OK, I thought I had a pretty good grip on respawn logic in Reach, but apparently I do not. I am working on a little tiny map which is nonetheless set up for CTF and other objective games. It has a slightly unusual setup - red team spawns on one side and blue on the other, but the flags are between the initial spawns (so basically both teams start equidistant from both flags). I don't think that's a factor in my problem but may as well mention it. For respawn zones, picture the map as being basically four areas: R1 R2 - B2 B1 R1 is the red flag, R2 is red's initial spawn area. B1 is blue flag and B2 is blue's initial spawn area. Simple in theory. Here are all the respawn zones I've set up in an attempt to fix this problem: R1 and R2 each have a generic (non-CTF-specific) Weak Respawn Zone for red team. B1 and B2 also each have a generic (non-CTF-specific) Weak Respawn Zone for blue team. R1 and R2 also have each of the following CTF zones: 1. Strong Respawn Zone for red team (flag home). 2. Strong Respawn Zone for red team (flag away). 3. Anti- Zone for blue team (flag home). 4. Anti- Zone for blue team (flag away). The same is also set up for B1 and B2, but obviously just the opposite. All zones are set to spawn sequence 1 or 2. (All of the ones in B1 and R1 are set as 1; the others tend to be set as 2.) -- Now if you managed to read all that without falling asleep or your brain melting, tell me: why when I go into splitscreen with a second controller playing as red team and kill that guy, he respawns right by blue flag (in area B1) over and over and over again? He has no respawn zone strong or weak, CTF or generic, covering that area. He has anti respawn zones for both flag home and flag away covering that same area. By all logic, it seems like he should NEVER spawn in that one spot. But he does - repeatedly. The only thing I can think is that the map is so small that it thinks an enemy (me) is always close. But should that really override respawn zones entirely? Don't get it!
I really wish I could help you, but I have a similar problem. My set up is even simpler and I can't figure out how to get my guys to spawn in the flag-away respawn zone. When you do figure it out, let me know so we can go into my map and straighten out my zones.
I've had a similar problem as well as I was making one of my maps. It all came down to some simple mistakes I made as I put in the team initial spawns. Try looking over them to see if their set correctly, also I'm pretty sure that your familar with how to set up respawn zones CTF in Reach. But something that you probably don't know is that Bungie would make those two different respawn zones, make them the same size, and overlay them in Forge. Look into Boardwalk in forge to see what I mean. This is how I fixed that problem, so I'm pretty sure it'll work for you.
The team-specific initial spawns all fall inside my team spawn zones. There are only two per team (it's a very small map) and both are within areas R2 and B2. I'll check out the Boardwalk setup, thanks for the tip. Right now I feel like I've set up every type of spawn zone available to me for both teams - I have spawn zones for flag home and away, anti spawn zones for flag home and away for the other team, and general spawn zones not for CTF (though they are only weak ones). One thing I did notice. I went into Asylum because I know the original version well and wanted to see how it was set up. It looks like they have zero CTF-specific zones. There's just one general (strong) zone for each team. And they are set as "team only." What this suggests to me: 1. The general spawn zones must take effect even in CTF games. Maybe the CTF-specific zones just override the general ones, if they exist..? Or maybe it's the other way around..! I'm thinking of blowing away all my game specific zones and setting up two strong general zones to see what happens. I didn't really want strong respawn zones outside of objective games, but if that fixes it, I'm willing to try it out. 2. Also, I have never set respawn zones to "team only." Seemed pointless to me, but maybe it should be set. I guess if it's not set then it could affect spawns for red and blue players in FFA? But even if that's true I don't know why it would screw up my CTF game to NOT have it set that way.
1. Sounds like it would work, couldn't hurt to try. Are you saying two strong Respawn zones for each team or one for each team? 2.Again, it wouldn't hurt to do this. Sorry, that my answers are so short. I hope I helped you fix you're problem in Reach.
OK, whew! I think I figured it out, or at least fixed it. I decided I didn't care about any of my existing respawn zones and wanted to try the simplest possible setup, so I deleted all zones in basic editing. Then I went into CTF and added just four zones - two strong respawns for red and two more for blue, covering my four main areas. Tested that and it seemed to work just fine. I then set up the same thing for assault and that seems to work as well. I haven't tested the home/away zones but on a map this tiny, I doubt it's really necessary to even have those. All the new zones I set up are just tagged game specific=true and then gametype tagged (CTF or Assault). The one thing I suspect might have caused it: in FFA games before I was having trouble with people spawning right on top of each other sometimes. Another guy and I set up some neutral zones with various spawn sequences thinking it might help. The jury was still out on whether or not it did. But one thing seems likely: I think it was screwing up my CTF spawns. Even though I had anti zones in the two key areas, I think it was seeing a neutral zone and co-opting it for BOTH teams. So my issue here seems fixed - now the question is how to get the game to stop dropping players in each other's laps for no good reason.
This isn't that complicated(at least I don't think it is). For my map beachfront arena all I have is 2 respawn zones for each team. For example the red team has one respawn zone set to CTF and one respawn zone set to Flag away. They both cover half the map.(the red side) The blue team has the same zones except on the other half of the map.(the blue side)
I'm a step ahead of you. Yeah, this is working as I expected it to now. I'm pretty sure the complication was some neutral respawn zones that were set up. I don't know what you'd want those for (maybe as spawn point influencers tagged as FFA-only?) but they seemed to be screwing things up in my team games. Now that they're gone it's working just like I'd expect.
Good to hear that your map is working. I don't know how to solve your other problem besides covering your entire map with one of those respawn zones that discourages players from spawning next to each other. I haven't used any of those anti or weak respawn zones yet in any of my maps, so I could be making complete non-sense. But hey, that's all I've got. Sorry.
Is there such a thing..? If there is I'm putting it on every map! Yeah, I find this problem kind of perplexing as well. According to Bungie's well-publicized respawn logic, spawn points are supposed to be weighted negatively by certain things - enemies nearby is a big one, I think only your own dead body being close is more important. So I can't figure out at all why I was playing a 2 vs. 2 game earlier and one of the other team spawned literally five feet behind me. He got a free assassination, and I got a glimpse of the angriest part of my soul. Heh heh. I don't know if it's fixable, just seems like bad game logic to me. Admittedly my map is very small but it's not so small that THAT needs to ever happen. I added about four more respawn points in less-traveled areas; hoping that will help.
Well, that seems like a good idea. I can't wait to see this new map your making. When do you plan to present it to forgehub? ----------------------------------------- EDIT: Uhh, never mind about the whole map thing. I just relized it was City by the sea.
That map and a new minigame map will be released probably tomorrow - I think they're both ready to go, I just don't have the energy to set it all up right now.
Oh it is! Yeah there's a preview thread, but the pics are a little out of date and the map isn't actually in my fileshare yet. I'll upload it and do the full release in competitive maps tomorrow.
Cool, I can't wait. BTW, do you plan on entering the forgetacular contest. Because I bet that any of your maps will win. I know, I sound like a kiss-but. But (no pun intended) I'm serious, I think your maps have a real good chance in winning one those cetagories.
Thanks man, I appreciate that! I submitted four maps actually - Magma, Crawler, Speleology, and Murder Manor. All were for 4 vs 4 slayer except Speleology, which I put in under CTF. Hopefully Bungie will give 'em a look. The main thing I try to do with each map is design something unique and with its own atmosphere - I think there are a lot of very playable maps out there but you may forget them the second the game is over. Hopefully I'm hitting the middle ground between solid gameplay and something that sticks with you. Unfortunately I'm running out of ideas for Forgeworld - hopefully that next sandbox-type map is coming.
Hmmm, that's pretty good perpective you've got there about maps. It's almost like comparing Unreal tournament 3 with Halo:Reach. The maps in Unreal are fine, but aren't as memorible as the ones in Halo Reach. I hope that this new forge canvas that bungie is supplying in the Noble map pack is worth something. Well, I'm gonna go and try to get those daily challenges before bed. Good luck with your map.
Doesn't it seem wierd that you can't have the CTF flag at home and the CTF flag away zones working if you have a non-game specific or team-only respawn zone covering an individual teams side of the map. I want to have my teams spawn on their respective sides during team games and I want my teams to spawn at their bases or in flag away spawn points when appropriate during a CTF game. Shouldn't a map be able to do both? From my testing, flag at home and flag away respawn zones will not work correctly if there is a team-only or non-game specific respawn zone covering the same area. I've tried all the combos I can think of, and I've only gotten the flag at home and flag away zones to work if there are no other zones interfering with them. Do I need to create two separate maps in order to support CTF and team slayer. I don't think this is the case, but I can't figure it out.
leegeorgeton - that seemed to be exactly what I was running into as well. Mine were neutral zones but the same principle applies. What you would have to do I suppose is set up ONLY game-specific respawn zones, each one tagged for its particular game... including slayer (and any other team game you might want to use it for). And don't have ANY general respawn zones.
el megapwn, after checking out Boardwalk, I've come to that conclusion. Just seems a shame not to be able to get some dual uses from some of these spawn zones. Intuitively, it seemed like that would've been posible. Practically, however, is a different story.