Octopus Overlords

GreenGoo wrote:Something came up and I was unable to play, although I did download and install the entire 46 gigs.

Thanks to those who sent me friend requests. Maybe another time.

Another free weekend, another ~50 gigs of bandwidth and disk space used.

I did manage to play 2-3 missions, and liked what I saw.

First impression was that it was a VERY high quality game. Movement, animation, feel. All top notch. As for the fun factor, I have no idea yet. It certainly has potential.

Anyone with a fair amount of play time want to list off the pros/cons of the game in point form or something?

Any reason not to disassemble weapon downgrades? I have no idea how the crafting system works or what the best option is for junk items. Sell them?

GreenGoo wrote:Any reason not to disassemble weapon downgrades? I have no idea how the crafting system works or what the best option is for junk items. Sell them?

Crafting has been greatly de-emphasized since the game launched. In general, unless I have a blueprint for something I really want to use, I sell excess loot rather than break it down.

Thanks.

Ive reinstalled and am trying to give this another go. Been gone less than a year. Ive had no problem with it just needed a break. Have 2 characters well leveled but nothing special in the gun departments. Pretty crappy actually. I also die a lot it seems. I have not done any PVP since beta and dont have plans to. Is it even possible to team up for normal PVE missions? Dont remember.

EDIT: I take that back I have one well lvl'd guy of lvl 24. He's been around the block...a few times. The other is my newer alt of lvl 4. She is a character I created to try different play styles. Im playing her now as going back and trying to play a higher lvl when you've forgotten how to play is a recipe of frustration.

Never mind. Kept dying on the hospital mission and deleted it. Im in a gaming rut.

Thought I deleted but just alt f4 exited. may try again one day.

Daehawk wrote:Is it even possible to team up for normal PVE missions?

You can play all the PvE missions as up to 4-player co-op. Each of the safehouses has a match-making terminal, iirc.

Daehawk wrote:Kept dying on the hospital mission and deleted it.

That's the one in Madison Square Gardens? When I was getting started, I found the key was to be patient, advance cautiously to avoid getting flanked, and keep in cover as much as possible. That's also the mission where I learned that the seeker drone and turret are my best friends.

My noob doesn't have either of those and its the final boss guy on the roof killing me. Though now that I alt f4'd it Ill have to play the entire thing again. Its basically your first mission and its easy until that final guy then it OMG Im dead a million times.

Daehawk wrote:My noob doesn't have either of those and its the final boss guy on the roof killing me. Though now that I alt f4'd it Ill have to play the entire thing again. Its basically your first mission and its easy until that final guy then it OMG Im dead a million times.

You need to hunker down behind cover while he's shooting, then snipe him in the head while he reloads. If you can maneuver without exposing yourself too much, you can also try to flank him, then shoot him up when he panics and relocates to a new position. Grenades will also help, if you have any.

For some reason I can only carry one grenade. I think Im going to have to camp by the resupply box and just keep chucking them.

I remember that guy on the roof. It took me a bunch of tries to finally take him down. I don't think I did anything special though - just followed that general advice that Max gave. It felt good when he finally dropped though!

Ive killed him before..At least 4 times with alt characters. But this time its just annoying me. Ive kept one main and just this alt. I plan to use different weapons and tactics with this alt is why i made it. Maybe homing nades or just pistols and shotguns...not sure yet. My main seems to be a turret / assault rifle...just want something different that Im not always having to change my main around to try.

ill get past that guy sooner or later. This noob though has no weapon balancing so its hard to hit him good and the weps I have suck to boot. I have no talents yet.

I cheesed it. I died about 4 more times and was ready for the 5th go to be my last when the boss decided standing out in the open and not shooting was the right course of action. It took me a lot of shots as my gun sucks but I finally won. Ill take a cheese win over never playing it again.

New make it great again patch

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-divisions-la ... ent=368078

Im trying to get back into the game thanks to that news . Is there a preview hotkey for store items...clothing and weapons? Id like to see what the item looks like before I buy it.

EDIT: Direct link to patch info....

https://tomclancy-thedivision.ubisoft.c ... 4-76770-32

Looks like I can forget this again. I went to the new safe house and I cant get in the door. It requires a world tier 1 score or better to enter it. WT1 means I need a high gear score....lvl 30 in min at 163 score. Im lvl 24. I cannot raise it without doing dark zone missions. I tried last year. I remember now being stuck at this gear score. So I cant even access new stuff without PVP and I have ZERO interest in being camp ganked in this game thats simply full of assholes.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:38 am Looks like I can forget this again. I went to the new safe house and I cant get in the door. It requires a world tier 1 score or better to enter it. WT1 means I need a high gear score....lvl 30 in min at 163 score. Im lvl 24. I cannot raise it without doing dark zone missions. I tried last year. I remember now being stuck at this gear score. So I cant even access new stuff without PVP and I have ZERO interest in being camp ganked in this game thats simply full of assholes.

I've levelled up 2 different characters to GS272 (more than enough for WT5) without ever needing to grind in the dark zone, just using gear available in the PVE content.

I just don't grok this game.

Every enemy is a bullet sponge deadeye crack shot sniper (no matter their weapon), even when I'm behind cover. And I'm only talking about the regular mobs so far.
MY gun jumps around like a lit brick of firecrackers.
Usable/level appropriate weapon and equipment drops are few and far between so I'm always behind on equipment power levels. Selling said useless gear gets you rolls of pennies, so it takes forever to be able to afford any good gear.
The end bosses of every mission are just fucking ridiculous. I've run out of ammo before I was able to kill them on occasion, and I'm connecting A LOT.

Seems like it could be a really cool game, how can you stand to play it? Don't even bother mentioning PvP. Not my thing.

I used to have fun with it. Have a main and an alt thats a noob. But I dont have fun now,. In fact i redeleted it.

killbot737 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:56 pm I just don't grok this game.

Every enemy is a bullet sponge deadeye crack shot sniper (no matter their weapon), even when I'm behind cover. And I'm only talking about the regular mobs so far.
MY gun jumps around like a lit brick of firecrackers.
Usable/level appropriate weapon and equipment drops are few and far between so I'm always behind on equipment power levels. Selling said useless gear gets you rolls of pennies, so it takes forever to be able to afford any good gear.
The end bosses of every mission are just fucking ridiculous. I've run out of ammo before I was able to kill them on occasion, and I'm connecting A LOT.

Seems like it could be a really cool game, how can you stand to play it? Don't even bother mentioning PvP. Not my thing.

I played through the entire game solo with none of these issues (I mean except for bullet sponge enemies). Cover works just fine. If the recoil is too much, try a different gun, different mods or stop spraying so much. I never bought any equipment until the end game because new loot came so fast there was little point in it. I think there was one time I ran into ammo problems on a mission, but it has been a LONG time so i don't remember specifics. Are you skipping all of the side content/encounters or something?

The thing to remember about this game is that it's not a shooter.

The Division is an action RPG wrapped in a shooter. Think of it as Diablo in FPS clothing complete with weapon upgrades and character progression.

You'd think nothing of having to whack away at a Boss in Diablo with your sword taking countless hits to bring down the health bar until the boss finally croaks. Well, that's exactly what The Division is only instead of fighting a "sword sponge" you are fighting a "bullet sponge."

Once you have that frame of mind, it makes a lot more sense.

I too was recently giving this a go. Bought it at launch, but couldn't play it on my old rig. It's fun once you get the hang of it, but repetitive. I mean, even for an ARPG. I'm not really sure a cover mechanic lends itself to this style of game. The world sure is pretty for an urban setting, though. Brings back memories of how amazing frozen New York felt in Max Payne when it first came out. Maybe it's better with friends, as most games in this genre are. Upgrades/modding doesn't quite feel as "fun" as it does in fantasy RPGs. There's only so much you can do to differentiate one gun from another in a semi-realistic setting.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 6:38 pm

killbot737 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:56 pm I just don't grok this game.

Every enemy is a bullet sponge deadeye crack shot sniper (no matter their weapon), even when I'm behind cover. And I'm only talking about the regular mobs so far.
MY gun jumps around like a lit brick of firecrackers.
Usable/level appropriate weapon and equipment drops are few and far between so I'm always behind on equipment power levels. Selling said useless gear gets you rolls of pennies, so it takes forever to be able to afford any good gear.
The end bosses of every mission are just fucking ridiculous. I've run out of ammo before I was able to kill them on occasion, and I'm connecting A LOT.

Seems like it could be a really cool game, how can you stand to play it? Don't even bother mentioning PvP. Not my thing.

I played through the entire game solo with none of these issues (I mean except for bullet sponge enemies). Cover works just fine. If the recoil is too much, try a different gun, different mods or stop spraying so much. I never bought any equipment until the end game because new loot came so fast there was little point in it. I think there was one time I ran into ammo problems on a mission, but it has been a LONG time so i don't remember specifics. Are you skipping all of the side content/encounters or something?

I'll second that it's important to do the side missions and encounters in each neighborhood if you don't want to fall behind the leveling curve. I'd even go so far as to say it's worthwhile to thoroughly explore each neighborhood in order to find the gear crates, crafting resources and especially the intel collectibles. There are a lot of really good background stories in the collectibles that add a lot of flavor to the game.

I took a run at leveling up a new character this week. By doing all the side missions and encounters (but without grinding repeat story missions), I was able to hit level 30 while I was in Turtle Bay (the second last neighborhood, IIRC), at which point the loot piñata starts up in earnest. After gearing up enough to unlock world tier 5, I'm finding the overall difficulty has decreased since the last time I was playing regularly. Hard-mode mission bosses are going down a lot faster than I remember, and this morning I even dropped the Bullet King (my favorite open world boss) with a single head shot from a sniper rifle.

I jumped back in a week ago. My character was level 22 and maybe 75% of the way through the story.

At level 22 I had a terrible time. Every enemy had to be whittled down and I died a LOT. I pushed through and things started improving around level 26-27 or so (it may just be that my gear got better, too). At level 30 on World Tier 1 enemies die quickly.

I've read elsewhere about the game being unreasonably difficult in the early 20's. It may just be that I didn't do enough side missions to keep my level up. I was level 28 when I started the final mission and ended at level 29.


The game got a lot more fun once I hit 30.

Exodor wrote: ↑Sun Jan 28, 2018 1:30 pm I jumped back in a week ago. My character was level 22 and maybe 75% of the way through the story.

At level 22 I had a terrible time. Every enemy had to be whittled down and I died a LOT. I pushed through and things started improving around level 26-27 or so (it may just be that my gear got better, too). At level 30 on World Tier 1 enemies die quickly.

I've read elsewhere about the game being unreasonably difficult in the early 20's. It may just be that I didn't do enough side missions to keep my level up. I was level 28 when I started the final mission and ended at level 29.


The game got a lot more fun once I hit 30.

Yeah, I hit a bit of a bump in the difficulty curve at about L26. I think it was because that was when I started fighting LMB -- they seem to be significantly tougher than the rioters, Rikers and Cleaners. I got past it by hitting the vendors and updating my gear and weapons. If I had been really jammed up, I could have tried grouping up and playing co-op with a PUG, but it never came to that.

I reinstalled. I can vouch for it being hell at lvl 24. Killing stuff takes forever. Ive only crafted one gun and its not as good as what Ive found even though its purple.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Sun Jan 28, 2018 11:17 pm I reinstalled. I can vouch for it being hell at lvl 24. Killing stuff takes forever. Ive only crafted one gun and its not as good as what Ive found even though its purple.

Crafting weapons or gear is generally not worth the effort unless it matches your level. If you haven't been lucky with loot drops, the most effective thing is to hit a vendor and pick up the best weapon (and gear, if you have the budget) for your current level.

I already miss the stationary damage buff from the Ambush global event that just ended. It made the difference between barely being able to complete challenging-mode missions and being crushed by the extra named bosses at the end of the missions. Apparently, it's also the reason I was able to one-shot the Bullet King -- it takes 2 or 3 head-shots for me to drop him now that the event is over.

With this being one of the early unlocks in February Humble Monthly I had a spare key to give my 12yo son who has been doing very well with the Borderlands game. I already had two level 30 characters from the early days, but I started anew one to play through with him. Once we got to levle 17 or so I switched to one of my 30s and started powerleveling him. He's having a lot of fun with it and I have moved my 30 from world tier 1 to tier 5 and am happily crushing the level 34 stuff. My weapons are not optimal as I got owned badly in the dark zone. I have not kept up with what the cool weapons and abilities are... but with The Division 2 around the corner, I am not sure I care too much.

Curious, what made you start the second character? I didn't see much reason to. Once I finished all the story and side quests, it didn't take me long to get my gear up. I worked a bit on getting set items. I don't have any problems outside the Dark Zone, but inside is a different beast. I'd like to do more in there. The NPCs are definitely more challenging; many are down right brutal. But I don't want to deal with other people. Getting ganked while trying to extract gear really blows. And I don't want to invest the time into getting the right spec/gear going for PvP. I simply don't enjoy PvP. So other than re-running missions outside the DZ on harder difficulties, I don't see much to do.

Question - is it possible to get gear that is higher than ~285 score? My overall GS is in the 270s (I think). Other than trying to get the same pieces of gear that I'm using with slightly better GS or a different mix of traits, there doesn't seem much point.

That said, I had a lot of fun playing it and leveling up. And I do have a few more things to find, if I really want to mess around. I'm missing stuff in the higher level zones by the water.

TheMix wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 11:38 am Curious, what made you start the second character?

I don't really remember. I think I may have come back to it after a while and wanted to see how the experience had changed... or possibly got frustrated with the Dark Zone and wanted to play the game but not there. In the early days there weren't as many options for things to do. Up until this past week, both my characters were at like 174... getting past that was a pain so I didn't bother. Now you can fly straight to ~265.

I don't think I saw anyone running around with a GS higher than 280, but I am hanging out in DZ01/DZ02 figuring things out which isn't where the cool kids play.

TheMix wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 11:38 am Question - is it possible to get gear that is higher than ~285 score? My overall GS is in the 270s (I think).

I just saw a guy with a 290GS.

I tried the beta of this game but wasn't really turned on enough to buy it at that time, especially at full price. I think I was put off mainly by the enemy being such bullet magnets sponges and having other stuff to play.

Now I happened to check Green Man Gaming and I see that there's a sale and my VIP price for the standard edition is $6.75 USD, while the Gold edition is $12.15 USD. Are these good prices considering the game is approaching three years old? Is it still worth getting The Division with D2 coming out soon? I'm not really into multiplayer so I'd just be soloing it.

you might want to consider getting it at humble monthly bundle as it's there for $12 with other games.

I think there'd be enough game (especially solo-play) to make the sale price worthwhile. This is another game I come back to every now and again, and usually really enjoy my time with it. So much so that I'm on the fence about getting Division 2 closer to release, or my usual pattern of waiting for sales.

I might even fire it up later and play a bit, now that this thread has made me take notice of the game again.

I've spent a LOT of time on it and 99.5% of that time has been solo. The end game wasn't solo friendly when it first came out, but you can get a LOT of gameplay out of it solo as it stands today.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:58 pm I've spent a LOT of time on it and 99.5% of that time has been solo. The end game wasn't solo friendly when it first came out, but you can get a LOT of gameplay out of it solo as it stands today.

Steam is telling me 77 hours. I played through all the solo stuff. I did a few hours dabbling in the Dark Zone(?) and spent a bit of time in the areas by the water. But easily 60 hours just doing the story quests, side quests, and finding all the items in each of the zones.

As mentioned humble bundle has this as part of the monthly bundle. I might install it. I've played it some on free weekends and I can see the appeal. I suspect it would be even more fun coop, but like ghost recon wildlands, it works solo as well. Certainly enough to get your money's worth anyway.

Thanks for the replies , I decided to pick this up. My problem has always been that I need to play something new once I complete a campaign, otherwise I might be going back to Ghost Recon Wildlands or Fallout 4 or something. From the beta I remember going into a basketball stadium and was really impressed with the setting. I'll get over the bullet sponge thing . Downloading the almost 50GB now

There's certainly a degree of cognitive disconnect with this game. Its name and realistic style make you expect it to have a realistic damage model, but it's built more like an MMO, with enemies having health bars you need to wear down. If you think of the shooter portion working less like Far Cry/Rainbow Six/Call of Duty and more like Borderlands, and go in with that expectation, it is fun. If you expect to drop guys you don't outlevel with a single clean shot, it's going to feel wrong.