I've got one more burning question: what are some of the major changes coming in the new expansion that a casual player like me will notice? I want to do a deep dive into TD2, but the game at launch just wasn't there to keep me around for long.
Major stuff that's changed since you likely played last:
- A few more missions (if you didn't make it to World Tier 5, Strongholds introduced, basically the climactic faction battle missions of the base game, a mission at the zoo, a mission or two that expand the president's storyline, a couple of Pentagon missions and now some Coney Island missions)
- The Raid was launched (at launch it took 7 hours or something for the first team to beat it, now even scrubs like me can fly through it in 15 minutes)
- Targeted loot (now there are daily rotations for missions/areas of the map where you can target specific brands or modsor weapons to drop - this doesn't replace the normal loot, but is a bonus on top of it)
- Overall balancing of weapons and time to kill (honestly, there have been times where only a strategy or two worked on harder difficulties, whereas now, if you're good at the game, a decent build can beat a heroic mission when you're grouped up)
Major stuff that's coming March 3rd without the expansion
- Loot 2.0. Everything is getting an overhaul, most importantly: god rolls are possible now, since they are removing the budget system that meant if one stat was high another would be low, the UI directly tells you how close to a god roll something is, you can store stats for recalibration later an infinite number of times, you no longer need combinations of red/yellow/blues to unlock talents, so builds should be more intuitive, talents are re-worked and now only drop on two slots of gear (less confusion, but each talent will be more powerful), harder difficulties will up the chances of dropping better gear, new exotics, new gearsets, new brands, etc. Basically, everything you know is changing.
- Re-calibration libary (basically, you're trying to fill a Pokedex full of high attributes to be able to re-calibrate)
- Ability to set a difficulty for the overall world. So you can, if you choose, just play everything on Heroic and drown in good loot as a result.
- Some Quality of Life DZ changes that should make it a more exciting experience
- More hunters
Major stuff that's coming March 3rd with the expansion
- New LZ map in New York
- Raised level cap to 40 - once you're there there is no Gear Score
- New missions, with each boss unlocking a new skill/skill variant
- Potentially a conclusion to the Keener/President story we've been waiting for
- Seasons, which will be 3 months long that involve seasonal manhunts, progression tracks with cosmetic and cache unlocks, and have specific challenges to try to unlock
- Directives (like the Underground mode of Div 1, but applied to the overall map/missions), changing up the way you play the game. This can be toggled on/off. Example is one where enemies are a specific colour and you can only do damage to them with the right colour ammo, toggled by reloading. You get bonus damage if you hit the right colours or get penalized with eventual shocks for hitting the wrong colour. Etc.
- Legendary Difficulty (with new Black Tusk variant that's all white and is quite a bit harder not just in damage, but strategy/tactics)
- SHD levels - once you're at the level cap, when you get xp for the next level, you can increase core stats like weapon handling/damage/armor etc. on an account wide basis that ignores what gear you're wearing. Basically, maxed out you'll be able to boost your core stats by 10-20% it looks like.
- More hunters
Coming later:
- We know another raid is coming in the Spring after we've leveled up
- Most people assume there will be greater tweaks to PVP. While many want things like Survival or Last Stand to return, there have been no hints that they will
But, the changes to gear, how difficulty drops new gear, global difficulty modifiers and Seasons with their own progression/challenges/narratives etc. are the new hooks to get people back into the game, and hopefully keep 'em around.