The problematic ever changing meta of bl3

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

I’ve been playing borderlands 3 since launch and the most problematic thing I’ve seen in this game is the strange gun balancing.

Where did all the guns go from the previous metas and why do they all suck?

The lyuda, flakker, nighthawk, (monocle used to do crazy work at launch), redline, Bekkah, lob, cuts man and kybs worth

I know you can use some of these weapons with some success but all of them get completely out classed by the “meta” weapons right now.

The sad thing about this is they’re 100s of other legendaries that have been useless at endgame since launch that have never been good.

I really, really believe if the balancing system in borderlands 3 was fixed it would be the most interesting borderlands with the most variety to make builds that the franchise has ever seen. Sadly the balancing is far from there

Id rather see no new legendaries and content updates for months and have all the legendaries worked on and made viable in the current meta.

I love the idea of being able to use guns just based on how fun they are not just works with my VH or having almost infinite build variety.

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#2

I wonder the same and wish the Infinity would be more viable. I also miss the pre nerfed flakker, man that thing was fun! But its been stated before that speculation was gearbox nerfed overpowered weapons to them so they can promote a new dlc. You know, show off the “new” stuff.

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#3

Thats pretty disappointing to hear and I really hope its not true.

I don’t like to complain as the developers seem like they have been “trying” to improve the game and coming from a community like tf2, any development is a godsend. For example, In my eyes did great work fixing IB and mozes skills, although some skills leave much to be desired and still fixed.

But if this is true about nerfing weapons, the game is destined to never reach it true potential. That is a horrible marketing scheme as it almost forces people to buy the dlc and abandon there favourite setups.

Its sad because when the stars align in this game and a weapons comes out that you just absolutely love, its amazing to build around. On the flip side, when the meta gets stale and you wanna use other guns, you’re trapped with what you got. This makes it so eventually everyone reaches the point of bordem prematurely in this game because they can’t mess around with this rest of the content.

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#4

I hope it isnt true also. But it’s been brought up several times since the first two dlc’s release that i have read and is just a community opinion. If you think about it tho it fits the bill, you cant market new gear if old gear outperforms except for a few exceptions.

#5

I remember playing OP8 with only a few basic legendaries all the other guns I used where purple :rofl:

In 3 I haven’t used anything but legendary since I finished the story

They promised a gazillion guns and we got them… They never said they would be useful though :rofl:

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#6

The fact that one of the new “meta” weapons is the Hellwalker prove that this is, in fact, not true.

#7

Reason i said a few exceptions. We still have some old original gear that has been buffed and performing as good as it ever did. And yes the hellwalker is a recent one.

#8

I could be wrong but my opinion was that GB made only the new dlc items good and nerfed all the good base game weapons to ‘intice’ players to purchase the new dlc. Once a new dlc came out, they nerfed the good ones again and the new meta weapons would be in only the newest dlc … rince and repeat.

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#9

We now have a bunch of exceptions (particularly since the Monocle was also recently buffed). How many exceptions before they disprove the rule that isn’t even a rule?

If Gearbox were nerfing weapons to promote DLC weapons, they’d nerf weapons from older DLC packs. They wouldn’t buff non-DLC weapons. And yet they haven’t done the former, and have done the latter.

By all means be critical of Gearbox’s balancing. But you don’t need to invent some shady kind of “they’re intentionally trying to push DLC sales” like checking individual weapon damage values is going to matter to people browsing DLC entries on whatever digital storefront?

#10

@Gorbles

Isn’t it ironic that after the release of dlc4 that base game weapons are being buffed back to a respectable status?

#11

Considering non-DLC weapons have a history of being buffed (see: Krakatoa), I think you’re really looking in the wrong place to explain Gearbox’s balancing efforts.

There are plenty of decent, fair critiques on the lack of consistency in Gearbox’s balancing efforts. Whatever you (and others) are trying to push here isn’t one of those.

#12

I guess my point I was trying to make in this post is there is no consistency and there is no baseline balance weapons gearbox weapons use as a template.

Also why do extremely powerful meta weapons fall out of use whenever a new set of weapons appear? There is countless examples of this that were previously mentioned in the post. There is exceptions like the lucky 7 or the anarchy, krakotoa but most just stop being usuable when new weapons come out. Im not sure if they purposely do this but its been a clear trend since the start of the game. It just maybe be because they favor the new weapons that just come out and will be a bigger deal to the community if they suck if the sea of old weapons stay bad.

Even when They recently buffed the lyuda and it still sucks and flairs in comparison in every way to the meta “flipper” and this is what I mean. Where is the balance line and why does even most buffed weapons still fall short? From my experience most of what they buffed lately falls in this category.

I honestly don’t understand why this isn’t more of a focus for gearbox, there is so much content in there game that isn’t being used while they rather just make new content. It doesn’t make any sense becuase I feel like balancing old guns would be alot easier then making a whole new one.

I think I speak for the majority of player that have been here since in saying:

Please work on the sea of unusable weapons so we can enjoy them already.

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#13

A majority of weapons were buffed/nerfed to the old M1.0/1.5 system which kept weapons in line with vanilla game. This is what made the first iteration of Mayhem successful in most weapons being used by players. Heck people were using purple/blue in builds believe it or not, similar to BL2.

Enter the problem: Mayhem 2.0 and gear scaling.

The gear and weapons were never meant to scale in the first place. By doing so GBX created a constant seesaw on the weapons where there will be no true balance and the vanilla game is pretty much stupid if you get your hands on a legendary. M1.0/M1.5 you could find one at lvl 10 and last about 5 levels. Now it can literally stay with you until max level and even go into Mayhem levels.

They literally fusterclucked their own game.

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#14

I’m out of the loop on current game but, can the buffed lesser-guns be pretty good if you specifically built for them though, with skills and mod/bonuses?

That would be enough for me.
Like last i played, the echo was D-tier at most, and I made a build that made it good, even great for me. It would only work for moze, but there’s always been gear that works better or worse for certain characters.

#15

Please reread my post. I only referred to previous post suggesting they were doing this awhile back and stated they were community opinion. It seems I hit a sore spot with you on this but understand I agree with you as far as the nerfing goes and I am critical about it but I just don’t post my opinion. I have friends I talk to in person about frustrations so I get it out then.

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#16

well I think it was more than just adding mayhem 2.0 that as the problem, like you said on mayhem 1.0 i remember I was still using purple and blue gear, but then an update came and nerfed all my ish. After that it was legendary only or die horribly when i run out of ammo on enemy 3, if i actually kill any.

And that didn’t even work for every character back before moze got better classmods and skills even using legendary gear wasn’t enough to get her to m4. I needed a mindsweeper too.

#17

Fl4k/Moze were fixed right before M2.0 was implemented and a lot of people were enjoying it, including myself. Then M2.0 came and broke them again and just made me quit.

#18

@Gorbles

Well since you seem to be the pillar of knowledge, please enlighten us all on what it is then …

On a side note, Im not trying to push anything. Please re-read the first sentence ofmy original post. I clearly stated it was MY OPINION and that I could be wrong. Your comments have not proven my OPINION wrong.

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#19

well yeah that was pretty funny. just because of how bad/dumb it was.
lol they finally buffed them up to old levels and then sent the cap through the roof without providing a step ladder to scale the previous buffs. XD.

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#20

I think the power creep spiral was inevitable once they mostly stopped doing nerfs, which tbf were sometimes annoying.

Things completely ran away from them with the introduction of M2.0, which at first seemed much harder at higher levels than old mayhem, until you realized you just need one of the new M6 or Cartel guns to steamroll M10.