IMPORTANT changes and content coming to The Division 2

IMPORTANT changes

Hi Agents, today we have a bunch of new information regarding important changes and content coming to The Division 2 (or The Division 1.2 – which it’s staring to turn into).

Firstly, I’ll give you a quick overview of what I’m covering here, so you can skip ahead to the parts that interest you:

  • Seasons
  • New Gear Sets
  • Endgame intentions
  • Free to Play Weekend
  • New York crafting bench changes

SEASONS

There is a lot of new information about how Seasons work, their time frames and the rewards that will be available.

You will have most likely seen a lot of chatter about a “pay to win” aspect being introduced with Seasons. The intention of what is being proposed is for players who can’t get on very often can purchase a level boost at the end of each season so that they can catch up to level 100 and don’t fall behind the more dedicated players. This is explained in full below under: Seasonal Level Skips.

As someone who has thousands of hours in this game, I don’t see why we need to continue to suffer changes that reward people who don’t put in the time or effort to achieve something the rest of us work hard at – but hey, that’s just me.

You can read up below on the official announcement regarding seasons, of which I have highlighted some keys points:

What are Seasons?

  • Seasons will continue the narrative after the end of the Warlords of New York campaign.
  • They are a large part of the new endgame and each one runs for 12 weeks.
  • Seasons include weekly in-game activities that start and end on Tuesday; the length is dependent on the activity itself.
  • Along with new seasonal targets, new items, and a new skill mod, Seasons bring new events including Seasonal Manhunt, Global Events, Leagues, and Apparel Events.
  • Seasonal items granted along the seasonal progression track will also be available in the general loot pool.
  • Each Season will have 100 levels, and the team’s goal is to have each level require a similar amount of time as a Field Proficiency Cache.
  • Every activity will give you XP towards Season Levels and SHD levels.

Seasonal Manhunts

  • Narrative target briefings continue the story of The Division 2 after the Warlords of New York.
  • New targets unlock every 3 weeks. Targets are available throughout the season after being unlocked, which allows players to join in late for the Seasonal Manhunt.
  • Take down the first four targets to unlock the prime target.
  • Take down the prime target to earn a unique skill mod.
  • The prime target will have a revamped Target Mission, with new factions occupying the area in order to give players a unique encounter.
  • Manhunts can be repeated in Normal, Hard, Challenge, and Heroic difficulty mode.

Season Events

  • A one-week long celebration of a new target becoming available.
  • XP Bonus will be active, affecting not only Seasons but also SHD Level and Field Proficiency.

IMPORTANT changes

Global Events

  • Gameplay modifiers that spice up gameplay with unique effects that can be activated and de-activated by players.
  • Global Events last one week, and there are three Global Events per Season.
  • They include Challenges that unlock on a daily basis. Players earn stars, rank up, and unlock Global Event rewards. This reward progress is separate from SHD Level and Season Level.
  • Playing Global Events and completing Challenges rewards players with big chunks of XP that applies to their Season Level and SHD Level.

First Global Event is Polarity

  • Players and enemies will have a visible positive or negative charge.
  • Attacking an enemy with the same polarity as yourself will do increased damage.
  • Attacking an enemy with the opposite polarity will have shocking consequences.
  • Switching weapons, reloading, and melee-attacking enemies will change your polarity.
  • Special weapons, Skills, and grenades are not affected by the polarity.

Leagues

  • Leagues include faction-based PvE challenges that players complete for rewards. The first League is the Westside League focusing on defeating Outcasts.
  • Compare times and compete with others through time attack leaderboards, and fulfill other challenges to rank up.
  • Rank up and earn rewards. League progress is separate from SHD Level and Season Level, but doing League activities will contribute to your SHD Level and Season Level.

Apparel Events

  • Players must be level 40.
  • Receive an Apparel Event Cache every few SHD Levels.

What are the rewards for participating in Seasons?

  • Players can unlock a unique Skill mod by completing the Global Manhunt.
  • On the free track of seasonal progression, players can also unlock gear (including the Striker gear set, the System Corruption gear set, one exotic item, and named items) and arm patches.
  • There is also a premium track for seasonal progression. It costs $10, and the first one is included in the Warlords of New York expansion.
  • Premium track rewards include a unique season outfit, unique named weapon skins, additional randomized seasonal gear, crafting materials, apparel keys, emotes, unique gear dyes, Faction Keys, and textiles, as well as all the rewards offered in the free track.
  • Global Events & Leagues reward up to 10 guaranteed rewards each, including two unique cosmetic rewards and eight caches of gear.

How long will it take me to achieve Season Level 100?

  • Level 100 is meant to be meaningful and aspirational.
  • Players who participate frequently and consistently should not have any difficulties getting to Level 100.
  • Season Level rewards in both the free and premium track are designed to give out the majority of seasonal gear early in the track.
  • The team doesn’t want players to feel forced to complete the season to get a lot of value out of playing it.
  • As mentioned above, the team is aiming to make a Season Level take similarly long to how Field Proficiency works now.

Seasonal Level Skips

  • The team recognizes that there are a lot of different types of players in the community. Some will play every free minute they can get, others will have not as much time on their hands.
  • Depending on playtime, 100 Season Levels are achievable with a little effort, but of course not all players will have the ability to do so.
  • To help with this, the team will be allowing players to purchase Season Level skips as a catch-up mechanic.
  • These will be available towards the end of the season depending on how players engage with the season. The team wants to make sure they are fine-tuning the season experience before unlocking the Level Skips.
  • The current plan is to have this purchase available sometime in the final few weeks of the season.

Where do Seasons happen?

  • Seasons take place in both D.C. and NYC.

When do Seasons start?

  • Season 1 starts March 10.
  • This should offer players plenty of time to play the campaign and explore NYC before the season.

NEW GEAR SETS

Details of two new Gear Sets have been revealed:

  • Striker’s Battlegear
  • System Corruption

See below for details on how each Gear Set works:

STRIKER’S BATTLEGEAR

2+ Pieces +15% Weapon Handling
3+ Pieces +15% Rate of Fire
4+ Pieces Striker’s Gamble

  • Weapon hits amplify total weapon damage by 0.5%, stacking up to 50 times
  • 1 stack is lost each second
  • 3 stacks are lost every time you miss
Chest Piece Talent Press the Advantage

Increase max stacks for Striker’s Gamble from 50 to 100.

Backpack Talent Risk Management

Decreases stacks lost on missed shots for Striker’s Gamble from 3 to 2.

 

SYSTEM CORRUPTION

2+ Pieces +15% Amor % on kill
3+ Pieces +40% Disrupt Resistance

+40% Pulse Resistance

4+ Pieces Hackstep Protocol

Replaces armor kits with an instant infinite-use ability on a 20s cooldown, that grants 50% bonus armor and hides your nameplate for 5s

Chest Piece Talent Compiler Optimization

Decrease Hackstep Protocol cooldown from 20s to 15s.

Backpack Talent Multithreaded Execution

Increase Hacksep Protocol bonus armor from 50% to 100%

 

IMPORTANT changes

So the PVE players are going to start hunting down the Striker’s Battlegear first, where as the PvP players will be chasing the System Corruption gear. Something for both sides of the fence I guess.

FREE TO PLAY WEEKEND

For those of you STILL undecided about The Division 2, you can jump in and play for free this weekend. From February 27th to March 2nd on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, players will be able to carry over any progress they make during the free-to-play session, into the full version of the game if they decide to make the purchase (which is now on sale for up to 95% off at the Ubisoft Store).

ENDGAME INTENTIONS

It would seem here that the main goal of the endgame changes is to make higher valued gear available as possible drops for completing higher level activities. The official details released yesterday are:

  • There are a lot of new challenges and rewards coming and the team wanted to make it clear what activities will yield which rewards, so that players have the freedom to choose what goals to pursue.
  • The team wanted to create a much clearer progression of new gear throughout the different challenge levels, i.e. activities at one difficulty level will yield gear targeted at the next level. Gear changes will apply to all players of The Division 2.
  • The Warlords of New York endgame also extends to DC activities, which are raised to the level cap of 40 and contribute to players‘ Season progression.
  • Bounties have been simplified, the target intel system has been removed.
  • The Priority Target network still exists in DC for players without the expansion, but in the Warlords of New York expansion it is replaced with Seasonal Manhunts.

CRAFTING BENCH

For new players of the game this won’t really bother you, for veterans though, the inability to craft exotics at top level will be painful. I’m interested to see how they manage this:

  • When you enter Warlords of New York, your crafting bench is reset to blue level in order to be in-line with the gear you find.
  • Players can upgrade the bench to improve the level of their crafted weapons and gear.
  • The crafting bench is going back to a range of power, rather than guaranteeing gear score 500 (or the new max, gear score 515) at the highest level.
  • Exotics are going to change as well, and you won’t be able to boost them to level 40 straight out of the gate.

The Warlords of New York expansion releases on March 3rd. For more details click here.

 

For those of you planning on purchasing the Xbox Series X console, new details have been revealed about single purchases of digital games for those who upgrade consoles after the game purchase, read more here.