In The Division, the difficulty of the NPCs will be adjusted with update 1.4. They have been overwhelmingly strong for months.
In October, the massive update 1.4 will be released. This will completely turn the player experience upside down and transition The Division into a – so the plan – significantly better version. A total of seven key points are mentioned by the developers, which have high priority. Among them, one goal is: The difficulty of the enemies must be adjusted.
In the endgame, the NPCs are far too strong. They deal too much damage and can absorb too much damage themselves. While the enemies can take you down with just two shots, you have to fire more than two full magazines into the enemy before they are defeated.
As an agent, you simply don’t feel powerful. If every random enemy is vastly superior, the endgame isn’t fun. The developers also see it this way. But how can the NPCs be adjusted?
Finding the balance is not easy
In the past weeks and months after update 1.3, Massive repeatedly explained that balancing the NPCs is not so easy. You can’t just change it during regular maintenance. Many factors depend on it.
In order to find sustainable solutions for this and other problems, Massive is now inviting representatives from the community to discuss all annoyances with the developers. From September 7 to 9, this “Elite Task Force” will be in Sweden, where the YouTuber and Division expert MarcoStyle is also represented. In a detailed video, he outlines possible solutions for gameplay, rewards, gear stat rolls, PvE and PvP balance, and weapon and gear talents. He discusses the overpowering NPCs in detail. He brings this to Massive:
The NPC and player scaling
A simple solution to the problem would be: Just give the enemies less damage output and lower health points. Then they would be easier to defeat, and the problem is solved. Or?
No, that is not the case, as the MMO shooter is much more complex here. MarcoStyle sees a major problem with the difficulty of the enemies not in the NPCs, but in the agents, as their stats are improved and calculated.
An example:
- An agent with 100,000 health points, no armor value, and no other active skills effectively has 100,000 health points.
- However, if an agent with 100,000 health points has the armor value raised to the maximum 75% and also takes advantage of the fortification bonuses, they have 1,600,000 effective health points. They can withstand 16 times more than the other agent.
This is a significant difference. If a shot from an enemy, for example, deals 25,000 damage, the first agent dies after 4 shots. This is a realistic scenario. However, how many times the enemy would have to shoot the second agent to defeat them, each should calculate for themselves.
If the enemy, on the other hand, must be able to defeat the second agent with four shots, they must deal 400,000 damage per shot. If this is the case, the first agent is completely hopeless.
Therefore, a crucial step in finding the balance is to reduce the potential massive differences between player stats. If an enemy deals 400,000 damage per shot, one can easily withstand it, while the other is completely out of luck.
A suggestion from MarcoStyle is to simply eliminate the current calculation of damage resistance, which is already not very transparent. Instead, a second bar could be established above one’s health energy, reflecting the armor:
This mechanic should then function similarly to the enemies: First, the armor is shot away, and then it goes to the health points.
This armor bar will be added to the health points – and not multiplied by a mysterious formula – thereby increasing the effective damage resistance, but without taking on massive proportions.
One idea is that this armor bar would regenerate by itself when not in combat. Here, Massive could experiment a lot with specific bonuses and talents that influence the armor bar.
With this idea, the stats of all agents would come closer together. There would be no extreme differences anymore, making the game much more balanced. And thus, the strength of the NPCs could also be adjusted “correctly”.
What do you think of this idea?
Tomorrow (September 8), we will learn more in the “State of the Game” about which suggestions from the community Massive will consider. Until then you can participate in a survey about the gear sets here.
