Unknown Pleasures: The Division 1.4 Mega-Update Out

The Division [official site] has today launched update 1.4, the patch so big and important that Ubisoft delayed the multiplayer shooter's expansions while they improved its the fundamentals. Ubi's goals with 1.4 include trying to make it feel "more like a shooter", making character build choices more meaningful, improving enemy AI, and revamping difficulty scaling.

One of the bigger change is the new 'World Tier' system, which changes difficulty scaling at level 30 based on your gear score. It has four tiers of difficulty, affecting the level of the enemies you fight everywhere - and the rewards you reap. Read this blog post for the full scoop on that.

The full patch notes are huuuuge but I'll pick out a few other bits that caught my eye:

• Players can now mark weapon and gear items as 'favorites' which locks them in their inventory. Locked items cannot be sold, shared or dismantled.
• Added a buyback option to vendor’s inventory. Players can now recover items they have accidentally sold.
• Equipped items are now always displayed at the top of the inventory list.
• Time-to-kill enemy NPCs has been lowered.
• Many improvements were made to enemy AI.
• When matchmaking the game will now attempt to refill empty slots if the group privacy allows it.
• Shotgunner NPCs: their damage falloff and accuracy have been slightly reduced. This should limit their range and lower their lethality in long to mid-range combat.
• Player health will now progressively regenerate to full when out of combat.
• All NPCs will now have chances to drop High-End and Gear Set items, tougher enemies (veteran, elites) have higher chances to drop.
• Roamer NPC groups and bosses are now back in the open world. They now respawn every 4 hours.
• Removed Skill Bonus from all gear items. Instead, Backpack, Holster and Kneepads will now have additional slots dedicated to Performance Mods (Backpack = 2, Holster = 1, Kneepads = 1). Note that this change will not be retroactive.
• Armor has been overhauled
• Global Rebalance pass on Gear Talents
• Weapon Talents have been rebalanced

I've surely missed some big changes in there, mind, so do point out anything you think is important. A whole lot of small, nice-to-have, fuss-removing touches are in there.