Borderlands 3 - Mask of Mayhem

[zinfamous]

The very first boss was a blatant rip-off from BL2. After it was discussed (in my thread on the Gearbox forums), a few community managers for 2K said it was a homage to Borderlands 2 and they wanted to give the fans something to relate to. I could accept that if I hadn't progressed with the game and saw that most of the rest was just a lazy copy/paste from the first two games. They added the moon physics and ice elemental which were fun for a few minutes, but after a while they just felt gimmicky. I think my biggest complaint (other than the lazy Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V) was the classes to choose from felt too rounded. One of the community managers did touch on that and say they didn't want to restrict anyone to any class just because of their playstyle. They wanted all classes to be more or less viable for sniping, melee, tank, etc. which I think felt lazier than anything else. I put a solid 400 hours in the game and played through with most classes, but it just didn't feel like Borderlands to me.

classes were more rounded...yeah, that's one way of looking at it. I think of all of them as pretty effective, but yes--probably all of them too good at most things, in similar ways. So it makes sense.

My biggest gripe was that the map-mission design were very dependent on back-tracking. It made a rather small area feel larger, but really just feel redundant and obnoxious. Primarily, though. The DLC was a huge disappointment compared to what we got with the first two. Pretty much everyone expected 2 or 3 large, solid maps and quests, but there was just one....with the new classes counting as DLC individually. That isn't the BL model for DLC, so much salt was tossed about and consumed over that.

I enjoyed the gravity and O2 gear kit quite a bit, actually. it added some function to the ground slamming, which was actually useful in situations, and because I like to run around and constantly jump in games like this, it just helped me to enjoy the space bar that much more. I call that a QoL win. The oxygen deprivation mechanic was pretty much useless, though. This really only exists in the first tutorial bit, when you learn about it, but pretty much all O2 kits and Oxygen bubbles and stations pretty much eliminate any thought of O2 loss after that. So, it was indeed a mechanic that wasn't balanced in any way.

 

[EXCellR8]

I never actually got into TPS, for some reason it just didn't catch my attention and even though I put quite a few hours into BL2 I didn't care to play it.

I've always liked the goofy over-the-top vibe of these games, mixed with the cell-shading and often campy dialogue, since the first one arrived and I remember being stoked to see Gearbox panel at PAX East before BL2 came out. It was arguably the game with the biggest set pieces and booths there and 21 year old me waited in line for nearly 2 hours to play 15 minutes of it. I did get a free shirt out of it though, which I believe said "MINION" on the back, so yea good times.

 

[bguile]

it's just a teaser so probably shouldn't expect gameplay and details until a few months to release, or later. I seem to recall for previous BL games, skill trees were only revealed somewhat close to release...I think.

but we do know some things: 4 new vault hunters/classes, with previous vault hunters acting as NPCs, as they do--you even see the Baroness, I believe....one can assume that, outside of Athena, at least, the surviving TPS vaulthunters are villain NPCs? (Wilhelm, Nisha, and Jack's clone were killed in BL2).

THere is a Siren, and lots of guns. That's all I care about, tbh. ...as long as the guns are more like BL1 and less like BL2/TPS. not sure about that Siren ability though...looks like it might be mele focused somehow? I don't like mele in these games.

Wilhelm and Nisha are most likely dead. There maybe be some wiggle room for Wilhelm since he was mostly a machine when you killed him in BL2. I am pretty sure that Jack's Clone from TPS, and the body double you killed in BL2 are two different people, so he may still be alive. That said, it is starting to get a bit crowded with all these characters from past games, so I sorta hope they don't bring them back.

 

[Igo69]

Hmm, why does it look exactly like Borderlands 2 or maybe that is a good thing. Why fix what is not broken right?

And why there is not Mr. Torque? WHY?

 

[bguile]

After re-watching the trailer several times (you have to slow it down to see it all, especially at the end), it does look like there are going to more gun part's and gun types than before (maybe even more gun manufacturer's than BL2), so hopefully that will make the gear grind that much better. There are definitely some crazy looking guns in the 1st trailer. I am starting to get optimistic, but I guess we will have to wait until they release more info.

 

[zinfamous]

Wilhelm and Nisha are most likely dead. There maybe be some wiggle room for Wilhelm since he was mostly a machine when you killed him in BL2. I am pretty sure that Jack's Clone from TPS, and the body double you killed in BL2 are two different people, so he may still be alive. That said, it is starting to get a bit crowded with all these characters from past games, so I sorta hope they don't bring them back.

I was wondering about Wilhelm because of what was actually left of him by the time you blast him in to the ice--yeah, pretty much just a brain.

I guess Nisha is the one that I am sure of--there is a side mission in BL2 that is pretty easy to miss--in a large map that I don't think is part of the story so it's likely a lot of people just skip it unknowningly--but you pretty much kill her very dead, lol.

 

[Aikouka]

I think my biggest complaint (other than the lazy Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V) was the classes to choose from felt too rounded. One of the community managers did touch on that and say they didn't want to restrict anyone to any class just because of their playstyle. They wanted all classes to be more or less viable for sniping, melee, tank, etc. which I think felt lazier than anything else. I put a solid 400 hours in the game and played through with most classes, but it just didn't feel like Borderlands to me.

I think that was the biggest thing that turned me off of the Pre-Sequel. I looked into the talent trees of all the classes and chose Athena, as she was the only one that looked even remotely interesting. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into her gameplay or the game itself. I only spent maybe 20 minutes playing, and I've never touched it since. If you compare that with Borderlands or Borderlands 2, I have somewhere from 250-300 hours into each. (To be fair, I used to leave Borderlands 2 running to keep my stacks of Anarchy on my Mechromancer, which likely jacked up my time.)

 

[zinfamous]

I think that was the biggest thing that turned me off of the Pre-Sequel. I looked into the talent trees of all the classes and chose Athena, as she was the only one that looked even remotely interesting. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into her gameplay or the game itself. I only spent maybe 20 minutes playing, and I've never touched it since. If you compare that with Borderlands or Borderlands 2, I have somewhere from 250-300 hours into each. (To be fair, I used to leave Borderlands 2 running to keep my stacks of Anarchy on my Mechromancer, which likely jacked up my time.)

That's the thing with Athena--looks the most interesting, but is incredibly boring for a very, very long time. Your really need to get her into 2nd playthrough before she becomes interesting.

Nisha does have excellent skill tree, and is really good early on...but admittedly much of that is tied to whether or not you really like dual-wield revolvers...which I do. Her primary skill, which is basically a version of gunzerker, is better than Sal's, imo--it has more functionality without essentially pushing you towards invincibility (which is why it's kinda broken in BL2)

 

[Ackmed]

Pretty excited about this,. I usually detest grinding games, but I did grind this game like crazy. Must buy for me.

 

[Artorias]

BL3 99% confirmed to by an Epic exclusive.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1112834212359536640

https://twitter.com/x/status/1112833886113992706

 

[zinfamous]

BL3 99% confirmed to by an Epic exclusive.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1112834212359536640

https://twitter.com/x/status/1112833886113992706

Also sounds like it might be the same kind of short-term exclusive deal. I'm fine with that. I'd rather pick this up after at least the first level bump or DLC, anyway, so leveling is more properly balanced from the beginning.

 

[KMFJD]

BL3 99% confirmed to by an Epic exclusive.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1112834212359536640

https://twitter.com/x/status/1112833886113992706

Nice, i prefer epic store over steam, and it will be cheaper.

 

[Igo69]

Epic again? Another game I will not buy then.

 

[bguile]

Also sounds like it might be the same kind of short-term exclusive deal. I'm fine with that. I'd rather pick this up after at least the first level bump or DLC, anyway, so leveling is more properly balanced from the beginning.

BL3 being on epic store seems pretty likely. Like you said hopefully it's a short term exclusive only. I may end up breaking down and getting it on console depending on review's though.

You mentioned one other that I really hope they fix...damn dlc and how it ties into the main game via leveling.

 

[Stg-Flame]

You mentioned one other that I really hope they fix...damn dlc and how it ties into the main game via leveling.

If you're referring to the Borderlands 2 DLC, then the natural order was to ignore the DLC in normal and complete all the DLC in 2.5 that way you bypassed the soft-cap on the weapon levels.

 

[zinfamous]

If you're referring to the Borderlands 2 DLC, then the natural order was to ignore the DLC in normal and complete all the DLC in 2.5 that way you bypassed the soft-cap on the weapon levels.

It was a good bit better than what happened with BL1, and essentially overleveling yourself in the first 3rd of the first playthrough, if you spend a lot of time on sidequests....but waiting for 2.5 to play DLC, to do it "properly" is still kinda piss-poor for those that buy game of the year packs.

...sure, it's fine if you just want to play through the game straight and don't give a crap about builds...but those people still come late into game releases for a reason. You'er also kinda stuck with so many playthroughs, across various classes, either as a day one player or just to "play it properly." ...even if you tend to like that--as I do if I really like the game--it's a tedious requirement to play the game "as it's meant to be played."

waiting for UVH or whatever it was in BL2 to play through the DLC was a damn tall order, man, especially with it already being available when I picked up BL2.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I really hated the direction Gearbox went with UVHM. You either kept Slag for everything or you ran a very specific build that relied on very specific gear that required you to go back and farm for new gear after five or so levels just to remain relevant. I spoke with Gearbox community managers at great length about the direction they took with UVHM and it all boiled down to "slag is the new element, but everything dies fast enough normally, nobody uses it - not even on bosses - so now you have to use it". Needless to say, it pissed off a fair share of the community when that post hit the forums, but the lifers and the min/maxers loved the added challenge. I hate the fact that I had to rework my entire build just to kill normal psychos.

 

[zinfamous]

I really hated the direction Gearbox went with UVHM. You either kept Slag for everything or you ran a very specific build that relied on very specific gear that required you to go back and farm for new gear after five or so levels just to remain relevant. I spoke with Gearbox community managers at great length about the direction they took with UVHM and it all boiled down to "slag is the new element, but everything dies fast enough normally, nobody uses it - not even on bosses - so now you have to use it". Needless to say, it pissed off a fair share of the community when that post hit the forums, but the lifers and the min/maxers loved the added challenge. I hate the fact that I had to rework my entire build just to kill normal psychos.

Slag was the absolute worst. Bullet sponge is the model, and the only way to defeat it is this thing that requires you to "slightly break the bullet sponge from time to time"

seriously bad.

 

[Zenoth]

Yeah, as much as I absolutely adore BL2 I never bothered with UVHM. That's until I found mods that essentially removes the mechanic and rebalances the difficulty more akin to TVHM but simply harder, over having a mode where you're basically forced to use Slag weapons and can't have fun with anything else. I remember playing with my cousin the first time we tried UVHM (without mods) in co-op.

First map, first bandit camp; we both had the soldier (Axton), both had a 2x Turret special, and deployed them both, each. A total of 4 Turrets firing on ONE single bandit. It took minutes of non-stop firing from all 4 of them before he died. That was our cue, we decided to simply start a new character over again until we finished TVHM across the campaigns two times and we had been repeating that process for a couple of characters. We figured out that, after all, UVHM simply wasn't a necessity to the game to be enjoyable. Only "issue" is that we were 'stuck' to a certain level, since TVHM can only go so far to make you level up before sort of "having to" move to UVHM if you want to get past Level 53 or 54, or around those (past around 53 or 54 if I recall correctly is when TVHM just can't do the job well enough and becomes way too grindy and new weapons stop being meaningful, since no need to get anything better than what you had last found of the same level than you). But with mods now it's alright, UVHM is pretty enjoyable and still offers more challenge (I do die a lot more, and that's fine) but there's also better loot as it should be so it's all good.

Interestingly enough, Pre-Sequel did not have the Slag mechanic for its highest difficulty setting by default; already an improvement on that front versus default UVHM in BL2, definitely. Unfortunately, Pre-Sequel didn't do it for me, never could finish it.

But yeah, regarding difficulty settings... not sure of course how they've approached it for BL3 this time around but I do have the feeling that they'll keep the formula relatively intact. I don't mind if they kept the 2 or 3 difficulty settings mechanic intact, as well as having to finish the game to unlock the next setting. But if the last one has a forced Slag mechanic again I'll do the same as I did with BL2, I'll just ignore it until modders fix it.

 

[zinfamous]

^The only way that I tolerated slag was traiting it into Maya's Phase lock near the end of whatever tree that was...I think it was an elite skill, actually? It saves you from having to constantly switch guns and it is pretty spammable if you trait her phase lock well...but it also means you have a valuable skill point dedicated to that one now-required function.

In my mind, that strangely makes it less valuable than using it in a setting like TVHM, where slag isn't required but definitely adds a huge damage boost (and no one still used it, anyway). With any other characters, you almost certainly wouldn't be using slag if it wasn't required, but with Maya, it would comparatively up her damage output to levels that I'm guessing Sal couldn't compete with in that kind of difficulty setting.

 

[PajamaParty]

Yeah, Slag being a must in UVHM is the only reason why I've never finished UVHM with any character yet.

 

[Skel]

New trailer for it. It doesn't look like a MMO type at all. September 13th is the release date.

 

[Skel]

The preorders are up on their site

Deluxe Edition bonuses
Deluxe Bonus Content Pack
Includes:
• Retro Cosmetic Pack
• Neon Cosmetic Pack
• Gearbox Cosmetic Pack
• Toy Box Weapon Pack
• XP & loot drop boost mods

Super Deluxe Edition
Deluxe Bonus Content Pack
Includes:
• Retro Cosmetic Pack
• Neon Cosmetic Pack
• Gearbox Cosmetic Pack
• Toy Box Weapon Pack
• XP & loot drop boost mods

Season Pass
Includes:
• 4 campaign DLC packs featuring new stories, missions and challenges
• Butt Stallion weapon skin
• Butt Stallion weapon trinket
• Butt Stallion grenade mod

Collector Edition
Deluxe Bonus Content Pack
Includes:
• Retro Cosmetic Pack
• Neon Cosmetic Pack
• Gearbox Cosmetic Pack
• Toy Box Weapon Pack
• XP & loot drop boost mods

Season Pass
Includes:
• 4 campaign DLC packs featuring new stories, missions and challenges
• Butt Stallion weapon skin
• Butt Stallion weapon trinket
• Butt Stallion grenade mod

Plus:
• Diamond Loot Chest Replica
• Borderlands 3 character figurines (x10)
• Sanctuary 3 snap model
• Vault Key keychains (x4)
• Cloth galaxy map
• Character art lithographs (x5)

All are currently coming with the pre-order bonus
Pre-order Bonus: Gold Weapon Skins Pack
Contains a gold weapon trinket and gold weapon skins that are applicable to all guns in the game

 

[zinfamous]

hmm, "Weapon trinket" wonder what that is...I guess some kinda kit that you can use to affix to weapons, and maybe slot around?

I like that for the Season Pass, they explicitly say "4 CAMPAIGN DLC." lol--guess they don't want any more waffling from the fans about what DLC actually means for Borderlands, after the TPS fiasco.

Oh poop, after reading this:

Amara as THE SIREN: A confident, capable brawler with the ability to summon ethereal fists, Amara uses her Siren powers to smash her enemies

yeah, so Siren = mele. wtf. And it sounds like Brick with a Siren skin/powers. effffffffff that.

 

[Aikouka]

XP & loot drop boost mods

Hm, I really hope this doesn't imply paid boosts like in Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

...unless they mean "mods" as in class mods?