The Division 2 [PC, PS4, XBone] - March 15th 2019

[Medicine Man]

Beta sign ups...

https://tomclancy-thedivision.ubisoft.c ... en-gb/beta

[Jez]

Must avoid any hype!!! Got totally sucked into the hype last time.

[DjchunKfunK]

Having played the Division at launch and then a year after, I think Massive learned a lot through the development of the game and they managed to create a really good game post launch. So I think the sequel could be pretty good and I like what they have said so far about post launch support. I think it will still have the issue with bullet sponge enemies that will put people off, but I don't think it is something you can get around when developing a game in which humans are the protagonists. The Destiny games are full of bullet sponge enemies, but people ignore that because they are aliens, so I think the Division gets unfairly maligned for that.

Overall I had more fun with the Division than I did Destiny and I think the sequel looks more interesting than Anthem, so I am cautiously optimistic.

[Snowy]

I will probably go for this, I definitely had my money's worth from the original, going back for a lengthy stay earlier this year and enjoying all the new content. It is what it is - I would have loved it to be more tactical and could have done without the PvP element being there at all, but as I say it is what it is and if you take that as read what you have is an enjoyable game.

[Jez]

Yep the bullet sponging is just too much for me to overcome I'm afraid. I hated it in the first one.

95% Not a buy for me.

[DjchunKfunK]

They are adding armour to the tougher enemies to help mitigate things a bit for the sequel, but it wont remove the issue entirely.

[STuG]

Borderlands had many bullet sponge human enemies, the Witcher series has you slashing repeatedly at humans with an assortment of longswords until they finally fall over..dare I say it after watching the gameplay footage of Cyberpunk, that too has what can be construed as 'sponge' enemies. I don't think it's an entirely fair critique. Especially as once fully geared and modded your character can melt most enemies with relative ease.

The original Division after a very, very shaky launch and some pronounced birthing pangs turned the corner into a fine co-op game. One I still play most nights.

Very excited to play this.

[Jez]

I think you actually can critique a game on this issue but I'll concede that there's probably a very slim tolerance on "how much is too much" in my case. I've played many games with similar mechanics but with Division at least in my own personal experience I disliked it a lot.

[Snowy]

once fully geared and modded your character can melt most enemies with relative ease.

This is very true - when I went back to it I happened on another player who had the gear of the gods and we got chatting. He took me on some hunting sprees where I basically hid until the bads were dead (in WoW terms, I was a level 15 toon being powered through an endgame zone). I then had all the loot to pick through. He was at a loose end and kept at it until my character and vault were dripping with virtually top-tier gear. Having armed and armoured myself appropriately I then took on some top tier missions of my own and rounded out my loadout.

On anything bar top difficulty, a little tactical awareness sees me tear through enemies.

[Mantis]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019 ... ames-store

Not coming to Steam but will be on the new Epic Games Store. Presumably you'll launch it through the client and then it'll force you to log in to the uPlay client in order to play, as seems to be the way with all Ubisoft PC games nowadays.

[DjchunKfunK]

The story I read seemed to suggest that this was the first in a line of titles coming to the Epic store. If Ubisoft is leaving Steam then that means all the big players no longer launch on Steam and that's a much bigger deal than the odd indy game being exclusive to the Epic store.

[Snowy]

It would be good for devs, as it would probably force Steam to drop their ludicrous margins.

Money talking, as it always does.

[Medicine Man]

Private beta goes live on all platforms on February 7th until the 11th...

https://tomclancy-thedivision.ubisoft.c ... en-gb/beta

Available to pre-orderererers and select folks who sign up via the link above.

[DjchunKfunK]

Anyone checking out the beta this weekend?

[STuG]

Playing it now.

If you enjoyed the first, you will certainly enjoy this. DC is a lot more open and less claustrophobic than NYC and the portion of the map you get to wander around in has a very post apocalyptic feel to things as nature has started to reclaim swathes of the city.

I never had an issue with 'bullet sponge' enemies as that is a staple of the genre, but trash mobs go down with less ammo expenditure in this game than the first and with some precision shots purples fall over quicker too to starting characters. Only played a few hours thus far and most of that has been exploring. Just about to encounter a boss when i had a hard crash.

Enjoying it nonetheless.

Edit: Just checked, the client crash is a known bug after playing for a couple of hours.

There are two important ones that we want to raise before the Beta itself starts. These are high priority issues for us that will be fixed, but are present in the Beta.

We are aware of issues causing players' game client crash on Xbox and PC after an extended gameplay session while PS4 players may experience a performance degradation after 3+ hours of uninterrupted gameplay. To circumvent both issues, we recommend players to restart their game client every two to three hours.

Secondly, on all platforms, if you are outside the game and receive a game invite from a friend within the game, your client will crash at launch. To work around this problem, make sure to start the game first and join group directly from inside the game.