Out of Touch or Just Apathetic?

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

Why can’t GBX get it into their heads that fights with enemies that have insane immunity phases or erratic movement, aren’t fun? There’s no “tactics”, it’s just shoot for 2 seconds, spend 5+ seconds tracking them or waiting for their their immunity phase to end, then shooting for 2 seconds, rinse repeat, ad nauseam.

Tedium isn’t fun. Mind-numbing encounters that require you to just hold down the trigger aren’t fun. Encounters that just drag on and on, without purpose or interest, are destroying what remaining interest I have in this game.

And at the end, you still get screwed by RNG and horrible anoints on uninspired gear that’s not even worth picking up to sell. Or “It’s Poop!”. Yeah, that’s becoming more and more appropriate.

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#2

I basically don’t fight anything that flies if I can personally avoid it because I find most of them to be obnoxious beyond my patience lol Flying enemies literally just 150% randomly zig and zag at the speed of light with no momentum or predictability. It’s truly horrendous.

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#3

For the most part Immunity phases seem to be implemented to prevent what I have coined “The Graveward Scenario” on my first playthrough of BL3 I shredded this boss. I was I think maybe 4 or 5 levels above him and he stood no chance. From a developers perspective that is frustrating. You put weeks in to creating this concept then bringing it life and then it is dead in second before it shows off it’s best attacks. Immunity phases are not a good designe in it of themselves. When a boss goes immune you need to maintain a players level of engagement. Having me dodge lazer beams isn’t now you do that.

Troy is a good example of doing Immunity right. When it goes up I need to knock our some generators and deal with some adds. If he is going to fo immune give me a method to knock him out and give me something to deal with aswell. Keep my adrenaline going. Don’t have the Rampager jump around while I just dodge rocks and fire balls. I’m not hear the look at his attack I’m hear to fight him.

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#4

My favorite are the anointed that throw the slow moving death ball when you are indoors and it slowly moves down the hall forcing you to run away from the enemies and stand there for 5 minutes while it slowly travels down the hall. I actually had 2 of those in a single hallway last night. Such engaging and fun mechanics GB. :weary:

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#5

The best part of the Zealots Orb, is you can’t destroy it. It is inevitable, creeping death. Speed Demon is the best thing since sliced bread to get out of these things reach.

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#6

I agree. I also think Captain Haunt was another great execution of this idea.

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#8

This is probably the core issue. I’m pretty sure people will keep up with annoying mechanics as long as the reward is worth the hassle.

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#9

Tyreen, Katagawa, Rampager, and the last boss of DLC 2 are by far the worst offenders in my opinion. They absolutely are not fun to fight, with Tyreen for example if you don’t lock her down right away you might as well suicide due to how much time she wastes with her long animations where she is invulnerable.

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#10

Immunity phases just feel like lazy shortcuts to extend a fight or make it more interesting. If developers don’t want bosses to be one-shotted, then there are better ways to engage the player and make the fight challenging without cheating.

The Rampager fight could be improved upon by speeding up his transformation, and actually engaging players to shoot the white “spirits” or maybe even shoot out pillars to damage him during the “immunity” phase. Shooting the spirits doesn’t do anything except maybe drop ammo. If destroying them reduced the immunity phase, then players would have more engagement. If they need the time to let action skills recycle, then they probably don’t mind the wait. But if they are ready to go, then give them the option to speed up to the next stage. This still prevents the Rampager from being one-shotted, but keeps the players moving and shooting.

But even normal mobs can be annoying like this. The Maliwan dogs are such a pain. They move fast, seem to anticipate my every move, have a shield that takes multiple yellowcake blasts to drop, and they health-gate through my Deterrence barrier and shield with their unavoidable leap-attack. OH and they have guns too, so yeah. They aren’t impossible to kill, they just aren’t fun to fight against. They are the Maliwan version of the anointed for me, only with less loot.

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#11

1000% agreed. Heck while short did a very direct and good job at communicating the mechanics at play in the boss fight to come. Capitan Haunt would easily make my top 5 BL3 bosses.

I understand it is the same formula but there are ways to change those mechanics up. In Battleborn one of the bosses you fight at the end of “The Renegae” Mission has several enemies who are fighting along side him. Said enemies are projecting an shield on to the boss. The enemies actively fight you and once you kill all of them the boss becomes vulnerable.
You can sort of see that formula in the Valkyrie fight the main difference is the Valks are not fighting you while immune.
Thar also beings up two other fights that did Immunity fairly well. Wotan has alot of transitions but the duration between transition is fairly tight, and it is a good indicator that he is swapping tactics.
We compare that to The Ranpager who spends around 30 seconds to a minute immune to damage just to show you "I’m changing my element and one of my attacks.
Valk squad also keeps you engaged though I do wish the time between adds spawning and the Valks going up was a bit smoother. Regardless the fight keeps you engaged more often then several of the other bosses.

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#12

I think some of the faster and more agile mobs can be a bit to spastic. Anointed Maniacs and Midgets both have a habit of spamming teleport at random. It’s not something you will experience all the time but it happens often enough and when it dose is beyond aggravating. Mobs like the dogs and anointmented have randomized behavior patterns which seem to be somewhat based on context like how far away you are, or if your shields are up. Due to what I assume to be the random component to that they can get caught in loops where the AI favors an action. Having these enemies behavior adjusted based off player count or if they have used an action recently is would help players develop more consistent strategies outside of, equip a Smart Gun or homing grenades.

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#13

The Valk fight would be a top “boss fight”, but suffers from some annoyances that ruin the whole experience for.

  • It’s too easy to walk off an edge in the center area, with multiple explosions, the visibility issues with Zane’s barriers, and the Valks getting right into your personal space.
  • The one Valk has a ‘shock’ attack that bypasses both the Transformer shield and Zane’s barrier. I can’t even see the projectiles, just the splashes of shock and the sudden FFYL.
  • Another Valk has the Bucky Balls of Death, that seem to to track you, spam out constantly, and bypass barrier and shields.
  • The other Valk with the scyth continues to attack well into her immunity phase, resulting in FFYL from an invincible foe or running away (aka Purple Orb of Death levels of lame).

The unavoidable death phases are really annoying, as I’m forced to just run away and wait it out. And like the purple orb, it slows down the action without adding anything of interest.

#14

Yes, the constant spamming of attacks or actions that make them unkillable is horrible design. They should have a cool-down or way to interrupt them for a some duration.

When I have to cross COV territory, and I encounter a tele-spamming anointed, I’ll just avoid them at all costs or if I can’t, I’ll reload the map. A 10 min fight for a blue and maybe a purple isn’t worth it.

#15

i personally think rampager is well designed boss . Doesn’t let u crit so easily , jump around and the attacks aren’t that easy to dodge . immunity phase is pretty bad tho , does nothing but waste time

#16

Maya says something like “We should probably shoot those”; it’s something I’ve tried to do every time I run through that fight, although you need the right weapon for the job.

#17

I mean terramophous sorta had an immunity phass but you could swe those dots rolling on him underground.

Bl2 boss fights were boss. I miss em.

#18

I’ve tried it too, and I’m not sure it does anything. A friend mentioned that they seem to drop ammo, but none of us noticed any change in the fight.

If they had some meaningful impact, then it might make for a better fight. Or at least more tolerable.

#19

My impression is that it shortens the immunity phase, but I’m not 100% - you’d basically need to take down the lot of them ASAP to be sure of this. I’m usually too busy reloading at that point. Maybe I need to go back on easy mode and cheese it.

#20

That’s how I’ve been using immunity phases as well - a quick break to pick up some ammo (especially grenades), open boxes for InstaHealth, reposition myself etc. Assuming that boss is not attacking you while invulnerable, which seems to be the case most of the time.

#21

Ive always used the orbs for 2nd wind if I was downed.

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