First and foremost, I understand Borderlands isn't necessarily meant to be a HARD game. There's generally not deeper strategy beyond 'shoot the thing a lot until it dies while trying not to die'. However, after beating the game and jumping into Mayhem mode, it became VERY clear to me VERY quickly that the end-game isn't balanced at all. It's simply FAR too easy.To start the conversation, let's talk Bosses/Vault Monsters:Bosses/Vault MonstersThe Vault Monsters this time around were far too bullet-hell like. Now generally, with simple word association of bullet-hell, that'd mean they're harder, but they were just way easier because of how easily telegraphed their attacks were.At no point was I concerned about failing. It really just fell into a series of motions, especially with the stages being spread apart so much, damage was easily recoverable.While bosses in BL2 had patterns as well, a lot of their difficulty came from overbearing damage, almost to the point of being unfair. But this unfairness that we perceived is generally what fueled our desire to hunt for more epic loot. That brings me to my next issue.Normal vs. Legendary Loot:Legendary loot was always meant to give that upper hand and it did so in spades in BL2. However, legendaries feel more novelty than necessary this time. For the record, I went through the entire campaign which probably took me a total of 20 hours with no side missions, and just casually playing through the story; listening to all dialogue, etc. I didn't rush it.Throughout that ENTIRE playthrough, with the exception of quest-given legendaries, I found maybe... 7? That was good. The legendaries felt appropriately rare. The damage variation between the regular items was frequent enough that I was finding a new item to main with probably every 2nd or 3rd quest area. This progression felt appropriate, however I never ended up keeping any of these legendaries as none of them were very helpful, or very cool.I was able to take down all my Vault Monster's and the final Boss with a standard lever-action repeater and 6-shooter, and the occasional broken Torgue Shotgun that I ended up dropping simply because it was boring. I like the gritty nature of Jakobs Shotties. No grenade that rains magma from the sky. No rocket launcher that splits into a million rockets (I WANT MY MONGOL GOD DAMN IT). Nothing. It was a very, for all intents and purposes, vanilla playthrough. I didn't feel strained, I didn't feel pressured, and I was never worried about my next boss encounter.So, naturally, I beat the game, and went into Mayhem mode and since we were allowed to choose any difficulty we wanted, I chose Mayhem 2 just to see how much my ass would get handed to me. I usually like doing stuff like this; seeing what nonsense these higher levels tend to offer, kinda like sneaking into exceedingly high Torment Levels in Diablo 3 just to see what happens and if you can grab some sneaky legendaries without the higher levels noticing your own level.However, to my surprise, it was very easy and the enemies only took 3 or 4 more hits to kill and did more damage. No big deal really. I said screw it, and went to Mayhem 3. Not much different and it was kind of disappointing.So, after that I thought like hey, maybe the weapons change or something. I went to the Loot Tink farm that people have found to farm some quick legendaries before I start my sidequest. Again, a lot of these legendaries were more novelty than necessary or even helpful. The items I kept ended up being a couple of the blues and purples, and I sold the legendaries.I understand that people don't really appreciate bulletsponges, but when your Mayhem 1 doesn't sport much of a difference to Mayhem 3 (and I've seen the chart. It doesn't really matter), you got a bit of a longevity problem on your hand.Pair that with the fact that there exists a very abusable scripted Loot Link, you got a recipe for very quick burnout.Without delving into individual character trees, I felt it was necessary to bring this issue up as someone who dumped a significant amount of hours into BL2 because it offered variety between it's different modes and the experiences between all of the bosses/raid bosses.The last topic of concern...THAT Loot TinkSimply put, it has to go. It undermines the entire progression structure. Now, while I'm sure I'm going to get railed on here for being anti-fun, and I'm going to be told that I can simply ignore it, I'm not and you can't (once you know about it).I'll explain: Remember when the GunGun was first revealed? That blew everyone's balls off. A gun that could spawn guns. That's a Borderlands wet dream. It was also seen as the herald of delivering potential hours worth of grinding in seconds, especially with the possibility of it spawning legendary items. A may-or-may-not mechanic.The thing is, THAT Loot Tink completely destroys its allure. It reduces additional value in Eridium beyond cosmetics and it plays a game on those who know that it exists.OUTSIDE of playing the rest of the content JUST to be able to experience it, a part of that experience is the loot you get and the hunt for legendaries, so if you complete all of the side content, and all that's left is that grind to find the perfect gun, and you can just run this over and over again and forego that experience, it will destroy the games longevity. There's simply no way around it. It additionally undermines to whole Anointed enemies system, another layer of intended end-game progression.There's not really anyway to not ruin the game for yourself if you've completed the rest of the content and know it exists because you know that you're just giving yourself a more difficult time of your own volition. It's just human nature. We like to find the most efficient way to do something, but let that come from grinding.I envy those that don't already know about it because they're not aware of how easily the rest of the game can be made for them and how easily their curiosity can be satiated.////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////We obviously have further DLC's to look forward to for additional content, and those will be fantastic, but they're ultimately are built around the core recipe of what Borderlands is, and I don't want to see them or the playerbase diminished because of what we have here now. via /r/borderlands3 https://ift.tt/31uJVXF
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