Announcement Priority System

The Announcement Priority System manages how important EliteMobs messages are. It is used by Custom Bosses (spawn / death / escape messages and tracking) and by Custom Events (startMessage / endMessage).

The two use different code paths and behave differently at priority 2 — see Custom events use a different path at the bottom of this page.

Short-form cheat sheet:

• Level 0: Silent (default for bosses with no messages configured) - Only damagers see death messages
• Level 1: Chat messages + Tracking (if messages/locationMessage configured)
• Level 2: Identical to Level 1 for Custom Bosses (no separate behavior)
• Level 3: Level 1 features + Discord announcements (requires DiscordSRV)

How it works:

Note: You need to set your Custom Boss up with this priority system if you want to use a non-default value. Click here to learn how to do that.

Level 0

Forces the Custom Boss to be silent. This means:

• No spawn messages will be sent
• No escape messages will be sent
• Death messages are sent ONLY to players who damaged the boss (not server-wide)
• Boss tracking is disabled even if locationMessage is configured

Level 1

A boss with messages but no announcementPriority is silent

If you do not set announcementPriority at all, the boss gets priority 0 — silent — regardless of whether it has spawn, death or escape messages configured. Configuring the messages alone is not enough; you must set announcementPriority: 1 (or higher) as well. This catches out a lot of content: the messages are there, they parse fine, and nothing is ever broadcast.

The Custom Boss will be able to send messages in chat if they are configured to do it. They will send spawn, death and escape messages if they are configured to have them.

By default, spawn messages broadcast to all players on the server. You can configure EliteMobs to only broadcast to players in the same world as the boss by enabling the 'Only broadcast event message in event worlds' setting in events.yml (announcementBroadcastWorldOnly: true).

Boss tracking is also enabled at this level if a locationMessage is configured. Players can click on chat to track it when it spawns, or they can use the /em menu to track it.

Tracking Requirements

For boss tracking to work at Priority 1 or 2, the following must be configured:

• Set announcementPriority to 1 or higher
• Add a locationMessage field to your custom boss configuration
• Ensure the server config has showCustomBossLocation enabled (default: true)

The locationMessage can include placeholders:

• $distance - Shows distance to the boss
• $location - Shows boss coordinates

Level 2

For Custom Bosses, Level 2 behaves identically to Level 1 — there is no separate code path for priority 2. Each message type follows the same rules at priority 1 and priority 2:

• Spawn messages broadcast server-wide unless announcementBroadcastWorldOnly: true is set, in which case they go only to players in the boss's world.
• Death messages are broadcast server-wide for any priority of 1 or higher.
• Escape messages are always sent only to players in the boss's world for any priority of 1 or higher.

Boss tracking is also enabled at this level if a locationMessage is configured.

Note: Tracking requires both an announcement priority of 1 or higher AND a configured locationMessage field.

Level 3

The Custom Boss will have the same behavior as in Level 1, and will also send messages to the Discord room configured to send notifications about EliteMobs. The page on how to set this feature up can be found here. The messages on discord will be the same as the chat messages - spawn/death/escape

Custom events use a different path

Custom events (customevents/*.yml) also carry an announcementPriority, but their startMessage and endMessage run through a different, simpler routine. Its behavior is:

Priority	Where the message goes	Discord
0	Only players in the event's world	No
1	Server-wide, unless announcementBroadcastWorldOnly: true in events.yml, in which case only the event's world	No
2	Only players in the event's world (the server-wide branch is written for priority 1 exactly)	No
3+	Only players in the event's world	Yes

So for events — unlike bosses — priority 2 is not the same as priority 1, and priorities of 3 or higher do not broadcast server-wide even when announcementBroadcastWorldOnly is false. announcementPriority for events defaults to 0.

Message Types

Custom bosses can have three types of announcements:

• Spawn messages (spawnMessage) - Sent when the boss spawns
• Death messages (deathMessage) - Sent when the boss is killed
• Escape messages (escapeMessage) - Sent when the boss despawns/escapes

Each message type must be configured separately in your boss file. The announcement priority level controls whether these messages are sent and who receives them.

Example Configuration

# Silent boss - only damagers see death message
announcementPriority: 0
deathMessage: '&c$name has been defeated!'

# Chat announcements with tracking
announcementPriority: 1
spawnMessage: '&4$name &chas spawned!'
deathMessage: '&a$name &2has been slain by $damager1name!'
escapeMessage: '&e$name &6has escaped!'
locationMessage: '&6$name &eis $distance blocks away at $location'

# Discord integration
announcementPriority: 3
spawnMessage: '&4$name &chas spawned!'
locationMessage: '&6Track $name at $location'