Mayhem Mode Oversight

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

Upon completion of the story, a player can instantly receive gear far beyond their level of power with no effort or risk. Seems like a problem, yeah?

By setting Mayhem Mode to max from the safety of Sanctuary III instantly after finishing the story, all gear from vending machines, slot machines, etc. will have the power of Mayhem Level 10. This also includes the massively boosted cash drops the player could just pick up from safe locations. Worst of all, just a few uses of the Eridian Fabricator’s legendary mode after simply changing this one setting will vastly overpower the player without them exerting any effort to earn it, as all gear dropped from it will also be Mayhem Level 10.

This seems like a massive oversight by the development team. Given the quantity of Eridium provided by this week’s event, a player never really needs to use any gear below Mayhem 10 by combining this setting and weapon. This can’t possibly have been their intention.

There’s a reason Digistruct Peak Challenge existed.
If the developers want Mayhem Mode to truly be a ladder and not a grappling hook, they should really consider ironing out the loopholes and instituting limitations on when Mayhem Modes can be increased.

To me, this oversight really upsets the balance of mid-game.
Thoughts?

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#2

Forget about it… They’ve been tailoring the game to the new/casual player needs. Doesn’t seem they’re gonna make a challenge out of this game. Last time they tried we got mayhem 2.0.
BL3 is a deformed mutant right now.

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#3

I’m in two minds. Having played a Mayhem mode where vendors, red chests and a whole pile of other things did not proved Mayhem scaled loot, I’m very happy that they have made these adjustments. Mayhem 2.0 has progressed immensely since it was released and I support all the changes that have been made (except the extra projectile nerf :sweat_smile:).

However, I do take your point and if they decided to put in a Takedown or similar activity which you must play to progress from one Mayhem level to the next I think I’d be happy with that. Say you selected that activity at Mayhem 6. You would then go in with your current loadout and have to tackle enemies of a higher Mayhem level. I think it would be important to be able to choose the level you tackle so that if you feel ready to jump from Mayhem 1 to 4 then you will be rewarded for your skill. People wouldn’t need to refarm their gear as much, nor play the same piece of content ten times per character.

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#4

One way it could have been done is you need to complete all the Trials, each within a time limit, to unlock the next Mayhem level… with each individual Trial completion, an associated indicator will glow on the mayhem pedestal on Sanctuary. Light 'em all up, and you can go up a mayhem level. Basically a Digistruct Peak way of doing it.

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#5

Higher Mayhem gear should ‘down’ scale to the level played at. That would make playing at lower Mayhem more satisfying. An item wouldn’t be stronger just because it was ‘over’ Mayhem’d.

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#6

In addition, any gear/weapon obtained at a particular mayhem level must be able to do useful levels of damage at that level. Otherwise we have the silly situation of today…where most guns are irrelevant.

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#7

Yes, that would be great indeed.

Other than that, I don’t really mind at all, that you could jump straight into M10, if you wanted to. No one forces you to do it though, so if you don’t want that, or if you hate vendor farming, you can chose to mayhem-up at your own leisure.

One could argue that the game treats the players as intelligent enough to decide for themselves which route they would like to take. In any case, I myself am glad to have the option. Sometimes I go the slow way, sometimes I go the quick way…

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#8

I don’t see why this is a problem unless you intend to toggle Mayhem mode on an off. You are not obligated to play with Mayhem mode on nor are you obligated to level to 60 with it off. A player puts in the time and completes the story now they have the option to turn up the difficulty.

If you are planning on playing low Mayhem levels or with Mayhem mode off there is absolutely no reason to get M10 guns as non Mayhem mode is more then just easy to anyone who has played any previous Borderlands game.
On the other end if you just jump to M10 and use whatever you find around Sanctuary or vis freebies you will likely struggle with Mayhem mode for a time unless your extremely lucky.
In my mind we don’t really need to concern ourselves with how an individual plays the game or take advantage of systems in there own space along as they are not cheating.

Part of ths problem with how OP levels worked is that adding in a level cap increases retroactively ruined the game for anyone who didn’t feel like dumping all their OP8 gear when Fight for Sanctuary dropped. I imagin the reason Mayhem levels have become more like OP levels is because the lack of development time put in to Mayhem mode before launch and gross assumptions on how much gameplay they would actually add. Mayhem 2.0 very much felt like a knee jerk reaction to a new idea not working out aswell as they had hoped for.

I would honestly rather Mayhem levels in general be stream lined to the point where it was just a difficulty setting that made drops and anointments more plentiful and the power progression be left out.

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#9

The issue is that instant access to Mayhem 10 items without combat puts to waste lower mayhem gear and allows the player the ability to succeed in Mayhem levels they wouldn’t initially have been able to succeed in with their actual gear. A good build at the end of story might have done fine at Mayhem 2 or 3, but the player could jump up to mayhem 5 or 6 with ease using weapons they didn’t truly earn.

It’s like if someone found a bug that allowed a player to use level 60 gear at level 40. Technically it’s not cheating, but it allows the player to reach power levels they weren’t designed to reach far too early.

Gearbox outlined their intentions with the mayhem mode 2.0 announcement - “Given that enemies’ health, shield, and armor stats increase with each Mayhem level, the damage boost that you get from weapons in one Mayhem level will help you to prepare for the next”. They of course want mayhem levels to be flexible to the player, but it’s clear they designed it as a ladder, not for a casual player to get a chance at the best items right off the bat, especially at a level where they can’t kill a single enemy.

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#10

I actually like the idea of having to complete trials/slaughters to gain access to higher Mayhem levels. With 6 trials and 3 slaughters that’s 9 levels. Could just give a mayhem point per completion, so you can do the same one over and an over if you want. Would give a sense of accomplishment getting up to M10, and is more varied than running the peak over and over again.

#11

It’s not an oversight. They originally released it without these features. Players begged, pleaded and threatened for this stuff to be added. Gonna have to blame players in this case.

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#12

Ok? One of the biggest gripes about the game is how only a few pieces of gear/builds are even viable to efficiently complete/farm any challenging content in the game. Let a fresh level 60 go buy the “hold-me-over” M10 gear from the vendors and take it into M10. They’re still going to struggle with challenging content and boss farming. Just simply having random, trash M10 gear bought from vendors isn’t going to turn their character into a God, just like that.

In the end, what difference does it make, really? When half your playerbase uses save editors and modded BS, anyway?

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#13

Not speaking for everyone, but when Mayhem 2.0 released I jumped right to M6 and did fine by my standards. I wasn’t one-shoting things. After a few longer-than-average Graveward/Borman Nates kills, I had myself a cutsman, Krakatoa, and transformer that carried me into the same routine on M10.

I also thought it was going to be a journey through each mayhem level, but I’m glad it wasn’t so I didn’t have to refarm gear 10 times. We already do that enough with level cap increases.

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#14

I don’t quite understand why people jumping up the Mayhem lvl is a problem.

When Mayhem2.0 came out, I jumped from the old M4 straight to M10 and I know I wasn’t the only one. Being able to buy garbage M10 weapons from the vending machines has nothing to do with it.

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#15

Almost same. When Mayhem 2.0 dropped, I went straight to M10 and hit up the Cartel Event. My toons were more than well off during the M4 days and I was NOT about to slog through each of those Mayhem levels.

Honestly, during the time I was using outdated, M4 loot during that event, the game was the most enjoyable for me. Encounters didn’t drag on forever, well balanced for a semi-optimized character and I could complete the content efficiently enough, but again, the gear I was using was some of the top tier stuff in the game, at the time. This vendor M10 trash is not going to give you the same outcome.

#16

If the developers want Mayhem Mode to truly be a ladder and not a grappling hook

Is that what they really want though? Honestly I can’t tell what they wanted based on the actual implementation of Mayhem 2.0. Was it really their visionary intention that vending machines and chests didn’t give Mayhem scaled gear or was it just another failure to deliver the full update on time? Judging by the other large oversights Mayhem 2.0 shipped with it’s pretty hard to spin it as a deliberate design choice. What I mean to say is, you’re right: if Gearbox really wanted Mayhem 2.0 to be a progressive climb in difficulty they’d make sure players stopped at each rung. So why haven’t they changed it along with all the other post-M2.0 fixes? Did they change their minds? Is some sort of Mayhem progress gate planned for the future? Was it ever actually part of the plan? I’m somewhat skeptical that it was ever part of the plan and if it was I’m not sure I see it coming in the future. I can’t see it being very well-received now that they just let players immediately jump to whatever Mayhem Level they please. It might be seen as a sort of “nerf” to progression. I don’t really feel strongly one way or another about the issue, personally.

#17

When MH 2.0 first came out, I was hoping there would be a progression to it.
It dropped at the same time as the Cartels event. The Cartels event provided sufficient gear that made M10 easily attainable. I started in M8 and quickly made it to M10.

At first, vending machines, loot chests, etc were what everybody called M0, as in no Mayhem scaling.
There is a problem to this. Playing any Mayhem level, the chests, vending machines, quest rewards were all completely irrelevent.

The entire implementation of MH2.0 is at fault. It was rushed, as Randy proved untested, and a distinct lack of even common sense put into it.

What we have now are the results of this poor experiment by GBX, and will probably be why this game dies an early death.

For Mayhem, there should have been markers a player had to pass in order to advance a level. They should not have had Mayhem Scaling on gear. And anointments should not be the main factor for what gear is good.

But GBX has their vision, one which most people who use common sense and logic will never understand…

#18

Nope.

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#19

If someone wants to use a Mayhem 10 gun to help them progress though Mayhem 1 to 9 cool then can do that some people want it easier some people want/need a crutch. We saw hundreds upon hundreds of players using an over tuned mission weapons in BL2 so they could easily defeat all the games raid bosses. Cool that is up to them.

Just because there is an intended method of progression in a game does not mean people finding was around it is bad or an oversight. As I am sure many of us played though BL2 on more then one character we got pretty sick of digistruct peak being a requirement for every new character just so we could play on the highest difficulty.

The system of progression is there for players who want it while also offering the more bold or confident players the ability to go headlong in to danger. GBX has always advocated there many different players playing there own way. As long as someone who says they want to play M5 isn’t going in to public sessions with M10 loot and diminishing other players experience there really isn’t an issue.

I may not agree with someone’s methods of progression but far be it from me to tell people how to enjoy there video games :slight_smile:

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