1883

So, the expansions are on sale for like $2.50 each on GMG…worth getting? Are there still people still online? I haven’t played since a few months after launch, but I liked it a lot at the time.

1884

I just got the game recently, also on GMG, and there are paaahhhlenty of people online still, it seems.

1885

Well, yes. Except for Survival. You have to remember that TD is well into its meta phase, which means most players are looking only for activities that push those numbers up a % or so. Survival is fun as hell, but it is not an efficient loot path, hence few play it these days.

1886

Survival would be weird if it was full of people anyway.

The next shield should be opening up soon right?

Edit: looks like new shield is active today, underground related.

1887

Survival is awesome with 24 clueless newb^h^h^h^H inexperienced folks scampering around and shooting at shadows.

1888

Speaking of survival (two months later) I decided I’d dust this off and try for the Phoenix shield and yep, I still totally suck at survival mode. I guess I’m not any worse than I was the last time I tried some time back, I did at least get to the dark zone and grabbed the antivirals, but once again I got in a bad spot and couldn’t get to the extraction point, let alone crafting the flare gun in order to extract, because I ran into a bad dude who just gunned me down. There’s a tricky balance to playing survival well, balancing caution and speed, and I have never really found it. And I’m about to start looking for folks to sherpa me because solo is clearly not working for me. Ah well.

1889

So what the heck, figured I’d update with my adventures in survival mode, along with a few things I’ve learned in case it may be helpful. I’ve used the LFG function in Xbox to set up a couple of sessions and they’ve been constructed but … I still haven’t successfully extracted from a survival run.

But I’ve gotten close! Frustratingly so in a few cases - just this weekend me and another guy got to the end, and just as we were taking out the hunters, my sickness counter ticked down to zero and I fell over dead, no medkit-ing back for me. But I did get credit for the hunter kills on the shield!

As for what I’ve learned, they may seem like no-brainers but I somehow missed them, so maybe it would be useful to others. First, infection only kills when the time runs out. You’ll get updates from ISAC about the infection worsening but this has no in-game effect, you only care about the timer. To that end, when you get your hands on painkillers and medicine, use them. You only want to hold them if you’re already under the effect of one or the other. They pause the timer so any time you don’t lose is time you could be prepping for extraction.

Second, you cannot die of hunger or dehydration. You do get periodic updates about hunger and thirst and you can eat and drink, but those exist to enable game functions. Eating will enable your passive health regen and drinking will enable your ability to notice pick-ups in your vicinity. And that’s all they do.

Survival plays a lot differently than regular old Division, but it’s a fun change. I’m definitely going to keep trying to get through it, I’m so close!

1890

I realize this thread is in very real danger of just turning into my blog of time playing The Division, but I figured what the heck, there may be one person out there that read my last post and thought, oh no! I wonder if divedivedive will ever successfully complete a Survival run?

Well wonder no more, because yesterday I did extract successfully from a survival run! And as expected, I accomplished this by carefully managing my pace and making sure I grabbed all the resources I could find before getting near the dark zone. Also, carefully avoiding any combat until I was sure I was equipped to handle it.

Only downside is that someone yoinked my hunter kill at the end, and then took the copter I signaled, but luckily I just shot another flare and escaped. Funny thing I found out, hunters don’t return if you have to call another heli, you can just stand there and wait for its arrival.

1891

So, you did it alone? Bravo, sir! (and yes, at least one person is reading)

1892

Yes, single-handedly! Pretty proud of myself. I should also point out that I watched a few streamers over the last week to get a handle on how they did things, it helped me put a plan together.

1893

I am reading as well, so congrats!
Imagine I still don’t own the Survival DLC. I should have bought that instead of Underground. Underground is kinda underwhelming… anyway… who pre-ordered Division 2?

1894

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1895

That reminds me, I bought the season pass from Greenmangaming back in July and they didn’t have a key available at the time. I should check if that ever…

Nope, no key. That’s fucking ridiculous. I’ve submitted a ticket. They need to either provide me with what I paid for or refund my money.

Edit: Ticket answered - they manually issued a key. That works.

1896

So hey, anyone else working on getting the shields introduced in the last update? Specifically the Talon shield, which requires you to get 3000 commendation score? I’m at around 2300 and I’m looking back through my unearned commendations for the easiest ones, guess I’ll start doing stuff like Search and Destroy, and killing dudes while under the effect of consumables. Just curious if anyone else had strategies or suggestions?

1897

Just wanted to pop in and point out that my quest to get all of the shields prior to The Division 2’s release is likely at an end. The latest shield released in the last couple weeks, the Fang shield, is probably beyond my abilities. What it requires is to beat all levels that are available to play on Legendary difficulty on that difficulty, it’s maybe 6 or 7 levels. And wow, it’s really hard! Which I guess you’d think legendary difficulty would be. But I grouped up with some randoms and gave Amherst’s apartment a shot on legendary and we were just taken apart. Didn’t get through the first enemy encounter. I’m sure if I grouped up with better players I’d have a better shot but I don’t really have friends still playing this, so it will always be randoms so, yeah. It’s probably for the best, don’t need to beat my head against a wall just for some ornamental items in the sequel.

1898

Yea, would be nice to get things done, but without a dedicated team there is so much that is ‘out of bounds’, so better to not play at all I guess. Wonder if I managed to unlock any shields at all during the time I played, or I guess nothing was retroactively counted?

1899

Very little of it is unlocked retroactively, I think none beyond the first shield that you get for fully upgrading your base of operations.

1900

Yea, logged in and noticed I had nothing… Oh well. NYC still looks nice though, wish there was way more story-content.

1901

Two years ago I tried briefly the game on a free weekend and didn’t like it.

Now that Humble Bundle Monthly offered it, I tried it again. This time my impression wasn’t as negative, maybe it got me before in a bad day, at least time I continued playing until the addictive quality of the genre started working on me. Now I’m level 18 after playing three days, for reference.

That said, the spell of ARPGs is thin on me, they usually lose their adictiviness after a week or less. And that’s the case here too, after three days I’m already tired of lots of things in the game. All the side quests and events are repetitive and simple and boring, the only part worth playing are the story missions, which are longer, more intense and more engaging. I wish the game was something like Payday or Vermintide, a coop where with standalone missions, as that’s the good part.
But, I can’t skip the side quests because you won’t level up enough just playing the story missions :/, nor gain enough resources to unlock the base of operations. The difficulty progression is meh, while the game is on the hard side if you play content of your level, there is enough content to be overleveled by 2 levels and make the game less annoying (less bullet sponges, less waiting you recover health).

The gunplay is fine at first, but after a while you notice the limitations of third person shooters, even more in a realistic setting, there isn’t enough difference between AR, SMG, and MGs, in a FPS you usually can give them a bit more of uniqueness in their handling. And I still haven’t seen anything more exotic, like a grenade launcher accessory or a RPG. And given how the game works and the type of engagements you play, almost always the weapon to use is a medium range AR with the highest DPS. That’s it, take the weapon with the biggest number that can be used at medium-to-long range, and shoot in bursts. Low mobility and reliance in cover means close range options aren’t that hot.

After that, we have the loot. Perhaps the most boring loot ever designed in the genre. Now you can see why the other offerings use a fantasy or science fiction setting. They are all the same weapons with higher numbers, and even the unique effects are boring like a passive that increase damage in the first bullet, or more critical chance to the head, or a +4% hp to your turret, stuff like that.

At this point it’s when I start thinking that maybe my time would be better invested in other games.

1902

That’s sort of where I ended up, though I think I got one character to the end game stuff and leveled another part way before I bailed. I usually do not like 3rd person shooters, but this was pretty solid mechanically. The story is cringe worthy and kinds of icky IMO but overall the game was worth what I paid for it.