A4 Bugs
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| Author | Topic: A4 Bugs |
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Apprentice
Member # 6724
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written Monday, February 13 2006 11:17
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This is a little late now, but. . . quote:I had the same problem with Nodiacus in version 1.0 except that he nailed me through two closed doors. I was also playing as a singleton, and I had the luck of having this bug repeat. The first time Nodiacus killed me and he was behind a closed door and half a screen away. As for the "Pit Ghoul waits", I had a similar problem south of Fort Draco while fighting cave crawlers above ground. The text "Ogre waits" and "Worg waits" (or maybe it was "Dire Wolf waits"?) appeared for no apparent reason. This was also while playing 1.0 Posts: 5 | Registered: Sunday, January 22 2006 08:00 |
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Board Administrator
Member # 1
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written Monday, February 13 2006 12:37
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The Nociduas shooting through walls thing should be fixed in the next update. The "Random person waits." bug might be fixed. That's an odd one, but I put some safety checks in place that should keep this weirdness from occuring. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, February 13 2006 14:30
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Well, Avernum is full of creepy little holes. Who knows what might be waiting, anywhere? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1115
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 10:16
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I've managed to get the game to hang. And when a game goes full-screen and locks out keyboard access, hanging is bad! I haven't tested this fully twice, but I've gone halfway many times by accident. Basically this involves accessing the "cast a spell" screen for a character who has used up their APs already. So for example, before most fights I usually haste all of my characters. So the keyboard presses are '5', '5' (for my two fighters, waiting), 'ce3<ret>' (haste my mage), 'c<click on War Blessing><ret>' (priest blesses everyone). Then the mage hastes everyone else, et cetera. However, if I hit the second 'c' too quickly, then I'll end up back in my mage's spell list instead of my priest's. Actually trying to cast a spell from here is, I believe, what caused the game to hang. The basic glitch is easier to access if there are enemies that take their action after the spellcaster does, since that means that you spend more time with the spellcaster a) out of APs, and b) still selected. Also, the blazing sword gives fire resistance and does 11-33 damage. The oozing sword gives poison resistance, does 11-33 damage, and poisons your foes. Shouldn't the blazing sword cause additional fire damage, or is that hidden somewhere? I'd like to request that the keyboard shortcuts for the spells be displayed on the "cast a spell" screen. I've learned the common mage ones as they're in alphabetical order, but the priest ones pick up somewhere after mages are done (instead of, say, being in alphabetical order with Shift held down), so every priest spell I cast either uses the quickspell buttons or the mouse to select. Also, noting in the Tool Use skill description that it's helpful for mages using Unlock Doors would probably save many people from "wasting" skillpoints in the character creation process. Making it clear that Magery assists priests as well (assuming it does(?!)) would be good as well. Some players distinguish "spells" from "prayers". Sometimes enemies will not move if they can't find a path to their chosen target, even if other targets are available. For example, I bottled up three...chitrachs or hellhounds, I think they were, in a small cave that had a single-square exit. By parking my fighter in that square, I kept the monsters from moving at all, even though the fighter was in range for melee. In the chitrach battle east of Fort Remote, I got the "no more chitrachs are coming" message after killing the queen, wandered a few squares away, and saw a chitrach leave the cave! Fortunately the good lieutenant was up to the task. Dialogue triggers appear to only occur when the person speaking gets their turn in combat. So for example, most combats go (Fighter 1, Fighter 2, Enemies, Mage, Priest) for me. Dialogue will occur after Fighter 2 takes his action, even though Fighter 1 crossed the trigger boundary in the middle of his turn. I guess speaking needs to be a "free action"? :) You can attack the demon under Patrick's Tower; he just doesn't care and reverts to friendly the next chance he gets. This seems rather odd behaviour. Enemies frequently get obsessed with clearing "Slow" status. You can lockdown a mage fairly trivially by just slowing him every turn; even when he gets an action, he'll just re-haste himself. Related to this, enemies apparently have access to a "Haste Group" spell that players don't. See e.g. the small Vahnatai band just west of Fort Remote. Slow the Shaper, and he'll haste his entire group, as many times as you do it. Scrolls of Haste Group don't cut it here; he has as many casts as he needs. Or maybe Haste level 6 finally hastes groups? I haven't completed the game yet and a lack of haste-all is really aggravating me; I'm up to level 5 so far with that spell. I managed to walk through some gates in one of the earlier towns, after I had closed said gates. Not sure what's up with that. Okay, that's all I can remember right now. :) -------------------- "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." -Porkypine Derakon's Library Posts: 287 | Registered: Thursday, May 9 2002 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 11:26
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quote:Haste only works on one member at a time at any level. Some monsters can haste all members of their "party". This is positively related to game balance; the end fights would be too easy if this were put in. quote:You know, your party is not the only group of people capable of opening a gate. If you close it, logically one would expect someone else to open it. If not, it would be very easy to starve off all of Avernum. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1115
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 11:39
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Okay, I figured I'd never get access to Haste Group as a spell. It's still irritating. As for that closed-gate thing, I should have been more clear: I could walk through an apparently-closed gate as if it were open. The graphic showed a closed gate, as it should, but it was not the barrier to commerce that one would expect it to be. -------------------- "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." -Porkypine Derakon's Library Posts: 287 | Registered: Thursday, May 9 2002 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 125
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 12:11
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Wow, I never knew about the 'c' -> cast spell shortcut. I'd always used 'm' for mage spells and 'p' for priest spells, which should allow you to cast priest spells the way you want to. (pa1 to heal the frontman, for example) Putting some explicit directions in the manual for how to see what spells you know and at what level would be nice; it took me forever to find the button, even though it's right there in the skill screen. I had given up on it until I saw some discussions here about people's levels in spells. Somehow it didn't look like something I'd click to get more info, I guess. -------------------- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy, and taste good with ketchup. Posts: 256 | Registered: Monday, October 8 2001 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 13:50
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It's not so unreasonable to be vitally concerned over being slowed, since being slowed in front of a party of adventurers is usually quick death. And getting right out of slow into extra AP territory is also a laudable goal. But too many enemies overdo it, apparently shooting for infinite speed. In general a lot of enemies get carried away pursuing grudges, and will burn up their AP getting slowed down passing your lead elements, in pursuit of your rear echelon. A fast archer who stays behind a tank is very handy for pinging enemies so that they go for him at any cost. And a lot of enemies with ranged attacks will shoot you if you are in range and in their line of sight when they start their turn, but if you aren't, they rush to get as close to you as possible, instead of just advancing until they can shoot. This also makes bump-and-run unreasonably effective. On the other hand, the AI does at least try. Some enemies will try to circle around and come at you from another direction if their way to you is blocked by other enemies. This impressed and even worried me a bit, until I realized that those flanking enemies just weren't fast enough to reach me before the end of the battle, so in effect they were just running away. A4 does achieve quite a few interesting fights, but mainly by giving enemies some startling scripted abilities, and otherwise just by making them tough. None of the enemies, it seems to me, is actually at all clever. And many are downright dumb. Real AI is, uh, hard. And unfortunately, tactically smart NPCs in a turn-based CRPG is a serious AI task. So I don't think Jeff is going to be able to make his monsters brilliant any time soon. But he could probably retune a few of their common faults, and then continue compensating with good scripts. A scripted ambush is still an ambush, after all. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1115
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 14:19
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Oh, yeah, a few more things: Attacking and casting spells both take 5 APs. If you have between 6 and 9 APs, then attacking or casting a spell ends your turn, despite the fact that you should be able to move after casting. This has a valid tactical use; say you want to kill something with a spell and then back away from the square that thing occupied; you couldn't do that in reverse order (i.e. move and then cast) because the slowdown from moving out of melee range would make spellcasting impossible. Related to this, if you try to do something that you lack the APs to do, your turn ends. Better, in my opinion, to simply not do anything and let people end their turns via spacebar, '5', or doing something else. If I accidentally try to cast three spells in one turn with my hasted mage, maybe I'd rather back her out of range of the enemy's front lines instead. When targetting a spell, clicking on an invalid square does nothing. Clicking on a party member cancels the "targetting spell" mode. This means that if I accidentally misclick, I have to determine if the misclick was on random terrain (in which case I can just click on my actual target) or if it was on a party member (in which case I must re-cast the spell). If I fail to re-cast after targetting a party member, then my mage charges into melee. Not good. Much of the really useful stuff is only documented in the quick-hints that show when you load a savefile. It'd be nice if those were collected somewhere (just dumping 'em to a file would be nice). Also, I don't believe that shift-clicking to pick up part of a stack is documented anywhere, though I could be mistaken. -------------------- "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." -Porkypine Derakon's Library Posts: 287 | Registered: Thursday, May 9 2002 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 16:03
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Ending your turn after an action unless you have enough AP for another action strikes me as a good decision for balance. I can't articulate why, but I thought about it during the beta and decided I liked it. The chitrach bug isn't a bug. You get a message when no more chitrachs are coming, but that doesn't mean no more are out but not yet visible. You could have killed that last bug by looking in the cave. —Alorael, who also never knew about C for casting spells and who was bothered a little bit by clicking when targeting. His solution was simply to press the necessary buttons to cast the spell (or aim the bow) again if he mis-clicked. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 16:14
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quote:Yes. I found this phenomenally annoying. But I figured that it was so built into the interface that it wasn't likely to change, so I don't think I even bothered to mention it in my beta reports. What would've been really nice, and possibly not too difficult to implement, though, would have been consistently different cursors for ranged attacks and melee. I found my mages running into melee far more often than I expected. I also found out the hard way that if a priest tries to cast Heal on someone out of range, the priest will run into range. It'd be nice if that just gave a message about being out of range. [ Tuesday, February 14, 2006 16:19: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1115
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 17:14
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quote:I'd accept this except that you can already start your round with fewer than 5 APs, which implies that it's acceptable to not be able to take an action anyway. Additionally: what if you wanted to attack, then drink a potion/use a wand/read a scroll? Those take less than 5 APs and are entirely valid actions. quote:Okay, fair enough. It's technically accurate if misleading. -------------------- "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." -Porkypine Derakon's Library Posts: 287 | Registered: Thursday, May 9 2002 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 17:33
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It seems right to me that attacking takes 5 AP or all remaining AP if that is less than 10. I can't explain why, except that the possibility of stepping up to an enemy, attacking, and then stepping away bothers me. —Alorael, who thinks many targets would become trivial if one could move after attacking without haste. Pylons, fungi, and shrubs would be no challenge at all because you'd never have to end a turn in range (even more so than already). Even mobile enemies would be easy to pick off or attract one by one. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1115
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 21:02
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Another one: stated probabilities for the Riposte and Parry skills seem wildly inaccurate. I've seen enemies with 2% or 4% riposte more than a couple of times in a single battle, and Hecht (at 15%) parried three of four attacks in a single round. The odds of that are about 1%. The fun thing about this being that I could just be being horribly unlucky...but that's unlikely. Edit: incorrect tallying of odds. Didn't I learn anything from my statistics class in college? [ Tuesday, February 14, 2006 21:43: Message edited by: Derakon ] -------------------- "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." -Porkypine Derakon's Library Posts: 287 | Registered: Thursday, May 9 2002 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1115
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written Wednesday, February 15 2006 17:17
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I don't know if the "Nodiacus shoots through walls" bug being fixed was supposed to be for 1.01 or 1.02, but I just got frozen by the Spire arena's Basilisk Queen while standing in the entry corridor. So if it's supposed to have been fixed, it isn't quite yet. -------------------- "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." -Porkypine Derakon's Library Posts: 287 | Registered: Thursday, May 9 2002 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1115
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written Friday, February 17 2006 21:38
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If you can't raise the dead during combat, then why does the game take your APs and spellpoints for trying to do so? In general, the game seems perfectly willing to let you try to do something even if you can't, and it's entirely possible to waste APs (or entire turns) this way. -------------------- "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." -Porkypine Derakon's Library Posts: 287 | Registered: Thursday, May 9 2002 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, February 20 2006 04:31
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The parry 'bug' seems real to me too, though I don't know whether it's actually a mistake, or just that 'parry percentage' is a misleading stat. That is, perhaps chance of parrying is affected by a bunch of variables besides the base stat that gets reported to the player. I just had an interesting experience with Dorikas. My party cleaned out everything else in his base first, then did a good enough job whaling on him that by the time he started panicking us, he was also panicking. So everyone just ran everywhere, and somehow my Priest wound up standing face to face with Dorikas, up beside his exit portal, far away from everyone else. I was half expecting her to run off with him. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 6724
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written Tuesday, February 21 2006 09:51
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Has anyone else seen a bug with acid in 1.0.1? When I'm fighting in battles, sometimes monsters get an extra action before they die of acid damage. Turn order for my party is usually 1) my fighters 2) the monsters 3) my mages/priests When a monster is low on hp and dies of acid damage, it will sometimes get an extra attack right before my fighters' turn. The dying monster has already acted in the previous turn, and this extra attack is out of turn order (from previous combat rounds). I've seen this a few times now in the demo area (haven't gone beyond it yet with this party) with a variety of monsters--none of them hasted. I also never noticed this problem in 1.0. Posts: 5 | Registered: Sunday, January 22 2006 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Sunday, February 26 2006 05:49
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In version 1.0.2, it is now possible to get and use Enduring Shield (priest spell level 6) at only priest level 5 in Formello. It's a nice bonus but it never happened in the early versions. The mangy cur near Fort Monastary now no longer follows you after the first time that you feed him. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |