the MA before tackling this, because while it's confusing, it's manageable once you learn how things work.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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I was hesitant to delete it, but I figured if this didn't work I would have to redo everything anyway. I deleted then checked it out in game and my file size is now 77%, woot!
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Anytime you go to do any manual editing, make a copy of the file you want to edit, keep it in the missions folder, and edit that one. That way if you bork it, you've still got that backup... and much less apprehension. 
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KeepDistance - I'll admit that the critter thing I'm basing primarily on hearsay from other MA threads. I've only encountered the problem once, but it was the only one time I changed a critter after I'd made an arc. It did not update the arc's version for me.
As for the defaults - we're talking about inside the file versus inside the editor. If you remove a text's entry inside the file THAT is when you see what the default is - its what the system defaults to when you don't specify a value. When you use the editor it does specify a value for each entry, and that value is "" (quoted blank). IF you want to see the internal default for something, go into your .storyarc file and delete the line for it. Try it for the mission timer, or the enter mission text sometime, then test your arc. You might want to back the storyarc file beforehand if you don't want to remember what the parameter name was.
I'm working on a 4 mission arc with several custom groups. Of course, size is very much a problem (that's what she said).
I was able to rationalize removing one of the larger groups to free up some space. However, after removing them from the story, the file size did not drop at all.
I even deleted that group completely and still no change. Anyone know why this would be?