[Megathread] The Division 2

[Super Kami Dende]

Does that make sense?

No. Since literally nearly every MMO ever has solo or small group content that then increases in size for Raiding that is often not premade and doesn't scale.

[SirCowdog]

It actually doesn't make sense. Just because in the past the limit was 4, it was never not an option to go with more for different content. People wanted something similar to raids in Division 1 already, so they gave them that wish. Now people complain that they need more than 4 like... what the fuck do you want actually?

Citation needed. Where was the massive call for Raid-like content? I'd submit to you that no one really asked for it, and it was simply being done that way because of being an industry standard. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but this is the model virtually EVERY mmorpg tries to follow: Level up -> dungeons -> raids. It's being done without really thinking about it.

I also disagree with having a pug-based system. Not everything needs to be done with complete randoms on the internet. I get that people want to see the raid, but they should be at least working A LITTLE BIT instead of "LFR"ing their way through the game. Also, why is it a flaw at the design level? They always had content which was much harder. Falcon Lost was VERY hard without a coordinated team and wasn't pugged for quite some time in Division 1. I also disagree with having it scaled - scaling ruins most of the games nowadays imo, because it invalidates actual progress of gearing.

It's a design flaw at the scope of the entire game. I'm not saying that raids are flawed. I'm saying that switching to a large-group, organized content design when the rest of the game isn't that is flawed because it doesn't fit the themes or gameplay of the rest of the game. The game which the vast majority of the playerbase have bought into and gotten used to.

You simply dont like what direction they are going. That doesn't make the things you dislike a "design flaw".

I don't care one way or another about the direction they want to take the game. I've already said that if they want to focus on raids, then that's what they'll have to keep making in order to keep players that like raids.

What I'm saying is that trying to deliver raids to a playerbase, who is MOSTLY interested in small-group or solo gameplay with matchmaking, is a mistake.

They delivered a solo/small group game. That's one product. Now they're delivering a raiding game. That's an entirely different product! Is it any wonder that people who liked the original product would get angry or disappointed about that? They're targeting two entirely different demographics and groups of players. And if the history of The Division 1 is any indication, they're not good at satisfying BOTH.

[cuafpr]

so is actual story/lore locked behind raids are is just loot?

[everydaygamer]

so is actual story/lore locked behind raids are is just loot?

I believe it's just loot, as far as I know the raid doesn't do anything to further the overall plot but I could be wrong.

[Darleth]

Citation needed. Where was the massive call for Raid-like content? I'd submit to you that no one really asked for it, and it was simply being done that way because of being an industry standard. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but this is the model virtually EVERY mmorpg tries to follow: Level up -> dungeons -> raids. It's being done without really thinking about it.

There were MULTIPLE posts in the official Forums AND on the subreddit by people 2 - 3 years ago that wanted something akin to raids, and a lot of people said they KINDA WANT raids. The only stuff that came close to that was Falcon Lost back when I still played Division 1. It wasn't a MASSIVE call for raid-like content, but there was a call for it, even from people that weren't super hardcore players.

It's a design flaw at the scope of the entire game. I'm not saying that raids are flawed. I'm saying that switching to a large-group, organized content design when the rest of the game isn't that is flawed because it doesn't fit the themes or gameplay of the rest of the game. The game which the vast majority of the playerbase have bought into and gotten used to.

But then again, it is not a design flaw. Things change. People just expected it to be the same for EVERYTHING for no reason at all. Massive always had the option to make content for bigger groups. Just because they didn't do it in D1 doesn't mean that they'll stick to the 4-man formula. Also, they've said multiple times that Raids will be content for a group of 8. They've never made a secret out of it, people simply didn't read up on it or cared until they did care because MUUHHH LOOT - everyone had the chance to go to the subreddit, discord servers or even ingame to find people they enjoy playing with and doing content together.

I don't care one way or another about the direction they want to take the game. I've already said that if they want to focus on raids, then that's what they'll have to keep making in order to keep players that like raids.

What I'm saying is that trying to deliver raids to a playerbase, who is MOSTLY interested in small-group or solo gameplay with matchmaking, is a mistake.

They delivered a solo/small group game. That's one product. Now they're delivering a raiding game. That's an entirely different product! Is it any wonder that people who liked the original product would get angry or disappointed about that? They're targeting two entirely different demographics and groups of players. And if the history of The Division 1 is any indication, they're not good at satisfying BOTH.

For not caring you still seem to care. They've already announced that there are at least 4 more raids planned for the game with future content updates. Things can change obviously, but this is what Massive themselves said they plan to do.
They also never "delivered" a solo/small group game - thats how people chose to play the game which I cant fault them for. They delivered a LIVE SERVICE MMO-LITE. It's still the same product. Just because of raids needing 4 more people doesn't change what it is. They also never changed their demographics and groups of players - the players that play solo simply want it to stay that way, while that never was the point in the first place if the Dark Zones are any indication.

All this outrage over the raid needing more than 4 players AND having no matchmaking, because they want it to be a thing for clans/group oriented players FOR NOW is just stupid. Either give a fuck and put in some work and find people you enjoy playing with to tackle on harder content or just dont, its as simple as that. Even in WoW Classic people existed that didn't give a single fuck about raiding and enjoyed other things instead.

Edit: the only thing towards matchmaking I can give you is the following: They should have better, more convenient ingame options to find a group for the raid like an extra "raidhub" in the white house. This way people would have something "similar" to matchmaking but still have to invest some time to find a group which imo would be fine for everyone.

[SirCowdog]

For not caring you still seem to care.

My intent by saying that was that I'm ok with either way they go, not that I literally don't care about the product.

They also never "delivered" a solo/small group game - thats how people chose to play the game which I cant fault them for. They delivered a LIVE SERVICE MMO-LITE. It's still the same product. Just because of raids needing 4 more people doesn't change what it is. They also never changed their demographics and groups of players - the players that play solo simply want it to stay that way, while that never was the point in the first place if the Dark Zones are any indication.

All this outrage over the raid needing more than 4 players AND having no matchmaking, because they want it to be a thing for clans/group oriented players FOR NOW is just stupid. Either give a fuck and put in some work and find people you enjoy playing with to tackle on harder content or just dont, its as simple as that. Even in WoW Classic people existed that didn't give a single fuck about raiding and enjoyed other things instead.

Edit: the only thing towards matchmaking I can give you is the following: They should have better, more convenient ingame options to find a group for the raid like an extra "raidhub" in the white house. This way people would have something "similar" to matchmaking but still have to invest some time to find a group which imo would be fine for everyone.

I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense. But I hope you recognize that what I'm saying is also true.

If most of the players of The Division 2 don't really want a raid, or find accessing the raid too cumbersome or troublesome, then delivering more raid-content is going to cause the exact result you mentioned: Players will just not do it. And even if a percentage of players do want raid content, are there enough of them to keep the game afloat. Where does that leave the game? Spending all the development time creating content for a small portion of players.

I don't think that's sustainable on its own.

Now, maybe I'm wrong about what I said earlier. In the Division 1 we saw that Massive weren't able to provide enough of the right kinds of content to keep people interested. In large part I think it's why they cut their losses and moved on to a fresh start with The Division 2. Maybe this time around they have the capacity to keep providing both raid-level content for large organized groups, and continued releases of smaller solo or small-group content at the same time.

I don't think they can. But hopefully I'm proven wrong. Because if I'm right, then TD2 is doomed to the same slow death as TD1.

[Tekkommo]

There were MULTIPLE posts in the official Forums AND on the subreddit by people 2 - 3 years ago that wanted something akin to raids, and a lot of people said they KINDA WANT raids. The only stuff that came close to that was Falcon Lost back when I still played Division 1. It wasn't a MASSIVE call for raid-like content, but there was a call for it, even from people that weren't super hardcore players.

This ^^

If you paid any attention to the subreddit, which Ubisoft are pretty active on, you would know that raids were asked for, and many were looking for ward to them.

A game should offer solo, small group and large group content.

[KrayZ33]

All I can say is that most of the mechanics you see in the Raid (like the Buddy + Lucy fight, or the coulored gas) should've been used for the missions inside the campaign, instead of:

"random yellow NPC at the end"

Would've been the perfect transition for the invaded missions.

[Bugg]

I have no... desire to raid in TD2.
I don't know, why. I love Destiny 1 and 2 raids and I still run them.
TD2 just feels different somehow.
I play it casually 4-5 hours per week maybe and I think it's a good game, so this post is not a critic, just a personal opinion/feeling.

[cuafpr]

I believe it's just loot, as far as I know the raid doesn't do anything to further the overall plot but I could be wrong.

thanks, at least they did that. That would be death of the game for me like I did with Destiny 1/2 really. Lore/story should never be locked behind non-match making group content.

[kenn9530]

Yeah at the moment I'm actually fine with no matchmaking for raids. I was disappointed at first, but I'd leave with frustration anyway, it would be a nightmare. I've not had one proper conversation in TD2 matchmaking yet.

They also need this harder content, any online game does. I can't say from experience how hard it is, but it was cleared in 5 hours and I'm used to raiding high end in WoW, although I haven't done that since Legion. I don't think you can compare this sort of game to WoW though. I did the first raid in Destiny 2 with friends, that was fun, but pretty easy.

I can't be arsed finding 7 competent people to play with, so I will just wait till it's nerfed or an easier version is available.

the raids are difficult until you know the strategy then hopefully everyone in the group can learn also, if tactics are not used properly in these raids then you wont kill a boss so difficulty wise is mostly about coordination but also have reasonable builds to survive and kill things, killed first boss so far with a little practice on 2nd and so far you need a solid strategy or you wont kill it.

Think only normal is the current difficulty which is probably harder than current challenging, so there should be a challengning and heroic mode at some point.

I'm not saying that raids are inherently bad! What I'm saying is that TD2 was sold and shipped as a game based on drop-in-drop-out small group action. All the content was available to anyone at any time. The raid breaks that theme and doesn't do ANYTHING for the non-raid players who have been playing the game up until this point.

If they had wanted to make TD2 about challenging raid content, then that should have been what the entire game was designed around to begin with. Dropping it in now, after players are already complaining about not having anything to do, is only going to serve a small percentage of players. I'm not saying that 8 man raiding needs to be removed. But adding matchmaking, or giving a 4 man difficulty option that scales like other missions, would bridge the gap and allow everyone to access the content, and ensure that the dev time spent on the raid wouldn't go to waste by only serving part of the playerbase instead of all of it.

Currently matchmacking would be a bad idea since the raid is tuned for an 8 man team actually working as a functional team, TD1 raids were far simpler, first boss for example has a boss burn phase of about 5-8 secs so if too many players dont burn boss everytime it may not die intime, also there is consoles to keep defences deactivated which can require 1-3 ppl on different consoles at the same time.

Currently best item would be the exotic AR from the raid but we can only loot each boss once per week, dont think gear sets from raids are too great eitherm raid should be more accesable overtime and will end up being something easily doable in MM.

In any case its easy to find a group for the raids in either reddit or division 2 discord

[Coldkil]

No, it actually was "in line with Division 1".

Yeah, i got mislead by the "10x UPlay sold copies" thing, but that's easy when the game is not on Steam Anyway, i like the game, hopefully this doesn't translate into a "it didn't sell enough, better cut all support over time".

[Edge-]

So apparently I'm getting the Gold edition with my new GPU (got a RX290 to replace my broken 970, caved and went with the side-grade rather than wait for a good 1660ti sale). Anything super important I should know for when I get my rig back in working order and start the game up?

[Coldkil]

So apparently I'm getting the Gold edition with my new GPU (got a RX290 to replace my broken 970, caved and went with the side-grade rather than wait for a good 1660ti sale). Anything super important I should know for when I get my rig back in working order and start the game up?

AR are kinda the jack of all trades weapon; skills are useful but complementary for most part - use the revive hive if playing solo and everything is much easier (until you're comfy without it, i don't even use it anymore). Any other weapon is fine to play with though, much better playing well with a non "meta" weapon than to suck with one.

Level up through quests, don't need to save collectibles for the endgame like in the first. Gearing is kinda easy at level cap but tier 5 takes significantly longer. You can just make geared people lend you a hand and jump straight to T5 since world tier increase is tied to missions.

Save any trinket you find around as it may be needed for projects at endgame (DAMN PENCILS); also items with specific ttalents are needed so always check the projects (via map) and donate useless stuff before dismantling.

Enjoy the ride

[Edge-]

Nice. Lucky for me I like AR's and stockpiling all the random stuff I pick up so it sounds like I'll be mostly set through normal play.

Have they given any indication of an Underground-esque feature being added down the line? Loved that shit from the first game, would be rad to see an expanded version of it added to the sequel.

[Coldkil]

Nice. Lucky for me I like AR's and stockpiling all the random stuff I pick up so it sounds like I'll be mostly set through normal play.

Have they given any indication of an Underground-esque feature being added down the line? Loved that shit from the first game, would be rad to see an expanded version of it added to the sequel.

Not yet. They just added the raid and it's fun as hell though compared to the rest of the group content it's an hella lot more difficult. Maybe even too tight on certain stuff but all in all a good thing - if the format doesn't appeal players they can always scale it down to 4 people.

[Puri]

Confused about this game's end game and how it actually works. I've been playing this a bit, for a good 45h by doing the storyline by mostly solo and I still got the itch for this game's loot&shoot-gameplay.

However, when you have finished the storyline at level 30 and are supposedly at World Tier 1 I believe, are you really just expected to grind the same missions (with the "twist") multiple times, clearing the whole map several times to reach the true end game at WT5 or 500 ilvl?

I hope it's not like this as certainly anyone would burn out of the game with that much grinding required. I also feel a bit similar in this game (as while playing D3 or PoE) that there will be a point, somewhat early in the end game where my character feels like it has reached it's goals gear-wise even though there's still plenty of upgrades available if I were up to grinding for it..

Yes, that's the point of a looter shooter. But grinding from WT1 to WT5 is actually fun, compared to the real endgame where you loot thousands of items before you can even consider one item an upgrade. So yes, in that regard it is fully comparable to D3.

[Coldkil]

Confused about this game's end game and how it actually works. I've been playing this a bit, for a good 45h by doing the storyline by mostly solo and I still got the itch for this game's loot&shoot-gameplay.

However, when you have finished the storyline at level 30 and are supposedly at World Tier 1 I believe, are you really just expected to grind the same missions (with the "twist") multiple times, clearing the whole map several times to reach the true end game at WT5 or 500 ilvl?

I hope it's not like this as certainly anyone would burn out of the game with that much grinding required. I also feel a bit similar in this game (as while playing D3 or PoE) that there will be a point, somewhat early in the end game where my character feels like it has reached it's goals gear-wise even though there's still plenty of upgrades available if I were up to grinding for it..

Reaching WT5 is just a matter of doing the Invaded Black tusk missions needed - you can make it in a very short time if helped. BTW, the story is different as it proceeds over the 1-30 bracket.

Once you are at WT5, then yes, it's farming the "dungeons". You have the daily/weekly projects, and weekly invasion. You can search the exotic weapons, do some of the "hidden" stuff, but in the end its a looter shooter so nothing strange about the formula.

I'm sure that they will add more game modes over time like they di with the first.

EDIT: imho the game doesn't really help much in explaining what stuff you need to do to improve your character. The grind is worse because you may not realize some piece is an upgrade or not. However minmaxing pays off quite a lot - an optimized character does an awful lot more damage.

[GoKs]

Reaching WT5 is just a matter of doing the Invaded Black tusk missions needed - you can make it in a very short time if helped. BTW, the story is different as it proceeds over the 1-30 bracket.

Once you are at WT5, then yes, it's farming the "dungeons". You have the daily/weekly projects, and weekly invasion. You can search the exotic weapons, do some of the "hidden" stuff, but in the end its a looter shooter so nothing strange about the formula.

I'm sure that they will add more game modes over time like they di with the first.

EDIT: imho the game doesn't really help much in explaining what stuff you need to do to improve your character. The grind is worse because you may not realize some piece is an upgrade or not. However minmaxing pays off quite a lot - an optimized character does an awful lot more damage.

The thing is I dont think they want to show what is an upgrade or what is not, they want you to build your own build. There is just so many choices it is not funny. It is not that every piece of gear with a higher gear score is better than one with a lower gear score. That what makes this game so bloomin nice ( a lot more stash space would be nice) the fact that you can slam brands together, sets together the possibility is endless. The brand bonuses offer a nice boost, even bigger then a gearscore boost, so it is entirely possible for a 470 item to be better for your build then a 500 item, until you eventually get that 500 item with the same combination as your 470 item.

That is where I dont agree with ubi making the raid gear requirement 490+, since a person with a good 480 build can out dmg a person with a shitty 500 build. The game is far from perfect but it is far better then the rest aswell, and the sheer diversity of builds that can be put together is just amazing, and imho they did a fantastic job with that, but on the down side it just takes that much longer for you to get that sweet 500 item/s with the stuff you want, but hey, cant have it all in 1 hour and then cry about having nothing to do.

[chazus]

no raids need to stay at 8 man, the raids will be put on matchmaking eventually, TD1 didnt have direct easy access to raids either that comes with time and people knowing how the raids operate.

Need to get experience first to do a raid. Can't get a group to get experience. Sounds like a win.