quest The Trappings of Fate

[FromMindoir]

I think the "canon" options at the end of A Snare to Loosen are

Spoiler

to attack Irkalla, to let her catch you immediately to start The Gordian Bind, or to say no/not yet in which case The Gordian Bind will start later on

 

If you got something else, it might be another mod overriding the ending, or a "non-canon" ending that's meant to block TGB from starting. Maybe it's another Slavery mod that overrode her final dialogue and stopped you from completing A Snare to Loosen.

Edited August 10, 2024 by FromMindoir

[IcicleInn]

Near as I can tell, there are four general outcomes for Snare to Loosen:

Spoiler

1.  Hostile response to Irkalla + Did not Correctly Solve all puzzles.  This outcome disables you, teleports to you and binds you.   If you have Simple Slavery ++ it will initiate Slave Auction at the end. If you do not have SS++ then when you recover from the disable you will have to recover the key to the area, leave, and find your way out of the bindings
2.  Hostile Response to  Irkalla + You win.  This option leaves  you at the same spot as option 1 at the end if you don't have SS++ where you need to get the key to leave the area
3. Positive response to Irkalla, say you're interested but need some time to finish things.  Irkalla will say she'll send an invitation, leaves you essentially in the same spot where she poofs out and you need to pick up the key and leave.
4. Positive response to Irkalla and you say let's do it now. This ending immediately sends you into Gordian Bind quest.

 

For responses 1 and 2, a courier will trigger to "bait" you in.  A bounty that starts a miscellaneous quest will point you where to go to lure you into the Gordian Bind

For response 4 you start immediately, no need to wait.

 

Response 3 you're supposed to receive some sort of invitation, but I haven't figured out how the invitation triggers.  In the previous version there wouldn't be any difference from 1 & 2, but there has been additional dialogue and fine tuning in the current version.  In my testing, I haven't yet found the trigger to start from this Snare to Loosen outcome.

[jbezorg]

5 hours ago, IcicleInn said:

For responses 1 and 2, a courier will trigger to "bait" you in.  A bounty that starts a miscellaneous quest will point you where to go to lure you into the Gordian Bind

For response 4 you start immediately, no need to wait.

Response 1: No bait sent.

[IcicleInn]

I'd only ever done without SS++ before, quick inconclusive test right now replicates your experience. Neither response 1 with SS++ nor Response 3 seem to be triggering a courier immediately.  I wonder if there's another criteria.

 

 

Update:

I just had a hostile victorious outcome on Snare to Loosen and picked up an invitation via courier immediately that seems like it should be only given to amicable outcome.

Edited August 11, 2024 by IcicleInn

[FromMindoir]

I know the one thing to check is whether you are still receiving courier letters from other quests. Sometimes, it's one of the "canon" quests in which a courier is involved (The White Phial, The Man Who Cried Wolf) that blocks all new couriers.

 

It happened to me because I didn't complete Elisif' sidequest (putting the horn on the Talos shrine), which in turn blocked the return of Potema, which was blocking all couriers from appearing. As soon as I did it one popped up with like 4 messages.

[Z-JR]

Can't move anything now
 

[Frayed]

Patch v2.0.4 (2024/08/11) (BETA):

No real content added, mostly just bugfixes.

 

There are some fixes in here for CTDs on LE/VR when interacting with gargoyles or Something Indented. I do not play LE/VR myself so if you do, please let me know if these fixes work!

 

Aside from that, this patch changes all quest-critical scenes to force start, which should cause them to run much more reliably.

Bugfixes (The Gordian Bind):

• Hopefully FINALLY fixed all issues where a bit of water was causing a CTD in the main cavern.
• Redid face gen of some NPCs since some people reported crashes where the crash log included references to NPC heads.Changed multiple Scene.Start calls into Scene.ForceStart calls to ensure quest-critical scenes aren't waiting for other scenes to finish first. I expect this will fix most problems people have had with parts of the quest not firing.
• Fixed the "You can't plant that here" message spam bug that could occur in the finale location. Fun fact: this was caused by Bethesda's jank-ass planter box implementation using male NPCs that SOS was trying to put schlongs on, which were considered invalid items.
• Set Irkalla/Jurgin to Essential and non-aggroable during the certain parts of the finale so they can't accidentally die when they're supposed to survive.
• Changed a few conditions in the first trial that were using GetStage range conditions to use explicit GetStageDone instead. Might fix some bugs with missing forcegreet dialogues.
• Disabled a few triggerboxes I forgot earlier that were now blocking exit out of the cave after the quest was completed.
• Blocked soul gem interact near a suspended sword.
• Fixed some visual bugs where the gargoyle beam were not correctly disabled sometimes.
• MAYBE fixed a bug where the magic elevator activators would sometimes disappear. I don't know 100% what causes this, so let me know if this still happens.
• Removed some quest start items from Irkalla's inventory if the player picks branches that don't use them.

Changes & Additions (The Gordian Bind):

• Gave player a warhammer during a part of the finale so that they don't have to punch stone.
• Added a few more light sources to the larger cavern to make it easier to native, especially with darker nights.
• Removed Irkalla's ability to Summon Seeker, both to nerf her a bit and also because summons don't automatically de-aggro when their summoner does (StopCombat works per actor), which was a headache to deal with sometimes.

Bugfixes (A Snare to Loosen):

• Fixed a bug where the wrong ending flag was set if the player lost the quest while Simple Slavery was not installed. Cleaned up the ending flag logic while I was at it - it should be consistent now.
• Fiddled with the gargoyle and something indented script some more in an everlasting effort to get it stable (i.e. never CTD) across all Skyrim platforms and versions.
• Triggering the "bad" ending early now returns the player their items, since they won't have a chance to grab them from the chest.

[Frayed]

On 8/4/2024 at 7:29 PM, MysticDaedra said:

[snip]

Oh one more thing, I think after the confrontation with Irkalla after seeing Boethiah was supposed to be the end of the gargoyles effectively, correct? Most of them were inert after that, but the one by the initial cell in the arcanaeum still put devices on my character until the very end after defeating Molag Bal.

[snip]

Actually that brings me to one more thing I might suggest... some way to skip most of the mod in the future.

[snip]

 

Actually the gargoyles only get disabled at the end of the quest (or if you disable them yourself), though perhaps narratively it'd make more sense to do it where you mentioned it.

 

I'll probably add a skip like once I've added significant post-Gordian Bind content. It's actually fairly easy to do.

 

 

On 8/4/2024 at 11:58 PM, Twiggy01 said:

@Frayed

Just recently retried the latest update on LE and the problem of the Falcon Key not working when pressed into the wall is still present. I haven't tried it with nothing else installed so I can't say for sure it's not some mod interaction.

 

I've changes those scripts again to try to find a variant that works on LE, SE and VR. This one works on SE at least, so could you test on LE for me? If it doesn't work, could you describe me how exactly it fails again? I don't quite remember if the issue on LE was a CTD or something else and I couldn't find it back in your posts. I know VR has CTDs, which I'm hoping @Allen Harris could maybe test for me?

 

On 8/5/2024 at 7:10 AM, poporaltemporal said:

This was caused by SOS and by disabling it. The spam did not occur anymore.

 

Thanks for the hint - this made fixing it easier. This bug was actually kind of funny: I placed some plantable soil from Heartfires somewhere, and the way Bethesda set those up uses a hidden NPC somewhere. I placed those hidden NPCs in the Uncovered Sanctum cell, but the script on those guys listens for inventory changes. So when SOS constantly tries to equip them with dongs, it actually thinks you're trying to plant dongs in a planter box and gives you an "invalid item" error. Yeah, that's Skyrim modding for you 😄Bethesda's solutions are just as jank as the mods, if not more so. It should be fixed now in v2.0.4.

 

On 8/6/2024 at 11:14 AM, HereBeTentacles said:

Relevant bit is right at the end. Scroll all the way down. Looks like the compatibility you added for TDM doesn't seem to be working for me. I have TDM installed so not sure why exactly it can't find it.

 

The functions I use for compatibility basically try to turn off TDM temporarily if a scripted walk starts and TDM is installed, but the functions to do that are part of TDM and only got added in a recent version. Older versions don't have them. And I can't check the version, because TDM doesn't have its version listed anywhere in its scripts. Doesn't really matter anyway unfortunately, since even with TDM "off" things still fail about half the time. This is really on TDM to fix. Unless I basically rework all scripted walk sections entirely I guess, which I'm really hoping to avoid...

 

On 8/7/2024 at 12:56 AM, quietly-confident said:

Fungal Cavern crash log with 2.0.3:

crash-2024-08-06-22-04-03.log 48.8 kB · 1 download

 

Hm, most likely culprit seems to be something with the dremora's head mesh. Definitely not what I was expecting, so it's good that you posted that log. I've generated his face geom while disabling any mods that could change his meshes. Please try it and let me know if that worked. If not I might still have some kind of mesh overwrite in there I need to turn off and regenerate.

 

On 8/10/2024 at 3:05 AM, jbezorg said:

What are the conditions that start the Gordian Bind? Is it a level limit?

 

Two conditions:

1. A Snare to Loosen is complete.

2. The minimum time between the quests has passed. Currently this delay is set to 0 days for debug purposes during beta, so it should basically happen immediately.

I cleaned up some of the logic with the ending flags in v2.0.4 and fixed at least one bug with it, but I tested your scenario and I think that should have been working before already. Keep in mind that the courier triggers only on location changes and that some other game events can block him. You can try the command "sqs frayeq2_intro" and see if any quest stages are set. If so, then the items are at the courier and it's something else preventing him from showing up. If you want to bypass the intro on your current save, you can skip the intro and quickstart with "setstage frayeq2 1".

 

16 hours ago, IcicleInn said:

I'd only ever done without SS++ before, quick inconclusive test right now replicates your experience. Neither response 1 with SS++ nor Response 3 seem to be triggering a courier immediately.  I wonder if there's another criteria.

 

Update:

I just had a hostile victorious outcome on Snare to Loosen and picked up an invitation via courier immediately that seems like it should be only given to amicable outcome.

 

Thanks for testing, I had a look and indeed found some bugs here. Should be cleaned up now.

[Twiggy01]

 

53 minutes ago, Frayed said:

I've changes those scripts again to try to find a variant that works on LE, SE and VR. This one works on SE at least, so could you test on LE for me? If it doesn't work, could you describe me how exactly it fails again? I don't quite remember if the issue on LE was a CTD or something else and I couldn't find it back in your posts.

 

No CTD, the issue was just that the trigger for the key interacting with the wall to unlock the hood wasnt activating, even once I'd inspected everything. Couldn't progress it from there. I'll try and do that test when I get some time. I also reported another bug on the previous page, just in case you missed it.

1 hour ago, Frayed said:

• Triggering the "bad" ending early now returns the player their items, since they won't have a chance to grab them from the chest.

 

Also, what's this about a bad end? I thought there was basically one way to get out of A Snare to Loosen with minor variations (letting the Daedra fuck you in the stocks then and there vs promising him something later and getting the nipple piercings out are what comes to mind). is there another way? and if so is there any possible content that I'm missing?

[Frayed]

1 hour ago, Twiggy01 said:

No CTD, the issue was just that the trigger for the key interacting with the wall to unlock the hood wasnt activating, even once I'd inspected everything. Couldn't progress it from there. I'll try and do that test when I get some time. I also reported another bug on the previous page, just in case you missed it.

 

Also, what's this about a bad end? I thought there was basically one way to get out of A Snare to Loosen with minor variations (letting the Daedra fuck you in the stocks then and there vs promising him something later and getting the nipple piercings out are what comes to mind). is there another way? and if so is there any possible content that I'm missing?

 

Hm, okay. Mind posting me a papyrus log from a session where you just repeatedly move the key in and out of where the trigger is supposed to be? If there's any kind of script thing that's different on LE I should be able to find it that way. I have some other ideas what it could be, but lets try this first.

 

There's some minor variations to how you can do A Snare to Loosen:

Spoiler

• Having sex with the dremora VS promising him a deal for later (and the phrasing on the deal actually matters later on 😉 so technically that has 3 variations).
• You can fail the quest early if you ignore Clavicus' warning and remove the piercings after he disarms them. This is the "bad end". It uses the same failure states as not disarming the piercings and trying to fight Irkalla, which is that she ties you up and IF you have Simple Slavery installed she sends you over there.
• You can accept Irkalla's offer for a second game (which quickstarts The Gordian Bind), refuse it (which triggers a fight OR the bad end if you didn't disarm the piercings), or accept it with a delay (which triggers one of the two courier intros to The Gordian Bind).

All these variations still allow you to play The Gordian Bind. You know, writing that out makes it sound really complicated 😄 I guess it's not that strange that I've had some bugs in setting those states correctly!

 

Oh and about the other thing you posted: I added logic for what happens when you aggro Irkalla at various places during The Gordian Bind for some bad endings there, but I'll admit I haven't tested these very thoroughly yet. I think I did flesh out the very work-in-progress placeholder bad ending a tiny bit in either v2.0.3 or v2.0.4, though. But that part still needs a bit of work which I'll probably do for v2.0.5. I'll make sure to use a damage-over-time effect in a test as well, that's a good point.

Edited August 11, 2024 by Frayed

[jbezorg]

Running into an issue with the leg shackles and handcuffs in the Gordian Knot in the first room. As soon as the cuffs are equipped, CTD.

 

(Re-running bodyslide w/out HDT on those items. See what happens)

Edited August 11, 2024 by jbezorg

[IcicleInn]

Minor item, but the Hood used in Snare to Loosen in 2.0.3 appears to not work for Bosmer characters (may be all elfs? Haven't checked yet).  More to follow and I'll try again with 2.0.4

 

For clarity: The Hood equips, but it isn't shown on character model.

 

Update: It looks I caused the invisible hoods with DAV.   But now I'm having invisible gags.

 

Update 2: Used the same starting load file, used showracemenu to try bosmer, altmer, dunmer and breton.   First 3 are subject to mysteriously invisible gags at the start of A Snare to Loosen.   Breton is not.  Testing gags after removing the Snare gag has no visual issues.

 

v 2.0.4: Loading the gag from the file and equipping it then going to showracemenu show Breton, Imperial, Nord and Redguard with models for the gag, I did have gag spawn properly in 2.0.3 .   Tried bodyslide, FNIS generating and starting a fresh save to experiment with but same results in 2.0.4 load.

Edited August 12, 2024 by IcicleInn

[BlueSkyMine]

Got back into Skyrim after a couple of years purely for this mod, been loving it all the way!

20 hours ago, Frayed said:

Redid face gen of some NPCs since some people reported crashes where the crash log included references to NPC heads.Changed multiple Scene.Start calls into Scene.ForceStart calls to ensure quest-critical scenes aren't waiting for other scenes to finish first. I expect this will fix most problems people have had with parts of the quest not firing.

 

I think this did the trick for a CTD I was having in the third trial after the initial combat sequence and it started loading in everyone else in. Crash log was referencing the Dremora Servant. Going from 2.0.3 to 2,0,4 solved it.

[quietly-confident]

Thanks for the update!

 

Version 2.0.4 fixed the crash when entering the cavern for me.

 

I'm still not getting the forced movement, with or without TDM activated. I have the newest version from nexus. However now Irkalla doesn't tell me to come back into the room, instead she puts the ropes on my character in the doorway and then goes to the cross and tells me to come there. I can just walk there by myself and lock myself into the cross and the quest continues. I don't know if it was supposed to work like that (since it's not mentioned in the change log) but at least that's a workaround that's not jarringly unimmersive.

[Twiggy01]

21 hours ago, Frayed said:

Hm, okay. Mind posting me a papyrus log from a session where you just repeatedly move the key in and out of where the trigger is supposed to be? If there's any kind of script thing that's different on LE I should be able to find it that way. I have some other ideas what it could be, but lets try this first.

here it is, this should be on 2.0.4

Spoiler

21 hours ago, Frayed said:

Having sex with the dremora VS promising him a deal for later (and the phrasing on the deal actually matters later on 😉 so technically that has 3 variations).

is this content the stuff added for the post game in 2.0.3? or am I missing something?

Papyrus.0.log

[danielbower]

Is there any actual consequences for the endings in the last quest? I haven't seen any after beating it. 

[Frayed]

1 hour ago, Twiggy01 said:

here it is, this should be on 2.0.4

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

is this content the stuff added for the post game in 2.0.3? or am I missing something?

Papyrus.0.log 297.91 kB · 1 download

 

Hm, no errors in there, so probably not a script thing. Might be a bug with trigger boxes. The CK wiki mentions there is a bug with trigger boxes where they can be impossible to activate if their Z rotation is set to 0, but that's listed under player activation. Still, would be an easy fix if that's it. Here, try this one:

TheTrappingsOfFate.esp

If the problem remains, I also recall reading about another bug for trigger boxes with empty meshes, so that'd be my next try. But let's try this first.

 

Also yes, the consequences for the dremora deal were added in v2.0.3 as post-Gordian Bind content. I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, but I guess nobody's gotten to it yet 😄 (For testers: you can skip to the end of The Gordian Bind via the quickstart stage "setstage frayeq2 8". Keep in mind that the quickstart doesn't set the entire quest into a consistent state, so you may see some side effects if you use this that may not happen on normal play.)

 

59 minutes ago, danielbower said:

Is there any actual consequences for the endings in the last quest? I haven't seen any after beating it. 

Consequences for how The Gordian Bind ends? Not much yet, no. I'm still working on getting that quest 100% complete and bug-free. And once I get to that point there are some other smaller projects I want to work on before returning to this mod, so it'll be a while yet.

[Frayed]

20 hours ago, IcicleInn said:

Minor item, but the Hood used in Snare to Loosen in 2.0.3 appears to not work for Bosmer characters (may be all elfs? Haven't checked yet).  More to follow and I'll try again with 2.0.4

 

For clarity: The Hood equips, but it isn't shown on character model.

 

Update: It looks I caused the invisible hoods with DAV.   But now I'm having invisible gags.

 

Update 2: Used the same starting load file, used showracemenu to try bosmer, altmer, dunmer and breton.   First 3 are subject to mysteriously invisible gags at the start of A Snare to Loosen.   Breton is not.  Testing gags after removing the Snare gag has no visual issues.

 

v 2.0.4: Loading the gag from the file and equipping it then going to showracemenu show Breton, Imperial, Nord and Redguard with models for the gag, I did have gag spawn properly in 2.0.3 .   Tried bodyslide, FNIS generating and starting a fresh save to experiment with but same results in 2.0.4 load.

 

I changed the elf/beast race flags in v2.0.3 to accommodate the fact that the DD Beast Race Refit (BRRF) patch is merged into DD NG, but not into base DD. I might've messed up stuff for elves in the process. I'll have a look.

[Frayed]

22 hours ago, jbezorg said:

Running into an issue with the leg shackles and handcuffs in the Gordian Knot in the first room. As soon as the cuffs are equipped, CTD.

 

(Re-running bodyslide w/out HDT on those items. See what happens)

Known issue on SE with DD 5.2, the physics on those devices have some issues. Crashes for some, extreme FPS drops for others. There's fixed xml files for their physics floating around. I don't have a link handy for you, but I'm pretty sure those xmls are included in recent DD NG versions, and they may be posted somewhere in the base DD threads as well.

[HereBeTentacles]

On 8/11/2024 at 2:27 PM, Frayed said:

The functions I use for compatibility basically try to turn off TDM temporarily if a scripted walk starts and TDM is installed, but the functions to do that are part of TDM and only got added in a recent version. Older versions don't have them. And I can't check the version, because TDM doesn't have its version listed anywhere in its scripts. Doesn't really matter anyway unfortunately, since even with TDM "off" things still fail about half the time. This is really on TDM to fix. Unless I basically rework all scripted walk sections entirely I guess, which I'm really hoping to avoid...

 

I am on an older version, will have to reinstall and try that again.

[Twiggy01]

New issue, this time on SE, haven't tried it with your fix yet.

 

When I attempt to complete the 3rd trial, as soon as Irkalla turns hostile I'm getting sent to the same bad end (on the X-cross in the full getup), 

 

same thing happens when I try the command: 'setstage freyeq2 8'

Papyrus.0.log

 

More issues, Boethea isnt showing up after I get through the barrier. Also, i had to cheat a bit with my bonds as I'd had them confiscated earlier (not sure when it happened, but I think it was around the part when I clensed azura's shrine, (no logs for that bit sorry)

Papyrus.0.log

Edited August 13, 2024 by Twiggy01
additional detail

[IcicleInn]

Think I found one of the Gordian Bind "bad ends" where

Spoiler

I accidentally spooked Irkalla on the second floor of the mushroom probably by tripping over and stealing something.  Ended up stuck on the x cross covered in DDs and daedric locks, but couldn't interact with anything so ended up reloading previous save.  Is that the intended response right now?

Also the ownership changes can lead to weird aggros in the bedroom if you try to be a kleptomaniac too early and start snagging things off the tops of dressers and you get attacked for being a thief.

 

Edit: Also reporting a bug near the end of Gordian Bind.

Spoiler

Mephala's pool is bouncing me regardless if I have a ball and chain or am overburdened.   

 

Edited August 13, 2024 by IcicleInn

[thomasvank111]

Just here to say that i loved the content! Just finished the whole thing, only had some bugs at the end where the script would stop when that other slave attacked me (hit him by accident in the final fight), couldnt get through the Mephala's pool (even when wearing ball and chain) and the deadra didnt tell me the right equipment to wear to get through the barrier! Besides to minor bugs (solved with some no clipping...) i had a very good time and cant wait what you will make next.

[Twiggy01]

Was able to cheat a little and get through to the final battle, but I have a possible bug here for the post game stuff.

 

the deal with the dremora doesnt seem to work correctly, as when i ask him for a break he disappears and then doesnt come back, even after the 4 day deadline. he does reappear when he dismisses himself.

 

Also, the summoning spell I gained from him at the end doesn't seem to work either, when I cast the spell he refuses to appear.

 

--

Spoiler

on the subject of that post-game stuff, is there any bondage/furniture stuff planned for that? or is it pure sex?

 

Papyrus.0.log

[jbezorg]

20 hours ago, Frayed said:

Known issue on SE with DD 5.2, the physics on those devices have some issues. Crashes for some, extreme FPS drops for others. There's fixed xml files for their physics floating around. I don't have a link handy for you, but I'm pretty sure those xmls are included in recent DD NG versions, and they may be posted somewhere in the base DD threads as well.

 

Thanks! My Skyrim installed got F'ed so bad that I deleted it completely. The ToF update is what motivated me to rebuild it.