Worth playing /where should I start?

[sixthbrick]

I loved Division one back in the day on my PlayStation and i have had a few hours on here with 2. But now I am looking for my "long term game" and always find myself enjoying running around the city and enjoying the looting.

In its current state with the new york DLC , should I start from scratch or jump in with the DLC?.
Would appreciate any help or pointers for new (ish) players, I hear the community is pretty good for this game

[Echolecter]

Although you can skip to NYC and auto-play many story missions, I would say that you're missing out on the best part of the game. The whole process of going from 1-40 is what I found most enjoyable. After you reached maximum level the only thing to do is repeat everything over and over again, and all the season stuff.

When not playing all missions and skip to DLC part it's also possible that you run into bugs. Somehow the automatic progression doesn't update everything in the same way as if you would play from level 1 to WT5 (removed by the way). This can cause issues where you're not able to start missions, if this wasn't fixed already.

[ArmedGhost-]

Start from scratch. Play through the base game, take your time, enjoy the grind. Come up with your own build ideas, don't jump on the meta train or Youtube builds. Coming up with your own ideas for builds and putting that build together is more fun and re-warding than Youtubing builds, then running Coutdown/Summit for an hour.

Once you max out your build/character, that grind ends. No point is rushing through it just be left with nothing to do. I haven't had much go grind on my character in almost 3 years and it's hard for me to actually keep playing everyday without it feeling pointless.

the game offers a lot of endgame content, but if you like the gear grind, the endgame is more story focused than grinding/looting for gear or resources rather than having to loot for better gear.

Regardless, the grind up to that point is still hundreds if not over 1k hours worth of playtime, it's worth the playthrough.
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For me, I like games like Grayzone, SCUM, Deadside, Tarkov where there's regular wipes, the gear looting coincides with the game's story and players always have better gear to loot.

If you like more of that kind of playstyle, you can try Hardcore mode which me and a few friends tried and enjoy it more than the base game because 1. There's consequences to dying. 2 it reinforces teamwork/teamplay and also vastly increases the intensity of engagements.

Keep in mind, hardcore mode is if you die, you lose everything and have to start from scratch. The stash and Watch level is shared between Hardcore characters, but anything you have in your bag when you die is lost. I personally like that because it always gives us gear to grind, regardless of the amount of time we put into the game.