State of the game-April,10

[TigerBurge 2,375]

State of the Game

In this State of the Game Community Developer Chris Gansler and 3C designer, Fredrik Thylander talked about the changes that will be introduced with the “Invasion: Battle for D.C.” update on Friday.

 

---

Invasion: Battle for D.C.

Maintenance

The Invasion: Battle for D.C. – Update will drop on Friday during the regular maintenance from 9:30 am CET – 12:30 CET that will last for about 3 hours. 

 

First Apparel Event

• With the “Invasion: Battle for D.C.” we will also get the first Apparel Event
• The Special Event will last for four weeks (April 5th – May 2nd) where players can get Special Event Caches.
• The Special Event Caches contain cool new outfits and other things like emotes.
• You can also get Masks from these caches.
• Everybody will get one Special Event Cache for free in the first week – if you log in before Thursday.
• Year 1 Pass owners get three additional free caches when they log in during the event.
• There will be ways to gain more free caches – like specific projects that you can finish.
• Special Event Caches don’t have any duplicates. 

 

=> Weapon Skins

=> Masks

 

Announced Bug Fixes

• When your Crafting Station is stuck on a lower World Tier, that will be fixed with this update. 
• You will get a sensitivity slider for when you zoom in. 
• Field of View slider will also be added with this update. 
• There will be many more bug fixes that will be listed in the Patch Notes

 

Balancing Changes

• With “Invasion: Battle for D.C.” we will also have the first balancing pass
• Keep in mind, it is very early in the lifecycle so this is a first step in balancing to address some peaks. 
• There is also a lot of talk about PVP – this update will not focus specifically on PVP balance, this is something for a later date – but some of the small changes will, of course, impact PVP. 
• The Sniper M700 and the Rifle MK17 will get a damage reduction.
• Crit Damage and Headshot Damage will be lowered across all existing gear, so if you have equipment with these stats on it, they will be different when you log in on Friday. 
• “Safeguard Talent” (extra healing) will get an internal cooldown so that it can’t be up all the time
• Demolitionist Talent “Crisis Response” (when armor breaks you replenish your ammo) will also get an internal cooldown. 

 

Skills Changes

Sniper Turret

• Sniper Turret has been reworked
• You will have a button above an enemy and the Turret will then shoot that NPC and it will automatically track it. 
• When you aim at the same NPC you can also specifically control where the shot will go (headshot or weakpoint etc)
• That should make the Sniper Turret more accessible. 

 

Chem Launcher

• The handling of the Chem Launcher has been a bit awkward. 
• Now when you activate the Chem Launcher, it will activate and you can use it like a weapon until you put it away. 
• That should also give you more control about the skill

 

FireFly

• Aiming mechanism has been reworked, so you can mark targets faster 

 

Skill Mods

• The Skill Mods have been revamped
• The Bonuses you get from the Skill Mods correlate now with the amount of Skill Power required to unlock them. 
• They are now within the bounds of the Skill Power that you can get on your gear and they also changed the amount of Skill Power that you get on your gear. 
• So even when you have less Skill Power on your gear when you log in on Friday, don't panic, you may be able to unlock a lot of mods that you could before. 
• With these changes skill builds should become a lot more viable. 

 

Weapon Mods changes

• As of now, the Weapon Mods always had a positive or negative aspect on them. 
• But that meant, what was designed as a reward for missions and activities could also have a very negative effect on your build
• That is why all the Weapon Mods have been rewamped: 
• All weapon mods got new values, new positives, more in line what they would do in real life
• They also have lower values – since they don’t have their drawbacks anymore. 
• The only time there are negatives now on the Weapon Mods is when there are multiple mods – like magazines – one of them will have higher positive values, but also some negative values. 
• For every slot, there is a mod for every type of stat that has no negative values. 
• Now you can choose the mods you want to use and that should also be more fun. 

 

Other Changes

• Sharpshooter Signature Weapon has a faster lock – on, so if you had the feeling that you often missed the shot with the signature weapon, this should be addressed. 
• LVOA-C, the Lightweight M4, the Shotgun AA12, LMG MG5 got a buff

 

Patch Notes

• They will be extensive, currently we have no exact date when they drop. 

 

[The3rdWalker 1,274]

This was an insanely positive patch, like truly solid job from the team. My only gripe is MK17 changes may come a bit too soon rather than build up a few of the other rifles. Urban MDR would be second in line to this but paled in comparison to a Police MK17.

 

FOV slider is amazing.

ADS sensitivity is amazing.

MOD COMPONENT CHANGES ARE AMAZING.

[TigerBurge 2,375]

On 4/4/2019 at 9:23 AM, The3rdWalker said:

This was an insanely positive patch, like truly solid job from the team. My only gripe is MK17 changes may come a bit too soon rather than build up a few of the other rifles. Urban MDR would be second in line to this but paled in comparison to a Police MK17.

 

FOV slider is amazing.

ADS sensitivity is amazing.

MOD COMPONENT CHANGES ARE AMAZING.

A lot of the MOD changes aren’t being received very well by the community. Most I agree with however nerfing the 5.56 extended mags I hate. I really miss my 72 round AR 

[GazzaGarratt 11,066]

On 4/5/2019 at 8:26 PM, TigerBurge said:

A lot of the MOD changes aren’t being received very well by the community. Most I agree with however nerfing the 5.56 extended mags I hate. I really miss my 72 round AR 

72 rounds is OP as hell but I get why that would be fun! At least it will make people use their secondary (and their reload button 😉)

[TigerBurge 2,375]

2 hours ago, GazzaGarratt said:

72 rounds is OP as hell but I get why that would be fun! At least it will make people use their secondary (and their reload button 😉)

So apparently there’s still a mod out there that will give you 20+ rounds but can only be gotten from a weekly project and is random what you get. 

[TigerBurge 2,375]

State of the Game

 

Battle for D.C. is out

Last Friday we got the first big update for The Division 2 with the Tidal Basin Stronghold and World Tier 5

Was good to finally drop WT5 so that players can start with the endgame grind.

They could also implement some changes and there was a lot of feedback about them. 

 

Quality of life changes

FOV slider for PC

NPCs are no longer as chatty in the BoO (Saturday Night Live parody)

 

Apparel Event

Today is the last day that you can get an Apparel Cache key for free when you log in. 

Year 1 Pass holders get 3 keys for free when you log in during the event.

There were also some confusions about the event: The timing of the event on the in-game timer is incorrect, the event is a week shorter than shown in-game:

 

Phases

Event Live - April 5th to April 24th. During this period, Event keys can be earned through various sources.

Event Closing - April 25th to May 2nd. If you have leftover keys available, be sure to use them now! You can use your unspent keys, as well as purchase additional ones to complete apparel sets.

Post Event - May 2nd onward. All items from the Event Cache are moved into the standard Apparel Caches to earn through gameplay, as well as put on the Apparel Store for direct purchase, with an exception for the Black Tusk uniform.

 

When you have leftover keys after all that, you can still unlock the Apparel Caches with them but you will not get the Black Tusk Uniform. The uniform can only be unlocked when you get all 30 pieces of the event until April 24th.

 

How Are Keys Earned?

From there, keys can be earned from the following sources:

 

Weekly Apparel Projects: three keys each

Chance to drop when reaching Field Proficiency upon each level after 30

Chance to drop when reaching Dark Zone Proficiency

Direct purchase with Premium Credits

 

There is no limitation on how many keys you can get per day.

 

=> Event Summary

 

Weekly Maintenance

As usual, there will be a weekly maintenance tomorrow at 9:30 CEST – 12:13 where they plan to deploy the following fixes:

 

Fixed not being able to fast travel to the Castle settlement.

Fixed several cases of abnormal Bounty boss skill-use behaviour.

Fixed an issue causing the Nemesis crafting materials to be unobtainable.

Fixed Delta-03 error occurring at the end of Conflict matches.

Fixed an issue that would cause the pathfinding line to behave abnormally when in close proximity to your destination.

Fixed the “donating” sound playing repeatedly after having donated and abandoned a daily mission.

Fixed an issue related to cache countdown timers.

=> Patch Notes

 

Signature Ammo

As it was reported the Signature Ammo for the Signature Weapons drop very rarely now, that is not intended. They plan to drop a fix for that tomorrow, but at the moment it is not sure it will be ready in time. 

 

Known Issues

Daily Mission Exploit

Over the weekend an exploit was discovered that involved the daily project, that is why they were deactivated for a couple of days. That has been resolved and they are now back in the rotation.

 

Signature Ammo reset after each relog

They saw the reports – they are currently investigating if that is intended or a bug.

 

Ivory Keys

They fixed an issue of how to get the last Ivory Key, but players are still reporting they did not get all of them. They are aware of that issue. Please let them know on the official forums which Ivory Keys you are missing so that they can investigate what the exact issue is. 

 

T-Poses

Obviously not intended. It is a high priority issue, because it impacts the gamplay and line-of-sight. But it requires a client patch (Update 2.1) to fix that issue. The plan is to drop that patch as soon as possible. A T-Pose-Emote is not planned at this point.

 

Crafting Bench Upgrade Issue

Many players have reported that they have problems upgrading the Crafting Bench to World Tier 5 (or even before that). They have a fix ready that will also drop with Update 2.1.

 

Characters getting stuck

There are a lot of instances and situations where you can get stuck with your character and can’t move anymore. Please report on the official forums when exactly this happened, what you did and what was the last thing you did. Some of the causes will be fixed with Update 2.1, but they will add more fixes as the issues are found.

 

Revive Hive Bug

There are a bunch of situations where the Revive Hive does not work properly. They have to look at each of the situations individually to determine a fix. Some fixes are already scheduled for Update 2.1 but they are continuously looking for more causes.

 

True Patriot Bonus not applying

It is also a known issue that the two-piece bonus of the True Patriot Gear Set is not applied properly, there will also be a fix for that in Update 2.1.

 

NPC being very aggressive on higher difficulty

There is currently an issue with NPCs, that they have the impression, that they have the upper hand and can win the encounter. That is why they are very aggressive and are trying to rush the players. This is of course not intended. They should only attack in that way under certain conditions. It is currently not known when this issue will be addressed. 

 

Gear Score Drops on World Tier 5

They know that players are frustrated to not get only GS 500 drops on World Tier 5 when they have reached GS 500 on their character. There is currently a window where gear can drop below GS500 and they are willing to look into that. At the moment there is no change scheduled though. 

 

DirectX 12 Crashes

They know about the issue that many players with Nvidia graphics cards have crashes when they use DirectX12. They are currently working with Nvidia to get a set of new drivers out that should address the issue. Currently, we have no specific date for that. 

 

Reset Timers

They are also looking into all the reset timers to get them more streamlined for all the different content. 

 

You can check out the Known Issues here: Link

 

Balancing of the Game

Many things have been changed with the last update and there was a lot of feedback.

The balance of the game is a constantly evolving thing and that is why it is very important to give feedback about what you are experiencing and what you think works and what does not. They will keep listening and adjusting accordingly.

They are still planning to do a lot about balance, but they will let the specialist specify that when the time is right.

What they are also looking into is armor and survivability, but a change in that area is not scheduled for Update 2.1 or Update 3.

They are also aware of the Blue Mods and are listening to feedback about Gear Sets.

 

PTS for Title Update 3

To test the new content and the new items that will be added with Title Update 3 (April 25th), they plan to do a PTS (Public Test Server).

 

PTS is a separate client that you have to download

Only for only PC and Uplay

This is how they will test the update. 

The Raid will not be available on the PTS. 

You have to own the game to access the PTS.

There is no NDA on the PTS

 

PTS is scheduled for next week, more details will follow.

 

Roadmap

You can check out the Year 1 Roadmap here: Link

 

[The3rdWalker 1,274]

The mod changes are pretty terrible now almost a week under our belts.