Help kill the frozen Cartagrapher!

Background:
The Cartagrapher has a map to the next level. From level 201+, every level has a cartagrapher and killing it is the only way to get to the next level.

Problem:
Infrequently, the cartagrapher is “frozen”. In this situation, you cannot kill it and you’re stuck. Video demonstrating Frozen Cartagrapher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znwT9YyUq_k

Workaround:
Go to the merchant and buy a map. This will be a map to the same level you are on, but use that map, it will have another cartagrapher and you can resume your spree of murderous rampage.

How to help:
It is hard to reproduce this issue. I did record it once when it occurred and thus far. Here is what I found:

  1. The cartagrapher was spawned, and I attacked it (I am using a toss weapon so I was running around throwing stuff).
  2. I left the screen to go kill other stuff and came back to where the cartagrapher was. It was frozen. The health meter was stuck and attacking it did nothing.
  3. I did have ice as an element.

Based upon what someone else had written, it seems that a common symptom is attacking the enemy with an ice element, leaving the screen, and coming back. Of course, it RARELY happens.

So, I’d like to use this thread to try to gather more information. Next time you see a frozen cartagrapher, did the same three criteria apply to you? If not, which one? Please note the weapon type you were using, as toss/projectile weapons can attack enemies off-screen.

Together, we can kill this menace to society and get on with our plundering!

When this happens use aoe meteor smash etc…

Yep, some of the AoE attacks will work. I initially thought this was a feature, not a bug. :smile:

Lol, why wasn’t this used as an excuse when the bug, erm … I mean feature was discovered :wink:

This the worst bug ever :smile:. Steiger has been working I it for a while and it has gotten MUCH better but not 100% fixed yet (it reminds me of how bad we used to have loot drop behind walls etc). he is always working his a$$ off on this game and hopefully we will get is squashes soon.

Making this a sticky and adding feedback from Rider of Dark:

[quote]The thread title, “Game fails to acquire and designate target”, is exactly what is happening. Not one post I saw, other than my own, has ever mentioned Hirelings or minions being unable to target the “invincible” Cartographer. I made specific mention of that. I was also intentionally vague in that I did not say that it was (just) the Cartographer that was bugged. I know, for sure, that it’s not just the Cartographer that’s suffering from the bug. I have seen similar behaviour with trash mobs not properly targetable. I’ve seen some mobs just plain stuck, others with elemental effects that don’t wear off. Haven’t seen it happen with magic, rare, or epic mobs, which I suspect have their own spawning rules. (Magic slimes fall, rare slimes rise, epic slimes I think rise, too.)

I suppose in the thread I should have mentioned that the Cartographer was moving and attacking me. Every time I’ve come across the bug, I’ve never been able to target the mobs but have been able to kill 'em. The picture in the thread was the first time that the Cartographer STOPPED moving/attacking. It was also the first time that I had other things that could target the mobs. That last bit is the exact reason why I posted, because that, more than anything else, points to the issues better than any other thing posted on the matter.

Hireling and floating skulls means that it’s an AI issue. That the Cartographer does move/attack and then doesn’t means that there’s a problem between map generation and player encounter. I’ve watched trash mobs spawning, and while the animation plays (which looks like a dust devil), they’re stuck in position. I haven’t been able to watch a Cartographer spawn, but I suspect that they have the same spawning animation that trash mobs use. That the Cartographer goes from almost-normal operations to frozen means that there’s an issue somewhere with timing and order of operations. That no player has been able to successfully reproduce it on a regular basis (or any, for that matter) suggests that it’s an issue beyond the player’s control. Which suggests background/engine stuff.

All of that leads to my hypothesis that it’s an issue with spawning, or mechanisms that are tied into it. Reading the posts from way back about missing Cartographers leads to a similar suspicion. Nobody would ever notice if any other mob was missing from the map, after all. On a similar note, I’ve had the occasional shrine not be visible/accessible. I’m sure it has spawned, as there’s nothing stopping it from doing so. The map layout, however, does have an impact about whether it can be seen/accessed by the player.[/quote]

Here is a video about the Frozen Cartagrapher. youtube.com/watch?v=znwT9YyUq_k

As I understand it, there are a few different Cartagrapher bugs.

  1. Frozen, invincible – you simply cannot damage it at all.
  2. Generally invincible – You can damage it, but it regens as quickly as you damage it. Not so much a bug as an “over power” situation.
  3. Only special skills work to damage the Cartagrapher (reported above).
  4. New - untargetable Cartagrapher (see above post that Steigerbox quoted).

Are any of those 4 duplicates of each other? Are there other Cartagrapher bugs not mentioned?

What I’ve experienced tends to be that the Cartographer will take no damage from an attack that you actively trigger, but that proc-ed attacks will hit it. So build up some procs if you wanna kill 'em

Not looking for a work around, looking for a fix. :wink:

Maybe those other two threads could be merged here.
Wasn’t a Carto but related to what Todd said in those other threads, I had to switch from farming to killing gear yesterday midfight, which resulted in an invincible Frozen Fury.
Targetable, damageable, still had an hp bar but empty, still attacked, wouldn’t die.


I would like to thank the thinkers that think they thunk the thoughts they theorized.

When playing my whirlwind warrior, this never happens.

When playing my tornado wizard, this happens like 70% of the time. I really really hate having to keep buying that stupid map.

[quote=“Fractal”]When playing my whirlwind warrior, this never happens.

When playing my tornado wizard, this happens like 70% of the time. I really really hate having to keep buying that stupid map.[/quote]

Whirlwind warrior fire spec ? And wizard ice ?

I have only experienced carto bug a handful of times, and the only common denominator for me is ice element.

[quote=“JesteR”]Whirlwind warrior fire spec ? And wizard ice ?

I have only experienced carto bug a handful of times, and the only common denominator for me is ice element.[/quote]

I can’t really confirm or deny that, since my Wizard is Prismatic, but hey. Could be.

[quote=“JesteR”][quote=“Fractal”]When playing my whirlwind warrior, this never happens.

When playing my tornado wizard, this happens like 70% of the time. I really really hate having to keep buying that stupid map.[/quote]

Whirlwind warrior fire spec ? And wizard ice ?

I have only experienced carto bug a handful of times, and the only common denominator for me is ice element.[/quote]

Both are pure ice damage characters with frostbite.

Yes. Now that I stopped changing equipment so often, I cannot reproduce this bug anymore.[/quote]

You can rule this out. I just managed to reproduce it without changing equipments by doing the below. The parts in are changed from the original post:
viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1741#p18001

[quote=“Unities”]I cannot find any thread mentionning if this issue has been addressed or not but I am still experiencing this bug as of IOS 8, DQ ver. 1.8 on an iPad2.

To shed some light onto this bug that ONLY happens on Cartographers, my hypothesis is that unlike the rest of the mob on the map, Cartographers are spawnned immediately at map generation (just like crates and shrines and also similar to crates is that you can kill it off map without seeing it using long rage projectiles like Pistols) instead of when the player gets near him. As the player marchs towards it, monsters and items are created and are in need of IOS resources causing the game to delete some data and remove old idle memory. I have experienced this bug A LOT and can reproduce it at almost a 100% rate:

  1. buy a map that has increased monster spawn.
  2. Explore everywhere But [leave the Cartographer alive while you do so.]
  3. profit (or lose to bug in this case)

This bug comes in 2 stages. A minor version is that he is still ingame, came move around, attack and be killed but cannot be locked on (auto lock on does not work, Hireling will not attack it and Guided Shot will not hunt it down) and will not have an HP bar or damage numbers when you hit it. The major version is when the unit disappears leaving only an empty sprite that does nothing.[/quote]

I had my first shrine boss be untargetable, and he was guarding the cartographer. The cartographer acted normally though.

I am 100% poison, and the untargetable happens a lot. The frozen hasn’t happened in a while.

the “amount of monsters with DOT effect on, still alive” matters. more you leave - higher the chance the Carto will be hard to beat. Wizard’s +4eac, high CC, high CHD and deadly strike can do it quite effectively. still takes a lot of time comparing to “normal” Epic Carto to take him down. Drop is the same in comparison
^^imho

What about applying crystal or mythstone effects? Not changing equipment per-say but along the same lines. That ever line up with an invincible carto?

Nope. I have had it happen without touching the menu button.

happening in both occasions, with changing gear, without changing gear. and I never apply crystals while on the run. thats why i do not think it is somehow related to “inventory screen”