The rollercoaster that is The Division 2 appears to have hit a new valley with its community. Its a bit of a surprise as Ubisoft seems to have generated plenty of excitement earlier this year following its reveal of the Warlords of New York expansion which brought players back to New York to take on Aaron Keener, a major antagonist that slipped through player's fingers in the first game. Along with a new story line, the expansion was also joined by a hefty update which overhauled a good majority of the game including all things related to gear. Even after all these changes and additions, it seems that fans still have more than a few issues with the game.
Community driven sites like The Division 2 subReddit have seen a rise in threads seemingly disappointed or upset with the current state of the game. One post in particular urges players to simply stop playing to drive down Ubisoft's Player Engagement metrics, citing the strike many Division players went on for about a week to highlight the major issues that arose from Update 1.3, which was eventually corrected in the next major update.
Many of the current issues in The Division 2 stem from the difficulty levels, which simply raise enemy health pools and damage to make then feel more challenging. In addition, there are some talents and skills which don't work correctly or as they're listed, missing bonuses, matchmaking mismatches, stability and connection issues, and more. Others are even reporting that end-game content is giving out low quality rewards, not worth the effort and time required from players. Unfortunately, many are starting to view the experience as tedious and punishing, lacking that fun factor that the first game managed to achieve over time.
One thread in particular caught the eye of Ubisoft's community manager Chris Gansler, who has spent a lot of time commenting and responding. Gansler admitted that simply logging out won't really help make updates or changes happen faster. The team doesn't have any intentions of moving back to difficulty levels pre-expansion and then have to blanket nerf everything to adjust to the changes. However, it appears that the team is well aware of the current frustrations as Gansler reveals that they'll have more details about these difficulty topics later this week.
Bullet sponge enemies and time to kill are something the series has had trouble with, though what likely disappoints many long time fans the most is the fact that Massive Entertainment ultimately fixed that issue with Update 1.4 in The Division. The fact that it has returned once again isn't sitting well with fans.
For now, it's unclear on where the game goes from here. Based on Gansler's comments, Ubisoft seems mostly happy with the changes made though with such unrest in the community, the developer may have to make changes it doesn't seem to want to make. Changes are likely coming on some level considering that the expansion does have a few issues, though as for some of the bigger topics such as loot and difficulty, something will have to give in order to get the fans back.
The Division 2 is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with a Stadia version also in development.