Limit certain spawns in close proximity?

[RikOz]

I have no idea if this kind of thing is even possible, but ...

 

Would it be at all doable to tweak the code such that specific mob types can't spawn multiples within a certain proximity? Or, at the very least, stop specific mobs occurring more than once within a particular spawn group?

 

I'm talking about Sky Raider Engineers. The ones that fire up forcefields.

 

On the Faultline mission, "Recover Akashi Knight's Body" (from Doc Delilah), one of the possible maps includes a T-intersection, and at the intersection there are two spawn groups of Sky Raiders, one to the left and one to the right.  Due to their positioning, there is no way to attack one group without also aggroing the other group (even with a Stalker, though at least a Stalker can just slip past them all). On top of this - and here is the biggest issue - one of these groups consistently spawns with two Engineers, and the other group contains one Engineer.

 

At least at the level where this mission becomes available, it is quite impossible to interrupt more than one of these Engineers, so you're likely to end up with two of them activating their forcefields, and in the unfortunate event that your attack misses the one you wanted to interrupt, you'll get all three forcefields going. And when that happens, you're suddenly surrounded by six enemies that you can't land a single attack on due to the stacking nature of the forcefields.

 

It's quite possible to arrive at level 20 without having your Buildup power yet (and Dark Melee doesn't have one at all). I know the standard strategy for this kind of situation is to pop a yellow, but at level 20 you only have 10 insp slots, and this kind of situation may occur multiple times in a mission and you still need other kinds of insps as well.

[CU_Krow]

I see where you're coming from, having the mobs spawn a bit further away in order to not risk agro.........

 

BUT, I personally love running PI radio missions, and nothing thrills me more than coming up in a room with mobs all bunched together. It gives a "Bring It On!" thrill of something challenging to tackle on. From my view, the rarity of mobs spawning close together gives a unique opportunity for players to be creative or strategize. I understand this is not wanted nor ideal for every player, but still, adds a lil spice to the game. For the above reasons, I'd have to be against this suggestion!

[SwitchFade]

I have to vote no, unfortunately.

 

The specific mission you're discussing is quite easy to solo, let alone in teams. Raider engineers are quite easy to deal with and if they do happen to spawn force fields, they're not difficult to handle.

 

My regular leveling routine is street sweep to 5, hit the hollows for Wincott, flux, Julius and talsok which takes you from 5-15, then over to faultline.

 

I do this solo and teams on every toom, controller to blaster and all in between with no issues. Even the EB's are easy, be ready and drop 4 purples, 1 yellow and 3 reds, on any AT they die before the insps run out.

 

The game is already city of facerofl, it doesn't need to be easier. I must jranger.

Edited January 18, 2020 by SwitchFade

[Outrider_01]

You say stalker at one point.

Dark melee another.

And how Dark melee has no build up.

 

If its dark melee stalker, build up -> assassinate -> placate another; though I don't know if it puts it in a pseudo sleep.  Been a long time since I played a stalker, but plate seemed to put the npc to sleep without the normal graphic.  If another melee AT knock up/back/down/stun ect one raider to at least put it out of the right for a bit.

 

Other sets, learn to work with what you got.  Higher up in dark melee you got a fear attack, doesn't help much as you out level skyraiders but it can be a useful tool.  Any stuns, preferable range to knock one out. Controls like Ice blast holds to get the Malta sapper  Eventually you learn to take out the biggest threat, which isn't always the biggest bad ass on the block.

[RCU7115]

Just use the Blackwand or Nemesis Staff to pull one of the groups.

[RikOz]

9 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

You say stalker at one point.

Dark melee another.

And how Dark melee has no build up.

 

If its dark melee stalker,

Nah, I mentioned stalker because I had recently done the Faultline arc on a stalker (and good lord, being a stalker is almost useless on the Captain Castillo mission where Doc Delilah tags along, given that she wants to run in and aggro the entire room). I mentioned Dark Melee because I had spent the day playing my DM scrapper, and had noticed her lack of a buildup.

 

I was mainly bringing up this "issue" because I'm not entirely sure it's intentional. It started happening after one of the recent patches, at least this particular example of it. I currently have 84 alts and have probably run at least 40 of them through Faultline (I'd need to count Ouro portals to get a more exact number), and for most of them I saw a pretty fair map randomization on that mission and never encountered this "three Engineers within 15 feet of each other", or even this particular map. And then the last five or six alts who had done this mission before my post have gotten this same map with these same three Engineers in the same place. I understand that this is well within the realm of RNG, but it's still kind of odd that, across so many alts, to never see this configuration once, and then suddenly see it 5-6 times in a row.

 

I've seen other odd changes to missions following patches. After the most recent patch, the second Jim Temblor mission started being strange. Going back to my time on live, that mission, regardless of which map spawned, always proceeded in the same order: Arbiter Sands up front, Fusionette in the middle, and Kurse at the end. After the last patch, those three NPCs have spawned in a different order in each of the three times I've run the mission. In one instance, Kurse spawned in the middle and I found Fusionette in the room after Kurse.