We already knew that the upcoming 1.4 update for The Division would change the game in a lot of ways, and now Ubisoft has sent us some of the details. They've realised that there are four major problems in the game for those looking to play it longterm:
• Enemies of higher levels are too difficult. They are bullet-sponges that deal a lot of damage.
• The gap between min / maxed players of the same level is too large.
• The progression system feels vague and unnatural.
• Unsatisfying loot system.
They plan to change this by altering how our Gear Score is calculated, and implementing something called "World Tier".
The maximum Gear Score will now become 229. When you equip items with Gear Scores of 163, 182, 204 and 229 you'll effectively reach those particular "milestones" in your progression.
Gear Sets will also now have the same Gear Score as regular High End items (163, 182, 204 and 229). This creates a clearer indication of where a player is at in their particular progression throughout the game.
"Milestones" are very important, as they impact the "World Tier". Update 1.4 will give you access to "World Tiers" based upon your collective Gear Score milestone. They are as follows:
• Tier 1 - Having a Gear Score between 0 and 163 will put you up against scaled level 30 enemies.
• Tier 2 - Having a Gear Score between 164 and 182 will put you up against scaled level 31 enemies.
• Tier 3 - Having a Gear Score between 183 and 204 will put you up against scaled level 32 enemies.
• Tier 4 - Having a Gear Score between 204 and 229 will put you up against scaled level 33 enemies.
You might have noticed that there's no mention of level 34 and 35. That's because they don't exist any more.
All activities will scale with your "World Tier". You can also transition between "World Tiers" as well as mix and match to best suit your play-style and Gear Score. You'll basically get to choose how tough your enemies are.
You can still change the activity difficulty, even within a World Tier setting, between Normal, Hard and Challenging. However, Heroic difficulty will be exclusive to Incursions. Depending on your difficulty setting you'll meet different kinds of enemies. Normal will consist of mostly normal enemies, Hard will mostly consist of Veteran and Elites, while Challenging will consist of different kinds of Elites.This also means that the difficulty setting will affect how much loot you get.
Don't want to try your luck on the hardest difficulties? Fear not. Loot will now have a chance to drop from every kind of NPC, not just bosses or named enemies. The only exception is Incursions, in which only the boss will drop loot.
This also removes drop weighing, or activity-exclusive rewards. Once again Incursions are the exception. Incursions will still drop items from specific loot tables, while other activities will drop loot from the entire selection.
Ubisoft seems very eager to improve the loot system, as they also inform us that the 1.4 update will also make the patrolling bosses and named enemies respawn once again. This means that the open world becomes a valuable source of loot again.
We'll admit that these changes sounds very good, and it'll be interesting to see if they'll bring some of the player-base back when the update arrives next month.