Greetings Agents!
Last week’s State of the Game focused on a lot of the loot changes that are coming in Update 1.4. If you missed it, you can watch the VOD or listen to it in podcast form!
If you missed any information recently, we’ve released three Devblogs that cover some of the major aspects of Update 1.4. You’ll find them linked below:
- Introducing World Tiers
- Improving Character Balance
- The Hunt for Loot
While there was no State of the Game stream this week, we have a lot of news to share with you regarding PTS week 4 and some of the changes we made.
TODAY
This week we had a maintenance on the Live servers and the PTS servers. The Live server maintenance was used in order to make further optimizations and clean up the databases. During the PTS server maintenance we deployed the patch for week 4.
To kick things off, make sure you check out this week’s Agent Brief to learn more about our objectives and the latest Patch Notes for the full list of changes!
As we head into the final week of the PTS, we wanted to take the opportunity to highlight a few key changes we are making with week 4.
DIFFICULTY
As the biggest topic of discussion recently, difficulty is the focus for this final PTS week. It’s clear that there are two strong opinions on the subject right now, those who though the PTS week 3 was fine and those who thought it was too easy. Our goal is to find a solid middle ground. Additionally, it became clear that there was an inconsistency in the difficulty between Underground Challenge Mode and Main Mission Challenge Mode. This was caused by the fact that Underground does not scale with group size like Main Missions do. To address this, we made the following change:
- Underground Challenge Mode will now scale with group size in terms of enemy health and damage, but no longer in enemy quantity. This means that when playing solo or in a smaller group, you will face more enemies in Underground Challenge Mode than in the past.
- To go with this change, chances to drop items from random enemies in Underground have been slightly lowered to ensure that an increase of enemies does not lead to even more loot.
In PTS week 3 we announced that we would reduce the damage that NPCs do by about 15%. Thanks for the recent discussions, we identified a bug that added another 15% on top of that, meaning that NPCs dealt 30% less damage instead of the intended 15%. This has now been fixed and the following change reflects this:
- Fixed a bug where NPC damage was reduced by an extra 15%, leading to a total 30% reduction in PTS 3 instead of the 15% announced. Their damage is now correctly reduced by 15% compared to PTS 2, and thus increased by 21% compared to PTS 3.
We’ve also decided to revert the change to Elite Armor that we made for PTS week 3.
- Reverted the change done in PTS 3 to Elite and Named NPC Armor, to bring it back to the level of PTS 2. This equals an increase of 20% armor compared to PTS 3.
HEALTH ON KILL
There was a significant amount of feedback during PTS week 3 that Health on Kill had become very strong. While it should provide you with a solid amount of healing if you invest into it, it should not be extreme enough to overshadow medkits or other healing skills. To answer this feedback, we’ve made the following changes:
- Path of the Nomad
- 2 pieces: Reduced Health on Kill bonus from 20% to 14%
- Reduced Health on Kill rolls on items by about half
BALLISTIC SHIELD
We’ve resolved a number of Ballistic Shield bugs with the PTS week 4 patch. With the recent changes to threat, it’s crucial to ensure that this skill works properly. Play around with it and give us your feedback or let us know if you run into any issues!
DOUBLE XP
This weekend we will also be testing out a system that allows us to award you with Double XP over a certain time period. Consider this and take it into account when providing feedback! Please let us know how this system feels and any other feedback you may have.
LOOKING FORWARD
We continue to work on Update 1.4 so we can get it into your hands as soon as possible, but also ensure the best quality possible.
If you have any ideas you want to share with us, visit the forums! The conversation so far has been great and want to keep that ball rolling.
HOT TOPICS
CONSTRUCTIVE DISCUSSIONS
We’ve seen some very strong and passionate opinions over the past week. It’s important to remember that others may have different opinions based on their own perspective and experiences. As long as the discussion remains constructive, everyone’s opinion is heard and taken into account. Be sure to keep the discussions going as we work together to create the best experience possible!
NAMED WEAPONS
After the change to the Caduceus with PTS Week 3, we saw a lot of discussions regarding named weapons in general. We are aware of their current state and the discussions that are ongoing, however unfortunately this isn’t a change that will take place for Update 1.4. The door is definitely open for future updates so if you have any ideas, be sure to share them with us.
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