"Your Personal Blog" Mission Incompletable Bug Due To Low-Level Captives Taking Damage

[CraterLabs]

In the Your Personal Blog alignment Tip for Rogues, which becomes the "Stop the Blogger's Reign of Terror" mission, there are three heroes being held captive by Freakshow. I've tried running the mission twice now, and each time when I rescue the last hero, the blogger doesn't spawn because I've not technically saved all the heroes (which is fair because they, like... died). This level of gritty realism about the tricky nature of hostage scenarios has some potential, but not good for this mission. 😛

 

 

I've included this screenshot of the map. "Short-Cut" is my Rogue, with Leo Knight and Snow Maiden being the two rescued heroes on the map, and I *think* the red arrow is representing the dead hero/failed objective because no one's there, though I could also see it somehow being where the map wants to spawn the blogger.

 

it's worth noting that when I tried this mission yesterday, the heroes are spawning at levels *way* below mine, like 18 or something while I was 51 and the Freakshow were all level 50. LeoKnight only survived yesterday because he was level thirty-something, and also an Elite Boss instead of just a regular boss, so he had some durability. I didn't see if the one who died today also spawned at low level, he died pretty much right when I rounded the corner (I was playing it safe with the other two and pulling aggro with teleport powers to draw them away. I'm guessing that I'll be able to finish the mission if I draw them away from possibly harming the captives, and I'll be trying that in a sec, but thought I should report this now while the mission's still incomplete.)

[Rudra]

There are multiple bug report addressing this that explain what is going, but I'll explain again anyway.

 

First, if you know the heroes are weak and vulnerable, which you can check beforehand by clicking the heroes and seeing they are grey, then it is time to draw the enemies away from the hostages. And that includes any enemies not part of the hostage spawn. If the enemies aren't anywhere near the hostages, the hostages won't take damage from AoEs being thrown at you, the hostages will survive.

 

Second, that red arrow on your map is not a marker for the third hostage, dead or alive. It pops up on most maps after you have defeated all foes on the map. So you can ignore that extra arrow. The missing hostage would show up as a green arrow just like the other two. The missing hostage is not shown because like you said, that hostage died due to AoEs.

 

(Edit: And yes, if you clear the map of all mission entered generated spawns and no other spawns have been generated, the map often treats itself as cleared for posting that arrow even if not all the required spawns have been spawned. Now if Flambeaux and her guards were to have spawned? Then that arrow would be present plus additional red arrows showing where her spawn is.)

 

Edited June 5 by Rudra

[Ridiculous Girl]

yeaaaaaah... i reported this back in 2019. @Faultline is there any way to solve this easily? making the hostages unkillable at least? because it a frequent bug, in relation to alignment missions. 

 

this is so old it's picking fights on the playground and stealing lunch money from baby heroes. 😄 

 

 

[Rudra]

I would rather it didn't change. This is one of the few instances where players are asked to think and not just charge in. Snow Maiden is a level 10-18 generic hero, Strongheart is a level 10-20 generic hero, and LeoKnight is a level 21-33 Longbow EB. They should be at risk from high level Freakshow.

 

Edit: If you want a warning added? Sure, I can support that. I won't support changing the hostages to be invincible. I like having at least one mission where you have to evaluate the hostage's safety and act accordingly as a hero.

 

Edited June 5 by Rudra

[Ridiculous Girl]

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

Edit: If you want a warning added? Sure, I can support that. I won't support changing the hostages to be invincible. I like having at least one mission where you have to evaluate the hostage's safety and act accordingly as a hero.

mission fail upon hostage death would be pretty entertaining... 😄

[Hedgefund2]

Mission failure would be better than nothing.  As is you're simply stuck, unable to proceed which is not an acceptable outcome, period.

 

I have a vague recollection of this that it had been fixed, maybe it was on test and never pushed live.  Maybe I'll get my CB rights revoked for mentioning that but it's also possible I'm misremembering (though I'm pretty dang sure there was a fix)

[Rudra]

5 hours ago, Ridiculous Girl said:

mission fail upon hostage death would be pretty entertaining... 😄

 

5 hours ago, Hedgefund2 said:

Mission failure would be better than nothing.  As is you're simply stuck, unable to proceed which is not an acceptable outcome, period.

Mission failure would result in bug reports of the mission being a guaranteed fail, and so incompletable, slowing down progress on the tip bar to getting the morality.

 

Edit: Also, you aren't stuck. You can reset the mission and knowing that the hostages can die preventing mission completion, take steps to keep them from dying.

 

Edited June 5 by Rudra

[lemming]

5 hours ago, Hedgefund2 said:

Mission failure would be better than nothing.  As is you're simply stuck, unable to proceed which is not an acceptable outcome, period.

 

I have a vague recollection of this that it had been fixed, maybe it was on test and never pushed live.  Maybe I'll get my CB rights revoked for mentioning that but it's also possible I'm misremembering (though I'm pretty dang sure there was a fix)

One of the devs wanted to document all the missions that had hostages that could die before rescue flagged.  Especially ones that left you in limbo.  I looked around yesterday but couldn't find the thread.

[CraterLabs]

Honestly? If the mission had some sort of warning that indicated the mission could be failed *and* included a kind of "Mission Failed" alert that popped up as soon as one of the heroes died along with an exit button that completed the mission, I'd be cool with it. As it is, the mission kind of breaks the "flow" of how mission failure goes in most other places in the game. When the mission becomes unwinnable in its current state, you have to walk back to the entrance door (or otherwise teleport yourself out), and either make another mission your "active" mission or log out and back in to make it so that you can restart. I don't *mind* having to play this mission differently (honestly, trying to aggro away the Freak Tanks with what I had on hand was a fun little challenge), but negotiating with the architecture of the mission completion system to force-load it a second, third, and fourth time isn't great in terms of making it a smooth play experience.

 

-EDIT-

 

For the record, I don't think that all fail-able missions should give a warning that they can be failed (even though it's probably a good idea most of the time). I just think it's worth going out of your way to mention it with things like Alignment Tip Missions given the purpose and flow of those things most of the time.

Edited June 11 by CraterLabs

[The Caretaker]

I have in fact fixed this, but don't know where in the pipeline it went.

 

It has to do with conflicting variables set that override the hostage/captor settings to disallow friendly fire.

 

Edit: And a whole host of other problems with that mission too

[The Caretaker]

It would appear my fixes are in there.

 

Is it possible that you had this mission before the patch (If so, you may still have a broken one somehow)? I basically need confirmation if a freshly granted Blogger mission still bugs out or not.

[Rudra]

14 minutes ago, The Caretaker said:

It would appear my fixes are in there.

 

Is it possible that you had this mission before the patch (If so, you may still have a broken one somehow)? I basically need confirmation if a freshly granted Blogger mission still bugs out or not.

Confirmed. It's "fixed". There is no challenge to it any more. (Edit: I stood right next to the level 18 Snow Maiden and let the Freakshow rain down all the AoEs they wanted, and she never suffered any hits. Never got moved or took any damage.) There are not words to describe my frustration at the continued simplification of the game and disappointment in removal of challenge.

 

(Edit again: You don't even need a new tip for the mission. I logged on a level 50+3 to grab the mission, found out I already had it, and ran the tip I had from before the patch update.)

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Rudra

[The Caretaker]

50 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Confirmed. It's "fixed". There is no challenge to it any more. (Edit: I stood right next to the level 18 Snow Maiden and let the Freakshow rain down all the AoEs they wanted, and she never suffered any hits. Never got moved or took any damage.) There are not words to describe my frustration at the continued simplification of the game and disappointment in removal of challenge.

 

(Edit again: You don't even need a new tip for the mission. I logged on a level 50+3 to grab the mission, found out I already had it, and ran the tip I had from before the patch update.)

 

 

Your challenge was our "Not Working as Intended". In truth it was very much NOT working according to expectation from the Live Devs, and I'm sorry that this broken interaction was fun for you, but the pile of bug complaints was *formidable* to look at.