Thalassophobia Softlock

50 votes

The Reason:
If a player with a low end device joins somebody else's lobby that is being hosted from a higher end device, there is a very high chance that a softlock may occur.
Once all players enter the cage and start going down a lag spike happens. The lag spike lasts a very short time for the host, however for the non-host with a lower end device it might lag for say ~5-6 seconds.
This difference is crucial.

The Result:
Once the cage reaches the bottom there is a very high chance that the lagged player will be forced into the ground no matter where they currently are.
The player is able to look around and try swimming however the force is constantly pulling down, making it impossible to move whatsoever.
Once this softlock occurs, the host is required to restart the lobby in order reattempt the level since there is no way to die. (Even if there was a way to die it still wouldn't be of any help to the nightmare runs.)

The Fix:
There are currently 2 ways to prevent/fix this softlock, these are:
1) Pausing
By going into windowed and right clicking the title bar as the host of the lobby it effectively pauses the game and lets everyone slower load in before the host.
It has to be done with correct timing, if it is done before the lag spike then it will not work.
This isn't something that a less experienced individual would know how to do.
2) Reloading the save file
This is also allowed on nightmare due to a rule that was added because Gen 5 release was so buggy. (It's also partly the reason why it exists)
In order to do this on a nightmare run you now have to switch your files in a specific way in order to trick the game into loading you back to the same level.
This isn't something that someone inexperienced with nightmare hosting could do.
!!!RELOADING WAS PATCHED IN 1.3 AKA CONSOLE RELEASE!!! (Maybe?)

This issue had existed since the full release (Version 1.0 aka Gen 5).

Video taken from Voolong on Medal:
https://medal.tv/games/backrooms/clips/lnydH53lOK9TuvjmN

Suggestion under consideration Bug Report Suggested by: dehitboi Upvoted: 06 Jul Comments: 0

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