We are getting closer to Update 1.4 and are now already in week 3 of the public test phase for The Division’s Update 1.4. The developers are very happy about the outcome of this test so far and really appreciate the direct feedback. Moreover we might see the PTS being used more often in the future, which is great to hear and can only make the game better based on what the community needs.
A final release date for Update 1.4’s hasn’t still been announced yet, the current state is “end of October“. In case test week number 3 is the last one – which will end on October 13th, the developers will most likely need an additional week to fix existing and new bugs as well as change and improve the game based on the feedback they will gain in this upcoming week. We personally expect that the release will be on and around Tuesday, October 25th.
If you would like to rewatch today’s State of the Game episode, you can do this here on Twitch.
Contents
Time to Kill Reduced
While the Time to Kill as well as Time to be Killed was already drastically reduced as part of the new balancing at the beginning of the PTS launch, the devs decided to lower the numbers even more, which results in a global damage decrease of level 31 to 33 NPCs by 15% and a global armor decrease of level 31 to 33 Elite NPCs by 17%.
Revised Threat Mechanic
Also part of this patch was an improvement of the at the moment not really great working Threat mechanic in The Division. As of now NPCs will react better and more predictable on how players are managing the enemy agro. The Ballistic Shield and Mobile Cover Skill for example can now be used to generate Threat, which means that players who want to play a more tankier role can now get the enemies’ attention in a more controlled way.
On the other side, Silencers and Skills like the Pulse Scrambler Mod or Mobile Cover’s Countermeasure Mod will reduce threat so that for example damage dealers can stay back and don’t have to fear of being randomly attacked by NPCs.
Skills
The for Update 1.4 introduced curve of diminishing returns for Skill Power was a bit too extreme for players who actually geared themselves towards Skill Power and Electronics, which why some adjustments have been made to make endgame builds and the investment in Electronics in general more viable.
In regard to cooldown reduction and in contrast to Skills, the attribute Skill Haste will now be capped at 60% to prevent too low cooldowns. This preventive measure also applies now for Signature Skills, whose minimal cooldowns will be at least 5 seconds long.
Open World
Thankfully the respawn timer of Named Bosses in the Open World has been reduced from 24 hours to 4 hours. In our opinion it’s still a bit too high, but it’s better than the initial setup. In addition to that Weekly High Value and High Risk Target missions will scale according to the group size, which makes it also interesting for solo players.
Crafting
Division Tech will no longer be an requirement to craft a High End or Gear Set item. It will only act as conversion currency for Crafting Materials.
MG5 Light Machine Gun
Some of you might have noticed the appearance of a new LMG, the MG5, in the last week of testing. Unfortunately the developers haven’t planned to release this weapon with Update 1.4 which why you won’t find it in the final release. We also don’t know if it will ever come back as the B.L.I.N.D. (now Banshee) System Battle Rifle also never found its way into the game.
Agent Brief
The PTS has been fully reset and all your characters have been wiped. Meanwhile, a fresh import of your live characters has happened as part of testing the conversion of 1.3 characters to 1.4 which will be a thing when Update 1.4 goes live.
Although you won’t find a new Vendor in the new build which would be generating new items for you, all newly created characters will receive Gear Caches. You can still play with your live characters as you can open them first and then put the more useful items into your Stash to share them with your main chars. You can rinse and repeat that as long as you want, but don’t forget to actually play the game at the end. ;)
Your goal:
Min-max your characters to your heart’s content. Generate the items you need, and try the game with fully optimized gear.
Feedback:
The developers would like to know
how the game feels with a fully optimized character, how the experience is with different types of builds, and if anything breaks when your character is optimized to the extreme.
You can as always submit your feedback in the official PTS forums.
Changelog
Game changes
Gameplay
- Globally decreased damage of level 31 to 33 NPCs by 15%
- Globally decreased Armor of level 31 to 33 Elite NPCs by 17%
- Updated the ways NPCs react to Player Threat, now allowing players to more predictably manage enemy agro
- Reckless: Damage received from enemies debuff has been reduced from 15% to 10%
Search and Destroy and High Value Targets
- Enemies in Search & Destroy missions will now be Normal and Veteran instead of mostly Elites.
- Weekly High Value and High Risk Target missions will now scale according to group size.
Gear Stats
- Banshee
- 4 Piece:
Weapons
- Named weapons are no longer locked to specific Gear Scores (except Damascus, which will remain available at only one Gear Score)
- World tier determines the Gear Score of the weapon when it drops or is bought
- All Named weapon blueprints have been removed from their sources. They will remain in your blueprints list if you already had them, but will only allow you to craft the weapon at this specific Gear Score
- Named weapons will now have to be acquired through loot drops and vendors
- DPS calculation now values Headshot damage differently for each weapon category to more accurately guide player when modding weapons
- Ammo Capacity has been decreased by 25% (50% increase compared to 1.3)
- Caduceus has had its talents modified, to replace the removed talent Restored and better fit the new Gear Score scaling. It now has the following talents:
- Talented: Killing a target with this weapon increases your Skill Power by 15% for 20 seconds (doesn’t stack, killing a new target refreshes the timer)
- Competent: Whenever you use a skill, your weapon damage is increased by 10% for 15 seconds
- Determined: Killing a target reduces your skill cooldowns by 7.5%
Skills
- Improved Skill Power Diminishing Return curve to encourage and reward Skill users for specializing in Electronics. Overall, skill specialists will see an increase in the efficiency of their skills. Some skills have been adjusted accordingly, as they became overpowered at high levels of Skill Power.
Skill Haste has now been capped at 60% to prevent too low cooldowns. - All skills except signature skills now have a 5 seconds minimum cooldown.
- Sticky Bomb
- Base skill and all mods: PvP modifier reduced by 51% from 90% to 44%
- Ballistic Shield
- Base skill and all mods: Added threat generation when the shield is deployed
- Base skill and all mods: Added threat generation when shooting while the shield is deployed
- Base skill and Kinetic Breaker: Decreased base health by 25% from 5000 to 3750
- Reactive targeting: Decreased base health by 30% from 7500 to 5625
- Assault Shield: Decreased base health by 30% from 3750 to 2812
- Support Station
- Base skill and all mods: Decreased base cooldown duration by 44% from 90 seconds to 50 seconds
- Scaling of cooldown with skillpower set to 80%
- Ammo Cache: Skill Haste bonus reduced by 70% from 50% to 15%
- Smart Cover
- Base skill and all mods (except Trapper) Decreased Weapon Stability and Weapon Accuracy bonuses by 7% from 7.5% to 7%
- Trapper: Decreased Weapon Stability and Accuracy bonus and debuffs as well as Damage Resistance bonus and debuffs by 5% from 5.25% to 5%
- Recharger: Skill Haste bonus decreased by 25% from 20% to 15%
- Concealment: Added threat reduction when using this cover
- Pulse
- Tactical Scanner: Decreased Critical Hit Damage bonus by 20% from 10% to 8%
- Scrambler: Added threat reduction when using Pulse with this mod
- Seeker Mine
- Cluster: Decreased duration of bleed effect by 20% from 10 seconds to 8 seconds
- Mobile Cover
- Extension: Added threat generation when in using this cover
- Countermeasure: Added threat reduction when using this cover
Loot & Rewards
- Open World named NPCs respawn timer has been reduced from 24 hours to 4 hours.
- Mission bosses, Underground bosses and Underground chests (end of phase and random chests) will now only have a chance to drop Purple instead of High End and Gear Set at Normal Difficulty in Tier 1. Hard difficulty and above in Tier 1 as well as all difficulties at higher tiers (including Normal) will now guarantee High End or Gear Set.
- Missions and incursions mid bosses (4 horsemen in Dragon’s Nest, Raptor and Domino in General Assembly) will no longer drop Purple with a chance of High End or Gear Set. Instead, they will drop 2 to 3 High End crafting materials with a chance of High End or Gear Set item.
Vendors & Crafting
- The Phoenix Credit Vendor has been removed from the Tech Wing in the Base of Operations
- Division Tech has been removed as a requirement from all High End and Gear Set blueprints
Bug fixing
Gameplay
- Fixed a bug where NPC turrets could become invisible and indestructible if destroyed while being repaired by the NPC.
- Fixed a bug where a WIP weapon could be crafted (MG5). This blueprint is now crafting a RPK instead.
- Fixed a bug where bosses in World Tier 1 could drop High End Pistols instead of another weapon of gear piece.
Gear Sets
- Fixed an issue where the Banshee 4-piece talent would trigger and refill ammo when Rogue inconsistently.
Gear Stats
- Fixed a bug where main stats (Firearms, Stamina or Electronics) recalibrated before 1.4 would not have their value correctly scaled to the new standards of 1.4.
- Fixed a bug where Buying back an item would reset its recalibrated stats and allow for new recalibrations.
Underground
- Fixed a bug where Underground Operations would not trigger correctly when the player enters one.
Skills
- Fixed a bug where players were unable to use a Signature Skill while aiming with grenades.
- Fixed a bug where skills could be stuck in permanent cooldown.
- Fixed a bug where instant-firing the Sticky Bomb while another skill is readied could cause display issues.
- Fixed a bug where instant-using Mobile Cover while aiming with another skill could cause issues with the Mobile Cover.
- Fixed a bug where Ballistic Shield would not block incoming damage from Heavy cleaners and Fire Turrets.
- Fixed a bug where Support Station Ammo Cache was affected by its own Skill Haste bonus.
- Fixed a bug where self-casting First Aid while aiming down sight would drop the First Aid to the ground instead of applying it directly to the caster.
- Fixed a bug where players revived with First Aid Defibrillator would not get the immunity they usually get with other revive methods.
UI
- Fixed a bug where old gear from 1.3 would display duplicated Mod slots on the right of the gear icon.
- Fixed a bug where a Rank requirement would be displayed when trying to buyback an item from the Dark Zone Vendor.
- Fixed a bug where Caches sold at the Phoenix Credit vendors would not all have a cost of 100 Phoenix Credits.
- Fixed a bug where Daily and Weekly assignments caches reward indication in the mission overview would only display 163 Gear Score.
- Fixed a bug where existing Gear Mods could be missing bonuses.
