Be warned, the game is designed to softlock you.

[Biggles]

So this has now happened to me on two separate saves, and the developers didn't give any help and just told me that I'm wrong when I reported the problem before.

I found out that a number of the "Main Missions" have timers that will fail the quest and that unless you get specific upgrades or stockpile the required items before starting the quest then your game just gets softlocked. If you fail one of these missions, then your game will not be able to progress to the next step in the story and you will be unable to progress.

I've tried just about everything I can think of, but I have now lost two saves and 6+ hours of play to a mission that I had no possible way to complete.

For reference, the biggest quest that I'm having issues with is "Cover my Glass" where the train needs the windows repaired and the timer is one day. I'm not able to get the upgraded furnace before then, so smelting the glass takes longer than a full day, and I end up failing it from the timer and now can't progress. This has happened on two saves now, and I will have to start the entire game for a third time.

I reported the problem and the developers told me that "It is a side quest" and that "Mi-an will carry it for you" If that is the case then the mission is labeled incorrectly.
I am now over a full week of in-game time and that's not happened, however. I'm not getting ANY side missions pop up and the only thing I can really do anymore is expand my yard and complete commissions. Because of the response (or lack thereof) from the developers, I can only assume this is working as intended, and is intended to force you to full restart your game if you don't have quests done before you accept them.

[Biggles]

Ursprungligen skrivet av kirara209:

OP this is the last quest in the demo version of the game and there are no more quests after that. You have, in the demo, two days to finish it. Because you can't make the glass to finish the quest, the timer the ends the demo doesn't trigger. In the main game it is a side quest and I think you have like 6 days to finish it. You are still playing the demo version.

Don't believe me, here's the wiki for it: https://mytimeatsandrock.fandom.com/wiki/Mission:_Cover_My_Glass

I am most certainly not in the demo version. I paid full price for the game and at no point downloaded the demo. Not to mention on the wiki link you provided it says both that the quest has a one day and a two day time limit, and that it's a main quest. Nowhere does it say 6 days for the time limit.

[sunwalker0347]

The game is not soft-locked if you miss this quest.
I don't have only a small amount of time to do this quest, I have much longer during the day but it is still relatively short time. The devs have in the past been very good about fixing this sort of thing with feedback and will undoubtably fix it here too.
There IS no way to get soft locked with only 3 minutes to react because there are multiple autosaves that should be farther back, and you can manually save effectively any time you're not mid-event.

Calling this a soft-lock isn't even just exaggeration (since missing it does *not* soft-lock the game either in any way). It's just lying, probably out of frustration for the quest having poor timing in early access.

[kirara209]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Biggles:

Ursprungligen skrivet av kirara209:

OP this is the last quest in the demo version of the game and there are no more quests after that. You have, in the demo, two days to finish it. Because you can't make the glass to finish the quest, the timer the ends the demo doesn't trigger. In the main game it is a side quest and I think you have like 6 days to finish it. You are still playing the demo version.

Don't believe me, here's the wiki for it: https://mytimeatsandrock.fandom.com/wiki/Mission:_Cover_My_Glass

I am most certainly not in the demo version. I paid full price for the game and at no point downloaded the demo. Not to mention on the wiki link you provided it says both that the quest has a one day and a two day time limit, and that it's a main quest. Nowhere does it say 6 days for the time limit.

The wiki hasn't been updated yet due to the NDA agreement most wiki creators for the game had to follow. It is yet to be updated. As for what's going on with you, I don't know as it sounds like you are somehow playing the demo version. Many other players are mush further in the game then that, myself included, I finished that quest yesterday, and if it was designed to softlock you, we'd all be complaining about it. I remember it gave me a few days to finish the quest, i might be wrong on the amount, but it was a side quest not a main.

[Utildayael]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bobucles:

The train glass quest isn't a primary mission. It's just side gig.

This.

I failed it for the same reason, had no glass ready so could not cook in time and, honestly, neglected to even notice you only had 24h.

It failed. Mi-an fixed it. Game carried on.

[Hammer Of Evil]

to any reading this thread, the claim that this is designed to 'soft lock you' is absolutely not true.

if he's not playing the demo i think the main problem for this guy's situation is carrying an old save forward.

there have been like 6-7 hotfixes since i've started my game last week (yeah, any time there's a download from steam, that's a patch or hotfix.)

so, if op's save had one of the bugs from before the previous fixes, that save is probably toast.

so two options i'd offer:
1) do a hailmary, restart your computer, and reload the save, check that it doesn't progress.
2) edit your savegame and skip the story mission without corrupting the save data.

this is how a game in alpha goes. infuriating at times, but that's how it is, the two warning screens at the start explain it. its deceptive because it doesn't play like an alpha. this game is not out of the oven yet.

[Biggles]

Ursprungligen skrivet av kirara209:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Biggles:

I am most certainly not in the demo version. I paid full price for the game and at no point downloaded the demo. Not to mention on the wiki link you provided it says both that the quest has a one day and a two day time limit, and that it's a main quest. Nowhere does it say 6 days for the time limit.

The wiki hasn't been updated yet due to the NDA agreement most wiki creators for the game had to follow. It is yet to be updated. As for what's going on with you, I don't know as it sounds like you are somehow playing the demo version. Many other players are mush further in the game then that, myself included, I finished that quest yesterday, and if it was designed to softlock you, we'd all be complaining about it. I remember it gave me a few days to finish the quest, i might be wrong on the amount, but it was a side quest not a main.

If it's a side quest then the game/developers are wrong. Screenshot from seconds ago: https://imgur.com/a/a7wN07i

The orange tag means it's a main quest. Literally nowhere that I can find does it say it's a side quest. Some people say Mi-an is supposed to complete it, but i've spent about a full sesason/month ingame and that hasn't happened.

Edit: I have also checked and am not on the demo, I paid in full for the game.

[kirara209]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Biggles:

If it's a side quest then the game/developers are wrong. Screenshot from seconds ago: https://imgur.com/a/a7wN07i

The orange tag means it's a main quest. Literally nowhere that I can find does it say it's a side quest. Some people say Mi-an is supposed to complete it, but i've spent about a full sesason/month ingame and that hasn't happened.

Okay okay okay, before we go back and forth with this, have you tried preemptively making the glass before the quest? You should be able to as glass is made in the basic Furnace. You mentioned in your main post that you can't do it because you don't have the Civil Furnace, or that it takes to long without it. Why do you need the Civil Furnace to make the glass?

[Edgar Allan Hoe]

interesting. I specifically remember taking more than one day to get the glass for the train window and the quest didn't fail me.
Anyway, there's a point where you have to do something else to advance the story. Try going to the ruins by the civil corp building, I think? that or research more civil machines from Qi or do some commissions.
Always look at your map and go to those blue and orange circles with exclaimation points in them that are sitting around. You need some of those.

[Zothrak]

I didn't have this problem? I also "failed" the glass mission and am almost finished with the main story missions. Maybe a bug?

[Ivara Ara]

What are you even doing if you can't keep up with timers like these?

[Biggles]

Most of my issue comes from the fact

Ursprungligen skrivet av Edgar Allan Hoe:

interesting. I specifically remember taking more than one day to get the glass for the train window and the quest didn't fail me.
Anyway, there's a point where you have to do something else to advance the story. Try going to the ruins by the civil corp building, I think? that or research more civil machines from Qi or do some commissions.
Always look at your map and go to those blue and orange circles with exclaimation points in them that are sitting around. You need some of those.

Ursprungligen skrivet av kirara209:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Biggles:

If it's a side quest then the game/developers are wrong. Screenshot from seconds ago: https://imgur.com/a/a7wN07i

The orange tag means it's a main quest. Literally nowhere that I can find does it say it's a side quest. Some people say Mi-an is supposed to complete it, but i've spent about a full sesason/month ingame and that hasn't happened.

Okay okay okay, before we go back and forth with this, have you tried preemptively making the glass before the quest? You should be able to as glass is made in the basic Furnace. You mentioned in your main post that you can't do it because you don't have the Civil Furnace, or that it takes to long without it. Why do you need the Civil Furnace to make the glass?

Ursprungligen skrivet av Zothrak:

I didn't have this problem? I also "failed" the glass mission and am almost finished with the main story missions. Maybe a bug?

There are no orange or blue circles on the map anywhere. I can research machines however that isn't making the story go anywhere and I've gotten the second tier of just about every crafting area. I can't imagine they want me to have endgame crafting benches just to get into the actual storyline.

My problem is not that the quest can't be completed, my problem is the fact that the developers see it fit to punish players like this. It is frankly just bad game design. Why not allow the player to retry the quest? Why not close the game instead of leaving them to aimlessly wander the map with the limited content when this happens?
The biggest issue I take is that the developers have straight up ignored my issue and told me that I am not seeing what their game is telling me, and then refused to continue the ticket.

Imagine, if you will, my experience with the game. I buy the game for the full price now that it's out on steam, early access nonsense sure, I'm not expecting AAA quality. Start playing, doing the main story and having fun until I hit the sandstorm and get given the goal to fix the train. I didn't notice the small text at the bottom of the screen saying the quest expired the next day, so when I didn't immediately jump on completing it, I wake up the next morning to a "MISSION FAILED". Ok sure, that's weird that I failed a main storyline quest and that there was such a short timer, but fine whatever, this seems like a pretty laid back game and I don't think I'll have major issues for missing something like that. The first thing I did was check my save to find that it had autosaved immediately before I failed the quest when I slept, and reloading the save immediately put me back where I was. Then I just continue doing whatever mission I have next and quickly realize there aren't any more. After I complete the last one, I no longer have any missions with no markers on the map, no goals, no nothing. I continue on figuring the next story beat is a holiday or something (Like in Stardew Valley) and after about a week in-game of nothing I give up and make a bug report post. (Another point is that they list steam discussions as their official bug report place, which is odd)

Developer responds telling me "It's actually a side quest that you failed and Mi-an will carry it for you" and refuses to communicate further. Looking in-game, the quest has an orange badge and says it's a main quest line. (Screenshot of the quest from my game: https://imgur.com/a/a7wN07i) This doesn't fill me with confidence, that the representative of the game either doesn't know their own game or is just lying, or that there is some EXTREMELY unlikely UI bug that for some reason makes one quest show up differently.

After that I figure the game must be bugged out, and they had just put out 3 or 4 hotfixes. I had only put 4 hours into the game (Too long for a refund, I tried) and figured I'd just give it another go on a new save. Get that going and about 3 hours later I'm back at the quest that I had failed. I start it and make sure to immediately do it only to find out that the timer is one day. This is concerning because I had started my furnace about halfway through the day and it had 12 minutes to finish going. I ended up passing out running to the train to turn it in, waking up and failing the quest, which saved over my previous save again.

Okay then surely the developer wasn't lying and I just got a bug the first time through. I have spent a while now just getting up, walking around for a bit to see if I can find any quests or anything, and then sleeping. At this point I've skipped through two months/seasons and there have been no quests, no events, no nothing. All I can do is explore the underground area and do commissions, and I doubt either of those is going to seriously fix or change anything.

Again, my problem isn't with the fact that you can technically do the mission if you are prepared for it, my problem is with the fact that many people playing the game can easily fall into the state that my game did, the incredibly harsh punishment they put on the player for not maximising their gameplay in a game like this, and the frankly poor response from the developers.

[Edgar Allan Hoe]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Biggles:

There are no orange or blue circles on the map anywhere. I can research machines however that isn't making the story go anywhere and I've gotten the second tier of just about every crafting area. I can't imagine they want me to have endgame crafting benches just to get into the actual storyline.

That is weird. I'm not sure, since I'd have to restart the game to try and replicate the issue you're having. It seems like you're doing everything reasonable to fix it and it's just not hitting whatever flags you need. That's very odd.

My problem is not that the quest can't be completed, my problem is the fact that the developers see it fit to punish players like this. It is frankly just bad game design. Why not allow the player to retry the quest? Why not close the game instead of leaving them to aimlessly wander the map with the limited content when this happens?
The biggest issue I take is that the developers have straight up ignored my issue and told me that I am not seeing what their game is telling me, and then refused to continue the ticket.

I'm definitely sympathetic, but also if they can't replicate the issue you're having then maybe they just don't know what to tell you, since it looks from their end like the problem doesn't exist.
It seems other people here have failed the quest and been able to continue the story anyway too, so it's hard to nail down what the problem is and give you a solution.
I don't think the devs are purposefully doing that to you, whatever the issue may be. I could keep guessing, but ultimately I just have no idea what the actual flags are for continuing the story.
If you have a hard save you made you can load back to that instead of relying on the auto-saves. Then you at least have a chance of trying again, but ofc if you're not using manual saves that doesn't really help either. :\

[Zothrak]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Biggles:

Most of my issue comes from the fact

Ursprungligen skrivet av Edgar Allan Hoe:

interesting. I specifically remember taking more than one day to get the glass for the train window and the quest didn't fail me.
Anyway, there's a point where you have to do something else to advance the story. Try going to the ruins by the civil corp building, I think? that or research more civil machines from Qi or do some commissions.
Always look at your map and go to those blue and orange circles with exclaimation points in them that are sitting around. You need some of those.

Ursprungligen skrivet av kirara209:

Okay okay okay, before we go back and forth with this, have you tried preemptively making the glass before the quest? You should be able to as glass is made in the basic Furnace. You mentioned in your main post that you can't do it because you don't have the Civil Furnace, or that it takes to long without it. Why do you need the Civil Furnace to make the glass?

Ursprungligen skrivet av Zothrak:

I didn't have this problem? I also "failed" the glass mission and am almost finished with the main story missions. Maybe a bug?

There are no orange or blue circles on the map anywhere. I can research machines however that isn't making the story go anywhere and I've gotten the second tier of just about every crafting area. I can't imagine they want me to have endgame crafting benches just to get into the actual storyline.

My problem is not that the quest can't be completed, my problem is the fact that the developers see it fit to punish players like this. It is frankly just bad game design. Why not allow the player to retry the quest? Why not close the game instead of leaving them to aimlessly wander the map with the limited content when this happens?
The biggest issue I take is that the developers have straight up ignored my issue and told me that I am not seeing what their game is telling me, and then refused to continue the ticket.

Imagine, if you will, my experience with the game. I buy the game for the full price now that it's out on steam, early access nonsense sure, I'm not expecting AAA quality. Start playing, doing the main story and having fun until I hit the sandstorm and get given the goal to fix the train. I didn't notice the small text at the bottom of the screen saying the quest expired the next day, so when I didn't immediately jump on completing it, I wake up the next morning to a "MISSION FAILED". Ok sure, that's weird that I failed a main storyline quest and that there was such a short timer, but fine whatever, this seems like a pretty laid back game and I don't think I'll have major issues for missing something like that. The first thing I did was check my save to find that it had autosaved immediately before I failed the quest when I slept, and reloading the save immediately put me back where I was. Then I just continue doing whatever mission I have next and quickly realize there aren't any more. After I complete the last one, I no longer have any missions with no markers on the map, no goals, no nothing. I continue on figuring the next story beat is a holiday or something (Like in Stardew Valley) and after about a week in-game of nothing I give up and make a bug report post. (Another point is that they list steam discussions as their official bug report place, which is odd)

Developer responds telling me "It's actually a side quest that you failed and Mi-an will carry it for you" and refuses to communicate further. Looking in-game, the quest has an orange badge and says it's a main quest line. (Screenshot of the quest from my game: https://imgur.com/a/a7wN07i) This doesn't fill me with confidence, that the representative of the game either doesn't know their own game or is just lying, or that there is some EXTREMELY unlikely UI bug that for some reason makes one quest show up differently.

After that I figure the game must be bugged out, and they had just put out 3 or 4 hotfixes. I had only put 4 hours into the game (Too long for a refund, I tried) and figured I'd just give it another go on a new save. Get that going and about 3 hours later I'm back at the quest that I had failed. I start it and make sure to immediately do it only to find out that the timer is one day. This is concerning because I had started my furnace about halfway through the day and it had 12 minutes to finish going. I ended up passing out running to the train to turn it in, waking up and failing the quest, which saved over my previous save again.

Okay then surely the developer wasn't lying and I just got a bug the first time through. I have spent a while now just getting up, walking around for a bit to see if I can find any quests or anything, and then sleeping. At this point I've skipped through two months/seasons and there have been no quests, no events, no nothing. All I can do is explore the underground area and do commissions, and I doubt either of those is going to seriously fix or change anything.

Again, my problem isn't with the fact that you can technically do the mission if you are prepared for it, my problem is with the fact that many people playing the game can easily fall into the state that my game did, the incredibly harsh punishment they put on the player for not maximising their gameplay in a game like this, and the frankly poor response from the developers.

Just out of curiosity, after you fail the glass mission NO more missions appear? Is that what you're saying? Or do a few more missions appear and then they stop?

[JVC]

The "Cover My Glass" mission used to have a timer of one day - which was annoying, it's now been increased to 2 days and since you can buy Dinas it shouldn't be an issue. You already have at lease 1 furnace at this point in the story.

Haven't heard before that it should softlock people.

Just like in Portia, you can fail some main missions. In Portia Higgins did the work for you. Mi-an is supposed to do the same here. But of course you don't get the juicy rewards if you don't do the missions.

The tag for "Main mission" simply means that it carries the storyline forward. Blue missions (side missions) don't carry the main story forward, they're just side shows.

The next main mission after "Cover My Glass" is the Geeglers polluting the oasis. They always do that Summer 16th. It's hard coded into the game.

[Tenoshii]

Sounds more like a unique scenario bug than intentional game design. I'd be very curious to know how many other people have experienced the same softlocking. Given the other types of topics that get a bit of attention, I would have assumed if this was widespread the forums would be teeming with posts about it.

Even so, the game as a whole is certainly not "designed" in a way to punish players because they haven't produced X quantity of Y item in advance, because again, if this were the case, the amount of posts complaining about it would easily dwarf the amount of dialogue contained in the water/stamina related threads.