Potential Game-Breaking Glitch: Balloon Ride.

[tigerpoetry]

So, I decided to finish the Balloon quest, a few hours after first talking to Nessa. It's years since I played the game, but I vaguely recall agreeing with her about the name of the attraction. This time I got a bit cocky and debated until she got a name that didn't instil thoughts of catastrophe in the minds of her customers.

I left her and finished off a few more quests, then went back again.

She would only give me a complaint about no customers and knowing people would love it if they saw it.

I pottered around town and resorted to the net and saw what I'd missed. You paint her with her balloon, show it to her and the rest of the dialogue happens.

I did that and still nothing. I've tried different times of day, repainting. Nothing. If this persists I can't finish the game because I'll be unable to paint her mother's last view.

Naturally I've tried exiting the game and reloading. Nothing works. Oddly, I've seen a near identical post from a while ago that nobody replied to.

Any Ideas, folks? I've done all but half a dozen quests, so this represents 80-90% of the game lost.

I'll log this in the thread for glitches, once i know more exactly what to warn people about.

[Pesky]

After showing her that poster, you have to post it in a place with lots of foot traffic. Various places in Nava and New Lyndow work. Just find somewhere that lots of people walk past and post it at roughly eye height. Allow one sleep to give people time to see it, then go back to Nessa and talk to her again.

[tigerpoetry]

Originally posted by PeskyTheTroll:

After showing her that poster, you have to post it in a place with lots of foot traffic. Various places in Nava and New Lyndow work. Just find somewhere that lots of people walk past and post it at roughly eye height. Allow one sleep to give people time to see it, then go back to Nessa and talk to her again.

I can't get to that point. She won't give me the dialogue to show her my painting of her and the balloon. She won't ask me to paint her in the balloon, whilst it's in the air.

[Pesky]

Okay, you're not at the stage I was thinking of. I hope someone else can help.

[LoneSylvan]

Does she still offer to give you a ride for free?
You could say yes to that and then let her go off on her own... maybe repaint the picture... that might trigger it?
Been ages since I played but just thought I'd try to help.

[tigerpoetry]

Originally posted by Lone Sylvan:

Does she still offer to give you a ride for free?
You could say yes to that and then let her go off on her own... maybe repaint the picture... that might trigger it?
Been ages since I played but just thought I'd try to help.

Nope.

She just gives me the 'No Hope' dialogue. I get nothing else from her. No 'Free ride', nothing.

Thanks for trying, though.

[Pesky]

Do you have the poster in your backpack ? If you've already showed it to her, maybe she won't look at it again.

[tigerpoetry]

Originally posted by PeskyTheTroll:

Do you have the poster in your backpack ? If you've already showed it to her, maybe she won't look at it again.

Whether I have it or delete it and do another painting, it's the same. Huh? No clue. (:

I'm guessing that it's a script error, however, I only know Skyrim and the game engine is different.

If it's at all like Papyrus, and the Skyrim engine, this simply wouldn't happen, if the quest was written properly. That's all I'll say for now.

[tigerpoetry]

This just keeps getting stranger, but in a good way. I continued playing because I could still do the Ice Caverns quest. After that returned to Nava and Nessa was gone. I wandered off to finish the last of the painting commissions that were possible and on the way back past the balloon, she was back again. I re-painted the balloon and this time the right dialogue popped! Weird.

Looking at my paintings, I noticed that the first ones were painted from a different place and I hadn't got all of the balloon in. The one that was accepted had all of it in. All of Nessa was in both paintings. Could cropping a bit off the top of the balloon have done it?

[𝕚𝕟𝟚𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕥𝕖]

Nessa is never away from her balloon unless it's a bug/glitch. If you deleted part of the balloon, then it's not recognised as a balloon. Glad it all worked out for you.

[tigerpoetry]

Originally posted by in2white:

Nessa is never away from her balloon unless it's a bug/glitch. If you deleted part of the balloon, then it's not recognised as a balloon. Glad it all worked out for you.

Ah. It must have been a glitch, then.

How strange that she appeared to somehow reset and then it worked. I'll doubtless play again sometime and I'll see if I can reproduce it, to pinpoint the exact circumstances that it happens.

[𝕚𝕟𝟚𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕥𝕖]

Originally posted by PeskyTheTroll:

Do you have the poster in your backpack ? If you've already showed it to her, maybe she won't look at it again.

I think you're right Pesky. I know when it came to the painting for Mudwillow, if you still had the first one in your collection, that was the one that counted. In order to "submit" a new painting you seem to need to delete the prior attempts.

[tigerpoetry]

I didn't get to the point of the dialogue that gives you a poster. I had the original balloon painting that was not accepted.

Then, as I said, she disappeared after returning from the ice caves. After doing the last art commissions she was back at the balloon. I made another painting and that did the trick.

I really need to test again. This time I'll back up saves and try different things to see if I can pinpoint exactly why it happens.

I'd like to be able to definitively tell players what to avoid in this quest.

[𝕚𝕟𝟚𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕥𝕖]

You know, I've read about so many glitches and odd things happening (bugs?) in this game it's amazing. So many people have experienced such a wide variety of bizarre happenings that, in all my time there, I haven't seen. I've certainly experienced my own interesting and sometimes frustrating "glitches". I doubt you could repeat what happened but let me know if you do. For me, the worst that's happened is I've had to go back to a save point and have lost a lot of fish and weeds I'd collected. The glitches are what make this game special in a way because you can be surprised by harmless, and often hysterically funny happenings. If your painting was still in your collection and she accepted a new one, that's a surprise. Maybe your glitch was a time alteration of some sort so the game reset. Just a guess. I shouldn't give opinions, especially since I know very little about the tech side of gaming, but I can't help but jump into Eastshade discussions because I feel I've spent so much time in that game I do know a bit that might help people.

[𝕚𝕟𝟚𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕥𝕖]

I suppose you know about the Eastshade sub-Reddit. It's got a funny video of Nessa, if it's still there, and is moderated by one of the devs. A good place to go for more info if you're still going to play. I'm so glad you went back and found it better than you'd remembered.

[tigerpoetry]

Glitches like this are not good, in any game. This one resolved itself... something I find hard to comprehend, except that it could be script related.

Ironically, other than this one major glitch, the entire play-through ran without a single other bug.

It'll never put me off Eastshade.

As I said, I'll have another happy exploration and try to get to the bottom of this at the same time. I'm a proffessional engineer. Finding the source of problems is sort of in my blood. I think of problems as 'intriguing'.