Honor Mode loss really disappointing. [ACT 3 SPOILERS]

[Cur]

I died at Ansur because of a series of bugs prior to the fight that left me completely drained of resources and I'm incredibly disappointed.

At the beginning of Act 3 I was absolutely juiced. I had so many potions and scrolls that I was laughing at how I was going to breeze through the game.

Then I had a fight against the Banites in Fraylgos? or something store where they are on the third floor. Halfway through the fight I somehow managed to aggro the Steel Watch that was out in the street through the floor and they summoned 17 Flaming Fist and all of the ranged were able to see me through the floor. This engagement really screwed me. I managed to get Astarion to misty step away and flee combat but it took a number of turns because 12-15 attacks were able to hit me through the walls/floor and they were all spamming ensaring strike. But, I managed to make it through despite it costing a lot of potions.

Then I went to fight Cazador and decided to ascend Astarion. All went well. Went to bed and the next day my save had been rolled back to before the Cazador fight. I was laughing that "maybe it was a sign I shouldn't ascend Astarion" so I decided to talk him out of it. But after the fight I got the glitch where it isn't your Tav who talks to him so he just ditched my party after 70 hours took all of his godly gloomstalker assassin gear with him. ♥♥♥♥. Luckily I had lots of mage gear stashed so I just replaced him with Ice master Gale.

At this point I'm "low" on potions/scrolls but it's not biggie I restock and move on. I clear the House of Hope and absolutely crush Raphael. Got Yurgir to join me and we just destroyed him.

Go back to the city and go to destroy the Steel Watch. The Duke doesn't make it but I saved all but one Gondian on honor mode. Awesome!

Now on to Wyrms Rock. This area bugged out for me in the weirdest way. There were flaming fist all through the tower that aggroed me through the floor but couldn't reach me so they just dashed and jumped around in their room against the walls. If I hid all of my party they couldn't detect me and wouldn't move at all. If I wasn't hiding they would run around. I could find area to misty step/dimension door/fly far enough that I could flee combat but it didn't take me back to camp. It teleported me back into "combat" in an area me and the enemy couldn't see. I used all of my movement spell slots and scrolls trying to break out of this soft lock. I eventually found some silly angle that I could use large AOE spells to attack the enemies and got lucky that Gale was able to use 2 angelic reprieves to actually finish them off and end combat. Run saved!

Then I decide to go and fight Ansur despite this in retrospect being the dumbest decision for how buggy Act 3 had been for me. I take the fight slow and keep Gale back behind the entrance doors so he can stay behind the walls in case of the big AOE stormheart attack. All is going well and I have him down to 1 hp. Gale safely tucked behind the wall in the entrance but Ansur bugs out while flying and blows up in the ceiling and kills my entire party. ~100 hours gone because of another bug where I get damaged through walls. Crushed.

I honestly had to fight so hard to get around some bugs in Act 3 and I was so close to the finish line. I'm just so disappointed because I don't feel like I got beat by the mechanics of the game. I got beaten by silly bugs that punished me for making the right decisions. GGs no golden dice for me. I don't know if I have the heart to start another honor mode run after that. Act 3 wallhacks are the worst.

[Ironwu]

Odd. In all those fights I never saw anything of the sort.

That being said, I have never had any Mods installed in BG3 so am running a completely 'clean' version.

Have no idea why you would see so many similar failures in different locations. But something is for sure not right somewhere.

[Cur]

Originally posted by Ironwu:

Odd. In all those fights I never saw anything of the sort.

That being said, I have never had any Mods installed in BG3 so am running a completely 'clean' version.

Have no idea why you would see so many similar failures in different locations. But something is for sure not right somewhere.

No mods. I had a couple instances in EA and in previous runs where enemies aggroed through walls but nothing to this extent. The fight in Wyrms Rock almost made me uninstall it was so absurd. When I finally managed to misty onto a roof and flee combat only to teleport back into the tower I was losing my mind.

[kbiz]

Well, you're a good writer. It was fun to read your tale of woe. I feel for you. That's my greatest worry in any Ironman run - getting stopped by a bug. I was totally worried about that my entire Honour Mode run.

You want it. Take a deep breath. And then just start over.

[Ironwu]

Well, there may be some corrupted files. Let's assume the saves themselves are good. Here is a recovery sequence:

* Navigate to the 'Larian Studios' directory located in "AppData\Local".
* Navigate to the "Story" directory and copy your saves to a desktop folder.
* Uninstall BG3.
* Delete the entire 'Larian Studios' directory located in "AppData\Local".
* Reinstall BG3
* Copy your save files back into the "Story" directory.

Try it out and see if it is now behaving properly.

[Cur]

Originally posted by Ironwu:

Well, there may be some corrupted files. Let's assume the saves themselves are good. Here is a recovery sequence:

* Navigate to the 'Larian Studios' directory located in "AppData\Local".
* Navigate to the "Story" directory and copy your saves to a desktop folder.
* Uninstall BG3.
* Delete the entire 'Larian Studios' directory located in "AppData\Local".
* Reinstall BG3
* Copy your save files back into the "Story" directory.

Try it out and see if it is now behaving properly.

Appreciate it but emotionally I'm past the run hahaha. Once Astarion left I was already kind of let down and felt less attached to finishing. I went from GIGA JUICED gloomstalker astarion with 24 AC that could deal an easy 200 damage on turn 1 and he was just gone. I made sure to pick the "it will kill thousands" dialogue option and my bard/thief had a disturbing amount of +skill checks. Replacing him with Gale really wasn't the same.

Despite it failing this way I still had more fun on this run than I did in previous ones. Maybe next December I'll go through again.

[Ironwu]

Understood. But before you start, I would certainly recommend a clean installation sequence as I have described above.

What you ran into sounds more like file corruption or a Mods issue and not a general bug issue. Since you never had Mods installed, that leaves file corruption. And a simple uninstall, reinstall may not fix it. Deleting the Larian Studios folder (which is not deleted by the uninstall process) is critical.

Good Luck whenever you try again. :)

[PhuDizzle]

I would also report your bugs to Larian and send them your save games so they can reproduce some of the bugs and fix them. They are very responsive and I actually had a dev email me when I reported something to them.

[kbiz]

Originally posted by Cur:

Appreciate it but emotionally I'm past the run hahaha.

Get back in the game, baby! But... process your sh!t first. And then let that kernel of desire spawn the ultimate plan for conquest.

I was doing an Ironman run in the last Pathfinder game. I made it to end on the hardest difficulty. And then a creature (the last one possible) hits my mage with Prismatic Spray. I get hit with the petrification part and roll a critical fail on the save. Game over. Devastating. I never tried again and I kinda regret it.

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

I am just not going to fight any of the side bosses when I get to act 3. ♥♥♥♥ it I am not even going to fight the nether brain, she is getting Gale'd to death. Not worth the risk 100+ hours into a run to fool around with those bosses.

[Firecam]

At 1HP he gain a 100HP overshield and trigger his room explosion.

[Jeronimosss]

I can confirm some of the issues you mentioned:

- guards outside of Felogyr's Fireworks see your "crimes" on the 3rd floor.
- Wyrm Rock guards on the 1st floor join the fight while you're on the 2nd floor. Though, if I remember correctly they aggro only of you use a spell (I guess the vocal component is somehow loud enough to get through the stone floors of a fortress).

[kbiz]

Originally posted by Eternal President Uncle Slam:

I am just not going to fight any of the side bosses when I get to act 3. ♥♥♥♥ it I am not even going to fight the nether brain, she is getting Gale'd to death. Not worth the risk 100+ hours into a run to fool around with those bosses.

I pretty much fought everything. I didn't experience what poor Cur experienced. I had 2+ random game crashes on my run, but no insta-death bugs.

But yeah, you start Lower City (after visiting the merchants) as total badasses. But even then there is doubt. That's what makes Honor Mode exciting.

Cur rolled a critical fail. I feel for him. But you shouldn't overly worry about the same outcome.

[Henry-NYC]

A month has passed since your post. With more recently acquired knowledge, I just wish to point out a few things (in case you or someone stumbles on these "bugs"):

1) Wyrmrock isn't as bugged as you assumed, except for the soft rock thing (I can imagine this as described, but I don't remember for sure if I have seen it in this game - even with 600+ hours so far of my time spent playing BG3). If you cast a spell on the 2nd floor (not on the roof or balcony), there is a spellcaster down on the ground floor may be close enough to trigger his or her Counterspell - this is mandatory, no line of sight required - that'll force the whole group he/she is affiliated with to join the fight (Note: not everyone on the ground floor will join at once - there are at least 3 such groups down there - they don't join at the same time unless you aggro all of them with a single action).

In one case, i killed this ground-floor Counterspell spellcaster from the 2nd floor - no line of sight either, can you imagine that? - by repeatedly triggering her Counterspell with my own level 1 trash spells every round - which triggers an automatic psychic damage punishment for her via a passive illthithid power - the damage accumulates over time, enough to kill someone.

Similarly, if you get spotted on the rooftop (due to a steel watcher stationed there, it's permanently hostile once you have got into Iron Throne) - Gortash (in his own chamber 1 floor below) will join the fight immediately - no more talk is possible.

2) Ansur: his AOE does not always have a limited range if it's in Honor mode, meaning: if a certain condition is satisfied, your Gale cannot avoid getting hit by his AOE that has no boundary. He needs protection. He's only safe if he stays out of this dungeon level.

3) Fireworks store: Nearby NPC outside can see the 2nd floor inside. Can also target someone not on the ground floor. Usually, if you are within the line of sight of a potential hostile NPC and you try to hide, the game displays that you are in a red area and you are then forced to either pass a hiding dice check or be spotted. However, unless you have a superfast computer, it's really hard to see such transient red areas on that store- they constantly change due to the mobile (walking/running) nature of nearby NPC. Meaning: you may get caught without visually seeing any valid reason.

I have seen NPC appear to be shooting through a wall - as far as I have learned by taking a closer look, that seems to be because the computer knows how to shoot through a window. If there is no window or equivalent, they can't just shoot through any wall. We players can't - at least I can't - shoot anything through any window.

So, no matter how annoying, there is a "reason" why you get caught/targeted when you are not on the ground floor - assuming you are "hidden" when you may or may be as hidden as you assume - there are windows and doors and also, the 2nd floor is an open floor, meaning: it's in the same area as its ground floor. (in contrast, the store's basement is a separate area - what you do down there is limited to that small area).