Map project v1 (Atlas Park & President Marchand's Office)

[ZamuelNow]

While getting new powersets in AE is nice (and was admittedly requested), what a lot of us want is map fixes.  One of the problems with that is that the fixes we want (primarily Front/Middle/Back adjustments) stand the risk of breaking other people's arcs if done wrong.  I believe we have at least one Dev's Choice author who has passed away so if their arc was broken it would never be fixed.  But...presumably additive changes to Front/Middle/Back can still be made.  So, I figure we can get changes if we're organized, specific, and limited.  Not "this map is broken" but directly pointing at spawns and detailing the issue.  Limiting this to only two or three maps per Page allows us to collaborate on troubleshooting.  For this, I will focus on Atlas Park 01 and President Marchand's Office.

 

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Atlas Park 01

Bear with me on the images since I only have so much experience with this forum's attachments.  I tried to name the images in a way that they're understandable.  For Atlas, it says there's both Front and Back spots in the editor but it's only showing the Front locations on the map.  In game in Test mode, it isn't showing either.  These look like genuine bugs that need fixing.  On Quality of Life adjustments, there's no glowie locations so adding some would be useful.  Might even be a blessing in disguise since the new ones can be better placed than most.  For floor glowies, I'd suggest one at Front /loc [162.9 0.0 189.0], one at Middle /loc [233.4 17.9 -497.8], and one at Back /loc [-318.3 0.0 -1208.9] or [549.6 -0.0 -1228.5].  This would mean one 1n the park near the mission entrance, one near city hall, and one farther out.  Limited spawns means you could plan your story around them.  While outdoor areas often aren't the best for Wall locations, the area around City Hall presents some options such as /loc [65.0 -0.0 -1063.4].  A Wall glowie could be along the concrete wall near the trolley at /loc [636.0 -0.0 -1186.4].  It would be useful to have a Middle boss at /loc [127.9 15.9 -178.7] but that's highly dependent on whatever's going on with the Back spawns.

 

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President Marchand's Office

The most infamously broken map for AE and mainly for the desire to use it but it not working how people expect.  Looking at the screenshots, the text claims that there's only 3 floors but the mini map shows 4 floors, which is correct.  The second floor is showing the icons but not the floorplan in the editor, though the floorplan does show in Test mode.  The fourth floor is showing as blank in the editor and it's missing in game, which feels odd since I thought that only Trial mini maps were blank in the game.

 

You discover more problems when you check the maps in Test mode.  On the first floor at /loc [-4554.0 -1128.0 -3044.8] is a Back spawn point but that's right in the middle of the player spawn location.  This is despite the editor not offering Back spawn locations.  Presumably, this should be on the top floor but we can't see the map for the top floor.  On the second floor at /loc [-3058.0 -1110.0 -2832.3] is another Back spawn but it's showing as being inside the wall.  If these two misplaced spawns were moved to the fourth/top floor and they were made directly accessible in the editor (I've heard of people getting them on accident), would be helpful.  Presumably, inside the fourth floor's office at /loc [-2614.6 112.2 -770.0] or [-2576.0 112.2 -777.7] and/or the fourth floor exterior at /loc [-2729.0 127.5 -626.9]  [-2744.6 160.0 -759.5] would seem best.  While of vastly less importance, it seems like /loc [-2614.8 112.0 -652.6] would be a good spawn point for a GM on the fourth floor.

Spoiler

Atlas Park: 

 

 

President Marchand's Office

 

Edited Saturday at 04:37 PM by ZamuelNow

[Darmian]

Plus with Marchand's Office there's the FIFTH area. The entire outside of the building is available to use but we can't. Not just the rooftop but the streets below.

[Clave Dark 5]

I recently ran into the sad fact that many larger outdoor maps do not allow for allies/rescues (including one map that I know has such in the one of the game's story lines!) and I'm not really sure why.  Was that some farming trick they had to clamp down on? 

 

So much of my work in AE is "hey, so here's my story, so let's put this on this map and... oh, it doesn't work or I can't.  Now I have to reframe the entire story to try and put something like that on a map something like that."  I figure so much of this is getting into the deep weeds and will never be addressed in any meaningful way...

[sponazgul]

1 hour ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I recently ran into the sad fact that many larger outdoor maps do not allow for allies/rescues (including one map that I know has such in the one of the game's story lines!) and I'm not really sure why.  Was that some farming trick they had to clamp down on? 

 

So much of my work in AE is "hey, so here's my story, so let's put this on this map and... oh, it doesn't work or I can't.  Now I have to reframe the entire story to try and put something like that on a map something like that."  I figure so much of this is getting into the deep weeds and will never be addressed in any meaningful way...

 

Hmmmm, I have a few mission arcs that use big outdoor maps with rescues and allies. (My arc Clash of the Communist Kaiju has 2 mandatory rescue/allies and 7 optional potential allies that become available - 6 Canadian Giant Mechs and a helpful reprogrammed Fake Nemesis - you don't need those extra allies for the mission, they're just there is you want to take on the Giant Monster who spawns as a optional objective for fun.)

 

I'll see if I can bring up those maps in a new test mission arc and see if Ally is still possible on them. Maybe you've encountering this problem on some specific maps.

[Clave Dark 5]

It's probably not every map that blocks this, just exactly the ones I had my heart set on, or were specifically called for by the story I wanted to tell; "can't tell a Mercy Island story using a Grandville exterior," for example. 

 

You know, because that's how it always works.  😄 

[ZamuelNow]

23 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

So much of my work in AE is "hey, so here's my story, so let's put this on this map and... oh, it doesn't work or I can't.  Now I have to reframe the entire story to try and put something like that on a map something like that."  I figure so much of this is getting into the deep weeds and will never be addressed in any meaningful way...

 

Oh, a lot of the AE maps are frustrating to work with.  That's why I'm thinking of only trying to focus on two or three at a time.  We players can only make stabs in the dark when it comes to trying to suggest fixes.  I'm just saying, why not sharpen our knives?

 

As far as outdoor AE maps and allies, I think the Paragon Studios devs simply didn't think to add the spawn points in some maps.  To curb farming, that feels like a scalpel fix and most anti farming tended to be a chainsaw (that missed...).