The Division has been off to an admittedly rough start, but Ubisoft is hoping to fix a lot of those problems with Patch 1.0.2.
If there’s one thing Massive has been doing right since the Division released two weeks ago it’s responding to community complaints and grievances. Patch 1.0.2 is an attempt at answering major problems that the game has had, many of which are some of the larger complaints among the game’s community.
One of the biggest changes in this patch is the fixing the exploit that’s been allowing people to farm named World Bosses for easy loot and Phoenix Credits. From now on killing a named enemy in the open world will now remove them from the game world whether you kill their minions or not.
A few of the changes we will see in Patch 1.0.2:
- Named enemies. will now drop better loot in Challenge mode than in Hard mode.
- Named NPCs will no longer respawn after being killed in the Open World. This will prevent situations where players were able to kill a same named NPC over and over again.
- Players are now able to fast travel to Dark Zone checkpoints, but only when coming from outside the Dark Zone
- Players killed in the Dark Zone will lose less Dark Zone Funds and Experience (Rogue and non-Rogue)
- Dark Zone Funds and Experience rewards for surviving Rogue status have been improved
- Dark Zone Funds and Experience rewards for killing Rogue agents have been improved
Patch 1.0.2 was supposed to include an increase in the Phoenix Credit drop rate from name enemies in the Dark Zone as well but they’ve had to remove it and retool for a future patch since it was crashing game clients.
This patch won’t save The Division from its rocky beginnings but it’s most definitely a step in the right direction. The comparisons to Destiny are fairly well founded but there is one main difference between these two games and it’s kind of a huge one: the developers care about the game’s community.
There aren’t many companies that care about the plight of the gamer in today’s environment. To see Massive consistently working towards perfecting their AAA title until it’s the absolute best game it can be for the consumer is reassuring to say the least.
This isn’t the fix-all I know people are clamoring for, but it’s enough for now. See the full Patch 1.0.2 notes here.
