This would be very helpful in at least testing out things like spawns that would generally be inconsistant on a normal playthrough.
I appreciate where you're coming from, but this could be done with a lot fewer changes. All you really need is to add two or three options to the current test mode:
<ul type="square">[*]Select the number of players.[*]Select the level of the mission, and your effective level (which you can set to something high like 57).[/list]
You want to stomp things flat and get no aggro, set the mission level to something low and your level to something high. You want to fly, get a character that flies, or get a raptor pack from one of the numerous places they are available (safeguard/mayhem missions, FBZ, Grandville day job, etc.).
This would utilize all the existing functionality without changes, except for the way they're initialized.
Since so many missions use randomly selected maps, and spawn points can change over time, the devs should not encourage missions that rely on exact placement of automatically spawned goals (because those missions will be broken when the devs fix anything). If we really need that level of control, then we should be able to directly indicate the spawn points ourselves. Otherwise the devs should concentrate on fixing the maps so that we get reliable random spawns in the front, middle and back locations on all maps.
Having lots of special modes and flags is a source of bugs. You add something like "in the special test mode hitting the mob knocks it down to 3/4 hits" and the next thing you know, some "genius" figures out how to do that to an AV in a regular mission and then we go through another emergency patch to fix an exploit that everyone is getting billions of levels from.
Software suffers from a form of "metal fatigue:" if you bend it back and forth enough times, you will eventually wear it out and break it. You want to change it as little as possible, and in ways that use existing functionality.
I use an ill controller with invis to check my mission
you can easily use a stalker to do the same thing.
Helps a lot
Lotta people 'round these parts been complaining about "nerfs". One good way to take the sting out is to give em something in return...so how about this?
I'd like to see a new test mode added to the mission architect.
The purpose of it is to allow the designer to zip around his/her map checking glowie placement, activating ambushes, etc. without having to fight through the entire mission.
The mode would have the following features.
<ul type="square"> [*]allow the map to be spawned for a user selectable number of players.[*]player flies through the map -- even if they don't have fly. [*]mobs don't agro. [*]any attack on a mob or destructable object moves it through its trigger. First hit does one point of damage. Next hit takes it to 3/4 Next Hit takes it to 1/2. Next hit takes it to 1/4. Last hit kills it.[*]glowies are clickable[*]all spawns have an extra field above their head telling the designer the part of the map he is in (front, middle, back)[*]no experience, influence, prestige, tickets, or badges earned in this mode.[*]a spell checker[/list]
You guys can have that coded up and in production by next week, right?