A proper Free Roam Mode should be one of the key features of an Open World game like The Division is. While the map size seemed to be really small before launch, it turned out to be a pretty big and beautifully designed place in the end, fully packed with a bunch of intense Story Missions and dozens of so called Encounters.
Those need to be completed first in order to reach maximum character level 30 and to restore 100% of each Wing in the Base of Operations. But what happens to it once this is done?
No new content will make it into Update 1.4. Fixing and improving existing content is priority at this very moment, but we would still like and use the chance to address and talk about this free roaming experience that should definitely be reconsidered at some point, next to Incursions, Underground and the Dark Zone. It’s not all about loot, but of course it also plays a big role in this puzzle as it’s currently not only too weighted, but also too limited to obtain in this handful of aforementioned activities.
Releasing Update 1.4 should not only bring players back for a week, no – it optimally will convince them to stay and spend more time in the game. It could be even a chance to gain new players!
Current State
The 1-30 leveling and Dark Zone PvE experience is great and the vast majority of players out there likes it a lot, however the big playable PvE area in Manhattan that surrounds the Dark Zone loses its charm very quickly by not offering any more opportunities, activities (except for Incursions and Underground) or NPC encounters to players after they have reached the level cap and to those who don’t want to go into the DZ again after they have found their Nemesis. Quite understandable.
With Update 1.2 the developers tried to breathe new life into this lovely designed city and introduced the so called High-Value Targets feature. A feature which looked really promising when it was first showcased, but in the end didn’t worked out that well. We are not talking about the mighty Lone Star Gear Set in this case, but more about what High-Value Targets are and how this system should actually work and coherent with the Open World.
At the moment, this Open World itself isn’t really offering anything valuable to improve the player’s equipment, nor does it make fun over time to kill NPCs that aren’t on par with you.
The reason for that is that NPCs aren’t scaling properly (if there are any), elites and named bosses do not really spawn anymore once you have killed them since Bullet King and the loot you can get isn’t, to be honest, worth to be named loot at all.
In comparison to the Dark Zone, where you encounter enemies at almost every corner at predefined Landmarks, offering you the opportunity to defeat the boss that could drop at least an item for you. Not to forget the additional Dark Zone chests and Supply Drops.
HVTs should have solved this problem of an empty world, but instead of grinding for that big loot, players have to clear out districts first by completing those Encounters to unlock Search & Destroy Missions. Completing these missions give you Target Intel, one of numerous currencies in the game, and after an hour of literally running from one – sorry – useless spot to the other one you might be able to unlock one of the High-Value or High-Risk Target Missions, just to get slapped in the face afterwards and, well, not so good rewards.
Moreover they can only be done once per day or per week, which doesn’t make sense at all when a player has enough Target Intel.
An overall frustrating experience and not really worth at all.
More Freedom
What we would like to see are hot encounters with Cleaner Elites in Hell’s Kitchen, LMB ambushes near General Assembly and open street fights with Rioters and Rikers. There is so much unused space in this beautiful city and lots of us would probably like to explore it more, if it would be worth it. Also think about the players who don’t own the Season Pass – the options of upgrading their gear are very limited.
Therefore, letting properly scaled groups of enemies spawn all over the map at random locations would add so much more variety in terms of obtaining loot, without having to create new content and by just adapting the existing system – like it already works in the Dark Zone.
Nevertheless, the Dark Zone should still be this dangerous “risk vs. reward” place with PvE and PvP enabled, and with a slightly better chance to get new items. This way every player, whether they are playing as a lone wolf (solo) or in a group, could decide on their own where they want to go.
Being able to take a break from finding the Falcon Squad or getting claustrophobic panic attacks in the Underground, just roaming around in the streets of New York City with the chance to get the same amount of loot as in aforementioned activities would be awesome, benefits the endgame and is endlessly extensible in the future. And we should not forget that we are still playing a 3rd-person shooter – the more targets, the better this experience (expecting that the balancing works)!
Conclusion
To finally get to a point, here are some points that could, at least in our opinion, significantly improve this free roaming experience in The Division, without the need of adding new content and very little effort to implement compared to creating and designing completely new areas like an Incursion.
- Reconsidering Daily and Weekly HVTs. Why not removing this limitation and allowing players to complete them as soon as the required amount of Target Intel is reached?
- Revamped Encounter system with random spawns around Manhattan for players at level 30, based on factors like Gear Score and other things.
- All enemies should be able to drop loot. If somebody has a problem with defeating a boss, why not grant them at least a chance to get a new item by just killing some normal enemies. This should be applied to all enemies in the game.
- All enemies should be able to drop Target Intel. HVTs don’t need to be removed to make this system work – they actually need to be buffed (loot wise) to make them more viable again, but opening this system and letting players find Target Intel outside of Search & Destroy Missions by for example roaming around the city and killing random NPCs could be one way to get it.
- Random constellation of groups similar to HVTs. For example 2 or 3 bosses at one place.
- Loot chests outside the Dark Zone.
- PvE Supply Drops should be for everyone. Season Pass holders should get them more frequently. Unless the core concept of these monthly special Supply Drops changes (something will definitely happen), it’s nothing really special, so why not let normal players also get them while Season Pass holders see them more often dropping – but not as frequent as in the Dark Zone.
As said, the possibilities for future updates are endless at this point. This system could be improved a lot by adding new types of encounters with different types of enemies, including vehicles such as a helicopter we have already seen, APCs, tanks, garbage trucks and other stuff, like it was shown in the first gameplay trailer.
These are just a few ideas that could improve the game and we would love to see something like that in Update 1.4, or in the future. Let us know what you think about it in the comments below!
