Tom Clancy’s The Division at launch was supposed to be the “Revolutionary” experience for players. But when it was released, it fell so short that it caused a lot of hate towards the game. With the kill time and the Player vs. Player (PVP) “Rogue” system in the Dark Zone being the main killers. But that doesn't mean that it wasn’t at all supported during its first year.
People are calling Patch 1.8 the update that we all have been waiting for. With the new West Side Pier, the completely revamped Rogue system, and the new Resistance and Skirmish game modes accessible to all players. More Exotic weapons with unique weapon talents are also being added. Two new upcoming global events that are going to be released shortly after the patch drops.
The Dark Zone’s system has been completely redone. Some people love it, some people hate it, and other people just don't care about it.
Now the original friendly fire has been disabled between players that are not Rogue. This was not the case when you could just come around a corner and gun down an Agent without warning and they don't have enough time to react before they hit the ground in the downed state.
This caused a lot of annoying moments within the Dark Zone where if you throw a grenade down at the wrong place at the wrong time, you would be hit with the 20 second Rogue timer. If you shot at an NPC and a player just happened to walk in front of what you’re shooting, you got hit with the 20 second timer.
For for plenty of good reasons friendly fire has been disabled. What the developers are calling “Rogue 2.0,” you now have to hold down a certain button to activate Rogue. Once you do that you’ll have the 20 second timer flagging you Rogue. You are then free to fire at other Agents in an attempt to kill them.
Now with that new system and you go Rogue, it will give the players some time to react as for you going Rogue, to either just stay and fight or run away. This also means that the friendly fire feature being disabled will make it easier for agents that are not in the same group to try and take down the Rogues without going accidental Rogue. This makes the Rogue game a lot more difficult and that you can’t surprise other players and put them into the ground cause of it being a more announced version of the Rogue system. This also means that you can't make other agents go accidental Rogue and turn the whole server into a mess.
On top of the Rogue system changing, what ties with the Rogue player after getting five kills you will hit Manhunt and originally get hit with a five minute timer. This has been changed completely. Once you kill five players as a Rogue and go Manhunt, your timer will disappear and you’ll enter Manhunt Rank 0 and a buy-off point will be marked on the map that will be visible to everyone in the server to where the Manhunts can go if they want and clear their Manhunt status, or you can continue and kill other players increasing your Manhunt rank up to rank 5.
You will now have with every Manhunt rank a “Manhunt Sealed Cache” depending on the rank, so for example: Rank 1 will earn 2 Manhunt Caches, and Rank 5 will earn you 6 Caches. As long as you buy your Manhunt off, you will earn your Caches after. If you die as a Manhunt, regardless of rank, you will lose all of your Caches.
Rogue is now what it’s supposed to be - the risk vs. reward element that the Dark Zone failed to have in the past.
The new Resistance and Skirmish modes located at West Side Pier have been added.
Resistance is a PvE (Player vs Entertainment) wave based survival, where agents have to fight against increasingly difficult hoards of enemies with one goal being killing you and your group if you have one with you.
The Skirmish mode is a PVP, 8 Vs 8 Team Deathmatch were the first team to 20 kills win. West Side Pier is a free expansion and all the enemy factions have agreed that you the Agents are a common enemy and are working together.
Patch 1.8 can very well save The Division. Just hoping that this patch doesn't fall short of what it is promising.
Artwork: By Holek (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons