32 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

Found this over at Sorcerer's Place, a mirror of Platter's old site.

http://www.sorcerers...er/crap/die.htm

This is about how many times you can die in the Fortress before getting the Game Over screen. All this applies only to the Foyer of the Fortress with the Greater Shadows and the "Trial of Impulse" where you battle Ignus or Vhailor. Once you touch the crystal and get to the Maze of Reflections dying once means Game Over.

Basically, however many party members you have (including the Nameless One) when you leave for the Fortress is how many times you can die without the game ending. If you have a full party when you leave (six people including the Nameless One) then the game will end on your seventh death.

Also, each time you use one of the "war relics" and you see a cutscene of one of your party members dying, that gives you one extra life (except for Annah's death cutscene). But if you use a war relic and don't see a cutscene of one of your party members dying (because you didn't bring that party member to the Fortress) then that will not give you an extra life. The party members whose cutscenes give you an extra life are Grace, Dak'kon and Nordom. Vhailor, Ignus and Morte have no such cutscenes.

So if you bring a full party which includes Grace, Dak'kon and Nordom and you manage to pull the levers on the war relics the game will not end until your tenth death. If you go to the Fortress alone the game will end on your second death.

First, this explains SKARDAVNELNATE's fix where he said that Annah's death now "counts". I always wondered what he meant by that. That's been fixed since version 1.0 for the record, one of like maybe 3 fixes I put in without knowing quite what they were doing.

But... is it just me, or is part of this whole thing exactly backwards? TNO's getting a whole lot more lives here than he's entitled to. I think as each party member dies in the Fortress, he should be -losing- a life, not gaining one. That's one less soul to take his place.

Also, by this count, TNO's getting one more life than he's entitled to ("If you have a full party when you leave (six people including the Nameless One) then the game will end on your seventh death."). I have reason to believe that you only get that extra life if you have the Lim-Lim with you, and the poor little guy can stand in for you if you die. Not positive, but since I think Platter came to all this from testing (I don't see it anywhere in code, pretty sure it's all in the engine) I don't think there's any way he could've been expected to know, if he just happened to have the Lim Lim when he went there. I know I once read someone say they've had their Lim Lim die spontaneously while there, maybe that's how.

At any rate, I'm pretty sure this is supposed to work in reverse. If you go there with 5 party members and a Lim Lim, you get 6 resurrections. As you go through each of the cutscenes (Dak'kon, Grace, Annah, Nordom) he should be -losing- an available resurrection. It makes no sense that he should be gaining them. I think a negative sign got left out somewhere.

I'm correct regarding the lore on this, aren't I?

Qwinn

[Philiposophy]

Given the nature of the Fortress, TNO is effectively mortal, which is why TTO can actually make him forget everything if he kills him, I think. But the whole dying in someone else's place holds true still in the Fortress so I think yeah, that's right, the number should decrease as the other people in the party die in TNO's place.

[Qwinn]

Thanks for your thoughts, Phil.

Any more opinions on this one? If not, I'm going to go ahead and implement this. After some testing with Lim-Lim's, of course

Pretty cool that there's a use for 'em, I must say.

Qwinn

[Kung Fu Man]

I wouldn't recommend messing with this as it seems like something that isn't broken by fact. There's a fundamental problem with changing this: if TNO dies in the fortress, in theory one of the cutscenes shouldn't fire, as that "life" is already used up. By that logic though if TNO has brought Ignis or Vhailor along, then their "lives" should count and if you die before facing them, then they should die in your place (thus losing to them would equal they die).

In the cutscenes, Dakkon, FFG, Nordom and Annah are all giving their lives for TNO. Deionarra has an incomplete cutscene in this regard too (only sound samples remain). If this were approached as some sort of fix, then logically TNO should go in with no lives, and gain one for each person that dies in his place. It increases the difficulty of the Fortress, but makes a lot more logical sense with what's been discussed here.

The Lim-Lim doesn't count towards this in any way IIRC. It dies the instant you get in there.

[Qwinn]

There's a fundamental problem with changing this: if TNO dies in the fortress, in theory one of the cutscenes shouldn't fire, as that "life" is already used up. By that logic though if TNO has brought Ignis or Vhailor along, then their "lives" should count and if you die before facing them, then they should die in your place (thus losing to them would equal they die).

Not necessarily. We're not told of the mechanism by which the exchange takes place. It's not established that it's instantaneous, that they instantly keel over dead the moment you suffer a mortal wound. Could easily be that when you die, then someone else's fate simply becomes sealed, and are fated to -soon- die. Effect still follows cause. So, you die, and soon thereafter (when you click the next machine) the person slated to die in your place does so. The other way around doesn't make sense, though. The mortal wound to TNO does have to at least come -before- the other person dies.

If this were approached as some sort of fix, then logically TNO should go in with no lives, and gain one for each person that dies in his place.

Again, this doesn't make sense to me. I don't think TNO's extra lives can be pre-ordered. I can see a delay following the wound before someone else dies, but I can't see the party member's death coming -before- TNO's and somehow working as an exchange. By that time, the soul is gone.

At any rate, even by your logic it still doesn't make sense to have the cutscenes adding lives. You -already- were awarded another life when you first walked in... you go in with a full party, and you have 6 lives. Walk in by yourself, you only get one. So you've already been credited for them. Going through those cutscenes gives you another life each... this therefore means FFG, Dak'kon, Nordom and Annah are giving you the ability to resurrect twice each. Doesn't work. It is -that- that makes me believe it's broken in fact. Subtracting a life at that point makes sense, adding one doesn't under any logic cause you were already credited a life by their presence.

The Lim-Lim doesn't count towards this in any way IIRC. It dies the instant you get in there.

Yep, you're right, just discovered this by testing. Too bad, I think it would've been a cool idea, heh.

As for Ignus or Vhailor granting you an extra death, I actually agree that's probably the logical source of that bonus life you get even if you walk in alone. Though in that case, of course, you become the mechanism by which the exchange gets made soon enough, heh.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 18 June 2009 - 07:46 PM.

[taplonaplo]

Again, this doesn't make sense to me. I don't think TNO's extra lives can be pre-ordered. I can see a delay following the wound before someone else dies, but I can't see the party member's death coming -before- TNO's and somehow working as an exchange. By that time, the soul is gone.

I didn't really pay attantion to details, but isn't the fortress trapping spirits preventing them from leaving (all i remember that when you place the sounding stone you claim that the shadows are leaving, and TTO's reaction imply he doesn't like that and it shouldn't normally happen), in which case not losing life after NPC death is logical (they can't leave)? I'm against extra life after NPC death as well BTW, but i'm all for partysize lives.

[Qwinn]

in which case not losing life after NPC death is logical (they can't leave)?

Slightly plausible, perhaps. But it seems unlikely to me.

Ok, let me lay out my thinking on this in one shot.

1) Something definitely needs to be fixed, because no matter what, the fact that the cutscene actors give you TWO lives is clearly broken.

2) The programmers went through the trouble of giving you an extra life for each party member when you first enter. This makes sense. No plan to change.

3) At each cutscene, they also went through the trouble of incrementing a variable. This has the effect of adding a life. Now, everyone always wants me to make "minimal" changes, right? What is the "minimal" change here? Deducing that it was just a matter of a flipped sign, and that (as is completely consistent with the lore) the intent of that code was that a party member dying in the Fortress means one less available life for your curse to feed on? And so all I do is just add a tiny little negative sign, at which point suddenly it all makes sense? Or do we suddenly hate minimalism and with glee and gusto RIP every shred of that code out on the (IMO unsupportable) premise that they really didn't mean for anything to happen to your life-count when your party members die in a cutscene?

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 June 2009 - 07:15 AM.

[taplonaplo]

3) At each cutscene, they also went through the trouble of incrementing a variable. This has the effect of adding a life. Now, everyone always wants me to make "minimal" changes, right? What is the "minimal" change here? Deducing that it was just a matter of a flipped sign, and that (as is completely consistent with the lore) the intent of that code was that a party member dying in the Fortress means one less available life for your curse to feed on? And so all I do is just add a tiny little negative sign, at which point suddenly it all makes sense? Or do we suddenly hate minimalism and with glee and gusto RIP every shred of that code out on the (IMO unsupportable) premise that they really didn't mean for anything to happen to your life-count when your party members die in a cutscene?

Qwinn

So minimalism now does cover specifying lore not done so by the game for the sake of code or data(What i've said has no base either but the outcome seems to bo closer to the original situation, hence i'd claim it more "minimalist")? I thought that's what the UB was for.

Edited by taplonaplo, 19 June 2009 - 07:45 AM.

[Qwinn]

So minimalism now does cover specifying lore not done so by the game for the sake of code or data(What i've said has no base either but the outcome seems to bo closer to the original situation, hence i'd claim it more "minimalist")?

My apologies, Tap, I can't work out what you're trying to say here.

Are you suggesting that I'm basing my decision on lore that is not in the game? I disagree. The lore I'm using to justify deducting lives from TNO as party members die is very much in game. We know that there has to be something living nearby for TNO's immortality to work. The living thing dies in his place. When a party member dies in the cutscene, he is no longer alive and able to take his place. That the cutscene should detract from your lives seems very logical and according to the lore to me.

I base my "minimalist" argument on this: the coders specifically put in code that links party members dying to your life count. Increasing your life count, which is the way it is, makes no sense because it means you're getting two lives for one of theirs. Subtracting, on the other hand, fits the lore. I think it is more minimalist to leave the coded connection between party members dying and your lifecount than to remove it, I'm just making the connection reflect the lore.

Plus the fact that flipped signs is an -extremely common- programmer error. It's extremely plausible that it was simply a goof on their part. That particular goof happens all the time.

And UB is not an issue here. Four party members are granting you two lives each. That is clearly broken. Something needs to be done in the Fixpack about it.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 June 2009 - 08:09 AM.

[Philiposophy]

I think it simply is a fix instead of something to put in UB or Tweaks.

Not only does it agree with the game's lore that you have less lives when your party members die but also it seems that it works perfectly just changing one variable from a "+" to a "-", meaning it must just be an error during production.

[taplonaplo]

Are you suggesting that I'm basing my decision on lore that is not in the game? I disagree. The lore I'm using to justify deducting lives from TNO as party members die is very much in game. We know that there has to be something living nearby for TNO's immortality to work. The living thing dies in his place. When a party member dies in the cutscene, he is no longer alive and able to take his place. That the cutscene should detract from your lives seems very logical and according to the lore to me.

I base my "minimalist" argument on this: the coders specifically put in code that links party members dying to your life count. Increasing your life count, which is the way it is, makes no sense because it means you're getting two lives for one of theirs. Subtracting, on the other hand, fits the lore. I think it is more minimalist to leave the coded connection between party members dying and your lifecount than to remove it, I'm just making the connection reflect the lore.

Plus the fact that flipped signs is an -extremely common- programmer error. It's extremely plausible that it was simply a goof on their part. That particular goof happens all the time.

And UB is not an issue here. Four party members are granting you two lives each. That is clearly broken. Something needs to be done in the Fixpack about it.

I refer to lore as how the curse exactly operates. I always had the impression that it's an instakill, the moment you die instead of you "going" some one else does, but this is arguably just my approach.

To make it clear, any bonus life upon party member death is stupid in my opinion too.
The troubling part comes now with the cutscenes.
1. Losing lives after cutscenes make sense, in my view not losing them too, gaining them doesn't.
2. Having cutscenes after dying say 5 times with a party of 6 collides with my view, goes ok with your take of the curse not being insta death.

My view inherits the logical flaw of the vanilla, with should be dead npcs in cutscenes, but at least it doesn't gives extra lives, so in a gameplay pov it's more "minimalist change", probably not codewise tho. Your version gives a solution that makes sense logically for both cases, but not not minimalist in a gameplay pov (which i believe most people care about), but it's fine if you look at it as a code slip up(altho that doesn't mean it wouldn't be the best solution, as it's the one that makes most sense). My main problem is that if you change something, you have to have good reason to do so. Your change, would obviously collide as how i see one of the (IMO) core lore mechanic of the game, that i wouldn't like. But anyway, i don't think dying in the fortress would be a serious issue for anyone really, so go ahead and do as you like, the effects aren't as gameplay changing as was the THAC0 change for example.

Still i gotta ask this: Does your life increase with 2? or twice with 1? If it's just a +/- thing, shouldn't you lose 2 lives, or no change in the amount of lives?

[Qwinn]

Still i gotta ask this: Does your life increase with 2? or twice with 1? If it's just a +/- thing, shouldn't you lose 2 lives, or no change in the amount of lives?

You gain one life for each party member including yourself (or perhaps that "including yourself" is arguably really Vhailor/Ignus... I prefer that view, as having an extra life for yourself makes no sense).

If you enter with a full party, you have 6 lives. If you then go through all the cutscenes, you have 10 lives.

The proposed fix means that you will still have 6 lives when you enter, but after the 4 cutscenes, you will only have 2. Which makes sense... Morte never dies, and is thus always available for that extra death. Same with Ignus and Vhailor until you actually kill them.

Incidentally, here are two more arguments for my view that death is not necessarily instantaneous (actually, the second argument is that maybe it -is- still instantaneous):

1. It can take weeks of game time from the time Ravel dies to the time Mebbeth dies. The link between those aspects of Ravel would seem to me a lot stronger than the link between TNO and whoever's dying to replace him. So I don't think the idea of a delayed death-link is unprecedented in the game.

2. I think we're also being a bit too literal on the timing of those cutscenes. To me, those are just a convenient time to show you what's happening "elsewhere" as a cinematic, but I think the teleportation is instantaneous. I don't think TNO actually -sees- the deaths occurring during those teleports, as the initial encounter with TO on the roof implies you didn't actually witness it. So what I'm saying here is, those TO cutscenes with your party members are probably happening as you're running around killing shadows (and their deaths arguably coinciding right with your own deaths), it's just conveniently shown to you as an OOC cinematic during the teleports. Make sense? Of course, the incrementing of the counter happens at the time of the teleports, but it has to happen -sometime-, and again it's done at that time for convenience sake.

What would've been pretty cool, IMO, is if your own deaths triggered a PC death cutscene during the fadeout/fadein, but I can believe that would've been some pretty tricky screwing around with the engine to pull off.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 June 2009 - 09:46 AM.

[taplonaplo]

Still i gotta ask this: Does your life increase with 2? or twice with 1? If it's just a +/- thing, shouldn't you lose 2 lives, or no change in the amount of lives?

You gain one life for each party member including yourself (or perhaps that "including yourself" is arguably really Vhailor/Ignus... I prefer that view, as having an extra life for yourself makes no sense).

If you enter with a full party, you have 6 lives. If you then go through all the cutscenes, you have 10 lives.

The proposed fix means that you will still have 6 lives when you enter, but after the 4 cutscenes, you will only have 2. Which makes sense... Morte never dies, and is thus always available for that extra death. Same with Ignus and Vhailor until you actually kill them.

Incidentally, here are two more arguments for my view that death is not necessarily instantaneous:

1. It can take weeks of game time from the time Ravel dies to the time Mebbeth dies. The link between those aspects of Ravel would seem to me a lot stronger than the link between TNO and whoever's dying to replace him. So I don't think the idea of a delayed death-link is unprecedented in the game.

2. I think we're also being a bit too literal on the timing of those cutscenes. To me, those are just a convenient time to show you what's happening "elsewhere" as a cinematic, but I think the teleportation is instantaneous. I don't think TNO actually -sees- the deaths occurring during those teleports, as the initial encounter with TO on the roof implies you didn't actually witness it. So what I'm saying here is, those TO cutscenes with your party members are probably happening as you're running around killing shadows (and their deaths arguably coinciding right with your own deaths), it's just conveniently shown to you as an OOC cinematic during the teleports. Make sense?

Qwinn

Ok i misunderstood the life gaining things (i thought you gain 2 in the cutscene), thanks for clearing up.
2. seals the deal and explains everything, one little question still bothers me about morte tho. How would he wind up alive on the rooftop, after the 5th death in the party of 6 ?

[Qwinn]

"2. seals the deal and explains everything, one little question still bothers me about morte tho. How would he wind up alive on the rooftop, after the 5th death in the party of 6 smile.gif? "

Yeah. Unfortunately there's no way around this one. The dialogue has Morte surviving under all circumstances, so technically his being along with the party shouldn't give you an extra life. (justifiable cause, well, he's sorta -un-dead anyway).

Want my super-weak really lame justification for it?

Morte: "Well, yeah -- when you've been dead as long as I have, you learn to fake it really well."

Really really REALLY well. Like, even fooling your curse well. Heh. Heheh.

Okay, yeah, like I said it's really weak. Still, this issue exists whether I do my fix or not, and I think post-fix makes a lot more sense than pre-fix.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 June 2009 - 10:00 AM.

[Qwinn]

Oh, and:

Ok i misunderstood the life gaining things (i thought you gain 2 in the cutscene), thanks for clearing up.

Yeah, sorry for the confusion, when I said they give you two lives each, I mean once when you first go to the Fortress and then another during their cutscene.

This is why I rejected this idea:

If this were approached as some sort of fix, then logically TNO should go in with no lives, and gain one for each person that dies in his place.

Aside from putting the cart before the horse IMO, I don't see the logic that you go in with 5 other people, die right away before getting any cutscenes, and thus die permanently even though there's still 5 other living PC's around that could in theory take the death for you? Doesn't make sense to me. The extra lives you get when you first enter make sense, adding yet more lives at those PC's death doesn't make sense, subtracting the lives they granted you when they die themselves does make sense.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 June 2009 - 10:17 AM.

[Daulmakan]

The proposed fix means that you will still have 6 lives when you enter, but after the 4 cutscenes, you will only have 2. Which makes sense... Morte never dies, and is thus always available for that extra death. Same with Ignus and Vhailor until you actually kill them.

I agree with this proposed fix.


Regarding other's deaths, I'm also guessing the effect is instantaneous. Ravel's spell goes against nature, and the easiest way to alter that is if someone dies in place (and time) instead of TNO.

[Tassadar88]

Thoughts about this:

1) I always imagined that the disappearing person during the game intro is someone who disappeared when TNO "died"

2) In my understanding of the way the companions work in the fortress of regrets, the transcendent one gives them the option to leave not out of mercy for them, but because if they die, their souls/life/whatever remains in the fortress due to its being cut off from the planes and the remainders *can* be used by the nameless one. This way, TNO can make use of their lives after they´ve died. It would sure be cool if the cutscenes could somehow fire at the moment of TNO´s death (at the expense of them not occurring when TNO uses the portal) *AND* only those that had not already fired this way would show while using the clock.

Edited by Tassadar88, 19 June 2009 - 11:14 AM.

[gothemasticator]

Qwinn,

I agree with your minimalist minus-sign fix.

To be honest, I have been unaware all these years that there was any counter of lives in the fortress--probably because I had so many to spare that I never ran out!

But your thinking through the lore makes solid sense to me.

As for the not-quite-perfect count of lives that's left after the minu-sign fix (Morte, lim-lims)--this area of the game would just now be about as polished as many other areas of the game.

gothemasticator

[Qwinn]

Morte should just be dead like the rest of the party if 5 deaths ocurred, and say something slightly different when resurrected.

Logically speaking, you're correct, this really should be the case according to the lore.

Unfortunately, the lines would have to be entirely different, I really don't see a way it can be changed "slightly" to accomodate this:

Spoiler

Morte: As you reach out, Morte suddenly speaks. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up, chief. Uh... there's a few things I need to tell you."

TNO: "Morte...?! You're not dead!"

Morte: "Well, yeah -- when you've been dead as long as I have, you learn to fake it really well. I've been kind of listening to your whole conversation. Use that power you got on someone else - I don't need it."

TNO: "So you were going to *lie* there while I got my ass handed to me?"

Morte: "Well, *yeah*, chief. It's not like you'd die. I mean, if you failed, you'd need someone to remember for you. Plus, you know how worthless I am in a fight - well, when I'm not taunting some mage or another..."

TNO: "Then maybe that's what I'll need you to do. We'll talk about this *later*, Morte..."

Would pretty much require an entire new dialogue sequence to accommodate this, and that butts up against my rule of introducing as little dialogue changes as possible in the Fixpack. Heck, I don't even like doing it in UB, unless it's one of the Expanded, not recommended mods (of which only one exists so far).

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 June 2009 - 01:27 PM.