Yeah, I still play from time to time. But the HVTs came a bit later, well after the game was written off and such
Yeah, it's been a long road, that's for sure. But even before HVTs, 15 pee-creds per day in addition to what you'd get from the missions themselves (usually 2-3), while slow, would still get you semi-decent gear good enough for Challenge difficulty.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
All of my gear is now completely fucked, which sucks ass. But it seems they made replacing it much easier, so that's nice. I had 2 set pieces drop from random reds on the street. The electronics and skill power changes are really good, since they make the stat actually useful, but really bad because I don't have any and now everything is super hard. Getting back up to speed will take a lot of time and effort I'm not sure I feel like spending, especially since I don't have the DLC. But I feel like the changes will be good for people who plan to continue playing the game.
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
The game never had a real end game, we had people figure out bullet king exploit a day or so into the game so people were running around with the best that phoenix credits could buy which broke the shit out of the DZ much faster than it should have broke (which it still was going to break) then we had people exploiting the first incursion, then exploiting the embassy... not even going to mention the hacks and cheats that popped on PC.
The DZ was quite friendly at first because it was a huge penalty to go rogue, once that changed you started seeing more people going rogue.. which was fine... until those going rogue were all the people kitted out in the best gear. You saw the writing on the wall as soon as bullet king was happening... if you weren't exploiting with everyone else you were going to be fodder in the DZ. Then gear score brackets showed up and that helped.. a bit, until people figured out how to game that system and drop themselves into lower gear score tiers. After that we had another incursion then eventually Underground came out end of June (PC) and we jumped into that and had a great time until we got bored of bullet sponges then took a break from the game.
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
Huh...never did those dailies. I always just ran the daily hard modes (and challenge modes when PA folks were around). As I said above, the DZ may as well not have existed for me the way I was playing.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
The game never had a real end game, we had people figure out bullet king exploit a day or so into the game so people were running around with the best that phoenix credits could buy which broke the shit out of the DZ much faster than it should have broke (which it still was going to break) then we had people exploiting the first incursion, then exploiting the embassy... not even going to mention the hacks and cheats that popped on PC.
The DZ was quite friendly at first because it was a huge penalty to go rogue, once that changed you started seeing more people going rogue.. which was fine... until those going rogue were all the people kitted out in the best gear. You saw the writing on the wall as soon as bullet king was happening... if you weren't exploiting with everyone else you were going to be fodder in the DZ. Then gear score brackets showed up and that helped.. a bit, until people figured out how to game that system and drop themselves into lower gear score tiers. After that we had another incursion then eventually Underground came out end of June (PC) and we jumped into that and had a great time until we got bored of bullet sponges then took a break from the game.
Yeah, the lack of punishment for exploiting was a really bad move. I don't think bans should have been handed down, but items gained from exploiting should simply have been removed from players.
There was always going to be a large overlap with the type of player that uses in game exploits/cheats and those which are the type to troll the DZ as much as possible.
Having said that, I definitely had some really enjoyable times in the DZ going solo at various points, the tension from knowing that there's rogues running around trying to jack you was pretty intense! The issue being that you had to play so godamn cautious that in terms of just grinding to better gear it was so slow!
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
The game never had a real end game, we had people figure out bullet king exploit a day or so into the game so people were running around with the best that phoenix credits could buy which broke the shit out of the DZ much faster than it should have broke (which it still was going to break) then we had people exploiting the first incursion, then exploiting the embassy... not even going to mention the hacks and cheats that popped on PC.
The DZ was quite friendly at first because it was a huge penalty to go rogue, once that changed you started seeing more people going rogue.. which was fine... until those going rogue were all the people kitted out in the best gear. You saw the writing on the wall as soon as bullet king was happening... if you weren't exploiting with everyone else you were going to be fodder in the DZ. Then gear score brackets showed up and that helped.. a bit, until people figured out how to game that system and drop themselves into lower gear score tiers. After that we had another incursion then eventually Underground came out end of June (PC) and we jumped into that and had a great time until we got bored of bullet sponges then took a break from the game.
Yeah, the lack of punishment for exploiting was a really bad move. I don't think bans should have been handed down, but items gained from exploiting should simply have been removed from players.
There was always going to be a large overlap with the type of player that uses in game exploits/cheats and those which are the type to troll the DZ as much as possible.
Having said that, I definitely had some really enjoyable times in the DZ going solo at various points, the tension from knowing that there's rogues running around trying to jack you was pretty intense! The issue being that you had to play so godamn cautious that in terms of just grinding to better gear it was so slow!
I've got to disagree here. I think you've got to be serious when it comes to people who cheat when you've got a multiplayer game. If you don't, then it just encourages others to try it, and it ultimately kills off the game for anyone who wanted to play it seriously (i.e. didn't want to cheat / use exploits).
The makers don't need these kinds of players; they are only a detriment to the community the game is hoping to build.
I know it might be tricky to compare, but Overwatch banned a significant chunk of people before the game was released and it didn't suffer for it.
I would argue that the exploiting and cheating played a significant part in the number of people who left this game (not that there weren't other factors).
While we might disagree on the severity of the punishment for exploiters (as oppose to hackers/cheaters), we can certainly agree that the fact that absolutely nothing was done definitely helped kill off the player population.
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
Huh...never did those dailies. I always just ran the daily hard modes (and challenge modes when PA folks were around). As I said above, the DZ may as well not have existed for me the way I was playing.
Dailies required the Dark Zone, and their big cross-media activity (ISAC missions) also required the DZ action. I mean, while it may not have existed for you, going to the DZ was a required thing via their content.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
Huh...never did those dailies. I always just ran the daily hard modes (and challenge modes when PA folks were around). As I said above, the DZ may as well not have existed for me the way I was playing.
Dailies required the Dark Zone, and their big cross-media activity (ISAC missions) also required the DZ action. I mean, while it may not have existed for you, going to the DZ was a required thing via their content.
I skipped those dailies myself, I think I did a DZ zone daily once.
Really enjoying 1.4, ran around with a friend last night and got her geared to 199 GS, which allowed him to join me in World Rank 4. Oh the gear just flows like water, everything cept purples are 229 and you are shooting standard red guys and they have a chance to drop set pieces, a pretty good chance at that considering in a hour with a friend I had 3 drop from reds.. the rest of the pieces dropped from HVTs, elites etc. We did the last daily HVT and it was a nice challenge for both of us. Not impossible or a slog but you couldnt just stand there and shoot faces.. we kept moving, flanking and throwing flashbangs etc. Loving it.
Also just running around the LZ I got pot shotted by a sniper that was on a rooftop.. hadn't seen that before
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
Huh...never did those dailies. I always just ran the daily hard modes (and challenge modes when PA folks were around). As I said above, the DZ may as well not have existed for me the way I was playing.
Dailies required the Dark Zone, and their big cross-media activity (ISAC missions) also required the DZ action. I mean, while it may not have existed for you, going to the DZ was a required thing via their content.
Like most things DZ relate, the value of it waxed and waned with updates. There was a real lack of reward early on because there was a lack of reward for most things that weren't farming phoenix credits to buy things. When they started putting in higher gear score weapons and equipment on the DZ vendors than you could buy outside the DZ was when that really changed.
I was really stoked for this game but quit playing after the first month. So just coming back to it now, I am pretty impressed with the changes.
The AI, the encounters, and the gear all feel much much better now. Suffice it to say, I actually had fun last night for about 2 hours and I am sold on giving this game another shot.
I just wonder if they'll reset the ISAC season, I missed more than a few weeks when I was trying to get them because I just didn't feel like going to kill LMB further north in the DZ than I wanted to be.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
Huh...never did those dailies. I always just ran the daily hard modes (and challenge modes when PA folks were around). As I said above, the DZ may as well not have existed for me the way I was playing.
Dailies required the Dark Zone, and their big cross-media activity (ISAC missions) also required the DZ action. I mean, while it may not have existed for you, going to the DZ was a required thing via their content.
Here's the issue that we seem to be talking across each other: you're talking about the 3-objective dailies, I'm talking about the 3 daily missions (y'know, those dungeon-y things). You could run those ad infinitum without setting foot once in the DZ. So yeah, DZ wasn't a required thing for that.
And of course the DZ was a required thing via their content...it's in their content...it's a part of their content. To play all of their content, then, you need to go in the DZ. But, if you didn't want to participate in all of their content, you didn't need to since there were things to do other than the DZ to progress. And that ISAC mission? Yeah, that could be completely ignored and wouldn't cost the player anything, or you could step foot into the DZ and immediately step out to complete that mission objective (which is exactly what I've done on all of my alts or characters on other platforms).
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
Huh...never did those dailies. I always just ran the daily hard modes (and challenge modes when PA folks were around). As I said above, the DZ may as well not have existed for me the way I was playing.
Dailies required the Dark Zone, and their big cross-media activity (ISAC missions) also required the DZ action. I mean, while it may not have existed for you, going to the DZ was a required thing via their content.
Here's the issue that we seem to be talking across each other: you're talking about the 3-objective dailies, I'm talking about the 3 daily missions (y'know, those dungeon-y things). You could run those ad infinitum without setting foot once in the DZ. So yeah, DZ wasn't a required thing for that.
And of course the DZ was a required thing via their content...it's in their content...it's a part of their content. To play all of their content, then, you need to go in the DZ. But, if you didn't want to participate in all of their content, you didn't need to since there were things to do other than the DZ to progress. And that ISAC mission? Yeah, that could be completely ignored and wouldn't cost the player anything, or you could step foot into the DZ and immediately step out to complete that mission objective (which is exactly what I've done on all of my alts or characters on other platforms).
End game content in The Division, could be defined as the following activities (excluding the Dark Zone itself):
- Challenge Mode
- Incursions
- Weekly Quests
- Weekly ISAC Quests (edit: Some ISACs didn't require DZ activity now that I think about it, most did. One week required you do to challenge mode underground content)
- Weekly High Value Targets
- Weekly Underground Missions
In order to engage in 2 of 6 of these things, you have to directly engage the DZ. In order to effectively be able to do any of the other things in a reasonable amount of time—as the expected behaviour of a player at max level is to engage in all 6 activities—one had to participate in the DZ at some point.
While you were able to engage some "end game" content after grinding for an indeterminate amount of time to get geared to do it, the expectation the average player would do so is where we are at odds. The mass exodus from the game and subsequent reworks attests to the whole idea that the end-game being built an expectation of visits to the DZ being the backbone of the end-game experience. You seem to be speaking to your experience, and I am speaking to the experience of the average player.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
Huh...never did those dailies. I always just ran the daily hard modes (and challenge modes when PA folks were around). As I said above, the DZ may as well not have existed for me the way I was playing.
Dailies required the Dark Zone, and their big cross-media activity (ISAC missions) also required the DZ action. I mean, while it may not have existed for you, going to the DZ was a required thing via their content.
Here's the issue that we seem to be talking across each other: you're talking about the 3-objective dailies, I'm talking about the 3 daily missions (y'know, those dungeon-y things). You could run those ad infinitum without setting foot once in the DZ. So yeah, DZ wasn't a required thing for that.
And of course the DZ was a required thing via their content...it's in their content...it's a part of their content. To play all of their content, then, you need to go in the DZ. But, if you didn't want to participate in all of their content, you didn't need to since there were things to do other than the DZ to progress. And that ISAC mission? Yeah, that could be completely ignored and wouldn't cost the player anything, or you could step foot into the DZ and immediately step out to complete that mission objective (which is exactly what I've done on all of my alts or characters on other platforms).
End game content in The Division, could be defined as the following activities (excluding the Dark Zone itself):
- Challenge Mode
- Incursions
- Weekly Quests
- Weekly ISAC Quests (edit: Some ISACs didn't require DZ activity now that I think about it, most did. One week required you do to challenge mode underground content)
- Weekly High Value Targets
- Weekly Underground Missions
In order to engage in 2 of 6 of these things, you have to directly engage the DZ. In order to effectively be able to do any of the other things in a reasonable amount of time—as the expected behaviour of a player at max level is to engage in all 6 activities—one had to participate in the DZ at some point.
While you were able to engage some "end game" content after grinding for an indeterminate amount of time to get geared to do it, the expectation the average player would do so is where we are at odds. The mass exodus from the game and subsequent reworks attests to the whole idea that the end-game being built an expectation of visits to the DZ being the backbone of the end-game experience. You seem to be speaking to your experience, and I am speaking to the experience of the average player.
"average player" is a bit nebulous
While the DZ being a pain in the ass due to exploiters, gear disparity and bored pricks at the top of the food chain, you still didn't have to go into it to progress, the best gear was only locked behind DZ rank and credits for a short period of time and by then most of it didnt matter due to exploiters with max credits. . I'd say the player base fell due to the PVE endgame being balls. Bullet sponges, limited build viability, loot being shit and being at the mercy of the RNG and shitty Incusions.
Here's the issue that we seem to be talking across each other: you're talking about the 3-objective dailies, I'm talking about the 3 daily missions (y'know, those dungeon-y things). You could run those ad infinitum without setting foot once in the DZ. So yeah, DZ wasn't a required thing for that.
And of course the DZ was a required thing via their content...it's in their content...it's a part of their content. To play all of their content, then, you need to go in the DZ. But, if you didn't want to participate in all of their content, you didn't need to since there were things to do other than the DZ to progress. And that ISAC mission? Yeah, that could be completely ignored and wouldn't cost the player anything, or you could step foot into the DZ and immediately step out to complete that mission objective (which is exactly what I've done on all of my alts or characters on other platforms).
End game content in The Division, could be defined as the following activities (excluding the Dark Zone itself):
- Challenge Mode
- Incursions
- Weekly Quests
- Weekly ISAC Quests (edit: Some ISACs didn't require DZ activity now that I think about it, most did. One week required you do to challenge mode underground content)
- Weekly High Value Targets
- Weekly Underground Missions
In order to engage in 2 of 6 of these things, you have to directly engage the DZ. In order to effectively be able to do any of the other things in a reasonable amount of time—as the expected behaviour of a player at max level is to engage in all 6 activities—one had to participate in the DZ at some point.
I thought we were still talking about the olden days pre-HVT and pre-Incursion: the days where it was either grind hard/challenge missions, 3-objective dailies/5-objective weeklies, or grind the DZ. I actually have no idea what the "Weekly ISAC Quests" are since I likely stopped playing before they were introduced and/or they haven't been made explicitly indicated to be a thing since I've logged been logging back in. So, of those 6 things (in order)
- Can be completed without DZ gear (DZ not required to complete due to crafted, vendor-bought HE gear)
- Can be completed without DZ gear if played in their order of increasing difficulty (to get the gear needed to proceed to the next incursion)
- Requires entry to DZ
- Apparently is a thing (albeit one that doesn't explicitly show its a thing) that requires entry to the DZ
- DZ gear not required to be an effective team member (there's a reason I'm still using the ancient purple M1A from the vendor in The Crypt that I bought months ago: headshots for days!)
- I actually haven't tried the Underground yet...been meaning to, though (and now that 1.4 is out, maybe I will).
While you were able to engage some "end game" content after grinding for an indeterminate amount of time to get geared to do it, the expectation the average player would do so is where we are at odds. The mass exodus from the game and subsequent reworks attests to the whole idea that the end-game being built an expectation of visits to the DZ being the backbone of the end-game experience. You seem to be speaking to your experience, and I am speaking to the experience of the average player.
This requires a bit more nuance than "This is just specific to you." How about "You seem to be speaking to the experience of the player who hates PVP, and I am speaking to the experience of the average player."
And I'd actually attribute the exodus of players to two things: lack of content right from the get-go (people were hitting max level and running out of stuff to do in the first week...if not the first few days), and people exploiting the crap out of the game to become walking gods in the DZ (or just straight up hacking) without punishment from the devs.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
When was the last time we had a game with an open PVP area that allowed higher geared players to smash lower ones?
World of Warcraft? -- But, you could choose to NOT play on an open PVP server and not be locked out of progression.
Diablo II? -- But, you could lock down your Bnet games so they weren't open to random PK players.
The thing about the division is there is no option for your progression past a certain point other than exposing yourself to a toxic environment.
I would have hoped we had moved forward a bit in those aspects of multiplayer games since the early 2000s.
GTA Online
That has private lobbies though doesn't it?
Yup...it's an option, just like how going into the DZ is an option. Although, private lobbies are an opt-in option (if you just go to "Play Online" from the main menu, it'll dump you in a populated public lobby.
For a long time the DZ wasn't an option it was the end game.
Ehh...not really, though? It was one option, yes...but there were also Challenge mode missions. For me, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was the end game. DZ didn't exist unless I was being dragged in there by the group I was with.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
Huh...never did those dailies. I always just ran the daily hard modes (and challenge modes when PA folks were around). As I said above, the DZ may as well not have existed for me the way I was playing.
Dailies required the Dark Zone, and their big cross-media activity (ISAC missions) also required the DZ action. I mean, while it may not have existed for you, going to the DZ was a required thing via their content.
Here's the issue that we seem to be talking across each other: you're talking about the 3-objective dailies, I'm talking about the 3 daily missions (y'know, those dungeon-y things). You could run those ad infinitum without setting foot once in the DZ. So yeah, DZ wasn't a required thing for that.
And of course the DZ was a required thing via their content...it's in their content...it's a part of their content. To play all of their content, then, you need to go in the DZ. But, if you didn't want to participate in all of their content, you didn't need to since there were things to do other than the DZ to progress. And that ISAC mission? Yeah, that could be completely ignored and wouldn't cost the player anything, or you could step foot into the DZ and immediately step out to complete that mission objective (which is exactly what I've done on all of my alts or characters on other platforms).
End game content in The Division, could be defined as the following activities (excluding the Dark Zone itself):
- Challenge Mode
- Incursions
- Weekly Quests
- Weekly ISAC Quests (edit: Some ISACs didn't require DZ activity now that I think about it, most did. One week required you do to challenge mode underground content)
- Weekly High Value Targets
- Weekly Underground Missions
In order to engage in 2 of 6 of these things, you have to directly engage the DZ. In order to effectively be able to do any of the other things in a reasonable amount of time—as the expected behaviour of a player at max level is to engage in all 6 activities—one had to participate in the DZ at some point.
While you were able to engage some "end game" content after grinding for an indeterminate amount of time to get geared to do it, the expectation the average player would do so is where we are at odds. The mass exodus from the game and subsequent reworks attests to the whole idea that the end-game being built an expectation of visits to the DZ being the backbone of the end-game experience. You seem to be speaking to your experience, and I am speaking to the experience of the average player.
"average player" is a bit nebulous
While the DZ being a pain in the ass due to exploiters, gear disparity and bored pricks at the top of the food chain, you still didn't have to go into it to progress, the best gear was only locked behind DZ rank and credits for a short period of time and by then most of it didnt matter due to exploiters with max credits. . I'd say the player base fell due to the PVE endgame being balls. Bullet sponges, limited build viability, loot being shit and being at the mercy of the RNG and shitty Incusions.
Even if a player didn't spend a lot of time in the DZ, the fact that the devs kept trying to get people to go there and be jerks while the PvE game languished made it have a negative effect on players.
I've actually been digging the game since 1.4. Been swimming in tier 229 gear since I switched over to world tier 4. There's also an absolutely amazing LVOA-C with Sustained, Brutal and Deadly for sale at the BoO. It's a beast of a weapon, I'd recommend picking one up before the reset on Friday. If you're not currently in WT4, you're limited to lower tier weapon. However, you can just join on someone who is in WT4 to get the 229 version.
Here's the issue that we seem to be talking across each other: you're talking about the 3-objective dailies, I'm talking about the 3 daily missions (y'know, those dungeon-y things). You could run those ad infinitum without setting foot once in the DZ. So yeah, DZ wasn't a required thing for that.
And of course the DZ was a required thing via their content...it's in their content...it's a part of their content. To play all of their content, then, you need to go in the DZ. But, if you didn't want to participate in all of their content, you didn't need to since there were things to do other than the DZ to progress. And that ISAC mission? Yeah, that could be completely ignored and wouldn't cost the player anything, or you could step foot into the DZ and immediately step out to complete that mission objective (which is exactly what I've done on all of my alts or characters on other platforms).
End game content in The Division, could be defined as the following activities (excluding the Dark Zone itself):
- Challenge Mode
- Incursions
- Weekly Quests
- Weekly ISAC Quests (edit: Some ISACs didn't require DZ activity now that I think about it, most did. One week required you do to challenge mode underground content)
- Weekly High Value Targets
- Weekly Underground Missions
In order to engage in 2 of 6 of these things, you have to directly engage the DZ. In order to effectively be able to do any of the other things in a reasonable amount of time—as the expected behaviour of a player at max level is to engage in all 6 activities—one had to participate in the DZ at some point.
I thought we were still talking about the olden days pre-HVT and pre-Incursion: the days where it was either grind hard/challenge missions, 3-objective dailies/5-objective weeklies, or grind the DZ. I actually have no idea what the "Weekly ISAC Quests" are since I likely stopped playing before they were introduced and/or they haven't been made explicitly indicated to be a thing since I've logged been logging back in. So, of those 6 things (in order)
- Can be completed without DZ gear (DZ not required to complete due to crafted, vendor-bought HE gear)
- Can be completed without DZ gear if played in their order of increasing difficulty (to get the gear needed to proceed to the next incursion)
- Requires entry to DZ
- Apparently is a thing (albeit one that doesn't explicitly show its a thing) that requires entry to the DZ
- DZ gear not required to be an effective team member (there's a reason I'm still using the ancient purple M1A from the vendor in The Crypt that I bought months ago: headshots for days!)
- I actually haven't tried the Underground yet...been meaning to, though (and now that 1.4 is out, maybe I will).
While you were able to engage some "end game" content after grinding for an indeterminate amount of time to get geared to do it, the expectation the average player would do so is where we are at odds. The mass exodus from the game and subsequent reworks attests to the whole idea that the end-game being built an expectation of visits to the DZ being the backbone of the end-game experience. You seem to be speaking to your experience, and I am speaking to the experience of the average player.
This requires a bit more nuance than "This is just specific to you." How about "You seem to be speaking to the experience of the player who hates PVP, and I am speaking to the experience of the average player."
And I'd actually attribute the exodus of players to two things: lack of content right from the get-go (people were hitting max level and running out of stuff to do in the first week...if not the first few days), and people exploiting the crap out of the game to become walking gods in the DZ (or just straight up hacking) without punishment from the devs.
Hmm... I actually hadn't taken the rampant farming/gray area exploiting into consideration for my post. From Bullet King and other spawn farming of named mobs, and less grey versions thereof (glitching through the top of the map to be able to fight DZ mobs without extraction, the embassy, etc), one could acquire enough mats to craft their way around the DZ in less time*. But yeah, I guess if you absolutely hate PVP engagement in anyform, then... yeah. It's all doable without the DZ or a sense of loss from not engaging in DZ content?
There is/was a little grind involved in unlocking the higher difficulties of the Underground, plus the modifiers may still require a resource to see it, which are earned by clearing Underground sessions.
edit: *not saying that you personally did the latter stuff, mind you.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Sirialisof the Halite Throne.Registered Userregular
edited October 2016
Played a little.
Impressions? Enemies are still bulletspongey as fuck and deals shitloads of damage (at World tier 4) HMG bosses deals absurd damage still, didnt try a Flamethrower boss yet since 1.4, so much for "feeling powerful" and I've got some pretty strong gear, shotgunners felt nerfed a little, not sure if enough, snipers and grenades still hit like trucks even though most of my gear has added armor.
Underground still does that retarded thing that if you wipe, you get thrown out and have to do everything all over again, while you gained nothing... Why exactly? Its not fun and just feels like shit design.
You get a lot more (relevant) gear though and the fact that overall experience now gives you caches is a good idea, I've gotten some nice high end mods (from UG bosses) that were twice as good as the ones I had. (194 stamina and 1 crit chance x 2)
I think you seem to get more Underground rep now? I'm not entirely sure, but that would be welcome.
No idea why B.L.I.N.D is now called Banshee and has DZ perks, Firecrest also lost the reload bonus and buffs turrets for some reason...? (I think I saw that reload bonus on a different set now), so now that set seems to be garbage unless you roll with fire turrets exclusively.
Nomad on the other hand seems to have gotten some pretty strong perks, for example, 2 set bonus is 15% health on kill and 3 set bonus sounds like its a constant regeneration, definitely getting some pieces of that and checking it out in practice.
Reclaimer is still strong but sounds like they nerfed the stagger effects on the offensive consumeables, my friend has a full set of it and is a nice constant buff bot though.
Bought the LVOA-C at the base (800.000 bucks), its good, but even with stability upgrades its still got some kick, would love to get a similarly rolled G36 instead.
Impressed with the new gear rewards system and the added(?) rep for UG, but the messages about "feeling powerful" and "less bulletspongey enemies" feels like exaggerated bullshit, that said, I'll probaby play some more Underground soon I think, well if my friends are up for it too, UG is not solo friendly and the matchmaking hasnt been an overall positive experience in this game.
Really wouldnt mind getting the last 2 achievements in this game, UG rank 40 and beat challenge mode with all modifiers on.
I think they hit a decent balance for enemies being sponge worthy. Elite mobs.. yea still take a pounding but much much much less is needed than before. You cant stand out and take bullets anymore either as even the lowest red can put some hurt on you but you arent getting oneshotted by elites either. Took on a flamethrower boss at rank 4, got singed but he went down like the rest.
What killed this game for me is the lack of normalization for group PvE. If I did a mission with friends and there was a difference in our levels, somebody was going to have an awful time.
What killed this game for me is the lack of normalization for group PvE. If I did a mission with friends and there was a difference in our levels, somebody was going to have an awful time.
Did they ever fix that?
They added in more chances of finding loot doing solo, open world activities and less bullet spongy enemies. That said, it's still a loot 'em up so gear not being normalized in PvE is kind of the point. It's just easier to get to a respectable score even if it's not fully optimized in terms of weapon talents and stuff.
So having not really played since HVTs were added, I really like the update. Just doing search and destroy plus the soloable HVTs quickly upgraded the one purple I still had since forever plus a lot of other gear while giving me time to find more dropped phones and the like.
Ugh, all my mods turned terrible. And apparently they changed what all my blueprints build. Re-gearing is looking to be a giant pain in the ass.
Thankfully, the drop rate for gear has been massively increased (which is compounded by the open-world bosses respawning on a 4-hour timer). Random mooks have been dropping set items and GS182 HE gear for me while I've been out wandering around the city.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
Ugh, all my mods turned terrible. And apparently they changed what all my blueprints build. Re-gearing is looking to be a giant pain in the ass.
I had 4 pieces of GS204 gear that I used drop from open world/Search and Destroy/HVT stuff in 2 hours on top of the stuff I scrapped. So not a giant pain but becoming optimal again will take some time.
Idx86Long days and pleasant nights.Registered Userregular
Amazon has this for $13 on PS4. I have no friends who are playing this. Worth it for simply the solo experience? I enjoyed what I did play of the beta.
2008, 2012, 2014 D&D "Rare With No Sauce" League Fantasy Football Champion!
Jumped in for a couple of solo runs on 1.4 and enjoyed myself a fair bit. Loot is comparatively raining from the sky compared to the previous versions, nabbed myself the final piece of Strikers that I was aiming for (shame it's been nerfed so much!). Random mobs outside the DZ are fun to fight. They're not boring bullet sponges, but can easily cause you problems if you allow yourself to get flanked. I think wave upon wave of those guys is way more fun to fight than just a single spongey elite wave.
Loot definitely feels like it's coming down a lot more. Apparently I'm at a breakpoint for the world tiering, so I'm trying to punch up into T3, and that's going somewhat well. Still on xbutts.
DS Friend code: 3840-6605-3406
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ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
Can someone give me a returning player guide for someone who stopped playing when the first Incursion dropped?
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Yeah, it's been a long road, that's for sure. But even before HVTs, 15 pee-creds per day in addition to what you'd get from the missions themselves (usually 2-3), while slow, would still get you semi-decent gear good enough for Challenge difficulty.
There are so many changes since I last played that I am just gonna reroll a new guy and see what is up. I always enjoyed the leveling anyway.
The game never had a real end game, we had people figure out bullet king exploit a day or so into the game so people were running around with the best that phoenix credits could buy which broke the shit out of the DZ much faster than it should have broke (which it still was going to break) then we had people exploiting the first incursion, then exploiting the embassy... not even going to mention the hacks and cheats that popped on PC.
The DZ was quite friendly at first because it was a huge penalty to go rogue, once that changed you started seeing more people going rogue.. which was fine... until those going rogue were all the people kitted out in the best gear. You saw the writing on the wall as soon as bullet king was happening... if you weren't exploiting with everyone else you were going to be fodder in the DZ. Then gear score brackets showed up and that helped.. a bit, until people figured out how to game that system and drop themselves into lower gear score tiers. After that we had another incursion then eventually Underground came out end of June (PC) and we jumped into that and had a great time until we got bored of bullet sponges then took a break from the game.
The Challenge mode missions didn't really drop loot that would be an upgrade so if your goal was to get geared up it was the DZ or running Challenge mode missions for hours on end on the off chance a gold might drop which it probably wouldn't and then burning the pile of Phoenix tokens you earned in the hopes that the RNG wouldn't fuck you which it probably would.
Personally I didn't mind that at first because the game play was fun but I'm also not going to pretend that it was a good design for an end game.
If end-game to you is to get perfect gear, then neither situations are good designs: you either a) gear up for Challenge modes to run more Challenge modes to maybe gear up (from either drops or phoenix credits), or b) run DZ to get loot and run a good chance of running into people who are more geared than you who just want to break your stuff. Both scenarios aren't ideal...but thems the breaks.
That said, gearing up was never my main driving goal. Like I said, being able to reliably run Challenge modes was my end game...and given that I cut my teeth on end-game raiding in the early WoW days where months would go by between upgrades for me due to being passed over for other priests to get gear, the gear grind in The Division was acceptable (not stellar, not soul-crushing...just "acceptable").
It was for me too until they implemented dailies that required going into the DZ and I realized that I'd been playing a very different game than a lot of other people and it was a game that left me woefully undergeared
Huh...never did those dailies. I always just ran the daily hard modes (and challenge modes when PA folks were around). As I said above, the DZ may as well not have existed for me the way I was playing.
Yeah, the lack of punishment for exploiting was a really bad move. I don't think bans should have been handed down, but items gained from exploiting should simply have been removed from players.
There was always going to be a large overlap with the type of player that uses in game exploits/cheats and those which are the type to troll the DZ as much as possible.
Having said that, I definitely had some really enjoyable times in the DZ going solo at various points, the tension from knowing that there's rogues running around trying to jack you was pretty intense! The issue being that you had to play so godamn cautious that in terms of just grinding to better gear it was so slow!
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
I've got to disagree here. I think you've got to be serious when it comes to people who cheat when you've got a multiplayer game. If you don't, then it just encourages others to try it, and it ultimately kills off the game for anyone who wanted to play it seriously (i.e. didn't want to cheat / use exploits).
The makers don't need these kinds of players; they are only a detriment to the community the game is hoping to build.
I know it might be tricky to compare, but Overwatch banned a significant chunk of people before the game was released and it didn't suffer for it.
I would argue that the exploiting and cheating played a significant part in the number of people who left this game (not that there weren't other factors).
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
Dailies required the Dark Zone, and their big cross-media activity (ISAC missions) also required the DZ action. I mean, while it may not have existed for you, going to the DZ was a required thing via their content.
I skipped those dailies myself, I think I did a DZ zone daily once.
Really enjoying 1.4, ran around with a friend last night and got her geared to 199 GS, which allowed him to join me in World Rank 4. Oh the gear just flows like water, everything cept purples are 229 and you are shooting standard red guys and they have a chance to drop set pieces, a pretty good chance at that considering in a hour with a friend I had 3 drop from reds.. the rest of the pieces dropped from HVTs, elites etc. We did the last daily HVT and it was a nice challenge for both of us. Not impossible or a slog but you couldnt just stand there and shoot faces.. we kept moving, flanking and throwing flashbangs etc. Loving it.
Also just running around the LZ I got pot shotted by a sniper that was on a rooftop.. hadn't seen that before
Like most things DZ relate, the value of it waxed and waned with updates. There was a real lack of reward early on because there was a lack of reward for most things that weren't farming phoenix credits to buy things. When they started putting in higher gear score weapons and equipment on the DZ vendors than you could buy outside the DZ was when that really changed.
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The AI, the encounters, and the gear all feel much much better now. Suffice it to say, I actually had fun last night for about 2 hours and I am sold on giving this game another shot.
Here's the issue that we seem to be talking across each other: you're talking about the 3-objective dailies, I'm talking about the 3 daily missions (y'know, those dungeon-y things). You could run those ad infinitum without setting foot once in the DZ. So yeah, DZ wasn't a required thing for that.
And of course the DZ was a required thing via their content...it's in their content...it's a part of their content. To play all of their content, then, you need to go in the DZ. But, if you didn't want to participate in all of their content, you didn't need to since there were things to do other than the DZ to progress. And that ISAC mission? Yeah, that could be completely ignored and wouldn't cost the player anything, or you could step foot into the DZ and immediately step out to complete that mission objective (which is exactly what I've done on all of my alts or characters on other platforms).
End game content in The Division, could be defined as the following activities (excluding the Dark Zone itself):
- Challenge Mode
- Incursions
- Weekly Quests
- Weekly ISAC Quests (edit: Some ISACs didn't require DZ activity now that I think about it, most did. One week required you do to challenge mode underground content)
- Weekly High Value Targets
- Weekly Underground Missions
In order to engage in 2 of 6 of these things, you have to directly engage the DZ. In order to effectively be able to do any of the other things in a reasonable amount of time—as the expected behaviour of a player at max level is to engage in all 6 activities—one had to participate in the DZ at some point.
While you were able to engage some "end game" content after grinding for an indeterminate amount of time to get geared to do it, the expectation the average player would do so is where we are at odds. The mass exodus from the game and subsequent reworks attests to the whole idea that the end-game being built an expectation of visits to the DZ being the backbone of the end-game experience. You seem to be speaking to your experience, and I am speaking to the experience of the average player.
"average player" is a bit nebulous
While the DZ being a pain in the ass due to exploiters, gear disparity and bored pricks at the top of the food chain, you still didn't have to go into it to progress, the best gear was only locked behind DZ rank and credits for a short period of time and by then most of it didnt matter due to exploiters with max credits. . I'd say the player base fell due to the PVE endgame being balls. Bullet sponges, limited build viability, loot being shit and being at the mercy of the RNG and shitty Incusions.
I thought we were still talking about the olden days pre-HVT and pre-Incursion: the days where it was either grind hard/challenge missions, 3-objective dailies/5-objective weeklies, or grind the DZ. I actually have no idea what the "Weekly ISAC Quests" are since I likely stopped playing before they were introduced and/or they haven't been made explicitly indicated to be a thing since I've logged been logging back in. So, of those 6 things (in order)
- Can be completed without DZ gear (DZ not required to complete due to crafted, vendor-bought HE gear)
- Can be completed without DZ gear if played in their order of increasing difficulty (to get the gear needed to proceed to the next incursion)
- Requires entry to DZ
- Apparently is a thing (albeit one that doesn't explicitly show its a thing) that requires entry to the DZ
- DZ gear not required to be an effective team member (there's a reason I'm still using the ancient purple M1A from the vendor in The Crypt that I bought months ago: headshots for days!)
- I actually haven't tried the Underground yet...been meaning to, though (and now that 1.4 is out, maybe I will).
This requires a bit more nuance than "This is just specific to you." How about "You seem to be speaking to the experience of the player who hates PVP, and I am speaking to the experience of the average player."
And I'd actually attribute the exodus of players to two things: lack of content right from the get-go (people were hitting max level and running out of stuff to do in the first week...if not the first few days), and people exploiting the crap out of the game to become walking gods in the DZ (or just straight up hacking) without punishment from the devs.
Even if a player didn't spend a lot of time in the DZ, the fact that the devs kept trying to get people to go there and be jerks while the PvE game languished made it have a negative effect on players.
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Hmm... I actually hadn't taken the rampant farming/gray area exploiting into consideration for my post. From Bullet King and other spawn farming of named mobs, and less grey versions thereof (glitching through the top of the map to be able to fight DZ mobs without extraction, the embassy, etc), one could acquire enough mats to craft their way around the DZ in less time*. But yeah, I guess if you absolutely hate PVP engagement in anyform, then... yeah. It's all doable without the DZ or a sense of loss from not engaging in DZ content?
There is/was a little grind involved in unlocking the higher difficulties of the Underground, plus the modifiers may still require a resource to see it, which are earned by clearing Underground sessions.
edit: *not saying that you personally did the latter stuff, mind you.
What improvements do I have access to without any DLC?
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/59j01a/so_you_just_hit_level_30_or_youve_returned_for_14/
this seems like a good resource.
Impressions? Enemies are still bulletspongey as fuck and deals shitloads of damage (at World tier 4) HMG bosses deals absurd damage still, didnt try a Flamethrower boss yet since 1.4, so much for "feeling powerful" and I've got some pretty strong gear, shotgunners felt nerfed a little, not sure if enough, snipers and grenades still hit like trucks even though most of my gear has added armor.
Underground still does that retarded thing that if you wipe, you get thrown out and have to do everything all over again, while you gained nothing... Why exactly? Its not fun and just feels like shit design.
You get a lot more (relevant) gear though and the fact that overall experience now gives you caches is a good idea, I've gotten some nice high end mods (from UG bosses) that were twice as good as the ones I had. (194 stamina and 1 crit chance x 2)
I think you seem to get more Underground rep now? I'm not entirely sure, but that would be welcome.
No idea why B.L.I.N.D is now called Banshee and has DZ perks, Firecrest also lost the reload bonus and buffs turrets for some reason...? (I think I saw that reload bonus on a different set now), so now that set seems to be garbage unless you roll with fire turrets exclusively.
Nomad on the other hand seems to have gotten some pretty strong perks, for example, 2 set bonus is 15% health on kill and 3 set bonus sounds like its a constant regeneration, definitely getting some pieces of that and checking it out in practice.
Reclaimer is still strong but sounds like they nerfed the stagger effects on the offensive consumeables, my friend has a full set of it and is a nice constant buff bot though.
Bought the LVOA-C at the base (800.000 bucks), its good, but even with stability upgrades its still got some kick, would love to get a similarly rolled G36 instead.
Impressed with the new gear rewards system and the added(?) rep for UG, but the messages about "feeling powerful" and "less bulletspongey enemies" feels like exaggerated bullshit, that said, I'll probaby play some more Underground soon I think, well if my friends are up for it too, UG is not solo friendly and the matchmaking hasnt been an overall positive experience in this game.
Really wouldnt mind getting the last 2 achievements in this game, UG rank 40 and beat challenge mode with all modifiers on.
Did they ever fix that?
They added in more chances of finding loot doing solo, open world activities and less bullet spongy enemies. That said, it's still a loot 'em up so gear not being normalized in PvE is kind of the point. It's just easier to get to a respectable score even if it's not fully optimized in terms of weapon talents and stuff.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Thankfully, the drop rate for gear has been massively increased (which is compounded by the open-world bosses respawning on a 4-hour timer). Random mooks have been dropping set items and GS182 HE gear for me while I've been out wandering around the city.
I had 4 pieces of GS204 gear that I used drop from open world/Search and Destroy/HVT stuff in 2 hours on top of the stuff I scrapped. So not a giant pain but becoming optimal again will take some time.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
2008, 2012, 2014 D&D "Rare With No Sauce" League Fantasy Football Champion!
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
I broke and bought it. Seems like a really good deal. Who all is playing on PS4?
2008, 2012, 2014 D&D "Rare With No Sauce" League Fantasy Football Champion!
All in all seems pretty nice!
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
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