The Division 2: Warlords Of New York |OT| Gear 2.0 Of War

[MythicReclaimer]

Cleared a bunch of Level 4 Control Points yesterday with my first real build in TD2 in ages...

Got a god-rolled ACR SS Rifle (420 RPM) w/max Rifle and Critical Hit Damage which I like single shot fast-firing weapons so it fits my style.

Secondary is the Enforcer Shotgun w/Perfect Pummel.

Got two very well rolled "Zero F's" chest pieces w/Perfectly Unbreakable (When your armor is depleted, repair 100% of your armor. Cooldown: 55s) in about 10 minutes so it pushed me in the Rifle/Shotgun direction as the Badger Tuff brand gives a SG Damage bonus.

So I'm running 3 Badger Tuff, 2 Overlord Armaments (for the Rifle Damage bonus), and the Exotic Sawyer's Kneepads (because why not) with the Flamethrower/Shield Specialization. I use a healing skill in the other slot. I haven't done any recalibrating yet.

Just need one more Striker piece to put together a Striker Gear Set build too.

Overall, lots of fun and lots of good changes with this expansion thus far.

One question, the Paragon Point-like Watch upgrade system isn't being reset at the beginning of each season is it (I don't think so but just wanted to be sure)?

 

[Kenzodielocke]

Are there no more caches after level 40?

 

[Buttzerker]

Are there no more caches after level 40?

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Correct. They said they wanted to cut down on people getting shitty loot and they couldn't justify putting good loot in the caches so they just removed them and replaced them with the watch.

 

[Rellyrell28]

My understanding is that if your current character has the blueprint or a level 30 Nemesis, the other marksman rifle, which you need for parts for the nemesis quest, won't drop. You'll just have to either move it to another character (not your stash) or get it to drop from RNG.

Here are the datamined drop rates for exotics (note that people complaining about Nemesis in the comments were before the recent patch).

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

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Okay so just drops then cool.

 

[shawnoftheshred]

One question, the Paragon Point-like Watch upgrade system isn't being reset at the beginning of each season is it (I don't think so but just wanted to be sure)?

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Nope! Those upgrades are permanent to your character and account.
Season progression will just be for the rewards tracks that nets you cosmetics, caches, and some guaranteed gear/weapon drops (all non-cosmetics will drop in the open world, so stuff you get affecting gameplay isn't pay to play at all).

 

[Buttzerker]

Thsoe new warhounds that run away while firing are annoying as shit

 

[shawnoftheshred]

Thsoe new warhounds that run away while firing are annoying as shit

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Definitely added some annoying new enemies (the stationary shield, the running warhound, etc). Super annoying on heroic (and I imagine a nightmare on legendary). That said, I think you can EMP them if you're really struggling?

 

[SpartyCrunch]

I'm doing the Kenly College expedition and am on the last mission in the big building - I need to defend these servers for 5+ minutes.

Seems disproportionately difficult? Some of the sight lines are super long making it nearly impossible to take dudes out while they hammer the servers like crazy.

 

[Buttzerker]

Definitely added some annoying new enemies (the stationary shield, the running warhound, etc). Super annoying on heroic (and I imagine a nightmare on legendary). That said, I think you can EMP them if you're really struggling?

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Not really struggling with them at least on Heroic, they're just irritating to chase down lol

 

[Rellyrell28]

So basically until I can get a god roll on an attribute that I can extract in the library I'll just extract rolls that are past the halfway mark on the little attribute meter.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

So basically until I can get a god roll on an attribute that I can extract in the library I'll just extract rolls that are past the halfway mark on the little attribute meter.

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Extract anything past the small white triangle on the meter.

 

[Rellyrell28]

Extract anything past the small white triangle on the meter.

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Well yeah but I'm talking about when I haven't even put roll in yet.

 

[cyress8]

I hope they fix the cluster seekers. When you see 9 of them explode and not cause any damage to a whole slew of enemies, it will make you rage internally.

Fuck that bullshit.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

Well yeah but I'm talking about when I haven't even put roll in yet.

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Yeah, but you dont have to wait until its halfway. If you havent put a roll in then the triangle will just be at the far left. Some of mine have been very small incremental increases, but I have no use for money anymore and I've collected all the materials for now, so I might as well.

 

[Rellyrell28]

Yeah, but you dont have to wait until its halfway. If you havent put a roll in then the triangle will just be at the far left. Some of mine have been very small incremental increases, but I have no use for money anymore and I've collected all the materials for now, so I might as well.

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Yeah but for me there's still money to be had so only past halfway for me.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

Yeah but for me there's still money to be had so only past halfway for me.

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Ahh, I see.

 

[Megasoum]

I'm not at home right now so I can't check but can you get to WT1 without being level 30? I quickly checked last night and saw that I was WT1 but I couldn'T find my actual level anywhere?

 

[shawnoftheshred]

I'm not at home right now so I can't check but can you get to WT1 without being level 30? I quickly checked last night and saw that I was WT1 but I couldn'T find my actual level anywhere?

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I think, if memory serves, once you get to Level 30, WT1-5 ends up being Gear Score displayed instead of Level 30.
With the expansion, as soon as you hit New York and level 31, Gear Score is completely abandoned.
So yeah, WT1-5 is a bit of a relic of past systems.

 

[Rellyrell28]

I'm enjoying using The Grudge SMG right now. May pair it up with a good shotgun or AR for a firewall build.

 

[Slackbladder]

I actually liked finding different talents and seeing which ones worked well together. That's been simplified a bit too much for me. You still can get some interesting synergies between talents but you are far more limited. I usually just end up sticking as many crit chance and crit damage attributes on and some damage bonus talents like vigilance and it seems to work okay. I like the library system. I like the ease of seeing the best attributes in gear and weapons. I do realise that the talents have been tweaked - some nerfed and some improved - but the fun I had just playing around with multiple talents has been reduced, which is a shame.

I hope they fix the cluster seekers. When you see 9 of them explode and not cause any damage to a whole slew of enemies, it will make you rage internally.

Fuck that bullshit.

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Is that due to Skill Lvl? Having high Skill increases damage? Where as before damage was a set value?

 

[SirMossyBloke]

What's the easiest exotic to get that I can break down? I've had the level 1 Lullaby in my stash since launch and need to upgrade it.

 

[Slackbladder]

What's the easiest exotic to get that I can break down? I've had the level 1 Lullaby in my stash since launch and need to upgrade it.

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Chatterbox maybe. With enough Hyena keys you'll find the parts in Hyena strongboxes and make one. Nemesis isn't too hard just time consuming.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

Chatterbox maybe. With enough Hyena keys you'll find the parts in Hyena strongboxes and make one. Nemesis isn't too hard just time consuming.

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I'll try Chatterbox, cheers.

 

[MrDaravon]

Man, folks weren't kidding about the scaling on 3-4 player content being wild. I haven't grabbed the expansion yet so I'm still in the vanilla game, and every time I do a Challenging mission for a daily or whatever it's completely insane. I just did a Capitol Hill 4 player run on Challenging for the daily and it took us like 90 minutes including multiple wipes in the House Chamber (which to be fair was a fucked encounter before). Everyone seemed competent and was 512-515 but it was freaking wild. I've got what I feel is fairly good gear and rolls/talents but I dunno if maybe I'm just missing some obvious stuff or what. I took a look over on Reddit and it seems like it's mostly people complaining about the game being too hard and/or scaling too much, with some people saying to get good but I'm not even seeing many builds posted, and none of those builds would help me since they're all 40/WONY builds. A little bit annoyed right now.

 

[IvorB]

So, I played Conny Island, the zoo, the Pentagon and the other off site and they really blew me away. The art and design of the levels are gorgeous. That and Gear 2.0 really sold me on the expac so I ended up getting a one-way chopper ride to NYC ha ha. It's actually pretty nice without the snow. Loving the ruined city vibe.

 

[Megasoum]

I think, if memory serves, once you get to Level 30, WT1-5 ends up being Gear Score displayed instead of Level 30.
With the expansion, as soon as you hit New York and level 31, Gear Score is completely abandoned.
So yeah, WT1-5 is a bit of a relic of past systems.

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Ok so if I'm at WT1 right now, is it even worth doing the stuff I have left in my log (black Tusk missions and side missions mostly) before buying the xpac?

 

[shawnoftheshred]

Ok so if I'm at WT1 right now, is it even worth doing the stuff I have left in my log (black Tusk missions and side missions mostly) before buying the xpac?

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I would personally say yes. Probably 8 hours to level to World Tier 5 and you'll unlock Strongholds I don't think you've played yet (the climactic missions from each faction)?

 

[astro]

Man, folks weren't kidding about the scaling on 3-4 player content being wild. I haven't grabbed the expansion yet so I'm still in the vanilla game, and every time I do a Challenging mission for a daily or whatever it's completely insane. I just did a Capitol Hill 4 player run on Challenging for the daily and it took us like 90 minutes including multiple wipes in the House Chamber (which to be fair was a fucked encounter before). Everyone seemed competent and was 512-515 but it was freaking wild. I've got what I feel is fairly good gear and rolls/talents but I dunno if maybe I'm just missing some obvious stuff or what. I took a look over on Reddit and it seems like it's mostly people complaining about the game being too hard and/or scaling too much, with some people saying to get good but I'm not even seeing many builds posted, and none of those builds would help me since they're all 40/WONY builds. A little bit annoyed right now.

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You need to focus fire on healers so they can't revive, then focus fire on the leaders with the double chevrons (they give their people an extra green health bar).

The issue is that random players do not focus fire, they don't communicate... hell many of them don't even take our weak spots and armour first... the content isn't actually that hard if you do these things, if you played with a group on a mic it would be much different.

 

[JayDee]

I'm still going through the base game and I'm currently in the process of trying to unlock the firewall specialization. For the step I'm on, I need to kill wildfire after destroying her fuel tank. Do I need to get the finishing blow for it to count?

 

[Klyka]

I'm still going through the base game and I'm currently in the process of trying to unlock the firewall specialization. For the step I'm on, I need to kill wildfire after destroying her fuel tank. Do I need to get the finishing blow for it to count?

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You do not!

 

[Evolution of Metal]

Any pointers what to do after reaching Level 30? (no warlords, and undecided if we want to "invest" further atm)

I see a lot of activities... (assume we have trash builds and average game skills)

 

[Klyka]

Any pointers what to do after reaching Level 30?

I see a lot of activities... (assume we have trash builds and average game skills)

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basically just do all the new missions and activities :D

 

[Evolution of Metal]

basically just do all the new missions and activities :D

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Which ones are those? I edited the post because we dont' have Warlords and unsure if we want to buy right now.

I assume I need the all ultimate weapon unlocks and other non-stats based rewards?
What happens if we venture into DZ, will we be wasting time being bottom feeders with potentially redundant loot?

 

[MrDaravon]

You need to focus fire on healers so they can't revive, then focus fire on the leaders with the double chevrons (they give their people an extra green health bar).

The issue is that random players do not focus fire, they don't communicate... hell many of them don't even take our weak spots and armour first... the content isn't actually that hard if you do these things, if you played with a group on a mic it would be much different.

Click to shrink...

I have a couple hundred hours in the game from since launch, so I'm aware. The "issue" here is that the exact same content I was cruising through up until now is notably harder both solo and in groups because of the way they've changed things. I'm also kind of legitimately wondering if the base game is affected more because they balanced more around WONY gear etc maybe?

I'm 100% sure to some extent I need to change things up but I'm not sure how and I'm having a hard time finding anything that isn't WONY build specific. Up until I had largely stopped playing I usually ran AR + Marksman Rifle, revive Hive and flame turret and ran Optimist + the skill that gave you bonus damage for every X amount of armor you had (the name escapes me) and generally stuck to cover with my AR and sometimes rifle and did just fine. Here I'm running mostly 513-515 gear with a seemingly decent AR (515 Police M4 which is the best I've seen and has max ideal rolls + Preservation) and it's just not getting the job done nearly as well. I'm still making sure I have set bonuses I want etc as well. I'm trying to split the difference between armor and weapon damage; I had considered going full glass cannon or full tank but people are saying neither of those works as well as they should. I maybe need to switch skills up as well but nothing is really standing out to me.

I think I'm just in a weird spot with not having the expansion since there's no one really having endgame base game discussions right now, so maybe I'm just missing something super obvious and I should be gunning (ha) for this one setup or gun or whatever. I'm still having fun and I enjoy the core gameplay loop, but right now level 4 CPs are a hilarious no go for me and given that blueprints + filling out my recalibration library is kind of all I have left to do it's kind of a bummer. 4 separate times now I've put out a distress call for a level 4 CP and we've full wiped every time so I'm not even trying anymore on those. I do still need to do a couple of the later missions they added like Camp White Oak though.

 

[Klyka]

Which ones are those? I edited the post because we dont' have Warlords and unsure if we want to buy right now.

I assume I need the all ultimate weapon unlocks and other non-stats based rewards?
What happens if we venture into DZ, will we be wasting time being bottom feeders with potentially redundant loot?

Click to shrink...

I mean, do you want to see new content in new areas? cause that's what the missions offer.
If you guys are just lvl 30 now, that means you need to progress through the world tiers by doing invaded missions.
they are missions you have done but with black tusk as the enemies and some changes to them as well.
then you do the invaded strongholds to advance through the world tiers.
ultimately you go to Tidal Basin and basically have the "end fight" of the basegame.
then you get more missions cause you are in WT5. You get to go to camp white oak, the manning zoo, the pentagon and coney island. you can also (if it is open) go to kenly college which is an "expedition" which is a fancy word for "an area with missions in it".
and then....you did all the pre-warlords content in the game :D

the DZ is like whatever. i personally think it's a trashfire nomatter what they do but some people like it.
check it out if you want but just be aware that probably almost every other player you meet will have a proper PvP build and will kill you on sight

 

[astro]

I have a couple hundred hours in the game from since launch, so I'm aware. The "issue" here is that the exact same content I was cruising through up until now is notably harder both solo and in groups because of the way they've changed things. I'm also kind of legitimately wondering if the base game is affected more because they balanced more around WONY gear etc maybe?

I'm 100% sure to some extent I need to change things up but I'm not sure how and I'm having a hard time finding anything that isn't WONY build specific. Up until I had largely stopped playing I usually ran AR + Marksman Rifle, revive Hive and flame turret and ran Optimist + the skill that gave you bonus damage for every X amount of armor you had (the name escapes me) and generally stuck to cover with my AR and sometimes rifle and did just fine. Here I'm running mostly 513-515 gear with a seemingly decent AR (515 Police M4 which is the best I've seen and has max ideal rolls + Preservation) and it's just not getting the job done nearly as well. I'm still making sure I have set bonuses I want etc as well. I'm trying to split the difference between armor and weapon damage; I had considered going full glass cannon or full tank but people are saying neither of those works as well as they should. I maybe need to switch skills up as well but nothing is really standing out to me.

I think I'm just in a weird spot with not having the expansion since there's no one really having endgame base game discussions right now, so maybe I'm just missing something super obvious and I should be gunning (ha) for this one setup or gun or whatever. I'm still having fun and I enjoy the core gameplay loop, but right now level 4 CPs are a hilarious no go for me and given that blueprints + filling out my recalibration library is kind of all I have left to do it's kind of a bummer. 4 separate times now I've put out a distress call for a level 4 CP and we've full wiped every time so I'm not even trying anymore on those. I do still need to do a couple of the later missions they added like Camp White Oak though.

Click to shrink...

Yes it is, it's harder because the builds you used to have are no longer working and you need to remake ones for end-game... there's a new Leader mechanic that buffs the team, and most players have not even begun to figure out the way the loot system works.

So, play with randoms and it's painful. Play with a co-ordinated group and you'd mow through it.

 

[Klyka]

I have a couple hundred hours in the game from since launch, so I'm aware. The "issue" here is that the exact same content I was cruising through up until now is notably harder both solo and in groups because of the way they've changed things. I'm also kind of legitimately wondering if the base game is affected more because they balanced more around WONY gear etc maybe?

I'm 100% sure to some extent I need to change things up but I'm not sure how and I'm having a hard time finding anything that isn't WONY build specific. Up until I had largely stopped playing I usually ran AR + Marksman Rifle, revive Hive and flame turret and ran Optimist + the skill that gave you bonus damage for every X amount of armor you had (the name escapes me) and generally stuck to cover with my AR and sometimes rifle and did just fine. Here I'm running mostly 513-515 gear with a seemingly decent AR (515 Police M4 which is the best I've seen and has max ideal rolls + Preservation) and it's just not getting the job done nearly as well. I'm still making sure I have set bonuses I want etc as well. I'm trying to split the difference between armor and weapon damage; I had considered going full glass cannon or full tank but people are saying neither of those works as well as they should. I maybe need to switch skills up as well but nothing is really standing out to me.

I think I'm just in a weird spot with not having the expansion since there's no one really having endgame base game discussions right now, so maybe I'm just missing something super obvious and I should be gunning (ha) for this one setup or gun or whatever. I'm still having fun and I enjoy the core gameplay loop, but right now level 4 CPs are a hilarious no go for me and given that blueprints + filling out my recalibration library is kind of all I have left to do it's kind of a bummer. 4 separate times now I've put out a distress call for a level 4 CP and we've full wiped every time so I'm not even trying anymore on those. I do still need to do a couple of the later missions they added like Camp White Oak though.

Click to shrink...

The difficulties are not the same anymore.
Challenging isn't the "slightly hard" it used to be.

Also you only need to do CP3s for blueprints, so don't bother with 4s

 

[Buttzerker]

What's CP3/4/etc mean?

 

[MrDaravon]

Yeah I know I need to remake my build which I have, but I think it's just lacking but I don't have access to WONY so not seeing much discussion there lol. Team cohesion/shitty randoms is also definitely a thing, but in general all of the difficulties feel like one too hard right now, but again that could just be me.

Also I did NOT know you got blueprints from CP3s, I thought it had to be CP4s (maybe that's something else?) but that must have been me misremembering it unless it changed at some point, thanks for the heads up Klyka !

 

[astro]

What's CP3/4/etc mean?

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Control Points.

You can raise the difficulty of them, look up Control point alert levels.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

I mean, do you want to see new content in new areas? cause that's what the missions offer.
If you guys are just lvl 30 now, that means you need to progress through the world tiers by doing invaded missions.
they are missions you have done but with black tusk as the enemies and some changes to them as well.
then you do the invaded strongholds to advance through the world tiers.
ultimately you go to Tidal Basin and basically have the "end fight" of the basegame.
then you get more missions cause you are in WT5. You get to go to camp white oak, the manning zoo, the pentagon and coney island. you can also (if it is open) go to kenly college which is an "expedition" which is a fancy word for "an area with missions in it".
and then....you did all the pre-warlords content in the game :D

the DZ is like whatever. i personally think it's a trashfire nomatter what they do but some people like it.
check it out if you want but just be aware that probably almost every other player you meet will have a proper PvP build and will kill you on sight

Click to shrink...

I guess we do that. I would prefer to maximize the pace of going through world tiers because they will probably be empty going by my Division 1 experience.
Thanks

 

[cyress8]

Is that due to Skill Lvl? Having high Skill increases damage? Where as before damage was a set value?

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Nope, it will just straight up miss any enemy that moves.

It works fine when they are stationary, but the moment they start flitting all over the place, you are going to slam your head into a wall because it explodes several steps behind them and not at their current position.

 

[Slackbladder]

Nope, it will just straight up miss any enemy that moves.

It works fine when they are stationary, but the moment they start flitting all over the place, you are going to slam your head into a wall, because it explodes several steps behind them and not at their current position.

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Ahh, yes I see what you mean.

 

[Witness]

Jesus these WONY missions so far to kill the named villains has been an exercise in frustration. Been a while since I got that ticked off at a game (I did play in MM too).

 

[Vomiaouaf]

Yes it is, it's harder because the builds you used to have are no longer working and you need to remake ones for end-game... there's a new Leader mechanic that buffs the team, and most players have not even begun to figure out the way the loot system works.

So, play with randoms and it's painful. Play with a co-ordinated group and you'd mow through it.

Click to shrink...

That is both untrue, worrisome, and a bad indicator of the decreased amount of fun people are going to be getting out of this update.

Bullet sponge elites that fully exhaust ammunition for 4 people while you get obliterated in 3 seconds with 1.2M armor close combat - or as soon as you pop your head above your cover if you're playing any skill build - is just not fun. Those same enemies rushing past your cover even while you shoot at them to blast you from the side is also not fun. solo or co-op is the same. You get wiped in absurdly unfair fashion because the way the difficulty was amped up is crooked.

What you're saying is that unless a player puts the effort to recruit 3 other top notch guys, or gets really lucky with the common matchmaking tool that everyone will use since it's default and everywhere, they will be locked out of 2/3 of the game? (High bounties, high difficulty levels, CP4 rewards, hunters etc.)

Do i want to spend 1+ hour per challenging or heroic missions and 2+ hours in legendary to slug through them all with artificial difficulty while they give marginally better rewards? No. Is it fun to see top players (Not me) unable to complete the raid because it isn't balanced at all? No. is it fun for me to win heroic missions by camping behind previous room and waiting for my hive and turret to destroy everyone? not particularly.

Judging by the in game chat, reddit and discord it seems to be the general sentiment of people hitting the endgame.

I absolutely agree that the game needed balancing to avoid some godlike builds (cluster are now absolutely useless since they don't hit anything that is moving even a tiny bit and every enemy jumps away from them or runs like headless chicken, tank, etc.) but they've now reverted to pre 1.3 update levels of absurdity because they clearly struggle to balance their own game one way or another

Same as Destiny: they're balancing PvE based on issues encountered in PvP and that makes the PvE incredibly lopsided. Nerf exotics to the point where most top build don't recommend using them anymore. So why chase them outside of pure collection?

Also, the massively reduced drop rate for loot means that now you have a looter cover shooter where shooting feels weak, being in cover is useless, and looting feels cheap.

With that update the time you spend playing the game is really not as rewarding as it used to. It's a bummer because the gear system revamp is a very welcome simplification and great move forward compared to the confusing one before, and the return to New York was a sweet move to add variety and the environmental design is as impeccable as ever.

There was so much good in that expansion yet it gets overshadowed by a hilariously buggy launch where you can't even finish the campaign, and a tone-deaf rebalancing that feels completely half baked. There are so many amazing modes and endgame ideas from The Division 1 they could port over, yet the endgame in D2 feels as paper thin as ever.

I'll definitely come back to the game in a few months when it's been tweaked again because the core of the game remains incredibly fun and very enjoyable with friends but until then, this was a big signal that it's time to unplug. Looking at my clan's rapidly declining activity, I'd guess the number of active players will probably take a heavy hit too.

 

[GamerDude]

I must be the only person here who booted up the game after the new free update and barely noticed anything different. After all the talk about improved gear stats and stuff...I can barely even spot the differences. The whole game seems about the same to me. I will likely purchase the expansion once the price comes down...totally on board for more of this game.

 

[astro]

That is both untrue, worrisome, and a bad indicator of the decreased amount of fun people are going to be getting out of this update.

Bullet sponge elites that fully exhaust ammunition for 4 people while you get obliterated in 3 seconds with 1.2M armor close combat - or as soon as you pop your head above your cover if you're playing any skill build - is just not fun. Those same enemies rushing past your cover even while you shoot at them to blast you from the side is also not fun. solo or co-op is the same. You get wiped in absurdly unfair fashion because the way the difficulty was amped up is crooked.

What you're saying is that unless a player puts the effort to recruit 3 other top notch guys, or gets really lucky with the common matchmaking tool that everyone will use since it's default and everywhere, they will be locked out of 2/3 of the game? (High bounties, high difficulty levels, CP4 rewards, hunters etc.)

Do i want to spend 1+ hour per challenging or heroic missions and 2+ hours in legendary to slug through them all with artificial difficulty while they give marginally better rewards? No. Is it fun to see top players (Not me) unable to complete the raid because it isn't balanced at all? No. is it fun for me to win heroic missions by camping behind previous room and waiting for my hive and turret to destroy everyone? not particularly.

Judging by the in game chat, reddit and discord it seems to be the general sentiment of people hitting the endgame.

I absolutely agree that the game needed balancing to avoid some godlike builds (cluster are now absolutely useless since they don't hit anything that is moving even a tiny bit and every enemy jumps away from them or runs like headless chicken, tank, etc.) but they've now reverted to pre 1.3 update levels of absurdity because they clearly struggle to balance their own game one way or another

Same as Destiny: they're balancing PvE based on issues encountered in PvP and that makes the PvE incredibly lopsided. Nerf exotics to the point where most top build don't recommend using them anymore. So why chase them outside of pure collection?

Also, the massively reduced drop rate for loot means that now you have a looter cover shooter where shooting feels weak, being in cover is useless, and looting feels cheap.

With that update the time you spend playing the game is really not as rewarding as it used to. It's a bummer because the gear system revamp is a very welcome simplification and great move forward compared to the confusing one before, and the return to New York was a sweet move to add variety and the environmental design is as impeccable as ever.

There was so much good in that expansion yet it gets overshadowed by a hilariously buggy launch where you can't even finish the campaign, and a tone-deaf rebalancing that feels completely half baked. There are so many amazing modes and endgame ideas from The Division 1 they could port over, yet the endgame in D2 feels as paper thin as ever.

I'll definitely come back to the game in a few months when it's been tweaked again because the core of the game remains incredibly fun and very enjoyable with friends but until then, this was a big signal that it's time to unplug. Looking at my clan's rapidly declining activity, I'd guess the number of active players will probably take a heavy hit too.

Click to shrink...

Sorry, but I disagree. What I wrote fully matches my experience.

Challenging is bad with random for the reasons I wrote, in a group it's a breeze.

 

[darkwing]

for the PS4 clan, i think only 3 are active in ours lol Cobra Command, at least we got the bronze cache for the weekly lol

 

[DeadmansTheory]

I'm enjoying using The Grudge SMG right now. May pair it up with a good shotgun or AR for a firewall build.

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I've been working on something similar but the Grudge and a rifle build. Either the ACR SS or M14 for the PvE area anyway. On AR side, CTAR-21 or P416 but I also luv the Pyromanic.

 

[shawnoftheshred]

What's the easiest exotic to get that I can break down? I've had the level 1 Lullaby in my stash since launch and need to upgrade it.

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Also, if you're willing to go in the Dark Zone, the Pestilence drops pretty frequently (and if you have a good group, farming in general is really fast/lucrative at this stage).

Man, folks weren't kidding about the scaling on 3-4 player content being wild. I haven't grabbed the expansion yet so I'm still in the vanilla game, and every time I do a Challenging mission for a daily or whatever it's completely insane. I just did a Capitol Hill 4 player run on Challenging for the daily and it took us like 90 minutes including multiple wipes in the House Chamber (which to be fair was a fucked encounter before). Everyone seemed competent and was 512-515 but it was freaking wild. I've got what I feel is fairly good gear and rolls/talents but I dunno if maybe I'm just missing some obvious stuff or what. I took a look over on Reddit and it seems like it's mostly people complaining about the game being too hard and/or scaling too much, with some people saying to get good but I'm not even seeing many builds posted, and none of those builds would help me since they're all 40/WONY builds. A little bit annoyed right now.

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Where I stand is - Challenging and Heroic in 1-2 player groups feels really good. In Challenging, it's pretty easy to do well, but it's not completely brainless like it used to be. For heroic, you get downed quickly if you're careless, but with even non-optimal builds, if you play smart you can cruise them at an okay pace. Only a couple of bosses/enemy types feel really spongey.

But the 4 player scaling does indeed feel off to me. Challenging is still very doable with randoms, I just would argue it's not as fun. Same with heroic. It just doesn't feel good right now. Not as impossible as people claim, as I've finished some with a very, very non-optimized build with randoms, but still...my instinct is the game gets tuned in the next month for 4 players.

4 Player Legendary is just dumb. I was watching Widdz + crew play a legendary stronghold and it feels like the devs just didn't balance it at all. They tweaked numbers and let it go. There was one boss encounter where the entire battlefield was covered in support stations and they couldn't 4 person burst fire even one before it got healed by the others. So they had to just self-grenade so the boss would get aggressive and attack them outside of the area.

Maybe they missed a mechanic, but just watching the time to kill on those enemies, it just feels like the exact opposite of what they said: that difficulty wouldn't be about perfect builds or tanky enemies, it would be about tactics.

That said, I still feel like solo and 2 player scaling is in a really good spot and everyone scared of Challenging or Heroic should try it with a single buddy before knocking it completely off the list.

I'm 100% sure to some extent I need to change things up but I'm not sure how and I'm having a hard time finding anything that isn't WONY build specific. Up until I had largely stopped playing I usually ran AR + Marksman Rifle, revive Hive and flame turret and ran Optimist + the skill that gave you bonus damage for every X amount of armor you had (the name escapes me) and generally stuck to cover with my AR and sometimes rifle and did just fine. Here I'm running mostly 513-515 gear with a seemingly decent AR (515 Police M4 which is the best I've seen and has max ideal rolls + Preservation) and it's just not getting the job done nearly as well. I'm still making sure I have set bonuses I want etc as well. I'm trying to split the difference between armor and weapon damage; I had considered going full glass cannon or full tank but people are saying neither of those works as well as they should. I maybe need to switch skills up as well but nothing is really standing out to me.

I think I'm just in a weird spot with not having the expansion since there's no one really having endgame base game discussions right now, so maybe I'm just missing something super obvious and I should be gunning (ha) for this one setup or gun or whatever. I'm still having fun and I enjoy the core gameplay loop, but right now level 4 CPs are a hilarious no go for me and given that blueprints + filling out my recalibration library is kind of all I have left to do it's kind of a bummer. 4 separate times now I've put out a distress call for a level 4 CP and we've full wiped every time so I'm not even trying anymore on those. I do still need to do a couple of the later missions they added like Camp White Oak though.

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See above. The 1-2 player scaling in New York and DC alike, to me at least, seems in a good spot. I am running 2 blues 4 reds as cores, an AR and a Marksman, with most things focused on Armor/Weapon damage/Crit Damage and Crit Chance. I have a useless chest talent and plenty of attributes only at the 1/2 way mark, but I'm finding level 4 Control Points are very managable (even downed 2 rogue agents), Challenging missions are easy 1-2 players, doable 4 players, and Heroic is managable 1-2 players, but starting to get frustrating above that.

Legendary, though...feels like a shit show.