‘The Division’ Developers Detail New World Scaling Feature Coming With 1.4 Update, Hope To Launch PTS Next Week

Today’s state of the game address for The Division included quite the announcement that will likely intrigue many agents. Developers of The Division announced that the 1.4 update will introduce world scaling with World Brackets selected by the player. In addition to the number of bug fixes, gameplay redesigns, and other improvements, the 1.4 patch will also introduce the new World Brackets feature to players letting them set the whole New York City map to level 30 and higher as the player reaches higher gear scores.

In the state of the game, which can be viewed on Twitch, developers of the game explained the new World Bracket system after discussing how enemies and players will be different in the 1.4 update. The game, in its current state, is not that fun and it is often difficult for players that are not perfectly optimized. As they have noted before, developers of The Division stated that the time to kill an enemy will come down with 1.4 and the time it takes for a player to be killed by an NPC will be increased. The stream included a few examples where an enemy killed a player in two seconds based on the live server versus the six seconds it took for the characters in an environment based on patch 1.4. An image of how long it took the player to kill an enemy in the two environments is below.

The gap between high-end loot and gear set loot will also be closed after the update. High-end loot will be closer in strength to gear sets giving players more options in how they gear their characters. Not to mention, players will no longer need to obtain gear from a challenge mode in order to play in a challenge mode. The rate at which gear is earned will be improved and the new World Brackets mean players can get it from anywhere they choose. All “trash” enemies, excluding those in Incursions, have a chance to drop high-end and gear set level loot all over the game.

This is possible thanks to the new World Bracket feature coming in the 1.4 update. After reaching level 30, a character will unlock World Brackets. There are four tiers of worlds and a fresh level 30 will begin at tier one. In this tier, characters will find level 30 enemies all over the base map, within missions, and in the Underground. This means that the base map will once again be playable for characters at the level cap, and named NPCs will return giving players a chance to farm Bullet King all over again.

In tier one, enemies drop gear up to level 163. After that gear score is reached, that player can set their world to tier two where gear drops are between 164 and 182 gear score. This process is repeated for tier three and tier four with the latter offering the best gear in the game. With the 1.4 update, the highest gear score obtainable will be 229. Players will no longer find anything higher than 229 in either high-end pieces or gear set pieces. This is one major way high-end gear will be comparable to gear set pieces after the update.

The level of the World Bracket, between tier one and tier four, affects the level of enemies found all over that player’s game. Normal, hard, and challenging modes still exist for missions; however. Those modes now affect the amount of loot dropped instead of the loot’s gear score level. Players can farm a normal mode mission in tier one to earn their 163 gear score a little slower than if they chose to play hard mode missions in that tier. Either way, the gear score will be reached and a new tier will open. Players can switch tiers whenever they choose so long as they have the gear score to unlock the tier, too.

For matchmaking and friends, the tier of the world still comes into play. A player that plays in a tier four world can manually invite a player that only has access to a tier one world, but tier four players only matchmake automatically with other tier four players. This lets friends stick together if they want to giving a tier four player a chance to help their friends gear more quickly. After all, a player with a tier one gear score will receive tier four gear score items if invited to a tier four world.

Am I late to the party? pic.twitter.com/Ml8Vl2zL7z

— Yannick B (@yannickbch) April 12, 2016

As The Inquisitr reported, the public test server is not going up this weekend as planned. During this week’s state of the game, developers did state that the public test server might go live as early as next week. No firm date is confirmed right now, and the technical test will still need to occur before it opens to all PC owners of the game.

This week’s state of the game stream continues delivering details on how The Division will change with the game’s next major update. Patch 1.4 is still expected to release in October with a slew of changes, bug fixes, and the newly announced World Brackets. Adjusting how enemy NPCs gain strength at higher levels, improving loot and when it is received, and correcting the difficulty jump between modes are at the center of the update. Many of these topics have been in discussion in the previous weeks’ state of the game addresses, like last week’s detailed information on the official site.

Several quality-of-life enhancements are also expected with the update including weapon skins no longer taking up inventory space, a “craft all” button in the crafting interface, and a buyback option from vendors. Due to the nature of the 1.4 update and its crucial overhauls to several gameplay elements, balancing will occur after the changes have gone live. Not to mention, the two remaining paid pieces of downloadable content for The Division now have later release dates due to the fixes.

[Image via Ubisoft]