Is the loot nerf neccessary & how drastic is it?

Hi All,

Im hoping to get some clarity on this preferably from a Dev at some point. I am aware Gearbox have applied a hotfix recently to nerf the drop rate of loot, however I have a few specific questions regarding this choice.

The following is snippet of a direct quote from the Dev update post re-recent hotfix applied: (removed anything non-droprate related)

  • “Eridium crystals in Voracious Canopy grow less frequently.” - Understandable - from what I can gather this was more of an issue with spawn rates on the crystals being set to 100% un-intentionally. It is also specific enough for us to know exactly what they fixed.
  • “Scaled down the amount of loot drops in Mayhem Mode.” - Not specific enough. this is the main cause for confusion & concern.
  • “Chupacabratch dropped too much of his hard-earned loot.” - Specific, again, have no problem if they’ve identified an actual cause for concern in one particular enemy.
  • “Adjusted spawn rate of Loot Tinks in Mansion. They’re special again.” - Same as point 1, specific & I think spawn rate was incorrectly set at 100%.

Having browsed the forums for other similar topics in relation to the main cause of conern outlined above; you find very differing opinions from players commenting on their experience with the changes - none of which allign in any meaningful way for us to form a reliable conclusion. Some say “its not that bad” some claim “its worse than BL2 pre-loot buff” with others saying this has affected more than just the mayhem modes 1/2/3 respectively & have affected Normal & TVHMs.

From my play experience so far (Only level 22, beaten first vault, heading into Eden 6) personally I felt the consistency of drop rates was near-perfect. Every drop of a legendary so far has been exciting enough to keep you going & it was a hugely welcome change to the endless grinds of other looter shooters that have hit the market in recent years. (Anthem/Division 2, im looking at you among others!) So here’s hoping the change doesn’t affect the path towards Mayhem modes as some people seem to be reporting.

I also appreciate that, although not having progressed anywhere near end-game content yet - I have easily spent equal to / if not more time watching popular youtube channels / twitch streamers whom have all a wealth of playtime; more so than the majority of the rest of us can rack up in the same space of time for obvious reasons - it’s their job.
Now - there is a fairly clear concensus across the board from these people that the loot pre-hotfix did seem to literally ‘rain from the sky’ & in some cases - bosses dropping 4+ legendaries at once. Some claiming its too much, others more than happy with this.

My argument and opinion: - what is the actual problem with this level of drop rate? A good portion of the marketing campaign for this game was based around making it rain loot - and god knows theres literally millions of guns in this game - correct me if im wrong but the odds of getting the ‘perfect’ gun would still be fairly low in relation to obtaining 3 - 5 legendaries at a time in some cases? You literally need the stars to allign as follows:

  • first of all you need the item you want to actually drop, out of a pool of potentially thousands of different legendaries,
  • secondly it needs to drop as an ‘annointed’ variant ,
  • thirdly the ‘annointment’ needs to be class specific,
  • fourth… it needs to be in some cases a particular class-ACTION specific annointment,
  • and finally, it needs to have all the prefixes / rolls / elements that you are looking for.

Those of you who’ve spent a bit of time in Diablo 3 will know this grind & legendaries in high torments in that game drop every few seconds - it still doesn’t mean you get a perfectly geared character anytime soon, far from it infact.

I think what separates BL3 & the franchise as a whole is the generosity of this game in the current climate; nothing is locked behind endless microtransactions or dreaded loot boxes - it is a breath of fresh air to just jump in as a now more casual gamer and get more than satisfying rewards for your time & effort spent - with the grind from what I can tell so far still being there for those who want the ‘perfect’ weapons - I dare anyone to show me a screen grab of a perfect weapon having already been obtained, let alone a full load out for a character.

Let me know your thoughts, could really do with feedback from those of you who are right on the end game content with how the new drop rates are - am I still going to be dazzled by loot when I work my way into Mayhem 3 & destroy a boss or is it going to be a case of ‘god I hope a legendary drops this kill, havn’t had one in 3 - 4 kills now’ because that ■■■■ is demoralising. I’d much rather they make the bosses & content in general harder than the loot less common. Hoping you tell me im over reacting !

Kind Regards

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Well said man, well said. I play on the Playstation 4 and out of 100% of the people playing the game, barely half have reached level 50. I have 10 friends playing the game and I am the only one to have reached level cap and endgame, none of the others have even finished the story. So out of all the people who were complaining about endgame and the loot drops it was only about 10% of the fan base in totality. By the people who literally game all the time. A lot of people who work, have kids, etc… The loot drops were nice because you could feel rewarded every time you get online. Here is some numbers for you.

Before the patch yesterday I would run Mayhem 3 and get about 5-6 legendaries in an hour. Most of them were not useful to my builds or not as good as what I had, so I would sell them. I didn’t farm the loot tink, or the bosses. That was just me going back and doing all the sidequests I purposefully skipped because Mayhem Mode gives you more experience for completing them and it is a way to help boost your level after the story.

After the patch yesterday I decided to go farm the One Punch easter egg boss for the first time. Again on Mayhem 3, so the modifiers and the enemies were a lot more challenging. In 9 hours of constantly farming I had 4 legendaries drop from hardened Badasses and 2 legendaries drop from annointed enemies. Finally after 9 hours I got the drop from the boss… That is about as average as Mayhem one from the mobs, and the boss drop was at the level of playing on Normal mode… That is a horrible ridiculous nerf. The pro of playing on mayhem was even though it was harder it was a way to get gear after you beat the game. With all the differenr guns, and different parts, and different perks even with the excessive loot drops, finding the perfect gear was still going to take a long time for a hardcore farmer. Now it will take longer, and all that really hurts is the people who don’t have the option to farm that much.

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