There’s no doubt that Ubisoft’s The Division is feeling the heat lately. A superb game to start off with, the biggest problem in this infected slice of New York wasn’t the content but rather its stamina. After around 30 hours of carrot and stick action, The Division does tend to get a bit dull. And for a game that is meant to last much, much longer than that it is worrying.
Even worse, hopping back into The Division after a few months away didn’t paint a rosy picture either. Mostly due to the fact that the enemies roaming New York are staggeringly overpowered and can easily wipe a player out within seconds if they haven’t spent hours upon hours getting their hands on new gear. And thus the cycle repeats itself ad infinitum.
But Ubisoft and Splash Damage has taken note of this, as they’ve drafted in fans to help shape The Division going forward with the upcoming 1.4 update. An update that’ll tackle the steep difficulty levels by implementing new World Levels suited to specific gear levels. These worlds will drop gear at the following levels:
- World Tier 1 – 163 common, 182 rare
- World Tier 2 – 182 common, 204 rare
- World Tier 3 – 204 common, 229 rare
- World Tier 4 – 229 common
According to The Division reddit thread, these changes will also include a proper difficulty selection. I’ve copied and pasted that bit below:
Difficulty selection
After 1.4 the difficulty (normal to heroic) does not affect enemy level anymore, it will affect what types of enemy you fight (normal grunts or elite enemies) and the amount of loot you get:
Normal / Hard / Challenge / Heroic difficulty selection for content
- Normal/Hard/Challenge/Heroic difficulty will not increase enemy level anymore – but the amount of loot you get
- Challenge mode + content will not be scaled to four players per default, so you could play it solo now
- When you are in a group, the enemies still scale up to the number of players.
- Elite NPCs are now smarter as before – so they will not be just bullet sponges but move faster and more tactical.
- Heroic difficulty will only be available for Incursions
- Incursion will be the only content that is balanced for 4 players
You will fight these types of enemies in the different difficulties
- Normal = Mostly normal enemies
- Hard = Normal enemies become Veteran, Veterans become Elite
- Challenging = All enemies are Elite, and changes of fire teams and enemy archetypes
Sounds good! There are a lot of other changes on the way as well but addressing the actual difficulty of The Division is a good start already. The only problem here? Convincing people to stick around for a new and improved version of The Division during the busiest quarter of the year.
Last Updated: September 16, 2016
Fox1 - Retro
September 16, 2016 at 10:35
Totally forgot this game exists #datamustfall
Jonah Cash
September 16, 2016 at 10:56
This game was fun as a single player offline game. The online didn’t do anything for me. Didn’t even come close to Destiny! Who will be the next pretender to the throne?
Remi Abrahams
September 16, 2016 at 12:37
Well this might actually get me back into the game…here’s hoping it’s better than it sounds
The Order of the Banana
September 16, 2016 at 13:05
Ubisoft lost the plot with the Division.
Funnily, they had a winner on their hands, but they clearly didn’t know what to do with it, and turned it into a “gear hamster wheel”. Just… horribly disappointing. I ploughed a good number of hours into the game, but I can’t see myself returning to it… ever.
Andre Fourie
September 16, 2016 at 13:13
Might tempt me back….
Craig "CrAiGiSh" Dodd
September 16, 2016 at 14:33
I really wanna get back into this game, as I purchased the gold edition (I think it was called, season pass and such) – so I’d like to get my monies worth out of this game.
Clocked around +- 90 hours.
Murshid Raven
September 16, 2016 at 16:10
Such a shame about the game. . .before the release I was so happy on the hype train…
I wish they’d introduce more enemy types that really forces you to change up play styles.