Black Pearl Quest: glitch/bug plus solution.

[Rafael Freeman]

Black Pearl Quest: glitch plus solution.

Quite possibly this will be fixed, but right now (V 1.07) the Black Pearl Quest has a quest breaking glitch. Some people have finished the quest by sheer luck. For other people it's impossible. The quest giver will always die before completion of the quest. The result is perhaps slightly influenced by the difficulty setting and the level at which the quest is attemted.

Minor (very minor :-) spoiler below.

What happens?
After meeting Nidas he will ask you to dive for a black pearl. After finding the pearl Nidas will be killed by drowners.

The problem is that the Drowners will attack before Geralt arrives and will quickly kill Nidas. In my game Geralt can't even get close. Swimming, using a boat, approaching by land, throwing a bomb, nothing works.

SOLUTION
Save before you meet Nidas. Meet Nidas and follow him to the beach. Look at the map and remember the location of the pearl bed. Or make a screenshot.

Load the save. Avoid Nidas this time (don't meet him at the broken bridge) and go to the pearl bed. Get the black pearl. Go to Nidas, the quest will proceed as though you don't have a black pearl. At the beach you will be prompted to return to Nidas, but this time you'll already there. Kill the drowners before they kill Nidas.

EDITED:

Just to be clear:

The quest starts in Novigrad, my solution assumes that the player meets Nidas in Novigrad, meets him at the bridge in Skellige, proceeds, remembers the location of the pearl, loads a save just before meeting Nidas at the bridge, retrieves the pearl and then meets Nidas at the bridge.

As far as I understand it, with patch 1.08 out, the quest now works as it should, but perhaps it's necessary to start the quest again from the beginning.

[Blade12775]

Cool. Thanks> Was just going to start that quest right after eating.

[Rafael Freeman]

I noticed just now that a few people have posted the same suggestion before, but in threads they didn't started, so the solution got buried. It's good to see that people are helping each other!

[Jarvind]

I came up with an alternate solution. Nidas doesn't actually become killable until you get within a certain distance of him (when his health bar appears). If you float out in the water he'll just stand there getting beat on forever but won't die.

I came ashore a good distance away from him so as not to make him vulnerable, then quicksaved - from there it was a matter of waiting for him to get some breathing room and then running in and quickly Aard-ing and killing the drowners. Took a couple tries, but it worked.

[Rafael Freeman]

Originally posted by Jarvind:

I came up with an alternate solution. Nidas doesn't actually become killable until you get within a certain distance of him (when his health bar appears). If you float out in the water he'll just stand there getting beat on forever but won't die.

I came ashore a good distance away from him so as not to make him vulnerable, then quicksaved - from there it was a matter of waiting for him to get some breathing room and then running in and quickly Aard-ing and killing the drowners. Took a couple tries, but it worked.

That didn't work for me. That is why I would advise people to try it once or twice, and then give up. The solution I described always works.

The problem for me is that before I get close enough to use a bomb or a sign, Nidas is already dead. It takes one hit from a monster and the moment I'm almost close enough to interfere he gets hit. It doesn't matter how I approach him. By water, land, in a boat, on a horse. The monsters always attack before I'm in range and Nidas always gets that one fatal hit.

It also doesn't matter which save I load.

This might be related to the level the quest is attempted at or the difficulty setting. I know that some people have succeeded by sheer luck (2 to 8 tries), but I asked one of those people to try to repeat his method on my PC and he failed 40 times :-)

[tyler]

i tried like 10 times and he was still dead. so i told myself:"fu ck this shi t, im done. RIP amigo"

[Mendax]

Wait for patch 1.08, CDPR can't fix their game, you need to wait.

[Canna]

I am on patch 1.08 and the mission is still flawed. Could be because I started it right before patching, but when I arrive to shore Nidas is screaming for help, while his body is already dead. Then, after I kill the drowners, the next step would be to go to Nidas, but him being dead makes the mission impossible to complete.
After saving and loading, the mission fails.

[Lord Gorzul]

I cant even find nidas, im at the broken bridge spot, nobody there, what am I missing

[GarnetFire17]

I don't know. I just did this quest in patch 1.08 and it was fine. He was where he was supposed to be . He survived 5 drower hits and I saved him on the first try. I held off and started the quest with patch 1.08. Maybe if you start it with another patch and finish it with 1.08 that is when it get's bugged?

[Metal Sage]

Dang, just did this quest 2 days ago and botched it because of that glitch. Oh well.

[Canna]

I restarted from a previous savegame, and nidas is nowhere to be found... in patch 1.08 :-( oh well...

[TooTall1]

Originally posted by Lord Gorzul:

I cant even find nidas, im at the broken bridge spot, nobody there, what am I missing

Did you start the quest in Novigrad by chatting with Nidas first, before going to Skellige?

[GarnetFire17]

Originally posted by TooTall1:

Originally posted by Lord Gorzul:

I cant even find nidas, im at the broken bridge spot, nobody there, what am I missing

Did you start the quest in Novigrad by chatting with Nidas first, before going to Skellige?

LOL! Do all these people think you start this quest at the bridge? You start it in Novigrad outside the Golden Sturgeon.

[Rafael Freeman]

Originally posted by readr00ster:

Originally posted by TooTall1:

Did you start the quest in Novigrad by chatting with Nidas first, before going to Skellige?

LOL! Do all these people think you start this quest at the bridge? You start it in Novigrad outside the Golden Sturgeon.

Probably not. But I guess it might be confusing.

[Lord Gorzul]

How did you manage to assume something like that? You cannot 'think' where to start a quest, the game shows you where to start it...

Originally posted by readr00ster:

Originally posted by TooTall1:

Did you start the quest in Novigrad by chatting with Nidas first, before going to Skellige?

LOL! Do all these people think you start this quest at the bridge? You start it in Novigrad outside the Golden Sturgeon.