City of Heroes: Rebirth Forums

Development => Live Bug Reporting => Topic started by: Redlynne on Feb 04, 2025, 02:18 PM

Title: Belladonna Vetrano Morality Mission ... brings the wrong NPCs
Post by: Redlynne on Feb 04, 2025, 02:18 PM
This is going to take a bit of explaining, because it's the first time I've encountered this bug.



During the Imperial City Loyalist Power Arc (Mr. G (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Mr._G) -> Transmuter (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Transmuter) -> Tami Baker (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Tami_Baker) -> Praetor Sinclair (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Chimera)) ...

The penultimate mission from Transmuter (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Transmuter) involves an assignment to capture Ricochet (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Ricochet) in an instanced mission. During the mission, when you're about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way to Ricochet (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Ricochet), you receive a communication that your Powers Division team have been ambushed and they need you to come rescue them.

You then get a choice ... to complete your assignment and bring in Ricochet (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Ricochet) ... or to exit the mission and try to save your Powers Division people (Aria (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Aria), Zane (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Zane), Stern (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Stern) and Warrant (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Warrant)).

This choice in this (next to last for Transmuter) mission is going to be the crux of the bug report that I am making here.



When you finally reach the end of the story arc for Praetor Sinclair and have to confront Belladonna Vetrano, you get the moral choice ... Resistance or Loyalist.

If you abandoned Ricochet (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Ricochet) and SAVED THE LIVES your Powers Division team (minus one) ... AND ... you choose Resistance:

If you defeated Ricochet (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Ricochet) and left your Powers Division team to DIE ... AND ... you choose Resistance:



Bug report:
The decision to abandon/complete the defeat and capture of Ricochet (https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Ricochet) is being "used correctly" in the last mission for Transmuter ... but it being "used inverted" in the moral choice mission for Praetor Sinclair IF the Player chooses Resistance.

What IS happening:

What SHOULD BE happening:


I figure that the root cause for this issue basically amounts to a non-fatal "typo" such that the IF-THEN condition for whether or not to spawn PPD Sergeants or Powers Division team in this mission is "being read inverted" for the purpose that it should be checking for (true=no/false=yes type of flip/flop).

I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that this (non-fatal "typo") bug has persisted in the code for this long simply because it could only be found by Players who would be repeatedly leveling through Praetoria and deliberately making different choices (to see how the story and events would change). Since most Players "don't have the kind of patience" needed for that level of regression testing, this particular bug could potentially linger FOREVER ... particularly since it's non-fatal (it just spawns the wrong Foes in a single player Morality Mission at the end of a story arc).

Hopefully, the fix for this is going to be as simple as "flipping the parameter" interpretation (swap a + for a - kind of difficulty). The hardest part would be tracking down where this controlling decision point is in the scripting for the Moral Choice mission, since everything is Working As Intentionalâ„¢ up until that point.