Perfect Storm - How Vilja and the game can go fut

[Sniffles]

Got the quest from Wilburt to find the 3rd book of chants at Witchmist Grove. As bored as one can get of the scenery around Windhelm we walked part way then fast traveled to Kynesgrove.
At Kynesgrove we had an encounter with a vampire which was quite a romp over the landscape. A Stormcloak soldier helped dispatch it. Then we had the hag from Witchmist which we dealt with. PC collected the chant book and I chose to fast travel away from that area before walking. I got the message cannot fast travel with enemies present.

There was no apparent enemy. We strolled around a little and heard a distant bear. Drawing a weapon Vilja didn't go after it. Not near enough. Then the dragon came down. It was what was screwing up fast travel. It stirred up the giant and two mammoths over the hill. 10 minutes of coping with things and ready to get out of the area, something didn't seem right. Got no soul from the dragon. Then I noticed Vilja changed into her wedding gown when not into combat mode and I'm not using the wardrobe function.

I just felt uneasy. Not right. So I saved and restarted from the autosave when I fast traveled. Another vampire, check. Hag, check. Get chant... This time I got a quest completed message. I hadn't got it the first time.

So I made a save at that point then reverted to the save where I hadn't got the message, got rid of the dragon and fast traveled back to Solitude. Sure enough, Wilburt didn't recognize PC had the scroll. I hit him repeatedly with the reset spell. It had no effect. I hit Vilja repeatedly. Again, no effect. I checked Vilja's various dialogues. Most were missing! Vilja was still, partly, in combat mode.

What happened as near as I could tell. The dragon was circling overhead but not making his presence known. We were getting the game engine's 'enemy present' on  and off as it came near us. That went off simultaneously or just before my finding the 3rd chant. It blocked the quest completed script, and Vilja got locked into this pseudo combat mode which made her start changing wardrobes when she should have had acknowleging finding the chant script run.

So Vilja got locked, the quest got locked, and Wilburt got locked. Multiple scripts all trying to get in and getting in each others way. While that was a rare instance, it's easy to see how these things can happen when the timing is just perfectly wrong.

I'm hoping one of the Vilja experts will weigh in here on why the reset spell was unable to untangle the mess.

[Seyheb]

Hmm, it all sounds wierd. I've not experienced the reset spell not working, though once I had to use it twice. I don't have an answer to why it didn't work. Did you try to spar with her? Alternatively, if you are still stuck, have you an even earlier save you could go back to?

As for the dragon soul, there's a mod that gives you a spell to extract them. In an earlier playthrough I used it for a time after I had the problem of not being given the souls, then several dragons later things began to work normally again and I was able to abandon the spell.

That can't fast travel message sure can be annoying when you can't see an enemy anywhere nearby. Even some mudcrab that's not even close enough to threaten you can trigger it.

[CollinMacleod]

Sniffles are you running the Dragonborn DLC? It was and is notorious for making it so that you cannot absorb souls once you have started the Quest. HOWEVER the Unofficial Dragonborn patch fixes it.

[Sniffles]

Hey guys! Thanks much for the input. Apologies in advance here if I get long winded. I didn't want to include all the sordid details but a few will help.

Restarted Skyrim with a very early save. Was just completing the Donkey Tail quest with Vilja. The main quest had progressed where PC is invited to a party at Thalmor central but hasn't pursued that. I got Dawnguard going to where Serana, Great Moaning Cow, Genetically Modified Cockatrice, GMC, is waiting patiently to introduce PC to the delights of Castle Harkonennenn. I only did Dawnguard to see if the mod expanding GMC's dialogue would help.

Dragonborne. Been harassed by cultists but have never gone to Solstheim (SucksBigTime). Am inclined to hold out until somebody makes a mod to un-uglify the place.

Thus the game play right now is entirely Vilja centric. We are methodically plodding along, savoring each step of the VIlja mod, and in the process, bug watching. Post Druknard (duck nards) the mod has ran flawlessly. I'm actually playing and replaying at the same time. Each playing session I make an interim save about a half to one and a half hours in, or where something really appealing is going on. The next playing session I revert to that save point, not to the most recent events. Savoring Skyrim and Vilja. Taking lots of screen shots, using the quick save for the deadly encounters which my Squishy can play later and so on(And only for that. Otherwise it's all about careful incremental saves.)

As far as Dragonsouls go, I've got around 40 I haven't yet used. I haven't unlocked the lions share of shouts (or found most of the word walls) and only Unrelenting force is at level 3. I always get a soul from every dragon converted to fertilizer.

As far as game stability goes, it's as stable as this peece of sheet graphics card allows. Save save save and more save. CTDs are inevitable within 20 minutes. Autosaves are usually good for 5 minutes or less before CTDs. The save games are at a comfortable 11 meg. Then game itself runs excellently barring the crap graphics card. And we are endeavoring to keep it running just this way so when something strange happens we know it's a game flockup.

So when Vilja got knotted up is was very weird. VERY WEIRD! Simply reverting to a save and redoing that 10 minute period entirely resolved the issue. I traced it all back as near as I can tell to opening that outdoor chest in Witchmist. Without the nearby enemies, everything ran flawlessly.

I've done that scenario about 8 times now. Once the dragon was present but the quest accomplish still worked. once a bear was present and still worked, and once a vampire attacked.

After the vampire attack I made a save before reopening the chest. I then opened the chest about 10 times, picked up the chant book and got the quest message. Then reverted to the save and so forth. Then I attracted the dragon and repeated. With it making a fuss I was able to get the picking up of the chant book without the quest completed once after 6 tries. Vilja was again stuck half way into combat mode that one time and was doing the magical wardrobe shuffle: PC draws weapon, she changes to armor. Sheath weapon, she changes back to her wedding gown. The reset spell failed to fix again.

So it seems it requires a wilderness container and an enemy needs to be present but not up in your face. I can do further tests if anyone can think something up.


PS Crap graphics card. It's all about the MSI R7 250 card. When I put in our old NVidia 210 graphics card the game runs crash free.

[Sniffles]

The way I see it is there are two or maybe more over-riding hierarchies that can get in the way of a quest response, alert level and combat level of an NPC. These may not interrupt the NPC's quest line but only block the game engine from giving the proper response. Thus there is nothing wrong with Vilja that the spell would reset. She is just a victim of game mechanics. The wrong place, the wrong circumstances at the wrong exact moment. The Witchmist Grove situation just extended that error interval to where it can be replicated. Dollars to donuts a lot of quest fails happen from similar game mechanics screws ups.

We've all encountered situations where an NPC is triggered to do something as talking and a dragon landing on your head doesn't interrupt the action or dialogue. Then other times an action is suddenly cut off and the NPC goes into combat mode. So the transition is not instant or perfect. Should another sscript trigger during that time period, window of opportunity, it can get cut off or excluded. In this case, the quest completed script.

Seems like there is no easy solution and it is very unlikely a mod could correct this. It's pure game mechanics that needs to be refined. The trouble almost always comes in with the player not realizing this has happened and goes on playing, maybe for weeks or even months. There is nothing there to correct with resets. The game triggered the quest complete and said and done. It triggered but was never registered as triggered with the NPC's scripts.  The NPC cannot be in combat mode, executing certain other functions -draw sword- make verbal comment- change wardrobe, and register these triggers at the same time. Stuck. Only advancing the quest by the console will correct it and that has it's own inherent problems.

So yes, it looks like the Witchmist Grove incident is a perfect storm situation where a quest killer can be replicated while everything else is working right and there are no other pending or ongoing scripts mucking things up like that delightfuk interlewd with Ducknards tail tale.