Demonflame: Completing the Pale Queen?

prootwaddle

I've hit a snag with Demonflame and I've re-run things (and searched for an answer) but so far I've had no joy at all.

It is the Pale Queen part of Demonflame.

I get as far as Free the Avatar but my Demon Key just stick to the left hand wall of the entrance corridor, just before were the Mystic Barrier was.

Sometime I can lure him out of that position by drawing Jack Fool back, so the Demon Key attacks him, and then drawing Jack Fool into the main room but the Demon Key returns to being stuck after the cut scenes.

It almost seems that the path of the Demon Key follows is wrong and that section of wall is the one that he runs into automatically.

Any ideas?

flamingbunnyman

I've only done Demonflame twice, but I've never run into that issue.

Have you tried logging out long enough to reset the instance? it should only reset the current part of the AP, not the whole thing.

prootwaddle

flamingbunnyman wrote: »

I've only done Demonflame twice, but I've never run into that issue.

Have you tried logging out long enough to reset the instance? it should only reset the current part of the AP, not the whole thing.

Such a thing does only reset the AP because I've logged out, slept and played it the next day.

I've also use Socrates to exit, gone to Monster Island and built my character's stars back up to five, swapped characters, built his stars up to five, swapped back and tried again. I've even tried with a Lemurian Golem for back-up.

It is very consistent and it happens as the portal and the imps are defeated.

I'm playing Demonflame at 40 with a Behemoth, solo.

Does anyone know how to unstuck an ally like the Demon Key? I've already tried /unstuck Demon Key and got the error back "unstuck does not accept arguments".

If he was an enemy I'd generally raise the threat level on it with an AoE attack and move away. This option is not available to me, of course.

The only options the Demon Key has on his menu is Follow (does nothing as Demon Key isn't moving although I've tried) and Info (and there is no means to trigger the Interact from there).

somebob

The pathfinding for the Demon Key is absolutely totally and utterly broken. He'll either entirely break down there or during the final boss fight.

For that matter, AI pathfinding (that is supposed to be friendly) is almost entirely fubar, too.

There really is nothing else to try for your Demonflame mission other than 'leave instance for 5 minutes so it reboots, then try again'.

rtma

If he gets stuck, draw Jack fool to him, allow Demonkey to be dissociated then he'll come back soon enough while he's catching up, defeat jack fool and I found Demonkey is ready to disperse the barrier when he arrives.

prootwaddle

I've been seeing some other weird effects on that segment of the mission as well.

During the library maze a group of Scythehands, peeled off my Behemoth and poured through a closed corner of the maze. I couldn't directly follow them so I navigated around the maze to find them attacking a wandering Demon Key. In the maze the Demon Key essentially seems to go around and pick fights, ignoring the need to interact with the Forbidden Knowledge.

Where Demon Key gets stuck it looks like the path he follows is about 20 or 30 degrees off.

Can anyone remember where travels to after the Imps and the Portal are beaten on an instance that work normally?

It looks he is meant to stop before the Mystic Barrier. Can anyone confirm this?

I suspect that because he simply does not reach his destination, his dialogue and the necessary interaction with him are simply not triggered.

forrksakesexco

Confirmed - tried it with my lev 40 FF Demon Key got stuck just where you said and I tried pulling Jack to the key but he reset and went back to hammering the corner. Exactly as OP said - gonna try again later but not optimistic.
One other wierd thing, Master of all sorrows misson: when I went into the main room to rescue first 5 children every entity in the room jumped us and I went down to like 5 mobs, got some but died horribly. Once recovered and back the encounter went as normal.

hyperstrikecoh

I've run Demonflame twice in the last two-ish weeks. I haven't run across this behavior.

Obviously, that isn't helpful to those who are having the issue.
Just figured I should drop my statistics in there.

prootwaddle

forrksakesexco wrote: »

Confirmed - tried it with my lev 40 FF Demon Key got stuck just where you said and I tried pulling Jack to the key but he reset and went back to hammering the corner. Exactly as OP said - gonna try again later but not optimistic.
One other wierd thing, Master of all sorrows misson: when I went into the main room to rescue first 5 children every entity in the room jumped us and I went down to like 5 mobs, got some but died horribly. Once recovered and back the encounter went as normal.

Thanks for the independent confirmation.

I'm only guessing here (although it may be an educated guess due to my honours degree) that it may have been broken due to a recent patch in which case there could no solution to this. If so then at least the rest of the mission was very playable.

The Master of Sorrows - yes, now you mention it, the same thing probably happened to me. I assumed it was due to me leaping in with too much vigour at the time.

I'm currently rebuilding my main character in the PowerHouse, raising funds via the Auction House and my 32nd level Soldier in order to strip him down and rebuild him. So as a result this might take me some time before I can get back to this one.

jaazaniah1

Ran Demonflame yesterday with 3 friends. Ca. Level 14 and difficulty set at Hard. No real problems other than one room with a lot of mobs. Regen tank handled Luther Black all on his own.

prootwaddle

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

Ran Demonflame yesterday with 3 friends. Ca. Level 14 and difficulty set at Hard. No real problems other than one room with a lot of mobs. Regen tank handled Luther Black all on his own.

It might just be a problem soloing Demon Flame.

Do you remember how the Demon Key behaved just before the Mystic Barrier was taken down in the Pale Queen part of the adventure?

jaazaniah1

Can't remember anything special about the Key. He always seems to hang back except in corridors, so it's hard to keep track of him.

prootwaddle wrote: »

It might just be a problem soloing Demon Flame.

Do you remember how the Demon Key behaved just before the Mystic Barrier was taken down in the Pale Queen part of the adventure?

prootwaddle

Finally got my Behemoth out of the Power House and so I re-tested Demonflame.

The Demon Key still gets stuck in the section of the Pale Queen that includes the Mystic Barrier.

If anyone could confirm where the Demon Key is meant to go after the fight with the Imps and the Portal, without him getting stuck in the wall, it would be good to know.

jaazaniah1

Tried it a level 40 on elite and the Key is stuck exactly where the OP says. Disappointing.

hyperstrikecoh

Okay, ran a Demonflame last Tuesday. The key got stuck on, I believe, the third geyser-thingee (yes, it's a technical term!) and we wound up having to exit and restart.

We thought maybe there was an unkilled enemy someplace.

Also, he is running off REALLY rapidly. Doesn't stop like other escort missions, and can frequently get killed that way. I think something borked in his AI in one (or more) of the last couple patches.

Granted, we didn't have a problem after the restart.

I'm REALLY growing to hate the main map though. It's maximum resolution isn't any better than the minimap. So you have landmarks that are HIDEOUSLY easy to pass by. Simply because you can't zoom the main map out enough to see more than a tiny fraction of the damn zone!

prootwaddle

jaazaniah1, hyperstrikecoh,

Thanks for the reports.

After some consideration I decided to drop the mission entirely and have another stab at it later but it looks like there are still issues but maybe only if you solo it.

As for keeping up with the Demon Key at the start I dealt with him running off by using Follow on him.

At later stages the Demon Key does seem to wander off to fight things but, at least up to the point where I simply can't finish the Pale Queen, he doesn't actually seem be killable.

jaazaniah1

I think I may have found a solution.

Same guy at level 40 elite. When I got to the room with the barrier I left the imps to the Key and went immediately to take down the barrier. The Key did take down the imps on his own, but was weakened. Once the 3 Jack Fools were triggered I led them back to the Key who was stuck against the wall. The Key only had half his HPs and the Fools killed him, then I finished off the Fools. I went back outside and found the Key returning to where I had been, when I again entered the chamber which had had the barrier the Key was already standing in the Chamber with the Pale Queen and was more than happy to release her :-)

Maybe a few other folks who have gotten stuck at this point could give this trick a try and see if it works for them?

prootwaddle

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

I think I may have found a solution.

Same guy at level 40 elite. When I got to the room with the barrier I left the imps to the Key and went immediately to take down the barrier. The Key did take down the imps on his own, but was weakened. Once the 3 Jack Fools were triggered I led them back to the Key who was stuck against the wall. The Key only had half his HPs and the Fools killed him, then I finished off the Fools. I went back outside and found the Key returning to where I had been, when I again entered the chamber which had had the barrier the Key was already standing in the Chamber with the Pale Queen and was more than happy to release her :-)

Maybe a few other folks who have gotten stuck at this point could give this trick a try and see if it works for them?

So this is essentially, if I understand it correctly, a cunning ploy to ensure that the Demon Key is killed in the last battle in the Pale Queen so he respawns in the correct place one he is needed to release her?

My game time has been greatly reduced recently but I'll seek to reproduce this.

jaazaniah1

Yep. Try to get him killed so he respawns and then follows the correct path to the Pale Queen. At least that worked for me.

rtma

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

I think I may have found a solution.

Same guy at level 40 elite. When I got to the room with the barrier I left the imps to the Key and went immediately to take down the barrier. The Key did take down the imps on his own, but was weakened. Once the 3 Jack Fools were triggered I led them back to the Key who was stuck against the wall. The Key only had half his HPs and the Fools killed him, then I finished off the Fools. I went back outside and found the Key returning to where I had been, when I again entered the chamber which had had the barrier the Key was already standing in the Chamber with the Pale Queen and was more than happy to release her :-)

Maybe a few other folks who have gotten stuck at this point could give this trick a try and see if it works for them?

Isn't that what I basically said?...

jaazaniah1

I couldn't figure out what you meant by "dissociated" in your earlier post. I thought you meant that Jack Fool's attacking the Key would draw him away from the wall and once the Fool was eliminated the Key would then follow the correct path. When that didn't do the trick I decided to see about getting the Key defeated. Sorry if I misunderstood.

rtma wrote: »

Isn't that what I basically said?...

prootwaddle

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

Yep. Try to get him killed so he respawns and then follows the correct path to the Pale Queen. At least that worked for me.

I managed to have a stab at this and I couldn't get the timing correct. The Demon Key would die at the wrong time, respawn and head back to being stuck in the wall.

This was after I dropped the quest and restarted Demonflame to work back to the same point.

I'm not going to give up yet, I'll see if I crack it. Thank you for your suggestions.

evillegacy1

prootwaddle wrote: »

I managed to have a stab at this and I couldn't get the timing correct. The Demon Key would die at the wrong time, respawn and head back to being stuck in the wall.

This was after I dropped the quest and restarted Demonflame to work back to the same point.

I'm not going to give up yet, I'll see if I crack it. Thank you for your suggestions.

Yeah this is type of stuff they should be looking into instead of focusing on the next lockbox. I havent been here too long but already within the at least the past two weeks you're the 24th person and counting that had that issue and vocalized it here on the forum and or in game. That's 24 that i came across. Unless I havea knack of knowing every single person that have problem with that mission all within that short period of time, there probably are a whole lot more out there that have that issue with that demon key.

prootwaddle

evillegacy1 wrote: »

Yeah this is type of stuff they should be looking into instead of focusing on the next lockbox. I havent been here too long but already within the at least the past two weeks you're the 24th person and counting that had that issue and vocalized it here on the forum and or in game. That's 24 that i came across. Unless I havea knack of knowing every single person that have problem with that mission all within that short period of time, there probably are a whole lot more out there that have that issue with that demon key.

The good news is that if enough people report in about a problem like this, whether it worked for them or not, people could probably figure out a workaround.

The people who have expressed the same issue probably tried to play Demonflame solo.

I would love to be able to look at the mission and see if I could correct it.

Once I worked in an environment where the applications and operating systems were all written in the same language and I could debug right down to the OS allowing me to send a suggested bug fix to the relevant group. This tended to make me very hands on.