Possible to maintain challenge and do everything?

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection Handsome Collection General Discussion
#1

I had this problem when I played BL2 back in the day…and seems I am rounding into that again. Is this game simply designed to be more friendly to people who are likely going to skip all optional content. Or is there somehow a way to avoid this from happening?

It would seem if you do all the side quests…by the halfway point of the game you are so overleveled that the challenge severely lowers. By the 75% mark…its like playing with god mode. I always disliked how you cant simply play the game and all its DLC in one straight shot without having to deal with this. Even TVHM won’t fix this for long.

I played twice back on the 360 and I was able to remedy this by starting TVHM upon finishing the game to do DLC. It was still kind of annoying to go from absolutely NO challenge to now EVERY single enemy is a big challenge. Eventually you get used to it…and then what feels like a sudden drop is even TVHM becomes easy way too fast in the DLC making it almost optimal to start UVHM mode. Which I never had…I had the season pass but not that.

Just really blows when you see this interesting DLC content that basically impossible to play without being on God Mode.

#2

The rate at which you gain exp really isn´t implemented that well. After i played UVHM on my main in BL2 for quite some time, I startet a co-op game with a friend. He did every single mission in every playthrough and obviously enough, we we´re horribly overleveld until we finally reached UVHM again. I believe he was nearly lvl 40 after finishung normal mode.
I really hope they implement scaling enemies in TVHM at least, playing through the main story twice, or for completionists -> every single quest, until you can reach the “challenging” part is kind of a chore.

To answer your question: If you plan to do every quest in every playtrough then keeping the challenge is going to be hard, but you can keep your favorite weapons for a huge span of lvls to make enemies artificially harder and playing without BAR is always good. Otherwise you may want to push straight through the story-quests until you reach UVHM for the juicy side-quests. Taking on Bosses way underleveld can be quite the challenge :smile:

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#3

I’d save the ‘do everything’ until UVHM. Just do little bits here and there to stay ‘at level’ during Normal and TVHM. This kills two birds with one stone: you don’t get overlevelled and you can easily vary playthorughs with different characters by doing a different set of missions with each one. There is so much content that this is very easy to do.

#4

I’m not sure how to approach this this time…

Just finished normal now level 37 at the start of TVHM. I obviously want to play the DLC before having to beat the entire game again just to be able to do UVHM. Yet at the same time I am worried about making the DLC way too hard if I rush through the game to do it UVHM…or hit the wall like I did on 360 by NOT doing it that way.

I always thought UVHM was meant tfor 40 plus and TVHM was for 30-40. I dont remember ever reaching level 50…I always thought I maxed out at like 45 in the 360 days. But I remember doing TVHM in the DLC and there was a point where it SUDDENLY dropped all XP earnings…quests were worth less than 1,000…it was basically impossible to level. Hopefully I did reach level 50 because if that happens earlier I am certaintly going to hit that wall again if I dont immediately beat the game a 2nd time go to into UVHM when I all I wanna do is the DLC.

#5

Easiest method. Save DLC for UVHM. Reach sanctuary in UVHM and then start doing all the DLC.

More complex:
Play the main missions of the game with almost no side missions. Once you notice that your level is a level or two under the story mission, go do some DLC missions. Probably even finish mostly just the main story of the DLC. For example, I played a zero recently where I went to the pirate DLC once I reached level 15. Beat that DLC and then went back to the main game. At some point I also did torgue as well. Then at level 30 I did Tiny Tina’s DLC (still normal playthrough, didn’t even start TVHM yet). I ended up around level 35 and then started TVHM. You could probably do hammerlock at level 30 instead and save Tiny Tina for some point in TVHM.

My theory, you can probably do every single mission once from level 1 to 55 ish in NVHM and TVHM without entering UVHM yet. There might be a few side missions that you want to do in both playthroughs for whatever reason (probably for it’s mission reward).

I’ll try this some time and post back. Heh. Would take me a month probably. And I don’t know when I’ll start that.

Also, couple things. It’s worth leveling up higher and higher in these games because you end up very powerful and that gets very fun. Level 57 in BL2 lets you have the top of two skill trees, for example. And even though you’re very powerful the game tries to be good at still presenting a challenge, as long as you aren’t too much higher than the level of the content. It’s something to keep an eye on as you play.

#6

Ok. Try entering the DLC in TVHM. I think it starts out scaled to the level you enter it at. So then if you focus on that content it should all be an appropriate level. Someone else please correct me if I’m wrong. So then you’d play one DLC after the other in TVHM. Downside is you might end up overleveled for your TVHM main campaign if you care about that.

#7

Oh yeah. TVHM is 30ish to 50ish. UVHM is 50ish to 72.

#8

Woulda been so nice if at least for the Handsome Jack Collection we got an option…something as simple as an option. Check a box that says “keep enemies near player level”.

So annoying how I gotta dance around three playthroughs just to try and avoid becoming a god.

#9

I definitely would love to have more control over the levels of missions and even reset/redo missions individually at the level I’m at. But yeah you don’t need to enter UVHM to enjoy all missions at a decent difficulty.

#10

Well prior to this playthrough now I had done 2 playthroughs on BL2

The only thing I cant remember. Is if during that 2nd one I hit level 50 when the SEVERE XP drop started. Not just enemies counting for 1-5XP…but quests getting totally nerfed too. For some reason I feel like I never reached 50 but I must have because the XP drop makes no sense if I was still in the 40s…

1st time I did everything on normal…went into Scarlett DLC and everything was worth 1-2XP…way too easy…quests still dropped decent XP though. Ended up doing another playthrough months later because what the heck…

2nd time did the same exact thing…expect started TVHM before going to Scarlett DLC. Now…either sometime during Hamerlock Hunt…or the Carnage Torgue DLC…the XP drop happened where not just enemies but QUESTS were no longer worth ANYTHING. So I must have hit level 50 then…

So sadly…I think I AM going to have to end up rushing myself through yet another playthrough to unlock UVHM just so the remaining DLC is even slightly a challenge. So freaking annoying…I was praying they would let me use UVHM upon beating the game just once but no. Honestly if all that mode does is allow more enemy scaling…they SHOULD let you do that. Why do you gotta beat the game twice just to allow that? Seems silly.

#11

Frankly, the problem isn’t that the game is badly designed; it’s that the game was intended to be completed without DLC. That’s how the game was designed. The leveling makes perfect sense if you ignore all the DLCs. Then the DLCs came out, adding extra sources of XP that were never accounted for in the main game. Of course you’re overleveled; you’re gaining XP that the game wasn’t balanced for!

The only real solution is to not run the DLC until UVHM. Which sucks, yes, but it’s either that, or never get any DLC ever because the devs have to rebalance not only the entire base game, but also all previous DLCs every time they want to release a new DLC. I’m pretty sure that would get cost-prohibitive extremely quickly, so game companies would simply decide that rather than spend a year or more on a single DLC, they would be better off simply creating an entirely new game.

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#12

True. It essentially gives you multiple ways to level up. The main game has plenty of ways to get enough xp to reach level 50 without touching the DLC. So, another method of playing the game is to do every side mission as you see it, don’t touch DLC until level 50, after you beat TVHM, then play all DLC at level 50 in TVHM. As you start to level up to 51 or higher you won’t be too godlike yet. You’ll start to gain less XP for each kill but that meets your goal of not becoming OP. And frankly, there’s always tougher content to face if you really want it (raid bosses).

#13

Question.

I have always done side quests first…always. Going by the style of Borderlands…it seems theres no time limit on most of these. However with me trying to get through TVHM quickly without focusing on them too much I still want to do SOME of them. IS there a time limit with certain quests? I have never come to know this because I never get far away from when I accepted them. Going by some of the story in this game…and or characters being gone for certain amounts of time. Are there some quests that will get failed if you don’t do them by a certain time? How am I gonna turn in Lilith quests for instance if she leaves the area.

#14

Some quests will indeed be temporarily disabled. A most prominant example of this is propably the hunter hellquist quest where you can drop the bee. It´s available from mordecai directly after turning in the story quest prior to the heros past one. If you click trough and accept it immediately the side quest will be locked away, because the characters aren´t available for story reasons. After beating the main-story every quest is available again :slight_smile:

EDIT: Of course earlier missions aren´t locked till the end, they will be accesable as soon as the important character is back in action ^^

#15

you could always save the side quests for your second or third playthrough thats wot ive decided to do cos i figured the game would last longer and seem fresher an newer for longer. i realised if i did everything on my first playthough then im left with nothing new to find an do/explore when i get to my second or third playthrough an my next palythroughs are not as fun as ive already done it all an theres nothing new to experience.

i used to love taking my time on my first pt an doing everything but i soon realised with borderlands games especially its a bad idea as this game is one i like to play multiple times with every character. in bl2 my first playthrough took me close to 100 hrs to finish cos i took my time an did everything but after i got to my second or third character i decided i wouldnt do this anymore as after the first pt. i found the subsequent playthroughs i had to do to get max level were much more boring an less fun than if i had jus played the story an got the second or third playthrough quicker.

i really do not think gearbox intended for players to go and do every single side quest on their first playthrough. the game seems to be set out so that you can pick an choose a few to do on your first playthrough an then for your second or third you can choose the other side quests you did not do the first time around. it stops it becoming as repetitive and helps stop it getting boring so quickly.