‘The Division’ Developers Looking For Player Feedback On Skills With New Survey

With the upcoming 1.4 update for The Division focusing on fixing the game rather than expanding it, developers of the MMO shooter are requesting feedback from players. After all, the team is determined to improve the player experience first before releasing the next two pieces of downloadable content for The Division. Update 1.4 will feature a plethora of bug fixes as well as changes to itemization, enemy scaling, and more.

To that end, developers of The Division are seeking help from players to shape the 1.4 update. In the latest request, a survey on skills is ready for players to complete. In a post on the game’s official forums, the community developer listed each of the skills available in The Division and directed players to a survey on how often they use each skill.

“It’s no secret that while The Division offers a variety of skills, skill mods and signature skills to choose from, only a few of them actually prove useful in the End-Game. This is something that we need to look at. Before we start making decisions however, we want to make sure to take the time to pick your brains on what you think about each of the skills, and get a more complete overview.”

The survey, hosted at Survey Monkey, includes a list of skills and their mods. Players are tasked with ranking each one with one of four frequencies. Players can choose from “always,” “often,” “rarely,” and “never” as responses to how regularly they activate the skill. A selection is made individually for each skill’s mod, and the three signature skills are also listed with the same options.

It is important to note that the frequency at which some players use a skill will ultimately be affected by the skill’s strength and its performance. Some skills are stronger than others simply because they work, while another will not activate properly. For instance, there are issues when two Support Stations are down with the Immunizer mod that can essentially negate the effect. Not to mention, players are often plagued with skills not activating properly or skills becoming unusable in combat. In those cases, players may want to use the ability often but they cannot due to certain bugs. Leaving forum feedback on skills like that and explaining why a skill is not used as much is also very helpful.

Feedback gathered from surveys like this, and from the Agent Intel section of the official forums, will be used to improve The Division starting with update 1.4 and beyond. According to the official site, update 1.4 is planned to release in October, pushing back the release of Survival and Last Stand.

In fact, the final DLC will now release in 2017, rather than this winter. Players are encouraged to fill out the provided surveys and post replies in the Agent Intel section of the forums to contribute to improving the game.

“With Update 1.4 in the works, it has become clear with your feedback and our own observations that our priority should now be on improving the core gameplay experience. For this reason, we have made several adjustments to our development schedule.”

Update 1.4’s shift to bug fixing and overall game improvement comes after an interim period of silence from the developers after the release of Underground on PlayStation 4. In the first state of the game after their return, developers of The Division announced their focus on the game’s known issues and noted that player feedback would be a paramount part of the process.

LMB forces are moving in! A new #OperationISAC mission starts Wednesday at 5PM PST. https://t.co/gGNvxWIjlm pic.twitter.com/fPv2ZQPOs4

— Tom Clancy's The Division (@TheDivisionGame) August 29, 2016

The survey and regular Agent Intel posts are a major part of collecting that feedback. As the Inquisitr reported, enemy scaling, itemization, and general difficulty are also part of improving The Division with the next update.

[Image via Ubisoft]