Well, if you reached m10 and you’re finding it easy, congratulations, you’re a great VH and you ‘completed the game’. But there’s no need for Gearbox to ruin the game yet again like they with Mayhem 2.0 just because some players can’t move on to another thing.
I’ll be sticking to M4 for now, maybe one day moving up to M6 because of the gear that’s locked in it, but that’s it. I hate bullet sponging gameplay and I don’t want to go to the trouble of getting the ‘right build’ and gear to make it more bearable.
Makes sense. If I had all the gear I wanted and was happy with the replayability of the current game, I’d probably feel the same way. But uncapping mayhem scaling doesn’t need to affect that take on the game; it just provides more options for players who want to push the difficulty as far as possible. Personally, I’m finding myself getting bored with the small waves of enemies, low drop counts, and lack of danger. But I love the art, game mechanics, storytelling, and occasional absurdity in the engagements; I just want to keep enjoying it as I build up my character, otherwise I don’t see the point in investing.
Best way for Gearbox to raise difficulty is to grab the ‘True Takedown Mode’ from the takedown missions and enable it in the whole game, so you would get the gameplay destined for 4 players just for a single one. More enemies, they hit hard and die harder (but not 100 times harder). Much better than ultimately multiplying everyone’s health by 100, make modifiers mandatory and make the gameplay pretty much the opposite of badass.
The problem is confusing Mayhem with difficulty. Random modifiers are NOT difficulty levels. That’s why there is such a balancing problem with this game is because they are trying to use random modifiers as some sort of difficulty level and it just doesn’t work. Before you go asking for infinite Mayhem Scaling ask yourself how you’re going to come up with the infinite number of modifiers and modifier combinations to make that happen.
Because it’s NOT going to work by simply adding health, armor, and shields to Mayhem 10 modifiers.
Yeah, definitely not what I meant. The modifiers are lame and add nothing to the game other than a chore for finding the least annoying combination. They could be fun, but immunity, lasers, and one-shot skulls are too gimmicky. What makes mayhem fun is the incremental multipliers, climbing up the ladder as you figure out the mechanics and pick up more synergistic gear, harder hitting enemies that don’t all melt with one tick of a status effect, and enjoying more legendary drops. I think modifiers should be completely reworked and only scale indefinitely if their combinations can’t nullify any damage types or abilities. If they simply added mutually exclusive buffs to the enemies and players, then indefinite scaling and combinations could be way more exciting than exhausting.
narfkeks
(May this forum rest in peace - Davin Dittrich)
#26
Probably 5 years ago I made comments that Borderlands as a series would greatly benefit from more personal customization in the difficulty department. People were mixed on it as it would lead to very inconsistent matchmaking, which back then I already said people could just figure it out for themselves or Gearbox could make those custom options a variable that each player gets scaled to individually, just like we have it now with co-op gameplay regarding levels.
My idea was to have the basic OP levels (now it’s basically just OP levels plus modifiers) and add sliders to the OP difficulty, which would become a part of our basic character menu, just like we have it now with Mayhem mode.
And my idea was to have a slider in 10% steps from -90% to +900% in base health or in damage resistance. Resistance would probably be more sensible due to numbercreep, which would otherwise pollute the screen. And the thing is this: This secondary slider would neither reward nor punish you for the way you adjust difficulty as it’s just your personal way to play. The baseline however would be the Mayhem Mode you play on. That way we’d have 2 layers of difficulty that players could adjust very close to their own liking to play the game exactly the way they want it.
I would also just add a 1.5 times multiplier to the Mayhem stat bonuses (except loot and money) as a trade-off to turn off the modifiers themselves. Basically: Tankier enemies in exchange for the modifiers. I think people would very often gladly take that option.
Edit: Overall I just think that Borderlands as a franchise could benefit from those more personal scaling decisions, including said secondary scaling for every new playthrough even the very first one, which would lead to very funny playthroughs where you could basically start a fresh character and straight up go against enemies with 90% damage reduction. That way even the most casual of casuals and the most try-hard of try-hards would be satisfied.
You could add a slider for damage too, but I’m not sure how far past 100% (regular damage) that one should go. But I think that a slider from 10% to 300% would be reasonable enough. Sure, only taking 10% of the usual damage would make the game a cakewalk for most, but why not give people the option? It wouldn’t really hurt anyone.
Nope game is fine. Don’t like it? Play something else. Same thing I told people who complain about games being too hard (like sekiro), I’ll say to people who complain about games being too easy.
narfkeks
(May this forum rest in peace - Davin Dittrich)
#28
While that’s a valid opinion to have, for the business it’s very unwise if you have not defined your game’s reputation around difficulty and want to grow the franchise. I’m perfectly fine with how the game’s difficulty is right now, but that doesn’t mean that making it adjustable would hurt it. In fact I can almost guarantee that Borderlands as a franchise would profit from that. And that’s where the priorities should be, at least long-term: Growth.
What a blissful life you must lead, coasting through the world accepting or rejecting everything at face value, never pushing against things in a desire to change them, never wondering if something could be better or different, just tranquilly accepting the fundamental truth that things merely are.
My life is blissful, but not for the reasons you mentioned tyvm. The game gives you plenty of none meta options to choose from. Plenty. If you choose to run full meta loadout and complain that the game is too easy, then I guess the game is not for you. Probably should move on.
I’ve been playing on mayhem 4, with mayhem 4 gear, for the past 3 weeks. I am really enjoying the gameplay.
The enemies are still a challenge, and bosses provide a good fight. There are only 2 modifiers and the majority of weapons are viable and enjoyable to use. Of course, there are some weapons that are far more powerful than others, but that’s expected.
This has given me a chance to use weapons and other gear that are unusable at higher levels. Additionally, you don’t need anointments on your gear to be successful.
Depending on the build, M10 enemies aren’t bullet spongey. It’s only spongey on builds that don’t meet up that Mayhem level.
In fact it’s the same impression we had from M1.0 when coming from M1-3 to M4. Players were complaining M4 was bullet spongey and it was until we got the right build for M4.
Exactly. It seems spongey when first trying out a new build or a higher mayhem level, but there are plenty of builds that simply wreck M10. Some builds feel OP, but they wouldn’t if we could simply scale up to M12 or something like that. Gearbox designers and devs might have different opinions on how few builds should be viable at the highest mayhem levels, but plenty of players could benefit from the option for using a unique build on a specific mayhem level that matches their play style and what they want to get from the game. If players want to use a build that does more than a billion damage, they should be able to specify a game environment that still provides the kind of challenge and rewards they’re looking for. It’s not like there are player rankings or competitions that would suffer from opening up the customization a bit more.
The only gear people care about is M10 gear. If Mayhem levels were to go beyond 10, and the best loot only comes from those higher levels, then the only gear people will want is whatever the new max mayhem level is. If that level is too difficult for most players then they will complain en masse until its changed back. The only way i see to accomplish this is to add special “challenge levels” that don’t also reward better loot/items.
