#7568 [CORE] - "Time spent with party" only displays the time since the penultimate joining
Hurricane
Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 730
This is a 15-year-old bug from the original games that still exists in both of the Enhanced Editions today. Time to squash it! 
Current behavior: In the information screen of an NPC's character record, the "time spent with party" only consists of the duration the NPC has been in the party since the second-to-last time that NPC joined the party. It fails to include the duration from before the penultimate joining. In other words, if an NPC leaves the party for a second time and then rejoins for the third time, the duration of the very first stay is missing from the total "time spent with party". This mechanism then continues every time the NPC leaves and rejoins again, thereby further distorting the statistic.
Expected behavior: The "time spent with party" should always display the total duration an NPC has been in the party. The value should be the sum of all separate stays, regardless of how often the NPC has left and rejoined the party.
Reproducing the bug: I'm using BG:EE as the example, but the approach is the same for BGII:EE.
1. Start a new game. Leave Candlekeep. After the ambush cutscene, let Imoen join the party.
2. Rest twice, then open up Imoen's character record. Observe that her "time spent with party" is 16 hours.
3. Remove Imoen from the party.
4. Let Imoen join the party for the second time. Observe that her "time spent with party" is still 16 hours.
5. Rest once more. Observe that her "time spent with party" is now 1 day and 0 hours.
6. Remove Imoen a second time.
7. Let Imoen join the party for the third time. Observe that her "time spent with party" is now 8 hours. This is the time since her penultimate joining. The 16 hours from her first stay are missing.
8. Every time the remove-and-rejoin process is repeated, observe that her "time spent with party" continues to shift accordingly.
Additional information:
I can testify that the bug is present in BG:EE v1.2 and BGII:EE v1.2.2030. You can go all the way back and fire up vanilla BG1, as I just did, to see that the problem has existed since the very beginning.
The symptoms of this bug have been reported once before by @recklessheart, but that report did not describe the underlying problem and doesn't seem to have been picked up. I have consulted the list of known bugs for BG:EE here and for BGII:EE here and it looks like this bug was not entered into the system.
To the moderators: I'd like this issue to get added to the bug tracker for both games. I guess I don't need to open a separate topic in the BGII:EE Bugs forum as well?
Current behavior: In the information screen of an NPC's character record, the "time spent with party" only consists of the duration the NPC has been in the party since the second-to-last time that NPC joined the party. It fails to include the duration from before the penultimate joining. In other words, if an NPC leaves the party for a second time and then rejoins for the third time, the duration of the very first stay is missing from the total "time spent with party". This mechanism then continues every time the NPC leaves and rejoins again, thereby further distorting the statistic.
Expected behavior: The "time spent with party" should always display the total duration an NPC has been in the party. The value should be the sum of all separate stays, regardless of how often the NPC has left and rejoined the party.
Reproducing the bug: I'm using BG:EE as the example, but the approach is the same for BGII:EE.
1. Start a new game. Leave Candlekeep. After the ambush cutscene, let Imoen join the party.
2. Rest twice, then open up Imoen's character record. Observe that her "time spent with party" is 16 hours.
3. Remove Imoen from the party.
4. Let Imoen join the party for the second time. Observe that her "time spent with party" is still 16 hours.
5. Rest once more. Observe that her "time spent with party" is now 1 day and 0 hours.
6. Remove Imoen a second time.
7. Let Imoen join the party for the third time. Observe that her "time spent with party" is now 8 hours. This is the time since her penultimate joining. The 16 hours from her first stay are missing.
8. Every time the remove-and-rejoin process is repeated, observe that her "time spent with party" continues to shift accordingly.
Additional information:
I can testify that the bug is present in BG:EE v1.2 and BGII:EE v1.2.2030. You can go all the way back and fire up vanilla BG1, as I just did, to see that the problem has existed since the very beginning.
The symptoms of this bug have been reported once before by @recklessheart, but that report did not describe the underlying problem and doesn't seem to have been picked up. I have consulted the list of known bugs for BG:EE here and for BGII:EE here and it looks like this bug was not entered into the system.
To the moderators: I'd like this issue to get added to the bug tracker for both games. I guess I don't need to open a separate topic in the BGII:EE Bugs forum as well?
Post edited by Troodon80 on
2
Comments
Looks like it's resettled to 8 hours, in my sist's game, I kicked Imoen, made her join, rested, kicked her, she joined again and she had 8 hours instead of the 1 day and 5 hours she had before the rest.
Logged and tagged as #7568. Also note that the list of known bugs for BG:EE doesn't get updated as regularly, especially now since a new patch has been rolled out to the public beta.
@Hurricane, no need to create a topic for BG2:EE. :-)
And @CrevsDaak, I've noticed how active you are with helping to manage the bug sections. That's cool.