The Division

[Treeskee]

My guess is, many people are playing solo, because their friends said F this game, and went on to play something else.

Hard to play with pre made groups, when you don't have people to form the group with.

I could see that. I'm about at that point with how terrible Massive is being. I actually feel kinda bad for selling my friends on it since i was looking forward to it for so long.

[Deleted]

PuGs and matchmade groups in general also appeal solo players. The statistic talks about those which mainly play solo.

So yes, matchmade groups also are defacto solo content.

From that point of view, organized groups should have no exclusive focus in MMORPGs and Co op games.

Well, yeah, they shouldn't. From my point of view, seriously anything is PUGable as long as you don't squeeze the very last % out of it.
In The Division, 4 man content is basically PUG-heaven. Even the CM incursion should be doable with "randoms" as long as randoms know how to play.

[stellvia]

Unfortunately, that is just how it is nowadays. The cries for 10 man raids, then 5man, then 'solo raids' are part of the reason for the decline in MMOs I think. People complain and want MMOs to basically be the same as SP games with a lobby. So that's what they're getting now.

[Deleted]

I don't know about that, I think alot of guys are confusing "PUGs" with a ragtag group of "bads."
Just because something is doable with randoms, shouldn't mean it'll always end in success, especially when everyone is just bad.

[stellvia]

The sad fact is that the vast majority of people don't want to play games that require any effort, skill, or thinking. They want to solo, read a Wiki on the exact optimum build or whatever from people that actually expended effort to find out, go "Spam 1" and claim victory and that they're awesome. Hence why 90% of Division so far seems to be players exploiting loot farms and going glass cannon firearms builds while ignoring mechanics that can clear faster.

[Deleted]

It's no shock that in a game where most everything can be done solo that most people are just running solo. (Or doing pug matchmaking, since apparently we're counting that as "solo"?)

Not the most meaningful statistic.

I don't understand that statistic either, if I used the Matchmaking once, am I considered a solo player? Even though 95% of my gametime was with friends?

How does it even determine whether I'm a solo player or not.

edit:

"57.2 percent of a player's average playtime is spent playing solo with the remaining 42.8 percent spent in co-op sessions."

lol... SUPRISE I GUESS, RIGHT GUYS?!
huge news everyone, I'm actually not spending 80% of my time grouped up, especially not when I have the game running in the background and idle in my BoO.

And since half of it was leveling, that didn't require a group at all and would actually only make it harder and less entertaining due to how the quest system worked.... well, let's just say that someone who bought the game, leveled to 30 and stopped playing shortly after (which is probably 75% of the playerbase that bought the game) has basically spent 90% of his time running solo and didn't do any group content, because the game didn't require you to group up.

Statistics are really useless sometimes.

[Deleted]

huge news everyone, I'm actually not spending 80% of my time grouped up, especially not when I have the game running in the background and idle in my BoO.

The statistic is slightly biased, right. While they talk about playtime. So its not safe to say they include idletime.

Also its not clear if they added leveling to the statistics.

It's really hard to find useful numbers on that topic. The only numbers that are available are quotes from devs (as like Jeremy Gaffney and the 60% solo players in MMORPGs) of other games and statistics showing matchmaking being far more often used than organized group play which tell nothing about solo only gameplay.

[Gorsameth]

The sad fact is that the vast majority of people don't want to play games that require any effort, skill, or thinking. They want to solo, read a Wiki on the exact optimum build or whatever from people that actually expended effort to find out, go "Spam 1" and claim victory and that they're awesome. Hence why 90% of Division so far seems to be players exploiting loot farms and going glass cannon firearms builds while ignoring mechanics that can clear faster.

Its easy to forget that for a lot of people games are not a job, they are something to entertain you or provide distraction from the outside world after a long day at work/school.
Not everyone wants to be challenged during those activities and want to just muck about instead.
(note this ofc does not include the exploiters who spend 2h throwing sticky bombs at a truck)

Is it? I disagree.

If I'm buying a MMORPG/Multiplayer game, I should actually be prepared to play it in multiplayer and see SP content as a bonus.
Everything should be PUG-able, but not Solo-able. And they shouldn't focus on it either, because that will just leave you with less things to play with your friends.

If anything, there should be an option, like in D3... but it's clearly a multiplayer title, so why not play it as such.

When 30.000 people buy your game (made up number) and then 25.000 of them ask for more solo content to do you will find almost no developer who says "no, this is not the game you want. stop giving us your money and go away" and settle for the remaining 5.000. Instead they realize who pays their salary and move to please the 25.000 while trying to keep the other 5.000 aswell.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I think people project their own feelings on what the playerbase is(Casual hardcore casually hardcore yadda yadda). I play by myself mostly but I'm an introvert so I don't make friends much. At the same time though, the chat system in the Division sucks pretty bad if you ask me. I think it's more likely, people just aren't really caring about those around them overall.

Doesn't mean they are assholes, it's just they rather get things moving then have fun with a bunch of random people.

[Jtbrig7390]

Was able to find a group and do the CM before reset.

[RuneDK]

So which 2pc should I go for...Im not doing any exploits for FL....is sentry's 2pc better than the striker 2pc? So therefor I'll most likely be crafting them.

Edit: looks like sentry is more worth going for to start...since it will be 20 elite damage/30% headshot dmg vs striker being 20%armor dmg/50% headshot....maybe im wrong? I know the 2nd bonus im listing is 3pc....It just seems like a good idea to focus on sentry first

[Jtbrig7390]

Servers are down and there is no game changes "Patch" today.......LOL

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...esday-April-19

I just love it lol, They make a comment about punishing people and yet are not releasing a patch to fix the bugs/glitchs. Also one comemnt cought my eye.

So you idiots make this big stink and PR show about punishment for exploiters, you disable the rewards before the weekend because of this, and then come maintenance time - you're not doing a ****ing thing.

That seems to sum this entire bull **** game up - you, doing nothing.

Aside from your own community managers using exploits in their streams and having 10+ 240 gear score items in the first ****ing week, that is.

If the bolded is true then wow I need to watch there stream again.

Are they really going to punish people for using glitchs that there own community managers are using? See this is what happens when you release a broken game with content that your own dev team couldn't beat.

This game is a special kind of fucked up.

[Deleted]

Afaik they themselves didn't glitch.

He was looking for playings to do the CM Incursion on stream, to show that it's doable without glitching and all that, and the guys he played with had itemlevel 222 or something
He was foolish enough to ask: "Did you guys use the glitch?" - "No" - "Okay, I believe you, let's play •^.^•!"

item lvl 222, first week... not glitching. OKAY.

When 30.000 people buy your game (made up number) and then 25.000 of them ask for more solo content to do you will find almost no developer who says "no, this is not the game you want. stop giving us your money and go away" and settle for the remaining 5.000. Instead they realize who pays their salary and move to please the 25.000 while trying to keep the other 5.000 aswell.

True, but if you design a multiplayer title from the start, you won't have these numbers. The Division doesn't have these numbers either.
It's also worth mentioning that they already have everyone's money and soon to be season pass buyers are going to be a really small fraction of what the original playerbase was, not to mention that they have to release what they promised anyway.


edit: Sentry 2p is doubledipping with Brutal btw.

[Nutri]

I'm hoping to get one more Sentry piece to test the 4set bonus.
Running with 4x Striker, 2x Sentry now. Doing the pit tactic in Falcon Watch gives me hardly any uptime on the Striker bonus, or so it feels.

Having 10 seconds of 15% increased dmg stacking 3 times sounds a lot more useful. Yesterday I crafted a brutal/vicious/stable Black Market AK74 giving me about 205k dps, might have a good time with 4x Sentry over Striker.

[Puri]

I'm hoping to get one more Sentry piece to test the 4set bonus.
Running with 4x Striker, 2x Sentry now. Doing the pit tactic in Falcon Watch gives me hardly any uptime on the Striker bonus, or so it feels.

Having 10 seconds of 15% increased dmg stacking 3 times sounds a lot more useful. Yesterday I crafted a brutal/vicious/stable Black Market AK74 giving me about 205k dps, might have a good time with 4x Sentry over Striker.

Striker set bonus is close to useless unless you run through an instance with a shotgun (aka content not worth doing). They should remove the miss penalty completely and just rely on a timed decay for the buff. Obviously it also is useless if 4 or 3 people in your group are already running Sentry, because then even a 5% damage increase from Striker will be better than another Sentry.
Generally I am wondering who designed that bonus and thought this is a good idea, again makes me wonder if they play the game they design.

[Kathandira]

Striker set bonus is close to useless unless you run through an instance with a shotgun (aka content not worth doing). They should remove the miss penalty completely and just rely on a timed decay for the buff. Obviously it also is useless if 4 or 3 people in your group are already running Sentry, because then even a 5% damage increase from Striker will be better than another Sentry.
Generally I am wondering who designed that bonus and thought this is a good idea, again makes me wonder if they play the game they design.

If this game had traditional raid bosses, it would be perfectly fine. But there are few enemies which have a "burn phase" where you can spend 30 seconds shooting it in the head.

Which is exactly why the majority is chasing the Sentry's set. It has the lowest ramp up time, and is very rewarding in a short burst.

[Tekkommo]

Can't you just shoot the boss in the incursion to ramp up the Strikers damage?

[Kathandira]

Can't you just shoot the boss in the incursion to ramp up the Strikers damage?

I don't believe you can do any damage to it with guns. Might be worth a try though.

[Nutri]

Striker set bonus is close to useless unless you run through an instance with a shotgun (aka content not worth doing). They should remove the miss penalty completely and just rely on a timed decay for the buff.

I thought so. And yes, that is what I have been wondering as well. Having just the timed decay makes it a lot more useful.
I'll try and get that Sentry up and running

[Puri]

Can't you just shoot the boss in the incursion to ramp up the Strikers damage?

There are many ways to ramp up the set bonus, but you will also lose it very quickly. You need 50 hits to ramp it up, and with 25 misses it's completely gone. So even if you hit with 2 out of 3 hits you will not build up the buff. And since you go for weak spots (especially the head), have to fire at targets in cover, get shot at and have to move even with a well balanced smg you will miss often.