Lore purists vs Bot achievements

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#1

Let’s talk…

Some of our beloved Battleborn members have stated a deep dislike of the Bots Lore achievements.
It takes away from the actual challenge.

On the other hand there are those, like myself, who don’t do PvP and are glad there is another option.

Thinking about this I realized there are purists.
Do you wear that hat?

I’ve got over 2,000 hours into this game and still have not completed Galilea’s lore, or Kelvin.

Here’s the thing…For you Purists;

Before the Bots I helped a lot of players complete their lore, including things like Pentastrike.
You know those matches have always existed.
Friends grab you, typically on a Capture map where it’s easier to get people from both teams together.
Then you and your team stand there while someone on the other team gets their achievement.

So, Purists, don’t frown on us for doing this with the Bots, please.

(I’m bringing this up because it needs to be said, and because this forum is pretty much dead.)

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#2

Doesn’t matter to me. Personally was never impressed by titles like “Worthy of Song” anyways.

Whenever I saw somebody with that title I never thought “Wow! That person must be really good!”. I just thought “Meh. That person probably farmed noobs in a 5 stack.”.

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#3

I like to keep the purist mindset in my game just so there is some potential to keep working towards something.

Allowing these to be completed in bots battles is sweet. It let’s PvP enthusiasts keep their challenges and at the same time allows PvE players to complete their game. This makes me happy.

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#4

Personally, I don’t see a problem with earning titles and completing lore challenges in Bots Battle. PvE players are equally dedicated to this game as what PvP players are, and that’s what you should be rewarded for. Dedication.

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#5

The only lore I ever got in Bots Battle was in what is to this day still my one and only Bots Battle (just so I could say I’ve tried all the modes BB has to offer) - Toby’s “get a double kill with his ultimate lore”.

I have also never been a part of what @wisecarver described above where 2 teams who know each other get together (that must take a lot of repeated match up attempts! I guess it’s easier on PC…) and let each other get free multi kills.

I have Platinum Trophy’d the game and the only PVP titles that I am missing are Three Sum (1 triple kill away!), Fours Sensitive, Pentastrike, and BADA BADA BOOM!.

I completed all those challenges in legit PVP, aside from a dozen or so I had to grind out in PVE.

I don’t personally care about or judge on how people get their lores and titles done; I am just happy there are people interested enough to get them done.

For myself, however, I consider it a point of personal pride that I got them all done legitimately.

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#6

I achieved all these titles without any help from my teammates. There is no need to call for “help” if you want to achieve them. Just play the game. If you are good - it eventually will happen for you anyway. I’m still proud of my first pentastrike. I’m still proud of my 2 Quads in one match against other people not bots. Those who earn all the PVP titles via bot battles - give me a break. It’s a cheat, but sadly legit (because the devs were so desperate to please every single loud mouth), but still a cheat.

I currently play PlayerUnknown’s: Battlegrounds. There are leaderboards for kills, match wins and so on. Imagine if they made the bots available there too and allowed to simply “boost” your stats while playing against the bots. Wouldn’t it be a total mess? Bots should never register any stat or unlock something… ever. Bots battle ruined Battleborn for me. Because I do not enjoy games which takes no skill and only takes time to complete something. Bots battle is all about that - invest a little bit of time and you will get every single pvp title. Heh, at least Face-Off titles are still legit ones, 'cause all those new bot battle masterminds can’t scratch that.

Oh, and please, for the love of Solus - people, stop calling bots battle - PvP. It’s clearly not a PvP mode. Like. At all. [noticed that a lot of people count bot battle as a PvP mode]

True, but why then PvP players still had to play PvE content to get all the legendary gear, titles, skins, taunts up there? Did you saw many PvP players complaining about this? I didn’t. Dedication is when you want to go out of your comfort zone, not when you write 10 threads on a forum demanding for a more simplistic way to achieve the same thing.

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#7

I don’t call myself a purist, but I got a feeling I’m one of them in this context.

I embrace all aspects of the game myself, so having PvE or PvP specific challenges have never been a problem on its own to me. So in that sense, I’m arguably naive about the struggles some might face with this.

However, doing the challenges in Bots battles does take away a large portion of the challenge part in my eyes.

While I can understand the desire to have an alternative mode mode as opposed to regular PvP, I’m not too favourable of it myself. After all, strictly looking at the “PvX” aspects, PvP has an alternative mode for those who doesn’t play it. But then, PvE doesn’t have an alternative mode for those who doesn’t play that. That on its own bothers me and I’d be happier with Bots battles if there was an alternative mode for someone like El Dragón to kill ISIC in the Algorithm or for Thorn to complete The Archive on Advanced without anyone dying.
If there’s going to be a system which serves to make challenges more accessible to players who would otherwise not come in contact with them, make it go both ways rather than just one way.

So that’s one thing. Another thing is that Bots battles isn’t PvP since it’s technically still PvE as you’re not going up against players. Therefore it’s somewhat strange having PvP challenges and stats being affected by Bots battles. The only time I’ve played bots with the exception of when it came out to try it out was when I found a group who wanted to farm Loot packages in there when all of us had loot boosters. I gladly helped them, but I wish afterwards I could remove all stats I got from those games as they’re not PvP. Having PvE and PvP stats mixed is certainly not the way to go and just skews the stats. This however is not only due to bots battles as deaths in overall PvE activities are factored in as well in what is for the most part a PvP stat screen.

Another thing (which I realise is slightly off-topic) is something which I’m certainly not proud of, but something I think nevertheless, is the depravity of accomplishment since the lore challenge requirement reductions.

Completing all the lore challenges used to be a huge accomplishment. Primarily because of a specific few challenges, but also because quite a few of them took a while to grind out.
But now? Not so much.

The prime example is Toby’s challenge which required him to get 10 double kills with his ultimate. That used to be the most difficult lore challenge of them all, and while it’s still difficult, it’s still a lot easier as well.

It’s like if they now would’ve been to reduce the requirement of Angel of Death to be 1000 kills rather than the 10 000 it is now.

Another challenge being El Dragón’s minion kills with Dragon Splash. It was never a difficult challenge per se, it was just grindy. And, as mentioned above, a lot of the challenges were simply grindy and wasn’t much of a challenge.

I’m happy Gearbox listened to the community and did reduce the requirements in the end, but I can’t help but feel depraved of the accomplishment of completing all original lore challenges.

And I know people have been cheesing lore challenges and titles since the game came out. I think it was the 2nd time Chaos Rumble came out when a couple of friends of mine chose Toby only to go on the in-game mic and asked if they could get the double kills. In return, my friends would just let the opposing team kill them over and over again.

So if we take the Toby double kill challenge for instance. Here’s eight ways you could’ve completed the challenge;

  • Earn 10 double kills “naturally”
  • Earn 10 double kills with the help of friends
  • Earn 10 double kills with the help of the opponents
  • Earn 1 double kill “naturally”
  • Earn 1 double kill with the help of friends
  • Earn 1 double kill “naturally” in Bots Battles
  • Earn 1 double kill in Bots Battles with the help of friends
  • Earn 1 double kill with the help of the opponents

And this is, in some sense, my problem with how it’s treated. There’s a huge difference between 10 “natural” double kills (with the damage also being considerably lower) as opposed to having 1 double kill with the help of the opponents, yet they’re treated as the same thing.

Went of on a tangent here, sorry about that!

Regardless, this is also a PvE issue in some sense as far as I can tell as there are few, if any PvE titles which showcases a larger commitment to the PvE portion of the game.

Personally, (to go off on another tangent here :sweat_smile:) I’d like to see more “hardcore” titles for both PvE and PvP as well as Dynamic titles. Example title requirements could be;

  • Mastered all characters
  • All characters to 20
  • Completed all character challenges found in the “challenges” tab (i.e not lore challenges)
  • All Ops skins for a specific Op
  • All Ops skins for all Ops
  • Complete 1000 story missions
  • Get all diamond ranks

Dynamic titles could showcase raw stats from your overall profile or specific characters and would simply showcase accomplishments overall. If I’d like to show my assists as Reyna for instance, it’d have the emblem of her with the title reading something along the lines of “Assists: XXXX” or so.

So, to sum up my rant;

  • PvP players don’t have an alternative way of completing PvE challenges like PvE players have now in Bots Battles. (The inconsistency is what’s bothersome.)
  • Bots Battles is in my eyes PvE as you’re not going against players.
  • As far as I’m concerned, it further depraves certain accomplishments.

I do also realise that I arguably come off as quite hostile with this, but I have no quarrel with those who plays bots battles or enjoy it so much as the system itself.

1 Like
#8

I personally couldn’t care less if people completed their titles and lore, or boosted their stats, through Bots Battle. No one is EVER going to say:

“Holy SHT*, you unlocked Fours Sensitive the legitimate way?! Can i touch you…?”

It’s a game, people. A DYING game… Let people unlock their stuff via clueless AI, if they want.

I WILL say that i felt robbed whenever the number of kills for Toby’s “Killing on Rails” challenge was decreased from 10 to 1, because i was only 2 away, and got them BOTH in the second post-update match from the damage buff to core discharge; which didn’t matter, because i already got the lore done automatically when the update dropped. THAT sht bothers me, not people boosting their stats through Bots Battle, because stats and titles don’t mean sht on the battlefield…

4 Likes
#9

For me it’s just: The game ran for ages without any meaningful matchmaking.

People are bragging with killstreaks in matches with 4/5 players from competitive teams against people without a loadout, people are sharing videos where they blatantly ignore any objective to go on a farming streak against people who have no idea how the game works, cheat lobbies were formed since the beginning of the game, Warefare Rumble, …

It’s nice when people are proud of having earned a title legit, but honestly I didn’t feel intimidated by something like Angel of Death since Elo has basically been turned off. Wear the title if you feel like you have earned it and show the world that you have. Others that only got it to complete their set of titles probably won’t wear it. And if they do, let them embarrass themself when they wear e.g., Worthy of Song and have a K/D of 1/30 most of the time.

4 Likes
#10

I tried for nearly 5 hours to get Thorn’s Spry Sprite Spray (10 Volley kills in air) through what EdenSophia described best as “a wretched, lonely, buggy, laggy, frustrating experience” being the Australian PVP experience. After 5 hours I had…0 kills. Every time I got even close to being able to get this even just once the shot wouldn’t fire in time and I usually ended up dead. So after many messages from team-mates saying how much I sucked for contributing so valuably to our teams loss by being one of the most ineffectual Thorn’s they’d ever had the misfortune to come across I moved my quest to bots. Even then it still took me about 7 hours play to get the 10 kills I needed, a full weekends play for me. Every single one of those kills was an exercise in perseverance, experimentation, and blind luck but I celebrated getting that lore like I did any other achievement I’ve ever gotten for any other game.

I would prefer to get these lore challenges in pvp. I know some Australian crew that have done so and I am amazed at how they could have done it. I admit that for me to attempt pvp lore challenges as an Australian would absolutely destroy and bury any affection I have left for this game and it would be game over for me so I’ll finish it in bots begrudgingly.

4 Likes
#11

Good talk, everyone is making great points.

#12

I hope this topic stays classy and unlocked.

2 Likes
#13

@jahnerd

Dude, minus the lag, but just cuz I’m SO BAD WITH AIMING, that was my exact experience getting that lore!

Do you still play Battleborn?

Add me on PSN maybe?

My PSN is FilthyLittleGod

#14

Of course not, but I still respect RAAMzilla and his El Dragon to this date. I know it was hard to do it back in the old days, I experienced it myself and I can give credit for that.

Everyone have different goals in games. Some want to be the best, some want to 100% a game, some want to get the most kills/assists/damage dealt stats, and so on. That’s why so many people cheat too, they want to achieve something they care for even it’s not legit.

All the hard titles meant exclusivity. You had to invest many hours into the game and be good at it. If I earn a title, I want it to mean something for me and to mean something overall, because only then it has Value.

With bots battle - the devs devalued so many things in a snap. After bots battle was introduced I never had any desire to put my “fours sensitive”, “angel of death” or other rare title on, because it was devalued instantly. It doesn’t mean anything anymore.

And

that should not be an excuse. If the game is dying, you still don’t want to make things less important and have no value. What if they will want to go free to play and then what? All those fun and cool 300+ titles means NOTHING, there is no bragging rights or exclusiveness in them. Just launch bots battle, pick a Montana, ISIC, Galilea and harvest all those titles in a week or two, when the people, who played this game from the very start, had to play months to get them. That’s the problem. If titles means nothing - they should just unlock everything and be done with it.

if this game is dying, and nothing is important anymore, then unlock all the lore for every single player and be done with it too. At least people will be happy with their useless character legendary and they will not have to sweat about “5 Galilea kills” or “affect 5 players with a single Riptide 25 times”.

True, but it means something off the battlefield. Maybe it means something for that one single person who worked on it and he wants to be proud of himself, because he achieved a rare goal. It’s like getting a diploma. It’s an accomplishment. But if everyone can get the same thing while drinking a tea and watching a TV, but you had to work for it - it just makes you feel sad inside. [it’s a bit hard to express myself as a non-English speaker…]

1 Like
#15

I’m just saying that I don’t mind the fact that it allows you to complete certain challenges. As someone who only played PvE for the first 6 months after this game came out because I refused to PvP, (I’m now the complete polar opposite), I know how it feels to have not been able to master your favourite character because their lore was locked behind PvP only challenges. I’m just happy it provides an alternative.

TBH though, GBX could have done 2 separate ‘master of…’ titles for each character. One for PvP related challenges and one for PvE.

Not necessarily. I see dedication as the time and effort you put into playing the game you like, regardless of game mode.

I would however, as an ex-PvE player, recommend for PvE players to give real PvP a go. You never know, you may like it, and if not then fair enough.

2 Likes
#16

I hate to break it to you, but even IF Bots Battle had never been a thing, all the titles and lore in this game, plus twenty-five cents, would get you a bowl of soup, as the saying goes. The only “value” such things have is PERSONAL value, and if you feel that other people getting them through easier means devalued them for you, then that is a personal issue. The REAL value of titles like Angel of Death, Fours Sensitive and Penta Strike are exactly the same as they’ve always been:

Absolutely nothing.

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#17

I am absolutely not a purist, I did my worthy of song against bots because when an enemy team is that outmatched skill wise I don’t chase kills to try not to harm the player base. Against bots I can cut loose with no guilt

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#18

And that’s the most important thing. In every PvP game we compare ourselves to others so that we could feel better about ourselves. Being better than everyone - it is what we seek in a competitive environment. In this case, Titles = your accomplishments and it has value within that field. Just like NBA players, they want to win a Championship, they want a title, they want to call themselves champions. Will it make your life different if a team wins a title or not? No. But that doesn’t mean that that title has no “REAL” value, even if’s “only PERSONAL”. [What’s “REAL” value anyway? - just a rhetorical question]

#19

Not everyone shares that view, or feels that way. I’ve been competitive in MANY games, both video and real world, and i’ve never felt the need to elevate myself via an award or title. I can certainly understand the viewpoints of people who DO feel that way, but i’ll still fiercely combat the argument that “people shouldn’t be able to have an easier time doing something, because i want to feel better about myself.”

If you truly meant it in a rhetorical fashion, that means you know the answer should be self-evident.

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#20

I will agree to disagree on this subject. No hard feelings! :wink: