Devs - please PLEASE give us Tristian's last quest. (spoilers)

[stormfeather]

I just found out elsewhere in discussions that an issue has recently been "fixed" so that you can no longer actually have both Amiri and Tristian at the end... but the "choice" for this comes a few chapters and dozens of hours earlier, when you have no clue you are actually making this choice.

Given that Tristian is one of the very few romance options (and the only non-evil male romance option at that), this is... bizarre, and horrible, to be blunt.

I'm in the position now where I don't even know if I have the energy to continue with my playthrough, because I found out I've unintentionally completed screwed over a) keeping my favorite of the characters, and far and away my best healer, and b) completely screwed up my romance, since I decided to do what seemed to be the smartest choice and went to help Amiri/the Swordlords first. (Also a huge factor was the fact that for that, I did peek at a few spoilers and all of the ones that I found said that to keep both characters, you'd have to do things in that order. Nothing of course was said about the fact that Tristian would then be lost a looong time later in the game due to it, partly because the game was still buggy and apparently letting you save both).

This is... well, to again be blunt, this is terrible design. You're already giving the players very few choices for romance, limited choices for various council positions, and by the nature of the game limited options for healers. With this, I've found out that due to something I decided days ago in the real world, with NO visible bad consequences, I've screwed up my romance for the game, screwed myself out of my ONE character that could be in that particular council seat, gotten rid of my favorite character out of the party, and lost my only really good healer, since I quite honestly dislike Harrim and ditched him as quickly and as much as I could.

And of course since this was days ago, I don't even have an old enough save that I could go back to, if I even did feel like playing the last dozen or so hours of the game over again.

So I'm begging you devs, please un-fix this, or re-fix it, or however else you want to consider it. It is completely unfair to the players to have things be this obscure, and screw us out of things when it is far far too late for us to actually go back and save our games.

[Jekko]

Originally posted by aramintai:

Originally posted by Cloudhunter:

Its the same with me: i could save both Amiri and Tristian. What is broken is Tristian and Jaethal. When reading this, i thought, somebody mischanged the names...

You mean you can have both Amiri and Tristian alive at the House at the Edge of Time? His last quest is still available if Amiri is saved first in Chapter IV.

I saved Amiri first then Tristian. Jaethal refused urgathoa's gift.

Result House of the Edge of Time: Amiri survives - Tristian survives but kills Jaethal who came back as an inquisitor of Pharasma.

[Vexx82]

I subscribe to the original poster. I am 98 hours into the game, I have successfully completed both Amiri's quest and Tristian's, both with good outcomes, however I do not think this is intentional. There is something wrong with the datasync between player.json and statistic.json.

This is causing many annoyances - I suspect that repetitive custscenes are caused by this too - for some reason, the player.json is not syncing with the statistic.json, and/or the dialog_happened flag does not update, and you get people having a collection of Tris' rings.

Tristian is my romance, and he has not progressed an inch - probably because the coronation room dialogue did not trigger.

I should mention that while I am not advocating manual intervention by the end user, I KNOW how the development engine works, what the variables are, how they work, what they do. I've modded in this language (or similar) for about 20 years - since the ancient times of Baldur's Gate. Yes, some things have grown in complexity, but... Let's just say I know my way around, and apologies, this is about to get technical.

I was looking at my specific manual savefile from immediately before the coronation. In player.json, my Tris romance variable is 60, which, according to statistic.json conditions flow should have triggered the coronation romance dialogue.

However, while in player the value is 60, in statistic.json the same value is 59 - condition not met, dialogue did not trigger. So I have two different values for the same variable in the two files, for the _same_ savegame. Nowhere in the statistic.json could I find something that dropped my romance value if I did Amiri's quest first, and, in any event, I clearly went for lover-boy first. Call me a soft hearted nerd.

It did not affect Amiri's quest at all; the Six Bears are doing well, and are under stable leadership, Amiri got her heroics in...So why if my going after Tris did not impact Amiri's good outcome, why would me going after Amiri first impact my romance outcome, in cold, hard, number terms?

I have not trawled though all of the hexa files in there (the 1 point drop in my Tris Romance might be somewhere in there - but then why does player.json not update? Irrelevant, since the game is running after statistic.json anyway? But it can't be irrelevant since clearly you have an NPC approval thing running.).

If the choice between romancing Tristian and saving the Bears is a deliberate writing choice, please, for the love of Cthulhu, say it loud and proud. So that I may decide the choices you dictate are atrocious writing, you are deliberately torturing your customers, delete the game and never purchase a crowdfunded game again.

Or, as my husband wisely puts it, this is an intentional in-game minigame (Find bug, throw stuff at the walls, curse, re-load from ten hours ago, spend hours on the internet for a solution, and then weep. Then, start debugging your own game, FTW!) Or it could be a talent poaching scheme on your team's part.

Could be both.

Can they be both?

Can you tell us if they can't be both?

I have played on the latest patch since day 1. Unless you've re-patched without telling us, the choice between Amiri's tribe and Tris is not something you've later added.

I am just beginning the last chapter, so I do not know the outcomes for House at the Edge of Time yet. However, I am pointing out an issue that has been mentioned by hundreds of others. The Tris romance is bugged to hell, and I explained earlier why I think that is.

Jaethal has the same variable issue. Even better, with her, the engine ignores the skill check. Again, flags not updating. If you never meant for there to be a skill check, why on earth have it?

I am extremely disappointed in this. It could have been a great game, but you have botched it in too many ways to count.

[stormfeather]

Oh great, so there's a coronation dialogue that I needed for the romance as well?

Ugh. I've been wanting to play this game again some more, but I'm totally stuck between:

-Finishing my current game which I got a good bit of the way through, but have lost a lot of the motivation for since I know I totally screwed it up down and sideways

-Starting a new playthrough when I haven't even finished my first (well, second) one, in an attempt to not have things screwed up (but realizing they might be because of all these hidden factors where we have no clue we're screwing things up for ourselves, and flat-out bugs)

-Just continuing to wait in the hopes that the devs get the bugs ironed out AND realize that it's really pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥ to tie the one decent romance option I have to so many things like, y'know, deciding not to save one of your party members and the kingdoms around you and be extension your own barony.

[Vexx82]

Stormfeather - I don't think it is. This is a rumour started on another Tris' romance thread where one of the devs said they are fixing 'the issue'. But Amiri/Tris was not the issue.

By what I can read in the statistics.json, until someone with some authority confirms it, there is no such choice between Amiri and Tris, or Tris's Romance. The variables are not linked in any way. The TristanRomanceCounter and TristanRomanceDialogue variables are only connected to your brownie points with him, nothing else.

The problem is that the values of those variables are borked, and update in no pattern that I can see - I purposefully went back and checked for the Tris romance flags with the smutty book convo, because I could. I had a manual save just before it happened. and saved right after. In one case the dialogue flag updated, and I got my love points, but on a second save reload, with the exact same responses from me, I got the love points, but the flag did not update - which would have meant we would have the book chat again. Whatever is amiss here does not seem deliberate.

I am at exactly the same point as you, I nearly abandoned 98h and made a new char last night, because the instructions are so vague that I never recruited two NPCs. I had no idea that when you meet the Technic League you need to go their camp like RIGHT NOW! So, yeah...

[Hawke]

Originally posted by Vexx82:

Stormfeather - I don't think it is. This is a rumour started on another Tris' romance thread where one of the devs said they are fixing 'the issue'. But Amiri/Tris was not the issue.

By what I can read in the statistics.json, until someone with some authority confirms it, there is no such choice between Amiri and Tris, or Tris's Romance. The variables are not linked in any way. The TristanRomanceCounter and TristanRomanceDialogue variables are only connected to your brownie points with him, nothing else.

The problem is that the values of those variables are borked, and update in no pattern that I can see - I purposefully went back and checked for the Tris romance flags with the smutty book convo, because I could. I had a manual save just before it happened. and saved right after. In one case the dialogue flag updated, and I got my love points, but on a second save reload, with the exact same responses from me, I got the love points, but the flag did not update - which would have meant we would have the book chat again. Whatever is amiss here does not seem deliberate.

I am at exactly the same point as you, I nearly abandoned 98h and made a new char last night, because the instructions are so vague that I never recruited two NPCs. I had no idea that when you meet the Technic League you need to go their camp like RIGHT NOW! So, yeah...

Is it possible to change the value of the approval variable during "Betrayer's Flight" and proceed with the storyline?

[Hawke]

About the Technic League. They should appear as a random encounter, when you enter Narlmarches for the first time. If you reload, they still can appear with some probability. After you resolve this encounter, their camp should become available.
There's also an artisan/kingdom quest leading to the same location, but I think that it blocks the recruitment for good.

[stormfeather]

Originally posted by Vexx82:

Stormfeather - I don't think it is. This is a rumour started on another Tris' romance thread where one of the devs said they are fixing 'the issue'. But Amiri/Tris was not the issue.

By what I can read in the statistics.json, until someone with some authority confirms it, there is no such choice between Amiri and Tris, or Tris's Romance. The variables are not linked in any way. The TristanRomanceCounter and TristanRomanceDialogue variables are only connected to your brownie points with him, nothing else.

Thing is though, in one of the batches of patch notes they noted that they "fixed" it so that players no longer get Tristian's last character quest (I assume it's his last quest) if you did Amiri's quest first. At least, that's what others had pointed out (which prompted me to post this thread in the first place). So it sounds like they're intending for you to have to ditch Amiri's quest (and thus Amiri) in order to romance Tristian and see all his character stuff. :/

[Vexx82]

@Hawke: It's against forum rules to post Haxx :) In theory, yes, it is, the problem is re-packing the savefiles once you opened them for editing, because they use a strange archiving format. HOWEVER, I don't recommend you do this. I would not, though I know how to mess with various things, because I don't know exactly what wider effects that could have. Player.json and statistic.json are a picture in code of what your game looks like when you saved it. I have no idea what manually tweaking values in either of them could ripple trough other files in your save.

There is a bug report thread where the devs let you upload your savefiles, check if they are somehow borked and fix them. And they actually do/did.

As for the Technic League, in my case, nothing can salvage the thing. Once you've existed the first chapter/prologue, the recruitment is indeed dead. I am in chapter 6, so...

@Stromfeather: That would indeed be idiotic. I did the quests in the 'correct' order - just because that's how they triggered. I went for Saving Grace first (and it triggered in or just before the Pitax chapter, but definitely before I went to the fair), with Amiri's re-forged sword event in progress. I still got Amiri's good outcome, and this was 1.1.2e. So if Tris' last quest does not trigger if you do Amiri, why would Amiri still trigger if you do Tris' - if they say you can't do both o.O? For me at least there was no grim choice between the two, I finished both with good results...

So hm, technically, I did start Amiri before Saving Grace. Now whether they refer to Hour of Rage and only Hour of Rage vs. Saving Grace, no clue...But again, if Tristian was dependent on Aimiri and vice-versa, I should not have been able to do both in that patch. I was, with no glitch. The variables don't seem linked in the code.

My romance is broken, but I know why that is and it's a variable error...

In another thread, here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/5/1735468693699721546/

Shinji117 says he has done the precise opposite and still got Saving Grace. I think this is also the thread that started the Tristian vs. Amiri rumours... I think what the dev is saying there is that they will fix the Saving Grace not trigerring. That being said, gonna look though the patch 1.1.2e notes in a mo.

[Vexx82]

@Stormfeather:

Here we go, this is what they say: Tristian's the "Saving Grace" quest was available even if the "Hour of Rage" quest was completed prior to the "Betrayer's Flight" quest. Resolution: fixed. If players already get the "Saving Grace" quest, they will keep it.

So it's not Hour of Rage vs. Saving Grace, it's Hour of Rage vs. Betrayer's Flight, which is kinda understandable - you left Tristian out there for too long... You should not even be getting Saving Grace before you finished Betrayer's Flight, though, so mind goeth loop: how would you be getting Saving Grace if you didn't get Tristian back? O.O

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by jojobe:

i made my own party I know i miss out on alot but i needed a good healer that i could specialize and both tristan and harrim were just ok. You can build tristan for armor but its a long path to heavy when you can just make a crusader.

Given that Tristian is completely locked out of his cleric spell when wearing armor....

[DocStout]

I just hit House at the End of Time last night, this run was still in chapter 2-3 when the patches that made these changes hit, and I saved every companion except the one you cannot save and Nok Nok. Tristian never got his sight back, but choices I made in his and Jaethal's quest somehow saved them both. I rescued Amiri first, like many other people are reporting. Either I hit a fortunate bug, or this is (at least sometimes) a non-issue.

[stormfeather]

Originally posted by Vexx82:

@Stormfeather:

Here we go, this is what they say: Tristian's the "Saving Grace" quest was available even if the "Hour of Rage" quest was completed prior to the "Betrayer's Flight" quest. Resolution: fixed. If players already get the "Saving Grace" quest, they will keep it.

So it's not Hour of Rage vs. Saving Grace, it's Hour of Rage vs. Betrayer's Flight, which is kinda understandable - you left Tristian out there for too long... You should not even be getting Saving Grace before you finished Betrayer's Flight, though, so mind goeth loop: how would you be getting Saving Grace if you didn't get Tristian back? O.O

The problem is, it means if you're chosing to do Amiri's stuff first (which also means doing the story stuff first and not, y'know, screwing over the kingdoms around you and your own kingdom) then you don't get the "Saving Grace" quest for Tristian, which in turn means that (unless I'm completely misunderstanding things) you completely fail your romance with Tristian. With absolutely no idea that this is going to happen since, again, there's absolutely no indication that you're completely screwing yourself out of your romance. Even if you're not screwing yourself out of the character, and I haven't gotten far enough in the game (I stopped for now after finding this crap out) to be sure about just how all that stuff works. My only slightly educated guess is that (according to what others have said) it's possible to keep him alive and in the party/kingdom, but will probably be harder to do so and you won't really have a good outcome with him.

(Just for anyone else insterested, I hunted down the patch note in question, from patch 1.1.1d:

Tristian's the "Saving Grace" quest was available even if the "Hour of Rage" quest was completed prior to the "Betrayer's Flight" quest. Resolution: fixed. If players already get the "Saving Grace" quest, they will keep it.)

So yeah tl;dr, the devs are still screwing over the only decent romance for straight female characters, if you don't go completely against common sense and decide to screw over another companion + the kingdom as a whole in order to chase after a vague report of lights in Candlemere, that you may or may not even realize is tied to Tristian.

[aramintai]

Whew, thank the devs it works now. I was playing through my fresh DLC playthrough after a hiatus and was afraid his last quest was still patched out or bugged. But no, right after Rushlight Tournament invitation those damn cultists spawned like a charm. And I did the Hour of Rage first, so Amiri's gonna be ok too. Here's hoping nothing is broken with him and Jaethal at the House later.

[Hawke]

Originally posted by aramintai:

Whew, thank the devs it works now. I was playing through my fresh DLC playthrough after a hiatus and was afraid his last quest was still patched out or bugged. But no, right after Rushlight Tournament invitation those damn cultists spawned like a charm. And I did the Hour of Rage first, so Amiri's gonna be ok too. Here's hoping nothing is broken with him and Jaethal at the House later.

Thanks for the info.