The massive expansion “Warlords of New York” for The Division 2 is online and the patch notes for Title Update 8 are very long. Check out some highlights of the adjustments here and what has changed if you start up again now.
What kind of expansion is this? After the first year of The Division 2 ended in February with Episode 3, year 2 began on March 3rd with the comprehensive expansion “Warlords of New York”.
What’s new now? A large campaign in New York is now available to all buyers of the expansion. But in addition to the new content, there are a ton of adjustments with TU8.
If you haven’t purchased the €30 add-on, you can find out here what Division 2 offers without Warlords. For everyone else, there is:
- A new open world with 4 large sections
- 5 new main missions – The Hunt for Aaron Keener
- 8 associated side missions
Additionally, Title Update 8 changes a lot of the gameplay mechanics. To give you an overview of what has changed, we provide a summary of the patch notes here.
Title Update 8 with Gear 2.0, new Exotics, Skills, and Talents
What happens to the gear? All gear is getting a general overhaul, and there are new attributes, equipment, and talents. This includes Exotics, gear sets, brands, and everything you need for the new builds.
- Gear 2.0 – The entire equipment has been revised
- New equipment – New equipment is coming into the game.
- Attributes – There will be 14 attributes in the new system.
- Armor Talents – These equipment abilities are now only available from vests and backpacks. The notes mention 21 vest talents and 17 backpack talents.
What about the skills? The skills have also been revamped and now function with “Skill Tiers” instead of skill strength. There are also a few new skills.
- Skill Strength – The skills now work with skill tiers and are stronger the higher the tier.
- New Skills – Warlords brings some new skills and variants; the first 4 are already online.
TU8 removes Gear Score and introduces better recalibration
What changes with leveling? Whether you are playing Warlords or not, your level will initially be increased. With the expansion, you’ll be at level 40 and without increasing Gear Score to 515. At level 40, Gear Score will no longer exist.
After level 40, you can further improve and specialize your agents with a new progression system.
- Level Cap – Level increased to 40 for Warlords players
- More Equipment Levels – Gear Score increased to 515 for agents who stay in DC
- Infinite Progression – An “infinite” progression system. After level 40, you can strengthen yourself further and specialize your agents more.
What about loot? Overall, you should receive less loot, but of better quality. Additionally, the quality should depend on the difficulty of the activities, and it will be better visible which items are really good.
- Loot – Less loot but with higher quality
- God-Roll System – Better visibility of good rolls
What about crafting? The workbench is now more oriented to the player’s stats and gives items that are at the agent’s level. In the endgame, the stats of the crafted items can vary widely. This also applies to exotic weapons and armor, which will no longer automatically come with the top value.
- Crafting – The workbench is now based on the player’s level, and crafted items have a random strength.
- Crafting Exotics – Exotics no longer come from the workbench with the best roll and can vary in strength.
- Recalibration – You can still only change one stat on the items, but now there is an attribute library.
- Mods – The small extra bonuses now only add one stat and have been completely overhauled.
From level 40, there are Seasons, global difficulty, and directives
What happens after level 40? In the endgame, several mechanics have been added that give you more options to alter the activities and make longer play more rewarding. These include:
- Global Difficulty
- Directives
- Seasons
The 3 new mechanics are only available starting from level 40 and upon completion of the Warlords campaign.
What does global difficulty do? Activities are tied to global difficulty. If you change it, all activities change, including those in the open world. The levels are Normal, Hard, Challenging, and Heroic.
Additionally, the bandits will no longer take over your secured checkpoints. You can clear the entire mega-map without losing a checkpoint.
However, once you increase or decrease the global difficulty, all activities will reset, and you will have to reclaim all points, but you can also repeat missions.
What are directives? To further increase the difficulty and earn more experience points, you can activate directives. These are gameplay modifiers that change the gaming experience.
Currently, there are 5 of them, and you can activate them all at the same time. 1 or 2 directives work just as well. An example would be “No Regeneration”. Then you will have no armor regeneration in all your activities.
How does it work with the seasons? The new seasons last for 12 weeks and are intended to regularly bring new content into the game. Check here if you want to know everything about the season. The first one starts on March 10th.
New Hunters, NPCs, and changed Dark Zone with Warlords of New York
What changes in the Dark Zone? The list of changes is long, here are the key points:
- More extraction points
- There is only DZ-XP for interactions with players, extractions, or supply drops
- Clearing sights or taking out NPCs no longer gives DZ-XP
- All items are contaminated and now display the attributes directly
- Breaking down contaminated items yields contaminated DZ resources
- The signature weapons of the specializations are no longer usable in the Dark Zone
- No more Rogue-Lite. There are only normal and rogue agents now
- Loot from a survived “Manhunt” is not contaminated
- Loot quality has been increased
- DZ introduction missions are shorter
- Less DZ-XP loss when dying
- You can activate rogue status faster
- Heroic sights and project tasks have been added
- Dark Zone perks have been revised
- Normalization only affects weapon damage and base armor
- The occupied Dark Zone is now normalized
What about hunters? After hunter outfits have come into the game, there are now also new hunter puzzles. A total of 8 new secrets have been added to the game, 4 in DC and 4 in New York.
Are there any changes with the vendors? The vendor at the hideout will completely disappear from the game, providing no regular supply of named weapons.
Cassie Mendoza and the clan vendor now have a broader range of stats that can be on the items. Thus, the items may often be poor, but they can also be significantly better than those at normal vendors.
Changes with the NPCs? The elite enemies are now more dangerous and pay more attention to the skills of the agents. Additionally, they take less damage from the signature weapons of the specializations. As “damage to elite enemies” has disappeared from the player, the yellow enemies could become significantly more dangerous again.
Moreover, the Black Tusk got 4 new units and some bonuses against player enemies.
Here you can find the complete patch notes of the Warlords expansion in English.
The next time in The Division 2 will be interesting and many players are curious how the changes will affect the game and whether it can remain motivating for a longer duration. For March, however, we can only recommend a round of Division 2, check out what else is coming this month:
