The Division's Public Test Server has just gotten its final update for this testing cycle, which means Tom Clancy's "The Division" patch 1.6 may be going live very soon. Massive Entertainment has recently launched the fourth redo for the current PTS patch, dubbing it PTS4. Judging from reports, the changes could hugely impact and restructure combat and PvP modes in "The Division" if approved.

Last Stand: Gear Normalization, New Rewards System

For this PTS update, Massive looks to be adjusting gear normalization in Last Stand game mode. According to the 1.6 patch notes, gear normalization now rolls the max Gear Score 256 stat for gear major/minor bonuses, performance mods, major stats, gear mods, weapon mods, and weapon damage and attributes. This could even the playing field between players, as the normalization means minor differences between them.

The normalization won't apply to the PvP engagements offered in the regular Dark Zone on "The Division." Massive is also updating the fortifications at objectives in an effort to help solo players defend a tactical location. The damage of the turret fortifications have been increased by 40 percent, but the health of the turret fortifications has gone down by 25 percent.

Massive has also tweaked the rewards system by increasing the score thresholds for Last Stand rewards. As long as your team wins the match, you will receive a win cache regardless of personal score. Other changes have been made to Last Stand, which you can read via the full patch notes here.

Combat Changes and SMGs

VG24/7 reports that Critical Hit Chance has been returned to SMGs, with a maximum roll of around 22 percent. Definitely exciting, considering Massive had originally planned to remove them from "The Division" after seeing SMGs with Critical Hit Chance in action. Realizing that they were a player favorite is what brought along this tweak instead.

Finally, Time to Kill has been pulled back slightly, with PvP damage multiplier lowered to 0.42 from the original 0.46. This gives players a better shot at covering themselves, and is applicable for both Last Stand and Dark Zone. Tom Clancy's "The Division" 1.6 update definitely looks promising. Now that it's live on the PTS, we expect more details to be revealed over the next few days.