Agents, incoming State of the Game transmission:
During the last State of the Game, Community Developer Petter Mårtensson discussed the current status of the PTS and briefly touched upon some hot topics surrounding Update 1.8, including Rogue 2.0 and game balance.
This week, Petter was joined by two State of the Game regulars from Red Storm Entertainment. Creative Director, Terry Spier and Lead Game Designer, Keith Evans joined Petter to discuss the recently concluded PTS and all the exciting content coming in Update 1.8.
If you missed the stream, you can check out the VoD below or if you’re currently on the move, we have you covered with our Podcast Recap.
TODAY
The Update 1.8 PTS reached its conclusion on Tuesday, October 31st and is now closed on all platforms. We made a number of changes to Update 1.8 during the PTS that we are happy with and feel that Update 1.8 will be a high-point of the game. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your passion for the game, all your diligent testing you have done and all the feedback you have given in the past month that will help to ensure that Update 1.8 will be even better when released!
PTS is an important step in our development process that helps us to put the finishing touches on an update and brings a lot of value to the development team. Amongst other things, it allows us play test the update ourselves, watch streams, listen to community feedback and act on analytic data that is gathered during the PTS. A Public Test Server is something most games do not have and it is a very hectic time with a lot of data and feedback to process in a short time span but the end result always ends up as an improvement.
Terry & Keith clarified their thoughts on various balancing concerns the community have expressed during the PTS, including the Predator’s Mark and Path of the Nomad sets as well as the Ballistic Shield. They emphasized that they believe that the current balancing puts the aforementioned sets in the right place and are keen to see out how the community receives them when they get introduced in conjunction with an upcoming Global Event. In addition, they explained that they felt the Ballistic Shield over performed in certain situations. They now feel that it is in a good place after some final tweaks having been done to it for PTS3.
During the PTS many changes were made to the Rogue 2.0 mechanic based on community feedback to make it a more solid game mechanic overall. They also emphasized that the dynamics in the Dark Zone differ greatly between PTS and the live servers and that they believe the Rogue 2.0 manhunt terminal gameplay loop is something that will work well on the live servers, creating unique and dynamic engagements between manhunt groups and rogue hunters.
We will of course monitor community feedback on all of these topics when Update 1.8 drops but we believe that Update 1.8 is overall in a good place and that it will bring tons of cool content to the game.
LOOKING FORWARD
We are quickly approaching the release of Update 1.8 that will bring many cool additions to the game and we hope that the community will love the update as much as we do! Below is a quick summary of some of the content that is soon coming to the game for free.
- The West Side Piers map extension.
- New story elements to uncover through audio logs.
- Resistance – PvE Horde mode.
- Skirmish – 4v4 PvP mode.
- New Global Events.
- New Classified Gear Sets.
- Optimization Station.
- Rogue 2.0.
- Underground Revamp.
Great news for all our agents that will be playing on Xbox One X in the near future, as today we confirmed that improvements for the console will be coming to The Division. More juicy details and a timeline will come at a later date, so make sure to stay tuned to future State of the Game streams.
To wrap this State of the Game up with some good news, Classified Gear set pieces as well as the new exotics has been confirmed by our guests to drop in the Underground in Update 1.8. See you down there in Update 1.8!
As always, be sure to join us over on the Official Forums or on the community Reddit if you’re looking for a place to discuss all things related to The Division.
Until next time!
The Division Dev Team