Sequence break - permanent impossibility to 100% the game
Historical Hero II: Armageddon
I have beat the game but never got to goblin village or to vacation beach's mines, and only now realized (by looking at source code) I won't be able to visit them at all and thus can never 100% the game
.
How did this happen? Well, the fairies revealed themselves without me getting to goblin village or to mines, and the stupid goblin guaring the village was gone and instead there is catapult blocking the entrance (this actually signals that I can't revisit that area - the area that I never visited in first place).
The presence of catapult suggests story variable got higher value than it should have. The removal of fairy fence suggests the same, that is something propelled me high enough to skip goblin village, vacation beach's mines and visit fairies.
I currently have only one idea how could this happen: s6-pill.c has "&story += 1" in hit() instead of die(). Although this pillbug has only 10 hitpoints, it occurs several times, and with no weapon equipped I had less than 10 strength for a while, and I remember using herb boots primarly on weak foes, making plausible pillbugs got killed in several hits each. I can't check it as my saves are long since overwritten by endgame crap, but continue reading this text - the investigation does seem conclusive after all.
Note that other enemies in that area (they all can be killed only once, and then they're gone) have story increment in their "die" procedure, not "hit". The respawning slayer inside the house is also ruled out - he is using s5-slayer.c not s6-slayer.c, according to the map editor.
It should be noted that I was rather lucky (I think) to be able to visit fairies (story must be greater than 57), as goblin village is blocked at a bit earlier point (story greater than 56). Looking at s8-fairy2.c, I've arrived at exactly &story == 59, like I was supposed to be at that point, except I reached it while skipping two episodes. I also never seemed to have seen speech in s8-strange.c (which happens only when &story is 58 and sets it to 59), so I got to 59 by other means.
Besides s6 episode, the only source of story increments (+= value, not = value) is only in the end episode (three red spiders, s10-redspid.c), which is only reachable after fairies. Other things that manipulate story variable along that range are related to goblin episode I never went into, and the minimum story value at which villages are unlocked is supposed to be 56 (32 from king's quest + 24 monster kills), so all evidence seems to converge to s6-pill.c pillbugs being the definitive culprit. In fact, killing just one of those pillbugs in more than one hit will block goblin village (and thus mines as well). If you kill exactly one pillbug in exactly two hits (and the rest in one hit), you will also be unable to get to fairies (because story will be == 57) and progress the game at all! It appears that I landed 3 extra hits to pillbugs in total (not surprising, there is a lot of them).
Guess I will be enjoying my 82% story completion
. By the way, I didn't actually enjoy this d-mod much, the balance and the story are complete bonkers. I've only played it because it can kill a lot of time really. Definitely will NOT be replaying for proper progression - I had enough. It appears that author has severe hubris issues, just like other member consistently pointer out (by the way, did you know why I asked for walkthrough? Only to verify that the author is aware you can waste the bomb on defense potion rock and be barred from progress unless you saved beforehand - and that he is not even ashamed of it! Ridiculous).
Basically, I've only wrote this bug report for other people who might have the misfortune to run into it.
P.S. Yes this is Silver version, the latest as of this writing. You can go check s6-pill.c yourself anyway.
. How did this happen? Well, the fairies revealed themselves without me getting to goblin village or to mines, and the stupid goblin guaring the village was gone and instead there is catapult blocking the entrance (this actually signals that I can't revisit that area - the area that I never visited in first place).
The presence of catapult suggests story variable got higher value than it should have. The removal of fairy fence suggests the same, that is something propelled me high enough to skip goblin village, vacation beach's mines and visit fairies.
I currently have only one idea how could this happen: s6-pill.c has "&story += 1" in hit() instead of die(). Although this pillbug has only 10 hitpoints, it occurs several times, and with no weapon equipped I had less than 10 strength for a while, and I remember using herb boots primarly on weak foes, making plausible pillbugs got killed in several hits each. I can't check it as my saves are long since overwritten by endgame crap, but continue reading this text - the investigation does seem conclusive after all.
Note that other enemies in that area (they all can be killed only once, and then they're gone) have story increment in their "die" procedure, not "hit". The respawning slayer inside the house is also ruled out - he is using s5-slayer.c not s6-slayer.c, according to the map editor.
It should be noted that I was rather lucky (I think) to be able to visit fairies (story must be greater than 57), as goblin village is blocked at a bit earlier point (story greater than 56). Looking at s8-fairy2.c, I've arrived at exactly &story == 59, like I was supposed to be at that point, except I reached it while skipping two episodes. I also never seemed to have seen speech in s8-strange.c (which happens only when &story is 58 and sets it to 59), so I got to 59 by other means.
Besides s6 episode, the only source of story increments (+= value, not = value) is only in the end episode (three red spiders, s10-redspid.c), which is only reachable after fairies. Other things that manipulate story variable along that range are related to goblin episode I never went into, and the minimum story value at which villages are unlocked is supposed to be 56 (32 from king's quest + 24 monster kills), so all evidence seems to converge to s6-pill.c pillbugs being the definitive culprit. In fact, killing just one of those pillbugs in more than one hit will block goblin village (and thus mines as well). If you kill exactly one pillbug in exactly two hits (and the rest in one hit), you will also be unable to get to fairies (because story will be == 57) and progress the game at all! It appears that I landed 3 extra hits to pillbugs in total (not surprising, there is a lot of them).
Guess I will be enjoying my 82% story completion
. By the way, I didn't actually enjoy this d-mod much, the balance and the story are complete bonkers. I've only played it because it can kill a lot of time really. Definitely will NOT be replaying for proper progression - I had enough. It appears that author has severe hubris issues, just like other member consistently pointer out (by the way, did you know why I asked for walkthrough? Only to verify that the author is aware you can waste the bomb on defense potion rock and be barred from progress unless you saved beforehand - and that he is not even ashamed of it! Ridiculous).Basically, I've only wrote this bug report for other people who might have the misfortune to run into it.
P.S. Yes this is Silver version, the latest as of this writing. You can go check s6-pill.c yourself anyway.
An interesting discovery, though the author isn't around any more so I doubt there'll be any fixes for this.
