My solo feedback on the public beta
I played the division 1 extensively, tried the private beta and went through the public beta exclusively solo.
For the campaign start - went up to level 8:
LIKES:
1. Appropriate challenge: Ennemies hurting more than in the division 1 when reaching level 8
2. Perks and armor: they are fewer than in division 1 and don't give player too much advantage
3. Naming of cover to cover game is now accurate given the 2 points above
4. Dynamic of the city is the BIG +: changing weather, lighting, pseudo-random events (hostage, execution, etc), the outposts system and projects.
DISLIKES:
1. Ennemy wave system sometimes make them pop really close to the player and through multiple angles, meaning a fast retreat is needed.
2. Ennemy popping system in closed spaces: National archive mission ends in a small room with ennemies popping from 3 sides and no room to retreat.
3. Ennemy AI sometimes: they will run to flank or get behind player despite being shot at, which is unrealistic. Even the mission bosses can show this behavior.
4. Outposts refueling is kind of meaningless: instead of having to bring food and water, bringing them guns or more meaningful loot would make more sense, especially since there are around 10 NPCs per camp that can go gather resources.
5. Light bulbs should be all destructible but some are not regardless of the amount of rounds put in them.
For the Dark Zone part:
I find it too easy to get away being rogue. The typical scenario I've seen multiple times is non rogue sneaky players getting to the extraction point, get behind "honest" players, turn rogue few meters behind and kill the honest ones. Since there is no survivability at all, the first one shooting will likely survive then extract and run away until the rogue timer ends, then repeat.
My sugestions are :
1. Players should only be able to turn rogue at extraction points if they cut the rope which is clearly visible and leave time to react. If they want to turn rogue otherwise, that should happen outside of the extraction area to leave enough time to others to fight or flee.
2. Rogue players should be visible (or more visible) on the mini map the closer we are to them. I find the distance indicator insufficient to track them.
For the end game mission with the provided player loadout:
I found the grenade launcher to be the only good option.
The challenge was higher than in the campaign and a bit too high: I could reach the last part of the mission but couldn't finish the mission due to the repetition of explosive drones.
The explosive drones from NPCs are overpowered in my opinion as they remove half of the armor per blow.
Being solo, it's seriously tricky to keep track of ennemies in front, flanking, behind and drones coming from above despite using strategic covers.
BUGS (already reported by other people):
Weapon sounds sometimes don't work.
I got stuck once after opening a loot crate during a "random" encounter and could only get free by getting heavily shot by NPCs.
PERFORMANCE:
I believe some optimization is still required. The public beta ran smoother for me than the private but still need some polish in terms of CPU usage.
CONCLUSION:
The feeling of having a more living city is in my view the strength of this game compared to the division1. I wish the dev team makes the city even more alive with more allied NPCs roaming around the city when freeing an outpost and helping on the spot as well as more roaming ennemy NPCs and other kinds of random events than the public execution, hostage rescue, loot drops etc and side activities.
Note: As I tried it only solo and found the right amount of challenge, I hope the challenge scales with the amount of players per squad, with more tougher ennemy NPCs. Dying in that game is expected if making several bad choices and playing with others should not prevent that.
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