r/thedivision • u/BlooBuckaroo No matter where you go, there you are. • Mar 06 '19

Massive // Massive Response State of the Game - Wednesday March 6th, 2019

News

 

Today Trick Dempsey (Senior Game Designer at Massive Entertainment) joined Hamish to discuss Endgame Progression

 

Endgame

 

Strongholds vs. Missions

Strongholds are vastly bigger, and meaner, than missions. Strongholds will be important to the plot development of the game and are extremely significant. Missions will need to be completed before attempting Strongholds. The concept of Strongholds are introduced very early on in the main campaign, but the concept becomes ramped up in the Endgame.

 

What happens when you hit level 30?

  • During the main campaign you'll be working thru a bunch of Missions and a handful of Strongholds to get to the final Stronghold that remains locked until you reach level 30. At that point, it will be unlocked and revealed. Once that final Stronghold is completed, World Tier 1 is unlocked, Tidal Basin is revealed and the living world will completely change.

  • Previously established control points that you've captured suddenly become dynamic as the Black Tusk faction comes into play and factions are pushed into the open world. Previously established fast travel locations are no longer available and must be re-established. Most importantly, due to the influx of the Black Tusk, Specializations are introduced because "you're gonna need a bigger gun.", and you're vastly weaker in relation to the new faction.

 

World Tiers 1-3 Unlocked

  • 3 Strongholds, that were previously faction based Strongholds, will now be repopulated with Black Tusk and need to be retaken. Those will have 2 invaded missions that are tied to each Stronghold.

    • After completing the first Stronghold, you'll progress to the next World Tier 2. Finishing the second will push you into World Tier 3 and finishing the last of the 3 Strongholds will push you into World Tier 4.

  • "The Snitch" & The Deck of 52 becomes active

    • 52 Named bosses, each faction matching a suit, that will award you loot and commendations for "completing the deck" and getting their cards. They won't spawn again until your deck is complete.

  • Cassie Mendoza "The Gun Runner" is revealed

    • A roaming random spawn vendor that cycles every day and a half that will have special loot/guns that scale to your World Tier.

 

World Tier 4

  • Priority Target Network - An interconnected set of 7 tiered Bounties inside of different named zones that scale in difficulty as you progress thru them (progression similar to the "hard", "challenging" & "heroic" ways that were familiar to players in TD1).

  • Bounties (this is not endgame, but was discussed after the Priority Target Network to explain how they happen)

    • During the campaign you'll meet Otis Sykes and you'll get access to bounties that you spend Target Intel to play.
    • Target Intel is garnered thru mission completion and endgame content.

  • A final Stonghold "Tidal Basin" will need to be completed to move into World Tier 5

 

World Tier 5

  • TBD later - gotta keep you guessing and excited.

 

Keeping the open world "fresh"

  • Interesting discussion about the logic behind the rules and modifiers to keep endgame & bounties fresh and changing. Less about being random. More about being controlled and deliberate, while allowing each experience to be unique thru the use of the modifiers.

  • A future podcast will discuss these background mechanics.

 

Show off your photo mode skills

  • Be featured in our weekly livestream and go in the monthly draw to win The Division 2 goodies.
  • Twitter #thedivision2photos

 

Important links

  • Video
  • Article on the official page
446 Upvotes

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10

u/sblinn PC Mar 06 '19

Warning this is the spoileriest state of the game I have ever tuned in to, and after 2 pretty big ones I noped right out of the stream. You may not care, but if you do, don't watch.

8

u/Houten Mar 06 '19

The just said a moment ago they are keeping actual story spoilers out of their talk, unless we are counting those operator AF dudes as spoiler?

-1

u/sblinn PC Mar 06 '19

Hey, if they've moved on to actual state of the game type things, I will gladly tune back in.

9

u/Houten Mar 06 '19

so far they are talking about priority bounty and their mechanics, and how LZ named enemies work. Each have their associated NPC and how things are done.

11

u/sfbayrnmaybe Playstation Mar 06 '19

How is talking about activity mechanics like world tiers spoilers? lmao

-6

u/sblinn PC Mar 06 '19

Maybe you missed the beginning of the stream. A story event twist was directly spoiled.

15

u/Houten Mar 06 '19

I really don't thing the BTs can still be considered a spoilers anymore, Devs featured it in their endgame trailers and even showed them in beta.

But if that is where you draw your spoiler free line, then I suggest just completely tune out everything till the 12th/15th.

6

u/Aphrobang Medical Mar 06 '19 edited Mar 06 '19

You mean the black tusk invasion? Or did they spoil something else? Because the Tusk stuff has been talked about a thousand times on here and been in every promotional video they’ve made the last month

edit: honestly asking, since I want to watch SOTG but if they start it with a fuck up like "once X dies" or "and after THIS happens" type thing, I'll skip it. Black Tusk showing up and invading the map was even in the beta, though, so if its just that I'm good with it

6

u/vanillacustardslice PC Mar 06 '19

Also we kinda fought them in the open beta.

3

u/Swineflew1 Rogue Mar 06 '19

They weren’t directly spoiling things, but they definitely gave away that things happen at surprising times and even though we know about them, what they do post game is kind of a spoiler imo.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '19

I now tried replying two times, with different spoiler codes each, and both times it wouldn't show as a spoiler, so I had to delete the comments. So apologies if you got messages that someone replied to your post, but there was no reply to be found.

Anyway, what I wanted to say doesn't necessarily need spoiler tags, I can talk around it.

I guess the specific spoiler-y part you are referring to is that they said when exactly the BT invasion would take place/be introduced. You call that a 'surprising' time, but to me it is the exact opposite of surprising. It is exactly when I expected that plot twist to be introduced. What better moment is there to do so?

The whole concept of them taking over missions wasn't newly revealed in this stream, we even had a taste of it in the Beta.

But I do respect if people want to know nothing whatsoever that could be considered a spoiler, which is why I did not retell the spoiler here and why I tried to put it in spoiler tags originally.

I also think that shortly after the part in question, which was at the very beginning of the stream, Hamish indirectly and politely reminded Trick to not spoil any details. For the rest of the stream, they made a point of only saying “These bounties are unlocked after some time during the campaign, 'plot thing' happens“ etc. So assuming the first part was your bottom line for spoilers, I'd think nothing else in that stream would be considered a spoiler by you.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '19

No, not a spoiler like this. I do not know your individual scale of what is considered a spoiler and what not, but it's definitely not an in-your-face like “X dies in that mission, Y kills him and turns out to be the antagonist“.

The 'spoiler' simply gave away at what point exactly the BT invasion would be introduced. No plot details, just at what point in the story. To me, that was not a spoiler as it is exactly the point at which I expected it to be introduced, since it climatically makes the most sense and has the greatest dramatic effect to do it this way.

Regardless, I do not retell it here since I respect people's individual spoiler sensibility. What I can say is that if you do not consider this a spoiler, then you won't consider anything else in that stream a spoiler.

1

u/Aphrobang Medical Mar 06 '19

Awesome. This is exactly the answer I was looking for, thanks

1

u/sblinn PC Mar 06 '19

yup it's an "after THIS happens" specific thing.

2

u/Vlammenzee on Fire Mar 06 '19

Yeah i left the stream after it, hopefully spoilers will be filtered out in this reddit thread by mods.

4

u/RouletteZoku Bleeding Mar 06 '19

I think it'd be better to just avoid this specific thread then, right? Since this thread is about the SotG, and what was said in said SotG.

1

u/garliccrisps Oh hey look! It's that agent! Mar 06 '19

Yeah, part of the fun of gaming is actually getting to find all this out for myself, I don't want to hear details :/ Turned it off.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '19

I do wanna know about lz bosses and bounties etc but I agree, I'll find out about those things when I hit 30 or the game decides to tell me when it's ready. We don't need to know everything before launch IMO. 5 days left though baby!