So, am I the only one really weirded out by how the analog sticks work in this game? I can't control at all! Usually it's left analog stick for movement and right analog stick for camera but in this game, Left Analog stick up/down moves while left/right rotates camera and then Right Analog stick up/down moves camera up and down while left/right moves the character sideways.

Is it some bug that I'm getting? Because I can't find no one else complaining about this and I really can't understand how someone could play it like this, it's almost impossible to aim without moving by mistake.

I wish I could give some impressions, but the game is constantly crashing on me after 3-15 minutes. I guess it's all thanks to my GTX 770, as other 770 users have also reported constant crashing.

Either way, I think I'll wait to jump in until reviews and full game opinions come out after release. I'd hate to be stuck with another Destiny at launch situation.

Watched the Quick Look today and came away very impressed. Haven't touched it so I don't know how it feels, but I really like the structure of this thing.

Oh wow, i was about to play on my 770 but changed it to PS4 in the last minute.
Looks like i dodged a bullet there.
Ubisoft and PC man, every fucking time.

+ If all of the missions in the full game can scale to your party leader's level like the one in the beta does, and offer loot appropriate for that level, then I'm way on board depending on how many missions there end up being.
+ I like how the look of your character depends on the cosmetic items you loot, rather than your equipment, and the weapon customization is decent.

+/- Dark Zones are a neat idea, but it'll take the full game being out to tell how many people choose to be jerks in there. I was pleasantly surprised to be in a group with my friend in the middle of an extraction, to see a full group of four that never fired at us (and instead, merely extracted their own gear as well). It was a tense moment that ended in a surprising way. It'll be a bummer if everyone ends up shooting everyone in the full version. If it's a reasonable split then I'll be happy.

- The shooting gets the job done, but it isn't as snappy as I'd like. The guns feel nice and powerful otherwise.
- The modern city setting is great, but I hate snow. Summertime expansion, please!

So, I have a question for the people that are playing the beta and have played Destiny, are any of you guys getting any Destiny vibes from the beta? And what I mean is, does it feel like you're seeing a good chunk of the game already? I remember playing the Destiny beta and thought it was neat (like Jeff did) but then the full game came out and it was pretty much the beta with more planets to go to. I'm worried that if I do end up getting it -probably going to get it on PC if I do- that it won't have much content except for constantly doing whatever their version of strikes are and the Dark zone thingy.

I went into the dark zone alone not really sure what to expect and i dont really understand how its supposed to work or where you actually are supposed to get the loot. That said i killed some rogue agents (players that initated pvp) and got some loot of them and that was cool in it self you can only hold 6 pieces of loot before you need to extract which helps put a limit on it.

for me the coolest (and most annoying) thing was when i was extracting with the loot next to me was 2 other guys that had not been killing me so i had some modicum of trust for them and when the chopper arrived we all ran in to dumb our loot when out of nowhere 2 grenades flew in we died and 2 random dudes showed up and scampered of with our loot. we did kill one of em later but still it just felt chaotic and kind of fun.

I wonder how the servers will hold up at launch, if they couldn't handle a full beta and don't really seem to be using the beta to stress test I wouldn't doubt the game goes the way of the old MMO launch. Which wouldn't go over to well with the COD/Clancy fans I don't think. One thing destiny did right was server capacity. The reason i think this is because they didn't even want to send codes to people who pre-ordered and were "guaranteed" access (which is no longer the case)

@johnymyko: That's definitely a bug. It controls like every other 3rd person shooter.

@mister_v said:

That sounds awesome.

Has anyone else come across the echo stuff in some of the side missions? I REALLY like that stuff, I think it has a lot of potential as a cool way to give some story in a different way.

Immensely atmospheric. Base game content was severely limited in beta, but it had a decent amount of side missions to keep me occupied for hours on end. Again, the city looks and feels incredible. I spent more time getting sidetracked than actually committing to any missions. Shooting feels fantastic, and looks to be buffed from previous footage I've seen. RPG system and loot hierarchy seem to work great.

Oh, and this game looks fucking gorgeous on Ultra, my god.

I did give it twenty minutes until I decided it's another cover shooter and I have other more fun games I want to play. It looks good and the controls felt good.

@insane_shadowblade85 said:

This has kind of been my thought the entire time I've been playing it, haha. I really hope I'm wrong! I really hope there's plenty of stuff to do, especially in the Dark Zone. The DZ is a cool-ass concept -- it's the Destiny "dudes just wander into your game" multiplayer, but then at the drop of a hat, they can become Dark Souls invaders that want to kill you, as if you were in a Kane & Lynch multiplayer game. Awesome! ...But there isn't much to do in the DZ when you're not having the occasional awesome PvP shootout. 90% of my time has been just wandering the streets, finding an item to loot or some NPCs to shoot every 8 minutes or so (I think)? It's been mostly boring as shit, punctuated with moments of awesome fun fighting hostile players at the loot dropoff zones.

I LOVE the cover-to-cover movement, though! Holy shit! It doesn't feel 100% perfect -- but then again, I'm playing at a pretty variable framerate on my laptop at the moment. But man! It's like you're playing Gears of War, but then you can optionally play Hybrid instead, if you want!

I'm hoping it turns out as great of an overall game as it has the potential to. If it doesn't -- I wonder if I can get a refund on Steam, since these hours have been going into the separate beta client, and not the actual game? :v

The graphics are really amazing and they are in my opinion the strongest aspect in this game.

I liked how varied the missions were in the beta and i really hope that they will offer more variety in the full release. I also liked how easy it is to matchmake in every part of the game.

I didn't like how they handled the loot when you are in a group, one player can scoop every enemy drop while the others are watching. This will encourage players to play solo instead of fighting for loots with other players.

The dark zone seemed fun at first try but in the second run players were mostly in groups and the situation turned to bigger group eats smaller group and that is seriously not fun.

Last thing i want to add is about the story, the writing and characters were generic and the voice acting (even though the voice actors were trying) they couldn't make their characters and lines look better

I think the EZ timer is just about right. It adds extra tension when other players start gathering because at some point there might be some among them that could just go rogue the moment the chopper comes in. That's why everytime I call in for an extraction, I run out of there and get to a vantage point that looks at other potential vantage point where rogues could be hiding. I've killed a few rogues doing this. Of course, this sometimes causes the extraction to be overloaded already and thus have to call another one again, but if I killed a rogue in the process it's all worth it.

I had some pretty cpol moments in the Dark Zone. Unlike what Dan was predicting in the QL, I had many more tense but ultimately peaceful extractions than murderous bloodbaths. the longer respawn time as a Rogue, as well as the threat of losing XP, currency and loot is a very powerful deterrent. Most people are like you and just want to get their cool stuff extracted.

Here are some things that happened to me in the Dark Zone.

- Once I came around the corner and saw a player getting beaten by a baseball bat-wielding rioter. I decide to intervene, and the player catches a stray round or two from me. I go rogue. I immediately open the emotes menu and put my hands up. the person whips around and aims at me, sort of looks me up and down, and then takes off into the mist. In a similar situation where I surrendered with the emote it got me killed.

- Me and this other player were running towards an extraction that was in progress when we see a Rogue player behind some cover, taking shots at someone in the extraction zone. we had him flanked so we took him out. we walk up to the extraction zone and this player pops out of cover and does the wave emote. Maybe this guy had some great gear that he just found and was super worried about losing it, and we saved him. These positive interactions with people are just as rewarding as killing someone and robbing them. maybe moreso.

- I get invited to a group by some randoms and we roll together for a while. We are headed to an extraction point when we are ambushed by a player. This guy has very powerful weapons and almost wipes the three of us, but we managed to take him. so we all get back to our feet and round the corner to see the extraction point is up on top of a building and is being held by a group of four Rogue Agents. they start peppering us with gunfire. we duck into an alley, and make our way to the building from another direction. we burst onto the roof, take out the Rogue Agents and extract our loot.

- In this same group, there was one guy who would kill stray solo players once and a while, aka a total Waingro. So we would have to back him up and take these people out, and therefore the group would be turned Rogue here and there. One time while our group was rogue another two-man group came around the corner and for whatever reason didnt start shooting (probably because we had them outgunned) and just sort of nervously drifted past. We let them go.

- When i was in the Dark Zone solo, there was this one super powerful group of four Rogues running around. you can see Rogues marked on your minimap from pretty far away, so for like 45 minutes i was having to dodge this group. Often i would find myself cowering behind a car or in an alley as they ran down the street right in front of me, sometimes less than like 20 feet away. That was a really good feeling.

Now i realize that a lot of these kinds of moments can be found in something like Day Z, which has been doing to tenuous alliance trust/betrayal stuff for a while, but what this game seems to have that Day Z and other similar Early Access survival things lack is an actual tangible objective (beyond simply staying alive) to drive the action and good, non obtuse combat controls. I really like the extraction thing, because it creates these points in the map where people are always going to have to convene. I saw interesting player interaction at nearly every extraction point I showed up at.

I think this game could be my Destiny. While I loved the super tight Bungie shooting, there was zero else in Destiny that grabbed me at all. The post-disaster New York setting is just so much more my speed than the mythic robo space wizard stuff in Destiny. Brian Wood's DMZ is maybe my favorite comic series (you should check it out, its great) and The Division has an extremely similar vibe to it. I can't wait to get my hands on the full game.

Man I love this game. I hope they don't fuck it up with a ton of microtransactions and pay-to-win crap.

The non-DZ stuff should be pretty fun with friends based on that doctor extraction mission, especially setting it to harder difficulty.

DZ was just outstanding to me - whether solo or with friends, not to mention two very different experiences. Solo is incredibly tense and there were times where I'd run for a full block or two and hide to get away from a few (or in some cases, one unseen) rogue agents. It's also really cool when you run across one or two randoms and just create a makeshift group. Even without mics it wasn't uncommon to suddenly be working together with strangers and watching each others' back. Felt survivalist without becoming a Day Z clone which is literally the last thing I want this game to be.

Working with a group of friends in DZ is rad too. I didn't get to do it as much as I would have liked over the weekend, but you feel pretty empowered in a crew of 3 or 4 guys. If we knew there were one or two guys sitting by an extraction area picking off players already weak from fending off CPU enemies, we'd send a guy in to extract as bait to lure them out. Whether they killed our guy or not, we'd swarm on them immediately and they stood no chance.

I am not a pre-ordering kinda guy for the vast majority of games, but I preordered since I know I'm going to buy on day one anyway. I realize I'm tempting disaster by doing so...just hope THE CLANCE doesn't let us down.

A near future, post apocalyptic, open world shooter with loot mechanics and ambient multiplayer. It's a 2016 ass video game.

Seems cool, but I kind of dislike putting a bunch of time into progression based betas just for fun. I might check it out once it's a released thing.

I'm 100% on board with this game. Played a ton of the beta and loved it. I'm a little worried about how much content will be in the game at release. But even in the small area that's in the beta there is a good amount of missions/encounters/exploring to be done, way more than you get in the same sized space in Destiny.

I also I hope they fix the loophole people on the PC version have been using to hack the game. As the PC looks like the place to play this.

It's not bad and runs pretty well on my i5/290x system. With friends (as with anything), it's pretty fun, though I'm not sure how much mileage this game will have content-wise, or will it just amp up the grind to the point of diminishing returns. The dark zone kind of feels shallow though, just forcing people to go rogue and then getting the entire server to take them down.

One thing that I still don't get...why is this a Tom Clancy game? Nothing about it feels like it's part of that brand - especially when 4 players are unloading mag after mag in to a high level thug armed with only a baseball bat. The guns don't feel that powerful for something that involves human-on-human combat.

Does the beta happen to still be going? I received a code over night last night and have been working all day. Info seems to say it ends jan 31, which makes receiving an invite 5AM EST kind of odd.

It ends tomorrow.

I really hope the dark zone gameplay loop is different in the final game. There is a cool core concept in there but for now it took people about 5 minutes to turn that core concept into MMO shit.

This is the most fucked up, dangerous place in the city. Spoken about in hush tones, rumors circulating that division agents might be going rogue in there as a way to gather the most valuable gear left by the feds after the outbreak. That is a great premise. Sounds like a great place to make the most out of all these RPG mechanics. A high risk, high reward space that you need to master with friends to truely ''beat'' the game. The Division's version of Destiny's raids.

What it was in the beta: just run around these 8 locations in a loop killing mobs and the occasional named mob to gather loot and fucking chest keys. This is not a tense, high risk, high reward situation. It's mindless MMO farming.

I really hope they raise the stakes in the actual game.

As a solo player I’ve gotten to take part in all of the content! I don’t need a pug for the bigger missions I don’t need to PvP with a group I can play on my own if its suits me and thats great.

Update, The Dark Zone is FANTASTIC. I hated it at first, but once I got better gear and random people started asking me to join their fireteam or whatever, and it was a blast. Interesting dynamic and lots of potential with the full game.

Played on PC btw.

Yeah, I had the beta on both PC and Xbox. Difference was night and day, graphically and community wise. Also, maybe it's just me, but I don't exactly see the complaints people have where it takes a dozen mags to drop enemies. Unless it was a mini-boss (or however they're listing those enemies), I've dropped level 8-12 enemies relatively easily in the Dark Zone with my gear. Must suck to suck :P

As an MMO player I’ve never had an issue with the damage it takes to down an NPC, the ability to tag targets and give them a 5 second timer was great in pugs as it seemed to get everyone to focus fire on the harder to take down mobs / annoying grenade throwers.

Did anybody on the wait list make it on? Wanted to check it out, hopefully they actually have the open beta this month.

@oursin_360: I did the amazon scum pre order, worked like a charm. Your results may vary.

From what I understand they invited more people toward the end, though the final extended day seemed pretty dull Dark Zone wise.

Really fun in an APB kind of way.

Yeah, Like you guys I have played plenty of MMO's so the amount of ammo to kill enemies seems fine to me.

I wasn't even a prominent MMO player, I'm just more accustomed to shooters that utilize DPS/MMO mechanics (Borderlands being probably the most prominent). Also, I think some are bothered by the idea of a Tom Clancy game that comes with a different attitude of sorts.

Also, I'm kind of bummed that our beta gear and progress (most likely) won't carry over into the full game in any way. I know it's pointless, but I became attached with the gear I had :P

Just spent the morning playing the Beta. Played through the story (which has another mission in addition to what was in it before I believe) and then side stuff. It's fun. I enjoy the shooting. Guns do feel weak at first but satisfying after you upgrade your gear and when you find what you like I suppose. I'm sure that will fluctuate with the levels and upgrades. I thought the sticky bomb was terribly weak at first but modified it is very useful.

I enjoy the sticky bombs and turret but also do like how you can switch things up on the fly some. When I'm just running around the city I would use the scan more but then in combat areas I would put the sticky bombs on.

Haven't played any co-op yet but will soon I'm sure. I imagine that changes the feel quite a bit as far as how long it takes to work through enemies.

I've really liked what I've played so far. I'm not going to pull a destiny and ruin my game experience by playing 20 hours of this. As someone who's pre-ordered it justified that this IS an experience I want to have. Now maybe the end game stuff sucks and I'll hate it but my initial impressions have been very positive.

As someone looking for a co-op experience outside of Desinty I'm all about it.

Enemy AI seems more aggressive now than it did with the first beta, or there's at least a lot more melee rush down enemies. I originally done the hospital mission first try but ended up dying a couple of times this time around. Though part of it may have been down to my own cockiness after having already beaten it a few times, combined with your crappy starting gear. I continue to enjoy the game anywhoo and look forward to its full release in anycase; my overall thoughts haven't really changed at all. World is still wonderfully atmospheric and looks proper grand, shooting isn't stellar but it's enough to feel satisfying and compliments the loot lust, and I'm loving the level of customisation on display. Again with the separate sheets for your armour and appearance being something I'm especially appreciative of.

However the new tech wing character--Paul Rhodes or something--they added is fucking dumb. He's just every single ''New York tough guy with attitude'' stereotype in one single entity. All of the game's writing seems pretty poor from what they've shown, but then I guess it isn't really the focus.

I do wish there was some kind of stealth element to the combat too, ala The Last of Us perhaps. There are occasions where I can get the drop on enemies, enough so that I could sneak up on them, but my only course of action is to just shoot them, if not perform a regular melee attack. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, just for there to be a stealth execution from behind available.

@artisanbreads: Does the story get interesting? Just played for about an hour and got to establish the base of operations. The cutscene that plays after that quest is painful; Lau's dialogue is awful.

I'm not feeling this game at all it's very underwhelming to me it feels like there's something missing from it I know it's a beta but still. I might pick this game up on a steam sale in the summer if there's nothing else to play.

yeah I don't like the dialogue either. There's not much more as far as story goes than you've seen. There's the tech guy and he cusses a lot in a goofy way.

They changed the Dark Zones to include more enemies, which makes being in a room with low player counts less boring, I guess? Also there's slightly lowered the currency rewards from Dark Zone activities across the board, making it slightly more difficult to purchase the high-end weapons in the safe house. Looks like there's also a lessened exp/DZ currency loss for dying, so there's even less of a risk to bum rushing agents in manhunt state for their large bounty. Rappel points have also disappeared from some spots on the map.

They also took away a great way to cheese the rogue agent timers by running out-of-bounds and being teleported to the safe house. You get killed now if the out-of-bounds timer runs out.

Took about 3 or 4 hours to do all the SP/Coop stuff and I have no intention to mess about with the griefing part of it, idk nothing too great about it but nothing bad either, kinda meh all around, might get it at some point in the future when it costs less, not paying full price.

Seems alright but there definitely aren't enough enemies running around in the world so far. The shooting and stuff feels fine, but running from place to place just seems kinda boring. I just did the medical mission and a few side quests and they were all ok, but not really much challenge at all and I solo'd them. I don't think I almost died until the boss. Haven't ran into any need to use a gun besides my assault rifle yet, I did need to switch with the weird melee dudes bum rushed me on a suicide run because of the reload speed but that's about it.

I'll try some dark zone I guess, the auto aim on the controller seems pretty generous honestly but I can imagine everyone rolling around gears of war style in pvp lol.

@oursin_360 said:

Sniper rifles are pretty good, I found one that does like +128% dmg on headshots so I was pretty much oneshooting 90% of the enemies, did everything there was to do and didn't die even once (well except for the one time that I got into an infected area with the improper filter lvl but that doesn't count), and much of that is because of said rifle, kinda made an all around easy game even easier, but that of course has much to do as well with the fact of playing with a mouse, I don't think it would be as easy to land headshots with a gamepad.

@cale said:

They already have matchmaking built into the game, so as far as gated content like Raids that people complained about with Destiny I don't think that will be a thing. But there being organized End Game content like Destiny, I have to disagree. I think that's the hope of most looking forward to The Division, is that it does have some sort of large Co-op endgame activity like Destiny's Raids. A lot of us are hoping for a game to tide us over until Bungie can get back on track with Destiny, which sounds like it may not be until 2017 at this point.

I think I'm going to download and play this on the PS4 instead. I've messed around with a ton of settings on PC and I can't get the game to run acceptably. The framerate jumps between 23-50 fps seemingly at complete random, leading to a super stuttery and messy experience. Even on low. I'd say it's just a beta, but we are really close to release here so I doubt this will improve (for my setup, not everyone).

I'm running with a 280x and a i7 920, anyone out there with the same build may want to get the console version instead.

I'd have to see, I know with the assault rifle I get the head 90% of the time but the enemies don't move all that much. Feels about on par with destiny's aiming.

SMGs are way more fun than assault rifles for close-medium range. Way more stable but less accurate i.e. they shoot in a wider cone but their reticle doesn't bounce around the way the AR's do.

I've been actually super surprised my old ass AMD 960t processor is able to handle the task. That paired with a 970 I have been getting 50-60 fps on high at 1080p, so I have been happy with the performance. I did solo for a little while, but then decided to start jumping into random groups. Did the medical mission with two other dudes and it was pretty fun, especially since they were yelling in Russian the entire time. Two of us would hang back while the other guy kept bum rushing with his shotgun.

I'm probably going to end up picking this one up, as I haven't played Destiny, and this seems to scratch that itch. Also I have a kick-ass hot pink skin for my rifle.

Still haven't touched the Dark Zone yet, but it sounds really interesting. I hope the concept pans out in the end.

Oh, and never turn on the chat when you're out roaming. Oof, F2P MMO chats aren't even that bad.