ENDLESS HIGH-END

Recently I posted an "In-Depth" thread detailing the patch notes for the 1.1 updated "Incursions". I was highly disappointed with the adjustments that were going to be taking effect regarding the crafting system on Tuesday. This makes things a bit bitter sweet. Although more materials will now be required to craft gear it has now been officially announced that the high-end gear drop rate will be increased from "roughly" 22% all the way up to 100%. That's right you read that correctly every time you kill a named NPC you are now GUARENTEED a high-end piece of gear. Ubisoft is also raising the drop rate of Division Tech.

So my question to the community is this good or does this break the game? Will this make the game way to easy. Easy enough where every player is elite? Or do you think its necessary due to the fact of the increased requirement of crafting materials?

Personally, I think 100% is TOO HIGH I think 70% would be quite good enough to allow avid and casual gamers alike a fair shot at the game, without making it open season for every level 30 and up in the Dark Zone.

Below is the article straight from the Division Website Enjoy!!



From now on killing a named NPC will grant you a guaranteed High-End drop! Thats right, you will now always get a High-End item from killing a named NPC of level 30+.


The gear score of said High-End will be determined by the level of the NPC. For example, a level 30 named will guarantee a gear score 163 High-End. With so much more High-End drops, youll quickly notice that crafting High-End items, while more expensive, will not necessarily be much more complicated. To make sure that crafting remains a viable alternative, we will also increase drop rates of Division Tech materials to 40% on level 32 named enemies in the Dark Zone.


New drop tables have been designed to grant you just enough control to focus your efforts on specific NPCs, depending on your need. Each named NPC will now have more chances to grant a specific type of High-End item. By discovering the specificities of each named NPC, you will quickly learn which ones you should focus on in order to obtain specific items.

Crafting as an alternative

You have already seen the changes that will be brought to crafting, but lets go through them in more details here. Increased costs for converting crafting materials and crafting High-End items:

10 Standard (Green) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 Specialized (Blue) material
15 Specialized (Blue) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 High-End (Gold) material
10 High-End (Gold) materials instead of 8 to craft 1 lvl 31 High-End (Gold) item

Changed deconstruction yield of Standard (Green) and High-End (Gold) items:

Deconstructing a Standard (Green) item yields 1 Standard material instead of 2
Deconstructing a High-End (Gold) item yields 1 High-End material instead of 2

By changing the conversion rates, we will encourage players to use their low level materials while they are leveling up, instead of saving them until they reach level 30. It will also bring more decision making between selling and deconstructing low quality items. Most High-End materials should come from deconstructing High-End items, and not deconstructing lower quality items to then convert these materials into High-End ones. Similarly, lowering yields when deconstructing items will also lower the efficiency of items farming.


Once again, we want you to consider deconstructing and material converting as an alternative when you get an item that doesnt contribute to your build, and not the main mean to develop your build as a whole.

Conclusion

To sum up the list of changes brought with update 1.1 in regards to item drops and crafting, we will:

Increase drop rates of High-End items on named NPCs (100% drop rate, actually)
Increase drop rates of Division Tech, to make it less of a bottleneck than it currently is
Modify loot tables for each named NPC, to make the hunt for loot more controlled
Increase conversion costs of lower quality materials to high quality ones, making it harder to convert low quality materials into high quality ones
Decrease construction yields, making it less interesting to farm lower quality items in order to obtain crafting materials, and because youll get more High-End items as a whole
Increase cost of crafting High-End items, because High-End materials will be much easier to come by

These changes will not only make crafting and dropping more coherent towards each other, but will also make it feel much more fun and rewarding.


Balancing an online game is no easy task, and while we believe that these changes are a step in the right direction for the future of the game, we will keep monitoring the situation and address what needs to be modified. But more than that, we will have an eye on all aspects of your experience, and balance things when needed. Sometimes it means making hard decisions that might not be appreciated, and when this happens we will make sure to give you the visibility you need to understand why these decisions are made.

-The Division Team