Preliminary patch notes for The Division update 1.4 have been released. They are significant.
Massive repeatedly emphasized that the October update 1.4 would be huge. Phrases like “The entire player experience will be overhauled” and “Core features will be renewed” were common. And now the realization comes: Massive did not understate.
Last night, they presented all the changes that have been made so far. The following patch notes cover the new features between update 1.3 and the build on the PTS, which are the public test servers that are currently live. You can already test the following changes.
Note: These patch notes are not final. They must first pass the PTS phase before being released with update 1.4. Changes are still possible and likely.
The biggest new feature: World Tiers
Once you reach level 30, you can set the World Level, the “World Tiers”,. These determine the level of all NPCs and the quality of loot. The following applies:
- Tier 1: Enemy Level 30, Loot Score 163
- Tier 2: Enemy Level 31, Loot Score 182. Additionally, the “Challenging” difficulty and incursions will be unlocked.
- Tier 3: Enemy Level 32, Loot Score 204
- Tier 4: Enemy Level 33, Loot Score 229
There are also various difficulty levels (Normal, Hard, Challenging) in the tiers, which grant you more loot.
“Heroic” will no longer be available for any activity. A few weeks ago, it was still said that it would remain in incursions. Apparently, that is not the case now.
Numerous other new features
The patch notes are so detailed that we cannot translate them all here. Some specific aspects will be examined in more detail in future articles. Now let’s look at the most exciting changes:
- UI Improvements: Weapon skins no longer take up inventory space. Additionally, you can no longer open the inventory while suffering from status effects.
- Gameplay Innovations: The “Time-to-Kill” for NPCs has been reduced. You will become powerful again. Many improvements are also being made to the AI of enemies. Furthermore: After level 30, the ammunition capacity for players is expected to double. In the Dark Zone, you can now see on the map how far away the rogues are: The display will get larger the closer the rogues are.
- Merchants: Once you are level 30, merchants will sell items with a gear score between 163 and 229. They will sell more high-end and gear set items. Additionally, they will have random gear sets available each week.
- Open World: Bosses in the open world are making a comeback. They will respawn every 24 hours.
- There are detailed weapon balance changes that we have already introduced here.
- There will be detailed gear set changes that you can read about here. So far, the talents of B.L.I.N.D and Retrieval are still disabled and need to be reworked.
- Additionally, rewards in missions, weapon and armor talents, and skills have been revised. We will look at these aspects individually soon. In the meantime, you can find them here in English in the patch notes for the PTS.
- Furthermore, numerous bug fixes have been made.
What do you think?
In this article, you will find all the preliminary information about the character balance of 1.4.
