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[The Division] ISAC: "Year 2 Expansion Detected"
Owenashi
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey kids, wanna play sleeper agent in a post-societal-collapse looter-shooter MMO? Then Ubisoft and dead-for-seven-years Tom Clancy has what you're looking for with The Division, a more grounded (mostly) franchise compared to Borderlands and Destiny.
The Division:
The first game takes place in New York City in which Black Friday gave new meaning to the term 'killer deal' via the release of the Green Poison, a smallpox-like biological weapon that was passed along on dollar bills. Spreading quickly worldwide, various forms of government fell apart. However, the US government was prepared for such a thing with the establishment of the Strategic Homeland Division and it's undercover agents waiting for the signal that got pressed before Washington DC went quiet. Players take the role of one such agent during the Second Wave (best not ask what happened to the First Wave) of activations sent to NYC. After an explosive exit out of Brooklyn, the player arrives in Manhattan and is tasked with restoring a base of operations as well as getting answers about the Green Poison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmAt8z0GQ98Of course there's those having too much fun in the freezing, blacked-out city to allow the return of order. Agents will have their hands full with Rioters (barely organized idiots that lucked out in picking up some guns), Rikers (inmates from Rikers Island that joined together to tear everything up), Cleaners (crazy sanitation workers that decided to literally burn the disease out of the city) and the Last Man Battalion (PMC that decided to stop protecting the assets of likely dead investors and take over the city). Luckily besides the guns and gear (and gear-sets) you find and/or craft, you also get nifty secret agency gadgets to meet that 'one-person army' requirement like small turrets, bulletproof shields and heat-seeking rollerbombs. Though that doesn't stop you from teaming up with up to three other Agents to tackle harder missions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAUIRzgEkX8Or if you'd rather kill players instead of team up with them, there's always the quarantined area called the Dark Zone where you can shoot other players as well as the enemy factions within. All in the name of high-grade loot that you need to chopper out to keep. Three DLCs over the following year added new modes for endgame players; Underground (roam randomly-generated tunnels under the city by yourself or with a team), Survival (try to make it out of a snowstorm with no gear at the start with the cold, sickness, enemy factions and possibly up to 23 other players working against you), and Last Stand (a hold-the-base match set in the Dark Zone pitting two teams of players against each other). A small 'epilogue' PvE area was also added for free, featuring members of the four enemy groups working together to keep the Division out.
The Division 2:
Set several months after the relative end of the first game, players take on the role of a new Agent sent to Washington DC when Division-tech starts to fail and a distress signal is sent from there at the same time. Hanging their hat at the White House, players roam across the city to discover what's going on as well as stabilize the city and see if there's any shred of government leadership left to prop up.
Naturally there's meatshields to get in your way of cleaning up the streets and earning your next +5 To Muzzle-Flash SMG. Players will have to contend with the Hyenas (Rioters and Rikers combined), the Outcasts (Bizzaro-Cleaners that want to spread the Green Poison rather then kill it) and the True Sons (LMB stand-in made up of former National Guard that also decided to take over the city they were meant to protect). They're not the only ones to deal with either once players beat the main story and hit Lv30.
Besides tweaking established gameplay (such as dividing the Dark Zone into three separate smaller locations instead of one large mass in the middle of the map and building up civilian settlements to build up your HQ rather then the direct route last time), The Division 2 also added Raids (8 person runs with the first at DC's airport) as well as Specializations. The latter are basically swappable classes, each comimg with a talent tree to refine playstyle as well as a unique weapon and grenade to use. The first three seen above came with the game while three more were introduced with the three-part Year 1 additions to the game.
The three Episodes themselves are free content unlike the first game's DLC (though one can buy the Year 1 pass to gain early access to them among a few other perks), and includes more plot that sends players to the outer limits of the city, into the depths of the formally-locked-down Pentagon and finally heading back to the general area of NYC to rescue someone from Coney Island. As it turns out, the final Episode of Year 1 was meant as a prelude to Year 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vMmJJOHmC8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt2m-BSfA7wIn an unexpected move (outside of people paying close attention to a season pass purchase screen in-game a day prior to the news), Ubisoft has announced a proper expansion for The Division 2. Titled Warlords Of New York, the story sees the DC Agent hitting NYC to take care of a loose end from the first game; a rogue Division agent named Aaron Keener. Having cooked up a deadlier bio-weapon then Green Poison, Keener has taken over Lower Manhattan with the help of other Division agents turned to the dark side. Now players have to take the titular 'Warlords' out to get to Keener before he runs off with his new plague. The expansion will bump up the game's max-level by 10 as well as bring the gear system to a 2.0 state. The expansion will also add four gadgets to the game (including the return of the Sticky Bomb from Div1), each taken from one of the four ex-agents.
Surprisingly, the expansion is coming out on March 3rd for $30. The base game's currently on sale at the moment with Ubisoft offering it digitally on PC until March 2nd for just $3 dollars. XBL and Playstation Store are also offering it for $3 for the next two weeks while Gamestop has physical copies at $5 at the moment.
3/3 EDIT: Sorry for forgetting to add this but here's Clan info borrowed from the G&T thread to make playing with fellow PAers easier.
tastydonuts wrote: »Clans
The Division 2 has in-game clan support, and there are several PA clans and side-clans for all platforms. In order to join a clan, you should put your name on the following spreadsheet, ideally prior to requesting an invite. Each clan/platform has different officers that can accept the invitation.
This spreadsheet has information for both games, so make sure you document in the tab for the appropriate one.
Owenashi on
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It's pretty good so far. Just don't expect to earn Specialization points from completing WoNY story missions if you were planning on it. Also, one of the best additions to the game can be found at the HQ for NYC.
Annoying yeah but it's better then Div1's handling of the post-story endgame where they just dumped a bunch of multiplayer stuff for DLC and one small epilogue area which pretty much also required help if you didn't have a tight enough build to deal with the mixed enemy pool there. Things do open up though as you clear out the initial Invasion and recapturing Control Points isn't too bad as you can earn fresh big-box loot from the Point's supply room when you get it back. Just be aware that the game will add a difficulty curve to the CPs if you deal with attached patrols and activities to it. Lv1 is the regular CP difficulty while Lv4 is pretty much Elites with a few Veterans. The loot from a Lv4 room is supposed to be real good though.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
That's cool even if I never have any ammo for it
Simplifying and flattening how much you have to track is good. Lessens the experience of staying with the same gear for hours due to increasingly limited ways your stuff could upgrade. Removing DTE so yellow bar enemies don't go down faster than purple bars.
There are some issues that came with these changes. Now talents are just for the backpacks and vests. This leaves the other four equipment slots looking kinda... samey. I'm sure they could have some stats exclusive to each piece to make them stand out slightly more. The exotics have been given some really questionable changes, such as the Liberty becoming something not even shield builds would want to use. Then you have enemy health scaling that really resembles Division 1 health bloat. We are right back in the territory of enemies just walking up to you and kicking your teeth in while your LMG tickles them.
I dunno. Maybe in New York it feels better. Seems like it's not much better up at level 40 with builds put together focusing on raw damage. NYC is a boring city to me so sticking to DC.
And today was the day it went back to 30 dollars 😭
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
I haven't gotten the dlc but the new equipment system is interesting. The removal of traits from most equipment sucks but the system of building a library of upgrades is better than the previous way of doing it so there's at least that. I do agree it seems like enemies have become more spongy though, which has always been the problem threatening to tip me over into giving up. Putting half a magazine into a guy to kill him doesn't feel great, doubly because I use LMGs and that's 50-100 bullets.
E: The story of the DLC being that Keener took over NYC has me, like, negative interested in it. He's such a shit villain and the first game bent over backwards to shove his stupid face in ours every chance it got. Wow a narcissistic windbag who taunts the player through radio logs haven't seen that before.
Thing about Spec-ammo is that it'll always poof away once you fast-travel out of areas like mission locations. It's fine hording it during a mission but unless you plan to hoof it, best to spend it then lose it. Picking up the second ammo-gain talent should help earn more bolts quicker too if you haven't gotten it yet.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Only if you change maps (like going to the zoo) going from a mission to a safe house for example will keep it. (and any other special ammo like fire bullets etc)
I'm liking the return to NYC so far, it's neat to see the contrast in all the extra verticality, thusfar I have killed a holographic nerd and been snuck up on in the sewers by one of the heavy cleaners which...yeah they are a real thing in those tunnels.
I've always hated games with human enemies that take a million bullets to kill. If you shoot a human person in their fucking unarmored forehead with a marksman's rifle round they should die. They shouldn't just flinch a little and throw a molotov at you. Oh but if you get that same marksman's rifle only its got shiney gold camo furniture it does more damage. I know there's no other way to do it in a game like this but it just feels so stupid.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
You could give the Sniper Elite series a try. It's essentially one shot, one kill with the rifle and usually no more than 3 non head shots with pistol. Plus, in 2, 3, and 4 there's a side mission where you can unlock an achievement for taking out Hitler's lone testicle, complete with slow-mo, x-ray vision highlight of the shot from exiting the barrel to its final destination.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
The game is about a money disease
But then that's my strategy for every enemy with armor.
As will launched grenades.
The one joy of fighting Black Tusk is the snipers. When you hear "Drones in the air!" you got a free kill on the dummy that brought exploding drones.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
but that's fine, that way I can focus more on the podcast I'm listening to
Basically reestablish the SHD Network from whatever happened to it as well as general order in DC. There'll be an extra goal down the line once you beat a certain mission.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Cartoon bad guy factions are doing bad stuff. You are the new sheriff in town and singlehandedly stop the bad stuff while also rebuilding the good people's settlements.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Oh, huh, I should look into that.
Also the game looks incredible except npcs, even in cutscenes, look so weirdly dated and unimpressive
12 is apparently trash on Nvidia hardware but is great on AMD stuff (at least for me)
They make these incredibly detailed worlds rich in visual story telling and narrative details, and then for the actual story it feels like placeholder text or something phoned in the night before. I get that it’s multiplayer so you don’t want long cutscenes, but what is there might as well be removed, it makes the presentation feel worse, it draws down the overall production value of the game
Raising this from the depths to drop this off; an unexpected crossover event between The Division and Resident Evil. Just logging in when the event starts on February 2 nets you Leon's RE2 outfit alone, the trailer showing off some of the other outfits that'll be available.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
After being stuck in rerun-hell of the first four seasons due to team restructuring, Ubisoft's continuing The Division 2's story with Season 9: Hidden Alliance.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Never cared much about NYC myself. Lotta content was DLC exclusive so it’s been extra long for my kinda content.
Ubisoft did put up a video explaining basically what went on between the end of Warlords and the end of Season 4 for those that lost the plot thread for one reason or another.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)