The Division 2 makes it quite easy to reach a higher Gear Score in the endgame. It is almost too easy to exploit the system to reach Item-Level 500, as our author Tarek finds.
When we discussed The Division 2, my editor-in-chief Schuhmann and I noticed one thing: Leveling up the Gear Score is quite simple. Almost too simple.
What is supposed to be endgame content for many hours can be easily bypassed and exploited by friends and other tricks. I will explain what I mean by that.
Theoretically, the endgame offers a lot to do
To explain this more precisely, I need to briefly explain the system with the world tiers.
- Once you reach level 30, only the Gear Score matters. It indicates how strong your equipment values are.
- Your total Gear Score is calculated from the Gear Score of each individual piece of equipment.
- In addition, there are 5 world tiers linked to that.
- In each world tier, you must complete activities like the mission location invasions and infiltrated bases to level up.
- The bases require a minimum Gear Score.
- You have to farm equipment again within each tier, add about 50 Gear points, and complete the missions up to the next base.
In theory, each world tier offers a lot to do until you advance to the next world tier and have to farm again. However, there is a catch.
The minimum Gear Score can be easily bypassed
I completed the world tiers normally myself. I farmed Gear for each tier again, only to then progress to the next tier after a few hours.
When it came to pulling my friends through the world tiers, I noticed how easily one can circumvent the system.
Even if you help someone lower through world tier 1, you still get tons of loot at the maximum Gear Score of that world tier (300). The associated base only requires 275.
After a mission, you have plenty of items that you can simply share, and within a maximum of 30 minutes, your friend is already at the required Gear Score. He no longer needs equipment from that world tier, just the necessary missions.
So you simply drop your own equipment that you don’t need. The friend picks it up. The equipment is much stronger than what would actually drop for him.
Thus, the system is already bypassed.
But it can be even easier: Our reader Pave sent us a video where he simply goes shopping with his world tier 1 character at his friend’s world tier 5.
In no time, his Gear Score jumps from the mid-200s to 400+. You can watch the video here:
Schuhmann also told me how he ran his first mission on world tier 5 with randoms on the challenging difficulty and had already climbed from around 450 to 495.
Simply because the players had a higher Gear Score and shared everything with him that they didn’t need.
There are probably many other ways to quickly reach the Gear Score cap within minutes.
Massive should set a direction
Is this bad or good? I still haven’t formed a clear opinion on this.
- On one hand, everyone can play the game the way they want. You can approach the endgame in the traditional way and leisurely play from world tier 1-5.
- On the other hand, I find it strange that developers Massive haven’t built in any limits or restrictions here.
- Solo players are also at a clear disadvantage, as they cannot use all these tricks to increase their Gear Score faster.
In games like Destiny 2, the developer Bungie pays more attention to ensuring that you can’t just breeze through.
If Massive wants such a linear grind for The Division 2, they should think of some restrictions.
For example, sharing equipment could be tied to the world tier that the player has reached. Thus, sharing between a player in world tier 5 and one in world tier 1 could be restricted.
That would at least be one possibility.
However, if this freedom is exactly what is intended, one should consider revising the world tier system. Currently, the bases feel unnecessary as a prerequisite for leveling up.
I wonder: Why were the world tiers even implemented? Up to the highest world tier, optimizing equipment is unnecessary since you will find better gear anyway.
The mission location invasions and bases could have been played by any player without the world tiers. A chronological order, like in the main campaign, would be completely sufficient. After all, the missions around the Black Tusk are also intended as a second campaign.
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I am curious whether Massive will make changes in the future.
Maybe it will still change to a system like Schuhmann initially envisioned:
What do you think about the topic? What do you think about the world tiers?
