Talk:Enemy spawn charts

Sign your comments. - Miraglyth 19:58, 10 May 2007 (BST)

Does anyone believe it?

The alleged -4 and -X2 spawns. We've got just four of these, none of which I've seen, and all of which are not seen on the JP wiki. Specifically:

• Unsafe Passage "C-4". Supposedly non-rare, would only need a starting spawn of Pannon x3 to confirm.
• Fight for Food "B-X2". Actually, both B-X and B-X2 disagree with the JP wiki. Would be hard to prove or disprove given how little people run it.
• Fight for Food "C-X2". Our C pattern is the A pattern on the JP wiki. Their A-X matches our C-X2 and they don't have our C-X at all.
• Plains Overlord "B-X2". Our B pattern is the A pattern on the JP wiki. Their A-X matches our B-X2 and they don't have our B-X at all.

I remember not believing these when they were added back in 2006 by people who - by their other comments and thoughts - were apparently not capable of reading. Given that every other mission since has been 3 patterns of 3 common and 1 rare variant each, and that JP's wiki has seen our charts and disagreed, I still don't believe them. Does anyone? - Miraglyth 13:09, 29 December 2007 (CST)

• I was wondering about those last night as I was going over charts. I guess it's possible for there to be a second rare spawn per pattern, but I think it's unlikely considering the pattern established by almost every other mission. It might be a good idea for us to go over those missions and redo the charts. I think I might do that tonight if for nothing more than some practice with making a chart since I've never done one of my own before. Besides, it'd be good for us to verify a number of these missions, particularly the ones that had spawn changes with an update over the summer. - EspioKaos 14:00, 29 December 2007 (CST)
• Do we have a central page to reference which spawn sets/entire charts have been confirmed? If not, I suggest that we make one, so that those of us who are willing to help with this don't duplicate other people's efforts. - Spirit 02:55, 30 December 2007 (CST)
• Huh... now I'm not so sure. Just ran a Scarred Planet C run and got Rappies, but the spawns were off the hook. Pattern C. The second spawn was many Volfu (some kings, which was why I noticed) and two Bal Soza, and the "indoor" spawn of block 3 was Go Bajilla x3→4. There was also one spawn mid-way through which was a swarm of Go Bajilla (though only 3 at any one time, more spawned as killed for a while). Can't remember any other distinguishing features. Wondering if mission difficulty matters more for spawns now. - Miraglyth 19:07, 7 January 2008 (CST)
  • ...and again. Pattern A this time. Again, first b3 spawn was Go Bajilla x3→4, but nothing else I took note of. Still 100% on Scarred Planet C for rappies :/ - Miraglyth 19:28, 7 January 2008 (CST)
    • Urgh, this'll be a difference on difficulty. And for the longest time I always thought difficulty only affected the way "sub-bosses" could spawn. Wonder how this'll work with mission spawn charts. - Miraglyth 19:38, 7 January 2008 (CST)
      • I've noticed differences in spawn patterns between difficulty a few times, even with the older PSU style missions. The ones that spring to mind most are:
        • Valley of Carnage, which I was used to running through on my way to Tunnel Recapture, and which when I started doing it on S and S2 rank for exp, seemed to contain a lot more monsters;
        • Tunnel Recapture, which I spammed on C rank way back when it was the best MP for low levels, and noticed several odd things when doing it on S rank months later. And;
        • Sakura Blast. Sakura Blast in particular stuck out at me, as I created the spawn chart based on S-rank difficulty spawns, and have since done a few B rank runs to find a better Neiclaw. The important spawn information seemed to still be applicable, though I didn't find any rare spawns on this rank, so I am as yet unable to confirm the rare patterns.
      • The differences I noticed in TR and VoC might have been a result of rebalancing, so I initially dismissed those differences as a result of external manipulation in the form of game updates. SB though, is too new to have suffered any such manipulation as yet. If worst comes to worst, we might have to supply spawn charts for each difficulty on each mission's page. >.> - Spirit 19:59, 7 January 2008 (CST)
        • The current system works fine for Sakura Blast. I've found Jigos on both B/C and A/S layouts, using the system and spawns we have listed now. --Beatrixkiddo 22:17, 7 January 2008 (CST)
        • Thanks for the confirmation, Beatrixkiddo. It's nice to know my effort wasn't entirely wasted (since I do still plan to hunt a Neiclaw, and don't really want to create a new spawn chart for the same mission a second time >.<) Still, for the other cases - ie: the -4 and -X2 variants - I'm inclined to believe the spawns that don't match the JP wiki at all, are probably entirely incorrect. That said, I also know for a fact that incorrect spawn information has been quoted from the JP wiki in the recent past. I suppose we'll need more information on all of these 'odd looking' spawn sets before we go about deleting thim... Is anyone here planning to hunt rappies/Jaggos? ^^; - Spirit 03:44, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Rare Monsters Page Overhaul?

Hopefully this is in the right place. If it isn't, I apologise.

I've noticed a couple of things with the Rare Monsters page. Firstly, it's huge. This can make it difficult to navigate from within the page, though there is always the option of clicking on the menu at the top of the page to go to your desired mission. However, there's a lot of other things that I feel could be done to improve it.

• 1) Splitting the page into 4 pages, one for each major location. ie: The colony, and each of the planets. This could be taken further, such as giving each mission its own seperate page, and having the 'planetary' pages load tables for each of the missions, as they appear on the mission's page.
• 2) If we do choose to give each mission's spawn table it's own page, we could add the option to 'show all missions that have X monster as the rare spawn'. This could be useful for anyone seeking something that drops from a given rare monster, but doesn't know exactly which missions that monster may spawn in.
• 3) Standardising the spawn table layout. The layouts are similar when viewed on the page, but there are several minor inconsistencies. These include slightly different column layouts, and table borders.
• 4) The code behind the page is sometimes horrid to navigate. This is fairly common with collaborated works such as this wiki, but there's much that can be done to improve it. At the very least, this code could be standardised so that when new missions are added, there's only one layout to use as a template for new spawn charts. This would address both point 3 and point 4.
• 5) Some of the tables feature monster names that link to a page giving information on that monster. Many don't. I don't see a reason why they can't all share that functionality, other than it will take a little work to add brackets to them all.

I'm happy to do this work myself. But I don't want to make changes as large as this without first getting permission from those who manage the site, and getting feedback from people who use this part of the site regularly. I'm also open to any suggestions as to possible further improvements. Any ideas and/or suggestions? Spirit 06:49, 28 December 2007 (CST)

• Actually, pretty much all of this is in the works right now. We've already set up individual mission pages which can be accessed by clicking on the mission name (within the article, not in the table of contents). Each page includes various mission data as well as a spawn chart. Not all of them have been filled in yet, however. Also, a standard spawn chart style is going to be implemented very soon. One was discussed about a week ago, no one objected, so now it'll be put into place. (Discussion is here while a mock-up chart is here.) - EspioKaos 07:34, 28 December 2007 (CST)
• Ahh excellent, thank you. I didn't know that was there.. Possibly because I didn't know where to look. xD Well, I'll reiterate that I'm happy to help with the workload. I'll also leave this topic here for now so that others who come here looking for this info, at least know something is happening. Thanks! Spirit 08:27, 28 December 2007 (CST)
• To my knowledge, we've not decided whether this article'll be split or go altogether. But splitting it by rare enemy "to see which missions have them" should already be done by the pages of the rare enemies themselves, no? See Delsaban, unless the ideals for enemy pages has changed since then. Personally, I'd expect the page to move to "Rare enemies" once the missions' spawn charts are all moved over and standardised, and then this page to either turn all its spawn charts to link directly to the ones in those missions' sections (to prevent large-scale duplication) and also to the pages of the rare enemies themselves, or for the page to be split by planet and keep the spawn charts. - Miraglyth 08:47, 28 December 2007 (CST)
• Hmm a good point, though I was thinking more of the convenience of having all spawn charts for a given monster on one page. Still, it's no fuss to navigate two pages every time you switch missions. On the topic of the article being split, would it not be simple to have three forms of it? One page with a complete listing, one set of pages sorted by planet, and of course the individual missions themselves? The 'planetary' and 'complete listing' pages could just load the individual missions into their own, which as you've suggested should solve any duplication issues. One of the issues I was attempting to address though, was the sheer size of the complete listing we have now. It can be horrid to scroll through purely because of its length. Spirit 09:09, 28 December 2007 (CST)
• Yeah, I'm not fond of the "all in one article" format now that we have so many missions. The guy hosting this has noted that such massive articles cause a larger than proportional server load. Hence the either linking straight to mission articles (which as noted, the enemies themselves should do) or splitting per planet despite duplication. - Miraglyth 10:19, 28 December 2007 (CST)
  • To help ease server loads, we should try our best to take away from this article as much as possible, then. I believe that originally we'd linked directly to spawn charts in individual mission articles here (with a link saying "spawn chart here!" or something to that effect) until someone came by and put the charts back in while removing the link. If we enforce this method of linking directly to the mission article's chart, this might help get visitors used to charts being in articles as opposed to this massive page as well as cut down on server strain since this is one of the most popular articles of the site. - EspioKaos 10:35, 28 December 2007 (CST)
  • I suppose the question then would be: Do we have seperate, linked articles for each mission and its spawn chart, or just one article per mission that includes both? I've seen EspioKaos' proposed mission information article (nice work btw!), and it doesn't seem that adding the spawn chart there would be a bad idea. Most people visiting that article would likely be looking for the chart anyway. Spirit 12:25, 28 December 2007 (CST)
• Um, most missions already have their spawn charts... - Miraglyth 13:23, 28 December 2007 (CST)
  • Oh, oops. I had forgotten that EspioKaos had mentioned that above. xD Oh wells. If there's anything you can point me to that needs to be worked on, I'm happy to offer my services. Otherwise I'll just stick to updating with new info as I find it. =D Spirit 14:46, 28 December 2007 (CST)

Future?

So while I've been updating many of the mission pages, I can't help but keep notice of what's going on on this page and the already WIP transfer of the charts to their individual pages. I figure in the end this page might just revert all the way back into a rare enemy list with the mention that there are spawn charts on the mission pages themselves. Probably wouldn't be worth a sidebar mention anymore at that point. But anyway, at present I have a bit of an idea on how to keep things organized and maybe speed them up as far as the conversions go.

We could keep the missions in a chart with a color coded system (or even just a note in another column depending on how it's set up) of what condition the individual charts are in as well as links to them. It would eliminate any more possible redundancies until each chart can be properly completed. I've noticed a few instances where charts have been half done here and the mission page (but in different ways by different users).

I'm willing to get this all done and move any relevant comments about specific charts over to the mission talk pages, but I felt I didn't want to make such large changes all at once without some go ahead.S-T-H 23:33, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

• A while back, I was messing around with a possible new look for this article once the conversion is complete. Basically, it tells how to read our spawn charts and then gives a list of missions with a link directly to their spawn chart. I need to get back into the conversion mode I was in a months ago. I guess I can only do a few at a time before I get burnt out on them. Some of the tables can be a real pain. XD - EspioKaos 18:42, 16 June 2008 (CDT)
  • Here is something in the realm of what I considered for tracking progress. I'd basically transfer everything pretty much as is (while eliminating any redundancies), then replace the current notices/redirects with these charts. Then I'd update them with the proper progress level. Doing it this way, people can see pretty easily what is and isn't done and what might just need a few tweaks to get done. S-T-H 21:48, 16 June 2008 (CDT)
    • I'm good with that. Anything to help move the conversion along. XD So I guess first we should work on moving the current tables over the their respective articles? - EspioKaos 22:48, 16 June 2008 (CDT)
      • Yea I think that would be the first thing. After that we'd be moving various talking points from this section to the mission talk pages. I'm not sure how relevant or up to date they are, but we can figure that out later (probably around the time the charts are about completed). The last thing of course would be clearing out the individual sections where the charts used to be and replacing them with that chart. All that would be needed then is to make sure the chart is about right as far as progress goes. We might end up stepping on each other's toes a bit though. If you want to start transferring the charts themselves, I'll step aside for a moment and see what I can do with the talk pages. Later I'll go through each section and see what condition the charts are in. I won't mark any higher than 'S' though (as you'd be much more familiar with how they should look as a final 'S2' version). S-T-H 23:12, 16 June 2008 (CDT)
• Just transferred over the chart for True Darkness for kicks. (Drop in the bucket and all that, right? XD) I'll try to work on transferring more of these over in the next few days; though I might not focus on the formatting for some of them since it can be a bit tedious. - EspioKaos 23:33, 16 June 2008 (CDT)
  • Oh, please don't worry about formatting for now. Let's just get all the charts moved over (in whatever condition they're in). There already exists a variety of formats for charts on the individual pages. I just want to avoid any more charts being updated in both places (or even worse only in one). They'll be properly marked with the progress chart when things are about done on this end. S-T-H 23:38, 16 June 2008 (CDT)