Since you guy seem interested, here are the tests I performed. Test One and Two: FFA Slayer I set up five respawn points within four respawn areas on the Foundry Power Canvas. Order 0 had two points in it, to test whether or not you would spawn far from an enemy. The other areas were ordered 1-3. Prediction: The player would spawn in the areas sequentially. Outcome: Randomness. The player that I kept killing (an extra dummy controller that was plugged in) would respawn in the same location over and over again, usually #3. When I stood on the spawn at 3, he spawned at 1 (why not 0, 0 was farther). When I stood on 3 and threw grenades at 1, he spawned at 2. Again, why not at 0? The only time the player spawned at 0 was when I parked a gauss warthog near one of the respawn points at 0 and shot near the other respawn points. Test Three and Four: Team Slayer I set up five respawn points within four areas again. This time, I decided to set them up across from the gauss hog cause that thing killed the dummy player really easy and thus expedited my testing. The points were arranged with one very near the warthog, one very far away, and three in the middle. One of the points in the middle was set to my team, so I was pretty sure that the player would not spawn there (and he didn't). The other two in the middle were given respawn areas with order 1 and 3, and they were set to the player's team. The point in back and the one up front were in a very large respawn area, and in one test this area was set to neutral and in another test it was set to the player's team, but I can't remember which test had which outcome. Prediction: I was confused by the last set of tests so I didn't know what was going to happen. But I assumed that the player would spawn in one of the two areas that were set to his team. Outcome: Stupidity. The player spawned in his two team spawns as expected, but in one of the tests he also spawned up front near the warthog... a lot. Even when the gauss hog was continually firing right at the respawn point, the player respawned there. The game either checks the "danger influences" milliseconds before the player spawns (while I was between gauss rounds) or I had some wacky priority set up so that the player would always spawn there. I parked a ghost on that respawn point, and the player began spawning in another team area, over and over again, regardless of gauss fire. I parked a mongoose on that spot and he began spawning in the back of the map. I really don't understand the "spawn order" now. Bungie said that respawn areas should always be set to a team. When they were left neutral, it seemed like the game either didn't use the order system at all or it was completely random. When they were set to a team, the game still didn't use an order system, but it may have been using a priority system. I guess I could look into that later.
I'll spend a few hours working on this from multiple angles. I'll take notes and let everyone know what I come up with.
Ok, I think my blood vessels are finally starting to flow properly again. But let me ask you this: say you spread out all of the 8 areas in Foundry with two in the central area and the other six spread out equally among the Defender and Attacker sides. setting the central areas as O and 1, would it be better if you prioritized the remaining six as 2-4 on each side (as was done with the Territories in the Conquest variant) or number them sequentially from 2-8 in a zig-zag across the map? Ok, I have a new vein that's popped up in my forehead. Square one, hello again...
I didn't know that about the respawn area boxes... The whole order thing wasn't anything I understood or cared about... Thanks Furious!
I think the respawn area tests were inconclusive... wasn't 0 random? I added this to the "useful threads" sticky.
I made a few small tests, I'll do much more tomorrow. I have figured out though that the game does not take enemy fire into account when spawning someone on the other team. I got in the regular hog turret and continously fired, and he continously spawned and died in the same place. However, If I threw nades from the same spot, at the place where I killed him, then he never respawned there. I changed it up a few times too and was effectively controlling where he would not spawn just by throwing nades there. So the game does factor in pending explosions. If anyone is interested in trying this themselves, I have made a quick map to do some tests on. I have divided a large area into sixths, with each section having one respawn and a respawn area around it for both CTF and Slayer. They're currently set to neutral and priority 0 for now though. You can change them. Respawn Area Research Map I numbered the sections so if anyone uses this we can talk about our findings together and everyone will know what the other's talking about. The sides are Mancannon and Teleport. Each side numbered 1-3. This teleporter will take you on top of a bridge so you can have another position to test from. The game wants to spawn your enemy as far away from you as possible, but if you're in the center of the map, what then? Might be good for testing exactly how the priorities work and whether or not they're random.
Delicious post. This actually helped me out, I will test areas on my new map, but it will probably confuse me even more...I also had a dream thinking that Bungie just put spawn areas in to confuse the hell out of everyone that has the guts to try and use those babies.....
Thanks, but I'm more confused than ever.. I greatly appreciate the efforts from all you guys, but unfortunately I'm still where I stood at before I first started reading through this thread. It seams like the more tests that are being conducted the more outcomes are being found. I is sad panda bear . I know this is asking a lot but since Bungie most certainly won't listen to a random kid like me is there a possibility of a ForgeHub staff member to send a couple of questions Bungies way? Since you guys have authority unlike most of us maybe they would listen to you and try to answer our questions in detail. Peace // gorebound
Brilliant idea Gorebound! Maybe when Furious gets back he can pm TDF and get him to set up a few Official FH Questions to ask bungie about respawn areas and the technicalities of how everything works. Actually, anyone can pm TDF about this, just not me since I don't think I'm well-known around here yet and I want someone who TDF will listen to.
this helped sooooo much, i was not aware of the fact that you would respawn always in the same points.
Yup, I thought it would get about this complicated when somebody finally got into it. But thanks for all the hard work on research, everyone. I generally just do what Bungie does and use two (sometimes four) large spawn areas. It tends to work pretty well, and I've never had anybody complain about spawn camping. But I don't get quite as much spawn-variation as I'd like. My suggestion for those who are new to this is to set it up in this simple fashion. Unfortunately, when you think about it, the biggest spawn camping problems have to be fixed with map geometry. Really bad spawn camping generally happens with snipers (unless it's a small map), and it seems like enemy fire has no effect on spawn priority, like you guys said. Good luck getting to the bottom of this, and thanks for the in-depth coverage, Furious.
This is all very interesting, I'm sorry I don't have anything to lend to the conversation. I forsee me going back and changing up all my currently published maps. I guess they never really get out of the work-in-progress phase, eh? Anyway I think this is way beyond Forging 101, but it would be a good idea to try to compile all the knowledge we have dug up into one area, although I don't think too many people have done anything of this calibur yet.
Boy, that says it all right there. I guess at some point you've go to let your baby leave the nest, but I'm wishing I didn't release the initial version of one of my maps. Maybe somewhere down the line we can play a couple of our "finished" maps together in a larger group (no more than 10) of Team Slayer or CTF and test out how well the spawn areas work. As Rick was saying, I haven't had a problem with spawning right next to an enemy, but I'm usually not playing with a group bigger than four. Just a thought.
Great read—Back in Jan. I posted a tread called kon’s tips, that Included my spawning theory. Now most people had a hard time understand what I was talking about. My theory focused on the same thing and discuses mathematical ways to brake up the spawns and placing the spawning modifiers randomly. I just wanted to tell you that I think you article is much easier to understand for the average reader. And I would recommend it to anyone that has a hard time understand what I wrote. Thanks for your effort.