Seven Portals broken in 1.14.5

Murdos

I've attempted three playthroughs now using the default settings for Doomsday with Hexen, no addons or extra models, just stock hexen in stock Doomsday 1.14.5 and the same issue occurs: Seven Portals becomes unfinishable.

It happens in a different place each time, but the bug is the same: I'll throw all the switches in one of the phases to open one of the large golden doors leading to the next area, usually either the first set of three in Guardian of Fire/Steel or the second set to open the final one - and nothing happens.

Return to Guardian of Steel/Fire, verify all three switches to open the door are thrown, go back. Door still isn't open, game is unwinnable.

Any ideas?

skyjake

I've created a bug tracker item for this: http://tracker.skyjake.fi/issues/1850

It would help to resolve this if you tried playing with version 1.13 to see if that works better; several changes were made to the savegame code in 1.14, so if it works in 1.13 it would help us narrow down the affected code.

DaniJ

As this is one and the same as issue 1846 I've closed the new report and linked it to the existing report for this issue.

illuminerdi

This is still an issue as of build 1469. I just tried to play through 7 Portals with build 1469 and got stuck because the "opposite" doors didn't open in the main courtyard after throwing the first 3 switches in the Guardian levels.

The issue did not occur in 1.13.2 so that is safe, however I'd really like to use the latest builds; hopefully this can be fixed soon?

PostFatal

I feel your pain, I haven't been able to play through Hexen in a long time. But, these are not stable builds, these are works in progress. I get a bit frustrated with DDAy sometimes when it isn't what I'd like it to be but then I remind myself as to what these builds are, wips, nothing more. BTW, this is no longer 1.14.5.....we are now into 1.15 builds that can be thought of as betas

illuminerdi

Even the last "stable" build (1.14.5) never got this actually fixed though.

I don't want to slag on the DDay people, they work hard, for free, to bring us this awesome version of the engine, so I'm not trying to complain, I just wanted to make sure that people had up to date information in case someone tries to play through Hexen on 1.14.5 and wonders why they get stuck.

I do think that DDay needs to evaluate how they're handling bugs though. As this is a known, documented, reproducable issue with a "stable" build, causing progression blockage, I think it would be a good idea to either mark 1.14.5 as unstable, or consider fixing this and putting out a 1.14.6 build with this successfully patched.

Mr85grim

Ya same here. you know I don't get it... Last time I played this a couple years ago it was de 1.9 and there was one area that was broken that I had to load an older version for in death kings. One of the admins told me when they would start over for a new 1.0 or whatever that these spacial trigger issues would be fixed but now with 1.14.5 there's more issues than ive ever seen in the history of this engine lol. Seven portals for me gets stuck at a certain point about half way through, then the final portal ie the exit area opens for no apparent reason giving access to the wings and you can just fly to the portal without completing half of it.

I also noticed every time I load a new area ie walk through a portal I get stuck for a second and enemies will just sit there sometimes frozen until I do something.

I don't know much about coding or anything but why can't we just get a bug free version of this engine instead of constantly trying to make it do new things that aren't necessary?

skyjake

Mr85grim wrote:

I don't know much about coding or anything but why can't we just get a bug free version of this engine instead of constantly trying to make it do new things that aren't necessary?

Well, what's "necessary" is a matter of opinion. We (the devs) have our own motivations and end goals in mind that determine what gets worked on. Whenever we have to break and revise something old it is to allow future improvements — while we try our best not to introduce new bugs while moving forward, it is usually unavoidable due to the nature of software in general.


However, I do agree it's hurting us that serious gameplay issues like this one with Hexen go unresolved for months. Fortunately, at this very moment we are focusing on bug fixing. All new development is on hold until the worst known issues are fixed so that we can release 1.15.

Mr85grim

skyjake wrote:

Mr85grim wrote:

I don't know much about coding or anything but why can't we just get a bug free version of this engine instead of constantly trying to make it do new things that aren't necessary?

Well, what's "necessary" is a matter of opinion. We (the devs) have our own motivations and end goals in mind that determine what gets worked on. Whenever we have to break and revise something old it is to allow future improvements — while we try our best not to introduce new bugs while moving forward, it is usually unavoidable due to the nature of software in general.


However, I do agree it's hurting us that serious gameplay issues like this one with Hexen go unresolved for months. Fortunately, at this very moment we are focusing on bug fixing. All new development is on hold until the worst known issues are fixed so that we can release 1.15.

Sorry if I came off as being a prick there, was having a bad day. I really think what you guys have done here is remarkable and quite honestly, I'd pay money for a doomsday engine that ran hexen without any major bugs, especially if somebody would finish making all the 3d models for it...

jdestef

Perhaps it might be useful to expose a "list of known issues" somewhere. I clicked around briefly but couldn't find anything like that.

FWIW, I ran into the same door-opening issue the OP described during my first playthru after downloading the engine. Shook my confidence in the engine a little, but the project is a kickass endeavor nonetheless.

DaniJ

Please see the tracker for your list of known issues.