Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Tom Clancy's Shoot 'n' Loot

Yep.  I participated in a shooter beta over the past weekend.  Some small spot in hell must have frozen over.  To be fair, this isn't the first time.  Destiny, Battlefront, Black Ops III, and Battlefield: Hardline all had betas that I messed around in.  The difference this time?  I put 10 hours into it.  Most of the other betas I popped into were just to play a few deathmatches among friends.  The reason I downloaded this one was pretty much the same but that's not what kept me in it for all that time.  In fact, it's the lack of a true deathmatch that kept me there.

The normal "campaign" side of Tom Clancy's The Division doesn't have any original ideas.  It's a cover-based 3rd-person shooter with a loot system like that of Destiny or Borderlands.  I don't mean for that to be derogatory at all, it's just a very safe co-op shooter.  Go to mission start, blast people along the way, eventually get to a "no respawn zone" with an elite enemy, kill 'em and loot 'em.  Rinse and repeat.  If you've got buds playing with you, that's probably reason enough to get the game, honestly.  While it follows Destiny's formula pretty closely, missions are separated by open-world sections that have collectibles and minor skirmishes with NPC's to give you something to do along the way.  That said, the trip from one mission to another can be pretty uneventful, but as more missions are completed, more fast travel spots will be available, so I don't think it will be much of a problem.

With the missions completed, and a few collectibles found, it was time to switch gears and leave the friendly world of PvE and predictable AI behind to enter the dangerous, bloodthirsty world of PvP.  Knowing my lack of skill in shooting games, I took a deep breath and entered the game's "Dark Zone" expecting the worst.  I didn't get what I was expecting.  I didn't get shot upon entering.  I didn't see any lobbies.  No team deatchmatches or even free-for-all deathmatches were anywhere to be found.  What the hell had I stumbled into?  Upon further inspection, I realized the Division's Dark Zone isn't a traditional PvP mode, but instead is an open world, filled with hostile NPC's and feels more similar to GTA Online's freemode than a standard shooter.  How the Dark Zone works is that essentially everyone enters as a "neutral" agent.  You'll see other players running around, but pretty much everyone sticks to their guns (pun intended), hunting NPC's in hopes of decent loot drops.  So what's the difference between the Dark Zone and the game's normal play?  Well, there's a catch to your loot in the Dark Zone.  It isn't yours until you've extracted it via helicopter, which requires firing a flare to call in a chopper for extraction.  Firing said flare highlights your location and alerts the public that a chopper is coming in to pick up some loot.  90 seconds later, the chopper arrives and can pick up around 5 players' loot.  Well, as you may have guessed, sessions have more than 5 players and no one likes being left out... Sure, another chopper can be called, but that's like another 2 minutes, dammit.  You've got bullets, but little patience... Your white flag gets splattered with red as you fire into the public...  See, loot dropped by NPC's in the Dark Zone is game-specific.  If you see it, it's yours and no one else can pick it up.  If a player is killed holding loot however, their loot becomes up for grabs to anyone in the session.  I shouldn't have to explain how the game can erupt into violence here.

And yet... what I find so appealing about the Dark Zone is how unpredictable it is.  There were several times where I called a helicopter, had my loot extracted along with some other public players', we waved/saluted each other and went our separate ways.  Conversely, my friend was shot and killed as he was attempting to leave the Dark Zone even though he visibly was carrying no loot.  It should be noted however, that firing upon a non-hostile agent will mark you as "rogue," highlighting you for all the public to see.  While my empty-handed friend may have been killed, vigilante justice was swift with 6 or more players gunning down my friend's killer, cheering upon their speedy demise.  That was a defining moment for me with The Division's beta.  I felt like I was part of some kind of social experiment.  You're more than welcome to try and kill every player you come across, but you'll be marked a jackass and likely assassinated by an unforgiving public.  Then again, on the other side of things, you may see a rogue agent in the distance and decide, "Hey, I just found a decent piece of loot, I'm not going anywhere NEAR them!"  It's a bizarre structure that's sure to disappoint those looking for a more conventional deathmatch, but at least on some level, I think it works.  I don't know how long the appeal will last, but at least for a time it was neat just to see how everyone interacted with each other.  Every extraction can be a standoff, with tensions high and itchy trigger fingers.  People can be jerks just to be jerks, or they can join your cause, providing a helping hand in dealing with NPC's and hunting down loot.  Uncertainty isn't always a good thing, but here it's a driving force that makes The Division's multiplayer stand out among the dozens of shooters that seem to be released every week.

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