Water Buckets not working (Revisited/updated!)
I also see the same problem at the moment.
The game does not recognize that I am using the water buckets…
Here my youtube video with Drunken Norns: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl8d0pSzqCM
The water buckets are an example of a frustrating phenomenon my mom and I call the “magic spot” phenomenon. The “magic spot” is a very small, very precise location you have to touch/hit/interact with from exactly the right direction. With the buckets, there’s a tiny “magic spot” that the bucket’s effect works on, so you have to use the bucket in just the right place. I suppose this could be mitigated if Anet just made the “magic spot” bigger…
I have intermittent problems with these water buckets — in some quests it works without a hitch and for others it seems as though they’re completely non-functional (as though the trigger the sleeping/passed-out NPC is waiting for isn’t one that the bucket gives).
I’m currently trying to do the “Partake in the Moot” heart quest in Timberline Falls (Kyesjard) and I’ve picked up 3 different water buckets and tried each one on 5 or 6 NPCs from just about every possible angle/distance/aim I can and not a single NPC has responded. I’ve tried pouring water on their heads, above their heads, on the stomachs, on either side of their stomachs, on their feet, below their feet, standing further away from them, standing right on top of them…I’ve poured so much water around that the camp should now be a lake!
I had exactly the same problem in Bloodtide Coast for the heart quest in Moriarty’s Hold (“Help maintain order in Moriarity’s Hold”) and a couple others that I can’t immediately remember the location or name of.
On the other hand, I had absolutely no problem at all when doing the heart quest in Lornar’s Pass at Korakatt’s Hall (“Help Hune manage the lodge”) where I was easily able to rouse half a dozen drunks without a single failed splash attempt (and I wasn’t being all that careful about where I splashed them…just walked up and hit “1” when I was nearby) so it’s not likely that I lucked into hitting a tiny sweet spot 6 times in a row…they just have very forgiving targets.
Perhaps a review of the trigger mechanism would shed some light on this "maybe some buckets “effectSplash” while others “effect_splash” and NPCs are looking only for effectSplash or whatever).
One thing I am sure of is that each character that I’ve leveled has had no trouble with some, found others impossible, and that each character has the same result with each quest (so all of my chars have had no trouble at all with the Korakatt’s Hall one and have found the Timberline Falls and Bloodtide Coast ones impossible).
EDIT: oh, and I did run the -repair on my client after the last time I encountered the problem and, as the OP said, it had no effect at all on my ability to do the quest.
I’ve noticed problems with the water buckets as well, as of late.
I never had issues when I first started playing, but I noticed this bug while trying to water the cows in a Diessa Plateau task recently. (Charradis Estates) I was able to clean only one of the two ‘stinky’ cows, you’re supposed to water bucket. Try as I might I was unable to actually clean the other one. I shrugged it off and finished the task via other methods.
I noticed it again while in Kessex Hills, at the Sylvari task in the south, where you must cleanse poisoned Sylvari and fight off the undead. (Shadowheart I believe) I was unable to water bucket some of the NPC’s – I’d done this task on another character previously and had no issues at all.
Seems like it’s an issue that’s developed recently.
For the toast!
Another brief update, I tried -repair as I said earlier and had no results. Just last night I did a full re-install of the game and it still isn’t working for me. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. I don’t understand why it always works for my friend and not for me, since we use the same OS, same game files, same everything as far as I can tell. Only difference is she is in Belgium while I’m in the U.S. But I think lots of other americans are NOT having the same issues as I am, so I’m sortof at a loss as to what’s wrong with my game.
Water buckets still not working. Did the Moriarity’s hold quest in Bloodtide Coast, buckets not doing a thing. This is clearly a problem in the game itself not anything to do with your client. Any suggestions for repairing your install are flat at wrong and are akin to the “unplug your computer and plug it back in” tech support scenarios. Obviously not the problem. Some people are able to do it, but it’s still a bug in the game of some kind affecting only certain players.