Paladin's Cove beta release, and feedback

typo:

 

I have played a bit of Paladin's Cove with Temple+ and these are the problems I have noticed so far. (I haven't played it without Temple+ so I don't know what is supposed to be what)

Spoiler

1. When you talk the the Guildhall Administrator, you are able to choose one dialog option before it softlocks you.
2. There have been multiple fights where enemies do not have anything. No armor, weapons, or even gold.
3. At the Crypt Cave location, when you go down the ladder there is a group of dead men. Every time I would reload my game, they had different items. Sometimes, there was very good items for early game.
4. In the Paladin's Cove, some of the guards of docksmen teleport around instead of walking.
5. There were a few dialog lines my characters would say walking around Paladin's Cove, but it just showed up as an error with a missing file (Might just be my fault)
6. When at the Crossroads, the Orc Hunt and the Gnoll Hunt quests either don't work at all or don't work if you kill them before you get the quest.
7. Another thing at the Crossroads, when I went to the swamp to get a fish for the troll, I wasn't able to find anything to pick up and bring back. The fish and dead body didn't have the item I needed to give to the troll.
8. Once again at the Crossroads, for Goblin Game, I couldn't talke to the priest for Rhondi about weakening the army or even find the sorceress for Trenn. (Unless it was the witch, in which case she wouldn't let me do anything either)
9. For Bats in the Attic, after I killed the dire bats, I couldn't tell Parvo about it.
10. For Eviction Notice, the guy I need to evict doesn't show up ever.
11. I don't know if there is more to it, but for Werehouse Robberies, I killed everyone in the underground place and found the iron but it won't let me complete the quest.
12. When in town and using the world map to move around faster, the Marketplace spawns you in front of the church, the Docks spawn you outside the wall on the left side of the map, and the Residential spawns you in the water outside the walls.
13. In the Crypt Cave, where the zombie warriors are, there is a random shadow wizard that doesn't attack unless you attack it.
14. Not a problem but a question. Is the Rabbit at the Crypt Cave from Monty Python? A +16 Strength bonus seems a bit much for a rabbit.
Hopefully this is helpful. There are a few other quests I haven't tried yet, which I hope will not have problems, but so far this module is amazing. Thank you so much for all your hard work.

 

did I miss #14? Or maybe I don't remember it?

time for a reload

 

For #11 - this is NOT a T+ issue.

i had the same trouble, without T+, and if you look in these pages here you can find the solution. But, basically, there is more to explore - and the timing of that exploration is the key.

 

I thought that the might be the case. Thanks for confirming.

 

First, thanks for taking the time to test and document. I appreciate it. I'll address the problems that appear to not be related to Temple+.

OK, next, I hope I can say this as delicately possible.

I heavily suggest starting over without Temple+. Most of those bugs should not be appearing, and have not been reported before.

PLEASE, to anyone who tries this mod...
PLEASE, play your FIRST time WITHOUT TEMPLE+.

********************************************************************
[Begin minor rant]

It will make me very frustrated and depressed if I read people saying: "Yeah, I tried Paladin's Cove, but there were so many bugs I wouldn't waste your time." I don't want this to create a bad reputation where word gets out that the mod is heavily bugged, and nobody else wants to try it. When in fact, most of the bugs came from Temple+ integration. It's not Temple+ itself, but the integration of the two, which is deeply WIP.

Before releasing this, even though it's still beta, I painstakingly made sure it was as bug-free as possible. And I'm elated that there have been no major bugs, nor any quest-halting bugs as the ones you have listed above. The worst problems so far have been a few glitchy maps, some confusingly worded quests and dialogs, some dialog typos, and a few smaller quests that can't be finished under certain fringe circumstances.

[End of rant where I probably sound like an pompous ungrateful doosh]
*********************************************************************
OK, the majority of the bugs in your list above are likely from Temple+ integration. From previous reports, it looked like some of the "san" functions for NPC's are not firing properly at times, resulting in:

- Un-equiped, naked, or un-spawned NPC's and monsters. (problems #2,#3, #6, #7, #10, #13).
- NPC deaths not being recorded and counted correctly (problem #9).
- Worldmap problems (#12).
- Dialog issues. (problems #1, #5 ).​

These three problems you reported are mine:

#4: First, can you explain what you mean by "teleporting"?

If they're walking around randomly and thru walls, then that's my fault. I put too much distance between waypoints on the patrolmen and dockhands, and sometimes they do that. It looks really stupid when it happens, but it's generally harmless. I think going inside somewhere and coming out makes it go away. It's on my list to fix.

If you mean something else when you say "teleporting", let me know.​

#8: The Rhondi Cleric, and the Trenn Sorceress.

Before you can do any quests for the Rhondi Cleric, you first have to become an ally of Rhondi. You do this by doing two quests for the Rhondi Commander.

The Trenn sorceress is within the blacksmith pavilion at the center of town. It's the same situation with her and her quests. You have to become a Trenn Ally first, by doing two quests for the Trenn commander.

If you've done this, and it's still not working, we'll need to look at all the tracking bits to see what's going on.
​

#11: There's a final boss encounter that happens, before the quest can finish.

Spoiler

At night, climb up the ladder at the far end of the caves.

 

First off, I completely understand where you are coming from. I wouldn't want to work on something for so long and have other people think it is a mess when it isn't. I think it is a work of art and I would gladly go through it again without Temple+.

For #4, I literally mean they are teleporting. Disappearing in one place and appearing in another might be a better way to say it. But like you said, it is harmless.

For #8, that makes sense, but when I did the gnoll hunt and orc hunt quest, it wouldn't let me talk to either of them about it. I also already killed them before I got the quests.

For #11, there was nobody there. (Unless I'm being stupid) Probably too scared to face me.

 

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you're enjoying it. Yes, I would suggest a vanilla play-through as your first attempt.

Yeah, that's weird for sure. I've never seen that kind of phasing in and out like that, nor has it been reported before. The worst that happens in my testing is they walk astray through buildings and such. I hate to fall on the same old crutch, but I'll file that into the "Temple+ integration bugs" folder for now. Unless someone testing w/o T+ reveals the same problem too.

That situation is specifically handled in both Commander's dialog. When the time comes where you are offered the quest to kill the orcs or gnolls, if you've already killed them, you'll get a dialog option that says "I've already taken care of those orcs.". Then the Commander says "Well done!", the quest is completed, and the dialog moves on.

So, if that's not happening, something is amiss...

Keep in mind, you must complete the first quest for each Commander where you heal their wounded soldiers, THEN the gnoll/orc quest gets offered. I'm assuming you've done this, since you know about the quests.

To get technical, the game marks that you've killed either group by tracking the Orc Sergeant's death (or Gnoll Leader for the gnolls). It's triggered when either one dies. This sets a global variable (313 for the Orcs, and 311 for the Gnolls).

So if you don't kill their leader, it won't allow you to finish. This may sometimes occur if you put him to sleep, or charm him. (I need to make an upgrade that allows for that situation). But if you've truly killed them, and those global variables are NOT set, it means that their san_dying () function didn't trigger, because of T+ issues.

This is the same situation as above.

The final boss group appears when you've killed enough of their minions in the caves.

Spoiler

You must kill at least:

4 wererats
2 pirates
2 skeltons
​

They can't be charmed or put to sleep. They must be dead.

So, once again, it may be that you haven't cleaned out the caves enough, OR their san_dying() function did not get called properly by T+, and their deaths are never recorded.

Also, based on feedback, I need to clean up how this quest ends. It wasn't meant to be a big puzzle, where you have to kill a certain number of enemies, then slog around forever searching for the boss until you happen to hit the perfect place and time. I hate that kind of thing, but I accidentally made it myself.

 

Got the typos, thanks again.

 

I'd be curious if there was a way for the cave to repopulate with one or two more enemies if you don't find the boss.

But also add something, somewhere, as a clue to guide people to the solution.

Maybe a dialog somewhere, or something.

 

Greetings adventurers, I have returned from the dead to explore Paladin's Cove and I am positively delighted with what I have seen so far. This mod is a true gem, and you should be very proud, Marc.

Having said that, I am facing issues in the Crossings. I will preface this by saying that I was lazy upon install and did not uninstall Temple+ beforehand as instructed, but I feel like it is worth mentioning anyway in case other players have also run into similar issues and were able to resolve them. If the lack of compatibility is the issue, then I will acknowledge my screw-up and move on the best I can. It's not like I won't be playing through the mod again in the future!

So, in the Crossings village, any time Mabon is onscreen, and any time I'm in the antique shop, I experience huuuuuuuge lag. Like, the game is technically playable, but... not really. This did not occur with Mabon during the battle either. This lag really intensifies near Mabon's hut, and causes intense graphical errors, PCs randomly teleporting, and CTDs. As of right now, I am unable to enter Mabon's Hut without causing a crash.

On a related note, Sitra (if you're still in the thread)... is it too late to uninstall Temple+ now? Or delete the files right out of the directory to improve compatibility? I have backed up my entire Co8/T+ installation, so I don't think I'm losing anything. Or is it kind of unable to be salvaged because I'm on a current save?

 

Also, what do I do if I have a party of 8 PCs when I find the historian? I can't kick anyone out to bring him back home, and I'd rather not if I could avoid it haha.

 

Before we even consider compatibility have you used a single feat, spell, character class (including any prestige class) not found in the Players Handbook? These are exclusively Temple plus and any character with any of these is unplayable without it

 

No, I have not. I did notice that when I deactivated Co8 and activated Paladin's Cove in the front-end, all of the supplemental content from Temple+ was also removed. I do see some Python extensions in the directory, but there's no additional content in the actual game itself, from what I can see.

So prestige and supplemental classes, new spells, new feats, etc. are a no-show in my game.