[AI] Specific Spawn Teams Not Spawning.

[oliver.burke]

On all the maps that I have tested in an attempt to see if this issue persists (first world bank, bank heist cash, four stores and hoxton breakout), not once have the spawn groups "tac_swat_shotgun_rush = {" and "tac_swat_shotgun_flank = {" spawned. This is strange considering the fact that they have the same frequency as "swat_rifle" in groupaitweakdata, so you would expect them to be common nevermind spawn.

I took a look at the issue by changing the groupaitweak data so that only those two groups spawned in all three spawn types (recon, reinforce and assault) and when I tested it again on the four levels mentioned earlier, nothing spawned except cloakers at times leaving me to remove the edited groupaitweakdata.

[Hoxi]

Well this explains why they actually rarely spawn, since shotgunners only seemed to spawn from a certain squad with Shields and that's it. Nice catch, I didn't exactly think of doing what you did to test this so I didn't found out the cause (and just continued trying to fix other things).

I'm gonna paste the reason here, since Hassat already found out why this happens:

Originally posted by Hassat Hunter:

The reason for the shotgun squads seemingly not appearing is not a whole lot (any?) have them setup as spawns. For example this is Alaskan deal, a fairly recent heist;

Preferred spawn groups: tac_shield_wall_charge, FBI_spoocs, tac_tazer_charge, tac_tazer_flanking, tac_shield_wall, tac_swat_rifle_flank, tac_shield_wall_ranged, tac_bull_rush
Spawn 0 enemies, chosen in order:

No tac_swat_shotgun_X anywhere

tac_swat_shotgun_rush and tac_swat_shotgun_flank are missing, even though they intentionally left these in after the Housewarming Party event. It also seems that tac_swat_rifle is missing (not just from Hassat's comment), but since the flank variant is there and shotguns are not, it wasn't that noticeable.

EDIT: oh yeah, these are from levels raw/instances/unique

	preferred_spawn_groups
		1 FBI_spoocs
		2 tac_shield_wall_charge
		3 tac_tazer_charge
		4 tac_tazer_flanking
		5 tac_shield_wall
		6 tac_swat_rifle_flank
		7 tac_shield_wall_ranged
		8 tac_bull_rush

Yeah, I don't see them there. So that's a total of three intended groups being completely missing.



Also, if those get added, might as well go ahead and make groups for these (simple ones like swat_rifle, but without Medics) and add them with the other three:

• FBI_suit_C45_M4
  
• FBI_suit_M4_MP5
  
• FBI_suit_stealth_MP5

These are HRTs, and they won't spawn even if they get their own groups and those get added as I suggested above, they would still need a spawn chance which modders could set up, so nothing would change for the main game.

[Hoxi]

Bumping because pretty relevant.

[Hoxi]

Bump.

[Sandman332/Docholiday332]

Are spawn groups defined in the actual map files? Because looking at the GroupAiTweakData they have the exact same spawn rates as tac_swat_rifle for example.

Hopefully we get Some sort of answer or like "we are looking into it!" But I doubt it since so far nothing.

[oliver.burke]

Spawn groups are defined in the actual map files, this is why you cannot create custom cop spawn groups easily, as the spawn groups will not be defined in the map files and as such don’t spawn.

[Hoxi]

Originally posted by Sandman Eh Docholiday332:

Are spawn groups defined in the actual map files? Because looking at the GroupAiTweakData they have the exact same spawn rates as tac_swat_rifle for example.

Yeah, OP mentioned how nothing spawns when you only leave those two (and three if you include tac_swat_rifle). I mean, I always noticed how shotgunners were so rare (only spawn with Shields), but I didn't dwelve too much into it. I also tried to add custom groups way back when I started modding and it wouldn't work no matter what, not knowing why.

The reason it's this way is because there were several more groups before the Housewarming Party event, and they would tweak them accordingly depending to the map. Of course all that got toned down, except they missed these 3 groups somehow.

Originally posted by Sandman Eh Docholiday332:

Hopefully we get Some sort of answer or like "we are looking into it!" But I doubt it since so far nothing.

It's kinda baffling that not even a moderator replied to this topic. Considering it's something that can change the game a lot since 3 obviously intended squads are completely missing, I'd say it's a high priority issue (yet easy to fix, maybe a bit tedious).

[Hoxi]

Bump. Ugh.

[Hoxi]

Bump, still no response or acknowledgement about this big issue.

[Sandman332/Docholiday332]

Originally posted by Hoxi:

Bump, still no response or acknowledgement about this big issue.

Doesn't that surprise me. Still though, bigger issues like these never get any acknowledgement but little things like a texture disapearing after a certain distance do and get fixed.

Overkill Logic

[BBK]

Regarding shotgun units and other HRT (if i'm not saying anything wrong) they were removed from the game on purpose in order to increase the performance of the game. Regarding the tac_swat_rifle, i have no explanations so i'll send the issue to the developers.

Originally posted by Sandman Eh Docholiday332:

Doesn't that surprise me. Still though, bigger issues like these never get any acknowledgement but little things like a texture disapearing after a certain distance do and get fixed.

The main concept with bug reporting is that you're going after issues that are affecting the player directly and hurting their experience of the game. Regarding the textures issues you mentioned, while these can look trivial to you, they're maybe not in the eyes of the developers since they can break the immersion of the players and make the development team look unprofessionals.

the problem with most coding bug reports is that in most cases, they're a problem only for the peoples looking in the game files. For the average player, they won't even realize this issue was a thing or just consider it trivial. It may be raising deep questions about the game design of course but it can't be considered an issue on the same level as the other daily gameplay reports that we can witness.

Still, in any case it will be sent to the developers so they will judge on this case.

[Reno]

Shotgun type enemies still spawn but use rifleman models for some reason if memory was a huge issue ene_medic_r870 and ene_city_heavy_r870 would be set up with their units “pointing” to the rifleman models since they are identical, but they don’t. IMO this hurts the experience severely the game feels even more samey when every single generic swat man looks the same and there is no enemy visual variety.

[Hoxi]

Originally posted by BBK:

Regarding shotgun units and other HRT (if i'm not saying anything wrong) they were removed from the game on purpose in order to increase the performance of the game. Regarding the tac_swat_rifle, i have no explanations so i'll send the issue to the developers.

Well, HRT's were definitely removed intentionally, seeing how their squad formation, chance, etc are no longer existent. My suggestion to add their groups to the maps IF any of the other three were to be added, since they'd have to go through each map file anyway, one more couldn't hurt. They wouldn't spawn unless you set them up in groupaitweakdata anyway.

Regarding the two shotgunner groups, are you sure they were? Just like tac_swat_rifle, both of them have their squad formation, tactics and spawn chances set up. The other groups that were removed indeed have nothing but the formation (except single_spooc, but it's not even used now), while these three are all good to go, except they're missing from the map scripts.

And not just that, since it seems that the idea was to sum up to 100% (1) between all the spawn chances, while these three groups have around the same chances as tac_swat_rifle_flank, they can't spawn (so, on Death Wish, that's 0.54 total for nothing). So that's also an issue.

Originally posted by BBK:

The main concept with bug reporting is that you're going after issues that are affecting the player directly and hurting their experience of the game. Regarding the textures issues you mentioned, while these can look trivial to you, they're maybe not in the eyes of the developers since they can break the immersion of the players and make the development team look unprofessionals..

That could be argued, a lot of the issues seen here can be noticed while playing and provoke the same reaction you're talking about:

• Shields clipping with their Shields when they could use their usual knockback animation? Minor, but on the same level as texture issues.
  
  
• Bulldozers and "unstunnable" enemies getting stun-locked by electrical melee weapons and their animations glitching because of it? Not minor because it can be exploited, but also on the same level as texture issues when it comes to visuals.
  
  
• Black and Medic Bulldozers waving their gun whenever they shoot while standing still? When Bulldozers are not even supposed to aim. Minor, same level as texture issues.
  
  
• NPCs staring at their targets (up to 10 seconds) while moving because they can't reload unless they stop? Definitely looks bad and affects the gameplay significantly.
  
  
• Bots reviving clients stopping for no good reasons because of leftover code? I don't even have to explain how annoying and bothersome this is.

And I could go on, but the link to that thread is there.

don't mean to sound like a ♥♥♥♥ but, is it too much to ask to look at it?

Originally posted by BBK:

It may be raising deep questions about the game design of course but it can't be considered an issue on the same level as the other daily gameplay reports that we can witness.

Except you can consider them the same when the experience changes significantly when you compare the bugged version with the fixed version.

Originally posted by BBK:

Still, in any case it will be sent to the developers so they will judge on this case.

Alright, thanks, finally getting a response is better than letting this buried forever. Just make sure to explain my point above about shotgun groups, if they really wish for them to not spawn, they should remove all those unused lines and adapt the spawn chances accordingly.

Originally posted by EvilBobarino:

Shotgun type enemies still spawn but use rifleman models for some reason if memory was a huge issue ene_medic_r870 and ene_city_heavy_r870 would be set up with their units “pointing” to the rifleman models since they are identical, but they don’t. IMO this hurts the experience severely the game feels even more samey when every single generic swat man looks the same and there is no enemy visual variety.

Heavy shotgunners indeed look identical to their rifle counterpart, but I don't think that's an issue with Medics (could be wrong, I gave the M4 variant a MP5 and just used that one since forever).

I agree about it hurting the experience since you can't tell which one has a shotgun or a rifle, and at close range, you obviously want to prioritize the former, but currently have no way to tell. Light units usually have a shell rack + some slight visual differences, but that's not enough to tell them apart in most cases.

Oh, and then there's also Heavy ZEALs which have no shotgunner variant in the first place.

[oliver.burke]

I may fail to see the bigger picture, but I see no reason for performance to drop by any reasonable amount over the addition of a few lines of code in each map file. Also, I am pretty sure the shotgun groups are intended, as you went out of your way to create a seperate r870 medic, who shows up on a very rare basis outside of the shotgun groups. If they are not intended why keep their spawn chance and their groups in the files?

Oh, and adding them would improve variety, which may stop players from getting bored so easily (spawn variety was one of the only things keeping me interested in the game).

[Sandman332/Docholiday332]

Oh give me a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ break. Removing spawn groups because of performance issues? I can guess who told you that (*cough cough Jules*)

Hoxi made the best explanation above and I agree with all of it.

That's as bad as the excuse given for removing zeal cloakers as they did not "cloak" the player properly. Even though this was proven wrong in several mods bringing them back and youtube video from Hassat. Probably more Jules BS. This is what happens when you move employees from one position, to a new one they have no knowledge in. But I shall stop now, as all of these excuses from Overkill could make me go on FOREVER

[Reno]

just going to add this hostage rescue and shotgunners are already loaded they just don't spawn so the "perfomance" excuse is awful