Tom Clancy's The Division

Ugh, it comes out the day Ratchet & Clank does. X_x

This update looks amazing, and its free at that.

Ugh, the LMB of course. This should be fun.

I'm not that surprised, they're really the only faction that can be of any significant threat to what we accomplished at the end of the main story (even with their leader dead). The Rikerss were never really rallied behind a leader (at best Laurae was just the one they feared the most) and the Cleaners will pretty much be lost without Joe and lets be honest the Thugs are no threat what-so-ever. Keener probably won't be making an appearance until the first DLC hits so I'm not expecting much storyline wise until then (and I hope we get new factions to fight).

I honestly don't think I'll be trying to do Falcon Lost, mostly because you need a group of people you work well with and you need the gear (which I'm lacking on both ends, though with the guaranteed High-End drops from named enemies I don't think it'll take me long to get geared). Plus I guess the lead designer for Falcon Lost can't even beat it, a bad sign if you ask me (that's fucking difficult if the guy who designed the encounter can't even beat it).

I'm looking forward to the Daily and Weekly assignments as well as loot trading (though I don't like what they're doing to crafting but the guaranteed HE drops form named enemies makes up for it). I just hope they fix the Daily Hard and Challenging missions because I've missed 2 days of guaranteed PC because they fucked something up.

3 hours ago, Strider Hiryu said:

Plus I guess the lead designer for Falcon Lost can't even beat it, a bad sign if you ask me (that's fucking difficult if the guy who designed the encounter can't even beat it).

I remember reading that for Mario Maker, your custom stage won't be published unless you can beat it yourself. Good thing this game isn't on the Wii U or Nintendo would delete the level.

I tried the Incursion on hard today, and it was insanely difficult... we didn't beat it, much less get past the 5th wave. My gear score was well above the recommended but the purples felt like challenge mode yellows. Sadly, what everyone feared has happened, the majority of the difficulty is due to endlessly spammed instakill nades. And the radius on them are so big that 2 dodges are barely enough to get out of them if you're in the wrong place. I wish they would have came up with a better mechanic. For a cover based shooter, they've done everything to circumvent the cover system. I'd prefer super hard hitting enemies rather than nade spam. It diminishes the smart cover ability that no one ever uses, along with riot shield, mobile cover, and just about everything except sticky bomb, support station, and first aid. Its a shame because all the other stuff seems cool like the new drone enemies... but nope, spam the dodge button and hope for the best.

Another issue that's really pissed off players is how fast they nerfed challenge mode. Apparently when the patch went live, the CM boss dropped 4 HE items. This was nerfed pretty fast as an "unintended" bug. The main source of anger comes from the fact that the patch deleted some people's characters on Xbone, and there is a glitch tied to the One is None perk where basically your gun jams and you cant reload it..... yet getting too much loot was immediately nerfed with no foreseeable fix on real issues. The crafting nerf makes it even worse since CM is time consuming and the HE drops are shit gear score teir, it was basically mat fodder... which was fine, but now you're better off doing hard mode and getting HE drops just as well. CM only advantage is pCreds. But with the buff to DZ06 you can gain them faster killing named bosses and getting good tier HE drops.

Well the patch is not all bad. The Special Vendor now has all the old DZ blueprints and they no longer require D-Tech to make. I bought the MP5 and rolled it 10 times until I got a good one... but now all my damn mats are gone and its hell to get them back up. He also sells the new gear set blue prints which I picked up the mask for. (went with Strikers Gear). I could have picked up the knee pads too but I wanted that MP5 so bad I couldn't wait. After buying the new gun parts blue prints and a chest piece I blew all 700+ pCreds I had. It's nice that they are making the gear set's so readily available. I could get a few more blue prints when I finally hit DZ rank 50, or I can get lucky on CM or Incursions.

The Daily/Weekly system is nice. But they do mix in DZ so if you want to get all your dailies and the weekly, but you don't like the DZ, then your SOL. I actually ran into the new DZ supply drop today, it fell right on us and we engaged the enemies... then a few clowns came up and tried to take us out going rogue. We took the crate and wiped them which was pretty funny, but the crate was garbage loot. Its not something I'll be actively looking to participate in. I'd rather just kill my 50 cleaners for the weekly and get out. I did pick up a nice HE SOCOM M1A... so the guaranteed HE drops are paying off for DZ play for sure... but that's basically the problem solo players have. They're pushing the DZ for the best chance at loot.

I noticed this with the HE drops from HM Missions, everything that drops is pretty much crap unless you happen to need something as an upgrade for an existing piece of gear (I got an HE chest piece which was an upgrade but I got kneepads from the other that were worse then the ones I got for that CM mission I ran with you). They're really pushing the DZ which sucks for solo players like me who are under geared (after that chest upgrade I'm sitting at 149 GS) and can't kill those 31-32 elites with ease (I won't attempt the DZ01-03 named mobs, I have trouble killing their guards). Plus, now that HE's are guaranteed on named kills, people are going to be going rogue all the time to kill other players for their loot (if they know said person killed a name). Shit, the last time I was in the DZ before the patch and guy just killed me for the hell of it. Had no gear on me but the bastard just decided to kill me every time I entered the DZ completely ruining my experience and pretty much cementing my stance on no DZ.

The Daily's and Weekly's are a nice touch but with the emphasis on going into the DZ for some of these challenges makes it difficult to complete for those who don't want to step into the DZ. Again this emphasis on the DZ is a turn away. My major dispute is the increased prices with the Special Vendor. Before stuff was a lot more affordable but good lord the increased prices suck. I want that HE M44 he's selling but I'll never get the required PC for it before he resets (870 PC is a lot for a solo gamer with no means to farm PC). Sigh, while the changes are a good step forward for this game they alienated some of their player base with these changes. 

He sells the M44 blue print now, which is better IMO... those talents are a nice roll on the one he is selling, but 870 pCreds is def not worth it for any weapon unless it was a god roll First Wave M1A. If people didn't save up their fabric for Gear Set crafting they are in for a world of hurt with the 22 fabric requirement. Crafting still remains king and thats the problem with just about every game. either crafting sucks and drops are the best way or vice versa.

I saw that today, I'll probably end up buying it once I get the 160 PC for it. I just hope RNGesus is on my side and gives me a near perfect roll for it because I do not have the tools or parts to build more than one at the moment. I have fabric for days though since most drops are better than the armor you can craft (in the low levels, I've never really used fabric while leveling up). My chances of even finding a First Wave M1A, HE or Superior, are slim to none with the way my luck is in this game.

On a side note I find it funny that you don't get a HE items when you kill Bliss on HM. Technically that chopper should be considered a named enemy. Was so disappointed to kill him tonight (for the hell of it, I wanted to see if you actually did get an HE for every named mob you kill) and see only 4 purples on the ground.

After finally getting off my butt and hooking up my External HD, I redownloaded this game to see what the 1.8 patch was about. I honestly don't know what came when, whats part of the free updates, and what is extra outside of the main topics of the DLCs... but damn I feel like every shared world game launches as an early release, half finished mess now. This is the game that should have been there at launch.

I was so lost at first but now that I've settled back in and I'm gather higher gear score, I'll be toying around with these between D2 resets. They've either added or retooled an area of the map and made it feel like an PvE Dark Zone. Enemies constantly respawn, and the area is populated with purple and yellow bars that will wreck your shit if you aren't careful. I've gotten High-End drops in the open world that improved my gear score, which is really nice and all I ever wanted. Each safe house's situation board now has search and destroy missions where you go clear out 3 areas and get a high end drop as a reward. The PvE world now has difficulty tiers 1-5 you can toggle between, in which XP and loot increase the higher you go. Overall it seems like this game is actually worth getting now, especially if its on the cheap. I haven't played any of the new free resistance horde modes yet, I want to get geared up before i try. None of my friends have touched this game in almost 2 years now like me, so I'll be doing stuff solo. There is open world matchmaking upon request which is nice.

The Dark Zone has changed apparently, you have to toggle your rogue status on and off manually. I guess that helps with the accidental friendly fire. But from what I've read people are still trolls. The DZ is the best place to farm Div Tech for optimizing gear, and people just try to kill people and stop them from extracting it, just to do it. So I guess now trolls troll the trollers by just running around calling in extractions and running off. The DZ is just a failed experiment. Trolls troll for their own entertainment when there are hardly any consequences for doing so. When the ultra harsh penalties were in place at launch, rogues were rare, and trolls bitched that there was no reward for going rogue. There actually was, but it wasn't emotionally rewarding to be a troll for those that get off on it.

Either way, the game seems to be nicely populated still. I see plenty of people in the safe houses. If you get it on the cheap, its worth getting. I bet it will be free on PS Plus eventually. If you already have it, its worth checking out patch 1.8.

Meh, I've seen a lot of streamers went back to it over the last few weeks. It looks better then it was at launch but I don't think I'm sold on it yet (plus I just picked D2 up again after a few weeks of not playing it). I might reinstall it this weekend and give it a shot just to see if everything I've heard is there (maybe catch you for some shenanigans like the old days). The only real problems is remembering how to play it (god the last time I touched it was pretty much the day I posted the last post in here).

Oh yeah, I was totally lost at first, getting back into the grove doesn't take too long. I had some niche build on from an incursion last time I played. So I had to fiddle around with it. But all your gear is pretty much trash from the last time you played. Right now is actually a good time to load it up because they have double XP double rewards going right now. I went from 190 Gear Score to 249 in a few hours. Just max level "ranking up" gives you pretty sweet gear, and you get 2 rolls per filling the XP bar right now. If you weren't like me and found every phone and intel on the map after beating the story, just doing that gives a crazy amount of XP. They put new phones in the pier area and it fills up like 1/5th of the XP bar per call. It makes me wish I wasn't such a completionist back then. I am at the mercy of gear score right now though. I was running a shotgun and a highly unstable LMG at one point because it was the best stuff I had. I finally got a nice AR along with a stable LMG that is making life a lot easier. I think I'm pretty close to getting enough gear score to unlock T5 PvE.

It would be nice to have some help though. As much as I like this new West Pier area, it is frustrating at the same time. Random Objectives pop up as you roam the area (I'm looking for phones for XP). So far I've come across 3 activities.

Kill Lieutenants which is pretty straight forward, you gotta kill 3 yellow bars roaming around in various areas. The 3rd one always seems super armored. Purple bar adds constantly respawn if you don't kill them fast enough.

Destroy the Jammer, in which you have to destroy a jamming device that when close to it, it disables all your special abilities. You have to rely on medkits and normal nades, while you deal with a swarm of enemies. the jammer is never in a clear line of sight to take out. There was one that was so petty that an unbreakable vase blocked me from shooting it through a door way.

Then there is one where you have to stay in a small area while a shit ton of enemies attack you... I pretty much feel this is impossible solo. If I stay in the designated area, I die pretty fast, but if I leave it, it fails and goes away.

The frustration comes in when you die trying to do anything. All the non objective mobs respawn really fast. And getting into this area is pretty much limited to choke points with mobs waiting at them. So you have to fight your way back to the objective to try again each time. You can't run pass the mobs, they'll kill you really fast with a huge barrage of bullets that will crush your HP in seconds. Not only are they at the entrances to the piers, but they are on pretty much every street corner. And just about every encounter objective or not, one or two come out of no where to flank you from behind. The only saving grace to this is they regularly drop yellow and green stuff.