TTK by NPC's on us is WAY too fast! First game felt far more balanced on TTK | Forums

[vivere Ferrari]

I understand it's just a beta. And this is what beta's are for.

First of all, I logged about 4000 hours on the first Division. So I'm speaking from a position of not only loving the game, but wanting it to succeed, and most of all be enjoyable to play.

All the other stuff that's been an issue I know you guys will fix. Audio bugs, connection issues, etc. I'm not at all concerned about those things. But this TTK issue is really concerning me. I feel so extremely weak. And I feel like I have to fight the NPC's in such a timid manner that it really takes away from the enjoyment of the game.

Also, let me point out that I'm talking in perspective of playing through the story. I'm not talking end-game, because we have no idea what that will be. I'm not talking PVP because apparently PVP has been 'normalized' so everything is more equal. I'm talking about when you're starting to play the game, through the main story, building your character up, understanding how the game is played and most importantly, deciding if you like the game or not.

90% of people will make their decision to stay or leave from their experience playing through the main story. Compared to the hundreds of hours this game can deliver, most will make their mind up in the infancy of this game's life: very early on they will either say I love it or I hate it. That initial experience needs to be spot on. The relationship between how quickly we deal out damage and how quickly we receive damage needs to feel right. I will admit the first game probably went a little toward our advantage, because we were able to just stand out in the middle, for the most part, and kill stuff. Sure, you could play from cover, play as intended-as I personally always liked to-but as long as you were equal level and playing on normal difficulty, fighting a majority of 'red bar' NPC's you could honestly stay in the open most of the time. What that lead to is people deciding early on the game was fun Not because we were invincible, because we weren't, but because the game felt good to play. Those that stuck out the early bugs and setbacks, we stayed because the game felt fun to play. We killed **** and we got loot and built our characters.

Right now, the beta feels a long way from that. I've always been a cover player. I feel the game needs to be played as intended. But even playing in the style that I play naturally, I feel I'm still having my armor chewed away far too quickly by the NPC's. As I said before, it's lead me to play so timidly. I feel I can only pop out of cover for a few seconds, about a half of an assault rifle's magazine, then it's back to keeping my head down. If a grenade comes my way, and all I do is move to avoid it, the other enemies are chewing my armor up just in the few seconds it takes to find new cover. (And as I said, I know how to play the game, I know the controls, I'm not running around in the open when I avoid a grenade) If you find yourself in a bad spot in the middle of a fight, you're not even able to run away to find a new position to fight from. And with those new yellow bar heavily armored guys, they can just advance, come to your position and destroy you, or you run away and they still destroy you. If you can't even reposition in a game like this, you've got a problem.

And being surprised by a group of NPC's, essentially running into a group that you didn't expect while running down the street--you're as good as dead, because by the time you retreat 50 feet, your armor is gone and your critical health warning is in full effect, even if you were running all different directions while retreating. It's made me so cautious in playing that encounters that should take about a minute are taking 3, encounters that should take 3 minutes are taking 10. And that's making things feel MORE LIKE A CHORE THAN ENJOYMENT! Everything I'm talking about has been equal level activity, with equal level gear equipped, maybe the odd piece a level down, but majority of it solo play. When I have played the beta with friends, I will admit that pressure to play timidly was significantly reduced. It was still there, and in matchmade missions, the randoms/blueberries were dying all the time, meaning it was many times just me left to clear the room. So yes, playing with a group does decrease the severity of the issue, but you shouldn't have to rely on playing with a group in order to get enjoyment out of the game.

I'm not petitioning for god-mode level of health. I'm not saying we should be able to stand in the middle of 10 NPC's and just fight it out, never worrying about our health. That would not be fun. That's not what this game is. But if this TTK model stays as it is now, I guarantee it will turn people off, especially solo players. This feeling of timidness is not what the Division should be. Yes, it's a tactical 3rd person shooter. But we are elite government agents! We need to be able to fight like them! We are like Stonebridge & Scott in Strike Back--we need to be able to fight like them! Yes, we can be killed, but the TTK needs adjusted so at least sometimes we can feel like the badass soldiers we are supposed to be.

Maybe TTK is the wrong way to say it. As I think about this, I remember hearing that the armor model was completely re-worked. Maybe the calculations got a little screwy in the beta and our armor is being destroyed more quickly than intended. Again, that's what beta's are for. But whatever it's called, our ability to stay alive in a fight needs increased.

[MagnumRuger]

Well said and I agree 100%!!

[onabiv]

Some good points.

In a tl:dr way of saying it, in the first game, we were a predator. We hunted the enemy.

Now it feels like I'm just one of the guys I'm fighting but with neater gear (and weaker grenades)

Always undergeared

[padukan666]

I agree, while solo playing we die way too quickly, in a group it doesn’t seem so bad, you can reposition without too much hassle. Playing solo, free roaming etc. you fire on a group, two more groups appear from nowhere, three rushers with stun batons charge you and then you die in a second.

[Str1kehammer]

Spot on! Just traveling through the city should be a cake walk. instead I spend all my time fighting when I am trying to explore. It takes away from the enjoyment with your friends in an open world shooter.

[W1z4rds_5leeve]

Couldn't disagree more, how is emptying clip after clip into an unarmoured enemies head better than dropping someone with quickly with a modern weapon? Or have you forgotten how long long it took to 1v1 a nomad in the dz??? Circling each other like strutting roosters emptuing clip after clip into each other. Madness, just make, this is so much better, the weapons are so much better too

[GameZone_GaMinG]

Me and my friends just did a "Grand Washington Center" full with full 4 player team on hard difficulty and fighting those hyenas felt like fighting against some supernatural enemies. It was a hilarious experience but not fun. Here you guys can watch it yourself. Division team need to address the "time to kill" because now they deal more dmg compare to division 1 and our health pool is vastly reduced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOqZo4yqvnE&feature=youtu.behttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOqZ...ature=youtu.be

[Sarlestou]

Please explain TTK(time to kill) first; one only reads a giant post like this if one can guess what its about.

One can easily survive when picking cover. But you die when someone flanks you or random group charges you from the rear in Freeworld.
But you usually die when trying to change cover!
We need more change for tactical movement! Retreating into cover behind you is impossible, so free movement is the only way when getting flanked. But you always die during free-move.
Increasing player TTK forces increasing every TTK: that's not an option.
But we need to regain more options for tactical movement!
Maybe add an options to jump over and hide behind the cover that we are dashing to (this cover to cover move), so that we can retreat.
But I don't know how much harder we are to hit during cover-dashing, I just hope it's considerable.

[vivere Ferrari]

I said in my post I was not talking about PVP. Thank you for your thoughts, but next time, read the entire post before commenting.

[Ravenous21]

I feel that in PVE, the damage you take is where it needs to be for a cover based shooter. I realize now that I can't just head out there and expect to tank a clip from an enemy. Even more so... we're playing on that first part in the early stages of the game. I noticed that as you progress your resilience increases as well.