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  1. #1

    INTEGRATED GAME MODES in the Dark Zone


    Directory


    1. Introduction

    2. Weather-related events

    3.1 Game Modes in the Dark Zone

    3.1 "Escort"

    3.1.1 Annotations to "Escort"

    3.2 "Blood Money"

    3.2.1 Annotations to "Blood Money"

    3.3 "Cagefight"

    3.3.1 Annotations to "Cagefight"

    3.4 "Infected"

    3.4.1 Annotations to "Infected"

    4. Alternative Modes for the Rogue Stage

    4.1 "Head-Money I"

    4.2 "Head-Money II"

    5. General ideas

    6. Conclusion





    1. Introduction

    In the following I will present you a few thoughts of mine, which could make the gaming experience (especially in the Dark Zone) a bit more diverse. But to begin I'll start with a word or two about myself and my relation to The Division:

    I was really looking forward to put my hands on this game since it got announced 3 years ago. But once I played the Beta or rather during the last hours of it, my initial enthusiasm unfortunately had to admit defeat to a certain kind of disillusionment. Too many of the things that gripped me to the beginning got repititive after a relatively short amount of time, especially (and it hurts to say) in the Dark Zone which could be such a thrilling experience due to its concept.

    Sure! It was just a Beta and many content will follow. Maybe some modes like these are even being planned but as nothing like that has been confirmed yet, I hope to at least give some people a bit food for thought.

    That's why here are some ideas of mine to enrich the variety of the gameplay while still being able to integrate them on a reasonable and relatively easy way.



    IMPORTANT NOTE: When thinking out these ideas I placed big importance on integrating them into the DZ instead of making "classical" separated game modes. For the vast majority of these modes I wanted to keep all the features of the DZ like unpredictability, rivalry and the chance for some nice loot. I was just trying to add a bit more diversity to the gameplay options. So please, criticize my ideas but don't tell me I wouldn't get what the DZ is about.





    2. Weather-related events

    Spoiler:  Show
    - Random, weather-related events in the Dark Zone (e.g. snowstorm, hail), forcing all players to search cover in buildings or in the underground -> Players lose health, when staying too long outside*

    -> hostile NPC's also try to find cover in buildings - you automatically get involved into a fight for cover


    *e.g. you 3 minutes until you die, so all players got the opportunity to find cover




    3. Game Modes in the Dark Zone

    3.1 "Escort"

    Spoiler:  Show
    Kind of 'Capture the Flag'

    - An antidote which a group of infected civilians needs to survive is being located in a building, occupied by NPC's

    -> the location of the antidote gets marked on all players' maps

    - that antidote needs to be captured and escorted to the location of the infected civilians*

    - the team that manages to get the antidote to the infected, gains a reward (EP/Credits)

    -> the team carrying the antidote gets marked on the map of other players in intervals (who may want the reward for themselves)



    * only the team whichs carries the antidote knows about the destined location to prevent camping

    3.1.1 Annotations to "Escort"

    Spoiler:  Show
    The carriers of the antidote would be a twofold aim when carrying the antidote and being rogue at the same time. So the rogue status should maybe get reset in the moment a team grabs the antidote (after that the carriers' rogue status would rise normally again). This would also prevent other players from not attacking the carriers because of self-protection.

    And: Depending on the areas level, players who are at a much higher level only get little rewards for capturing the antidote. Otherwise they would have a too big adavantage over lower level players in these areas.



    3.2 "Blood Money"

    Spoiler:  Show
    - A money stash is being located at a specific area, occupied by hostile NPC's

    -> all teams get a message at the same time about the location of the stash

    -> NPC's in this area are extra hard / numerous

    -> to capture the money, the players need to defeat all NPC's first and then reach the stash alive



    - speciality: the money gets automatically divided between everyone who was involved after the fight*

    -> you can decide whether you want to play together with or against other teams

    -> the less players reach the money stash alive the more loot remains for the rest


    (you could also first fight the NPC's together and after that quickly try to kill the other team to get the loot just for yourself. if you was mean... )

    * Allocation

    Spoiler:  Show
    All players who caused a minimum amount of damage to the NPC's get registered by the 'system'. The same amount of loot gets reserved for every of these involved players and can be picked up at the money stash. As soon as one player dies, the amount which was reserved for him gets added to the stakes of the remaining players.



    Example for allocation:

    10 players are fighting together against the NPC's; total money to conquer: 1000 Credits


    After the fight in this case every player dealt at least 2000 damage points to the NPC's, which it needs to be counted as being 'involved'.


    1000 Credits / 10 involved players = 100 Credits for every player


    So there are 100 Credits being reserved for every participant of the fight, which he can pick up at the money stash.





    If one team of 4 players decides to eliminate the other 6 players before they can reach the money stash, the dead players' share gets added to the stakes of the remaining team.


    1000 Credits / 4 remaining players = 250 Credits for every player


    So now there are 250 Credits being reserved for every remaining player, which he can pick up at the money stash.



    3.3 "Cagefight"

    Spoiler:  Show
    - A specific area in the Dark Zone (e.g. the Underground) gets sealed off at times and will not be open to exit until all other players in it got defeated (e.g. the Cleaners have sealed the area when they heared about many Division Agents being down there)*

    -> all players appear on the minimap of each other in intervals every few seconds

    -> the last team that survives gains a special item

    -> the rogue status of the winner team gets reset


    * mode only gets started when at least 3 teams are in the Underground at once

    3.3.1 Annotations to "Cagefight"

    Spoiler:  Show
    For the period of this game mode the Underground wouldn't be accessible for the players outside. I think that wouldn't be a big deal when the teams in the Underground are really up to get themselves down. But for the case that one team decides just to camp around and do nothing - lengthening the mode - there could also be a time limit built in (depending on how much teams there are; e.g. 5 minutes for 3 teams, 10 minutes for 6 teams etc). If there is more than one team living at the end of that limit, the Underground gets opened again BUT all remaining teams lose some EP for example or get the maximum rogue level.
    So besides the rewards for being the only survivor that could be a secondary motivation to ACT and not to camp around in this mode.

    PROBLEM: What do players from the outside see when the underground gets sealed off? They could kill the Cleaners before they were able to seal it off...



    3.4 "Infected"

    Spoiler:  Show
    In a nutshell:

    It's a suvival mode. All Players get infected by a virus and continue to lose health if they don't find an antidote. But there's only a limited number of antidotes available so the players have to run for it and fight against each other to get one of them and survive the infection.


    In detail:


    - all players in the Dark Zone get infected by a very aggressive form of the Virus and start losing health continuously (e.g. through a momentary storm which spreaded the virus)


    -> the players would die of the infection after 5 minutes


    -> the only way to stop losing health is by taking an antidote, located at a few random locations, marked on the map*


    -> BUT: the antidotes are limited in number, so the players turn to rivals in a hunt for the antidote**


    -> the game mode is over for you once you die (lost) or when you make it to the antidote and cure the infection (won)


    - once all the antidotes have been taken, the remaining infected players get a message and the choice to give up and respawn already or to keep on dying 'painfully' by the infection later on


    - survivors receive a reward (EP/credits)



    - also for the time of this mode, the rogue mode should be deactivated for the infected players (also realistic as you are no more killing players to get their loot but just to survive)


    (Btw you could also decide to save your loot first before you try to cure the infection. But then valuable time to get to the antidote gets lost and maybe other players take that as an advantage...)




    * in the best case it would be programmed so, that every antidotes' location had to have a minimum distance to the players. So no player would be directly next to an antidote already when the mode begins
    ** you would see a sign over the head of other players who are still infected, so you know who is your rival in getting to the antidote and who's not

    3.4.1 Annotations to "Infected"

    Spoiler:  Show
    Well, some players could be ****ed up about this as only around 1/4 of the players in the DZ will be able to leave this mode alive. The rest who didn't make it to the antidote fast enough, would be condemnd to die. To me that's what makes this mode thrilling, anyways it could be that other players wouldn't like that fact. Due to this you could maybe lower the amount of EP/Credits you lose when you die of the infection - even though I wouldn't do that.






    4. Alternative Modes for the Rogue Stage

    Explanation: The Last Man Battalion puts a bounty on the agents' heads to cause turmoil and mistrust within the Division.

    4.1 "Head-Money I"

    Spoiler:  Show
    - two players or teams get randomly picked to hunt themselves down

    -> only the respective other player/team sees the bounty on the others head

    -> noninvolved players still see them as friendly

    -> when the marked teams attack each other in this mode, it will not raise their rogue status

    -> winner of the hunt gains a special bonus/reward



    -> more intense fight just between two teams, not 1 vs all like other times


    4.2 "Head-Money II"

    Spoiler:  Show
    - point of time in which a bounty gets put on all players heads, giving better rewards for killing them*

    -> every player gets to be more unpredictable as everyone for the moment is potentially a rich prey

    -> for this period on the one hand you had to be more careful than normally but still wouldn't be the only one being hunted

    - once you died, you aren't marked anymore - as someone already took the bounty which was on your head



    * maybe announce these events before so that players don't get disturbed while evacuating their loot


    IMPORTANT NOTE
    Spoiler:  Show
    The idea to these simple modes came to my head as I was experiencing how friendly most people in the Dark Zone acted. Most of the time other players were just walking by on the lookout for hostile NPC's and being scared to lose their valuable loot. I know that's part of the thrill in the DZ. But if a player or team finally decided to go rogue, they were down after a pretty short amount of time as everyone was focussing their firepower towards this one target.

    These modes should only happen from time to time to add some diversity and NOT replace the classical rogue stage!!




    5. General ideas (most likely parts of these will already be integrated in the final game)

    Spoiler:  Show
    - a variety of daily challenges like for example:

    -> every few hours a bounty gets put on some NPC's heads - the one who kills the NPC first receives the reward

    -> a specific location you should reach and stay there for a specific amount of time while NPC's are coming in waves to get you ('survive 5 minutes at the top of the empire state' or something)


    - more (large) buildings which you can enter and where it can come to a fight between player groups (e.g. Empire State Building's upper, middle and highest stage would be phenomenal)


    - randomly generated spawnpoints of hostile NPC's / bigger variety in the locations of spawnpoints (after a few time I knew most of the main-spawnpoints by heart; it seemed a bit unrealistic and predictable), more NPC's patroling down the streets


    - more NPC's in the Dark Zone - other players often weren't enough because of peaceful behaviour (plus: game modes, as to see above)


    - more diverse types of enemies within the fractions (for example a "spy" who's extra agile/fast but has less health points [maybe even the ability to "jump" behind your teams' rows? jetpack?] or a slower/armored opponent with a rocket launcher as secondary weapon or a medic who - obviously - can heal his team mates)

    -> make the units within one fraction more diverse in their looks / the way they move




    7. Conclusion

    The favorite mode of mine would be "Infected" I guess. I imagine it as really thrilling to be in a fight against time, knowing that the player just a few steps away from you could take the antidote that you would need so urgently to heal yourself. Killing him just moments before he was able to take it and then use it for your own must be such a satisfaction... lol

    Second comes "Head-Hunt I" as it would be easy to integrate it in the game and could lead to exciting and more intimate PvP fights than the normal rogue mode.

    Another interesting mode and definitely worth a try if its up to me, would be "Escort". I always loved the thrill of CTF modes - trying to deliver an object while always on the lookout for enemy players who want to take it from you. The difference between the normal rogue hunts and this is that you actually have a goal while being hunted in this.

    Last but not least I think "Blood Money" could promise some gripping moments when you are faced with the decision of working together with other teams or eliminating them to get more Credits for yourself. Never knowing what the other team plans to do...


    Now I would just like to know:
    What do you think of the modes I have presented here? Which ones are your favorites? Do you think they would improve or maybe even disturb the gameplay in the DZ?




    Thanks for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it and that I could at least evoke some thoughts... Peace!
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  2. #2
    Stew36o's Avatar Senior Member
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    I want it all exept those who are most likely to be to " arena " but none the less nice thread !

    And some of your mode sadly as flaws because they cant consider the " open world nature " of the darkzone where players even if they die they respawn and get back into the zone it isnt instanced pvp , so youre ideas have potential but arent flesh out well to fit in the darkzone as it is , you should consider players respawn and open world aspect of the DZ
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  3. #3
    Thanks for the reply, that's the kind of criticism I hoped for!

    Originally Posted by Stew36o Go to original post
    And some of your mode sadly as flaws because they cant consider the " open world nature " of the darkzone where players even if they die they respawn and get back into the zone it isnt instanced pvp , so youre ideas have potential but arent flesh out well to fit in the darkzone as it is , you should consider players respawn and open world aspect of the DZ
    I tried to think about the aspect of respawning when I made these concepts but you still could be right. Which mode or situation did you especially think of being problematic?
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  4. #4
    Stew36o's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by stonerclix Go to original post
    Thanks for the reply, that's the kind of criticism I hoped for!



    I tried to think about the aspect of respawning when I made these concepts but you still could be right. Which mode or situation did you especially think of being problematic?

    cagefight and infected will be the most problematic
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  5. #5
    Originally Posted by Stew36o Go to original post
    cagefight and infected will be the most problematic
    Yeah, I see the problem with "Cagefight", wrote about it in the annotations too. That's the mode I'm least convinced of anyways.

    But about "Infected" I would disagree with you... Players who die while being infected indeed respawn and are healed BUT they lost the mode once they die. The rest of the infected players could go on fighting for the antidotes just like before. The only difference being, that there are some players now who are not infected and some who are.
    But as I wrote, to see who's your rival in fighting for the antidote there would be a sign over other players heads, indicating if they are still infected or not.
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  6. #6
    First of all I want to thank you for taking the time to organize your thoughts clearly and describe them in detail.

    "Global Issue"
    Spoiler:  Show
    Next I want to mention that global events affecting all players, whether they want to be a part of it or not, can severely hamper the enjoyment had in the Darkzone, which right now is the only PvP area in the game, or completely ruining the Darkzone experience for some players. It would be like playing a multiplayer game where you really want to play TDM but every now and then you are forced to play King of the Hill or some other game mode you may or may not detest. Also this increases the complexity of gameplay in the Darkzone which can be a deterrence to new players who have just entered the Darkzone for the first time.


    Now that I’ve discussed the Global Issue I’ll refer back to it if the issue applies to the topic at hand.

    2. Weather-related events
    Spoiler:  Show
    There are no natural events (that I know of) in the setting of The Division that would force people to seek shelter less they have a death wish, thus this would not fit within the setting of The Division and would feel out of place.

    Now it would make sense if maybe something like a severe snowstorm/blizzard comes through and hinders the movement of your character while also greatly reducing visibility, giving the player the choice to seek shelter and shake off the blizzard debuffs or risk walking into a firefight while having their movement and aim hindered.


    3.1 Escort
    Spoiler:  Show
    I believe out of all your ideas this is the one I like the most and would love to see it get implemented. It is a player/squad choice based game mode that adds excitement and an objective to a rather aimless world that is the Darkzone as of Beta.

    The one issue I have is that those who pick up the antidote should not turn rogue because this would not fit canonically with the games setting and your description of the mission. By all intents and purposes the mission you are describing is humanitarian which is not a bad guy action, it is a good guy action. The bad guy action is a player(s) killing the carriers of the antidote and picking it up for their own reward. Also if the first carriers were not made to go rogue then it forces a risk vs. reward scenario for those looking to steal the antidote while also deterring griefers who, if we went with your original idea, would camp the fallen package and attack the next player(s) who picked it up and went rogue.

    Beyond that I think this is a very entertaining idea and would love to see it implemented!


    3.2 Blood Money
    Spoiler:  Show
    This is a pretty straight forward mission and I think it will be more or less implemented if The Division had/will have raids where there is a limited amount of loot at the end and so players would have to fight for the loot if they didn’t make it in time.


    3.3 Cagefight
    Spoiler:  Show
    Again a straightforward idea, but one key thing to make sure doesn’t happen is where ever the event takes place it won’t cut off paths in the Darkzone for other players who are not part of the cagefight. Besides, given most cagefights (this one being to the death) most likely would be frowned upon by the Division (the entity in the game, not the game itself) and so the fights would best be in an area either not open to players when a cagefight is happening or is in cooldown (like a cordoned off subway area) and only opens up when the next match is getting ready to happen.


    3.4 Infected
    So this game mode falls under the Global Issue where it inexplicably complicates the Darkzone, especially for new players, while also not being canon to the setting of The Division.

    4. Alternative Mode
    Spoiler:  Show
    If I’m reading it correctly this only applies to players who are already rogue. I think it would be an interesting addition to add depth to the rogue route, but at the same time I believe if Massive adjusts the settings on the rogue status then we will see interesting bouts where groups who have made it to the ‘Manhunt’ status could greatly increase their rewards by taking out other groups/players who have Manhunt status.


    My Two Cents on Rogue Status
    Spoiler:  Show
    I feel the risk vs. reward is unbalanced when comparing agents who are rogue and agents who are not rogue. Rogues have much more to lose for a decent reward but are already at a huge disadvantage against non-rogue agents since rogues are constantly visible to all nearby players. Rogue status should increase the reward for rogues/manhunts and get rid of the see through walls which would increase the risk for the already generous reward for agents who hunt rogues.

    Another alteration I recommend is only increment the rogue timer when an agent is killed by the rogue as this would allow those who were griefed into rogue status the chance to survive while also forcing rogue hunters to be more aggressive as the timers count down if the hunters want their reward for killing a rogue.
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  7. #7
    This is a really detailed and thought out post, thank you for providing feedback!
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  8. #8
    Out of all your suggestions, I like the "Head Money" the best. It's reminiscent of the "Bounty Hunt" mode from Ghost Recon. I like the idea of a team being "tasked" to take down rogue agents. So, in essence, say you have a team that goes rogue. As it stands now, they know that EVERYBODY is out to get them. But, if there is only ONE team tasked to "take them out", the rogue team has NO IDEA who is hunting them. You can add to it so that whenever the rogue team goes up in status, an additional team is tasked.
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  9. #9
    @backfromheaven I can only give that back. Good to see that people appreciate my efforts and actually take the time to think about it and give such helpful feedback!

    At first I replied to every aspect you mentioned but then it seemed that this would make the thread a bit too chaotic.

    So to keep it short: I get what you mean with the global events, really could be problematic. But I like the survival elements of "Infected" so
    maybe someone has an idea how to integrate something like that without making it such a 'global event'?

    You also seem to be right about with what you said about "Escort", some good points.

    But about the Head-Money mode - I actually wanted to apply the mode to all players, not just those being rogue. The head-money is kind of separated from the rogue status. Just wanted to integrate some more intimate 'Team vs. Team' fights.

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  10. #10
    Originally Posted by ChopperGuy70 Go to original post
    Out of all your suggestions, I like the "Head Money" the best. It's reminiscent of the "Bounty Hunt" mode from Ghost Recon. I like the idea of a team being "tasked" to take down rogue agents. So, in essence, say you have a team that goes rogue. As it stands now, they know that EVERYBODY is out to get them. But, if there is only ONE team tasked to "take them out", the rogue team has NO IDEA who is hunting them. You can add to it so that whenever the rogue team goes up in status, an additional team is tasked.
    That's another cool idea... Didn't mean it like that initially, my idea was that a bounty gets put on the head of two teams who know of each other. But it could also be a cool option when the hunted team doesn't even know who the hunter is.
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