The third title update for The Division 2 was set to introduce new high level gear, increasing the Gear Score cap from 500 to 515. But in response to player feedback Ubisoft has ditched these plans, in order to avoid rendering current high level builds obsolete.

While new, high level gear is a common feature in loot shooter title updates, players believed the new Gear Score, which was to roll out in the game's May update, would have arrived too soon after launch. Having spent the last two months optimising builds in preparation for the game's first raid—which also releases in May—all that hard work would have been for nothing.

Ubisoft has acknowledged this, as well as other related concerns. "Gear Score 500 items would have been outdated immediately, and all the effort you put into min/maxing and farming your builds would have been wasted just as the Raid goes live," an update reads. "We don't want to invalidate your progression and we heard that feedback loud and clear from our community. Your gear and your builds are important to you and to us." The studio also wants to avoid players spending all their time chasing higher Gear Scores.

Ubisoft has listed a series of changes designed to make it clearer how to get items with a 500 Gear Score. Rewards have been increased for Priority Hard and Challenging missions, and once the player has achieved 500 these missions will drop 500 score items exclusively. Meanwhile, Heroic Mission, Stronghold and Bounty bosses all guarantee 500 items. The full list of related changes are in the blog.

The public test server has featured a lot of TU3 changes for the past fortnight. The May update, which releases at an unspecified time this month, will usher in the new Operation Dark Hours raid.