Crashing in Mad Moxxi's Underdome.

[Taliesin_2943]

1 hour ago, zXShermanXz said:

This just happened to me last night in my first large arena. Killed the boss in round 18 and then disconnected in the intermission. If that wasn't bad enough, the crash corrupted my save data and I lost my character with all story progression. I am so infuriated right now. So much time lost to level up another one. I am seriously contemplating if I should cancel my preorder for Borderlands 3 over this. 

Did u not back up your save before going into the arena?

[Matto_lsi]

On 4/24/2019 at 1:56 PM, Taliesin_2943 said:

This is kinda hilarious and really weird. After experiencing the crashing I contacted support (the people who are supposed to know how to help) after several emails providing info on this issue I finally got this answer

 

Thanks to the work of diligent vault hunters like you, we'll be able to bring this to the attention of the developers to look into for you, and the whole playerbase. We appreciate you.

Unfortunately, we do not have visibility on their progress here in customer support, and so we don't have a timeline for a fix to be implemented once it's attended to. That said, please follow us on Twitter (@2K,@2KSupport, and @Borderlands, as this is where new info, as well as upcoming updated and fixes, will be announced.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let us know!

Thanks,

Zack H.
2K Support

 

So support has no idea what's going on or it seems much about anything.....  Is this normal?

 

As someone who managed the support department for a major game developer for many years, I can tell you that yes, this is accurate, but also that you're reading their response incorrectly.

 

Firstly, the game was published by 2K (whom you contacted), but developed by Gearbox, so 2Ks support team would not have immediate access to information about the ongoing investigative process into this bug.  Secondly, keep in mind this reps' words, they specifically say they do not "have visibility on their process" in support.  He means that as a support rep for the publisher, he does not have visibility on what the devs are doing at a completely different studio.  Even if it was the same studio, this was something I dealt with a lot in support.  Once you report a issue that customers bring to your attention, what happens next is up in the air.  Some devs are much better than others at communicating, but at big studios like 2K, you'd be lucky to ever find out what's going on until an 'official' resolution is passed your way, especially as the pub and not the dev on the project.

 

That being said, let's examine the flow of this issue.  You contacted 2K support, which is in California.  Gearbox, the dev, is in Texas.  So this rep reports the issue, probably directly to their manager, who would then need to pass the information along to Gearbox.  Chances are he or she doesn't have a direct line for that, so would pass it along to the Producer at 2K who is handling the project.  As it's a simple gen port, there's no way there's more than a handful of people who would even touch this.  So that producer would then have to tap the producer of the project at Gearbox.  Since Gearbox is currently working on Borderlands 3, again there's probably no more than 1 or 2 people who would be involved in this process.  So when that person finds the time to look into this issue, they'd have to tap their own resources to investigate.  Now we're talking programmer time (to debug), qa time (to reproduce) and perhaps others involved as well, depending on their tools and their process.  Considering this only takes place after 90 minutes of playtime, there's no way anyone but qa would be tapped to even touch it, and even then they'd need to get some debug output to give to the programmer to dissect, as simply triggering the bug wouldn't tell them anything.  Assuming all of that happens, it's happening in Texas, not even the same state, let alone the same office, as the person you contacted at 2K support.  They won't have any visibility on this process, at least not until it's complete.  And once it's complete, Gearbox will either patch it, or throw up their hands cause it's too hard to track down with such a lack of resources.  Either way, the only word this support rep will get is either 'tell them a patch is coming' or 'tell them we couldn't figure it out, sorry'.  Even if you contacted Gearbox support, my guess is you'd get a similar reply, as most studios don't like to keep customers in the loop on issues like this, for obvious reasons.  Imagine if a rep says 'we're looking into it and definitely gonna figure it out and fix it for you' and then they don't?  Imagine if kotaku or polygon got a hold of that email.  So yeah, they'll keep it close to the vest, even if they do know a little more than they say.  But it's not surprising to me at all that they'd have no visibility at this stage in the process.  if I remember correctly, 2K qa and support are in a completely different building at the 2K campus than the rest of the studio.  And game devs are notorious for not communicating well.  All of this just exacerbates the lack of communication.

 

I really do hope this issue gets fixed, I love Borderlands, and after getting 100% on 360 and PS3, I'd love to play it again on another console.  But I have been put off by all the bugs, so it might not happen.

[HuntingFever]

14 hours ago, zXShermanXz said:

If that wasn't bad enough, the crash corrupted my save data and I lost my character with all story progression.

This is why you should always backup your saves after every session and keep multiple copies of them so if the shit does hit the fan, you will have multiple fail safes to fall back on.

[DeathShark22]

Quick question, when i do the Underdome and use the two player trick, do i need to do the whole dlc in co-op? So basically i start the game with my alt-account and then join with my main, do i need to finish all the small challenges and then the large challenges? I have a level 69 Siren at the moment.

[HuntingFever]

8 minutes ago, DeathShark22 said:

Quick question, when i do the Underdome and use the two player trick, do i need to do the whole dlc in co-op? So basically i start the game with my alt-account and then join with my main, do i need to finish all the small challenges and then the large challenges? I have a level 69 Siren at the moment.

If you go down the exploit route, then yes you do need to do the whole thing in co-op, because if you chop and change between solo and co-op and/or change who the host is, you run the risk of the Big Tournament trophy glitching and having to redo everything from scratch with a new character.

Edited May 6, 2019 by HuntingFever
Update.

[DeathShark22]

1 hour ago, HuntingFever said:

If you go down the exploit route, then yes you do need to do the whole thing in co-op, because if you chop and change between solo and co-op and/or change who the host is, you run the risk of the Big Tournament trophy glitching and having to redo everything from scratch with a new character.

 

Ah alright. Im still debating, i am doing it on playtrough 1 but the enemies nontheless scale to my character level. I finished 5 rounds pretty easy on the first map. If i die i go just back to the current round correct? So there is no real danger of doing it the normal way? I´d rather play normally then in split screen.

[Taliesin_2943]

3 hours ago, DeathShark22 said:

 

Ah alright. Im still debating, i am doing it on playtrough 1 but the enemies nontheless scale to my character level. I finished 5 rounds pretty easy on the first map. If i die i go just back to the current round correct? So there is no real danger of doing it the normal way? I´d rather play normally then in split screen.

No if you die you go back several rounds or all the way back to the start depending on the arena and such I've been completely kicked out before in a larger arenas

[DeathShark22]

16 minutes ago, Taliesin_2943 said:

No if you die you go back several rounds or all the way back to the start depending on the arena and such I've been completely kicked out before in a larger arenas

 

Oh really? Damn that sucks....so if i die i get sent back to the start? I think the guide states that you need to restart the round (that means max 5 waves....)? Or do i miss something?

[HuntingFever]

25 minutes ago, Taliesin_2943 said:

No if you die you go back several rounds or all the way back to the start depending on the arena and such I've been completely kicked out before in a larger arenas

This^

 

Expect to do much swearing when you die, because having to redo an hour's work will send anyone over the edge. If you want to preserve your sanity, you will either do this DLC in local Splitscreen or rope in an online friend who's willing to spend 10hrs+ doing nothing but dying over and over due to their low level.

 

7 minutes ago, DeathShark22 said:

 

Oh really? Damn that sucks....so if i die i get sent back to the start? I think the guide states that you need to restart the round (that means max 5 waves....)? Or do i miss something?

It depends on if you're doing a Large or Small arena, because dying in a Small arena will send you all the way back to the start but if you die in a Large arena, you will either be sent back 5 rounds or be sent back to the start if you haven't made it very far since starting the arena.

Edited May 6, 2019 by HuntingFever
Update.

[DeathShark22]

19 minutes ago, HuntingFever said:

This^

 

Expect to do much swearing when you die, because having to redo an hour's work will send anyone over the edge. If you want to preserve your sanity, you will either do this DLC in local Splitscreen or rope in an online friend who's willing to spend 10hrs+ doing nothing but dying over and over due to their low level.

 

It depends on if you're doing a Large or Small arena, because dying in a Small arena will send you all the way back to the start but if you die in a Large arena, you will either be sent back 5 rounds or be sent back to the start if you haven't made it very far since starting the arena.

 

Oh damn, that sounds even worse than i was expecting. Ok, then i think i will do it in local splitscreen. Not really that much into these arena matches anyway. Thanks for the help guys.

[HuntingFever]

On 01/05/2019 at 2:00 PM, JaapertNL said:

I think I have found the reason why the game keeps crashing on the 20 round Arenas. I have had several crashes until now and tried everything to understand what might have caused these crashes. I played solo, coop and split screen and in all cases the game crashed between round 17 and 20. The duration of the sessions did not impact the crash as I had one run which took me 7 hours (with breaks) and it did not crash on me. 

 

The issue most probably comes from the body parts scattered around the arena. The higher the round the more enemies you already have killed and thus the more body parts there are on the field. The game simply cannot process this good enough and therefore it crashes at higher rounds. Our workaround was that we used the Volcano Sniper rifle (there might be other weapons with the same results) because that weapons has a high chance to burn the enemies completely down which results is much less body parts on the field. If you for instance use an explosive weapon the result will be the opposite and the game has a higher chance to crash.

I've just finished my first large arena and using the Volcano, Hellfire and Vitrolic Crux, helped reduce the amount of body parts that were lying around but the game up and crashed when I got back to the Underdome and tried to exit the game . I think what caused the crash, was a memory leak that occurred by syncing the trophies for both accounts then going back to the game. I'm going to attempt Arena no5 tomorrow so fingers crossed that I get through that without any issues.

[Taliesin_2943]

1 hour ago, HuntingFever said:

I've just finished my first large arena and using the Volcano, Hellfire and Vitrolic Crux, helped reduce the amount of body parts that were lying around but the game up and crashed when I got back to the Underdome and tried to exit the game . I think what caused the crash, was a memory leak that occurred by syncing the trophies for both accounts then going back to the game. I'm going to attempt Arena no5 tomorrow so fingers crossed that I get through that without any issues.

Yeah sometimes games crash like that but at least you got back to the underdome what's catastrophic is crashing in the actual arena fight hence the fix I proposed your crash tho does sound more like a memory link so fingers crossed on ur last 2 bug arenas let me know how they go

[HuntingFever]

17 minutes ago, Taliesin_2943 said:

Yeah sometimes games crash like that but at least you got back to the underdome what's catastrophic is crashing in the actual arena fight hence the fix I proposed your crash tho does sound more like a memory link so fingers crossed on ur last 2 bug arenas let me know how they go

Yeah, there definitely seems to be a memory leak issue with the Underdome but the Fire and Corrosive weapons do help with managing the situation.

[UNLOADED]

I’ve only had hellburbia crash on me at round 20. The other two arenas did not crash, after my second attempt of hellburbia I was able to get through. I was doing the round skips best I could, probably managed to skip 4 or 5 rounds. I was playing solo with friends invite only. Insta kill shotgun from my old ps3 save days. I also made a point to not use the portals on that map because that’s when the game crashed on me before when I was going through a portal. Getting the game to not crash seems just about re attempts and getting lucky. 

Edited May 18, 2019 by UNLOADED

[ONUOsFan]

On 5/18/2019 at 2:10 PM, UNLOADED said:

I’ve only had hellburbia crash on me at round 20. The other two arenas did not crash, after my second attempt of hellburbia I was able to get through. I was doing the round skips best I could, probably managed to skip 4 or 5 rounds. I was playing solo with friends invite only. Insta kill shotgun from my old ps3 save days. I also made a point to not use the portals on that map because that’s when the game crashed on me before when I was going through a portal. Getting the game to not crash seems just about re attempts and getting lucky. 

 

How are you doing round skip? My friend and I tried to do it and couldn't get it to work....

[UNLOADED]

17 minutes ago, ONUOsFan said:

 

How are you doing round skip? My friend and I tried to do it and couldn't get it to work....

I would wait by top of the stairs by the curtain as close as I could get before the boss spawns, I found that if you wait a second after the boss spawns and then blind fire your insta kill weapon, it has more of a chance to kill the boss. Also don’t kill any of the bosses minions and if the boss walks past the start of the stairs, it will void the skip. Also after the boss is dead and the curtains close and all his minions are still alive, you’ve successfully done the round skip but don’t kill those minion enemies until you see the count down timer and kill them all when the count down timer is around 5 seconds left.

[ONUOsFan]

On 5/21/2019 at 2:40 PM, UNLOADED said:

I would wait by top of the stairs by the curtain as close as I could get before the boss spawns, I found that if you wait a second after the boss spawns and then blind fire your insta kill weapon, it has more of a chance to kill the boss. Also don’t kill any of the bosses minions and if the boss walks past the start of the stairs, it will void the skip. Also after the boss is dead and the curtains close and all his minions are still alive, you’ve successfully done the round skip but don’t kill those minion enemies until you see the count down timer and kill them all when the count down timer is around 5 seconds left.

 

Yeah, we still can't get it to work... did one of the large arenas the other night and tried this on every boss round, but those bosses won't die for several seconds, and they're almost always down the stairs by then.

[Corujero]

Any have one hit kill weapom for give me? Ty

[DeathShark22]

I finished all three large arenas on the first try without crashes. Used the split screen trick with a low level character as the host and played all rounds with my level 69 siren and a level 68 or so hellfire. In the horde mode rounds i waited by the starting ooint and used my phasewalk and ignite skill to burn a lot of the enemies.

 

Thanks to @Taliesin_2943 for the advice with the fire weapons and burning enemies:)

[HuntingFever]

I just knocked off another trophy and the game crashed in the same spot as last time, whilst zoning back into the lobby after the trophy popped. I'm using Fire and Corrosive weapons but most enemies die before they can be cremated, thus they end up leaving a lot of body parts lying around . Lilith is definitely the way to go, because Mordecai (who Is the one I'm using for my Underdome runs) and the other characters don't have enough elemental skills to stop the body parts from building up.

[Corujero]

After 3 crashings in hell burbia (round 12, 15 and 18) complete solo using my lilith fire/corrosive smg and phasewalk

[Phoenixgaming1]

I crashed for me on round 19 wave 3 in hell burbia after 2 and a half hours. I was on track to be top 50 fastest to 100% this game but f**k it at this point

[Phoenixgaming1]

This is an email I got from someone on the support team for Gearbox and 2K

 

[DaveMcDamage]

I did the 100% completion for this game back on 360. When I heard they were releasing it for PS4 I got serious cold shakes. Between this DLC and the f**king pizzas and stuff for that Claptrap DLC, I could never go back to this game again. Brrrrrr!

[EvilMunkeyZombie]

I made an account just to reply to this topic. Is there any update on fixes for this issue?