In The Division, all eyes are on Update 1.6. We present an idea that could enhance the MMO shooter.
Not much is known about Update 1.6 yet: We know that the developers aim to address the PvP area and improve it similarly to how Update 1.4 enhanced the PvE area. A forthcoming feature has already been introduced: Leaderboards for the Dark Zone.
However, Massive promised: This is by no means everything. Update 1.6 will bring much more. And looking at the diverse wishes of the community, many ideas are circulating that Massive would love to implement with the last “Year 1” DLC. Keyword: Raids.
More diversity for the builds!
A current “problem” that some agents see is the dominance of toughness. This is to be adjusted with Update 1.6.
Because toughness is the most important main attribute in the current game. This is largely due to the questionable scaling of the firearms attribute. The significance of firearms decreases from world rank to world rank, while that of toughness increases.
With toughness, the hit points are calculated with the armor value using a multiplier, where armor has a greater influence on toughness the closer it approaches the maximum. The following curve illustrates this:
This leads to two things:
- If you want a powerful build, you need high toughness.
- If you want high toughness, you need a high armor value.
In the endgame, many agents are therefore looking for armor pieces that have high “Armor.” The possible bonuses are rolled to ensure that armor is always increased. Because other values are secondary. Diversity does not arise here.
A health bar for armor
The Youtuber Marcostyle names two possible solutions for toughness to increase diversity.
One goal is to eliminate the opaque calculations of hit points and armor. This is intended to work by removing the multiplier and introducing an additional “health bar” that represents armor. This armor then acts additively. This makes this value and its scaling more transparent. Without the multiplier, the impact of “Armor” would also no longer be as significant as it is now, making other stats more meaningful.
This should then work similarly to how it does with the enemies in The Division: First, the armor bar is shot down, and then it goes to the hit points.
MarcoStyle was already in the Elite Task Force for Update 1.4 and suggested this to the developers. They replied that there was too little time for that. Such a change would have to go through many processes before it could even be tested on the PTS. However, Update 1.6 is still some time away…
A second solution consists of simply removing the possible armor bonus on the gear items, so that there is only the “native armor value” that is on each gear item:
This way, agents “must” look for other bonuses. Armor is no longer the only logical choice.
Before Update 1.5, the developers also tinkered with the enemy armor damage. This should be set against armor as a higher attribute – so that one could choose more armor or more damage. However, the tests did not go as hoped, which is why this change did not come with 1.5.
What do you think of these suggestions? What solutions do you have?
In this article, we present the bonuses and talents of all gear sets since 1.5.
