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‘Tom Clancy’s The Division’ Agent Attributes Breakdown And The Matchmaking System For Co-Op Gaming [Update]

By Tony Smejek
Published on: 12:34 PST, Jan 21, 2016

Tom Clancy’s The Division, the new action RPG game from Ubisoft, is a hyped up tactical shooter that a lot of players are looking forward to. That all said, it seems that this game is rather a hybrid of sorts. VG24/7 reports on the agent overview of characters showing the stats, inventory, gear, attributes, talents, and the like. Then there’s the matter of finding other players that an agent can team-up with when it comes to co-op. Enter The Division’s multi-player matchmaking system.

If you open the game’s overview screen, there’s an appearance tab which is basically self explanatory and shows mostly an inventory of clothing and apparel. This is something that can be accomplished without making a stats change.

Next comes the pouches. These may be thought of as a sub-category type of inventory that doesn’t take up your inventory. It’s mostly reserved for consumable items like standard grenades, flash bangs, incendiary, EMP grenades, and more.

Along with your ammo pouches come the crafting pieces, access keys, and medical supplies. There is a stat for bag types, which indicates the amount that each bag can hold. If you have 10/20, that means your pouch/bag can hold up to 20 items. There are two types of access keys.

Dark Zone Keys – Which are dropped by opposing forces or enemies that allow access to boxes/caches of nice weapons and cash. Keep in mind, in The Division’s Dark Zone areas, if you die, you drop some of these keys.

Lock Picks – They allow access to more abandoned buildings around the map

The RPG elements become rather apparent considering the character is forced to explore manny area in and around Manhattan. Combined with the fact that The Division is a tactical shooter and you have quite the hybrid.

Next comes The Division’s character tab of where the information gets a bit more descriptive. First are your attributes, attribute distribution, and a player summary with tons of information on your character which kind of looks like a performance review at a real life job. So it makes a good summation of the evolution of the division agent.

Finally is the overview tab, which is the main screen you come to when you open it up. First are the attributes which consist of firearms, stamina, and then there is a sub-category of a discipline, like healing, electronics, and equipment usage.

The latter all falls under the “skill” power, so the higher that number is, the more effective the division agent is.

Since this is considered a classless game with no real leveling tree, it can still be up to you and your free will to take your character the direction where you want depending on what gear you utilize. This combination of equipment/gear is what determines the agent’s evolving skill base.

In Tom Clancy’s The Division, the next issue is finding other players for the purpose of co-op gaming in this multiplayer game. It was reported some time ago that the matchmaking system would factor in certain demographics into the algorithm, but that has changed. Now, according to The Division Zone, comes the ability to match others up by putting their main focus on ping and proximity, and timezones and other behavioral factors.

Creative Director Magnus Jansén explains the language, proximity, and locales when it comes to The Division:

“We try to sort out [players] being close to your language and time zone. [If you put people together] in different time zones, then they’re going to go to bed at different points. Really, it’s all about the ping and the proximity that is giving us the best results.”

This would only makes sense as it would offer up a convenience to other players. Though, if you have a restless night and decide to play The Division at 3 a.m. EST, would the matchmaking system put you in touch with servers with little activity since most people may be in bed at that time? Perhaps there would be a filter for that?

Then there’s the issue of being matched up based on behavior. Magnus decided to be “purposely vague” in this instance as he seems to be taking the “wait and see” approach.

“Then there are some behavioral [factors], like what type of a player are you? But we are going to wait and see with that, I’ll be purposefully vague on that in terms of the details that you mentioned because I think initially, we are going to try and find you a good and close player.”

Tom Clancy’s The Division, the action-RPG-shooter game releases on March 8 on the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

[Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images News]

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