Eccea's Arcane Blaster bonus projectiles apply permanently, apply to things they shouldn't.

[A_S00]

I'm using Eccea's Arcane Blaster on a Black Jacket/Ascendant, a character focused on frequently swapping weapons.  This weapon has an ability called "Fractured Bullet," which says:

 

 

 

15% chance for shot to split, firing two projectiles; 5% to fire three projectiles

 

This sounds like it should apply once, at the time of firing, only to shots with Eccea's itself.

 

Instead, it appears to be applying permanently, not only to shots with Eccea's, but to all of my ranged weapon shots, and possibly even to my spells that don't shoot projectiles at all:

• Eccea's Arcane Blaster with 4 projectiles.  This is "normal behavior," although the buff is applying permanently (which it shouldn't), and it should be extremely rare to get both the 15% +1 proj and the 5% +2 proj at the same time.
• Scordeo's Trophy with 4 projectiles.  This is the other gun in the weapon set that has Eccea's.  This shouldn't be getting bonus projectiles at all, let alone permanently.
• Kitchen Stove with 16 projectiles.  This isn't even in the same weapon set as Eccea's.
• Single cast of Amplified Wave hitting a single enemy 8 times.  I'm not positive this is the same bug (can't look at what's giving spells extra hits the same you can with projectile weapons), but given that it's the same character and the same save, and another instance of too-many-hits, I'm suspicious.  Ydwin, also in my party in the same playthrough, who has never equipped Eccea's, only hits each enemy once with Amplified Wave (i.e., correct behavior).
• Just for fun:  Video! Better video demonstrations:  Correct behavior (default attack), Bugged behavior (full attack)

These extra hits persist through rests, reloads, restarting the game, area transition, unequipping Eccea's, etc.  If you unequip a different weapon, it goes back to reporting its normal number of projectiles, but then goes right back up when reequipped.  As far as I can tell it's 100% permanent.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't notice this was happening for quite a while (eventually I thought, "huh, is Amplified Wave really supposed to be this good?" and started digging), so my steps-to-reproduce aren't perfect.  What I did was:

• Equip Eccea's along with several sets worth of other 1-handed ranged weapons.
• Frequently start every battle by using Penetrating Strike with Scordeo's and Eccea's, then immediately swapping to my next set of weapons to use Penetrating Strike a second time.
• Start casting Cipher spells as soon as I get the Ascended buff.
• Eventually notice that all my stuff was hitting too many times.

However, I don't know for sure if all of this is necessary, or if this bug will turn up on any character using Eccea's.

 

Pillars of Eternity v1.2.2.0033 -steam

 

Windows 10 Home, Version 1803, OS Build 17134.165

 

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UPDATE:  It's not weapon-swapping, it's full attacks.  See my later post for details.

 

Improved steps to reproduce:

1. Initiate combat by making a full attack with Eccea's Arcane Blaster and having Fractured Bullet proc
2. Don't make any basic attacks for the rest of the combat
3. Congratulations, all of your ranged attacks and spells now hit way too many times

Edited July 24, 2018 by A_S00

[A_S00]

Save didn't upload (too big?).

 

Dropbox link

Edited July 23, 2018 by A_S00

[eschu101]

I used Ecceas blaster (+fractured bullet) most of my run and this didnt happen. At least with my spells, maybe its cipher only (i played wizard).

I didnt use a offhand ranged weapon too, had Griffins sword with it.

[A_S00]

I used Ecceas blaster (+fractured bullet) most of my run and this didnt happen. At least with my spells, maybe its cipher only (i played wizard).

 

I didnt use a offhand ranged weapon too, had Griffins sword with it.

 

I wonder if it's the weapon-swapping that's doing it.

 

Idle speculation:  The way the extra projectiles seem to be implemented is that when you shoot with Eccea's, a temporary buff gets placed on your character that increases the number of hits for all your attacks.  This would explain why the extra projectiles apply to other weapons, and persist even when unequipping Eccea's, but appear to go away if you unequip one of the other weapons and then examine it, unequipped, in your inventory.  The buff is supposed to only last long enough to give you extra projectiles with that shot.

 

My guess is that the "extra hits" buff doesn't get removed properly if you've already swapped to a different weapon set that doesn't include Eccea's by the time it's supposed to expire.  Since my character opens by shooting with Eccea's and then immediately swaps weapons every fight, this happens all the time for me.

 

I'll try and do some more careful testing in the next day or two to confirm/deny.

[AttonRand]

Same thing started to happen to me today, im oneshotting some of the unlucky fampyrs with 1 Blinding strike of Scordeo's Reward + Eccea's. Crookspur slavers were oneshotted 10 times out of 10. Add Tactical Meld on top of that for some more accuarcy and crit conversion and u get a monster assassin.

[zilbest]

 

I used Ecceas blaster (+fractured bullet) most of my run and this didnt happen. At least with my spells, maybe its cipher only (i played wizard).

 

I didnt use a offhand ranged weapon too, had Griffins sword with it.

I wonder if it's the weapon-swapping that's doing it.

 

Idle speculation: The way the extra projectiles seem to be implemented is that when you shoot with Eccea's, a temporary buff gets placed on your character that increases the number of hits for all your attacks. This would explain why the extra projectiles apply to other weapons, and persist even when unequipping Eccea's, but appear to go away if you unequip one of the other weapons and then examine it, unequipped, in your inventory. The buff is supposed to only last long enough to give you extra projectiles with that shot.

 

My guess is that the "extra hits" buff doesn't get removed properly if you've already swapped to a different weapon set that doesn't include Eccea's by the time it's supposed to expire. Since my character opens by shooting with Eccea's and then immediately swaps weapons every fight, this happens all the time for me.

 

I'll try and do some more careful testing in the next day or two to confirm/deny.

I think your idle speculation is a spot-on. I'm pretty sure it's the case because I've been messing around modding Deadfire and find similar / could reproduce the same effect.

 

Let's say I created a new armor with an ItemMod that linked to a StatusEffect giving +5 Con. Open the game, equip that armor, save and exit.

 

To make that +5 permanent, I could just remove the ItemMod linked from the armor without removing the StatusEffect (you could do that since the ItemMod and the StatusEffect are actually different entries).

 

Load the previous save game. You will notice there is no mod on your armor but the StatusEffect is left permanently.

 

The StatusEffect from Arcane Blaster is active when you are switching weapon (which the ItemMod is removed) so it's left permanently on your character.

 

Therefore, I don't think it's a bug but it's just a messy implementation between ItemMod and StatusEffects on an Equipable / Equipment.

 

I hope my explanation is not too confusing (my english is terrible)...

[A_S00]

Update:  It's not the weapon swapping that's causing the issue, it's making full attacks with Eccea's.

 

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Video Demonstration 1:  Correct Behavior

 

In this video, Ydwin (who is not yet affected by the bug) initiates combat at 0:13 by making a default attack with Eccea's, and rolls +1 projectile.

 

Immediately opening her inventory (at 0:20), we can see that her weapons are not affected by any bonus projectile buff.

 

At 0:31, she swaps weapon sets, but this doesn't do anything - the extra projectiles are already gone.

 

At 0:39, she attacks with Kitchen Stove, which we can see in the combat log fires the correct number of projectiles (4).

 

At 1:01, she casts Amplified Wave, which correctly hits each enemy only once.

 

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Video Demonstration 2:  Bugged Behavior

 

In this video, Ydwin initiates combat at 0:19 by using Pierce the Bell, a full attack skill.  She again rolls +1 projectile.

 

Immediately opening her inventory (at 0:23), we can see that this time, both Eccea's and Kitchen Stove are affected by bonus projectiles.

 

At 0:40, she casts Amplified Wave, which inflicts far too many hits (as shown by the damage numbers over the enemies' heads).

 

After playing out the rest of the combat, I open up the "Wait" dialogue and wait for 26 hours.  At no point does Ydwin swap weapons.  After all of this (at 1:53), we can see that both Eccea's and Kitchen Stove are still affected by the bonus projectiles.

 

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I was originally faked out by this video and this one into thinking that weapon swapping was the key.  However, what really happened here is that in the first video (at 0:44) I made a basic attack, which appears to have cleared the bugged extra projectiles.  However, making a basic attack does not fix the bug on my main character; apparently something can make the bug truly permanent.  Perhaps saving and loading while the extra projectiles are active, or maybe area transitions?

 

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Dropbox link for the save I was using to run these tests, in case anyone wants to reproduce/confirm.

Edited July 24, 2018 by A_S00

[jlee]

Hi A_S00,

 

I've added your issue about Eccea's Arcane Blaster not working properly. Thank you for writing such a detailed post and providing the necessary files..