Hear me out, at the start of the game we should be given some pretty decent standard issue SHD gear, skill, and weapons. You stashed this gear beforehand and during character creation you should be able to choose your basic class for the beginning of the game.

In the city, you would find some worse gear in places like; the open world, low level missions, CPs or what have you. You would be able to find better gear, with more complex talents and things, in higher level missions and towards the end of restoring order to the city.

i dunno, just a thought

@metal_greg I dont get it. . . . what are you trying to say? to do higher level missions? Aren't we all?

@sr_0v3rk1ll He was talking about Rogue-like Survival mode. But not exactly the same.
Like you start with some basic gear and skills, kill baddies, do stuff towards cleaning DC and get exotics and more in the end. So, it's like a linear rogue like expirience, but lesser than the main cmpaign. It actually would be cool. Like, you start at White House and work towards 1 faction only. Somewhat 3-4 hours at max. With progressing difficulty and Heroic DUA in the end.

In hind sight, the levelling from 1-30 and then 31-40 is a waste of time. The game doesn’t really begin until level 40. It would be better if you started the game at what is effectively SHD watch level 1 and therefore all gear you find from the start of the game onwards is not obsolete 15 minutes after you get it. It would also be nice if you could start the game on any difficulty without having to play everything on story mode. I think more people would play new characters more often if they offered a mode like this.

In hind sight, the levelling from 1-30 and then 31-40 is a waste of time. The game doesn’t really begin until level 40. It would be better if you started the game at what is effectively SHD watch level 1 and therefore all gear you find from the start of the game onwards is not obsolete 15 minutes after you get it. It would also be nice if you could start the game on any difficulty without having to play everything on story mode. I think more people would play new characters more often if they offered a mode like this.

This is true, and pretty much already doable if you buy the NY DLC and start your character in NY, finish NY in a day or two of playing then go to DC. I did this with my second character.

Buuuut: Even though it was a waste from the perspective of building up gear for later, the gameplay was MUCH more enjoyable and felt far less like a boring grind on my DC-only character. So much more enjoyable that I brought it up to world tier 5 and level 500 then created a whole new character for NY instead of flying the old one there. I saved the old character as DC-only, for when I feel like re-experiencing the awesome gameplay.

CONCLUSIONS:

• I agree that leveling from 1-30 and 31-40 is a waste of time, but it is more fun than post-40 gameplay.
• The progression from 1-40 should be changed so that it is not a waste.
• A DC-only character should be allowed to reach level 40 after reaching world tier 5.
• You should be allowed to share everything between DC-only and DC-NY characters. That includes blueprints and the optimization library.
• There should be a location where you can farm Optimization Blueprints for the workbench. Those blueprints are too important to be randomly mixed with the other blueprints. At the very least the blueprints to combine materials should be instantly prioritized so that they are the very first blueprint that drops once you collect the max of the combination ingredient. There is nothing more frustrating than to see almost every drop show up in red / unable to pickup - for moths - due to a full inventory and no useful way to consume them when you know that later you will need thousands more of it.
• You should be able to increase the difficulty level and quality of drops even without taking the character to NY.
• I understand that the intent of the "going to NY* level 40 barrier is to sell copies of the DLC. But there is no reason to ruin the DC gameplay experience and richer missions of DC-only characters to make those sales. Just make the barrier be owning the DLC or having at least one NY character be what unlocks the level 40 gear. Then players that own the DLC can go or not go to NY as a personal choice that does not limit gear building.

You guys speak for yourselves, I enjoyed the story/discovery stage tremendously, that's what got me hooked to the Division, and applies to both 1 and 2. And I'm enjoying it again with a hardcore character.

The end-game stage is fun, but to me gets boring at times, only playing with friends and groups saves it.

It's kind of clear that you guys are too much focused on getting the perfect gear and builds. That fascination evaded and still evades me... while I want something effective, I am not overly preoccupied with the max stats. In fact I got to SHD 500 without studying any videos or other build tutorials, just with what I thought would work together, as the most benefits are extracted from "talents" synergies, not from the last few % of stats. I haven't done any "farming" grind until SHD 1000, and done that out of boredom.
I'm nearing SHD 2000 now and honestly the only things that hold my interest it to experiment with weird builds and playing with friends and/or random groups... and I see that interest fading soon without new content.

I would love a new story arc and some new locations to explore.

@adrian-11

I think I’ve been misunderstood. I enjoyed the content during the 1-30 phase… just not the constant gear obsolescence and being forced to use weapons and gear I didn’t like just to be at a relevant and effective level.

I would much prefer if the early gear levelling system was abolished and what we have for gear in the end game was the way gear worked right from the start. That way, you could enjoy the story and early game content without constantly obsoleting your gear.

Upgrading, optimizing and assembling gear into builds is fun. Constantly switching or buying gear just to remain somewhat effective, is not.

@virtual-chris

Ah, okay. But it is a looter, so it will push you in that direction. Or you'll push yourself that way, to get the upper hand. I know I did, especially with the hardcore toon. I really want to have the best hand when I go into the fray with the risk of perma-death over my head.

@virtual-chris Well gotta make players walk certain steps of testing multiple types of gear, learning to equip gear with more sub stats to increase their power, then you later add more brands and talents. Endgame should be complex but the person should have walked a path of learning how gear works in the main "campaign" to be able to handle, i just see campaign as a necessary long plot tutorial in loot shooters most of the time

I would much prefer if the early gear levelling system was abolished and what we have for gear in the end game was the way gear worked right from the start. That way, you could enjoy the story and early game content without constantly obsoleting your gear.

Upgrading, optimizing and assembling gear into builds is fun. Constantly switching or buying gear just to remain somewhat effective, is not.

Exactly, this is what I meant. It just makes no sense making players play the meat of the game with [censored] gear. Division agents should've sorted out their gear BEFORE the [censored] hit the fan but of course, there's always room for improvement. Also, I think we need some actual end-game only missions that give us something to build for. I know that's basically what raids are but not everyone likes the stupid raid mechanics that make no sense.

@metal_greg The game does give an decent excuse that when our character finds his way into DC, all of his gear is just worn out from travel and lack of maintnance he couldn't do with limited supplies