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  1. #1

    Unsoloable underground and broken matchmaking

    Hello,

    this is going to be a rage post as I again spent almost an hour trying to solo a hard mission. Whole missions are fine until the last room, that are full of elites.
    There is no cover, enemies flank you from several directions and the worst are those ******g directives, like I had today; that destroy your armor and almost disable ability to heal.

    The problem is nonfunctional matchmaking. Once I enter underground, nobody can join. I cannot matchmake for a daily mission. In fact I don't find a matchmake at all without long waiting. And I really don't want to wait to finally go with 4 player group doing normal difficulty without any directives.

    I have done at least five hard missions solo without much problems before. I guess I used only the first beneficial directive...
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  2. #2
    You ran a daily underground mission? Because otherwise, you dont have to run with directives. I dont, I dont like any of them.

    As for Underground, last room? Well, you know you dont HAVE to stay in the last room if you cant hold it(and typically you cant due to alot of enemies). Dont be afraid to RUN and retreat back out the way you came. I will run back 2-3 rooms if I need to.

    Sounds like you had the directive "Kinetic Armor", yeah, that one SUCKS because it makes you insanely squishy when you stop moving. The other one that kills your heals, yeah, it makes 1 heal really good then it gives you an insane cooldown on your skills....

    There is also Shock ammo, you fire, and while firing, you will shock yourself if you fire to long, but will also shock the enemy. I dont like it.
    Compensator, you get less recoil but also get like half ammo capacity....

    MAny of the rooms DO have plenty of cover, but the issue being the enemies spawn from several corners. Then as you kill them, more come...yeah, UG can be hectic, honestly, I really like it. Its the one activity in this game i play alot.

    ALSO Also, look out for and listen for Alarms going off. Alarms will trigger like 5 extra waves of enemies. They are typically flashing red squares on the wall. Enemies will usually go for them upon you entering a room and getting their attention

    Here is a screenshot of an alarm, shoot those if you can, and prevent enemies from hitting them.

    https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=2240372920

    And what build are you running with now?
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  3. #3
    More on playing the Underground. IDK how you are playing it, but there is a bit of a flow to it, and if you pay attention and play long enough you realize the pattern and can exploit it.

    Upon entering a room, enemies with the lightning bolt icons will charge you, there are usually 2. Kill them first and quickly, they are shotgunners, axemen and are generally really deadly. From there you wanna clear out the regular footmen, guys with the single chevron icons, or just kill enemies as they present themselves. Dont stop moving to long, but always try to keep your line of retreat.

    Tips on enemies:

    CLEANERS:

    When fighting Cleaners, always try to hit the hip bags on the grenade icon guys(this will kill them quick and let loose with a giant cloud of flame that will stun anyone around him. Always try to hit Cleaner weakpoints, gas tanks, hip bags, backpacks, the like. Once you get proficient at that, Cleaners are actually hilariously easy. Even the Cleaner heavies are easy, since thier hip bags and gas tanks are large.

    Cleaner Heavies, you wanna hit the gas tank on his left hip(right side if hes charging you). Aim at the top of the tank and fire till it starts hissing. Then go for the other hip bag and hes done.

    Cleaner shield guys, get their attention and simply mow them down with headshots as they charge you. Alternately, throw a grenade at your feet and let them run into it.

    The tricky Cleaner guys are the leaders who deploy the turrets. You want to KILL the turrets as they are deployed. 1 engineer guy can keep every turret in the room alive. Turrets do ALOT of damage if left alone, so you want to kill them as they pop up.

    RIKERS

    Rikers are kind of tricky since they dont have many weakpoints to exploit and are kind of tough, but for them, kill thier lightning bolt shotgunners quick. They do ALOT of damage, but are quite weak. Next you wanna hit thier grenade guys, they arent that tough, so just blow thier heads off. Kill thier snipers and finally kill thier leader guys(the ones with the 2 Chevrons).

    Riker leader guys are quite tough, and can tank many magazines. Dont try to face tank these guys, just hit them as you can and go for headshots.

    Riker Heavy Gunners, you want to try to hit their ammo bag on the backpack. If you cant hit that, just lay into his head. They are tough enemies, so they take awhile, dont try to face tank them. Use grenades, shock grenades, flame grenades, the like. Stun them and hit them in the head while thye are stunned. If you can get the backpack, kill him while hes flailing around. They usually die.

    LMB

    LMB are kind of tough, their units are tough and they do good damage. They also get some pretty annoying weapons and soldier types.

    First up, you kill their shotgun rushing lightning bolt guys. From there, if you can, you want to kill the Medics. The LMB Medics will make your life unbelievably difficult, as one medic can keep every med box in the room alive, and if there is 1 or 2 med boxes healing, you genuinely cannot kill anything. Soooo, after you kill the shotgun rushers, you want to try to flank, move and get into such a way that you can kill the med boxes or the medics, or both.

    Also against the LMB, thier Grenade launcher guys have 6 round automatic grenade launchers and usually come in pairs or trios. These guys are unholy pains in the ***, as they will chain fire those things and absolutely hammer you into oblivion. You cant hide from them or remain stationary, you gotta fight them on the run to prevent being hit by them. They are not a tough soldier hitpoint wise, but their grenade launchers.....you wanna kill these guys as they present themselves.

    LMB normal footsoldiers are pretty unimpressive units. They have good health and armor, and are quite resilient, but dont do anything fancy. You can save them for last usually.

    LMB Snipers, they are weak, but can be annoying with that blind(You gotta learn to fight through the blind). Keep a good situational awareness on your target so you can kill even when blinded. LMB snipers also throw out those little round red mines. Shoot htem or avoid them, they shock stun you.

    LMB Commanders(2 chevron units) are crazy resilient with a TON of health, they can be quite tough to deal with due to this, though they dont do anything fancy, except throw grenades.

    LMB Heavies. These guys can be annoying as hell, when there are multiples since they carry around a GIANT full body shield, but you deal with them the same way as any other heavy(Shoot the tip of the backpack and hit the ammo bag. THEN while they are flailing, I usually go for the legs, since they are typically not covered at all by the shield. NOTE: Even when flailing around, the shield usually does a pretty good job protecting thier head and stuff....
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  4. #4
    KnightGhostbear, thank you very much for your posts.

    Yes, it was a daily, with kinetic armor and adrenal healing.

    I already knew most of what you wrote. I would like to ask, what Underground difficulty are you able to solo confortably? And with directives?

    I used to run 4pc Lone Star but because I got very lucky recently, I am now running Lone Star + Ninja bag + 1 Striker + 1 Sentry's call (one of reasons I use these additional pieces is they are classified and upgraded). My experience is that a defensive set would be useless if I am not able to killl enemies fast enough. My experience is that I need to eliminate whole wave of enemies before the next wave spawns.

    Alas I play with a controller so it is really not easy to hit headshots or weak points, especially on running enemies.

    Regarding pulling back out of the last room. I thought that the door back would be closed. But anyway, it was a mission to rescue and defend a JTF informant. So I think running back would not be a solution.

    And finally, later that night I got matchmaked for the first time. What was nightmare solo was practically easy with two players.
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  5. #5
    Also I just recalled one issue... That I can't finish off enemies becase they duck behind a cover. Using a LMG does not help either. And I am using two LMGs...
    It is mostly beneficial as I don't get attacked by snipers and many enemies at once.
    But not being able to finish flanking enemies and grenadiers is a problem.
    I find missions on challenging easier as there is a lot more solid cover to move to if you are targetted with a grenade. In the Underground a room layout is random.
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  6. #6
    Bambihunter71's Avatar Member
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    As always @KnightGhost has a ton of tips, all of them good. I haven't seen you online xlastovi.

    His best tip might be to not be afraid to retreat. In fact, sometimes you can use it to separate yourself in a way that grenadiers can't hit you. Or rushers can reach you, etc. But, you said that was a protect mission so it would have failed regardless I guess.

    The Underground map is dynamically generated. Every door you open, triggers the next map to be generated. So, you shouldn't ever get the exact same map in its entirety. That said, there are a set number of maps so you'll soon recognize them.

    The alarm panel he mentions is a very important detail that a lot of people missed. I did as well for a while. There will be an enemy that has an icon above his head that blinks as he runs for the panel. I forget what it looks like. When you see that, kill the enemy, or destroy the box. You can turn off the box with a switch, but they can re-enable it. It's best just to destroy it. Note however that it can self-repair in certain situations. Meaning that one wave started to enable it so I blew it up. The, another wave spawned later in the same room and magically it is fixed.This seems to happen maybe 10-15% of the time.

    It's all in your build man. It is great that you got the Ninja bag. I still feel it is one of THE best items a player can get once they hit the end game. The better your build gets, the easier all this will be. And, it also depends on your playstyle too. Some areas of the UG allows you to sit back and snipe, others you have to drop right into the thick of it.

    Personally I find the directives more annoying than they are difficult, especially the shock. I generally run D3 in the Underground. It eliminates the Kinetic Armor problem. However, that is offset if running the shock ammo since it isn't easy or practical to swap weapons with the D3 to reset the shock gauge.

    Have you encountered Hunters down there yet? If not, they'll introduce a whole new level of difficulty. They are one of the only reasons I go down to the UG. They are tough, but a lot of fun and more of a real challenge than just the bullet sponges of heavies. In my opinion, they are what a modern A.I. should be.

    The max level of play in the UG will end up at level 40. You'll have challenging difficulty available after level 30 (UG level) and after level 35 you'll have up to 5 directives to choose from.

    Don't be afraid to also post a LFG in the terminal to play the underground since there is more people there. As long as you join up before going to UG, you will still be grouped through the transition though it does sometimes briefly drop people. I mention that because I think it reloads on to different servers or something. I've had people that were going to join once I went down there (or vice-versa) that we couldn't find each other once we switched areas.

    I believe I will be on tonight for a while when I get home. We can go run it some if you'd like. I get on somewhere between 6-10pm CST (generally log in around 7ish). The weekends, I may play all day, or may just do the daily's.
    I can either join with my max rolled regular account (that we're friends on), or I could load up my 3rd account. I have a character with only the most basic of gear. I JUST hit end game at WT5 with it when I signed off Sunday afternoon. It might even be fun to do them both so you can see the difference in how the tactics are so very different, and how quickly I can take them down optimized and rolled right, vs just random gear.
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  7. #7
    Originally Posted by xlastovi Go to original post
    KnightGhostbear, thank you very much for your posts.

    ...what Underground difficulty are you able to solo confortably? And with directives?

    I used to run 4pc Lone Star but because I got very lucky recently, I am now running Lone Star + Ninja bag + 1 Striker + 1 Sentry's call (one of reasons I use these additional pieces is they are classified and upgraded). My experience is that a defensive set would be useless if I am not able to killl enemies fast enough. My experience is that I need to eliminate whole wave of enemies before the next wave spawns.

    Alas I play with a controller so it is really not easy to hit headshots or weak points, especially on running enemies.

    Regarding pulling back out of the last room. I thought that the door back would be closed. But anyway, it was a mission to rescue and defend a JTF informant. So I think running back would not be a solution.

    And finally, later that night I got matchmaked for the first time. What was nightmare solo was practically easy with two players.
    I run challenging with absolutely no issue. I dont run with directives as im just simply not a fan of them. I can run through dailies that have them, I just have to slightly adjust my playstyle.

    Lone Star? nice.

    On a Defensive Build. Your right in that you dont kill as quick, but do keep in mind that when your purely offensive, you cannot keep your head up long enough to kill the waves and have no ability to actually sustain the attacks that will invariably hit you. My Lone Star build, I think I run a 6k/6k firearms/stamina. Might be a 7k/6k, but with Lone Star I found that set to be INSANELY squishy and found I was struggling to beat Challenging UG, due to being unable to take any hits. I would poke up to fire and get melted. Soooo, I went back, I rolled more +HEALTH on my armor, +Life On Kill on my armor. While you dont need a PURELY defensive build, you do need some defensive talents and skills to allow you to atleast take some hits.

    Plus, keep in mind, you can make even a defensive build, a little more towards offense. Such was the case with my Final Measure/Ninjabike setup that I completely roflstomp through challenging UG with. I had some videos of me running my FM through UG recorded, but never uploaded them.

    My builds usually involve stacking as much Crit/Crit Damage as I can to facilitate the offensive portion of my build. You might consider running pulse as well, that will give you a nice boost in damage. As for playing on a controller, yeah, I can see how that alone would make playing the game harder by a factor of at least 10. Id almost say thats half your issue, is using a controller vs MnKB. THe inability to reliably land headshots and kill weakpoints is a HUGE issue that really cuts into your DPS and overall ability to win.

    On the protect the JTF informant mission. Secret dokumints says you dont have to actually keep him alive. The JTF informant, the one where your sent in to retrieve the data, you dont have to keep the informant alive. If he dies, the document simply lays on the floor and you have to go pick it up after the battle. I've let him die several times, mostly due to being overwhelmed and forced to retreat. The ONLY mission where you will fail if its killed is the Generator mission. There is the one where you need to protect JTF squads being chased through the sewer, I think that one ends up with a protect the JTF Lieutenant and THAT one you need to defend him. Finally, keep in mind, that the defense objectives are INSANELY durable and have ALOT of hit points.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbBL...yNai4&index=11

    ^^That video right there, that was a "Retrieve the Report" mission. Note, I dont need to protect the guy.
    My 2nd phase in that was a Lost Patrol mission

    and on a 'Defensive build', the build im using in that video is my "REclaimer", the healer set. I believe at that point I had 4800fire arms and 4689 Stamina with a little over 6000 Electronics, and you can see I can kill just fine. Yes, I do kill slower than my offensive builds, but the increase in defenses(IE The medbox), means I can better sustain the hits. Pay special note to the fight that began at 18:30, and notice how much fire im sustaining over the course of that, and keep in mind whats pinning me down are like 3-4 heavies and a couple engineering turrets.....some hard hitters.

    Also, in your previous post, you mentioned there not being alot of cover in the UG, do you use the corner poke like what im doing 32:20ish in that vid? You dont need to glue to cover to make use of cover. Hell, most the time gluing to cover exposes you way more than corner poking near it but not on it does.

    Then, do you run a zoom scope on your weapons? THere is a trick where if you zoom in the scope, you can actually shoot around a corner but not be exposed.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPYHmFA_Vqw @6:50 in this MarcoStylez vid to explain it and show this in action.
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  8. #8
    Rroff's Avatar Senior Member
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    Solo underground I tend to run Ninja + 2 Nomad + 1-2 Alpha Bridge (sometimes swap one out for lone start for the extra ammo - but usually fine without it) + Enduring mask. Sometimes swap things around a bit without the Enduring mask for more damage. Paired up with Bullfrog and M700 Carbon or The House.

    Depends a bit what mood I'm in and directives - sometimes I'll bin off some of the healing side and just go all out damage and use couple of bits of Predators Mark instead of the mask and 2nd Alpha Bridge - if you get the approach right you won't be hitting health much as stuff goes down fast.

    No dependence on skills or building stacks, etc. and reasonably high damage output right off the bat.

    Matchmaking seems broken in the underground at the moment never pairs me up however long I wait.
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