"Stop the blogger's reign of terror" (Full bug report)

[Ridiculous Girl]

Bug report with recommendations. (TL; DR version... mission easily bugs, fix potentially easy too?)

Initial bug report. "dead mission objective" filed friday the 13th, december.

Quote

Windows: mission "stop the blogger's reign of terror" hero tip mission, while vigilante. this is the same bug i filed for a radio mission 6 months or so ago. the GM watching found that when a super stunner rezzed, his rez killed a hostage and made the mission impossible to finish. same, the second hostage was zapped and even with all mobs dead, we cannot complete. bug can be replicated. available later to show if needed.

Quote

Windows: i looked up the old mission bug ticket that i sent. it was the exact same mission, exact same problem. GM Sijin watched me recreate the bug several times. the GM filed a report august 12, 2019, my name is quoted and that is how i found their report. but, same exact problem; super stunner in group rezzes and kills low level hero hostage, mission impossible to complete. this is reporducible. not much more to add, that has not already been covered last night or aug 12th. thank you! 🙂

i had reported the exact same bug in august and i got a GM response and demonstrated the bug for the GM, which is easily repeatable. GM SIJIN filed this report...

Quote

Mission name: Stop the Blogger's Reign of Terror

Contact: Tip mission

Morality: Hero

Level: 50

 

Thanks to @Ridiculous Girl for walking through the mission with me to identify the issue.

 

The mission has 4 objectives, 3 heroes to rescue and then confronting Flambeaux. The issue is the heroes can be damaged by AOEs while you're trying to rescue them. In one case one of the captives was killed by a super stunner rez from approximately 75% health. It appears that if any of the heroes are killed Flambeaux does not spawn and you cannot progress through the mission.

 

It is my opinion that these heroes should not be able to be damaged prior to being rescued. Short of that, the mission needs to fail if they are killed as to prevent a softlocked mission state, or Flambeaux needs to spawn regardless of the heroes being rescued or killed.

subsequent bug reports as followed.

Quote

Windows: looking at the initial report from GM Sijin, it appears that maybe the mission has been changed, because i saw no indication that flambeaux was supposed to appear. though the same problem still appaear. kill super stunner in group, SS rezzes, kill low level hero hostage, mission impossible to complete. nothing new to add from last reports, other than mission is still broken. thank you! 🙂

My investigation of the bug and my recommendations.

Quote

i ran the mission again at -1/6, boss/no AV, lvl 50 tips mission as a test to reproduce the bug. the first hero to rescue is Ice Maiden, she spawns as a level 18 boss. died immediately, but no super stunner in group so i do no know how at first glance. Second hero is Strongheart, a level 20 boss. killed by what looks like a freak tank grenade. (and haha, the one super stunner that was in group died and floated up into the ceiling and disappeared. went to freak heaven? freakhalla? 😄) third hero, leo knight spawned lvl 33 EB. no damage, but is knocked back by grenades several times.  (ran again as -1/6 no boss, and leo knight spawned as a lvl 33 boss this time and did take damage and die. so it is possible for him to die too. though i could see no damage taken from the minion freak cone attacks. ice maiden dies almost instantly, regardless. freak tank bosses spawn as LTs with the NO BOSS setting, so their TAOE grenades cannot be avoided. )

 

conclusion: the heros that need rescuing are vulnerable to AOE/PBAOE damage from the freaks, and being so low level, very likely die in combat because freak bosses are always present with AOEs and PBAOEs. since i play in melee range, the heroes get hit almost immediately with the freak tank TAOE grenade opener or later with the super stunner PBAOE rez. i am not sure about cone attacks from the minions, but i can test this. this bug is easily reproducible. i have now run this mission 7 times and got the similar results each time.

 

solution: 1) pull mission, because it is very easy to get it to bug and break. 2) make the heroes that spawn, spawn at level appropriate for mission. then they probably will not die. they do not fight, as far as i can tell so it does not matter what they spawn as. just be as unkillable as possible.

 

that is all i have for now. i can easily demonstrate this bug since it can be easily reproduced. when i am please contact me. i can show you. 🙂

 

Quote

OK, i ran the mission a 9th time. this time -1/1, no boss, no AV. Ice Maiden spawned as lvl 18 LT. i was able to pull the 2 mob group away; 1 freak tank LT and swiper minion. IM lived, because the grenade attack was not melee range. after killing both, IM talked to me as scripted. but, IM died immediately afterwards because my imps aggroed another nearby group and pulled them in to melee range of IM that killed her easily. saved the other two heros in a similar fashion, continuing their scripted roles. Flambeaux spawned as she was supposed to, making it possible to complete the mission if i desired.

 

observations: it is possible to complete the mission, if done solo and at range. it appears the heros have no role, ie to not fight or defend, other than to be freed and be a partial spawn trigger for the final boss. i am also pretty sure that i observed damage from the minions AOE and cone attacks, in particular the juicer ball lightning AOE. this means that any AOE/PBAOE attacks taken at melee range, regardless of mob being minion/LT/boss, will damage the hostage hero. making them even more likely to easily die.

 

conclusions: same thing, but more certain, that all AOEs/PBAOEs from the freaks will damage and kill the NPCs if hit. it appears that they are not targetable by the freak mobs, but are damagable by them. the NPCs need to be changed in such a way that they are simply not damagable. it is much more difficult for LK to die as a lvl 33 EB, though still possible. the NPCs need to be boosted up to mission level at least and always at least be boss level or higher. 

 

that is all i can think of for now. 🙂

Quote

Ok, after various testing in AE, trying to recreate this mission as well as possible, the first problem is...

Quote

 Mission 1: The level range is not contiguous. There needs to be at least one level were all level restricted elements overlap. Example (valid): A mission with a villain group that has a level range (40-54) and boss with level range (34-42). There is overlap on levels 40-42 Example (invalid): A mission with a villain group that has a level range (40-54) and boss with level range (1-5). There is no overlap

Mission 1: The level range is not contiguous. There needs to be at least one level were all level restricted elements overlap. Example (valid): A mission with a villain group that has a level range (40-54) and boss with level range (34-42). There is overlap on levels 40-42

Snow maiden, called Ice Maiden in mission, a generic hero type lvl 10-18, is lower than the freaks level range 20-54. Hence the error, message. Take her out, and the error goes away. But this mission is outside of the parameters of the possibilities offered by AE.

 

After, runs #10 -12, I saw not only did the original author violate several conditions, ie level of Snow maiden, they created the final boss spawning only on condition that all three heros are rescued. No combination or single hero rescue, spawned the final boss, not available in AE as far as I can tell.  (also as far as i could tell, Flambeaux only is available in AE from 4-20 boss/EB too) Obviously the creator's tool are beyond what's available for AE. There probably lies the solution to fixing this.

 

Solution: The heros appear to be set as simply ally with setting; behavior: nothing, combat abilities: non-combat, and betrays when: does not betray. After several tries, I saw that they did not do anything after being freed and new enemies that were in range of attack. They were just as susceptible to die as before, while doing nothing. So, their level range is moot.

 

Solution 1) Funny thing is that the heros needing rescue are not important, they are not included in the flavour text given, nor NPC dialogue text. The simplest solution would be that any suitable hero from lvl 20-54 would work and could be substituted in, even some generic custom one could be whipped up in a short time and added.

Solution 2) The next simplest solution would be just adjust the hero level ranges to match the freaks, ie 20-54. The creator, bypassed the level range problem that in AE would exemplar the Hero character, down to the highest level of the lowest hostage. This does not happen, since it does not make sense as a hero tip mission, so they had ignored this limit for story reasons? There is no reason for them to simply be those heroes except they were available as placeholder. (I am assuming this is possible with developer mission creator.)

 

[NNDeepdish]

I think the whole of the alignment missions need to be re-examined.

I'v come across 3 incompletable missions so far just by going from Hero to Rogue to Villain and back again once. I did bug report them.

 

This one, there's a retrieve the Tablet mission from the CoT, and one where you fight Blast Furnace and Maelstrom in a cave map with Devouring Earth.