Game mode: Online official
Type of issue: Bug
Server type: PvE
Region: NA
Mods?: No
Edition: Steam
Bug Description:
Clicking the “Use” button in follower inventory causes gruel to be consumed but stat growth bonuses are not applied. The growth bonus is only applied if the thrall decides on its own to eat food.
Steps to Reproduce:
Take Cimmerian Berserker out of wheel and place in world
Give stack of gruel - 1 is automatically eaten, stat bonus is applied
Kill something, thrall levels up
Take away and give back gruel - none is eaten (it used to work like this before)
Click “Use” button in thrall’s inventory window - gruel is eaten, stat growth bonus is not applied (it used to work like this before)
Was the thrall missing health? I am not sure which patch introduced the changes but it was at the time when porking was fixed.
The bonus is now granted only when the thrall is missing health so it is somehow tied up to the healing. I am not a fan of this change either but it is probably linked to the fix for porking.
If you play on a pvp server, hitting the thrall will be enough to trigger the bonus. If you are playing on a pve server, they will eat + get bonus when they take damage.
I am not sure if this will work but if you give them a vitality gear piece and then remove it and re-equip it this may also trigger the healing + bonus.
I can confirm that this does work. However, it does not solve the issue for pets/mounts (for obvious reasons ). The problem here is that, at low levels (in PVE), there can be situations where there is no way to apply the bonus before they level again - npcs are simply not good enough at reliably doing damage to guarantee it. As I’ve covered elsewhere, I’m not sure this ultimately makes the biggest difference, since followers’ attributes aren’t really all that important anyway (there are other factors that make far more difference) - but it is a ‘feel bad’ issue. So, hopefully, it is something Funcom will be able to figure out a fix for at some stage.
Edit: worth noting that sometimes, after equipping a vitality piece of armour, you also still need to remove their food and replace it to get them to eat (and sometimes you don’t…)
Unfortunately punching them doesn’t seem to work on singleplayer (although I sometimes do it just because they deserve it ). The nearest workaround tends to be to order them into a situation that should get them hurt (or swap a piece of vit armor as Narelle noted above) - of course, you can’t order a mount into a situation (but riding off a cliff sometimes works…). And there’s the added problem that this is a bigger issue when they are low level - it can be risky to deliberately get them hurt, but they need the ‘reset’ more frequently because they are levelling faster. By the time they hit 15 or so, there’s no point worrying at all - they’ll take damage at some point before they level again, almost guaranteed.
Either way - I appreciate the workaround suggestion - and I’m sure it will be of use for someone reading this
my preferred workaround(shouldn’t have to keep relying on this, but what the heck), is to unequip and re-equip a piece of +vitality armor. once there’s a gap between the thrall’s current and max HP, shift the food about its inventory and one piece should automatically get consumed.
). The problem here is that, at low levels (in PVE), there can be situations where there is no way to apply the bonus before they level again - npcs are simply not good enough at reliably doing damage to guarantee it. As I’ve covered elsewhere, I’m not sure this ultimately makes the biggest difference, since followers’ attributes aren’t really all that important anyway (there are other factors that make far more difference) - but it is a ‘feel bad’ issue. So, hopefully, it is something Funcom will be able to figure out a fix for at some stage.
). The nearest workaround tends to be to order them into a situation that should get them hurt (or swap a piece of vit armor as Narelle noted above) - of course, you can’t order a mount into a situation (but riding off a cliff sometimes works…). And there’s the added problem that this is a bigger issue when they are low level - it can be risky to deliberately get them hurt, but they need the ‘reset’ more frequently because they are levelling faster. By the time they hit 15 or so, there’s no point worrying at all - they’ll take damage at some point before they level again, almost guaranteed.