Member
I am a DIEHARD (average skilled player) that plays a minimum of 4-5hrs a day 7 days a week. (95%PVE) I probably spend more time than that following the forum and researching videos on builds etc.
I am GS 233 I think. I ran the DZ for 2hrs on Sunday morning. I have 204k DPS and 480k toughness and 24k skill. 5 encounters with rank 99 rogues and I died every time from gun fire & Shotgun blast from them within 10-15 seconds. Guess I just suck at PVP.
I am DZ rank 53... I love the DarkZone but I HATE the PVP aspect of it.
The problem as I see it is there are people that have been playing this game for the same amount of time, with the same gear score as i have with DRAMATICALLY different stats than I have, Some people are out there with the same gear score as I have that have only achieved 110k dps/300k toughness/12k skill. On the other hand there are others out there with the same gear score that have achieved 300k dps/600k toughness/ 40k skill. We all end up in the same highest DZ bracket once you hit GS 217 or close to it.
HAMISH, The PVP BALANCE is lost BEFORE the fight begins, and that is what the problem is. The solution to the PVP problem is, how do you make a fair fight between two players with the same gear score with drastically different stats? You cant.
You gave everybody a 20% PVP buff but the difference between the two players stats is still the same. You have made no difference to the PVP world except for the very small top 5% Youtuber community that you guys follow that have achieved equality in their end builds.. I maybe totally wrong but I have not seen a single battle in the DZ last for more than 20 seconds no matter who I play with, match with, or watch in game from a distance. The youtube videos and the comments you get on here of 20/30 min PVP where people just eventually give up are IMO no way near the normal game play experience. If that is the case for that top 5% that have hit the perfect build and can battle it out like that where nobody wins (I would say you guys have the balance perfect) The people that are doing that are end build players that most likely have VERY EQUAL STATS for DPS, Stamina, Electronics... (Not talking Gear Score)
I'm going to guess around 40% (based on the number of people I have done in game chat with) have no clue whatsoever on how to re-roll gear and re-calibrate weapons and what to look for and change. (maybe this game isn't for them) That 40% is gonna give up the game totally because of frustration. Suggest make in game announcements, live Twitch feeds with build/rolling gear question and answer sessions,and offer IN GAME video links to (How to do better builds and roll gear) People have no clue most of this information is out there already.
Allow players to roll two things on any gear item instead of just one. Allow them to re-roll Firearms, Stamina, or Electronics six times max. In addition to that allow 6 rolls of a major OR minor attribute. The way it is now with the RNG, If I roll armor on something because I have to, or the piece is totally useless I'm done. I cant re-roll for more firearms/stamina/electronics.. What if in a week from now I want to change firearms to stamina to make me more tanky but I already rolled the item for armor? THIS WILL GIVE PLAYERS THE ABILITY TO EVEN THE PLAYING FIELD BETWEEN GEAR SCORE NUMBERS AND HELP CLOSE THAT GAP.
I have played this game for 5 months now and the ONLY backpacks I have are 214???? Problem, I totally understand you want people to play and experience every aspect of your great game. I get it. but, you are sending people to incursions/challenges to get things where quite frankly, they are not welcome or wanted, and then end up getting kicked from a group while they are trying to get better gear. Early on I got a bad taste in my mouth from incursions. I never got kicked but, (Sadly I have never finished one to this day and have not gone back to try months later even though my gear score is 233 now. They aren't fun when everybody is dying over and over again, the wife is yelling in the back ground because you said you were done 45minutes ago, but you don't want to let the team down and drop out. For the average player that's the reality of it though. I know even today if I try an incursion I may end up in that same boat with a different team. DON'T HIDE GEAR BEHIND CERTAIN WALLS AND FORCE PEOPLE TO THAT CONTENT TO GET IT BEFORE THEY ARE READY. That only makes for a terrible experience. Once they get better gear they will venture out on their own and try the harder content. Some will like it some wont. Your team doesn't seem to understand that forcing people to do certain aspects of the game ( because that's where the gear is, is a terrible carrot to dangle) At least ROTATE the gear items.. Instead of Weekly HRT's only having Gloves, and a Chest piece EVERY week switch it up. Change the % of the type of drops, not 95% Lonestar. Your team said if they did that and they dropped every type of gear in every mission you would be less likely to get something you actually wanted , and by doing what you are doing now gives you at least a starting point to get what your looking for. Understand that, but that's not working so great, so implement a simple check box system at the beginning of a mission that gives the player a much greater chance to get the Striker or Lonestar, or whatever it may be that they want to concentrate on that day from any activity. Heck, make it 100% guarantee you get the SET you want but it could be a backpack or holster or any of the 6 set piece based on your gear score. With all the new set pieces coming out your gonna have to do something like this anyway or your going to be in the situation where there are to many gear sets and not enough opportunity to get what you need.
Sorry this has gotten so drawn out guys. I love this game and want to see it succeed now and in the future. Give people the gear they need to succeed and even the playing field. I believe it would open a lot of doors just being able to re-calibrate two things on a piece of gear
As far as the PVP balance, and your poll I don't believe it has changed anything for 95% of your player base except for those upper level players with equal builds. In order to balance the rolling around not killing anybody problem, a PVP armor mitigation should have been deployed for agents in cover VS out of cover. If a player is in cover and fighting NPC's he receives a PVP armor buff as long as he is attached to cover. On the other hand. You wanna go Rogue and your out of cover and roll up on somebody and decide to start shooting you get an armor nerf. This would encourage players to take cover and fight it out or suffer the consequence. This would have to be looked at further though as this would cause an issue of players that still want to go rogue laying on cover waiting to ambush players as they go by... All in all I think that would of been a better solution than just upping the PVP dps output.
Member
I am a DIEHARD (average skilled player) that plays a minimum of 4-5hrs a day 7 days a week. (95%PVE) I probably spend more time than that following the forum and researching videos on builds etc.
I am GS 233 I think. I ran the DZ for 2hrs on Sunday morning. I have 204k DPS and 480k toughness and 24k skill. 5 encounters with rank 99 rogues and I died every time from gun fire & Shotgun blast from them within 10-15 seconds. Guess I just suck at PVP.
I am DZ rank 53... I love the DarkZone but I HATE the PVP aspect of it.
The problem as I see it is there are people that have been playing this game for the same amount of time, with the same gear score as i have with DRAMATICALLY different stats than I have, Some people are out there with the same gear score as I have that have only achieved 110k dps/300k toughness/12k skill. On the other hand there are others out there with the same gear score that have achieved 300k dps/600k toughness/ 40k skill. We all end up in the same highest DZ bracket once you hit GS 217 or close to it.
HAMISH, The PVP BALANCE is lost BEFORE the fight begins, and that is what the problem is. The solution to the PVP problem is, how do you make a fair fight between two players with the same gear score with drastically different stats? You cant.
You gave everybody a 20% PVP buff but the difference between the two players stats is still the same. You have made no difference to the PVP world except for the very small top 5% Youtuber community that you guys follow that have achieved equality in their end builds.. I maybe totally wrong but I have not seen a single battle in the DZ last for more than 20 seconds no matter who I play with, match with, or watch in game from a distance. The youtube videos and the comments you get on here of 20/30 min PVP where people just eventually give up are IMO no way near the normal game play experience. If that is the case for that top 5% that have hit the perfect build and can battle it out like that where nobody wins (I would say you guys have the balance perfect) The people that are doing that are end build players that most likely have VERY EQUAL STATS for DPS, Stamina, Electronics... (Not talking Gear Score)
I'm going to guess around 40% (based on the number of people I have done in game chat with) have no clue whatsoever on how to re-roll gear and re-calibrate weapons and what to look for and change. (maybe this game isn't for them) That 40% is gonna give up the game totally because of frustration. Suggest make in game announcements, live Twitch feeds with build/rolling gear question and answer sessions,and offer IN GAME video links to (How to do better builds and roll gear) People have no clue most of this information is out there already.
Allow players to roll two things on any gear item instead of just one. Allow them to re-roll Firearms, Stamina, or Electronics six times max. In addition to that allow 6 rolls of a major OR minor attribute. The way it is now with the RNG, If I roll armor on something because I have to, or the piece is totally useless I'm done. I cant re-roll for more firearms/stamina/electronics.. What if in a week from now I want to change firearms to stamina to make me more tanky but I already rolled the item for armor? THIS WILL GIVE PLAYERS THE ABILITY TO EVEN THE PLAYING FIELD BETWEEN GEAR SCORE NUMBERS AND HELP CLOSE THAT GAP.
I have played this game for 5 months now and the ONLY backpacks I have are 214???? Problem, I totally understand you want people to play and experience every aspect of your great game. I get it. but, you are sending people to incursions/challenges to get things where quite frankly, they are not welcome or wanted, and then end up getting kicked from a group while they are trying to get better gear. Early on I got a bad taste in my mouth from incursions. I never got kicked but, (Sadly I have never finished one to this day and have not gone back to try months later even though my gear score is 233 now. They aren't fun when everybody is dying over and over again, the wife is yelling in the back ground because you said you were done 45minutes ago, but you don't want to let the team down and drop out. For the average player that's the reality of it though. I know even today if I try an incursion I may end up in that same boat with a different team. DON'T HIDE GEAR BEHIND CERTAIN WALLS AND FORCE PEOPLE TO THAT CONTENT TO GET IT BEFORE THEY ARE READY. That only makes for a terrible experience. Once they get better gear they will venture out on their own and try the harder content. Some will like it some wont. Your team doesn't seem to understand that forcing people to do certain aspects of the game ( because that's where the gear is, is a terrible carrot to dangle) At least ROTATE the gear items.. Instead of Weekly HRT's only having Gloves, and a Chest piece EVERY week switch it up. Change the % of the type of drops, not 95% Lonestar. Your team said if they did that and they dropped every type of gear in every mission you would be less likely to get something you actually wanted , and by doing what you are doing now gives you at least a starting point to get what your looking for. Understand that, but that's not working so great, so implement a simple check box system at the beginning of a mission that gives the player a much greater chance to get the Striker or Lonestar, or whatever it may be that they want to concentrate on that day from any activity. Heck, make it 100% guarantee you get the SET you want but it could be a backpack or holster or any of the 6 set piece based on your gear score. With all the new set pieces coming out your gonna have to do something like this anyway or your going to be in the situation where there are to many gear sets and not enough opportunity to get what you need.
Sorry this has gotten so drawn out guys. I love this game and want to see it succeed now and in the future. Give people the gear they need to succeed and even the playing field. I believe it would open a lot of doors just being able to re-calibrate two things on a piece of gear
As far as the PVP balance, and your poll I don't believe it has changed anything for 95% of your player base except for those upper level players with equal builds. In order to balance the rolling around not killing anybody problem, a PVP armor mitigation should have been deployed for agents in cover VS out of cover. If a player is in cover and fighting NPC's he receives a PVP armor buff as long as he is attached to cover. On the other hand. You wanna go Rogue and your out of cover and roll up on somebody and decide to start shooting you get an armor nerf. This would encourage players to take cover and fight it out or suffer the consequence. This would have to be looked at further though as this would cause an issue of players that still want to go rogue laying on cover waiting to ambush players as they go by... All in all I think that would of been a better solution than just upping the PVP dps output.
Senior Member
Hamish, the damage modification is brilliant.
People are using cover fighting more. More viable weapons. Tankiness is there, but doesn't lead to stalemates. Tankticians can be brought down.
I suggest giving players 10% inherent EDR so then they can stack enough EDR from vest, mask and kneepads to survive a sticky.
Member
Senior Member
The pvp damage increase was bad because it makes the nerf to G36, AUG, and Vector completely Irrelevant. The weapons that people felt were the best for pvp are just even better for pvp, it was nonsensical.
Then there is the fact that NPC's are too spoungey. People have been complaining about this forever and it was somewhat recently and finally acknowledged. BUT only PvP damage was increase. That does nothing to help with excessively spoungey NPC's.
It would have been far more effective to leave G-36 alone and buff every other weapon base damage by 15% or so. You then accomplish increasing PVP damage and making enemies less spoungey, with one change. Even then, a blanket buff would not be the correct answer to that either. Some weapons EVERYONE knows perform better than others in the same class. Example, no one wants to use an SA-58 assault rifle because it is just plain slow and unstable with a single burst, thus it is barely effective at shotgun range. The high bullet damage doesn't mean anything with it.
You guys need to undo the 20% increased pvp Damage and take a real thorough pass at every weapon again in order to make each weapon viable in some way, not letting one weapon be an obvious better choice than another within the same weapon category.
Member
While it's kinda nice to see a developer actually asking for opinions about a change. I think the subject is a long way from the top of the most important issues with the game.
Almost your entire playerbase has given up because of the way the pvp is forced upon players.
The devs need to start listening to the players. The loot system is a key example here. The horrendous rng has been THE problem since day 1. The loot system has been overhauled what 3 times now and not one of those changes has done anything about the horrendous rng or the real problem with loot.
The darkzone is a million miles from its design concept. Various videos through development of the game it's clearly stated that the dark zone was pvp enabled but pvp wasn't forced or encouraged as you didn't want to make decisions for the players. Yet the implementation does everything it can to force pvp on players. And when players found they could avoid fights by putting there stuff on the rope and running. You add cut the rope to try and force them to stay and fight to defend there loot. Making decisions for players despite saying you wouldn't
The other issue is that character progression is impossible. A higher gear score item doesn't mean better. I haven't played for weeks now personally. But after 1.2 I must have seen 50 204 weapons from falcon lost and none one of them was remotely as good as any of my 182 guns.
Saw bucket loads of 240 set pieces drop from hvts all lone star which is a set that is of zero interest to me or your entire player base pretty much because it's a crap set with crap bonuses.
All of these issues are vastly more important than the pvp and the massive decline in your player base should really indicate that.
I haven't played in weeks mostly because it's impossible to progress my character. And the recent trends of nerfing things that are popular kills.my incentive even more. So now not only is it impossible to progress but I'm continuously regressing even without playing because of all the nerfs.
Member
I like the dark zone but hate pvp in this game.
If you wanted to have a cover based shooter, we need to be punished while in the open. 25% armor while out of cover and 100% in it. That way we are forced to use cover and ttk is reduced.
I wish the pvp in this game was more like pve, if it was I'd be living in the dark zone. But as it is now I cant stand it.
Love the game but hate the pvp.
Junior Member
Npcs are absolutely sickening how much you buffed them and now everybody running 1 shot shotguns and sticky bombs.. at least in 1.2 people actually had gun fights and skill with smgs.. i have alot of days logged into this game but i legit shut it off pissed off past few nights this game in its state is not fun anymore only full of more problems then there was before.. sincerely manhunt specialist forced into retirement by your incredible hulk npcs
Senior Member
Hamish...
I believe you and Massive have your priorities wrong and The Division may not survive past the "Survival" DLC in September, unless you (all) start to acknowledge the real problems this game has and stop concentrating on issues like "PVP Damage Modifiers" since a very small percentage of your remaining player base is interested in the so-called PVP you have in the Dark Zone.
The root problem(s) of this game is the loot, loot distribution and loot tables (weighting) given the insane amount of RNG that is inherent in every piece of gear and weapon in the game.
Massive needs to implement loot equality across all activities and have rewards scale to the difficulty of the activity. Players should not be getting lower gear and weapons for completing harder content. This is just backwards and it doesn't motivate players to continue grinding when they can't make any progression because all they receive are items they already have, or don't need.
I am aware you and Massive are afraid if players are allowed to gear up at a reasonable rate, everybody will just leave the game.
This is a natural cycle in loot-based games.
Players level up to take on harder content and once they do... They take a break.
However, THEY WILL COME BACK for DLC and patch updates.
So, please, stop being afraid of letting players progress their characters because it's better for a player to feel they have accomplished something (over a few weeks, months) and have a positive gaming experience, leave the game for a while, but then come back for DLC and patches because they had a good time leveling up before. I realize this may be scary from a developer's stand point since you want players in The Division 24/7, but you can motivate players to do this in a positive way and not a negative way which is how most successful loot-based games do it.
I am sure you & the team have seen this video, but I am putting here for reference because the similarities between The Division, and Diablo 3's launch are striking:
This is just the loot portion of the game. Fix this and the rest of the game's other problems will be less of a problem, IMO.
Moving on...
I am aware you and the dev team put all of your "eggs in one basket" trying to sell this game with the premise of mixing PVE and PVP in the DZ... Except those two things never mix and never will. The biggest reason is a balance issue and that is human players must do much more damage to NPCs because NPCs don't care if something is OP, or "fair" or not. Player vs. Player, and... To be clear, what we have in the DZ is Player Killer (PK) since 99% of the time the victim has no chance at fighting back since they are usually shot from behind and / or can't see their enemy before they become "Rogue"... Means there has to be an equal playing field if you want this kind of game mode to be successful. Period. No iffs, ands or butts.
I'm sure you are aware of this, but what you & Massive are trying has been done before in previous MMO / RPG games, but those games no longer exist because of PVP players preying on PVE players who have no interest in PVP. Thus, the PVE players leave, or separate PVE servers become the more populated servers because the majority audience for ARPG / MMO games is PVE, Solo and CO-OP players. I shouldn't have to tell you this, but it's like you and Massive really don't understand who your main audience is, no offense?
PVP is always a minority of the larger player base in MMO / ARPG games, but you seem to have made them your top priority with the Rogue penalty nerfs and other mechanics ("Cut the Rope") to promote more PK activity and this is what has driven 90% of your player base away across all platforms.
The DZ encourages what is considered Griefing and Trolling in 99.9% of modern games released. This is why this Free-for-All, PK model has been abandoned by the majority of recent PVP games where weapons & abilities are equalized, so real player skill determines who wins and not who has the better gear, or the surprise attack advantage like in the DZ. There is no skill in the PK in this game inside the DZ. I know that might sting, but it's the truth, from my perspective.
There is also the fact players who are trying to gear up and rank up to buy weapons and blue prints can loose everything (XP, Rank, Keys, Loot) does little to motivate them to participate in what is essentially an Inhumane Game mode. This means DZ participation is very player-unfriendly... Especially to casual players who may only have a few hours and can completely waste that time in the DZ, and leave with LESS than they entered with! This is not how you encourage players to continue playing. You don't punish a player for losing. Nobody wants to play a game where they have the potential to waste their time (and not progress) due to other players like in the DZ.
I know you and Massive may not want to hear this, but I believe you need to stop focusing on the Dark Zone, and trying to promote PK, and instead focus on the PVE, Solo players who this game was originally marketed to. They were, and still are... even after the majority of players have left... Your biggest audience and you need to start looking at ways to make the game more solo and PVE friendly... Now, more than ever... Which brings me to...
Please stop buffing the NPCs, so that only top geared, four man groups can fight them, and even then, struggle!
Also, please, stop nerfing weapons & gear sets that give solo players a fighting chance in this game. The more you try and force a certain type of play style... Well-coordinated SEAL Team-like groups vs. Public Video game players... The less success you will have. You need to remember this is a game, not a a real life conflict and people just want to have fun when they log on.
It's not fun to be one shot by a level 35 NPC shotgun in DZ06 when your character has a 700K Toughness rating!
It's not fun for solo players to be ganged up by by several level 32 NPCs simply because they are tuned for groups and all focus fire on the player at the same time!
It's not fun to have to build for Toughness at the expense of Firepower, or Electronics. There is no diversity in builds because players must build "tanks", or they will get one-shot by even low level 31 NPCs because you keep buffing their damage and health pools to absurd amounts just to prolong the "difficulty" and by extension, the loot grind.
There are many ways to balance NPCs for all player skill levels and group sizes (one player to four players). One idea is to have seven, or eight normal level 30 NPCs + 1 level 32 (or whatever the current difficulty) Elite boss for each wave the player faces. This gives solo players and less skilled groups a chance to quickly knock out the normal NPCs and then concentrate on the Elite boss. This is how most games balance their difficulty if they AI can't use better tactics. It provides a balanced challenge without players feeling overwhelmed or under-powered regardless, if they are in a group, or not.
Players play loot games to feel more powerful, but with every nerf and increase in NPC damage and health pools, players keep feeling weaker... Which is another reason why many have quit The Division, as well. This is not good five months into a game when only the first paid DLC has dropped.
In closing, I am going to leave you with this video you may, or may not have already seen:
This is a joint video conference between the major Division Youtubers and even they are saying your game needs some serious work if it is to survive in the long-run.
You don't have to listen to me, Hamish, but I would hope you at least, consider what these Youtubers are saying because they echo 90% of what the remaining community feels with regard to where this game is currently and more importantly where it's going. They all make good points, but listen carefully to what Macrostyle, and others are say about casual players since this is who your main audience is (was) and why I believe you need to start focusing on them if you want this game to remain economically viable for the last two DLCs and beyond.
