The fun with MMOs, RPGs or games that use elements of both is that the statistics behind them can get very tricky. And if you’re playing something that takes elements from both those genres and happens to have a heavy PvP element, it’s worth knowing how all the stats works.
That’s especially true for people who have been enjoying The Division, a game that is rapidly growing a strong following. Fortunately one bloke has broken down everything you need to know.
The Aussie responsible is John, a Sydneysider also with a penchant for games that just love to absorb players’ time. Of late he’s been into Xenoblade Chronicles, Destiny, XCOM 2, the Overwatch beta and Destiny — but he’s also really enjoying Ubisoft’s MMO.
A couple of days ago he put up a shorter video outlining which skills you should prioritise if you want to improve your damage in The Division. This morning he posted a much more exhaustive breakdown of how all each of the game’s skills work, and if you’re looking at jumping into Ubisoft’s third-person shooter when it launches it should be mandatory viewing (even for PvE players).
John, whose YouTube account goes under the name Skill Up, added that it’s also been fun playing The Division as someone who was disappointed in the end game for Star Wars: The Old Republic. “I’ve seen way, way too many awesome games falter when people hit the level cap because the [developers] rushed stuff out the door before investing in a proper endgame,” he told me over email.
But as for The Division, he thinks the mechanics are holding up just fine for now. More information about The Division’s end game would be nice — because there isn’t much known right now — but as it stands, the game gets a “big tick”.
So that’s nice to know. Which is half the battle, after all. The Skill Up channel also has a video about how to easily and quickly mod XCOM 2, which is nice if you’re into that.
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19 responses to “Learn Everything You Need To Know About Damage In The Division With One Video”
Has there been any word on AU servers? Checked a few weeks back but nothing mentioned.
Not yet. For what it’s worth, I had zero network/lag issues in either the closed or open betas. And the open beta had 6.4 million players, so you’d think it was a decent stress test.
Thanks! My quick google was inconclusive. Personally no local servers will mean no deal, i’m not really all that interested but its something mates want to have a go at and well games are always more fun w/ friends. It’s at the point where if there are local servers we’ll prolly give it a bash. Latency is subjective but for me it improves the experience immensely everything just feels more responsive games like wow, diablo3, poe etc the difference with local servers is like comparing night and day.
What Hotcakes is getting at is: You can not tell the difference with the ping. If anything I think the servers are in the Pacific. Again, you can not tell the difference. It is pristine smooth.
How could you know? Have you played here in AU then flown to the data center where they hosted the beta?
Smart arsery aside my experience is the complete opposite no matter what people say. For years people have said that diablo and wow would be now different with local servers as the net code is so smart. They were wrong. You can’t change physics. Data takes time to arrive – for eg if a NPC attacks you and you are reacting it’s initiated server side. If i have a ping of 25ms i literally have 1/4 a second more time to react (my ping to US is 250 – 350 depending on where the servers are).
Might not seem like much but at high end its the difference between life and death (we’re min/max gamers).
Client side hit detection my friends, the serves are in US. Netcode is defniitely not bad though.
After playing the Alpha and both Beta’s the game overall is smooth I did see a noticeable lag when taking on other people in the Dark Zone.
I would be putting several mags into an opponent to take them down where I would be taken down very quickly. The one that stands out for me was prior to the shutdown of the servers in the last beta and I flanked two rogue agents and fired two mags into one guys with little to no damage and then he turning and shot me which took me directly into the bleeding out animation.
If they don’t look at implementing locals servers it is going to make the dark zone a frustrating experience for a lot of people. Maybe they also should consider regioning for the various populations.
Stats play a HUGE factor into this, what was your Stamina at mate? Because there are local servers.
I know due to both playing in the Closed Beta and Open and being on level with a lot of the other people. There was no lag, there was no stutter. The game makes up for it in some way that I don’t understand, but it works. The Beta’s could have been your chance to find that out for yourself as well.
I understand how data travel works and seeing as Aus and NZ are always on the shittier end of the spectrum, I am in your boat. However I don’t understand how you didn’t notice a difference between WoW’s American servers compared to Pacific? That was a huge shift for me, absolutely noticeable. Going from 292ms at Wyrmrest Accord to the 35ms I was getting on Frostmourne.
I think you misunderstood my post. Low latency makes a huge difference. Both wow and diablo3 which have some of the best net code out there it makes a marked difference. Smooth play doesn’t indicate lag rather just no packet loss. Wow was smooth at 350ms. Diablo was too. Reacting to mobs tho… that low latency made a massive difference.
Oh for sure, I’m not saying it was AS good as if it had local servers. That’s physically impossible. However, for not having local servers it was very good. I’d wager the closest server was, at most, SE Asia.
As someone who knows full well how frustrating it can be playing a lag filled game – I totally understand where you’re coming from and agree it’s not ideal, but I think you’d be doing yourself a disservice to outright not buy the game due to no local servers. The game itself is that good, IMO.
In this case, the longer RPG-esque TTK is actually an advantage. Because you’re less reliant on twitch aiming and peeking, latency doesn’t play as big a role as in say, RB6 Siege.
Just my $0.02
Played both closed and open beta and as a fellow latency hater, I can recommend the game for being almost unnoticeable lag. Head shots are instant, even in the dark zone ( free for fall multiplayer area). Nothing is more annoying than enemies that take damage after a delay causing head shots to miss.
This is coming from a guy that does not play any games with over 150 ping. The only game that I played over 100 ping is ff14arr which has Japan servers with ping hovering 100-150.
But if you are expecting a twitch shooting game with instant reaction spray and Insta kill like CoD and Battlefield then this game is not for you. In terms of enemy damage soaking and animation, the game is most similar with destiny. If you completely dislike destiny gameplay, you will not like division.
I personally didn’t enjoy destiny but really got into there open beta for the division.. Wasn’t going to even buy it but am now counting the days until release
Various threads on thedivision reddit seem to confirm that there is an Australian data center for the game, and apparently was confirmed by “hamish” on a dev twitch stream.
Had no issues with latency in the open beta on the weekend, so there’s that.
OH really? Easily missed then considering how much shit goes through the front page. Miiiiint that’s awesome.
From memory in the developer stream on twitch they mentioned they have servers located in all major regions in the world… I hardly noticed if noticed at all any lag or connection issues in both closed and open betas.
Check this link out.
https://www.facebook.com/TheDivisionGame/photos/a.403862539729675.1073741828.403858439730085/897543647028226/?type=3&theater
Damage breakdown in the division is very simple.
Shoot things = do damage. Shoot things in head = do more damage.
Case closed.
The comparison to Star Wars is interesting. That was the last MMO I pre-ordered (through amazon to get early access) and I played that for all of 2-3 weeks before I quit because I hit level cap, got bored with lack of content and quit. Same story for Age of Conan that I joined at release.
I’m leaning towards pre-ordering The Division but I’d hate to have a repeat experience that seems to happen so often with MMOs. Hoping Ubisoft has learned form the massive amount of failures and realise that end game content does matter at release because people get there fast.