Division 2
When Diablo 4 came out, I got a lot of flak from Diablo vets for saying that I wish the Eternal Realm characters could participate in seasons in some capacity, instead of being left behind. “It doesn’t work like that!” they all said. And while I’ve come around to that now, putting that concept into a game that he didn’t having it for years is a problem. Enter Division 2.
A month ago, Ubisoft announced that future seasons of The Division 2 would be moving to a seasonal character model, meaning you start fresh, level up, gear up, participate in season-specific activities. In the history of Division 1 and 2 there has never been anything like this, and it did not sound good. Now, it’s going back.
Division 2
Ubisoft absorbed the immediate backlash and attempted to write a lengthy FAQ addressing the concerns, which included explanations such as:
“The main idea behind Seasons 2.0 is to break away from the current repetitive seasonal model by transforming the entire experience. With your main characters, we have to take into account different progressions and power levels, making it nearly impossible to create a well-balanced experience that’s enjoyable for everyone. Starting all players at level 1 ensures that we have a clear understanding of where they are in their progression journey when faced with specific challenges. Simply put, to create challenges accurately, we need a fresh start.”
They said that progress will be accelerated and your main character will also be able to join in the last two weeks in a certain season for farms. You also don’t have to complete the entire campaign again. My favorite question they ask themselves in the FAQ is “What’s the point of keeping your main character if you can’t use them for 90% of the future content that comes into the game?” The answer to this was that both types of characters will have “meaningful roles” with the main characters still given last priority. Good.
But after a month, no one was biting and now the idea has been dropped altogether. They did a “sorry/game delay” style text image on Twitter to convey this:
“We hear you and want to assure you that we have carefully considered your feedback following the announcement of Season 2.0. After thorough examination and discussions with the team, we have decided to re-evaluate Season 2.0 with special attention to Seasonal Characters in order to progress without them. This change will not affect previously announced Year 6 plans, but will require us to evaluate the necessary changes for the new Seasonal Experience, which will be integrated with Season 2 of Year 6 this fall. Once we have the finer details, we’ll be back with more information, a live stream, and a PTS.
This will no doubt delay the plans as the original reason for doing this was that they said the game was becoming impossible to balance and it was difficult to keep progress alive, but…they will try to do it, somehow .
It’s pretty obvious what the problem is here and you just can’t change a system set up like this with a coin. The Division 2 players have likely been using their same roster of characters since 2019 when the game was released, through thick and thin, through essential and rare seasons. This is very different from Diablo which had ages of the seasonal character system in place for Diablo 3, so no one was shocked when it was still in place for Diablo 4 with few changes (my brief protest aside). Even if the explanation from The Division was that the main characters would still be able to OTHER USEFUL progress, it’s pretty easy to see why players rebelled against the idea. But I’m probably wondering how exactly that changes plans.
Follow Me on Twitter, to YouTube, AND Instagram.
Get my science fiction novels Herokiller series AND The Earth Trilogy.