The Division

[Garacesh]

Honestly, I've given up on The Division, and I reckon that's what Ubisoft are hoping users will do. We've all paid for the game, Ubisoft earned an estimated $330 million worldwide in its first five days. [Source] There's no (at least, very little in comparison) money left to milk from the game. If everybody drops it now, that's money in their pocket with less running costs (maybe a small 'good faith' refund to people who bought the season pass, but still a lot of profit.)

 

I didn't want to give up on the game, but I just can't be bothered with it any more. I can login and do one of the following:

• Run incursions, where most people are just 'cheesing' it instead of playing it properly.
  
• Go into the Dark Zone and get mowed down by hackers.
  
• Glitch Police Academy over and over for crafting materials.
  
• Listen to Roy Benitez tell me we both got to do, and we'll talk later.
  

 

None of these things are especially appealing.

 

I want to see the game bounce back. At this point I'd like to see Massive say "Alright, look. We dun goofed. Please go to $Page to submit bug fixes. We're taking the game down for a month and we're going to give it a huge overhaul.".. I think that's probably the only way they could claw back some of their dwindling playerbase because The Division, at its core, is a good game. But that won't happen. The devs are in too deep and aren't really sure what to do. They keep nerfing the crafting system making endgame more of a grind, whilst introducing new bugs and not fixing old ones. Hacks run rampant, the playerbase is down significantly, and Massive are locking/deleting threads on the Forums that are trying to draw attention to these issues.

 

My faith in the game has been lost.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Garacesh

[Clevertouch_Rob]

Seems to be a lot more stable on XBone than PC? is this to do with the walled garden nature of consoles?

[Garacesh]

Seems to be a lot more stable on XBone than PC? is this to do with the walled garden nature of consoles?

 

I suspect so. And though I have heard reports of hacking existing on consoles, I surmise that it's significantly harder to hack a console copy simply because the O/S is closed off to the vast majority of its users (even users that would traditionally be power users on a PC), whereas anybody on Windows can download Cheat Engine or similar and make in-memory modifications.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Garacesh

[GuyJD]

Seems to be a lot more stable on XBone than PC? is this to do with the walled garden nature of consoles?

Almost certainly, it's a lot harder to modify client-side code on a console, not impossible but not something you're average 15 year old could do.

[GuyJD]

I must admit the only issues I'm having with the DZ on xbox is that I get my backside handed to me regularly because I'm just not that good in PvP.

[Clevertouch_Rob]

We seem to get all the hacks around missions - only issue i seem to have is getting smashed in the DZ from people with massive gearscores.

 

Although i ran the DZ solo most of the weekend without any trouble from Rogues which was nice!

[Jonah]

Think there are still issues on XB1, but a hell of a lot less than the PC users are having to deal with.

 

At it's core I think it's a very solid game, but end game needs to improve and the glitches/exploits(/hackers on PC) sorted ASAP. The "Incursion" is a horde mode chore, and the only other things to do are the Dailies (which aren't cycling so get repetitive) and the DZ - which hasn't been bad, though if farming it's easier if you can get yourself in to the 0-160 GS bracket to avoid the high-GS griefers for now.

 

I tend to run solo in the DZ but more recently in groups with friends (safety in numbers and all that), GT is JonahIJ if anyone fancies running round the DZ at all.

[Arreks]

Yep kinda agree @Garacesh, I've barely touched it the last week as it feels more like a chore to play it now. DZ was what I really wanted to be enjoyable for post-end gameplay rather than dailies but there's either people who have spent months exploiting glitches etc to get crazy gear or people who are just using hacks (which are readily available from a quick google search, both free and paid ones) - plus people can run it without Steam so are less likely to worry about being banned.

 

Sigh.

 

Oh well, I did get a decent 60-70 hours of gameplay out of it before getting to this point so in my eyes it was worth the £27.

[Garacesh]

Oh well, I did get a decent 60-70 hours of gameplay out of it before getting to this point so in my eyes it was worth the £27.

I can't agree with calculating it's worth by price-per-hour in a situation like this. PPH is a reasonable starting ground for value, but The Division was sold to me with the promise of the Dark Zone being the endgame. A risky but ultimately rewarding place where you could be the hunter or the hunted. A place where the next corner might reveal an ally, or a faceful of lead. Risk vs reward gameplay. That is what I purchased the game for and that is not what I got. Therefore the game would not be worth the price I paid for it even if I only paid £5*, as I simply did not get what I thought I was getting. Yes, I've had fun with The Division. But when I got through the co-op story mode (which is essentially what level 1-30 is..) the game just keeled over and died.

 

* Okay, bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea..

[CAM]

I suspect so. And though I have heard reports of hacking existing on consoles, I surmise that it's significantly harder to hack a console copy simply because the O/S is closed off to the vast majority of its users (even users that would traditionally be power users on a PC), whereas anybody on Windows can download Cheat Engine or similar and make in-memory modifications.

 

This is where the developers made an enormous flaw in design choice. A lot of processing in The Division is done client-side which is a sin in itself (never trust the client) but isn't as big an issue in the walled off garden that is PS4/XBL. Any kit capable of running hacks and modifying client-side processing is likely against the respective terms of service of each network so they'll be dealt with by Sony/MS eventually.

 

Of course, in this world of lazy console to PC ports, they never took into account the devastating impact client-side processing will have on the PC market. The game must have been developed for consoles then ported over without anyone thinking it'd be an issue. Because anyone can modify memory values and hide it (there are no effective anti-cheat systems in the game) people are breaking stuff and it has brought the rest of the system under scrutiny. Hence why other unrelated bugs are being found as everyone is suspicious of every little mechanic and system looking for holes and testing the limits. I dare say there are a lot more zero-day vulnerabilities for the game being held back for later use.

 

This in turn has had an effect on performance in the PC port as the hacks, glitches and bugs have rendered parts of the game unusable and in one case, with buff stacking, caused the entire server to come under heavy load and cause lag rendering the entire game unplayable. But even then you have logic errors, like unlimited materials, causing balance problems on console too.

 

So on PC you have to assume the entire game has been compromised as nothing can be guaranteed, assured or handled even vaguely competently.

[Garacesh]

Basically, yeah, that's the issue @CAM. It's been discussed to great lengths on The Division subreddit (/r/thedivision), since Massive/Ubisoft are deleting threads on the official forums. That's basically what it all boils down to.. Rubbish console port.

[GuyJD]

The game was originally not going to see a PC release it was only because PC games petitioned for it to be made that Massive decided to port it over, I guess they just thought port it and all will be fine.

 

Honestly I think the only way the game could be saved on PC at this point is to fix the bugs, bring everything important to fair play server-side and nerf everyone who's currently level 30+ back to vanilla level 30 and start again.

[GuyJD]

Does anyone know how the PvE enemy levelling works if there is a variation in the levels in your squad?

 

A friend of mine who hasn't been playing long (lvl 10) was having trouble on the Lincoln Tunnel mission so myself and MrsJD jumped into his squad to help and the NPC's were all suddenly level 30 leaving my mate completely frustrated and getting downed with every shot he took. I read that it's meant to level to the Group leader but we didn't find that to be the case.

[Garacesh]

Does anyone know how the PvE enemy levelling works if there is a variation in the levels in your squad?

 

A friend of mine who hasn't been playing long (lvl 10) was having trouble on the Lincoln Tunnel mission so myself and MrsJD jumped into his squad to help and the NPC's were all suddenly level 30 leaving my mate completely frustrated and getting downed with every shot he took. I read that it's meant to level to the Group leader but we didn't find that to be the case.

 

I think it's just based on the highest level party member. Also EXP doesn't scale - a level 2 guy gives just as much exp as a level 30 guy. These are deliberate choices (I feel) to discourage power-levelling.

[Lonix]

Honestly, I've given up on The Division, and I reckon that's what Ubisoft are hoping users will do. We've all paid for the game, Ubisoft earned an estimated $330 million worldwide in its first five days. [Source] There's no (at least, very little in comparison) money left to milk from the game. If everybody drops it now, that's money in their pocket with less running costs (maybe a small 'good faith' refund to people who bought the season pass, but still a lot of profit.)

 

I didn't want to give up on the game, but I just can't be bothered with it any more. I can login and do one of the following:

• Run incursions, where most people are just 'cheesing' it instead of playing it properly.
  
• Go into the Dark Zone and get mowed down by hackers.
  
• Glitch Police Academy over and over for crafting materials.
  
• Listen to Roy Benitez tell me we both got to do, and we'll talk later.
  

 

None of these things are especially appealing.

 

I want to see the game bounce back. At this point I'd like to see Massive say "Alright, look. We dun goofed. Please go to $Page to submit bug fixes. We're taking the game down for a month and we're going to give it a huge overhaul.".. I think that's probably the only way they could claw back some of their dwindling playerbase because The Division, at its core, is a good game. But that won't happen. The devs are in too deep and aren't really sure what to do. They keep nerfing the crafting system making endgame more of a grind, whilst introducing new bugs and not fixing old ones. Hacks run rampant, the playerbase is down significantly, and Massive are locking/deleting threads on the Forums that are trying to draw attention to these issues.

 

My faith in the game has been lost.

 

You know what, I completely agree with you. I played with 4 friends at the start, the first person gave up at level 30 because she wasn't really a fan of this kind of game. The others are like me - really enjoyed this game. I am the last man standing who does dailies/weeklies, they don't bother signing in and have not done for some time.

 

Even the Dark Zone which great idea but everytime I go in - it's the same. Avoid the same two to three Rogue Groups who roam around killing anything in sight. Unless you have friends who have actually stuck to the game, it really is difficult to make a group who can fight off Rogues. It's also become a Dead Zone, other than those Rogues and a one or two people in the same small areas - I barely seeing anyone any more. It's no longer a question of IF you can extract or do something worth while in the DZ but a question of how long till you are dead by Rogues.

 

Ubisofts mistake was making alterations to current content when they should have just left it all and worried about bug fixing - new content. The same people that whined about the minimal Rogue rewards are now the same people who don't bother with it. They altered crafting requirements etc which again I don't see why they bothered.

 

As you said though, they got our money so why should they care. I don't buy season passes for this very reason because the DLC content being released is ridiculously poor or low amounts. If I pay for an expansion/DLC I expect something with plenty of content and in all the games I played only one game as ever offered a "Good" amount of content.

 

Personally I'd like to see more "choices" of end game content but that's just me... I've already questioned how long till I stop playing it.

[haldarulon]

Had the saddest thing happen to me and a pal in the DZ... (it would have been a glitchers dream!)

Last week we went and started to discover the landmarks (change building from purple to grey)

we went to the library as we did that the chopper flew over our heads and landed at the bottom of the road...

BONUS! we thought, so we snuk past the library so not to bother the 3 or 4 gold gaurds and the 1 gold boss.

run down to the drop started taking out all the guards that were in front of the drop 3 gold guards and one boss... killed them fair enough took a little damage, about to collect the drop and then got attacked by the guys from the library... obvs took some damage as shot in the back! started to fight them, then the guys we just killed respawned and we were stuck between the two gangs and died!

 

repopulated at nearest safe house run to the corner by the library only to be met by a new group of golds that had respawned at the library, skipped past them to see the others all still guarding the drop... died again because guys at library trapped us in there (so now there are 3 named bosses)

 

safe house run to the corner fighting going on hang around there and then boom spawn right on us more gold!

(4 named bosses) die again!

 

back to safe house come out of the door... gold boss straight away! fight our way to the corner only to see more spwan in front of us... and to top it all, some guy just strolls through all the fighting and takes all our stuff! as if no one was there!

 

mate gets bang ump and says he dont want to play it ever again, i just PMSL and thought oh well never mind, just a bit annoying because i lost some good equipment!

wrote email to ubisoft, got the usual it has been passed to relevent team, no response for 4 days case closed.

[GuyJD]

I think it's just based on the highest level party member. Also EXP doesn't scale - a level 2 guy gives just as much exp as a level 30 guy. These are deliberate choices (I feel) to discourage power-levelling.

that sucks, it basically means we can't squad up until he's level 27-28 minimum, I understand why they've done it but surely there was a better way than just leaving the lower level player to cower at the back.

[Garacesh]

You know what, I completely agree with you. I played with 4 friends at the start, the first person gave up at level 30 because she wasn't really a fan of this kind of game. The others are like me - really enjoyed this game. I am the last man standing who does dailies/weeklies, they don't bother signing in and have not done for some time.

To be honest, I haven't bothered signing in since before I made that post. I'm still subscribed to /r/thedivision in hopes that I see some posts saying the game is back on its feet, but given the rock-bottom playerbase, the hackers that still roam free, and the numerous people 'cheesing' instead of playing properly, I honestly don't think I'll ever pick the game up again. Which is a shame, because at its core it's a good game. But it is what it is. C'est la vie.

[Arreks]

Uninstalled, I'd rather have 33GB of free space

[ZeroHour]

Uninstalled, I'd rather have 33GB of free space

 

Lol [emoji16]

[Garacesh]

Uninstalled, I'd rather have 33GB of free space

 

Former Titanfall Programmer Doubtful The Division’s Problems Can Be Fixed

 

I'm with you on that one.

Edited May 15, 2016 by Garacesh

[cherd84]

Update 1.2.... are we all jumping back on?

[Garacesh]

Update 1.2.... are we all jumping back on?

 

Probably not. Not until I receive word from other players that the trusted client issues are resolved, the netcode is fixed, and the devs aren't trying to increase the grind even more. I still keep an eye on /r/thedivision but it ain't looking hopeful.

But I'll have some patch notes if you got 'em?

[CAM]

Update 1.2.... are we all jumping back on?

 

Everyone I was playing with has stopped so I have little reason to log in anymore.

[cherd84]

Probably not. Not until I receive word from other players that the trusted client issues are resolved, the netcode is fixed, and the devs aren't trying to increase the grind even more. I still keep an eye on /r/thedivision but it ain't looking hopeful.

But I'll have some patch notes if you got 'em?

 

Duly obliged - The Division Update 1.2: Conflict ? Patch Notes | Latest news and content about Tom Clancy's The Division game

 

I've been playing on XB1 but just seen an article that the PC player base has dropped by 81% since release!

 

Is it really that bad?