#41

To be honest I do. I find absolutely no joy in this game. It’s so damn repetitive. Idk maybe I’m getting older but I find it hard to finish the raid. Not cause it’s to hard, but just not fun

#42

I’m having a hard time getting back into BL3, there’s a lot of negative’s and I still have trauma from the freakin Ghost Skulls. Not the scary kind of trauma, just the kind that makes the game stink.

4 Likes
#43

With you on all the sliding , jumping crap, its starting to feel more like a arcade platform game for a 10yr old running around at a frenetic pace arcade shooter

2 Likes
#44

Agreed, came closer to getting killed on the forced trip through the guts of carnivora by trash mobs with rocket launchers that could drop me faster than the Agoniser Boss purely because they take so long to get down in groups. I can understand M4 having a significant increase, clean modifiers ( much better ), that’s great but when you make them so tough and add high mob numbers, it gets silly, at the moment there is either no challenge or stupid difficulty we need to find a middle ground

2 Likes
#45

The worst part of M4 is the annointed. I can handle most everything, but more than one annointed shows up? I get my ass handed to me.

1 Like
#46

M4 is a level of difficulty, drop back to M3. You can even do it during certain sections of the game. Like the Anvil. Then bump it back up. Pretty cool feature few games provide.

#47

The mayhem modes are kinda slapped into the game and aren’t well thought out. Adding 1000% health and shields makes all your guns that much more useless and forces very narrow builds and gear. In time things just become more and more repetitive.

1 Like
#48

they keep throwing more crap on the dumpster fire. i wouldnt expect much.

2 Likes
#49

Actually, M4 in particular, is quite well thought out. Firstly, they limited the amount of RNG by simplifying the modifiers so the player gets one and the enemy gets one. This change was a direct response to player feedback about negative modifier stacking in M3. Secondly, the damage scaling numbers in M4 aren’t arbitrary. It’s based on data collected via SHiFT that told GBX where player end game power was at the time that M4 was launched.

I blame GBX as much as the next person, insofar as them actually needing to be made aware of issues with their game, and it’s totally your prerogative to dislike M4 for your personal subjective reasons, but accusing it of not being “well thought out” has no actual basis in fact. Again, I’m not trying to tell you how to feel or think that it’s not “well thought out”. I’m simply pointing out that the facts disagree with you. :smile:

2 Likes
#50

MAjor issue i have with D3 is the resources. It is insane. You need 50 of the legendary things to re-roll one legendary. And your chances to get a better one then you have is slim as hell. It takes many hours to get those resources. Far to much work involved to try and upgrade gear. I left D3 a longtime ago because of this. They talk about wanting to remove the MODs form games and the cheating and duping. But just like BL games they ask for it. Stop making the games so damn stingy and hard so we can just enjoy it and less people will be inclined to cheat and dupe.

Cheating and duping and Mods are the fault of the Devs and game companies.

1 Like
#51

Its not getting worse but its not getting better. I feel like we are in a constant state of mediocrity.

2 Likes
#52

Is this data that I can look at somewhere? I’m actually curious. I’m wondering if MH4 is based on potential damage output of any player given available specs./ items/ annointments or if it is based on the actual dps and defense numbers that players were capable of at the time of the update? Also what percentage of players are capable of achieving the dps and survivability necessary to play MH4?

#53

Unfortunately not unless you are a GBX employee.

I got the info about M4 from the Borderlands Show where they interviewed Randy Varnell. He wasn’t specific about the data they were evaluating but I suspect it’s this …

because that makes the most sense to me too.

It’s everyone who has the gear and know how. And given how available both are the potential is 100%. Though in reality not everyone is going to make the effort to acquire the gear or the know how. But since the entire point of M4 is that players bring their best gear and builds it seems reasonable to me or dare I say logical, that they would design it for that potentiality.

#54

It’s always been my belief that implementing game design that caters to elitists and streamers who’ve made it their job to discover new and interesting ways to break a game only succeeds in alienating the other 95% of your player base. Yes, we see a very vocal minority here from that camp who claim that MT M4 is easy and the rest of us just need to adapt our builds, get better gear, git gud, etc. But if we consider the forums as a microcosm of the actual player base landscape, only a small percentage of the posts on these forums express the opinion that MT M4 is right on the money in terms of difficulty and gameplay.

While I do like the direction they went with M4 to shed the RNG nonsense of M1-M3, the jump from M3 to M4 was much too steep without a level cap increase (or two) occurring before it. From what I’ve experienced and what I’ve read on these forums, the most common contention with M4 is that it’s just not fun and that it’s too much effort for too little reward. I agree with that sentiment. If I take a step back from my Zane bias, what appears to work against the “fun” quotient in M4 is that the flow of combat is either broken or slowed like molasses running uphill. Traditional builds that work well in M1-M3 fall woefully short in M4. And while there is a very tiny percentage of players that are making legitimate builds work well in MT M4, the majority is not.

What I’m seeing is many players either using blatant glitches, modded gear, or cheesed builds. Several of my friends who are doing MT M4 are only playing Amara. The rest are running Tediore builds on their respective VHs. One is still running the Moze “god” build (which is basically an exploit that GBX hasn’t been able to fix yet). Neither of these options are particularly interesting or fun to me. So where that leaves me personally is to just farm Guardian Ranks in Slaughter Shaft on M4 while my friends are demolishing everything on their Amara toons (the only problem with that is that GR is broken currently). My hope is that my investment will eventually pay off and that the game will reach a better place in terms of balance - not just between the VHs, but also between players (whether you enjoy playing solo or with a group) and the game itself.

In the meanwhile, I will not be giving Gearbox any more money, and therefore I will not be playing the DLC that’s coming out soon. Instead, I’ll reserve my money and my judgement for whether or not the game gets worse or better from here. If they succeed in accomplishing the latter, I’ll consider buying their additional content at that time. If not, there are plenty of other (better) games out there to occupy my time.

5 Likes
#55

That is a false and unfair characterization of the people and feedback you are disparaging with that comment. Let’s talk facts. Is it the case that GBX was explicit in saying that MT/M4 is not for casual play and that it requires that players bring their best gear, builds, and skills?

If you don’t deny that basic fact then you may be able to recognize that your so called “vocal minority” is not inaccurate in pointing out that players need to adopt their builds, get better gear, and improve their skills. There is no malicious intent or falsehoods in sharing those sets of facts with others who are having trouble with M4/MT because those sets of facts are crucial to success in M4/MT because GBX designed it that way.

Finally, let me remind you that you don’t have to play M4/MT. It is free and entirely optional. But if you want to engage in that content then try accepting its conditions. It’s like the sign in an amusement park at the roller coaster ride(s) where it says, “you must be this tall to ride”. You don’t have to ride. There is an entire amusement park to explore if you so desire. And unlike the sign or your height (which is not under your direct control at a specific moment in time), you can actually do something about the conditions. For example, if you don’t have the gear you can farm and/or trade. If you haven’t yet developed the build expertise for the vault hunter(s) of your choice you can start by copying YouTube builds as a starting point or ask for help on these forums. If you don’t yet have the skill you can practice on lower difficulty levels to acquire them.

1 Like
#56

This was happening in M3 too, plenty. But I hate seeing this statement thrown around as if it’s the only way to be successful. Because it’s not, by a long shot.

I personally avoid using things I consider to be cheese or exploit and that list is pretty long. I don’t use transformer+self dmg, recursion, chucking builds, low lvl shields on Zane, I had to stop using my favorite shield Band of Sitorak because I discovered it accidentally stacked depletion bonuses. The list goes on and on of things I avoid using because they cheapen my experience. Though I wouldn’t hold it against anyone else if they find them fun. That’s not even mentioning the long list of actual exploits people have been doing since day 1.

I still have come up with a lot of builds that work fine on M4. There are plenty of examples around here of others doing the same too. There are a lot of viable ways to play m4 on all VH that don’t need exploits or ‘cheese’. You don’t need to be a godlike player either, I certainly am not. M4 is gear-gated and passive/synergy gated, simple as that. That’s what it’s meant to be.

#57

Of course you’d say this, but countless forum posts to the contrary would argue otherwise, and the truth is often inconvenient. As for Gearbox’s intent behind MT/M4, I’m painfully aware of it, and I addressed that in my post that I feel it’s exclusionary design that is only catering to a small percentage of the player base. Anecdotally speaking, the majority of players posting on these forums seem to agree with that assessment.

I don’t think you and I are going to see eye to eye on this, so we should leave it at that.

Same here. Only, I didn’t discover it. It was pointed out to me (no less by my buddy who runs the Moze exploit build), so now I’m running a Stop Gap shield instead. What sucks is that I spent a LOT of time farming BoS shields and I have some really good ones that I no longer use.

5 Likes
#58

There are several points I’d like to make on this theme.

One. I think game content does have a shelf life - that cannot be easily fixed with both early release game state and OP end game content of that release. This is why DLC engages the player base, and if people arrived late into the franchise, then their experience of previous titles would have included a lot of expansion, bug fixes and quality of life improvements.

Bar starting a whole new release cycle, tweaks to improve end game content once players have completed the rest of the game content multiple times leave many unsatisfied.

For one, this makes OP content, which Mayhem is, limited in terms of build diversity and play-ability for many. The same was true for OP levels in BL2. I assume there is only so much one can do with the core programming without having to start afresh. I would guess that it is this desire to try and do something to keep some fans a little engaged, without having to develop a new game, is the reason that OP/Mayhem exists. Now some players love OP and some loathe it to death. It particularly favours the best players, but even saying this is a generalization as many don’t rate it at all. But IMO playing OP is an indication that 95% of the game is over, it has reached its’ shelf life.

In terms of OP engagement, it is much improved when players can equip themselves easily with gear that might give them a chance of engaging with OP content. And tbf in gearbox’s defense they did offer mixed mayhem modifiers that do, with minimal effort (resetting modifiers or not) give players some options to engage in the game content in different ways.

But ultimately like the point above, we are talking about trying to make content that people have completed numerous times interesting and enjoyable again - and I think that is really difficulty to do. I have killed so many hardened enemies at M4 now that it’s truly beyond fun - more like brushing my teeth - esp with the current state of anointed drops.

Where OP levels worked better in this regard is that you could find OP weapons. So an OP4 DPUH was so much better than a OP1 DPUH. I think there should be Mayhem weapons, M1, M2, M3, M4 - all with more interesting anointed and gun stats. As a reward goes a long way to making content that has reached it’s shelf life a little more appealing.

Now lets consider the target audience for BL3. If you watched the video I linked in an off topic post:

you might be aware that AAA game companies’ target audience is not existing fans - as they are pretty much guaranteed to purchase the game. And in terms of marketing, GB and 2K, get unpaid streamers to promote games as another business strategy centered around costs.

However, I think if you analyse the actual game content (not the OP/Mayhem elements - for the reasons I have outlined above) I think it is clear that the game design was shaped by other business decisions - targeting a wider audience - many of which the data probably shows do not even play to OP levels. But these people help pay for all the improvements we will see over the next few years, and then to start the whole cycle again with BL4…

My point is that there are pressures driving game design far beyond making content for streamers - who typically are high-caliber gamers . But equally, as they are unpaid by GB and 2K, providing them with tough M4 content is an effort, as far as I can see, to keep them engaged in marketing GB’s products - which looked at this way makes it seem quite reasonable.

Unfortunately, at present for those people stuck between casual and pro - there is a clear void of solutions to keep them engaged in content that has reached it’s shelf life. The suggestion of having Mayhem specific loot would go a long way to fixing this.

Thankfully, not long now until the DLC, fresh content is welcomed by most (as well as bug fixes - its not one or the other…)

I will say it now, just to get it out there. When the content drops, don’t assume that the level of Mayhem you are playing on now will be able to be continued into the DLC. I made this mistake going from M3 to M4.

When M4 hit I lost my mind, as I had collected a lot of equipment and developed a lot of strategies for M3 that just did not hold for M4, and I had to start again. Fortunately at that time there were still Golden loot ghosts, and I had some luck with trading.

But my experience of continuing to improve my M4 kit at present is pretty unpleasant, and if people are only just transitioning from M3 to M4 - it would be ever worse.

Now lets talk about builds. Like most people, for fun, I just love trying everything possible searching for OP builds, finding glitches for fast farming, playing with characters, changing skills, testing different weapons, hunting for perfect parts, arming myself with COM’s, etc., etc. I have never once Tediore Chucked, but I would like to just for fun sometime - if it hasn’t been nerfed.

But I also get a lot from testing a build without any glitches or modded gear.

At present, I have no difficulty engaging with M4 content on FL4K with no glitching or modding. I am over forty and have severe arthritis. I am not a pro gamer, and I don’t stream. So I think my perspective on M4 difficulty does have some value. Clearly, I have worked hard to obtain the gear necessary to do this, and it has meant a lot of rethinking my skill trees (with the help of the character specific areas on this forum) and considerable trading (which really annoys me as I want more in game rewards.) and endless killing on game content that has reached it’s shelf life.

This is a separate issue to all the game bugs and possible balancing concerns that really need to be addressed as soon as is technically possible - as for some people the bugs/balancing is making the game worse. But this is not the focus on my post.

To conclude. I don’t think there is anything wrong with prolonged game content engagement becoming a worse experience for people - as that is inevitable for all games.

And I think with some improvements to the reward system at OP/Mayhem levels in BL3 the dev’s couldn’t do much more in regards to current content and difficulty - for all the reasons I have given.

6 Likes
#59

in terms of bugs… yes!

mayhem 4 is the best mode out of them all (no more crappy rolls and need to reload to not play with a massive handicap)
some things are still scaled of the bloody scales though :rofl: (some armored/shielded enemies still act like a bulletsponge)

#60

I just want to echo that M4 should not be easy. Its supposed to be the top challenge right now, right? And it is entirely doable, but it requires heavily optimized gear and builds, moreso gear. You * need* annointments on nearly everything and decent rolls on artifacts and coms to be successful.

It isnt hard in the traditional sense as enemies havent changed but the bullet spongeyness is a serious gear check.