When you invest a lot of time, effort, and materials in crafting your best gear, it can be pretty disheartening to learn that an incoming update will render all of that work meaningless with another item level hike. That was the frustration faced by players of The Division 2 and its upcoming Title Update 3, which was not only going to see level 515 kit arrive, but mostly make said gear available in the PvP-centric Dark Zone. Those plans, however, have been walked back in the face of feedback.
A post from the developers announces the adjustment, citing PTS feedback and data as well as “intense internal discussions”:
“Gear Score 500 items would have been outdated immediately, and all the effort you put into min/maxing and farming your builds would have been wasted just as the Raid goes live. We don’t want to invalidate your progression and we heard that feedback loud and clear from our community. Your gear and your builds are important to you and to us.”
Not only will Gear Score 500 equipment remain the top shelf in The Division 2, there will soon be additional ways of getting there: TU3 will bring increased rewards for clearing daily Priority Hard and Challenging missions, and practically every activity in the game will guarantee Gear Score 500 item drops if you’re at that average. There’s also been a balancing of loot tables across the board to ensure you don’t see items that are lower than your average Gear Score.
Level 500 goodies will also be waiting within the Dark Hours eight-player raid, which will be part of TU3 but will not open until a week after the update lands. For now, the closest thing we have to patch notes is from a Phase 2 PTS update post from April.
