tc-the-division-state-of-the-game

We are in week two of The Division’s public test of the upcoming Update 1.4 on the Public Test Server and here are the official patch notes for the changes in the latest build that was deployed yesterday on September 29th.

Many things across the board have changed again and are still subject to change, while the most noticeable of this week’s update is probably the new Banshee Gear Set, which replaces the B.L.I.N.D. set and is fully designed for roaming in the Dark Zone. Besides that we will show you what week two is all about and what stats and bonuses will change on your current gear.

If you want to rewatch the latest State of the Game episode, you can do this here on Twitch.

Changes: Sneak Peek

The developers seem to be still not sure about certain mechanics like Armor Mitigation, as it was now suddenly raised back to 70% and Toughness is not only relying on Stamina anymore as it was stated in the related dev blog about Character Balance a week ago. But as mentioned before, things can change on a daily basis until the update goes live somewhere in October.

Also worth to mention is the way your character’s health will regenerate from now on. Instead of regenerating only one-third of the bar, it will now progressively regenerate to full when you are out of combat. Basically a nice change, however would make the new Nomad Gear Set 3-piece bonus useless again, unless its regeneration is also working in combat.

This already brings us to the next topic, Signature Skills. You can say bye, bye to using Tactical Link 4 times in a row (4 players in a group), because a new shared cooldown mechanic will prevent you from doing so. Players in a group who receive a buff from any Signature Skill will be immune to the same signature skill for 30 seconds after the first one runs out. Unlike the Mad Skills Directive in the Underground, the players in your team could still use the same one, but it would be wasted then, so communication is key at this point.

You can find the full changelog down below.

PTS Week 2 & Impact on old Items?

In week 2, all your characters from the live servers were transferred to the PTS, which directly allows you to see the impact on your current gear and what will approximately change in terms of their stats and attributes. To get an overview about those changes, here is a list of what parts of your gear will be affected with the go-live of Update 1.4.

  • Primary stats will not be re-rolled randomly, the highest one stays the highest, but generally they will be scaled up or down based on the new values.
  • The Weapon Talents Restored and Steady will be removed. Stable will only roll on weapons below level 30. Although it wasn’t stated concretely, aforementioned ones will most likely be replaced with a random one.
  • Gear items will keep their skill bonuses, but will be adjusted accordingly.
  • Performance Mod Slots will only be available on new items that drop after the release of Update 1.4.
  • Weapon and Performance Mods will be completely re-rolled.
  • All Gear Sets will get the new bonuses.
  • Scavenging will be replaced with a random attribute based on the item:
    • Mask: Bleed Resistance
    • Knee Pads and Purple Gear Mods: Threat Reduction
  • The Perceptive Gear Talent will not roll on Knee Pads post 1.4 anymore and increases your Credit find bonus on existing items.

 

Changelog

Game changes

Gameplay

  • Player grenade damage now scales with the current World Tier to ensure consistent efficiency against NPCs across World Tiers.
  • Shotgunner NPCs: their damage falloff and accuracy have been slightly reduced. This should limit their range and lower their lethality in long to mid-range combat.
  • World Tier & Dark Zone bracket: If the player has enough Gear Score to unlock a new World Tier but is still below the matching Dark Zone bracket requirement, he will still be able to join the higher Dark Zone bracket by selecting the higher World Tier. For example, a player with Gear Score 158 can go to World Tier 2, but would be forced into Dark Zone bracket 1 due to his GS being bellow 163, which can be very confusing. Now, if he selects World Tier 2, he will be put in Dark Zone bracket 2. If he selected World Tier 1, he will be put in Dark Zone bracket 1 until his Gear Score reaches the next Dark Zone bracket minimum requirement. This only applies when the Gear Score is right in the middle of two World Tiers (158 to 163, 177 to 182, 199 to 204)
  • Underground checkpoints have been removed from the game until a better implementation can be developed (post 1.4).
  • Several improvements to NPC AI.
  • Player health will now progressively regenerate to full when out of combat.

Gear Stats

  • Armor Damage Mitigation cap increased from 60% to 70%
  • Toughness now takes All Damage Resiliency into account
  • Reduced Health on Kill bonuses on Gear by 50%. This change also applies to existing gear. Nomad 2-piece bonus is not impacted by this change.
  • Skill Haste bonus will now directly affect Skill cooldowns by the same amount. For example, 10% Skill Haste will reduce Skill cooldown by 10%.

Gear Sets

  • Tactician’s Authority:
    • 2 Pieces: +10% Skill Haste
    • 3 Pieces: +10% Skill Power
  • Lone Star:
    • 3 Pieces:
      • +8% LMG Damage
      • +8% Shotgun Damage
  • Predator’s Mark:
    • 2 Pieces: +10% Reload Speed
    • 3 Pieces:
      • +8% Assault Rifle Damage
      • +8% SMG Damage
    • 4 Pieces: Hit 10 shots without switching target to make the target take damage over time for 50% of the total amount of damage already done by those bullets
  • Final Measure:
    • 2 Pieces: +25% Exotic Damage Resilience
    • 4 Pieces: When in range of hostile grenades or mortars, defuses them and adds grenades to your inventory. Can only happen once every15 seconds
  • Reclaimer:
    • 2 Pieces: +50% Consumable duration
    • 3 Pieces: +50% Support Station duration
    • 4 Pieces: Consumables and special ammo used now apply to the whole group and are not consumed on use. Triggers consumable cooldowns and cannot start consumables that are on cooldown.
  • B.L.I.N.D. becomes Banshee:
    • 2 Pieces: +20% Dark Zone Currency gained
    • 3 Pieces: +10% Damage to targets out of cover
    • 4 Pieces:
      • While Rogue, all ammo is completely refilled every 30 seconds. Damage taken from non-rogue players reduced by 10%.
      • While not Rogue, movement speed is increased by 20%. Damage to Rogue players is increased by 10%
    • Note 1: Due to streaming issues, the movement speed will have to be removed in a future update of the PTS and will be replaced with another bonus. Suggestions are welcome!
    • Note 2: All existing pieces of B.L.I.N.D. will be replaced with equivalent Banshee pieces.

Weapons

  • DPS calculation has been changed to be closer to the old formula, without accuracy and considering a 100% headshot rate. Note that this formula is still Work in Progress.
  • Weapon recalibration: When recalibrating a weapon, the player will now be able to pick from 6 Talents additionally to the initial one (instead of 3+1). This should lower the impact of RNG and increase the chances to actually get the talent you want before you run out of tries.
  • LMG
    • Reduced all LMGs Damage bonus on targets out of cover from about 28% maximum to 19% maximum
    • M249: Damage reduced by 6%
    • M60: Damage reduced by 8.2%
    • RPK: Damage reduced by 9%
    • L86: Damage reduced by 14.3%
  • Marksman Rifle
    • SCAR: Damage reduced by 0.9%
    • SVD: Damage increased by 1.3%
  • SMG
    • Reduced all SMG Critical Hit Damage bonus from about 47% maximum to 38% maximum
    • AUG: Damage increased by 12%
    • MP5: Damage increased by 4.6%
    • MP7: Damage increased by 3.5%
    • PP19: Damage increased by 7.8%
    • SMG9: Damage increased by 13.5%
    • Vector: Damage increased by 7.8%

Weapon Talents

  • Ferocious: Bonus Damage reduced from 15% to 10%
  • Responsive: Bonus Damage Reduced from 15% to 10%

Gear Talents

  • Reckless: Bonus Damage Reduced from 15% to 8%, damage taken unchanged
  • Savage: Bonus Critical Hit Chance reduced from 10% to 7%

Character Talents

  • Chain Reaction: Decreased Damage bonus by 50% from 40% to 20%

Skills

  • First Aid
    • Defibrillator no longer revives players from death as it was deemed too powerful. Defibrillator will only revive players from downed state, as it was the case pre 1.4.
  • Ballistic Shield
    • Base health of the Shield has been increased by 67%
    • Now takes 50% less damage from NPCs
  • Seeker Mine
    • Cluster now applies bleed effect on top of its usual damage
  • Smart Cover
    • Trapper now applies a Stability and Accuracy debuff to enemies in cover, equivalent to the normal buff provided by Smart Cover
    • Base skill and all mods no longer have range cap
    • Base skill and all mods Weapon Stability bonus changes from +5% to +7.5%
    • Base skill and all mods Weapon Accuracy bonus changes from +5% to +7.5%
  • Support Station
    • When playing solo, if the player is downed while his Station is active, he will be able to revive himself
  • Signature Skills
    • Implemented a shared cooldown mechanic: in a group, players who receive a buff from any Signature Skill will be immune to the same signature skill for 30 seconds after the first one runs out.
    • All signature skills have their duration increased by 20% from 10 seconds to 12 seconds.

High Value Targets

  • Prices of High Value Target contracts have been adjusted and normalized to avoid overlaps. This results in an overall slight decrease of cost for many contracts.
  • Daily High Value Targets now all scale with group size.
  • Weekly High Value Targets will always be scaled for 4 players groups.
  • The difficulty of some of the hardest HVT contracts have been slightly lowered.

Loot

  • Gear Set items have been removed from drop pools in World Tier 1. This means that in World Tier 1, NPCs, bosses and activity rewards will only provide High End items and no Gear Set at Gear Score 163. Gear Set still have a low chance to be dropped with Gear Score 182 in World Tier 1. This should help easing progression between tiers and bring new players more gradually to the concept of end-game gearing up.
  • Dark Zone named NPCs drop rates modified:
    • 1x High End or Gear Set
    • 1x High End Gear Mod or Weapon Mod (instead of 1x Gear Set)
  • Drop rates have been modified for all named NPCs encountered during missions and incursions outside of the actual boss. They will no longer guarantee High-End drops.
  • Underground: The loot chest at the end of an Underground phase will no longer guarantee a High-End item.
  • Vendors will now sell Sealed Cache for all currencies. Pricings are still Work in Progress in this build.
  • Vendors will now scale with World Tier and no longer sell items that are of a high Gear Score than what can be acquired in the Tier.
  • Marksman Rifles, ARs and Shotgun prices have been lowered.
  • Gear Set items now cost as much as a high end gear piece, resulting in a large price reduction.
  • Item prices in DZ Funds have been adjusted. Gear score 182 item prices went slightly up, as gear score 204 items got a small price decrease. These changes were made for a more normalized, fairer price increase of items with gear score.
  • Items priced in Phoenix Credit gear score 182 went down in price slightly, whereas items gear score 229 went slightly up. These changes were made for a more normalized, price increase of items with gear score.
  • General Assembly mission: The Helicopter boss will still drop 4 items. On normal difficulty, these 4 items will be of Superior or High-End quality. On Hard, it will drop High-End items only. These items can be of any type instead of only equipment items.
  • Reduced chances for some drops to be a weapon and increased chance for it to be gear.

UI Improvements

  • Performance Mod Slots will now appear separately from the normal Mod Slots on the right of a gear icon. Note that there is currently a known issue with this change where pre 1.4 items may have their Mod Slots icons duplicated on the right side of the Gear icon, this is only a display issue and does not mean that the amount of mod slots has increased.
  • Recalibration bench now opens instantly instead of waiting for watch tapping animation.

Bug fixing

  • Fixed a bug where the 4-piece talent of Final Measure would not defuse the APC Mortar shells in Falcon Lost.
  • Fixed a bug where the game could freeze when holding the skill deployment button of a second skill when the character was using a Mobile Cover.
  • Fixed a bug where two deprecated blueprints (Iron Sight 2 and 3) could be acquired.

Gameplay

  • Fixed a bug where NPC turrets would count towards Daily and Weekly Assignments for this NPC type.
  • Fixed a bug where named bosses could respawn in the Open World when going to a safe house.

Skills

  • Fixed a bug where activating a skill during a cover to cover move and then ending the move could lead to all skills being stuck on cooldown.
  • Fixed a bug where First Aid Booster Shot would not provide the expected Damage bonus.
  • Fixed a bug where First Aid would revive players no matter which Skill Mod was selected.
  • Fixed a bug where Recovery Link heal would not apply if the targeted player is currently aiming with a skill.
  • Fixed a bug where Smart Cover would be destroyed by enemy grenades (EMP grenades can still destroy Smart Cover, as intended).
  • Fixed a bug where Support Station would not revive a player if the Station caster is also in downed state.
  • Fixed a bug where Recovery Link would not trigger correctly when the player dies.
  • Fixed a bug where Mobile Cover Countermeasures would not correctly hide the agent from Pulse.

UI

  • Fixed various text errors and misspells.
  • Fixed a bug where the third bonus from High End weapon mods would not show when the mod is attached to a weapon.
  • Fixed a bug where some settings would reset to default when the game is restarted.
  • Fixed a bug where the World Level Tier tutorial would show up every time the player would enter the Terminal.
  • Fixed a bug where the Valkyria blueprint would not appear at the blueprint vendor.
  • Fixed a bug where blueprints sold at the underground vendor could be acquired from the Blueprint vendor.