Tom Clancy's The Division - XP and levelling
Our guide to levelling up more quickly in The Division, along with useful tips for tracking patrol routes and helping out your fellow agents.
A Division agent plays by two sets of rules: Dark Zone reputation on the East side, and XP gained via admirable deeds throughout the pedestrian districts out West. It's the latter scenario we're dealing with here: gaining XP quickly with mission completion and extensive map exploration, and any other opportunities that come up to help the needy.
Assist other agents
While there's no quick and dirty solution to gaining XP fast in Tom Clancy's The Division, there's still some scope for exploiting the system. To begin with, experienced agents may assist others in the completion of any side missions and encounters that are cleared on their own maps. Although the resources gathered are only awarded once, XP gained from side missions and encounters can be earned as many times as there are newbies to help out.
Another great reason to embark upon missions with other players is that the numbers and behaviour of enemy NPCs are scaled up to match the size of the group. Not only are the NPCs higher ranked, and therefore worth more XP per kill, but larger numbers mean there are more targets and an improved opportunity for longer kill streaks and multi-kills. Replaying missions on harder difficulty settings ups the ante even further.
Patrol routes
As with many open-world games, enemy NPCs periodically respawn in the same place over time. This means it's worth taking note of the locations of the 'named' NPCs and their hardy bodyguards, so you can farm them for loot. Embrace the grind, and use this opportunity to practice headshots for faster and more creative takedowns that only add to the XP haul. In the full game, it should be possible to map out a route that times the arrival of the respawns perfectly - expect to see these popping up online.
If you're killing time alone, or even while chatting with the group who may be occupied elsewhere, searching for intel is an easy but lucrative way to boost XP. In the beta there were 43 examples of Field Data, each worth a good amount XP. Discovering 'Echoes' of events, such as civilians being burned alive by Cleaners, or activity surrounding a CERA personnel supplies truck are worth 300 XP apiece - and there are nine of these to grab. Scattered around Manhattan are six pages belonging to a survival guide, five incident reports, 21 phone recordings, a crashed drone and clues to the whereabouts of missing agent Michael Trudeau.
In addition to informing you more about the world of The Division, XP gains make the hunt worthwhile. Just remember to carry lock-picks when you're hunting for this stuff.
Help the needy
Another reason to take your time patrolling is that some civilians are in need of assistance, asking for soda, water, energy bars or canned food. In exchange for helping them you'll acquire 200 XP, equivalent to gunning down approximately 10 bad guys. The downside to such chivalry is that these items are highly useful in combat (water, for example, increases damage dealt to elite enemies by 20% for 30 seconds), so it is a bit of a trade off.
Boost your base of operations
Although not available in the beta, in the final game one of the most rounded ways to increase all XP gains will be to complete side missions that upgrade the Security wing of your HQ. This unlocks Perks, two of which significantly improve XP gains:
- Experienced Agent increases XP from all activities by 10%
- Armory Combat Veteran increases XP from accolades by 25%
Some gear also adds a certain amount of + Kill XP to an agent's capabilities, but such Talents are randomly rolled. It's worth checking each item discovered in chests, bags or from fallen foes to see if it has the + Kill XP Talent anyway.
Edge into areas above your level
Finally, a cheeky way to gain delicious XP for a quick boost is to step into a zone that is currently beyond your agent's XP level. These areas are shown in red. This only works once per out-of-bounds location, but you have 10 full seconds to soak it all up before being teleported to the nearest safe house. This is something that Massive Entertainment might catch wind of and change for the final version of the game, but we had fun benefitting from this during the previous beta.
- The next part of our guide tells you everything you need to know about the Dark Zone in Tom Clancy's The Division.
- Return to the index page for more entries in our Tom Clancy's The Division guide.