Abandoned Berserker Camp: Broken Quest Fix - Elex 1

[Taylor]

There is a quest in Elex1 which is entirely functional and active, but accidentally inaccessible to the player


I was scanning game files and came across a fully written quest that I noticed wasn't triggered in game.
It takes place in the Reaver camp occupying a berserker outpost on the way to the Edan converter, the one that has Eisenfaust's Shield within it.

The player isn't aware, but this quest has been operational since release. It's conditions are to kill the Reavers in the camp.
But at some point in development three of the Reavers were made Female; "_F" at the end of their names. But the quest file was made with only male actors. A small change returned functionality.

This quest makes the early-game progression chain towards the converter in Edan and Korin simpler. It is also fully voiced and has no signs that it was disabled intentionally. Because the quest is silent until completed, it's likely that even Piranha Bytes didn't notice it wasn't functioning properly.

Small edit: The vendor that appears sells Battle Axes, making him maybe the only one in the game.


Here is a download link for the mod file to make the quest work.
Installing multiple mod files can break pieces of each, so try to have only one at a time.
If the downloader asks for a key it is : pMFT7h2npq-g6OBfRtixnxq1ZrALbUUQfNiAJtyfR-Y

Abandoned Berserker Camp Fix - Elex1
https://mega.nz/file/VaUjHa4R#pMFT7h2npq-g6OBfRtixnxq1ZrALbUUQfNiAJtyfR-Y

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Taylor:

it's likely that even Piranha Bytes didn't notice it wasn't functioning properly.

Not sure what the point of that comment is.

In the "News" section of this game here at Steam you can find the few patch notes. The early major patches touched many quests. Either because PB continued with releasing more bug-fixes that didn't make it into the release milestone of the game but were tracked internally. Or in response to bug reports from early adopters.

Regardless of what their internal testing and QA processes may have been like, originally there had been an official forum for ELEX run by THQ - an official place with a tech support section and a bug reporting section. Eventually taken offline due to security issues and spammers flooding the forum.

It would have been more convenient to run a public bug tracking system. Possibly with patch notes linking specific ticket numbers. Yet after a few patches, PB stopped releasing patch notes for the next minor patches - and then stopped patching and only released a few fixes for the consoles in mid 2018. And although THQ had run a public bug tracker for ELEX II, that one has been neglected - what a wasted opportunity!

[Taylor]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Not sure what the point of that comment is.

Well if you look at the internal game files, there is at least one instance where it's clear there was an entire quest chain removed. The placeholders remain for it, but no content remains.

This comment is me theorizing why The Occupied Outpost ended up as it currently is, and trying to paint the picture that this quest is, and always has been, active. But because it is set to silent, my best guess is that no one noticed that a small change during development or updates broke it. If only because we have at least one major example elsewhere of what it looks like internally when a quest line has been intentionally scrubbed from the finished game.

It would be easy to lose track of, because being silent, playtesters would never find it anyways or know it wasn't working. They'd never even know it was running in the background!

The point is to highlight that the problem looks more like human error rather than intent. Something along the lines of someone swapped in the female models without updating the quest, or vice-versa.

Which would mean that there is a legitimate extra quest in the original Elex that has now just been solved!

---------------

So per your post, I've done some digging!

https://elex.fandom.com/wiki/The_Occupied_Outpost

The Wiki and Guides for Gamers has it listed and it seems it's already known. Whether this info was taken from a guide or was actually functional in-game, I can't say. I can't easily find it mentioned anywhere else, and those two sites only give the barebones quest mention.

Meanwhile, the Neoseeker guide, which I find to be one of the most definitive, seems to only reference looting the camp on your way to Korin, with no quest attached (at least not as far as I can see in the Edan section, though please, you are welcome to take a deeper look). My wishful thinking is that this really is a new discovery and that the Wiki and GfG trawled the data from the quest file.

But regardless of the truth, somewhere along the way, it was broken on both console and PC versions.

But it is now playable (again?) !

[regina_ragna]

Concerning the reavers' camp: as Erik Eisenfaust turns out to be not quite the person you expect him in the beginning - so is his shield.
So you can kill them - keep the shield - sell the shield - or Ragnar will steal it from you...
But as the shield is magic it's not wise to use it unless you have become a berserker.

[Taylor]

Originally posted by regina_ragna:

So you can kill them - keep the shield - sell the shield - or Ragnar will steal it from you...
But as the shield is magic it's not wise to use it unless you have become a berserker.

This is fascinating! I've had the shield now since before joining the Berserkers with no unusual effects. I'm using the NA release, in case it makes a difference.

I've intentionally equipped it near Ragnar in the hope he would say or do Anything about it given that he has Eisenfaust's sword. But, nothing - he never even acknowledges it.

Do you know how to trigger any of this behaviour in Ragnar?

[regina_ragna]

Maybe he waits til you wear the claw - it was rather late in the game.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

It could be an accident with test procedures not covering a list of quest triggers or without any QA retesting at all. But it could also be a quick hack to disable it temporarily for balancing reasons e.g. while thinking about releasing another change in some patch - and not doing that anymore when everyone proceeded to working on ELEX II instead.

[regina_ragna]

Sounds like something I started to suspect - that "on the other side" there are people involved, not artificial intelligence or programmed monsters.

[Hotshot]

That's pretty awesome and an impressive find!
I'll be sure to try it out, many thanks!

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

There are named but dead NPCs in various locations. Sometimes with corresponding diary pages lying somewhere and giving some background. But that alone would be too simple of an explanation why they exist. I assume more side-quest missions and tasks have been dropped from the game before its release. Possibly time limit based rescue missions that would be affected by chapter/level dependent spawning of new creatures and didn't work well.

[Taylor]

Hotshot : You're very welcome! The mod is a very simple fix, so you can actually uninstall it after the quest progresses even slightly and the quest will still function from there afterwards (which I say incase you use [or others] a bunch of mods and don't want them conflicting with each other).

D'amarr : Funny enough there is clear evidence of a removed quest exactly along the lines of what you're talking about in West Edan. Where you find the group of dead Berserkers and their journals near a world heart below where Thorald is located. There is some significant evidence in the game files that there was an entire quest line to do with them, some other Berserkers further away from them, and a captured Alb - which was removed for the finished game. Credit goes to, iirc, Tombom81 for finding that.