Had a good mix, most people are happy enough to live and let live.

I did have one guy murder my entire team (He had friends) and then yell "SNITCHES GET STITCHES" as he ran off so that was something,

I don't think people have been surprisingly nice, but having spent a few hours in there in various levels (currently DZ 17, lvl 17) I've only ran across two rogue agents and they've never targeted me. The game feels somewhat built to disencourage the PvP-aspect unless you're feeling very confident and since where the DZ-area differs in general difficulty so greatly from the rest of the game you usually don't feel very confident in there.

The coolest part of the DZ for me has been the ability to sprint away from scary situations. You get these pulse-pounding moments where fucking booking it in the opposite direction is your best course of action.

So far it's been awesome.

I see plenty of red icons on the minimap and those are the game letting me know where rogue agents are (flashes them when they pick up loot or kill a player I think - read it in a tooltip) in the DZ. So I know they're around and killing (I'm far more likely to have a session where I see and avoid at least a couple of red skulls than ones where I don't when I'm in the DZ) but I've had very little personal experience of it, probably because I'm looking at the minimap and routing to not be where rogue agents are (I do a lot of solo with those temporary alliances around extractions or bumping into people in Landmarks/chasing down an open-world named Elite).

I'm not sure if you could make a full-time activity out of rolling around (as a pack) killing rogue agents for the reward (the frequency of them doesn't seem high enough). So maybe, compared to the beta where rogues and counter-rogues seemed to be something people were doing quite a bit, they need to tweak the penalties and rewards. Right now people are possibly a bit too well behaved in the DZ. I like doing PvE in the DZ but the threat of rogues has to be real to keep the tension up and right now it seems like people are far happier to grind mobs if you want DZ xp and loot rather than fighting over it.

A decent mix. I've encountered plenty of people who'll unofficially join a skirmish and help out, more so than the nob'eds comprised of groups of 3-4 that go around ganking everyone, but unfortunately they're always the ones that stand out. I love the DZ, however, and think it's probably the game's best overall feature. But as someone that only ventures into the DZ alone, it's forever frustrating to get grouped on by an enemy squad of players. The worst example was a team I actually assisted! I revived one of the players a couple of times even, only for them to shoot me in the back. I didn't have any loot worth stealing fortunately, but it's the wasted time of losing all of that experience and DZ bucks that always stings.

I myself never go rogue because I can't say I get satisfaction from gunning down other players frankly, because I know of the penalties. I understand why the rogue system is what it is, though, and it definitely adds a lot of necessary tension to the area. But after just hitting level 30, the DZ is going to be fucking brutal as it is never mind with other players ganking you at the extraction point, which sounds like things could get to be pretty miserable.

I'm particularly interested to hear from any of you about how to the late game Dark Zone play is. I'm failing to find a link now, but I'd read somewhere that the penalty for going rogue at level 30 is ridiculously high and therefore no one was doing it, ridding the DZ of much of its appeal, in my opinion. Any experiences to share, anyone?

I'm really enjoying the game so far, but it would seem that there's a lot to the Dark Zone and going rogue as mechanics and a lot of ways they could continue to improve and evolve. I for one am looking forward to seeing if Ubisoft can make good on the potential.

@constantk: My hope is enough Season Pass/Gold copies were sold on top of it being a solid seller (which we already know from Ubi saying it's a major launch for them) that they invest in keeping it viable. We know the next two months we have some quality of life stuff (eg trading gear in groups) and whatever incursions are (distinct from just more challenge missions, but it's a commitment to new content) coming in large patches for everyone but hopefully they also keep updating the game and do more than they've announced (tweaking the design after seeing how it works in practice) on this monthly cadence or more often while also working to release those 3 more substantial patches for season pass holders. We already know monthly gear is coming for season pass holders but so far don't know if that'll be extending the end-game gear into ilvl32/33/34 etc and forcing people to get the season pass to join that path or if it's going to be a focus on cosmetics with mid-tier gear that's mainly about the unique looks (or maybe it'll be something like Heirloom gear that levels as you level so ideal for boosting alts).

@constantk: I'm level 34 DZ and spend almost all of my time there beyond the dailies and going back to base occasionally. Basically at 30+ DZ, more often than not, people go Rogue by accidental friendly fire more than anything else. The penalty for dying as a Rogue is just too high and the rewards are too low to make it an attractive option for most people. Actual Rogue PVP kills are quite rare to see in the chat log.

This needs to be looked at, because right now, there aren't enough Rogues. Most people right now are busy gearing up and getting to DZ 50, and don't want to lose hours of progress because they were killed in PVP. I do like the DZ stuff a lot but it needs some changes.

My endgame Dark Zone experience has ranged from unified fights for survival to a trollfest where groups of people have ran into my line of fire in an attempt to get me to go rogue. Most of my cooperative engagements come from DZ05-06 where the difficulty for fighting enemies is high unless you have really good gear. Players tend to recognize that working together in those two areas yield better rewards and seem to be more willing to work together.

From DZ01-04 I see a lot more groups of people running into my line of fire to try and bait me into carelessly going rogue. I don't hold down the trigger or throw out explosives when fighting enemies in the Dark Zone so I have yet to end up rogue by accident. The best outcome is when trolling agents get closer to the enemy rather than myself and end up getting downed by the enemy. I just watch them bleed out and take their stuff.

The beta experience aside, I have only really been diving into the Dark Zone stuff twice. First time I did it some dude called out to me to help him hunt the rogues. Bit it ended up with me being lead into a hazard level area I didn't have the filter for and as I was turning around to get out I was shot in the back while being called less than nice things. Mind you, I had no loot and basically no DZ funds, so it really served to purpose other than to convince me to focus on story stuff.

However, did a solo run around DZ again today and had a blast. Was mostly hunting easiest enemies I could find just to grind some DZ levels. Followed some dudes to an extraction site I had died at before and helped them clear it out (even let them grab my dropped stuff).

Unfortunately, a mis-used seeker mine accidently turned me rogue. For a split second I considered my options. I held my hands up in surrender but as soon as the other ones started shooting at me I rolles with it. Took down any agent I saw at the extraction site and escaped with all of their loot and managed to dodge being found and had the timer expire. After that it was just the matter of trying to extract the goods, which was an adventure all to itself.

So I guess I'm cautiously optimistic. But, I could see it being a bit less intimidating in a group.

The Dark Zone needs some serious adjustments, because right now there's a lot holding it back from being as good as it could be. There's pretty much zero reason to go rogue other than that it can be fun. Going rogue brings with it all risk and barely any reward. You get like 1500 DZ credits and no DZ XP for surviving a manhunt (your icon lights up the map for everyone and it lasts a minimum of 5 minutes), whereas if you die during a manhunt you lose more than an entire DZ rank and tens of thousands of DZ credits. Sure, you can grab money and gear from the dead bodies of people you kill, but the chances of getting something good out of this are lower than just grinding DZ bosses, and there's very little chance you make it through the ordeal with anything you pilfer in hand anyway.

Then there's also the fact that, once you're at the endgame, the level 31 areas are the only ones that make any sense to run. Item level 31 gear is currently the highest in the game, so both the level 31 and 32 areas drop item level 31 gear. The level 32 areas is significantly harder, and you don't get anything better than the stuff in the level 31 area. Plus, those enemies only give you 5 more XP per kill than level 31 enemies. The level 32 area is a lot of fun with a group of 4, but it's less efficient and more risky than just hanging in the level 31 area. There's something to be said for doing something because it's fun, but it would be nice if the game gave you any sort of reason to go anywhere other than the level 31 area.

I think it would be really cool if the game did a better job of incentivizing Dark Zone play beyond just farming the same handful of bosses over and over. @pyrodactyl and I had a pretty cool idea about public events in the dark zone that would encourage a lot of people to interact. Basically, the game would have a bunch of high level enemies congregating in a certain area, maybe setting up defenses or attacking another faction. Every player in the instance would be notified and get a location marker on their map, so there would be enough enemies that one squad couldn't handle it alone. Among these enemies would be a boss or bosses, but unlike the regular DZ NPCs, these enemies would drop public loot that would have to be fought over. This would be a great way to get a bunch of players fighting alongside each other in a protracted battle, which would then potentially devolve into a massive PVP firefight when the loot dropped.

That's just an idea we had, but whether they do this or not, the dark zone desperately needs something to encourage PVP and venturing into the tougher areas of the map. Right now, the dark zone is pretty stale, as it's just the same thing over and over again, and barely anyone goes rogue.

"Going rogue brings with it all risk and barely any reward."

That's what I've noticed and I think other players have to. I spent several hours in the Dark Zone over the weekend once I hit 30 and didn't see any rogues. There doesn't seem to be as much PvP as the developers had hoped. I'm playing on the PC. Maybe the platform makes a difference.

At level 30, the only level where DZ matters, they have made going Rogue too punitive. People will try and bait it out, but it's pretty much not done.

I just shot a guy in the back when he was down to 1/3 after he helped my group out a bit, mostly because, as Jeff has put it, "the world got too peaceful". That's all the PvP I've done in the beta so far, I'm level 15. I did a hell of a lot more fighting real people in the beta, but I've yet to even run into many people.

I really do hope they add some more incentive for players to go rogue. One idea I think I read, or put together after reading a couple ideas, would be for the capsule to have some indicator telling others what the highest rating of item you have. For example, if you have at least one purple item, there'd be a purple light on the capsule.

@ll_exile_ll:I do already rather like the changes from the beta that the greater enemy volumes etc and roaming patterns do mean you get a lot more faction of faction fights happening and even Landmark clears coming from other mob factions, although making a bigger thing of that and notifying players with stuff beyond just hearing the gunfire and investigating would be cool. Hopefully they are looking at that sort of stuff and seeing how they can build on the current DZ stuff to be more than a farming loop for groups to grind for rare drops (both by adding new activities and tweaking the Rogue system or reward/punishment).

I guess we find out what the devs are up to by May (Dark Zone activities are on the public roadmap for the game for that second free content drop).

@excitable_misunderstood_genius: No. The DZ matters at all levels. Just because one way of playing is to min-max and play "for the end-game" which means you only DZ at max level does not mean that has anything to do with how the game must be designed to only facilitate. The DZ with the level scaling and brackets is designed to be played and enjoyed by players at all levels and provide a different path to loot drops than just the roaming PvE named bosses in the desolate overworld of the game.

This obsession of some players to only consider the end-game and completely ignore that non-hardcore players are also going to put 20-60 hours into the game and should be catered to is pretty toxic for design suggestions. If you start from the point of assuming the DZ is only a lvl 30 activity then you'll come to bad conclusions and demand bad changes to the game. Yes, the ongoing game requires development focus on the end-game for those hardcore players who are doing that (and have already gotten there within the first week of this game's release) but that is not the only bit of the game. Everything you do before then is not just the trash they dump in to make you work before you can reach "the real game". The DZ is the open PvP area with PvP and PvE activities. But it's that for all players of all levels. When the May update comes round, I hope we see activities done in such a way as they scale them down to include for all DZ players (even the ones who only got the game in May or only put in 10 hours since getting it). I hope I can either down-level my main (if they add such a mechanic) or play an alt with friends who don't play much or only just got into the game and still enjoy as many benefits of ongoing development as possible, including making the DZ more exciting than the inherent stress of the PvP setting and elite mobs.

My experience has been mostly all positive. Since almost everyone is wanting to gear up anyway, there aren't many rogue agents around even at 30+. More often than not when someone accidentally goes Rogue, my group and I are able to diffuse the situation and let them know we aren't going to kill them. Although, I'm kind of starting to lose patience with people and their reckless friendly fire. I am quite careful to avoid getting into friendlies' lines of fire, but some players just don't get it and will run into melee range of a boss or something when there are already four other players firing in that direction, forcing them to hold their fire and take up new positions. It's annoying.

Tonight I was playing in a two man DZ team with @doctordonkey and we were down in the subway looking for a boss to kill. We ended up in a dead end, and all of a sudden two players came around a corner only about 20 feet away from us and one of them opened up and went rogue. We burned the first guy down in about a second and then chased his buddy up the stairs and continued to pursue him a couple of blocks up the street. The guy made an extremely poor decision and tried to climb up a long ladder to the top of a building to escape us. He made it up about half way before we cut him down with LMG and assault rifle fire. Looking back, he most likely turned down the first alley he saw and didn't realize the only way out was a ladder. If he had only kept running straight and used cars or whatever to stay in defilade he probably would have lived.

Maybe they will be a little more careful next time.

Ironically, the guy's name who was so fast on the trigger:

Biggest assholes I've met in the DZ so far are the people who don't check their goddamn fire and accidentally go rogue because of it.

There are also some people who clearly try to make you go rogue by getting in your line of fire.

I've only been killed for my loot once. It was all a little chaotic so I'm not sure exactly how it shook down, but I believe it was him and a partner. When I ran back I managed to down him, but died in the process. Ran back again and another rogue agent was near him, I THINK helping him up. Slapped a sticky grenade down between them and shut that shit up fast, got all my stuff back and then some, booked it, and extracted it all. Felt good.

But for the most part, people have been a little nervous but generally approachable. You can tell how uneasy people are to just start rolling with someone they ran across in there, but for the most part are cool about it if you don't start shit with them first. At least that's been my experience so far.

Just wanted to drop here to say if any of you really enjoyed the tension and unpredictability of the PvP in the Dark Zone, I HIGHLY recommend you check Arma 2 and 3 DayZ mods and others like it... It's Dark Zone times 10...

That's actually pretty funny. I'm glad to hear that most people are being civil, but this aspect of the game was one of the reasons I couldn't drum up much personal interest for it. I think they definitely did it right by limiting it to an area so you know what you're getting into, but virtually any time a game makes things to where users have to hope randoms on the internet aren't assholes, that obviously opens up some potential issues. It's the same reason I played offline in Dark Souls II so the PotatoMarshals of the world don't get to have their griefing "fun". I know some people are into that kind of PvP, but I'm really not. Kudos to the "purists" who take the good and bad randomness as it comes, but I don't like having my gaming enjoyment being dependent on the conduct of others. I prefer more traditional multiplayer on games like Rocket League, Titanfall, Halo, et al. For those who are into this, though, I'm glad The Division appears to be doing this about as well as it can be done.

I'm trying to get all high end gear (maybe except my sniper unless I randomly find a historian along the way) before I even go in there. I want my first experience with DZ to be as an apex predator. I'm going to run around and kill dudes and go rogue all over the place at DZ level 1 before taking it seriously and actually trying to get DZ experience or currency

People really rag on Day Z, but man no other game has come close to the tension you get in that game.

Some of my friends playing have this same view, and I think you're really missing out on earlier level fun. Nearly no one in the lower brackets is twinked out, so simply being near the bracket cap (14, 19, 24, 29) makes you competitive. I'm not there yet, but I imagine it's going to be a crazy grind to match/beat the gear of all the people who raced to 30 as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, I know. I didn't realize brackets worked that way until it was too late. The problem was, I was so addicted to getting through the story, unlocking all the base stuff, and collecting audio stuff (I really like how they paint the backstory in this game) that by the time I would have wanted to go to the dark zone at all, I was level 30 already

Most of my time in the Dark Zone has been people working together. I've ran into a group of people who went rogue once but they seemed to be more concerned with getting rid of the status so they were running away.

I personally haven't gone rogue yet but the worst I've done so far is act like I'm going to revive someone but just take their loot instead. I've gotten killed once by doing this since the downed player was actually in a group and his buddy hadn't revived him yet. I took the guy's loot and then heard multiple WTF's over the mics and people started shooting me.

The devs have acknowledged this in their weekly update on the game's state and have said they are looking into re-balancing going rogue.

I've had a nice mix of both. I'm absolutely loving the game in general. When there is a rogue, I will ruthlessly pursue for the DZ exp. I usually find if it's from accidental fire, they don't come back for you as they made the mistake, but I have had the occasional person come back for me and attempt revenge. Impressive considering I'm not marked and they'd track me down!

@jpon87: where did you see that

I just avoid Rogues when I see them on the map. The XP for spending the time and effort to pursue a Rogue just isn't worth it, not to mention the higher chance of dying. I find it's much more efficient to just go the opposite direction and kill NPCs. I mean I'll shoot at Rogues if they are right there, but I'm usually not going to chase them all over the DZ.

*quick update for me* i got legitimately and horribly robbed this morning in the DZ and it was so painful to watch. The prized item in my pack was a SMG that was a full 1-2k DPS higher than anything currently in my arsenal. still being level 17 it would've been significant jump for me to go from 6k to 8k dps. The thing that hurts the most is that the person who took it from me, was 2 character levels higher than me so to him, it was probably just trash loot to him but to me, it was about to be the new backbone of my DPS :'(.

Still loving the dark zone. shortly after that, i was partied up with 2 other players and 3 rogue players came in and attempted to go on a robbing spree. It led to a 15-20 minute series of 3v3 skirmishes often where each squad would lose a guy, retreat, sometimes one side would fully wipe but after that they came back. I feel like we got the last laugh by withdrawing to a separate extraction site by sneaking past several packs of armored tier 2 AI enemies which left plenty of obstacles in the path of the rogue players when we called in the extraction of their loot at the other end. :D Damn this game is fun!

One thing they could do for the DZ to increase civility where it might be welcome: better matchmaking.

If you're level 29 then matchmaking into a level 30 group is viable (nice lvl29 is almost indistinguishable from early lvl30) but also almost always pisses off the group of 30s. They don't want you in their end-game DZ instance, you'd be more suited to the 25-29 instances you solo in. Matchmaking between the different level tiers seems to be something the game really quickly jumps to, rather than allowing people to wait a bit longer and hopefully find a better match. It also seems to DZ matchmake only inside the DZ block (so DZ01-05) you're standing closest to (and you can't matchmake at all from inside the DZ) rather than looking a bit more broadly for compatible open groups/others matchmaking. It all seems slightly less clean than it could be and makes the DZ matchmaking less useful if you've not got friends online who want to run down some easy mobs for the DZ xp.

@shivoa: agree matchmaking with the darkzone in general is very dicey for me at the moment. If i'm lucky enough to get into a group, it's often in a server with lots of higher leveled people than any of us our and even grouped up we become prey to rogues.

Haven't spent much time in there yet, only lvl 14 in the DZ.
I did find a random person that was fighting AI with me and asked if he wanted to join me to extract.
The last 10 seconds before the chopper arrived he went rogue on me.
I escaped death and 3 randoms ended up running down the street with me hunting the rogue down.
We merc'd his ass and all four of us extracted together.
Love it, thumbs up so far, can't wait for more.

Ya'll weren't wrong with the noticeable lack of rogue players once you reach rank 30. The only time I'm ever face to face with a rogue player is if they shoot me accidentally, which then leads to an en masse of the Surrender emote and never progresses into any actual PVP.

On one hand it's obviously removing one of the core components of what the DZ was described as, but on the other... it is sort of comforting to take on landmarks and contaminated zones with little fear of getting ganked. Whenever a group is within vicinity amidst a landmark assault, my immediate feeling is of relief that I've got some backup as opposed to the tension of whether they'll gun me down or not.

I also decided to make an alt character, level her up to rank 14, and mess around in the first DZ player bracket to get more of a taste of OG DZ. It's a lot more chaotic and full of nonsense, which makes for some fun times. I myself routinely go rogue even, if only because what you attain in the DZ at that point really doesn't matter and quckly becomes obsolete as soon as you reach level 15 anyway. I'm always on my own mind you, and in some cases I'll do stupid shit like shooting the mine as we're all crowded around the extraction rope. Or will revive someone only to then kill them... Since I have no investment in my DZ rank or anything I'm fine with getting killed over and over during my rogue status, too. I think it's pretty hysterical actually because of how many players are sometimes congregated in a single area. Results in a lot of everybody essentially turning rogue, most times accidentally even, as we all gun for each other like it's the wild west.

Usually civil, but that's what I'm here for. Killing fools and looting them has been a ton of fun. You are marked for a significant amount of time so it's not like you can just disappear.

I think the Dark Zone completely fails at what I wanted it to do. I wanted the DZ to be these High Risk -> High Reward missions with limited/no respaws where you go in with a team to do a mission and there were 3 or 4 other teams in the area that you could run into doing similar style missions. And instead of it being this free-for-all mess, that is a ton of fun, it becomes this tense environment that makes the zone legitimately dangerous. Maybe make it so that there is only a couple of extraction zones that the teams have chances to run into each other.

I think the DZ is a lot of fun but not 100% what I actually wanted. Maybe as I get higher level that'll change but as @yummylee said the lower levels are just pure pandemonium chaos.

Ran into this for the first time yesterday. Such a dick move.

I have not gone in yet. I'm level 16...somehow, but I think I will get murdered in there no matter what.

@mike: maybe you're right and it's probably more just me having fun. I know you get more experience from it, I just enjoy the hunt either way really!

I'm really surprised by how much people seem to actually despise PVPers in this game. The end game is borderline non-existent at the moment and to have such a sizable part of the playerbase hate the hell out of people PVPing is amazing. The Dark Zone is shit boring, the gear is pretty bad, and the PVE gameplay is no better than anything outside the areas. Being a rogue in the dark zone is pretty much pointless as well as you need to kill at least 5 players to break even if you get killed, and there's almost never going to be anything above purple grade gear that players are carrying; not to mention the fact that you literally are trackable by everyone while you're rogue. PVP is honestly the only reason you'd go in there so I'm amazed that there's no incentive for doing so and that every player seems so happy to get along and enjoy the mediocre PVE gameplay.

I've played 50 hours of the game so far, and I haven't stepped inside the Dark Zone yet. Unfortunately, I could have finished the main missions up through the weekend, but on Saturday morning, either my connection, or on their side has been bad, so I couldn't even play it... I'll go into the Dark Zone after I'm done with the stuff outside of that.

Only been straight up attacked once, but it was immediately after an extraction had gone. Maybe the guy didn't see I had a friend with me but we gunned him down with ease.

There's been a few oh shit moments where I've come out of a safehouse into groups of 3-4 people, but it's usually just wave/salute and go about your business.

I've been spending a good amount of time at the top of each bracket (currently lvl 24 / dz32). What's been pleasantly surprising is that people don't seem to hold a grudge when they're rogue and you kill them. Unless you cheesed them into going rogue, it seems like they acknowledge that that's how it works and move on. I even killed a rogue and immediately after he came up and asked to join my team, and we had a pretty good time doing just PVE after that.

Everyone seems to have that moment when they realize that going rogue is totally not worth it though. We had a group that killed us and a few others a couple times and were very high "rogue level" or whatever they call it. Once we were able to split them up a bit and kill them off, I got 2 full DZ levels and 40,000 dz credits, which is quite a lot at my level. Very productive for me, but I can't imagine how bummed out they were after losing that much at once. They didn't seem up for it again after they respawned.