Area "refreshing" problem/bug (spoilers) and question

lujo

I just had a bug of some sort "refresh" Ragpicker's Square for me!

See post just below, I went and tested things and figured out what happenes and how. I think.

Also, related important question for modders:

I've been meaning to ask about this for ages. Is it possible to make a mod which would reset only the "blackness" in Undersigil? The reason is that it's kind of a pain to keep track of where you've been and where you haven't been yet on the map in runs after he first one, as everything has been explored.

It would be a big QoL if the blackness would just restore itself

lujo

Srry: Quick update - Alley of Lingering Sighs and Buried Village were also refreshed - on a previous save!

The bug seems to be this:

When you refresh the Modron Maze (resetting it by talking to the Modron Engineer), it also seems to "refresh" the exteriors of places on the world map where you can't travel using Portal Lens. Refreshing the maze seems to be what's doing it.

It doesn't seem to refresh Trash Warrens or the Undersigil, Dead Nations, Drowned Nations and Warrens of Thought or any "interiors" on the maps which it does reset.

So seems to be just the things which have a world map entry but can't be accessed by Portal Lens from the Maze. I can't check for things beyond Sigil right now.

This is a pretty big bug. I really hope it's not caused by the vanilla game, but as far as I know none of the mods I've got fiddle with the Modron Maze. (I got the portraits in dialogue mod, the UB mod pack, the biffing thing that's supposed to prevent something from happening and that's it I think).

Doubledimas

Do you have a save to test?

lujo

Doubledimas said:

Do you have a save to test?

Yes. Or rather I can make one, for the steam version and hope mods don't make it incompatible.

There's a development, though:

Dying in the Clerk Ward galery to the curse you get hit by when you apply Gorgon Salve to the statue makes you wake up in the Lower Ward. This reset the Lower Ward for me, but only partially - Grosuk is back, but Sebastion's quest to kill him isn't.

I'm not sure it's related to the whole Modron thing.

Anyway, here's the save to play around with, when you load it you should be able to see:

That I have Mempas Biting Ring on TNO, which you get from Marrow Gnawer... who is right there and should be gone if I've got the ring off him.

Then go to the Modron Maze by using the Modron Toy in the inventory. Then go SW, talk to the Engineer and reset the maze. Then use the Portal Lens and go to the Flophouse, and from there to the Buried Village. You can experiment with other areas, what it did for me was what I wrote up there.

But if someone cracks down on the back end of what's causing this - please, for the love of god don't patch yet as I've dug up a bunch of bugs I've been meaning to report (or mentioned in passing in other places).

So if this is helpful, please let me know here and I'll list all the stuff for you guys. There's some serious things I have to properly test to see if it's bugged - I think the Spell Elysium's Tears and its Ignus variant Rain of Fire (think that's what it's called) are actually bugged and don't play their animation, among other things.

If it's not helpful due to mods I'll certainly do a clean bughunting-only install at one point and turn every rock over.

Doubledimas

I'll try it on a clean install, but if you've been using mods it might not be highly successful for a repro case.

-edit-: @lujo, I tested the save with your instructions. I think Marrow-Fiend is supposed to stick around.
Going to the Buried Village, I was able to do Ku'u Yin's quest (but perhaps you did not complete it?), but for example Barr and Uhir respond to me like I've been here before (Uhir says "thanks again for helping out). Furthermore, the Court door is opened (Pharod dead inside). Going to Alley of Dangerous Angles allows to me to talk to Krystal, who thanks me once again (so no reset).

If I recall correctly, the generalized biffing mod was necessary to prevent the reset @argent77's Bag mod when entering (or generating?) the Modron Maze. It could be that generalized biffing has other unintended consequences as well with resetting whole areas. But I'm not seeing it on a clean install.

lujo

I did Ku'u Yin's quest. When the Lower Ward reset it revived Grossuk but Sebastion was acting normal. I killed Yellow Fingers in the agpicker's Square, too, and he's alive. So it doesn't fully reset?

AFAIK Argent77 said this about generalized biffing

Important note: The current patch version of PST:EE (v3.1.3) contains a bug that resets content, such as stores or areas, when you enter the Modron Maze. To work around this issue, it is strongly recommended to download and install Generalized Biffing as the final mod in the mod list.

Which I took to mean that it was mant to prevent areas refreshing.

--

So, on a clean install, you go into the maze, talk to the engineer in the engine room, reset the maze, use the lens (in your inventory) to get out, and Ragpickers doesn't become unexplored?

argent77

The Modron Maze bug resets game resources that are stored in savegames (such as stores or areas) to their original state if the resource in question is found in the override folder of the game. Installing Generalized Biffing works around this issue by moving all override content into BIFF files (you have to choose the option to biff everything).

lujo

I did just that, but is neither of you getting the "areas become unexplored" thing? I can video-proof it if you want, I guess.

Also @argent77 , while you're here, do you think a mod which would "unexplore" the map on Undersigil every time you exit (but just the exploration, not containers) be possible?

argent77

If you can find repro steps for this bug on an unmodded game you should report it on Redmine.

There is an 'UndoExplore()' script command that could be used to reset the exploration state of a map. But I don't think it works without unwanted side effects.

lujo

Allright, I'm starting an unmodded game on a new machine. If I can repro this I'll report it, I'll see about reportng the biffing thing you've mentioned, I'll round up and report everything that's supposed to have a portrait and doesn't (there's a bunch of stuff that randomly doesn't have portraits assigned, and I dont mean Louie, Vault of the 9th World and such), and a heap of other things I ran into so far.

argent77

Regarding exploration state of Undersigil, it should work well enough if you add the following script blocks on top of AR2000.BCS:

IF
  !Global("Current_Area","GLOBAL",2000)
  NearLocation(Player1,556,126,50)
THEN
  RESPONSE #100
    UndoExplore()
    ExploreMapChunk([556.126],0,400)
    Continue()
END

IF
  !Global("Current_Area","GLOBAL",2000)
  NearLocation(Player1,4912,1450,50)
THEN
  RESPONSE #100
    UndoExplore()
    ExploreMapChunk([4912.1450],0,400)
    Continue()
END

lujo

Yes, that seems to be perfect, thank you very much!

lujo

I ran into this again:

Using the Modron cube refreshed

- Ragpicker's Square (AR0101.ARE)
- Lower Ward (AR0500.ARE)
- Southwestern Hive (AR0400.ARE)
- Alley of Lingering Sighs (AR0401.ARE ? )
- Weeping Stone Catacombs
- Buried Village (AR0109.ARE)

And I haven't checked Dead Nations, Warrens of Thought, Drowned Nations and the big trapped Tomb.

The only mod I had installed was Unfinshed Bussiness. I didn't apply generalized biffing this time to rule that out. This thing is either a vanilla install bug (rather major one) or somehow an Unfinished Bussiness bug.

I'm not sure if all areas can be refreshed, but Ragpicker's Square seems to be consistently refreshed both this time and the previous time, and so is the Lower Ward.

--

The two saves are just before using the cube, and just before resetting the maze for the first time. I can't remember the console command for changing location, so I'd appreciate 2 things from any hepful soul:

1) Take the second save and console yourself out to Ragpicker's Square and see if it's fog got refreshed if you just entered the cube but didn't reset the maze
2) Take the second save and refresh the maze on a clean install, see if this refreshes exploration in any of these areas

lujo

Also @argent77 - This might actually be related to Unfinished Bussiness. (see post above)

Ragpicker's Square got Ratbone added to it,
Lower Ward had multiple people added if I'm not mistaken
Southwestern Hive has Elyce and Rake & Rake-Chaser
Weeping Stone Catacombs has the new tomb
Buried village has Ulthera

And idk if anything was done to the Alley of Lingering Sighs.

Do you think UB could have caused this?

argent77

lujo said:

I ran into this again:

Using the Modron cube refreshed

- Ragpicker's Square (AR0101.ARE)
- Lower Ward (AR0500.ARE)
- Southwestern Hive (AR0400.ARE)
- Alley of Lingering Sighs (AR0401.ARE ? )
- Weeping Stone Catacombs
- Buried Village (AR0109.ARE)

And I haven't checked Dead Nations, Warrens of Thought, Drowned Nations and the big trapped Tomb.

The only mod I had installed was Unfinshed Bussiness. I didn't apply generalized biffing this time to rule that out. This thing is either a vanilla install bug (rather major one) or somehow an Unfinished Bussiness bug.

As I mentioned before, using the Modron Cube will reset maps and stores if you haven't biffed the override folder. Since the game will also set or change a bunch of internal states and variables during gameplay you might see even more unexpected changes in the affected maps. You must install Generalized Biffing if you don't want to run into these issues.

lujo

argent77 said:

You must install Generalized Biffing if you don't want to run into these issues.

I did install it last time and I had these issues. Big part of the reason I'm doing this current playthrough at all was to test this without the Generalized Biffing because last time people thought that IT might be causing this.

Biffing or no biffing this seems to happen, but last time people couldn't reproduce it on a clean install. This time I have only UB installed, specifically to narrow down what might be causing this, and it is happening.

argent77

@lujo I have tested your second save ("Engine room") in different configurations:
1. UB+Biffing:
- Before resetting dungeon: Ragpicker's Square has NOT been reset.
- After resetting dungeon: Ragpicker's Square has NOT been reset.

2. UB only:
- Before resetting dungeon: Ragpicker's Square has NOT been reset.
- After resetting dungeon: Ragpicker's Square has been reset.

3. Clean installation:
- Before resetting dungeon: Ragpicker's Square has NOT been reset.
- After resetting dungeon: Ragpicker's Square has NOT been reset.

The test confirms my assumption that only resources found in any of the game's override folders will reset resources from the save.

Note: Several areas (e.g. AR0109, AR0400, AR0500 or AR1400) were not present in your saved game anymore. This might have happened when you entered the Modron Maze for the first time with UB installed but not biffed.

lujo

argent77 said:

Note: Several areas (e.g. AR0109, AR0400, AR0500 or AR1400) were not present in your saved game anymore. This might have happened when you entered the Modron Maze for the first time with UB installed but not biffed.

So, just entering the cube nullified my previous visits to these areas? Or resetting them? Becuase the second time is the first time I entered it on this playthrough. The first save, where I haven't yet entered the cube, shows everything as fine.

Just a question, if I now apply the biffing, then according to your assessment, I could enter the cube and things should be fine? Is it possible to biff mid-playthrough, do you by chance know?

argent77

Yes, the problematic script action is already executed when the Modron Cube transports the party to the maze. You can install Generalized Biffing at any time during gameplay, but not later than right before activating the cube for the first time if it should have any effect.

lujo

It worked! Thank you so much, what was confusing me a lot was that last time around I applied the biff only after I've discovered the problem.

I really hope they get that bug out of the game, though. It makes EE almot unmoddable. Do you maybe know anything else that triggers it? I haven't seen anything so far (this time I did everything in pre-Ravel game before touching the cube to see if anything triggers that bug).

argent77

The responsible script action is Modron Maze specific. I doubt the game or any mods may use it for other purposes.

Isewein

argent77 wrote: »

Regarding exploration state of Undersigil, it should work well enough if you add the following script blocks on top of AR2000.BCS:
IF !Global("Current_Area","GLOBAL",2000) NearLocation(Player1,556,126,50) THEN RESPONSE #100 UndoExplore() ExploreMapChunk([556.126],0,400) Continue() END IF !Global("Current_Area","GLOBAL",2000) NearLocation(Player1,4912,1450,50) THEN RESPONSE #100 UndoExplore() ExploreMapChunk([4912.1450],0,400) Continue() END

It would be great if you could integrate this as an UB install option, for convenience sake.

argent77

I don't think a feature like this fits into a content restoration mod. It could be an option for Tweaks Anthology, however.

Isewein

That's true, I was suggesting it due to the lack of a Ps:T EE specific tweak mod, but if Anthology accepts single game submissions I will suggest it to them.