History YMMV / TheDivision

* SpiritualSuccessor: The villain's plot and motive is virtually identical to those in Tom Clancy's novel and video game ''Rainbow Six'', and this franchise could be read as a sequel where that team failed its mission to stop the biological terror attack.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** In response to a dwindling playerbase and numerous complaints, Massive has announced that they will be delaying the Survival DLC in order to focus on bug fixes and Patch 1.4, which is supposed to completely revamp the core mechanics of the game.
** The general reception of this game has gotten much better since the release of patch 1.8, which brought West Side Pier, an entirely new area with randomly-generated missions (and where [[EnemyMine all the enemy factions work together against the player]]), a new PvE game mode called Resistance where players fight endless waves of enemies with increasing difficulty, and a new [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] game mode called Skirmish, a 4v4 team deathmatch mode. Unlike the DLC in the game's first year, all of these contents updates are free.
** The game's community managers made [[https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/90a6i8/striker_meta_discussion/ an announcement on July 2018's State of the Game stream]] regarding game balance (e.g. [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome 6 piece Striker]]) and major bug fixes, surprising everyone who thought support for the game was done for after 1.8.2 was considered "the last patch" for The Division 1. A month later, Massive [[https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/97s07m/state_of_the_game_august_16th_2018/ revealed their plans for 1.8.3]], showing not only a much-needed Striker nerf, but also the nerf specifically being applied to PVP (separation of PVE and PVP balance was something players wanted to see since the 1.0 days) and changes to overused burst healing options.

** Hunters are this trope in every game mode they're featured in. With the exception of the Resistance game mode, all Hunters are [[GlassCannon glass cannons]] with maneuverability on par with the player's and come packing with two skills and three medkits. Hunters equipped with either First Aid or Support Station are especially hard to kill due to their additional healing capabilities. They also melee players using [[AnAxeToGrind the hand axe hanging off their backpacks]], almost always guaranteeing a OneHitKill, making close-range combat especially dangerous.

* DemonicSpiders: These enemies are normally fairly tough to beat in the game's normal difficulty, but Challenge Mode takes it UpToEleven, especially if you are doing a mission where you have to face off against the LMB. Challenge and Heroic Modes also makes ''all'' enemies gold level elites:

** As noted under UnfortunateImplications below, while The Division (and the player) are presented as heroic, they can also be seen as the Secret Police of every dystopian novel ever that, this time, happened to fight for a good cause as soldiers fighting to protect the people from complete ruin. [[spoiler: This may also be intentional as the second game illustrates that a fair chunk of Division agents really are LawfulEvil StateSecurity or a bunch of megalomaniacs no different than the people they fight.]]

* UnfortunateImplications: [[http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/03/18/the-division-game-review-welcome-to-trumps-america There have been]] [[https://killscreen.com/articles/the-perverse-ideology-of-the-division/ articles published]] (a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKsj345Jjw particularly memorable and thoughtful one]] by ''WebAnimation/ExtraCredits'') criticizing the game's storyline, presenting an alternate interpretation of its themes and underlying implications of The Division itself.
** Yahtzee of ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'' has aired similar views that, while exaggerated to a degree, are still quite on-point:
--->'''[[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee Croshaw]]:''' So let me see if I've got this straight, the corpse of Creator/TomClancy. We're a member of the secret police under no official scrutiny or accountability, and our job is to go into an area of civil unrest and ''murder'' dissenting citizens without trial? And it's not set in [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Stalinist Russia]]? "Now we can take these back to the people!" said my earpiece friend after a supply recovering mission. Sorry, which people were those again? Presumably not the people in whose corpses I now stand knee-deep? Oh right, you meant the ''"real"'' people; the ones that bowed and scraped when the government assassination squad showed up. See, the premise would have worked perfectly well if we'd just been some random citizen doing our bit to take back the city, Creator/CharlesBronson [[Film/DeathWish style]], baby! The only thing the secret police thing adds is to make us less relatable and give hard-ons to the paranoid authoritarian lot, who want to believe that the government will finally sort out those intimidating young people who stand around outside their house talking loudly.

* UnfortunateImplications: [[http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/03/18/the-division-game-review-welcome-to-trumps-america There have been]] [[https://killscreen.com/articles/the-perverse-ideology-of-the-division/ articles published]] (a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKsj345Jjw particularly memorable and thoughtful one]] by ''WebAnimation/ExtraCredits'') criticizing the game's storyline, presenting an alternate interpretation of its themes and underlying implications of The Division itself.
** Yahtzee of ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'' has aired similar views that, while exaggerated to a degree, are still quite on-point:
--->'''[[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee Croshaw]]:''' So let me see if I've got this straight, the corpse of Creator/TomClancy. We're a member of the secret police under no official scrutiny or accountability, and our job is to go into an area of civil unrest and ''murder'' dissenting citizens without trial? And it's not set in [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Stalinist Russia]]? "Now we can take these back to the people!" said my earpiece friend after a supply recovering mission. Sorry, which people were those again? Presumably not the people in whose corpses I now stand knee-deep? Oh right, you meant the ''"real"'' people; the ones that bowed and scraped when the government assassination squad showed up. See, the premise would have worked perfectly well if we'd just been some random citizen doing our bit to take back the city, Creator/CharlesBronson [[Film/DeathWish style]], baby! The only thing the secret police thing adds is to make us less relatable and give hard-ons to the paranoid authoritarian lot, who want to believe that the government will finally sort out those intimidating young people who stand around outside their house talking loudly.

** To a degree, the Rikers. At first, they can be genuinely frightening to see in action. But the utterly [[EvilIsHammy gleeful]] way they just throw themselves at every ForTheEvulz stereotype you can imagine makes them [[CrossesTheLineTwice snap straight to this]]. They act so by-the-numbers evil, with only the barest justification that it feels less like you're dealing with a breakout at Rikers and more like a prison break from [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Blackgate or Arkham]].

* HarsherInHindsight: While much of the Green Poison outbreak is typical of any other pandemic, things like lockdowns continually failing because of active government incompetence and sabotage being used to further political agendas, distrust of said government, civilians slipping out of quarantine to ignore social distancing and turning parties or needless shopping into hotspots, protests and rebel movements over government quarantines, the pandemic worsening due to winter conditions driving people indoors or forced to rely on easily-contaminated points-of-contacts to gain supplies (or dying due to lack of such), the pandemic dismissed as nothing more dangerous than the common flu, and misinformation resulting in entire local governments going rogue and unwittingly spreading the outbreak further all ring nastily true for America's experience with COVID-19.

--->'''[[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee Croshaw]]:''' So let me see if I've got this straight, the corpse of Creator/TomClancy. We're a member of the secret police under no official scrutiny or accountability, and our job is to go into an area of civil unrest and ''murder'' dissenting citizens without trial. And it's not set in [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Stalinist Russia]]? "Now we can take these back to the people!" said my earpiece friend after a supply recovering mission. Sorry, which people were those again? Presumably not the people in whose corpses I now stand knee-deep? Oh right, you meant the ''"real"'' people; the ones that bowed and scraped when the government assassination squad showed up. See, the premise would have worked perfectly well if we'd just been some random citizen doing our bit to take back the city, Creator/CharlesBronson [[Film/DeathWish style]], baby! The only thing the secret police thing adds is to make us less relatable and give hard-ons to the paranoid authoritarian lot, who want to believe that the government will finally sort out those intimidating young people who stand around outside their house talking loudly.

* ScrappyMechanic: The changes to crafting in the 1.1 patch which significantly increased the amount of materials needed to craft items was met with much ire, since it made crafting significantly more difficult. This is also compounded by the fact that crafted gear tends to be superior to whatever is dropped by [=PvE=] opponents. The implementation of the Division Tech crafting material is also not well liked, since its rarity and difficulty of obtaining makes it a further throttle to crafting high end gear.

** The Lexington Event Center is an okay level except for two things. One, it is about a full section too long, and since the game is constantly throwing horror after horror in your face the entire time it's very emotionally draining, and not in the good way. Second, the final battle against Larae and her guards is unnecessarily hard - it's two boss level enemies with miniguns, seemingly endless grenades that constantly force you into the open, a tight space where they absolutely have the advantage, and no way to replenish any supplies you use. The subsequent battle against Larae herself isn't as difficult (you just have to worry about hitting her while she runs), but the two guards will put up one hell of a fight.

* HarsherInHindsight: While much of the Green Poison outbreak is typical of any other pandemic, things like lockdowns continually failing because of active government incompetence and sabotage being used to further political agendas, distrust of said government, civilians slipping out of quarantine to ignore social distancing and turning parties or needless shopping into hotspots, protests and rebel movements over government quarantines, the pandemic worsening due to winter conditions driving people indoors or forced to rely on easily-contaminated points-of-contacts to gain supplies (or dying due to lack of such), and misinformation resulting in entire local governments going rogue and unwittingly spreading the outbreak further all ring nastily true for America's experience with COVID-19.

*** The irony may be this turned out to be fully intentional. The game constantly calls the Division out for its questionable legality, violence, and questionable value. [[spoiler: This is confirmed in the second game when it shows that a huge chunk of the Division went rogue and became worse than the other factions combined.]]

** If you're planning to find the most efficient mission to play on legendary difficulty, play Amherst Apartment. Not only is the average completion time around 15 minutes, but if there is no wipe, then one hunter will be spawned as a final boss, which has a 100 percent chance of dropping an exotic.

** Amongst 6 piece classified gear sets, the ones that stand out the most (especially in [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] combat) are Striker, Predator, and Nomad. 6 piece Striker penalizes players less for missing shots and additionally adds a constant heal over time based on how many damage stacks the Striker player has. 6 piece Predator takes the 4 piece bonus's propensity for bleeding enemies dry and magnifies it based on the player's Stamina stat. Lastly, trying to kill a 6 piece Nomad player essentially becomes a LuckBasedMission, now that their ability to come back from the dead has a fairly high random chance of resetting its cooldown upon activation.
** In Patch 1.3 for the Underground DLC, the devs introduced a new exotic shotgun: Showstopper. While the main talent is okay and it is rather decent in PVE (When the build isn't optimal), this shotgun later became a meta weapon for Dark Zones/Skirmishes due to its DPS and high rate of fire, which is enough to catch any high-skilled Division agents off-guard.
** Patch 1.8 brings along with it the Exotic submachine gun known as The House. It quickly became the go-to SMG for both PvE and [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] content, as half its magazine automatically gets 20% extra damage, with the buffed half switching after 10 seconds or after emptying the magazine. Attentive players can time the switching mechanic to get 20% extra damage on the entire magazine. Lastly, since The House is based on the real-life [=MPX=], a modern variant of the [=MP5=], it sports exceptional accuracy for an SMG.

** Any LMB enemies in legendary difficulty would fit this trope. Not only are all the features mentioned above still there, they are now much faster, deal more damage, can dodge bullets frequently via rolling (Which is very difficult to line up shots especially for a player with striker classified build) and can insta-down you with melee attacks. Oh, and lets not forget that there will be at least 3-4 [[spoiler: rogue agents]] in every area.

** For