The Division Patch 1.02 looks to bring balance to the Dark Zone

While The Division might be topping charts and setting records, Ubisoft’s latest Tom Clancy title is far from perfect. Addressing some of the biggest issues the game has had since its launch earlier this month, developer Ubisoft Massive has released the newest patch notes for the game, the update scheduled to role out Mar 22.Though dealing with an impressive number of glitches and exploits, the biggest piece of the patch has to do with balancing The Division’s so-far problematic endgame, particularly in the PvP area known as the Dark Zone. Though intended as a lawless, dangerous place, where players could steal loot from others, the Dark Zone has been far more peaceful than originally planned.

• Sean Timm
• March 21, 2016
• in PC

While The Division might be topping charts and setting records, Ubisoft’s latest Tom Clancy title is far from perfect. Addressing some of the biggest issues the game has had since its launch earlier this month, developer Ubisoft Massive has released the newest patch notes for the game, the update scheduled to role out Mar 22.

Though dealing with an impressive number of glitches and exploits, the biggest piece of the patch has to do with balancing The Division’s so-far problematic endgame, particularly in the PvP area known as the Dark Zone. Though intended as a lawless, dangerous place, where players could steal loot from others, the Dark Zone has been far more peaceful than originally planned.

To address this, not only is the loot in the Dark Zone going to be better, there will be less of a penalty for dying, whether you have gone rogue or not, and more of a reward for surviving your rogue status after opening fire on other players. Likewise, the reward for killing rogue agents has been increased, giving everyone just that much more of a reason to tend towards letting bullets fly.

Another big change (one that might upset a few players), is the fact that named enemies will no longer respawn in the open world after being killed. A popular exploit in the game’s community has been farming those exact enemies for the high-tier loot they drop. Unfortunately that appears to no longer be possible.

Check out the full patch notes below:

GAMEPLAY

• Named enemies. will now drop better loot in Challenge mode than in Hard mode.
• Added a cooldown period for the Static Turret stun attack in order to avoid a stunlock in PvP and PvE game modes.
• 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.
• Modifications to the weapon talent: Trained.
• It can now only be rolled on Shotgun, Marksman rifles and Pistols
• Its bonus has been reduced from 1%-5% to a constant 0.1%
• For the Midas SMGs, Trained Talent has been replaced with Responsive Talent which increases damage when getting closer to the target. This applies to existing weapons as well as newly acquired ones
• For all SMGs, LMGs, and Assault Rifles, it will be replaced with another randomly picked weapon talent. This applies to existing weapons as well as newly acquired ones
• Fixed a speed run exploit for the Rooftop Comm Relay mission
• Fixed an issue where weapons dealt no damage if the reload animation was interrupted by an agent’s skill
• Fixed an issue where players became stuck in an emote animation if activated via chat while auto running
• Fixed a bug where skill power would be increased permanently while using the Death by Proxy talent
• Fixed a bug where experience was not being awarded for completing all side-missions in the Midtown East safe house
• Fixed instances where the Seeker Mine with Airburst / Multi-mine mod would detonate too soon, miss targets or cause no damage
• Fixed a bug where grenades would sometimes not display the blast radius warning before detonating
• Fixed an issue where some NPCs in low cover would not react to being shot by the player
• Fixed issues where emotes would cause the player model to behave oddly (missing guns, player stuck in emote animation, etc)
• Fixed a bug where weapon mods and weapon skins would not show up on other players in the game world
• Fixed an issue where DPS would not be calculated properly when purchasing a new weapon mod

DARK ZONE

• Players can now heal other neutral players in the Dark zone, by using First Aid and Support Station skills
• Players are now able to fast travel to Dark Zone checkpoints, but only when coming from outside the Dark Zone
• The Dark Zone disconnect timer has been increased to 30 seconds, meaning players will remain in the game world longer when logging out while in the Dark Zone (this applies while not in combat)
• Items extracted from the Dark Zone are now properly marked as “new” items when moved to the players inventory
• Players killed in the Dark Zone now drop ammo, medkits and grenades. This loot is generated and not taken from the dying players’ inventory
• 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
• Phoenix Credits drop have been increased on lvl 31 and 32 enemies in the Dark Zone: Please note that due to this fix causing client stability issues, we have to remove it from this update until it can be addressed in a next one
  • Lvl 30: 1-3 Phoenix Credits
  • Lvl 31: 2-4 Phoenix Credits
  • Lvl 32: 3-5 Phoenix Credits
• Increased drop rate of High-End items from lvl 31 and 32 named NPCs in the Dark Zone.
• Increased drop rate of High-End Division Tech Material from lvl 32 named NPCs in the Dark Zone.
• Improved Dark Zone Chests items quality:
• Rank 30 chests will now drop Superior (Purple) items instead of Specialized (Blue)
• Keys chests now have a chance to drop High-End (Gold) items
• Dark Zone Funds drop rates and quantity on NPCs has been reduced.
• Fixed a bug where the Wildfire and Fear Tactics talents were affecting neutral players in the Dark Zone.
• Fixed instances where players would receive a DELTA error message when entering the Dark Zone
• Fixed a bug where sometimes players could not loot anything after returning to the game following a network disconnection
• Fixed Stage 1 Rogue timers not displaying correctly when Rogue players receive damage from another player

GRAPHICS

• Fixed a few lights that did not cast global illumination

UI

• Added more information for Daily missions on the Map
• Tutorials have received some UI polish
• The Matchmaking menu now displays the mission difficulty rating more prominently
• The mini-map mission tracker has been optimized to be less confusing to players
• Fixed a bug where some of the attributes for high-end equipment were cut-off in the recalibration menu
• Fixed a bug where the Matchmaking menu for a mission would not display correctly or kept disappearing
• Fixed missing item icons in the Reward Claim Vendor’s inventory
• Fixed incorrect side-missions being displayed in the Map legend

AUDIO

• Fixed a bug where the helicopter crash SFX would be missing from the Brooklyn end cinematic
• Fixed a bug where the Zapper Turret mod had no sound
• Fixed a bug where the audio for entering a contaminated area would be cut-off
• Fixed a bug where audio would not play when scrolling through vanity items

LOCALIZATION

• Fixed Ubisoft CLUB reward descriptions in Korean and Traditional Chinese
• In-game localization bug fixes

PC

• Tobii Eye Tracking bug fixes and improvements
• On launch, the PC client now monitors PC graphic settings and applies the best settings for the user’s configuration. This is unless the user has custom settings.
• Fixed an issue where the Map was sometimes difficult to navigate with a mouse
• Fixed issues with Hungarian, Korean, and Russian localizations
• Fixed an issue that prevented matchmaking while on the Map
• Removed the Store button from the Character Selection screen on PC versions of the game. Players can find the store page in the Ubisoft CLUB app directly
• Fixed increment number on Day 1 Patch Notes (was 1.1, now correctly states 1.01)

XBOX ONE

• Fixed a bug where players could not reconnect to the servers after suspending the game on Xbox One
• Fixed a bug on Xbox One where unblocking a player would not be reflected in-game until title reboot

PLAYSTATION 4

• Added an option to disable the PlayStation 4 controller speaker
• Improved textures and models streaming speed
• Fixed an issue where ISAC volume could get too loud when playing with headsets