The Division
I wasn't going to play Tom Clancy's The Division. A modern third-person shooter is fine. Online-only play and instanced zones is not any sort of big plus, though pretty standard these days. But being built toward group play put me off. I don't have any squad of regularly friends to play these games with, and even if I did have the people/connections, the timing is difficult to work out.
Buuut, someone on Faire talked it up, so I gave it a chance. Within the framework of what it is, the game is pretty good. Most of it can be played solo - to the point I did the entire storyline and have run hard (but not challenging) difficulty missions all by myself. Being grounded in a "realistic" setting is limiting, but there's a decent variety of looks and item models. I'd like to see a little wider variety of enemies, but what's there is serviceable.
When you hit level 30, advancement is a gear-based thing, much like most MMO's or Diablo or (I presume) Destiny, which is probably said to be the closest comparison. That means pretty much 1) doing challenge-difficulty missions for high-end drops (which I don't think is very soloable, but I technically haven't tried), 2) doing daily missions of hard (or challenging) difficulty to earn Phoenix Credits for a handful of stuff available at the base, or 3) earning Dark Zone ranks to be able to afford gear/patterns available at the safe zones there (which also cost Phoenix Credits, though that's about to change). This was made a bit more annoying by the sudden lack of daily missions that stopped refreshing Friday night because, apparently, the daily reset was hard-coded only to go to the 8th. Oops? There's a patch coming Tuesday that should add a few options, but there's an unavoidable grindiness to the "endgame" that's inherent in these sorts of games.
The Dark Zone itself is... interesting. I'm sure when they thought that up, it was inspired by the PVP free-for-all games like DayZ and such - a zone where you can kill other players for rank points and a chance at some of the loot they might have gained recently. Doing so gets you flagged as "rogue" which means you're a valid target for anyone else, rogue or not, until a timer counts down. Initially, though, the penalties for getting killed as a rogue so outweighed the benefits, that no one was doing it and the designers had to adjust things. Even so, it's often not the most efficient way to go, and we all no gamers go for efficiency a lot of the time. There are still those who do it regardless, so the zone isn't "safe" by any means, but most of the other agents I've passed there haven't taken a shot at me. In something like DayZ there really isn't (or wasn't last I looked) any reason to work together. In the Division's Dark Zone, you can tag NPC enemies for credit alongside strangers without penalty - and most people do.
Of course, there have been some exceptions. Playing there in bits and pieces over a week, I have exited a safe room to have someone run by, turn around, and blast me with a shotgun. I have been extracting loot only to have an explosion put me down - along with the next four people at the extraction point as they tried to revive. I've only seen one case that actually seemed like hacking/cheating - when a rogue agent disappeared from view around a corner only to reappear an impossible distance away around the building seconds later and put me down with a single shot. But most of my Dark Zone time has been unmolested and sometimes even cooperative.
It's repetitive, and I think that's probably the worst part of the game, but... is actually reasonably fun, too, even playing alone. And that's not what I expected.
Buuut, someone on Faire talked it up, so I gave it a chance. Within the framework of what it is, the game is pretty good. Most of it can be played solo - to the point I did the entire storyline and have run hard (but not challenging) difficulty missions all by myself. Being grounded in a "realistic" setting is limiting, but there's a decent variety of looks and item models. I'd like to see a little wider variety of enemies, but what's there is serviceable.
When you hit level 30, advancement is a gear-based thing, much like most MMO's or Diablo or (I presume) Destiny, which is probably said to be the closest comparison. That means pretty much 1) doing challenge-difficulty missions for high-end drops (which I don't think is very soloable, but I technically haven't tried), 2) doing daily missions of hard (or challenging) difficulty to earn Phoenix Credits for a handful of stuff available at the base, or 3) earning Dark Zone ranks to be able to afford gear/patterns available at the safe zones there (which also cost Phoenix Credits, though that's about to change). This was made a bit more annoying by the sudden lack of daily missions that stopped refreshing Friday night because, apparently, the daily reset was hard-coded only to go to the 8th. Oops? There's a patch coming Tuesday that should add a few options, but there's an unavoidable grindiness to the "endgame" that's inherent in these sorts of games.
The Dark Zone itself is... interesting. I'm sure when they thought that up, it was inspired by the PVP free-for-all games like DayZ and such - a zone where you can kill other players for rank points and a chance at some of the loot they might have gained recently. Doing so gets you flagged as "rogue" which means you're a valid target for anyone else, rogue or not, until a timer counts down. Initially, though, the penalties for getting killed as a rogue so outweighed the benefits, that no one was doing it and the designers had to adjust things. Even so, it's often not the most efficient way to go, and we all no gamers go for efficiency a lot of the time. There are still those who do it regardless, so the zone isn't "safe" by any means, but most of the other agents I've passed there haven't taken a shot at me. In something like DayZ there really isn't (or wasn't last I looked) any reason to work together. In the Division's Dark Zone, you can tag NPC enemies for credit alongside strangers without penalty - and most people do.
Of course, there have been some exceptions. Playing there in bits and pieces over a week, I have exited a safe room to have someone run by, turn around, and blast me with a shotgun. I have been extracting loot only to have an explosion put me down - along with the next four people at the extraction point as they tried to revive. I've only seen one case that actually seemed like hacking/cheating - when a rogue agent disappeared from view around a corner only to reappear an impossible distance away around the building seconds later and put me down with a single shot. But most of my Dark Zone time has been unmolested and sometimes even cooperative.
It's repetitive, and I think that's probably the worst part of the game, but... is actually reasonably fun, too, even playing alone. And that's not what I expected.
While I hadn't sought out reviews, the murmuring seemed to be generally negative for this game. You are the first semi-positive review I've read. As long as you had fun, right?
ReplyDeleteNot sure what the complaints would be, really. Well, other than the initial flurry of "OMG this game doesn't work!" that I missed by not buying on release day. ;) It could certainly use more variety and I, personally, wish the endgame didn't lean as heavily on PVP as it does. I've played far worse/more mediocre games, though.
ReplyDeleteHere's a complaint in video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKsj345Jjw
ReplyDeleteReasonably valid statements, yet while that does raise some issues it doesn't make the game itself bad. In a general sense, it's not really thematically worse than 90% of other shooters (or even "adventure" games) where you mow down countless enemies. Is the idea of President-controlled sleeper agents strewn about the country given ultimate fiat to do whatever they want in pursuit of their assignment if activated terrifying? Absolutely. This situation has dystopia written all over it, and not just because of an engineered super-smallpox having brought a major city to its knees. It becomes clear early on that some of the first-wave (the player is in the second) Division agents have gone "rogue" and are following their own agendas as well. The whole situation is messed up, and power afforded PCs to try to make things better is scary. But... you're also given opportunity to help the occasional civilian on the street. In pursuit of upgrading the base of operations and following the story, one fixes power services, tracks down virus samples to work on a cure, and generally does start piecing things back together. I found the "Cleaners" to be a solid reflection and "dark mirror" for the Division actions. They take a "burn everything" approach, but their zealous nature highlighted that the Division is not altogether dissimilar in its approach.
ReplyDeleteWell, I still feel I got my money out of it, but in fairness I do have to say that the increasing prevalence of hacking is pretty much dragging the community down. The latest I've seen talked about actually involved the ability to loot equipped items from people in the dark zone (rather than just 'contaminated' unbound items that might drop). Coupled with the infinite damage, teleportation, and whatever else, that's... bad. And general word seems to be that's because the game was designed client-heavy with consoles in mind, making it ridiculously easy for people to mess with on a PC. That means it's probably going to be hard or impossible to fix, which totally ruins the PVP experience that seems to be the primary endgame focus.
ReplyDelete