What The Saboteur Tells Us

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#21

That’s a modern trend in nearly every game that has both PVP and PVE. Maybe it’s somehow connected to PVP players being naturally more aggressive and experienced in fighting other people than PVE players. So they “win” more attention and fame.

Even if the Saboteur was meant to be hard, it was a bad way to make it hard. This final area requires quite different approach than what works good in ALL previous missions and areas and has zero hints to you about it. And it is in addition to that area already being not easy. So you get like double jump in difficulty out of nowhere and you most likely don’t even know what you did wrong and why you lost.

It’s clear to me it’s a case of a bad mission design. Increasing defense points’ HP didn’t affect the design, it just looked like the easiest way to make missions more do-able.

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#22

That’s a fair point. I’m not remotely saying the mission is perfect or anything, but I just feel it is an awfully big stretch to conclude PvE is second class because that encounter isn’t perfectly designed.

In the run I mentioned earlier, we had gotten great loot along the way. It wasn’t like the time was wasted.

#23

PvE being second class, to me, is better supported by the fact that there are only 8 maps and what… 5 planned in the future? PvP only has 6 atm, but they are going to double it to 12. PvE might have more maps in total, but the rate of expansion is not there.

And i frickin’ despise the Heliophage reusing the bosses from the rest of the story. That is a cheap shot, as far as i’m concerned.

Turrets in PvE are… i dunno. Not really balanced. It is really, really hard to beat The Experiment on Advanced without turrets. Saboteur, i wouldn’t try to beat without those turrets. The traps, meh.

#24

Seeing as this game is a MOBA first and foremost, PvE will sadly always play second fiddle to the PvP. The fact there will be more in the future (how many are there per DLC pack? It can’t be just one, can it?), you should be thankful that GBX are even doing that much.

As for The Saboteur level, yeah, it’s a difficult one, but I’ve been able to do it on Advanced with only me and one other person, and we were playing as Phoebe and Whiskey Foxtrot (so no healing), but we were still able to finish the mission, though tbh, I thought we were going to lose from having run out of lives than failing a defense section

#25

How many times can you save Caldarius before it becomes a boring chore?

I was like you PVE enthusiasts, I bought it with that in mind. At first I thought “PVP? Bleugh! Screw that!”

… Then after playing 100+ missions I decided to give PVP a look.

Initially I hated it because I didn’t understand it. But now, it’s the only reason I play. I went from buying it for PVE only, to now sitting with over 3,000 player kills and a Pentastrike to boot.

PVP is where this game will survive, and last in the long run. It only makes sense to fortify your strengths. However, we have an upcoming loot event which will obviously see a significant spike in PVE activity, so you guys are getting that.

Nutshell: give PVP a try, it’s great.

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#26

…

Ok, so… I know everyone doesn’t think the way I do (that would be boring and awful anyway).

That being said, Battleborn combines an FPS with a MOBA.
These are two typically PvP genres.
You do see Story Modes in FPSs, typically, but they are not the focal point of the game.

I don’t expect GB to do much with Story other than DLC, and I didn’t expect it when I bought it at launch either.
That’s not to say that it doesn’t matter to me.
95% of my time spent on BB is in Story Mode, because I prefer cooperative game modes.
A large part of why I bought BB over that-game-which-must-not-be-named was that one had a cooperative mode and the other did not.
I feel I’ve pretty much gotten what I paid for.

I do disagree when it comes to The Saboteur.
That is a great level assuming you know what you’re doing; one of my favourites.
It could use some possible bounce pads to get low to high quick, but other than that, it’s a nice tense fight that requires team play and smart utilization of shards.

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#27

They have to cater to the majority first, and PvE players are a minority.
You see the reverse in other games where PvE commands the majority of the user base.

#28

See, I disagree. One of the main ways to challenge players, and the best methods to improve their skill, is to do things differently. Force them to find a new way to succeed.

If every mission was solvable with the same basic tactics, now THAT would be a boring game in my opinion.

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#29

Thanks! I always aim for common sense. :wink:

#30

I’m going to ask you to show some data to support your conclusion. Unless you’re a GBX dev, you can’t know what a majority of players are doing, since a vast majority of players are silent and don’t come to the forums to whinge about matchmaking.

Furthermore, as I said in my first post in this thread, developing for PvP and developing for PvE are completely different beasts. PvE players have a lower level of required maintenance (ongoing development for PvE content and balancing is less necessary) but require a significantly larger investment for additional content (PvE maps require way more work than PvP maps).

Until you can actually show some numbers that indicate that a majority of BB’s players are PvPing, you can’t really state with any authority that the devs are just following the majority of players.

Everything the devs have done up to this point groks with exactly what I’ve said: PvP requires a lot more micromanagement (which is what they’ve been doing) and PvE content requires more work (which is why we have to wait longer for new content). The very fact that PvE is getting a new mission (is it before or at the same time?) as PvP is getting a new map/mode means that they aren’t simply ignoring PvE and are, if anything, putting more resources towards developing for PvE (since, as I said, PvE mission requires more than PvP map).

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#31

…That part doesn’t bug me so much but the knock-back is unfair.
Why unfair? Because the NPC’s do edge detection and the code obviously helps them.
Several characters in that final battle are OP with knock-back.

#32

You can tell that the majority of players are PvP based on the fact that a majority of the changes are PvP related.

If a majority of players were PvE, then they would make more PvE changes.

I’m sure they have dedicated teams, but overall focus seems to be geared toward PvP. Not to mention, PvE changes on the whole likely require client patches and updates which neccesitate a bit of patience on our part.

#33

Once again, you’re making the same fallacious argument. Read what I actually posted to explain why they can have made all of the changes they currently have without casting aside PvE (seriously; it’s as if you think tweaking numbers each week is some monumental undertaking…).

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#34

[quote=“CharacterIV, post:28, topic:1540215”]See, I disagree. One of the main ways to challenge players, and the best methods to improve their skill, is to do things differently. Force them to find a new way to succeed.

If every mission was solvable with the same basic tactics, now THAT would be a boring game in my opinion.[/quote]
But every mission IS solvable with the same basic tactics. It’s only 1/3 of one mission stands out. Is it a way to challenge players and improve their skills? At the end of 7th mission? And is it enough to make a game not boring?

If it really was their intention, they kinda failed.

Nope.

#35

Well, i donT’ know, for me Saboteur is one of the best map of the campaign… I played it solo many time (all mode) and in coop a few time, never get bored or overwhelmed… Even with Marquis (even if the game told you that it’s make the mission harder); so, you must admit that you talk about a factual situation, but just about your impression.

#36

Totally wrong here. Good game design is based on the simple concept that; EVERY action must be rewarding; more or less depending on the moment/action/objective of the game.

#37

I just wish hardcore PvE players would stop putting the blame on PvP for everything. PvE is still perfectly doable, and it’s damn fine if sometimes people loose to a mission.

No, PvP balancing didn’t break PvE. No, PvP balance pass to legendaries didn’t break PvE. Yes, some characters aren’t supposed to be able to complete a mission solo. Yes, some team composition are bad : it forces people to think and balance the team beforehand. Yes, some missions are badly optimized : as it happens, some PvP maps have issues too.

Level design isn’t that bad : sure, some traps are pretty useless in the Saboteur, but once you know that, you can still focus on 2 super useful thumper and 2 super useful Flash / time traps. Keep the money for spawning reconstructor bots. As much as ISIC is involved in this particular example, well I did Saboteur Advanced with ISIC and his ult pretty much owned the place, so no issues there.
Geoff resists explosive? My, just don’t use an explosive based character. This isn’t Borderlands where you’re pretty much “stuck” to a character and they have to be able to stand their own. I actually love that you have to switch characters for specific missions because they will not be best for the job. Loadouts and team comp are a pretty big part of a lot of games, and I like that’s it’s another little thing they managed to put into BB.

They don’t have to unlink anything or put any emphasis on PvE. It’s fine. It works. It’s doable. It’s beatable. The only thing I keep saying is quite broken is the Challenge system that fails to adapt to the team, number of players, or sometimes spawn enough foes. And it’s not even gamebreaking. And since they adressed the droprates of legendary, well, alle-friking-lujah, it’s now close to perfect !

Battleborn is an hybrid game, a two faced coin. If anything, I’m sad PvE is pratically mandatory for PvP while PvP isn’t completely mandatory for PvE. I’d like something to cross over from PvP to PvE, can’t say what. Not just lore challenges though. Something that would give more incentive to dip a toe in both activity because there is something to be gained for the other, complementary activity. That way the message would be clear : if you don’t want to engage in the other activity, well, your loss, but don’t complain you are missing something.

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#38

I’m saving my final decision on this until after the first major patch and DLC come out. I’ve been giving GBX the benefit of the doubt because every game has bugs and Hotfixes are generally used to address the stuff that can be more easily changed and reverted if the change is unintentionally for the worse.

I see PvP concerns as simply being more easily tweaked than PvE.

If, after the patch and DLC are released, I see no improvements to the PvE side, then I’ll probably conclude that GBX really isn’t interested in changing the PvE side into what I thought it was going to be and be more careful about selecting my next title.

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#39

That’s fun that along much discussed problems the Saboteur is easier when done solo. You have the least amount of mobs and weakest range of their types but defenses are the same. And Marquis is actually very good there, his owls work great to protect Nova from melee scavens.

Not that amazing when you realize you have to pay for new PVE content but new PVP content is free.

#40

You assume, based on no evidence other than update focus, that the devs have cast PvE aside.
I theorise they may have done so based on player numbers.
You believe they only need to make a few “easy” changes and assume these to be a simple undertaking.

Seems like there’s plenty of speculation happening here.