Well, there was in BL2. And then in TPS, because in a lot of ways it was BL2 under the hood. There wasn’t in BL1 though. And in BL2/TPS you could not level your characters to 50 entirely in NVHM; neither could you reset your game in TVHM.
So BL3 does several things differently from previous titles - it downplays TVHM but swaps in Mayhem modes. Which has me wondering whether Mayhem 2.0 will be the alternative to a third play-through.
Think again. True mode is now optional, Normal mode scales all the way to 50 (albeit through Mayhem). They already mentioned that no additional rarities will be added. And this is jsut naming a few things.
I’d much rather see a challenge arena that gives skill points for completion. Kind-of like OP levels. Except, gated behind Mayhem 2.0 levels and extremely difficult.
It’s just really hard to see how things will work out with a level cap increase when you can get mayhem levels at like lvl 30. Mayhem makes leveling absolete, like content will ONLY be more challenging with Mayhem. Changing character level won’t change anything because everything scales properly. It’ll just create a complete slog of re-farming gear to level. That’s it. All of that for a few extra skill points, that’ll make the game even easier without mayhem.
I’m assuming this is going to be the case. I don’t expect a UVHM this time around. The whole Normal/TVHM/UVHM idea was clearly ripped from Diablo 2’s Normal/Nightmare/Hell modes, whereas Mayhem modes are clearly a riff on Diablo 3’s Torment modes - which is a much better system. I expect that UVHM isn’t in their plans as it really isn’t needed.
There are some fundamental differences here though. The MMOs usually introduce a whole host of new items to replace the old items when an expansion comes out, so you’re farming for totally new gear. Borderlands usually just makes you refarm the mostly same exact items.
I didn’t realize Diablo 3 did this because I played after the expansion was released, but that was only one time and Diablo has a boat load of RNG reducing methods (Kadala, Kanai Cube, Mystic re-rolling, Smart Loot system, etc.) that make farming for a new character very easy. BL3 doesn’t have any of this, so making you re-farm the same items with a loot system that makes farming specific anointments very difficult is a bad combination. If BL3 ups the cap and doesn’t let us power up our current stuff, they need to add some RNG reducing mechanics to ease the pain of farming substantially IMO.
I completely agree. I don’t see UVHM being a thing, unless they can really differentiate it from mayhem. It wouldn’t even make the game difficult. Mayhem 4 shows us that even increasing things 10-26 times the normal value is able to be completed. They’d probably up the elemental damage, like from normal to TVHM, which would technically make the mode easier than previous modes. Like TVHM is technically easier than Normal if you element match. I can see them only being able to increase damage values. That’s it. But that’s going down the wrong path, honestly, into “healthgate and heal fast enough” territory.
Man can you imagine them trying to balance a level cap increase I can see all the nerfs now .
Agree @mattm33 that TVHM is a simple name without any real benefits to gameplay.
As I said many times, they wasted a good opportunity to bring diversity and reasoning. In the same way they will most probably loose the opportunity to use eridium, gun-gun and eridium tech to bring true dynamic into the game and properly use the current resources.
However this have little to do with the current topic subject.
I only hope that if the gameplay they envision will require additional skill points, to do it without increasing the cap level. There are plenty of ways to do it. Personally if I need to farm all my gear again because of the level, to farm over and over again the same dedicated drop… I’m totally out. Makes no story sense. Hopefully the game core design it allows it!
I agree that the execution is different but it seems to have the same effect: reducing or even invalidating power creep from months of farming “perfect” items and creating an equal and controllable playing field. All types of this process have pros and cons.
By completely replacing those items the devs have to constantly create new stuff (or slightly more powerful ripoffs of old stuff). Consequently power creeps becomes faster and faster while scaling of enemies and basically all game mechanics increases in exponential growth. Then they have to reset the scaling and all the power to an equal level from time to time. IMO that’s way worse than the Borderlands approach. I recall the thousands of players happy to play a game like Guild Wars 2 without all those mechanics but finite gear progression. Ultimately, a few weeks after release the forums were flooded with requests for a loot treadmill and people getting bored due to barely anything else to achieve and a huge part of the community was gone.
By just increasing possible gear level with expansions like in Borderlands you get way more options (old and new gear) but you have to accept that you might end up farming the exact same item again if it happens to surpass the new options or you simply like it better. Another advantage of this approach is probably an easier way of balancing all the items relative to each other without increasing the scaling fundamentally (BL2 did it anyway which lead to other problems). It’s just not as exciting as “all new stuff” in the short term while the treadmill becomes more apparent, at least for the non-casual players.
That would definitely be a good solution for those who absolutely want best items but don’t want to farm again. In the end it’s probably a question of time and resources (money).
That is definitely a whole other concern. They are already having enough balance issues with things like FL4K’s pets and Moze’s Iron Bear, I can’t imagine how much worse things would get with increased scaling. If health gating ever becomes a necessary thing again, count me out.
So far, from what I have read, the reasons why some folks prefer the level cap raise are:
To extend the longevity of the game (but others have already pointed out that just really means an extra 3hrs to 1 day of longevity)
To add difficulty and make enemies difficult again (well isn’t that what Mayhem is for? GB will introduce Mayhem 2.0, or maybe M5, M6, M7. Raising difficulty by level cap isn’t convincing)
They just enjoy leveling. That’s it. No other reason (Cool, that’s your thing).
To mitigate power level creep (but for how long. Do we keep raising the level cap once we reach max power levels?)
This is tradition (well, did BL3 really follow everything in its tradition. If it did not, then why not?)
Sure. So, if they raise the level cap, it needs to be a different model than BL2. Basically they need to allow things to people so they can compensate for having 300+ level 50 items made “obsolete”.
I agree with you but I thought the reason it won’t be like that is because BL has to respect its tradition? I haven’t played BL1 so I have no idea if that was really the case.
You all just don’t want to lose your perfect crutch weapons, that’s it. So you go after the basic game mechanics that have been present since bl1.
In BL1 it was a bit weird. Elemental gear had a ridiculous longevity because DOT always scaled with the character. Something like a half decent Hellfire could last 30 levels. Mordecai was stil well versed with a lvl50 maliwan revolver at 69.
It kind of fell on BL2s harsh scaling (and TPS’ I think), that made it so absolutely glaring that gear had to be farmed again. And even if 3s is softer, gear stil has a notable drop-off.
Games evolve and change with each iteration. BL1 and 2 doing something has nothing to do with BL3. Should we remove instanced loot too since BL1 and 2 didn’t have it? What about 3 action skills instead of 1? How about sliding and mantling?
To be fair, it’s more like 10 per character: 4 guns, COM, relic, grenade, shield… Nobody is going to be out there re-farming Lobs, Woodblockers, Krakatoas etc. 
This is a core mechanism, that hasn’t changed throughout all borderlands games. If they don’t raise the cap they will lose more players than they already have. Truth be told this game has TANKED. Plain and simple, they cannot afford to lose anymore players.
It sure helped The Pre-Sequel 
Exactly. And probably 90% of what people horde in their vaults is never used.