14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Ubisoft Massive working on The Division is announcing that it is dropping two of the game features that it advertised as being important parts of the mix between third-person shooter and MMO while suggesting that it might add them to the title after launch.
A player-trading system that was designed to allow each gamer to exchange items with his friends was dropped because it was a low priority compared to other elements of the game but might be a part of a future update, according to Gamertagreadio.
The team has already said that it has no plans to integrate microtransactions in The Division, and trading would have offered a simple way to get access to some of the weapons or gear that fails to drop in the open world.
At the same time, the development team at Ubisoft has eliminated a demographics matchmaking mechanic that was supposed to link each player with others that shared skill sets and even real world circumstances.
The idea was to make the experience of playing the Division smooth, without the usual friction that happens in player groups that tend to have different opinions about how each situation should be approached.
Ubisoft claims that the new matchmaking system is designed to be invisible, with all the player selection for a group happening as a player gets close to the Dark Zone and with limited input.
The game takes into account player region, selected language, connection, ping time and more to find the best possible partners as fast as possible.
Behavioral factors might be taken into account after a while, once the player base for the shooter and MMO mix stabilizes and the developers have more data to work with.
The game was supposed to also have a companion app that featured control over a drone, but it was also dropped because of concerns over balance.
The Division features plenty of non-Dark Zone content
Some fans of the game are concerned about the title's ability to keep them engaged once they hit the limits of the progression system and explore all of Manhattan but Magnus Jansen, the creative director, believes that there's no need to enter the Dark Zone to experience new challenges.
Each mission in the game has a Hard difficulty, allowing players to test our their characters items and skills against powerful enemies for better rewards.
But Ubisoft wants as many players as possible to try out the Dark Zones and cooperate with others to solve the most complex challenges that the title has to offer before competing with them for a range of exclusive items.
The Division will be launched on the PlayStation 4 from Sony, the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PC on March 8, with a beta set to arrive before the end of the month to test the network infrastructure as well as the core gameplay mechanics.
Once the title is launched, the developers are planning to deliver both free updates, which might introduce new mechanics, and regular paid downloadable content with extra mechanics and story.