Fixed Internally [Bard] The /hide skill can break invisiblity

Discussion in 'Resolved' started by Wulfhere, Sep 20, 2021.

  1. Wulfhere Augur

    This is some data from an older post that still happens, and can be deadly to a bard, so I'm reporting it as a bug.

    The /hide skill interacts badly with invisibility spells in some cases.

    1. If you are hidden via the /hide skill then casting an instant-cast invisible spell will leave you visible. For example:

    /hide # upon success
    /alt activate 231 # Shauri's Sonorous Clouding II

    Results in not being invisible:

    [Tue Mar 24 23:05:26 2020] You begin to hide...
    [Tue Mar 24 23:05:28 2020] You are no longer hidden.
    [Tue Mar 24 23:05:28 2020] You begin singing Shauri's Sonorous Clouding II.
    [Tue Mar 24 23:05:28 2020] A soft mist surrounds you.
    [Tue Mar 24 23:05:28 2020] Your feet leave the ground.
    [Tue Mar 24 23:05:28 2020] You become visible.

    Normal invisible sequence:

    [Tue Mar 24 23:05:42 2020] You begin singing Shauri's Sonorous Clouding II.
    [Tue Mar 24 23:05:42 2020] A soft mist surrounds you.
    [Tue Mar 24 23:05:42 2020] Your feet leave the ground.

    Another example using a Cloudy Potion:

    [Mon Sep 20 14:16:54 2021] You begin to hide...
    [Mon Sep 20 14:17:09 2021] You are no longer hidden.
    [Mon Sep 20 14:17:09 2021] You vanish. # click Cloudy Potion
    [Mon Sep 20 14:17:10 2021] You appear.

    2. If you are invisible via a spell, then failing a /hide will break your existing invisibility and/or undead invisibility. This may be expected behavior but noting it for completeness.

    [Mon Sep 20 14:26:53 2021] SoAndSo begins casting Group Perfected Invisibility I.
    [Mon Sep 20 14:26:54 2021] SoAndSo vanishes completely.
    [Mon Sep 20 14:26:54 2021] You vanish completely.
    [Mon Sep 20 14:27:04 2021] SoAndSo begins casting Group Perfected Invisibility to Undead I.
    [Mon Sep 20 14:27:05 2021] SoAndSo fades a little.
    [Mon Sep 20 14:27:05 2021] You feel your skin tingle.
    [Mon Sep 20 14:27:09 2021] You begin to hide... # /hide failure
    [Mon Sep 20 14:27:09 2021] You appear.
    [Mon Sep 20 14:27:09 2021] Your skin stops tingling.
    Sirene_Fippy likes this.
  2. Wyre Wintermute I'm just a butterly dreaming I'm a man

    AFAIK, /hide is a "fragile" invis, more than anything else. Doing basically anything while in /hide breaks "invis" because there's no differentiation between what the skill does and the spell types. Hence the whole sneak/hide. You can try to hide, then sneak, but you need to hide at the end of sneak before doing whatever it was you intended to do, since moving breaks hide's "invis" as well and /hide after sneaking stops the check to see if you're spotted while sneaking.

    It's just one of those weird things. They're not meant to be used in conjunction with each other. In quite similar fashion, Bard lev and bard invis (individual component buff versions) will absolutely murder people by overwriting their own invis/lev then fading when the bard gets OOR. I'd rather see that get addressed so I can free up those blocked spell slots.
  3. Wulfhere Augur

    Sneak does not prevent hide from breaking on a bard (only a rogue). Sneak is not part of this bug report. Rather it's about order of operations and that /hide does not interact with those buffs very well.

    The action of becoming unhidden appears to be a 2 step process. The action happens first but the result of clearing buffs is applied after receiving (concurrent) invis buffs. I propose that /hide result should be consolidated and happen atomically before the (new) buffs are applied. The end result should be that the character is unhidden but still invisible via spell buff. In fact I don't see why the /hide ability even interacts with the buff slots at all (and perhaps it simply shouldn't).