Even though the Warlords expansion for The Division 2 and the changes from Title Update 8 are well received by many players, there are also problems. Among the biggest issues are likely the overpowered NPCs and the poor loot at increasing difficulty levels. Now the developers have responded.
This is currently causing discussions: Recently, the new expansion Warlords of New York launched, accompanied by the major Title Update 8. Included were not only numerous new content but also many changes to existing mechanics and systems.
However, even though some agents are enjoying the new expansion and the content from TU8, there are areas where it simply does not fit for many players. The two currently most debated problems are the balance at higher difficulty levels and the corresponding loot.
What are the current biggest problems?
This bothers many agents significantly: Those who have completed the Warlords campaign and delve deeper into the endgame and into Season 1 will sooner or later increase the difficulty. And that’s exactly where many begin to face problems.
If you don’t have an absolute God-build, enemies become disproportionately stronger with increasing levels. Especially elite enemies turn into real bullet sponges, which one must often shoot for minutes before they finally drop. However, you can go down after just a few shots, sometimes even just one. This makes it less enjoyable for many – neither alone nor in a group, where enemies additionally scale.
For those who don’t know what’s going on, here’s a video from Reddit where 3 agents desperately try to destroy a Black Tusk healing station on legendary difficulty:
As if that were not enough, you are not noticeably better rewarded for your efforts at higher difficulty levels, even though you might need 30 minutes longer for the same mission. It’s not uncommon to be “rewarded” with purple items on “Challenging”. Even God-rolls don’t seem to occur more frequently.
In short: While you are facing significantly tougher enemies, the loot barely improves with increasing difficulty, which makes it even more frustrating for many.
Even though there are currently still enough other issues in the game, such as faulty season progress, non-resettable checkpoints, the TTK in the Dark Zone, nasty bugs, or technical problems (as also seen after today’s maintenance) – the overpowered NPCs and the poor loot are what many wish to improve as quickly as possible. Now the developers have finally spoken.
What do the developers say about it?
Where do the information come from? In the State of the Game on March 11, the developers confirmed that they are indeed aware of the criticism and emphasize that they are receiving many comments from the community on this topic and are not simply ignoring them.
The most important point for many upfront: The developers are looking at possible changes to scaling in co-op and at the difficulty level, and some changes will likely come – even if they appear to be just minimal. However, they did not specify when exactly.
What changes are expected for the NPCs? They admitted that it currently takes too long for enemies to die in some situations. In general, they are satisfied with the state and balance at the “Hard” difficulty level – that’s exactly where they want to be.
The Challenging difficulty level was designed for players with perfect builds and maximized attributes. Currently, the encounters are a bit exaggerated in terms of NPC health and damage. Additionally, this also limits build diversity, as everyone simply focuses on damage (red attributes).
However, they want to encourage build diversity. It is therefore very likely that there will be moderate adjustments here.
“Heroic” and “Legendary” should still remain tough for all players. So if adjustments are made here, they will only be minimal. In the end, it should still be challenging. It won’t be a walk in the park.
Also, the scaling for elite enemies in co-op, i.e., the increase in enemy damage, armor, and health with an increasing number of players, is currently not functioning as intended.
In short: The difficulty levels above “Hard” are intended for optimally equipped agents. Additionally, elite enemies in co-op do not scale as they should. They are looking at possible adjustments here.
However, the developers emphasize that the higher difficulty levels should be tough and challenging. With TU7, many things became too easy, and they are generally happy that it has become more demanding again with Warlords. They don’t want to change that too much, and it will not be as easy as it was before Warlords. But at the same time, it should also not feel too frustrating and not be filled with bullet sponges into which one mindlessly dumps magazine after magazine.
So the goal is to adjust the difficulty levels and the scaling of NPCs, to increase build diversity, and to improve accessibility at higher difficulty levels. All of this ideally without making it too easy again.
This is what the developers say about the loot: They have also commented on the loot. This should also be improved. Higher difficulty levels should drop correspondingly good loot and not flood the players with countless purple items on “Challenging”.
Currently, containers in the open world and in missions also do not scale with the difficulty level. This is also unintentional and should be changed.
By the way, the raid will be balanced separately and not be affected by all these changes.
What do you think of the current state of loot and NPCs at higher difficulty levels? Is everything okay and can everything stay as it is? Or do you also wish for changes?
