Flesh Golems Disease 12/26/2011 03:06 PM CST
I'm not sure exactly where I should post this, if this isn't the correct folder I'll gladly post it again elsewhere. I ran into an oddity while hunting in Marsh Keep that took me a while (and a LOT of scrolling through my logs) to figure out and I'm pretty sure is some sort of bug. It seems that one of the flesh golem's maneuvers is buggy in at least one (if not two) ways, but just to be sure it's not working at intended I wanted to post on the forums before BUGging it.

I first noticed it when I was suddenly forced from hiding while traveling from room to room looking for more trolls or necromancers and put into 7 seconds of RT:

You are forced into view!
Your skin burns painfully as swelling begins on your neck, in your armpits and less mentionable areas.
Roundtime: 7 sec.

I wasn't familiar with the messaging (I'm good enough at hiding that I rarely see messaging from maneuvers or spells) but after about 30 seconds nothing else happened so I continued my hunt. After killing another necromancer, it happened again so I quickly left the hunting area (using COL) and checked SPELL ACTIVE and HEALTH to see if a necromancer had hit me with the spell disease and it just wasn't showing on the Stormfront console, as sometimes happens:

H>
You are forced into view!
Your skin burns painfully as swelling begins on your neck, in your armpits and less mentionable areas.
Roundtime: 6 sec.
R>
You feel less drained.
>
* Rahin just bit the dust!
>spell active

You currently have the following active spells:
Shadow Mastery Recovery
Sign of Striking
Strength
Sign of Swords
Sign of Smiting

>
Your vision suddenly spins, unbalancing you. You feel your face become flushed and you break out in a sweat. Someone is whispering to you with irritation in their voice.
You are stunned for 3 rounds!
Roundtime: 13 sec.
SR>hea
You seem to be in one piece.

Maximum Health Points: 135
Remaining Health Points: 135

Maximum Spirit Points: 8
Remaining Spirit Points: 3

Maximum Stamina Points: 109
Remaining Stamina Points: 109

As you can see, the disease didn't show up under either AND wasn't damaging my HP, so I started scrolling through my logs to see if I'd been hit by something I had failed to notice. After locating the fist instance and scrolling up from there, I eventually found what must have caused it came from a flesh golem (which I largely ignore since arrows don't hurt them):

A flesh golem shudders as a green miasma seeps from numerous cracks and orifices in the golem and forms a huge noxious cloud that wafts directly towards you.
Before you can move out of the path of the cloud, it envelops you from head to toe. The need to breathe eventually forces you to inhale heavily while still covered in the toxin filled vapors.

I hadn't realized what the golem had done at the time because I had been focused on finding trolls and hadn't even bothered to read the message, I had simply popped back into the shadows and moved on. What really had me stumped was that, judging by the amount of movement from room to room and the number of trolls I killed between the above messaging and experiencing it's effects for the first time, at least 4-5 minutes passed between the initial attack and I experienced the first of it's effects.

Is so much time supposed to pass before the effects manifest? Shouldn't it be showing up under either HEALTH or SPELL ACTIVE (the spell "disease" shows up under HEALTH and both CMAN and ARMOR effects appear under SPELL ACTIVE) given that its effect is spread over time rather then a one-off like most maneuvers? (there wasn't anyone that can cast undisease available before it wore off, so I don't know if it would have responded to that)
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 12/27/2011 10:27 AM CST
As far as I know it's working as intended, it has always worked in that manner. Think of it as akin to the sorceror spell curse/nightmare (one of them acts in the same manner as the flesh golems "special" attack does). It is more a RT inducing effect mechanically, although makes for some RP if you swing it right, think of it as catching the flu from a sick critter.

And undesease does not "cure" it. It's annoying but goes away after a little bit.


Senglent and his wayward kin.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 12/27/2011 11:49 AM CST

Ah, ok... thanks for the info. I actually had a chance to find out about undisease not curing it after posting that :(

I still think it's annoying that it doesn't show up in some manner when you type HEALTH.... with everything scrolling by when I'm hunting trolls with their healing ability it's a hard maneuver to spot when it happens. I tend to think it's some sort of atmospheric messaging and not notice it till I've moved on and am suddenly forced from hiding the second I fire an arrow.

Starchitin
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 12/27/2011 01:24 PM CST
NP. Easy fix is to highlight the part of the message for when you get hit by it, that way you can try to run for a safe room before it takes effect. Niima's shrine, the Crypt, and the throne are all close spots you can wait it out at.

That's what I do anyway.

Senglent and his wayward kin.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 01/01/2012 12:36 PM CST
Next time it happens (if there is a next time), go look in a mirror. There's a few different 'diseases' the flesh golems can give you.

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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 01/17/2012 08:56 AM CST
>And undesease does not "cure" it. It's annoying but goes away after a little bit.

Undisease can cure it if you cast early. Once the first RT inducing effect has hit you its too late, but if you catch it straight after breathing the gas a couple of casts will usually cure it completely.

If you cast later, its buggy. It may be working as intended that it doesn't cure it, but the messaging doesn't fit.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 01/25/2012 08:50 AM CST
Undisease can actually cure it later, it just takes multiple casts.

I seem to recall something like 10-15 needed.




Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. - Albert Einstein
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 01/25/2012 08:44 PM CST
Are you sure that wasn't just it ending when it would have ended anyway?

I'd need someone else to supply me with mana to test if it took more casts but standing around in front of a flesh golem till I got breathed on, fogging to Voln, and throwing all my mana into undisease didn't cure it, it just used up most of the time until it ran its natural course.

Here's a test I just did.

- I just got a minor dose

Before you can move out of the path of the cloud, it envelops you from head to toe. Straining, you hurriedly back out of the toxin filled vapors, only inhaling at the last moment


- but didn't notice until the first RT dose, whereupon I fled

Your skin burns painfully as swelling begins on your neck, in your armpits and less mentionable areas.
Roundtime: 6 sec.
R>
A flesh golem lifts its fat fleshy foot and tries to stomp on you!
AS: +280 vs DS: +352 with AvD: +42 + d100 roll: +4 = -26
A clean miss.
R>get chest
You pick up a plain fel chest. (not even in the course of research is a dwarf going to leave loot behind!)
>sym retur
Your surroundings blur into a white fog . . .

- and dumped mana into undisease until I ran out


>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>inc 113
>
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>
You feel the extra courage wane.
>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>
You feel more refreshed.
>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>spell all
>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>

- Shortly after this and before I got a pulse I took the second and final RT dose

Your skin burns painfully as swelling begins on your neck, in your armpits and less mentionable areas.
Roundtime: 3 sec.
Though you still feel the effects of the disease that ravaged your body, you begin to feel a bit better.

- And a little bit later the all clear message.

Your skin no longer feels hot and sweaty.

- Note that the messaging is the standard message for casting undisease when not diseased, but you get a different set of messaging if you cast it between the inhalation and the onset of symptoms (not captured here because I got distracted by boxes piling up at my feet while I waited for a golem to breathe on me).

>inc 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture.
Your skin feels healthier.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 01/26/2012 02:23 AM CST
I don't believe that the Undisease spell works to remove this type of disease at any point. I'll make a note to look into it.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 01/27/2012 07:38 AM CST
I did a little bit more testing.

1) Undisease is definitely capable of curing it, and at any point.
2) You need to be sufficiently good at casting it, or undisease does nothing. It doesn't appear to be a random check, if I fail the first time I always fail, but someone higher level can still succeed in curing me.
3) The disease can be outright cured or partially cured on a cast, and if you get a partial cure, then further casts will eventually cure it.
4) My current hypotheses for how it works is

i) there is a check to see if you get a disease and how severe it is. Probably SMR, possibly with disease resistance or purify air modifiers, but all I know from testing is that they don't provide immunity and I haven't noticed any messaging to indicate that they are doing anything.
ii) the disease strength against curing is set separately and might be something like golem level + disease severity
iii) undisease cast strength might be something like caster level
iv) if your undisease strength is less than the disease strength you will never cure it. If its marginally higher sufficient casts will cure it. If its much higher, a single cast cures it. (I have never cured it in 1 shot, but I have had high level casters cure me in 1 shot)

I'll probably look to get some items and try those to see if they can be better than self cast strength, but otherwise I can't think of anything worth more testing. I'd still like to know what the factors that influence it are, but I don't think thats discoverable unless Finros releases some info.

The thing I dislike about the implementation is that the messaging for a complete fail is the same as the messaging for casting on a healthy target. It ought to be something like "You still look pretty scabby." or "You're still as leprous as ever." not "Your skin feels healthier."
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 01/28/2012 09:33 PM CST
I thought it was mentioned by Oscuro and Scribes when the area got released it's not curable with the spell undisease. My memory sucks at times, and I've been playing this game for to long I feel sometimes.

But just looking at your clip and adding that RT up, looks more like you cast long enough it ran it's course then the spell having any affect. There is 30 seconds of hard casting RT, not to mention any running around edited out.

I'm all for a NIR to chime in with a decisive it will or won't then leave the rest to the players to figure out.


Senglent and his wayward kin.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 01/29/2012 02:19 AM CST
It appears that Undisease does work on that type of disease. I suppose that should teach me not to rely on half-remembered snippets of code instead of looking it up anew.

Otherwise, it does happen to be a standard maneuver roll, and both Disease Resistance and Purify Air confer an advantage. Most of the rest is reasonably testable by players in my opinion (if you're willing to go get diseased a whole bunch, at least).
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 01/29/2012 09:32 AM CST
The alchemy potions I acquired work at the marginal success rate. Each sip knocked one severity level off diseases that were not curable by my self-cast undisease. I don't know whether this means potions are set at the level of the maker, or potions are set to always give marginal success. I'd want both the alchemist and their potion to try out on the same disease to test that. My guess is that an alchemist that can make undisease potions is high enough level that they would one shot the disease.

So I recommend carrying an undisease potion if you are liable to get the disease and don't have ready access to a high level MnS caster. A full bottle of 7 sips won't cure the most severe version completely, but it will knock it down to just a few rounds of small amounts of RT.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/07/2012 10:37 AM CST
Looks like someone worked on the messaging issue (I've never gotten this messaging when trying 113 before today anyway). Got fed up with waiting out the disease and gave it a try again:

>prep 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
>cast
You gesture.
The boils and scabs on your body recede a bit.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>prep 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
>cast
You gesture.
The boils and scabs on your body recede a bit.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>prep 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
>cast
You gesture.
The boils and scabs on your body recede a bit.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
>prep 113
You gesture while calling upon the lesser spirits to aid you with the UnDisease spell...
Your spell is ready.
>cast
You gesture.
The boils and scabs on your body finally disappear.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

That's VERY helpfull!

Starchitin
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/07/2012 04:57 PM CST
Thats not new messaging. Its what you get when you are just good enough to get an effect on your disease.

Each "The boils and scabs on your body recede a bit." means one round was taken off the disease.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/08/2012 05:50 AM CST

Well, at least now I know there is a message that indicates it was successful... unlike what the failure messaging, which implies that you were successful when you weren't.

Starchitin
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/08/2012 07:58 AM CST
There are actually quite a few success messages corresponding to the different levels of success and the different diseases.

Keep getting yourself diseased, and you may see more of them.

My trouble trying this has been that I seem to only get the uncurable (by me) diseases of late. I suspect that the disease is only affecting me on a SMR fumble so I am only getting high strength diseases, but at 2 or 3 diseases per hour of standing in front of golems its pretty difficult to collect data beyond the anecdotal level. A couple of levels ago I got several accidentally that were cureable but the 20 or so I have deliberately contracted in the course of research during the last month were all uncureable self cast, although alchemy potions and high level casters worked on them.

I am still looking to try imbeds, but haven't acquired one yet. I am not sure I am capable of making them myself, the only time I tried I destroyed the orb I was blessing.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/15/2012 01:43 PM CST
Yeah, that messaging about the disease receeding is what I remember about it at the time.






Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. - Albert Einstein
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/15/2012 04:30 PM CST
I haven't managed to cure it with an imbed. An alchemy potion or a higher level caster remain the only ways I have found when its not curable self cast.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/17/2012 10:39 PM CST
Even higher level takes a dozen casts to get rid of it. I tried....eight or nine times with Mal and Kir tried a bit more than that before we could finally get rid of it.

Player of Malisai
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/18/2012 07:04 AM CST
Check the messaging carefully. I suspect you will find that Malisai was not affecting the disease at all, and Kir cured it with the first cast, but kept casting anyway.

However, the worst form of the disease lasts about 10 rounds and each incremental cast takes one round off, so it is possible to have that number of casts doing something.

The messaging varies from disease to disease, but this is the general form

The boils and scabs recede a bit - incremental effect, one round has been removed from the disease duration, keep casting and you will cure it eventually
The boils and scabs finally disappear - the disease is over, either from magic or the passage of time, at least until the next golem breathes on you


"Your skin feels healthier." means "Undisease did nothing." Either you are not diseased, or you need to find a higher level caster or wait it out.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/22/2012 05:27 PM CST

I found something which I think is a bug.

Using incant will not work, when using prep and cast does work.
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Re: Flesh Golems Disease 02/22/2012 05:55 PM CST

specifically the SF "cast at self" link will provide some curing while every other way I can find to cast it at myself fails.
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