@whiskytex seems like you're heartbroken

The set is very good even with the nerf, no need to cry that much.

The only other multiplicative damage I can think of is the 25% of Glass Cannon and it comes with 50% more damage taken.

Yet you all think 100% multiplicative damage with 200% bonus armor is absolutely fine and in line with the game?

I mean, if you were bracing against something and then it shattered, wouldn't you stumble?

It already happened: on shield break the character stumbles.
Now they added the disorient effect, which personally I find too much, at least for PvE where the shield gets destroyed by one punch of any NPC.

@raciaiadhesive just to be clear, I'm talking PvE only. If PvP has a "shield problem" it should not affect PvE.

I experienced more crashes than usual. I used to maybe crash less than once per session but in the last couple of days I crashed 5 times.

I also noticed a lot of FPS losses, like the game goes at 10 - 15 FPS for a couple of seconds and then goes back to normal. I even tried lowering the graphic settings but it changes nothing.
I'll monitor the situation to check if it's the CPU spikes mentioned above that cause my FPS loss.

As LateNiteDelight said, it's just a game mode for the masochists.
Both the exotic rifle and the outfit are not worth it.

I was going mad playing for more than 1 month in legendary Summit to drop that f*****g rifle, once I got it I never touched Legendary ever again.

I only play PvE and I don't particularly like HB, but I admit it is quite strong.

The amount of armor you can get is ridiculous, and so is the corresponding damage.

I did not try it until today because I thought I would have to find maxrolled CC/CD pieces to be able to reroll the main core to red, but it's not needed at all.
I have put together a build with all the new gear (4HB + Catharsis + Kingbreaker + 1 Fenris) and I can either stay in cover and slay or walk up to the enemy and slay.

This is a "do whatever you want" set, it does not have a playstyle attached to it.

I'm not having 7 minute long startup times, but I can't help but notice how long it takes for the servers to respond.

What used to be a 10 second loading screen at startup has changed to a 30 second one with 25 seconds waiting at 0% and 5 second to fully load the game...

It's also very noticeable when fast travelling: it used to be nearly instant, but now I'm stuck in the map animation for at least 5 seconds.

@imagine_brata I understand the frustration with this directive, but I would not want to lose all my Memento stacks each time I had to replenish my armour...

I'd really just prefer they gave us all the possible directives at once to choose from, like we have in the Summit instead.

@hyper-sniper remember that 1 item only fills up half a point, it's not uncommon to donate and see no point going up.

@n3mb0t Yep, it's been like this for a while.

I was going to open a thread on the subject a few days ago but searched the forum before doing so and found out that it's been an issue for at least 2 years now...

@viking_jarl I never set foot in that stupid gamemode for a reason...

@suschunga I understand tracking, but does it show on other difficulties? if it does you only require a screenshot to compete with your friends.

Enemies behave differently, number of enemies varies – as well as the composition of red, purple, and elite enemies and the different archetypes. There is much more to difficulty than just damage and HP (as now pointed out several times).

Composition of red/purple/yellow is literally a change id damage and sponginess...
Different archetypes just use different weapons, the gameplay does not change, unless you want to say that an enemy with a shotgun completely changes the game compared to an enemy with an SMG...

What would be wrong with, for example, adding two new difficulty levels? One that closes the gap between heroic and legendary

I wouldn't care, but that's not what this thread was advocating.

It narrows down options. When putting together a team (or joining a team via MM) you thanks to build diversity have almost limitless ways of contributing to your team's success

This is a word salad. You can express the same thing by saying that directives open the doors to a myriad of builds that would simply be overlooked in the normal gameplay, and new engaging strategies to overcome the added hurdles.

And if you should intercept a convoy in or near a spot in which you intercepted a convoy before, they will use the exact same spawning points.

Then again, you are willingly using the game mechanics to make the game easier just to lament the game is too easy.

Almost all open world activities and NPCs have their standard spawn points. And the waves are always the same.

Nope. You can get lucky and find yourself next the the spawn point chosen by the game, but there's usually at least 2 spawn points and they're chosen randomly.
The number of waves are always the same, not the spawned enemies.
And most of all, while you're engaged in an encounter one or more encounters can walk right into you.

@suschunga What? Can't you do it in any difficulty you choose? Are you forced to do it in the difficulty chosen by the devs? I always assumed the difficulty was a minimum, not a forced setting.

I'm only interested in competing with my friends and clan mates, none of whom hack, and have zero interest in the global leader board

Then there's absolutely no problem, is there? You can talk with your clanmates and your teammates, and decide on which difficulty you're going to compete.

Anyway, last night I ran the Pentagon mission and arrived at the final battle at the 10m mark, the final battle lasted more than 7 minutes because the drone kept in hiding behind the rooftops while I was running around trying to get its attention... Leagues are really the worst.

The issue is that in this process also the content that was originally designed to be hard also became too easy.

What does this even mean? "Harder" in this game just translates to "spongier".
I am perfectly fine with Heroic difficulty. I think it's perfectly balanced between fun and challenge.
Legendary is absolutely a snoozefest and it takes ages to do anything.

Higher difficulties foster or even demand more teamwork and build synergies.

Teamwork and build synergies are both limiting factors. You are limiting the builds you can use because you need to synergize with the group AND you need a GROUP!

I don't want to have a group! I love playing on my own, I don't have any synergy beside what I have on my character!

You make the game easier for yourself by stacking power with your group and then cry because the game is too easy...
Most players don't even play in group and when they do it's a matchmade group.

FFS, to me opening up to matchmaking equates to make the game harder because the people who join simply want to get carried...

especially in a game like The Division 2 the enemy AI (especially in regard to the different factions) plays an important role in creating a more challenging experience

What AI? Are we playing different games?

Spawns are important

This tells me you pretty much play only repeat content like missions and raids.
I play the open world only, where there's no way of knowing what or when something will spawn, no way of knowing how many enemies will join a fight once it's started.

We have vastly different overviews of the game and its difficulty.

the whole game has been made so easy to make it accessible for nearly everyone

The game should be accessible to everyone. I daresay that gear being tied to difficulty/game modes is a bad thing.

In looter games better players are rewarded with better clear speed, and consequentially more loot drops in the same time frame.

You are trying to disregard the whole loot cycle at the base of the game in order to achieve something out of the scope of a looter game.

they make the game harder by limiting options and excluding builds and playstyles

The same could be said of difficulty, right? The difference is that in one case you like the limitations in the other you don't like them.

the best solution to make the game more challenging would be to have a new even harder difficulty

It was already suggested months ago: introduce a directive that makes the enemies deal more and take less damage. Now you have your increased difficulty without changing the game for everybody else.

@noxious81 Sorry, it was part of a broader answer that I cut down.

In summary, there are those who don't care for speedruns and would be completely cut out of the league. For them this would equate to a 2 weeks period with nothing to do.

Then there are those who want to compete, and for them the hacking would make the whole competition void, making it a 2-week impossible competition.

So those who remain are those who want the challenge for the 10 stars but don't care for the competition, which I suppose are quite few (why would you want a hard task to achieve if you can't show off your achievement? Just to get a patch and a chain you'll never use?)