The Division's New Update, Conflict, Launched This Week and its Kind of a Mess

I'll be honest, as I always am, I haven't played the Division in some time. After my friend took a break from it, I couldn't find the gumption to go it alone, especially in the Dark Zone. The Division is a game, and I've said this a million times, not built for solo players.

RANT AHEAD

No matter how they try to "accommodate" solos, it doesn't work. Its like if a game were built from the ground up for super high-end PC's, then down-res'ed and ported to PS4 and Xbox One, then down res'ed again for Wii U. The Wii U players would get the shittiest version of the game, and that's what it feels like playing The Division solo. Let's break this down:

Large groups of 4 are enjoying the game best, as they're playing as intended, regardless of system. The mid-size groups, maybe 3 players, are having fun, but avoiding 4-players groups likely to have better gear. These are the PS4/Xbox One players. 2 player groups are definitely avoiding contact with other groups as it is almost assured they'll get wrecked. Solo players, the Wii U port equivalent, are getting the shittiest version of the game, as everything in the game is inherently harder. 

Outside of the campaign, I'd say just don't bother playing this game without a group. And I know there's online matchmaking and I know it works. It works well, I've used it a few times and had some good times, but when you're out there with randoms, you don't know if they have a mic or not, if they play similarly to you, or if they'll bounce at the first sign of trouble. I tried to matchmake a  challenging mission and every time the whole team would leave because they just couldn't do it. In the end, I gave up too. 

Without a group of friends, a solid group you know well and know you mesh, cooperate and coordinate well with, I can't recommend The Division for anyone who plans to play solo. Don't do it. 

RANT OVER

Now, all that said, the point of this article is that the new update, which tried to revitalize the PvE for solos, broke. Again. As I haven't played the new update myself, my information will have to come from a few sources I know. Update 1.2, named Conflict (appropriate), introduced some new mechanics as well as new content for the Player vs Player and Player vs Environment.

The new High Value Targets, one of the PvE systems, relies on a new currency called Intel. Thing is, when some players turn in Intel, the HVT missions simply remain unchanged. That is, locked. Worse still, when the missions do unlock, at times the Target will just refuse to spawn, forcing players to replay the mission again and again. There seems to be no fix other than to just keep doing the mission over. 

The new Incursion, Clear Sky, seems riddled with bugs, the biggest of which seems to be an unruly gatekeeper. It simply won't let players in, or mid-raid the game will reset and send players back to the start of the mission, or worse; back to the nearest safehouse. After these issues, it seems the game has a tendency to slow the framerate, or "lag" as we all say. 

Even worse than all of that (yes, it can still get worse), it looks like we're back to missing characters! Lovely. Players across the internet are reporting missing characters. Ubisoft has once again acknowledged the issue are are working on this one first. There was a similar issue on Xbox One back in April. You'd think they'd have this down by now. 

I'm curious as to how Ubisoft Massive playtests their games. Obviously, their testing pool isn't big enough or perhaps they need to revise their playtest methods. Either way, this spells danger for the Division. 

At the risk of losing my character, I've only got the one, I do plan to go back into the fray and test things out for myself. If things are as bad as they seem, I'll update this post. I also plan to post an explanation as to why I never did a review for The Division proper. SPOILERS: by the nature of the game, and my lack of time, it simply couldn't be done soon enough.