‘The Division’ Patch 1.0.2 Fixes Exploits, Improves Fast Travel

Ubisoft shared The Division 1.0.2 patch notes on Monday. The latest update to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC open-world shooter is coming Tuesday with fixes for various exploits, better loot drops, and various improvements to gameplay from being able to fast travel to the Dark Zone to losing less money and experience in the game’s PVP instance.

The Division‘s servers will go offline the morning of Tuesday, March 22 for approximately three hours starting at 4 a.m. ET/1 a.m. PT. The 1.0.2 patch will be available to download around that time and will weigh in between 2.3 GB and 3 GB depending on platform.

The patch fixes a number of exploits and balance issues with The Division. One of the more notable patched issues include players repeatedly farming named NPCs in the overworld for high-end loot. Pour one out for the Bullet King because this patch will stop him and other named baddies from ever respawning to effectively end this game’s version of Destiny‘s Loot Cave.

Find out what changes we bring to the game on March 22 with update 1.02 https://t.co/Xezpj3vGIs pic.twitter.com/nYiiPv3lCo

— Tom Clancy's The Division (@TheDivisionGame) March 21, 2016

The developers at Ubisoft Massive appear to be aware that taking away named NPCs also removes normal loot opportunities for players. Rewards have been increased in other activities as a result. Named enemies will now drop better loot in Challenge mode missions while level 31 and 32 named NPCs in the Dark Zone have received increased drop rates for high-end items and high-end Division Tech material. Additionally, Dark Zone Chests get a bump with rank 30 chests now dropping Superior (Purple) items and chests also having a chance to drop High-End (Gold) items.

The one loot item not increased is Phoenix Credits. Increasing the amount of Phoenix Credit dropped by level 31 and 32 enemies in the Dark Zone was previously mentioned by Ubisoft. This was unfortunately pulled from this patch due to it causing stability issues with the game. This will likely show up in a future release instead.

The good news is players won’t have to worry about losing as much Dark Zone money and experience when killed in the free for all area of the game. Ubisoft is reducing the amount of funds and XP lost when killed as a Rogue or non-Rogue agent in response to player complaints. At the same time, rewards for surviving Rogue status and killing Rogue agents will be increased and Dark Zone Funds drop rates and quantity from NPCs will be reduced.

The percentages have not been announced yet. As a result, this will be an area where The Division community will likely track what happens when killing or getting killed in the Dark Zone following the deployment of the patch.

One welcome feature introduced with patch 1.0.2 is the ability to fast travel directly to a Dark Zone checkpoint. This is a huge improvement over trying to fast travel to the nearest Safe House or mission and then hoofing it over to the desired checkpoint. This only works outside of the Dark Zone area, however. Those inside the PVP area will still have to walk, run, and shoot their way out.

While there are a plethora of fixes that can be seen below, Ubisoft has also included some platform specific notes. Xbox One players will be able to reconnect to The Division servers after suspending the game following the patch. Meanwhile, PlayStation 4 owners will gain the ability to disable the speaker on the PS4 DualShock 4 controller. The developers also improved texture and model streaming on Sony’s console.

You can check out the complete The Division 1.0.2 patch notes as posted by Ubisoft Massive below. Which are your favorite? Sound off in the comments.

Gameplay

• Named enemies. will now drop better loot in Challenge mode than in Hard mode.
• Added a cooldown period for the Static Turret stun attack in order to avoid a stunlock in PvP and PvE game modes.
• Named NPCs will no longer respawn after being killed in the Open World. This will prevent situations where players were able to kill a same named NPC over and over again.
• Modifications to the weapon talent: Trained.
  • It can now only be rolled on Shotgun, Marksman rifles and Pistols
  • Its bonus has been reduced from 1%-5% to a constant 0.1%
  • For the Midas SMGs, Trained Talent has been replaced with Responsive Talent which increases damage when getting closer to the target. This applies to existing weapons as well as newly acquired ones
  • “For all SMGs, LMGs, and Assault Rifles, it will be replaced with another randomly picked weapon talent. This applies to existing weapons as well as newly acquired ones”
• Fixed a speed run exploit for the Rooftop Comm Relay mission
• Fixed an issue where weapons dealt no damage if the reload animation was interrupted by an agent’s skill
• Fixed an issue where players became stuck in an emote animation if activated via chat while auto running
• Fixed a bug where skill power would be increased permanently while using the Death by Proxy talent
• Fixed a bug where experience was not being awarded for completing all side-missions in the Midtown East safe house
• Fixed instances where the Seeker Mine with Airburst / Multi-mine mod would detonate too soon, miss targets or cause no damage
• Fixed a bug where grenades would sometimes not display the blast radius warning before detonating
• Fixed an issue where some NPCs in low cover would not react to being shot by the player
• Fixed issues where emotes would cause the player model to behave oddly (missing guns, player stuck in emote animation, etc)
• Fixed a bug where weapon mods and weapon skins would not show up on other players in the game world
• Fixed an issue where DPS would not be calculated properly when purchasing a new weapon mod

Dark Zone

• Players can now heal other neutral players in the Dark zone, by using First Aid and Support Station skills
• Players are now able to fast travel to Dark Zone checkpoints, but only when coming from outside the Dark Zone
• The Dark Zone disconnect timer has been increased to 30 seconds, meaning players will remain in the game world longer when logging out while in the Dark Zone (this applies while not in combat)
• Items extracted from the Dark Zone are now properly marked as “new” items when moved to the players inventory
• Players killed in the Dark Zone now drop ammo, medkits and grenades. This loot is generated and not taken from the dying players’ inventory
• Players killed in the Dark Zone will lose less Dark Zone Funds and Experience (Rogue and non-Rogue)
• Dark Zone Funds and Experience rewards for surviving Rogue status have been improved
• Dark Zone Funds and Experience rewards for killing Rogue agents have been improved
• Increased drop rate of High-End items from lvl 31 and 32 named NPCs in the Dark Zone.
• Increased drop rate of High-End Division Tech Material from lvl 32 named NPCs in the Dark Zone.
• Improved Dark Zone Chests items quality:
  • Rank 30 chests will now drop Superior (Purple) items instead of Specialized (Blue)
  • Keys chests now have a chance to drop High-End (Gold) items
• Dark Zone Funds drop rates and quantity on NPCs has been reduced.
• Fixed a bug where the Wildfire and Fear Tactics talents were affecting neutral players in the Dark Zone.
• Fixed instances where players would receive a DELTA error message when entering the Dark Zone
• Fixed a bug where sometimes players could not loot anything after returning to the game following a network disconnection
• Fixed Stage 1 Rogue timers not displaying correctly when Rogue players receive damage from another player

Graphics

• Fixed a few lights that did not cast global illumination

UI

• Added more information for Daily missions on the Map
• Tutorials have received some UI polish
• The Matchmaking menu now displays the mission difficulty rating more prominently
• The mini-map mission tracker has been optimized to be less confusing to players
• Fixed a bug where some of the attributes for high-end equipment were cut-off in the recalibration menu
• Fixed a bug where the Matchmaking menu for a mission would not display correctly or kept disappearing
• Fixed missing item icons in the Reward Claim Vendor’s inventory
• Fixed incorrect side-missions being displayed in the Map legend

Audio

• Fixed a bug where the helicopter crash SFX would be missing from the Brooklyn end cinematic
• Fixed a bug where the Zapper Turret mod had no sound
• Fixed a bug where the audio for entering a contaminated area would be cut-off
• Fixed a bug where audio would not play when scrolling through vanity items

Localization

• Fixed Ubisoft CLUB reward descriptions in Korean and Traditional Chinese
• In-game localization bug fixes

PC

• Tobii Eye Tracking bug fixes and improvements
• On launch, the PC client now monitors PC graphic settings and applies the best settings for the user’s configuration. This is unless the user has custom settings.
• Fixed an issue where the Map was sometimes difficult to navigate with a mouse
• Fixed issues with Hungarian, Korean, and Russian localizations
• Fixed an issue that prevented matchmaking while on the Map
• Removed the Store button from the Character Selection screen on PC versions of the game. Players can find the store page in the Ubisoft CLUB app directly
• Fixed increment number on Day 1 Patch Notes (was 1.1, now correctly states 1.01)

Xbox One

• Fixed a bug where players could not reconnect to the servers after suspending the game on Xbox One
• Fixed a bug on Xbox One where unblocking a player would not be reflected in-game until title reboot

PlayStation 4

• Added an option to disable the PlayStation 4 controller speaker
• Improved textures and models streaming speed
• Fixed an issue where ISAC volume could get too loud when playing with headsets

[Image via Ubisoft]