The Division 2 State of the Game is a live stream in which Division 2 developers discuss the current state of The Division 2. On April 17, 2019 creative director Terry Spier and game systems engineer Ryan Liebscher went live on Twitch, Mixer and YouTube with host Hamish Bode to discuss changes that will be made to The Division 2. During the State of the Game many changes were announced, including that the much anticipated Title Update 3 – which includes the 8 person raid “Operation Dark Hours” has been postponed from April 25, 2019 to May 2019. There is no official date of release in May, just sometime within May 2019.
The Division 2 State of the Game April 17, 2019:
Titled Update 3 & Raid Delayed – Focusing on Test Server
Division 2 developers have decided to hold off on the title Update 3. The initial release date was April 25, 2019, however, that has changed to May, 2019. No official date has been released. Instead of releasing the “Operation Dark Hours” raid developers have setup a test server to help them fix bugs pointed out by the community. The test servers has two phases, the first phase will focus on patching bugs and other issues while the second will focus on balancing issues.
Normalization Changes
Normalization changes will be tested out on the test server. Normalization changes can be tested while playing PvP only including conflict, occupied dark zone, and normalized dark zone.
Normalization Mechanics
- The Equipment and weapons will be normalized to GS 500 (even if your GS is higher)
- That also means, that they are no longer normalizing for a middleground but they are respecting the rolls on your gear. That means when you had an item with a very high crit chance roll, it will be like that in normalized content.
- Skill Power will also be respected and when the mods are active in PVE, they will also be active in normalized content.
Global PvP Modifiers
- The PVP damage modifier will be reduced from 70% to 40% and that will bring the Time to Kill down to what you experience in PVE. This way, you have more time to react.
- The Skill Damage modifier will be increased from 20% to 25%, so that should make your skills more effective.
- Overall the encounters should last longer overall and the skills should be more useful.
Occupied Dark Zone PVP Modifiers
- They have also added a specific ODZ PVP damage modifier
- Currently it also sits at 40% same as the normalized DZ – but they have the ability to specifically fine-tune the ODZ depending on how things change.
- That should also help to lower the Time To Kill in the ODZ
PVP Modifiers for Weapon Archetypes
- They will add specific PVP modifiers for specific weapon types.
- For example, they can specifically buff the Assault Rifle in PVP now.
- That also enables for specific PVP balancing, because the damage of the weapon is overwritten by the PVP Modifiers when you enter PVP content.
Hip fire Changes
- In PVP content you will not be able to crit when you hip-fire
- In PVE it behaves as it is now.
Dark Zone Changes
Loot Changes
- NDZ and ODZ will drop less clean loot and more contaminated loot, they want players to engage in the Loot Extraction – loop.
- Named bosses guarantee contaminated loot and higher levelled landmark bosses have the ability to drop multiple items.
Landmark Cooldown
- Landmarks got a cooldown now once they are cleared before they activate again (about a minute)
- That should also encourage more player movement and not just farming the same Landmark.
Dark Zone NPC Balancing
- The NPCs in the Dark Zone will be less lethal, but they will also have more armor.
Rogue Loop Changes
- They Remove the Rogue Cooldown when you die
- The Rogue-Toggle cooldown will stay, so you will not be able to spam that.
- Dark Zone Perk was also changed that it will no longer reduce the Rogue Timer cooldown, but you will lose less XP when you die as a rogue
Dark Zone Pouch increased
- You will be able to carry more Contaminated items.
- Default is 6 items per bag
- The Character Perks were also changed – The Tier 1 Perk will increase the bag-size to 8
- The Dark Zone Perk will increase the bag-size to 10 in total.
Preventing Empty Dark Zones
- They plan multiple changes to “guarantee” that you encounter 12 players in a Dark Zone Session.
- They are reducing the amount of Dark Zone Brackets to 2. Everyone below Character Level 30 and everybody in Endgame.
- Not all changes will be implemented with Title Update 3 – there is more in queue down the line.
Player Count increase in DZ is not planned
- First they are implementing the changes that the player count per Dark Zone Instance is 12, because that is already a completely different experience than it is now.
Occupied Dark Zone changes
- The ODZ specific damage modifier was already mentioned
- They also lower the XP loss when you die in the ODZ
GS 515 Items will drop in the Dark Zone
- In endgame Dark Zone you will be able to get GS 515 items.
- More details about where to get loot will follow once all the content has been revealed.
Thieves Den Changes
- When you get the special ammo there, you are now allowed to weapon swap.
- There are also more changes panned to the Thieves Den to make it more attractive – but no further details were given.
Future Changes to the Occupied Dark Zone
These changes are planned, but they will not be implemented with Title Update 3
- Rogue and Manhunt Loop will be added to the ODZ (no grey rogues)
- The NPC-Patrols will also be lowered and more or less limited to the Landmarks.
Conflict
UI Change
- The UI will now display the real value of the armor and not a standard value. So when a player has a ton of armor, you will see that displayed accordingly.
Boost Change
- The Boosts (damage and armor) that become active over the course of a match will be lowered by 50%. They should have an impact but not that big as it is now.
Synchronizing Team Spawns
- The chance that you spawn with a teammate is increased so that you don’t just spawn and die
Conflict NPC more visible
- There is apparently an NPC in Conflict, he will get more visible.
Skill Cool Down Respected
- The Skill cool down will be respected now after you die.
- That should also lower the skill-spam
Exotic / Talents / Gear
Exotics
- Exotic should feel special
- They should not specifically do the most damage, but they should also promote a fun and unique playstyle that does not have to be the most effective one.
- They are not always centered around raw DPS
- But that being said – they buff the damage of the exotics across the board.
- Pestilence will be buffed specifically and even more effective in PVP specifically.
Talent Changes
Unhinged – Damage bonus reduced to 20% / Handling reduced to 20%
Strained – Missing armor requirement increased to 10%
Frency – in PVE reloading weapon from empty grants 20% weapon damage & 15% rate of fire for 3 seconds / In PVP 15% Weapon Damage 15% Rate of fire for 3 Seconds
Preservation – PVE Killing an enemy repairs 10% armor over 5 seconds – headshots improve the repair to 20% / In PVP 5% armor over 3 seconds – headshots to 15% (Requires 7 defense attributes)
Spike – Headshot kills grant 35% Skill Damage for 20 Seconds (Requires 5 utility attributes)
Reformation – Headshot kills increase skill repair and healing by 15% (Requires 9 Utility attributes)
Safeguard – Reduce healing bonus to 50% – reduced duration to 5 seconds (Less than 4 defensive attributes)
Clutch – increased health gained per critical hit to 20% reduced armor gained per critical hit to 1%
Surgical – Reduce critical hit chance bonus to 5%
Spotter – increased weapon damage to pulsed targets to +20% (increased requirements to 5 utility attributes)
Kneecap – Shooting an enemy in the legs has a 15% chance to apply bleed
Entrench – headshots from cover repair armor increased to 10% of your armor.
Patience – after being in cover for 5 seconds, armor repairs by 5% every 1 second (requires 9 defensive attributes)
Unbreakable – PVE: 70% of max armor is repaired when your armor is depleted. Armor kits used within the next 7 seconds are not consumed. / PVP it is 20% of max armor and 7 Seconds. (requires 11 defensive attributes)
Bloodsucker – PVE: Depleting enemies armor adds a stack of 25% armor bonus for 10 seconds, max stack is increased to 6 / PVP: 20% armor bonus for 5 seconds, max stack of 5 (requires 11 defensive attributes)
Berserk – PVP: the 10% weapon damage for every 20% armor depleted (requires 11 offensive attributes and AR LMG or SMG equipped)
Bloodlust – PVE: Swapping weapons within 3 seconds of a kill grants 35% weapon damage for 5 seconds / PVP: 20% Weapon damage for 5 seconds
Used to require – Requires 9 offensive attributes now
Blacksmith – Killing an enemy with your sidearm repairs 50% of your armor can occur once every 15 seconds. (Require 11 defensive attributes)
Gear Stat Changes
Critical – Reduce critical hit damage bonus to 5%
While these are some drastic changes in some cases, they are also changing the health of NPCs – so just because you need some of the talents now to be effective in heroic difficulty – they are not necessarily mandatory in the new big picture and the new balancing.
Other Quality of Life Changes
- Players can toggle displaying personal and group loot drops now
- Text chat will now lose focus after sending a message
- Group tab will be populated with all raid members
Summary Source: JokerUnique
