Spells: Minor Illusion Faction Modifier Bug

[Vermicelli]

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In the course of testing graphic bugs related to Minor Illusion, I transformed with Minor Illusion next to a Dark Elf guard to compare my model size to his. The guard then turned and attacked me! Surprising, since he had been friendly enough to take a picture with me just a moment before. After I came back to the scene of the misunderstanding, the guard was once again friendly to me. Transforming again from a safe distance, the guard began to glare at me threateningly, perhaps jealous of my shape-changing magic.

I created a noob Human/Enchanter/Agnostic and a noob Dark Elf/ENC/Agnostic to do a little digging. After some more casting and /conning, I have discovered that on P99 Minor Illusion unexpectedly changes a person's faction modifier to that of a Human, whereas in Kunark/Velious EQ it should make all things in the world indifferent to the Illusioned player.

Am: Amiable, I: Indifferent, (no Apprehensive), D: Dubious, T: Threatening, S: Scowling.

[U]Faction: ______________ Human ___ w/MI ___|__ Dark Elf ___ w/MI
Freeport Guards (FP Militia) ___Am _____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
FP Paladins (Knights of Truth) _ Am _____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
FP Casters (Arcane Scientists)__ K ______ K _____|____ D _______ K
The League of Antonican Bards _ I _______ I ____|_____ T _______ I
Dark Elf Guards (Dread Guard) __ T_______ T ____|____ Am ______ T
DE Clerics (Priests of Innoruuk) _ T _______ T ____|____ Am ______ T
DE Casters (The Spurned) _____ D _______ D ____|_____ K ______ D
(Seeing a pattern?)
Nektulos HFL (Various Rivervale) Am _____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
RV Guards (Guardians of the Vale) Am ____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
RV Clerics (Priests of Mischief) __ Am _____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
Kithicor Bixies (Stonehive Bixies) __ D ______ D ____|____ S _______ D

Every piece of this /con data reflects that regardless of the base race, both the Human and the Dark Elf are affected by the Human faction modifier after casting Minor Illusion. Again, every NPC I /conned should have been indifferent to me under illusion.

Interestingly, Minor Illusion also grants the caster infravision. I don't believe it is supposed to change vision at all.

[Vermicelli]

Another strange thing about Minor Illusion is that, instead of transforming you into a nearby object to the delight of all, sometimes it simply adjusts your height to that of a human model. Bo~ring!

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Jiffy-pop gnome! And sometimes, you will appear to different observers as different objects from each perspective.

Originally Posted by /gsay

You tell your party, "lol do I look like a hide rug to anyone else?"
Dhinnar tells the group, "you do"
You tell your party, "Excellent."
Dhinnar tells the group, "you look kinda like a wierd colored goo with lev on"
Zelvin tells the group, "a floating barrel"

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Camping the ass/sup in lguk, where there are many barrels and hide rugs. You can see the white targeting ring sitting neatly upon me.

Probably the most troubling weirdness of Minor Illusion is that, when under its effect, if I am hit in combat I grunt like a burly man. If there were only one thing about Minor Illusion I could have fixed, it would be this.

[Uthgaard]

Originally Posted by Vermicelli [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In the course of testing graphic bugs related to Minor Illusion, I transformed with Minor Illusion next to a Dark Elf guard to compare my model size to his. The guard then turned and attacked me! Surprising, since he had been friendly enough to take a picture with me just a moment before. After I came back to the scene of the misunderstanding, the guard was once again friendly to me. Transforming again from a safe distance, the guard began to glare at me threateningly, perhaps jealous of my shape-changing magic.

I created a noob Human/Enchanter/Agnostic and a noob Dark Elf/ENC/Agnostic to do a little digging. After some more casting and /conning, I have discovered that on P99 Minor Illusion unexpectedly changes a person's faction modifier to that of a Human, whereas in Kunark/Velious EQ it should make all things in the world indifferent to the Illusioned player.

Am: Amiable, I: Indifferent, (no Apprehensive), D: Dubious, T: Threatening, S: Scowling.

[U]Faction: ______________ Human ___ w/MI ___|__ Dark Elf ___ w/MI
Freeport Guards (FP Militia) ___Am _____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
FP Paladins (Knights of Truth) _ Am _____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
FP Casters (Arcane Scientists)__ K ______ K _____|____ D _______ K
The League of Antonican Bards _ I _______ I ____|_____ T _______ I
Dark Elf Guards (Dread Guard) __ T_______ T ____|____ Am ______ T
DE Clerics (Priests of Innoruuk) _ T _______ T ____|____ Am ______ T
DE Casters (The Spurned) _____ D _______ D ____|_____ K ______ D
(Seeing a pattern?)
Nektulos HFL (Various Rivervale) Am _____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
RV Guards (Guardians of the Vale) Am ____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
RV Clerics (Priests of Mischief) __ Am _____ Am ____|____ T ______ Am
Kithicor Bixies (Stonehive Bixies) __ D ______ D ____|____ S _______ D

Every piece of this /con data reflects that regardless of the base race, both the Human and the Dark Elf are affected by the Human faction modifier after casting Minor Illusion. Again, every NPC I /conned should have been indifferent to me under illusion.

Interestingly, Minor Illusion also grants the caster infravision. I don't believe it is supposed to change vision at all.

Minor illusion making someone indifferent was a very, very shortlived bug that we're already past on the timeline. But you did accidentally point out a different, valid bug with the spell. Will see about getting it fixed.

[BrandeX]

I seem to recall everyone seeing something different on live (at least for a time) too.

[Harrison]

And they never fixed the bug where you could move while minor illusioned, will check and test later on my enchanter if it's still possible.

Edit: by they I meant sony, and it should work here barring any "technical restraints" to be classic.

[Aadill]

Originally Posted by Harrison [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And they never fixed the bug where you could move while minor illusioned, will check and test later on my enchanter if it's still possible.

Edit: by they I meant sony, and it should work here barring any "technical restraints" to be classic.

I thought you could only spin and jump.

Also I thought it put you dubious to kos mobs and indifferent to non kos mobs.

[Harrison]

You're not supposed to normally be able to move with it, but there was a bug (totally classic!) where you could run around in minor illusion. It was 100% able to be reproduced and not gamebreaking in any manner.

[Aadill]

I started a few months before Velious came out and tried an enchanter... but I don't recall being able to use minor illusion in the manner of which you speak. If minor illusion modified your faction to non-kos and you were able to move then that would be an exploit, wouldn't it? Uthgaard said it was a bug to make mobs indifferent to you but I remember conning mobs as a dresser or the pile of poop in WFP and remember dubious and/or indifferent. Maybe that was the short-lived time frame?

The most important question here is: what mob in their right mind would not swat at a moving table?

[Harrison]

The bug isn't working here.

You cast a different illusion, then minor illusion (or the other way around, but neither work on P99) and you click the different illusion off. BAM walking minor illusion.

This worked for a VERY long time.

[Vermicelli]

On Live EQ, people found a way to run around while under the effects of Minor Illusion. At the time, since Minor Illusion caused you to become indifferent to all mobs, this was a huge exploit that allowed enchanters to go anywhere in the world while perfectly visible and able to interact with NPC's without being attacked. Sony's solution to fixing this exploit was to make it so that Minor Illusion gives no faction modifier whatsoever, and instead mobs would view you thru your normal faction modifiers. What they should have done instead is simply fix the bug that makes it possible to travel while Minor Illusioned, but oh well.

I have scoured the internet for a day and a half to figure out when the changes to Minor Illusion's faction modifier were put in, and the earliest date I have been able to find is in early 2003, which would place it sometime soon after the release of Planes of Power.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/hist...es-2003-1.html

Originally Posted by the Allakhazam Patch Archive

------------------------------
April 8, 2003 3:00 am
------------------------------

** Illusions/Shape Change **

We have changed the way that Illusions and Shape Changes work with
respect to faction. The new system is a lot easier to understand than
the old one, so we'll just explain the new one. When changed into the
form of a playable race, characters are treated as if they were a
member of that race. When changed into a non-playable race, characters
retain their own racial factions.

This is corroborated by a post (posted May 01, 2003) on Alla regarding clicky-effect Minor Illusion on an item, the Coral Shard.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/i...05182877965005

Originally Posted by hpyjack

With the recent nerfs to non-racial illusion factions, minor illusion is now the same as your base factions, which is essentially KOS everywhere you might have wanted to use this.

In the spirit of becoming an unassuming, innocent inanimate object, I feel like a part of Minor Illusion's charm is to cause other beings to not think of you threateningly. If movement under Minor Illusion could be exploited on P99, I understand removing the faction modifier portion of the spell, but I have tested both methods I know of to engage the mobile Minor Illusion bug and neither allowed me to run around as an object because of the way P99 will not allow different illusions to stack.

TL;DR From what I can gather, Minor Illusion should still grant indifferent-to-all faction on P99 according to the EQ patch timeline. Also, it would not break the game since P99 will not allow you to bug Minor Illusion so you can move. Regardless, I look forward to seeing what change yall implement =)