Bug reports Thread - Through

Hi everyone,
I have been playing Through these days and I must say it's quite a good game. A great introduction to roguelikes for those like me who have never played any (except the incredible Ancient Cave in Lufia II on SNES, one of my greatest video-game experiences).
Many thanks to you porousnapkin!

The least I can do to thank you is to "help" you improve your game, so here are my humble bug reports:

1. the game tends to totally freeze, it seems to be linked with the graphic options selected when launching the game, but I cannot be affirmative. I have found a graphic configuration that seems to work for me (Screen resolution 800*600, Graphic quality Good, Windowed) but I suppose it depends on the PC configuration of each user.

2. the Fire Trap is buggy. Once it is activated, your next clicks will tend to freeze everyone (hero and ennemies) definitely . It does not freeze the game (menus can still be accessed, potions can be used), but you (and enemies) cannot attack nor move anymore. Very frustrating when you are on the 12th floor in Insane mode ;-)
EDIT: I have experienced the very same thing during my latest run, just after an enemy was killed by an Altar of Pain. This might mean the bug is not related to the activation of a Fire Trap but to the killing of an enemy by a deadly square (Altar of Pain or Fire Trap).

3. hunger, which is no longer implemented in the game, is still mentioned on the Stats screen and in the Feeder race description (a race which probably now needs adjustment since no-hunger was one of its main features).

4. the Scimitar is said to be "Damage: 10" when you read its description but when you see the damage stats of the hero, you see it is in fact only 5.

5. when you pause the game, the Continue option is misspelled ("Contiue").

These bug reports refer to Through v2.2 for Windows.
That is all I see for the time being. If I find other bugs, I will try to post them.

Keep up the good work, porousnapkin! :-)

PS: this is not a bug, but what is the use of the Clear Save Data feature ?

Edited by: apao

Awesome! I really appreciate the detailed bug report!

In order:
1. Not sure on this one. I'm using the Unity engine so I'd be curious if this is something you experience with many unity games or just mine. I'll ask friends and see if I can get a repo local that I can look at.
2. I haven't seen this come up in my tests so far, but I'll do some specific tests with killing enemies in pain zones.
3. Ah, good spot. I'll get those removed in the next patch
4. Yeah, I noticed that a few days ago. It will be fixed in the next patch (the intended functionality is for it to do 5 damage, by the way, so it's the description that's mistaken here).
5. Awesome! Will fix.

RE PS: Clear Data will empty your high score board. In retrospect, this is probably not a feature that's very useful or applicable to players. It helps me debug a lot though. Maybe I'll make it only show up in debug builds...

Also, with respect to the feeder race, it shouldn't need any adjustments due to the removal of food. The big difference between the feeder and the other races is that the feeder recovers health only when attacking, whereas everyone else recovers health over time. The reason he didn't care about food previously was because lack-of-food stopped your healing-over-time ability, which he didn't have.

I am a little worried he might be overpowered now due to the presence of Healing Altars. A feeder berserker is a powerful combo. But I still have trouble winning with it so I think it's fine for now.

porousnapkin wrote:
2. I haven't seen this come up in my tests so far, but I'll do some specific tests with killing enemies in pain zones.

Just to clarify my report, I think that killing the enemy while he is in a pain zone might not be enough to trigger the bug. The bug occurred for me when the enemy was really killed by the pain zone (meaning that his last HPs were taken by the pain zone).
EDIT: I recreated the conditions during my last run (enemy dying on an Altar of Pain on Depth 1/15 and 2/15) but it did not trigger the bug. There must be an additional element to trigger it. The bug had occurred much farther in the game last times. I do not know if it is linked.

porousnapkin wrote:
4. Yeah, I noticed that a few days ago. It will be fixed in the next patch (the intended functionality is for it to do 5 damage, by the way, so it's the description that's mistaken here).

Really? If I remember correctly, this would mean the Scimitar is intended to be less powerful than Sword, Knife and Axe whereas it needs the user to have at least 7 Intelligence. Is it normal?

RE PS: Clear Data will empty your high score board. In retrospect, this is probably not a feature that's very useful or applicable to players.

Ok! I had tried it before posting without noticing any impact on the scoreboard. It is because it does not reset it on the fly but when the application is restarted. And as its name implies, this seems to reset other things like tutorials and graphic configuration. It is not a useless feature but it might need some kind of warning and/or explanation.

Awesome! I really appreciate the detailed bug report!

I am in the IT field too, so I know how bug reports can be useful. If mine can help you a little, I will have reached my goal :-)

Edited by: apao

apao wrote:
Really? If I remember correctly, this would mean the Scimitar is intended to be less powerful than Sword, Knife and Axe whereas it needs the user to have at least 7 Intelligence. Is it normal?

Yup, that's correct, but it is more powerful than a Staff (which does 5 damage). The reasoning is that the low damage is offset by the high crit (x3 or 15 damage). It's a great weapon if you focus primarily on building intelligence. On Duelist runs at Tough difficulty, I usually level up intelligence twice per level and strength once per level. This will put me normally 40% or higher crit chance after a few levels on most opponents. That would mean average weapon damage is (15 * 0.4) + (5 * 0.6) = 9 at that crit hit rate. In comparison, a pure strength fighter will usually have 5% or less of crit rate. The crit also multiplies your strength x3, so it can get to be pretty good damage. On top of that, a weapon that's that useful for high intelligence characters is really powerful because intelligence has so many fantastic other utilities (alchemy, scrolls and wands). The negative is that to use it effectively you need high intelligence which means you'll have low strength so a lower hit chance and a lower dodge chance. I think that's definitely offset by the power of alchemy, scrolls and wands, though.

I believe it needs to be lower damage than the sword and axe, given all that. It's arguable it should be at 6 damage (depending on how powerful you consider the other intelligence benefits), but in my opinion it's a pretty nice weapon as is.

It's been a while, but I'm getting ready for getting out Through 2.3 soon (still balancing the new features, but hopefully this weekend or next). Just wanted to update this to say all these issues will be addressed in that patch.

I found the bug you were seeing with firetrap wands and pain altars. It was specifically when ranged characters died in them while shooting an attack. The projectile attack would get confused and not resolve (because it no longer had an owner) and the turn couldn't end because it was waiting for projectiles to resolve. Anyway, all patched up now, and should no longer be an issue. Thanks again for the detailed bug reporting!

It's been a while, but I'm getting ready for getting out Through 2.3 soon (still balancing the new features, but hopefully this weekend or next). Just wanted to update this to say all these issues will be addressed in that patch.

I found the bug you were seeing with firetrap wands and pain altars. It was specifically when ranged characters died in them while shooting an attack. The projectile attack would get confused and not resolve (because it no longer had an owner) and the turn couldn't end because it was waiting for projectiles to resolve. Anyway, all patched up now, and should no longer be an issue. Thanks again for the detailed bug reporting!