The Division's Dark Zone patch: Phoenix Credits, high-end loot, XP and funds to drop more often

News by Matt Martin Former Editor-in-Chief

Published on March 21, 2016

Tuesday's update to The Division will improve the Dark Zone by increasing rewards for rogue agents and adding more loot drops.

The Division's PvP Dark Zone area is getting an update to fix many of it's complaints.

As of Tuesday March 22, more XP and funds will be awarded to players who survive as, and kill, rogue agents.

Players killed in the Dark Zone will lose less funds and experience when they die and they will also now drop medkits, ammo and grenades - although this won't be taken from the player's personal stash.

High-end gear and weapons will drop more frequently from level 31 and level 32 named enemies, as will the number of Phoenix Credits when they are killed.

There's a whole bunch of changes to the general gameplay too, including some loot exploits.

The Trained Talent will also be removed from all SMGs, LMGs and Assault Rifles and will now only apply to Pistols, Shotguns and Marksman rifles.

All the changes will come into affect tomorrow after servers come back online. They are due to go offline at 9am CET / 8am GMT / 4am EDT / 1am PDT Tuesday March 22 for around three hours.

Check out the full patch notes 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
Phoenix Credits drop have been increased on lvl 31 and 32 enemies in the Dark Zone:
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