Players of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s The Teal Mask expansion have discovered a game-breaking online exploit that is causing major issues. While the expansion is already facing performance problems, this particular exploit is making the gameplay experience even worse. The exploit revolves around the new Pokémon Ogerpon and its inability to change its base Tera Type like other Pokémon in the game.
Ogerpon’s base typing and Tera Type are determined by the mask it holds, resulting in different forms and abilities. However, hackers have found a way to manually alter Ogerpon’s Tera Type in the game files, leading to an exploitable online mechanic.
When encountering an Ogerpon with an artificially changed Tera Type during online battles, the game will pause and soft-lock both players indefinitely. This occurs because Ogerpon is designed to change its typing to Grass, Fire, Water, or Rock based on the mask it holds. If the Tera Type it attempts to use is incompatible, the game cannot proceed and becomes unresponsive.
It is believed that the intention behind this exploit is to grief other players in online matchmaking and gain rank unfairly by forcing them to disconnect first. The only way to resolve the soft lock is by disconnecting from the game.
It is unclear why this error was not caught during initial testing, but it is speculated that Game Freak may not have focused on save editing and tool-assisted exploits since they are disallowed in Japan and not initially considered a major concern.
Until a patch is released to address this exploit, players should be cautious when participating in online matches. It may take several weeks to months for the developers to fix the issue, depending on the extent of its impact.
Author: [Author Name]
Source: DOTESPORTS
