My opinions about Battleborn Multiplayer

Battleborn Open Beta Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#1

Good morning everybody. Now that the Beta has ended, I would like to give Gearbox and the community my feedback of how things in the Beta went for myself personally and my team. Little about myself, PSN is SeamanXanthos. I am a part of Team Sustenance, a competitive Esports team that has plans of competing within Battleborn at the highest levels of competition. I personally have played dozens of matches in the Beta with and without my team ranging from solo-queue to full five man teams against other five man teams.

Everything that i am going to be saying and discussing is my personal OPINION.

Let us start off with matchmaking.

Matchmaking needs work. Teams of 3 or higher need to be put in separate queues. There is absolutely no reason for full-teams facing all solo-queuers. It is a poor experience all around if the goal is close and exciting matches.

Besides that change, matches are pretty good. Have to wait and see how the skill-based matchmaking works on full-release.

Modes

Incursion:
This mode is pretty unique and I believe that it could work really well in a tug of war fashion after a few changes have been implemented. First there is a major problem where a Marquis or any long-range character can snipe down the first Sentry-bot. It is okay that these characters can engage the sentry from that far away range but they should not have the ability to solo the sentry without minions in the area. So I propose two different changes could be integrated or even both.

  1. Make it so the Sentry can not take any player damage while Shield is active. Minions must first take the shield out before players can deal damage to the actual health of the Sentry Bot.

  2. Make it so that Players can not deal damage to the Sentry Bot at all unless a minion is within certain range of the Sentry-Bot.

This would stop the sniping from happening right away in a match and force teams to actually have to push a lane forward with their minions. It can also cause great stalemates in the middle of the map until a team nabs a couple player kills and can make something happen off of it.

As well Incursion has problems after the first sentry is down. Shielded minions start to spawn and these guys absolutely wreck regular minion waves, causing the enemy to either choose to defend the last Sentry being attacked by enemy forces next to the Thumper Turret and Supply Station or defend their minions to take out the shielded minions that are incoming. This causes the losing team to spilt up while the winning team can just group up and either push minions forward or go for game without minions.

With my proposed changes above, the winning team would have to focus on pushing their shielded minions to the last Sentry Bot to be able to damage it, thus causing the losing team an easier time of defending the invading forces because there would be less split-pushing happening.

Last, I believe once the first Sentry-Bot is down, teams should not automatically receive shielded minions. I believe what should happen is that the losing teams Thrall Camp should become more powerful, needing 2 or 3 members of a team to take it out. Whichever team defeats the losing teams Thrall would have access to shielded minions until it respawns.

This would cause the losing team to have a way of pushing back the minion waves with shielded minions and cause the winning team a way of pushing in to the last Sentry-Bot.

Metldown:

So far I like this mode. Thumper turrets hurt and slow very well, punishing overextending at the wrong times. At this moment on this map, I wouldnt change anything. Believe Gearbox made a lot of good changes from the CTT resulting in less snowballing effects happening.

Hero Balance

S Tier: No one

A Tier:
Miko

  • Scale back damage by 25% or so.
    Oscar Mike
  • Remove Frag Grenades exploding on impact Helix Choice.
    Gallelia
  • Remove getting back shield after toss Helix Choice. Should have to wait until cooldown is done or pick up the shield to get it back.
    Ambra
  • Flame shield to a 60 second timer
    Ghalt
  • Bring damage buff from 50% to 30%

B Tier:
Everyone else that is not stated in the other tiers.

C Tier:
Attikus
Deande

  • Buff damage just a tad bit. Give her a reason to be an assassin but be careful because she does have a ranged attack.
    Whiskey Foxtrot
  • Less recoil on primary gun. Buff precision damage more. Do not change a lot until Oscar Mike receives his nerf. Could be that OM is just too good and Whiskey Foxtrot is in a good place, just overshadowed by OM.
    Thorn
  • Weaker Marquis in every respect. Change her bow so she does not have to charge her arrows to deal more damage. Change passive that her arrows and abilities apply the Cursed affect. Landing consecutive arrows on targets increases their Curse stack and refreshes duration. By 3rd arrow, her arrows are hitting as hard as possible. She is a mobile harasser. Support this rather than sitting back and sniping.

D Tier:
Boulder
-Absolutely no reason to use him over Galiea. Make him in to a true front-liner Bruiser. Faster attack speed, absolutely atrocious how slow he attacks. Make his rage mechanic more visible, better explained. Seems like a character where he spends most of his time huddling beneath his shield and doesnt get anything done.

Toby:

  • Needs to act more as a ranged sniper that he is. Territory defense is great and all except that a Marquis/Thorn/Bennecict create a living nightmare for Toby. Bigger AOE on landmine. On hit, apply slow or silence? On Direct Hit, apply stun? How about when Toby spawns his wall shield, it gains health from the amount of shields Toby has when he activates the skill. The shield wall is way too weak.

Thank you everybody for reading. Any questions, comments or anything, feel free to post.

1 Like
#2

Both options on incursion mode about the snipers are great. It really has tp be fixed and you gave the team some great suggestions. And I agree that the losing team should have a chance, because after the first sentry the game is played most of the time.

Meltdown is perfect, you genius.

Not agreeing(Is this a word?) on Miko and OM. Everyone says Miko deals so much damage, but his damage is quite pathetic except for when he is overleveled. Never had any trouble with Miko’s.
If OM does not have his exploding frag, he gets a lot worse. People just need to learn to get out of the area really fast. Maybe reduce the damage, but not the ‘explode on impact’
I… Gally is just horribly OP imo and something has to be done about that stun too.
Ambra… Don’t like her either, but that is a good suggestion. She still does too much damage IMO though.
I cannot say anything about Ghalt, because I have no played with nor against him after the nerf.

And I actually don’t have any opinions about the other characters you named, but it seems like you really did your research. I hope it’s helpfull to Gearbox.

#3

Good work as usual @devyn_stroud.

#4

@devyn_stroud Leviathan was saying last night that having a range cap on all damage would be a good way to eliminate sentry cheesing. Your first suggestion almost sounds like you think players shouldn’t be able to damage the sentry’s shield, but I’m pretty sure you meant using shield penetration to get some cheeky solo damage early either from Bunker or Backdoor. That second suggestion couldn’t work because a half decent team would be able to turtle easily by focusing their minion clear right around that last chokepoint in the minion path.

A slow and/or silence on Galilea’s shield throw seems more appropriate than having her outright stun. I think that would go a long way to rebalancing her. That and her Anti Hero mutation, +35% attack speed just for getting your corruption up, is ludicrous, especially when you pair it with It’s Dangerous to go Alone (the ranged attack). They need to change that skill so it doesn’t activate when connecting with a melee attack.

I don’t know about Ghalt’s damage as I’ve only played one game with him; it seems good, but his range absolutely needs re-evaluation. He could comfortably mid range targets even without his slug round augment.

#5

I would wholeheartedly support that change. The mode should revolve around getting minions to the sentry, IMO.

#6

i agree in every way, with the exception of galilea. @51lv3r4554551n literally could not have said it better. phoebe even before her first nerf was not even as strong as galilea after her nerf. there has never been a character in this game with a better helix than galilea. with the mutations and some attack speed gear stacking with attack dmg she literally cannot be stopped, unless the player using her is bad

spot on observations across the board, though

#7

@Misguided So players have to stand around and wait for the minions to down the shield? How does that work? By guessing when the shield is down? Poking out and checking regularly? You wouldn’t be able to keep the enemy team off them and the wave would be cleared in a few seconds by a half conscious team. If your team is dominant enough to get a significant number of minions into range of the sentry and you can safely occupy that area AND you have time to put a few shots/skills/ults out to speed up the shield downing process then your team has every right to do so, in my opinion. Stopping that would artificially draw out matches where one team is dramatically outplaying the other.

@Dominator3864 How exactly do you disagree? We agree that the stun is a problem don’t we? GBX can’t just make it do damage. Heck the stun would actually be fine if it lasted half as long. That would allow good Galilea players to stop a Rath ult or escape a dangerous situation. The problem with shield throw is that it’s usable more as an offensive tool than a defensive one.
EDIT: Halving the time stunned and perhaps increasing the cooldown on it would be a good compromise.

Also @devyn_stroud I just remembered you forgot to put Caldarius in the D tier. His jukes are unparalleled but his damage output and ult might both be the worst in the game. The way he was in the beta was a distraction at best, and an effectively AFK player at worst.

#8

They could always adjust the time it takes minions to bring down the shield accordingly. Players should certainly not be able to bring the shield down without minions (again, that’s just my opinion, don’t mean for it to sound like some objective truth) but right now they can. Seems to me that short-circuits the entire game mode.

#9

I see where you’re coming from (and I know to take everything said on a forum as an opinion), but I counter with another question. Does a team that can’t fend off backdooring and harassment from the bunker hallway deserve to be able to turtle up like they would, just because they can place 2 or 3 wave clear skills and a few seconds of damage with moderate brain activity? I think the answer is no, and if Gearbox goes down that path then every time a good team goes up against another good team the game will run the full 30 minutes and whichever team has the most score will win, effectively turning the fun “tug of war” dynamic that OP mentioned into a siege warfare type of game. That sounds incredibly boring.

#10

you misread my post. i said that i agree with the op in every way except galilea, then there is a period. Then i tag you and say that you said it perfectly. the stun needs to go. the rest of the tree is incredible. she makes phoebe look like trash, even before the first nerf in the ctt

#11

Ahh, that makes more sense. I shouldn’t read so quickly : p

#12

This is how I see it. If your team is turtling on your first sentry, my team can go grab middle Thrall. If we time it correctly, go after them right after our Minion wave enters the middle of the middle, we can down middle Thrall by the time yall kill our minion wave, thus putting your abilities on cooldown. Thrall would push the lane more and by the time yall would get the two Thrall down (who have most likely down some sort of damage to the Sentry-Bot) our minion wave would be back.

As well, since we are pushing with Thrall, you have to make the choice of either taking out Thrall quickly or stopping the Players advance who at this point are looking for people to poke/kill/CC and burst down. So even in you defend the Thrall atttack, you most likely will lose a couple people or at least have to retreat, allowing us to burst down your incoming minion wave and ours having free reign on the Sentry Bot Shields.

It is why turtling is hard. You have to focus on either minion waves or player characters with your abilities.

Even if you have this siege like gamemode that lasts 30 minutes, it is better in my opinion than someone sniping the enemy Sentry-Bot from miles away.

When we faced you and Evil’s team, most of the game for us was Siege warfare. You all barely pushed us out of mid control. I thought the game was intense and fun overall. We won 100-99 and score wise, won by 1 point. (Though i do believe the math behind obtaining Score needs to be changed. Minion/Buildables/Shards need to be integrated within the system some how. Maybe even deaths.)

Balance Wise:

I did forget about Calderius. I wouldnt call him D tier though. I believe they need to keep his damage low but support a more CC harrasser. So not damage focused like Thorn or Bennedict. Give his Ult a 2 second stun on hit within the AOE. Blind nade is good. Allow his melee attack to have actual range. Like throwing out a wind-slash or something.

I just dont want all these harrassers falling under only doing damage. Caldarius already has a decent kit that would allow him to fill this role of a CC harasser.

Deande: Was talking to a teammate and all they wanted changed was her movement speed. Should be around Mikos, not slower than Montanna as it is right now.

#13

I would have guessed that pushing with double, or triple Thralls and minions all at the same time (with considerable timing and co-ordination) would be more effective, but perhaps staggering the waves and keeping up pressure is better. I suppose it depends on how the enemy team is playing. More testing is definitely needed.

#14

Very well said Seaman. Well put together and thought out. No clear biases towards characters or modes. Look forward to playing with you once the full game is out.

#15

I actually think turtling is WAY to easy, and effective in incursion. Even a full competitive team, against a team of two people I never played with, and 2 others all communicating; and we easily forced a stalemate. I’m certain if we played again we wouldn’t have take any damage, and that is a problem. One could feasibly pick 5 ranged characters, turtle, and only go for occasional kills; while trying to get as many assists as possible. The sad truth is, that would win. The incursion game mode needs to change, (with the right ranged hero’s), elite bots and thralls will fall before they ever reach the opposite side. Despite pressure from 5 enemies. The score algorithm needs work as well. You shouldn’t lose if you get less assists, that is a stupid way to lose. Another reason to use small characters, so everyone can tag an enemy before they die. To say nothing about how right now, solo kills mean far less than team kills.

1 Like
#16

Fact is I do not know at this moment how they fix that turtling problem. It is kind of ingrained in to that single lane mode. It is like sitting underneath a tower except 5 people plus minions are there. All the other team can do is hope to either poke enough to force them back or grab a couple kills to make a push easier.

As well, Ghalts chain needs to be reworked for vertical distances. No reason for a Ghalt to grab a character and due to a structure being there due to head glitching, the enemy can not be moved from their post. You didnt die that match but you should have died at least two times due to the chain grabbing.

#17

Yeah playing Ghalt a lot got me thinking, right now after it hits, the enemy B-lines straight for Ghalt; but what if they made it so the hook pulls the enemy slightly UP at first, then down when the near Ghalt. Ehhh just an idea, that or make it easier to pass through things. There are simply to many obstacles to run into in incursion, if I don’t happen to pull a minion: I’ll pull a person into another one of their team, into a minion, into a ‘slight incline,’ into one of my team, or they won’t pull for some reason, or they will pull PAST me, or they will pull directly on my trap which was there 10 seconds ago but still not trip it. In other words Ghalt needs some work. While I’m on the topic of characters that need work, please make Orendi’s shadowfire an air targeted ability, (not ground), so that teeny tiny hills do not block her ability short. Obscure pun intended.

#18

I want them to make it so if the chain hits you, you just get pulled to Ghalt or wherever the chain stops just in case the Ghalt is moving as he uses it. It should pull you through obstacles unless its a player. Another player could walk in front and stop the pull from going all the way.

#19

Been awhile since I’ve checked the BB forum. I’ve mostly been posting on the BB subreddit instead, but I figured I’d start going through some of this forum since it contains material that I’m interested in (mainly competitive multiplayer material).

@Dominator3864 - Been awhile since I’ve seen ya, dude. Good to see you’re still active and enjoying the game. =)

Anyway, a few things from this post:

Matchmaking: I agree. SMITE has a good implementation for Ranked play in which only 2 players can queue together unless you set up a private match. This seems to work well.

Incursion: I agree. The “sentry-sniping” issue is pretty well-known at this point, so I’m sure Gearbox will make changes to balance this issue.

Meltdown: This is still my favorite mode, but I think Thumper Turrets should be invincible until the opposing team reaches 250 points. This is mostly for newer players: most newer players forget to rebuild the Thumper turret and leave themselves open to getting ganked repeatedly because they no longer have a “safety zone” to fall back to. Also, most MOBAs require you to kill the towers in order; towers that are farther back are usually invincible (so that you can’t backdoor a team).

Hero balance:

Not sure about Miko being A-tier; when he’s doing damage, he’s not healing, and when he’s healing, he’s not doing damage. It’s entirely possible to burst Miko down with a coordinated assault, so the only time he’s a threat is when you allow him to 1v1 other Battleborn, which isn’t something you should really be doing.

I agree with all other A-tier placements (although I can’t say much about Ghalt because I didn’t see much of him in the PC version).

Thorn is definitely not C-tier. I’m not sure if this list was intended for PS4 only, but Thorn is at LEAST B-tier and arguably A-tier. I main Thorn on PC, and I almost always top the damage charts in every game I’m in unless my team gets absolutely crushed (and even then I’m usually higher than most of the players on the enemy team). She might need some help on the PS4 version since it’s more difficult to land shots, but she seems completely fine on the PC version. (NOTE: Your comparison of her to Marquis is negligible because Thorn fulfills a different role than Marquis. She has MUCH better wave clear, and she’s capable of getting around the map much easier than Marquis, who needs to be in certain positions to be “safe” from other characters)

Whiskey Foxtrot is misunderstood – he’s an assassin, so you have to think of him as an assassin which means that his damage is poor early game (with bad wave clear) and his single-target damage is really good late game (which it is). Oscar Mike is in a completely different category because Oscar Mike is a “push” character, and that’s why Oscar Mike overshadows him until way later in the game. Once Whiskey gets his late-game helix options online, he’s an absolute beast in 1v1 situations, and it’s almost impossible to box him.

I agree with the rest of your lower tier observations.

SIDE NOTE: On the topic of Galilea (who is my second main behind Thorn), most people misunderstand what makes her too strong. Her strength lies in her melee auto-attack damage, which does an insane (assassin-like) amount of damage. This needs to be reduced greatly so that she isn’t capable of killing enemies in the duration of her own stun. Which brings me to her stun: the stun is absolutely vital to her utility; if she didn’t have the stun, she’d be a relatively worthless character. Also, the talent to make her shield return to her hand is also significant; Galilea is weakest when she misses her stun and can’t block anything. She essentially has to sit back and wait for her shield to return to her hand before she can even engage. Without selecting the “shield return” helix option, she would basically become rather worthless because she would have to retreat EVERY time she throws her shield and wait for it to respawn in her hand (which takes something like 10-15 seconds).

EDIT: Reyna, Benedict, and ISIC are all “A-tier” on PC. Reyna’s second Helix option (Lockdown) allows her to basically infinitely snare a target, which makes it WAY too easy for a good team to pick off characters repeatedly. She is currently the best support in the game (and better than Miko/Ambra for that role) if she is played correctly.

I’ve heard Benedict is rather difficult to use on console, but on PC, he’s fantastic. His push is literally out-of-control strong, and he can clear the minion waves so fast that suddenly he’ll be bombarding you with rockets before you can even clear one or two minions yourself.

ISIC does monstrous damage from range. He was terrible in the CTT, but they definitely significantly buffed him for the Open Beta, and he’s all around monstrous. He has fantastic damage, fantastic defense, and a fantastic escape/gap-close mechanic. Assuming you land the majority of your shots, ISIC can deal with just about anyone.

#20

senpai!!! you remember me!!! i only desire for senpai to notice me…

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