‘The Division’ PTS Updates With ‘Final Tweaks’ Before Release, Underground Challenge Mode Difficulty Adjusted

Although there will be no state of the game address on Thursday, The Division team is still hard at work getting the 1.4 update ready for release. The game’s public test server will come down tomorrow for the fourth week patch of 1.4 in the testing environment. This week’s patch undoes some of the enemy values adjusted in last week’s update on the public test server, and the patch modifies Underground challenge mode difficulty in an attempt to bring them more in line with main mission challenge mode missions.

Overall difficulty of the game is the focus of this week’s public test server update. Specifically, the difficulty of Underground challenge missions as compared to main missions completed on the challenging difficulty is addressed. Even though difficulty is primarily subjective, developers did make some adjustments to Underground challenge mode missions to make them more difficult.

As stated on the game’s official forums, the public test server patch notes indicate that enemy power in challenging missions in the Underground will scale to the party’s size, but the number of enemies will be the same as a full group. Loot drops off of trash mods is also being lowered in the Underground in tandem with the increased mob density.

“One aspect that has been brought by the community and that we believe contributes heavily to the perception of the game being too easy is the inconsistent difficulty between Underground Challenge Mode and Main Mission Challenge Modes. Our own data analysis confirmed this inconsistency, and even showed that it could be faster to farm Underground Challenge Mode as a solo player rather than playing it with a group.”

Another major change in the fourth week update is that several of the values patched in during week three are now being adjusted. Last week, as the Inquisitr reported, high-level enemies were adjusted to do 15 percent less damage while having their armor lowered by 17 percent. Enemy damage was incorrectly lowered by 30 percent last week and should be the correct 15 percent reduction when compared to week two after the maintenance. The lowered armor value of enemies is completely being reverted from the week three values with a 20 percent increase to enemy armor in week four from week three.

Looking for details on all things loot in a post 1.4 Division? Check out our latest DevBlog – The Hunt For Loot. https://t.co/e9yReOTtOB pic.twitter.com/5TYGxGw87V

— Tom Clancy's The Division (@TheDivisionGame) October 10, 2016

The week four patch notes for The Division public test server also address the two-piece health on kill bonus of the Nomad set. That bonus is lowered from 20 percent health on kill to 14 percent. A number of bug fixes and skill changes are also part of the week four update. For instance, players should no longer get stuck on ladders after sprinting, weapon skins should not be lost if applied incorrectly to weapons, and Smart Cover can now only be destroyed by Sticky Bombs and EMP grenades.

“The combination of these changes should bring back slightly more lethality to enemies, but mostly ensure that Challenge Mode difficulty remains consistent between all activities, and better approached as a group. It should be soloable, but only with optimized equipment and the right amount of min-maxing.”

Even though the patch notes call these changes “final tweaks” to the 1.4 update, it remains to be seen if making such sweeping changes to specific modes after a week’s worth of testing with the incorrect enemy values will set back the progress of the update. At the time of this writing, the patch is still expected to release sometime this month. A community developer for the game let players know via Twitter that they will find out more information on the 1.4 patch for The Division after a new blog post is published tomorrow in place of the missing state of the game.

[Featured Image by Ubisoft]