I’ve seen the ‘its just more Division’ complaint and I don’t really get it.
That’s what game sequels in general are. Very few reinvent the game with a sequel.
You're right, which is fine if that's what you're looking for. Destiny 2 didn't completely reinvent Destiny either. It really depends on if you think the setting/gameplay is worth a sequel. The real question is "are the changes they DID make for the better" and from what I could tell I would have rather they stuck with signature skills. They also don't really let you play around with specs other than "choose one loadout" so it's hard to say how deep those systems go. It's fine as far as sequels go but I guess I have to ask "did it need a sequel?" and apparently I think maybe not.
One option I discovered buried in the settings that really helped the feeling of being "stuck" on cover (like when you're exposed and want to turn the corner to get the barrier between you and the bullets) is the ability to set the move in cover delay from long to short.
It's Monday here already and I'm back at work after spending my entire weekend playing with this. "Just more of The Division" seems fine to me, since this game has always been a favorite of mine. To me it feels like it rewards more strategic play rather than technical (aiming) skills. Even as a lower-skill player I was able to complete pretty much everything in the beta weekend as a solo (with the exception of the invaded mission which was pretty hard even with a PUG).
I’m playing on PS4 and only had a handful of client crashes in the 16-ish hours I put into the game. I was far more annoyed with the daily patching which fell in the 7:30 to 10:30 pm time slot locally. I guess that’s a pretty minor thing overall.
I absolutely HATE the continual calls that another agent needs assistance. I mean, these guys are supposed to be the elite squad right? What did they specialize in? Getting someone else to do the work and then tasking credit? I mean, the one and only time I actually answered one of those requests was when I was looking for a team to help take down the first big Bounty guy, and the game auto-matchmade me with some PUGer that was mid-even on an unrelated part of the map, and then dropped from the group as soon I helped him through it and he grabbed his loot. WITHOUT going after the bounty that we were supposedly going after! (I ended up doing the bounty solo, so it wasn't a complete loss.)
I didn’t make any forays into the DZ – other than the introductory mission which felt like a ghost town. I’m not sure if that mission is instanced or if I just managed to “luck out” by doing it right after a patch (10:30 pm here, 3:30 to 6:30 am in the US) and there just weren’t any other players online at the time. I did go back in there one more time in the middle of the day here and made a circuit. I heard shooting and some pings on the overall map, but didn’t see any players then either. Besides, as others have noted, the beta DZ experience is generally going to be a Bad Time for a low-skill player like me, and this is all getting wiped in a day or so anyway, so I didn’t push on that too hard.
Overall, I had fun with it and will probably pre-order in a couple of paychecks.
EDIT: My edit button seems to be working just fine, did they fix it?
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FiggyFighter of the night manChampion of the sunRegistered Userregular
I feel like the "agent needs assitance" is just the times when someone else uses the "call for backup" command. I wonder if you can disable hearing them.
You can disable the Calls for backup on the map. You have to do it every time you start up though.
I'm hoping they gate this through a tutorial so that it's not enabled on default. The other thing I'd like re: options is to have Push to Talk enabled by default -- that was an issue in TD1, too.
So I dragged 3 lower level players (while at 7) into the second main mission and while the normalization thing they have for lower levels is pretty decent in the open world, it can get really rough in a mission. More spongey yellow bars and a new unit I hadn't seen, a yellow rusher who has a stun baton. Shocks you in place with no recourse for a couple seconds -- eesh. (Even scarier when they come at you 2 at a time )
ugh... so bummed that I couldn't knock out Wave 20 resistance powerhouse today. Had another guy doing them too, got to wave 18 and goofed on the objective (where goof is chain stagger by shield melee guys... fun times.
Tried again later and kept running out of time on the stupid hunters, twitce. I think part of the problemis I'm treating T1 hunters like they were T5 hunters... should have just rushed and burned them down.
Gonna try and do the rest of hte Beta junk for the skin now. but only 115 points to go for that shield.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
reaaaaally hope this sound dropping out any maybe returning issue is resolved in the release version. :U
sound issues got better over the like 3 patches they put out for the beta. But I doubt the div 1 bugs will not be in release otherwise why would they be in the beta?
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Not sure why the “wrong” season complaints. Yes, snow is cool but I just had a summer thunderstorm and goddamn if it wasn’t immersive as hell. Like zero visibility, was great flavor.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited February 2019
The snow just made for a much more visually distinct game. Also I have yet to see a better looking sight in any game than standing between some skyscrapers while early morning sunlight streaming through fog and steam rising from vents and reflecting off the buildings and cars in the snowy street. Some sights in the first game are magical.
But yes the summer setting has some very nice effects. It’s still for that fog that comes over and you need to swap to close range fighting, rain and storms are super immersive as well.
Just that the winter setting set it apart from other cover shooters.
You can disable the Calls for backup on the map. You have to do it every time you start up though.
I'm hoping they gate this through a tutorial so that it's not enabled on default. The other thing I'd like re: options is to have Push to Talk enabled by default -- that was an issue in TD1, too.
Oddly enough, this option doesn't exist on the PS4 version. Or, at least, it wasn't there for me.
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Sirialisof the Halite Throne.Registered Userregular
I looked for it on Xbox but didnt find it either.
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
Good news is that it will be "fixed" for the open beta (and presumably release) at a guess it will be disabled by default? Which, hurrah because it was really spammy. Also confirmation of an open beta, but no date yet, I'd guess end of the month though.
Oddly enough, this option doesn't exist on the PS4 version. Or, at least, it wasn't there for me.
It can be turned off on PS4, we did it. At work, so can't take a picture.
***
We had an awesome time in the beta over the weekend. We ran the endgame mission a few times. Our major complaint was how to replenish ammo for the specialization weapons. There was nothing that we could find in-game that explained how they worked. The sniper one we worked out, but the other two were less obvious. The handling on the sniper was also different than the normal gun I was using, so it threw me a bit hah.
The Dark Zone was excellent, although we kind of wished the population cap could've been increased by four more. It's probably fine as it is and that complaint is invalid, but sometimes we just could not find people to increase our manhunt level.
We did get manhunt a few times and tested some items. We got Manhunt activated and then maxxed out the manhunt level to get the tier one reward. That was intense. No one chased us that time, of course, but we got the reward.....3 GREENS each! We're only level 7, though, so whatever. None of it contaminated either.
We opened up the thieves den, but the guy wasn't there to sell us anything. A backpack was on the ground saying we didn't have some perk or achievement leveled. Okay, whatever.
The fact that everything you get is not contaminated is great as that'll give more reason to risk going in solo rather than have to wait for your buddies to get on. Sure, trying to extract solo is a pain the rear, but a lot of items aren't contaminated, even the purples / blues you could get in this limited beta. Assuming the ratio holds for the purples and yellows later, that's a good move overall.
Items I'm worried about. Overall, I like the changes to the rogue system. You have to trigger it, the entire group is rogue, even if they die and respawn, it'll re-sync....all good stuff. The nameplates are hard to see unless aiming at someone to SEE if they're rogue, though (unless they're right up on you, by which point, eh), and there's a later perk to make the nameplates even smaller as you increase DZ level. Kind of a pain.
Artistically, I still prefer the snowy NYC of Div 1, but their accuracy of DC is great and walking around it makes me smile, too. That being said, a buddy in squad sarcastically commented "This is not what the inside of the FBI building looks like", but the externals were great.
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I had one rainstorm during beta, it was alright. It was just a rainstorm though, no thunder, no lightning flashing across the sky. I think the thing is snow looks so much better in a game than rain which is just this weird white lines falling down the screen.
the drop rates in the beta are raised. don't know what they're going to be like in the real game but they mentioned moar drops for beta.
I understand this but also kind of hate it in that I always like more gear than "you must crawl and crawl and crawl and then eventually walk" with regards to gear especially since greens have set bonus's why not give those to people early?!
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I understand this but also kind of hate it in that I always like more gear than "you must crawl and crawl and crawl and then eventually walk" with regards to gear especially since greens have set bonus's why not give those to people early?!
Well, you saw Destiny 2 fall-off after release, right? They probably don't have a super massive amount of options.
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XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I understand this but also kind of hate it in that I always like more gear than "you must crawl and crawl and crawl and then eventually walk" with regards to gear especially since greens have set bonus's why not give those to people early?!
Well, you saw Destiny 2 fall-off after release, right? They probably don't have a super massive amount of options.
I don't think that was really gear based reasons. It was there wasn't anything to really chase, at release it had fixed rolls, so once you got a piece of gear you were kind of done.
Division 2 has random rolls on gear I think or something to chase. But I don't think that giving people more gear early on doesn't suddenly invalidate the grind later.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I don't think that was really gear based reasons. It was there wasn't anything to really chase, at release it had fixed rolls, so once you got a piece of gear you were kind of done.
Division 2 has random rolls on gear I think or something to chase. But I don't think that giving people more gear early on doesn't suddenly invalidate the grind later.
I think it'll depend how important the random perks can be. The set bonuses themselves looked to be curated, but there are random perks, you're right.
Will be interesting.
Either way, I think loot will drop at a good rate, I imagine. We were getting purples at level 7, so....
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
So played a bit of the beta over the weekend.
Some random thoughts:
That "we survived" into was cringy. Hopefully not indicative of the writing going forward.
Movement feels sluggish. Not sure how it is compared to Div1, or if I have just been playing too much Warframe. Once I got used to it, it was fine.
Environments are more colourful, hopefully they lean into that a lot more because it's the only pro over the winter weather from Div1 which was a lot more atmospheric.
They really do love them some US monuments in this one. Much prefered the generic city from Div1, much more universal.
Not a lot of new skills, and the ones they did have available were meh. I guess this one is going to be hyper focused on gunplay again like Div1.
Overall, the low level game play was fun. It's a tight 3rd person cover shooter with a lot of little details, but so far it has impressed me a lot less than the Div1 beta did back in the day.
My thoughts on playing and maxing out the beta after freshly picking up and playing through The Division 1 in the January Humble Bundle:
The interactions within the world are so much better, being able to grab loot and auto-tag it as junk is great and helps minimize downtime when junking/selling back at base.
I loved the wintry atmosphere and "city in the process of collapse" in the first game but I also really like the overgrown look of D.C. I've been to Washington, D.C. more than I have NYC and really liked seeing all the iconic landmarks and government buildings. I even spotted the hotel I stayed at during a friend's wedding (it was unfortunately boarded up so you couldn't go in).
I really like the mods and how they add both a positive and negative trait to your weapon. I couldn't for the life of me find a decent LMG during the beta until a DZ extraction during my last play session so I ran with an assault rifle with the extended mag and all the accuracy boosters I could find and it created a really nice mid-range weapon that actually would induce suppression if I dumped most of a mag at an enemy in cover.
I think some of the skills may need some tuning, because HealBot is an amazing tool and the automatic turret feels much better than the sniper (though the sniper is good at deleting long range targets so you can target them and ignore and it'll do the rest). Seeker mines didn't seem that much more powerful than grenades, other than enemies now will notice grenades and dive out of the blast radius. Perhaps as you level up the damage and mods you can attach to the seekers will increase their efficacy.
The control point missions were pretty fun. I hope they dynamically shift around a bunch and have some knock-on effects in the LZ world.
The mounted minigun was fun once or twice but really messes with game balance. If you're ever in a situation where enemies are in front of you and the minigun, they will die. Gold bars take 1-2 seconds of focus fire and reds and purples even less. Since the AI isn't good enough at moving from cover to cover, or putting down much of their own suppression fire they'll just run out in the open and die.
photo mode is neat but you can't take a picture while aiming a weapon (or at least I didn't see a way to do so). Mostly seems like a cool little perk that they threw in because it was easy to implement.
I like the gear "brand" sets and found them to be surprisingly powerful. During the leveling process it led to some interesting decisions of "do I want another 75 armor and CDR or do I want to keep this 20% crit chance bonus?" I'm curious to see if the end-game classified sets will have brands in addition to set effects. I'm guessing no? May lead to some interesting combos of high-end gear being better for some builds than sets.
I hope (but don't expect) the PC version gets a UI makeover to make it slightly less console friendly. The weapon mod screen in particular seems egregious, but I found myself doing a weird combination of keyboard strikes and mouse clicks and it felt strange at times.
I played in a 4 man group made up of randos in the dark zone, and we had a blast. We accidentally went rogue when someone activated one of the SHD terminals and rolled with it from then on. Focus fire from a team of 4 was more than enough to take down anyone we ran into, including a group of three, but generally things felt a little empty player-wise with the smaller number of players in the instance. I think grouping up in the DZ is going to be critical if you plan to be very successful; the DZ in the beta only had 2 extraction points, but the timer wasn't too long before the heli arrived and then bugged out.
All in all, I had a really good time and look forward to launch. If anyone wants to help me unlock some shields in Division 1 in the meantime, please let me know :biggrin:
Some random thoughts:
That "we survived" into was cringy. Hopefully not indicative of the writing going forward.
Movement feels sluggish. Not sure how it is compared to Div1, or if I have just been playing too much Warframe. Once I got used to it, it was fine.
Environments are more colourful, hopefully they lean into that a lot more because it's the only pro over the winter weather from Div1 which was a lot more atmospheric.
They really do love them some US monuments in this one. Much prefered the generic city from Div1, much more universal.
Not a lot of new skills, and the ones they did have available were meh. I guess this one is going to be hyper focused on gunplay again like Div1.
Overall, the low level game play was fun. It's a tight 3rd person cover shooter with a lot of little details, but so far it has impressed me a lot less than the Div1 beta did back in the day.
Maybe you were joking, but The Division 1 took place in New York City. While I understand that is overexposed as a city in media (unless they shot it in Vancouver and called it NYC), most of the landmarks in it are kind of ... New Yorky.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Some random thoughts:
That "we survived" into was cringy. Hopefully not indicative of the writing going forward.
Movement feels sluggish. Not sure how it is compared to Div1, or if I have just been playing too much Warframe. Once I got used to it, it was fine.
Environments are more colourful, hopefully they lean into that a lot more because it's the only pro over the winter weather from Div1 which was a lot more atmospheric.
They really do love them some US monuments in this one. Much prefered the generic city from Div1, much more universal.
Not a lot of new skills, and the ones they did have available were meh. I guess this one is going to be hyper focused on gunplay again like Div1.
Overall, the low level game play was fun. It's a tight 3rd person cover shooter with a lot of little details, but so far it has impressed me a lot less than the Div1 beta did back in the day.
Maybe you were joking, but The Division 1 took place in New York City. While I understand that is overexposed as a city in media (unless they shot it in Vancouver and called it NYC), most of the landmarks in it are kind of ... New Yorky.
I think the problem in Div1 is that, apart from like, the post office and MSG, a lot just feels like "tall buildings" and "dense city residential." Again, I've only visited NYC like... 3 times? and most of that was in Manhatten, but I instantly recognized a ton of architecture during the beta.
Some random thoughts:
That "we survived" into was cringy. Hopefully not indicative of the writing going forward.
Movement feels sluggish. Not sure how it is compared to Div1, or if I have just been playing too much Warframe. Once I got used to it, it was fine.
Environments are more colourful, hopefully they lean into that a lot more because it's the only pro over the winter weather from Div1 which was a lot more atmospheric.
They really do love them some US monuments in this one. Much prefered the generic city from Div1, much more universal.
Not a lot of new skills, and the ones they did have available were meh. I guess this one is going to be hyper focused on gunplay again like Div1.
Overall, the low level game play was fun. It's a tight 3rd person cover shooter with a lot of little details, but so far it has impressed me a lot less than the Div1 beta did back in the day.
Maybe you were joking, but The Division 1 took place in New York City. While I understand that is overexposed as a city in media (unless they shot it in Vancouver and called it NYC), most of the landmarks in it are kind of ... New Yorky.
While people from New York would recognise specific buildings, it's still a city and looks pretty much like every other modern western city.
Even the "landmarks" aren't distinctive unless you are familiar with them. Most cities have similar looking locations.
Washington DC though is full of monuments and very distinctive buildings.
Some random thoughts:
That "we survived" into was cringy. Hopefully not indicative of the writing going forward.
Movement feels sluggish. Not sure how it is compared to Div1, or if I have just been playing too much Warframe. Once I got used to it, it was fine.
Environments are more colourful, hopefully they lean into that a lot more because it's the only pro over the winter weather from Div1 which was a lot more atmospheric.
They really do love them some US monuments in this one. Much prefered the generic city from Div1, much more universal.
Not a lot of new skills, and the ones they did have available were meh. I guess this one is going to be hyper focused on gunplay again like Div1.
Overall, the low level game play was fun. It's a tight 3rd person cover shooter with a lot of little details, but so far it has impressed me a lot less than the Div1 beta did back in the day.
Maybe you were joking, but The Division 1 took place in New York City. While I understand that is overexposed as a city in media (unless they shot it in Vancouver and called it NYC), most of the landmarks in it are kind of ... New Yorky.
While people from New York would recognise specific buildings, it's still a city and looks pretty much like every other modern western city.
Even the "landmarks" aren't distinctive unless you are familiar with them. Most cities have similar looking locations.
Washington DC though is full of monuments and very distinctive buildings.
Yes, that's because generic downtown Manhattan looks like generic downtown big city in real life, aside from select monuments (there are several in the game).
And Washington DC is full of monuments and very distinctive buildings in real life.
They modeled both games after the real life cities they take place in. They nailed both.
Ha and one purple pants away from having collected all the cosmetic outfits too, not bad not bad.
*sigh*
Getting 3000 commendation was less grating than playing that gametype. But a month to go. should be able to pull at least the 5 hunter kills... maybe I'll do the achievement for it too. I'm... doubting it.
Gotta kill rogues for those dumb achievments... thinking I'll probably just boost them out because I utterly despise the rogue mechanic and engaging in it. I let one keep killing me as he interrupted me in the process of clearing landmarks or moving between landmarks... no interest in fighting and this asshole followed me from DZ02 to DZ04 once before running off. The last time I got annoyed and threw down with him and he only killed me because he popped tact link to burn me down... and of course then he just vanished. problem with putting up a fight the first time is then people think you want to engage in that garbage pk nonsense. it's so obnoxious... really hope they add either phase hopping or let me enter a safe room door if I am not the initiator of pvp combat ffs. I doubt the turrets will be any use... definitely not looking forward to the sandbag achievements related to the DZ in Div 2.
Still gotta work through Last Stand too. Which has actually been fun for me. Only 29 wins to go!
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Some random thoughts:
That "we survived" into was cringy. Hopefully not indicative of the writing going forward.
Movement feels sluggish. Not sure how it is compared to Div1, or if I have just been playing too much Warframe. Once I got used to it, it was fine.
Environments are more colourful, hopefully they lean into that a lot more because it's the only pro over the winter weather from Div1 which was a lot more atmospheric.
They really do love them some US monuments in this one. Much prefered the generic city from Div1, much more universal.
Not a lot of new skills, and the ones they did have available were meh. I guess this one is going to be hyper focused on gunplay again like Div1.
Overall, the low level game play was fun. It's a tight 3rd person cover shooter with a lot of little details, but so far it has impressed me a lot less than the Div1 beta did back in the day.
Maybe you were joking, but The Division 1 took place in New York City. While I understand that is overexposed as a city in media (unless they shot it in Vancouver and called it NYC), most of the landmarks in it are kind of ... New Yorky.
While people from New York would recognise specific buildings, it's still a city and looks pretty much like every other modern western city.
Even the "landmarks" aren't distinctive unless you are familiar with them. Most cities have similar looking locations.
Washington DC though is full of monuments and very distinctive buildings.
Yes, that's because generic downtown Manhattan looks like generic downtown big city in real life, aside from select monuments (there are several in the game).
And Washington DC is full of monuments and very distinctive buildings in real life.
They modeled both games after the real life cities they take place in. They nailed both.
I am aware of that. My point is that I prefer the one over the other.
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited February 2019
It’s kind of unintentional that New York felt generic because they were pushing ‘this is New York’ a lot. They weren’t trying to make a generic city setting.
Looks like there's an Open Beta coming too. I wonder if we will get to try any other new content. Just let me try the Hive.
SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
The reward unlocks are still janked for me, and a lot of other people as well if the beta forum is anything to go by. Redemption site claims I either didn't register for the beta (lol) or even more helpfully "an error occurred" gee thanks, real specific there.
However, Open Beta has a date for the start of March, hopefully there's time to fix things, it's only a thin tshirt, but it's mine...
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That’s what game sequels in general are. Very few reinvent the game with a sequel.
You're right, which is fine if that's what you're looking for. Destiny 2 didn't completely reinvent Destiny either. It really depends on if you think the setting/gameplay is worth a sequel. The real question is "are the changes they DID make for the better" and from what I could tell I would have rather they stuck with signature skills. They also don't really let you play around with specs other than "choose one loadout" so it's hard to say how deep those systems go. It's fine as far as sequels go but I guess I have to ask "did it need a sequel?" and apparently I think maybe not.
this is why they should have added zombies. :P
I’m playing on PS4 and only had a handful of client crashes in the 16-ish hours I put into the game. I was far more annoyed with the daily patching which fell in the 7:30 to 10:30 pm time slot locally. I guess that’s a pretty minor thing overall.
I absolutely HATE the continual calls that another agent needs assistance. I mean, these guys are supposed to be the elite squad right? What did they specialize in? Getting someone else to do the work and then tasking credit? I mean, the one and only time I actually answered one of those requests was when I was looking for a team to help take down the first big Bounty guy, and the game auto-matchmade me with some PUGer that was mid-even on an unrelated part of the map, and then dropped from the group as soon I helped him through it and he grabbed his loot. WITHOUT going after the bounty that we were supposedly going after! (I ended up doing the bounty solo, so it wasn't a complete loss.)
I didn’t make any forays into the DZ – other than the introductory mission which felt like a ghost town. I’m not sure if that mission is instanced or if I just managed to “luck out” by doing it right after a patch (10:30 pm here, 3:30 to 6:30 am in the US) and there just weren’t any other players online at the time. I did go back in there one more time in the middle of the day here and made a circuit. I heard shooting and some pings on the overall map, but didn’t see any players then either. Besides, as others have noted, the beta DZ experience is generally going to be a Bad Time for a low-skill player like me, and this is all getting wiped in a day or so anyway, so I didn’t push on that too hard.
Overall, I had fun with it and will probably pre-order in a couple of paychecks.
EDIT: My edit button seems to be working just fine, did they fix it?
I'm hoping they gate this through a tutorial so that it's not enabled on default. The other thing I'd like re: options is to have Push to Talk enabled by default -- that was an issue in TD1, too.
So I dragged 3 lower level players (while at 7) into the second main mission and while the normalization thing they have for lower levels is pretty decent in the open world, it can get really rough in a mission. More spongey yellow bars and a new unit I hadn't seen, a yellow rusher who has a stun baton. Shocks you in place with no recourse for a couple seconds -- eesh. (Even scarier when they come at you 2 at a time
Tried again later and kept running out of time on the stupid hunters, twitce. I think part of the problemis I'm treating T1 hunters like they were T5 hunters... should have just rushed and burned them down.
Gonna try and do the rest of hte Beta junk for the skin now. but only 115 points to go for that shield.
You mean you don't use your LMG muzzleflashlight?
sound issues got better over the like 3 patches they put out for the beta. But I doubt the div 1 bugs will not be in release otherwise why would they be in the beta?
pleasepaypreacher.net
But yes the summer setting has some very nice effects. It’s still for that fog that comes over and you need to swap to close range fighting, rain and storms are super immersive as well.
Just that the winter setting set it apart from other cover shooters.
https://clips.twitch.tv/BlatantVenomousTubersArsonNoSexy (from a dev stream)
Plus the final shield is up in Division 1, meaning it's farewell to NYC
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
It was there for me.
***
We had an awesome time in the beta over the weekend. We ran the endgame mission a few times. Our major complaint was how to replenish ammo for the specialization weapons. There was nothing that we could find in-game that explained how they worked. The sniper one we worked out, but the other two were less obvious. The handling on the sniper was also different than the normal gun I was using, so it threw me a bit hah.
The Dark Zone was excellent, although we kind of wished the population cap could've been increased by four more. It's probably fine as it is and that complaint is invalid, but sometimes we just could not find people to increase our manhunt level.
We did get manhunt a few times and tested some items. We got Manhunt activated and then maxxed out the manhunt level to get the tier one reward. That was intense. No one chased us that time, of course, but we got the reward.....3 GREENS each! We're only level 7, though, so whatever. None of it contaminated either.
We opened up the thieves den, but the guy wasn't there to sell us anything. A backpack was on the ground saying we didn't have some perk or achievement leveled. Okay, whatever.
The fact that everything you get is not contaminated is great as that'll give more reason to risk going in solo rather than have to wait for your buddies to get on. Sure, trying to extract solo is a pain the rear, but a lot of items aren't contaminated, even the purples / blues you could get in this limited beta. Assuming the ratio holds for the purples and yellows later, that's a good move overall.
Items I'm worried about. Overall, I like the changes to the rogue system. You have to trigger it, the entire group is rogue, even if they die and respawn, it'll re-sync....all good stuff. The nameplates are hard to see unless aiming at someone to SEE if they're rogue, though (unless they're right up on you, by which point, eh), and there's a later perk to make the nameplates even smaller as you increase DZ level. Kind of a pain.
Artistically, I still prefer the snowy NYC of Div 1, but their accuracy of DC is great and walking around it makes me smile, too. That being said, a buddy in squad sarcastically commented "This is not what the inside of the FBI building looks like", but the externals were great.
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I understand this but also kind of hate it in that I always like more gear than "you must crawl and crawl and crawl and then eventually walk" with regards to gear especially since greens have set bonus's why not give those to people early?!
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PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I don't think that was really gear based reasons. It was there wasn't anything to really chase, at release it had fixed rolls, so once you got a piece of gear you were kind of done.
Division 2 has random rolls on gear I think or something to chase. But I don't think that giving people more gear early on doesn't suddenly invalidate the grind later.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Will be interesting.
Either way, I think loot will drop at a good rate, I imagine. We were getting purples at level 7, so....
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Some random thoughts:
That "we survived" into was cringy. Hopefully not indicative of the writing going forward.
Movement feels sluggish. Not sure how it is compared to Div1, or if I have just been playing too much Warframe. Once I got used to it, it was fine.
Environments are more colourful, hopefully they lean into that a lot more because it's the only pro over the winter weather from Div1 which was a lot more atmospheric.
They really do love them some US monuments in this one. Much prefered the generic city from Div1, much more universal.
Not a lot of new skills, and the ones they did have available were meh. I guess this one is going to be hyper focused on gunplay again like Div1.
Overall, the low level game play was fun. It's a tight 3rd person cover shooter with a lot of little details, but so far it has impressed me a lot less than the Div1 beta did back in the day.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
The interactions within the world are so much better, being able to grab loot and auto-tag it as junk is great and helps minimize downtime when junking/selling back at base.
I loved the wintry atmosphere and "city in the process of collapse" in the first game but I also really like the overgrown look of D.C. I've been to Washington, D.C. more than I have NYC and really liked seeing all the iconic landmarks and government buildings. I even spotted the hotel I stayed at during a friend's wedding (it was unfortunately boarded up so you couldn't go in).
I really like the mods and how they add both a positive and negative trait to your weapon. I couldn't for the life of me find a decent LMG during the beta until a DZ extraction during my last play session so I ran with an assault rifle with the extended mag and all the accuracy boosters I could find and it created a really nice mid-range weapon that actually would induce suppression if I dumped most of a mag at an enemy in cover.
I think some of the skills may need some tuning, because HealBot is an amazing tool and the automatic turret feels much better than the sniper (though the sniper is good at deleting long range targets so you can target them and ignore and it'll do the rest). Seeker mines didn't seem that much more powerful than grenades, other than enemies now will notice grenades and dive out of the blast radius. Perhaps as you level up the damage and mods you can attach to the seekers will increase their efficacy.
The control point missions were pretty fun. I hope they dynamically shift around a bunch and have some knock-on effects in the LZ world.
The mounted minigun was fun once or twice but really messes with game balance. If you're ever in a situation where enemies are in front of you and the minigun, they will die. Gold bars take 1-2 seconds of focus fire and reds and purples even less. Since the AI isn't good enough at moving from cover to cover, or putting down much of their own suppression fire they'll just run out in the open and die.
photo mode is neat but you can't take a picture while aiming a weapon (or at least I didn't see a way to do so). Mostly seems like a cool little perk that they threw in because it was easy to implement.
I like the gear "brand" sets and found them to be surprisingly powerful. During the leveling process it led to some interesting decisions of "do I want another 75 armor and CDR or do I want to keep this 20% crit chance bonus?" I'm curious to see if the end-game classified sets will have brands in addition to set effects. I'm guessing no? May lead to some interesting combos of high-end gear being better for some builds than sets.
I hope (but don't expect) the PC version gets a UI makeover to make it slightly less console friendly. The weapon mod screen in particular seems egregious, but I found myself doing a weird combination of keyboard strikes and mouse clicks and it felt strange at times.
I played in a 4 man group made up of randos in the dark zone, and we had a blast. We accidentally went rogue when someone activated one of the SHD terminals and rolled with it from then on. Focus fire from a team of 4 was more than enough to take down anyone we ran into, including a group of three, but generally things felt a little empty player-wise with the smaller number of players in the instance. I think grouping up in the DZ is going to be critical if you plan to be very successful; the DZ in the beta only had 2 extraction points, but the timer wasn't too long before the heli arrived and then bugged out.
All in all, I had a really good time and look forward to launch. If anyone wants to help me unlock some shields in Division 1 in the meantime, please let me know :biggrin:
Maybe you were joking, but The Division 1 took place in New York City. While I understand that is overexposed as a city in media (unless they shot it in Vancouver and called it NYC), most of the landmarks in it are kind of ... New Yorky.
I think the problem in Div1 is that, apart from like, the post office and MSG, a lot just feels like "tall buildings" and "dense city residential." Again, I've only visited NYC like... 3 times? and most of that was in Manhatten, but I instantly recognized a ton of architecture during the beta.
pleasepaypreacher.net
While people from New York would recognise specific buildings, it's still a city and looks pretty much like every other modern western city.
Even the "landmarks" aren't distinctive unless you are familiar with them. Most cities have similar looking locations.
Washington DC though is full of monuments and very distinctive buildings.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
Ha and one purple pants away from having collected all the cosmetic outfits too, not bad not bad.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yes, that's because generic downtown Manhattan looks like generic downtown big city in real life, aside from select monuments (there are several in the game).
And Washington DC is full of monuments and very distinctive buildings in real life.
They modeled both games after the real life cities they take place in. They nailed both.
*sigh*
Getting 3000 commendation was less grating than playing that gametype. But a month to go. should be able to pull at least the 5 hunter kills... maybe I'll do the achievement for it too. I'm... doubting it.
Gotta kill rogues for those dumb achievments... thinking I'll probably just boost them out because I utterly despise the rogue mechanic and engaging in it. I let one keep killing me as he interrupted me in the process of clearing landmarks or moving between landmarks... no interest in fighting and this asshole followed me from DZ02 to DZ04 once before running off. The last time I got annoyed and threw down with him and he only killed me because he popped tact link to burn me down... and of course then he just vanished. problem with putting up a fight the first time is then people think you want to engage in that garbage pk nonsense. it's so obnoxious... really hope they add either phase hopping or let me enter a safe room door if I am not the initiator of pvp combat ffs. I doubt the turrets will be any use... definitely not looking forward to the sandbag achievements related to the DZ in Div 2.
Still gotta work through Last Stand too. Which has actually been fun for me. Only 29 wins to go!
I am aware of that. My point is that I prefer the one over the other.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
Looks like there's an Open Beta coming too. I wonder if we will get to try any other new content. Just let me try the Hive.
However, Open Beta has a date for the start of March, hopefully there's time to fix things, it's only a thin tshirt, but it's mine...
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