I was rereading the thread and had a thought:. Since we already have multiple DZs, why not make each DZ have a different flavor?

For example:
(Just an example, other vatiations possible)

• One DZ with tough PvE but no PvP.
• One DZ for single players (no teams) PvP.
• One DZ for team PvP.

Since we already have multiple DZs, why not make each DZ have a different flavor?

Reminder - this thread is intended as a PSA for people looking to obtain DZ resources. Instead of derailing this one, discussions on the nature of the DZ are better off in their own thread.

Understood. The problem is that the thread does not really give any good options. The best advice is (1) go after boxes only, and (2) die a lot while giving the finger to the one killing you.

Sorry, but that is no fun at all, and we play games to enjoy ourselves, and most of us are not masoquists. So unless the DZ changes at least a little, it is largely pointless for PvE or undergeared players.

The Division 1 DZ was a lot better in that regard. There was a chance of encountering trolls whose fun is to hunt the under-geared, but it was reasonably easy to avoid them. Ultimately it made it fun even for PvE or undergeared players. The way the DZ is designed in D2 I have no desire to go there and I know many others that feel the same.

This thread gave me some hope that it could be made worth playing but after reading it all several times I fear that the DZ in D2 remains a cesspool and that there is no decent enjoyable method to earn DZ resources. Frankly, we are better off making do without them.

I am puzzled by people thinking that crashes to desktop is related to a specific PC. It is very clear to me that it depends on what server I get connected to.

If I get connected to US-East I almost never crash. If I am on a session with a friend in Europe but we are on US-East it is very rare for me to crash. If I am with the same server on a EU server, crashing is a little more common. And when we are on Asian prime time... we typically don't see a server name, we see a lot of chinese symbols on chat, and a lot of crashing.

What all of that tells me is that the issue is either with the specific servers, the network of the server farm, or (most likely) the latency of the connection to a particular server farm.

I am sure that there are specific players that have issues with their hardware or windows installation, but it is quite obvious that for the vast majority of game crashes the issue is not on the player's PC.

I do wish the server location was *always* listed and we could select a server to play on (with the closest server farm as the default, but changeable in the settings), then we'd have nobody but ourselves to blame if the game crashes.

To save you some pain and frustration on a wild goose chase.

In theory, it could be your video card, computer, internet, windows version, drivers versions. Support will always point you at those and you might as well check them first. But having said that:

• A lot of people have this issue.
• It happens also when your personally controlled stuff is quite good.
• The only common thing I see to connections where I crash is an "unidentified" server. When I get US East I hardly ever crash and when I get EU I rarely crash. When I get a connection icon with no location name it is very likely that I will crash.

My personal conclusion is that sometimes - for reasons beyond my comprehension - the game connects you to servers that are NOT the ideal ones for you, and in those cases either the server, the server's internet or the latency in the route to the server are so bad that they cause the game to crash.

I know you will say that other games you play, even massive multiplayer ones don't crash like this. It is true, but even those games used to be terrible, and eventually they figured out how to improve their network code so that it could cope with less than perfect servers, internet and even players PCs. Usually that happens with a game company when they get past the denial phase where they blame players and - at least internally - they recognize that the solution is really in their hands and start improving the network code. If so... it typically takes about a year.

So... I suggest patience and don't let the crashes frustrate you too much. Even with the crashes the game is too good to rage-quit it.

@Ubi-Viral

A suggestion from one person who makes his living developing software to another:

• On the PC branch of Division 2 - since this one does not have the heavy deployment costs of consoles and is "current" code - implement some detection code (either on the server or client).
• You are almost certainly looking for calls to the server that take too long to respond (for whatever the reason) and result in timeouts. This is almost certainly why the game "freezes" first and then crashes. My guess is that either the code is not even aware of the timeout and crashes (possibly related to the development tools you use), or it is an intentional bit of code that says "if the timeout is longer than X assume that the internet went down and crash".
• Once the issue is identified, you could easily add a timeout number in the settings, and allow players to raise it.
• Another thing that I would do is figure out under what conditions you display the "red" connection icon without the server farm name (i.e.: US East, EU). The worst crash problems happen with those no-name servers.
• You might also consider displaying more connection info in-game and maybe even allowing players to select the server farm to connect to. It could help reduce issues, or at least make it much easier to identify the source of problems.
• For a more long-term approach, it is very useful to make error reporting more automatic. For example, in my code I use various types of "my" exceptions for different kinds of problems (the actual thrown exception is of course included in the stacktrace), then I have a standard method in my base classes that automatically routes each kind of exception to a different destination. For example, when my users supply bad data, all exceptions related to that get reported to them, network/file/database access exceptions that are not due to bad data get reported to the network/filer/DB staff, and things that are inequivocably caused by code or that have no other explanation get routed to me via email. The result is that everybody gets the details they need to solve ALL exceptions, and we usually get alerted of problems and either have a fix or an explanation... before the customers even approach us with a complaint. This is not practical to do on the current codebase, but it could be useful in future games that you have not yet started coding.

I hope this helps.

Isn't a skill build essentially the equivalent to this?

Also, while it would be "cool", I can't see it being as effective or smart as a live teammate. In the end it would feel quite inadequate.

before update i had freezes of 5-10 sec and could start game again, now freeze is permanent and i cant start unless i force shut the game

Yep. Exactly. The latest fairly large update broke it even more than it was before, it did NOT fix it. Now we have to use Task Manager to close the hung game. I am afraid that Massive moved their competent staff to new games and left the most junior of their developers in charge of "fixing" The Division. Only lack of experience (or interest) can explain why they are unable to fix the broken bits of the game.

If a Ubi/Massive developer who works on NETWORK code reads this, I suggest you initially focus on fixing the Ubisoft Connect bug that causes Ubi Connect it to almost always fail to launch and instead gets stuck with the silouette of the "loading" window displayed and the Ubi Connect loader hung at that point. At leat that one can be closed by right-clicking Ubi Connect in the taskbar and hitting close, before trying again and seeing it succeed. I am willing to bet that whatever bug causes Ubi Connect to hang is the same bug that causes both of The Division games to hung.

While I enjoyed the DZ with virtually no PVP in D1 I must admit that once I heard that D2's DZs are tiny and crowded to force human combat I stayed out of them and never bothered touching them.

Farming boxes in the DZ sounds interesting, but how does that mean "no PVP"? Aren't you still going to encounter lots of human players? Aren't you going to plenty of troll squads with massively OP'd gear whose only concept of fun is to go hunting solo, under-geared players?

TBH those things are the main reason I stay out of the DZ. I might not mind fighting an occasional human that is equally geared and experienced as me, but I am not a masoquist and it will be many months before I will have top gear or a proper squad to venture into the DZs safely.

Or are you saying that it is possible to go box-farming without having to meet those trolls?

@xmdead you're getting that error because it's the weekly maintenance I got kicked at 9am as it started and got that error msg

Ty.

Maybe they need to fix the web page that describes the error. LOL. It would take all of 5 minutes by the most junior of their web developers.

Hey @Frank_Drebbin, thanks for sharing this and I'm glad you've managed to resolve it .

@haywardgb - I am really not sure as to where does such sentiment come from, as we have a dedicated thread regarding this, where the very first post highlights key dates of when issue was anticipated to be resolved. This is there to provide you with transparency, as well as shows that the issue has been acknowledged a while back.

As it stands, I can assure you all that the matter is continuously being looked into. We do understand the impact of it and will try to provide you with the update as soon as we have one.

Thank you for your continued patience, apologies if this has been taking longer than anticipated and if you do have any further queries, feel free to drop us a message at any time!

I think the "sentiment" comes from the fact that the freeze+crash to desktop continues to happen. That thread mentions March 2021 and that the other crashes "were being investigated". It is now mid-November and the problem is still happening with no ETA for a fix.

It might be relevant to mention that the exact same problem happens - at least 1 to 4 times a day - with The Division 1 and The Division 2, and does not happen anywhere as often with any other games, not even other Ubisoft games. It is clearly caused by a key design or code flaw shared only by The Division games.

Based on a few decades of (non-game) development experience my instincts tell me that the problem is most likely triggered when either the server is hitting max capacity or there is a disruption in the connection between the player and the server... and the client isn't handling the timeout/disconnect properly.

On a positive note, last night I saw something that might be a sign of an attempt to fix it, the game kept playing but the other players and doors froze. Then it would unlock and freeze again. Clearly it was trying to reconnect, but eventually gave up and sent me back to login (better than a true crash) and I was able to reconnect and rejoin the group. Bad... but still an improvement.

@xmdead
Forgive me for making such an obvious suggestion, but just in case you missed it: have you tried scrolling up in the skill select screen? Your first screenshot above isn't showing the top row of skills where the pulse would be simply because you haven't scrolled up to them.

Bingo! Sometimes the simplest solutions are the right ones.

I didn't realize there were 11 skills, I thought it was just 8 and that Pulse was missing.

Problem solved.

Now for intuitive design... why would they have made the images so oversized that it required scrolling (a little smaller and you could easily fit 12 skills or more in one page), or why make the scrollbar so unobvious. Oh well. I fell for it, and I learned something, I now know to look for those unobvious scrollbars in the game... I bet that other screens have them and I never noticed them.

@noxious81

Correct, the vanilla pulse, the one that is usually available at the very beginning of the game, and required as part of step 4 of unlocking the Gunner specialization.

By 4 points I mean the number 4 shown at the bottom right corner of the Pulse image of V4MPiR1's screenshot. As a matter of fact, that particular screen looks exactly the same to mine when I select pulse (yeah I know... I failed to do that when I took the screenshot and I am now not able to start the game for another screenshot).

No, I currently have 3 specializations, the ones with the sniper, grenade launcher and explosive arrows bow, and I am working to *unlock* the grenadier. In all of them I tried to hit Esc.E-slot and when I try to replace the skill it shows missing... as in my screenshot.

So... I am either doing something really stupid when I try to equip Pulse the same way as I equip other skills, or I am encountering a very weird bug.

@dirty-t If you want to talk to Ubisoft you need to open a ticket.

The forum is for questions and discussion with the community, even though on rare occasions we do have Ubisoft staff participate.

As to the cheating in PvP, it is something that Ubisoft does not seem too interested in stopping. For example, it is common to see chinese spammers on chat that advertise hacks so constantly as to make the chat system unusable (this is brutally obvious in the Division 1 game, less so in Division 2) and Ubisoft does nothing to stop them.

Also, Division PvP is a joke, as it is designed to give massive advantages to long-time players who collected the right gear sets (and of course cheaters)... and anybody else will just be cannon fodder.

So, if you want to play proper PvP you really need to look for a game that handles PvP better. Luckily, The Division handles PvE quite well (except for the infamous hangs/crashes), so there is some value there.

@xmdead
Did you check the perk tree of the Gunner Specialization? This is where you unlock the Banshee Pulse. In case you didn't unlock it there, it won't be available in the skills tab.

LOL, I am on stage 4 of the gunner specialization, one of the requirement of the stage is to kill 20 enemies that were spotted with pulse (the regular pulse you get near the beginning of the game).

But while the 7 other skills are available to be used, the Pulse skill cannot be equipped... Even though I can see it as in the earlier screenshot when I go to the dude at the left of the white house entrance.

@v4mpir1 sounds like a bug then. I have all of the other skills but no pulse when I go Esc.Inventory.E-slot. it does show the pulse with 4 points like in your screenshot when I check at the White House, but it does not let me equip it.

I will open a ticket.

I would swear I used pulse early on, but now that I am working on the Gunner as my 4th skill and I try to equip the Pulse scanner... it isn't there!!!

Is this a bug? Do I need to equip a certain specialization? Do I need to complete some specific task (seems strange since I am deep in the game, I had just ignored specializations for quite a while)?

Help please.

I have a suspicion for another possible cause:.

Some people use auto-backup tools like Carbonite that momentarily lock a file when they are in the process of backing it up.

Most of the time it is very fast and most apps/games have no problem blocking until it gets released.

Could it be that Ubi games fail to block and thus end up in the hung/crashed state that we observe?

This could be easily tested by installing Carbonite on a developer's PC that plays a lot but has been unable to duplicate the problems.

[SOLUTION: Turns out that quitting the game and waiting a few hours fixed this]

I got out of a store through a window, ended up in what looks like a wire basket on the sidewalk.

The game identifies the location as "out of playable area" and won't let me move from there, instead it just keeps reloading over and over and the only option to stop it is to close the game, because it just starts reloading before I can even bring up the map.

But... when I restart the game instead of putting me at a safehouse, it drops me right back in the same spot.

How do I fix this? Is it enough to stay away from the game for some time, or do I need to contact support to fix it?

@ubi-milky I use two systems, a desktop and a laptop, both exhibiting the same issues. Both are full SSD systems and until a day ago both were windows 10, the laptop just got updated to windows 11.

I will collect and post the laptop details in the next couple days and the desktop in a week. I will ask a friend with whom I play and experiences the same issue. Between us we will be able to give you results in a week covering England, US and South American gameplay.

We would need to run through some of the most common connectivity troubleshooting fixes first, then should this fail to resolve this particular error code, we would then ask you for your traceroute and ports set up which we would forward onto our Division team and escalate your case for further investigation and testing.

Thanks but I will pass then.

For me security comes above gaming, and the "standard steps" include dangerous steps like turning off the firewall (even temporarily) and changes to routing configuration like opening extra ports and portforwarding.

Not only it has been a decade or two since properly built games stopped needing things like special firewall or router configuration, but in the current hacking and ransomware internet environment it is extremely reckless to do such things.

And as I mentioned, these kinds of repeatable crashes happen to me only with Ubi games. It is sad for my already purchases games, but for the long term there is no shortage of games out there without these problems. It really is Ubi's choice whether they want to keep their head in the sand or whether they want to try to identify what is at the core of the problem and modify their games to make them immune to the problem. As customers all we can do is offer to help and give our time... if we see enough commitment on Ubi's side, and asking us to start (for the nth time) with your support script inadequately trained paper pushers is NOT a sign of interest towards solving the long term problem, it is a sign of just wanting to pacify the crowd and ignoring the real issues. Sorry, but that does not make it worth for me to give time to it.