I don’t agree with this assessment at all. GBX’s post-launch support of BL3 was way more than it was for BL2. I was there LOL. The issue is that standards change, and BL3 doesn’t meet what I would consider to be the “gold” standard for post-launch support in 2020-2021. They need to shoot for better.
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I was referring to the SPAN of the support, meaning how long it lasted. So, since you “were there”, how long was it between BL2’s release, and the release of the Commander Lilith DLC?
That aside, jerking the nerf lever back and forth, fixing (cherry-picked) things they slacked on/didn’t test, and creating more problems while they do it isn’t something I’d cast in a positive light ever, regardless of what the current gold standard is, or was.
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That wasn’t planned support, though. That was very much an unanticipated addition with no real precedent from the previous game releases. For that matter, the head hunter packs were also not planned support - they basically came out of the continued sales for BL2 (GBX came out and said this at the time) along with the knowledge that the next full Borderlands title wouldn’t be happening for a while longer (in fact not until after what was to become Battleborn).
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@otacon305 You’re pulling a bait and switch here. If you use the standard of “period of time,” then yeah, what you’ve said makes sense. But just because there was 7 years between BL2 launch and the Commander Lilith DLC doesn’t mean BL2 was “supported” that whole time. Which it clearly was not.
BL3 was actively supported through patches and hotfixes for 2 years. Way longer than BL2. They made a haphazard buff to Cloud Kill in 2015 IIRC, and this was the first such change to BL2 in quite a while.
So I would say be fair with your comments. Any fair interpretation of BL3’s post-launch support would acknowledge that it exceeded BL2’s post-launch support. That’s 100% a true statement - regardless of the time between content releases.
I think most of my posts from this forum will evidence that I am not unrealistic with my support for GBX - I just call 'em like I see 'em.
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Commander Lilith was more of BL3 support/marketing, if you look at it closely. 
Now, where is my ‘programming police’ badge?
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How about “number of raid bosses”, then?
BL3 had basically constant weekly hotfixes and balancing changes for 18 months. BL2 had about 5 patches or equivalent fixes over 5 years (Evil Smasher glitch, Bee “nerf,” and like some other glaring - literally glaring - issues, in addition to the totally unanticipated Cloud Kill buff, but nothing consistently done). Please prove me wrong. It’s just objectively true that there was more post-launch support for BL3 than there was for BL2.
BL3 had weekly hotfix support for 18 months - the issue is that the weekly support was kinda ■■■■.
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So BL3 received more support, of lesser quality, spread thinner, then?
Sounds like “BL2 had better support” with extra steps.
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How’s this? Haven’t played other looter shooters (I think?), but what do they do differently?
On topic, doesn’t BL2 still have an active hotfix? Like if they abandon that altogether, there should at least be one more patch where they roll that hotfix up, no? (Not that this makes the case for the state of BL3, but it would imply that it may be a long time before we see any movement on that front).
@otacon305 I guess we can agree to disagree. To me, BL3 clearly had more support than BL2 - both overall and more timely support. The issue was that the support given to BL3 was kinda ■■■■■. But that doesn’t change the point, I guess. How long did it take for the Evil Smasher glitch fix or Bee “nerf”? In comparison to how long it took them to address GITM (which was not really warranted in retrospect) or Redistribution and grenades (possibly warranted)? They almost micromanaged BL3 in comparison to BL2 - which was also part of the issue IMO.
There’s some good middle ground between BL2 and BL3.
Design your game around whatever you intend your endgame to be. Because the folks that are playing there, are the ones whom your game should be designed around. Your game balance really doesn’t matter to anyone else. The casual player won’t notice.
i was about to make a post like this myself, it seems they have given up after year 1 though
year 2 was just poor content all around
and you can feel it too.
i was kinda expecting nothing else to be honest
the base game is horrible
nobody can make enough arguments to truly defend how bad it actually is
the dlcs could have used some bonus content especially dlc 1 2 and 4,5 since 1 and 2 could have gotten some fun trials or circles
and dlc 4 is unfinished
and dlc 5 literally is a dlc that in its core wants more content to be added over time
more modes, more maps
i refuse to get wonderlands cuz it doesnt look like they have lerned their lesson
man i remember the days when a dlc was
1 mixing into the base game by adding more components to it
like why cant i get the dlc 3 bike in the base game?
exactly, there is no good answere exept, we dont want you to have it. DONE
2 when dlcs where mixing with each other or could even get expansions of their own
like cmon
the last patch was like what 2-3 months ago and that was just finishing dlc 6 with advertisement for wonderlands
if we are real game was dead by dlc 2
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I didn’t want to sound controversial so I was contemplating how to reply to @sowhereaminow . I don’t have data except the player stats for earlier BL games on Steam stats. But pepople -including me- still playing even borderlands 1, with the many DLCs, and Borderlands 2, not to mention TPS.
Last few weeks I was thinking of replaying BL1 story again from the start and thinking when would be the good time to start, even spending maybe one or two extra holiday days for it. This is how much I love the whole BL franchise. And again I don’t have numbers but I’m pretty sure I’m not alone, maybe not even that very little minority of players do that.
I’m definitely interested in the new game don’t get me wrong. But I can’t feel that it will be just a very small stop for the BL franchise. It is not a full BL game. We saw such DLC before, and funnily, they even released it as a standalone game recently. Yes the Tiny Tina’s assault on Dragoon Keep.
Why not make the new game as a DLC or even two maybe for BL3 instead? If they started working on a separate game as @sowhereaminow said based on his experience -my experience is the same too though-, 2-3 years per game developer usually what it takes to build a separate game. Even if you got the engine and the dev. / UI for missions, quests, etc.
Even thinking about that, IF they did start development of this new game years ago, that doesn’t make sense to me even more and more I think about it. 
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Most late in life content for Borderlands 2 coincided with the game being Re-released, be that on newer generation of consoles, PCs or displays supporting higher resolutions (Handsome Collection in 2015, the UHD texture upgrades in 2019). I can’t remember if there were any updates during the launch of the VR version of the game. All the other late in life changes were related to the changes in the Shift system and promoting related games and new console releases with the requisite upgrades (GOTY Enhanced and UHD textures).
BL2 is the only game with truly late in life support. BL1 and TPS were pretty much done with content once Season Pass DLC was released in its entirety.
So three of the four games, and the two most recent, have shorter shelf lives in comparison. BL2 looks to be the exception. BL3’s flaw, in my opinion, wasn’t a lack of content, but poor pacing in how the content was released, with so much being included in the base game.
Much like with Pearlescents and UVHM (only in 2 of 4 games in the series), Wonderlands will be the litmus test for what is the true tendency of GBX with games.
wonderlands has exactly 1 chance to be AMAZING
and its going all out DnD and providing massiv amounts of bonus content you can build with
i want to have more things to play with overall
i want dlcs to mix into the main game, board games can be freely mixed together with their dlcs
i want to have more hard
i want the character builder to RLY get expanded in future dlcs
raids trials and circles have to be done RIGHT
@otacon305 Yes I kind of agree with you on Season Pass and DLCs and exteneding the game content with additional purchaseable additions.
You probably right, I shouldn’t use Season Pass as an explanation why I thought this game will last longer. More like the standard AAA game development and timeline nowadays, based on how and how long they develop a game. And all comes down to the changes in our daily lives, how internet changed all of this.
Because for a company takes much much less resources to continually support a game, even if its an AAA game, like Borderlands. You got easy to learn and manage frameworks for making content. At the beginning you need a lot of people on the project. As the product is developed and released, the time passes, you end up with a handfull, maybe a dozens of people required to maintain a product. Sure, we can argue, you need to pay those people. Of course. However after you released a game, you still have one or two ACTIVE years while people buy your product. Now think about extra content. Extra content is the key for maintaining the group’s salary and STILL ABOVE TOP OF THAT it is additional revenue. It is not related to the base game’s revenue, it is additional profit. Almost as much as you would release a new game, if you look at BL3’s 2 years of content. The cost right now for Season Pass 1 and 2 is the same as the base game. So you kind of released two game’s worth content -yes we can argue with that but let’s just say for the sake of development timeframe and content in general-.
Back to topic: We can fairly say, that after the second year, your game development framework is working flawlessly, your engine fixed up, and all you need to do is pour out additional content. You need a few artists, sound engineer, a few coder who maintains the code and fixes bugs, let say again, 10-20 people. Still generating additional revenue on top of base game, not to mention new players still come as you grow the game more and more, players inviting other players, friends, more ads can go out for old and new game content alike…
In my mind, BL frenchise is the * goose with the golden eggs. But not if you break up the player base every 2-3 years, not if you force the player base to do the basic chores in a new game due to the game mechanics of RPGAction games, by leveling up, grinding new gear. It is exhausting thing to do, and people grow out of this fairly quick and look for another game if you forcing them more and more to hard reset.
By the way what I preach for decades especially with BL franchise. Game content in BL for me is not the grinding for legendaries. But the open world, the challenges, the lore and the amazing stories. Not to mention the music and what effect it has while playing the game.
I seriously feel many many times that I take these game more seriously than the developers even though this is their babies, they should care extensively how it performs on the long run. It is the weirdest feeling, like you caring more for the neighbor’s kid playing on the street while you see that the neighbor just not even caring for his kid playing outside. But I digress sorry… 
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personally i was enjoying the fact that you can find so many varied things to do
bl1 had this vanilla feeling of these old mmorpg games
exploring basic but strong enemies,
dlcs where fun
bl2 had these nice side areas you CAN find,
sometimes i just let an audiobook run and i roam around to do quests, or see the many QUALITY dlcs
i am sad to say its hard to do this in bl3
what i rly wanted for the game is funnily enough something they have only done in dlc 6…
add new areas to the base game
somehow this wasnt done before, and i dont get why
right now all they had to do is add more new areas to existing ones and we would be super gucci
going back and finding new things would be fun and would extend the experience so much
especially after the game wasnt absoloute dog… as it was RIGHT at release or after mayhem 2.0
its servicable at least… if not a bit boring
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If you want the actual numbers from Steam, here is an actual graph that you can use to get a taste of what the popularity of each game on those platforms was like:
Borderlands 1 was a surprise hit, but still relatively small in comparison to what became of the franchise later on and even with the Re-release of the BL1 Enhanced Edition, it didn’t get much track at all. The big spike of 20k players is for when BL2 was announced/close to release.
Borderlands 2 is where the franchise got big and people still play it with a sizable fanbase to this day. It’s not PUGB, Among Us or popular stuff like that, but it has it’s own hardcore fanbase who likes to grind for hours on end. Again, the big spike of 80k players in 2019 is because of the announcement of BL3 and the new Commander Lilith DLC, and the one in 2014 is because of Presequel’s release.
Borderlands: The Pre-sequel was underwhelmingly received and went below BL2 numbers a month after it’s release. Not even the really well done Claptastic Voyage DLC or the bundled Handsome Collection that had both BL2 and TPS could save the game from failing down to even BL1’s numbers.
BL3 is basically only second to BL2 in popularity and long lasting longevity. We don’t know Epic’s numbers, so we don’t have a clear picture of what the game is and how many still play it, but going by what Randy, it had double the amount of concurrent users than BL2 on release date.
And I didn’t put Tales from the Borderlands in because basically nobody played it. It had about 1+ million copies sold or so, so yeah, extremely niche.
TL;DR
BL2 and BL3 are the most popular entries in the franchise, BL1’s concurrent userbase is grossly overestimated by purists/long time fans and never reached either of those games, TPS underperformed and Tales from the Borderlands was niche.
Those are facts, not opinions.
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Sure. That doesn’t seem to stack up to four or five years, but then again, it wasn’t you who said that anyway.
My thoughts almost exactly liky @tysonyar. And it makes me sad. Because it clearly shows I’m not alone. I expected more. And they should have expected more too from BL3.
I barely go on Twitter and yesterday I thought I do a search… And People and streamers were posting like “ok lets do a new BL3 replay from the start”. If that doesn’t show that BL3 is still going strong after two years, nothing will. Because these streamers popping up for people who don’t even know the game. If they start hyping them up they will buy the game, it is fairly cheap now. Hence even more passive BL3 revenue. I bet this year they will have at least around 100 thousand copies sold, but maybe even more. Just from the main game.
Why not add more content then? Why not keep it alive? O.o
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@Gadriel You makes me even more sad lol. But I do hope Gearbox don’t think like you, that the game is dead.
I dare to ask what you mean the base game is horrible. I’m still playing it and when I do the story and like every time when I get into the part of landing on Promethea… OMG that feel it is just one of a kind for me. If I could wish more content for BL3 it would be Promethea new zones, additional NPCs, missions, some open area in/around the city, new city zone, some area where you could go into the skyscrapers… And I’m just thinking about one additional DLC…
I could come up with dozens on the spot, that would bring years and years of content.
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