A Few Fossa Bugs

[Sirspen]

Mission Location: Venus - Fossa

Mission Type: Assassination (The Jackal)

Issue: The first and most obvious bug on this map is if players fall onto the elevator that the Jackal comes from, it will not spawn until they disconnect or die and revive.

Possible Solutions:

1. Have a barrier, whether physical or cinematic, that prevents players from coming into contact with the platform until the boss is on the field.

2. Isolate and fix the issue itself that prevents the Jackal from spawning while players are on the platform.

3. Kill players instantly upon contact with the platform.

4. The Jackal doesn't spawn until the entire group is in the room. If a fix is instituted that requires the entire party to be present before entering the room, the boss should spawn before any of them reach the platform.

Priority: Medium High. Most players playing the mission for the first time jump down onto the platform, and even those who are more experienced occasionally fall onto it, especially if they have to fight other enemies in the room. Once the platform begins to rise, it is no longer a problem.

Issue: The Jackal sometimes gains an incredibly high capacity shield (extends beyond the edge of the bar and off the screen) while standing, loses it upon falling down (by players damaging a leg or arm), but regains it completely upon standing again (even if players managed to completely drain the shield before it fell).

Possible Solution: I've only encountered this bug a couple of times; not enough to be able to know how to replicate it. From a non developer standpoint, it's hard to offer insight.

Priority: Medium low. While it is very difficult to take down the shield, most players prefer to damage the boss while it is in a collapsed state anyway. The shield does not prevent damage to the legs and arms, therefore, players can still damage them enough for it to fall, after which they can damage it normally until it stands again. It's harder to kill, but not game-breaking.

Issue: Connecting to the mission during the boss fight. During connection, players experience a very low framerate that lasts even after they've spawned, frequently resulting in them dying prior to even rendering the boss or other players. Other complications include if Mine Ospreys have littered the room with mines, it's possible to spawn on them after connecting, resulting in heavy damage or death. In one particular occurence, I connected, and upon loading in, could only see space, only had a pistol equipped, couldn't see my character, had 100 hp and 0 shield, couldn't move, and didn't appear on the minimap (though my teammates did). I was forced to disconnect.

Possible Solution: I'm not too sure what causes the problem, so I can't offer much insight. The horrendously low framerate is likely due to mines around the room, so that could point to a possible fix. The loading into space was likely a connectivity issue or a byproduct of the low framerate.

Priority: Medium. While a large problem for most players connecting to a mission in progress, if connecting with their own party or solo, they start from the beginning of it and as such do not experience the issues.

Issue: Mission specific connectivity and matchmaking. Attempting to join the mission frequently results in a "you were disconnected" message after the countdown (an issue I haven't experienced on any other mission, which is why I'm posting it here rather than in Matchmaking Bugs). Very frequently, during the boss fight, players are briefly presented with a loading screen, then re-loaded into it, but solo, without their previous experience, credits, and item drops from the mission, and frequently, objectives are broken (missing or unresponsive). Host migration also regularly occurs during the boss fight, even if none of the players leave, and always fails, resulting in players being booted back to the map and separated from their party. After a failed host migration, attempting to re-join the mission occasionally results in a crash.

Possible Solution: Again, from a non-developer standpoint, it is hard to isolate the causes of these. Judging by the fact that the re-loading and host migration both occur while fighting the boss, it could be related to the problem that causes the aforementioned issue. Also, with the small closed-beta community, not much stress-testing has been done, and because this is the only mission that yields Rhino Warframe part blueprints, it is a heavily played mission and could simply be overloaded.

Priority: Low-High. The "disconnected" message upon attempting to join is merely a nuisance and wastes a few seconds of time. The other issues, however, are frustrating and problematic. I've had the re-loading bug occur after defeating the boss, losing any drops I obtained from it. The host migration and subsequent failure is also frustrating, forcing players to restart the mission, with no assurance that it won't happen next time.

[UkyoSonoda]

Encountered a bug a couple times with Jackal itself where it would do nothing but stomp in place non stop causing shockwaves until it finally died.

[Vedic]

I've had the infinite stomping bug; sometimes it'll reset and go back to normal behavior after a while, sometimes not. It's especially annoying since the "collapse" period is maybe a second before it stands back up and keeps stomping. With the ammo problems that level creates as-is, shooting down the shield is not always an option.

Also, I get TONS of lag/sync problems on that level, along with crashes just after the boss death. The reloads-mission-as-solo-with-unresponsive-objectives happened today during the Jackal fight, and I had to quit out after 20 minutes spent killing him. :\

[SloBiscuit]

My game crashes when I kill the main boss or the boss is at really low health. The game frezees and it stops working. :\

[jnsrjl]

After completing Fossa for briefly it showed revive screen but then continued normally. My friend's game however loaded Fossa again right away and freezed to a point were even aborting was impossible. After he booted the game it showed mission results and he got the rewards too.

My game crashed twice before completing Fossa. I managed to "get past" by switching to lower graphics (anti-aliazing, shadows etc. --> off).

Edited January 13, 2013 by jnsrjl

[Raejin99]

re: the shield, I think that's intentional. You have to knock out his legs to to get him down, which temporarily takes down his shields, allowing you to damage him. He gets the shield when he gets back up. I have never encountered him in which it acted in any other way.

[Sirspen]

re: the shield, I think that's intentional. You have to knock out his legs to to get him down, which temporarily takes down his shields, allowing you to damage him. He gets the shield when he gets back up. I have never encountered him in which it acted in any other way.

I've previously had him with a shield that is drainable. Maybe the high/infinite capacity shield is intentional, but either way, it shouldn't extend off the screen.

And as for the infinite stomping bug, I had already seen a thread about it, so I didn't mention it here.