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Published_Known_Issues

Known Issues

Release 123: February 29, 2024

This is a summary of issues that players may encounter. Shroud of the Avatar developers are aware of these issues; players do not need to report issues already on this list. Returning players should know issues that are new as of this release are marked as [New] and highlighted.

Graphical and Visual Effects (VFX)

Connectivity

Gameplay

Housing, Decorations, and Player-Owned Towns

[Includes New] Chat, Dialogue, Quests, and NPCs

User Interface, Menus, and Controllers

Performance

Troubleshooting Frequent Crashes

Rewards and Achievements

Audio

Patching

Windows

Linux

Mac

Website and Account Page

Graphical and Visual Effects (VFX)

  1. Certain emotes and animation state transitions can cause certain equipped items to momentarily disappear.
  2. Snow (and some rain) can still be observed falling into buildings, particularly on lower graphics settings.
  3. Some armor and clothing items from different sets will sort through one another.
  4. Cloth simulation causing certain wearables to look strange.

Connectivity

  1. Steam: Players may be unable to restart the game client from Steam if any window or browser was opened from within the game client (such as using the in-game features to submit a bug on our forums). Steam will recognize the open browsers/windows as the client is still running. Closing these windows or restarting Steam will work around this issue.
  2. The launcher sometimes cannot apply an update patch. (This issue can sometimes be troubleshooted by having the game client closed while patching. Also, make sure you have enough disk space to download and apply the patch.)
  3. The following firewall ports must be open for the Launcher and Game Client to run properly.
  1. Launcher:
  1. TCP Port 5074
  2. UDP Port 55721
  3. UDP Port 6881
  1. Game Service:
  1. UDP 5054
  2. UDP 5055
  3. UDP 5056
  4. UDP 5057
  5. UDP 5058
  6. UDP 5059

Gameplay

  1. The Pickpocket skill cannot be used in a scene set to no-ransom. Currently, all scenes are set to no-ransom.
  2. The Voice Training skill, while currently trainable since it's an innate skill, doesn't do anything yet: Barding has future plans for it.
  3. Collision in Mistrendur (the new continent for Episode 2) is very rough but will be refined over time. Bug reports do not need to be filed at this time.
  4. Pets cannot follow players onto elevators and moving platforms.
  5. Some areas of the Novia overworld are using simplified, blocky collision.
  6. While Gems can be socketed into ranged weapons (like bows), they do not yet unlock additional enchanting options for ranged weapons.

Housing, Decorations, and Player-Owned Towns

  1. Using a “Return to Previous Location” teleporter to return to a basement or player dungeon, you’ll return to an empty, default version of that same scene.
  2. Island-Based Water Keep/Water Castle lots placed on islands cannot, yet, be transferred to land-based lots.

[Includes New] Chat, Dialogue, Quests, and NPCs

  1. [New] Mimics don’t always “wake up” immediately after being revealed.
  2. If you are following a player guide and find yourself blocked, consider that you may have made different choices than the writer or that the quests have changed since the guide was written. When blocked, refer to your character’s task list as your primary quest goals.
  3. In Novia and Hidden Vale, some players may see quest information (e.g. compass markers, details in scene information tooltips) even though they have completed the quest.
  4. Some quests may have journal entries, sparkling hands, or quest/compass markers that do not go away on completion of their associated tasks. Please report them in the forum.
  5. Some players pursuing quests may have issues obtaining objects related to those quests.

User Interface, Menus, and Controllers

  1. Not all scenes have maps. Many adventure scenes do not yet have maps but new ones are typically added each release. (Note that dungeons and other “nested” adventure scenes are often designed to never have maps.)
  2. Some UI settings are not tied to an avatar. Players with multiple characters on one account will see the previous avatar’s UI settings persist when switching between characters.
  3. It’s possible for party/companion nameplates to be visually obscured when players combine enough buffs to wrap icons onto three rows. Party members buffs can be hidden under Options->Interface->Nameplate & Chat Bubbles, by unchecking the “Show party members effects icon” option.
  4. USB Game controller devices (joysticks, steering wheels, gamepads, etc.) can cause unexpected input signals.

Performance

  1. The client may crash as you exit the game while playing offline.
  2. There are numerous issues that exist with Cloth Simulation related to Unity 2018, including observed drops in performance. Cloth simulation can be disabled from within the video settings to improve this experience.
  3. Some anti-virus programs with outdated libraries may attempt to quarantine essential game files, mistakenly identifying them as threats. This can have significant effects, including the client not starting at all. We recommend keeping antivirus programs updated frequently as they address problems. Workarounds include reinstalling and launching the client with the aggressive antivirus software disabled, or whitelisting the game directory in the antivirus list of exceptions.
  4. The client may crash while exiting the game while the avatar is Dead/Ghosted.
  5. Players may be unable to interact with objects via double-click if their framerate is low. A workaround is to use the “E” interaction key.
  6. Crashing has been tied to issues with DX11 for some, but not all, players.
  7. There may be framerate issues and slowdown in game, as optimizations are ongoing.

Troubleshooting Frequent Crashes

Players who experience frequent crashes can try troubleshooting their issues by using the “-force-gfx-jobs off” command in the Launch Arguments field in the launcher. Instructions for entering this command are below.

  1. Open your Shroud of the Avatar launcher. Click the “gear” icon in your launcher to open your launcher settings.

  2. Find the “Launch Arguments” field. Enter “-force-gfx-jobs off” (without the quotes) in that field.

  3. Click “Done” and launch the game.

Rewards and Achievements

  1. Rewards Program dye bundles and titles.
  1. Players subscribed to the Shroud of the Avatar Rewards Program are not currently receiving the 12-Pack Dye Bundles. This is being addressed under issue #70634. (When corrected, players will receive all past-due dye packs.)
  2. Players subscribed to the Shroud of the Avatar Rewards Program are not currently receiving new titles every 3 months. New Titles are being created and when complete, all backdated titles will be delivered to subscribers.
  1. Moving between the QA and Live servers can cause Steam achievements to be lost and/or regained.

Audio

  1. The fireplace SFX for row homes may not be tied to volume sliders and can’t be muted.
  2. Some instruments may not be playing correct notes, or have notes missing
  3. Sound FX used in game are not final and in many cases may be placeholders.

Patching

  1. If the patch process is terminated while updating (e.g. computer/patcher crashes) user may need to uninstall and reinstall to finish the patching.

Windows

  1. When using Windows 10 to play Shroud of the Avatar, some users are experiencing intermittent sound hitching and terrain glitches. A potential workaround that sometimes helps when experiencing these issues is to run the game in Windows 8 compatibility mode. Instructions for running SotA in Windows 8 compatibility mode are below.
  1. Use Windows Explorer to navigate to your installation directory and find the "Shroud of the Avatar.exe" file.
  1. If you are playing through the launcher, the default location is either C:\Program Files (x86)\Portalarium\Shroud of the Avatar\Shroud of the Avatar.exe or C:\Program Files\Portalarium\Shroud of the Avatar\Shroud of the Avatar.exe.
  2. If you are playing through Steam, the default location is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SotA\Shroud of the Avatar.exe.
  1. Right-click your "Shroud of the Avatar.exe" file and select the “Properties” option.
  2. In the “Properties” window, select the Compatibility tab.
  3. In the Compatibility tab, check the box that says "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select “Windows 8” from the dropdown menu.
  4. Click “OK” at the bottom of the “Properties” window.
  5. When you next run the game, it will be running in compatibility mode.

Linux

  1. Certain types of trees in various scenes may have rendering problems on their branches, lending them a glowing green appearance.
  2. Screen may turn black/white if clients are launched with Anti-Aliasing turned on.
  3. Officially, we only support Ubuntu. However, it should run on other distributions (but might require some work).
  4. The Linux installer and client are not read/write enabled by default. You must use Control+click on them to start them.
  5. NVIDIA users: nouveau works, but is slower than the official drivers and might crash; full-screen and resolution switching might be buggy with nouveau. (Use of latest official drivers recommended)
  6. AMD/ATI users: radeondrmfb works, but is slow and might show graphical artifacts, use the latest and official ATI/AMD drivers instead (e.g. AMDGPU PRO, however do not use experimental drivers).
  7. Switching graphics mode, resolution and full-screen might be buggy on Radeon cards. (Switching back from full screen can cause graphical anomalies. Try this workaround: Switch out of x11 and back).
  8. Screen tearing may occur in performance intensive scenes and/or during low frame rates.

Mac

  1. Mac client isn't developer signed, so if you have the default gatekeeper settings set, you won't be able to directly run the app. If you control-click when you click on the file, it should allow you to open. Once you do that, you will be able to run the app without issue.
  2. The version of the Unity game engine used starting with R8 seems to suffer from a deadlock in the logging-module, potentially leading to a complete freeze of the game, only displaying the rotating beach ball. We have been in contact with the Unity developers to find a solution as of R11. Unfortunately, this is still present in some configurations, although work to fix this went into R14+. Please report any freezes you encounter. Unity is still looking into this as of R39. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Website and Account Page

  1. Player-Owned Town (POT) owners are not currently able to edit the web version of their POT map.
  2. The web browser version of the in-game map is not able to accept updated data at this time. Unfortunately, this means Player-Owned Town listings (names & locations) are not current.
  3. Microsoft Edge users may have issues submitting web forms. Please use another browser to submit forms.

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