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Forums > Home› Support› PC Gameplay Bug Reports

Spontaneous Species Change

redvengeredvenge Member Posts: 1,425 Arc User
edited June 2014 in PC Gameplay Bug Reports
My friend created a Romulan faction alien. She logged in today to find that the alien's species has been changed from alien to romulan. In addition, she has lost all her species traits but 5 and she cannot increase her skills because the skills tab says "skills invalid". All her skills have been reset to 0.

Has this bug cropped up before? Is there an easy fix for this?
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • belindamaybelindamay Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Thank you for posting this on my behalf, trying to help me sort the problem and for the help when it comes to the forums :)
  • mightybobcncmightybobcnc Member Posts: 3,354 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    I've never heard of such a thing. :eek: What level is the character?
    Joined January 2009
    Finger wrote:
    Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
  • redvengeredvenge Member Posts: 1,425 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    mightybobcnc wrote: »
    I've never heard of such a thing. :eek: What level is the character?

    now level 30
  • redvengeredvenge Member Posts: 1,425 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    We received word from PWE support about our issue. They politely explained to us that Season 9 brought new changes to the trait system and that we should look at the traits tab.

    Me and my friend really like the new trait system. We make use of it on all our other characters. However, user error is not the source of this problem:

    1) The character's race has changed (from Alien to Romulan)
    2) She is missing most of her Alien traits (she only has 5 now).
    3) She cannot level. She cannot spend skill points.

    I believe we have a communication issue. Does anyone know how we should word the issue so that PWE support does not assume we are morons who are unaware of the changes to the trait system?

    Edit: She is level 30 and has no reputation traits. My mistake.
  • mightybobcncmightybobcnc Member Posts: 3,354 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    Support is probably a dead end, but try saying the 'species of the character has changed.'

    More questions:
    Did the character's appearance change? e.g. was it a totally cool purple-skinned 9-foot-tall silver-eyed alien, and now it's suddenly changed into a vanilla Romulan appearance?
    Was there a free Respec button on the skills window? Usually when a data error occurs their solution is to force a respec on the character by setting a flag that says their current skills are invalid.
    Joined January 2009
    Finger wrote:
    Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
  • kaiserkactokaiserkacto Member Posts: 482 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    I can remember.... several months ago, a few players reported exactly the same problem... I can't remeber i this was even acknowledged by a dev


    UPDATE: Old reports here and here
    "In every age,
    In every place,
    The deeds of men remain the same..."
    12701.png
  • redvengeredvenge Member Posts: 1,425 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    mightybobcnc wrote: »
    Support is probably a dead end, but try saying the 'species of the character has changed.'

    More questions:
    Did the character's appearance change? e.g. was it a totally cool purple-skinned 9-foot-tall silver-eyed alien, and now it's suddenly changed into a vanilla Romulan appearance?
    Was there a free Respec button on the skills window? Usually when a data error occurs their solution is to force a respec on the character by setting a flag that says their current skills are invalid.

    Thank you for the tip. The original bug report we submitted we put "species changed" in both the brief description and the in-depth one. I will tell her to try it again using your suggestion. I was thinking perhaps we put too much information in it and they got confused.

    The character was a pink skinned purple haired alien before the glitch. She is now a pink skinned purple haired romulan. There does not seem to be any cosmetic change.

    I will ask her to go to a respec officer and see if she was given a respec token.

    Thank you again for your suggestions.
  • redvengeredvenge Member Posts: 1,425 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    We contacted someone in our fleet who has had enough issues with STO to become something of an expert in efficiently resolving technical issues. His advice was "a picture is worth a thousand words. it also helps to draw them a map". I'm sure he was joking, but we took a screen shot of her trait's tab and sent that to them. Got a quick response today:

    "Thank you for replying to us and providing us a screen shot. Please refer to your screen shot (Nia Skills.png), note that on the bottom right corner of the screen the Respec button is available.

    This character also has 180.606 Available skill points. Please distribute it as you see fit then log out and exit the game completely. Wait for about 15 - 30 minutes then log back it, your skills and trait should not be updated"

    Seems mightybobcnc was correct. She clicked the respec button and most of her problems were immediately fixed. Her traits were restored and she was able to spend her skill points. Her species still says "romulan" but it doesn't effect her ability to change her appearance as an alien and she has 9 alien traits.

    Other than the humorous typo of her "skills and trait should not be updated" and her species saying "romulan", everything is working fine. She says she is totally ok with the species typo.

    Thanks to mightybobcnc for your tips and also to any mods or crytpic/pwe employees that passed this bug along.
  • belindamaybelindamay Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    I would like to thank everyone for their help on this matter.

    Although my toon is still listed as 'Romulan Female' and not 'Alien Female' that seems to be the only problem i have now, which i can live with, as i am just glad to have the Skills and Traits sorted.

    Once again Thanks everyone :)
  • mightybobcncmightybobcnc Member Posts: 3,354 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    kaiserkacto wrote: »
    I can remember.... several months ago, a few players reported exactly the same problem... I can't remeber i this was even acknowledged by a dev


    UPDATE: Old reports here and here

    Interesting..
    redvenge wrote: »
    His advice was "a picture is worth a thousand words. it also helps to draw them a map".

    Yeah, a screenshot was going to be my next suggestion so we could see what she was seeing on her screen.
    Joined January 2009
    Finger wrote:
    Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
  • tsaiukitsaiuki Member Posts: 19 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1125531

    It's been posted a few times, but no hits. Atleast I couldn't seem to get anything from anyone, despite the contribution of information and details + screenshots.

    All seems good and fine, but my bets that you're height is still being restricted.
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