Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Bugs & Technical Problems Bug with Shriekers

I'm having the same problem detailed here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/435150/discussions/6/1699415798766828761/
Essentially, on my main save, the Shriekers in Act III are invisible and untargetable. I can see their vision ranges (sneaking and/or holding shift). And, when they see me, they kill my character(s). However, I cannot target them with abilities to be able to kill them. And it's incredibly, incredibly frustrating.
That Steam thread suggests a workaround. Happily, I have a save that I made before entering Act III, so I can actually do the workaround. Also happily, I haven't done THAT much in Act III yet, so I'm actually "only" losing about an hour of progress (which, realistically, now that I kinda know the map, I might be able to do in substantially less time). However, I'm not the only one that's encountered this bug (Steam thread) and the posters there seem to think that the problem was caused by the most recent patch. I have no way of verifying that. But, I figured I'd make a thread on the official forum, to make sure that the devs are aware of this bug... and hopefully fix it

We are aware of it, but have been unable to reproduce it. However, after recently posting in the Steam discussion requesting saves, we have received one where this occurs.

I have this same issue. The initial Shrieker in Act 1 that I encountered was visible and clickable, but at some point during Act 1, they all became invisible. Judging by reddit/steam/here there are a bunch of people affected by this.

I'm kind of scared to click through into act II now, because if what people are saying is true, once you render the Shriekers once, they'll vanish on any subsequent save game loads and be unrecoverable.

Alright I spent some time trying to reproduce the bug, hoping to be able to avoid it for my next playthrough. Here is what I did

Start a new game with two mods, Cheat Commander to allow me to speed my way through to the shriekers in Act 1, and a very simplistic mod modifying difficulty a bit. The mod in question only has Stats modification for _hero and and HardcoreNPC, as well as some extraData Data Changes for some QOL improvements. Nothing really fancy. You can download the mod here : https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au29I7u16grFoIwUK6s18K_VfYD1uw

I start in the boat, I speak to the Cheat Commander, I give myself very high level (20), a few high end items, I save. I deactivate the Cheat Commander mod, I let the other mod in.

Arrived in Fort Joy, I speed my way through to the Shriekers at the end of Act, and they appear on the ground. They are still there, but on the ground, like they fell through. Interestingly enough, the one you encounter before near the old ruins is still happily standing on his cross.
Some screenshots to demonstrate that :
Near the old ruins : https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au29I7u16grFoIwV-VI4EWeXpRZKdQ
End of Act 1 : https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au29I7u16grFoIwWnDLEtl_ffH0Vmg
End Of Act 1 after save / reload : https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au29I7u16grFoIwXuxQOoXRT96Ym-Q

So, at that point, whenever you reload the game, the shriekers are gone, and you can't do anything to prevent them to do whatever they do.

Now, where it becomes interesting, is that I now deactivate ALL mods before loading Act 1 (so in the boat, I deactivate all mods, and load the game in the boat and then I leave the area). Act 1 loads first time WITHOUT any mod (as a reminder, the very little mod there was before was not changing much, still it was enough). I speed my way through to the same place (I'm still level 20, so it's quick) and this time, the shriekers are appearing correctly. Better still, I leave the game, load a buckload of mods, and ... the shriekers are still there appearing correctly.

Please note this happened following the latest patch. I always played the game with mods and never had any issue.

So the workaround for the moment for anyone playing the game is fairly simple :
Before changing Act, deactivate all your mods, load the new act, save, quit the game, and activate your mods back. It should work, it did at least for the first act.

I hope this helps Larian fixing this gamebreaking bug. Yes, it seems to be limited to modded games, but despite this game being great, It's still better with mods

Thanks for reading this

Just saving and reloading does not cause this problem, but reloading will show the symptoms if it has already been triggered (as described above).

The reason the shriekers are invisible is known, and this will be fixed in a hotfix soon. The cause of the problem has not been confirmed, though, since this bug has not been reproducible (even with the saves provided; don't know if act transitions with mods were tried).

Great news, thanks guys

Wow, that was quick. Hotfix downloaded and tested, works. Great job guys.

I think Patch 3.0.180.158 has re-introduced this issue. In Act I, my friend and I had no issue seeing all of the Shriekers. The patch was introduced after we had finished questing in Act I but before we entered Lady Vengeance for the first time. I recall this because on Lady Vengeance we encountered crashes from the broken Shared Discount mod. We didn't realize what was causing it, so we both used GOG's Verify/Repair option, which disabled the Shared Discount (and Shared Persuasion) mod.

However, we're now a fair ways into Act II, and we're encountering invisible Shriekers. The issues are just as described above, at least as far as invisible, untargetable, murderous Shriekers go. I can't verify Nolenthar's reports of Shriekers appearing on the ground if you make it to them in one go, since it was well beyond when we could have done that when we noticed the issue. I've let my friend know that disabling all mods going into Act III is a workaround we need to try if nothing gets patched between then and now, so at least we have a possible workaround, but it would be nice if the issue could be patched again.

Let me know if you need any more information from me, such as mod list or our save file.

I am also having this issue. i start playing a couple weeks ago and all thru fort joy i had no problem with seeing the Shriekers, on multiple characters, but as soon as i get to act 2 i can't see any of them anymore. i have not done too much testing but I do have mods but i have also disabled them did a full quit to desktop and loaded the game again and i still could not see the Shriekers.

The issue after the patch 7 update is due to a change in the patch combined with mods that affect story.
Unfortunately, once the problem is triggered, disabling the mods will not help.

Any word on a possible hotfix, though? I mean, it's already been fixed once, right? :p

Dealing with it in Act 2 isn't so bad if we know it'll be fixed when we hit Act 3. As it stands now, though, we have to hope that the old workaround still works.

Yeah, same problem on my end. The shrieker by the abandoned castle in Act 1 is normal, but every other one is a phantom. Same problem in act 2.

Hope a hot-fix goes out soon, also love the game and the effort you've put into it Larian.

Having this problem in act 1. I don't think there's any way around them, given I killed off the ice dragon. Help!

In Act 1 you should be able to teleport past them, and/or turn invisible to go past. As long as you're out of their red sight areas, you should be good.

I can confirm that the bug with shriekers will occur with any mod, even a blank one. Here are the minimum steps to reproduce it:

1. Launch the Divinity Engine
2. Create a new mod, type: add-on target: story
3. Skip creating an area
4. Open story editor
5. Compile the story
6. Save and exit

7. Launch the game
8. In the Mods, menu, select only the mod you created
9. Play through the game until you reach the Abandoned Camp waypoint

Without other mods, this will take some time. Here's probably the quickest and most reliable way to accomplish it without any other mods. (This should be in spoiler tags, but I'm not allowed to use them yet since I just registered):

- Play in Explorer mode, as there will be two mandatory fights
- Create an Inquisitor character with Lone Wolf just in case
- Rush through the ship, pick up a weapon after the scripted event
- Go upstairs, fight, then go to the boat
- Pick conversation options not to go back to the others
- Go straight to Fort Joy, ignoring everything
- From the square, go west and get the teleporter quest from Gawin
- Pick up Beast
- Kill the indicated enemies to get the teleporter gloves
- Return to the square, go down the hatch, talk to the dwarf with Beast in your party to get a key for the side door on the second floor of the fort
- Return back up, then go east behind Nebora's tent
- Teleport to the ledge, drop the ladder and head inside
- Enter sneak mode before opening the inner door
- Sneak all the way around the hall to the tower opposite of where you started
- Move the crates to get out, then drop down the ladder
- Go east along the coast, south of the fire, through the area with the talking skulls
- When you reach the edge, turn north
- Go north through the area with the pigs up to the broken bridge (avoid getting 'sploded by traps)
- Climb up to the bridge
- Walk straight east along the bridge, then keep to the southern path to avoid Loke
- Finally turn north to get to the Abandoned Camp waypoint

If you do all this in one go, the shriekers to the north will be visible, but crouching on the ground instead of hanging on the poles.

If you save and reload now, the shriekers will become invisible.

Note: The shrieker to the west of the Ruined Castle is not affected by this bug.

I can provide a savegame at the Abandoned Camp waypoint and the blank mod I created for testing purposes. Although testing will go quite a bit faster if you create a mod that lets you teleport to the Abandoned Camp waypoint directly. :)

Just ran into this in the abandoned camp, is there a way to make the shriekers appear that doesn't involve starting the act all over again?

A bit sad that a silly run speed mod breaks the game this badly :(

I also have the problem. Emailed supportdos2@larian.com with my save file, hopefully they can fix it for good. Anum Quoi, that is very good that you went to all that trouble to reproduce the problem - and that is not related to any one mod.

Edit: Here is the reply I just got from Larian:




Edit #2: I replied to Raze with this question:


****

So yeah, just gotta workaround the problem, it seems. At least Larian knows about it.