Campaign Creations

So I became disappointed with yet another aspect.

Bank triggers have a bad tendency to act odd or something in the past but now they manage to be even more of a pain than before.

Here's the thing : I go on my merry way to do triggering that should in theory work well with bank triggers. Then I decide to test. Something is wrong so I test and I go in circles in confusion as logically everything should work. I tried lots of possibilities for a good 3-4 hours.

The goddamned issue? The open bank action seems to be UNABLE to use variables as parameters. I don't know if it's specific to the latest patch or something as I don't remember having THAT much trouble.

For example : You have to write it as Open Bank "BLAHBLAH" for player 1
This won't work for some stupid reason : Open Bank (String variable, ex : "BLAHBLAH" + "3" ) for player 1
This won't work for yet another stupid reason : Open Bank "BLAHBLAH" for player (Integer Variable)

The long way (a bank per players, 16 players) would in theory not be too bad. However, there is a big problem right there because my other map is intended to have full use of banks and actually allowing 13 banks per player (thus 13 * 16 at the highest) so they can keep A LOT of data (the map is very centric about it) due to player customization.

I don't know why the hell it is SO complicated to use those bank actions and I am NOT going to make tons of "newbie" bank actions just because the core action is bugged preventing me to use loops AND renamed strings for them.

So until Blizzard fix it or something, two of my project ideas will have to take a backseat.

Now I reached an infinitely worse wall for the above.

I started to google for some information on bank triggers and I found a truly bad revelation.

On battle.net, they set a horrible, horrible, horrible low limit for bank values.

Your GLOBAL bank's values cap (not sure if it's on a player basis or total global) is around 80-130 values for battle.net (including "solo" multiplayer) for loading off players' computers. Note this DON'T effect when you use "Test Map" for your map. You can still reach 8000 values of saved data even on b.net (but probably prevent said person to load your map again and drop).

Yes, to be safe, just 81+ values (integers in my test) can bend over b.net from fully loading your map (and is likely to drop you) using banks. In the best case scenario, they are plain ignored. That also means if you try Bank #1's 80 values + Bank #2's 80 values for 160 values, it also won't work.

That's from a shitty 6-8k bank file (probably 2-4k if we remove the unnecessary text stuff) that fails where you can easily download 4-10 MB (4096k to 10240k) for a single map off battle.net.

So unless Blizzard fixes that, those two projects (plus many other mapmaker's projects reliant on those) are forever dead.

I don't understand any of the bank mumbo jumbo but it sounds hilarious and not unexpected.

IskatuMesk wrote:I don't understand any of the bank mumbo jumbo but it sounds hilarious and not unexpected.

In very short, Banks allow to store variable values as files into your own computer. In SC2, you can fetch off any specific player's bank to make use of that stored data into your map even in multiplayer.

So a quick basic example :
1) You play Game #1 and save the text "Awesome" in your bank
2) Your friend play Game #2 and save the text "Team" in his bank
3) You both join up in Game #3 which fetch both of your banks' data and it could show up "Awesome Team" ("Awesome" from your bank and "Team" from your friend's bank).

Now on a much bigger scale, you can do a LOT with banks.

However, my complain in my earlier post above refer that you can only LOAD the equivalent of 80 integer values (or variables) when playing your map on battle.net (regardless if it's "solo" multiplayer or not, "Map Test" is not affected as it's 100% offline).

As a remainder, an integer = number. So you could say just 80 numbers, that's it. Nothing more without issues rising.

Technically, banks can now hold 8000+ values (or variables) right now so being only able to use 80 instead on Battle.net "just because Battle.net said so" is quite ridiculous.

I don't get it either... are banks game caches or something similar?

Can't you just store them in memory? Or is this what you're using to store information across games?

Meta wrote:I don't get it either... are banks game caches or something similar?

They work like WC3 game caches at their essence but also works for multiplayer. On top of it, each player can have multiple game caches that you can fetch off any of them.

But in very very short, the loading limit over B.net 2.0 without dropping or being ignored is so low so you cannot use them for anything interesting.

IskatuMesk wrote:Can't you just store them in memory? Or is this what you're using to store information across games?

The bank triggers' main purpose IS to store information across games on your hard drive.

While it's possible to use bank triggers as "RAM memory" in a sense (usually for a deviant reason), 99% of the time, there is no point when you can use the Data Table triggers to keep variables in memory (usually to go above the 1-2 MB script limit in terms of variable size) instead.

ah yes the wonderful script limit

I dunno why they need to have all these retarded limits. You can crash the game in an instant if you want to. They aren't going to stop anyone.

IskatuMesk wrote:ah yes the wonderful script limit

I dunno why they need to have all these retarded limits. You can crash the game in an instant if you want to. They aren't going to stop anyone.

While I spoke about the script limit, it's completely different than the B.Net bank loading limit.

For the script limit, it's 1-2 MB (1024-2048 KB) and while for the B.Net bank loading limit, it's like 6-8 KB.

To make allusion to the bank loading limit, it would be like if some file server refuses to resend a file above 6 KB to 8-10 different persons right after it receives it.

Yep, I know. I'm just sayin'. There should no limits of any nature. A real developer lets users push the engine to its limit. That's how valve and Epic make the big bucks.

Leviathan is a pushover. Can't understand how WB thought it was hard. Yeah, I lost like 2 or so bcs. But I didn't even use Yamato. That mission as a whole was rendered a joke by my mind control towers. Seriously. I blitzed the last platform with something like a dozen bcs, 1-2 dozen mutas, over a dozen mustache lords, 20 something ultras, gundams, vikings, and lots of healy dudes. Was hilarious and messy.

Valve's and Epic's bucks aren't as big as Blizzard's.

IskatuMesk wrote:Leviathan is a pushover. Can't understand how WB thought it was hard. Yeah, I lost like 2 or so bcs. But I didn't even use Yamato. That mission as a whole was rendered a joke by my mind control towers. Seriously. I blitzed the last platform with something like a dozen bcs, 1-2 dozen mutas, over a dozen mustache lords, 20 something ultras, gundams, vikings, and lots of healy dudes. Was hilarious and messy.

DMatrix worked much better than yamato for me too, and I agree that the mission is a relative cakewalk.

Maglok wrote:Valve's and Epic's bucks aren't as big as Blizzard's.

Valve and Epic games have phenomenally larger modding communities and actual games sprout out of mods. People can get hired by making a good mod. With blizz it's just retarded. You get lucky if you can do anything and everything you make they monitor like nazis.

FUCK BLIZZ