The Division 2 patch makes big changes to Seasonal Manhunts, difficulty scaling

The Division 2 has received a big update today.

The Division 2 servers are down at the time of this writing for three hours of maintenance to prepare for the release of patch 8.4. Servers should be back online by 4:30am PT, 7:30am ET, 11:30am UK.

This is the game's first patch since the launch of the Warlords of New York expansion, and also the first since the start of the new Seasonal Manhunt system. The update makes some tweaks to that, as well as bring several balance changes to make combat less punishing at higher-levels and in big groups.

Seasonal Manhunt players will now gain progress at normal difficulty and above, which allows anyone in the group to make progress regardless of the difficulty the group leader has chosen. Changing the difficulty will also no longer reset progress, and there's now a specific button to reset Seasonal Manhunt progress.

As for balance, the patch is reducing NPC damage across the board and in all difficulties. This also applies to group scaling, meaning enemies will no longer overcompensate for the group size with increased HP and damage. Going forward, enemy HP and armour values will be decided based on difficulty. Heroic and Legendary are the two exceptions, where enemies will instead have more HP and armour, but only to compensate for the drop in group scaling.

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Read on below for the biggest changes:

Gameplay changes

• Seasonal Manhunt is changed to allow progress at Normal difficulty and above. This will make playing together easier as all players will gain progress no matter what difficulty was set by the group leader.
• Seasonal Manhunt is receiving a button in the Manhunt UI that allows players to reset the Manhunt to replay it. This allows players to reset the progress specifically and without changing the Global Difficulty.
• This also means changing the Global Difficulty will not reset the Seasonal Manhunt and players are required to reset it via the Seasonal Manhunt UI.
• Coyote’s Mask will drop from Coyote with an increased drop chance on higher difficulties.
• We are also looking into providing the Mask for players that have not received them even though they reached Season Rank 35.
• Increasing the reward quality for the following Open World Activities to be in line with other activities: Public Execution, Settlement Blockade and Propaganda Broadcast.
• Reward caches from Conflict matches at maximum level are now of High-End quality.

Balancing changes

• Reduce NPC Damage output for all difficulties.
• This applies to all NPCs and activities and enemies will do less damage to players compared to their current damage output.
• Reduce NPC Health and Amor for group scaling.
• Enemy Health and Armor scaling for 2-, 3- and 4-player groups based on Veterancy.
• This means Red, Veteran, Elite and Named enemies will have their Health and Armor reduced compared to their current values.
• Additionally, we are adjusting Health and Armor based on activity difficulty.
• This applies to Hard and Challenging difficulties where enemies will have lower Health and Armor compared to their current values.
• An exception are Heroic and Legendary difficulty enemies which will have their Health and Armor increased to compensate for the group scaling reductions to their values.

Black Tusk-specific changes

• Reduced the health of Warhounds.
• Reduced damage of Warhound Sniper.
• Reduced the damage of the 360 spin of Warhound minigun.
• Increased the intention icon duration of the 360 spin from Warhound Minigun to give players more time to react.
• Reduced weak point health of Warhound Grenadier’s Control Unit.
• Support Station
• Reduced Base Health of Support Station.
• Adjusted health scaling of Support Station with Veterancies.
• Increased likelihood of Support Stations being deployed in the open (away from cover).
• EMP effects will now damage the Support Station.

Bug fixes

• Fixed missing dialogue localization for Brazilian Portuguese on Stadia.
• Fixed an issue causing developer UI elements being visible in the Language and Settings menu.
• Implemented improvements for data streaming issues on PlayStation 4.
• Fixed an issue that could cause in-game settings to reset after a player respawns.
• Fixed an issue causing the Seasonal Manhunt progress to reset when changing Directives.
• Fixed an issue causing the Apparel Event Urban Jungle schedule to not show correctly in-game.
• Fixed an issue causing Target Intel to be delivered to the mailbox. This was now removed as Target Intel is no longer used in the game.
• Fixed an issue causing the Sticky Bomb to not do damage under certain circumstances.
• Fixed an issue causing the Shock Trap deploys to be very close together when launched.
• Fixed an issue causing Global Difficulty to affect the Operation Dark Hours raid.
• Fixed an issue causing Specializations to not unlock while owning the Ultimate Edition or having purchased the Year 1 Bundle.
• Fixed an issue causing Season rewards to be skipped and instead giving players duplicates when gaining multiple Season Levels.
• Fixed an issue causing the objective “Complete the Roosevelt Island Mission on Hard or Higher Difficulty” to not count towards the Daily Project Outcast Hunt.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Level 35 Season reward to not be delivered.
• Fixed an issue causing unintended Health values on Shields.
• Fixed an issue causing Season Ranks to be reset.
• Fixed an issue that caused League Mission Timers to reset when a Rogue encounter wiped the group.

For the full change log, see the official forums.