Ballad of Baphomet Bugs

beckylunatic

Baphomet can knock you right out of the arena so that you can't get back in without dying or abandoning and re-entering the mission. I think this happens if he jumps on you while you're already pressed against the barrier. You can jump down into the lava and run around unharmed though.

Baphomet's Wall of Stone still affects an area larger than the warning circle depicts. I get that the power is probably intended to not respect control immunities. "Eff you, I'm a demon prince, so I get to be cheap." But I do feel it's unfair for indicators that you dodged out of range to be wrong, even if whatever immunity you might normally have during your dodge is null.

pitshade

A friend was having the issue with getting knocked out of bounds last night.

I can sort of see the point about ignoring control immunities. However it is a weekly annoyance that dodge, sprint and shadow slip cancel your animations and allow you to get away while block only frees you from being locked down. You still have to run out on your own. And then you get reminded that the splat is smaller than the AoE.

beckylunatic

I partner up for it on my GF and OP, and just sit there while dear husband DPSes unmolested. I'd be consistently a lot more annoyed about the lack of respect for blocking otherwise.

I'm not certain but getting knocked through the barrier might indicate that they made a change to prevent players from getting stuck on/in the barrier, which I know was previously possible.

pitshade

I haven't run it this week, but J was on his TR and was blaming Duelist's Flurry which I know has sent me into terrain before. He did mention being on the edge of the arena, which I haven't made a habit of.

@jaegernl

beckylunatic

That's interesting as I was also on a TR but I can't recall if I was in mid-flurry at that exact moment.

I also wasn't going to make a point of bringing up my own oversight that I could likely have Deft Striked back in. Haven't used that power in so long I forgot it has applications for getting unstucked.

dupeks

FWIW I got pushed out of the arena on my GWF yesterday, so it's not only limited to TRs. BTW if you get pushed out you can jump down into the lava and get trapped under the arena in all sorts of fun ways.

And yes wall of stone is still bigger and more annoying than advertised...

pitshade

@rjc9000 told me that the game is determining whether a player is in the AoE several seconds before it activates, rather than the expected behavior of calculating it at the same time. If this is so, and it seems likely, then that would explain why the AoE sometimes seems to exceed the splat. The red zone is correct, but the timing of the attack is wrong.

I suspect that a similar issue exists with the Giant Nothic Stone Eye, as I have had characters turn away from that boss and still get petrified numerous times.

rjc9000

*puts on fighting game hat*

I would chalk it up to two different explanations: active frames and hitboxes.

Active frames is a pain to explain, but in short, every attack in every video game ever has a startup time (where the attack is about to begin), an active time (when the attack actually puts the hurty part into enemies), and endlag (where the player's character is "recovering" from using the attack.

In the case of Baphomet, I betcha the active frames of his Wall of Stone is hitting much faster than his startup would tell you.

Now, if you want it explained in terms of hitboxes, the easiest thing to chalk it up to is deceptive hitboxes.

See. how us players view the game is not quite how the game sees the game.
The players see boxes, animations, and sprites, but the game merely sees "boxes". Whenever a box collides with another box, a condition is met and the game shows that condition. For example, an attack box colliding with a box which determines enemy "position" will check the condition that an enemy has been damaged by an attack, regardless of whether the animation or sprite is correctly matching up with the boxes.

I'll illustrate my point using everyone's favorite Altean prince.



Normally, the animation should imply a really short grab, but due to a programming oversight, Marth's grab has double the hitbox length. Which means that Marth has the longest grab range in Melee, despite the animation.



(sorry for potato quality, I tried to get the original link but it didn't work).

In the case of Baphomet, his Wall of Stone could just have a large hitbox of two-three feet bigger than the red circle. It's not the only thing in this game that's like this, other attacks like the Dragonflight Black Dragon's Claw Swipe or Storvald's IBS like attack have hitbox dissonance.

Pit, I think the petrification issue is another issue of "invisible hitbox": the accepted strategy is to get the boss to use his 420 blaze it on the mirrors. Except that the mirrors behave somewhat realistically in that they reflect the image of the loot pinata's ugly mug, which means you can get frozen by the reflection.

Or, if it has nothing to do with the mirrors, it could be an issue of lag where the active frames of the hitbox are hitting before the animation plays out (which is probably the most likely case). This could also explain the balls of Orcus and Lostmauth, where the damage hitbox is actually moving faster than the ball sprite.

nightstalkor

beckylunatic said:

Baphomet can knock you right out of the arena so that you can't get back in without dying or abandoning and re-entering the mission. I think this happens if he jumps on you while you're already pressed against the barrier. You can jump down into the lava and run around unharmed though.

Baphomet's Wall of Stone still affects an area larger than the warning circle depicts. I get that the power is probably intended to not respect control immunities. "Eff you, I'm a demon prince, so I get to be cheap." But I do feel it's unfair for indicators that you dodged out of range to be wrong, even if whatever immunity you might normally have during your dodge is null.

What happened to me is that Baphomet knocked me up and then I was TRAPPED TWICE in the invisible wall at the edge of the platform. Only way I could continue on was to do a kill myself, since for some insanely STUPID MORONIC UNCALLED FOR IDIOTIC REASON I CANNOT use the /stuck command to get the hell out, since, wait, it's combat and that apparently means that you have to start ALL OVER AGAIN, even though combat is IMPORTANT, and having to do the SAME MISH THREE TIMES BECAUSE I CAN'T USE THE /STUCK COMMAND IS A GOOD IDEA.

I think my point is this .. WHY CAN'T I USE THE /STUCK COMMAND IN COMBAT? This is where MANY bugs pop up, like this Baphomet bang you out of the arena thing. It MAKES. NO. SENSE.

And it's frustrating. Both times Baph knocked me out of the circle he was at less than 1/2 HT. Spent over twice the time I normally do to finish the mish. And yes, I was playing a TR.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
1) /stuck should always Always ALWAYS be available, and this bug shows why. Make it so.
2) Get rid of Baphomet's Knock up/away/down. If he can't throw you into the barrier, NO problem.
3) Exhaustively examine and rebuild the wall around the Baphomet arena, making it so players will bounce off of it (w/o extra damage) instead of them getting stuck in it or stuck on the other side of it.

pitshade

The issue for TR seems to be a newish bug with Duelist's Flurry. It has always been that the TR sticks to mobs during the Flurry part. Now for some reason, mobs will sometimes try to walk towards the TR, pushing the player. It seems likely that some change to the CC immune part of the at-will is causing mobs to think that they are too far away, and thus move towards the character. Under normal circumstances, the mob is either ignoring the rogue and pulling them, or else focused on the rogue and attacking. A Flurrying TR has always been capable of glitching through terrain. A teleporting Storm Shaman in Sharandar once left me stuck inside a pod plant and another time, the mob I was attacking got hit with Flame Strike, throwing me into the ceiling. It is not at all implausible that being pushed would send you through the barrier.

So for any Dev reading this, find out why mobs walk towards TR during flurry.

beckylunatic

I just make a very serious point of pulling Baphomet to the middle of the arena and staying there now. Lesson learned (mostly!).

nightstalkor

beckylunatic said:

I just make a very serious point of pulling Baphomet to the middle of the arena and staying there now. Lesson learned (mostly!).

I've tried to do this since the FIRST time Baphomet tossed me up and f'd me off in the wall... the problem is that the caster adds tend to stay VERY close to the wall. So to get rid of them, so they don't prolong the fight further or perhaps contribute damage at an inopportune time, you pretty much HAVE to go kill them. That's how Baphomet got me yesterday.

It might be noted that Baphomet makes a hell of a tank for his adds.. he ALWAYS get in the way of you trying to kill them. I wish my "tanky" companions were as studly and as effective as he is.

beckylunatic

That actually ties somewhat into the post about hitboxes as well. Any big mob can provide cover to little ones in the same way. Annoying when the little one is a healer or controller you just want dead ASAP but can't target properly.

My characters that run Baphomet have all gotten powerful enough that I can effectively deal with the adds with splash damage, but I do not fondly recall days when they were more troublesome. Minsc still routinely honks me off (but he won't charge again if you don't ever move away from him).

With a TR, Smoke Bomb and Dazing Strike focused on the Big B but catching the adds in the area is pretty effective, and their tendency to be under his feet is beneficial with making sure they're in range of Dazing whether or not you opt to cast it from stealth. I also run Wcked Reminder most of the time, which does hit and debuff in a tight AoE. I do try to avoid Flurry when at risk of being pushed into the barrier, but I find the adds don't really need much in the way of focused DPS anymore (unless I'm killing Big B too fast because gimme my loots).