Hello, really hoping this post reaches the correct people at the development team.

I understand it's quite possibly not one of the main concerns of the next patch, but there are some exotics that could really use some buffing or something.

I wrote these series of posts called "A Week with a Low Tier Exotic" where I forced myself to play with them for prolonged sessions and I think there's some valuable feedback to be had, which I will be enumerating here.

You can read the posts in reddit here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/pktvs6/a_week_with_a_low_tier_exotic_chapter_1_backfire/
https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/poy8ml/a_week_with_a_low_tier_exotic_chapter_2_merciless/
https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/prz62l/a_week_with_a_low_tier_exotic_chapter_3_sweet/
https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/pxw2bp/a_week_with_a_low_tier_exotic_chapter_4_imperial/
https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/q1d1y9/a_week_with_a_low_tier_exotic_chapter_5_acostas/
https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/q75s55/a_week_with_a_low_tier_exotic_chapter_6_and_final/

I'm not going to do a full writeup here, but these are some short and sweet takeways from my experience:

Backfire: Stacks decay in time, maybe 1 every 2-3 seconds and stop the decay for an amount of time, probably 20-30s, after hitting cap. Stacks should remain static between battles like Chameleon.

Merciless: with how it works since WONY launched, Binary trigger makes no sense anymore. Make it full auto and increase explosion damage to 900%. Kills with the explosion refill the stacks.

Sweet Dreams: Melee instantly kills reds and purples but inflicts Disorient or Shock to Elite and named enemies. Melee hits add bonus armor or weapon damage.

Imperial Dynasty: killing an enemy while they burn refreshes the cooldown

Acosta's Go Bag: Skill kills lower the cooldown of overcharge. Remove Skill attributes and substitute them for Skill Efficiency.

Ninjabike Messenger Kneepads: add combat roll to "Parkour!"

Chatterbox: add either Weapon Damage or Bonus Armor on Kill

Diamondback: it needs a bigger magazine size. I think 8 would be a good compromise.

As you can see these are all simple suggestions which mostly preserve their currently intended playstyle while also making them much more viable.

So, I made a thread about Exotics weeks ago and I realized at the time that it was unlikely to happen.

However, if there's one thing and one thing only that I want to repeat from that topic is Backfire stacks decaying over time instead of all at once.

You've proven this is a relatively easy fix by doing exactly that to the Heartbreaker Gearset, so please please do it for Backfire too!

I understand this might be seen as a bit pushy given that CD just released, but I actually am really enjoying it and so are my friends!

But we were discussing in the past few days how cool it would be to add some traversing areas to Washington Airport and United Ironworks so they could act as Countdown Maps.

We even came up with some ideas:

Countdown: Washington Airport

X Faction is attempting to reactivate Black Tusk Tech at Washington Airport and have triggered an EMP Failsafe. If it goes off, it could wipe all the Tech in the area.

The main areas to be used would be interconnected by the Airport Runway and the extraction would be on the Runway itself.

Countdown: United Ironworks

X Faction has taken over United Ironworks and have caused a gas leak. If the plant explodes it could send hazardous fumes for miles around.

The map would be segregated to exclude all areas before the Fieser Fight and the space between the usable area would have the interconnecting zones and the Extraction area.

I'm really happy to see this new mode and I'd love to see it expanded a bit. This would also allow players who can't or won't do the Raids to be able to see some of the areas in these locations.

Seeing some weird, albeit funny reactions from a certain portion of the community about this and even though it's still not as clear as we'd like it to be, I just want to say that if the plan is to indeed free the Raid kidnapped Exotics, please do it.

Do not listen to a toxic vocal minority or streamers who keep portions of the playerbase baited to get their raid runs.

The huge majority of players will appreciate the change and enjoy using the items.

At the same time, maybe give an extra outfit or weapon skin/dye to raiders for bragging rights.

Please Ubisoft and Massive, DON'T PACKPEDAL ON THIS. There will always be whining, you can't win with the outlets covering this game, but you CAN win with players who enjoy this game.

They nerfed or "fixed" it and now the total added value of a fully upgraded build is 140k more armor, which is a pretty pathetic gain.

Weapon Damage bonuses seem correct as well as skills for the most part, but with a total of 140k increase, the system is now worthless for Armor.

@ubi-karl Hey there, Karl.

Just a humble request here.

Could we get a transparent statement here on what is going to be considered 'normal' and what isn't?

Was Expertise always intended to be capped at 20? Which would make players who gained over 20 an unintended mechanic, or was the intended mechanic for the cap to be 30, which would make players who couldn't go over it be unintentionally capped?

I think it's important to know what the stance here is so we can decide how to continue playing it.

I really don't want to grind for levels if I can just donate materials anyway.

Hello,

I would like to report this bug with the new named Backpack "Hermano" which has the Perfect Overclock Talent.

Based on the talent description, skills on cooldown should receive a 60% CD Reduction while the player or their allies are in proximity of a deployed Skill.

The normal talent on a non named Backpack grants a 20% reduction only.

However, at present, both the Perfect and Normal Talent are providing the same 20% Cooldown Reduction.

Please refer to the following two videos:

https://imgur.com/a/Xr3uSQY

In this first one, my Cluster Seeker has a 20.5 seconds Cooldown with Normal Overclock. When I deploy and cancel the skill, if you time it with a stopwatch, this is actually an effective duration of around 17s because Overlock is active. The 4 seconds reduction corresponds to a 20% reduction.

https://imgur.com/a/MApaC7Y

In this second video, my Cluster Seeker has again a 20.5 seconds Cooldown but this time with Perfect Overclock. Once again timed on a stopwatch it's about 17s for 20% CD reduction.

You can test this with pretty much any skills and it will always come up with the same result.

Conclusion: Overclock and Perfect Overclock are numerically the same.

Let me start by saying I'm really enjoying Countdown. It's fast, dynamic and rewarding, as well as being the kind of game mode that is probably scalable and highly modifiable in the future.

The Good:

• Map design is gorgeous. Where the Summit often gets shunned for being ugly, enclosed and monotone, the Power Plant is beautiful, varied and has a good mix of open space, enclosed space and verticality.
• The goals distribution is great because it actually encourages that the team members work together towards different goals. You could even spare a person or two to take care of the handicaps
• The mode itself as I mentioned, feels fast and engaging. It's also rewarding and encourages you to farm currency to use in the new vendor, which is something I like to do with Global Events
• Handicaps matter. Messing up with player damage or skills cooldown can end up being punishing, and getting rid of them to become buffs is genius
• Having 8 Players and Matchmaking doesn't make it unapproachable like Raids are, because the level of structure and coordination of the activities isn't like the raids

The Bad:

• The difficulty feels quite low and as others have mentioned, TTK on NPCs is rather fast too.
• Traversing between locations can feel dull as you play more and more
• NPC factions are not really providing an additional challenge that sets them apart from any other content except the Summit
• The handicaps are really easy to handle, even with Hunters involved
• Speaking of Hunters, I think the dev team went overboard with them. They shouldn't be popping up everywhere. They work better when they are scarce.

Recommendations:

• Bring in the "Unusual Fireteam" feature from the Summit so the game can be shaken up a little. Create new team compositions as well.
• More varied and more punishing handicaps
• Rogue Agents should guard the Handicap toggles instead of Hunters, and they shouldn't toggle immediately. Create a small "guard this" activity that you need to defend. If you do it successfully, the handicap goes away and you win a buff, but if it gets destroyed, the handicap goes away but you don't get a buff and it's failed permanently for the run.
• Add environmental hazards and other obstacles when traversing between locations. For example: there's one activity I think it's the Core, that has an electrified floor and you have to play the floor is lava as it shocks everyone every 5 seconds or so. That is *chef's kiss*. We want MORE of that! Maybe a gas leak that causes poison, exposed cables causing shock so you need to climb through, automated turrets like in Coney Island, a couple SHD Boxes there to annoy you, a Conley EMP, basically stuff that makes going from A to B to C dangerous even if it's not NPCs, just to delay you and present a challenge.
• Helicopters to drop off Black Tusk at the end aren't a good idea, or at least ONE Helicopter isn't, because players will destroy the NPC units before they hit the floor and those who hit the floor end up obliterated as well.

That's all I have for now. Hope this is taken into consideration, this new mode is a good start but the team has to amp it up a little.

@dutchlmb4ever I have issues with the suggestion because it still makes the gun worthless against Elites if you run into a group of Yellows or against a Boss that is already on their own.

The Sweet Dreams can't be just a melee club. It's a total waste.

So after much experimenting, I'm now familiar with how the Expertise system works, I think.

Quick recap of my understanding:

1- You raise your proeficiency with an item to level 10, either by playing with the item (s) equipped or donating.

2- Once you are at level 10 proeficiency with that item, it's marked as "Proeficient" and it's ready to start getting ranked up.

3- You can rank the item up to your maximum Expertise level and each rank up will grant the item an increase of 1% something, which varies from Weapon Damage to Armor to other miscellaneous stuff in skills.

4- Your Expertise level increases as you collect Expertise Points from, for example, Countdown. Each Expertise level requires more Expertise points.

Now here are my questions:

1- Is there a maximum Expertise Level, or is this an infinite progression system?

2- Are the Expertise Points thresholds for every level going to continue increasing ad infinitum for every Expertise level? What is the factor at which Expertise Levels increase their Points requirement?

3- Is there a limit for items Rank up? Since every increase is 1%, if there's no limit could I end up with 60% Skill Damage on a Seeker mine (Expertise Level 60) or 30% Weapon Damage (Expertise Level 30) for example?

Those are my questions, but if I'm missing something I'd be very glad for the corrections.

@vm4M9Tz4pB I have them and I've done countless sherpas and dropped them for others. That's not my point at all. And again, this is moot because the change was implemented already.

Anyways, appealing once again to ubi forums staff to close this one as virtually every player is happy with this and it is a joyous day.

@Ubi-Thrupney

You mind closing this topic from replies? We should all be celebrating now, not arguing about a change that's already live.

@Noxious81 ok

Once again, thanks Massive/Ubi from the overwhelming majority of the playerbase.

One final post from me on this topic.

Thanks Massive/Ubi for going through with this change. An overwhelming majority of players appreciate it and we look forward to more progressive changes in this regard.

Great job.

I've found builds to make it work, because I'm not a metaslave, but these builds are hampered by the fixed scope.

That is IMO the biggest change that they need to make with the gun, so you could move around in tankier builds or builds with a bit more of survival (PfE, Regen) and constantly pick the kits.

If there was no forced scope, it'd be a pretty solid one.

@Sock_Monkey

Nothing about removing these exotics should have even one iota of impact on your fun, because you can still play the raids all you want. No one has taken anything from you.

I don't even know to whom you're replying but say it louder for those in the back. Brilliant!

This is why gatekeepers make no sense. No one is losing anything.

We are all winners. Some more than others, for being on the right side of the discussion, but still.

I just can't wait for the update to drop.

@Noxious81 Blue Core, no Minors and 3 Mod Slots is what I would recommend.

That would make it highly customizable without catering to one specific school.

@Sock_Monkey exactly on point!

That's why I've been also an advocate of changing the Raids or rather adding another difficulty for 4-Man scaling that has less structure but also lowered rates.

But that's not going to happen from the looks of it

I also think they could add a skin for EB and Ravi like Ruthless and Lullaby work, for folks who need to fix their inadequacy issues by means of a videogame.

However, none of that is happening either.

So again, this change to DZ is a great first step and I'm very excited for it.

@Sock_Monkey I agree with you. No one is able to make sound minded arguments for it.

If this change "kills" raids and makes it harder to find players for them, then it's because the method to find players itself is flawed.

Which isn't new. We know it is since Day 1.

Still, I appreciate naysayers who keep coming back to my topic and bringing more attention, they're useful tools.

On the subject of how easy or not it will be to get the weapon to drop and how easy or not it will be to extract it, it's not going to be any different from any other day in the dz.

It's just going to be more important to teach would be farmers good farming/extracting and general practices.

@Noway1868 see, I completely agree with you. We're not here to support Toxic gatekeeping, quite the contrary.

I would love it if some day the raid items were unlocked to anywhere in PvE. And frankly, one day they probably will be.

But, considering how adamant Massive has been so far, we have to applaud and encourage any change they make towards that. Today, it's the DZ, tomorrow it may very well be Legendary or even Heroic.

I have everything from the Raids across 4 characters on 3 platforms and I want all players to have them too. Me and my Clan on Xbox are already planning to resume our DZ Police rounds so we can protect players who are trying to get their EB/Ravi.