Lately, my time with The Division has dwindled. That’s partly because I’ve had other games to play, but mostly because I’ve lost interest in the endgame grind. I still fundamentally like playing the game, so I’ve been looking for ways to spice things up.
Maybe you’re in the same boat? If so, perhaps you’ve resorted to increasingly elaborate farming methods, or fallen into the endless hunt for high-end Division tech, or maybe you and your friends made alt characters to troll the low-level Dark Zone. Doubtless you’re looking forward to the new modes that Ubisoft will be adding to the game soon, and holding out hope for an update that raises the difficulty of enemies in the PvE open world.
Ever since I got my character a solid set of gear and got my DPS well above 100k, I’ve been stuck in a weird imbalance between the daily “hard” missions and the daily “challenge” mission. When I do a hard mission with a matchmade group, we plow through it with hilarious ease. Challenge missions, however, are still a real fight and can take 30-45 minutes to finish. I’ve been missing a middle ground.
To that end: These days when I play the daily hard missions, I play them solo. They’re still not all that hard, but they’re much more interesting and enjoyable when I play them on my own versus playing with a group. I actually have to use cover and tactics, and feel like I’m getting the most out of my gear. Levels no longer feel like bullet-strewn chaos where my team steamrolls through to the end. I can take my time and enjoy some of the little touches that make the various areas interesting, and can experiment with solo tactics against enemies who can take at least a little punishment. It’s not the most efficient way to get through the mission and earn my 15 Phoenix Credits, but it’s fun, and right now I care more about fun.
For a few weeks, it didn’t even occur to me to try going solo, so I figured some of you might not have tried it, either. Your mileage may vary, of course, but it’s not a bad way to go if you want to spice up your solo time with the game.
If you have any other similar tips — things you’ve been doing or experimental ways you’ve been playing — I’d love to hear them.
Comments
20 responses to “A Small Way To Spice Up The Division’s Endgame”
Yeah, i do all my hard missions solo personally. Enjoy the challenge, and they really aren’t all that hard… at least not compared to challenging lol
Darkzone has been a pain in the backside lately though, so many rogues and I’m just not quite geared up enough to put up a decent fight. I used to like DZ for a bit more challenging enemies, but with all the rogues around I’m finding it a tad more difficult.
I’m at level 15 or 16 and got kinda bored with the game. I’ll probably go back at some point and at least finish leveling but the gameplay just isn’t all that engaging. How many times can you sit behind a car/box/pillar and shoot guys before it gets boring?
Stardew Valley on the other hand….much more addictive. The Division really should have timed their release better so the two didn’t conflict.
I agree, the main game can be SUPER repetitive but I found the core mechanics and playing in group kept me going. Dark Zone is much more fun, especially when playing against other players.
None of my friends have bought it….we predicted from the beta that it’d get boring pretty quick because there just isn’t all that much to it.
Turns out we were right. I bought it anyway because I liked the premise, my first 5 hours were great, then next a bit less, and now….meh. I’ll finish leveling eventually.
lol never even heard of stardew valley until you just mentioned it 😐
Small joke with Stardew. “Indie” game (sort of indie, he got a publisher at the end) made by one guy over 4 years. Everyone who plays it tends to end up loving it and getting addicted. 98% positive rating on Steam…some of the negative reviews are literally people hitting negative because it has too much positive feedback.
Pretty damn good game, came out a couple days before The Division and I’ve spent more than 3 times as much time playing Stardew than I have Division.
haha righto 😛 I will have to check it out 🙂
Uh oh. Where does that leave me? I’ve been doing everything solo because I have no friends… 🙁
The ultimate challenge, finish the missions without actually playing them!
same here.. i find most online players to be jerks who take the game way too seriously, so i’d rather play solo.
Ditto my friend. Too many rogues in DZ and they all have 100k+ DPS while I’m sitting on 45k. I need to team up with someone to help get HE but most people are too elitist.
Right now I have to agree. I’ve had a good yarn with a few players in DZ and even backed them up when coming across a firefight during my travels. But every so often I’ll get a few that just come up, say nothing then just kill you for the lol’s….usually it’s in teams and they’ll pick the solo player to grief. But that’s the same in any PvP game really, safety in numbers.
I have been seeing a bit of chatter of late in game with people running hacks. Which might explain even with high gear a few that have attacked me are either taking me out in one shot, or my shots are lucky to do even 200dps at close range. They are the real jerks.
To be honest, I’ve done matchmaking quite a lot and have met some awesome people. Even matchmaking for the DZ lol
Had a great yarn with a bloke last night and have since added him as a friend, and turns out he was only 14! So don’t right it off straight away, as there are quite a few good players out there 🙂
Also, a lot of the people I’ve matched up with (randoms), don’t even talk, so its like playing solo… but with the benefit of having someone to revive you 😛
I’m always looking for more people to team up with
Mates and I are always looking for one or two more people. Same PSN name as Kotaku (No need to hide it). GMT +8, play a fair few nights a week.
I’m still finding challenging difficult but am at the stage even when soloing hard content is literally like melting faces in five bullets per enemy.
Loading up Lexington challenge this afternoon, joined a game… There were about 20 people in the mission. Not sure if it’s a glitch or not, but we just reran through the mission like 6 times in 30 minutes getting a high end gear piece each time.
All well and good, but once you’re decently gear up, hard mode solo = walking through the mission slaughtering all without taking cover and even challenge mode with a team is quick.
My clans record on Lincoln Tunnel Challenge mode (which is admittedly the easiest challenge mode mission) is down to about 10mins a run.
My gear is not yet up to scratch to carry a team through the challenge missions, so at the moment match making with randoms is a pain. Currently my DPS on primary is about 80,000 and health is around 55,000 so I go fairly well with the Daily Hards, but I find that I’m often one of, if not the strongest on my matchmade team for the challenge mode, If the rest of the team can do their bit, then I can manage myself ok, but if I’m left to carry the team then we have got no hope of completing it. I find that as soon as we have 1 person who just seems to forever be lying on the ground, I know that we aren’t going to succeed. Then to throw more frustration into the mix, so often when we fail, the best of the other 3 seems to quit every damn time, in fact I tried last nights challenge about 7 times in a row and never had the same 4 people twice, I found 1 guy who was doing as well, if not a bit better than myself, who stuck with me for 3 tries but then left himself (having gotten about 3 checkpoints in which was the best I’d done), this caused me to pull the pin for the day. – all these people who are ‘melting faces’ in challenge mode, why I no get matched with you!
Darkzone solo is a fairly brutal place, I honestly just don’t really know what the hell I’m meant to be doing, I can take out the larger mobs most of the time, although if they have 3 or 4 yellows I all to often go down with nobody to revive me, the gear doesn’t seem to be much chop, I think a purple mask is the only bit of DZ gear I’ve used – never had a gold drop, where is all this DZ Loots I hear so much about??
I have a mate who’s just hit 30 so maybe cruising the DZ together will be more fun, but at the moment, walking around aimlessly killing 7/10 random mobs and avoiding groups of players who would swiftly slaughter me is not all that fun atm…
would love to have a reliable group of people to do the daily challenge with each day that are willing to stick out some fails and retries.
PSN – drx913
Are you saying do challenge missions solo or hard missions solo? Because I’ve played every single mission on hard mode from the very beginning of the game, never played any mission on normal difficulty, and I plough through them now (solo or not) without breaking a sweat at 130k DPS and I still struggle a lot with the challenge missions. My husband and I spent hours in the Power Plant level in challenge mode before we finally beat it and it was a hell of a task.
I feel like I’ve hit a brick wall in the progression curve where I need better gear to do challenge missions but to get better gear I need to do challenge missions or grind hard dailies for days for a single high-end blue print. Either that or farm named enemies in the Dark Zone but I’ve tried that and high-end items are very rare. There’s definitely something broken here.
I feel like the Division could take a page from how Diablo 3 improved the game with their difficulty system overhaul. Don’t get me wrong, I still like the game, and I’ve put like 80 hours into it, and I’m probably going to put many more hours into it, but after you finish the main story line and hit level 30 it feels kind of like they just let the pen trail off into the ether.
The spiciest thing I do now is to wander the Dark Zone looking for rogue agents to kill but rogues are like a two or three an hour kind of affair so it’s pretty boring in between the moments of heart stopping shootouts. I just don’t feel right opening up on non-hostile players either. I’ve also turned my player voice comms off because of a couple unpleasant experiences being trolled by 10 year olds.