Tom Clancy's The Division

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Asshat Brando

Potato del Grande
<Banned>
5,346
-478
I don't know, I've never exploited Hornet or any other Challenge mission and have 700 PC banked with every slot HE gear, almost always in PUGs. My only issue has been DZ level as I'm just lvl 41 as I'm almost always solo. Almost all of this is just doing the dailies and running an extra Challenge mission when I luck into a good group that wants to keep farming.

I need to reroll my AK and the Vector has a decent roll. Just missing the DZ items and I'm set.

One question in looking at that pic of Devlin, does everybody run with a non existent tech score? I've tried to stay balanced so I'm at 120/80/18. I could boost my DPS way up by running super low on tech but then your ult is only up in a blue moon right?
 

Skanda

I'm Amod too!
6,662
4,506
Edit 1: Agents,

As you already know, we will be deploying update 1.1 in a few days. This is very exciting for all of us as it will be the first major content update since the release of the game! With it, we will implement new End-Game activities and a new layer of character progression with gear score 204 (equivalent level 32) items and Gear Sets items.

However, as we add this new layer of character equipment to the game, we also wanted to seize this opportunity to address something that will change your end game experience significantly: the importance of crafting versus item drops.

STATE OF CRAFTING

The Division is primarily a RPG. As such, gearing up your character is one of the main aspects and incentives to keep playing the game once the story missions are completed and max level is reached.

As part of the End-Game loop, players are expected to obtain their equipment by trying to beat challenging activities, and be rewarded for it. As each player develops and perfects their build, he or she will be looking for very specific items that will contribute to that build. Looking for one specific item can be quite tedious, but it should also feel extremely satisfying when the item is finally acquired.

The way our crafting feature is designed is to offer an alternative for players to temporarily complete their gear, by crafting missing pieces of their level. For End-Game we want crafting and our different in-game economies to provide reliable but slower source of gear compared to loot dropped from named enemies. If after many attempts you could not find said item, you should have acquired enough materials to try to craft something similar instead. It will not replace the item, but you will still be rewarded for your persistence.

However, at the moment, loot drops are just too rare and disappointing, putting too much of an emphasis on crafting: you are looking for crafting materials and may sometimes end up dropping an interesting item in the process.

This is clearly illustrated in the following graphs. Here you can see how many Item level 31 High-End items were acquired through crafting compared to items acquired as loot drops.

As many of you pointed out in the past weeks, the end result does not provide the level of fun that we had hoped for.

To address the situation, and simply make End-Game more satisfying and more focused towards improving your build one piece at a time, we will be implementing a series of changes with update 1.1, some of which have already been communicated in the Patch Notes, and others that we are about to reveal now.

MORE HIGH-END ITEMS

From now on killing a named NPC will grant you a guaranteed High-End drop! That?s right, you will now always get a High-End item from killing a named NPC of level 30+.

The gear score of said High-End will be determined by the level of the NPC. For example, a level 30 named will guarantee a gear score 163 High-End. With so much more High-End drops, you?ll quickly notice that crafting High-End items, while more expensive, will not necessarily be much more complicated. To make sure that crafting remains a viable alternative, we will also increase drop rates of Division Tech materials to 40% on level 32 named enemies in the Dark Zone.

New drop tables have been designed to grant you just enough control to focus your efforts on specific NPCs, depending on your need. Each named NPC will now have more chances to grant a specific type of High-End item. By discovering the specificities of each named NPC, you will quickly learn which ones you should focus on in order to obtain specific items.

CRAFTING AS AN ALTERNATIVE

You have already seen the changes that will be brought to crafting, but let?s go through them in more details here. Increased costs for converting crafting materials and crafting High-End items:
-10 Standard (Green) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 Specialized (Blue) material
-15 Specialized (Blue) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 High-End (Gold) material
-10 High-End (Gold) materials instead of 8 to craft 1 lvl 31 High-End (Gold) item
Changed deconstruction yield of Standard (Green) and High-End (Gold) items:
-Deconstructing a Standard (Green) item yields 1 Standard material instead of 2
-Deconstructing a High-End (Gold) item yields 1 High-End material instead of 2

By changing the conversion rates, we will encourage players to use their low level materials while they are leveling up, instead of saving them until they reach level 30. It will also bring more decision making between selling and deconstructing low quality items. Most High-End materials should come from deconstructing High-End items, and not deconstructing lower quality items to then convert these materials into High-End ones. Similarly, lowering yields when deconstructing items will also lower the efficiency of items farming.

Once again, we want you to consider deconstructing and material converting as an alternative when you get an item that doesn?t contribute to your build, and not the main mean to develop your build as a whole.

CONCLUSION

To sum up the list of changes brought with update 1.1 in regards to item drops and crafting, we will:

Increase drop rates of High-End items on named NPCs (100% drop rate, actually)
Increase drop rates of Division Tech, to make it less of a bottleneck than it currently is
Modify loot tables for each named NPC, to make the hunt for loot more controlled
Increase conversion costs of lower quality materials to high quality ones, making it harder to convert low quality materials into high quality ones
Decrease construction yields, making it less interesting to farm lower quality items in order to obtain crafting materials, and because you?ll get more High-End items as a whole
Increase cost of crafting High-End items, because High-End materials will be much easier to come by These changes will not only make crafting and dropping more coherent towards each other, but will also make it feel much more fun and rewarding.

Balancing an online game is no easy task, and while we believe that these changes are a step in the right direction for the future of the game, we will keep monitoring the situation and address what needs to be modified. But more than that, we will have an eye on all aspects of your experience, and balance things when needed. Sometimes it means making hard decisions that might not be appreciated, and when this happens we will make sure to give you the visibility you need to understand why these decisions are made.

Your feedback is very valuable to us, so keep the discussions going, we will be reading!

-The Division Team
http://tomclancy-thedivision.ubi.com...m:148-76770-32
 

spronk

FPS noob
22,478
25,385
ok every named NPC dropping a HE is cool, especially if its from specific loot tables. woulda been funny to still have that with bullet king farming. I assume this is also for instances, and not just DZ? I wonder about the CMs though that have like 3-4 named NPCs, or am I remembering things wrong? Will incursions have a lot of named 32 NPCs?

almost makes me want to rebuy the game, but nah not really
 

Warr

<Bronze Donator>
940
1,294
ok every named NPC dropping a HE is cool, especially if its from specific loot tables. woulda been funny to still have that with bullet king farming. I assume this is also for instances, and not just DZ? I wonder about the CMs though that have like 3-4 named NPCs, or am I remembering things wrong? Will incursions have a lot of named 32 NPCs?

almost makes me want to rebuy the game, but nah not really
Sounds like it is works for instances as well. So a fresh 30 should rack up purples super fast in hard mode and then fill in high-ends.

The 4 available challenge modes have 1 named apiece. General Assembly isn't available for challenge mode, but should give 3 HEs on hard.

One thing I'm assuming is that gear score 163 high-ends from level 30 bosses will be equivalent to today's lvl 30 high-ends, so they'd be OK, but you'd still eventually want to start pushing challenges for lvl 31-32 high-ends.

Edit: High-ends raining from the sky solves the crafting issue as well. 10 trash high-ends will turn into a craft of your choice. I'm not so concerned about the blue-green conversion rate anymore, but I'll still be shipping almost all my purples down to my lvl 6 because it converts into blues more efficiently that way.
 

Utnayan

I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
<Gold Donor>
16,269
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They should have announced that to begin with to avoid the out lash.

Idiots.

Either that or it was a reaction to the overhwlemingly negative comments.

Either way, that's better then what we thought yesterday.
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
36,050
113,851
They should have announced that to begin with to avoid the out lash.

Idiots.

Either that or it was a reaction to the overhwlemingly negative comments.

Either way, that's better then what we thought yesterday.
It's most definitely this. Which gives me little confidence in them. I appreciate that they're quick to fix their fuck ups, but the fact that they don't seem to play the game or have some kind of internal QA doesn't give me hopes for the future of the game. It'll likely be a continuous process of "Hey, here's this cool feature" "That feature sucks" "We're fixing the feature guys!"
 

Utnayan

I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
<Gold Donor>
16,269
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^^ Yep. I attribute it to Ubisoft's acquisition where they have little to no experience in creating and forward thinking design when all they have been tasked with is shitting out rehash after rehash in 2 IP's for the last 6 years.
 

Lost Virtue

Trakanon Raider
2,320
267
Seems to me that we are assuming that hard and challenge mode bosses have the garuanteed HE drops. I view this as only the world bosses in DC and the ones outside DZ that don't respawn. Could be that I just have 0 faith in them right now, but we'll see.

Can Vectors even drop or can they only be crafted?

Also, DZ is going to be a Fucking war zone now with these changes. May the Extraction Zone be ever in your favor!
 

Devlin

Golden Squire
832
9
One question in looking at that pic of Devlin, does everybody run with a non existent tech score? I've tried to stay balanced so I'm at 120/80/18. I could boost my DPS way up by running super low on tech but then your ult is only up in a blue moon right?
My tech is at 18,651 so the same as yours.

I used to run balanced but it's really not the way to play. You have to look at it from an mmo viewpoint, but at the moment rogues are the only class needed to complete the content and the healing/CC talents are shitty.
 

Zodiac

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,200
14
... healing/CC talents are shitty.
Real problem is that with Critical save & Combat Medic you can heal yourself to full from ~20% HP and have 40% damage resistance for 10 sec with med kits and have zero investment in Tech. The talents are super imbalanced atm.

In regards to the ult being up once in a blue moon - the game doesn't explain this properly but your ulti's cooldown is reduced every time you get a kill.
 

Asshat Brando

Potato del Grande
<Banned>
5,346
-478
My tech is at 18,651 so the same as yours.

I used to run balanced but it's really not the way to play. You have to look at it from an mmo viewpoint, but at the moment rogues are the only class needed to complete the content and the healing/CC talents are shitty.
I must be understating my tech score the as I'm 2500/1900/1500 off-hand. I'll drop my tech score for DPS and see how it goes.
 

Asshat Brando

Potato del Grande
<Banned>
5,346
-478
And yeah, as far as the changes I believe General Assembly is the only dungeon with more than 1 named NPC. I make a loop through DZ 3 to 4 in 30 minutes and hit at least 6 named npcs so DZ is definately the way to go for HE drops after the patch. Getting your items out will be fucking hilarious with everybody having HE items. Man, just thinking about it has me chuckling.
 

Devlin

Golden Squire
832
9
I must be understating my tech score the as I'm 2500/1900/1500 off-hand. I'll drop my tech score for DPS and see how it goes.
I get points from different things, like my backpack has +~5000 to tech and something else has the 13% of stamina and firearms are added to tech so even though I've only got 500 it's still at a decent value.
 

Jozu

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
6,956
6,265
Damn. I want this game to be good. Im so frustrated with it though, I have quit and came back twice already. If this pvp shapes up and things are actually fun in the DZ then Ill probably give it another go. Im just so undergeared its awful.
 

GuardianX

Perpetually Pessimistic
<Bronze Donator>
6,691
16,854
Honestly I'm taking a break til after summer, they have already shown they don't care about gear resets and will do them a month away from release so..

May as well wait til most of the content is out and then play again.
 

Devlin

Golden Squire
832
9
rrr_img_130616.jpg


Got a decent vector with brutal/deadly/responsive and I've broken 200k DPS so enough for tonight.

Notice my electronics has gone up, no reason, wearing the exact same items as before.