The Division 2 - Make Washington D.C. Great Again

Does any vendor have the digital versions for Xbox or pc for less than full retail?

Played the first Division a lot, but we unfortunately fell off it because they couldn’t keep the end game together and we weren’t interested with trying to keep up with the PvP meta. I enjoyed the Beta at the weekend - more of the same, which is good, although as much as I think the layout of D.C. is cool, Summer D.C. is definitely not better than Winter New York. God that was beautiful.

My friend seems to think that’s homogenised some of the ‘build’ potential in the early game - he didn’t feel you could specialise into a role as easily as your could in D1. I wasn’t sure either way, but if they want to promote end-game ‘Specialisations’ as a thing, it makes sense they’d perhaps limit that to make them stand out more. After-all, why going for say the Sharpshooter one when you’ve specc’d for long-range headshots with normal gear.

I also found the DZ East intro mission to be a bit long-winded (like, they hold your hand through all the basic aspects of the Dark Zone), and a bit OTT as far as moralising the DZ goes. I mean, jeez lady, I’m just here for the loot. I don’t care what your thoughts are on Greed as a motivator for being a bad person.

Based on The Division, what’s the online community (random players) for this most likely going to be like? I played that Payday game and enjoyed it, but also got fairly tired of the map memorizing people who immediately started ranting when you did not do every single action in their perfectly memorized way.

I think I played through the Division last winter (so well after release), but I had a mostly positive experience. I went through the story and available PVE missions almost entirely solo and enjoyed that. You can group up or leave your settings open to allow randoms to join which I did occasionally. I ran into the occasional player that wanted to rush a mission, but I never had that affect my experience too poorly…and missions are designed to be staged so that one person typically cannot advance much farther than the rest of the group tackling the current objective.

Once you go into the PVP Dark Zone you will have a more mixed experience though I found it better than I was expecting. I frequently grouped up with randoms in the DZ and were very friendly to each other and worked quite cooperatively for a few hours. Sometimes a better geared or better skilled player would be a troll but then a bunch of us randoms would casually team up to take them down or to protect our loot during extractions. I actually found a lot more camaraderie and helpful players in the DZ that I anticipated; but by design the DZ will be a more uneven experience than the rest of the game.

I played The Division at release, and it had some of the worst progression/gear customization systems I’ve ever seen. I enjoyed the gameplay, but found everything else outside that to be awful.

I hear The Division got better, but I never bothered to go back. Did the areas I mentioned get improved? Is it supposed to be better in Division 2?

The first Division got drastically better after release. They put so much cool new stuff in, reworked time to kill, gave you new objectives and motivation, and that’s outside of DLC - and I think the Survival DLC is one of the most awesome additions I’ve ever played. I hear rumors that they’re trying to create a similar mode for 2, but I have to wonder how they’ll replace the ever-present possibility of freezing to death in summertime.

Is the survival DLC any good for solo players?

Dude, summertime in DC makes me want to kill myself. It shouldn’t be hard.

I would say so, given that’s how I played it 90% of the time. Playing solo makes Survival simultaneously harder and easier. Harder because you don’t have someone to help watch your back, or revive you if you go down - but easier because you aren’t dividing resources with someone else.

Interesting, thanks. I actually have the DLC on Xbox, but I’d have to reinstall all 283736363738383635343637374847464 bits to try it out.

The Division 1 released March 2016 but I didn’t get around to playing Winter-Spring 2018 and the game had transformed drastically by then. I am not a loot shooter connoisseur, but Ubisoft gave that game a lot of love and TLC and seemed to have dialed in the mechanics, loot, and gameplay rather nicely. I definitely agree with @divedivedive.

That said, some people prefer the wacky extremes you get with sci-fi/fantasy looters and the Division doesn’t lean in that direction until maybe the endgame progression(?). You have to be okay with knowing that each “class” of firearms will handle roughly the same across loot drops. But there are enough variation between classes to adjust gaming styles. I played sniper/DMR for a while but then was growing weary of that approach so switched up to shotguns/smgs/pistols for more frantic closer range firefights. Beyond that assualt rifles, LMGs, and experimenting with your skills/specializations all allow for a wide spectrum of play styles.

This is making me feel like I should just play The Division 1.

What exactly does the new one offer that the existing one doesn’t? Other than corny wall jokes and D.C.?

Its £7.50 for the Gold Edition in the UK Ubi Store (for some reason much cheaper than the standard edition - same for Far Cry 5 Gold)

At that price I have just bought it as I am curious about it, many of my friends were hooked at launched but it passed me by.

Unless you need the new hotness on release the Division 1 might be a great way to go. The complete package is frequently on sale or bundled. I still have it installed on my PC and there is a lot of game there along with the fun added modes like Survival. Even if most of the population moves over to 2 you don’t need them unless you wanted a bustling PVP DZ experience.

Worth it to see Ubi at the top of their game crafting an evocative Manhattan in winter decked out in Holiday decorations.

I think at least dipping your toes into the first game is a totally valid strategy. The sequel isn’t going anywhere.

Just as an FYI, the problem with The Division (at least in my opinion) is that the weakest part of the game is the early part when you have no power and crap gear. And this pretty much lasts until you beat the main campaign content and hit level 30, because the best gear won’t show up until you’re 30 and many game events don’t even show up for you on lower world tiers (so, difficulty). You kind of have to eat your vegetables and then the entire game map opens up to you.

From what I’ve seen and played of the sequel, I think it will work much the same. The “main” campaign can be thought of as a tutorial, then you sing 30 and can do whatever you want.

Speaking as someone who put in a dozen hours into Division1 at release, gave up, then starting replaying a week ago with frenz: Division 1 is definitely worth your time.

I personally disagree, but then I played the Division with a group of three friends exclusively.

But the Level 1 - 30 journey was one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I think I’ve ever had. Yeah, it’s rough in those early levels when you’re not at your maximum capacity, but the way you learn and grow into the game, as well as exploring the lore via the ECHOS and story snippets was just superb.

If anything, the weakest part was the endgame, but it depends at which point you were playing the end game and what kind of activities you preferred doing. I felt the PvE endgame fell away as they tried to fix the PvP element.

That’s fair, someone considering the game should hear multiple opinions to help them decide. I personally didn’t think much of the story elements but I enjoyed the shooting and looting, that’s what kept me going.

Division 1 made post-launch improvements nearly to the extent of Warframe, NMS and Diablo 3. It went from a bad game to an excellent one, largely because they kept adding features and content at an excellent pace. If you can get a good price on it, take a look!

As for the community, I found it varied a lot between PvE and PvP. On PC, many people used VOIP, and I often bumped into pleasant enough players while running missions. It wasn’t exactly LOTRO or The Secret World, but most folks were fine. In the Dark Zone, it was different. That place is a magnet for the worst kinds of people who play video games. It was bad. I’m happy to see that in TD2, they have completely disabled proximity-based VOIP in the Dark Zone.

I have really no desire to play this PvP, just PvE (but with other players). So that sounds good.

As for price, the Gold Edition is $9.00 on UPlay right now.