Fabrice's Report on the Heroes V Bugs

[Angelspit]

The following was written by Fabrice Cambounet and is reprinted with permission:

CAMPAGIN
Haven Map3:
• The game can crash when Freyda comes near the final castle. The camera is supposed to shift to show the castle, but for some reason it sometimes locks up (permanent hourglass).
QAR: We were unable to reproduce this bug, nor has it ever occurred while performing our walkthrough tests. It is possible this bug be related to some specific properties or changes in the user’s machines that caused the game to behave improperly on their systems.

From: camelotcrusade
Here is the whole discussion:
viewtopic.php?t=4828

I have a bugged saved if Nival wants it... not sure how to send those in.

The short version of this bug is that sometimes the event to free the hero in jail (C2, M3) does not trigger, and he stays neutral to you without adding the objective to both lead him to safety and capture the red player's town. What happens instead is he ignores you, walks to the stairs, sits there, and you lose the scenario for not setting him free.
QAR: We were unable to reproduce this bug, nor has it ever occurred while performing our walkthrough tests.

COMBAT
• When a stack walks over a corpse, it disappears from the tactical map, to reappear when the stack moves away. This also means that if two stacks of different players dies at the same spot, only the topmost can be resurrected.
QAR: As designed in H5 original

• The game crashes for some people when a battle is engaged.
QAR: From our testing experience on Patch 2.1 so far this issue has not occurred. Details would be welcomed (was it a specific battle?)

• Some of the player colours are so close that they're hard to distinguish on the Initiative bar- Red and Tan is an example.
QAR: Designer’s choice

• Demon Lords and knights can use their attacks even if the enemy is behind castle walls, despite the fact that both are physical in nature.
QAR: As designed

• Shooters seem to aim at the feet/hooves of some creatures (cavaliers for example). Both the missile and the cinematographic camera hit the ground below the target.
QAR: Issue already reported as bug 4625 in Bugzilla

• Naadir's speciality description mentions "Manes" instead of the proper "Ghosts".
QAR: Issue already reported as bug 7619 in Bugzilla

• Dark Ritual is listed among the combat spells.
QAR: We were unable to reproduce this issue. Dark Ritual is properly listed in the adventure section of the spell book.

• Sometimes, the combat doesn't finish even if all the troops of one side has been destroyed.
QAR: During our tests on H5 Add-on 1 GM and Patch 2.1 this has never occurred.

• When a Fire Shield is resisted, you get a message: "magic resistance: frost breath failed"
QAR: Fixed in Patch 2.1.

• Number boxes doesn't line up properly. This also screws up where you have to aim with your mouse pointer.
QAR: It works as intended. Minor issues regarding targeting can be avoided using the zoom feature.

• Catapults sometimes targets already destroyed walls.
QAR: As designed, a design choice to choose random targets in order to simulate misses.

• In some closeups, the attacking creature won't be shown on screen.
QAR: Issue already reported as bug 4576 in Bugzilla

• Sometimes the game refuses to accept that a stack is dead...
QAR: This issue is not clear enough for us to be able to investigate. There is no specific case invoked here, the content is too general.

• If you leave your creatures out of combat, they will be lost at the end of it.
QAR: This bug has been fixed by Patch 1.4

• Hammers of Fate-specific:
• Andreas the knight's animation when performing an attack in combat is messed up - damage shows before blows.
QAR: This bug has been fixed on Patch 2.1

Maps:
Dragon Pass:
• Each player has a major artifact near their town. However, Red's and Blue's has level 6 guardians, while Green's and Yellow's isn't guarded at all.
QAR: This issue has been fixed on Patch 2.1

• One chokepoint is guarded by much fewer creatures than the rest (reporter believes it's between green and blue)
QAR: This issue has been fixed on Patch 2.1

Subterraean Treasures:
• You can't use the underground prison as the visiting hero blocks the spot the prisoner should appear in.
QAR: This issue seems to be invalid as there is no prison on the underground level of this map (Subterranean Treasures). The prisons on the upper level are functioning just fine.

Multiplayer:
• Multiplayer in general seems very prone to crashes.
QAR: This issue may be related to the old desync problems in H5 original where often crashes were encountered in MP games. These problems were later fixed in patches.

On Add-on 1 and Patch 2.1 we still experienced rare random crashes on MP, but the repro-rate is low or even very low.

• Sometimes the colour displayed at the bar during opponents turn is the wrong color. This seems to be linked to shifting colors around to get a preferred starting color. (Hotseat only?)
QAR: This is a much older issue, and it has been fixed. It was related to not changing the default name of the players when changing their color. Not present anymore in Patch 2.1

• In LAN games, if a computer player kills off another, the game is prone to freezing.
QAR: During our tests on Patch 2.1 builds we have not encountered this tendency to freezing after AI vs AI battles; only one crash occurred when the AI was attacking the human player’s twn, but this was later fixed.

• In the game rooms (where you set faction, hero etc) sometimes everyone in the room (except for the host) will be ejected from the room for no reason back to the lobby.
QAR: We are currently investigating this issue – it may be related to many people joining the same session simultaneously while the host or a client is switching colours. If we find a rule to this behaviour we will report a bug.

• After starting a MP game, sometimes everyone will appear to disconnect to everyone else, and then for each person it will say that they have won the game, and to wait while results are uploaded to ubi.com. You can wait an hour and the game does not move from that screen, and you have to close the game.
QAR: We have not experienced this behaviour during our tests on Add-on 1 GM and Add-on Patches up to 2.1.

The only behaviour slightly similar to this was an isolated case where the user was given the message of the other users being disconnected and after validating this message he was able to continue the session normally (all the players there, none was actually disconnected). This behaviour is related to the time limit check for disconnected players (e.g. one user’s internet connection drops. The others are notified about him disconnected. However, his connection is so quickly restored to the server that he still remains in the game). This is a very seldom behaviour (or at least it has been for us here) so it can’t actually be treated as an issue.

• Duel games becomes unsynchronized a while after a Summononed Phoenix has moved
QAR: We have investigated this issue and up to this point it does not seem to be a valid problem. We shall further investigate in order to be sure and if it proves to be a problem it shall be reported to Bugzilla.

• When transferring resources from one player to another: as the slider is moved, the sender's gold is decremented correctly, but the number gold being received is concatenated to the first 4 digits. For example, the senders gold is reduced by 10,000, but the amount being transferred is shown as '1000'.
QAR: We were unable to reproduce this bug on Patch 2.1

Random map generator:
• When you use the RMG from the Single Player menu, it creates 2 player maps. These do not show up on the Single Player list, but you can play them under Multi Player hotseat.
QAR: Not a bug. In order to see the RMG maps you have to check the “Show RMG maps” checkbox on the top of the screen


Hot seat :
Normally, when a player losts his last town, he gets a new objective : capture a new town in less than 7 days. But this pop up message appears for the 1st human player even if he is not concerned.
Here is an example : 2 players (red and blue). Blue loses his last town. In the following day, the pop up message appears just before Red player plays BUT the objective is listed in the blue player’s objectives.
QAR: We were unable to reproduce this issue on our side.

Map editor :
It saves empty maps AS SOON AS you use french symbols such as é, à, è, ç, ù in the name of the map.
QAR: It seems to work fine for us. More details would be welcomed (does a French version of Windows have to be installed?)


Combat:
When you decide to remove some troops in the tactical screen, they wont be available at the end of the fight. It means before each fight you are forced to save if you don’t want to use all your troops at the same time.
QAR: Same as stated before (this issue is signalled twice in this document), this bug has already been fixed in Patch 1.4.

Dwarves :
Dwarves units have no attached element. It is a massive disadvantage for the Dungeon creatures because they cant benefit from the elemental chain anymore. (no more damage bonus)
QAR: Issue already fixed and verified in Patch 2.1, so it is no longer a problem

AI :
As soon as the AI casts a destruction spells with an area effect, it always strikes it on on one of its own units. (cf fire wall)
QAR: Issue reported in Bugzilla - 7722

Combat
Meteor shower is not displayed (I mean the special effect is not played anymore) but the units are struck and have damages.
QAR: This problem has been reported as issue 7195 in Bugzilla and is now fixed (Patch 2.1). Actually it was about the empowered meteor shower spell.

Fire Wall: if archers are touched by the firewall spell and use their specific ability, they will be damaged twice by the fire wall.
QAR: This problem has been reported as issue 7721 in Bugzilla.

Skill : (Erudit in french)
A hero with this specific skill can teach to other heroes the spells he knows BUT he cannot learn spells from other heroes.
QAR: This is a skill description content related issue. From the English description of the skill one may understand that both heroes can learn spells from one another, but it can also mean that only one of the heroes is able to learn spells from the other (in the game only the hero with the Scholar skill can teach spells to other heroes, but he cannot learn spells from the others).

This problem has been reported as issue 7705 in Bugzilla.

Mode duel 3vs3:
It is possible to leave the battlefield when it is your turn to play. But when you leave and then come back, all your casters regain all their mana points. It shouldn’t be possible, especially because you can leave the battlefield and come back immediately.
QAR: Bug does not verify on build 07 of Patch 2.1

[Mirez]

you forget bout the damn long turns AI's take when they get instand travel
and why mines do not explode when a blackbear rider hurles a creature on it

[Corelanis]

So some of the issues are fixed in a patch we dont have im sooooo happy. Whats bugzilla? Is it the HV bug list? Some of these seem to have a its not our problem its yours feel to them.

[Sir_Toejam]

some minor quibbles here:

Skill : (Erudit in french)
A hero with this specific skill can teach to other heroes the spells he knows BUT he cannot learn spells from other heroes.
QAR: This is a skill description content related issue. From the English description of the skill one may understand that both heroes can learn spells from one another, but it can also mean that only one of the heroes is able to learn spells from the other (in the game only the hero with the Scholar skill can teach spells to other heroes, but he cannot learn spells from the others).

it was NOT a skill description issue; the function most certainly changed after the release of HOF (1.4?).

if this was deliberate, they need to make clear that it was an intentional design change, not that it was always that way and just the description was wrong, as that is incorrect.

aside from which, the new version is a decidedly poor design choice, if it even was intended to be so.

CAMPAGIN
Haven Map3:
• The game can crash when Freyda comes near the final castle. The camera is supposed to shift to show the castle, but for some reason it sometimes locks up (permanent hourglass).
QAR: We were unable to reproduce this bug, nor has it ever occurred while performing our walkthrough tests. It is possible this bug be related to some specific properties or changes in the user’s machines that caused the game to behave improperly on their systems.

really? unable to reproduce? boy, I sure could, and so could many others.

my guess is that this happens most commonly on lower end machines, and that they simply didn't allow enough of a timer for the script to complete when there is lag in scrolling over to the castle on slower machines.

This is suggested to me by the fact that if i reload that particular situation, it will run smoothly from every reload from then on, but if it's the first thing i try when i first load up after restarting the whole program, it locks up more than 50% of the time.

I suspect the second bug listed for C2, M3 might also be triggered by similar issues.

[Sir_Toejam]

Whats bugzilla?

It's a commonly used reporting method for bugs that keeps an ongong database of reports and resolutions.

lots of game cos use it.

[mr.dna]

does anybody know if there will be more patches for the original game or only for HoF?

[Mytical]

There will be patches for both. Oh and I just sent a bug report about the C3m5 issue I encountered to see if it was a bug (and it is easily duplicated, I have many times) or just a quirk of the campain. See bug thread for more info about that.

[Demiurg]

So some of the issues are fixed in a patch we dont have im sooooo happy.

Well, if they already were fixed in previous patches, they wouldn't really be issues anymore, would they...

[Metal Wolf]

And what about the wolf's "howl" ability? It seems illogical to me that after the battle ends the "summoned" wolf instantly dies and even appears on the casualties list...
Other than that, HoF rocks.

[Elvin]

They...flee! Yes,that's right! Nival thought even of that and still some whiners call it a bug!!
That's no problem but the casualties probably shouldn't show.Unless you get xp for them but I doubt it.

[DaemianLucifer]

Funny thing is,the gated units were shown as casualties before.So the same bug is being repeated?

[ThunderTitan]

ACtualy all summoned creatures we're shown. I guess the HoF team didn't talk enough with the patch team or something.

[Metal Wolf]

They...flee! Yes,that's right! Nival thought even of that and still some whiners call it a bug!!
That's no problem but the casualties probably shouldn't show.Unless you get xp for them but I doubt it.

The "summoned" wolf simply drops dead, I dont see how come you call that "flee" (my comment was about the animation alone, of course I dont expect the summoned wolves to stay in your army after the battle ends). And dont you call me a whiner, because unlike so many members on this site - I actually LOVE this game. Best Heroes title since Heroes 2, IMO.

[Elvin]

I'm sorry it was only a joke as Nival employees have already called the fans 'whiners'(-D)-even though indirectly.The tone wasn't serious so I didn't think there would be a misunderstanding! No offence I hope

[Metal Wolf]

Its all cool, bro . But dont you agree that the animation of the dying wolf should be replaced by, say, an animation of summoning?

[DaemianLucifer]

You dont honestly expect to have a different animation for every unit,do you?Honestly,what do you want?A perfect game?Grow up,thats impossible

[Elvin]

Its all cool, bro . But dont you agree that the animation of the dying wolf should be replaced by, say, an animation of summoning?

Actually it would seem more weird to me to see a wolf unsummoned Fading would be more fitting and easy to implement.

[Metal Wolf]

You dont honestly expect to have a different anymation for every unit,do you?Honestly,what do you want?A perfect game?Grow up,thats impossible

Different animation for every unit? phhh... all I want is that a wolf, who is summoned by another wolf, won't drop dead at the end of the battle for no reason, but insted will disappear, just like a gated unit at a similar situation. Is that considered to be a "different animation for every unit"? what are you babbling about?
And no, unlike you, who always finds something to hate about Heroes V (funny how YOU, the ultimate Heroes V basher, tell me to grow up ) - I like the game the way it is and this is only a minor thing (which I wouldnt even insist about unless the matter was the wolf - which was always among my favourite units) which I want to be changed - and that can be easily done via patch.

[Elvin]

I wouldn't call him negative or a basher as he has some interesting points from time to time.He just speaks his mind.When he is not joking around

Edit:
Hmm I just became a heroic hero for what I said!Could you imagine...

[DaemianLucifer]

(funny how YOU, the ultimate Heroes V basher, tell me to grow up )

You dont honestly expect to have a different anymation for every unit,do you?Honestly,what do you want?A perfect game?Grow up,thats impossible

That devil up there means Im not serious.I rarelly am on the internet.