It has been a few months with plenty of time for people to experience (or at least read about) Arms Race and give some serious thought to what might make it better or more interesting. So in that spirit, I reach out to the community once more for ideas and feedback on what could be done to improve on the original core idea of Arms Race.

I am also curious on people’s feedback to my own idea of expanding AR into a full blown game show theme as well as the ideas presented by others above. Thanks again to all who responded the first time around and to all who choose to respond going forward.

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Tbh most idea would work and be a success … just have to wait until gearbox does something other than this mini event …

Personally , if they can improve even slightly on the concept , it will be good to me . It’s fun , im enjoying it a lot . But i also see that a lot of the gear i need to farm DOES not drop from it . So being limited to only 1 zone with dedicated drops and rarely any other legendaries from the base game …

Arms Race should have been in way more zones …covering way more loot

Dlc 5 Stormbind complex , requires dlc 5
Dlc 1-4 , 1 for each in a new zone , requires the specific dlc to play those
Base game , 5 zones , requires base game to play .

Edit: i know that 10 maps , but its all reused assets and items … i could make those with a map editor tbh

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Perhaps make it more Rogue-like? Make subsequent runs inherit some stuff from previous ones, I don’t know, perhaps if I wipe out there - resurrect me with loot I already collected in previous runs?

Right now I see 3 reasons to play it:

  • Exclusive loot - my main reason for now, but I can see it becoming boring once I got what I want.
  • Adrenaline rush - it is more stressful IMHO, because of time, Murdercane, need to evaluate new loot quickly.
  • Pure gunplay and most guns viable - less of a factor for me, I have plenty of allegiance characters who used everything already.
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Let’s us use our equipment and skills. This dlc is a load of rubbish put together by lazy programmers

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The simplest way is to have different types of enemies spawn in. There should be a version with COV/Pandora creatures, Maliwan/Eden 6 and Promethea creatures, and Guardians/Nekrotafayo creatures. Final boss should switch around too.

I’d also like if the entire map is available at the start and the murdercane timer only starts after you open the first red chest.

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This, so much.

Honestly, I’ve stopped wasting time and mental energy trying to figure out how to make Arms Race playable, let alone fun. The closest I’ve come to “enjoying” it was making a USB backup save to drop in Troubleshooters without burning through all my VC keys.

That said, I don’t think further elaborating on the Game Show aspect is any kind of solution. That was the most forgettable, gimmicky part of the concept, IMO.

If they’re not just gonna let us use the action skills that make each VH play uniquely, at least give us 3 action skill “tokens” to use per round, with others dropping as about often as Legendaries (but not in place of).

Increase dedicated drops in chests.

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That’s a really good idea about different map versions. I’ve played Arms Race exactly twice. Pitiful piece of content.

I’m still miffed they never added a Peak type run, using all the game’s bosses.

Just so many missed opportunities with this game it’s baffling. Unless it’s on purpose. Hmm.

3 Likes

I’d like to see a revamp of the hurricane mechanics most of all, because your exploration of the map and access to chests is tied to it’s movement. Which pretty much forces you to just get some decent shock / corrosive weapon then go straight for the boss and not waste more time.

The murdercane is bad enough without them locking off portions off the map until you kill all the enemies. How about you let me see if my loot is even there first, then I’ll decide how much time/effort your trash mobs are worth?

Also, STOP KICKING ME TO COVENANT PASS WHEN I LOAD MY GAME. YOU CAN’T SAVE-QUIT FARM HARKER ANYWAY, SO JUST LET ME SAVE IN STORMBLIND COMPLEX FAST TRAVEL ROOM.

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Add other random bosses besides Harker and get rid of Mayhem mode in general so that the Binary Operator and other weapons are worth keeping

That’s it. That’s all. Screw removing the Murdercane or adding skill points/action skills.

Edit: Oh, and heal all players who had a health reducing artifact before coming to the Storm Complex of course. And make class mods more frequent.

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Agree with the covenant pass thing. That’s annoying. You should be able to just fast travel back to the starting point and start over without having to save/quit.

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Oh yeah, that too. Weird how that happens.

Progression
Arms Race orbits around the idea of getting to certain chests in certain rooms around the map, right? How about a progression system like this:

  • Start the same as always.
  • After opening the first chest, you unlock the ability to use action skills and enemies go up by 1 level.
  • If you open a second chest, you unlock 5 skill points and enemies go up 2 levels.
  • Each subsequent chest gives you 5 more skill points and enemies keep going up by levels.

They’d need to balance it a little, because guns you’re picking up would get outlevelled, but if they balance the number of skill points given against the progression of the enemies it could work. The next idea would also help.

Where the wind takes you
Farming Arms Race for specific weapons can be annoying because the storm is predetermined before you get in. I was farming for a lv.72 Trickshot the other day and found my chances of getting one would be extremely restricted based on where the circle was. If it was in the wrong place, my chances were extremely reduced.

How about when you get in, the whole map is open and then the position circle is chosen by which chest you go for? For example, if I go for the Plasma Coil chest then the circle will begin closing from there and if I go for the Hotfoot Teddy chest then I will get a different circle?

Aesthetics
I get that they don’t want to do a whole new map, so how about some things to change it up? We could see it in summer time with grass or have a run take place at sunset with purple and red skies colouring the map.

Smaller things

  • Killing revenants should always drop dedicated Arms Race legendaries.
  • Maybe, as an additional option to extracting gear, you should be able to “send it forward.” This would make the gear available in a future run. However, you have to pick it up from an area of the map which is heavily guarded. If you can fight your way in, you can get the gear from a previous Arms Race run.
  • I’m sure there’s a bunch of other fantastic ideas above, such as being able to fast travel back to the start for more runs without having to save/quit.
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Nobody seems to care about console load times for previous gen players. It’s frustrating. I’m not even bothering with AC Valhalla anymore because of that. Not until I get a series X or S. And BL3 load times are atrocious. Very noticeable when I crossplay with my pc friend and he’s in the map 30 to 60 seconds before me.

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At the very least let us find and use a machine that affects the storm. Perhaps it would recenter the storm around your current location. But the simpler thing is what you guys suggest (start the storm based on where/when you open a red chest).

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Slightly off-topic, but yes - upgrading to Series S is a huge improvement for load times (occasional crashes - not so much :frowning: ). And S series seem to be plentiful these days (saw a bunch of them at local Costco just yesterday). Give yourself a nice Christmas present :slight_smile:

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I timed the loads on a P4 slim. It’s 3 minutes to start the game to character. Then it is another 1 to 2 minutes depending on what area the character is in. I usually switch to cable while B3 loads.

I’m playing on a PS4 Pro, and it’s not great. Been thinking about trying a reinstall.

I don’t mind crashes as much when the load time is faster.

Extracted non-Arms Race exclusive guns/grenades receive a card damage bonus depending on rarity.

  • White - 0%
  • Green - 15%
  • Blue - 30%
  • Purple - 60%
  • Legendary (world drops) - 15%

This would be denominated on the weapon card, such as Mayhem Level 10 - Extracted

This would improve Arms Race as a hunt for any good gear, as well as the game wide viability of world drops & non-legendary gear without the need to rebalance them across the board. A lucky roll would feel more rewarding because of its AR-exclusive rarity and boosted status.

Basically AR would introduce a rarity+ and could add a lot of interest in and out of the mode.

6 Likes