Old bug still here
NeverwinterWights
Member Posts: 339
While playing today I ran into an old bug that apparently still hasn't been fixed (maybe can't be). It's when a monster is just completely invisible for no reason and you can't attack it because you can't click on it. You can just see the name moving around. Not sure if it's been brought up again yet but figured I'd just mention it.
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In game terms they are still there because they still hit me. And if I manage to get into combat with them (eg via cleave from an enemy I am already fighting then I can attack them).
If I press TAB then I can see their names appear. But I can’t see the actual enemies, nor can I click on them (or rather click on where they should be).
I can’t suggest steps to repeat the bug because it is very rare - I’m up to chapter 3 and it’s happened maybe 3 times so far.
Saving and reloading fixes the problem (although it does mean I’ll have just reloaded into the middle of a fight which can sometimes be tricky) so it’s not a huge issue.
I’m playing OC with no mods.
I haven't repro'd it in EE as we're still delaying migration, but here's a 1.69 screenie:
I bothered screenie-ing after EE was announced it in case a bug ticket might be warranted, but as I said, I have not seen it personally in EE. This particular area uses only 2 BW monster models: the rat and wererat. All mobs were normal except the one individual I could not see - my partymate could see the enemy and attack it, though. I paused for a screenie rather than triggering an AoE right away. I didn't manage to get the name tag in the screenie, but you can see we're fighting a wererat in the log that is not visible on-screen.
Does anyone know of a reliable way to reproduce this? It'd be great to be able to track ti down and fix it, but it's so rare I don't know that it's worth the effort.
-Dave
From the way this sounds to me, it might be a) the appearance ID not syncing down to a client randomly or b) the model randomly not loading on clients. Neither option is even remotely appealing, as one would be a network bug (unlikely), and the other a renderer/resource loader bug (more likely, but also ugh).
Very weird. I think we might have to sit on this for a little while and see if some more data pops up. I'll be giving it some thought meanwhile, but without a repro or any idea under what circumstances this happens it's unlikely to be found.
Back when I was doing dev work for a server years ago we managed to stop this from happening in almost all cases by moving all of our encounter triggers well away from where they spawn (preferably with walls and/or a door between their spawn location or an exceptional distance).
Things like being blinded for .2 of a second, entering darkness without ultravision, reloading the area/relogging, forcing the npc via scripting to enter sanctuary (we used a chat command that did it to all NPC's within a colossal radius I think?) for a tiny amount of time all work to make such redraw.
*edit* Further info to add, it tends to happen with static models rather then dynamic models, if a dynamic model spawns like such generally various parts of them are still visible like their head, random hands/legs that sorta thing.
I've also had this occur several times on this and other PWs on my PC. So, for bug fixing sake, it is certainly not limited by hardware.
Any updates or ideas for a solution?
Finally, leaving the area and returning will often reset the appearance of the invisible creature. We've shown this recently in v1.69 in opportunistic testing vs neutral NPCs afflicted by the bug. For this particular case, the PC who couldn't see a merchant left to an AFK area and then immediately returned, fixing the issue in this instance.
-Dave
As I understand, the bug is random and appears to happen when the enemy (or enemies) have yet to loose its forced invisible state and the engine skip this process for some reason. Since the Point&Click system have a condition that make it so that the player can't select any enemies with the invisible state and this version of it skip the almost every type of check, it's a bug that seem to be only countered with AIs assistance (which always see the invisible stuff).
Unless someone breaks down the invisibility system for the players, there's not much that can be done with this "random" issue. My guess is that it might be related to the way the old engine works with its framerate.
A potential solution would be to add an option that allow, for example, player to select and attack the enemy through the chat panel. (The chat display all action from any NPCs and Players against the current client's player/team.) Ideally, this would need to only work with NPCs and not between players (in Multiplayer) to avoid totally break the invisible state. Otherwise, a player could attack an invisible player regardless of its checks simply by select & attack the invisible player through the chat panel.
Even adding a condition like a % reduction on this would still be better than being unable to do anything for as long as the enemy remains invisible due to the bug. (It's especially a pain in the butt when you can't move out of the area because you're stuck in a battle.)