So first let me say I do enjoy the game and I do enjoy Gearbox as a developer. This game brought back the familiar character and humor of Gearbox that The Pre-Sequel seemed to be lacking. I’ve put thousands of hours in the Borderlands series and I’ve been trying to figure out why I haven’t been playing this that much.
I enjoy the humor, the story, the operations, the uniqueness of each character, and multiplayer. I’ve played through the campaign multiple times, on multiple difficulty levels, and with multiple characters but every time I’m done with a session I almost feel exhausted. For someone who can easily put in 8 hour sessions this was weird so I was trying to figure it out.
After some thought I realized it feels like I’m pushing a lead weight around the map. The characters just feel to slow and even the jump height doesn’t seem to fit with the overall feel of the game. The characters are always getting stuck on the smallest things, open spaces feel like an endless desert, and it only seems to feel right when you have a speed boost from a crate.
Is it just me? Well, I starting comparing other games and trying to rule out things that might be affecting my perception. I loaded Borderlands 2 back up and overall it feels much better. The running speed is only slightly faster but when you combine that with the jump height you feel a lot more mobile. I know if you get a little to crazy with the FOV slider it can affect the perception of speed. So, I adjusted it to the same settings and Battleborn still feels much slower. I compared it to games like The Division which is definitely slower, but it feels right in the context of a more realistic environment.
Well maybe it’s the character I’m using? I’ve tried a lot of characters including ones that people say are faster and ones that fly as well. I still feel like I’m trudging through tar. Even characters with flight feel great when you do a special attack and then it’s immediately back to pushing a boulder up a hill. Even putting on speed boost mods don’t seem to make much of a difference. In an environment of superhumans and aliens you kind of expect to have a bit more mobility.
I know there is some consideration of movement speed and balancing with the more MOBA like PVP and changing it could potentially negatively affect it. However, I’m not looking for twitch shooter speeds. Even half of the boost you get from crates would be amazing or possibly a dash on a cool down would bridge the gap.
Just my thoughts, wondered if anyone else felt the same, and I’m curious about the dev’s thoughts.
