Wtf is wrong with this game?

[R2zi3l]

General Opinion I have seen online is that BL3 is an improvement over BL2 in gameplay department but story and dialogues is where it sucks. Well after playing BL3 (and going back and playing BL2 a little bit) I dont think its an improvement over BL2 in all gameplay departments either.

The shooting feels a bit better, loot and guns are... ... better but not really (Jakobs guns are kind of ruined imo) BUT the big problem I have with BL3 is how terribly badly balanced it is.

The game is way too easy compared to BL2. In BL2, you actually had to be concerned when clearing areas about your shield, health AND ALSO, your ammo. In BL3, I could blast through areas without a concern for any of it and I never ran out ammo for any gun like even once through BL3. Raising ammo capacity is easy enough and never a concern.
One reason is how easily you keep getting legendary guns.

The game doesn't even have a hard mode so you can increase the difficulty yourself. I guess it was made when games like Sekiro and Dark Souls 3 were released and there was this big raging debate about game difficulty and how that is discrimanation against more casual players ... sheesh!

BL2 was fun because it was funny and challenging enough. I never played Pre Sequel but I am guessing its better balanced as well.
Lastly, BL2 had such amazing and memorable bosses that actually could be challenging to you or your group of friends. In bl3, I just breezed through all of them!

Just wanted to know if others also felt similar when playing BL3...

[Junipercat]

Gameplay mechanics are not necessarily a strong positive, only that they are a positive. I completely agree the game is too easy from the very 1st playthrough and on top of that legendaries have too high a drop rate. Felt like they were catering to the "everybody must have a participation award" crowd instead of actually earning those achievements.

Like BL2 you can clear the game and go on the next difficulty. Or you can scale the game to your liking with Mayhem levels that were a later addition to the game (similar to OP Levels from BL2, but you can toggle it pretty much at any time as opposed to having to run the same map over and over).

I won't deep dive into the lore/writing/character development issues here, as those have been discussed to death in other threads and seems not the focal point of yours. I will only say that I hope with BL4 coming out next year they listen to all of this and put it back on track.

[Kobeth]

Balance in BL2 was horrendous in the later stages of the game. If you are just talking about Normal mode, congratulation, you beat the tutorial and already thought that was challenging. Now go on Ultimate True Vault Hunter mode, grind to OP10 and tell me how well balanced BL2 is compared to BL3. Slag was made a necessary mechanic to use in order to deal any kind of damage, build and gear diversity is very limited, only a handful are actually viable and having good parts is very impactful to maximize your DPS so god rolls are pretty necessary, the lack of decent sustain options for each vault hunters made Moxxi weapons basically mandatory, especially the Grog Nozzle. Now, it IS more challenging but it is just difficulty for the sake of difficulty and at the detriment of balance, while BL3 has way better balance at higher levels.

[kukuhimanpr]

thankfully some b2 gameplay mods such as Borderlands Exodus mod fix some issues with b2 gameplay while also spicing up the gameplay with some feature changesx such as hundreds of new items to find , reworked enemy resistance to make slagging not needed but also make the game more interesting , making you use different elements more often. there's also a mod to make all quests levels scale to your levels before uvhm.

For running there is a mod to make sprinting automatic , you will start sprinting after moving for a second https://bl-sdk.github.io/mods/SprintSetandForget/

There are other movement mods like "Sprint Adjuster" to change sprinting speed, double jumps and buttslams from TPS , auto sprint , sliding from BL3 , improved vendors (sell all trash or refill all ammo in one button). better fast travel , save and reload anywhere. no borderlands 3 ads in game, etc.

[Leopard]

Have you tried TVHM yet and level up to OP to 10 and 11?

NVHM is for casual gaming quick get through to know the game and story. Design to be easy for new gamers.

[Alucard †]

Both Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3 first playthrough on Normal difficulty are piss easy. Especially solo cause no party scaling.

In Borderlands 3 the gunplay is much better (Idk what you mean Jakobs guns are ruined , they are awesome) and once you complete the game ONCE.

You unlock all difficulties including the Mayhem levels that you can switch at will - you don't have to grind same tedious map over and over to unlock them one by one like you had to with OP levels in BL2. And Mayhem makes the game pretty challenging even has cool modifires that are both helpful and detrimental (depending on the roll)

Drops are fair you don't have to grind for super low % drop chance weapon/gear BS - that take years off your lifespan. Just to be viable on higher difficulties.
Tho you still will need to grind a bit if you want that perfect Anointment on your gear.

No slag nonsense. Thank ♥♥♥♥ for that!

[R2zi3l]

Well a couple of you pointed out how things change after the first playthrough BUT I was talking from a strictly first playthrough pov. I did play BL2 a lot back in the day but with couple different characters. I am not the kind of guy to do multiple playthroughs. So I cant say about how the games are balanced for second, third or whatever playthroughs.

But talking about the first playthrough, I couldnt even bring myself to finish the last or whatever mission I was on in BL3. It was so boring but I am thinking of installing it again and finishing it so I can have a look at these Mayhem levels.

[Kobeth]

Originally posted by R2zi3l:

Well a couple of you pointed out how things change after the first playthrough BUT I was talking from a strictly first playthrough pov. I did play BL2 a lot back in the day but with couple different characters. I am not the kind of guy to do multiple playthroughs. So I cant say about how the games are balanced for second, third or whatever playthroughs.

But talking about the first playthrough, I couldnt even bring myself to finish the last or whatever mission I was on in BL3. It was so boring but I am thinking of installing it again and finishing it so I can have a look at these Mayhem levels.

As I said, Normal mode is basically the tutorial of the game, in both BL2 and BL3 anything is viable in normal mode and nothing should pose much of a challenge. In BL2 you have to complete at least 2 whole playthrough to unlock UVHM and have the real challenge begin, and then grind your way through the OP levels until you reach OP10 which is the highest level of difficulty, but if you already found Normal mode challenging, I don't even dare imagine what this kind of challenge will feel like for you. Long story short, you can't really judge the balance of both games just by comparing the normal mode experience because there's a whole realm of game progression that you haven't even explored.

[kukuhimanpr]

for grind heavy looter games that has most of their enjoyable game content near the end of the game, all of them would most likely feel slow and easy for 1st playthrough. especially since in most cases our characters only have so few skill points and builds variety for 1st playthroughs which make our characters' combat styles feel cramped.

[vee-kay]

Use mods to balance the game, tweak the difficulty and improve the loot system.

[Tiberius]

bl3 autopicked the ammo and health for you, so you never feel like you're running out of ammo. bl2 didnt do this for you, so you sometimes feel like you're running out of ammo (depsite there're trillions of ammo and health pack around you).

[kukuhimanpr]

^try this b2 mod, it allows you to auto pickup various items including ammo:
https://www.nexusmods.com/borderlands2/mods/444