Ubisoft is revealing the patch notes for The Division's 1.0.2 update, including greater Challenging rewards, lesser Dark Zone rogue penalties and more.

Wave goodbye to the Bullet King, The Division players. Ubisoft is on the warpath. Today the developers of The Division unveiled their plans for the first major post-launch patch to the online multiplayer shooter. Patch 1.0.2 will be made available starting on March 22, after the scheduled serve maintenance that takes place in the early hours of the day. The patch will be made available on all platforms simultaneously, PC and console, and it will address a surprising number of the community's largest complaints.

Well, complaints and exploits. The new-found "loot cave" exploit in The Division, much like Destiny's before, is unlikely to get anyone banned. Yet Ubisoft is still quite clearly unhappy with the way players are abusing the way open world named bosses. One of the very first of the listed changes is that named NPCs will no longer respawn after death in the open world. Even if you leave their sidekicks up and then walk 250 meters away.

The bulk of the rest of the notes are largely beneficial to the greater community. Named enemies in Challenge mode missions now drop better loot. Dark Zone named NPCs now drop better loot. Dark Zone chests now drop better loot. And the punishments for going rogue in the Dark Zone, or dying in general, have been lessened. It's like Christmas in The Division! Only without the Black Friday Green Poison outbreak.

A bulk of the rest of the changes are largely bug fixes for the UI, audio, and various PC issues. It doesn't look like Ubisoft has solved why players screens go black and grey when looking at their own appearance, it seems. Bummer. But in general everyone's experience should be smoother after the patch has arrived.

Here is the full list of fixes below:

Gameplay

  • Named enemies. will now drop better loot in Challenge mode than in Hard mode.
  • Added a cooldown period for the Static Turret stun attack in order to avoid a stunlock in PvP and PvE game modes.
  • Named NPCs will no longer respawn after being killed in the Open World. This will prevent situations where players were able to kill a same named NPC over and over again.
  • Modifications to the weapon talent: Trained.
  • It can now only be rolled on Shotgun, Marksman rifles and Pistols
  • Its bonus has been reduced from 1%-5% to a constant 0.1%
  • For the Midas SMGs, Trained Talent has been replaced with Responsive Talent which increases damage when getting closer to the target. This applies to existing weapons as well as newly acquired ones
  • For all SMGs, LMGs, and Assault Rifles, it will be replaced with another randomly picked weapon talent. This applies to existing weapons as well as newly acquired ones
  • Fixed a speed run exploit for the Rooftop Comm Relay mission
  • Fixed an issue where weapons dealt no damage if the reload animation was interrupted by an agent’s skill
  • Fixed an issue where players became stuck in an emote animation if activated via chat while auto running
  • Fixed a bug where skill power would be increased permanently while using the Death by Proxy talent
  • Fixed a bug where experience was not being awarded for completing all side-missions in the Midtown East safe house
  • Fixed instances where the Seeker Mine with Airburst / Multi-mine mod would detonate too soon, miss targets or cause no damage
  • Fixed a bug where grenades would sometimes not display the blast radius warning before detonating
  • Fixed an issue where some NPCs in low cover would not react to being shot by the player
  • Fixed issues where emotes would cause the player model to behave oddly (missing guns, player stuck in emote animation, etc)
  • Fixed a bug where weapon mods and weapon skins would not show up on other players in the game world
  • Fixed an issue where DPS would not be calculated properly when purchasing a new weapon mod

Dark Zone

  • Players can now heal other neutral players in the Dark zone, by using First Aid and Support Station skills
  • Players are now able to fast travel to Dark Zone checkpoints, but only when coming from outside the Dark Zone
  • The Dark Zone disconnect timer has been increased to 30 seconds, meaning players will remain in the game world longer when logging out while in the Dark Zone (this applies while not in combat)
  • Items extracted from the Dark Zone are now properly marked as "new" items when moved to the players inventory
  • Players killed in the Dark Zone now drop ammo, medkits and grenades. This loot is generated and not taken from the dying players’ inventory
  • Players killed in the Dark Zone will lose less Dark Zone Funds and Experience (Rogue and non-Rogue)
  • Dark Zone Funds and Experience rewards for surviving Rogue status have been improved
  • Dark Zone Funds and Experience rewards for killing Rogue agents have been improved
  • Lvl 30: 1-3 Phoenix Credits
  • Lvl 31: 2-4 Phoenix Credits
  • Lvl 32: 3-5 Phoenix Credits
  • Increased drop rate of High-End items from lvl 31 and 32 named NPCs in the Dark Zone.
  • Increased drop rate of High-End Division Tech Material from lvl 32 named NPCs in the Dark Zone.
  • Improved Dark Zone Chests items quality:
  • Rank 30 chests will now drop Superior (Purple) items instead of Specialized (Blue)
  • Keys chests now have a chance to drop High-End (Gold) items
  • Dark Zone Funds drop rates and quantity on NPCs has been reduced.
  • Fixed a bug where the Wildfire and Fear Tactics talents were affecting neutral players in the Dark Zone.
  • Fixed instances where players would receive a DELTA error message when entering the Dark Zone
  • Fixed a bug where sometimes players could not loot anything after returning to the game following a network disconnection
  • Fixed Stage 1 Rogue timers not displaying correctly when Rogue players receive damage from another player

Graphics

  • Fixed a few lights that did not cast global illumination

UI

  • Added more information for Daily missions on the Map
  • Tutorials have received some UI polish
  • The Matchmaking menu now displays the mission difficulty rating more prominently
  • The mini-map mission tracker has been optimized to be less confusing to players
  • Fixed a bug where some of the attributes for high-end equipment were cut-off in the recalibration menu
  • Fixed a bug where the Matchmaking menu for a mission would not display correctly or kept disappearing
  • Fixed missing item icons in the Reward Claim Vendor's inventory
  • Fixed incorrect side-missions being displayed in the Map legend

Audio

  • Fixed a bug where the helicopter crash SFX would be missing from the Brooklyn end cinematic
  • Fixed a bug where the Zapper Turret mod had no sound
  • Fixed a bug where the audio for entering a contaminated area would be cut-off
  • Fixed a bug where audio would not play when scrolling through vanity items

Localization

  • Fixed Ubisoft CLUB reward descriptions in Korean and Traditional Chinese
  • In-game localization bug fixes

PC

  • Tobii Eye Tracking bug fixes and improvements
  • On launch, the PC client now monitors PC graphic settings and applies the best settings for the user’s configuration. This is unless the user has custom settings.
  • Fixed an issue where the Map was sometimes difficult to navigate with a mouse
  • Fixed issues with Hungarian, Korean, and Russian localizations
  • Fixed an issue that prevented matchmaking while on the Map
  • Removed the Store button from the Character Selection screen on PC versions of the game. Players can find the store page in the Ubisoft CLUB app directly
  • Fixed increment number on Day 1 Patch Notes (was 1.1, now correctly states 1.01)

Xbox One

  • Fixed a bug where players could not reconnect to the servers after suspending the game on Xbox One
  • Fixed a bug on Xbox One where unblocking a player would not be reflected in-game until title reboot

PlayStation 4

  • Added an option to disable the PlayStation 4 controller speaker
  • Improved textures and models streaming speed
  • Fixed an issue where ISAC volume could get too loud when playing with headsets

The biggest take-away from the patch announcement,  however, is that Ubisoft Massive remains on top of the current state of The Division. Patch 1.01 was released on The Division's launch day, so it only took Ubisoft two weeks to release a significant post-launch patch. Not just that, but they've addressed several issues that only appeared within the past couple of days, notably the "Loot Cave." Sure, it's not a content patch, but it's promising to see a balance and bug fix patch come out so quickly and so directed towards community feedback.

And keep in mind that The Division's first major post-launch content patch will be released for free in April - "Incursions." Then another free content update in May, before Season Pass content starts to arrive in June. With bi-weekly or monthly balance and bug fixes, Ubisoft has really set the bar high regarding post-launch support for their game. Cheers to that.

The Division servers go down on March 22 starting  at 1:00AM Pacific Time for an estimated three hours across all platforms. Patch 1.0.2 will be available when the servers come back up.

Source: Ubisoft