[Megathread] The Division 2

[SirCowdog]

Sidenote, did second raid boss last weekend, took 4 hours but HELL IF IT WAS SATISFYING TO DOWN IT. The encounter is really well done and we need a lot more of that in game (don't think in solo you can achieve something like that, but in 3 or 4 for sure you can have those things).

Incursion format.

I don't necessarily agree that challenging encounters based on proper execution can't be done with a solo player in mind, but basing an encounter on a group does allow for more complexity.

The problem I see is that the raid was designed by a different team than the regular Division 2 devs. And I think that REALLY shows. I'm not sure the regular devs are capable of delivering more challenging and complex content in a normal 4-person group setting. They can barely keep the game running.

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Just listening tp a recap of the SOTG. I guess the DZ is going to be scaled to heroic instead of the challenging it's at right now.

I have to LOL at it. Because it wasn't already bad enough with gank squads of players, now the NPCs are going to shred you too.

[Nutri]

I might have liked that, if the current DZ's where one big space like the Div1 DZ with landmarks and spread out extraction points.
It wasn't until like 5 weeks ago that I unlocked the other two lol.

That said, I would probably have a good time installing Division 1 just to run around the DZ solo clearing landmarks. Sneaking around pulling fake extractions to get loot out. Good times.

[Coldkil]

Just listening tp a recap of the SOTG. I guess the DZ is going to be scaled to heroic instead of the challenging it's at right now.

I have to LOL at it. Because it wasn't already bad enough with gank squads of players, now the NPCs are going to shred you too.

Lol, really? Another reason to avoid it completely.

[SirCowdog]

Lol, really? Another reason to avoid it completely.

I think the idea is to bring it in line with the way loot is going to finally be fixed to more accurately reward higher difficulties.

But honestly? The entire DZ concept is a trainwreck. It MIGHT have worked if the entire game had been built around it. But as it stands, PVP in the Division is so badly out of balance, and has almost no hope of ever being good. Throwing heroic-set NPCs into the mix is just going to make it worse.

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Finally got my hands on a 4th piece of Foundry Bulwark.

Turns even a crusader shield into a decent tank, even with only skill tier 3. Having said that, it doesn't do anything for DPS, which means that in a world where killing things faster actually beats out survivability, it's still mostly pointless. I could see a case being made for an all red pistol build with the Bulwark Shield(maybe use the Regulus pistol with Vile and headshots?). You'd effectively be immortal in anything short of legendary....but still slow. Good for beginners to break into heroic, probably. I really don't see the value in locking the chest and back to the raid. Neither talents are game-changing, or even significant.

But I think other builds are going to just outpace it in most content. Ongoing Directive/Vile/Pestilence is going to be a strong competitor. Eclipse Protocol is extremely good, as we all know. And my old Negotiator SMG build still works just as good as it always does. Survivability builds are just outclassed by damage builds once you get good enough at the game to safely apply that damage.

[Coldkil]

I think the idea is to bring it in line with the way loot is going to finally be fixed to more accurately reward higher difficulties.

But honestly? The entire DZ concept is a trainwreck. It MIGHT have worked if the entire game had been built around it. But as it stands, PVP in the Division is so badly out of balance, and has almost no hope of ever being good. Throwing heroic-set NPCs into the mix is just going to make it worse.

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Finally got my hands on a 4th piece of Foundry Bulwark.

Turns even a crusader shield into a decent tank, even with only skill tier 3. Having said that, it doesn't do anything for DPS, which means that in a world where killing things faster actually beats out survivability, it's still mostly pointless. I could see a case being made for an all red pistol build with the Bulwark Shield(maybe use the Regulus pistol with Vile and headshots?). You'd effectively be immortal in anything short of legendary....but still slow. Good for beginners to break into heroic, probably. I really don't see the value in locking the chest and back to the raid. Neither talents are game-changing, or even significant.

But I think other builds are going to just outpace it in most content. Ongoing Directive/Vile/Pestilence is going to be a strong competitor. Eclipse Protocol is extremely good, as we all know. And my old Negotiator SMG build still works just as good as it always does. Survivability builds are just outclassed by damage builds once you get good enough at the game to safely apply that damage.

Yeah, i was dabbling with shotguns as they're pretty good right now, turns out i can just run Striker (as a shotgun blow will load a stack per pellet) and safely ignore the backback as it's negligible for damage and just go with Matador (Perfect Adrenaline) for an "in the face" build. Should work pretty well and be decent enough. Probably sticking with gunner for the armor on kill, and rolling 2 or 3 armor regen for good measure. The rest, full crit/wd and likely Coyote mask or a badger, depending on what nets me more dps.

Could actually do the same with Directive (the backpack is good but not terribly useful) but i'd just use a Anarchist Cookbook for that sweet 18%wd when applying a status.

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Ok, just read the SOTG recap. Notable things:

- FB is going to be changed from 3% armor regen to 1% armorm and 50% shield hp. Makes sense as the 3% regen was incredibly strong even for offensive builds (which makes me wonder if i can fit it in the shotgun build). Also named item Forge gets 50% shield hp. They're good changes, but as @SirCowdog said, i've to find a place for this set (yet to try my Deflector build).
- loot drop quality will be increased again. Changes with TU10 improved a lot the lower part of the ladder but actually made the minmaxing worse. They're making it better in addition to another increase to minimum quality. rainbow rolls going to be addressed with TU11.

The rest is the usual list of fixes and tweaks. Tonight gonna run the raid, we'll probably bash our head against third boss all night

[SirCowdog]

- FB is going to be changed from 3% armor regen to 1% armorm and 50% shield hp. Makes sense as the 3% regen was incredibly strong even for offensive builds (which makes me wonder if i can fit it in the shotgun build). Also named item Forge gets 50% shield hp. They're good changes, but as @SirCowdog said, i've to find a place for this set (yet to try my Deflector build).

The 50% shield health will just make using crusader that much more viable on all red builds. Total shield health is the biggest weakness of the Crusader, since it melts too quickly on challenging or above. The armor regen was mostly pointless anyway, since you're getting everything you need out of the way the set works anyway.

And for the bulwark? Holy hell, as if the bulwark shield wasn't already indestructible!

I don't know. This just seems like another pointless set when all the chips are on the table.

[Witchblade77]

something SO and I have discussed but one of the biggest problems with D2 darkzone is that its claustrophobically small and splintered. in first game, it was this large area that allowed for a great deal of flexibility. you could LOSE the gankers, you could outrun them, etc without leaving dark zone. AND... I absolutely positively HATE it that they removed most of the original ways to level your dark zone rank.

ah well.

[SirCowdog]

Ok... I actually listened to the SOTG, and I can't tell if the Heroic aspect of tje DZ was talking about difficulty, or just about loot. The wording and delivery was very confusing.

something SO and I have discussed but one of the biggest problems with D2 darkzone is that its claustrophobically small and splintered. in first game, it was this large area that allowed for a great deal of flexibility. you could LOSE the gankers, you could outrun them, etc without leaving dark zone. AND... I absolutely positively HATE it that they removed most of the original ways to level your dark zone rank.

ah well.

Yeah...I don't understand why they took out the introduction quests for each DZ either. Makes no sense.

I think the original intent of having smaller areas for the DZ is that it would compact players and give more opportunities for pvp to happen. Once again, however, that's based on the deeply flawed concept of pitting PVE farmers against PVP gankers.

It was always doomed to fail, no matter the size of the map.

[Edge-]

I really wish they'd overhaul the zones to allow for a PvP toggle. Not dissimilar to the concept in WoW, but you flip it on and you can not be PK'd, but are getting better rewards/experience to offset the added risk. You toggle it on/off at the entrances and can't change midway through or anything.

That way the zones become a bit more viable for carebears with no interest in ganking, the most serious players can still have the full "experience" with PvP, and there still remains an element of competition between players who aren't flagged when it comes to being the first to kill enemies etc.

I haven't even bothered with it in the sequel after having more than my fair share of frustrations in the first one. PvPvE (and sorta PvP in general) just ain't my jam anymore.

[KrayZ33]

Ok... I actually listened to the SOTG, and I can't tell if the Heroic aspect of tje DZ was talking about difficulty, or just about loot. The wording and delivery was very confusing.

I didn't listen to it but I'm cracking a joke anyway:

They probably don't know either, as you know, they don't play their own game and have to use hearsay and adjust their game accordingly.
They are waiting for our reaction so they can be sure.

[Witchblade77]

Ok... I actually listened to the SOTG, and I can't tell if the Heroic aspect of tje DZ was talking about difficulty, or just about loot. The wording and delivery was very confusing.





Yeah...I don't understand why they took out the introduction quests for each DZ either. Makes no sense.

I think the original intent of having smaller areas for the DZ is that it would compact players and give more opportunities for pvp to happen. Once again, however, that's based on the deeply flawed concept of pitting PVE farmers against PVP gankers.

It was always doomed to fail, no matter the size of the map.

wait, they took those out as well?? WHY? (I only have my main and she was leveled before they made those dark zone xp changes)

and thing is... an element of danger while farming could be a bit of adrenaline boost, but in first game, you actualy had a chance of getting away, circling around, maybe finding a better position before fighting back should you chose to. not so much in this one. there is just... not enough room. between that and combat balance - its just honestly a wash IMO. I actualy spent a fair amount of time in DZ once my SO escorted me around so I got a bit more of a feel for it. D2? NEITHER of us likes it :/ and he is far more into pvp then I am.

[SirCowdog]

wait, they took those out as well?? WHY? (I only have my main and she was leveled before they made those dark zone xp changes)

and thing is... an element of danger while farming could be a bit of adrenaline boost, but in first game, you actualy had a chance of getting away, circling around, maybe finding a better position before fighting back should you chose to. not so much in this one. there is just... not enough room. between that and combat balance - its just honestly a wash IMO. I actualy spent a fair amount of time in DZ once my SO escorted me around so I got a bit more of a feel for it. D2? NEITHER of us likes it :/ and he is far more into pvp then I am.

Yeah, now all you do is run to the entrance and click a box on the wall.

[Nutri]

When WONY was announced I really hope it'd be 1:1 to Div 1, including it's DZ but sadly that wasn't the case.
'New' New York does look awesome tho. It's a lot prettier to run around in than DC imho.

[Coldkil]

The 50% shield health will just make using crusader that much more viable on all red builds. Total shield health is the biggest weakness of the Crusader, since it melts too quickly on challenging or above. The armor regen was mostly pointless anyway, since you're getting everything you need out of the way the set works anyway.

And for the bulwark? Holy hell, as if the bulwark shield wasn't already indestructible!

I don't know. This just seems like another pointless set when all the chips are on the table.

Right now, my idea is to use 2 FB and the rest other gear for crusader/deflector builds. As it stands, that's the most useful thing and i can go full offensive

[SirCowdog]

Right now, my idea is to use 2 FB and the rest other gear for crusader/deflector builds. As it stands, that's the most useful thing and i can go full offensive

10% extra armor doesn't seem very useful, especially when giving up the secondard attributes you'd get from using normal yellow gear in those slots. If you're going to rely on crusader shield, I'd say either just use the Forge holster, or go 4pc FB for the 50% shield health(10.1) and set bonus.

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When WONY was announced I really hope it'd be 1:1 to Div 1, including it's DZ but sadly that wasn't the case.
'New' New York does look awesome tho. It's a lot prettier to run around in than DC imho.

Sadly, there's very little reason to go there now that the WONY-specific exotics are in the general loot pool.

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On an unrelated note....after attempting to start a new character from scratch, I'm forced to admit that the task has overwhelmed me. Or rather, the strange way in which some parts of progression are character specific, while others are account wide. Because the recalibration library is account wide, I have no good way of organizing or separating what the new character has in terms of progressing its own library of unlocked gear attributes. And this more or less took the wind out of my sails for the experiment I was going for.

And it's largely irrelevant anyway, since 10.1 and 11.0 will be addressing the issue of loot that I was trying to test.

I will say that within only a handful of hours after hitting level 40 and killing Keener to unlock the watch, my new character was able to run challenging missions with decent speed. Even without putting a single point into the watch, and only using drops from hard difficulty farming, and not using the recalibration library at all(those were the rules I set for myself).

It think it's fair to conclude that the complaints about a lack of gear only really applies to optimizing equipment to its fullest, and progression is only really being limited by player skill at the game. Had I made use of the watch and the recalibration table, it would NOT have taken me very long to progress into heroic. I think a fair estimation is that within 10 hours of intelligent play, even a completely new account can move into challenging/heroic as long as you follow advice of experienced players, or already know what you're doing.

The upcoming changes to the bell curve of loot quality will help quite a bit with this. When rainbow loot is addressed somewhat in TU11, it will just get better. I really do think the complaints about drops are largely one of confirmation bias, stem from people expecting that they deserve to have full god-rolled stats on everything, and are not taking actual practical effectiveness of the drops they do get. The difference between 13% and 15%, even if it's on every piece of gear, is not making the impact that the QQ posts would have us believe.

[Nutri]

So this was posted in regards of loot changes.

https://twitter.com/thedivisiongame/...413026304?s=21

[SirCowdog]

So this was posted in regards of loot changes.

https://twitter.com/thedivisiongame/...413026304?s=21

Yeah, I'm not really sure how well that's actually going to address the issue. Simply changing the drop chances and percentages only effects the symptom and not the source of the problem: Gear Progression.

The thing is that Massive clearly wants us to only rely on the shit system of drops. But what the game really needs is a steady system of time-intensive upgrading to mitigate poor RNG. The optimization table from D1 is a good example of this.

But I doubt the current devs even know what they're doing. They're just reacting, and not at all thinking ahead. Short term solutions over and over.

[KrayZ33]

What does it matter when I'm looking for 3 specific stats and I can roll 20 different ones on top of roughly 50 increments in terms of stat value for every single stat.

What this game needs is a crafting table that allows you to use ressources for specific stats.

For example: "I need a "crit-damage ressource" to craft items that will always roll crit-damage."
Just like brand-set crafting, but even more specific.

What are the devs looking for when they make gear RNG in the first place.
This isn't some MMO game which requires you to play or pay every month.

When I have an idea that requires specific items, I want to craft these items and not waste 30 hours of my life not getting it.
Who gained anything from that?
Not a single minute of gametime will incentivise me to pay real money for garbage like that because I won't enjoy the farming if I'm so unlikely to get the item I want and I can't even work towards it.
All this, just for some nice looking, artificially crafted numbers for shareholders?

[Nutri]

I mean, they have part of the solution right there out of their own stables that provided a solution in Division 1; optimization station. @KrayZ33 's idea doesn't sound bad either. Maybe a combination of both to 'kEeP iT aN mMo-RpG gAmE' (in Massives point of view).

A system like either one still requires me to play to game 'caus I need to farm materials to get something done, but at least that's meaningful progression. I can set a goal for myself and work towards it (Hey! That almost sounds like MMO-RPG elements!).

Much more satisfying than looting 100's of items rolling one massive c0ck of a dice hoping the stars all align to give you that one piece of the puzzle you're looking for.

On a sidenote, I do get their 'you don't need a full loadout with max rolled stats to have decent build', yes I get that, but if I decide to change 'role' in Division 2 from lets say AR to Sniper, or even AR to SMG, it's gonna take a notable amount of time to re-farm all the brandsets with the right stats and right % rolls on them.

[SirCowdog]

@Coldkil Thought you might enjoy this build. Seems like it would be a LOT of fun to play.

https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision...lay_and_build/