Nope to the latter.
Major props for a great UI for quickly noting new gear and flagging it for mass sale, favoriting or recalibration fodder. I am ruthlessly efficient with the trigger buttons on what isn’t the highest level/gear score item.
Blues I keep items/weapons for my level and discard when I outlevel it. Purples get 2 level gap whole yellow I allow 3.
Once you get to the recalibration stage, the best thing about most new gear is the potential for an extractable value in a useful stat. I scan for the ones with very high stats (the darker background on the icon). My pattern when going back to base is usually to first go and extract stuff, then see if I can actually recal something, then check the crafting vendor/bench, then sell everything.
Yeah, I start from the right side, talent first and if none extractable work my way left. then vendor the rest.
Does anyone else have a bug where there is a ! marking new/unviewed mods where there aren’t any new ones?
Also, I’m a litte let down by how little there is to each of the 4 minibosses after the story build-up and trailers. A single breadcrumb mission and then a kill-em mission (that can be a little longer) but then it’s over.
For base game or WONY? The New York manhunt was pretty solid I thought. The DC stuff, yeah, the denouements are not quite stellar. I do love the bulk of the game leading into the end game, though. I’m leveling another agent just to revisit the story missions, which I actually generally like.
Yeah. That one drives me crazy. I move over every single mod in every category to get rid of the ! and it stays. Then at some point mysteriously disappears.
Yeah it went away mysteriously today, probably a mod I had that had the new status stuck
For WONY I felt. It was too abrupt with only 1 breadcrumb mission for each “warlord” or zero with Dragov/Wall Street.
Hmm, I thought I remember clearing each zone before I took on the bosses, with multiple missions. Maybe those weren’t strictly necessary?
Really enjoying this now. Now Ubi have got the hang of removing the looter shooter from their games, maybe they’ll do it here :)
It’s less offensive in the Division games, given the chaotic post semi-apocalyptic setting (though why they make the bad ass commandos of the US military and intelligence world buy their own gear from gouging quartermasters is beyond me–it’s so 19th century). Early on, it’s kind of fun, too, to loot some gear that’s (gasp!) actually better than what you are using. I find the gear progression a big draw, even though Ubi overdoes it with the bajillion nearly identical doo-dads and incremental upgrades.
It was refreshing that I dove into The Division 2 right after the non-existent loot system of Anthem.
Massive changed the daily/weekly projects at level 40 so it’s harder to earn blueprints for crafting. The subreddit recommends making an alt, doing the intro to unlocking the first skill and boosting to 30 without ever leaving DC. This along buying the shared blueprints and resources unlock.
So I gave this a try over the weekend, completing the first two story missions and can’t say I’m too eager to continue. I’m sure that the game opens up eventually and that the leveling up, upgrading and crafting is what helps with long term motivation, but I’m wondering if there is any variation to the basic gameplay later on?
Right now it all comes down to: go to this room/area, kill everybody, proceed. I’ve tried to do some sneaking (I know it’s not that type of game) but doors would only open once I had killed everybody in the area.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint has sneaking not this one.
Not being able to sneak isn’t really my complaint, it’s just that the basic gameplay seems super linear to me at this point and I’m wondering if that changes at all. Of course there will be variations when more gadgets become available, but I take it that “kill everybody, then move on” remains the MO?
Yep, thats the core gameplay loop.
Yeah, the real draw of the game is figuring out strategies for the different combat scenarios you will find yourself in, and the loot. Finding that great new assault rifle or LMG. Figuring out what style you want to use: do you want to be an all out offense player with all red mods and maximizing damage, running and gunning so using a rifle or AR and SMG loadout? Do you prefer (as I did when I started) to optimize for a longer range style where possible, getting the best marksman rifle and mods to optimize headshot damage? I started that way, playing mainly solo, and developed my sniping skills such that I could one shot head shot a bad guy running from cover to cover pretty consistently, then had a great LMG to handle close quarters. Or you can develop a skill build where you depend on skills for crowd control. Once I got all the way to level 30/GS500 (before the expansion) I experimented with different builds and hunted for the perfect gear to optimize each one.
It also depends on whether you play with a group, play any PVP, etc. I play PVE only, and my play is 50% solo 50% coop with my brother. It’s a great coop game.
The loop is the same throughout, yes, but the game is decidedly non-linear in some ways. The story progression is mostly linear, in that you have certain key missions you have to complete to get to the end game, but there are many side missions and the order in which you do things is pretty open. Most importantly, though, the city itself is fairly dynamic. Friendly and enemy forces clash as patrols and foraging parties intersect. Different groups of bad guys get into fights with each other as their paths cross. Control points can shift control later in the game, even.
What I like best about the game is the wandering around the city. Even if I’m heading to a specific goal–a SHD cache, a mission, whatever–I often just wander down alleys and across fences, looking for loot and bumping into bad guys. Sometimes you run into an elite or named bad guy. Sometimes you run into two groups duking it out, and you can kill 'em all. There are events like hostage situations and supply drops that occur randomly as well. My advice is to not play the game as a series of missions. Use the missions as sort of milestones to guide your exploration of the environment.
But yes, the gunplay is at the core of the experience. If you aren’t having fun in each individual firefight, you won’t like the game. The story is crap, the mission design is repetitive, and the loot combines too much stuff with too little variation sometimes, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts IMO because the basic actions of moving and fighting are superbly handled.
Also the mission settings are fun, with DC museums getting a starring role.
I think if you binge it the repetition will get to you, but it suits a leisurely pace IMO.