The Division 2 General Discussion

Is there anyone planning to get this or are interested in it. I know i liked the first one but i will definetly need some to play with to even consider it.

 

I am very interested in it and am likely to pick it up

 

This is a huge maybe for me. It depends mostly on whether Anthem succeeds or crashes and burns. I'll be looking for a loot game, and it's going to be one or the other.

 

I liked the original Division. But honestly I think Anthem is more my cup of tea. I still think Balancing PvP with PvE is a terrible idea.

People talk about bullet sponge enemies, I can give games like Destiny or Anthem a break when they are aliens or creatures that we have no metric for. But it always pulled me out of the game when I could shoot a human in the face with an entire clip and them not even blink.

 

From the videos I have seen they still seem bullet spongy. This video doesn't really have anything to do with that but I just watched the game play. I think they way it works now is you have to get through armor before you start doing health damage. But against a person whose head is exposed, it ticks off armor before you can do damage to them. Then you still have to unload 30 more rounds into before they go down.

Dont get me wrong, I will probably play it at some point. I even understand why they have to do it this way, I do not think they have around it to be honest. It is more of an observation than anything. For me, the movement of Anthem is what makes it so appealing plus the focus on the powers and those builds. To me that is more interesting than gunplay. And the division gunplay always felt great, so I am sure D2 will be just as good if not better.

 

You're not wrong about D2 armor bars being a thing, but not all enemies have it. Epic and legendaries do, but that is consistent with any looter shooter having tiered enemies.

Hell, if we're drawing comparisons between D2 and Anthem, the epic and legendary enemies in Anthem are beefy as hell and often sporting sizable shield bars or giant armored plates that prevent significant combos before you can really go to town on them.

That said, time to kill looks to be significantly better from D1 based on gameplay videos that are out. I include a video below of unnarrated gameplay. Even with the utterly awful aim of the players featured, TTK doesn't stick out to me in a way that seems any more dramatic than I've seen in Warframe, Borderlands, Destiny 2, or Anthem. To be honest I'd argue it is noticably better in that regard than other titles in the genre.

 

Yup, Mar 15th

 

I got selected for private beta access without having to preorder, so I was in it for a couple of hours tonight (and will hit it much harder over the next couple of days).

That said, my initial impressions are super positive. The movement and gunplay both feel similar to the Division 1, but better. Enemies are noticably less bullet spongy in the beta- the time to kill feels pretty damn good (unless you are using guns at inappropriate ranges). I'd encourage people to give some of the twitch streams a watch to see if it appeals to you. Here's a stream the devs are running: https://www.twitch.tv/thedivisiongame . It's my understanding they'll be running it for the duration of the beta's uptime.

I'll dig into it more over the next couple of days, but if my experience continues as it has gone thus far I will be picking this up.

 

So I saw a video where they talked about how great the TTK felt with 1 or 2 players. But as soon as you went to a full group of 4 the mobs felt super bullet spongy again, sometimes worse than D1.

I also got selected for Beta access.. not sure why, but I am downloading it to try it out. I cant imagine it is going to be bad. All they have to do is improve upon D1. I think my only irritation is that I feel like this should have been an expansion to D1 instead of a full $60 game. They already had the engine and a lot of the assets.

 

Don and I played the closed beta. It was very good, better than D1. They seem to have gotten things where they need to be and I think it will be a great game. I personally think Anthem is more fun, but I will probably pick up D2 some time down the road.

 

I absolutely agree. I see no harm in the normalization approach and think it will lead to the DZ being more accessible. That said, I think they've managed to cater to that well though with the Dark Zone occupied model- where two dark zone areas are normalized each week, and the third (location rotating week after week) is "invaded"- featuring higher level enemies, better loot, no normalization of gear or levels, no nameplates, and permanent friendly fire on.

I was talking with Haki today, and he called attention to something I hadn't necessarily thought about- how the dark zone functioned in the Division and the feelings that created vs how it operates in Division 2. In the Division 2 they've made some pretty considerable changes that, as I mentioned above, make the DZ gameplay far more accessible than it was before. Here are some of those changes:

• Level and gear normalization in 2/3 Dark Zones each week
  
• Most gear isn't contaminated- some pieces are, but you will get regular drops of clean items that you can pick up and use immediately, and that you do not risk losing on death. Like in the Division 1, completing landmarks will also grant uncontaminated gear.
• Dark Zone instances are limited to 12 players
• There is a distinction between Rogue agents that have and have not killed other players. Some actions, such as stealing from certain chests, will mark a player as Rogue, but if they kill another player they are designated as "Disavowed"

 

I think the division is a technically better game. I think it probably has less frustrations from the loading screens and some of the story related things. I also think the gun play is better in the division. It is a fun game, I played the division heavily and I played the closed beta for D2. D2 feels great, it is fun. It is also more of the Division. Which is not really a bad thing. And yes there are differences but it feels almost exactly the same. Again, not a bad thing. I also thing the flow is better, moving from one thing to another is quick and easy and very well communicated. They have made ALOT of quality of life fixes and I think it will FEEL like a better game overall.

The division is also pretty simple and straightforward. There is a linear power climb up, gear is simple and straightforward. You get a better gun, awesome. Incremental increase and you move up that line. The combat is good, gun play is satisfying but it is again fairly simple. The armor system for bosses make it a little more interesting and rewards focus firing. You have those moments of excitement from getting in over your head, and you have to find cover and start picking things off. Again, it all feels like the division. I like the world less than the first game, the snow from the first game made it more enjoyable for me. I thought it was amazing. The terrain is more varied this time through though which is nice.

Comparing this to Anthem. Anthem has issues. The loading is a big one, another big one is some of the story missions being forced to do tasks with no real tracking. There are a LOT of quality of life issues with Anthem. There are a lot of times that flow breaks down between missions and the forge and other objectives. They need better communication of things going on in the world and without text chat it is hard to communicate with other people in the world when you need help. I think my biggest frustration is Freeplay when you are solo. Because you cannot queue privately, you are forced to go out with other people and typically there is no way to organize. Which means you are facing mobs scaled for 4 people, most of the time solo or with 2 people. There are several other technical issues with the game.

However, the loot overall is better and more interesting. There is not a linear progression. Because you have abilities and multiple different types and combinations of abilities it makes that chase more interesting. The crafting system allows you augment what you do not find in the world with better crafted items or upgrade something that you already have. For example, I just got a Blue devastator sniper rifle and about jumped when I saw it because I had so much fun with it during the demo. The movement, flight and combat is so much more enjoyable than any other game like this. When playing solo, it is OK. But when you get into a group and get coordinated it feels amazing.

As for story I do not know, but I have heard Anthem is around 12-15 hours of critical path story missions. Which is fine for me personally but I know that will disappoint a lot of people. I think the story and world is interesting, I am not sure I can say the same about The Division.

I think it really depends on what you want. Do you want really satisfying gun play and straight forward military style combat and tactics with a fairly linear power climb? The division is perfect, it hits it on the head and I think is a far better shooter than most out there.

Do you want the iron man style/ 3d combat flying around and focusing on abilities and combing those with others or other abilities? Do you want the super smooth movement and freedom to fly anywhere and find lots of lore in a really well fleshed out world? Then I think Anthem is better, but it has its share of growing pains and faults.