The Division – One Year On

[Blazzen67]

I'm a bit worried about the future of this game. 

They made it too easy to progress and get basically everything. The crafting system is too simple. The best loot is too easy to come by. Because of that, it is going to be hard to keep the interest of players for a year, 2 years, etc. 

Using a similar game as a comparison, look at Elder Scrolls Online. First of all, just to get through the campaign with no glitching, power-leveling, etc, is an experience that is at least 5-6 times longer than this one. The endgame progression is also much slower. If you want to be a master crafter in woodsmanship or any of the other crafting lines, you are looking at a few months minimum for your character to research all the available attributes. Want to max out your horse riding abilities? Great. That is going to take 3-4 months (actually probably longer, but I don't remember the max's off the top of my head).

That kind of stuff gives the potential for a greater longevity in my opinion.  The way this game is, they are going to constantly (as in almost monthly) be pushing out new stuff to keep players interested. As an example, it took all of 4-5 days for a lot of players to collect all the new gear sets.

I'm still not sure if they did this on purpose or they just completely underestimated how fast players would get through the game and get the best gear.

i understand what you are saying, but using The elder scrolls online is a poor game to compare to this game...that game is a old school MMO with the first "M" being the important part..."massive"..this game doesnt have "massive" amounts of players all on one server..only 24..plus the game world in ESO is 20 times bigger (if not more) than the division. ESO is built to be a LONG progression game to max anything out. ...this game isnt built that way at all. This is a RPG/shooter hybrid, and people who play shooters have a completely different mentality than people who play games like ESO. They want the best weapons and best gear asap. they expect that in a shooter, while people who play WOW or ESO expect to take a 6 months to a year to max out everything on their characters.

 I do see your point and i agree, i thought it was a mistake to have a 100% drop every time you kill a named boss, i thought everyone would have all the best gear with in a week after the patch....that was until i played the game after the patch...i have deconstructed 95% or more of the HE drops that i have gotten from a named boss. plus with them making you use a ton of mats just to make one blueprint. I dont think a "normal" player will get all the top notch gear so quickly, i certainly haven't..i have only gotten 3 pieces of the new  Sentry's call gear set. and i had to buy the blueprints to two of them. That took awhile just getting the phoenix credits to do so. I will say that you are right in one aspect..the people that do nothing but grind this game endlessly for hours upon hours a day, will probably have all the top notch gear in the game very fast, get bored when they run out of things to do... but the other side of the spectrum the "normal" players, who dont play the game like that, will not have everything so quickly.

 The best thing for Massive/ubisoft to do to try to make the grinders and the normal people happy, is to pump out content as fast as they can, I certainly think they are trying to do just that, but you know as well as i do, no matter what they do, not everyone is going to be happy. Its a very fine line in a game of this nature,  and i dont envy them at all

 

[Addihul]

I left Elder Scrolls Online (a month+ back) after years of dedicated play, leading a world ranked guild and putting countless hours pursuing excellence. Personally, The Division's ease at gathering materials and credits to craft top tier gear is a frickin' God send in comparison to ESO's ultimate grind. I love the ability to spend 3 hours repeating the Incursion, coming out with almost a guaranteed piece that will be an upgrade to me. If I want to max my phoenix credits to 1000? Heck, it takes me just a couple days. So.. what will the game look like a year from now? Hell, no idea. But I'm sure having a shit ton of fun right now. The Division is a breath of fresh air.

 

[Xeromaus]

I left Elder Scrolls Online (a month+ back) after years of dedicated play, leading a world ranked guild and putting countless hours pursuing excellence. Personally, The Division's ease at gathering materials and credits to craft top tier gear is a frickin' God send in comparison to ESO's ultimate grind. I love the ability to spend 3 hours repeating the Incursion, coming out with almost a guaranteed piece that will be an upgrade to me. If I want to max my phoenix credits to 1000? Heck, it takes me just a couple days. So.. what will the game look like a year from now? Hell, no idea. But I'm sure having a shit ton of fun right now. The Division is a breath of fresh air.

Absolutely understand this man. Lead high/top ranked guilds in WoW, then high/top ranked guilds in LotRO, and finally said no more. Making a game a job takes a toll that sucks all the fun away in time, and the same for months long grinding. The Division is exactly what I want now...medium/short grinds, plentiful materials, decent story, (so far) frequent updates...bugs be damned, I'm happy here.

 

[Dan]

WHAT IF ... any new areas opened up are all Dark Zone. Only Manhattan is a relative safe area and where all new players start and get a relatively "safer" experience of PvP? Imagine if you will World of Warcraft with only one safe city. Step outside and its free game.

You can build a rich story on this where players need to take an airlift ... Washington has fallen .... with only a very small beach head area to deploy and gain ammunition or crafting...then all around you is DZ

That sounds awesome, you could have a middle ground, where you have to travel through a large area of DZ to get to small pockets of safety. It would have the added benefit of pushing more people in to the DZ which I think a lot of people are afraid to try.

 

[Oh. daesu]

This may have been mentioned elsewhere.

The set gear is green. So it follows there will be blue purple and yellow set gear to grind away towards

 

[Xeromaus]

This may have been mentioned elsewhere.

The set gear is green. So it follows there will be blue purple and yellow set gear to grind away towards

 

[quinch1199]

That sounds awesome, you could have a middle ground, where you have to travel through a large area of DZ to get to small pockets of safety. It would have the added benefit of pushing more people in to the DZ which I think a lot of people are afraid to try.

What the main issue with the DZ, in my opinion, is that its been set up as a totally undirected PvP area with no actual PvP goals except stealing loot (essentially), which you can get by other non-Rogue means. Going Rogue "just because" isn't enough to create a valid PvP area I believe. There has to be a communal reason to go Rogue I strongly believe ... at a basic level make it about fighting for resources BUT the game is so focused over giving impetus to an individual for individual gains that people will PvE rather than PvP. 

This is somewhat hampered as there are few communal areas ... there's no sides to take yet .... no shared base to build, no reason to fight over or control territory. Currently I see they will address this with story in the future.