Bugs i found

Hi im Matt -a gaming enthusiast and c*/# programmer. I like wbc3 and this mod is great!

I found a ton of stuff that seemed incorrect though. If its customary here to open a thread for each bug I will do that later. For now I´ll aggregate stuff I found out here for the moment.

If its possible to help in modding / review the source code (I won´t sign ndas though for a 20 year old game) message me.

General:

-Editor not showing all items to test (mentioned in another forum thread BUT game in
non-stable beta stage is not balanced anyway). Please re-enable items for testing in 0.9

-game needs restart after each time played in multiplayer. I found this workaround like 5 mins after installing when testing with 2 pcs in LAN. Heards its a classic. plz fix in 0.9

-Inconsistent XP and perks vanishing: not fixed. Had this several times. Perks vanish and 3 xp per level on lvl 15+. I do use 0.8.9b

-Random crashes: Dunno what is causing those. Every now and then, the game just closes.

-64 Items on a map: Causes your inventory to vanish, all items become stones. Maybe its a faulty pointer (magical number 64 sounds like pointer math). 50 items work fine though.

-Collision detection: No idea if its intentional. Sometimes units clip into each other, especially when melee attacking. T-Rexes are prone to this.

-Locked AI Pathfinding: Sometimes two units that want to move in opposing directions just stand next to each other, locked.

-Pathfinding in general: No idea why, but on maps with water, the AI sends units first in a straight line towards their target (ignoring terrain and water) then from the border of the water to the target. Maybe use a* variant directly on issuing the order.


Specific bugs:

Items:

-Cursed items can crash your game (hence rendering the character unplayable)
The crash occurs once you select the hero in-game for the first time.
Found this with the blue sword giving -2 dam and magic damage when equipping it
on minotaur warrior.


Suggestions:

-Curse mechanic is unhealthy from my point of view. I suggest making changes to it.
For example a decurse spell. Or more quests with realistic conditions.

-Items are generally very imbalanced. My suggestion: Assign a level to them and add this level to the hero level for a "total power" level score usable in matchmaking.

-Balance changes (nerf) required for at least the Warlock and Priest classes (too strong)

-Balance changes (buff)required for High Elf (weaksauce side) AI is so bad too on HE


Thats it for now! Hope this helps!
-Matt

Hi Matt, thanks for your interest in the mod! I think some of the things brought up here have been fixed or adjusted in 0.9.0, whilst some other things are intentional or TBD.

FairyTail wrote:

If its possible to help in modding / review the source code (I won´t sign ndas though for a 20 year old game) message me.

We would be happy to have you on board, though the source code does require the signing of an NDA.

FairyTail wrote:

-Editor not showing all items to test (mentioned in another forum thread BUT game in
non-stable beta stage is not balanced anyway). Please re-enable items for testing in 0.9

This is intentional. Specific item viewing/placement is only available on the dev build. We could change this, but doing so could be awkward for anti-cheaters in multiplayer. In 0.9.0, players will be able to give test heroes any item they like, which should allow anyone to test any items too.

FairyTail wrote:

-game needs restart after each time played in multiplayer. I found this workaround like 5 mins after installing when testing with 2 pcs in LAN. Heards its a classic. plz fix in 0.9

We've known about this for as long as WBC3 has existed but none of us are network engineers so it will take us a long time to fix or we may not be able to fix it.

FairyTail wrote:

-Inconsistent XP and perks vanishing: not fixed. Had this several times. Perks vanish and 3 xp per level on lvl 15+. I do use 0.8.9b

It's fixed in 0.9.0.

FairyTail wrote:

-Random crashes: Dunno what is causing those. Every now and then, the game just closes.

It could be from a corrupt unit animation, which sometimes happens with a corrupt install. Without any information, there's no way of telling.

FairyTail wrote:

-64 Items on a map: Causes your inventory to vanish, all items become stones. Maybe its a faulty pointer (magical number 64 sounds like pointer math). 50 items work fine though.

This one is also intentional. It was done to hose old item maps from earlier versions. This may be changed in future, I'm not sure.

FairyTail wrote:

-Collision detection: No idea if its intentional. Sometimes units clip into each other, especially when melee attacking. T-Rexes are prone to this.

Because T-Rexes are 1x1 units, they and similar units will look like they 'walk over' other adjacent units. They were 2x2, but have been changed to 1x1 because the pathfinding is too inadequate to handle 2x2 units. We have no idea when the pathfinding will be improved, but it is a fairly high priority on our list.

FairyTail wrote:

-Locked AI Pathfinding: Sometimes two units that want to move in opposing directions just stand next to each other, locked.

-Pathfinding in general: No idea why, but on maps with water, the AI sends units first in a straight line towards their target (ignoring terrain and water) then from the border of the water to the target. Maybe use a* variant directly on issuing the order.

This is a known issue, related to the above. We'll fix it at some point, I don't think it will be by 0.9.0 though but who knows, it might make it in time.

FairyTail wrote:

-Cursed items can crash your game (hence rendering the character unplayable)
The crash occurs once you select the hero in-game for the first time.
Found this with the blue sword giving -2 dam and magic damage when equipping it
on minotaur warrior.

What level was the Minotaur Warrior and what were their stats?

FairyTail wrote:

-Curse mechanic is unhealthy from my point of view. I suggest making changes to it.
For example a decurse spell. Or more quests with realistic conditions.

We're planning to adjust it so that de-cursing is more available/omnipresent. De-cursing heavily cursed items (items of a specific name which are always cursed) will unequip the item instead of destroying it. Also, standard items which have become cursed (non-heavily cursed items) get a bonus whilst cursed so it's not explicitly detrimental. These changes should generally fix the curse mechanic come 0.9.0.

FairyTail wrote:

-Items are generally very imbalanced. My suggestion: Assign a level to them and add this level to the hero level for a "total power" level score usable in matchmaking.

We're planning to do something very similar to this in 0.9.0. In the next patch version, the Handicap mode will give lower level / worse-equipped heroes temporary bonus skill points depending on the highest level / strongest hero before the start of a battle.

FairyTail wrote:

-Balance changes (nerf) required for at least the Warlock and Priest classes (too strong)

Currently the Warlock has been nerfed. The Priest is yet to be analysed.

FairyTail wrote:

-Balance changes (buff)required for High Elf (weaksauce side) AI is so bad too on HE

They've been suitably buffed in the next version. Every race is generally much more on par with each other.

Thanks for the bug reports and the feedback! We greatly appreciate it. If there's any other bugs or suggestions, feel free to post them. It may be a good idea to check out the public feedback document to check up on the list of bug reports (suggestions too).

I´m hyped. Any guess when .9 will be playable?

as I am indie developing games my full intent is to scavenge code bases for inspiration- a nda is not helpful as I am going to reuse interesting code patterns for my own projects.
too bad. if things change on that end, it would be my pleasure to assist.

I am working on a strategy trading card game and an rts game using unity physics (units can be "thrown around" and stuff). who is interested can pm me for example for my ytube channel where i showcase my projects and upload designs i share with my team.

the minotaur warrior i was testing on was ~ lvl 15 like all chars i tested. I found out its easy to use multiman mode and 2pcs to test the heroes on decent levels. I deleted it as its no longer playable. my guess here is that the cleave/splash perk of the warrior could be the culprit here.

-Matt

Kharn wanted to post this:

Kharn wrote:

Items in the Editor becoming Blight Stones is intentional. It was my childish way of punishing players for abusing item maps since multiplayer in versions 0.8.6 to 0.8.8 were plagued by people min-maxing heroes to the point where people would first pick 7 items with the best synergy with each other and then create a hero to go with those items. It eventually got to the point where it was "common knowledge" to need to need to do your homework outside of the game to see what items your hero must have and then use an item map to get those because the power increase from such min-maxed builds were so extreme that it was the only way to compete with other players that did this (unless you played with No items, but most players refused to play with that option). Otherwise it was like playing a level 15 hero vs a level 40 hero.

The item restriction in the Editor was a follow up to the above. But at some point, I'll change "item map handling" to simply the restrict the number of chests you can place in the map, like what the vanilla game did. Probably something like 10 (that's 40 items).

The level restriction on items is similar to the stat requirements we have now. But I've largely lost interest in the item system these days so can't say anything about that right now. Should we have level restrictions as well a stat restrictions? Perhaps just level restrictions? Maybe only the stat restrictions? Don't know, don't really care. Someone else can make a more informed decision on this one.
.
The crash on the heavily cursed item is specific to that sword. The game crashes when it tries to display the damage stat on the hero due to the negative alteration. However, there's a little more to this because a blatant -2 on the damage stat works fine. So it might be a conflict with Mighty Blow (even from other items). However, this is redundant in 0.9 as the weapon no longer reduces the damage stat.

As for curse ways, it has been noted that the methods in de-cursing are a little too infrequent. We've already made the influencer for quests a bit stronger, along with the influencer for making the hero who cursed the items to appear. Although I want to make that even more frequent as that's such a cool side-plot and want more people to experience it. In addition, we also have plans to make potions that can remove curses, but that won't be here until 0.9.1 as we want heroes to be able to carry potions in a similar manner to items. I.E: Have a space for like 10 potions. So you could carry 10 healing potions or 9 healing an 1 mana etc...

The quests need rebalancing for sure and not just because of the changes in 0.9. They're always being tinkered with as we play the game. But 0.9.1 has plans to revitalise the quest system so it remains to be seen how much work we want to do with quests right now. They'll probably just be rebalanced and left like that until the new system comes in.

0.8.9b was fairly stable, with only 1 real common and reproducible crash (which was fixed in the super hotfix posted in the announcements  channel.) All others are highly situational, which might have already been fixed in 0.9 since we fix them as soon as we find them. Any still lingering are those that we have yet to see for ourselves.
.
The network code is ancient and probably coded by the Ancient Egyptians, right after building the Pyramids. It uses a lot of Direct Play functions and so we're limited as to what we can change here. For example, the occasional stall on coming out of an MP game is something to do with the game waiting for Direct Play to release an object or something. My network knowledge is quite limited and probably will remain that way. I've only recently learnt how the game's message buffering works while fixing an MP crash with Temp Heroes.

As for not wanting to sign an NDA for the code, there's nothing we can do here. This one's down to the publisher as even Steve Fawkner himself said he actually wants WBC to be opensource. So this one's on Enlight, or who ever owns the rights for the game right now.

he AI trying to attack things beyond reach is semi-resolved in 0.9. The AI won't send melee units to attack things they can't physically get to. Range units will still work the way they always have done since I really don't want to add moderate sized for loops to one of the most performance hitting functions in the game - the attitude threat detection system. I may do it since ships are suffering a bit here. But we'll see what impact it has on the game. If we got more performance back by making the game multithreaded (however you do that) or by moving the graphics system to the GPU (which Redwater did actually achieve, but wasn't finished) then we would have more performance to play with, and thus we can make the AI cleverer.

The AI's units bumping into each other and not moving is also down to the core pathfinding system as the AI is very dependent on that actually doing what it's meant to do. Basically, the AI will order it's units to do something and then only reorder if the target changes or if the unit loses it's order. So a stuck unit will be left until the pathfinding system resolves the situation, which it might never do. I have done some minor things here to help the AI, like killing any critters that get in it's way or having units in a group not fall back to the group leader when too far away from him if the leader is stuck. But this is working around the main issue since, quite frankly, I don't fancy tackling the pathfinding system at the moment. But Redwater and Intikhab had already started looking into it before they got caught up in real life issues. Depending on what happens with all that, I may actually end up looking into after all. It's definitely a big issues, if not the biggest issue with the game right now. So it does need looking into sooner rather than later.
As for High Elf AI, that would be the High Elf requiring more strategy to use. There is only a single AI in the game and it plays all the races the same with no special handling or exceptions. So when the AI is playing high Elves, it'll play them the same way as Minotaurs and that's basically just build up a group of units until it hits a set quantity and then orders that group to attack something. 0.9 has started to branch out the AI's capabilities of doing things and shaking things up so it can offer some form of strategical game play. But it's still early days yet as all this will require lots of changing, updating and generally tinkering that'll be gradually introduced throughout TPC's patches.

Regarding "Cursed items can crash your game (hence rendering the character unplayable)
The crash occurs once you select the hero in-game for the first time.
Found this with the blue sword giving -2 dam and magic damage when equipping it
on minotaur warrior"

I have a friend that has the exact same problem. It's with the Phassorem, Blood Reaper, and as soon as he selects the hero, the game crashes to desktop. His hero: Empire Warrior, New Lysean lvl 15. Str 12 Dex 7 Int 5 Cha 5. Perks of tactical formation, master at arms, warcry, and minimalist architecture. He's holding out hope that he will be able to play this hero in .9

He will. The bug is fixed in 0.9 and old heroes will be imported.

Is there a possibility to get a patch for version 0.8.9b repairing this vanishing perks problem?
In 0.9 when i import hero with vanished perks will they be returned or they are lost forever?

You are asked to respec in 0.9, so you will get all the necessary points back.

Hello there!

There is a list of bugs, i found during my test run of version 0.8.9b:
Dark Elf Ice Mage
In WBC3 campaign if you try to skip cutscene after first mission at the very beginning, game crashes. I tried that on different characters, but It happens only with dark elves.
High Elf Ice Mage
WBC 3 campaign Treasure Hunt#2 - crap really hit the fan. Most of the naming of characters suddenly became strange or messed up in choosing starting battleteam screen. Retune was not harmed. Battle began, and I lost it. I mean venerable wisp and iceguard were standing on one place. Game referred to that as White Tower. Three Dragon Knights suddenly stood their ground and also became White Towers, if you trust game. Than remaining Icequards suddenly started to attack enemies at distance of 4, dealing 44 dmg each. Health was over 200 hp. Longbows also became stuff of nightmare - 240 hp, awesome damage and stuff. Buildings...
Well, high elven keep had no price tag to build, 1 second to build. Upgrade also lasted 1 second, after that building had nothing to do. I managed to build tree of gold after second keep, cuz it required level 1 keep. Prices on Iceguard were 117683 gold and 4845 stone, so I could never ever afford such a soldier. Dragon Knights costed as King Lunarion himself! Time passed, and price tag on Dragon Knights skyrocketed to six numbers of each resource. At least my troops were worthy of nerves I spent on Treasure Hunt #1, while waiting for trade skill to be researched. Those, who could move, were just overkill aganist enemy armies.

And, by the way, is it normal, that Warlock can not be healed by ssrathi shamans, barbarian witchdoctors and empire healers? Or it is just a curse from Bloodlust?

Warlocks cannot be healed by any spells. We should probably write that in the class description.