[Possible spoilers] Level 30 vs Level 40 - As thorough as possible...
...or what did we win or lose when leveling up with Warlords of New York (very long read)
Well, yesterday I decided to compare the experience of a Level 40 player that finished Warlords of New York and a player that remained in DC. The main factor that started this comparison was the SHD levels and the Scavenging feature, but about that a bit later.
What I did was loading my second character, that even if it had the possibility to go to New York, decided to stay in DC.
THE WORLD DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Level 30
Let's start with the "obliterated" gear. Yes, the gear was trash. So I just went to the vendor and picked what was available (an LMG with 14k dps and an AR with 11k dps), then looked through my gear and just picked the best in slot items with the highest value of Weapon Damage and Armor. This resulted in a Frankenstein build with slightly improved DPS (19k and 16k), and quite a bit of armor (165k armor).
I went outside the BoO and headed South for the random boss that spawns there. And – joy of joys! – my build was great! I mean, the enemies were quite punchy, but they kept their distance and weren't keen on coming too close to me. I was able to kill two reds and a veteran with a single magazine of my AR (40 bullets) and there were 3 bullets left. The other veterans and the named elite were a walk in the park. The maximum damage that they did to me was reducing my armor to some 25% because I was clumsy and was too much in the open. And that was on normal difficulty with mostly purple gear mixed and matched to just output numbers.
I went on and decided to do a few activities to bring a Control Point to Level 4 (just for comparison, you know... my *** was kicked in the end, no worries). And on I went and did some territory control, then rescued some hostages and restored a broadcast... All the activities were enjoyable, I had to find cover, but I wasn't afraid of a total wipe anytime I was out of cover.
When I decided to go for the Control Point, I already had a pretty ok build. It was still made up from scraps and without any optimization, but my LMG was doing 22K damage and the AR was a bit shy of 20k DPS. And my armor was at 187k.


Please notice HOW MANY SEGMENTS this huge amount of armor has.
I signaled the flare and started taking over the heroic Control Point. And everything went smooth until the boss arrived, because it was an Outcast Heavy with the axe. And, combining the suicide rushers that explode on proximity, I managed to kill the Heavy and take his loot just a few seconds before I burned to death.
But I was actually happy of the result. Mind you, there were some deliberate mistakes like peaking out of cover way too much and exposing myself to danger, but that was assumed for the purpose of comparison between Level 30 and Level 40 experiences.
That was a Heroic Control Point. And, I think that if I would've played it safe, I could've won the fight.
THE WORLD DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Level 40
Now, about Level 40. I completed the WoNY expansion and went back to DC. There I improved a bit my build and went farming CPs. I already had 90k damage from my AR, 660K armor and I thought that maybe this could be ok for a Heroic Control Point, in DC, because in New York this was enough (but that was before killing Keener).
And – OH! MY! GOD! – I was fighting terminators. And I'm not talking about their sponginess here. No. I'm talking about their accuracy. Mind boggling accuracy.
If I am to snipe an enemy, I have to take out my sniper rifle, scope, find the enemy, pick the landing point for my shot and fire... And that's 1-2 seconds of actions and animations. And the accuracy of my shot is still interpreted as bad because the hit doesn't register correctly on the victim's body. Because the NPC either moves or the RNG god decided to simply mark my bullet as hollow.
But the enemy snipers roll into cover and the next move is the bullet in my head because it knows how to peak out of cover, adjust the weapon, have me in their sights and press the trigger, all in 1/10th of a second. And the NPC manages to headshot me and render useless at least half of my armor. In one shot.
I can accept the fact that drones and robots have better accuracy and can do stuff precisely, but NPCs should be human in behaviour. Yet they're not.


Now please notice how may segments THIS amount of armor has.
Besides having godlike accuracy, the NPCs are indestructible. With my 90k DPS / 660K armor build I needed one magazine to down at most two red enemies. Usually it's like one and a half... And the enemies aren't even slightly afraid of my presence. They come close shooting from pistols held askew and hitting me plenty. And that's on normal difficulty. Trying to do a Level 4 Control Point with this build ended up with the same results always: I could maximum defeat the first boss. After that the second boss killed me.
OK, I then decided to enhance my build even more. Managed to get 95K damage and 937K armor. And with this I'm on the brink of survival. I can do solo Heroic Control Points but the fights are quite lengthy (10-15 minutes).
But at what cost? I have to invest in my armor to hit 1 Million to be able to survive. That's saying a lot. Also, I have to pick the right talents to improve my DPS and to stay in cover most of the time, because... reasons?
Life at level 40 is harsh. So, people that are still at level 30, you haven't lost anything regarding combat. You even have it better, because the scaling is off the charts at level 40.
Now, for a bit of pause in reading, here's footage from yesterday. World set at Challenging (forgot about that. Thought it was at Normal or Hard):
Questions about what happened in the video above:
1. Who shot me from behind at 00:43? There was no NPC there.
2. I have 937K armor, and one bullet (from some ghost behind me) took half of it down, marking it at 450-500K per hit. Right? And it even was flamable (no directives).
3. They have flaming turret that can spray fire at a greater angle than what The Division has... How come?
Level Up BONUSES
As stated at the beginning, the main premise for this very long post was the level up thing... Let's assume, for the sake of fairness, that the time to level up is the same for Level 30s and for Level 40s, although Level 30 people have to gather 415K XP, and Level 40 people have to gather 700K XP for each level up.
But, because the game grants more XP per kill at Level 40, we'll just assume that the time needed to level up is the same.
After each level UP, the Level 30 people get a Field Proficiency Cache which yields two or three items (depending on perks active). These items can hold gear talents and attributes that could contribute to the whole Gear 2.0 Library. If they don't contribute, the player can discard them and still get some crafting materials out of the deal.
After each level UP, the Level 40 people get one SHD point which they have to assign to one of five categories on Aaron Keener's watch. After each fifth level Up they can assign the said SHD point to the Scavenging category. By doing that they EXCHANGE the point to either get 10K credits or 10-20 units of a single crafting material. 20 Units! For leveling up 5 times.

Also, the Level 40 people get NO FIELD PROFICIENCY CACHE. Why?
Now, one of the sub-categories of this level up mess is Weapon Damage. The Increment is 0,2%.

This means that to get ONE subcategory to its max level you (assuming you invest only in one sub-category) you will need to level up 250 times.
Now a bit of maths:
My weapon has 49.400 base damage.
0,2% of it equals 980.
Each five level ups I can increase my damage output by 980 points.
After 250 Level ups my weapon will deal 4.940 more damage, because the maximum amount this subcategory can output is 10%.
In the meantime, if a Level 30 player levels up 250 times, he gets at least 500 items, at most 750. Which he can either use to upgrade his build, his library, he can sell or discard and upgrade his crafting materials supply.
So, please answer, what did we win with being Level 40?
The NPCs are terminators. The level-ups reward trash. The feeling of being squishy is high as snoop dogg. The loot drop is poor and it doesn't matter if you fight at normal, hard or suicide difficulty.
They even removed the Daily Projects from the Level 40s. The people sitting at level 30 STILL have the Daily missions available:

Somehow, by leveling up while trying to get more, we ended up getting less...
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