[BUGS] Poet's Palace Layout Issues

[[Poet's Palace Layout]] - BUGS
These issues are severely limiting to builders and if this layout had been tested when GU63 was (like testers requested), they probably could've been prevented. Just saying. Negativity aside, here are the facts. If you want me to run you through the actual problem spots I'd be happy to.

1. If you die running this layout you will respawn where the default entrance is, even if you moved that default entrance elsewhere.
2. No NPCs placed on first stairwell down from the default entrance room (between -37, 314, -115 and -69, -298, -85 and including the landing between) are affected by any effect objects.
3. Any effect objects placed on ground level in the second room (located at -79, 297, -55, also includes the small step-down landing) do NOT affect any NPCs.
4. Effect objects placed on the higher ledge in the second room only affect NPCs placed on the ledge.
5. All effect objects placed in the three western rooms (west center of map) functioned correctly (but there were no ledges to confuse it in these rooms).
6. Any effect objects placed on the ground level as well as on the upper bridge in the grass room did NOT affect any NPCs.
7. No NPCs placed on the stairwell between the second room and the grass room (located from -69, 298, -24 through -38, 306, -23 and including the landing between) are affected by any effect objects.
8. Just like the second room, any effect objects placed on the higher ledge in the grass room only affect NPCs placed on the ledge.
9. Effect objects placed in the hallway at -66, 327, 58 do NOT affect anything.
10. An effect object placed on the landing at -85, 321, 65 did the following:
... it did NOT affect any bridge NPCs nor the NPC I had in the hallway at -63, 327, 56 (tried moving this guy around that hallway and no dice anywhere). It stopped affecting the stairs up to the upper landing beginning at -79, -324, 63; the dead area fully continues to -55, 327, 50 on the upper landing and over the entirety of the bridge.
... it DID affect the NPC I had placed on the same landing as the effect object anywhere I moved it.
... it DID affect an NPC I moved around between -88, 321, 60 and -75, 314, 58. As soon as I moved that NPC to -75, 314, 58, it stopped affecting it. I believe this spot may be directly underneath the dead effect hallway above this area.
... same room, another NPC on the far side was affected by the object between -71, 314, 64 and straight SW to the wall. The E-SE wall was a dead area in this room (falls underneath the "dead area", above).
... same room, same NPC as just mentioned, the "dead area" between the SW wall and him begins at -72, 314, 64. It seems that the dead area here is between -75, 314, 58 and -72, 314, 64.
... it did NOT affect any NPCs in the hallway back out to the grassy area until you hit the doorway, then it got weird. An NPC I had at 55, 314, 50 was NOT affected. Any NPC between -55, 314, 51 and -54, 314, 52 ARE affected.
11. There's an invisible object on the stairs just west of -34, 305, -54. With 40% run speed I blast over it, but as soon as I turn on walk (or if you run one of these dungeons with an avatar) you notice it. This makes the stairs difficult to traverse.
12. NPC flavor text has been reported by some others as NOT working at all in this layout. I've only set it on a few mobs so far but I have yet to see it trigger in my test runs as well. (edit: confirmed from me as well, I finally set many mobs with flavor text and absolutely none of it ever displayed)
13. Pixiewrath@The Bazaar wrote:

14. While playing a fighter avatar, AoEing on the bottom level of the building in the grassy area will pull the second and third levels down to you. Prehaps fighter AoE radius is the issue, or maybe verticle detection for AoEs in this layout needs improved.
In case there's any confusion as to the scope of this, here's my estimation of how much is considered to be a "dead zone" to effect objects being functional. There's no seperate map of the upper level in the southern room, but the higher indoor hallway that's bugged as well as the bridge do span completely over the red area in the map.


This one isn't Poet's Palace related, but the power costs on 3 out of the 4 Erollisian Mage avatar abilities are completely out of wack, consuming 60-80% of your total power. It was not like this originally and the change is terrible. I haven't checked the other three Erollisi Day ones but I have a sinking feeling that someone tinkered badly with them. The mage one is definitely undesirable now. EDIT: All of the Erollisi Day activators have this issue. Comparing my avatars, it appears that the E-Day ones had their power costs changed to match the newer-styled avatars that build power. However, these avatars do NOT build power, so please fix their ability power costs so they're usable again!
Also not Poet's Palace related, but there's a severe issue with several older layouts where avatars respawn into darkness, making it impossible to complete the dungeon. Please fix it ASAP as it discourages people from running dungeons!

Added a map to the OP... it honestly looks like half or a bit more than half of the dungeon does not get affected by effect objects. Really hoping this can be fixed before the PP contest deadline.

Interesting - the dungeon respawn issue was taken off the list of top known issues. Guess I'll have to go test and see if it was fixed or not. I don't remember anything in patch notes.

msgnomer wrote:

Me neither. I tested the respawn on Friday and it definitely took me to where the default entrance was, so I resigned myself to moving the entrance back there (I was trying to reverse the entrance/exit).

It also seems Magic Mouth items and Flavor Text are not working (at least for me)

There is actually a broken spot in the left part of the dungeon too, in the circular hole to the westernmost part of the westernmost room where the effect objects doesn't work either.

My entire dungeon is basically going to be ruined if they don't fix this...

This dungeon is broken in so many ways. One bright point is that I actually like the idea of effects objects only affecting the uppler level in that second room. That's a huge area to apply the same affect to everything.
However, I'd give that advantage up to have the rest of the issues with this dungoen fixed. For that matter, I'd most appreciate having the rest of the dungeons fixed too. They worked better when the feature was first released. Around the time of GU63 stuff really started breaking.
It feels like Dungeon Maker has no support. Were the problems introduced around GU63 so severe that DM will either be permanently broken or scrapped? I really don't want to invest more time in a feature that will be left to rot or limp along broken. I had imagined that the released version was just the beginning of a feature set, not the best it was going to ever be.
I'm one discouraged DM fan at the moment.

They could fix this by removing that stupid box placement system and add the stats to each mob individually.

Add a "stats" button and let us apply tier up/down and other effect objects individually to each mob instead of what we have now. The box system is horrible. Sure, it might be quicker on groups of mobs, but it's very limiting.

Especially since we have the 4-5 limit to each effect object.

We should have those unlimited and available in a menu instead. Then the dungeon doesn't have to track each fraction of a dungeon and what mobs are within that area and stuff.

Keeping control in detail worked in Hammer. It would work in this too.

And it would discourage people from creating token runs as it would be a very boring and long process as well to tailor 100 mobs in each room.

That being said, one should be able to copy stats from a mob and apply to another one to no have to do it over and over again when making dungeons.

This "box effect" idea was bad already from the start. It's creating bugs and hinders creativity.

Pixiewrath@The Bazaar wrote:

Yes, yes it was.

Test-ran my dungeon now and I can confirm these things.

Effect objects don't work at all in the southern and eastern rooms and corridors between them.

Also won't work in the circular hole in the westernmost part of the map.

Dying takes you to the default entrance instead of dungeon maker entrance portal.

Dialogues doesn't work at all. 0 % of mine triggered.

How can we compete in this when it's not doable?

Pixiewrath@The Bazaar wrote:

Do you have a /loc for where it isn't working there?

I'm editing and adding to the OP as more issues are discovered.

Pixiewrath@The Bazaar wrote:

I often wondered why, from day 1, that they didn't use a "property" system much like you suggest. It'd be a lot more familiar to most, and they could add/remove properties pretty easily based on what people have purchased, quantity already in zone, etc. Copying mobs would even be easier, since the properties would be copied, and you'd know EXACTLY what mobs are linked or affected by the boxes (e.g. if you want an encounter with 1 ^^^ and 4 vvv, it'd be easy and exact).
Grouping could be as simple as 'tagging' mobs together. Tagging should be familiar to most people these days (I'd hope). i.e. All mobs tagged as "group 1" will be an encounter, "group 2" is a different encounter, etc. You could do some interesting grouping like in the labs (SF) where 3 encounters are inter-mingled...resulting in pulling everything if you just run in zinging arrows around.
My $0.02
Q: I've often wondered...is there any place where dev's and players can discuss suggestions for things like this...or is it just in threads like here where it's sure to be buried, overlooked, ignored or forgotten?

Hey folks, sorry about the Poet's bugs. We got most the ones listed above, along with a few others, resolved (We'll keep poking at the rest). They weren't wrapped up in time for the hotfix, but they should be in for the next.
The suggestion to let you tune individual monsters is an interesting one, it would require pretty large changes to some of the root systems of dungeon maker, and changes like that would break all of the existing published dungeons. There are lots of reasons why decisions like that get made initially, some of them are technical, some of them are touchy-feely "game design" decisions.

Lyndro-EQ2 wrote:

Thanks. I hope you guys also had the time to resolve the issues regarding respawning at default entrance location and/or in complete darkness that's affecting other layouts?

Thanks Lyndro-EQ2 for the update. I look forward to adventuring through the player made dungeons again. I really hope you all expand the functionality of Dungeon Maker. I think it is a good start. I know that it may be some work to do the suggested tunning of Individual Monsters but it would be a better way of doing it I think. We definitely need a way to create a group encounter especially when you are able to adventure through the dungeons with your own character. Many Combat Arts/Spells are tied to group encounters and if they only hit a single mob each time will severly limit our abilities.

Again, I really would like to see more tools to make cooler dungeons.

Thanks,
Deran Castillian
Everfrost Server

Lyndro-EQ2 wrote:

Lyndro-EQ2 wrote:

I personally wouldn't mind re-designing each mob in my dungeons. If this was implemented (and without limits to which mob can use what effect) I could actually turn boss mobs into boss mobs (Tier up them). Now I can only do this on 4 of them and only in rooms where effect objects aren't bugged.

Assigning this individually would let the devs care about other things than spotting bugged spots where effect objects don't work.

As long as the dungeon ratings aren't lost, and the flavor texts aren't removed, I wouldn't mind re-attuning the stats on each mob. It would open up an entire new world to me.

Another thing that would be neat is if we could put up invisible objects that block mobs' view. Like normal walls. And fixing it so that stationary mobs stay on top of furniture. Now it only works somewhat if they are walking, not stationary. And the ability to tilt objects...

That was a side note.

I would be glad to assign each stat individually anyway. Even if it meant redoing some stats on mobs in older dungeons.

I assume the box system was put into place to allow non-experienced people to do stuff without flipping through menues, but honestly, it causes more pain than it does advantages, and the people that aren't interested in learning the dungeon maker tool won't use the box system in a good way anyway.

Either one learns how to use a tool, or not. The more flexible the better.

Cyliena wrote:

52, 305, -55

Cyliena wrote:

As Lyndro notes, "(We'll keep poking at the rest). They weren't wrapped up in time for the hotfix, but they should be in for the next."
We are going to extend the challenge to June 10th as well. =)
Thank you again for the terrific info!
;-)#

SOE-Brasse wrote:

IT's a little circuitous, but it sounds like it might refer to the older dungeon maker bugs....I hope so!

msgnomer wrote:

Yeah.. I assumed Lyndro meant PP layout bugs they hadn't fixed yet, but maybe it is referring to older layout bugs as well. Hopefully so.