In this week's State of the Game for The Division 2, Senior Lead Designer Keith Evans and Creative Director Terry Spier, both from Red Storm Entertainment, shared some of the changes coming to Episode 2. Discussed as well is Title Update 6 and PvP.
You can check the full stream below:
One exiting addition that players can look forward to with The Divsion 2 is the new PvP mode titled Team Elimination. This new feature is set to arrive to the PTS in Wave 2.
Title Update 6 – PVP Updates
The team said that upcoming Title Update 6 is expected to bring changes not only to the PvP, but also to the Dark Zone and Conflict. In addition, the changes discussed on last week's State of the Game have made have an impact on PvP as well. Examples include:
- Loot targeting now allow players to find specific pieces for a PvP build.
- Recalibration changes have an impact on PvP.
- There's a large balance pass coming with TU6 including changes to attributes and PvP talents.
Dark Zone Updates
The team's objective when it comes to Title Update 6 is to offer good incentives for players to participate in the Dark Zone. In addition, the team also wanted to ensure that the zones have a more active feel by having 12 players in them as often as possible.
The community and Elite Task Force members have mentioned that they would like to have a more active DZ, and with it bring an increase to the number of people in a zone.
- Changes are being made to the way Dark Zone servers fill up.
- When entering a Checkpoint, the server checks for an ideal server for the player so that they join a DZ that has a high population already. If they're on a server where not many players are exploring the Dark Zones, they'll be transferred to one with more active Dark Zones.
- This should increase player numbers in an active Dark Zone, and Agents should encounter 12-player DZs more often.
- Groups will also get matched to active servers, and group members will get a notification, similar to readying up in Conflict.
- The whole server process is also very fluid, and players shouldn't notice a difference when entering a DZ.
Supply drops are also getting updated with increased variety and more locations.
- Supply drops can now also drop at inactive landmarks, and then be protected by multiples bosses, or different factions are going to fight for them. This also means a greater chance for contaminated loot.
- This also applies to the Occupied Dark Zone. Supply drops are being added to the ODZ, guarded by Black Tusk soldiers.
Ambushes are also going to be added during extraction. Details include:
- When calling for extraction, there's a small chance that a Black Tusk Helicopter is going to ambush the extraction zone.
- Players then have two options: fight or flight.
- It's not going to be an easy challenge, so finding a new extraction zone is not a bad idea. On the other hand, survival may be rewarded with more loot.
The Thieves Den Vendor is going to be updated with TU6. This is going to have a storefront and an updated and improved stock of items, which rotates regularly. Players can spend Dark Zone resources, which are being streamlined into a single currency (instead of three), to buy something there. The vendor now moves between the two non-occupied Dark Zones, and the map is going to show where the Den is open for business.
Changes are also coming to normalization.
- In the endgame, players' attributes are no longer normalized.
- For example, recalibrated gear now have the same attributes outside of the DZ.
- This allows players that really focus on perfecting their builds in PvP to have a small advantage over those that choose not to.
- Players below Gear Score 500 are going to still have their attributes boosted to the max level to allow for easier entry into PvP.
- Talents still have a PvE and a PvP version, but the team is also making improvements to the UI.
- Talents will now automatically show their PvP version when in a PvP activity. PvP modifiers are going to be added to the UI for more clarity.
- This is going to make it easier to understand what stats are changing, so players know exactly what Skill does how much damage.
So what does this meanfor the PvP meta in TU6? Considering all the changes coming to the game, the team expects to see a lot of new builds that can compete. The team also wants players to have more options in PvP and not simply focus on armor-heavy builds.
Conflict Updates – Match Reward Adjustments
Whether players win or lose a game, they are still going to be rewarded for playing Conflict. The high score reward is being replaced with a Match Complete reward. Ranking up and winning will still earn additional rewards. This change was made to improve the pacing for rewards in Conflict, and should make it a little more rewarding to just jump in and play.
The team went on to say that Conflict is going to be added to the Daily Project rotation. Players now have either a Dark Zone project, or a Conflict project. When playing Conflict, players are now able to adjust their loadouts freely during map voting. Players won't be able to switch during matches, however.
