Sidequests during or after the main story?

[Backshots Barry]

I want to 100% clear the game, when is the best time to do it?

[Helmoldt]

whenever you want to and especially if you find yourself being underleveled to do the storymission.
if you're planning to increase difficulty by playing mayhem all those missionrewards are rendered useless anyway

[Dakarus]

Just get em over with

[SeriousCCIE]

I've found that there are way better weapons to be found at random than anything I'd keep for more than a few hours as a mission reward from a side quest.

That was not the case in BL1 or BL2; those games had mission rewards that might power one through half the game or longer. BL3 seems to have taken a different tactic. Sometimes the quest rewards were so anemic I might have fired a few shots before taking up space in my vault and then ditching it later after realizing it'll never get better and there's no point to save something that I already had exceeded the utility of with what I already had been using.

There are some exceptions to that, but... you will get leveled rewards whether you take the side quests the first time around or in true vault hunter mode. Even then it wasn't any different for me--maybe it was even worse, because by then I mostly had all legendaries equipped and the quest rewards often were suitable for comparison or maybe just leaving on the ground.

So... do them all teh first time, and your odds of getting a reward you want to use are much better than if you wait until the 2nd time around when you already have good stuff.

[Ferndog]

do them or leave them or whatever, actually there never is a "best" time just do 'em whenever you feel like it

[DALCOhstangultion]

I usually play games "breadth first" (i.e., I do all the sidequests in an area before moving on in the main storyline). When I did that in this game, I ended up way overpowered for the main missions. So, I highly recommend pushing through just the main missions in BL3 and then turning on Mayhem Mode (level 1) to bring the world/rewards up to your level. Then do everything else. Plus, by doing that, you get that miserable main mission storyline/villains behind you as fast as possible.

[Acetro]

This is how I did my 3 playthroughs in normal mode:
On first play in normal mode do at least 2/3 of the side-quest in each area to progress smoothly before moving to the next main quest-line. Side-quests tell you which level you got to be.
Also do the crew challenges as much as possible, maybe not the Thyphon Logs, but do Claptrap and Radio for EXP.

[Hephaestus]

Unlike BL2 TVHM is pretty much pointless.. All it does is increase the drop rate for legendaries (it does not increase damage or other things). TVHM also resets all side quest progress (meaning you have to do them again)

Because of that there is just no reason to do TVHM unless you just wan't to do it. So if you are on Normal difficulty and know you won't do TVHM then do the side quests while you are playing the campaign.

If you want to play TVHM then do the side-quests in that play-through as doing them all twice can get tedious and boring.

[Jerubius]

Originally posted by Hephaestus:

Unlike BL2 TVHM is pretty much pointless.. All it does is increase the drop rate for legendaries (it does not increase damage or other things). TVHM also resets all side quest progress (meaning you have to do them again)

Because of that there is just no reason to do TVHM unless you just wan't to do it. So if you are on Normal difficulty and know you won't do TVHM then do the side quests while you are playing the campaign.

If you want to play TVHM then do the side-quests in that play-through as doing them all twice can get tedious and boring.

From what I understand, it increases the frequency of badasses, loot enemies and anointed enemies, which in turn have a higher drop chance of legendaries.

[Traveler]

I'm guessing your playing first run. I'd do them as you go, you need to level up for vault monsters anyway.

[Gila]

It doesn't matter really, just do them as you go. If you want some quest reward item at higher or max level, there's always TVHM mode that you can reset.

Unlike BL2 however, I don't think there are any really really good quest rewards that are worth saving for later - especially considering that so far only dropped weapons are scaled depending on Mayhem difficulty. Not to mention that legendary items drop quite frequently too.

The only worth quest reward I can think of off the top of my head is that Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge artifact from the end of DLC2.

[Helmoldt]

it's a shame missionrewards dont scale like they did in the previous game. i'd like to use some of them.....

[Nite69]

on the first playthrough you have to do the side missions as you progress the story, or you will fall behind in player level causing enemeies to be too hard, weapon drops being too high a level then your current level meaning you can't use them

[Traveler]

Originally posted by gila:

It doesn't matter really, just do them as you go. If you want some quest reward item at higher or max level, there's always TVHM mode that you can reset.

Unlike BL2 however, I don't think there are any really really good quest rewards that are worth saving for later - especially considering that so far only dropped weapons are scaled depending on Mayhem difficulty. Not to mention that legendary items drop quite frequently too.

The only worth quest reward I can think of off the top of my head is that Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge artifact from the end of DLC2.

Most mission rewards stink, specially once you reach 57. Every item I have equiped is from a random drop.

[Jerubius]

Originally posted by Traveler:

Originally posted by gila:

It doesn't matter really, just do them as you go. If you want some quest reward item at higher or max level, there's always TVHM mode that you can reset.

Unlike BL2 however, I don't think there are any really really good quest rewards that are worth saving for later - especially considering that so far only dropped weapons are scaled depending on Mayhem difficulty. Not to mention that legendary items drop quite frequently too.

The only worth quest reward I can think of off the top of my head is that Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge artifact from the end of DLC2.

Most mission rewards stink, specially once you reach 57. Every item I have equiped is from a random drop.

I mean, there's a handful of solid mission rewards, like whispering ice for cryo Zane or demo girl Moze. Technically, a cloning maddening tracker grenade is better for pure healing on Moze than whispering ice is, but whispering ice will proc its healing a lot faster, and stacks some great CC on top of that (does a small vortex on initial contact, and then deploys several ice spike mines with very high freeze chance, especially considering a single enemy usually triggers several). The main downside of mission rewards is that they can't get anointments, but there's a few worth it even with that downside.

[omega]

Originally posted by Traveler:

Originally posted by gila:

It doesn't matter really, just do them as you go. If you want some quest reward item at higher or max level, there's always TVHM mode that you can reset.

Unlike BL2 however, I don't think there are any really really good quest rewards that are worth saving for later - especially considering that so far only dropped weapons are scaled depending on Mayhem difficulty. Not to mention that legendary items drop quite frequently too.

The only worth quest reward I can think of off the top of my head is that Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge artifact from the end of DLC2.

Most mission rewards stink, specially once you reach 57. Every item I have equiped is from a random drop.

yep, look good in your safe on the ship but later on you get better stuff for sure. and the pearl? yes that was top.