There are many ways to cheese a POI, as long as it does not have an Admin Core. I've been using all of them for years. It sucks, but . . . is what it is. As far as I can recall, people have complained about this stuff on and off for years and the POIs mostly keep getting built the same way AND perhaps more notably: minimal changes to bot behavior or the various game mechanics that limit good infantry combat.
I fully understand the merits of invisible spawners, as well as Admin cores. But if you think about what you just said, then we can deduce that: in an ideal situation, when a player "enters" a POI (or perhaps more appropriately approaches it closely enough that entrance is imminent), then the fact that the point of the invisible spawners is to represent a "lived in" structure means that ALL the entities should be present at that moment of player "entrance." How would this be accomplished? Place ONE invisible spawner at the very bottom of the structure (in fact, ideally below it somewhat to account for the fact that a player might approach it from underneath and the detection areas only projects "up" from the sensor), set the detection range to maximum, assign all NPC entities to that spawner. Because of limitations in how these objects function, as well as limitations in the behavior of the bots they control, this would produce results which might be "less frustrating" but produce different problems of the comic and silly nature. Imagine, you approach some Legacy hellhole and as you get close to the front door, you suddenly hear a cacophony of screeches, grumbles growls and unearthly chattering . . . Not to mention that, because of limitations in pathing and how detection of the player functions, the challenge of a POI with this design would primarily be "how many AoE weapons do you have" because the NPCs would be clumped in corners and running in place and going in circles. It is as someone already said: serious limitations in the core game make achieving what you talented creators want to create inherently fraught with problems. Given all of this, invisible spawners (and Admin cores) SHOULD HAVE BEEN used far more cautiously than they have been. They were not, and now there are a lot of POIs where bots spawn in like raindrops falling on your head. I don't blame the folks who made those POIs. They were just trying to do their best to make a fun and challenging POI . . . for the most part probably. Maybe in some instances there was actual meanness involved but I doubt that accounts for much of it. End of the day, despite how far the game has come and how far your fantastic scenario has come, you can see from the engagement in this thread and the amount of agreement Scoob and others have received that there are real problems.
I would say that if there's an issue with a scenario specific POI, it's best to let the author of that scenario know what the exact issue is so it can be fixed. But most POIs in RE are just vanilla POIs with some small changes, they aren't actually made by either of us and there may not be anything we can do to fix them except to simply remove them from the scenario until one of us can rebuild a replacement from scratch. I haven't heard of people having many of these issues with the POIs I've personally built from scratch, so obviously a lot of it comes down to the specific POI designs.
THIS! There are a lot of POIs I run repeatedly cause I know them . . . well I DID know them as of 6 months ago, but it sounds like a lot of them are still the same. Some of them I have methods to cheese them, some of them I run "sportingly." If I feel lucky I'll try a new one I've never done, but do so ONLY with extreme preparation, extreme caution and the intent to bail and re-approach at the first sign of unexpected stuff I'm not prepared to deal with.
Unfortunately, the last time I encountered a POI that I felt had some issues was probably a year or more ago, so no way I could remember the name. But I will take your advice to heart and send you a line next time I encounter one. There is ONE I can kind of describe and it is somewhat problematic, but honestly not egregious. It is a space POI that is constructed sort of like an oil derrick, it has walkways and loading docks and stuff dangling below it, it has a sort of main level that there are a couple buildings built up from but the central part of it is an open courtyard sort of design with lots of cargo containers. It was obviously meant to look like some sort of logistics hub and that may even be what it is called. The problem with it is fairly minor though, so I wouldn't refer to it as one that is dire need of "fixing." The problem with it is that, many of the spawners are invisible and the range is set fairly low on the sensors. So it isn't so much that they spawn on top of you, as they just materialize in the hall way or bunk room or cafeteria right in front of you. Once I figured out there were invisible spawners I just hosed down every surface that looked like it might be a logical spot to have a spawner from as far away as possible and that dealt with a lot of it. But then again, I almost never fight fair. If there is an exploit to be used against a POI I will figure it out and I will use it. NOT DYING is my number one priority, even if that means spending hours and hours scouting, and poking and figuring out what makes a POI tick. Between disabling enough weapons to approach it, getting inside safely and then clearing it, I probably spent 4 hours + doing that POI I just described above. I did not die, and I did not lose any ships but it took a lot of effort.
Yes please keep a lookout. I would need the spawn name (or even better the blueprint name via the di window) and what and where exactly the issue is. Maybe it can be fixed, if it's one of the RG/PE POIs.
Continuing the Derelict Station this evening and having some issues... I've had a several cases of Spiders spawning right on top of me. I half expected this in areas where there are damaged blocks - spiders "coming through the walls" so to speak, but this is happening in places that give no indication of being a spawn location. One of these is near the "Damaged by gunfire" container you encounter. I'm staying grounded incidentally, no jetpack use at all inside the POI. Additionally, one of the spiders is spitting homing green blobs, which seems a bit excessive. I'm fairly nimble, as usual, but simply cannot avoid this stuff even at a full perpendicular run, that's some manoeuvrable spit! A couple of these spiders, quite far away, were behind blocks, but their spit still managed to hit me - I guess they were clipping into those blocks when they attacked. Another time, I dodged behind a wall to avoid some spider spit, but it still got me, rather than impacting on the wall. A little frustrating. In addition, I'm also having continuing issues actually hitting things. T2 Shotgun is still either a one-shot kill or zero damage weapon. I'm a decent aim and I'm up-close so spread should be minimal. So, I switched to the T2 Sniper. However, this weapon is currently broken due to a weird aim drift when you scope. Meaning you aim, scope, drift massively off-target, and have to adjust aim. Unusable in this state for the quick snipes I'd usually perform on distant enemies. So, I switched to the Grenade Launcher. This weapon shoots more like a Rocket Launcher in artificial gravity it seems, no projectile drop over distance, so I've had to treat it as such. Often though, it appears to do zero damage. I aim at the block enemies are on, rather than the enemy its self, as this is usually the best way to use AoE weapons, however, quite often is does nothing. It's odd to see a large explosion totally engulf and enemy, only to see in emerge totally undamaged. While the spawning issues may or may not be by design - we know that spawners can be delayed - the other issues are all vanilla. I can see the care that's been taken in this POI's design, I really love the atmosphere, but the experience is being heavily compromised by these issues. Game is running well, I have a solid 60 fps (limited to this) experience. There's the odd tiny bit of lag, but that's normal for Emperion irrespective of hardware it seems, and the usual "I'll freeze for a moment when you try to scope" issue. Generally though, performance is just fine, so I cannot see any reason why things would be this bad. In the past (different PC) I'd find that low-fps situations would make play almost impossible, with hits simply not being registered. This is similar to that experience, but without the fps issues. Most odd. Look, I hate sharing such negative experiences when stuff like this happens. It can't be nice reading for those who spend many hours carefully designing a POI, only to have such vanilla issues ruin the experience. Perhaps there's the odd cheesy spawn in there, perhaps there's just spawn lag. However, considering the game is running so very well for me, I'm surprised at getting these issue. This all comes back to the tactical approach theme to a degree as, whatever my tactics, if my hits aren't registering and enemy shots are passing through blocks, my own tactics are nullified to a degree. Why is the game so glitchy for me, when I'm getting great performance? Edit: I am going to persevere with this POI, I'm liking the exploration side of things and looking forward to uncovering whatever it ultimately reveals. It's just a shame the shooting part isn't going so smoothly. As a result, I burn out a bit sooner, so only have a short session.
Just a FYI the final room of the poi is a bit... Much. I plan to overhaul it a bit to cut out some of the stuff that is going on in that room for next update. I will try to get those changes in for the next update. So when you do it know that I'm already planning on changing it.
Cool. I think the problem when you make something too challenging is that the underlying game issues become far more apparent, leading to increased frustration. If my hits had been counting reliably and I'd not had a couple of clipping-related issues, this run would have been pretty good. Regarding the warning about jet pack use, I've heeded that to the letter - jet pack is off whenever I'm inside - yet I still had a couple of "spiders falling from the ceiling, right on top of me" issues. So I wonder if the detection range for the player's presence needs adjusting, or were these just regular proximity spawns?
Cool. I'll double-check, but I didn't see any vent textures. There was a large "hole" from broken blocks nearby, so I half expected stuff to come from there, but it didn't. I was then standing next to an intact wall, when spiders dropped on my head. Will check again when I'm next able to play.
Hello again. I had some more time to play this POI - it's been a few days - and I'm still having issues. These issues are NOT down to you or your POI design @ravien_ff at all, rather the vanilla issues I've previously reported. In a couple of instances, I've faced clusters of enemies, most recently loads of abominations when a certain Shutter Door is approached. I used grenade after grenade when these guys were grouped together, approaching me. Did NO damage, despite the explosions landing at their feet. I shot some right in the torso, but the shot did nothing either. Had to switch to the Shotgun, which is less then ideal its self of course, but upper torso shots do seem to have a higher chance of counting. I did get one issue where, when moving backwards from the approaching abominations, TWO abominations jumped me from behind. I did not see where they came from, but the corridor was previously clear. This is a real shame, as after my shots repeatedly did no damage, I went into god Mode when I switched to the Shotgun as I was getting a bit irked at this point. It seems that the game isn't ready for this POI, in that it can never work as intended. Assuming the intent is that the player is actually able to hurt the enemies that spawn lol. Issues like this have existed for long time now, however, I don't recall things being quite this bad. Perhaps v1.10 will help. I'll continue to play through the POI, however, if I get into situations where my shots simply do no damage, I will use God Mode again. I mean, getting hit by the third guy after taking out the first two is ok. But when your shots weren't counted vs. the first two, so you now have THREE enemies clipping through each other to attack you. Well. Nope. Edit: Conversely, the Grenade Launcher works great vs. those super fast tiny scorpions, whereas the shot gun, even point-blank, seems totally ineffective. Strange hit-box issues. I wonder if the Abomination / Nightmare's legs are unable to be hit, hence why they seem unaffected by explosions at their feet? The AoE would though, I imagine, extend to their Torsos, which can be hit fairly reliably with the Shotgun at least. Edit 2: I quite like the Abomination (and variants) rushes. I'm getting pretty darn good with the Shotgun now. The one infuriating thing though is having them attack through each other constantly. I.e. I'm engaging the two closest enemies (while bkac-pedalling to maintain some range) and the one slightly further behind attacks through the others, the animation clipping right through them. That's cheesy as hell Eleon! Odd the two closest don't appear to be in attack range - they didn't attack - yet the one a couple of metres behind them is in range. Didn't like the ambush by the Converted Servant guys. Many of them seemed to have spawned standing on a sloped block, which led to some slight clipping and me taking fire when they had no LoS strictly speaking. They don't deal too much damage, but it's still not ideal. Look, I'm being negative again and I bloody hate it, this isn't a dis on your work on this POI, but purely an observation of how badly things can go due to vanilla issues. While my initial points (in OP) on the likely of unavoidable traps and cheesy spawns still stands, when approaching a POI from a tactical perspective, these vanilla issues persist irrespective of the care that goes into the design of the POI. I feel bad for POI's designers, specifically you Ravien_ff, as I know you put care into your POI's to not cheese the player. Mention you specifically - not saying other's don't put care into their designs - purely because of the POI I'm doing right now. Edit 3: Ok, a bit of feedback... I'm at the crawling through tunnels stage, and I keep getting stuck on slopes. This can happen in artificial gravity - even on stair blocks - so makes things artificially difficult. I just has some of those scorpion critters come round a corner as I descended into the "Contanimation zone ahead" (sp btw) area and I got totally stuck, unable to move on the slope. I had to repeatedly jump to free myself. Edit 4: Duuuuude... "that" room... I don't think it's possible without a severe tone-down of the constant spawns every few seconds. I know you're looking at it, but phew...that's utterly nuts.
Abominations specifically seem to take much less damage from aoe weapons. I've tested it. I think their hit box needs fixing.
