Dear Gearbox: Weapon Balancing is NOT helping this game's longevity

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#21

Totally agree. Balancing the loot properly should allow players to use a variety of items and still play to a similar standard.
The problem is that isn’t what’s happened. Gearbox looked at what they’d made (and failed to test properly) and saw some items were something like 120% overpowered, so they nerfed them down to 20% overpowered and ignored the items that were - and are - 120% underpowered, compared to the norm. Not all items should be equally powerful or useful, but items of the same rarity and type should feel similar in power and that’s not the case.
We still have a game where a handful of items are needed to play at high levels. I recently played the Takedown with normal gear - all legendaries and powerful purples, all anointed - and found it really difficult. I kept losing, over and over. I got some advice, grabbed a cutsman and started again on the same difficulty. I was genuinely annoyed at how easy it was then. All the advice on beating the Takedown amounts to “get these specific items and then just do it”, rather than “get good gear and follow some of these tactics”. I get that some items should be better at certain bosses/areas than others, but having one or two items that are the only possibilities for an enemy/area is a cheap tactic to force players to farm for those items, in order to play the game.

Yes, exactly. Balancing the VHs to allow different builds to be possible, without some being wildly underpowered, is crucial. Otherwise the game gets boring.

I enjoyed it as well. It was flawed, in some ways, but I hope they bring it back as a permanent addition that you can turn on and off, instead of just a seasonal event.

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#22

I can agree with trying to make the game better but i just feel like no matter what they do some people are never gonna be happy. I have 2 versions of every character at lvl cap bud. I realized early the importance to this because of these annointments i was seeing. Doing this allowed me to experience the game in a lot different forms. And the evolution of the experience has been an exciting reward for the grind. But to me it doesn’t even feel like a grind. Its just pushing me to try new builds and realize there is a use for every piece of gear. Im sorry your dissatisfied and hope you find happiness somewhere.

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#23

The problem is a matter of priorities and perception. If all people see is nerfs, that’s all they will think about. Additionally, all the vault hunters still aren’t really balanced as far as their trees go, so at this point nerfing is kind of an exercise in futility in my opinion as real heavy balancing shouldn’t be done until everyone is at a good place so that a more informed decision can be made on what to change with the whole picture in front of you. Imagine nerfing something, then buffing something else that has a snowball effect that requires even more nerfing or rebalancing because they changed stuff.

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#24

Borderlands 1 and 2 still have tens of thousands of daily players, yet you feel the “kneel to my needs” is a method of engaging via a threat as if NOT doing this will cause the game to fold up ?

The game was designed more for co-op play this time. Granted they have weapons far to tweaked to allow that, and the nerfs are either too much or too little, STILL I seriously doubt caving to your view is in the future.

How many people echo this view that POST on the forums? Half ? 2/3? All? Still a MODICUM of the people playing. This is my, 2nd post or thereabouts. The majority of us do not post here. The MAJORITY do not post at all.

I UNDERSTAND you want a world of solo content. I understand you want it to not be so difficult. But seriously, your initial complaint stems from a lack or a struggle while soloing the games hardest boss on it’s hardest setting…and you complain that the drop rates are bad? What is the point of those drops rates? Or of farming that boss, the final boss, over and over once you;ve completed it ? To be able to faceroll the next DLC ?

I think you and MANY others should step back and look at what exists and what is the apparent direction. I WOULD LOVE to have people to play with, but since my son moved on (He had a 3rd party launcher for some other games that caused DLL conflicts and it took us 5 weeks to figure it out, him loosing interest in that time) I solo a few hours a day.

I don’t complain that I can’t beat the Takedown boss on Mayhem 3 and I don’t browse the internet to find the best gun/skill tree combo so I can. I play and try to advance and learn more so I can beat it on my own and not be a cookie cutter of the next 10000 players.

You and I just see things differently, and I get that, but you have to see the games direction and REFLECT on changes made, that Gearbox DOES know what players want as well as WHAT needs to be tweaked and nerfed

My view is they need a better format for group options beyond people having to utilize 3rd party software and websites to meet other people. They are doing a fine job of BREAKING weapons that are too OP. The game SHOULD be a challange…not a faceroll as far as I SEE IT.

My point is instead of “me” and looking inward, look at the broader scope of the game, it’s goals, and try to refelct from there when making a suggestion, complaint…threat

The game’s longevity is fine. Maybe not for you, but based on the 2 previous games and how much more refined this version is, it is for more than enough

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#25

honestly level cap alone ruined the dlc and i would rather it didnt happen . we console player spend so much time and boom a level cap increase made everything worthless

#26

the actual reason is that we dont want our time be wasted just because 1 decision from devs , we dont want our stuff be weaker without compensation .

just imagine what happen if the dev decide to nerf 25% damage of pimpernel today . nobody want their stuff changed .

same goes to level cap , please dont make me redo all the farm . i just remember i purpose farm torgue machine for a bandit sight dpuh the day b4 dlc dropped , guess what its worthless because level cap

#27

How about make the game so it doesn’t feel like my PS4 Pro is about to explode.

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#28

XBox One and PS4’s will be a novelty grenade in BL4 like the ECHO-2’s in BL3.

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#29

Funny :rofl:

#30

I wouldn’t waste your time talking about it tbh, they’ve made it clear that they will strike the nerf hammer as much and as ruthlessly as they want to.

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#31

Something i will NEVER understand.

If that time is wasted once they raise level cap or nerf the weapon, doesn’t that mean that you didn’t enjoy the progress of getting the loot?
Why did you do it then?
I read stuff like this daily on this forum and it blows my mind.
Why did you do it if you didn’t like it?
Do you have so much free time that wasting several hours on a activity that isn’t fun and doesn’t progress you in your life in any way, that you don’t care about wasting it?
I know getting this perfect build is supposed to be a reward after that time.
But is it really worth all that wasted hours?
What do you even do with the perfect build? Play the game again just facerolling everything?

Im sorry if i sound unpolite and i appologize in advance if i do but this is something i will never understand.
Of course there are a lot of free time activities that are no fun and at the end, reaching the goal is what made the spend time worth it.
But a perfect build in a pc game that ultimately makes the entire game a cakewalk just can’t be it.
At least i can’t see how that makes sense.

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#32

I guess that is why even some of the most hardcore have quit? I haven’t played this game in about a month and have no desire to play it right now. Don’t even care about trying the expansion that I already paid for. Complete botched launch and the retention rate shows it.

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#33

Sorry, but no. Very few devs know what players want AND act on it in game.

GB might know what we want (considering the game didn’t launch with Vertical splitscreen, or sort by rarity, I doubt it) but that isn’t translating into the game. Them knowing what we want is pointless is it isn’t implemented. and them implementing things we didn’t ask for, while nice if it works and is useful, also doesn’t do much.

And knowing what we want and what needs to be tweaked are completely different things. Players may want more weapon and build variety, but GB can achieve that by buffing everything up (powercreep) or nerfing the outliers (not fun). There’s definitely some mixed opinions on this, but I’m positive the community would rather have F tier weapons buffed to C or B tier than have S tier gear nerfed to A or A-. So far GB has buffed C tier to B or B+, but none of the F tier gear has improved much at all.

Lastly,

Besides being in a different generation of games (a decade is a long time, live service wasn’t a thing when BL1 came out), GB never made it a point to change things this much post release in any of the other games. They would release it, fix bugs, and leave the balancing alone for the most part. BL3 is the first game where they are committing to regularly updating the game. It has it’s upsides, but the natural consequence of that decision is that people will not only be upset with changes they disagree with, but will try to influence those changes however they can.

Just adding that element, players wanting to exercise some measure of control over the game (which tbf we aren’t entitled to) and feeling frequently ignored is basically guaranteed to push people away at one point or another.

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#34

Ok, look at your post from 17 days ago. You’ve either flipped perspectives, or forgot what you posted. No, not stalking, trying to use my phone and I could not click on anything in the email but your name…topic link on mobile would be nice.

Games for some OP crap, I’d be fine with scaling down. Got a Lyuda today, nonelemental, has 2 words before the name, I forget them. I mowed everything down. The only PLUS to such a weapon, with game progression considered, is the limitation on sniper rounds.

I made a post on reddit and said that the so far my favorite sniper rifles were the autoaime. Someone mentioned the lie yuda weapons and I didn’t really think anything of it because I didn’t have worn A-day later I have one and these things are were dig asli overpowered and someone was referencing that they had been nerfed…which makes me imagine how brutal they were before.

I’d like balancing before other adjustments. When everything is easy mode people get bored as fast as if it’s impossible mode.

But again, I do not see any validity to your view that specific changes are going to harm the games longevity in your previous post or follow up.

Some players who want a Mario brothers level of challenge may leave as things become difficult…but another factor is the “new movie”. Talk down, talk bad, talk up, people will still buy the new content because they cant help themselves. New weapons, levels, etc will ensure sales, so the game wont suffer SIMPLY based on the titles staying power and fan base.

#35

Where are your retention statistics? You have none.

Your fitting from the hip to balm your view and that’s when complaints have no validity and are ignored. Stabbing in the dark and hoping to score a mark is not the most effective way to carry a view.

You said it though " dont want to play the DLC I paid for". See the problem with your position? And when you get bored of some other game you will play it or get curious about the next one.

I’ve been gaming since 1974. I know how addiction over games work. When it feels like logging in is a job, move off. Nostalgia strikes hard and fast and no level of posturing will change that KNOWN metric. Why do you think, only as a comparison reference…, WOW has 500k players, but come expansion time, poof, 2m. There is no pay to play and you only cost them money when you play on their bandwidth. So knowing the bulk will run back for the next DLC
…where is the incentive to take your view as anything but a tantrum?

You guys with issues over nerds have to adapt or band together and create an intelligent and succinct outline for why X is a problem and address it Emma’s. Not 1 post with 500 views, 30 replies from 9 posters…that’s not how it’s done:)

Reflect on some of the issues at launch and some of the threads that had from what I can tell from reading back, 3 and 400 replies from 250 people that’s how you get issues addressed.

Good luck with whatever you’re playing

1 Like
#36

I have no other post in this thread, so I have no idea what you’re talking about there.

Also, your post seems to be missing the point of a lot of what I said. You think I said

I mentioned nothing about the specific difficulty being balanced for. I said

I can’t respond to the rest of your post, primarily because it had nothing to do with what I said. I’m gonna need some context here because it seems like we’re having two different conversations.

#37

Most of the time cheap ass gamer here. Very seldom do I get a game when it first comes out. I usually never wait in line (this was the first one that I did). I remember playing the first when it hit the bargain bin. The mechanics were great, had a nice cartoon-y feel. Bought the second one a couple years ago, loved the content. Same cartoon-y feel, good mechanics, decent boss fights. Bl3 has been fun. I enjoy the gameplay. They put some cool guns in it. I like the villains, but dont care for the story. I was hesitant when the adverts were advertising a McDonald’s served amount of guns, but bought it anyways. PC culture in game surely hasn’t helped the title. I’ve not been wowed by the skins and heads. Bl1 had the corn hat. Bl2 had XXX. Bl3 has a horse mask (YOWSA!, edgy!). I have to farm tinks. I loved farming midgets (OMG, I said that word!). They clearly gave zero ■■■■■ when the first and second games came out. While they cant change what has been done, I do hope they wow us in the end.

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#38

There were at least 20 people on my friends list playing at launch. Now literally one if that. Just from observation of what other people have said this is not uncommon. As far as player retention this game failed massively so far. They will have to pull a Bungie Taken King level resurgence.

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#39

I think the main reason why player numbers are dropping is not because of bugs, nerfs to weapons or bad game design.
You just reach end game a lot faster and start farming the perfect gear sooner which leads to getting throug the end game faster.
Once players have done everything they just leave.

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#40

True, but those other things certainly don’t help. Regardless of the severity, no one likes the possibility of something they enjoy being taken away from them, or something they like not being viable regardless of how much they work at it.

It also doesn’t help that the bar for what is “perfect” is so much higher. Whereas so long as you avoided hyperion parts in BL2, a gun with the right prefix was plenty good, matching manufacturer parts was just a bonus. Now you don’t have to worry about the parts AS much, but you now have an ever increasing pool of anointments. It makes the grind last longer, but you’re also bound to be frustrated by more “unusable” (meaning not of high enough quality to warrant use) drops. In BL2 you were only competing with at the most 8 manufacturer parts and 10? prefixes. In BL3 you have a pool of 40 anointments, and god forbid you’re looking for specific shield effects and grenades as well.

Lastly, I think that it’s difficult for people to muster the patience to farm and play the game when the underlying game is kind of clunky in many areas. Not underpolished, not bad, clunky. For example, while not a tremendously big deal, I imagine needing to hop in and out of IB all the time for Auto Bear is kind of annoying. A bunch of folks can’t stand how much FL4K’s pets get in the way of your items, or how you can’t really get them to go anywhere when you tell them. Needing to spend a second dropping Zane’s barrier, then press another button to pick it up, is equally grating. There are just a bunch of little QOL things that just make the experience clunky, and while that on it’s own won’t push people away, it’s another part of that gnashing irritation.

Between the amount of “useless” items you get while farming, the back of mind expectation/fear of nerfs, and the little QOL things that drive people nutty, I think that the game just grinds people down faster this time around.

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