The Division has already been having a rough week, and things just keep getting rougher: A newly found exploit lets players temporarily boost their gun’s damage output to game-breaking levels.
The exploit requires you to have a specific talent on your gun — the “Competent” talent, which briefly boosts DPS after triggering any ability. There’s a high-end AK-74 with the talent for sale at the special gear vendor in the Base of Operations, so everyone with enough phoenix credits can access a gun that will work.
Once you have the right gun, you simply have to equip it, then equip a different gun, then switch back again. Do that a bunch of times (like, for five minutes) and a bug will cause Competent’s DPS boost to stack and build up. The next time you trigger an ability you’ll get a ridiculous temporary leap in DPS from, say, 115,000 to 1,115,000.
YouTuber Simplified demonstrates the exploit in this video, complete with hilariously massive damage numbers as he shoots a few NPCs:
The possible applications are numerous — who wouldn’t want the ability to temporarily turn their gun into a 1,000,000+ DPS murder machine? You could store up the ability before fighting a boss, or take it into the Dark Zone and one-shot anyone who messes with you. (The tests I’ve seen are all PvE, but I’m assuming this also works in the Dark Zone.) The exploit’s presence is likely to keep a lot of people out of the game until it’s fixed. Knowing there are people out there who can easily activate this kind of firepower certainly makes me even less interested in heading into the Dark Zone than I already was, at least.
The discovery of the Competent exploit comes at the end of a troubled week for Ubisoft’s big shared-world online shooter. Last week’s 1.1 update introduced a number of bugs and exploits to the new “Incursion” mission while nerfing the crafting system and economy to greatly increase the endgame grind. More recently, another exploit guide making the rounds shows PC players how to use an outside application to get an endless stream of high-end crafting materials. That exploit is an even clearer cheat, as it requires use of an outside tool, but semantics aside, its mere existence is doing substantial damage to the game’s economy and to player morale.
Ubisoft Massive issued one hotfix last Friday and will likely address these latest exploits as well. Ubisoft community manager Natchai Stappers mentioned last week that they were “looking into what can be done in terms of punishment” for exploiters, but no concrete plan has emerged, nor have they spoken about how they might re-balance or roll back the economy to level things out for who have chosen not to exploit.
Today, Stappers elaborated somewhat on the development team’s approach to exploits and to dealing with cheaters. “I understand you’re all frustrated with it,” he wrote of the cheating, “but do understand that we are actively dealing with cheaters, we are banning them, permanently as well, but because so far it’s been a decision not to communicate on numbers and the likes, this has gone largely unnoticed and makes it seem like we’re not doing anything.”
I asked Ubisoft if they could offer more specifics on coming fixes, punishments and possible rollbacks or rebalancing but did not hear back by press time. If the past week is any indication, whatever happens, this game of exploit whac-a-mole will likely continue for some time.
Comments
27 responses to “Disastrous New Division Exploit Lets Players Do Unlimited Damage”
I know I haven’t played for a few days at least, haven’t touched the Incursion either. Kinda glad at this point that I haven’t paid for the Season Pass.
Definitely agree on the Season Pass, but this is making me think (based on what I’ve heard about the Incursion) I should jump in and abuse this to knock it over…
at this stage, I think the Division is more a game of finding new and ever more creative ways to glitch / exploit / break the game then whatever the heck the developers envision.
real shame, the game has potential and the world is certainly (imo anyway) interesting. now it’s more like a walking PR disaster
LOL, it just seems to make the enemies into normal enemies, not bullet sponges 🙂
Stupid bullet sponges.
I haven’t played the Division, but I’ve heard this bullet sponge accusation so many times it’s almost put me off!
Nothing ruins a shooter faster than a bullet-sponge enemy IMO.
I don’t mind if enemies are armoured, but once you shoot someone clean in the face once and they don’t go down- I’m happy to go play something else more fun.
When you’re at the same level as the enemies and have somewhat decent weapons, it’s actually not that bad.
E.g. I’m able to kill “normal” purple bar level 30s and even elite yellow bar 30s in 1/4 mag or less. It’s not CoD, but it’s not that bad.
The game still pisses me the hell off due to Massive’s changes, glitches etc, and I haven’t played in two weeks despite reaching max level and 50+ DZ rank, but the bullet sponge complaint is slightly over played.
The exception is the “yellow bar” level 31/32 enemies. They’re above the maximum player level and also just have more health in general. If you played Destiny, it’s like when Hard Mode Crota was new and every enemy was a lemon bar and “player level+1”
Kinda seems like more trouble than its worth.
Working as intended.
I’ve played over 100 hours now, at least half of which has been in the Dark Zone, and I’m still having difficultly getting my DPS over 133K at best. Even then it’s all grinding and dodging Rogues who are pretty much always better-equipped, whether legit or by exploit, and your DZ bracket apparently depends on how many HE items you’re carrying instead of how powerful you weapons are (so I’m told; can someone confirm this?). In fact, on that note, I seriously think DZ brackets should depend on players’ weapon capability, as that could keep Rogues with a massive DPS from preying on non-hostile players who may be carrying all-HE gear but still have a significantly lower DPS capability (ie. I’ve taken every opportunity to legit boost my DPS but I still get mowed down by someone with 250K+).
I’m starting to struggle to see a good reason to go continue playing.
That is correct, Gear score is calculated by what you are carrying (everything), but you can avoid that by just dropping stuff in your stash
Just keep gearing up, I was where you were not that long ago, but now I’ve got my DPS up to 190k and stamina to 100k and we run through the DZ pretty nicely, our group killed about 18 rogues last night on a massive hunt we had. My mate got a massive boost when he bought those blueprints in DZ03 that you need to be DZ level 75 to get, they will give you a huge boost in DPS. I”m at level 71 now, and will push to 75 tonight…. want that First Wave Vector so bad lol
I’m exactly the same, lvl 71 pushing to 75, about the same stats too.
This might explain a run I had last night with another player via match make in DZ. He was one shotting ‘everything’, some from a ridiculous distance that I could barely see.
He made it clear he doesn’t like to go rogue or get caught up in a PvP firefight as he’ll only end up one shotting them. And in doing so get accused of cheating (he said he wasn’t), I found it odd though as he kept asking if I’d come across any hackers repeatedly.
I was basically a tag along not doing much.
Its a bit surreal and a bit moronic to see games like Division and Destiny have issues like these… when MMOs like World of Warcraft struggled with and learnt to resolve such loot exploit and talent stacking a DECADE ago. Even League of Legends learnt quickly to meet the demand of exploit and bug management early… seriously they dont even have account restoration or rollbacks in place to fix these bugs.
Only seems to be affecting PC at the moment, my mate tried it last night and it actually shifted his DPS down on console. Plus, from what we could tell the affect doesn’t last long, so you need to be continuously doing it to keep that DPS. We were in a couple of servers in DZ last night for roughly 5hrs and didn’t come across anyone using it, so i’m confident its not really that big of an issue, for consoles at least. For PC… well… with all the hacks around at the moment, it’ll probably go unnoticed anyway lol
Man so much regret on paying for the season pass wonder if I could convince them for a refund as none of the actual paid content has dropped yet. This game just becomes more and more of a joke.
Content updates are insanely big considering the amount of content and if you followed the games early stages of release they had to break the game into 4 DLC’s. Have some patience xD
With the little time I have to be able to play games, I think patience is something I simply cannot have. I am not going to waste time playing a broken game that keeps getting “fixed” only for some other things to be broken. I loved the game don’t get me wrong but now I am sitting around GS 190 or something could not be bothered farming the Jesus out of challenge missions and watch people exploit the shit out of the game, only to have innocent people suffer from said exploits by taking away rewards for incursions for the week.
Just a heads up to other players that while you’ve been farming the dz for hours with maximum efficiency to get enough mats to craft 1-2 items, glitchers have also worked out how to glitch infinite mats/credits.
Sometimes I wish there was some kind of hardcore PVP/Dark Zone mode where every bullet is potentially lethal, pretty much like any CS or COD game.
The bullet sponge can be annoying at times, though I do understand why it is needed being a mmo/rpg thing. As someone who religiously plays CS:GO and then moving onto Division it’s a weird sometimes annoying feeling.
especially when you get sweet headshots (flick wrist style etc…) only to reduce the enemy hp by 5%, The NPC’s can easily kill you with a few hits yet It sometimes takes a full 2 – 3 clips (aiming chest/head area) to take down the same level NPC.
Last week i had my DPS up to 8,345,000 DPS, was quite funny solo’ing everything (most fun i’ve had in a while).
This exploit explains all those people who are crazy tanky but still 3-shot you and everything else in the DZ.
They stack just enough skill/fire-arms to activate the skill, then stack everything else into HP/armor.
Note – I dont care if anyone abuses the shit out of PVE but taking this stuff into the DZ is just rude.
Man that sucks. I just refuse to go into the DZ and am quite happy to do the dailies and soak in the atmosphere.
hmm well my wife and I have largely stopped playing.
The same missions over and over- and the constant glitching/hacks puts us off the DZ content.
The worst thing about the glitching is that it breeds intolerant gameplay as people with stupidly good gear can cheese the missions that otherwise would require some degree of coordination and teamwork. It means if you don’t quite know what you’re doing, and don’t have the gear to cheese it- you’re seen as a nub. It basically says to my wife and I “gtfo”.
It sucks when a game that has been out about a month makes you feel that way.
I’m loving this game, playing on xbox. It’s a pity that they keep failing to quickly resolve the constant stream of issues, though, as they do ruin the DZ. Sick of one shot rogues and the dread of seeing other players etc as you never know who will instantly kill you and ruin your day. They keep upping the grind, and honest players suffer, while exploiters just merrily continue in their quest for overpoweredness.
So with this exploit guns are actually realistic and do the kinda of damage you might expect from them in real life? hehe
I’ve been playing the division pretty much daily but after dying a couple times almost instantly or not doing damage sometimes, felt like people were glitching, this pretty much confirms it.
I will gladly enjoy my hundreds of other games I got through sales or for free on ps+ until they fix this. I will play the daily objectives, but will not touch the darkzone until this is resolved.
Hey gamers,
For starters, yes some exploits are getting out of hand and need to be fixed. PC especially.
People who have mentioned that rouges are one shorting and are over powered in the dark one, you need to understand that there is a cap at which hear can be limited to.
Yes it’s unfair how fast gear/Phoenix credits are earnt through exploits, but normal gear grinding which the game is designed for still ends in the same result.
I have 3days gameplay, currently sit at DZ Rank 48 so I don’t have any over power DZ blueprints, but I’m still hitting 230k dps and 145k Health legitimately. Giving me the ability to almost one shot maxed DZ players with ease. It all comes down to play style and strategy.
Before you shun the game because of the exploits, spend time grinding gear and just use your wits in the DZ and you will barely have an issue.
This was resolved last night through a hot fix they deployed late at night 🙂