Agents,

The Division has been out for almost six months, and what an incredible half year it’s been! Through regular game updates, a first expansion and weekly patches, we have put a lot of energy into constantly improving the game. While these efforts have allowed us to bring more gameplay variety, the overall experience has been affected by lingering issues that have accumulated since release.

With Update 1.4 in the works, it has become clear with your feedback and our own observations that our priority should now be on improving the core gameplay experience. For this reason, we have made several adjustments to our development schedule: Update 1.4 will be released in October independently from Survival, and will focus entirely on bug fixing, game balancing and other improvements. Survival, the second expansion that was initially planned for release with Update 1.4 is now postponed to a later date this year. The third expansion, Last Stand, will be released in early 2017. This new schedule will not only enable us to strengthen the core experience before adding new content, but also continuously improve it by allowing for more production time to ensure the quality of future updates as well.

Our focus for update 1.4 and beyond will be on the following:

Fixing bugs, including those listed in ourKnown Issues as well as many other onesMaking loot drops more relevant to the playerEnemy difficulty and time to killGear Sets and weapons balancingSolo player experienceDark Zone and PvP balancingQuality of life additions based on community suggestions (such as weapon skins no longer taking inventory space)

This ongoing effort will begin with Update 1.4 where we will address some of the most pressing issues, such as bugs, loot and time to kill and set the foundations for future improvements such as PvP and Dark Zone. We will make sure to keep you informed of our progress in our weekly State of the Game, and share the complete overview of the changes to come in Update 1.4 in a Special Report livestream on September 13th.

We want to take this opportunity to thank you, our community, for being so openly passionate about the game. Our passion is what unites us and allows us to build a better game together! We remain committed to delivering the best experience possible, and will constantly be looking for your feedback as we shape the future of The Division.

Stay awesome, The Division Team

State of the Game Summary
After last weeks’ honest list of open issues and problems with The Division we got a special State of the Game this week that addressed what Update 1.4 will be all about and what we can expect from the coming weeks / months:
What is Update 1.4 all about and what has changed
Until now, 1.4 was basically the Survival update, but that has changed:
 
-Update 1.4 will not include Survival; Survival will be a stand alone update that will be released later.
-Update 1.4 will be released in October and will focus on bug-fixing and balancing, before they move on to new content.
-It will be released on all platforms at the same time.
-Until 1.4 is released, they will continue with small bugfixes and hotfixes that will deployed in the weekly maintenances.
-In 1.4 they want to fix the whole system, address the big picture and and since all issues are somewhat connected, they don´t want to fix a single issue at a time but make a general overhaul. Nothing is off limits and they are even willing to -rework whole game-features to make the game a better experience.
-The idea is not to rush out a new update, but to take the time that is needed to make it a good experience.
 
Planed fixes in 1.4
There are many things to fix like issues with Skills and bigger and smaller bugs that range from game-breaking to just annoying. All these issues should be addressed and fixed in 1.4.
 
Balancing
They had a lot of internal discussions about pre 30 and post 30 NPC scaling, what the differences are and why it is so frustrating to fight against 34 NPCs. The solution is not to just change health pools and weapon damages, they want to re-balance the whole system.
 
Loot
Loot should be relevant and better accessible, so that you can do the content you want and still get a character progression. Also when you do a content on a specific difficulty you should get equipment for that difficulty so you can progress. This way you don´t have to get carried through challenge content to do it yourself later.
 
So far confirmed 1.4 changes
Since they have more time for that update, they can also address issues that had lower priorities in the last updates, because they had to address critical issues first. These are the so far confirmed quality of life changes that will be included in the 1.4 update:
 
-Weapon Skins no longer use inventory space
-Craft all button
-Buyback option from vendors
-Running in the Base of Operation
 
Involving the Community
1.4 will be a special update that will be developed in direct discussion with the community. This way they can address the big picture with direct feedback from the front.
They will also invite People to Massive to look at 1.4 and work with the Developers on the next update. All expenses will be paid and it won´t be exclusive to known YouTubers and Podcasters. Everybody can have a chance to discuss ideas in a constructive way. There will be an article up tomorrow, where you can fill out a survey and apply for that trip.
While some people will be invited to Malmö, all others can also participate too. There is a new section in the official forum, where you can give feedback about specific topics. The first topic will be "your top 10 bugs". They will collect all feedbacks and then prioritize the fixes based on that.
=> Join the forum here: http://forums.ubi.com/forumdisplay [...] 74ba7bb9e9
Theorycrafting will also be a topic. They want to discuss how do you build your character for specific situations (PvP for example) to really understand how you play the game and why. This way, they don´t make changes and balancing on assumptions based on their data.

Greetings Agents,
 
After the details surrounding Update 1.4 were announced yesterday, it’s now time to give you all a bit of extra insight as to how we’re going get there. We’ve said before that building and improving on our game is something that we want to do “with the community”, and in this case we mean that in the most literal sense.
 
In two weeks, we’ll be bringing people from the community to Massive in order to help make Patch 1.4 as valuable to our players as possible. This type of direct interaction between us on the development side and those of you that are out saving New York in The Division every day is definitely one of the key ways to improve the experience for all players. With that said, consider this a call for submissions; we’re looking for anyone within the community that wants to be a part of critical workshops and discussions at Massive in Malmö, Sweden. You don’t need to be a world famous YouTuber, gigantic streamer or podcast hero to be involved in this conversation either! If you play The Division, are willing to join us for a couple of days at Massive and are keen to speak up then we want to hear from you.  
 
You’ll need to be available from September 7th – 9th
We’ll pay for the flights, hotel and food
 
We’re accepting submissions NOW. Fill out the form https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/etfregistration , let us know who you are and why you’d be a great candidate and we’ll see some of you in the studio very soon.
 
The Division Dev Team <3

The Division ‏@TheDivisionGame  il y a 32 minutes
The PTS [Public Test Server] will be coming to The Division. Stay tuned for more details.