Update: Division 2 Skills Bug Receives First Fix
Update 03/19/19: Ubisoft Massive has now released a fix for the skills bug, although it comes with a small caveat.
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In a post on the Ubisoft forums, a community developer explained that the team had identified "several issues" causing the problem, and has fixed the majority of them.
However, a further patch is coming later this week to resolve some remaining problems. "Until then", reads the post, "you can try to avoid the talents EXTRA and OVERLAP which seem to be the culprit and can cause skills to act up even after maintenance, albeit still much less often."
Original story follows.
The Division 2 players are deploying their skills only to have them deactivate almost immediately, and switch to a 15-second cooldown.
Redditor u/TheBalance1016 raised the issue (but is by no means the only player to do so), saying that it is making certain skills unusable.
Skills in The Division 2 are powerful abilities tied to a cooldown. The bug appears to cause skills to activate incorrectly.
"I activate my drone or shield (haven't tested others, this happens with all variants) and within two seconds, the skill disappears and I have a 15 second cooldown," u/TheBalance1016 wrote.
"This is not holding down the skill to dismantle and trigger the shorter cooldown. This is -always- a 15 second cooldown, and it makes most skills (with any kind of duration in the world) unusable," they added, pointing out that it, "Definitely wasn't happening prior to this patch".
A large number of people have replied in the thread, saying that they've had the same issue. It's unclear if this is affecting all skill types, but reports have come in saying that Shields, Drones, Turrets and Hives are all affected.
Some have experienced the problem with levelled-up characters, while others are finding the problem as soon as they start the game for the first time, implying this is a global issue, rather than one triggered by specific in-game activities.
At time of writing, Ubisoft Massive hasn't commented on the issue, either on the Reddit threads, its website or Twitter feed, meaning it's unclear as to what the cause of the problem is or when it'll be fixed.
Division 2 players at IGN hadn't encountered this problem during the review period, but a new patch has recently dropped, meaning it could be tied to changes in that update. We've contacted Ubisoft for comment. The Division 2 launched today on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
If you'd like to know what we think of the game, we have a review in progress that you can take a look at.
Shabana is a freelance writer who enjoys JRPGs, wine, and not finishing games. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.