News - Dark Zone in The Division 2

Hello everyone,

First, lemme start off by saying I've always felt the Dark Zone was more of a "brag and troll" area than an actual challenge to be beaten or overcome in The Division (TD1). Simply enough, if you're in a squad, you could pretty much Rogue all you wanted and get away with it! Be that "checkpoint camping", hunting solo's in the lower level DZ, highjacking loot using the "invite and kick routine", I mean, a lot of things were wrong with it and most times the experience was more frustrating than enjoyable.

Having said that, I did spent a lot of time in the DZ. I was one of the few that pretty much solo the DZ the entire time and I still got a lot of grind (and loot) in there but if there's one thing I can absolutely say about the DZ in TD1is... that was the most toxic place I've ever seen in a videogame!

Sorry, but that's the truth!

In TD2 however, they're trying to make that place a bit more "tailor made" for all players. Noobs, veteran, rogues and solo's. For starters we now have not one but three DZ's in TD2. Other changes include turrets to prevent "checkpoint camping". Loot can now be secured by a player if you're down, meaning this time even a Rogue can choose to secure you're loot (becoming a kind of benign Rogue). Some of the loot now will go directly to your inventory, meaning no need to extract every single piece you encounter but of course the more desired or hard to find contaminated loot will still need to be extracted. And, for those hardcore Rogues, there will be a weekly (or daily not sure) Occupied Dark Zone, we're friendly fire will always off meaning you can shoot and kill other players at will without "flagging Rogue" first. All in all, these are some mechanics that I feel will help engage new and old players to enjoy a bit more the DZ.

In The Division 2 you'll be entitled to not one but three new Dark Zones and in one of them "friendly fire" will be permanently off so... Rogue to your hearts delight!

Here's the thing, in my opinion what really hurt TD1was precisely the DZ. Sure, there where bugs and things that didn't work, and balance was off and servers down and more bugs but what made people leave the game was the actual toxicity in the DZ. Once you got in and got killed by a Rogue group with no hope of ever recovering your loot, you were pretty much done with the game!

So now, when I see people (mainly rogue) complaining about the changes to DZ in the game, I feel they seem to think that the game should only suit they're "brag and troll" needs. Four million players joined TD1 with a max record of +100k people playing the game daily (source: SteamCharts). At the end of TD1 that number was 4k with one third playing the DZ regularly. That number only went up on Global Events where it got +10k daily gamers. Besides that, most Rogues players simply abandon the game after Rogue 2.0 always complaining about the same META builds that they themselves were using months before.

The cycle was always the same. Rogue the DZ for hard to get loot. Build the META before anyone else (with hard to find Exotics, Classifieds and Mods). Put out videos and streams of them simply drilling everyone and everything on the DZ. After a few weeks, start to complaining that the META is too strong and needed a nerf. This was so much true that Ubisoft even nerfed builds only on in PvP (Classified Striker and Classified Predator builds) just because these players felt others were somehow overusing them!

Solo's, Groups, Veteran or Noobs, will the new DZ's be a good positive experience to everyone?!

My problem was not so much with the builds as it was with CronosMax users or Aim Bots and other cheats. Not to mention the group vs solo that was never balanced in any way!

So, final thought, do I thing the DZ will work for everyone this time? No. Do I feel it's a good effort by Massive to make the DZ a more positive experience for every player? Yes. Will it somehow help to tone down the toxicity or "brag and troll" aspect of the DZ? Remains to be seen... but I won't hold my breath for it!