I'm not playing Mayhem mode anymore

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

Mayhem mode is flawed at it’s core:

  • Action skills don’t scale at all.
  • Makes many builds useless
  • No “must have” rewards

It was meant to be a new game ++ but it’s more of a slow grind that refreshes itself every couple of months. Gearbox could release Mayhem 11 tomorrow and all anyone would do is piss and moan about it, regrind all their gear, and then come to find that none of the core problems were fixed and any there were fixed are now broken again due to the new modifiers.

So, I’m done with Mayhem mode. There’s no reason to play it. I’m going to regrind my TVHM gear on my melee Amara build and play happily like I wanted to. Now I can play:

  • Melee Amara
  • Pet FL4K
  • Iron Bear Moze
  • Drone & Clone Zane

All completely viable before the whole Mayhem thing made action skills and extras so obsolete.

Does anyone else feel the same way? Would I be missing anything important if I choose to not play Mayhem mode? And by important, I mean something that does something other than “more damage”. Like an exclusive funny weapon or a wacky Easter Egg. Because honestly, I don’t see any fun in Mayhem mode. Feels more like a job than a game, and I’m done with it.

9 Likes
#2

I like Mayhem and I like Mayhem 2.0 a lot. But! It’s your game. Play it in whatever way makes you happy. :partying_face:

The only thing you would be missing is the Mayhem exclusive gear. If you are a collector of all the legendary and/or red text gear then maybe you might feel like you are missing something? But outside of that, nope!

I’m glad you found a way to play the game you own in a way you’ll enjoy. It’s a refreshing change to the normal grand announcements ppl normally post, with great fanfare and RAGE, about leaving the game. Your post on the other hand has class. You are a good egg @Ramze06. I wish you well on your TVHM murder spree :grin:.

GLHF!

4 Likes
#3

Yeah, I can use that blue gear, part of “bazillion” items advertised without having obsolete weapons or wasting time farming the same boss over and over again, hoping the next kill will be different and i’ll get a better item with a favorite annoyment. Maybe in no mayhem mode i can see where i’m shooting without fear if crashing the console.

#4

Am loving it myself.
It covers loads of bases for me.
I don’t usually play amara but this morning ran about with the current meta items and she cruised all content.
Alternatively I can play with a new idea on another character and get mullered, having a real challenge but sometimes my mood wants that challenge.

That said, after level caps have finished being added, I am looking to run a clone/drone zane just using quest rewards and I will probably do this outside of mayhem.

Very happy with it myself but you have to play the game in a way that’s enjoyable for you bud.

#5

I’m just tired of refarming all the old loot. I rather had it end at UVHM and from there introducing events like crazy enemies or other odd stuff. Like Mayhem mode but without the need to regrind weapons, just focusing on the fun not the grinding.

What I did is empty out my inventory, turned off Mayhem mode, and then just killed a few enemies to get some anointed weapons.

So far I’m having a lot of fun. I had more fun with this game the last

#6

I think we’re in agreement that Mayhem Mode is flawed.

1 Like
#7

At the end of the day I’m glad you found a way to make the game work for you and your enjoyment. Sure things are flawed but I’m happy to have such a diverse fun game during these days of quarantine

2 Likes
#8

I’ve found M4 to be a good level where action skills, weapons not named “O.P.Q” and “Yellowcake”, and grenades work reasonably well, plus only one negative modifier. (No, I don’t have a chance to get the M6+ gear, but I tried farming that stuff for days and didn’t have any luck, so I gave up on it)

If they ever scale chest loot/quest rewards/action skills to M10, I might change, but until that happens I’ll stay at M4.

1 Like
#9

I do! I’m done with it as well, at least for the time being. If the various issues with it are addressed I may take another look, but for now I’m sticking with non-mayhem and like you mentioned, being able to do melee Amara, Iron Bear Moze, etc.

The only thing missing are the MM-exclusive gear, a few of which are fun to use (I love the Kaoson on Moze because of course) but there are 85748597485 other guns I can use, that I can actually use, because they’re more than viable in non-mayhem mode.

So I stuffed all my mayhem-level gear in the safe for possible future use, and brought back out my standard level 57 stuff and I’m having fun with the game.

M4 is a nice sweet spot, I agree. I found that, for example, Iron Bear could still kill stuff at that level. But it just drives me nuts that chests, grenades, etc don’t scale so I’m staying away from it, for now.

#10

Actually M6 isn’t that horrible. Feels close to what M4 used to be. But this isn’t a bad idea. Probably want to turn off guardian perks if you’re keeping mayhem off. I’ve found TVHM too easy with the GR on.

#11

Until they add a MH marker to weapon and gear; later MH modes are a waste of time. Farming in M10 to get M0 drops is not what I would call Fixed.

I was farming Wendingo, and all he dropped was NON M10 items. All annointed (so they fixed that part) - but not one item had a better output than what I earned during TVHM DL2 campaign.

There is no indication prior to farming whether the items will be on level with the MH Mode being played.

Hardly a recipe for enjoyment.

#12

The problem is the time that people have invested in this game and in their builds. We feel obligated to keep our efforts valid by maintaining our builds as the best and most powerful. Props to you for not getting to that point or having more control than some of us. Gearbox burned us, the game really isn’t fun anymore.

2 Likes
#13

Thanks, it’s perfectly balanced now. I think vanilla is where they had they game perfect.

It feels like I’m playing the game for the first time all over again. I’m actually tempted to restart the main story lol.

Thank you. Honestly, what helps is that I was mostly oblivious in the first few games.

Back then, for BL@ ad the PRe-Sequal, I played throught the game naturally once. Then used Gibbed Save editor to skip to UVHM and mod in my favorite gear, then just have fun playing the side quest and DLC. I never had to worry about grinding and stuff before.

Unfortunately, this game doesn’t have a save editor (not an easy one to use like Gibbed did), so grinding is inevitable, at least to some degree. This means if I have to grind, I at least must get the best item to not making all the grinding pointless right?

This is what I feel most people get trapped into. The constant need to justify their efforts by a reward they won’t get, and even if they do get it, what they find they never get to really enjoy. It’s a similar tactic MLMs and Pyrimid Schemes use to get their sellers to stay as their sellers; except with extra steps. Grind in Mayhem mode till either you get the item but then the game isn’t fun, or you don’t get the item and constantly feel incomplete ruining the game conceptually. Either way you’re not having fun.

The only way to win against this system is to not play within it. Which is how I came to the conclusion to not play Mayhem mode anymore.

1 Like
#14

I’m playing Mayhem4 now and having fun. Lag is rough on The Maliwan Black Site though. Guess that’s my only issue.

#15

M5 is good too. Its essentially the old M4 but with enemy health getting a modest 200% boost. You do have to still deal with 3 of the annoying modifiers, but I managed to find the 3 least offensive ones.

Anything above M5 and Iron Bear falls off hard

1 Like
#16

For me the problem is that, despite its enormous flaws, Mayhem 2.0 is more fun than TVHM. It’s harder, plus more enemies, more badasses, and extra challenge via modifiers makes the action more interesting. So going back doesn’t really feel like an option to me

I could be tempted to go back to the old M3 or M4, because I actually found them challenging. M4 in particular was very difficult. I had to tweak my builds a lot before I could survive Slaughter Shaft in M4. But the game’s ridiculously easy now. Even M10 is pretty easy, and I’m still using guns I picked up in M6. Once I eventually find all my desired gear at M10 level, I fear it’ll become a cakewalk again, like M1-9 all did after an hour or two.

So I feel like there’s no really good choice at the moment. TVHM would let me use more interesting builds, but is too easy. M10 renders most builds and guns useless, and forces you into a gun-centered build and a small pool of over-powered guns, but then it at least becomes marginally challenging.

#17

Yeah, I found M4 to be the sweet spot. It’s just high enough things are still a threat and challenging but not too high that all your gear is obsolete or action skills become useless.

I tested this with Moze same as you. Went to Eden 6 ( a lot of annointed there). I had to rely on Moze’s strengths like explosions and such to take out mobs, the general run and gun got me killed very fast. For Badasses and annointed Iron Bear was a MUST, soaked up a ton of damage and dealt more than I could (if not equal). Even in boss fights Iron Bear was keeping up if not matching, so it felt perfect at M4.

If you’re curious, M6 was horrible. All action skills scaled poorly even with more specific gear. Annointed became impossible boss fights real quick.

M5 was fine but was very gear dependent and didn’t work for some mobs. Special mobs like the ones from the event were too much, especially on top of Badasses and anointed. I found Iron Bear scaled poorly against certain bosses like the Warden, actually then doing less damage than out of mech. It may have just been me, but I felt too many things had to be “just right” for M5 to work. So I stuck to Mayhem 4 where it felt closer to vanilla. Though honestly, it’s hard to tell because the modifiers. I hate the modifiers so much.

#18

I wish Gearbox would allow us to adjust the modifiers ourselves. I’d love a Mayhem mode that just boosted their health and damage. It makes little sense for them to keep it random. They know we don’t like it. And it makes testing stuff difficult since the best control for the modifiers is just re-rolling.

I understand the point of Mayhem mode is just to make things random and whacky, but sure doesn’t feel like that. Feels like a mesh of random effects and modifiers to make things inconvenient or annoying. Some of us just like added difficulty on top of the Vanilla game.

Heck, an slider for the modifiers (like +health to enemies) is far better than even an UVHM. This allows Gearbox more leeway with balancing issues as well as players a way to play without all the extra hassle with Mayhem mode. Which the majority greatly dislikes.

1 Like
#19

Sliders for Mayhem are a great idea. Gearbox could have one set Mayhem Mode where you could get weapons scaled to your mode, and then let us have a customizable slider version where weapons don’t scale since it would probably be hard for GB to have weapons scale for customized settings.

#20

Hah, I kinda feel the same. I mean the core game sucked for me from the start, with all those bugs, performance issues, crashes, “rebalances”, end game content shoved down my throat and atrocious drops (1 legendary drop for the whole campaign)
but
this whole Mayhem business didn’t appeal to me from the very beginning- I tried maybe 1h of it and then dumped the game completely - so I didn’t have the same experience with Mayhem. I just dislike the very notion of endlessly chasing after bigger numbers like an idiot, that’s all :wink:

1 Like