Bug Report - Sacrificial Priest Issue - Last Resort Abhorath Rescue Denied

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When I noticed this, it was happening to the AI opponent (in the Arena), but regardless, it didn’t feel quite right that the mechanic worked this way. I was since able to reproduce it in Explore mode (see screenshot below).
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The enemy was down to the last man standing, who was the mighty and flamboyant Sacrificial Priest. Low on life and outnumbered, he knew the end was nigh. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and so the brave elder made sure his swansong would be a sight to behold…

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Sacrifical Priest, as the last troop remaining in the line-up, used his ability on himself and successfully summoned an Abhorath to replace him. However…

What you were expecting to happen?

Sacrificial Priest dies, but summons a fresh Abhorath to replace him on the battlefield. The enemy’s turn ends, and the fight continues.

and what actually happened?

Abhorath went “wait, whaaaaaaat?!” as the Victory screen showed up for me, fully denying him any chance to fight back, despite him showing up to save the day for his team.

What are the steps to make it happen again?

Sacrifice the Sacrificial Priest when it’s your last remaining troop, get a lucky 30% roll, and lose anyway.

Do you have any screenshots or video you want to share with us so we can see the problem? Attach them to your post!

1435×826 1.32 MB

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Must have been a bit harsh for you to be denied for a possible comeback, sorry for you.

It also happens with the daemonic pact trait. You kill the last troop, if it has this trait and summons, you have a victory screen with an ancient horror left on ennemy team.

I think it come from the fact that even if summons a troop, for a moment you do not have any troop on your team, triggering the defeat screen.

That needs a rework and probably will be done.

To finish on a laugther, i imagine the left alone priest sacrifices himself and no aborath shows. Waaaait?? Whaaaaaaaat???

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Good to know (I don’t play PVP so I wouldn’t have come across this case). It makes sense, as it’s essentially the same mechanics at play.

The really puzzling thing with the Sacrificial Priest version is that it happens on your own turn. For the Daemonic Pact trait, I can sort of see how, since it’s your opponent killing your last troop, it would technically count as a win for them (though I still don’t think it should).

Summons count as valid troops except for this specific situation. I’ve had plenty of fights that ended with one team (or even both) long gone and gradually replaced by summons over the course of the game, and no one lost or won until the last of the Gouls eradicated the final remaining Spider Swarm. So it really feels illogical that the game ends when the summon happens to replace the last of the original troops.

It’s even sadder for the Sacrificial Priest specifically, as he goes through quite the emotional roller-coaster: he sacrifices himself for a mere 30% shot at giving his team a chance to come back, he gets lucky, but the game ends anyway. :skull_crossbones: :slight_frown:

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There is a slight difference between summons from a summoner and summons from a death mechanic. The summoner has to be alive to summon, so you always have a troop left.
With the death mechanic, it could happens with your last troop diying.

As for the priest, my point of vue is that he should not be able to sacrifice himself and that his mechanic is slightly akward. Sacrifice a troop for some damage that this troop could have done if still alive and a rng luck to summons. Unreliable.

Btw we still not have him on console, but i know i will probably buy only one glory pack that week and that he will never ever be a part of any of my team.

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Agree to disagree. I think it’s great that he’s able to sacrifice himself: you’re not left with an unusable spell if you don’t have another target. That’s especially useful when he’s himself about to die: you get a bargain for discarding him yourself instead of leaving the final blow to your opponent.

I’m sure he’s useless in constructed, since that mode is all about brokenly OP flavor-of-the-month abuse and combos from pay-to-win-more Traits & bonuses.

The Priest is an awesome Arena troop, though. Sure, the summoning is unreliable with him (it’d be unfair otherwise ^^), but that’s just the icing on the cake. If it ever hits, you get a level 15 Abhorhat, which is insane. If it doesn’t, you still get a ton of split damage. You obviously don’t ever cast this on a healthy and useful target; you cast it on someone that would have died very soon anyway. And in a pinch, he has 9 Attack, which is elite in that mode.

Edit: Strategy discussions aside, there’s definitely a bug, or at least something that doesn’t work quite as intended (hopefully) with this mechanic. @devs, could you please confirm? =))

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In arena he is surely a force to recon because he can spawn the only legendary that you will ever found in arena. Then again from the pvp side, there are so many others troops that does that kind of split damage or damage all ennemies, that i can’t remember any sacrificial priest good build ever proposed.

I agree to agree to disagree.

Have fun

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I believe this is the same issue @sirrian mentioned in regards to stun and traits. The issue is with the way the game currently processes it’s stack effect. The death effect triggers the end of game prior to resolving the summoned troop. In the case of traits it clears the stun effect.

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@Fred We actually agree, period, come to think of it :stuck_out_tongue:
Thanks, you too!

@Mufasha Thanks, this does ring a bell, and I wouldn’t be surprised it’s all related.

Okay, after a bit of research I found previous threads mentioning those similar issues:

&

This particular manifestation of the sequencing issue has the effect “sorry, you still lose that game, fresh Level 15 freaking Daemon be damned!”, though. Previously reported issues with traits “only” resulted in “okay, you will need to kill one more troop after all before you win”. ^^ It’s a bit more radical, I’d say.

@Sirrian Shouldn’t “Victory” or “Defeat” checks be made at the very last, by default? (I’m sure from a coding standpoint it’s much more complicated, of course).

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I have had a similar experience in the arena with Berserker. He cast and killed the final opponent troop, but it also cost him his last two life points. So, he and the enemy troop died at the same time and it counted as a loss.

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I’d say it’s a bit different, though it also showcases the event sequence. In the Berserker’s case, you actually end up losing, even if you also win, technically; since there’s no tie, the game gives you a loss. It can be frustrating to experience, but I think it’s still fair.

With the Sacrificial Priest, you actually improve your situation on the board by the end of your turn, but you still somehow “lose” for no apparent (gameplay) reason. It makes less sense to me.

I’m guessing the sequence in which events are handled for a turn is a bit weird and probably has tons of exceptions and odd interactions. The list Sirrian provided in another thread doesn’t seem to cover everything we mentioned here:

[quote]* Unit is marked as dead

  • Status effects are cleaned up
  • On-Death effects activate[/quote]

I wonder where the “Victory” and “Defeat” checks fit into this. The Sacrifical Priest/Daemonic Pact issue suggests the game checks for “Defeat” before it activates “on-death effects”, though it still activates them, somehow, just to decorate the “Defeat” screen for extra salt. The Berserker situation suggests it doesn’t check for “Victory” before it checks for “Defeat”, though.

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You can also win this way - I had a Sac Priest be my last opponent - it killed itself, an Abhorath summoned, and Victory! for me.

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Well yes, that’s what I described happened to me at the start of my Opening Post. ^^