I'm guessing here but rather than telling each of the five spawns to be a particular mob type(At in this case) you set at least two of them to just random pick from the custom group.
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
Can't you just set them as bosses and have it spawn the five individual bosses?
Cheat? Not in front of the game, but... create five different custom groups each with the one EB.
- Create a Boss spawn of Group 1 with allies of Group 2
- Create an Ambush of group 3 at 3/4 health
- Create an Ambush of group 4 at 1/2 health
- Create an Ambush of group 5 at 1/4 health
Might want to test it to see if this works (you may get multiples of groups 2-5 but setting them to "Easy" might cut down the numbers)
You don't need five different custom groups. Just five individual characters, each one set as a boss mission objective.
But that'd put all five in different spawns and not the epic fight I think Coin was going for. I was trying a way to get all five into a single fight.
Why would they be different if they are all spawned by the same thing?
Each individual objective requires its own spawn point. So if you put in five "Defeat a Boss" objectives, you will get five spawns in the mission (assuming the map has room for them).
It will not place all five bosses in the same location - they'll be scattered. You could get them near to each other by telling the MA to place them at the Front/Middle/Back but they still won't make them overlap.
The Ambush setup is the only way I can think of to get them into the same fight and even then you're probably looking at multiples of each one.
What Coin is wanting may just not be possible at this juncture.
You would just have to test out different maps to get one where it would work. Any small map should be automatically fine, and it would work on most linear maps.
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But that'd put all five in different spawns and not the epic fight I think Coin was going for. I was trying a way to get all five into a single fight.
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yeah, that's exactly what I was going for.
The Custom group is one team of 5 robots, each one a different At, Scrapper, Tanker, Defender etc
The idea was to have all 5 spawn in the mob, preferably as an ambush and attack the villains.
Unfortunately the spawning doesn't work right. Last night my good lady wife and her friends got there and it was 4 robots, 2 tankers and 2 controllers (and given that it's an illusion troller, that was a lot of decoys 
)
A friend in the Handies SG did it with a large team on a high setting and apparently got over 20 of the bosses!!
Now, given that the team is supposed to be only 5 robots, to spawn in those two ways really destroys the whole idea for the story. 
The only way I can think of doing it is to have 5 different custom groups, but unless I put extra minions and lieuts etc, I'm going to get duplicates again. Not to mention each group will need it's own name, ie Team, Team_, Team-, etc, again spoiling the effect.
I think I'll need to take the arc down and save it until such time we get more control over the spawns. As it stands, it would be like doing the LRSF and getting 3 Synapses, 2 Sister Psyches and 3 Back Alley Brawlers. Destroys the illusion, somewhat
Ah well, the rest of the arc works flawlessly as I want it. If anyone has any ideas how to make it work, lemme know!
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
Unfortunately at this time you can't control your critters all that well, especially with downgrading involved.
Example, I tested a custom group with the EB Blade Prince Behemoth and made a map to see the effect. I had a see of Blue Behemoths with EB status waiting to eat me alive. It just sees what you have and runs with it.
Unfoetunately you can't tell it to only ever spawn 1 of X, 2 of Y and 0 of Z at this point. So when an 8-man team attacks your supposed-to-be 5-man group, they are met with an 8-man Spawn.
@Drakmarth & @Drakmarth2
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#415877 - An Uncivil War: Preclude - Looking for Feedback
I would suggest two custom groups. One with one of those 5 bosses, the other group with the remaining boss.
Make a boss objective, use the first boss, then for the 'spawn around the boss' choose the second group. Not sure it would use all of the four remaining though.
Spawn mobs are random (I'm suprised anyone finds that suprising really).
The only way to spawn 1 specific (hostile) mob is to spawn them as a boss.
Even having each mob in its own group won't stop multiple copies of the same mob spawning.
I really should do something about this signature.
IMO, the map spawning is buggered anyway, at least as far as the Front/Middle/Back positioning is concerned. It's totally messed up my Return of Disco arc as the AV keeps spawning in front of all the other bosses on the final mission, when she's clearly set at BACK, and the others are either FRONT or MIDDLE.
It's a mess and it needs fixing. IMO, the MA shouldn't have gone out live with this still broken. We've been telling them it was broken since closed beta...
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Which spawns count as BACK was defined by whoever designed the map, so is only as logical as the map maker.
If you set a mob to BACK, and it spawns at the front, then set it to FRONT or MIDDLE.
Some maps don't have front/middle and back, and some spawn points fall into two brackets, but there is now information about that on the map select page.
I really should do something about this signature.
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but there is now information about that on the map select page.
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There is? I didn't notice that the other day...
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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It's totally messed up my Return of Disco arc as the AV keeps spawning in front of all the other bosses on the final mission, when she's clearly set at BACK, and the others are either FRONT or MIDDLE.
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Back in beta, I got the impression that the front/middle/back designation is used merely as a preference.
If there aren't enough spawn points in the requested area, but there are still spare spawn points in another area, then the spawns will be placed in the available area rather than not placed at all.
I also assume that spawns with a preference are placed before those without, but we don't know the spawning order for the ones showing preference.
Example: if you have:
1 AV showing BACK
5 EBs showing MIDDLE
But the map only has 2 FRONT/3 MIDDLE/1 BACK
My guess is that the AV will always make it to the back if there's an available spawn point at the back when its spawn point gets set - but to guarantee being at the back it needs to be placed 1st.
If the 5 EBs preferring the middle are placed 1st, then 3 take the middle 3 spawn points and then the remaining 2 EBs take any of the 3 remaining points (as MIDDLE isn't available). It's possible that one of the EBs takes the only spawn point in the back and so the AV later gets placed in the FRONT.
Note that I've not tested this - it's only what my irrational human mind felt was happening...
But if that is what's happening, then you may do better placing the AV as BACK and leaving the EBs as ANY - as I'd hope that spawns set to ANY are placed after any spawns requiring specific positioning. Hopefully this would force the AV to pick it's spawn point ahead of the EBs whilst there's still a spawnpoint at the BACK to grab!
Of course, all this may be wrong and some maps still seem to have wacky or incorrect area definitions. 
Note to self - test this when revising Notes on Groups and Spawns.
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It's a mess and it needs fixing. IMO, the MA shouldn't have gone out live with this still broken. We've been telling them it was broken since closed beta...
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Easter and Marketing made an irresistable argument for going live.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
Technically, it's not the MA that's broken, it's just quite a lot of the maps.
Note that the generic maps generally work fine with regard to F/M/B. It's the maps that where originally intended for one specific mission that the mappers didn't really bother with the distinction.
I really should do something about this signature.
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Technically, it's not the MA that's broken, it's just quite a lot of the maps.
Note that the generic maps generally work fine with regard to F/M/B. It's the maps that where originally intended for one specific mission that the mappers didn't really bother with the distinction.
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You would think that, as part of creating the MA, they'd have gone through the maps and made sure spawn zones were setup correctly... This issue effectively makes a LOT of these "custom" maps useless for anything other than random spawn positioning...
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
...which would have pushed back issue 14 to 2010.
Fixing all those maps is a big job.
of course they could have either:
Limited players to generic maps only, or;
Removed the F/M/B selector.
I expect they prefer the long term solution of making a player map editor than having somone work though all the maps rationalising F/M/B.
I really should do something about this signature.
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...which would have pushed back issue 14 to 2010.
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I'll be happy waiting 'til as late as 8:30 pm if it gets sorted out!
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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...which would have pushed back issue 14 to 2010.
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I very much doubt it would take more than a couple of days, actually. It's just that it would be a really crappy job for whoever had to do it, so isn't going to be at the top of anyone's list to get done. I allocate [censored] jobs like this to my staff regularly, and they're ALWAYS put at the back of their work list. It just the way things like that happen.
Unfortunately, it makes the MA look broken, so should really have been given a high priority, IMO.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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...which would have pushed back issue 14 to 2010.
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I very much doubt it would take more than a couple of days, actually. It's just that it would be a really crappy job for whoever had to do it, so isn't going to be at the top of anyone's list to get done. I allocate [censored] jobs like this to my staff regularly, and they're ALWAYS put at the back of their work list. It just the way things like that happen.
Unfortunately, it makes the MA look broken, so should really have been given a high priority, IMO.
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How many maps are there in total? Hundreds? And you think it'd only take a few days? Seriously?
If a map / objective combo doesn't work properly it's down to the Mission Designer to spot and fix it (reorder the objectives, cut down objectives or switch to another map). Maps getting pulled because some objectives work oddly on them isn't the way to go (neither is the map "useless" because it fails to work with your combination of objectives).
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How many maps are there in total?
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Early statements/interviews suggested that there's about 1000 maps we have access to.
Though I think it tends to be the unique and unlockable maps that have most issues. The ones that are part of standard (more generic) map sets tend to be better marked so that they could already be used for a wide variety of dev-created missions which didn't need to specify a single map.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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How many maps are there in total? Hundreds? And you think it'd only take a few days? Seriously?
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Easily only a couple of days. It's not every map we're talking about you know, it seems to only affect the unique ones, and there really aren't that many; but even with having to check every single map, it's unlikely to take more than 10 minutes each. They don't have to create missions and try them, you know. They just need to lookup the data for the map and see if the F/M/B has been defined.
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If a map / objective combo doesn't work properly it's down to the Mission Designer to spot and fix it (reorder the objectives, cut down objectives or switch to another map). Maps getting pulled because some objectives work oddly on them isn't the way to go (neither is the map "useless" because it fails to work with your combination of objectives).
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I disagree. If a map/objective combo isn't working, then that map/objective combo shouldn't be available. If it's available for me to use, then it should WORK. If it doesn't work, then it's bugged.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Well, that's it, I'm out.
The arc I wrote, I was really pleased with how it wen until the very last mish. I had it set for a team of 5 EB's, all one of each major hero AT, all to spawn at the end of the mish. My good lady and her friends did the mish earlier, team of 7 and they got attacked by 2 Tanks and 2 Controllers.
Given that whole story revolves around the team of 5, that kind of breaks the storyline in a major way.
So, until MA has better settings for controlling how things spawn, I'm leaving it. Spawns like that shouldn't happen, it's ridiculous. The custom group only has 5 characters in it and for it to spawn 2 sets of 2 the same is just plainly wrong and stupid.
Very disappointed now
We built this city on Rock and Roll!