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Similarly if you've a map with 5 bosses and an AV you cannot say "That should work with every map available", it's impractical (I'd hate to see it on University Basement for example 
)
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But that's the point. The simple fact of being able to place more bosses than there are spawn points IS a bug. It either should give you an error, or it shouldn't allow you to place that many, yet it does.
Take my Return to Disco arc. I use that old Hellion "Rave" map, similar to the old PDP map. On it I have 1 ally, 3 bosses (including the AV), and 2 ambushes. According to the map definition, I should be well within the limits for that map, right?
So, I put my Ally at the front, and a boss at the front, middle and back (AV at the back). The first boss is meant to spawn on the Ally, and each boss has an ambush.
So why does my Ally spawn at the back, and my AV is regularly appearing in the middle? Why does the first boss, triggered to spawn on the Ally completion, appear at a random position on the map, and rarely actually comes to get you? I had to go looking for him!
Simple, it's a bug; either in the map, or in the MA itself. It doesn't really matter which, all that matters is that it's a bug. A very annoying bug, and a bug that effects other missions I'm working on too.
If a map has 2 front, 2 middle, and 2 back spawn points I can use, then on attempting to use a third, I should get an error telling me so, and it shouldn't allow me to publish or test that mission.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Ah right, that does seem bugged in that case. If I remember I might try it out myself and see if there's any work arounds (I think the order of objectives has some effect).
Any time I've tried to place too many bosses (I tried 5 boss spawns on the back of small CoT map) it did give me an error though, after the patch that provided details on the number of front/middle/back points in the maps description.
My issue stems from the fact that I had a Test arc using the University basement map with a glowie and a boss ambush which worked perfectly. But because the map didn't work for some other objective combos the map got pulled from the MA totally.
If it's a toss-up between a map not working for some objective combos or getting pulled entirely I'd be in the "leave it in but not working for some objectives" camp.
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If a map has 2 front, 2 middle, and 2 back spawn points I can use, then on attempting to use a third, I should get an error telling me so, and it shouldn't allow me to publish or test that mission.
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TBH I would have thought a warning allowing you to test/publish but alerting you to the fact that it may not act exactly as intended would be better.
I suspect that the current system can be used to create useful effects (but after 5 min trying to simply explain why I think that, I'm giving up - let's just say that I think it may allow semi-randomised placement of objectives if the way it seems to work is taken into consideration).
A warning would avoid invalidating any published arcs that have managed to use the system as is to achieve there desired effects.
BTW - does it make any difference just setting the AV to BACK, the ALLY to FRONT and leaving your other ambushes/objectives as ANY?
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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The simple fact of being able to place more bosses than there are spawn points IS a bug. It either should give you an error, or it shouldn't allow you to place that many, yet it does.
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If you try to place more bosses than there are boss spawn points it does return a bug.
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Take my Return to Disco arc. I use that old Hellion "Rave" map, similar to the old PDP map. On it I have 1 ally, 3 bosses (including the AV), and 2 ambushes. According to the map definition, I should be well within the limits for that map, right?
So, I put my Ally at the front, and a boss at the front, middle and back (AV at the back). The first boss is meant to spawn on the Ally, and each boss has an ambush.
So why does my Ally spawn at the back, and my AV is regularly appearing in the middle? Why does the first boss, triggered to spawn on the Ally completion, appear at a random position on the map, and rarely actually comes to get you? I had to go looking for him!
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Because of this:
DANCE RAVE: 10 allowed ambush, boss, patrol or destroy object details. (1 Front, 5 Middle, 4 Back)
So once the single front spawn point is filled, your mob gets bumped to the next available spawn point.
It's WAI. F/M/B is a preference, not an order.
Just because it doesn't work the way you think it should doesn't mean it's bugged.
I really should do something about this signature.
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[ QUOTE ]
The simple fact of being able to place more bosses than there are spawn points IS a bug. It either should give you an error, or it shouldn't allow you to place that many, yet it does.
[/ QUOTE ]
If you try to place more bosses than there are boss spawn points it does return a bug.
[ QUOTE ]
Take my Return to Disco arc. I use that old Hellion "Rave" map, similar to the old PDP map. On it I have 1 ally, 3 bosses (including the AV), and 2 ambushes. According to the map definition, I should be well within the limits for that map, right?
So, I put my Ally at the front, and a boss at the front, middle and back (AV at the back). The first boss is meant to spawn on the Ally, and each boss has an ambush.
So why does my Ally spawn at the back, and my AV is regularly appearing in the middle? Why does the first boss, triggered to spawn on the Ally completion, appear at a random position on the map, and rarely actually comes to get you? I had to go looking for him!
[/ QUOTE ]
Because of this:
DANCE RAVE: 10 allowed ambush, boss, patrol or destroy object details. (1 Front, 5 Middle, 4 Back)
So once the single front spawn point is filled, your mob gets bumped to the next available spawn point.
It's WAI. F/M/B is a preference, not an order.
Just because it doesn't work the way you think it should doesn't mean it's bugged.
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Tested this last night and was able to get it to work as Dave described, setting the two bosses & their ambushes to Any made everything appear as designed. The Ally appeared near the start, the two bosses appeared in the corridors before the big open room, the AV appeared either in the "lobby" of the big room (the small room opening into the large one) or in the big room itself. Then I got distracted, wiped the bosses and filled the place with zombies instead to see what the difference between the Banished @ levels 20-30 and the Banished 40-50 was, seems the 40-50s have the bigger spawn sizes (Mmmm. Claws heaven).
So really it's up to a Mission Designer to see if the map is suitable to what they had planned and tweaking accordingly as part of the design process. Also since going live missions from Test will probably need a good retest and tweaking since some things seem to have changed.
The banished level 20-30 have a lower boss threshold than most groups. I think 40-50 BP follow normal rules.
I really should do something about this signature.
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Tested this last night and was able to get it to work as Dave described, setting the two bosses & their ambushes to Any made everything appear as designed. The Ally appeared near the start, the two bosses appeared in the corridors before the big open room, the AV appeared either in the "lobby" of the big room (the small room opening into the large one) or in the big room itself.
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So glad you managed to get it working using my pointers.
Partly because I was able to help! But particularly as I hadn't formally tested what I was saying - and you've helped confirm that I'm not way off!
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So really it's up to a Mission Designer to see if the map is suitable to what they had planned and tweaking accordingly as part of the design process.
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Yup - like I said above. There are, I believe but haven't tested, benefits/effects that can be achieved by overloading an area to get 'partial randomisation' - for want of a better term.
So if anything a warning (but not an error) should be issued for exceeding number of spawns in a preferred area. One of those 'You might not mean to do this or understand what the outcome will be' kind of warnings that programming languages are sometimes fond of.
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)
[ QUOTE ]
So if anything a warning (but not an error) should be issued for exceeding number of spawns in a preferred area. One of those 'You might not mean to do this or understand what the outcome will be' kind of warnings that programming languages are sometimes fond of.
[/ QUOTE ]
That would apply to pretty much anything in the MA, or indeed most game editors. They don't require the same level of total idiot proofing as full buisiness applications and stuff.
IMO, finding out what the instructions you put in actually do is what Test Mode is for.
I really should do something about this signature.
Didn't get chance to go into CoH last night, so couldn't make adjustments to see what's what, but I accept what's been posted since.
However, just wanted to point out.. When I wrote and published the arc, the MA editor did NOT tell you how many spawn points were in each map section. 
Now that it does do that, it's a LOT easier to setup spawns.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Didn't get chance to go into CoH last night, so couldn't make adjustments to see what's what, but I accept what's been posted since.
However, just wanted to point out.. When I wrote and published the arc, the MA editor did NOT tell you how many spawn points were in each map section. Now that it does do that, it's a LOT easier to setup spawns.
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That was added in Open Beta. I assume to deal with exactly this sort of unpredicability in controlling spawns.
Added the same day they took the University Basement away from me *sobs*
I liked that map!!
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That was added in Open Beta. I assume to deal with exactly this sort of unpredicability in controlling spawns.
Added the same day they took the University Basement away from me *sobs*
I liked that map!!
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Guess I'm going blind then. 
Mind you... I didn't use it much once it went open as I wanted to leave SOMEthing for me to play with in live, and since then I've kinda been on a break from the game. Only went in long enough to fix the errors when I transferred the arc over, and then quickly publish it...
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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)
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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.
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The Custom Arc you designed is bugged in that case, not the underlying map you attempted to use.
You cannot assume every map will work with every combination of objectives. If I've a "Ruined City" map with 20 glowies on it I'd hardly expect to be able to do the same thing with "University Basement", they're two different maps.
Similarly if you've a map with 5 bosses and an AV you cannot say "That should work with every map available", it's impractical (I'd hate to see it on University Basement for example