Update October 20, 2016: It’s been a month since we wrote about The Division’s biggest update so far. After a short stint in the PTS, it’s finally ready for release.
The patch aims to rework the entire game, from individual weapon balance, levelling, skills and more. You can read a brief breakdown in the original story below.
If you like teaming up with your mates, check out our list of the best co-op games.
As PCGamer report, the patch’s release date was announced duringtoday’s State of the Game broadcast. It’s due to go live on October 25, where servers will be offline for a three-hours beginning at 12:30am PT/3:30am ET.
Ubisoft say the patch will be “pretty much” how it is currently in the PTS, thoughloot drops in the Underground have been adjusted along with a bunch of bug fixes. Check out the 1.4 PTS patch notesfor the full, long rundown.
Ubisoft aren’t done, though, as patch 1.5 is expected to bring some more big changes before the end of the year.
Original Story September 22, 2016: The Division is undergoing some big changes that aim to switch up the feel of Ubisoft’s open-world online shooter. Almost everything is being tweaked, with stats and character builds being looked at, adding more variety to the game’s RPG elements and giving the player some more difficult choices when building their character.
With The Division’s public test server coming on September 26, Ubisoft are now laying out all the upcoming changes in a long and detailed blog post. If you want the full details, head over there, but I’ll break down the basics for you down here if you want an abridged look.
One of the things Ubisoft are concentrating on is reducing the gap between those who have pored over their character build and those who haven’t paid quite as much attention. That might sound like they’re nerfing builds that people have taken care with, but really they’re just making other builds more viable.
From now on, any gear dropped in World Tier 2 will have all three stats tied to it:Firearms, Stamina and Electronics. Generally one will be higher than the other two, so you can use gear to push whatever stat you’re concentrating on into the stratosphere.
Other stats, like crit chance or headshot damage for example, are being scaled down because they’re currently overpowered.In Update 1.4, all gear will lose their skill bonuses, while backpacks, holsters and knee pads gain new performance mod slots.
At the moment, you can often get kicked from groups only because you haven’t inflated your gear score with 268 GS Gear Set pieces. Ubisoft say Gear sets aren’t meant to be “must haves” to be competitive at endgame, and they want to bring back variety and that shooter feeling to the game by letting people branch out from the accepted norm.
Everything is being rebalanced, basically – weapons, armour, skills and consumables.
“As you can tell by now, big changes are coming to The Division in Update 1.4,” say Ubisoft.
“At first glance, it might look as if though we’re just raising or lowering numbers across the board, but mixed with the new enemy balancing and time to kill-changes detailed in our last development article, our goal is to make you feel more powerful once the update comes out.
“The current big numbers are going away, but that doesn’t mean you won’t feel a steady increase in power as you get better and better gear.”