Last September, Bungie and Activision launched Destiny. The part MMO, part first-person shooter was an unprecedented success. However, the game has received a fair share of heavy criticism. Later next year, Ubisoft launch its own online shooter action game, Tom Clancy’s The Division. Hopefully Ubisoft will learn from some of their own mistakes for Assassin’s Creed Unity, as well as mistakes that made by Bungie for Destiny.
In an interview with IGN, Rodrigo Cortes, art director for The Division, spoke about the goals for the upcoming game. One those goals is that The Division would provide players with “endless gameplay” between player vs. player, player vs. event and progression gameplay. Hopefully that is a serious statement and The Division will offer “endless gameplay” instead of a seemingly endless amount of grinding in order to level up for the game, much like Destiny. It would behoove Ubisoft to take stock in many of the complaints and ideas that Destiny got wrong and make sure those mistakes are not an issue for The Division. I am not saying the game should be easy, but it should not be an endlessly grinding affair.
Ubisoft should make sure the game has an easy to access, option voice chat feature right off the bat. This was not a feature that Destiny added until well into launch in a later update. The Division should provide players an easy access option for chatting.
In the same aforementioned interview, Cortes proclaimed that The Division is a “proper RPG.” As a proper online RPG, the game should have a trading system, something Destiny still does not possess. The fact that Destiny has not yet incorporated a trading resource system between players is disappointing. There should be a way for players to trade resources and gear if they wish.
Speaking of gear, loot drops in the game should not be as random as in Destiny. Despite all the claims of otherwise fixing the loot drops, loot drops for Destiny are still incredibly random. It has become somewhat of a joke how the Cryptarch at the Tower provides such underwhelming resources from Engrams. The Division loot system should be strong and rewarding. It should not be a potluck series of random drops. A better structure must be provided for attaining better gear and loot for The Division.
One other major issue: Since The Division is an online RPG shooter, Ubisoft must definitely make sure the online features are smooth and ready to work properly at launch. A lot of my play sessions for Destiny have died due to various network errors that often pop up randomly at the drop of a hat. The network crashes for Destiny happen even thought here is nothing wrong with my Wi-Fi connection. Another major Ubisoft release, Assassin’s Creed Unity, had a multitude of online connectivity problems. That is something Ubisoft should avoid.
Hopefully, Ubisoft can take heed of some of the mistakes of Destiny, and even Assassin’s Creed Unity, to release a better, polished game next year. Tom Clancy’s The Division is scheduled for a 2015 release. The game will be available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC.
Seriously, no trading in Destiny please. Go get your own gear.
Some of us can’t get our own gear thanks to the almighty RNG that has given me 5 sets of raid gloves, 4 visions of confluence and enough chatterwhites to dress up a whole kindergarten as snow men for the holidays.
Do you hear that?
It sounds like a tiny violin. Yep, that’s definitely the worlds smallest violin.
I appreciate the chatterwhite joke though.
Actually the whining sounds like it is coming from you Zach. If they did implement trading it is not a requirement that YOU have to take part in it. A game should be made so people can enjoy it. That is why it is called a game.