Upcoming Patches are GREAT! But the Game Desperately Needs....MORE!

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#1

OK…I am absolutely pleased at the response to what mayhem 2.0 has brought to the game. and they are going to fix it…and add some additional features and I LOVE it! This company actually LISTENS!

But aren’t we all just kind of missing the REAL point of why this game continues to stay in the “Good” category instead of the “GREAT” category.

I’m talking the elephant in the room…

Endgame, aspirational content…mainly Raids but really ALL endgame content.

BL 3 is seriously…and I mean SERIOUSLY lacking in constantly replayable, aspirational, long term, endgame content.

In talking to friends last night…at this point in the game cycle compared with BL2, we had 9 replayable Raids, and just a ton of replayable sub raid boss level content and missions such as Badasaurus Rex. In BL3…at the present we have 1 Raid Boss and 3 Slaughter Arenas and Proving Grounds no one can be bothered to replay. The difference is HUGE!

Raids drive EVERYTHING: Excitement, builds, theory crafting, farming, tactics, word of mouth, co-opertive play, youtube viewership…EVERYTHING!

Yet we currently have all of…ONE…with another on the way soon (we hope).

For the game to be a “GREAT” long term game…that aspect needs just a TON of work.

GB…I truly appreciate all the patching and fixing and listening to us but PLEASE don’t lose sight of the forest through the trees…

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#2

The devs are barely keeping up with the patchs… bug are piling up… Adding new content on bad code always end up in more bugs. So no I am sorry but last thing we need now is more messy additions.

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#3

Pretty much why I’m of the mentality to make things good first and then improve upon that foundation. That foundation will be the next few patches. After that I’m willing to talk about new content, but first make the game overall enjoyable, stable and get rid of the worst bugs. I hate to say it, but this is something we have to wait for.

I love this game despite its many flaws some of which can’t even be patched out, but for now I just want it to go into an extended polishing phase before we can talk new content. If I were a lead at gearbox I would just stop some of the future content teams (notably the free content) and redirect them towards patching up the game first. Once that is done, they can give us new takedowns (well, after the Guardian one, which should be pretty much done at this point) and add new standalone raid-level bosses (you know, like the ones from the previous games) with each of the upcoming DLC’s.

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#4

Still 2 DLC to surface under the season pass, who can say there will not be a raid or two at some point.

#5

I’m not sure I’d agree with that. I mean, that’s obviously true for a section of players, but it’s not true for everybody and I know even from just these forums that there are plenty of people who didn’t do the raids.

I’m guessing here, but GBX have the numbers and maybe they feel that proportionately speaking raids aren’t what is going to give them the best return. Similar to how they decided not to give us any more VHs to play because statistically in BL2 only a very small minority played more than one character, let alone more than four.

Not trying to belittle raids at all but just putting it out there that there’s quite a broad spectrum in the player base and it may be that GBX don’t feel raids are where the majority of their customers are at

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#6

Agree totally…I do NOT know the numbers…

I “suspect” it’s approx a 50/50 split in a game like this where raids are not quite the undertaking that they are in a game like Destiny 2 where Raid participation is less than 10%.

Buuuuuut of that 50% that do Raids…once again I “suspect” that these are the “influencers” that are so important to a game’s overall health. The speed runners…the youtube content creators, the so called “dedicated” players…the “word of mouth spreaders.”

And…take Raids out of the equations and you have far less overall participation because of this.

But you are correct to point this out. I am not privy to actual numbers. My take is they have avoided this type of end game content simply for one reason and those are not player numbers.

Raids are difficult to produce and expensive.

I think they have avoided this aspect in BL3 because of FINANCIAL decisions.

And…overall…it will hurt this game badly in the end if they don’t rectify that.

My 2 cents…but what do I know…

#7

Oh I totally agree…get solid footing NOW…THEN move onto more end game…

But we are almost 3/4 into the first year and yet the game is STILL sorting itself out.

All I am saying is yup…lets get stuff fixed…but let’s not forget the TRUE reason this game remains in the “Good” instead of “GREAT” category.

Don’t lose sight of the forest through all the trees that need immediate tending.

But your point is well taken.

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#8

I expect the “Phased Patches” to fix most of the things broken from Mayhem 2.0 roughly around late July or early August.

With end-game content possibly dropping as early as September. Of course, CyberPunk 2077 will drop by then and a lot of players will just have given up on BL3 and moved on to other games.

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#9

I’m very pessimistic that they can get things right with two patches, when some things are not fixed from launch. I hope they brought in some very senior people to oversee these changes. We can’t have these young inexperienced devs working without proper oversight and leadership.

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#10

Agreed…things need squaring away before additional end game is dropped.

I just don’t want them to get caught up in the minutia and forget what will truly wind up making the game stand out for a long time…

Endgame…

#11

I believe the Takedowns are meant to take the place of BL2 raids, but so far we only have one of them. That will be changing in the next little while.

Also, comparing with BL2 time line is tricky because different studios handled 3 of the 4 DLCs. This time around, GBX is doing all the content themselves. I know they are a bigger company now - there’s both the TX and Quebec studios - bit that’s still not the same as distributing the work between GBX and three other developers.

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#12

Also, how many of those raids actually brought excitement to the game? Most people hated Dexi and the pirate dude with the puddles. Verm was a pain to spawn, Hyperius and Pete could be taken out in under 5 seconds, etc…

One could question how valuable some of those raids really were. Would we rather have a few well designed raid areas, or a bunch of one note roided mini-bosses that can be taken down in the time it takes to get to the front gate of the MTD?

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#13

Hey I like the proving grounds. I acknowledge they could stand to be improved, cos once you get the classmods from their bosses, it’s “just” world drops like usual. Something neat they could do is random named minibosses showing up in them (Road Dog, One Punch man, etc), to make each run a bit different for one thing, and to get chances at different loot too.
Also, what do you mean by “at this point in the cycle”? Do you mean how long the game’s been out for, or how many DLCs it’s had?

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#14

It probably helped that BL2 already had a Raid Boss in the base game and added AT LEAST one per campaign DLC.

Not to mention that Gearbox has stupidly decided that BL3 will have full Raids only instead of also having separate Raid Bosses. This just means more work for them and thus much more time before we get them.

#15

Did we? I know there were a handful of Raid style bosses that I mostly couldn’t name, but were there that many full raids? Personally, I got way more mileage out of replaying various DLC and the basic game. I’ve never had a good experience with Raid content in any game. It’s generally more tedious - or just outright BS - than exciting, coupled with the typical annoyance of practically or outright requiring a full team or more.

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#16

Yes, I hated them. But I also hate that I can’t just repeat the Wotan fight and farm for his exclusive gear, but have to go through the entire map again.

If I have to decide between two evils, I take the one with the 9 raid bosses.

It’s probably closer to the Average category than it is to the Great imo. But let’s see if GBX delivers what they promised.

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#17

Well, that’s a good point Boom but the variety and the amount led to a nightly choice. And each of those choices usually required a different build, tactics, play style etc.

Right now we have…one…

And we are 3/4 into an entire year.

#18

Check today’s hotfix notes - the Takedown shields will now drop from Valkyrie Squad.

But only 1/2 though the campaign DLCs. Like I said, the development pace is slower because it’s not being farmed out to other studios.

#19

Terra
Vermi
Ghee
Hyperious
Pete
Dexi
Vora
Jacque-o-Lantern
Dragons
Wattle Gobbler
Snowman
Crawermax
Haderax …(much later)

Raid boss similar
Badassaurus Rex

3 one time play Slaughter Arenas (excellent content that PC players could replay with an easy hack)

Bandit
Robot
Creature

At least a half dozen challenging replayable missions/ bounty.

Digistruct Peak

This is off the top of my head and I am probably leaving a whole bunch out. Also not sure on the exact timeline of when all this content dropped.

#20

Ultimate sad face for that one.

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