Day One Patch Coming To 'The Division'

By Rexly Peñaflorida
published

Nearly three years since its initial announcement at E3, Tom Clancy’s The Division finally comes out tomorrow. But before you head into New York City, Ubisoft will implement a day one patch to add some features and remedy a few issues.

According to the company, the patch was the result of player feedback during the game’s closed and open beta sessions. Aside from visual upgrades, there are also some improvements to the overall experience. Skill modifiers are automatically added to certain gear items, and new tutorials were implemented for new gameplay mechanics. Loot crates contain more crafting materials, and an extra set of tutorials are included to present various gameplay mechanics.

APPEARANCE MENU HAS BEEN UPDATED:Now displays as a grid making it much easier to browse items."Outfit Sets" option added to quickly equip all the items in a set."Inspect" feature added.VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS:Fixed several lights that did not cast global illumination.Fixed missing volumetric lights on traffic lights.Illuminated signs now cast actual light.Improved atmospheric haze in several time and weather combinations.Improved night time lighting and contrast.Adjusted exaggerated rim light shader on characters.Improved car window reflections.Improved Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) to be more pronounced.MEGA MAP AND OPEN WORLD UPDATES:New "Mission Overview" has been added to the Mega Map.Contaminated zones will now display the required filter level on the Mega Map.Field data with audio will automatically play when you pick them up.If you start listening to field data with audio from the menu, you can keep listening outside the menu.Subtitles added for all Field Data that play audio.Mission entrance menu usability has been improved.Significantly increased the number of crafting materials obtained from loot crates.The icon for landmarks in the Dark Zone has been changed and now indicates if non-player enemies are present or not.GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS:New "Help" menu is now available in the Settings menu. It stores all the loading screen and context sensitive tips.New tutorials added for certain gameplay features and mechanics (these can be switched off in the Options menu).Added information to the in-game loot pickup UI that displays why an item can't be picked up.The deployable turret no longer targets non-rogue players and doesn't damage neutral players caught in the line of fire.Skill modifiers have been added directly to gear (previously only available on gear mods).FIXES AND GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS:Fixed glitches that could be exploited by players to gain an unfair advantage in the game (such as invisibility, shooting through walls, etc).Extended server-side checks to detect any illegal actions from the game client, limit their impact in the game and track down the perpetrators.Fixed an issue on character select screen that resulted in getting stuck with a specific combination of inputs.Fixed a progression blocking issue caused by accepting a group invite at a specific moment during the Base of Operations unlock sequence.Players will no longer return all the way back to start screen after creating or logging in to their Ubisoft Club account.Fixed remaining bugs that prevented log-in attempts when non-essential services were offline.Overall stability increased.Further backend improvements and optimizations.Localization adjustments and bug fixes.Additional minor bug fixes and polish.

In terms of the interface, the in-game menu is now displayed as a grid for better viewing, and you can inspect the various items collected throughout your adventure. A message in the UI will also pop up that tells you why you can’t pick up certain items when looting.

The map also has some extra bells and whistles such as a mission overview section, a new filter for level requirements in various areas of the Dark Zone, and new icons for various landmarks that also show if enemy AIs are present in the vicinity.

The list of improvements seems to show that the betas weren’t some marketing ploy to get more people interested in the game. In addition to a taste of the game’s story content, fans were able to explore various parts of the Dark Zone and interact with other players. Due to the feedback throughout the beta, the developers could implement fixes in time for launch.

The first few days in the game will also no doubt uncover some additional issues, and Ubisoft will continue to listen feedback as the game is released worldwide.

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Rexly Peñaflorida
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hellwig
    Ah, remember when the studio would release a game, and you bought it on a ROM (game cartridge, CD, etc...), played it on a device that had never heard of the internet, and got hours of gameplay out of it?

    I know the technology now days is a lot more complicated, but shouldn't these companies also be a lot better at their jobs by now?

    I guess I'm just getting too old.
    Reply
  • jaber2
    You are getting old @hellwig, we now live in the age of perpetual beta
    Reply
  • billgatez
    You have the game and the patch. So why not fix the game and not have a day one patch.
    Reply
  • Shaun o
    Back in the old days games were coded, mostly directly for that sole machine.
    Today games company's to save time port the games from one format to another.

    The end result is when porting a game from one format to another is game coding is a lot more rough and loose.
    The end result is day one patches, or patching.
    Saves money than having a team of coders ect for each format the game is released on.
    Your not getting old Hellwig. Just time, and money is saved. More profit made.
    Reply
  • alidan
    Ah, remember when the studio would release a game, and you bought it on a ROM (game cartridge, CD, etc...), played it on a device that had never heard of the internet, and got hours of gameplay out of it?

    I know the technology now days is a lot more complicated, but shouldn't these companies also be a lot better at their jobs by now?

    I guess I'm just getting too old.

    i also remember back in the day needing to upgrade entire systems, from cpu, video card, and audio card just to run games... its a consequence we have now, pretty much any system/configuration can run a game without to much issue, it all comes down to horsepower, but that also means there are a few million configurations and several trillion different ways the os/programs and conflict with the operation of the game.

    you cant get every bug in house, and even then, you can keep a game inhouse for longer and try to stamp out every bug, or release the game and patch... personally i'm a big fan of getting games faster and relying on a few patches.

    with that said, the majority of the issues above sound like "the game went gold, and we are still working on improvements" opposed to bug fixes, along with catching glitches in house at 0 hour.
    Reply
  • icepick314
    also the games are in gigabytes, not kilobytes...

    you can't expect them to run perfectly every single time...

    I played last night for couple of hours and didn't run into any significant glitches...surprised how smoothly it ran in mostly medium setting with few high to very high settings for textures and details....
    Reply
  • ErikVinoya
    you cant get every bug in house, and even then, you can keep a game inhouse for longer and try to stamp out every bug, or release the game and patch... personally i'm a big fan of getting games faster and relying on a few patches.

    Coming from the software development industry here. This is a very popular approach done in software development these days.

    Instead of using huge resources for development and QA right off the bat, people tend to divide development into cycles. Try and get as much as possible into the first cycle, release, then start picking out features/fixes to be done on the next cycle

    I think this is due to the fact that its much easier to release patches today (internet) than it was on the 80s/90s, so why not take advantage of the technology.
    Reply
  • hellwig
    17627783 said:
    I think this is due to the fact that its much easier to release patches today (internet) than it was on the 80s/90s, so why not take advantage of the technology.
    This assumes your customers are willing to WAIT for a solution. If I go to a store and buy a product, I need to know that product works, not that, if I pay them today, eventually they'll get it working.

    The "agile" methodology you reference presumes that someone is paying you to develop the software. You don't have a viable product until the end. If I go to a store, and buy a pre-packaged game off the shelf (Yes, some people still do that), I'm not anticipating I need to fund the Development of said game! I just want a game that works. I'll wait six months and THEN give you my money, not spend the money now, and wait six months for something useable.

    If you want someone to fund the development, that's an agreement you must make up front, not saddle your customers with, by surprise, at what the customers think is "the end".

    "I'm going to sell you a car for $30,000. It only has three wheels, no engine, and the seats aren't installed yet, but man, would you listen to that RADIO!" I think the problem is, the people deciding NOT to deliver final content at first, aren't really asking the customers if that's what they want, it just happens to be what they give the customers.

    Video games used to be fixed cost. I.e. new titles had a general pricing range ($30-60). You bought a game, and that was that. Now, you pay $60 for a game, they offer a few patches, and then the functionality you actually wanted is a $15 DLC. That benefits the developers, but NOT the customers, not in any viable way whatsoever. Oh sure, you get a game "early", did that really change your life, if for 6 months the game was crap?

    </rant> <!-- sorry -->

    Reply