TD2 PTS – PATCH NOTES FASE 3 (ENG) [UPDATE 29.04.22]

Post originale: Ubisoft Forum

PTS 3 – Countdown, Expertise, New Gears and Weapons + Bug fixes following phases 1 and 2 .

We found the reason behind a prominent Delta error. It was caused by talents with stacking ability of gear and weapons. Therefore, we have removed the “Heartbreaker” set and the “Catharsis” mask from the PTS saves and from most places we could in time. If you come across it in anyway, we ask you not to use it. Fixing this issue is the number one priority for the TU15 release.

All the changes described in the Phase 2 Check-in and in the changelog below will become available with the TU15 release. This decision is equally disappointing for you and for us, but right now that is the only way we can ensure the stability of the build and let you test all the other changes we made following Phase 2.
 
Known Issues

• Heartbreaker Gear set is removed from the PTS3 build as it causes Delta 03 errors and can result in game crashes.
• Multiple incomplete groups created instead of a full group while matchmaking for Countdown.
• The “Bluescreen” Exotic’s talent continues to stack without the player shooting when using the Vile Mask.
• Countdown groups are pulled in dark hours when group leader presses the “Start the Matchmake” for the Countdown while having invite pop up on pending.
• The player may get stuck in an unresponsive menu if opening the seasons Menu in Megamap/Manhunt as the Season is missing from the game.
  • The only workaround is to force close the game

CHANGELOG

Expertise

• The cost of Field Recon Data, SHD Calibration and Exotics Materials is now reduced by half from level 11 up to level 20.
  • Levels 1-10 and 21+ remain unchanged.
• Reduced the materials requirements for all ranks of Gear pieces by half.
• Upgrading armor now gives 1% Armor on the individual piece rather than 1% Total Armor.
• Fixed the issues with the Exotic SMG “Lady Death” not receiving a damage increase after being upgraded.
• Fixed the issue with the Bonus Armor from upgraded gear being received only after unequipping and then re-equipping the said gear.
• It is no longer possible to upgrade items that are not in the inventory

• UI changes:
  • Added the “Donate All Junk” button in the main Expertise menu.
  • Using the “Donate All Junk” button from the Expertise menu does not result in donating all the items anymore.
  • “Donate All Materials” button does now changes to greyed out when the player has no materials.
    • Now you can preview how much materials it is going to take when you donate them.
  • “Donate Resource” no longer has the same function as the “Donate All Materials” button when interacted with in the Expertise menu.
  • Fixed the issue with the Expertise menu disappearing when pressing the “Mark As” button.

Countdown

• Fixed fog intensity to prevent it from affecting the gameplay.
• Social menu UI is no longer missing from Countdown.
• Fixed the invisible bullet collision hinders the agent combat at one location.

Gear and Weapons

• “Heartbreaker” Gear Set
  • The “Heartbreaker” mask should now give blue (defense) stats.
  • Two stacks are now lost per second.

• “Kingbreaker” rate of fire is upgraded to from 500 to 650 TKB-408.
• Assault Rifle rate of fire is upgraded to from 500 to 650.
• The “Dare” LMG can no longer be equipped with AR attachments.

• “Bluescreen” Exotic Weapon
  • Fixed the issues with the Exotic Weapon “Bluescreen” not having the exclusive skin.
  • Fixed the issue with the “Disruptor Rounds” Talent of the Exotic Weapon “Bluescreen” that could not be triggered.
  • Fixed the issues with the Focus Talent not working with the new exotic “Dread Edict.

 
Other

• The issue with the character appearing as a floating head after booting the PTS for the first time is now fixed.

Please do keep your thoughts coming as community feedback has always been helpful to us in making the necessary adjustments to the upcoming content.

Post originale: Ubisoft Forum

PTS 2 – New gear & balance adjustments .

COUNTDOWN

• The issue with infinite loading screen after being in Countdown Mode is now resolved.
• Fixed the Delta 03 error when matchmaking with players from different regions in Countdown.
• Fixed the DELTA-03 error when accepting an invite from matchmaking and entering an ongoing Countdown session.
• Overall Countdown mode difficulty has been buffed.
• Countdown mode rewards that drop for all players at a long distance have been removed.
• Difficulty shown as normal is now removed.
• The issue with the Hunters being shown as the Black Tusk on the kill screen needs is now resolved.
• The White Tusk are no longer spawning.

EXPERTISE

• Rank progress not being gained in Dark Zones on any item from any category is now fixed.

UI Changes

• Added Mark as favorite button and exclamation points for all new items.
• Added Donate All button for donating all items marked as junk in the inventory similar how deconstructing all junk, or selling all junk works.
• Fixed: Donate materials in bulk.
• Fixed: Donate items in bulk.

Progression Pace
New value has been set to ensure that the gearset proficiency XP is gained at a less considerable pace.

• The more gearset pieces you have the more XP is granted.

Inconsistent Upgrade Bonuses

• Upgrading Armor no longer gives 1% Total Armor.
• Fixed visual bug.
• Added support for Armor % bonus.
• Added the Expertise level on character’s decoration items.
• Fixed bonus attribute replication.
• Updated bonus values.

Minor Weapon & Gear UI Issues

• Perfect Jeopardy talent has been removed from Kingbreaker and Dare descriptions, Perfect Flatline talent has been added instead.
• Flatline basic talent has been added to the advanced weapon talents pool .

Intimidate & Perfect Intimidate

• Talents Intimidate and Perfect Intimidate are no longer max stack in PvP.

PTS 1 – Countdown & Expertise.

NEW GAME MODE: COUNTDOWN 

Countdown is a new 8-player endgame mode for The Division 2. Two groups of four SHD agents are deployed to a power plant to prevent a lockdown. Racing against the clock, the agents must work together to secure the site and stabilize the power plant. Believing their mission is complete the agents prepare for extraction and are pursued by heavily armed and technologically advanced hostiles.

Overview: 

• 8 players PvE
• Timed mission
• Various objectives
• Randomized encounters and flow on a new unique map
• New gear and weapon drops [Phase 2]
• Available through matchmaking

EXPERTISE

Expertise is a progression feature, that allows to improve the maximum performance of select weapons, gear sets, skill variants and more. This feature is composed of two types of progression systems: the Expertise Level and the Proficiency Rank.

• Each eligible item type has a Proficiency Rank, which can be increased either through Donations or Kill XP. Only when an item type reaches the highest Proficiency Rank possible, will the agent become Proficient with it and be able to increase the Grade of the individual items of that type. Every item type has the same amount of Proficiency Ranks.
• Additionally, each agent has a unique Expertise Level, which increases as the Proficiency Ranks are gained in more item types
• Expertise and Proficiency is account-wide

Types: 

• Expertise Level: Agent level
• Proficiency Rank: Item type level
• Proficient: Reaching Max Proficiency Rank in an item type
• Grade: Individual item level

Research Categories: 

• Weapons
• Gear brands
• Gear sets
• Named Items
• Exotics
• Skill Variants
• Specialization Weapons

NEW GEAR

Updated 01.04.22 13:20 CET*

Named Gear: 

• Closer — Chest 
  • Talent Perfect Spotter: Amplifies total weapon and skill damage by 20% to pulsed enemies.
• The Setup — Backpack
  • Talent Perfectly Opportunistic: Enemies you hit with shotguns and marksman rifles amplifies the damage they take by 15% from all sources for 5s.
• Heartbreaker — Gear Set:*
  • 2 set: +15% Assault Rifle DMG & +15% LMG DMG
  • 3 set: +15% Weapon Handling
  • 4 set: Heartstopper
  • Headshots apply pulse 5s.
  • Weapon hits on pulsed enemies add and refreshes a stack of +1% bonus armor for and +1% damage to pulsed enemies for 5s. Max stack is 50.
  • 4+ Chest: Max stack is now 100.
  • 4+ Backpack: Stacks now supply +2% bonus armor
• Uzina Getica — Gear Brand Set*
  • 5.0% Armor
  • 10% Armor on Kill
  • 10% Hazard Protection

NEW WEAPONS

Updated 01.04.22 16:39 CET*

Exotic Weapons: 

• Dread Edict — exotic variation of the SVD Marksman Rifle
  • Talent Full Stop: Shooting enemies builds stacks to a cap of 20. Headshots grant 2 stacks. Each stack grants 2% Weapon Damage and 5% Headshot Damage. On reload, clear all stacks and gain 5% of your max Armor as temp armor for 10 seconds for each stack removed. Headshot kills with Dread Edict restore all bullets in the magazine. This does not count as a reload.

• Catharsis — exotic mask
  • Talent Vicious Cycle: Taking damage builds stacks to a cap of 30. Each stack grants 1% Weapon Damage. Taking damage at max stacks triggers a purge, removing all stacks and Status Effects and then dropping a healing cloud which restores 5% of Max Armor for 10s to all allies in the cloud.

• Bluescreen — exotic variation of the Stoner LMG
  • Talent Disruptor Rounds: Shooting an enemy marks them and adds a stack to the agent up to a count of 50. Shooting a marked enemy refreshes the mark and adds stacks to the agent. When you deploy a non-shield skill, remove all stacks on agent and all marked targets trigger an effect.
  • 1 -10 Stacks – Pulse marked targets for 5 seconds
  • 11 – 25 Stacks – Pulse and Disrupt marked targets for 5 seconds.
  • 26 – 49 Stacks – Pulse, Disrupt, and Disorient marked targets for 5 seconds.
  • 50 Stacks – Pulse, Disrupt, and Disorient marked targets and all hostiles within 10 meters of the marked targets for 5 seconds. This effect will trigger immediately if any marked enemy is killed.

Named Weapons: 

• Dare —LMG HK GR9* 
  • Talent Perfect Flatline: Amplifies weapon damage by 20% to pulsed enemies. After 2 kills, applies pulse to the next enemy you hit.
  • Currently incorrectly displays as “Talent Perfect Jeopardy.”
• Kingbreaker — TKB-408 Assault Rifle 
  • Talent Perfect Flatline: Amplifies weapon damage by 20% to pulsed enemies. After 2 kills, applies pulse to the next enemy you hit.

BALANCE ADJUSTMENTS 

Adjustments have been made to the functioning of various talents in order to curtail undesirable behaviors and imbalance.
Overview:

• Modifications to shield skill behaviors
  • Shields now take significantly more damage in PvP.
  • Shields now irresistibly disorient their user when broken.
• Excluded shields from the In-Sync Talent 
  • In-Sync and Perfectly In-Sync no longer trigger from shield skills.
  • The text of these talents has been updated.
• Updated Intimidate and Perfect Intimidate Talents 
  • New Behavior: While you have bonus armor, gain 1 stack each second up to a max of 7. Each stack increases total weapon damage by 5% to enemies within 10m.
  • All stacks are lost when you have no bonus armor.
  • Perfect Version: Increase max stacks to 8
  • PvP: 4% weapon damage per stack instead of 5

GAMEPLAY ADJUSTMENTS

Updated 31.03.22 16:56 CET*

• Added a disorienting effect to players when their shield breaks  .
• Updated Intimidate and Perfect Intimidate so that there is a ramp-up to their effectiveness .
• Omit shields from the effects of the In-Sync talent .
• Increased the PvP damage to shield .
• Repair Traps now heal allies for the proper amount .

Design Notes: 

Shield skills have been unbalanced for quite some time and have grown to be a dominant build tactic in both PvE and PvP. Combined with In-Sync, shields provide an unparalleled, no-downsides DPS boost.

In addition, Intimidate when combined with various methods of gaining short-term bonus armor. This made it deeply unfair in ambush situations in PvP and led to an undesirable PvE meta as well. As such, Intimidate now requires a slow buildup before reaching maximum effectiveness.