Tom Clancy's The Division

[Teal]

I need some Division help here. No matter where I go, how much I level up, I just can't seem to find or create a solid weapon to go against enemies at my level (20). I know it's an RPG, but the terminology and how things work is so.... Different. Been in a kick with this one recently, and would love some advice, or better yet... Some company.

[TCrouch]

I was playing a little of this this past weekend, but what you're running into is part of the flow. What type of weapon do you prefer? Marksman rifle, assault rifle, LMG, etc.?

You get rewards for completing side missions (like blueprints), so sometimes the trick is to look for missions that reward you with a blueprint of a weapon that you'd like to try. That, of course, also requires you to deconstruct items you're not going to use, in order to gather materials to make better gear. This is the route I followed on my first level capped character. If you just rely on drops for finding a weapon, and don't try to craft them, you're going to be rolling the dice on what you can find, and will frequently find spots where you don't feel powerful enough when some of your gear is older.

If you unlocked the special weapon vendor and opt to purchase weapons, instead, then that's a different plan, but then you'd likely be selling gear to get credits to buy new stuff, but that cycles every few hours (I can't remember how many), so you're still rolling the dice--just not as badly as waiting for drops.

Until you level cap, your best bet is to crush gear to get mats, and then use those mats to craft new stuff on a constant cycle. But another huge part of it is using gear and the mods to grant bonuses. Like using an Assault Rifle? If you find a pair of gloves that does +49 Assault Rifle damage, you'd use those over another pair. Examine the gear you use closely, because even while leveling, you can gravitate toward gear that gives you bonuses for your preferred weapon type of skills that you use, which can help your kill speed out a ton.

[pk500]

Thanks for that advice, Terry!

Teal, hit me up any time you want to play The Division online. I've been on a Division kick, too -- for about the last seven months. I still play this game many times every week. Arguably my favorite shooter ever.

[Teal]

I've got a great sniper rifle right now, but I have a marksman rifle for my primary and I'm just not digging the semi auto. But I've never come across a blueprint for an automatic that is better, stat wise. Oh, speaking of that. On the effectiveness of the weapon, which number matters more, the DPS, the level, or the damage listed with the RPM? I get these level 20-21 weapons, with crazy DPS, but the damage is far less than what I have already.

[TCrouch]

There isn't one be-all, end-all stat for guns. It's tough to tell what's better stat-wise without weighing a bunch of factors. The RPM will spit more bullets out, but the accuracy could suffer. You could have a slower firing weapon with higher damage per round, yet the DPS doesn't match something like a marksman rifle because "per second", the marksman rifle will suffer. Yet when a marksman rifle has triple the damage of an assault rifle, and a 36% headshot damage bonus--it really doesn't matter. You end up doing massive, massive damage with a single shot...even though the DPS is technically "lower".

Honestly, there's no harm in literally equipping every gun you get and firing them at a few trash mobs. You'd be surprised at how different some weapons feel. Some have strange recoil (since I'm an assault rifle guy, I'll use personal experience here). The AK-47 is a higher DPS AR, but it has a weird "up and left" recoil that comes from whatever the weapon does to eject the casings. I don't like it, but my son loves it. The M4 is solid, but its accuracy suffers with any sustained firing. If you burst fire (yeah, I know we should always burst fire, but bosses and elites will f*ck that theory up), it's good, but any more than that and your bullet spray is nuts.

My personal favorite is the G36. It's accurate, it can hit from quite a distance, and the spread doesn't go crazy. Yet stat-wise, it doesn't compare to some other ARs. Yet I will chew through targets a hell of a lot faster with a G36 than I could with a statistically superior AK-47, because more rounds hit the target without me doing finger gymnastics to try to train the sights on them as they move around.

Some Marksman rifles with larger clips (10 or 20 rounds) I like. The SCAR-H is one I've used a lot, and the SRS Covert or whatever it's called, and an Mk17 Police version were also ones I used.

It's lame, but the best advice is to just try them out. You might be stunned to find out that your personal playstyle leads to you dropping bad guys faster with an "inferior" weapon, as I did. And you just might find that even though you like sniper rifles, sometimes a Light Machine Gun as your secondary will get you out of more tough spots than anything else. 150 round mags with an LMG that doesn't suffer from wild recoil every where=death machine.

[Teal]

I have the police mk17. It does about 3850 damage, which isn't awful, but I just can't seem to fire fast enough for some guys. In every other shooting game, I like burst fire rifles. The sniper rifle is really only good for an initial surprise attack, then most of these guys flank so quickly that it's pretty stupid to keep using it. I'm so used to 'loot drop' and chest finds, and getting some badass thing every now and then, that I sometimes forget the crafting station.

I don't typically learn by reading, though, but by doing. So what I REALLY need is some more guidance as I go...lol. I really dig this game, and GR:W, but with the latter, there's no RPG elements, really. It's kinda straightforward.

[TCrouch]

If I didn't have a Hurricane hitting my house tonight, I'd offer to play tonight!

Learning quite a bit about the differences between CA and TX, at this point. I'd be happy to hop on and do whatever, but my character isn't very leveled up on XBox.

[pk500]

No go for me tonight. Band practice. Will be at camp tomorrow night, too. Sunday or during the week next week!

Stay safe, Terry. Welcome to Texas! You'll probably see more rain in the next four days than you saw in four years in Cali.

[Pete1210]

I need some Division help here. No matter where I go, how much I level up, I just can't seem to find or create a solid weapon to go against enemies at my level (20). I know it's an RPG, but the terminology and how things work is so.... Different. Been in a kick with this one recently, and would love some advice, or better yet... Some company.

You could grind a level or 2 by doing side missions or repeating story missions, then go back to those 20's and show em who's boss.
It is a bit easier to do the story missions in a group and I've had good luck with randoms in The Division. I even added a few guys to my friends list that way.

I'll be on this weekend. I have a level 30 and 16.

[Teal]

I need some Division help here. No matter where I go, how much I level up, I just can't seem to find or create a solid weapon to go against enemies at my level (20). I know it's an RPG, but the terminology and how things work is so.... Different. Been in a kick with this one recently, and would love some advice, or better yet... Some company.

You could grind a level or 2 by doing side missions or repeating story missions, then go back to those 20's and show em who's boss.
It is a bit easier to do the story missions in a group and I've had good luck with randoms in The Division. I even added a few guys to my friends list that way.

I'll be on this weekend. I have a level 30 and 16.

Guess what, Pete? After you left I just couldn't leave that mission alone right in the middle...so..I managed to finish it...lol. The last segment was a beast, and I had to redo it several times, but I actually got through the damned thing! The place we got stuck? Figured it out by listening to what the HQ was telling us. Said not to let them know we were there until we had to. So I snuck past that dude and went up the ladder to the top of the building, took out the 3 snipers up there, flipped the switch, and then stayed up there to take out the others on the ground. I had the "rolling/splitting into smaller ones-seeker mines", and I'd go down the ladder, drop one, then climb back up...lol. I didn't finish it until 1:30am central, but by Joe, I got it. Now I'm hooked up to a coffee IV...lol

[Pete1210]

That's impressive. I am working on leveling up my character to make it easier to play together next time.

[Teal]

Fun times last night, PK! Lots of shooting, and a little less dying...lol. BTW, I finished that mission. Nothing to do but find Michelle Kwan...lol. Let's do it again soon.

[pk500]

Fun times last night, PK! Lots of shooting, and a little less dying...lol. BTW, I finished that mission. Nothing to do but find Michelle Kwan...lol. Let's do it again soon.

You more than carried our weight last night, Teal. Your marksmanship was en fuego. I need to switch to a more accurate gun, perhaps by learning some crafting.

Glad you found Michelle, er, Alexis. I was too busy ogling Faye Lau ...

Let's shoot again soon, dude! Thanks, as always.

[AcemanPR]

Free Update incoming, Patch 1.8! New Area to explore and a new PvP mode. Check for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Addk7cl5smg

[pk500]

Free Update incoming, Patch 1.8! New Area to explore and a new PvP mode. Check for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Addk7cl5smg

YES! My favorite shooter of this generation -- and among my favorites ever -- adds more honey to the pot.

[Danimal]

Free Update incoming, Patch 1.8! New Area to explore and a new PvP mode. Check for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Addk7cl5smg

This looks great. I like the PvE mode as well.

[Teal]

Free Update incoming, Patch 1.8! New Area to explore and a new PvP mode. Check for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Addk7cl5smg

YES! My favorite shooter of this generation -- and among my favorites ever -- adds more honey to the pot.

Oh hell yeah!

[pk500]

One of the best shooters of this generation, IMO, is $14 today at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Clancys-Divi ... d3606305cf

[Teal]

So, did the 1.8 expansion die, or what happened to it?

[Wrekcut1]

They released more information on 1.8 two days ago, but did not give a date for the update.

https://tomclancy-thedivision.ubisoft.c ... r-9th-2017

[DivotMaker]

Any chance this game gets the update X1X treatment?

[vader29]

Any chance this game gets the update X1X treatment?

It's on the availability list as "In Development"
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/xbox-o ... anced-list

[pk500]

Any chance this game gets the update X1X treatment?

That might accelerate my timetable toward the X by about six months. This game is easily one of my three favorite shooters ever. I still play it three or four nights per week.

[DivotMaker]

Any chance this game gets the update X1X treatment?

It's on the availability list as "In Development"
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/xbox-o ... anced-list

Thanks Vader....that might be pretty special....

[DivotMaker]

Getting my copy today ($13.85 with free shipping with Prime....thanks for the heads up PK!).....will take me a while to get up to speed with you cats, but hopefully one day we can play online.