#22

lol, ok. The damage by his clone and sentinel are completely negligible on mayhem 3. The buffs are irrelevant and didn’t change Zane’s situation at all. Scourge, hive, lyuda, whatever you want to use on Zane, that’s the result of the weapon being ridiculous, not Zane being buffed. Give those same weapons to any other character and you’ll see that he’s still weak.

And what about you? You say I have to start backing up my claims, yet what have you done to back up anything you’ve said? Hmmm? Also, I didn’t say FL4K is unplayable, I said that they hit gitm too hard with their nerfs.

Get off your high horse and stop forcing words down my throat. This post doesn’t have to do with individual vault hunters, it has to do with the methodology of gearbox. They nerf before they even have a functioning game.

Also, lmfao at your response. “Cheap shots at the game”. Stop getting so offended. The game is fun at first, but the longer you play it the more aggravating it is to see how non-functional the game is… and then gearbox’s response is to nerf the limited gameplay we have instead of fixing the mountain of problems and glitches? Yea, I’ll insult the game I paid for. We deserve a working product.

6 Likes
#23

I’m with Gorbles on this one. Having an even balance between buffs and nerfs is the best way to keep the overall game balance healthy. By prioritizing buffs over nerfs, you’re only creating power creep, which means that eventually, enemies have to get buffed to make the game harder. There’s a lot that can go wrong there. I’d rather the developers stick with the degree of difficulty they’ve set for the release version and keep that as the baseline.

1 Like
#24

Blockquote
I have spoken about this before, there is NO justification WHATSOEVER for nerfs in a non pvp game, NONE , no matter what my detractors may say. Even if a build is OP, or a weapon is OP, who cares, let others who wish to play with “broken” builds, and Op weapons if they wish, it does not in any way shape or form harm YOUR experience of this game if you wish to play like that."

Bull. It does in fact affect other peoples experience in game because you have people that will only ever use the absolutely broken gear, and then complain that the game has become “too easy” and then GB starts balancing the rest of the game around the tards that use only the broken gear. So then all enemies get buffs, bosses get buffs, and so does future content, all the balance the game gets is around the super OP broken stuff, and then the rest of us who don’t use that crap get shafted.

1 Like
#25

I’ll refer you to the skill A vs skill B. If skill B is underpowered, glitched, or useless, then what good does it do to nerf skill A? How does that help anything? Sincere question. How does that help the situation at all? Fix skill B first. Then nerf skill A if needed. But when you nerf skill A and there is literally no other option, what does that leave players with?

GIve it a week and when Moze’s grenade & rocket build is hit with the nerf hammer and she has no other viable builds for mayhem 3, you’ll see exactly what I mean.

5 Likes
#26

The nerfs ruined flak for me i haven’t played since, the game is a mess but they concentrate on ruining sorry i mean balancing a single player game before fixing the console shut downs when joining friends games, the massive frame rate drops in menus the minus guardian ranks the list goes on, you can defend them all you want, i think there a bunch of tossers for doing this and in its current state flak is boring and not fun at all, im really annoyed and unhappy with these nerfs the other abilities for flak are not viable on mayhem 3, and im not enjoying this game anymore and that is the bottom line for me.

3 Likes
#27

Complaining about a character’s output on M3 (TVHM I’m guessing, but who knows) is a rather particular scenario.

Demanding that I back up what I say, when all I’m doing is pulling apart your arguments, is pointless. My position is simple - I think the balance changes so far are, on the whole, fair (I’m not ruling out any partial reverts though), and I disagree with whatever you’re calling an analysis on the subject. You going to bother answering my questions yet, or turn it back on me? I’m wasn’t here to be antagonistic, but you’re not being very reasonable. Maybe we both just need to take a step back, I dunno.

You seem to think that me pointing out a cheap shot (which it is) is the same as me being offended. Nah, it’s just a cheap shot. It’s a red herring. It’s a completely pointless statement. It doesn’t relate to your apparent criticism of Gearbox’s design methodologies. It’s a non-starter.

I mean, I’ve already pointed out that Gearbox aren’t nerfing the game. They nerfed a few things. They buffed a lot more. But you’re ignoring that. Just like how you say you didn’t say they made FL4K unplayable, but then went on for a paragraph about how they’re not a viable character at M3. Pick one. Either they’re playable, or they’re not. You even liked a post that said “all of FL4K’s other builds suck”.

This is why I keep asking why you ignore all the buffs they did. I don’t think you have an answer. You keep bringing up FL4K as an example, but then when criticised, you complain that you’re talking about Gearbox’s design methodology as a whole. If you were talking about their methodology as a whole, you’d be talking about the buffs you keep on not talking about. But you’re not. So either you’re just venting, or you’re so caught up in arguing with anyone who disagrees that you haven’t given yourself a chance to.

Work with me here. I’m massively into design as a hobby. Don’t assume I’m putting words down your throat. Assume for a second that that’s how I’m reading your posts. If you want a real discussion, treat me with the respect you want your points to be treated.

I completely get why some folks would be turned off by gameplay changes. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad changes. It just means people have an attachment to their characters and their gear, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I definitely understand the frustrations with technical issues. All I can say is that these kinds of buffs and nerfs are completely unrelated to the type of programming it takes to fix technical issues.

And yup, thanks, I can defend whomever and whatever I want. Just like people can attack them. It’s weird how only one of these things is ever criticised though (the defending, specifically) :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes
#28

I think the issue here;

I have spoken about this before, there is NO justification WHATSOEVER for nerfs in a non pvp game, NONE , no matter what my detractors may say. Even if a build is OP, or a weapon is OP, who cares, let others who wish to play with “broken” builds, and Op weapons if they wish, it does not in any way shape or form harm YOUR experience of this game if you wish to play like that.

If you play that way and you’re able to totally break the game entirely by having a boss deleting build in its first week when there isn’t much end game content… you probably won’t keep interest for too long. I play Fl4k. The crit build needed nerfs, but I think they overdid it quite a bit.

The duration is just too short. If I need to use the ability defensively and happen to be in the middle of a clip… its best to switch guns because you can not reload without wasting over half the duration. I think the duration was one of the worst places to adjust this ability because the abilities main theme was all the utility you AND YOUR TEAM get. If the damage was the problem, adjust the way the stuff gets calculated when under Fade Away, hell… give it diminishing returns based on the duration of the ability. Did you spec to have this last 15 seconds to both heal your team and do damage? Cool, after 5 seconds of being a damage god your crit damage multiplier approches 0 (normal shot damage). This way, if you wanna blow stuff up for 5 seconds and see some big numbers you can, but if you’re like me and also liked the ability for the other utility (Stealth, Team Healing) you still have that as well.

I think the Poppy analogy is great. Its a very simple solution… and a lazy way to solve problems. I’d love to see some more creative tweaks to reel in some of these ‘problem builds’ rather than “That DPS is too damn high! Take this nerf bat and hit that robot right in the non-binary gonads”

4 Likes
#29

You just said you main zane so i just cant wrap my head around why you would defend something that doesn’t affect you, this nerf has really wound me and i think its just the beginning of a balancing nightmare coming its just lazy if you ask me, i just cant see the need for it especially the duration, 5 seconds of invisibility with a 45 second cooldown is abysmal, people were enjoying the game now their not, ive just bought greedfall because i cant be bothered making another character for them to crap all over, this is anthem and destiny all over again so im out, sod em
Ps i have nothing against you i think everyone is entitled to their opinion have a good night :+1:t2:

5 Likes
#30

The other poster mains Zane, but you don’t criticise them because they’re critical of the nerfs. Either of us maining Zane has very little to do with it then, be fair.

I believe we’ll see more buffs, possibly a partial revert on FL4K but more likely significant buffs to the pet-related skills (much like how Zane saw solid numbers on the sentry and clone skills). They’re probably going to be a difficult VH to balance well, because they revolve around the pets, full stop. Not like Zane (or Moze, hah), who spec into having pets (effectively). The pets are core, and the pets need to work. I reckon that’s Gearbox’s next focus for FL4K.

#31

Lol ok, you must be level 20. Complaining about a character’s output on M3 is a rather particular scenario? I’m sorry, what do you think end game content in borderlands 3 is? What do you think people base their opinions off of? Level 10 gameplay? The only gameplay that truly matters in this type of game is the end game.

You haven’t pulled apart a single argument. You don’t even appear to have played the game long enough to understand what this thread is about.

You say that FL4K is playable, therefore the nerfs are fair. There is absolutely no logic there. Zane is playable. Does that mean he doesn’t need buffs? It takes 10 times more effort to get Zane to a playable level, and at a playable level he is still drastically weaker than any other vault hunter, is by far the most gear reliant character, has extremely inconsistent damage output, and has many glitched skills. But hey, by your logic, he is playable! That means he doesn’t need changing.

FL4K has been overly nerfed, and is now closer to the boat Zane is in. He has very few viable builds, and now with the duration nerf, his most viable build lost a lot of viability. Just because he is playable does not mean that they didn’t overly nerf him. Zane is playable, he is still weak, bugged, has horribly mismatched class mods, and has extremely limited options for builds. Heck, the game is technically playable, does that mean that it’s ok to leave it in it’s current state? Also, please show me where I said FL4K is unviable in M3. Please, show me that paragraph of mine where I ranted about FL4K being unplayable. I used his nerf as an example of the methodology of nerfing popular builds without giving us any alternative builds, because all the other builds are nonviable.

You’re also completely incorrect in your assumption that FL4K had an outlier so strong that it had to be nerfed. They attempted to nerf FL4K because the robot was killing bosses too quickly, yet their ability to kill bosses has not changed at all. In fact, they can still kill major bosses in under 5 seconds. What they did do, however, was nerf the robot’s survivability in mobbing. FL4K was already fairly bad with mobbing, and in their attempt to nerf their boss killing abilities, they only further weakened the robot’s abilities. And without providing any buffs to their other builds, FL4K has no other options to counteract that incidental decrease in survivability, decrease in healing, loss of an escape mechanism/repositioning, etc. The entire thread is not about FL4K but the fact that the game is extremely limited right now in regards to character builds. There are only a few that work in end game. Why? Because half the skills are bugged, don’t activate, are too weak, and the ones that do work are getting nerfed. This is leaving players with no options for strong builds.

You asked me about the buffs and I already replied. Your ego is blinding you. The buffs were entirely inconsequential and did nothing to boost the playability of the game. Your logic is that there were a higher number of gun buffs than there were nerfs to character builds and guns, yet you completely ignore the impact of the nerfs versus the buffs. The buffs were negligible and barely affect gameplay. They gave us a few new ridiculously broken (in a fun way) guns to play with. This doesn’t fix the fact that the characters themselves are heavily broken (in a bad way).

Buffing 10 guns doesn’t matter if all the characters are glitched, or are having their best builds weakened to the point that their survivability in end game is reduced to nothing. Mayhem 3 is not a particular scenario. Mayhem 3 is the only end game content we have right now, and for the genre of looter shooters/dungeon crawlers/gear games end game content is what matters. If you’re making your posts based off the belief that anything before level 50 matters, then your logic is flawed from the start.

They need to fix the broken aspects of the game and focus on giving players options for builds. Your logic of “nerfing is fair because the character is playable” fails horribly. Playable does not mean the character is strong, playable does not mean the character has a plethora of build options, playable does not mean the character has 100% functioning skills, and playable certainly does not mean that gearbox’s nerf first, fix later philosophy is the right way to proceed.

Another difference between this and diablo is that when diablo nerfed a build, there were other options for strong builds. That’s what you don’t seem to understand. I used diablo as an example of nerfing and buffing done right. They didn’t just nerf a build, and then wait 2 months to buff that character. If they nerfed 1 build for a character, they would concurrently buff other builds of that character, thus keeping their viability the same. Either that, or they would simply nerf 1 out of 4 viable builds. This game does not have 4 viable builds per character. The game does not even have 3 viable builds per character, despite there being 3 skill trees per character. The reason being is that some skill trees contain too many bugs, are too weak, or simply do not scale into end game and cannot be used. When only 1 out of 3 skill trees can be used in the end game at a strong enough level so that anybody can play it without needing 500 hours of farming for the perfect set of gear and you nerf it, you are left with 0 skill trees.

This is why I am saying they need to fix the game first before nerfing things. Right now, nerfing only removes what little of the game is playable. When they fix the game and buff the currently nonviable builds, they can nerf whatever the hell they want since we will have options as to how we want to play. Right now, we don’t have options. We have one way to beat end game content. When they nerf that one way to beat end game content, we have no other options since everything else is too weak and bugged.

editted to correct the pronoun usage for FL4K.

7 Likes
#32

And that is why I disagree with using metrics over player feedback. You sneakily watch what everyones using and of course your going to find a majority is using the youtuber’s build.

Not to mention things like The Lob, and Quadomizer are still useless to my knowledge, yet they thought that nerfing my favorite weapon brand would make me suddenly start using them.

2 Likes
#33

Lotta points in here, still with the animousity. Still, going to try what I can.

  1. Given the criticism of Mayhem modifiers and what works and doesn’t work on M3 currently, yes, noting M3 is kinda important. It’s doubly important because the way the game works in terms of your character doesn’t actually change between Mayhem levels, which means any solution has to scale relatively nicely between all of them.

  2. Skipping over the personal attacks.

  3. No, I’m saying I consider the nerfs fair. You’re the one claiming that the character’s unplayable. Zane is also playable, yes. Have I ever said neither character needed buffs? I mean, you got upset at me apparently putting words down your throat. I really think you need to step back and work out what it is you’re objecting to, because it just feels like me personally because I happen to have an opinion you don’t agree with.

  4. It’s not an impossible scenario that they overly nerfed him. I’ve even said they could do a partial revert on the nerf. But the nerf itself, from its vanilla state, is very likely to stay. Your semantics about not technically saying they’re playable means nothing when you liked a post in which the core argument was “FL4K’s builds suck”. When you admit that these characters are “playable”, what you mean is “not playable enough”. They’re not in a state which you consider them actually playable. Yeah? Is that fair enough?

The problem is that’s your only example. You only have one example of one build of one Vault Hunter being nerfed. That’s not a design methodology. That’s an assumption you made because you saw something nerfed. That’s not even close to a solid analysis of how Gearbox approaches their games (case in my point: BL2. How long did it take to receive proper balance changes? With the exception of Sal, most of them were buffs! Cloud Kill! Death Mark! There’s more but hopefully you get my point).

  1. I understand your concerns about build viability. But I still reject the point of the thread, because the thread’s founded upon a hotfix and a half to the game’s balance less than a month from release. There is no philosophy to be observed, because they could drop another hotfix next week that buffs 80% of the game board. And where would you be then, hypothetically?

  2. Again, I didn’t say “nerfing is fair because the character is playable”. I said nerfs are fair because they allow better judgement of what is lacking in the character’s kit. And don’t get me wrong, I could be wrong, Gearbox could have made a horrible mistake and they might completely revert FL4K (as an example) in the near-future. I just don’t think this is likely.

But likewise, I’m not the one assuming my opinions are right because I think I’ve got Gearbox’s design team figured out.

  1. They’ve been buffing less viable guns and skills! This is why I keep banging on about you moaning about the nerfs. They buffed things as well. It’s a start. They’re not going to stop here!

You can’t dismiss the Zane buffs because you don’t think they went far enough and also claim Gearbox are focusing on nerfs. They’re focused on buffs too! Just because the buffs didn’t go far enough doesn’t mean they’re not looking at buffs. You just have to have a small amount of faith, and maybe respect that the developers do actually have a plan that extends further than the next seven days.

EDIT

Urgh, the forums ruined the formatting on that. Wasn’t supposed to be an indented list.

#34

It’s easier to spot things when everybody is using them. It’s harder to spot things when people aren’t using them. Experimentation thrives when there isn’t a default go-to solution (as an easy example, look at the outrage over fixing the actually bugged grenade that was melting bosses).

Are metrics the be-all-and-end-all? No, but that’s why there’s a team of humans analysing and interpreting them.

#35

i feel sad for all the FL4K mains right now, i’ve feeling that we’ll see a lot of new post on how OP he is. incase you’ve missed it, apparently some guy on reddit made a build that only uses 33 skill points and no legendaries to kill gravewarden in 3 seconds.

i also feel bad for gravewarden, he does not deserve this

#36

Why would i criticise someone when i agree with what their saying that makes no sense, and what i meant by the zane comment is this nerf does not affect you but it affects me, i was enjoying the game and now im not i feel like ive wasted 90 quid and would never have bought it if i knew they were going to anthem it.

3 Likes
#37

@Gorbles hey, if the developers prove me wrong I’ll be happy. My reaction is coming based off of what I have seen the moderators say on the forums, and the patch notes. The patch notes mentioned more nerfs, nothing about buffs, nothing about skill fixes.

Honestly, I’ll be happy if you’re right and I’m wrong about gearbox’s methodology.

That’s the thing. They tried to nerf his boss killing ability and they nerfed FL4K’s mobbing ability. They completely missed the mark. Fl4K is now stuck melting the faces off of bosses. Yea, it’s great. Except for the fact that it’s one very small part of the game. FL4K lost their utility purposes for GITM and didn’t lose any boss killing power - which was the intent of the nerf.

6 Likes
#38

You are entitled to feel this way, and the most shocking thing is that Fl4k wasn’t even melting real Borderlands bosses. They failed to include any invincibles with the launch. Fl4k might have actually needed a damage buff, we just don’t know yet. Nerfs cause bad feelings, they should have waited.

4 Likes
#39

I’m glad people like you are around, I was getting tired of trying convince people about why the current nerfs were harmful, you said everything better than I could have.

I think I’m going to take a break from the forums.

4 Likes
#40

I was objecting you bringing the fact I’m a Zane main into it. label92 is also a Zane main. It’s irrelevant. What you actually disagree with is me thinking the nerfs aren’t that bad.

I know it affects you. But bringing someone’s preferred class into it is about as useful as saying “well you main FL4K, there’s no way you can think objectively about this”. It’s using someone’s class preference as a way to dismiss their argument, and I don’t like it.

I see your frustration, I just wish people saw a defense of Gearbox’s actions as something worth debating, instead of being defense for the sake of defense.

#41

Gearbox haven’t got a defense until their game is fixed in fact i have nothing but contempt for them now if this is how they mean to go on, and the defense they gave is complete rubbish, the other abilities on flak are useless on the endgame, so much so i dont use any now and believe me ive tried this is becoming boring fast, i would start another character ordinarily but i just do not want to waste my time for them to come along and balance it again :roll_eyes: no i honestly think this is just the beginning like i said before they wont be happy until everything is boring and vanilla and that just isnt borderlands.