Mayhem modifiers do absolutely no good for the game and are nothing but an incredible nuisance that should be taken out of the game. Please, let me elaborate:
Mayhem modifiers pigeonhole your weapon choices
We hunt and grind for loot to get strong and fun weapons that we like to use. But Mayhem modifiers will often force you into not using them. If you get -50% gun damage and -50% SMG, Assault Rifle and Shotgun damage, you simply cannot use these weapons. If you happen to have an incendiary SMG and you get -50% incendiary and/or elemental damage in addition to the above, well, good luck using that weapon. So just put aside your favorite weapons and look for alternatives that you don’t really want to use. Is this fun? No, absolutely not. It does nothing good for the game. Pigeonholing people into using things they don’t want is terrible design.
Mayhem modifiers ruin multiplayer
Very often the Mayhem modifiers will give bonuses that are excellent for one player, but horrible for another. So now these players have to play through the map with extremely disproportionate modifiers. One player will breeze through it, while the other will experience a frustrating struggle. Does this make the game more fun? No, absolutely not. It’s just incredibly annoying when one player must carry the other just because the map tells you so. Games are more fun when all players can contribute at least somewhat proportionally.
Mayhem modifiers ruin builds and gear loudouts
Similar to the first point I mentioned about being pigeonholed into using certain types of weapons, the same thing can happen to your spec and worn equipment. Are you an elemental or melee specced Amara, but the map gives you plenty of negative modifiers in your specialized area? Well, you may have to respec just because the map tells you so. Not only this, but you may have to switch out your artifact, shield and class mod as well. You may even have to play a spec that you don’t want to play, just to adapt to what the map tells you. Just remember that you may have to switch yet again on the next map. Is this fun? No, absolutely not. It brings nothing positive to the game. Forcing players to constantly switch up what they use or forcing them into playing something they don’t like is never a good thing.
Mayhem modifiers is abhorrent to inventory management
Since Mayhem modifiers may tell you at any point that you can’t use your SMG, Assault Rifle, Shotgun or your incendiary or corrosive weapon etc. you will need to take with you a whole bunch of different extra weapons so that you can switch when the Mayhem modifiers tell you so. With bank and inventory space already being incredibly limited, this adds further strain to an already frustrating experience. You simply can’t bring only your favorite loadout and then keep your inventory clean. You have to bring a whole arsenal of extra weapons and items to switch back and forth constantly or you’re just not going to be very efficient. Is this fun? No, absolutely not. It’s incredibly tedious and frustrating and nothing good comes out of it.
Some Mayhem modifiers are unbearable
Did you play a map with a bullet reflection modifier yet? Unless you have great ways to recover life constantly, you might as well just skip playing these maps altogether, or go rebuild your character so that you can run them. You simply can’t run these maps if your survival strategy is to not get hit, because if you want to kill things, you will kill yourself. Is this fun? No, absolutely not. It adds nothing interesting to the game and is just frustrating to play with.
Mayhem modifiers make people fish for the right modifiers
Did you get modifiers that you simply cannot cope with or that you just don’t like? An option for many is to simply restart maps over and over until they get something they can deal with. Is this fun? No, absolutely not. It adds nothing positive to the game. Restarting maps over and over is not fun and feels incredibly cheezy. It would be much better if we could just run any map at any time with the build and equipment that we like to use.
Mayhem modifiers don’t do what they’re meant to do
The reason Mayhem modifiers exist is to make the game harder. With some luck or some modifier fishing, it can do exactly the opposite. You may get negative modifiers that don’t really affect you, and get bonuses that are great for you instead. This can have the reverse effect of Mayhem modifiers actually making the game easier instead of harder, and it’s incredibly counterproductive to what it is supposed to accomplish.
To summarize
Mayhem modifiers bring nothing positive to the game. All it does is to add frustration and remove choice from the player. Borderlands is no longer about running the build you like and shooting with the guns you love, because now there are Mayhem modifiers that tell you which guns you should use and how you should play.
There is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to run certain maps with certain builds or use the weapons we love. There is no good reason why, in multiplayer, one player should get great benefits while the other is forced into uselessness. There are better, more general ways to increase the difficulty level than this. Mayhem modifiers are already making me not want to play the game anymore due to all the frustration they bring.
Forcing players to constantly monitor what the Mayhem modifiers tell them and having them adapt their playstyle to it is a major design failure that should be abolished from the game. Games are about having fun, and Mayhem modifiers bring nothing of that.