[2020] Status update on fixes and balancing

Agents, we wanted to share some updates on our progress we’re making to address issues that have been reported by our community and also the balance changes we mentioned on State of the Game last week.

Before we jump into the details we also wanted to address that we are constantly working on several issues at the same time with different teams and that some fixes or changes require more time to setup, test and patch. This means that some changes to smaller issues that might not impact as many players will be coming first, while other, more impactful changes need a bit more time.

As you know we deployed a new update last Tuesday that implemented several fixes, including a change to fix the infinite loading screen loop players experienced in the Dark Zone. Additionally we made some changes that have improved the long waiting times when matchmaking for activities. We are now working on the next update, which we internally call TU8.4 and are planning to release this as soon as we can. The following fixes are planned for the update but keep in mind that we still need to test these before they can be put live. We will have an up-to-date list ready during the maintenance when this update will be made available, so keep an eye out for that.

Bug fixes:

• Fixing an issue causing Target Intel to be stuck in the mail box.
  
  • As the Target Intel system has been removed we are now also removing the unneeded Intel from mail boxes that are spamming some players.
• Fixing an issue that causes the Sticky Bomb to not do damage under certain circumstances.
• Fixing an issue with the Apparel Event schedule not correctly displaying.
• Fixing missing audio dialogues for the Brazilian Portuguese language pack on Stadia.
• Fixing an issue causing developer UI elements to show in the Language and Settings UI.
• Fixing an issue causing players to lose Season Manhunt progress under certain circumstances.
• Fixing an issue causing the Shock Trap to deploy the small devices very close together.
• Fixing an issue causing the Hard-Wired Gear Set bonuses and talents not working properly.

Gameplay changes:

• Seasonal Manhunt will be changed to allow progress at Normal difficulty and above. This will make playing together easier as all players will gain progress no matter what difficulty was set by the group leader.
• Seasonal Manhunt will receive a button in the Manhunt UI that will allow players to reset the Manhunt to replay it. This will allow players to reset this progress specifically and without changing the Global Difficulty.
  
  • This also means changing the Global Difficulty will not reset the Seasonal Manhunt and players are required to reset it via the Seasonal Manhunt UI.
• Coyote’s Mask will drop from Coyote with an increased drop chance on higher difficulties.
  
  • We are also looking into providing the Mask for players that have not received them even though they reached Season Rank 35.

Balancing changes:

Developer Note:
The game was tuned in a way that playing the exact same enemy composition at higher difficulties and higher player counts would match to the expected gear of that difficulty and extra players added. However, since the game also adds more Elites and Veterans to accommodate higher difficulty and player counts, this caused tuning to overcompensate health and damage higher than intended.  We are thus lowering many of these values.

As we mentioned on State of the Game, there are several ways for us to balance difficulty. For the next update we will:

• Reduce NPC Damage output for all difficulties.
  
  • This applies to all NPCs and activities and enemies will do less damage to players compared to their current damage output.
• Reduce NPC Health and Amor for group scaling.
  
  • Enemy Health and Armor scaling for 2-, 3- and 4-player groups based on Veterancy.
    
    • This means Red, Veteran, Elite and Named enemies will have their Health and Armor reduced compared to their current values.
• Additionally, we are adjusting Health and Armor based on activity difficulty.
  
  • This applies to Hard and Challenging difficulties where enemies will have lower Health and Armor compared to their current values.
  • An exception are Heroic and Legendary difficulty enemies which will have their Health and Armor increased to compensate for the group scaling reductions to their values.

Developer Note: We still intend Heroic and Legendary to be very challenging. Therefore, we are increasing the base difficulty to account for the health reductions for co-op scaling. Compared to now this means Heroic and Legendary will be a bit harder for solo players and 2-player groups, 3-player difficulty will stay roughly the same, and 4-player difficulty will be easier.

Lvl 30 WT1-WT5 Content

• NPC Damage, Health and Armor will receive additional reductions.

Developer Note: Pre-Warlords of New York content has lower maximum values to weapon damage, skill damage, and armor (etc.) than level 31+ content so difficulty is now tuned separately for pre-expansion world tier content.

PvP Balance Changes:

• All PvP weapon damage: - 20%
• PvP Rifles: an additional -10%
• PvP MMRs: an additional -10%

These changes are all planned for our next update and once we have verified when we can deploy it we will of course inform you.

We also are working on other changes and fixes, but these are coming later down the line. These will require additional work from our developers and more testing, so we currently don’t have an exact timing. If possible, we will implement changes and fixes that are ready earlier and will of course let you know.

• Talents and Gear Set bonuses not working.
  
  • We are working on this right now and any fixes will be implemented as quickly as we can, it’s a high priority fix for us.
  • This also includes the Tip of the Spear providing Spec ammo to be available in the Dark Zone.
• Hit registration issues:
  
  • We are currently investigating the reports we are seeing from players and if you have any additional videos please send them over to us.
• Some Hive Skill variants are not receiving the Health and Range bonuses from Skill Tiers.
• Low FPS in Dark Zone Extraction areas.
• Fixing an issue causing players to not be able to progress to another World Tier after finishing the required Stronghold in a group and leaving the group after completing the
• Stronghold.
• Fixing several separate issues causing NPCs to become stuck when the player is taking over enemy Control Points.
• Season Ranks having been reset.
  
  • We are still trying to identify the underlying cause of this, so we can make sure this does not happen again.
  • We are also investigating the possibility to restore the Season Level for players that have been reset.
• Fixing an issue causing players to be unable to exit the boat during the Liberty Island mission.
• Fixing an issue causing players to be unable to re-do the Hunter puzzle encounters if they have failed the encounter before.
• Fixing an issue causing the Specialization Weapons to not unlock when purchasing the Year 1 Pass or its variants.
• Fixing an issue causing the Seeker Mine to sometimes not work properly.
• Fixing and issue causing Season rewards to not be delivered when skipping a level.
• Fixing issues causing some Bounty areas to have closed doors, blocking progress.
• Fixing issues causing players to be unable to revive downed agents.

We will continuously update you on the progress of these changes and fixes as we are getting closer to deploying them. We thank you for your patience and the detailed reports and feedback.

// The Division 2 team