‘The Division’ PTS Patches With Purchasable Sealed Caches, Gear Set Changes As Covered In Today’s State Of The Game

Patch 1.4 is on the public test realm, tentative patch notes are now available, and developers of The Division are continuing to divulge more details via the weekly state of the game address. Today, the team touched on several topics during the hour-long stream focusing on the second-week patch notes for the public test server.

With the update still on track for an October release, players can preview many of the upcoming changes on the game’s new public test server. PC owners of the game can download the separate public server client and start testing the patch contents now. The new server opened just last week, according to the game’s official site, giving players hands-on time with the major 1.4 update. For players without access to the public test server, the preliminary 1.4 patch notes are a great place to learn more about what is coming to The Division. The global 1.4 notes can be found on the official forums, and the week two notes are now available.

During the stream today, which can be viewed on the official Twitch channel for The Division, the team covered many of the week two patch notes. The second week of notes for patch 1.4 on the PTS include several updates to gear sets, weapon values, and skills. For instance, the popular Tactician’s Authority set has new two and three-piece bonuses. The two-piece bonus gives the wearer 10 percent skill haste and the three-piece bonus provides 10 percent skill power. Other sets now include percentage values rather than flat numbers such as the Lone Star set which will soon provide eight percent more LMG and shotgun damage. The Reclaimer, Final Measure, Predator’s Mark, and B.L.I.N.D. sets are also adjusted in the week two notes. In fact, the B.L.I.N.D. set is soon to be known as Banshee, a set specifically for the Dark Zone.

Players can expect more caches giving them more chances to find that gear, too. Last week, the team revealed that players will earn caches of gear past the maximum player level and the maximum Underground level. As the Inquisitr reported, Field Proficiency Caches are rewarded once a player earns enough experience to fill the Field Proficiency bar past level 30. Similarly, players with access to the Underground will continue earning Underground caches past its cap as well. In addition to those caches, players will also be able to purchase additional caches. Sealed caches are now available from vendors on the public test server for credits, Phoenix Credits, and Dark Zone credits.

Other highlights from the stream and the week two notes include player grenade damage changes, shotgun-wielding NPC fixes, and a few changes to the first World Tier. As a player’s World Tier increases, their grenade damage will also scale with the tier level. This will let players actually use grenades for damage in higher World Tiers. The latest update also adjusted the damage of shotgun NPCs lowering their falloff damage and reducing their accuracy. Now, these mobs will be less dangerous at a distance while retaining their strength up close. Finally, the new World Tier feature coming in 1.4 is already changing. Players of The Division will no longer find gear set items at 163 in the first World Tier. A 182 gear set might drop in World Tier one, however, they are rare in that tier.

As echoed by the patch notes and the state of the game this week, patch 1.4 will introduce World Tiers, adjust the strength of enemies past the max level, and change the way weapons work in The Division. The World Tiers feature will completely change the way the end game is played for all types of players. In addition to the numerous balance changes to both enemies and players, World Tiers will streamline the way players obtain gear. Each tier will determine the gear score level of possible items while mission difficulty will increase the amount of gear dropped.

Agents, what’s your current gear score? pic.twitter.com/vzg2mi7uI0

— Tom Clancy's The Division (@TheDivisionGame) July 14, 2016

Once the patch goes live, players will find their gear slightly different. Aside from all gear maxing out a 229 gear score, max level rolls on gear before 1.4 will still be maxed out after 1.4 and the guaranteed primary attributes on gear will be added to existing gear. All of the patch notes are currently in progress and everything is subject to change before the patch releases, of course. The game-changing update is still expected to release sometime in October. However, developers of The Division have not pinned down an exact date yet.

[Featured Image via Ubisoft]