#72

If I want a Hellfire (which AFAIK is both a dedicated drop and world drop), I can easily get one very quickly by farming the Jabbermogwai. Even if the drop rate was super low, it’s going to be significantly faster than just waiting for a world drop. Like it’s not even comparable, especially when I can kill him super fast and reset right next to him (same as Graveward).

So first you suggest to lower overall drop rates, which means that now doing anything BUT farming dedicated drops would be less efficient.

Second, it would be impossible to add such a thing AND balance out world drops to make it exactly the same. One or the other would inherently be better, and almost definitely that would be farming the dedicated drop.

Right but the stats the devs see on the back end wouldn’t reflect this in the first month of the game. It would have taken a longer time for them to see that these builds were outperforming other builds. That’s not to say there wouldn’t have been nerfs, just that it would have happened over a longer period of time.

My whole point is that once you add dedicated drops to most of the gear in the game, it’s just a downward spiral from there. Nerfs would be more frequent since the overpowered stuff would pop up sooner. Future DLC will have a lot of BS in it to counter the fact such a large portion of the players have the absolute best loot already, because of how easy it was to all get. And players that would rather mob or do things other than kill the same boss would, inevitably, be FORCED to farm the same boss if they want anything.

Sorry I just don’t see how adding dedicated loot drops will actually benefit anyone except the people that just want everything right this second. And even then, it’s more likely just going to ruin the game in the long term.

They should make bosse like Graveward and Tyreen significantly harder then increase the loot drop chances to make a legendary items guaranteed to spawn on TVH/M3 (but not explicitly their dedicated drops, just they always drop SOMETHING). But to do the opposite, adding dedicated drops and reducing the chance of legendaries, doesn’t make things more efficient as it does actually just make it super easy.

#73

These are contradictory, and I doubt you get as many legendaries farming mobs over bosses.

And how is that anymore fun than killing the same boss over again for world drops? Load in and press E a couple times, quit, repeat.

That is not how balance works in a offline game like Borderlands.

Really bit BL2 in the ass huh? Not to mention that yearly loot hunt all the big content creators participate in. As well as the Gearbox organized ones like the rare enemy spawn week, or the one where BL2’s Fastball was buffed.

You don’t get better loot in the OP levels. And if you’re talking about the UVHM loot (only need level 62), difficultly is fine. Random difficultly in terms of this approach is not.

And now actual items, not just how fast you get them, are about to be locked behind an even worse mayhem.

Well that’s how games as a service work if that’s their intention. They need to implement things asap, or they’ll always be a joke. If they’re even around long enough to be one. And the point is it should have never existed as it is in the first place.

Would it make more sense if I said it was like this gun only gets $0.50 as a fire (female) gun, to every $1.00 a shock (male) gun gets? It is a blanket temporary nerf, instead of putting everything on an equal playing ground, and then equally making it more challenging.

Warframe has a similar mechanic. But you know what? It is restricted to 3 missions a day in terms of anything you will play on a remotely regular basis. There is only one restriction per mission, and that restriction is listed before you even click on it. And at the end you get some of the best rewards in the game. That is how you do random difficultly.

I know Gearbox. The old them before 2016 would do nothing about community complaints until years later.

And the current them will put on a guise that makes you think they’re listening to community feedback (only actually taking action to massive complaints like the bullet reflection), while continuing to march forward with their current view of balance without considering the community. All the while putting out just enough of the fires with minor QoL things like bank space, that should have been part of the game at the start.

Hopefully I’m wrong.

How does it make the game more fluid, or give it more options? By making it so you can play BL3, the save/quit simulator?

Except it’s those people that show the tactics to kill said bosses in efficient and new/unique ways. I challenge you to find another community here that is as alive as they are.

Plus they’re the people that let you know how the game actually works. Like I bet you don’t know that grenade damage increases how much damage Dexi takes when you pop a zit. Are you the type of person that finds out what is multiplicative and what’s additive? Etc…

Yes. The things that don’t even exist yet in this game. (raids)

Not to mention this is a problem, especially when they consider balancing things.

So why do they need to be “found” in the first 3 weeks? Heck. Javelineer Krieg is one of his strongest build, and I have no complaints what-so-ever that is was only founded a couple ago. You know why? Because I was still playing the game, and I haven’t dropped it over tedious unfun BS. Not to mention I highly doubt mayhem mode would have caused it to surface sooner. In fact, I doubt it would have surfaced at all.

Because it locks efficiency behind it as well.

Which is the worst argument ever, and shows it should not exist at all.

“Just quit your current session.”

Because they want to have fun with a certain gun. Not the green Torgue pistol in their hands, while they kill mobs for 6+ days for a skag to finally drop one with bad parts.

Working for something is fine, how they’ve done it is not. :arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left::arrow_left:

#74

How so?

And yes you can get tons of legendaries from mobbing. I’m constantly mobbing and having to clear my entire inventory regularly. People act like bosses are the only ways to get loot. No. Hell I’ve found legendary items in lockers and Skag piles. They are literally everywhere in this game.

Because it’s boring and repetitive? It requires no skill or thought? IT IS EASY?!?

I mean if you like easy rewards sure, fine. But I really don’t. I enjoy a bit of surprise when something drops. I enjoy doing a variety of things to get my gear.

It actually does work that way. When sometimes is too strong, it gets nerfed. I don’t see how the game being offline has anything to do with it.

Even considering all that, the loot drops are ABYSMAL compared to Borderlands 3. It’s not even a contest. I can find more legendaries running mobs for 30 minutes than farming any boss in Borderlands 2 for an hour. Like way more. There are exception, obviously, like Hadarax but he was added as a cherry on top to a game that was 7 years old, so it’s like who cares at that point, especially when the next game is right around the corner.

Also the “yearly” loot hunt was a one time thing, which not everyone (including myself) had participated in. Not sure why you mention this.

#75

You say mobbing is just as fast, and then you say killing Graveward is faster.

And opening chest like in the farmory isn’t?

How fast people get guns, and how many people have those guns, does not dictate how powerful a gun should be. In BL2 you can get the Pimp from a quest. Where as you can go through hell for an Ogre and it’s barely viable.

It’s also me pointing out how “meta-data” like that does nothing if it’s not in a controlled environment. Even disregarding stuff like save editors, just being offline means Gearbox has no stats on your usage data.

But just because the game-wide drop rates were increased doesn’t remove the need for dedicated drop sources.

There were 3 loot hunts in my post, this one referred to the community run annual loot hunt.

How do dedicated drop sources ruin your personal experience as a player if you prefer to get legendaries from killing mobs?

#76

You’re conflating several different points here. When I say dedicated drops don’t have any bearing on how quickly you get the drop you’re looking for, I mean dedicated drops don’t have any bearing on how quickly you get the drop you’re looking for. It could be ten minutes, it could be ten years, and the fact that the drop has a dedicated source has no bearing whatsoever on which it is. What I don’t mean when I say dedicated drops don’t have any bearing on how quickly you get the drop you’re looking for is that getting that drop from a dedicated source isn’t any faster than getting it from a general source. That would defeat the entire point of the dedicated source.

You’re conflating that point with a different point I made, which is that getting several different pieces of gear isn’t necessarily quicker with dedicated sources than with general sources.

Let’s suppose I need three specific pieces of gear. Each one has a higher chance to drop from a specific boss than they do from the general loot pool, but the bosses they drop from all have significantly lower drop rates for all other items. In such a scenario it might, depending on the specific rates, be faster to farm the general loot pool until I get one of the three or even two of the three, then farm dedicated sources for the remainder. And of course the discrepancy gets larger the more pieces I’m looking for.

The situation you’re imagining, where everyone farms dedicated sources because the general loot pool is so diluted that farming general sources is worthless, only arises if the specific drop rates allow it to, it is not categorically guaranteed by the mere presence of dedicated loot sources.

I really, really don’t know how to say it any more clearly, your concerns are orthogonal to what is actually being discussed.

And regardless of whether what you’re saying is true, the fact remains that people generally don’t enjoy pulling the lever on a slot machine over and over until they win the prize. You’re massively undervaluing how much the player experience is improved by the perception of agency in what is ultimately the game’s most fundamental loop.

#77

It is faster but not by much. I’d rather take a slightly lower drop rate where I’m actually playing the game than sit and kill the same guy over and over.

Yea that is easy too, but that doesn’t change my original point that bosses in this game are way too easy and give way too much of a reward. If they were more difficult then I could see the rewards they give being valid.

Eh it kind of does, since if it’s super easy to get the strongest item in the game that’s a problem. As for the Pimp, you had to do a mission and even though it was relatively easy it was a bit time consuming. Not to mention that you would have to farm the mission or reset after checking what kind of Pimp you got.

Yes it does, because adding dedicated drops just creates all these problems I keep mentioning.

Because it means more nerfs and more anti-OP mechanics in the future. Like really you guys don’t seem to understand that putting in dedicated drops means the developers now have to account for majority of the playerbase to have the absolute best gear/builds available. Just look at Hyperius and Master Gee. Both of those bosses were SPECIFICALLY designed so you can’t just use Conf Call + Bee or Shamfleet (though people still did find ways to do it that’s besides the point). Same with Voracidous. If it was harder for the average player to reach the perfect build these bosses wouldn’t have needed to be so stupid.

Dude, if a guy has dedicated drop X and I farm them for X I will, invariably, get X way way sooner than waiting for a world drop. I really can’t fathom how you don’t think this is the case, that’s what dedicated drops are for. To get the item you want SOONER rather than LATER. And if the devs can somehow magically make it the same as waiting for a world drop, then why even bother adding dedicated drops. Like you’re countering your own points here.

Hadarax chests would spawn with up to 3 legendaries sometimes. And he himself would usually drop 1 or 2. But you are still better off farming a specific boss for that dedicated drop than you are to farm Hadarax (with some exceptions like B-word or Sham, or anything from Warrior). I could get a Fastball by farming Boll way way faster than farming Hadarax. That’s basically what I’m saying in regards to world drops V dedicated drops.

This honestly seems like an impossibility to me. Either dedicated drops or world drops will end up being more effective, and more likely that will be dedicated drops. Plus like I said before, if it’s basically the same as waiting for a world drop why even bother adding a dedicated drop?

This is a valid point, but I repeat what Mr Ford said “If I asked people what they wanted they would say a faster horse.” In other words, there is probably a much better solution to this problem than adding dedicated drops, one most players don’t even know about. Hence why I offer my suggestion of increase drop rates for particular item types in certain locations. It does what you guys are asking without completely breaking the loot pool such that future content has to be built around the idea that majority will have the best of the best gear.

#78

Because, like I literally just said, the dedicated drop feels better. You’re not playing a slot machine anymore, you have agency. Even if the end result is completely identical, players will overwhelmingly prefer the dedicated source.

Man I really don’t know how to explain it any clearer than I just did, in the paragraph you suspiciously didn’t quote anything from. Go read it again and ask questions if you don’t understand.

I don’t understand why you think what you’re suggesting is any different than dedicated drop sources, I really don’t. If I’m looking for a specific shield, there’s genuinely no difference between farming a boss that has an increased chance to drop that particular shield and farming a boss that has an increased chance to drop all shields, assuming the rate at which the boss drops the shield I’m looking for is identical.

Now, if I was looking for multiple different shields…

#79

Fair enough.

I understand what you mean, I just don’t agree with it at all. Like I said, Hadarax can give you up to 5 legendary items pretty consistently. But if you want a specific piece of gear, or even a gear set, you are better farming that enemy than Hadarax (again with exceptions of Bunker/Warrior just because they are so incredibly stingy).

Because it’s harder to get the exact piece of gear you want, but you still have the ability to get a version of the gear you are looking for. That means less players will have perfect gear, which means less need to design the future content around this fact. It’s adding that agency you mention, but without causing this exact issue.

So if I want a Recharger with specific stats, I can farm an area and find Recharger shields more often (along with any other shield) but to get the very specific anointment or prefix will take more time than if this specific guy drops it.

Like really, if bosses weren’t so easily farmed and the guaranteed loot tink didn’t exist, then you wouldn’t have seen so many nerfs in the first month. They all still likely would have happened, but it would have been spread out over a longer period. So what should have happened within maybe 3 or 4 months happened in 2 weeks because everyone boosted to that perfect gear status so quickly.

Also yes, some players with a lot of dedication will get perfect gear no matter what you do. But what matters is how many players are at that point. A tenth of a percent? Not a big deal to leave in that overpowered stuff for a bit more time since it’s not as urgent to fix. 20% of players? Oh hell yea, nerf that stuff because it’s just killing the longevity of the game. In other words, one group are outliers while the other is a very large chunk of the player base. Devs don’t need to design around the outliers, but they do need to design around what most (or at least a lot of) players are doing.

#80

Well unfortunately for you, you’re wrong, and the reason is that you’re fixating on specific examples where this could have happened but didn’t and pointing to them as evidence that there are no circumstances where it can, when in reality it’s the specifics of those examples that prevented it from happening rather than the broader concepts.

Your area loot idea actually illustrates this pretty well. Suppose there are three shields you’re looking for, and then a whole bunch of other loot you don’t care about. One boss has a higher chance to drop those three shields than everything else, and three other bosses have a higher chance to drop one of the shields (a different one for each boss) than to drop the other two and everything else.

Surely it’s not hard to imagine the drop rates could be such that you, wanting all three shields, would get them quicker by farming the boss that drops all three until you get one, then farming the dedicated bosses for the other two than by farming the dedicated bosses to start with. Surely it’s not hard to imagine that although the drop rates for each individual shield are lower on that boss than on the other three, the chance to get any of the shields is higher.

That concept generalizes all the way out to what we’re actually talking about; the rates can be such that if you’re looking for a sufficient number of items you’re better off farming a general source until you get a few of them, then farming dedicated sources for all the rest.

Even within that “most” there’s tons of variance, to the point that determining what progression point you need to design around is a fool’s errand.

What I’m saying is that there shouldn’t be any point on the power curve that’s considered “too powerful” for existing content to no longer be relevant; if that’s the case then you’ve already failed. Nerfs may happen if you discover that, but they’re not happening because drop rates were too high, they’re happening because high drop rates uncovered a problem with your content pacing.

Nerfs don’t happen because players progressed too fast, they happen because the power ceiling turned out to be higher than intended. That’s not a progression issue, it’s an itemization issue.

#81

Did you play OP levels? The game even said “this will make the game significantly harder but with better loot.” Compare a max level non OP gun to an OP level 8 gun. You were way more locked in BL2 than you currently are in 3.

Yeah and I’ve said I don’t support the idea but will wait to see what exactly this all means.

#82

If you feel this way not only am I surprised you purchase the game but that you post on a forum dedicated to discussions of their games. They don’t consider the community makes zero sense. They cease to exist as a company without the community. What you seem to be saying is they aren’t doing exactly what I think they should be doing. Have you read threads on multiple forums dedicated to the game. What people want is all over the map.

5 different difficulty options in the base game. More options than it’s predecessor. You don’t have to save quit. I don’t. But you can if you like.

You’re talking about an optional mode ruining something that isn’t even in the game yet. Time trials are fine but games like this are not designed specifically for them in any way. I can’t imagine they would design a section and say “wait let’s not add this because it might detract from speedruns.”

Those are done under the parameters of already established gameplay sections. Good arguments exist for disliking many aspects of mayhem but the effect on speedruns isn’t one of them. People have designed builds centered around killing current bosses in no time. Maybe not timing to compete but the same idea. We have no idea if raid bosses will even be able to be ran under mayhem mode. My guess would be no but who knows.

You don’t like bullet reflect but you want to play on M3. An easy option exists to not have that on your playthrough of M3. Not ideal but it exists. I wasn’t a fan of the type of health regen UVHM had but if I wanted to play that I dealt with it. You don’t even have to play with the part you don’t like ever.

#83

I disagree. For BL2 to get all the items you wanted for your build, you had to do different quests, farm different enemies, kill different raids, farm different vendors etc. Until the addition of Uranus at the very end of the game’s life cycle there was no ‘win card’ to get all the good ■■■■, meaning players had to fight different enemies to get the loot they wanted for different builds. The main issue in BL2 was the drop rates being abysmal.

In BL1 the endgame was basically farm Craw (or Knoxx chest room before you could kill Craw), and in BL3 it’s just farm Graveward/Gigamind. In a completely randomized drop system there’s no reason to farm any enemy besides that boss which drops the most loot, which I fail to see how broadens the aspects of the game people play.

#84

You are conflating a bunch of other stuff to the point I was making, which is about my own opinion anyway.

#85

I totally disagree with your idea that the customer doesn’t know what they want, or help lead good design.

Seriously you think that?

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#86

What gets me is how people will get on here and say “If Mayhem 3 isn’t your thing due to modifiers then don’t play that difficulty, play less efficiently to get the weapons you wan’t” but then they applaud GB for nerfing weapons, as if those same players couldn’t simply not use them…

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#87

But that’s not higher drop rates like in mayhem, that’s just because then you’ll be using that gun on OP8…

It’s like comparing a TVHM gun to a UVHM gun. It’s not better loot, it’s just keeping the gear on level.

I do it because I’ve been around for a while and very active at times, and I really enjoyed BL1, 2, and TPS. I just hope something will click in them to save this franchise. But if this ship starts to take the route Battleborn did, you can be sure I’ll jump off it.

I mean within a session, how do the random modifiers increase fluidity and options?

Except for extremely popular people like Joltz who built their channels on a variation on this.

And it goes past raids too. Arenas are almost more popular to speedrun, such as Digipeak. And thus Proving Grounds, etc… in this game.

#88

See alot of posts wanting to keep world drops. The problem i see is you don’t have world drops now. Because graveward drops more and faster to kill he is the ONLY boss. Myself i’d like farming that didn’t involve 2 loading screens every 15 seconds. Targeted loot not going to work with current trash items either because there is 95 percent pure useless items will mean 95 percent pure useless target farms.

#89

You said OP levels didn’t have better loot. Now you’re trying to say that loot isn’t better at higher levels? Again the very definition of OP was that it had better loot. I’m wondering if you played OP with some of your statements.

If you wanted the best loot in the game you were forced to beat digistruck. Which was fine with me. But all we’re talking about with Mayhem is the ability to increase drop rates for the exact same items you can get in any mode.

It’s quite clear which one was “forced” more on a player to achieve the best loot.

#90

It doesn’t. There is no content locked behind OP levels. No skill points, guns, items, etc…

Using a level 72 gun on level 72 is in fact stronger than using a level 80 gun on OP8 99% of the time.

It was to overpower the enemies, and provides nothing but a more challenging experience.

Loot is un-effected in case all you’re doing is rattling off their marketing slogan for the DLC.

Again, efficiency compared to nothing.

#91

Yeah and using a level 30 on this game in normal on droughts is better than a 50
on mayhem 1. That’s irrelevant. Higher level loot is better loot I don’t even see how this is something we’re discussing. Do you see anyone trying to trade for a level 5 Lyuda?

Again in the actual description for the game mode they said it has better loot! It wasn’t marketing man. Try to play level 70 enemies with a level 70 gun and then use the same weapon but an op 6 gun and tell me which gun is better.

To get the best loot in BL2 you had to beat what almost everyone thought was a very difficult gauntlet. And I was completely fine with it. To get the best loot in BL3 you can play as easy as you want. Nothing else required.

To have a chance to get that loot quicker you can play on three different optional modes some that can actually buff your character and build. It’s not even a comparison on which thing is more restrictive for the average person.

We started out discussing it as the game is now. I’m not worried about mayhem 4 yet because we have no idea how it will play out.

It’s completely expected in these type of games that beating tougher things comes with better rewards. BL isn’t the only one that does it. It’s a classic carrot for people to play harder content. It’s why you have lootsploins after bosses and not after killing an average slag.

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