Shifting forms causing lag and crashes - Shifter

[Hawke]

I was on this time yesterday outside Corm Orp and crashed. Then logged back in, crash. Shifting into Elder Water Elemental.

[Theodore01]

still crashing with both my chars

[thepaganking]

I wanted to verify that this is still an issue. I have a new (a couple days) 16th level druid. I have not had problems with other shapes until I received elemental shape. Every time I try to shift into elemental form I am booted. I tried it at least seven times, each time I was booted.

TPG

[Steve]

I wanted to verify that this is still an issue. I have a new (a couple days) 16th level druid. I have not had problems with other shapes until I received elemental shape. Every time I try to shift into elemental form I am booted. I tried it at least seven times, each time I was booted.

TPG

Well..the "original" issue seemed to be connected to the Epic Elemental Shape feat, but...your experience is showing it is actually far more insidious!

[thepaganking]

Hello,

I hope your week has gone well.

I am checking to see if you are still working the issue as my druid now has epic elemental shape and gets booted whenever they try to use it. Therefore, it is hampering lower level druids and higher level druids.

Any update is appreciated!

Have a great weekend.

TPG

[Rhifox]

We have still been unable to identify the cause of this issue. A lot of our local testing has failed to trigger the crash, which has made it very difficult to fix. It is possible that it might be hardware related, given the difference in user experiences and the fact that it came on suddenly without any change on our end to the underlying polymorph code or forms.

We will keep looking.

Anyone that has crashing issues, could you give details on your hardware specs and DirectX version and so on? Are you using the Client Extender?

[thepaganking]

Hello,

I see that this is server wide unless there are other druids or shifters that can shift into elemental forms without a problem.

System information:
1. Direct X 12.0
2. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
3. Intel Core i7-7700 3.60 GHZ

I am not using the extension that I know of.

TPG

[Strago]

I haven't been in game for quite some time but if it helps in any way here is my system info.

Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
DirectX 12
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700KF CPU @ 3.80GHz, 3792 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 16 Logical Processor(s)
32.0 GB RAM

I was using the client extension.

[Nilden]

Was at a DM event tonight and used epic elemental to turn into a fire elemental worked fine, then I tried to turn into an air elemental to give haste, crashed me and other party members.

Character is Saman Ogden
Player name is Will

You see me on I can replicate a crash for you. Gonna shelf my shifter again. This used to work fine like a year ago. It's game breaking for my shifter since those are his best forms and it's baffling that you can't reproduce the crashes by shifting to epic elemental forms.

Good luck and thanks.

[DaloLorn]

Soooo I took him up on his offer. For the first time, I managed to cause a crash.

• Crashing does seem to occur for everyone who witnesses the offending transformation. I watched Saman reproduce this to see if I could learn how to do it myself; I crashed right along with him.
• Conversely, if the shifter doesn't crash, neither does anyone else around him! Saman only crashed when I did.
• The connection with having items equipped versus unequipped appears to be spurious. I've reproduced naked, I've reproduced in full gear.
• There does not appear to be any single shape responsible, though most of our crashes seemed to be on air elemental (whether epic or regular).
• There may be a timing element? This seems important, so I'll elaborate below.

Whenever you log in after the crash, you're offered the shape selection menu again. I have not been able to reproduce the crash off of that menu, and in subsequent tests, waiting a few rounds between casting a wildshape feat and selecting a shape has consistently allowed me to safely complete the transformation.

Obvious next choice? Select a shape as fast as humanly possible, pewpewpew, crash the game! ... Except this didn't work out either. Apparently if I choose a shape quickly enough, it's just as safe as if I took my time.

But there does seem to be a window in which the crash is guaranteed: When your character is recoiling from having completed the spell. Attempting to time my transformations to the moment my PC threw his arms forward and was about to withdraw them, I got another crash. Sure enough, I've reproduced the same crash in the same pose, and it seems plausible that different players would have different activation speeds (plus latency is liable to play a role too, since the menu doesn't pop up - and the choice doesn't take effect - without a couple of messages being exchanged from server to client), which could account for the unreliable reproduction. Some people like me would normally time their shifts outside the crash window without even realizing it was an issue; others would land almost exclusively inside the window and be baffled at the others' ability to regularly shapeshift without incident.

To demonstrate, a screenshot of the last frame NWN2 was able to render in one of the final rounds of testing (forgive the whiteout, Windows really thought it was being helpful):


My recommendation is to wait up to two rounds (~12 seconds) between casting the feat and choosing a shape. One round (~6 seconds) is probably plenty, since the animation should have completed in less than that time; but with two rounds of delay between activation and completion, I would be greatly surprised and deeply disturbed to hear someone was still able to crash themselves.

This may also be responsible for the oft-reported issue of Gaseous Form being a guaranteed party crasher (if you'll pardon the pun). However, if memory serves, I have not been able to reproduce that issue either: It's possible that the caster is not the character that trips the crash, and that it is instead another gasified creature gets caught in a bad state. Maybe.

[Nilden]

Oh yes! Waiting until the animation is done or like 10 seconds to pick the form from the menu and I have not had any trouble shifting where I usually would crash almost every time.

Thanks for your help! All I have to do is wait to click the shift and it works!

[Hullack]

Is there a way to divorce the spell from the animation?

[DaloLorn]

Push comes to shove, I guess we could kill the animation outright? It'd take a HAK patch, though, and either way, I don't know how the rest of the team feels about taking drastic measures like that just yet. (... "Just yet", I say... as if this hasn't plagued us for nearly a year. )

[Rhifox]

Is there a way to divorce the spell from the animation?

We can't say for sure that the animation is the cause. It's a good visual indicator for when the issue occurs but it does not necessarily mean the issue is actually caused by the animation itself.

[Nilden]

Well I was at another DM event and on the beach where a black dragon was taking a sphere a titan tossed onto the beach I figured 30 seconds would be enough to then click the earth elemental shape.

At least 3-4 people around me crashed.

//my bad

I guess I just better not use elemental forms at all around other people.