So this is specifically for two of my maps but just a couple general questions: If I place neutral respawn points...will those be used as initial spawns for FFA games or would I have to place neutral initial spawns for that? Also, do I need to use respawn zones or ...? What is their purpose exactly? I think that's all. I'm making two maps, one is a small, semi-symmetrical 2v2/4v4 map inspired my maps such as Battle Creek, the other is a small, asymmetrical map inspired by maps like Ascension, Lockout, and primarily, Guardian. Anyway, thanks!
Mhm, you have to use nuetral initial spawns if you don't want players to spawn at random respawn points around the map. As far as respawn zones go, you don't need them, but they add more specificity to how players will respawn during gameplay. To clarify, respawn zones add weight to the respawn points in that zone. If I set a respawn zone to blue team, the chances that blue players will spawn there is very high while the chances that red players will spawn there is very low. Weak respawn zones have the same effect although on a lesser scale. Anti-respawn zones act in the opposite of the previously mentioned in that it decreases the likelyhood that players will spawn on respawns in that zone. They allow further control over spawning in gametypes such as objective where you don't want a team spawning directly in their opponents base. On the flip side, you can use them to prevent a team from spawning directly by their flag after the enemy has successfully pushed on their base.
Not quite. A blue team assigned zone only changes the weights for the blue team. They won't affect the red team's spawning potential. This is not true either, as playlist maps demonstrate in game. An Anti Respawn Zone only lowers the potential of spawning, never bars it. Otherwise everything else you said is correct. As for zones, I would not use them even for flag games. The way zones are used by 343i/CertainAffinity is such that you can more readily create spawn traps if you know what you are doing. Take a look at the following picture to see what I mean. This picture shows how the weights of the points in the zone are manipulated to give the spawning team only the corner to spawn in. All the points outside the zone are useless, as their weights are far below the one in the zone. All the points in the zone but the one uncovered are lowered even more by the enemy proximity influence. The radius of the enemy proximity influence is about 9.5 units. So you can see it is pretty large and a team of four can cover quite amount of real estate of map. The zone adds +14 weight to all the points in its volume, while the enemy proximity adds -20 weight. All of this was an intentional design decision by 343i/CA, but I think it backfired on them because of the spawn trap potential and also because of how the enemy proximity can force spawning players to the other side of the map even with zones (like we see in the CTF playlist maps).