Bordercast concerns

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#21

And as you acknowledged later, Iron Bear is a different case, and this ideology you state here works for the other three Vault Hunters.

It just falls flat on Moze, because while the other characters have different Action Skills, that doe different things, Moze has a single Action Skill, and you just equip the different weapons / augments that you want.

Which, is why I’m as bent about it as I am. It was deliberate, and it just felt like they said: “Well, Moze players will either cope with it, or play something else”

And… that could be excused, had they not just spent WEEKS buffing Moze to make her good again.

It replaces your entire character. You end up with different weapons, no grenades, a different health bar, different movement speed.

Ok, so I’m going to put on my Game Designer hat. I don’t design video games, but I’ve got enough design time, and published games under me that I can take a stab at it from a non coding side, which I admit, means I’m not sure how viable the designs are.

Moving forward, Iron Bear should take queues from the gear that you have equipped.

I’m not suggesting it should be like the Digi Clone, where you can spec into it having a copy of your gun, but there are plenty of things that can be handled.

Damage = Scales off the Mayhem Level of the gun you have equipped when you enter Iron Bear.

Weapon Manufacturer - You can build this in in various ways.

Atlas - Fires Tracking Rounds
Torgue - Fires Splash Rounds
Jakobs - Fires Ricochet Rounds
Dahl - Fires more accurately
Hyperion - Fires uh… I don’t know? something Hyperion-ey
Vlaadof - Fires FASTER
Tediore - Projectiles that MRV

You could incorporate Gun Types, if you wanted. Giving changes to IB based on Gun types, similar to, or in replace of manufacturer. I’m not sure you could do both MFG + Gun Type Bonuses, that might end up really code heavy, and sloggish on consoles.

OR, you could make these Action Skill Aguments in the trees. You could make give them nifty names, and allow players to choose what they want. We already have augments that are “similar”, but they are rather boring / restrictive / still don’t matter what you’re using.

You could incorporate Moze’s shield into IB if you wanted, for purposes of Movement speed / Amp / other cool things on shields.

But, the point should be that you’re gear choices matter to Iron Bear. Gear choices matter for every character ('cept Moze) when it comes to Action Skills, even if just because the Action Skill doesn’t replace / shut off your access to the gun.

As long as Iron Bear is completely independent of What Moze is currently equipped with, any further balance changes that happen in game, will continue to leave Iron Bear as a “yeah, we’ll get to that”, because the action skill has zero to do with Moze’s gear.

Hell, if they would have just scaled Iron Bear’s Damage based on the Mayhem of the guns you had equipped, a lot of the current frustration would have been gone. From what I do know about coding, this should have been as simple as replacing a static value in the equation that gives IB damage, with a variable that is seeded with the value from the gun.

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#22

It was literally sorted very decent before M2.0,…

I felt like that with every patch and just tired of it now,…

Maybe I am just bummed how this whole endgame is going. It went from something I played all the time on old M4,… to (yea I have all meta M10 gear) but to me it is just not fun anymore, just tedious and boring. Plus all the friends I made playing it, quit after m2.0 and that makes it even more boring on top of being boring.

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#23

The only time I play with my daughter, who is an avid fan of the game, or my friends group, is when we are playing less than max level characters.

We played M2.0 for the cartels at max, and it was just not fun if you were playing Moze in a group of other characters, so the two of us that Main Moze, were taking other characters along, to make the group work.

Outside of those 2 or 3 times we played Cartels at max, we play low level characters. M2.0 M10 in a group feels like a disaster, that’s only further exacerbated by Moze being not great, and then again, by then gutting the guns that I had that were “Crit Friendly”.

At this point, Thursday has to WOW in what it does for Moze. If if falls short of that, I just can’t imagine I’m going to be interested in playing, because I’m a completionist, and I just don’t have it in me to go back and 100% all the content on a second Vault Hunter.

#24

I agree with all of this (including the not-quoted part - a lot of solid ideas). I think M2.0 has lasting implications for the game’s design that might not have been considered (or perhaps a priority) at release.

(Hyperion could give a bubble shield with Augment-able properties, Nova, Reflect, etc - one at a time only. Would make the bubble skill less of a fixed requirement for most builds and thus increase diversity)

Don’t get me wrong, right, I want this fixed as much as the next player. But I also think, unfortunately, these areas will need tackling one at a time. They’re still on time-lag for fixing M2.0. I don’t think anyone reasonable here blames the developers actually doing the work - it happens in development (deadlines are unfortunately too “important” to shift).

I also get that preaching patience just ain’t going to cut it for some folks. So I don’t want to do that either.

#25

And this is ok? Why is this even used as an excuse? Hey an integral part of your character is only ok in one part of the game.

#26

I never saw it that way. You needed Kunai to ensure your shot out of deception was a one shot kill. It was a buff specifically to deception, not in spite of it.

They CAN be buff buttons, but they also do so much more. They are the purest expression of your character and their play style, they specifically buff the things your character specializes in.

Take for example Claptrap. As much as people complain about IB being useless, it has nothing on Clpatrap. The skill gave you a full heal, but I don’t need to remind anyone here that his AS was largely random, and it was very possible that it could give you a skill that completely screwed you over. But once you got Pirate Ship, mechromagician, melee mode, or whichever subroutine actually did work for your build, you got a very brief yet powerful spike in damage. But they weren’t really buffs for the most part; Pirate ship mode was just some massive burst damage, mechromagician gave you anarchy (which definitely comes with some minor drawbacks), melee mode decreased your melee speed for massive damage and prevent you from using any equipped weapons or grenades, etc…Sure, mechromagician could work with Clappy’s low mag size bonuses, and Pirate Ship mode benefited from the explosive damage, but by and large clappy’s action skill was a self defeating mess. Remind you of anyone?

Yes, Axton’s turret gave him more damage, but how did it do that? Slag was readily available from other sources (he had tons of swap speed and plenty of grenades) and Battlefront mainly benefited splash weapons. The main thing the turret did was provide Axton with indirect bonuses. Axton hasn’t had his own team since he got booted from the military: he was a flashy glory chasing soldier who did things on his own. His turret provided him with all the things he needed from the team mates he probably needed but didn’t have: cover fire, debuffs, distraction, ordinance, etc. Still, there was nothing the turret did that Axton couldn’t do himself. He didn’t really need the turret to do anything, but he was much better off just having something there.

I could go on a bit but you get the point: action skills represent the personality of the character. They provide bonuses yes, but they tend to do so thematically. Where BL3 fails is that there is no thematic bonus for the most part. Action skills start or end and you do more damage. I don’t feel like there is a connection between character skills and their personality because of the power of the skills comes from gear, mainly anointments that just add massive damage multipliers for simple conditions that are the same across the board for every VH.

#27

Yo nice profile picture lol I was the one who made that! Glad you enjoy it :DDD

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#28

Read the rest of my post. You know, the bit you didn’t quote.

And no, I never said it was ok, but there needs to be a bit more differentiation when people make blanket statements about this or that not working, Because not everyone plays on the highest difficulties, and they may get the impression that nothing works in mayhem levels at all which simply isn’t true.

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#29

Thanks! When I saw it I knew I had to have it :smile:.

#30

Play Zane… and you can only use one com, and you don’t even need to know what an action skill is.

#31

I think that is part of what keeps me from just maining Zane.

The Seein’ Dead COM is so far ahead of the other COM’s in terms of power, that there is almost zero build diversity in higher mayhems.

I played Clone N Drone for a LOOOOOONG time. Got a TTD Maliwan clear with it.

I swapped, because I didn’t understand why everyone was always so Drone N Barrier is better. And then I understood. And I now see why it’s likely not going to change, unless they get serious about balancing Zane.

He is a god with Seein’ Dead + Drone + Barrier.
He is REALLY good with Seein’ Dead + Clone + Drone
He is average to slightly good with everything else.

I don’t want to see Seein’ Dead nerfed, per se, but I’d love to see a COM come along that challenges Seein’ Dead for the slot.

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#32

Thread merged.

#33

It seems like there are but I’m going from memory since I haven’t played in quite a while. Someone could easily find out by running each Takedown at different Mayhem levels.

If there aren’t more enemies and it’s just more HP, then that changes it a bit. Them sticking around longer, like you said, does change the dynamic also.

#35

Is this a mod decision we should PM about? I’m a bit confused as well…

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#36

I’ll consider reversing it, if you want…but I thought they were talking about the same thing…
Edit: well- that was horrid to do on mobile.

Carry on.

#38

I think my overarching problem with the state of Moze right now, is actually a problem I see in several games communities right now.

Communication.

Now, I wont lie, Borderlands / Gearbox does have better communication with it’s players than the other games that I play, which are also in a not great state right now, but the big problem is still communication.

When Mayhem 2.0 was released, there was ZERO word on why Moze’s Action Skill was DoA, and zero explanation after the fact.

When it’s time for a level cap increase, we are given 2 days notice (max). The only time we knew it this time, is because someone got a screen cap of streamer’s levels.

When GBX heard the community begging for the Cartel Anoints to stay, they knew that this was due in large part to the 300/90 anoint, working as it was written on the card, even though that isn’t how they intended the anoint to work. Instead of telling the community, hey… this is going to get nerfed, they all too gleefully said:

YEAH! SURE! AREN’T WE GREAT? WE LISTENED!

Surely, knowing that in just 2 weeks they were going to gut the prized anoint. Don’t get me wrong, ASA 200 is a decent enough anoint, and 50/150 feels required to play Moze right now, I think that if most people would have known that 300/90 was going to get chopped, they may not have been so keen to further saturate the Anoint Pool, that is already burning players out.

Gearbox does a great job of communicating on a broad level, but when it comes time to tell players that their vault contents are going to be worthless, that their action skill might not exist for a little bit, that the anoint they have been gushing over for a month is really not working the way they wanted it to, they go silent.

Gearbox has mastered the “easy” communication. And easy is in quotes, because there are companies that still struggle with the good times communication. But, what they have failed to master, is the same part that so many game companies have just decided doesn’t matter anymore:

The Hard Talks. Those pre-emptive deep dive talks that happen when a game either needs a change, or is going to have a not popular change that works as a bridge to more good times.

I’ll be honest, it’s been about a decade since I played a game that had that type of communication.

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#39

You are sort of touching on the root of the problem here. The whole M2.0 system has broken the game with all the gear scaling. Instead of addressing the core issue that is item scaling they are now adding another layer of complexity on top of it by tying AS effectiveness to gear which doesn’t bode well for future updates.

I don’t have high hopes they will ever actually fix this out of control difficulty system mess but instead will keep careening from one update/patch/notfix to another…addressing one thing while breaking/ignoring other things in the process. Does anyone really think they will ever balance all past, current and future items in a reasonable manner within this convoluted mayhem system?

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#40

@c.shoju

I’m by no means a god-tier player, but I’ve rolled CCC Zane (Barrier / Drone) since release. I was comfortably at M3 in the old system (I could do M4, but it’s a time / effort thing), and I was up to M4 or M5 under 2.0. The main thing that helped me was getting an Executor COM.

Sure, Seein’ Dead blows it out of the water, but with two capstones, going Executor and both green and blue trees to the max is a good, “non-broken” build in my opinion. Permanent AS uptime, electrify augment on Barrier to abuse stagger a bit. Okay, so it’s not without its cheese I guess :smiley:

I’ve never used Seein’ Dead, and he’s both my favourite (that’ll never change) and my “strongest” VH (I get the best results playing him, I appreciate his skill trees more than I do the other classes).

I also can’t play him because of the Cryo-damage-related crash that’s been a lot worse even since the patch in late April. Once again, I have my fingers crossed that the next patch fixes this.

It’s also a guaranteed Slag (with perks) that helps massively against things you can’t oneshot. Given that the next shot breaks the stealth, relying on it as a oneshot mechanic doesn’t really gel (again, unless melee build with Many Must Fall). You’re back to slag-and-swap on UVHM straight after (Rabid Stalkers can eat dirt, as can the entirety of the Caustic Caverns tbh. Good mobbing, but geez you could easily get caught by a badly-placed pod morph).

Anyhoo, my lack of (high-end) experience with Zer0 aside, hah:

I agree (and I’m not disagreeing with the rest of your post either. I never got enough time with Claptrap in TPS to be anything but annoyed by his AS :sweat_smile:). Wilhem then Athena mains for me there.

I disagree on your conclusion, but I think that’s understandable because it’s a very personal takeaway for what you see the Action Skills as being. For me they’ve always been a buff button. I regularly challenge myself to go without skills (once I’ve done a playthrough or two) to see what AS-less balance (even on Normal) is like. It’s a challenge. I think I get to about L20 in BL3 before giving up (even with semi-decent gear, though Normal is a struggle there). Maybe a bit earlier.

They can do more, and I’m not here to say Moze (or even FL4K) has been done justice. But I see Augments and Anointments as the same as spending skill points in CCC or something. All three (skill points beyond the core AS, augs and anoints) are examples of a modifier to your base kit. Some skills morph your AS. Some Augments do. This can change the way you use your AS. The same goes for Anointments, though I do also agree that diversity there is relatively lacking.

In my opinion, the best way to go about looking at Anointments is vastly reduce the general pool, and vastly increase the per-class pool (per-class). The problem with this Anointments are currently RNG on top of RNG. I think if there was more control in acquiring them, people would have less issue with seeing them as essentially skill points on a gun.

#42

I don’t know that I agree with you, completely.

It is possible that they could have a system where Mayhem Scales Damage, and get things balanced.

IMO, the key is to tie AS damage to the Gun Damage or Mayhem Level, or SOMETHING that is going to scale with the character, because then you can then build a scale that only has 1 data point that needs adjusted: Gun Damage.

Can they get to a point where things are balanced? I think they can, but they need to take a step back, and remember how they advertised the game.

BILLIONS OF GUNS

Ok, so lets start off by bumping all Gun Damage from M7 and up, by 20%, across the board. From that point, you have a new baseline, and you can more easily see which blades of grass in the sea of billions are sticking up far higher than need be, and trim back down.

The argument there, is that people don’t like nerfs. But, my counterpoint, is that people don’t like nerfs that feel arbitrary, and not needed. Bump everything up, and then you adjust back down, in those spots that you need to.

Is it REALLY a bad thing, if someone makes a build that can kill the Guardian Takedown with a [Insert some random gun here], at M10, if it sells it’s soul to do so?

I had a Radiation Host (Hyperion E-Barrell Shotgun) with the 300/90 anoint. Pre-Patch, I was able to use a Mind Sweeper with Hyperion Damage / Weapon Damage, coupled with an Atom Balm elemental Projector that had Shotgun Damage . Splash Damage. I built Moze for pure splash, and Ammo Regen, and went hard.

It was FUN . I could use it on Mayhem 10.

I couldn’t boss with it, but I could run maps with it, and swap over to a Rad Lob with a 160% Splash Anoint to boss, and it was a FUN TIME. I was having fun playing Mayhem 10. I’ve been on record, here on the forums, stating that I didn’t enjoy Mayhem 10.

And then I found guns that works.

And then you gutted them, because despite how it was written, it wasn’t how you intended.

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#43

Do you have the 100 point Guardian Perk on? This was the source of a ton of my Element related crashes on multiple chars.

Turning it off, and I haven’t crashed nearly as often as before.