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Badfinger

The Division - Tom Clancy Presents Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's The Division, By Ubisoft

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As someone who doesn't have the game and who probably never will because I'm past the time in my life where I can grind in a video game without grinding my teeth in real life, could you say more about this? I'm always interested in the stories of huge fuckoff AAA games, especially when they're downright evil like it sounds like The Division might be.

 

The story is basically that you're a special agent in NYC trying to save the city from a pandemic by murdering poor people. And to occasionally give someone a candy bar or water bottle in exchange for their pants.

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I assume it's pretty much this:

https://killscreen.com/articles/the-perverse-ideology-of-the-division/

 

But I'd also be interested in hearing you expand, Dragonfliet,

 

There are certainly parts of that article I agree with, but the assertion that an entire faction is "black people" is not only wrong, but wildly wrong and racist and a huge leap in logic that allows the conclusion of the piece to be made.

 

I personally think the distinction between "looter" and "rioter" is big enough to change the texture of the game and this piece's message, as well.

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There are certainly parts of that article I agree with, but the assertion that an entire faction is "black people" is not only wrong, but wildly wrong and racist and a huge leap in logic that allows the conclusion of the piece to be made.

 

I personally think the distinction between "looter" and "rioter" is big enough to change the texture of the game and this piece's message, as well.

 

If you're talking about the article, it doesn't say that the entire faction is black people, it says they're majority (i.e. more than half) black...which I have no idea if that's true either, but it seems possible. I was actually keeping an eye out for this because other articles have definitely made the mistake and said they're all black, which seems to say more about those writers' respective assumptions about criminality and hoodies etc. than it does about the game's attitude.

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As someone who doesn't have the game and who probably never will because I'm past the time in my life where I can grind in a video game without grinding my teeth in real life, could you say more about this? I'm always interested in the stories of huge fuckoff AAA games, especially when they're downright evil like it sounds like The Division might be.

 

The article linked above outlines pretty well the general problem with the division, in both it's narrative and gameplay.  It seems like I'm not playing a single game so much as a weird amalgamation of game ideas.  There is a lot of what I would consider old design here, from monster closets like you would see in an old FPS to respawning camps like you would see in an MMO and so forth.  The ideas work alright on their own, but when accompanied by the others in this particular narrative it creates a jumbled, often chaotic mess that is seemingly at odds with it's purpose.  The division bills itself as a game about the collapse of society, but has the same core loop as something like Diablo.  You never spend any time rebuilding society, or even attempting to arrest criminals and instead just kind of shoot at things.  In many cases you'll see two NPCs doing the same exact thing (such as looting a box) and the only thing that distinguishes them is the color of their health bar.  It is a game about the fragility of life where enemies can take entire magazines to the face, and generally has a lot of high minded ideas that are either subverted or directly contrasted by the gameplay.  I've already lost interest in the division, partially due to it's politics, but also because the experience is so damn uneven.

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As someone who doesn't have the game and who probably never will because I'm past the time in my life where I can grind in a video game without grinding my teeth in real life, could you say more about this? I'm always interested in the stories of huge fuckoff AAA games, especially when they're downright evil like it sounds like The Division might be.

 

I think that osmosisch's link covers it VERY well, particularly as regards the lower classes being vilified (I would add only that the biggest problem in this regard is the simplistic sweep of generalizations of representation for the enemy characters. While the cleaners look appropriately villainous and over the top, the rikers and looters are simply people dressed in clothes our popular culture has decided belong to a criminal element, even though most of the people who wear them are not criminals, but marginalized peoples). What especially kills me, however, is the very basic premise of the game, that the government has planted moles all throughout the population of elite soldiers as a weird kind of double agent against the people of the country who only actually serve the government, and who, when summoned, are granted carte blanche in their actions provided they more or less do what the powers that be wish--and this idea is celebrated.

 

This completely insane fascist fantasy is bolstered by the idea that everyone else is made up of sheep in need of protection, criminals bent on murdering everyone for their own good, well meaning psychos (cleaners) and aimless looters who are simply pure opportunists. Or else we are getting some nutjob Malthusian idea of overpopulation as the incitement to this, or some equally insane inner squalor junta led by former military commanders.

 

In short, then, it is often depraved, but even more often childish in its ridiculous representations. It honestly feels about as measured, even, and well thought out as the Dead Rising games, but without the humor.

 

All this being said, I still think it's a delight to play. I've been away at a conference, and am now madly making up for lost time, so I'm not playing much this week, but even though it is dumb and faintly insidious, it's also pretty damned well constructed.

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It's perhaps worth noting that the inspiration for The Division was supposedly an extrapolation of Bush's Directive 51 as applied to a biological war scenario per Operation Dark Winter. Only, you know, since this is a shooter, the point is to save the world by shooting everyone. As you do. That doesn't make the execution any less reprehensible or wildly implausible though. But then Watch Dogs was about the same, just built as a poor GTA clone instead of a cover shooter.

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First visit to the Dark Zone last night with a friend with new low-level characters. Only to find some knobhead with high-level gear camping the main entrance, and one-shotting everyone who came through it. Even a group of six of us couldn't take him down.

 

We've renamed it the Dick Zone, and I think I might be done with this game—it's clearly very broken.  :bomb:

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First visit to the Dark Zone last night with a friend with new low-level characters. Only to find some knobhead with high-level gear camping the main entrance, and one-shotting everyone who came through it. Even a group of six of us couldn't take him down.

 

We've renamed it the Dick Zone, and I think I might be done with this game—it's clearly very broken.  :bomb:

 

I don't want to sound like a dick about it, but there are a bunch of Dark Zone entrances. You can move to another one if someone is giving you a hard time.

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Last night I finally filled out my home base. I'm about 1/2 a level from 30, but then it crashed out and I decided I was done for the night. Looking forward to teaming up with my friends in a useful capacity.

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I don't want to sound like a dick about it, but there are a bunch of Dark Zone entrances. You can move to another one if someone is giving you a hard time.

 

We did.

 

Guess who was running laps between them..?  :frusty:

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I'm actually not sure if Badfinger meant different Dark Zones aka 01 to 06 or different Dark Zone instances aka forcing a server switch for the same Dark Zone.

 

Other than the garbage political implications and explicit garbage I'm having a blast playing it. My group cleared all of the Challenging Modes and we even did a pistols and shields only of Lincoln Tunnel Challenging Mode, 

 

I hope the Incursions are really hard.

 

For the longest time I thought I hated running traditional MMO Instances or even raid style activities but considering how much I like having hard content in the division i think it was the style of interaction that made it unappealing for me.

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We did.

 

Guess who was running laps between them..?  :frusty:

 

There are like ten entrances. You'd have to be profoundly unlucky to pick the one this guy happened to be at each time on more than 2 occasions in a row.

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There are like ten entrances. You'd have to be profoundly unlucky to pick the one this guy happened to be at each time on more than 2 occasions in a row.

 

Well, as I said earlier, this was with fairly new, low-level characters. So we'd only found the first couple of entrances around the early missions--we couldn't get further into the city as the further districts are too high.

 

I think it's probably wise just to say that the Dark Zone isn't meant for early characters, even though you can still get in. It's intended as an end-game thing.

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oops, missed that bit, my bad.

 

in other news ubisoft is all "fuck you casual players": http://tomclancy-thedivision.ubi.com/game/en-GB/news/detail.aspx?c=tcm:154-245851-16&ct=tcm:148-76770-32

 

Increased costs for converting crafting materials and crafting High-End items:

10 Standard (Green) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 Specialized (Blue) material

15 Specialized (Blue) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 High-End (Gold) material

10 High-End (Gold) materials instead of 8 to craft 1 lvl 31 High-End (Gold) item

translation: everybody who was is already geared up enough to be able to do challenging mode missions and the upcoming incursion is fine, but anybody picking up the game now can just forget about it.

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Well, as I said earlier, this was with fairly new, low-level characters. So we'd only found the first couple of entrances around the early missions--we couldn't get further into the city as the further districts are too high.

 

I think it's probably wise just to say that the Dark Zone isn't meant for early characters, even though you can still get in. It's intended as an end-game thing.

 

I believe you're officially introduced to it at character level 10. The pre-character-level 30 experience is level bracketed, but you'd be in the bracket of the team leader and the lowest bracket is character level 10-12. Keep in mind that the level that's displayed inside the dark zone is actually your DZ level,  so you might see someone with the number 50 above them, with the improved gear that brings, but they should still be a character level near you.

 

Or, maybe that all broke in your case for some unknown reason *shrug*

 

http://thedivision.wiki.fextralife.com/Dark+Zones

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oops, missed that bit, my bad.

 

in other news ubisoft is all "fuck you casual players": http://tomclancy-thedivision.ubi.com/game/en-GB/news/detail.aspx?c=tcm:154-245851-16&ct=tcm:148-76770-32

 translation: everybody who was is already geared up enough to be able to do challenging mode missions and the upcoming incursion is fine, but anybody picking up the game now can just forget about it.

 

Dammit, now I know why my friends were all converting crafting items this weekend. What time does this go in? Maybe I can still get it done tonight?

 

Edit: Oh, and this means I might not be able to play with my friends even when I hit level 30 :(

 

Added a new Dark Zone bracket for characters with Gear Score 160+

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The patch is 4/12, so you have a week. Level 30 High End items are 163, so a decent sprinkling of those and level 31 (currently) purple weapons will definitely put you in that category.

 

I think that comment about the change in crafting requirements is knee jerk 101. They are changing crafting requirements alongside adding new content to the game for the first time, which will give multiple new avenues for the ability to acquire gear. They're trying to balance the game going forward, not against the first month's player base. I'm not crazy about having to pay more to craft more, but the game was too heavily balanced around crafting. Making it easier to get gear drops and also buy items is a good step forward alongside this. Challenge modes aren't nearly impossible, and a couple of hard mode runs will have you ready to run them with a little coordination.

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Dammit, now I know why my friends were all converting crafting items this weekend. What time does this go in? Maybe I can still get it done tonight?

 

Edit: Oh, and this means I might not be able to play with my friends even when I hit level 30 :(

 

It goes live in a week. You have plenty of time to convert. 

 

As for the darkzone level, The gear score almost certainly means that they can drop the high level gear in their stash to play with you. Gear score is about what is on their body, and will go up and down depending on your loadout. They probably can't just unequip the primary to be in a lower bracket (at least I hope not, otherwise plenty of people would just switch when they get in). And, much more helpfully, it helps avoid the darkzone spots where someone with WAY better gear than you just wipes the floor with your entire team (seriously, some guy dropped 4 of us in around 5 seconds with just his primary rifle. It was ridiculous).

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I think that comment about the change in crafting requirements is knee jerk 101. They are changing crafting requirements alongside adding new content to the game for the first time, which will give multiple new avenues for the ability to acquire gear. They're trying to balance the game going forward, not against the first month's player base. I'm not crazy about having to pay more to craft more, but the game was too heavily balanced around crafting. Making it easier to get gear drops and also buy items is a good step forward alongside this.

 

 

Except that they were really specific about the changes to crafting and didn't say anything about more drops or making it easier to buy stuff  (aside from DZ supply drops, I guess, which is not helpful for someone like me just trying to gear up to even be able to survive in the DZ). Even assignments, which presumably have some kind of reward attached to them, they chose to say nothing about what those rewards would be.

 

 

edit: missed this

 

 which will give multiple new avenues for the ability to acquire gear.

 

 

All of the new avenues they mentioned have minimum gear requirements (not necessarily technically gated, but in terms of either difficulty or PUGs kicking you from the group because you don't meet some threshold) which I already don't meet, is my point, from a casual point of view.

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Except that they were really specific about the changes to crafting and didn't say anything about more drops or making it easier to buy stuff  (aside from DZ supply drops, I guess, which is not helpful for someone like me just trying to gear up to even be able to survive in the DZ). Even assignments, which presumably have some kind of reward attached to them, they chose to say nothing about what those rewards would be.

 

 

edit: missed this

 

 

 

All of the new avenues they mentioned have minimum gear requirements (not necessarily technically gated, but in terms of either difficulty or PUGs kicking you from the group because you don't meet some threshold) which I already don't meet, is my point, from a casual point of view.

 

Sorry, I was commenting from a spot where I have both seen the patch notes and I've watched/read the stuff they did for the upcoming patch release. The Daily/Weekly quests are pretty obviously a way to get people to log in every day beyond just doing missions, but they're also an easily achievable and renewable source of gear that doesn't require challenge mode+ coordination. They talked all about the gear. Literally every avenue available to players to acquire more gear makes it easier to acquire gear, because you get to roll the dice more times. Daily missions are a solo experience. Hard mode missions are a solo experience. 

 

  • Increase drop rates of Division Tech, to make it less of a bottleneck than it currently is

That is super good. That post you linked is very coherent from my point of view. It's more materials to build an item because the materials are guaranteed to be more plentiful (2 gold mats guaranteed per disassemble).

 

Nearly all the changes and tweaks they've made in a month (and I'm continually impressed with the amount and communication of said changes) have added value to the systems already in the game.

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I need to get up to 30 and play with you guys, I'm wallowing in level 17 hell right now.

Yes, you do! Just do the story missions with random groups of people (makes it way quicker to level up). It's fun. And once you're at 30, grouping in the DZ is a blast.

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The new incursion is really hard. And we have only tried the lower difficulty mode. I like the increase in difficulty but I'm afraid it's gonna end up being a Dragonball level of power creep. After we finished the hard mode Russian consulate in challenging mode was rather easy.

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Does it get any good? I only made it as far as round 8 of 15! of the apc bit, pretty early on. It's tough, but more importantly, it's fucking tedious. I'm growing less and less interested with how grindy the end-game is. The same enemies but with 8 clips of ammo in them worth of health (daily missions), or instakill snipers/shotguns, or ridiculous huge numbers of waves malarky grows old quick.

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