Hi guys, I've been forging since it's birth with halo 3 (yet somehow never created a forgehub account). I like to think I have a fairly good understand of how to design maps and where best to place spawns, and how respawn volumes can be used to control which team spawns where. I've been working on a map in halo 5 for over a month now, gradually improving it, but I still can't get the spawning to work properly. It's a symmetrical BTB map. I have 8 initial spawns for each team, and then about 50 neutral spawn points across the map. I've then placed a team specific respawn volume over each half of the map to make sure that blue team never respawns on red teams side. This works. This is how I have always set up spawning for BTB maps in past halos. The problem, is that I always respawn on the same respawn point despite the fact that there are dozens available. Even if an enemy is looking at the spawn point I respawn there. Very occassionally if I'm being seriously spawn trapped I will respawn on another point (only this one other respawn point). I can't understand it, but I think it is to do with the respawn volumes. I think the respawn point I am always spawning on is the closest to the respawn volume marker. The volume covers the entire half of the map, top and bottom. Respawn volumes do appear to have changed from past forges, in that they work the opposite way, so that red's volume is on blue side, preventing reds from spawning there, and vice versa. Also, the weight parameter is stuck in the range -15.94 to -16. I assume the negative weighting is why the volumes work switched sides. I have also heard that the weighting range restriction is a bug. However, I haven't heard anyone else complain about spawn points not working on their maps, and the BTB maps in matchmaking appear to be set up the same way as mine but there is no spawning issue there. Does anyone know what is going on here, or can point me the direction of a spawning tutorial? _____________ Update: So I've been doing some further research into the problem, but still have no solution. There were two offending locations previously which were the ONLY spawn points I would ever spawn at. I deleted the offending spawns and made a demonstration video: http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/Tenstonio/video/14174309 Notice how spawning appears to be random at first, with multiple locations. I add ONE new spawn point in a particular area and suddenly I can ONLY spawn there. It's not just the one location either. I decided to cut my losses and delete the bad spawn points and add a couple more in, only to find I get the same problem in a completely different location: http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/Tenstonio/video/14174434 I've determined that it has NOTHING to do with respawn volumes unlike I originally thought. I have tried moving the volumes further away, increasing their size, changing their weight, but ended up disabling them by switching them both to team 3 for now. The issue remains. There are only two respawn volumes, I checked. I'm really struggling here. I've selected ALL spawn points on the map and made sure they have the exact same settings, even the same physics properties. The map is symmetrical (by 180 degrees) and the issue occurs on both sides. So it isn't anything to do with world coordinates of alpine. It must be something to do with my map layout. The only connection I can find between these spawning 'hotspots' is a vague one. If I have other spawn points nearby it appears to affect them. There are also some spawn points I have never spawned at ever, even after deleting the hotspot ones.
My hunch is you won't find a tutorial that goes into that much depth (if you do let me know lol). It could be complicated. The short answer is the game will try to spawn you in the safest place it can. In past halos that was based on where immediate threats (don't know about H5...you spawn in front of exploding barrels that're getting naded wtf), recent deaths (don't know about H5), enemies, teammates, lines of sight, etc. Lines of sight was pretty far down there. The enemy proximity influencer may still be taking precedence over the other factors like line of sight, which in the past wasn't a very big influencer hence all the spawn-sniping. A quick fix you could try is deleting the spawn point or moving it to an area that's closer to the other spawns in relation to where the enemies are. You could also try moving it to a more exposed area, but I don't know if that'd help much.
I think it's an issue in other maps. Recurve, I think, had a spot visible from Sniper that players consistently spawned there; they fixed it by putting a bigger rock infront of it. It seems like to me that "enemy location" is taking priority and it happens to choose that same spot every time. I wonder if respawn zones are the cause of that being prioritized rather than "last death" or maybe the predictability is how Halo 5 was designed. I see Pros all the time get a kill then move to a spot and know exactly where the enemy spawns. I don't have a ton of experience myself and haven't looked at the spawning design since Halo 3.
Interestingly enough, I had a similar issue when testing an early version of my map. I had several spawns in each base (like 10 or so), and 2 centrally-located spawns roughly in the middle of the map. Players kept spawning at those neutral ones and nowhere else, but when I deleted the central ones, all the rest of the spawn points began working properly. Though I didn't solve it this way, I think this may be a case where you want to use "Spawn Order" - the game for some reason finds the problem spawn point most desirable, and so it always spawns people there. If you kick Spawn Order up a notch for the problem spawn (or maybe more - haven't personally messed with it), that might just fix it. Worst case, you can delete each "dominant" spawn like I did, and that should fix things. Best of luck - and let us know how you fix it, if you do.
So I've been doing some further research into the problem, but still have no solution. There were two offending locations previously which were the ONLY spawn points I would ever spawn at. I deleted the offending spawns and made a demonstration video: http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/Tenstonio/video/14174309 Notice how spawning appears to be random at first, with multiple locations. I add ONE new spawn point in a particular area and suddenly I can ONLY spawn there. It's not just the one location either. I decided to cut my losses and delete the bad spawn points and add a couple more in, only to find I get the same problem in a completely different location: http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/Tenstonio/video/14174434 I've determined that it has NOTHING to do with respawn volumes unlike I originally thought. I have tried moving the volumes further away, increasing their size, changing their weight, but ended up disabling them by switching them both to team 3 for now. The issue remains. There are only two respawn volumes, I checked. I'm really struggling here. I've selected ALL spawn points on the map and made sure they have the exact same settings, even the same physics properties. The map is symmetrical (by 180 degrees) and the issue occurs on both sides. So it isn't anything to do with world coordinates of alpine. It must be something to do with my map layout. The only connection I can find between these spawning 'hotspots' is a vague one. If I have other spawn points nearby it appears to affect them. There are also some spawn points I have never spawned at ever, even after deleting the hotspot ones. Changing the spawn order works for the two offending spawns, but I fear the result is much the same as deleting the spawns entirely, as players will almost never spawn there. After having moved some spawns around and placed more, there are certain hotspots which create the issue, but I can't seem to find any reason for it. It has nothing to do with enemy location because the issue occurs both in game and while in forge by myself.
Common wisdom is that you don't need respawn zones outside of CTF - and in that case, you just use them to prevent people from spawning in the enemy base or on the enemy side of the map. I think the solution to @Tenstone's problem could lie in Respawn Zones, but this is something we ought to have a 343i person explain more thoroughly before we go experimenting with wrapping the offending spawns in a negatively influenced zone, for example.
I wish it were as simple as that. It is true that I had respawn zones so that players would only spawn on there team's half. (I had this set up for all gametypes not just CTF because that is my preference). However, I changed the respawn zones to team 3 (non existent) and the issue remained, the only difference being that I would spawn in one of two identical spots on opposite sides of the map.
Right, what I meant is that we may in the future want to surround such "problem spawns" with a neutral respawn zone configured with a different weighting or something like that - mechanics which none of us has the slightest idea how to use properly.
Your best bet may be to do as Debo37 suggests - using spawn volumes to negatively influence the chance of spawning in those trouble spawns. The problem being that I can't remember with the spawn weighting if it likes high numbers or low numbers better. Since the spawn volume is stuck at a negative influence number, this would require clarification. I have to say that I was surprised to see that 343 maps generally only have the two CTF-specific spawn zones, just put in place to disable spawn points for the opposing team.