This week's update on The Division 2 was all about artificial intelligence and NPC behaviors, as lead AI designer Drew Rechner joined host Hamish Bode. The show also covered the upcoming maintenance schedule and showed off the work of some amazingly creative community members.
State of the Game streams every Wednesday at 8:00AM PDT on Twitch, Mixer, and YouTube. (To find out what was covered last week, make sure to check out the previous State of the Game Recap.) Check out the stream below for details, or read on for a quick recap of the topics discussed this week.
Maintenance Updates
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Issues addressed earlier this week
- Fixed an issue preventing some players from entering Nelson Theater Classified Assignment.
- Fixed an issue where some players could not progress to World Tier 5.
- Made improvements to the delivery of the arm patch for first week completion of Operation Dark Hours. Players who beat the raid in the first week should be granted their arm patch retroactively. If you completed the requirements and are still missing your patch, let the team know!
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Maintenance scheduled for Friday this week
- Will fix more NPC behaviors, specifically AI aggressiveness. Read below for more details.
- Fixed an issue where players can fall through the world when matchmaking for Classified Assignments.
- Fixed an exploit in the Bank Headquarters mission.
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Patch 3.1 is planned for next week
- Will include further fixes, including face masks being too small and semi-automatic weapons' rate of fire being too low. Last week's State of the Game covered more of the planned fixes.
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Title Update 4 still in development and includes planned changes to the Reviver Hive and Reinforcer Chem Launcher.
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No concrete information to share yet on updates to skills, build diversity, and loot, but the team is very aware of these topics, gathering feedback, and working to design appropriate changes.
Intro to Drew Rechner and The Division 2 AI
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The Division 2 is built on the Snowdrop engine and uses powerful, low-level architecture to drive AI behaviors.
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Work on the foundation for TD2 AI began when they developed Hunters for The Division Survival DLC.
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TD2 enemies are more challenging and have more behavior options than in The Division.
- e.g. They can go prone, there are more archetypes, they respond to more situations, etc.
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Read more on the complexity of The Division 2 AI in our interview with Drew and Lead AI Programmer, Philip Dunstan.
Two major NPC bug groups have arisen since TU3
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NPC aggression
- NPCs have been flanking over-aggressively or running directly up to the player to melee attack.
- Cause: NPC failing to realize where the player is and not taking that into account when running.
- Cause: NPC positioning themselves in ways they should not have been (i.e. engineers or medics flanking behind player).
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NPC speed of movement
- NPCs have been accelerating to high speeds briefly, making them hard to hit.
- Cause: Issues lie in and around turning animations or vertical navigation (climbing up or dropping down).
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Vast majority of the fixes for these issues are coming in Patch 3.1
- Future updates bringing further improvements.
Pants
- Control Point Officers now wear pants.
Learn more about the creators and technology powering The Division 2 with our feature on the Snowdrop engine, or check out some tips on how to prepare for the Operation Dark Hours raid. And to keep up with the latest news, browse our previous Division 2 coverage.
