I bought it and refunded it on steam once I realised that none of my friends were going to buy it.

Do you like repeating the same missions over and over again? Do you like loot and the fact that character spec is generally based off your loot? Do you mind that you're basically chasing a carrot on a stick until the next update/expansion/DLC/whatever makes you chase another carrot farther away? Do you like third person cover shooters and do you mind that you have to shoot similar looking people for hours? Do you mind that the story isn't really there? Do you mind that the context of what you're doing in the game is very vague and can be considered very questionable? Do you have a group of people to play with or are willing to work with other people via matchmaking? Do you mind grinding out the Dark Zone or the fact that as mentioned the end game is based off completing the missions over and over again? Do you mind that the best loot is actually crafted loot? Do you mind post apocalyptic, beautiful, but empty worlds with repeat events? Do you mind repetitive side missions? Do you mind that some (perhaps all) of the side missions generally suck? Do you mind some bugs?

If you say no to any of these questions ask yourself if it bothers you enough to stay away. If none of what I mentioned really bothers you, I'd say buy it. Again, I don't know your preferences enough to say either way.

I got 62 hours out of it, its a third person shooter that feels really good to play, the story stuff isn't anything to write home about but its there and mostly guides you along. I picked it up for 48 bucks with the GmG coupon so for around that price I can hardly say its a bad purchase, it was almost worth it to just see the game its very striking on PC.

I think it's a fine game that has some deep issues, but I wouldn't recommend it. I traded my copy into Gamestop after a week.

I'm excited to give it another look when a bunch of DLC packs have happened and see if that makes it more interesting. The lack of content was the bigger killer for me. So I chose the "No, not until more content" option.

70 hours in and still having a blast. I started a 2nd character just now to keep at the top of the low tier Dark Zones. Having a pack full of high end gear, trying to make it to extraction in the dark zone... it's some of the most satisfying gameplay I've had in a while.

They're going to detail the incursion stuff on a live stream tomorrow. That'll be the first look at the future support of the game. Fingers crossed. Best thing I've played the first quarter of this year. There's a ton of criticism I can give... but as far as just having fun and time played, nothing matches it so far this year for me.

I've had no issues grouping up with people to knock out missions or run dark zone. It's definitely better with buddies. In-game matchmaking works well enough if you don't have any friends playing. There's also a discord server for the game with thousands of people. You can find a group for any specific mission or activity quickly there. Pretty chill spot. Some of the devs hang out there as well.

All of that being said, maybe wait for incursions next week to gauge the direction the end game is going. The great thing about games like this is that the longer you wait, the more balanced it becomes while providing more content at a cheaper price. Just know what you're getting into. This is a loot game. You will be grinding missions and farming materials for loot. That's what this game is above anything else. It's Diablo. It's Borderlands. It's the best and worst parts of those games.

Absolutely not. It has too many problems, chief among them a latency problem that makes abilities go off too late, enables you to be shot behind cover, and warps enemies around.

I've only seen that a handful of times, and it's when my connection to the server is bad. A simple reconnect fixes it.

I'm 50 hours in. It's great. That dark zone is fun!

The game is oppressively boring when you're playing by yourself as the characters and the story are not the most interesting things about the game. Even the enemy encounters are much more interesting with a party due to how important flanking and movement is in the game, and the world feel really empty with the small number of enemies the game throws at a solo player. With even one more person it's a night and day difference, as not only are there more enemies, but you also get to play around more with the threat mechanics and engage in more tactical positioning.

The Dark Zone is also one of the most fun experiences I've had on with a MMO-like game, where the potential threat of rogue agents and the pressure to extract your loot creates a very interesting tension as you run around the area. Again, the Dark Zone is much more fun with others, and you also get some more security running in a group of people so you can keep each other safe. It's very similar to world PvP in other MMO's, but on a much smaller and more intimate scale.

Like others have said so far, if you have friends who are playing or will be playing, or do not mind making friends with strangers to group up, the game does have some legs. Even taking into account the upcoming end-game oriented excursion, just don't expect it to be like a traditional MMO where there's going to be a substantial or diverse endgame to keep you occupied. Once you've hit level 30, there's a whole Dark Zone grind up to 50 waiting for you, which is where the repetition in the game start becoming really obvious. The Division is at its best when you're taking your time exploring and bumping story missions up to the hard difficulty, and it is at its worst when you're just rushing through everything for the sake of the grind.

depends on how much you like loot based games like diablo or destiny. If you do like them, it's worth a pickup. If you don't you don't. Haven't touched DZ at all, matchmade a couple missions but played most solo. I enjoyed the setting. The shooting is pretty good. The problems the GB crew noted are pretty true though. Side missions are cookie cutter and boring (to the point that the same dialogue introducing each side mission type is the same EVERY TIME). The premise of the game is neat but the story kind of falls flat. If you want a game with decent shooting and decent loot progression it's worth the money. If you don't really care that much about loot/were expecting a deep story/expansive campaign, then no, it's not there.

I've been having a really good time with it, but honestly couldn't recommend it to anyone who didn't have a lot of time on their hands. I've been unemployed so having something relatively mindless with a bit of excitement has been good. But I think the endgame, such as it is, loses a lot of enjoyment if you're not able to get on and do the dailies to grind out loot. I especially think casual players will struggle in the dark zone as rogues become more common if they can't keep up gear-wise.

With that said, I liked the main missions the first go through (and some of them I still quite like on the fifteenth go through). I think the RPG mechanics are more interesting than I was expecting, and I actually quite like the bullet sponge enemies; when a new gun makes the difference between using two magazines or 5 bullets to take down a dude, that's really satisfying.

Division is the game you play when you're tired of Diablo, Destiny, Borderlands, Path of Exile etc etc. Unless you really enjoy the setting there's nothing about the game that stand out as being superior to any other similar games.

It's okay I guess. Kind of. I mean Dark Souls 3 was like a month away. And I like digital guns? They're alright!

One of the most "empty calorie" experiences I've had with a game in a while.

I had a lot of fun with it and I actually continue having fun doing daily missions with random people through matchmaking.

I would recommend it, and in fact think it is a much better experience than Destiny is because it's not as abusive to the player in terms of grinding and loot drops. There is a great sense of space and familiarity to the environments that helps it stand out from alien-hallway-67. Finishing the base game will take you a good 15-20 hours which is more than enough to justify a $60 purchase.

A lot of people here are putting a lot of caveats in the vein of "well if you like this or you like that.." Heck, if you just like third person shooters with light RPG elements, then go ahead. You get a ton of content, really well made unique story missions, tons of side stuff that is on the same level as side stuff you'd find anyone else if not a bit better because they at least frame it in terms of the story. You get the whole Dark Zone area which is unique and interesting if you have friends for it. If you're not tired of it by the end then you have end-game content with daily missions and such to keep you coming back and Incursions, whatever they are, will be coming soon.

So yah, I'd recommend it. IF you like fun games, then you'll probably like it. Then again people play Destiny to this day, so tastes will vary.

Maybe not in the beginning, but once you reach the end game level of gear that can only be crafted with High End Division Tech or that only drops from a Challenge Mode boss, it is a nightmare.

Currently, High End Division Tech is found in Division Chests which are scattered throughout the Dark Zone. They each have a chance to contain a few pieces of green, blue, or yellow Division Tech. Green and Blue DT are both 100% worthless. Oh and those chests are on a two hour respawn timer and are shared amongst all other players in that Dark Zone instance, too. To top it off, crafted High End weapons roll with a random set of three talents, none of which can be rerolled. So the chances of getting a bad roll on a weapon that was super expensive and time consuming to craft are very high.

I think Massive is planning some changes on the way Division Tech is handled, but currently, it sucks. Gearing up once you hit 30 is fine and you can get quite good weapons and everything else relatively quickly, then you hit a wall. Hard. And the only way past it is to continuously farm Division Tech by running around the Dark Zone on a fixed route, or by killing the same few Challenge Mode bosses over and over and hoping for a good drop. Which you probably are not going to get.

So yeah, the high end loot game is awful. Hope you get to open all those Division Tech chests, hope there is High End Division Tech in them, and then when you get enough, hope that the weapon you craft isn't garbage. Because it most likely will be due to the sheer number of possible combinations that can roll.

I'm not saying the game isn't fun, it is, but people should know what they're in for if they plan on really going for it with high end gear.

@mike: All of that pales in comparison to doing a 3 hr long hard mode raid and getting just shards, again.

Why does it pale? You could be doing Challenging missions over and over and never getting anything except Purples to deconstruct, or a few Phoenix Credits that your only use for is rerolling stats on an item.

My gear hasn't improved in the last 40 hours of play. Not a bit. That's how bad the end game grind is.

I would have a hard time recommending this. I log-in everyday for less than two hours for the dailies and put the game down. Getting all slots filled out with high-end is really easy and given the current lack in endgame there's little reason to min max your gear. So I personally don't see a reason to grind yet. There's not much to the story and the shooting isn't that great IMHO, but for some reason I keep coming back. Challenging difficulty isn't that hard either, unless you're being flooded with shotgun wielding npc's. At this point the Division is my guilty pleasure.

I can't say either way since I just started playing it today, but if you end up getting it for PS4 feel free to add me up.

PSN: S7AY3R-of-n00bz

@mike: It's pretty obvious actually: you get 50 phoenix credits for doing challenging missions along with a guaranteed yellow and some stuff to deconstruct which is helpful for the crafting you mentioned. Most high end gear schematics cost about 170 phoenix credits so thats not THAT bad of a grind, it's basically three days of doing dailies and the challenging. In comparison with Destiny the raids take MUCH longer, require a lot more setup and you can do them once a week - not to mention that there is still no matchmaking so if your friends are busy that day then hey I hope you enjoy going through Destiny-Craigslist and adding strangers to your buddy list. At least in the Division Challenging missions you can match with strangers which 4/5 times are competent enough unless it's the Power Plant mission where those odds are lower, and there is a chance that you'll get a good Yellow drop once every day instead of once every week. I got a better mask and a cool new camo paint just yesterday after about 3 days of getting garbage so it's not that bad, and even if it's garbage I get useful crafting materials for deconstructing it instead of useless currency so I'm always making some kind of forward progress. I change up my equipment and tactics every once in a while, definitely don't wait 40hrs before I swap in some new mod or try out a new ability.

As a complete aside I'm surprised you even played Destiny given your disdain for console gaming.

@humanity: The early Phoenix Credit blueprints are like fresh level 30 High Ends. I'm talking about the end game which is Dark Zone Rank 50 blueprints and Challenge Mode random drops.

End game and "I just hit 30 and oh boy look at all these yellows I can buy" are two totally different things. There is a vast chasm between someone who just has the Base of Operations Phoenix blueprint gear and a well geared player. It doesn't sound like you are quite there, yet. You'll see what I mean when trying to scrape together a handful of HE Division Tech just for a chance at crafting a good weapon.

@mike: I don't really have all that much difficulty with most challenging missions so most of my yellows are just fine at this point. I'm sure the Dark Zone level 50 gear might be better, but I'm not really hurting for better gear at the moment. I'm DZ Rank 35 or so and haven't really felt like going there in a while. Maybe once the incursion is out and I'll get completely creamed I'll put in more work but the progress is decent. Honestly it sounds like you've just reached some sort of ceiling and you're banging your head against it, maybe give the game a break until more content comes out.

@humanity: Well, I have hit an RNG wall. My stats are still the same as just after I hit 30, I'm sitting at around 140k DPS and 80k Health. I've just been extremely unlucky on my Division Tech crafting rolls and haven't seen a single High End weapon drop at all. DZ 50 weapons I craft that could be far better than what I have are just rolling with bad talents and are garbage compared to the Vector I crafted two weeks ago. And each bad roll could represent a couple hours worth of walking around and looking for Division Tech chests.

The good news is that Massive has at least acknowledged that the Division Tech grind needs to be looked at. There is a live stream coming up today where they discuss Operations and hopefully address the DivTech issue as well. The other good news is that I believe set items are being introduced with Operations, so if the loot ladder in similar games is any indication, these will be a step up for even the most geared players. We'll see.

@mike: Crafting those division tech weapons is largely useless though. Its much smarter to use it for gear like Holsters and Chests. The BoO sells a Vector, so you've already got a great SMG waiting for you, and they also sell a AK74 so there's a great AR, neither of which require division tech. I get that everyone wants to get away from the Vector, especially because they've probably been using it for the past 30+ hours, but until they change the way SMGs work there's no reason not to just craft one of those. With the new-ish exploit for farming Challenging mode bosses, there's reason to do that too, since those bosses can drop ilvl31 HE weapons with random rolls (Hornet can drop the coveted M1A). So yeah, while grinding division tech is incredibly tedious and boring and all that, there's no real reason to use it for weapons unless you've got a huge surplus. While there is totally worthwhile stuff in the DZ in terms of blueprints, there's not really a ton of it you absolutely need.

@two_socks: Yeah, I've just been unlucky with drops. Totally did the Hornet farming exploit for hours on end, too.

It's still a great single player campaign game. I started a 2nd character while I wait for the next content drop to play the story again. But if you want something to keep you interested more than a month after release, unless you want to do co-op its hard to recommend. If you just want to play the story, wait for a price drop.

I approached that game where I felt I would hit the limit cap (which proved to be 30). And then I felt I would just go back as content dropped. I'm about 2/3 the way to 30 now, and I'm still thinking that is the best plan. My nephew is playing it now and I have about 10 friends playing on my platform, so I think I will be pretty good.

And, as odd that this may seem I'm sort of happy thing is not a game you have to endlessly grind in teh dark zone for with co-op. There are a ton of games coming out this year, so I'm happy that this game will have just enough content FOR ME to only need to be dipped into every so often. Yes, there will be so dailys and content meant to be run over and over gain (Incursions), but you can ignore taht is you while it seems. There are a few paths to the high end content from they way they are talking and from what is already visable.

I also have to say I'm entranced with the detail in the game. New York is WRECKED! The way Ubisoft dressed the environment you see how of the story shows off the early rescue efforts and early failure to get the dollar flu under control. As someone who worked in Pathology labs it fascinating to see the "visual story" of a epidemic that gets out of control. At some point I woudl LOVE too see a Ubisoft made mockumentary about the Dollar Flu. I think for some players what 'actually' is being shown and the city the player sees is being missed. There is structurally a lot of depth to the visual story of the environment. I woudl have to say Ubisoft must have gotten help from ECDC (European CDC) and CDC because a lot of what they rendered in the art must have come from reference photos. Reference photos not only of the equipment but how it fits together and what it looks like when it all torn up in a warzone.

@wemibelec90: What platform are you experiencing that on?

@mike: I got most of my gear by doing Lexington during one session over and over with a group since we were just mowing through it in about 10-15 minutes flat. The Division tech not being craftable to make high end versions does suck though. Still haven't reached DZ 50 but I get the frustration of not being able to get a good roll on crafted gear and having to get grind/wait to get materials.

The setting really holds it back. You fight the same type of dudes over and over, they either have bats or guns. There is little enemy variety because they need to keep it grounded in reality. When you combine that with bad AI and RPG mechanics you get bullet sponge enemies that perform the same combat routines each encounter. At higher levels you can dump full clips into heads and the AI won't even flinch or react, unlike Destiny where headshots "stun" targets allowing you to safely get in more DMG before falling back. It is especially bad in Challenge Mode because of the artificial difficulty, there is nothing keeping one good player from completing a challenge mission by themselves, you are fighting the same enemies except the numbers are skewed to favor them. It's not like they add new mechanics for these challenge modes, the enemies simply take more bullets to kill, and the AI seems to be hilariously self aware of their godmode because they will rush you without caring that you and your teammates are just dumping into them.

Combat isn't good enough to justify playing it over and over, it's a shame because the looting mechanics are closer to Diablo than Destiny which is a good thing

If someone was looking for a mostly single player shooter that would last them about 30 hours with tacked on RPG elements and a non-existent story, I'd probably recommend it, yeah. If someone wanted something where they could hit the level cap and really sink their teeth into it for a long time, I'd say go grab Diablo 3 or something, not this. Maybe if the Dark Zone wasn't a poorly thought out mess of a thing than this would be a different story, but it's not, so.

The only question you should ask is "Do I have friends to play it with?" If the answer is yes, go ahead.

I'd recommend it.

They did a great job on New York City. It's fun to explore, and packed with detail and visual storytelling everywhere you look. I'm guessing most of that detail is lost on a good percentage of the players whose only concern is to sprint max speed to the next loot drop, and that's kind of sad really. "There's no story!" Bullshit, it's all over the place if you care to slow down and see it.

The gameplay is a lot of fun. All of the guns feel good to shoot, and each one feels unique - even those of the same type. The weapon mod system is great, and can make each weapon handle quite differently. An AK-47 with "x" mods will be quite a different beast compared to another AK-47 with "y" mods. The cover system works well. You're able to move into and out of cover easily without having to fight the controls.

The character skills, talents, and perks are fun to use. I love that you aren't locked into any particular class and can change up your character whenever you feel like it. You can spec into your typical healer/tank/DPS builds, a solo build, or mix and match if you don't have a full squad and need to plug some holes.

I love the fact that they separated gear from appearance items. The gear you use is reflected on your character (things like gloves and kneepads do have different looks to them), but the most noticeable items are the appearance items like jackets and pants. These are purely cosmetic items so you can change up your look as often as you like.

I think the enemies are quite good. Sure, they're all humans, but each faction has their own style. They each use their own types of weapons and skills, and as you progress in the game their AI gets better and better. For example, Rioters use a lot of the smaller weapons like pistols and SMG's, and they don't use a whole lot of tactics against you. That makes sense because they're supposed to be just regular people. The top tier guys though, they can wreck your shit. They use the military-grade weapons, use tactics like flanking and placing snipers on high ground, and use some of the same skills we as players can use like deploying turrets and healing each other.

The UI is gorgeous. I know some people don't like all the floaty bits, but I think the augmented reality look is fantastic. It's also fairly customizable, with things like toggling button prompts and auto-hide. The one exception is the appearance menu. That thing is hot garbage. It's sorted reverse-alphabetically with the new stuff you pick up placed at the bottom of the list - in other words, exactly the opposite any sane human being would want it.

It's not all good though.

There are some strange audio/visual bugs. One or all of your weapons will stop making noise when you join a group, or things like the explosion effects of your sticky bomb won't show on screen. That's all I've experienced myself, but I know there are some other more serious issues. One super strange one I've read about is being locked out of your account if you craft a high-end backpack and logout with it mostly full? Like WTF? Based on my own personal experience though I have to say it's one of the more technically polished games to come out in recent memory.

There's too much RNG. Whether or not you get a good loot drop is dependant on RNG, and whether or not that item has decent stats is also dependent on RNG. So there's RNG on top of more RNG combined with a somewhat low rate of drops to begin with and you end up with a pretty slow-moving treadmill. They're repeating the same mistakes other devs made in Diablo III and Destiny. I've read that a lot of players really want them to adopt what Blizzard did with the Reaper of Souls expansion. I haven't played that myself, but it seems like the gold standard for loot games at this point so I'm all for it.

I haven't reached the end game grind yet so I can't really comment on that. I've heard it's not that great, but I'm not really the kind of player that does a lot of grinding anyway. Some grinding, sure, particularly if I've got nothing else to play, but I'm not obsessive about it. I'm level 30 with just a few main missions to complete, and after that's done I'm guessing I'll be done playing until they release new content. Whatever weapons and gear I've got when that time comes is just going to have to suffice.

I've got my money's worth for sure, clocking in probably 100 hours once all is said and done.

@mike: I feel, just like you, that I'm stuck roughly in the same place. Around 130K DPS with an iLevel 31 Aug I got from the DZ, 75K Health, and 16K Skill. I just need to grind Division Tech and Phoenix Credits to buy all of the mods. The Division End Game has some serious issues right now and I feel like everyone but streamers are stuck around this same place. Hopefully this is something they fix soon. They are pretty quick to fix The Division symptoms, or things like The Bullet King exploits, but until they fix the problems, like low drop rates of DT and PC, end game will always be bad. I feel like we are back in "forever 29" territory of early Destiny, and that is a really frustrating place to be in with this type of game.

I got over 100 hours out of it, so it's worth the money in a purely $ to ：）sense, but don't expect the end game to hold you for very long unless you're the type that doesn't mind doing the same thing over and over to get slightly higher numbers.

They're talking about the free update coming out the 12th and it seems they are adding a lot of stuff. I would recommend getting it if you have people to play with

I guess it come to expectations and time. I think if the Diablo model applied to a third person shoot appeals to you then it's a good game. I put in like 20 hours and had a good time with it and if I didn't have other stuff going on I'd hop into some Dark Zone stuff and feel just fine while running a podcast in the background. At this point though I'm having more fun playing Stardew Valley and Salt and Sanctuary and have kind of moved on.

I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a game to play with friends; is a good one to just sit and hang out with. Not so much otherwise...

Sure. It's fine. More is coming.

Don't really recommend going solo.

It's... it's fine.

@bigdaveischeap: PC. And, to be clear, I had more issues with the experience than just the latency: poor solo scaling, entirely bland/repetitive content, etc. It's just that the latency was so rage-inducing and frequent that it stood out to me as the main reason I had problems with the game as a whole.

If you can kinda zombie out in a Diablo game and get lost in lusting for gear, but you like shooters too or would be willing to try a Diablo game with shooter combat, I recommend The Division.

It has all the shortcomings of those games (no importance placed on any element that wasn't you getting loot) and some that they solved over a decade ago, but for me I've always wanted a loot grind RPG with non-RPG combat so The Division works for me.

I never played Assassin's Creed, but the way people describe AC1 vs AC2 is how I feel we'll describe Division vs Division 2 or whatever. It kinda feels like a proof of concept that Ubi can make a product like this with these systems and this level of connectivity and have it all function well enough, but the real actual like full modern game is going to come the next time around.

Anyways, I'd wait until a price drop and more content. I like my time with it but if I could do it over again I'd have waited until it was like $30 or $40 and a few months of updates and content.

I'm a lapsed Destiny player, and while I enjoyed my time with that game, I always felt bound by the developer's desire to gate my experience. Even after experiencing Destiny burnout, post-The-Taken-King, I have absolutely loved my time with The Division.

More than anything else, it reminds me of a game I played in school on Gamecube, Freedom Fighters. I dig the aesthetic of a guerilla force retaking a city borough by borough. The story, though often requiring suspension of disbelief, is somewhat coherent, as opposed to Destiny's "Deliver the Chalice to the Expungers via the Yellow Dawn" mashup of weirdly absurd proper names. There are tons of problems. This game, in design terms, is a hot mess. But give me an environment that I enjoy, workable gameplay mechanics, and some fun loot grinding, and I'm in. In my first 35 hours, I'm still not that far in (level 21/30 in a game that's big on endgame mechanics.) But I'm freaking loving it. The Gears-meets-Freedom-Fighters mashup is hitting all of my dopamine triggers and I love jumping in for either a short Dark Zone NPC-killing session, or grinding out the side missions in the next borough I'd like to conquer.

The one particular area where the game didn't communicate itself particularly well is in the natural progression path. It's really hard to find yourself in a bad situation if you pay particular attention to your listed "Side Missions". As long as you clear every "Side Mission" on the map, the game will give you a good next step that will earn you a buttload of XP. Complete main missions as your level allows, but as long as you follow the side mission progression path (which will lead you by-the-hand into new boroughs) you'll find yourself with more than enough XP to handle the next challenge.

@thatdudeguy: It's seems like your path through The Division has been much different than that of most of the guys I play with. Mostly due to us trying to race to 30 to find out what Phoenix Credits and such where all about and do "the real Darkzone" or Level 30 DZ. It strikes me as interesting because I would have said it was a pretty bad solo game, but a fantastic co-op one with fun loot mechanics and a huge endgame wall worse than Destiny had until Taken King's forever 319 issues. But looking at the game from a borough to borough perspective I can see the increased appeal, although that is going to take you a good bit of time to hit endgame like that (most of us were 30 at around 20 hours, 2nd characters with a friend boosting should take around 6-8). Anyways, I just wanted to say I found your approach interesting and it may change my opinion of the "singleplayerness" of The Division.

@hestilllives19: See, I got to DZ lvl 30 before main lvl 30. There is a wealth of DZ content for players to enjoy (from purple rewards to really give you a boost or fill a rng drop hole in your gear all the way to how the bracketing of the different zones mean the southern area is a decent place for solo players as they level to really test their skills and prep for group combat against elites, especially at the *4/*9 main level boundaries - a pit-stop from the main levelling progression in the solo/co-op game to increase your DZ lvl and get some good extracted loot that'll help push your gear/competence). It's not all about the destination but the journey and I had no interest in rushing to find an end-game with no content by shortening the levelling curve of the main game. I comfortably got to 40-50 hours in before the end-game started and then have been enjoying my time pottering about and getting to that ilvl31 yellow loot in my own time. It's not as if there's something to do after that.

Because of this, I never understood the complaints of people who rushed through the world (this NY is big and there's a lot to do, even if quite a lot of the side stuff is very copy/paste). I was always geared pretty well (partially because of DZ stops on the way up the level curve) and so I never felt like normal enemies were too spongey. "How is this not a shooter?" I wondered as I always had a DMR to hand that would 1-shot any normal mob if I got them in the head (and playing stuff solo there is a lot of normal mobs). Some specials and elites took patience and lots of ammo but I took that as part of the RPG (I've brought down meteors on enemies in fantasy RPGs for them to barely be scratched). But enemies of my level who weren't the elite packs in the DZ? They definitely seemed like shooter enemies not bullet sponges. Like, definitely easier to down than the general enemies in an Uncharted game. Possibly because I was taking my time and so was always somewhat over-geared.

As noted by @thatdudeguy, this is an MMO solo progression through and through (I'm weird, I read the quest text in WoW - I like a stupidly large world and fiction to enjoy; even if half the text is basic instructions for a generic quest and only half is flavour; I'll enjoy the flavour in the games that do a good job adding that). You get directed to a hub, you collect a load of local quests, once you've don't the quests you return to the hub and get given a quest to go to the next hub (here it was to go to the locker in the next hub, which was pretty weird and I assume a pretty late addition to the design as it was very light on flavour text). As each borough has its own flavour from the terrible side-quest radio chatter and its own visual style, I found going through linearly quite the progression. And every time you're about ready for a break then there was a new main mission with unique assets, lots of VO, and an xp reward that basically got you most of the way to the next level. You can do them all co-op but I knew I was going to come back for hard mode and even challenging mode for the few that had it in the end-game (they even flag it with an achievement for doing every mission at lvl30 on Hard) so I decided that unless I had friends wanting to join up I'd solo them. First time through then they're pretty great as solo. It gives you the layout so when you're back doing it with randos or a group of friends you can rush through and not worry about missing out on any story-telling or details of the spaces they took time to carefully craft.

Soloing MMOs isn't for everyone but if WoW taught the world anything, it's that offering that in an MMO is core to moving out of a niche audience (by both attracting players who do like that as the primary activity, at least before being tempted by group content, and giving a solo diversion to players who are there for grouping but need something to do in gaps when groups aren't available).

@shivoa: I was like that for awhile as well. That first week we played about 5 hours a night and barely hit 30 on Friday before I had to leave town on vacation. We spend about 4 hours leveling and another hour each night gearing up in the DZ. We tried to stay at whatever the max level was for the DZ we were currently in (I think they were like 12, 16, 19, 24, and 29 but I could be wrong). We would gear up to all purples and a decent primary and then go back to normal leveling. I think I was at DZ 28 1/2 rank when I left town on vacation just after hitting 30. I never ran into the bullet sponge enemy problems either until I did a Challenge Mode after 30. Even now I'd say some of those enemies are a bit much with 32 Elite mobs having upwards of 1.5 million health each and bosses having close to 4 or 5 million health. I kind of get it for late game activities because its the only way to add difficulty but it makes all damage based abilities entirely useless since their damage is now just a drop in the bucket (sticky bombs 175K damage at around 30K Skill Power vs 50-75K crit per shot on a 140K DPS primary, or 500K potential of snipers/shotguns) compared to just using weapons. I'm glad that The Division seemed to be a better solo experience played in order than it was for me though, because I did quite a bit of jumping around trying to quickly knock out higher level Side Missions and Encounters so that I could hit 30 as fast as possible. I was worried I would be behind when I came back from vacation and wouldn't be able to properly do Incursions with friends. Luckily that isn't the case and I was able to catch the same wall now that everyone seems to be hitting. I'm running a pretty even build now because of Perks on my Aug with 140DPS, 65K Health, and 28.5K Skill Power. That Skill Power has helped a lot with Abilities like Smart Cover, especially now stacked with Robust that basically maxes armor resist while in cover already.

After reading the patch notes that are coming up in the 1.1 update, I can't recommend this game anymore. I might be done with it.

i've put about 80-90 hours into it since launch. I really like loot rpg's and shooters so it's kinda right up my alley. I wish the game wasn't designed to be so bound to the tom clancy universe as this kind of gameplay with different theme would be a lot better but i like the core loop. I'm currently at the level cap, DZ lvl 45 and i'm starting to replace my purples with the high-end items. As of right now, the end game is a slog. Maybe that will change with their raid equivalent and the new updates that come but now all there is to do is kill bosses in the darkzone and replay the daily missions on the hardest difficulties for a chance at better loot. Still i've had my fun with it. If you like Borderlands and Gears of War and are ok with a less fantastical take on a hybrid of those two games, check this one out.

Same here. I just read the patch notes and I'm done with it. They found a way to make one of the most grindy RNG-dependent loot games even more grindy than it already was.

I don't know who is making these decisions over at Massive or why, but they are really fucking up. I may end up revisiting this game after a few patches if they make the loot grind actually fun, but probably not. I have some real concerns about the long term health of The Division unless Massive starts making some big changes to make the end game more fun. I don't have very much faith in them at this point, though. Things thousands of people have been complaining about since launch have been ignored, and not only ignored but now they are doing the opposite of what needs to be done to make the late game fun. It's kind of mind boggling actually. We're talking about problems that other loot games like Diablo 3 had in their infancy, but that were fixed over time. It's like Massive is just ignoring all of the lessons learned by other games and figuring it out as they go or something.

@puchiko said:

It seems like Massive is screwing the pooch with this patch. The only thing these crafting changes seem to do is exacerbate an already exceedingly tedious process. Unless they have some unannounced plan to drastically increase drop rates or something else to go along with these crafting changes it would appear that The Division's end game is dead.

You can read the patch notes here, and read the player reactions here.

Edit: here's a nice video that explains how The Division's end game turns into a "crafting material farmer simulator" which should help to put these changes into perspective, and an article at Forbes about how crafting is already killing The Division.

So...

The patch notes say that endlessly farming for mats, to deconstruct, to merge into high-end mats, to roll into those end-game crafting recipes... thousands of times for the different random rolls on value ranges and perks and so on to find something good... and still have something less than ideal because the ideal roll is one in billions. It says that is going away.

We have no idea what gear sets will be like. How much range there is (randomised elements) or if they'll be like the few named weapons in only having a bit of variety and so be a case of doing the different activities and getting lucky to get a drop of the set type you want and then being basically done for that slot until next month we get the next update and another tier of gear sets one above the new end-game (and a new Incursion).

That sounds like an alternative to endless grinding for mats to grind up and spend on rolls on the end game blueprints which have so much variety you could craft 100 of each item and still not end up with a set of perks and stats that make the item synergise with your spec/role. What if the crafting changes are because that side of the game is being defocussed for a less RNG-on-craft focussed end-game loot loop? As I noted previously, the current crafting is totally broken (and deconstructing lvl4 vendor greens is how you most efficiently farm the mats for the endless grind of current blueprint crafting - that's too broken to stay in the game) so they needed to do something. Do we even know what the new loot loop looks like or is this just people angry that the boring and slow way they currently grind out the blueprint rolls is going to get even slower and more boring in a patch which may wipe away that entire focus on where the items you want will come from?