Borderlands 3: What if these were the DLCs we Paid for?

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

If Borderlands 3 only included the main story as the base game which of these would you have purchased if it was only available as DLC?

  • TVHM
  • Level Cap Increases
  • The Trials
  • The Takedowns
  • Mayhem Mode I
  • Mayhem Mode II
  • New Character Models I & II - Final Forms & Children of the Vault
  • Arms Race
  • Four new Skill Trees
  • Hemovorous Raid
  • Cirlces of Slaughter 1-3
  • Vault Cards 1-3
  • Bloody Harvest
  • Broken Hearts Day
  • Revenge of the Cartels
  • Handsome Jackpot
  • Guns Love and Tentacles
  • Bounty of Blood
  • Fantastic Fustercluck
  • Murder Mysteries

0 voters

At this point I think everyone has exhaustively explained why they are happy with their purchase or why they regret it, or decided to save their money, so we don’t really need to go overboard explaining that again here. But if you want to share your ideal Base Game, and ideal season pass content from what we have listed above, go for it down below.

For example, if we had to pay for Level Cap Increases, what increments would you prefer?
Or, do you feel Hemovorous should have been part of a DLC like Crawermax was, or come as part of the base game like Terramorphous or be hidden in a mechanic like Vermivorous?

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2021 Twelve Polls of Christmas
#2

OK, I’ll bite:

Both Handsome Jackpot and Guns, Love & Tentacles I would consider as full-blown DLCs.

The Takedowns, The Trials, The Circles of Slaughter, Hemovorous Raid and TVHM I would consider as pieces of bundles. I would bundle each main item with a Level Cap Increase to create a full DLC as GBX has done with past franchise games. For example:

  • DLC-A: Circles of Slaughter + a Level Cap Increase to 50
  • DLC-B: The Trials + a Level Cap Increase to 62
  • DLC-C: Both Takedowns + a Level Cap increase to 72
  • DLC-D: TVHM + Hemovorous Raid + a Level Cap Increase to 80

Bloody Harvest and Broken Hearts Day are sort of like Headhunter Packs, only not as good. So, to me they are a mini-DLC at best. Revenge of the Cartels is a stronger entry, so it rates as a full Headhunter Pack-like value, but not necessarily a complete DLC. In other words, all three could be sold as standalone items for really cheap or bundled with others.

There is too much content for one season pass so there needs to be two, three if you include the rest of the content that I did not choose in the poll. Therefore, from a marketing perspective creating Season Passes with the above would require shifting things around a bit to make the passes more balanced. In that light, I would bundle them as follows, in the order that I specify below:

Season Pass One = Handsome Jackpot + DLC-A + Bloody Harvest and Broken Hearts Day + DLC-B
Season Pass Two = Guns, Love & Tentacles + DLC-C + Revenge of the Cartels + DLC-D
Season Pass Three = all the rest because I could not care less about any of it, and I don’t want that content mucking up my core experience or costing me real $.

If I was being impartial, I would mix up the Season Pass bundles differently to optimize marketing for GBX. But since the thread is asking for ideal season pass according to the player, I feel more than justified in the above. :grin:

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#3

What would be the time table for your Season Passes?

For me, I think any content that has mission rewards that can only be obtained once, and non-farmable bosses should not be packaged with the base game, even if it’s free, because if there are level cap increases, people will feel ripped off that they have to start a new character (or playthrough) to get that gear.

I would have the first Season Pass include the Takedowns, Circles of Slaughter, Trials, and Arm’s Race along with 12 Levels, bringing the cap to 62. An additional level would be unlocked every month, one Takedown every 6 months after release of the first. One Circle of Slaughter every 4 months after release of the first. One Trail every two months after release of the first, the Raid on a gap month, and Arm’s Race at launch, which would unlock once you beat the main story and unlock TVHM (included with base game, NVHM is level capped at 25 and scaled appropriately). TVHM will mainly be used to play these repeatable arenas and game types with them scaling to your level.

Sep - Arms Race + 1 level
Oct - Trial + 1 level
Nov - Circle of Slaughter + 1 level
Dec - Trial + 1 level
Jan - Maliwan Takedown +1 level
Feb - Trial + 1 level
Mar - Circle of Slaughter + 1 level
Apr - Trial + 1 level
May - Hemovorous Raid +1 level
June - Trial + 1 level
July - Circle of Slaughter + 1 level
Aug - Gaurdian Takedown + 1 level

The Second Season Pass would include Story content and seasonal events. Each Murder Mystery would be release individually like Head Hunter Packs, because that’s essentially what the maps are, but with a connecting narrative thread. In addition the fourth skill trees will be released to open the season pass and Mayhem Mode will unlock once level 72 is reached.

Sep - Skill trees + 1 level
Oct - Bloody Harvest + 1 level
Nov - Murder Mystery+ 1 level
Dec - Handsome Jackpot + 1 level
Jan - Murder Mystery +1 level
Feb - Guns, Love, and Tentacles & Broken Hearts Day + 1 level
Mar - Murder Mystery + 1 level
Apr - Revenge of the Cartels + 1 level
May - Murder Mystery +1 level
June - Bounty of Blood + 1 level
July - Mayhem Mode (includes Alternate Character Models)
Aug - Fantastic Fustercluck

Why save the Story content till year two??? Maximum time to make it as expansive and fulfilling as possible for narrative content and creative execution of level design and game play mechanics at end game.

#4

For mine, I assumed the timetable would be as per normal, so 1 release roughly every 3 months for a total of 4 per Season Pass. I already laid out the progression above (each “+” represents the start of the next DLC within a season pass).

As far as level caps go, only the final level cap date is important to certain people, since that is when the farm till you drop activity for endgame builds, etc. begins to happen. And my preference for that is at the very end of all (relevant) DLCs. The spacing is therefore laid out to allow people a chance to advance levels while playing the DLCs, which is my personal ideal. it gives me a satisfying feel of progression as I play through. I am never in a hurry to get to endgame status when I play a new game, or ever replay an old one. For me, endgame includes the re-playability of the main game and its (story-driven) DLCs.

I have the first DLC as story content, because story content is the best and strongest of all DLC’s for me. If all DLCs could be full blown storylines, I would be in heaven. But since there are only two that I care about, I broke them up between the two season passes to balance the value of each. Otherwise, I would drop some of the other content altogether (Guardian Takedown, Bloody Harvest and Broken Hearts Day, all of which are “meh” in my opinion), and only have one season pass. But heh, that is just me.

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#5

What through me off was that for Borderlands 3 Season Pass One and Season Pass two spanned two years, but since you mentioned there needing to be a third season pass, it gave me the impression that you might accelerate the the rate of release, or opt to include some items with the base game.

We do know that Bounty of Blood and Fustercluck were impacted by Covid Lockdowns, so it’s 20:20 hindsight on my part allowing more time for their development (and the Murder Mysteries) to make sure the quality is sustained for those DLCs. By putting Mayhem Mode at the Tail end, that also means having more time to balance it. So there’s some built in retconning in my suggestions. But another way to look at it is as a prescriptive suggestion for future game development and release cycles.

#6

There is/was too much content for one year’s worth of season pass if I include everything I selected on the list, based on the above assumption. If you include all content from the list, I would then say that is three years’ worth (or at least more than two and a half years’ worth). Since I don’t care about roughly one third of it, I lumped all the stuff I don’t care for into Season Three, so that I don’t have to pay for any of it. The rest has varying degrees of value for me, but I thought I would be generous and include all of it, hence two years’ worth of Season Passes.

The underlying premise here is that for me, multiple years of content releases is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. So no, why on earth would I want to accelerate the release of any of it? To be fair, I guess in a sense I did that by allocating the stuff I like in Years One and Two and the crap I have no interest in into Year Three (or not at all).

If we are going into complete fantasy land, then a total rewrite of the base game, retooling of Bounty of Blood and a reconceptualizing of DLC4 would be on my list, plus expanding Bloody Harvest and Broken Hearts Day into full-blown Headhunter Packs, and adding three additional lairs/headquarters, one for each Cartel, to Revenge of the Cartels as a prep to gaining access to Joey’s mansion. I would also redo the Guardian Takedown to make it worth playing.

If we are giving GBX time to “fix things” and “do them right”, then they would not have screwed up the base game narrative with the whole Maya/Ava/Lilith debacle and I would happily partake in the Murder Mystery DLC as well. Also, if wishes can come true, we would have 6 VHs not 4, and there would be no additional skill trees. Also, Arms Race would be expanded to a full-blown game show format with multiple formats.

But I thought that the exercise was to deal with the reality of what was already published with no changes save for repackaging as we saw fit. Am I off the mark there?

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#7

Probably.

My conceit about my sequencing didn’t involve anything besides what DLC came out when and in what packages. I mentioned my rationale because it directly addressed a specific complaint about the length of Fustercluck, and to a lesser degree Bounty of Blood.

It’s fine to point out overarching ideal scenarios, but the topic is DLC pricing vs. quality.

#8

none of them and not even BL3 at that point because the base game would ve been so bare-bones that it simply wouldnt ve been worth 60 bucks to me. Additionally I considered the main story such an annoyance and let-down that playing through that would ve deterred me from purchasing anything else.

We really shouldnt reward cash grabs as players. BL3 on release felt like one.

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#9

One way to look at this would be to say that anything under a simple majority vote was only fit to be included with the base game, and at this stage that would be (out of the 61 individual voters, a sizable minority in the grand scheme of things, but possibly enough for a focus group):

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In all honesty, to my eyes that feels about right, with the exception of maybe Bloody Harvest.

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#10

all of these with no powercreep

none of these with what happened

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#11

If you just bought the base game, it was a mistake. I got everything with my purchase.

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#12

Depending on when people bought the game, there was no way to get everything until recently. People who bought the version of the game with all DLC weren’t grandfathered in for Season Pass 2 and had to buy that separately. That means that anyone who bought any version of the game or bundle prior to 15 months after its release was obligated to make an additional purchase. Now, as can be told by forum posts, many weren’t really happy with Season Pass two so being charged for it or having the freedom to forgo it was fine by them, but the Level Cap increases and game updates that were intended to make way for the game-changing updates to Mayhem, Skill Trees, and loot drops changed the experience of the game they bought.

I’m coming from the perspective of looking at all the included content in the base game and seeing if there was a way to package different side quests and events with DLC to make the Season Passes feel like a better value. In addition to that, looking at what elements of the game undermined or conflicted with others (Mayhem Mode vs. TVHM being one, and Unsolicited Level Caps vs. Endgame Activities being another).

#13

Whether or not I would have paid for them depends entirely on the price. Would I pay a couple of dollars for a single headhunter DLC in Borderlands 2? Yes. Would I pay $30 for Arms Race and a new skill tree? No. Never. As far as I’m concerned, DLC like Arms Race and Ava’s Murder Mysteries were no more involved and provided no more gameplay than the $2.99 headhunter packs from DLC2, so why is Gearbox charging half the price of a complete game for Arms Race plus a new skill tree for each vault hunter or half the price for a complete game for Ava’s junk and a single raid boss?

I paid the money for Season 1 DLC because it was 4 complete campaigns for $30. That works out to $7.50 per campaign, with each campaign providing a story and around 4 hours of new content to play through. Using that as the baseline, DLC like Revenge of the Cartels or Arms Race was sold separately they should be no more than $3. And DLC that added 0 hours of new gameplay should cost no more than $1.

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