Neutral Ratel Bug and Possible Solutions

[Lt._Luc]

So, there's been quite a few of these bug report threads being posted since at least December I've noticed, but none of them seemed to have an official response. So, here's another one to draw attention since there's been readily no visible sign it's received any attention. To differentiate this thread, I shall propose several solutions to the issue, both specifically in regards to the Ratels and in general for soft-locking similar glitches and bugs.

 

During a fissure Defense mission on Pluto (can't remember the exact map name, but it's the smaller map with the tall tower and a landing platform that the Ambulas is dropped off on), on Wave 17, we had some Ratels spawn, presumably from my Nekros' Shadows of the Dead ability summoning a Sniper Corpus unit who then placed the summoning portal. These Ratels were marked as Friendly and could not be destroyed, yet were the only remaining 'enemy' unit on the map once my Shadows died from timing out. We waited several minutes, hoping for an Ambulas spawn to come in to kill them, with no luck. Eventually, the host agreed to disconnect for the benefit of us other three players, thereby losing his bonus XP and loot (but at least keeping the relic rewards). This reset the round, despawning the Ratels, and allowed us to reach round 20 where we could evacuate before further mishaps. I made sure to not spawn additional Shadows during this time.

 

Obviously, this is a very frustrating bug, which we were fortunate enough to have an incredibly inconvenient solution to (forced Host migration). The annoying part about this is that such issues have existed in the game for a very long time (namely single enemy units spawning too far inside a wall to be damaged by abilities or weapon fire, most notably on maps like Lua's defense). Ironically, our solution would be an effective, if inelegant, one for many of the game's problems.

Allow host to willingly force a Host Migration without requiring their departure would allow for players with poor internet to pass on the mantle of host.

Allow host to perform a reset or migration would reset the map in the event of de-spawned or otherwise inaccessible mission-critical items (Mobile Defense keys, for example).

Allow host to reset the map/round in the event of glitched enemies.

 

Some of these could be further refined, though. Host Swap, after all, has its own issues (up to and including inducing the aforementioned ones). If a simple background timer was added to missions, these problems could be largely erased. For example:

After a minute of being left on the ground, Mobile Defense keys would respawn to the center of the last cleared room (not in front of the console, as this is often where they get stuck, especially on Orokin maps) or simply at mission spawn.

After a minute, if there are five or less enemies on the map during a defense mission, all enemies should be forcibly de-spawned to allow the next round to begin. Even better, just let the next round timer start after there's five or less enemies on the map to remove the tedious cat-and-mouse game (which is made worse by the extra five seconds of waiting once they've been cleared out).

 

Not only would those help alleviate frustrating softlocks, but they'd also make their respective game modes far more attractive to play by removing dull and unnecessary downtime in (arguably) the slowest unlimited mission type.

 

I would love to have a discussion on the viability of these ideas, and welcome feedback on them.

[KalChoedan]

Quote

During a fissure Defense mission on Pluto (can't remember the exact map name, but it's the smaller map with the tall tower and a landing platform that the Ambulas is dropped off on), on Wave 17, we had some Ratels spawn, presumably from my Nekros' Shadows of the Dead ability summoning a Sniper Corpus unit who then placed the summoning portal. These Ratels were marked as Friendly and could not be destroyed, yet were the only remaining 'enemy' unit on the map

For what it's worth, I don't think it's anything to do with Nekros' Shadows of the Dead. I've seen this happen several times on defense maps vs Corpus without a Nekros present. In each case some Ratels are spawned at some point in a round but are marked friendly and can't be killed, so the round never ends. I didn't see either the Sniper Crewman or the fabrication pad he dropped to check whether they were hostile, but as they weren't present at the "end" of the round I would assume they were both hostile. The Ratels were friendly from the moment they spawned.

[Lt._Luc]

13 hours ago, KalChoedan said:

For what it's worth, I don't think it's anything to do with Nekros' Shadows of the Dead. I've seen this happen several times on defense maps vs Corpus without a Nekros present. In each case some Ratels are spawned at some point in a round but are marked friendly and can't be killed, so the round never ends. I didn't see either the Sniper Crewman or the fabrication pad he dropped to check whether they were hostile, but as they weren't present at the "end" of the round I would assume they were both hostile. The Ratels were friendly from the moment they spawned.

Hmm, really? I figured the common element would be mind control or enemy spawning mechanics to make them, but if that's the case it's even worse because I can't actively avoid causing it. The game really needs an option to force continuation of mission waves, since most of my softlocks are a result of that.