v0.57.1 - Disappearing Epic Loot + CombatEngine Audit Hotfix

Three bug fixes: one from a player report (Lumina, floor 61) about epic loot vanishing after a companion equip cancellation, and two from a comprehensive 4-agent audit of CombatEngine.cs.

Disappearing Epic Loot on Companion Equip Cancel

Reproduced flow from Lumina's report:

1. Monster drop offers an epic loot item (e.g. Tempered Blade of Penetration, +115 ATK, requires L54).
2. Player selects a companion (Vex) via the party selector in the loot prompt.
3. Player hits [E] to equip the weapon on Vex.
4. For one-handed weapons, the game prompts "which slot?" (main / off-hand).
5. Player cancels the slot prompt (e.g. after seeing a level-requirement warning).
6. Game says "Added to inventory" — but the item is nowhere in the player's inventory when they next open it.

Root cause: at CombatEngine.cs:7461 the local player variable is reassigned to the selected companion when the party selector is used. The successful-equip path already accounted for this (tracking actualPlayer = currentPlayer ?? player at the bottom of the method) but the TWO slot-cancellation fallback branches — one-handed weapon slot cancel at ~line 7656, and two-finger-full ring slot cancel at ~line 7675 — both did player.Inventory.Add(lootItem), which at that point was the companion's inventory. The item wasn't destroyed: it landed in the companion's private inventory where the player's main inventory menu doesn't show it.

Same bug applies to regular rarity drops — players just notice it more on epic/legendary drops because those get visual emphasis in combat and the player immediately tries to manage them.

Fix: moved the actualPlayer = currentPlayer ?? player resolution to the TOP of the equip branch and changed the two slot-cancellation player.Inventory.Add calls to actualPlayer.Inventory.Add. Cancelled-slot items now always land in the real player's inventory, matching the displayed "Added to inventory" message.

Weaken Debuff: Broken in Both Directions

• The "weaken" special-effect handler in multi-monster combat (Cleric and various AoE utility spells) did monster.Strength -= 30% and monster.Defence -= 20% — directly mutating base stats permanently, with no restoration when the debuff expired. Since Monster.Reset() doesn't backup/restore base stats, a repeatedly-weakened respawning boss would eventually have its stats clamped to near-zero.
• Meanwhile, every OTHER path that applied Weaken (single-monster abilities, AoE spells setting WeakenRounds directly, Maelstrom of the Faithful, Tidal Strike, and many more) only set the WeakenRounds counter without mutating stats. Those paths' Weaken was a no-op on damage and defense — the counter's only consumers were Tidesworn Riptide's +40% bonus, Assassinate's "weakened target" check, and the status display.
• On top of that, WeakenRounds was never decremented anywhere, so the status-bar WEK(n) indicator was cosmetic — Weaken never expired.

Fix: Weaken now works transiently through Monster.GetAttackPower() and Monster.GetDefensePower() — if WeakenRounds > 0, attack is multiplied by 0.70 and defense by 0.80. The direct stat-mutation in the multi-monster handler is removed. WeakenRounds now decrements once per monster-action cycle (same site as CorrodedDuration and ConfusedDuration) and falls off correctly.

Teammate Combat Init: Only Reset Tank Buffs

The per-teammate combat-init block at CombatEngine.cs:676+ only cleared the v0.56.0 tank-ability buffs (TempDamageReductionPercent, TempThornReflectPercent, TempPercentRegenPerRound). The legacy transient buffs — TempAttackBonus, TempDefenseBonus, MagicACBonus, DodgeNextAttack, HasBloodlust, HasStatusImmunity, DeathsEmbraceActive, StatusLifestealPercent, CalmWatersRounds — weren't reset for teammates. A Bard's song buff on an NPC teammate, a Shaman Calm Waters shield, or a Paladin-cast Protection spell would silently leak across combats on the teammate side.

Fix: teammate init now mirrors the player-init block and resets every transient buff, not just the new tank ones.

Companion Loot Pickup Save Race

Two sites in CombatEngine (around line 7820 and line 8257) persist companion loot pickups via fire-and-forget _ = Task.Run(async () => { ... save ... }). Both sites are inside an async method, so the fire-and-forget was gratuitous — and it opened a window where a player who disconnected immediately after their companion picked up rare loot would lose that equipment because the background save hadn't completed yet.

Fix: await the save directly on the enclosing async path. No behavioral change under normal play (the save is quick), but the loot is now guaranteed to persist before combat continues.

Auction Buyer Item Loss on Corrupt JSON

Auction purchase flow at BaseLocation.cs:8138+ had a commit-order bug. The original sequence:

1. backend.BuyAuctionListing() marks the auction status='sold' in the DB.
2. Buyer's gold deducted.
3. Listing JSON deserialized to an Item. If JSON is corrupt or null, the catch just logs and shows an error message.

Result: corrupt listings cost the buyer gold AND destroyed the item (auction marked sold with no buyer receipt).

Fix: deserialize the item FIRST. If it's null or throws, call a new RefundAuctionListing backend method that flips the status back to 'active' — buyer keeps gold, listing returns to the market. Only after successful deserialization do we deduct gold, add the item, and force a save so the purchase persists through immediate disconnect.

HomeLocation NPC Equipment Save Cadence

A follow-on equipment-system audit surfaced one more real bug. TeamCornerLocation saves after every NPC-equipment edit (per-action: equip, unequip, take-all — saves fire individually). HomeLocation's equivalent spouse/lover-equipment flow only saved AFTER the player exited the menu via Q. If the MUD session disconnected or the process died mid-menu after several edits, everything since the last auto-save tick was lost.

Fix: the ManageCharacterEquipment loop in HomeLocation now saves after each edit action, matching TeamCornerLocation's pattern.

Files Changed

• Scripts/Core/GameConfig.cs — Version 0.57.1
• Scripts/Systems/CombatEngine.cs — HandleEquipmentDropInput slot-cancellation fallbacks now route items to actualPlayer.Inventory instead of the (possibly reassigned) player.Inventory (epic loot vanish fix); multi-monster "weaken" handler no longer mutates monster.Strength/Defence (just sets WeakenRounds); added WeakenRounds per-round decrement alongside the existing CorrodedDuration/ConfusedDuration ticks; teammate combat init now resets all transient buffs (TempAttackBonus, TempDefenseBonus, MagicACBonus, DodgeNextAttack, HasBloodlust, HasStatusImmunity, DeathsEmbraceActive, StatusLifestealPercent, CalmWatersRounds) in addition to the v0.56.0 tank-buff subset.
• Scripts/Core/Monster.cs — GetAttackPower applies 0.70 multiplier when WeakenRounds > 0; GetDefensePower applies 0.80 multiplier when WeakenRounds > 0. Weaken is now a transient debuff that self-expires.
• Scripts/Locations/HomeLocation.cs — ManageCharacterEquipment now saves after each edit action (equip/unequip/take-all) instead of only on menu exit, matching TeamCornerLocation's per-action save cadence. Prevents spouse/lover equipment edits from being lost if the session disconnects mid-menu.
• Scripts/Locations/BaseLocation.cs — ShowAuctionItemDetails purchase flow now deserializes the auction item JSON BEFORE deducting gold; on failure the listing is un-sold via RefundAuctionListing and the buyer keeps their gold. On success, a forced save persists the new item immediately.
• Scripts/Systems/SqlSaveBackend.cs — New RefundAuctionListing(listingId) method flips a sold listing back to active status so a corrupt-JSON purchase can be safely rolled back.
• Scripts/Systems/CombatEngine.cs — Companion loot-pickup save paths at lines 7820 and 8257 converted from fire-and-forget _ = Task.Run(...) to awaited calls. Prevents companion-equipped loot from being lost if the player disconnects immediately after the pickup.