Post by Seanlucidity in Witch Hat & Ears of Cat comments

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Hello tiagox :) I recently found time to invest in playing a new game starting in the web version of 1.0.5 . At this point made it to level 11 for all 3 main party members & lvl 10 for Shida, at the chapter entry of the graveyard is reallowed. I have beat each boss through grinding

(Minor locations & chp 11 spoilers below)

I found a greatly impactful bug that carries over save files that is triggered somewhere between obtaining the spirit severin and talking to the gravedigger. I believe entering the bed to change day to night may be involved, or be the bug trigger itself. --- The bug is that any exp gained is subtracted from all characters --- for the respective value to each individual character, that should have been positive, after (any) combat.

I noticed the bug and have experimented with it for a few hours prior to submitting this comment. I believe it may have occured on my prior play session this week without me noticing as the experience values in the character statuses were confusing me /didn't seem right, as I was grinding :') (I lost exp and only benefited items) on my way-out of Sirsui village and the Cliffside passage.

(The bug may have also occured somewhere around visiting the house of rest or after having the friendly match.)

(It is of note that my Shida was equipped with an attentive goggles and received their own respective exp for each battle (in negative.))

If occured once in a playthrough (I'm not sure if this is only true if in possession of a savefile containing proof of the bug.) this bug can affect older save files from all chapters, such as from chapter 5 "spice and a warg".

I theorize the bug may potentially stop a new/fresh game, made with the new_game button {on the same device, without clearing all saves}, from ever receiving exp.

I am unsure, as i have not experimented if; the debug mirror's given experience based on chapters will be dealt/received by the characters as positive values, if going back down a level is possible, or acheiving negative experience.

Sorry if I created a lot more development work needed on this game for you when you were close to finishing it. :(

I appreciate the commitment you've made to this project and your time taken to interact with your community.

P.s. the Peccora mansion quantum table will be remembered :)

Tiagox1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

Oh thanks a lot for the help trying to locate the bug! And I'm sorry it happened to you.

But that's really weird... Did you lose only the exp progress to the next level, or did your characters' level go back? It seems to be the former. Also, it did happen to everyone, and not just Shida, right? Did the battle screen display your gained exp as negative, or did you only look at it in the menu later and saw the number was smaller?

If I'm not mistaken, if I tell the engine to jump you to a certain level, it will you make the character's level exatcly it, and their progress to the next level should be reset. The weird thing is, this should only happen when you use the debug window to jump to a certain chapter, which levels up the 3 main characters. Shida isn't involved in the main story, so this shouldn't affect him either way.

It could be related to Attentive Goggles, but it has the simple effect of multiplying the exp you gain by 1.1 (so 10% more than normal). You actually losing exp after battle is REALLY weird, and I don't remember there being any status effect in the game that affects your exp gain aside from being dead (by default, it multiplies your gained exp by 0, which I manually removed anyway since this is a tough game and I don't want sacrificed characters to gain nothing from bossfights).

The only other event that can mess with a character's exp (that I can remember) is when they rejoin your party. RPG Maker gives me the option to initialize their data, meaning return to their default level (Lianna would be 1, Jeanne 4 and Shida 9). It's possible there's an event somewhere where a character rejoins your party and I accidentally left the initialize option marked. (note: you know a character has left your party when you open the pause menu. Sometimes I just disable followers for special events or cutscenes, which is only a visual thing)

When you change chapters by sleeping on a bed, the game runs the "recover all" code, restoring everyone to full health and healing any status ailments. And when you interact with it in the late game it only uses triggers to switch between day and night. So I don't think the bed is involved (the code for it is very short too, and I just double checked it)

If you want to keep trying to find it, those are all the leads I have. I'll have a good, long look at the events this weekend when I have the chance. Thanks again for your dedication and help!

(Btw, what do you mean quantum table? Did I forget a joke? xD)

edit 1: tried cheating to get my characters to a high enough level and equipped some with the attentive goggles. They still gain exp like normal. So I guess it's not related to their exp curve or something.

Seanlucidity1 year ago (1 edit)

So I confirmed the existance of the bug before started 2 new games that used the debug mirror and made a save of the progress. Now all my saves are receiving exp correctly, displaying both the total exp for each character increases, and the exp value to the next level decreases.

I'm certain that the total exp value displayed would decrease after each fight as i just assured myself a half hour ago, but now I'm unsure if the remaining exp display beneath it was or wasn't working properly previously. :/

I didnt get to check if i could go back down levels but I guess my weird problem is fixed now, and I now know a solution, despite not being able to fully locate the cause. ¯\_(••)_/¯ I believe strange interaction with the bed is involved because when I first came into contact with it, I interacted twice in a row by mistake (because I'd been farming herbs), turning it day again faster than it should have been able to.

If my problem couldn't be undone I planned on grinding for herbs in Hyuchi or Jack & William's cave and only participating boss fights to minimize exp loss, but now I don't have to. :)

Thank you Tiagox for reading my comment and informing me on how visual character disablement works. :)

The quantum table was a table model that you've (edit: mostly) progressed from using which filled a whole tile, existing on the edge of the Peccora mansions interior map, that I referred to in my first comment about 2 years ago. :)

You removed it in the update of the furnishings of Peccora mansion & removal of the invisible obstacle in the chapter 5 cutscene. It was a joke from quite a while ago. 😅

Tiagox1 year ago(+1)

Oh my! Yes, I remember changing the table and other furnishings after some update. Wow. That brings me back xD

Anyway, thanks again for the help. I'd be nice if you could recreate the bug, buf it it was indeed caused by stacking interactions together... Do you play the browser version? I have no idea why, but it's been known to let you skip entire lines of code if you click through cutscenes too fast. One player managed to retain the no clip/collisions off state after a cutscene had ended, and so phased through buildings in the whole game, but never managed to replicate it.

Well, right now my theory is that a similar thing is happening to you. The issue remains that the bed isn't supposed to mess with your characters' exp either way, so it's hard to tell what the culprit is. Maybe it's one of those crazy bugs that happen in pokemon where you can change parameters from one section of the game to another (like using an item ID for a pokemon), but at this point I'm just putting a tinfoil had on xD

The hunt still remains though. But thank you again for your effort!

itch.io

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