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  1. #1

    LEGENDARY BALANCE AND BUILD DIVERSITY- a SOLO player perspective.

    Legendary is not well balanced for Solo Players. Either for the armor and health of npc, the dmg output or npc composition.

    The way they are now, even if you use the m1a with shield and at a distance. Many rooms and spaces is all about retreat to a spot and pick npcs one by one, sometimes even cheesing rooms. And that is the most viable build.
    Other options like dmg skill builds or Shield Builds makes the whole mission an odyssey, longer and longer with much more cheese.

    And by cheese mechanics, I mean staying on a room shooting through something that npc's can't shoot back or push, or else. That completely disrupts the whole use of the scenarios and the proper fight mechanics.

    On Roosevelt Island, the final boss fight is just shoot the drones before jumping down, which is the most boring fight. No to mention that if you go with skill builds, there are just not that many skills that can dmg the flying drones.

    On Capitol, for the most part is staying in the bridge and never enter the healing box area, while praying npcs don't rush all together or shoot from the top right.
    Or on the roof, even teams stay on the ladder and pick npcs as the show themselves through the door.

    Those are just two examples of cheesy mechanics

    That kind of battle, is just a nonsense boring thing in a such rich game full of varieties.
    Now I do believe It's good that Legendaries are about changing builds and using different combinations for each room. However still for solo players the base scaling of the npcs and the way they hit really discourages the variety and build diversity.

    I go back to Legendaries on Division 1, where you could play through them and finish them with many builds. And even some Incursions were doable solo on Heroic.

    I don't mind being forced to change a build and a strategy for a certain part, to make it more efficient and to counter the npcs.
    Like for example, the Doggo yard on Roosevelt.

    But there are not many viable builds, even maxed out builds are just way underpowered.

    And this is not a post against red full dps m1a builds. I use them and I can go pretty well with it on legendary. It's just a boring mechanic and the lack of options that concerns me. Because I consider talents and gear combinations as content in this game.

    PROPOSAL

    Change the npc base hp armor and health and the dmg for SOLO and DUO and then scale it accordingly for groups so it won't become as easy. Although I believe the dmg output is the main reason why tanks and healers and many other weapon archetypes are less effective and used.

    Change the composition for certain rooms. (Instead of 3 Tanks, spawn 2 or 1) and replace with other enemies.

    Buff Skills, so they can be in pair with the most used red dps build. I made a post about that recently.

    https://forums.ubisoft.com/showthrea...er-perspective


    Change Final boss mechanics on Capitol and Roosevelt.

    On Capitol, Make the healing boxes less tanky, o change the mechanic in other to being able to disable then for a period and have a windows to actually kill the npcs on that area, and not from over the bridge or jumping up the toilets and waiting npcs to push.

    On Roosevelt Island. Make the Quadcopters spawn after you jumped and killed all the npcs on the port area.
    You jump, kill the npcs, Drones Spawn, and you have to fight them there.
    Once you destroyed ONE of the Quadcopters, choppers with more soldiers can come.

    CONCLUSION

    I'm NOT prettending Legendary to be EASY, and they are not easy now, not even if you go with the most effective build in the game.
    Most of the Legendaries are not played in their full and complex extent, and have a very very low build diversity.
    I know there will allways be some kind of meta in the game, but currently that meta is not only very narrow but also disrupting the way a mission is designed.

    Thanks for reading.
    Best wishes for everyone and for the game we love.

    NOTE FOR GROUP LEGENDARIES:
    Still m1a with CC builds are going to be the combo for speedruns. But all those who do not like to run rifles or don't want to go speedruning should not be as punished. So I do believe a global nerf to npc dmg output on legendary, should do the trick and make it possible for different group compositions to have a better and more fun experience on that difficulty level. Enjoying the whole mechanic that kind of mission offers.
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  2. #2
    Legendary is not well balanced for Solo Players.
    Isn't that the point? That Legendary is scaled for four players whether you have four players or not?
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  3. #3
    Originally Posted by SaintLandwalker Go to original post
    Isn't that the point? That Legendary is scaled for four players whether you have four players or not?
    Legendaries are not scaled for 4 players. HP and Armor changes. And I'm talking also about mechanics, dmg output, player power and npc composition.
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  4. #4
    They are changing Roosevelt so you have to jump over to spawn the Quadcopters. I guess the NPC's will be there at the same time too. Our clan tried it recently on the live version and its pretty tough, jammer is the best way to deal with them as there isn't a great deal of cover from them plus the NPC's.

    Just making them spawn with no NPC's wont be a challenge really because you can just keep them jammed, though not 100% sure on how jammer is working on PTS
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  5. #5
    Originally Posted by RIAYH Go to original post
    Legendaries are not scaled for 4 players. HP and Armor changes. And I'm talking also about mechanics, dmg output, player power and npc composition.
    Hmm. I thought that back when they were introduced, it was said that they were explicitly intended for full squads, but now I can't find any mention of that. Might be I just imagined that after all. Carry on.
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  6. #6
    Originally Posted by scarp99anzz Go to original post
    They are changing Roosevelt so you have to jump over to spawn the Quadcopters. I guess the NPC's will be there at the same time too. Our clan tried it recently on the live version and its pretty tough, jammer is the best way to deal with them as there isn't a great deal of cover from them plus the NPC's.

    Just making them spawn with no NPC's wont be a challenge really because you can just keep them jammed, though not 100% sure on how jammer is working on PTS
    I see. Well currently on the pts all cc is pretty nerfed. Plus the Resistance for bosses and diminishing returns on legendary, To keep both drones, flying around an staying out of distance will be hard. No even a dedicated cc build can get CD lower than duration on PTS phase 3. I have to check the numbers on my cc, but last I checked I had 11s cooldown and 8,4 duration.

    That's not on a named boss on legendary, They got resistance. So I believe that fight will indeed be hard if npcs spawn everywhere.

    Maybe Choppers can spawn when one of the drones is half of his health instead of destroyed. But believe me CC are indeed nerfed for legendary.
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  7. #7
    Originally Posted by SaintLandwalker Go to original post
    Hmm. I thought that back when they were introduced, it was said that they were explicitly intended for full squads, but now I can't find any mention of that. Might be I just imagined that after all. Carry on.
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/5512349...iQ&t=00h16m00s

    A dev mentions it's designed to scale and be playable solo.
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  8. #8
    Originally Posted by Kanaima Go to original post
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/5512349...iQ&t=00h16m00s

    A dev mentions it's designed to scale and be playable solo.
    Nice one, I couldn't find it myself. Thanks. I like to keep it for the 5% also, I want it to be hard, but being able to engage it with a wider variety of builds.
    In regard to the sponginess, I think its okish when using a maxed m1A build. But the way npc hit, well that is what makes the distance and the cheese so much needed.

    They emphasize even the goal is to being able to play everything solo except from the Raids.
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  9. #9
    Originally Posted by RIAYH Go to original post
    Nice one, I couldn't find it myself. Thanks. I like to keep it for the 5% also, I want it to be hard, but being able to engage it with a wider variety of builds.
    In regard to the sponginess, I think its okish when using a maxed m1A build. But the way npc hit, well that is what makes the distance and the cheese so much needed.

    They emphasize even the goal is to being able to play everything solo except from the Raids.
    He even says "..we scale the health and damage accordingly, but we don't want the challenge to really come from the health and damage scaling, we want it to come from the AI itself."

    While solo it takes 2 shots from my max rolled SR-1 on my 6 red (all 15% WD) MMR build to take out 1 of the 2 explosive drones a veteran drone controller throws out, so I'm not sure if the reality matches the vision at this point.
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