Tom Clancy's "The Division"

[wings]

Jul 12, 2016 15:55:07 GMT -5 tooros said:

Why? G36 nerf?

Not in itself but it's how Massive are going about things. I knew the G36 was going to get nerfed, but I get the impression Massive thinks the only way to make game content challenging is by requiring NPCs to require more and more ammunition in order to be killed. I can go back to playing Borderlands if I wanted that tbh. Retroactively nerfing the Aug and Vector because it was the only two SMGs that had blueprints. They buffed assault rifles to make up for that but, now the G36 is nerfed, we have SMGs out-DPSing assault rifles again. Also, Massive said they added stagger on new shotguns, but there's no improvement from the old ones. Oh, and the G36 had five nerfs to it. These ninja nerfs are deliberate considering they changed its recoil pattern. It's not like stealth nerfs are nothing new to the game either.

The best content in the game for me are story missions (levels 1 to 30) because it felt like a cover-based shooter. As soon as you reach the end-game, you get killed by NPCs who have real shotguns while we get BB guns. And to combat this you're going to need to spend a lot of time farming for decent builds, with methods of doing just that having been nerfed since release. Warrengate Power Plant and General Assembly are good showcases of what I see in the game. There's just not enough of that content to play. At least when Bungie decided Xur should not sell heavy ammo synthesis packs, it only dissuaded me from running sword in Crota's End and I didn't play Crota's End as much, so that was Bungie's loss since they didn't get as much play time from me. Massive marketed The Division as a cover-based shooter so I'm essentially comparing it to Gears of War and Spec Ops: The Line so perhaps this is where I'm going wrong, but then if they gave LMGs an actual suppression mechanic like in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier that might have helped. I also can't spend the hours into farming gear The Division these days like I used to with Destiny so I will probably suffer from having sub-optimal loadouts.

[hebbnh]

Yeah, it's unfortunate that Massive evidently learned nothing from all the complaints about Destiny in year 1 and are going down a similar path. Anything that players enjoy gets nerfed, artificial difficulty with NPCs out leveling players by several levels, progression system that's overly convoluted by huge amounts of RNG, you name it. I'm still having fun with it for now though, and it sounds like Massive realizes there are some serious balancing issues and they're working to make some adjustments. We'll see I guess.

[bradman]

Beating the last NPC in a wave to death is still fun, though.

[wings]

Jul 13, 2016 9:24:11 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

Yeah, it's unfortunate that Massive evidently learned nothing from all the complaints about Destiny in year 1 and are going down a similar path. Anything that players enjoy gets nerfed, artificial difficulty with NPCs out leveling players by several levels, progression system that's overly convoluted by huge amounts of RNG, you name it. I'm still having fun with it for now though, and it sounds like Massive realizes there are some serious balancing issues and they're working to make some adjustments. We'll see I guess.

Yeah the similarities are there. The one that springs to mind is when Mathias Karlson, lead designer of The Division, admits he cannot complete Falcon Lost. So this is like watching Bungie do a Raid on their Twitch stream but they do normal mode, let alone attempt year 1 Nightfalls without cheesing then blame the Ice Breaker for allowing cheesing of said content. I can see why popular choices can fool developers into thinking they're overpowered, but it would be nice if they ask themselves why is a certain item used as often as they are. This reminds me of Destiny with the nerf to Achlyophage Symbiote even though Bladedancer was the best subclass, because none of the other exotics were uninspiring choices. History repeated itself with the Tripmine nerf since the buff to Young Ahamkara's Spine meant that those gauntlets were the only Gunslinger exotics worth using. At least Warlocks and Titans have competitive choices for exotics in PvP.

Keep playing if you enjoy it. I only uninstalled the game so if improvements are made I'll play again. Hopefully the improvements are made before Forza Horizon 3 is released since I might buy that.

[Dumien]

One thing I think Division had wrong from the get go was how to make intentionally challenging content still fun. Of course if people figure out how to cheese they are going to because minimum effort -> Maximum reward. Problem is... I remember enjoying the Atheon fight before people figured out the cheese and after Bungie patched the cheese. I don't remember enjoying the first incursion very much.

[hebbnh]

That is definitely true. Falcon Lost really is not fun, and I've only ran it a couple times -- can't imagine how boring it gets trying to farm that for hours to get some good 268 gear. Clear Sky isn't much better, honestly. Dragon's Nest is actually a good step in the right direction. It plays out much more like the story missions, with multiple objectives instead of sitting in one room (more or less) the whole time. Plus there are 5 total loot drops instead of only the one at the end like the 2 earlier incursions. Still nowhere near the feeling of Destiny's raids though -- looking forward to the new one coming in September.

[bradman]

Here is a lengthy post on what's really changing with the 1.4 update next month...
tomclancy-thedivision.ubi.com/game/en-GB/news/detail.aspx?c=tcm:154-268296-16&ct=tcm:148-76770-32

[wings]

If only 1.4 didn't come sooner.

[bradman]

They should relaunch the game this holiday season,for 20 bucks.

[markopolo]

Too little too late, from what I'm hearing

[bradman]

I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt, see what's what.

[wings]

Re-installed for 1.4 and it is good. Pity I hear shotguns might get nerfed because of PvP, but then, I have experienced that with Destiny.

[Pegasus Actual]

I'd like to give this game another shot and all but the timing of the big update just doesn't work. Maybe if there's a big content update in like 6 months.

[bradman]

Yeah, the game is much improved. It's actually worth playing again.

[qupie]

Is it actually fun though? I never bought it because the combat seems so not fun.

[mannon]

Yeah same here. I thought the look and the premise sounded amazing and was hyped about it until I finally saw video players grinding at putting 20+ headshots into bullet sponge enemies wearing just a bandanna on their heads and decided this combat would not be satisfying at all so why bother...

[bradman]

The run up to max level is worth playing, especially for how cheap you can find the game now.
End game content is a lot less grindy now, and enemy sponginess is reduced. Enemy AI is much improved, however.
I would not recommend the game for PvP, currently. Fun factor is hard to quantify, but I think the game has it.

[wings]

Oct 31, 2016 7:31:33 GMT -5 mannon said:

Yeah same here. I thought the look and the premise sounded amazing and was hyped about it until I finally saw video players grinding at putting 20+ headshots into bullet sponge enemies wearing just a bandanna on their heads and decided this combat would not be satisfying at all so why bother...

So a bit like Destiny then, especially Omnigul who is just an extra-terrestial zombie.

[mannon]

The bosses in Destiny are definitely spongy. They are more fun when just running the missions than playing the Nightfall's which seriously ups the sponginess. Nightfalls are usually only fun if you get the right mix of elemental damage bonuses. There are plenty of enemies that are quite satisfying to pop, though. There's certainly plenty of weapons that feel satisfactorily powerful and a few that really feel awesome. Or were. I dropped Destiny when they wanted to charge $40 for the TTK DLC. ATM I've considered picking it up cheap now, but it's hard to get back in, especially with other really good stuff to play.

The combat in The Division just doesn't look satisfying. It's not even so much a realism thing for me... though that is a factor. It's more a matter of it seems like all the guns feel like spit wad shooters instead of powerful firearms. It's the same reason I usually avoid several weapons in Halo games. It's not entirely about how quickly they kill either. Much comes down to presentation and reaction. Generally what I've seen of the Division just left me feeling really meh about it. If it's super cheap I might revisit and rethink that, but then again that just puts it in same territory as Destiny where I have many other really great gaming options right now.

[wings]

Oct 31, 2016 8:32:54 GMT -5 bradman said:

The run up to max level is worth playing, especially for how cheap you can find the game now.
End game content is a lot less grindy now, and enemy sponginess is reduced. Enemy AI is much improved, however.

You can even earn gear sets from random drops in the wild (free roam enemies that annoy you), from ranking up (like Destiny's Mote of Light rewards), and they have made recalibration a more sensible price. About an hour ago I got three incursion pieces from two rank-up packages, one of them being a Firecrest piece which is nice.

[bradman]

Yep, loot drops are much much better. Many more viable loadout options as well.

[wings]

Pity Intel is still capped at 99. :/

[bradman]

Evidently running Clear Sky on WT2 is a very efficient way to farm PC and caches now.

[wings]

Nov 2, 2016 11:13:58 GMT -5 bradman said:

Evidently running Clear Sky on WT2 is a very efficient way to farm PC and caches now.

Which people might need because the FireCrest chest piece being sold by the vendor downstairs from the Base of Operations is very good. Since I reached 12m standard Credits, I purchased a bucket load of cache drops from the vendor and got some quick Phoenix Credits, and a bunch of stuff improving my existing gear like an improved SVD, a SCAR-L, and some gear set pieces too. Going to need to farm Phoenix Credits as I will be wanting to re-roll maybe a few weapons. Spent a load of Phoenix Credits when 1.4 dropped on the Weapon Kit blueprints, purchasing three of them to use up my excess materials. You make up standard Credits in no time and 'ranking up' grants a cache drop, which can contain decent gear. I never got two gear set pieces from purchasing a cache drop (200,000 Credits apiece), but I've had them from rank-ups. Also, there appears to be a 10% chance of getting a gear set piece from purchased cache drops.

I liked how the story missions on Challenging have upped the ante on adding mechanics. Played which ever the daily challenging mission was on Wednesday and I had incendiary RC-XDs coming my way, which was a nice surprise. Also, I did General Assembly solo a while back and that is still annoying but pretty fun that it isn't just stand and shoot. Not worth doing for the Phoenix Credits though.

[wings]

Update:

Gear Score - 250
Gear Set - 4 piece Alpha Bridge
Weapons - 1. Pakhan (Brutal, Destructive, Ferocious), 2. Infantry MG5 (Sustained, Deadly, Meticulous); 3. Classic AK-47 (Meticulous, Commanding, Ferocious), 4. Military AK-47M (Brutal, Destructive, Swift)
Stats - 4888 Firearms, 4603 Stamina, 3871 Electronics
Armour - 49.75% enemy damage mitigation

Have some decent rolled SVDs from before 1.5, so I will be looking for one or two SVDs/SCAR-Hs at current gear score levels. Expecting Massive to do a Bungie and nerf Alpha Bridge because of its popularity, even though its popularity is more of a sign of how the game is designed (e.g. bullet sponge enemies making shotguns redundant in PvE), rather than the strength of the set.

[bradman]

1.5 update drops today for PS4.

[malgato]

Well, I finally caved and bought this game. Found digital code for $18. Downloaded, but haven't booted it up yet. Not sure what to expect. Does anyone still play (on Xbone)? It'll give me a break from Destiny, which I still play way too much.

[Pegasus Actual]

I might dive back in a little over Christmas. I need something that I can drop at a moment's notice so I can be good at family. Bah humbug. It sounds like you can kind of effectively play it solo-ish now and get decent loot. Mindlessly grinding my way towards whatever the current gear score cap is seems like the perfect sort of thing for that. And I mean, the game is supposedly good now.

[wittyscorpion]

Dec 19, 2016 15:11:23 GMT -5 malgato said:

Well, I finally caved and bought this game. Found digital code for $18. Downloaded, but haven't booted it up yet. Not sure what to expect. Does anyone still play (on Xbone)? It'll give me a break from Destiny, which I still play way too much.

Wanna join us at R6 Siege as well?

While Division and Siege are quite different in many aspects, I was told that one thing they have in common is the focus on head shots. This transitions nicely into Siege PvE (terrorist hunt). From there you can then get into MP. I know that you hate the 1-life-per-round game modes like SnD in CoD and Siege is even more hardcore in that aspect, I was to before as well . However, Siege is quite unique with destructible environments, emphasis on verticality and great focus on teamwork, which makes it a lot more fun than run-and-gun-2D-environments like CoD. With a stable and probably growing player base and Y2 free DLC support, it is a game that will have a fairly good longevity.

[malgato]

Dec 20, 2016 13:31:17 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

From there you can then get into MP. I know that you hate the 1-life-per-round game modes like SnD in CoD and Siege is even more hardcore in that aspect, I was to before as well

NOPE.