Third-person shooters, and loot-driven taking pictures games specifically, are infamous for having enemies which absorb bullets with barely a flinch. The Division was no exception – the truth is, its samey enemies had been particularly infamous for his or her bullet sponging powers. For the sequel, Ubisoft wished to make fight extra diversified and difficult, and in a chat at GDC, lead AI designer Drew Rechner defined how the crew changed bullet sponges with extra attention-grabbing enemies.
In the primary Division, enemy factions had been principally tiers of problem. As you progressed by the game, you’d struggle one faction, then one other, and every would have some new tips and fight choices, like stricter cowl utilization and overlaying hearth, to make issues progressively tougher. But since all of the factions simply constructed on each other, Rechner says this led to a “perception that there wasn’t enough differentiation between the factions,” and it most of the factions had been irrelevant by the endgame.
So in The Division 2, Ubisoft carried out a system referred to as faction traits, which let the builders design a broad set of parameters that might create extra diversified enemy encounters. The game’s factions are every outlined by 4 parameters – how aggressive or defensive they’re, how nicely organised they’re, how a lot coaching they’ve, and the way a lot tech they’ve entry to.
The True Sons, for instance, are defensive – which suggests they attempt to keep at an optimum vary and regroup with allies over time. They’re organised, which is a “mostly cosmetic” trait meaning they’ve hand indicators and fight dialogue that signifies coordination. They have fundamental coaching, which suggests they’ve present cowl hearth, will do some flanking, and have regular accuracy. And they’ve medium tech, which suggests they’ve entry to plain navy armaments, however nothing as fancy as ballistic shields and drones.
Those traits observe throughout every of the 4 predominant factions, so a bunch just like the Hyenas shall be aggressive, disorganised, and untrained regardless of their excessive tech – which suggests you’ll get the sensation of being rushed down each time you struggle them. Since organisation and coaching additionally affect dialogue and animation, you’ll additionally see them stumbling and tripping over cowl as they arrive at you.
It takes fewer bullets to kill an enemy now
Since every faction has its personal strengths and weaknesses, they’re all related all through the game, and their diversified approaches to fight imply all of them really feel distinct from one another. The Division 2 does have one faction supposed as an final problem – The Black Tusk has top-end choices in all of these traits.
On high of the extra diversified factions, particular person enemies are able to extra, too – like how when a shot nears an enemy, they’ve acquired a easy ‘detection’ hit field that leads them to actively duck and dodge out of the way in which. They’ve acquired extra distinctive weakpoints, letting you shoot at grenade pouches and the prefer to deal further injury and take away sure talents. And tankier enemies are actually lined in destructible armour plating – which makes weakening them extra satisfying and difficult.
So with all these extra methods of creating fight tougher and lively, the builders had been in a position to decrease the time to kill for enemies. With fight now pushed by extra diversified AI with extra instruments to harass gamers with, problem turns into about skillfully taking pictures and maneuvering, fairly than sheer variety of bullets.
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“All of those things combined allowed us to lower the time to kill on our enemies. Survivability is roughly the same as The Division 1, but the important part is that it takes much fewer bullets to kill an enemy now. This rewards our skilled players, but really importantly it keeps combat feeling snappy and satisfying.”
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