The thing that GearBox and the rest don't seem to understand

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

Why can’t game company just understand that they need to treat the player base … humanely?

I mean M2.0 was obviously a screw up of incredible proportion, it have gathered an incredible number of appaling feedback on mostly everything (And some positive ones on a few feature, but still).

Balancing is so off that even +300% damage annointement (and those number are beyond stupid to be honnest) can’t make most weapon tickle the enemies

They buffed IB patch after patch and suddenly it’s back to useless

… And despite all those evidence of having down a massive stink, they don’t have the basic decency to aknowledge the issues, and worse, they dare they “we’ve been following the feedback closely, now M10 item will always bee annointed”…

Okay, this is nice? But what of all the terrible thing people are yelling about? What about the fact that some legendaries have never been of any use since the game release more than 6 month ago? What of the pet build, a whole talent tree of Fl4k ? …

I mean, there is a shitload of problem going, and if somehow at work I managed to screw up so bad something for my client, the least I would be excepected to is to aknowledge it and apologize?

I mean, I don’t even care about the apologizing part but even a bit of decency in the new, aknowledging the problem the player, THE CLIENTS, encounter and which make the game somewhere between unplayable and barely working, would go a long way.

Now I don’t mean it’s a GB thing, most game company nowadays think of their clientele as sucker they need to cater to when they make trailer and PR for the game before its launch, but seriously, there is something wickedly wrong about this.

We’re at the point where the game experience is so insanely twisted that I wonder if there is an actual balancing team, or if it’s just someone throwing 20 minute of his time each week at it before doing something else.

36 Likes
#2

Maybe it just me but there need to be an open beta for upcoming patches/hotfixes or whichever it is and let some of us that opt in the beta to report them of bugs and such.

I don’t mind playing the beta so they can get info on what bugs they missed before it goes live but I don’t think they’ll go for this

24 Likes
#3

Very good point actually, Instead of beta testing those live and trying to make us believe it’s a finished product

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#4

I don’t see why an open Beta shouldn’t happen at this point.

Many other game developers do that as standard practice before their patches and it works for them. The biggest limitation may be allowing console players to participate, an important consideration given how badly the 4/23 patch destabilized the game on consoles at first.

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#5

The Devs of a game I was playing planned a major content release for 2021 and they’ve scheduled at least two open betas for this year.

#6

It’s far from “unplayable” but it couldn’t hurt to better test things and get those ducks into something more like a row.

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#7

Okay, I am a bit confused here. I am going to assume that you’ve done little research for building in this game. Mayhem 2.0 did ruin a lot of Action Skill based builds, and Amara’s questionable Melee build. BUT its not unplayable at all.

A major concern I see people complain about is mainly lag/crashes, but that’s mostly your system. If a hot fix says it fixed reported crashes in this place or during this quest, those actually work. Any other crashing is from a system that has too much going on and therefore crashes. It is the hardware issue. That’s the “unplayable” aspect of this.

Moving on to Fl4k comment? Fl4k’s Master skill tree is actually used a lot, still in Mayhem 10 as well. Its pretty strong, it had a rough start near the start of the game, especially once players started to get into mayhem, but they fixed it and added more damage for the pet. Once that happened I used Gamma Burst in Mayhem 4 (before Mayhem 2.0) all the time and used the Tr4iner classmod which at one point my pet converted like 4 people in a row and I had a tiny army on my side. THE only thing that is terrible about that tree is the capstone skill Dominance, but I’ve left a giant “buffs” post in my own thread already, so won’t get into that here.

Yes the balance was shaken in this update, I get that. Most of the 200% anointments just made the old 100% range anointments useless, but people have actually not mentioned that one at all. The best anointments so far that seem to work for all characters, are the “while below 50% health gain 150% bonus radiation damage” and the “deal 300% weapon damage to enemies above 90% health”. Why? Well any bonus damage is good, but radiation is a really good element in this game and it helps with high damage output. Plus Moze and Zane get really good use out of it due to their ability to keep shields at full, meaning they can get away with using Front Loader and Deathless without fear of dying. The 300%/90% anointment is actually broken as hell and I think that will get changed in the next update. Right now this anointment affects ALL damage you do as you hold the gun. Today I watched a build where a man was using Amara and just having her nova shield cause a train reaction to deal up to a couple BILLION damage, yes, Billion. It was 1-shotting everything and anything. Yes, on Mayhem 10, you know, where things have 12500% more everything. Just dying to a nova shield.

This update was new and the first few days were a mess, I hated it and was upset by it. Some people instantly went into whining mode, like myself. Others decided to stick by it and figure things out for everyone else. Yes, the new Cartel drops are all very strong other than the Iceburger, but that seems like a novelty weapon like the Long Musket (I wish it wasn’t because a flamethrower weapon would have been awesome). The Mayhem 6+ drop weapons are also very strong. To the point that at first we whiners figured that if you didn’t have any of those two groups of weapons, you couldn’t do anything. But that’s not true. SNTL 100% cryo is still very strong on a lot of weapons. Gamma Burst anointments, splash damage for Moze, Amara still broken, but that’s a different story. A lot of old and new anointments are still very strong, but the builds have to shift a bit.

In conclusion, yes the game did get a huge imbalance. But it isn’t so bad that it isn’t unplayable. It’s very playable. Some characters got stronger during the patch, others weaker, but all have builds that shred enemies at Mayhem 10. You just need to find them. The last Mayhem update they had to change the damages of action skills and pets, so I figure they’ll end up doing that again. Plus some nerfs to some of the current anointments. But Mayhem 10 is doable. So doable that my Zane can use a Bitch with the 50% health adds 150% radiation, and it melts. Yes, the Bitch, one of the weakest SMGs. I think you fished too much for the negative feedback that this game seems to get every time someone reads Borderlands 3, instead of looking up ways to help you figure out a good path to take in order to do Mayhem 10. Also if you jumped into anything higher than Mayhem 4 the moment it came out, that might be your issue. Previously weapons at level 57 worked in Mayhem 4, but after the change the damage scales to be stronger in each Mayhem, which means you have to do a slow progression and grind up to mayhem 10. My friend and I went from 4, to 6, to 8, and are now on 10. And we spent long periods of time farming for a full kit of gear before moving on, because the damage is that important. Its just a more time consuming grind, much like the older, crappier, grinding for BL2. Sorry for the long post, but I just don’t think you did much research and you are part of the “whiner” group that I was once a part of.

10 Likes
#8

Gonna agree on the weapon balance problem. What is the point of all those guns if only a handful are left as valid picks. Despite that, I do not think the game is currently unplayable just heavily unbalanced. Still considering they wanted to boost build variety since day one you would expect better of them.

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#9

A public apology is out there forever and can serve as a reference; a bad patch is not. It’s all about optics, sadly

1 Like
#10

I also manage M10 you know, with the few weapon that are able to do it (Kaoson, Sand Hawk …), all dropped in M4.

Don’t change the fact that the vast majorities legendaries are insta crap
Don’t change the fact the game is currently dropping very little leg
Don’t change the fact that dedicated loot pool have been broken for weeks

We’re currently not enjoying the full experience of the game, we’re playing in between the problems to manage to keep on playing it.

While that might be enough to satisfy you, it don’t satisfy the majority of players, and not because they’re “whiner”, but for a lot a very good and very logics reasons.

GB don’t seem to give two ■■■■ about Feedbacks. Sure, once in a while you see things that the community have been yelling about for month, but we still have those horrendous annointed militant that chaine two type of immunities by example.

Once again, I’m not even asking for a full overhaul of the game, but for GB, as a company, to cater to its clients.

To set beta test so that the patch don’t come out full of bug and horrendous design (We’ve reached the point of the “Patch day no play” currently)

To aknowledge the problem of the game that feedback are bringing to light, and work on it.

To actually start working for real on the balance.

9 Likes
#11

As I said, you’re curently playing inbetween the bugs, the horrendous design flaw and balance issues to manage to do it.

It’s a game.

The WHOLE content should be enjoyable, not 10% of it.

4 Likes
#12

I don’t understand why patches come Thursday, why not on mondays so if something is really bad there a chance for it to be rectified before the weekend hits. Idk there’s probably a reason that I’m missing but it seems like an awful day to throw patches out. Like here’s this now piss off for a few days we’ll catch you next week.

6 Likes
#13

I guess I just don’t understand. I mean yea, a lot of legendaries are weak, that I do understand. Ten Gallon needs an overhaul, Infinity is sadly garbage, Long Musket… But at the same time I’me roaming Mayhem 10 with my Fl4k using Rakk Pak with a Linage, Kaoson, Breath of the Dying, and the Insider… So a lot of the old guns that were good are still good. Heck my Insider was taking out groups of enemies in one shot.

I don’t understand the dedicated drops being broken? I’ve got like 10 DNAs, 17 Monarchs, 6 Kaosons, 12 Multitaps, and my friend legit had like 23 Sand Hawks. I have seen people complain the drop rates for them is garbage? But at the same time has anyone ever played BL2? That game’s drop rate was so trash that sometimes people spent months (in the case of a “perfect” sham some people spent years) farming for the perfect weapons. I’ve spent a day? Maybe 2? An I get a multiple of the dedicated drops I want with multiple anointments I want. So that one I am totally confused about. I also saw a guy complaining on Facebook about how he wasn’t getting anointed gear at Mayhem 10, but ever since I’ve started farming, I haven’t seen a single NON-anointed gear. Including whites, greens, and blues. Everything that can have an anointment, has had it so far for me and my friend.

Is leg short for Legendary? If so, that I really don’t understand. Every boss fight has been 2-8 legendaries for me, badasses drop a legendary 50% of the time, anointed enemies are about 50% as well. Also the events going on? Go to a place with an event and those chances not only increase but the amount increases as well. Got stocked up on a lot of good SMGs while farming Killavolt. So I am REALLY confused by this? Are your hot fixes not working or something? Because Mayhem 10 has been a blessing since their last hotfix. Farming has been a breeze. I’m currently farming the cartels and for a new Rakk Pak, and getting goodies no matter where I’m going.

About the Militant, ANNOYING yes. But there are two ways around them. 1, they only have one immunity phase, and when they do it, just run away. 2, the shield phase is easy to beat with splash damage, shoot at their feet and the splash damage while still hit them. This is the one case where I’ll say get your hands on a Yellowcake, it destroyed militants in an instant.

I guess I just love this game so much more than the others, like to the point going back to play the others brings me so much pain because of how great and how many amazing things they added to this game. Maybe that’s my issue, its my favorite game by a long shot? But at the same time Gearbox has been hot fixing like once a week, sometimes twice a week, I remember when it first came out it seemed like we got one almost every other day. They are working on balance, the issue is the patches yes. Each official patch has its issues. A pre-patch beta would be nice to hopefully fix those, but honestly that doesn’t prevent game issues. I know a lot of games who have pre-game patches, they fix problems that happened then, but then a bunch of new problems happen after release. Plus with this game, its CRAZY what some people think of and figure out they can do and exploit. It took like what? 2 weeks for someone to figure out that Amara can do billions of damage with a nova shield? Thats crazy and never would have crossed my mind. Balancing a game that has a million different combinations a possibilities is hard, with or without a beta. A mechanic that I was actually making work for me a few days ago was the Rakk Pak Fl4k build with a Black Hole that had the Action Skill Start and shield effects that occur on break of fill goes off. I was a walking singularity that was controlling the field every 2 seconds and was seemingly untouchable. It was nuts. There’s a lot of things in the game that I feel they did on purpose because it would be fun, not practical. Again… Iceburger. Fun, not practical or usable in anyway. Beta testing would only go so far, in my opinion, since there is so much and so little people compared to the majority of the players would have access. And Beta servers are usually ■■■■■■, so the game itself might not be able to handle that, meaning beta servers might crash a lot. I know my ■■■■■■ old Xbox can’t handle too much, I crash if theres WAY too many legendaries on the ground, or if someone does the ASE Recusion. That sometimes breaks my xbox to the point the menu struggles to work properly. But hey, its funny.

4 Likes
#14

I agree with everything you stated here. I guess some people just dont want to put thought into builds to make old weapons work. I am currently mobbing with a monocle, one of the arguably worst snipers. The 300/90 anointment made for a pretty stellar build, combined with an amp shield/gun damage moze and the excess damage guardian perk. With a little prep (getting one enemy low and killing it with the monocle crit), the damage is starting to spiral out of bounds. Yes, you have to hit EVERY shot with that build, but its incredibely rewarding to see thos gigantic 8m+ crits ricochet to other targets. Especially when you are hitting a badass-maliwan soldier, and he dies in one shot taking out the 2nd badass besides him aswell.

Another build i started to use is a full incendiary build with the Kaos AR (also one of the weaker weapons). Pearl/150% rad damage under 50% life and a fire/splash-damage moze makes enemies explode for multiple millions of damage, obliterating everything in range.

Those things work on M10 just fine, combined with a 300/90 alchemist to deal with bosses, its one of the funniest things i’ve tried so far.

However, i would agree that M10 has other issues that have to be adressed. Loot drop rates are kind of broken all around, up to the point where a M10 mansion run rewards me ONE legendary, wich isnt even a dedicated drop. Also dedicated drops that arent new M6+ guns are really frustrating to farm atm.
Yes, BL2 was worse, but i really dont want to have another experience like that.

2 Likes
#15

For consoles specifically, GBX should know what the system can handle and write code accordingly, since people have zero customisation options (many people buy consoles for eactly that reason as they just want a plug and play system). There are far too many reports of Xboxes crashing (mine included) for it to not be a software issue, not people’s individual hardware. When people buy a game they shouldn’t have to worry that it may permanently damage their hardware, so GBX has a clear responsibility to ensure that doesn’t happen. It’s not a hardware problem (other than indirectly, as the software affects the hardware), it’s a GBX problem.

I defend GBX quite a lot on these forums from what I see as unfair or unreasonable criticism. But trashing people’s consoles is fairly unforgivable this long after launch and their lack of ownership of the issue is quite poor.

10 Likes
#16

Gearbox, the company, are catering to their customers. We’re not clients. We’re customers. A client relationship is very different (speaking from experience).

I mean, it’s hard to take a thread that starts with “treat the players humanely” seriously. This isn’t the Hague. Borderlands 3 isn’t a war crime. It has issues, and those issues should absolutely be sorted, but what players often don’t understand is that public relations is an incredibly tricky minefield to navigate.

Noelle can post in every single patch thread 20 times and people will still demand she posts more. That’s unreasonable. There isn’t a level of engagement that will stop people asking for more community engagement.

But there’s more. When she does post, she locks in customer expectations around a feature or improvement. See: split screen. It’s been looked at for months, and people literally comment on hotfixes (that cannot provide a patch feature like split screen) going “ah well I guess no split screen again”. People take “we’re looking into it” as some kind of implicit promise it’s going to turn up in the near future. No! It means they’re looking into it. Folks need to stop making their own assumptions about timelines and blaming Gearbox for when the feature unsurprisingly doesn’t turn up.

(note: not talking about hardware crashes as has been reported on the Xbox. That’s a serious failing and I’m surprised it’s still happening)

I always support more communication with a games developer, but I also know what it takes to make that communication happen. You might not, and that’s fine. But the problem we have here are consumers telling a development company how to develop and support their game. So a level of understanding is in my opinion required, otherwise you’re just listing all the popular things that people like to hear with no understanding of what could be required to fix them. Do you understand the logistics of communicating actual developer work out of the company and to a playerbase?

And that’s without even touching on Covid-19 and how that could’ve affected the company.

8 Likes
#17

It actually is a hardware issue and the hardware can handle it, if its empty or isn’t also overloaded with other games that might be taxing. My xbox is so crappy (I’m poor so I can’t get a new one) that I can’t play overwatch, and downloading newer games is a gamble on if it will let me play them, or if it gets an issue where it forces me to soft reset it (deleteing all the saves and local data), or the rarer factory reset where I have to redownload all my games. Yes, its a thing. I have a day one used xbox I got from a friend for half the price because it got joggled around a bit. And it can’t handle certain games due to saves and the amount it takes to run them. It has a hissy fit. Mine crashes too, but not to the point where its “unplayable” like everyone says. Usually I can tell when it is about to crash because some other issue happens. The only time I’ve have bad crashes have been after an update and the community have been experiencing the same areas. What you haven’t seen is there are a BUNCH of people who’ve never even had a single crash in the game. Yes. A huge portion of the community has never ever seen the game crash once on their consoles. PC players have reported some crashes, but since they are PC most have found the issue and fixed it within a few hours and they now never crash as well. So it possibly could be a Gearbox thing, but the more likely issue is your hardware.

#18

There will of course be some instances that may be down to the hardware, but I run a year old XB1X which should be more than capable of handling the game. I have played Titanfall, Destiny 2, the original Borderlands, Borderlands 2 and Borderlands, the Handsome Collection, all without incident, yet BL3 is the one only that has caused my system to crash on an irregular but not infrequent basis. And I know I’m not alone. When it does it sends a sharp spike of sound through my speakers, which can’t be healthy, and then crashes. The latest appears to be whenever a drone modifier is selected, which is something reported by a number of people. This is an issue with the game and is the responsibility of GBX to fix. It’s a software issue.

#19

So you guys are having issues with the dedicated drops? That’s super weird… I have more Tsunamis than I do Multitaps. 9-Volt dropped a few times, but that’s always been a rarer grab. The Devoted dropped a lot from Traunt for me. I got 2 Freemans before I got the Plaguebearer. MY friend got a Phebert the first try… Katagawa Jr is not stingy on dropping the Storm and Firestorm either, have like ten of each of those. Got both dropping at the same time a lot too. And the DLC drops seem to be fine as well, and the raid drops… Just seems weird that one part of the community seems to be struggling with the loots, while the other isn’t? I definitely am in the boat of not having drop issues at all. Hell my Cartel boss room had 10 things in it and I only killed everyone once. Then there is my run to Traunt which usually yields 5+. My run of the trials has like 4+.

The only loot issues I know of at the moment:
Thor in the Cartel boss fight, doesn’t drop scaled weapons for some reason.
Agonizer doesn’t drop scaled weapons, sadly since he has two mayhem drops.
Loot containers including loot enemies aren’t dropping scaled weapons.
Lootsplosion drops aren’t scaled.

Other than that, getting loot has been super easy for me and my friend. Some drops are rarer than others, but not to the point it is impossible.

#20

Kudos for your open and honest views, including a reflection of yourself bud.