Non-existing progression in Mayhem Mode?

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

Hello there everyone,

so me and my friends just completed our first playthrough and took a glance at the Mayhem Mode. We’ve enabled Mayhem 1 just to try it out while starting a DLC. We didn’t feel very comfortable so we rolled back to 0, and i was kinda sad cause i had already bought a Mayhem 1 gun from the vendor, thinking i wouldn’t be able to use it, like in BL2 with the OP system.

Well well was i wrong… and deeply disappointed. So tell me if i’m wrong again but, basically you could get into Mayhem 10, buy all your gear, roll back to where you left off and be kind of a god, disrupting your whole experience?
Many of you might say “Well yeah, but what would be the point of that?”, and i’d agree. Point is, being able to enable the hardest difficulty right off the bat will not only shorten the lifespan of the game by A LOT, but it would also deprive you of any sense of progression through those difficulties.

Am i missing something?

Furthermore, if i’d want to force myself into some sort of self-made progression system through the Mayhem’s difficulties, how would i choose the right moment to switch to the next tier, given that you have no test to pass like the Digistruct Peak was in BL2?

Thanks

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#2

You aren’t missing anything.
This system is a joke
Furthermore, character skills like short fuse are buffed in a way that you don’t even need strong guns to manage mayhem 10
Your character literally gets boosted along side the enemies so nothing changes besides the stupid modifiers

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#3

What do you mean with “skills like short fuse are buffed”? In what way?
Also, how do you know this? I wouldn’t mind learning something.

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#4

You can certainly go straight to MM10, grab a bunch of high-powered weapons there, and bring them back to non-Mayhem mode and steamroll your way through, but you’re not forced to do that. You could also just use them at MM10 and play whatever that’s like.

The ability to do this lets you customize your weapon-based difficulty by bringing weapons of various power to different difficulty levels.

If you want to one-shot your way through the game, grab some high-end MM10 weapons and bring them to non-Mayhem Normal mode.

If you think MM10 is too easy, bring lower-level gear to that fight.

I, for example, like the OPQ System gun, but I usually play at MM4, and my MM10 variant is stronger than I like. I don’t want it to smash everything in a shot or two, so I’ll be nosing around for a weaker one when the Cartel event re-opens. Similarly, I love the Peacemonger, but I do use a MM10 at MM4 and it feels about right for me.

You can individually “customize” weapons like this to your preferred difficulty. If you’re bent on playing at MM10, you’re at the whim of the random weapon capabilities because you’re parked up against the highest difficulty level, so the only space available for off-level weapons is down, but you see what I’m getting at.

Also, you could totally use higher OP weapons at lower OP levels in BL2… I did this exact same thing in that game as I’m doing in this one. Did that not work for you? That OP system was wonderful for weapon balancing like this… used this system for years myself.

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#5

Yes but beating the hardest difficulty is kinda the ultimate objective you have in a game like this, so let me give you an exampe. Let’s say you finish the game, go to Mayhem 10, farm vendors to get some real good stuff. Now you can either be ready for M10 or you can farm something better in M9 at least until you’re ready for M10.

Now tell me, what’s the purpose of M1-8? They literally have no reason to exist. Either there is a progression system, or there isn’t =/ Wouldn’t you agree?

P.S. I don’t remember for sure about using higher OP level gear at lower OP levels, but the point is that you couldn’t access the last OP unless you actually reached it. My complaint is not being able to use higher M gear at lower M levels, but being able to get there with literally zero effort.

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#6

While this is true, it’s got uses.
Besides, as other have mentioned, being able to set your difficulty as you wish, it’s also useful to me for farming.

For example, both Capt Traunt and Capt Haunt have a good bit of a walk with lots of enemies to get to them.

I don’t particularly care to re-fight the lower level baddies, so I turn Mayhem off, use my M-10 gear to obliterate all the little guys in my way. Then just before the Boss arena I turn M-10 back on. Game resets, you’re still at the entrance to the arena, and you can then fight the boss for loot at the highest level you want to.
A time and ammo saver for me, I’m fine with it.

And yes, in BL2 you could take OP-10 gear back to OP1 (or earlier) and wipe stuff out easily. I’ll admit to doing this to farm Seriph crystals a little easier. OP levels were not as starkly different than Mayhem levels, though, fighting at OP-1 still had a good bit of risk even with OP-10 gear. Fighting non-Mayhem enemies with M-10 gear, on the other hand, is pure bloodshed and trivially easy.

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#7

…for some players. If the hardest difficulty didn’t extend the range at which I could adjust my gear like this, 100% I would not even touch it. In BL3, I go there for fresh loot sometimes (not farming exactly, but running some missions and taking whatever drops). It was the same for BL2 and OP8/10 - I was only there for some loot and never went back.

At the moment, it’s to give players a choice about the Mayhem Modifier spread they’re interested in (for better or worse - we’re all hoping they separate the Mayhem Modes from the difficulty itself).

The lower Mayhem Modes are the lower difficulty levels, which are an option in almost every video game made? Instead of Easy Medium Hard, BL3 has 8 Mayhem levels (plus Normal/True modes). This gives players way more options to find the game difficulty they like.

I personally use them to buff weak gear and nerf overpowered gear, but some players just prefer lower difficulties in general. If it was meant to be a progression system, one would have to unlock them one at a time.

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#8

Well, that’s what I assumed as well, but it isn’t true absolutely and you yourself have seen it. Beating the hardest difficulty is only a personal objective to be honest.

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#9

For those who enjoy M10, the lower M levels have no purpose. But I know a bunch who enjoy lower M levels. I disagree with GBX’s decision to have 10 levels, also level cap, and refarming gear BUT I learned to accept reality.

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#10

I don’t have the numbers at hand but some skills just received some heavy buffs with increasing mayhem levels because players wee complaining that enemies are too spongy
So short fuse on mayhem 10, if I am not wrong, does 7x the damage compared to non mayhem so it doesn’t do 75% weapon damage but 500%
Fire in the skag den might even have received a 21x buff if I am not mistaken

#11

Getting a character max level then using the vending machine or fabricator on mayhem 10 on sanctuary pretty much can gear you for that level easy, you can choose to farm lower mayhem like 4 for gear to farm higher level if you want but with the way it’s set up you don’t really have to. Biggest issue in mayhem 10 is getting those prefect rolls as the anoit system is still just rng

#12

Your not missing anything. The mayhem system is a colossal failure. The 10 levels mean basically nothing. It only gets more annoying the higher the mayhem level because of the awful modifiers nobody was asking for.

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#13

Actually a 31x increase I believe!

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#14

nothing to add here i guess^^
its a joke

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#15

I like the idea of customisable difficulty options, though I have to say that BL3’s difficulty is the most confusing Byzantine mess I’ve ever seen.

There are a million difficulty combinations. On top of M0-M10 and normal/tvhm you have true takedown modes, and the the normal/easy setting, which doubles up all the other combinations. And of course the mayhem modifiers range wildly in how hard they make the game. Buddy system is ‘very hard’ even though it makes it easier to get second winds (it’s a slow, gently moving target without much HP) , while roguelite actually is ‘very hard’.

Some parts of the difficulty system are also communicated very poorly to the player. To this day I’m not sure how TVHM combines with mayhem mode. Based on the game itself encouraging me, I did 4 playthroughs of TVHM (so 8 in total of a pretty tedious story mode ), only to find out later that it might have been a waste of time, as Mayhem supposedly overrides TVHM, though opinions differ on this, and the game itself remains vague about this.

And then there are loads of ‘hidden’ difficulty scales. For example, there are two Takedowns, yet one is 5 times easier than the other, for some reason.

And despite all this, the game manages to get easier and easier the deeper you go, because of power creep, imbalances, and strong guardian perks. I kill Wotan on M10 true takedown mode in a tenth of the time it took on M0 normal mode 6 months ago. How does that make sense?

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#16

said this before M 2.0 was a thing…

i said scaling would make the whole system meaningless… did they listen?

just look at the overall state of this game… a bunch of mashed up trown together pile of ■■■■■■ decisions… mayhem being a prime example.

why they didn’t go with something like:

  • NO weapon scaling
  • OPTIONAL mods
  • infinite difficulty increase
    is beyond me…

everybody has acces to the same (allready diluted) lootpool without the adition of (further diluting) mayhem levels… wich pretty much ruins the use of playing multiple characters due to the fact you’d use your best toon to aquire loot and distibute it amongst your other toons (not to start on how doing it otherwise would fill up your bank in minuits)

and then there’s the powercreep anointments… 99.9% of anything but legendaries are useless… why? because legendaries on their own are at least 2x as powerfull compared to a purple rarity… slap on an anointment and voila, balance is out the window and ran over by a dumptruck…

remember the promise of a gazilion guns? well, they held that part of the bargin… they never said 99.9% would be ■■■■■■■ useless…

i never played M1-9… i allready had a great classmod and a great artifact (with pretty great rolls boosting damage into oblivion) making the first few minuits “kinda though” but once i dropped a good weapon i was steamrolling the game again because they failed… failed HARD!

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#17

Sadly, I don’t think it is in BL3. GBX obviously made the commercial decision that they would maintain a player base for longer by letting players get to endgame as soon as , and with as little effort as, possible. They completely overlooked your point that the challenge to get to the hardest difficulty is important as well. For some of us, it was the progression that made Borderlands so addictive. Mayhem Mode was supposed to compensate for that but you have pointed out its failings. If there is a BL4 or whatever, I will be interested to see what GBX have learnt from this entry in the franchise.

1 Like
#18

Sometimes I wish BL3’s Mayhem was set up more like BL2’s OP system, in that you had to complete an objective in order to advance. While most of my thousands of hours of BL2 endgame was spent in normal UVHM/OP0 (for various reasons), I did enjoy the challenge of taking characters up to OP8 (and later OP10).

But now, in BL3, you can just download kung fu instantly into your brain and play in M10 no sweat. (Especially if you’re Moze and already have a decent IB build.)

Something like… complete all the Trials to advance (within a time limit for each). The Mayhem machine on Sanctuary would have indicators showing which ones were complete. When all are complete, you can advance up to the next Mayhem level. Beat the Trials again on that Mayhem level to advance again, BL2 OP style.

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#19

I’m on the same boat, came back after months and i was shocked what they have done to the game with Mayhem 2.0 … really i’m still shocked. The new Mayhem-system destroys the not-perfect but alot better progression we had with the old system. The whole balance was better, the game progression was more consistent. Get to max-level and every piece of gear & weapons matters - sure within the typical random & balance anomaly ( nothing is ever perfect ), but thats the fun of loot & grind.

Alone that we get tiered weapons inside the Mayhem-system is destroying the fun, if my most liked weapon drops i don’t want to think “well there are 9 better versions dmg wise” so the conclusion is only MM10 makes any sense and really for someone who has a fresh VH at level 65 MM10 is no fun to farm for anything.

AND activating MM10 and then buy MM10 tier10 weapons at Marcus store can’t be the meaning of a loot-shooter. Makes Mayhem levels 1-9 irrelevant. Also if we activate MM10 buy some weapons and then switch to MM9 … for what??? Sorry this is such a fail.

I just can say PLS GBX go back to Mayhem 1.0 with tweaks but get rid of the system we have now.

Best regards.

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#20

BL1 was gear dependent almost totally, get a good gun (like a Hellfire with Lilith) at mid-game level and it would carry you until the end without having to upgrade. Once you had a good gun the game kinda fell over and let you beat it easily. The “challenge” in end-game, Crawmerax, was beaten with 4 SMGs of different elements, no real strategy.
BL2 was gear and character skills. And end-game stayed challenging (for me), good boss fights to repeat and The Peak, I’m still only OP-6.

BL3 is gear and character to the point of overpower. I just did the Maliwan TD last night, for example, at Mayhem 10 with Zane, Light Shows, and an O.P.Q. and I am unhappy to report that it was pretty easy, just took time.
I’m a mid-level skill player. I should NOT be able to just breeze along shrugging off damage, letting my Clone kill many things, and casually beat Wotan without thinking about it much, just circle-strafing for 5-8 minutes. I’m not that good. I should be on the edge of my seat hoping I make it through this time. I’m also talking about tactics for a fight, BL2 bosses had specific things to watch out for or to exploit. For the most part, BL3 is just fire moar bullets!!!.

That’s what the BL2 OP system gave me. A comfortable place to play (OP-6) and stretch goals that are really hard to do (getting to OP-10).

I don’t know what the solution for BL3 is, but it (for me) lacks the challenge that makes me want to mess around in end-game.

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