[Known] Euric's illogical choice

dreamrider

Gate70 said:

Duplicate quest items should not be taken from equipment slots if they are also present in inventory

1. Load attached save.
2. Enter the inn.
3. Speak to Euric.

*Observed*
Euric takes the worn amulet in preference to the inventory amulet.

*Expected*
Euric should take the inventory amulet.

*Note*
The quest amulet is a standard amulet so cannot be identified as unique.
(In this save the amulet given by Nadine is in inventory)
Switching the worn amulet to the next inventory slot sees the first (Euric's) amulet correctly being taken.
Game appears to be searching in character slot order so may be options around checking inventory first or searching backwards.

Minor instance of illogical behavior, not of great impact, but confusing.

Expected behavior: In the Euric good luck charm quest, Euric should take the amulet (Protector +1) that was provided by his mother.


Bugged behavior:

Party met mother Nadine quite soon after arriving BG, accepted quest to find boy, give amulet.
Received Protector +1 amulet from Nadine.

Protagonist carried the provided amulet as the 1st item in inventory for several days, until Euric was located.
Protagonist was also wearing a different Protector +1 amulet acquired MUCH earlier, long before arriving BG.

Upon finding/talking to Euric, the boy accepted/took the amulet sent by his mom, according to dialogue.

Upon checking protagonist shortly after, the Protector +1 that had been provided by Nadine was still in inventory. (??)
**Upon further checking (including stopping game to go back and load up a save from several game days earlier to check earlier equipment), I realized that Euric had taken the amulet that was around the protagonist's neck, NOT the one in inventory that Nadine had provided.**

Now this is not a terribly big deal long term, since the protagonist can just put on the remaining necklace. However, for several game hours the protagonist was one AC less than expected because the +1 necklace was no longer around his neck, AND, due to my confusion, I stopped play, loaded an old save, and spent unnecessary time to investigate and understand the event.

Tresset

Not much can really be done about this aside from making Nadine's amulet unique. The problem is it would also have to be done with a whole host of other equipable quest items which would be a lot of time and effort for such a minor issue that is barely an issue at all. I would lean towards this being an "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" kinda case.

dreamrider

I understand that the amulets are not unique, and that's OK. But WHY is the default for the acquiring character to take the item that is EQUIPPED, rather than the identical item that is in inventory?

Gate70

Thanks, possible explanation added.

n.b. As Tresset has mentioned any solution might involve an item by item correction and the risks of doing that would have to be weighed up against current behaviours. Anyway, let's see what happens.

CrevsDaak

Tresset said:

Not much can really be done about this aside from making Nadine's amulet unique. The problem is it would also have to be done with a whole host of other equipable quest items which would be a lot of time and effort for such a minor issue that is barely an issue at all. I would lean towards this being an "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" kinda case.

I agree. Removing the second amulet from the game would also break compatibility with mods that add upgradable items that need one (if not both) of the amulets to make the new item.

It could be fixed by making a .BCS script to lurk around your inventory and don't take the equipped one… Or just take whichever amulet and, if it was equipped, equip the other amulet back (stupid, but it _WILL_ work without breaking anything).

dreamrider

I don't think you want to make it so that an equipped item is NEVER taken. There will be playthroughs where a character is wearing the only instance of the surrenderable quest item, and you still want the quest to complete.

True, in that case the player could just intervene and transfer the item to inventory. Hmm...maybe that IS better.

Franpa

dreamrider said:

I don't think you want to make it so that an equipped item is NEVER taken. There will be playthroughs where a character is wearing the only instance of the surrenderable quest item, and you still want the quest to complete.

True, in that case the player could just intervene and transfer the item to inventory. Hmm...maybe that IS better.

It would be better, it alerts the player to the need to de-equip something instead of silently doing it and letting the player "discover" what happened mid-combat or some such.

CrevsDaak

dreamrider said:

I don't think you want to make it so that an equipped item is NEVER taken. There will be playthroughs where a character is wearing the only instance of the surrenderable quest item, and you still want the quest to complete.

Yeah, but that would be fixed by adding an extra check, like, if the party has more than a single amulet, take the one in the inventory, and if all are equipped take on of them, if only one amulet is present it will be the only one taken there.

Franpa

CrevsDaak said:

dreamrider said:

I don't think you want to make it so that an equipped item is NEVER taken. There will be playthroughs where a character is wearing the only instance of the surrenderable quest item, and you still want the quest to complete.

Yeah, but that would be fixed by adding an extra check, like, if the party has more than a single amulet, take the one in the inventory, and if all are equipped take on of them, if only one amulet is present it will be the only one taken there.

I would rather it just fail to take any in that case. It shouldn't silently mess with your equipped gear in my opinion.

_Luke_

The same issue occurs in the Prologue when completing Fuller's quest

dreamrider

More details, Luke.

Do you mean that if you have x-bow bolts in quiver, and a bundle in inventory for the quest, Fuller will take the bundle out of the quiver in preference to the bundle that you are carrying back just for him?

macu67

I agree with Luke, Fuller have just taken 80 bolts from my quiver, totally ignoring the 20 I had for him in the backpack.

_Luke_

dreamrider said:

More details, Luke.

Do you mean that if you have x-bow bolts in quiver, and a bundle in inventory for the quest, Fuller will take the bundle out of the quiver in preference to the bundle that you are carrying back just for him?

Yes, that is the case

dreamrider

Not that it doesn't need to be fixed, as a general case (it DOES), but I hope you guys realize that the workaround is to not equip the CHAR until after you have made the rounds of all the prologue quests, & gathered up the max working funds that you can.

I usually ONLY buy the one packet of quarrels during my first pass through Winthrop's place. When I come back, after getting the 300 GP Easter egg from Firebead, and selling Fuller's dagger to Winthrop (after all, you didn't REALLY take a dagger proficiency, did you?), I have something like 700-800+ GP to work with and I can buy anything I want. I can usually buy a few things to equip Imo...er...any potential future companion, as well.

(With a strong Ranger or a Thief, maybe a Monk, and a little patience, and quick feet, you can even collect up the spare gear from the barracks footlockers, then choose from that and sell the spares to Winthrop before doing serious buying.)

(You're never going to get into the one "jewel case" upstairs, though, unless you start with a Thief totally skewed to Open Locks, or a previous runthrough character. I've tried everything.)

CrevsDaak

The only problem I could see here is that he would take a stack of 80 Bolts instead of one of 20 Bolts, but then, I don't see it's really broken.

I'd recommend making a Feature Request instead to add a new BCS action "Take Inventory Item" and Take Inventory Items Party" their ACTION.IDS entries would be: TakeInventoryItem(O:Object*,S:Item*,I:Amount*) and TakeInventoryItemParty(S:Item*,I:Amount*).

Dee

Just to be clear, the current behavior isn't a bug, it's just that the "take item" action is starting from the top of the list with equipped items instead of the bottom of the list with inventory items.

Moving this to Feature Requests.

dreamrider

Correct.
If that doesn't meet your definition of a bug.

(I happen to think that it should be considered a bug, as the game is not executing as a reasonable player would expect.)