#160

Okay limited resources, but enough resources to start making a new game and a movie? Actually, most likely 2 new games (bl4) and TTWL, and a movie.

Like, I feel like that’s a lot of resources they’re using for those other endeavors. I don’t know why we have to defend gearbox like it doesn’t have a butt ton of money and resources.

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#161

Who’s defending them? Did I miss that post? GBX stans are in short supply here as far as I can tell.

EDIT: And for the record, I think that if GBX put money into the things it should have instead of other failed projects, BL3 would have been a better game. From the outside, it looks like GBX has been playing shell games with money between projects ever since BL1. There are entire articles and Youtube videos speculating about the robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul they did with BL1, Aliens, Battleborn, and now it looks like that also might have happened with BL3 (let’s be honest, the game is still only about 85% baked, 2 years post-release). I have no idea what has actually gone on behind the scenes, but this seems like a reasonable theory to me. If you don’t think there is any truth to this concept, ask Sega how they feel about the Aliens game.

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#162

Per project is what I meant. Games development is a for-profit enterprise (for better or worse). This means that over time the budget you can allocate to a title lessens and you need to invest in something new to bring a return.

The exception to this is of course live service games, but BL3 isn’t DotA 2, or Warframe, etc.

#163

Now that the dust has settled I can say I still disagree with the decision to change URad but that is the opinion of one player. Since my opinion is worth about the same as that random raindrop I have to accept my options are as following:

1.) Quit playing / reduce playtime
2.) Keep rolling with my URad build
3.) Adapt and overcome
4.) A combination of the above.

I went with option 4. I will not change my Jakobs Fl4k build. For Moze I ditched the deathless build for Iron Bear rail cannons of Doom. Zane and Amara remain unchanged as I never used URAD on them personally.

#164

They aren’t though. I don’t mean to be a stick in the mud here, but we’re talking about the meta and not general viability.

I’m not going to say that streamers dictate the meta, but you can tell a lot of how the meta currently is by looking at streamer and YTer builds. None of them have changed anointments. With the exception of Phaseslam builds which finally got their non-functioning damage anoint fixed AND buffed, no other action skill runs it’s specific anoint over URad. Consec was used because it works independently of action skills, making it deal less damage doesn’t change the fact that it still deals it’s damage without needing to have a skill up. Splash is still just as dumb, and considering URad and 300/90 were the only anoints that competed with splash on weapon that deal splash, and both were nerfed as well, nothing changed. Finally, 300/90 is still the largest single shot damage boost in the game and still double dips in a bunch of things.

If GBX stated goal wasn’t to shift the meta, there would be room for debate. But based on what they said they wanted to accomplish, they failed. The general anoints are used precisely because they are general. Tying damage to specific periods of action skill use is not as effective as having more universal damage.

If GBX wanted shake up the meta, they needed to make more informed anointment buffs:

  • Increase the stack timer on the kill anoint so you can actually use it in normal mobbing scenarios
  • Fix and buff Rakkslag anoint instead of rakkcrit for FL4K
  • Make gravity snare actually usefulso that players want to use it instead of just slapping a huge damage anoint on an otherwise worthless skill
  • 1% of lifesteal is more than enough healing. If the goal is to shake up the meta, what does buffing a 30% lifesteal to 50% accomplish? If it wasn’t used before it still won’t be now.
  • Bring back Airborn and Slide anoints. Seriously, those are fully multiplicative with all other gun damage so they are actually pretty insane. Those are actually a meta choice for a fair number of builds now post nerf. You can offline farm them, but just add them back into the pool and consolidate or remove some of the more useless anoints (for example, why do have several anoints that give only marginally more weapon damage than 100ASA for specific action skills only?)

If their goal is to shift the meta, they can’t just mess with numbers and expect to achieve their goal. QOL is a major determinant of what becomes the most effective at the highest levels of the game. No matter how much they try to shift damage around, if they don’t address basic usability issues then all of it will be for nothing.

6 Likes
#165

Going to go all in on the meta of this meta (sorry).

What is the “meta”? Is it the strategies popularised by streamers and YouTubers? Is it the min-maxed best-output builds that exist in the game? Or is it simply a prevalence of choice whereby you’re less penalised for building the character the way you want to?

I’m asking seriously because I’ve played games at all levels of competitiveness. I’ve played multiplayer RTS, MOBAs, FPS games (it’s all been downhill since Quake for me in that genre, mind you), with varying degrees of competence. In these games, the “meta” is defined by PvP viability. We don’t really have that here.

I’m not trying for a gotcha, I’m not trying to “win” the argument by semantics. I’m trying to understand what you mean as “meta”, because in my opinion it could be far too a-narrow a definition.

The range of build choices we have in this game (the bad and the good), changing the meta as defined as high-end min-maxed gameplay is very difficult because it involves scaling a lot of things up, massively. Gearbox works off of accumulated metrics (and reading forums / watching streams, absolutely). The challenge in obtaining this data is much more difficult compared to getting analytics from a bunch of competitive RTS matches (for example). Making more things viable does influence the “meta”, insofar as we’re trying to shift from “you have to pick this Anoint or everything sucks” to “you can pick a bunch of things and a lot of them are viable”.

To be clear, I don’t think we’re at the latter yet. I’m not saying we’ve arrived. But these changes are a good step in that direction (for the game that we have, assuming no major changes).

#166

Yes. That would seem to be what GBX envisions it to mean as well, since all of the highest damage builds in the game utilized the anoints that were nerfed. You can use 100 melee ASE, 150 nade ASA, and other (still plenty powerful) anoints within the context of certain builds to extremely lethal effectiveness, but the highest damage output in the game for each character was often using the 4 anoints that were nerfed.

Only if the things being buffed are at their core competitive with the anoints that were nerfed and just needed a bit of a boost. That isn’t the case.

For example, Rakkslag is a 100% gun only V2 bonus against any enemy hit by a Rakk. With 300/90 being brought down to 150/90, that anoint would actually be competitive for certain setups because you don’t have to deal with a health threshold to activate it. It has usability that makes it more desirable in certain cases than it’s competition.

None of the other anoints (that are still dropping online) have that. The kill skill anoint needs an unrealistically high amount of mob density only found in 3 or 4 areas of the game to get it’s bonus up enough to equal CH. N2M needs an action skill that is spammable, a gun or build that can sustain a mag, and only applies to the gun itself whereas URad works regardless of action skill availability, build, or even damage source. And no gun damage anoint comes anywhere close to beating it on any char except Moze and maybe Amara sometimes.

At the end of the day, the anoints that are used in the meta are used because other options don’t provide unique use cases that are worth making any trade-offs for. There is no reason to use any ASA gun damage anoint because CH deals close to the same damage, but all of the time instead of only while an action skill is active. Aside from Moze, most of the other chars get more action skill damage out of URad than the class specific anoint, and the anoints only buff the damage of the action skill while URad applies to everything. Nothing in the game fills the same niche as 150/90 or splash.

Until GBX addresses this by changing the activation requirements of most anointments so that they aren’t just side (down)-grades of existing general purpose anoints, the situation won’t change. There is no reason to take a damage bonus that is more conditional AND doesn’t offer any particular advantage.

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#167

I like and appreciate your Anointment breakdown (basically know that I read it, and didn’t skip it), but this bit here is a bit of an assumption. I’m not saying that it’s automatically wrong, but bear with me here.

Gearbox could’ve nerfed the best-performing Anoints to narrow the gap between them and other, nearly-competitive Anoints. For the aim of increasing general viability (as I think you and I both agree there’s still a general surplus of damage available for any character for any Mayhem level and boss in the game, with the right gear and build).

To expand on “no reason to pick a lesser / more inconvenient Anointment”, this actually benefits my argument (general viability). I believe Gearbox are trying to cater to as many players as possible. I could be wrong. But that’s my stance. With these changes, ASA is at least more comparable to CH. I completely agree with your evaluation of the Anoints mentioned, by the way.

But we have the reroll machine, right? 250 Eridium a pop. Not a huge problem with anyone with a dedicated amount of time to farm the Ruiner, or whatever. But there are enough threads on the cost (as well as the general Eridium sink for high-end content like Hemovorous) for me to point out some players find it excessive. Less engaged players might find it prohibitive. These players still deserve to have weapons and Anointments that make them feel powerful on whatever level of Mayhem they happen to try out.

A good argument against my take here is the SNTL fire rate Anoint was buffed. There’s no way that Anoint can ever work, unless you want to pick the blue tree and flat-out ignore two Kill Skills on your way to the capstone :sweat_smile:

Maybe it was just “bigger numbers make more players happy”. I’m not saying folks like yourself, or other longtime dedicated players will be happy with that. However, in that case it definitely backs up my stance on Gearbox’s balancing, and who they’re balancing for with the “meta”.

1 Like
#168

In that case, why then even mention “shaking up the meta” if the intention of the patch was to improve general viability of more anoints? What you are proposing their goal was vs what they said it was are drastically different: one of them is focused on shifting the endgame power structure and is aimed at veteran players, the other is a general power increase across all levels of the game where said power increase often isn’t needed or noticeable. You can get away with so much, even in M10. Unless you are doing the Takedowns, maybe some of the trials, and Seer, most of the game can be cleared with a variety of anointments and strategies. Buffing the kill skill anoint may make it feel a bit better to use, but it still has all of the same issues, and it’s not as if the power spike is so much that a player using it would be able to do things that were out of reach before.

My theory is that GBX didn’t actually intend for the buffed anoints to compete, but mainly wanted to nerf the strongest ones to bring down the ceiling of player power. We can see that over the past few months with the nerfs to groundbreaker, fishslap, facepuncher, short fuse, passing action skill damage through TTB, indiscriminate, and remnant spawning changes, that GBX are making efforts to lower the ceiling for the massive amounts of damage players are capable of hitting with min-maxed builds. Of course, none of these changes have made a lasting impact because GBX has introduced more powercreep gear in DLC 6 and we have 7 more skill points now, but my guess is that this is a similar gesture to at least attempt to do something.

3 Likes
#169

We have all had a nice discussion throughout this thread. I don’t intend to be the “thread-closer,” just wanted to say that intelligent debate is enjoyable.

@boombumr Regarding the above quote, I gotta be honest - I don’t think there is very much intentionality to what is going on right now. I think they are trying to see what will stick in order to prep for Wonderlands and BL4. I am not so sure how much the devs actually care about BL3 at this point. I think they did at some point, just not really now. But I do understand what @Gorbles is saying with the whole, “they’re trying and some stuff kinda worked” thought process. I am just not sure that this is actually correct. I think it’s more likely that it’s not correct, but will acknowledge that it could be.

Unless the devs are gonna wholesale revamp/redesign the game, fix skills, fix anoints, and fix balance, I kinda think it’s time they just left the game alone. Because whatever they are trying, is not working IMO. Like at all.

If the devs wanna change the game, they should change the friggin’ game in a meaningful way - stop the half-measures. Half measures are for people who don’t have, or can’t actually commit to, the vision. Either make actual, meaningful changes to the game, or don’t. But don’t half-ass it. That’s what it feels like to me is happening at this point - a half-assed effort.

4 Likes
#170

Gain 300% increased Weapon Damage against enemies above 90% Health
Lowered to 150% increased Weapon Damage
・This was removed from the meta in a previous update.
If it’s 150%, it’s not worth using.
Should be put back immediately.

While under 50% health, deal 150% bonus radiation damage.
Lowered to 100% bonus damage.
・I think the nerf is appropriate because the effect was on more than just guns.
I’d say 125% is best for me, considering the disadvantages.

Consecutive Hits increase Weapon Damage by 1% per hit, misses remove all bonuses
Limited the amount of times this could stack to 100
・Stacking up to 200% was difficult, and you had to pick your gun.
This anoint is worthless now that it is the same as ASE100.
It should be changed back immediately.

On Action Skill End, Splash Damage is increased by 200% for a short time
Lowered to 125%.
・Like URad, the effect was on more than just guns, so the nerf is appropriate.
It should have been 100%.

While an Action Skill is Active, Weapon Damage is increased by 200
Lowered to 100
・The nerf was appropriate since it has become more useful with past updates.

It’s clear to me that borderlands 3 didn’t need the Anoint.
Let’s go back to Omega.

#171

How? Please provide an explanation because there is not a single instance where you were using 300/90 before that you aren’t using 150/90 now.

No it wasn’t, literally any source of damage coming from your char stacked this. You could easily get 200 stacks in 5 seconds.

So you have 100ASE that isn’t tied to ASE. Sounds pretty worthwhile to me. When was the last time anyone used 100ASE again, M4? Meanwhile consec is still the most recommended gun damage anoint even post nerf.

Redux mod exists if you want that, but I’d rather GBX work on improving the system they have than scrapping the whole thing.

#172

No it wasn’t, literally any source of damage coming from your char stacked this. You could easily get 200 stacks in 5 seconds.

In order to accumulate 200 hits, you need to be properly equipped and prepared.
You can’t use it if you spend 5 seconds on a special setting.
And with other builds, if you have 5 seconds, the enemy doesn’t exist in the world.
Let’s talk about top builds, not low level builds.

#173

DoT and multiple projectiles allow you to stack CH very fast. It’s not difficult at all.
Also, many popular and top builds used and still using Consec.

2 Likes
#174

Serious question: do you know how consec works?

The card is very inaccurate and many people still aren’t aware of how the anoint works. Any source of damage you deal without a 1 second delay stacks it; pets, action skills, DOTs, individual pellets from multi pellet weapons, bonus elements count as a separate stack + their DOTs, hollowpoints, radsplosions, etc…Shooting a x4 elemental monarch with an ASE element active would stack to 200% in less than 4 seconds.

Also, most of the top tier Moze and Aamara builds used Consec, so I don’t know where this came from…

3 Likes
#175

Meta should be determined by how fast you can complete a run in True Maliwan Takedown. Why? Because it’s long enough to put your builds to work, but short enough you don’t feel like you’re wasting time playing it. You have mobs, individual enemies, mini raid bosses and one of the best raid boss fights in the game. So your builds need to be able to take out mobs effectively while being able to kill bosses and raid bosses as fast as possible.

At least, that’s what I use to determine if my builds are worthy.

#176

Joltz has just completed a playthrough to op10 with grenade and turret only axton, no guns…

#177

Well, in the end, like I said, if you try to compare Axton which has some decent boosts to splash damage in general to Moze that gets Mayhem scaling on her skills besides the Mayhem scaling on the Grenades, and again, skills that scale off of Grenade damage, it is not the grenades that deal damage but rather the character skills that should be “praised” as being superior, in a way. And also taking into account the lesser scaling vs Borderlands 2 in terms of Damage to Enemy HP.
People are just not too smart to understand the bigger picture, only their experience.
Just like people crying about Drop nerf, I’d nerf it even more tbh :stuck_out_tongue:
Also no I’m not using cheats unlike plenty of people here who use saves from the different “Streamers” who 100000000% edited their save file to contain the best parts at the highest level available 2 hours after the patch drops.

#178

This is the source of my angst. Someone at GBX decides what we should and shouldn’t be doing. It’s patronizing, and we’re being treated like children.

And while they’re busy determining what hoops they would like us to jump though, game stopping bugs still exist. Just this week I met the unkillable trooper. Health gone, shield gone, but wouldn’t die. Can’t finish Trial when enemies don’t die. Had to stop another Trial two weeks ago because a tink was in a shack and wouldn’t come out. Loot still drops into places you can’t get to. I assume it shows up in Lost Loot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t.

I don’t remember seeing anything on the package or in marketing material about ‘balance’ and ‘diversity’. I’m here to kill things the way I want to kill them. Stop meddling in my affairs GBX.

1 Like
#179

Like who really cares if someone does or doesn’t? Borderlands has never been a game that was going to be played in any pro gamer circuits, so if a player wants to save edit there stuff, as long as it’s still legit gear, then so what? The game can be played however you want. Most of the gear I have has been picked up through my gameplay. But I would be lying if I didn’t say I ‘upgraded’ all my gear to lvl 72. But that’s for my main character account that I started on day one. I have other VH’s that play by rules I’ve set myself.

Borderlands is a game series that can be played in many, many different ways. Take joltzdude doing a grenade and shoulder cannon only run. And now that crossplay is a thing (sorry Sony players) anyone who needs ‘help’ can get it. I’ve helped a few players already. It depends on what your goals are in the game. Streamers and YT’ubers have a goal of showing min/max builds. The quicker they get them out, the more hits they get. But I’m sure you’re aware of all of this.

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