'Badass' bug kills off Borderlands 2 characters

By Asrokhel
in Xbox

 Share

Recommended Posts

Mentor

Asrokhel

Posted
Posted

A bug that works like a disease in humans is permanently killing off characters in the Borderlands 2 video game.

The bug only strikes those playing the game via Microsoft's Xbox 360 console.

It revolves around a hidden feature that can only be activated by those that have modified their console.

Gamers who play alongside people who have modded their console "contract" the bug which deletes their character if they die during play.

The hidden option within the game, known as "badass" or "hardcore", is turned off by default but can be enabled by those that have modified or hacked their console. "Modding" involves altering the hardware or software in a console so it can run pirated games, development code or other non-official programs.

Power play

Modded consoles can enable the "badass mode" on Borderlands 2 which lets their characters gather special weapons and armour and become much more powerful than those created in "normal" mode.

When a player with an unmodded console joins a Borderlands 2 multiplayer game in which there is a character running in badass mode it too gets kicked into that mode.

"Hence the 'virus' explanation - as with a cold or the flu in real life you can spread it to other people before noticing the symptoms, and without any evil intent, and they in turn can spread it on to others," explained one gamer on the forums of Borderlands 2 maker Gearbox.

One consequence of the badass mode is that when characters die during gameplay they suffer permanent deletion rather than respawning.

Gearbox warned about the problem on 22 October saying some gamers were using it to "maliciously disrupt the experience and sabotage characters of legitimate Borderlands 2 players".

Since then the problem has become much more widespread with many posting complaints to the forum thread about long-running characters being deleted.

Gearbox said it had prepared a fix that closed the loophole being exploited but it would take time for this to be fed out to consoles.

In the meantime, Gearbox said, users players should only play with people they trust and avoid public games. To avoid characters being deleted, it said, players should use the "save and quit" option during play so they can reload that avatar later on.

No advice has been given about how to resurrect characters that have been lost as a result of the "badass" bug.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-20136922

  • 3 weeks later...
Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Hmmm, I do not remember which thread it was, but there was just a thread were people were defending the fact that modded consoles had zero effect on MP on Live. Looks like they were way off there.

Mentor

SharpGreen

Posted
Posted

So they are hurting legitimate players even more? No wonder I didn't buy the game yet...and perhaps will never.

Well I don't know. On one hand, the folks who mod their consoles to cheat should have some drastic action like this taken against them. But on the other, it shouldn't affect legit players.

Proficient

UseLess

Posted
Posted

"Drastic action like this" - i was under the impression this was similar to D2 'Hardcore', where dying and getting deleted was a 'working as intended', not a reprimand.

I think the issue is that people who weren't aware of this mode (ie. legit players, seeing as 'badass' isnt open to them yet) were dying and expecting to come back, but weren't.

Grand Master

Jeston Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

I believe this article is inaccurate. Modded consoles are not to blame. The problem is that people are using save editors on their PCs to alter their saves and enabling a hidden mode called "Badass Mode." This mode was meant to delete characters if they were to die and was cancelled late in development, but the rogue option was still kept in players' save files. So, people would transfer the save from their console to their PC, make the edit, then put it back on their Xbox.

Would have been fine if by playing with a person who has switched (purposely or not) the hidden option to "On" all the other players didn't automatically get their options switched as well, but it was just a rather nasty bug. Sucks for the people hit with the bug as there is really no chance of getting those characters back as, though the save file still exists, almost all information was deleted from it.

Grand Master

Jeston Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Having just purchased this for my brother on Black Friday, wondering if this has been fixed yet.

Yep, it was fixed on November 6. If you or your brother are ever curious about what the patches include, you can find out here.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Google's new hand-wave reCAPTCHA can be bypassed with a stock photo

      By excalpius · Posted

      I'm not unblocking my camera for this crapola. Sorry, Google.
    • Microsoft Edge gets tons of security features, including AI model that can see your screen

      By ShahinD · Posted

      It seems these features are for Business Profiles
    • Microsoft Edge gets tons of security features, including AI model that can see your screen

      By Snake Doc · Posted

      Ummmm that is what is it supposed to do. Just turn if off in settings if you do not want it analyzing your open tabs. Chrome does the same thing with Gemini. Sarfari will do the samething after Apple's AI and even more so with the release of their 27 versions that is now powered by Googles LLM/ML models. Understanding why it is doing it and how it can help you vs jumping to some conspiracy theroy is a much better approach. As long as it can be turned off, all is good. Yes the default should be off but the a lot of people would never discover these features.
    • Microsoft Edge gets tons of security features, including AI model that can see your screen

      By WaltC · Posted

      Just another reason (aside from many others) not to use Edge. Firefox 153.0b5 DEx64 has a similar feature added recently in prior builds that I will turn off at some point when I get around to it. It's the new "Something looks suspicious" page that pops up here and there. It cleverly hides itself between web pages that I've actually visited; as a result, you know, of selecting a web page and telling the browser where to go. The interesting thing is that it does not produce these warnings from pages that I, as the only intelligent user of the browser in my system, have ever directed the browser to open! What seems to be happening is that the browser looks at all the goofy ad links on a web page I do actually open and selects one that "looks suspicious" and then creates the "something looks suspicious" web page, which is neatly inserted, as mentioned, between web pages my RB ("real brain") has directed the browser to load in a session. The thing is, I usually look at links I am considering to follow before I ask the browser to load them, and in cases I have noticed where the link does indeed look suspicious, most of the time I will choose to not follow the link at all. Doesn't everyone do this or something similar? I am picky about what I voluntarily load... (I don't like links that start off fine, with a site designaiton that seems normal enough but then is followed by indecipherable alphanumeric strings many, many lines long, etc. I tend to reject those because they look suspicious. They may not be, but I don't care... I'll stay with Firefox, of course, if for no other reason than they usually let you turn off the junk you don't like. And because it isn't Edge... But at some point Microsoft will come to realize that putting your bookmarks on the left side is a Good Thing for a lot of people, just as Microsoft discovered when it had the bright idea of nailing the Windows taskbar to the bottom of the screen, when for decades Microsoft browsers had left that placement up to the user. They have finally reversed the obscenity of that decision. Finally.
    • Google's new hand-wave reCAPTCHA can be bypassed with a stock photo

      By Ccl Ncc · Posted

      Google was using the old CATPCHAs data to train their LLMs. What is the say they won't use this camera data of users to train their LLM? these companies need some strict regulations!

  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      BA the Curmudgeon earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Conversation Starter
      rosiecharles earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • First Post
      KMilenkoski1202 earned a badge
      First Post
    • First Post
      carols23 earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      Tom Willson earned a badge
      One Month Later

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      513
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      258
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      151
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      94
    5. 5
      macoman
      66
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!