There has apparently been a bug in The Division for some time now, often attributed to hackers. This bug is indeed serious and can ruin the PvP experience. The community is demanding that Massive fix this bug.
The Division has never really had it easy. Especially in the first year, the online shooter was plagued by bugs and thus alienated parts of the community. Things are looking better now: Returnees and newcomers are increasingly finding their way back to Manhattan. Unfortunately, not everything is flawless yet.
The PvP has some issues: Console players are still struggling with the abuse of Cronus Max. Massive still has no solution for this. Helper posts still cannot be placed near walls, and other players sometimes become invisible right in front of your eyes.
However, there is another bug that has apparently existed for several months, and its cause has been mistakenly attributed to unstable servers, cheaters, and hackers.
YouTuber MarcoStyle calls this bug the “Running in Place” bug:
The “Running in Place” bug has been causing trouble for months
This bug makes players perform a moonwalk while they are actually in motion. The bug occurs so frequently that a large portion of the players attributed it to the servers and even hackers.
We advise against exploiting this and therefore will not provide instructions on how to use this bug. Nevertheless, it is important to know that some “What the…” moments in recent months may have been caused by this bug.
What causes this bug? A specific constellation related to status effects and the use of immunizer helper posts causes a kind of desynchronization between your client and the server.
Basically, for a short time, two models of your character emerge: One that you see yourself and a second that other players see on the server. This desynchronization lasts as long as a specific status effect lasts. So if you are under an EMP effect, this desynchronization effect can last up to 12 seconds. As soon as the server detects the problem, it tries to “catch up” on what happened during this period of desynchronization.
The consequences of this bug can be severe: Affected players often think they are in cover while they are still running in place on the server. During this time, they are vulnerable and practically defenseless.
If a player moves far enough away, the game tries to “catch up”. To your opponent, you are invulnerable during this time until the two models are synchronized by the server again.
If the bug occurs while you are in cover, you can run towards your opponents and deal damage while your model continues to perform a moonwalk behind cover and shoots through the walls at them.
This bug creates so many strange situations that anyone who doesn’t know what’s going on must immediately think of hackers and cheaters. However, this has probably been a bug that is quite easy to trigger for some time.
Is Massive doing anything about this bug?
The “Running in Place” bug has been under analysis for over 4 months. Members of the development team even responded to the Reddit post at the time. So far, nothing has been done to fix this bug. Therefore, MarcoStyle created this video to draw attention to it again.
With the ongoing development of The Division 2, it is better to put pressure on the developers and at least make sure that this bug does not make it into the second part.
On Reddit, there is now another post discussing this bug. Furthermore, the Creative Director of Massive, Julian Gerighty, responded via Twitter:
Gerighty would look into it and forward the problem to lead designers. He himself is currently not in the office, so it will take a while.
We hope that there will be a timely solution. After all, this bug has been known for some time. Fixing it would eliminate some annoying issues in PvP. Although there are still other issues, such as Cronus Max, with which the PvP area of The Division is struggling, it would still be a significant improvement.
