The community for Tom Clancy’s The Division has been up in arms over the G36, a new weapon that drops from the Underground DLC, and its nerfs. This is primarily due to the gun’s usefulness with its base damage posing a strong threat to the bullet sponge NPCs. When Massive noted that it was nerfing the weapon’s base damage by 15 percent, it drew its fair share of harshness from a community that had been begging for no changes to be made.
However, it seems that more than just the damage for the weapon has been changed. A user on Reddit actually datamined values on the gun following complaints of the recoil being increased and found that the accuracy and range had also been affected.
Another user summarized the gun’s current state as, “What they said they would do: Reduced the base damage of all G36 Assault Rifles by 15%. What they actually did: Reduced the base damage of all G36 Assault Rifles by 15%. Reduced the range by about 5%. Increased the recoil, base recoil and per bullet. Changed the recoil pattern. Minimum accuracy value reduced i.e. the reticle gets to full bloom quicker.”
Granted we haven’t tested these changes for ourselves but others are also chiming in as to the gun’s recoil being changed. And there are the hard numbers within the game to take into account. Players are understandably upset about this because it isn’t the first time Massive has stealth changed something (Critical Hit Chance being capped at 60 percent for instance). Weapons usually undergo more than base damage changes in balancing but was the developer right to not mention that? We’ll find out in the coming days but in the meantime, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.