Euphoria

Quote "Please don't even suggest laziness. A5 is shareware--not commercial--but it involves considerable effort to release and to maintain after release. Throw in Mac and Win support and you have quite a challenge. You don't have to be a coder/scripter to figure that out." Don't tell me that a game you must pay to play is shareware. Yes, there is a free demo section. Want to actually get into the game, pony up $25. How is that a non-commercial game? Stop the holier than thou attitude, accept reality, and admit that for a commercial game this is bug riddled. Even if many of the quests are designed to be missed if you don't do things in the correct order, many of the other issues with quests are clearly not by design. Example, see the new posting about the Lyssic quest bug where the guy kills the last 2 at the same time. Or for that matter, the Spy quest, where I did get the quest, but then triggered both ambushes before "finishing" part one of the quest. Part 2 hangs. Also, from a pure point of view...how exactly is one to know which things are quest related, and not quest related prior to exploring? From that arguments standpoint, one should never explore, and never kill anything because it might cut off a potential quest in the future. And, if you don't know where the job boards are (also, many quests are not found on job boards at all) it means that to even discover a quest, you may possibly ruin a quest in the search for the quests. Another issue is that some quests are so far ahead of the quest object (monster, item, etc...) that any natural order of progression is completely ruined. If this happens to be by design, then I say, it is poor design. Can't handle that opinion? Deal with it.

Nope, that is them nude.

Jeff, First, I appreciate that you do in fact read the posts here, and care to understand, contrary to what a few other members here have posted. Second, you are not understanding me correctly. I do understand that buying skills from trainers causes the cost to increase, and I also understand that the cost increase is after every 2 levels. Let me try to rephrase what is occurring, so as to make this bug more clear. For clarity sake, and to make things simpler, assume all character in my party are identical... which they just so happen to have been. The saved game file I am looking at...my party is currently in Shaker's Tower. It is fairly early in the game. I will write out the info just for melee and pole, as this is one of the bugged skills, and illustrates the issue perfectly. All 4 of my characters are: Melee lvl 0 cost 4 Pole lvl 0 cost 4 Ok, so given this situation it is obvious that I have not put any skill points into these 2 skills, nor have I visited a trainer. They are at the default of level 0. Simple enough. Now, when I train, Using Skill Points, my slot # 1 character *lets call this guy A for short* this is what happens: Melee lvl 1 cost 5 <---BUGGED Pole lvl 1 cost 4 then Melee lvl 2 cost 5 Pole lvl 2 cost 5 then Melee lvl 3 cost 6 Pole lvl 3 cost 5 This is what happens for my other 3 characters when I train these same skills with Skill Points: Melee lvl 1 cost 4 Pole lvl 1 cost 4 then Melee lvl 2 cost 5 Pole lvl 2 cost 5 then Melee lvl 3 cost 5 Pole lvl 3 cost 5 When I instead take these characters to a trainer to gain the 1st 3 lvls via $$$ the same exact progressions occur as noted above. Only one of the characters has the bugged costs. This is also exactly how the Spellcraft skill is bugged *except on a different character slot...slot #3 to be specific*, adjusting for the fact that SC begins as cost 3. The ringer is, when I load my earliest save file of this game, which is right after the start...these skills are NOT bugged like this!! Something in the demo area, or the N. Isles upto Shanker's Tower is causing this, though I do not know what is the cause. Is this more clear? EDIT: Just to spell it out for people, so they don't ask ridiculous questions, I will also hash out the spellcraft issue. No, none of my characters has any skill levels in SC to begin with, thus, it looks like this to begin with: Spellcraft lvl 0 cost 3 For the bugged character it then goes: SC lvl 1 cost 4 SC lvl 2 cost 4 SC lvl 3 cost 5 Whereas, for the normal characters it goes: SC lvl 1 cost 3 SC lvl 2 cost 4 SC lvl 3 cost 4 The net effect of this bug, is that, since trainers look at the cost as the determining factor in limiting how many times you can train with the, the bugged characters can only train 2 times at a trainer in the bugged skill, not 3. Also, they must pay more skill points for the same skill level, and over time that adds up to many wasted skill points. I consider this to be a bad bug.

I have come up with a very simple script hack that will allow non-Anama to access the better spells that Meena can teach. Open z134Tahonardlg.txt in the scripts folder. Find begintalknode 99 Change this: 47,4,0); break; with this: 48,0,0); break; Now when you goto Meena all her spells are available for purchase without joining this magic hating cult. Enjoy.

I am very calm...just reporting bugs. This is the A5 forum, and seems an entirely appropriate place to post bug discoveries. Especially to discover if other players are encountering them as well. If Jeff doesn't read these forums...oh well.

no, not the game system, yes a bug. I did not buy anything in those stats...those stats were at lvl 0. I am very aware of what I did, and did not invest my skill points in. How else would you explain a character only being able to train upto lvl 2 in a skill at a trainer? (note, train UPTO lvl 2, not train 2 lvls) How else would you be able to explain the cost for training the next level being 1 point higher than all the other characters with the skill at the same level, all characters having recieved the same exact bonuses, trainer training, investment, or lack thereof. All things being equal, the cost to train at the same level should be the same. Also, if you read my initial post I make it clear that I do not invest skill points in any skill that can be bought from a trainer till AFTER I visit said trainer. Therefore, your explanation is impossible Azuma. If circumstances were otherwise I would not be wondering why I can't train 3 lvls at a trainer, and would not bother wasting my time, or any of your time, posting a false bug report.

I didn't realize that realism is a key element of a Fantasy RPG game with monsters, magic, and a made up world. I must be drunk or something. IMO, your argument is a poor excuse to attempt to smooth over poorly written quest code.

"@Euphoria's request.. I dig it..I think that job boards quest items should instead be dropped by enemies and not go into the special inventory..and when job boards specific target is killed..the game records it..and let's you get the reward..only part where I disagree with Euphoria is the "all quests at the beginning" part..that'll be RunEscape-ish.." I only suggest that as a solution if they cannot find a better way, or turn out to be too lazy. I agree with you, it would be...a bit stupid.

Here is another bug that I find very annoying. When moving (I tend to use a combination of keypad, and mouse movement) with the keypad, and entering combat a very very bad thing happens. I click 1 keystroke, combat begins, and my 1st 2 characters auto move in the same direction as my last keystroke before entering combat so many times that it uses up ALL of their action points!!!! This happens 100% of the time (unless I am lucky enough to have a wall, or other obstruction in the characters path to stop them), and makes using the keypad to move in certain circumstances impossible. Ironically, it is in exactly the situations that I'd prefer to use keypad movement (dungeons) that I am least able to do so. Jeff, and your spiderweb team, please fix this issue!

I have run into a fairly minor, but annoying bug, that affects skill point cost, and therefore how many skill levels you can buy from trainers. First off, I do not know what is triggering this bug; partly this is due to my playing style. I try to maximize my skills by not investing in any skill that can be bought at a trainer till after I visit the trainer. So, I am not aware of the issue till I visit a trainer, and find I can only buy 2 levels instead of three. What happens is this. I get to the trainer (this has happened 2 times my my current game, each with a different skill, on different characters), and find that one of my characters somehow has a skill cost as though they had invested in the skill 1 time. It occurred first with spell craft on my slot # 3 character. Spellcraft begins with a cost of 3 skill points. When character 3 bought 1 point of spellcraft at Shanker his SC cost went to 4, while the other characters bought 2 levels before it went to 4 (btw, this suggest that the trainer level limit is based on skill cost, not skill level). Somehow, this character had the cost bumped up by 1 level, even though the character did not gain an actual level in the skill. This happened early in the game. I do not know exactly when or where in the demo area this happened. It was a minor issue, I used the editor to give that character the level he was due, and just accepted that the skill would cost slightly more for that character if I decided to invest in that skill on that character in the future (yeah, that character happened to be a spellcaster, great). The next time I ran into this issue was at Captain Dixon in the Tranquility area. My slot #1 fighter could only buy 2 levels of pole arms!!! The same thing occurred as with the SC skill. His skill cost was somehow moved up by 1 level, even though he had not been give the level in the skill. I began re-loading saves to find how far back this happened to the character, and discovered that it went all the way back to a save in the demo section. So...something in the DEMO section is doing this for both SC, and Pole arms. I am not sure if any other skills have been affected (partly because many I still have not unlocked). I just wanted to see if this has happened with anyone else? Also, just want to give people a heads up to look for this, and also hope that Jeff might look into this and give it the appropriate fix it needs.

Regardless of the fact that this may be a minor quest...this is a pervasive problem with A5. I think a commercial game should not have such major, repeated flaws. Jeff needs to address this issue, in a timely manner, with a patch. I must say, needing to read spoliers, and constantly worry that by exploring I am screwing up quests is impacting my enjoyment of the game. Even with reading all the warnings I still find that at times I forget something, and mess up a quest. I save often, and usually I don't need to replay much. Even with all that, I had to redo then entire demo, as I did mess something up. And another time needed to hack the scripts to fix another issue as I had played too much to stomach a replay. For $25 none of us should have these issues. Either quests events should only be triggered once you have the quest, or the game should remember what you have done, and you can get the quest finished retroactively. Either way is possible to code, and Jeff and his Spiderweb team should do this. Edit: Another solution...have all quests auto assigned when you enter a new area. Or, start the game with all quests assigned. Whatever works. Whatever they will do to actually solve the issue.

I suppose a work around could be written via conversation. For instance, adding: code = change_coins(-1000); alter_stat(30000,14,1); to a conversation would give you 1 point of spellcraft for 1000 gold! I suppose dialogue driven shops, and trainers could be developed. It might not be as polished as using shops, but if they are hard coded, and we cannot mod them, then that is our only option. Perhaps Jeff would spill the beans on this one, given that we could get what we want either way; it would just make life easier on us modders.

Well, I am trying to tinker with things a bit more, and have run into something that, as of yet, I cannot find how to change. Does anyone know how to change what can be bought in shops? In my case I was looking to change what skills are offered by trainers, but this should apply to any shop...spells, skills, or just normal items for sale. I see that in the various zone txt files there will be a line that indicates a shop. For example: code = begin_shop_mode("Incantatrix Shanker", "The wizard of the isle is willing to teach you powerful magic for a reasonable fee. The Empire would not be pleased, but who would tell them?", 20,2,0); Where is the txt file that deals with shops? Any help would be appreciated.

You had made it clear, to me at least, and I had indeed killed "The Beast" before using this script solution. So, anyone who has finished the Lysstak quest, and finds that they can't get rid of the Spy quest, try this...it works!

Dikiyoba thank you for your helpful reply. I will try this out and see if it works. As you correctly keyed into, I am mainly interested in clearing the quest, and not hung up on the reward end of things. EDIT: Just applied the solution provided, and everything seems to have worked flawlessly. Huge Thank You out to Dikiyoba for saving me several hours. I am the OCD type of player where if even a little thing gets left undone, or comes out sloppy (like a hung quest) I have to go back and replay it. You saved me an afternoon. Thanks again.