In this thread I will be looking at the content released within one year after Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3’s launch. Feel free to discuss your thoughts down below as well as vote as to what game you think had a better “year one” of content. Forgive me if I am forgetting anything let me know what I forgot and I can add it to the list.
Borderlands 2: September 18th 2012 - September 18th 2013
4 Story DLC’s (Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty, Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage, Sir Hanmerlock’s Big Game Hunt, Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep)
New Weapon Rarity Seraph
New Currency Seraph Crystals and Torgue Tokens
6 Raid Bosses (Hyperius the Invincible, Master Gee the Invincible, Pete the Invincible, Voracidous the Invincible, Dexidudous the Invincible, and the Ancient Dragons of Destruction)
2 New Characters (Gaige and Krieg)
2 New Circle Of Slaughter Arenas (Creature Slaughter Dome and Magic Slaughter in DLC 4)
Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack 1 (11 More Levels and Pearlescent Gear)
Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack 2 (11 More Levels, more Pearlescent Gear, and Digistruct Peak)
Borderlands 3 - September 13th 2019 - September 13th 2020
4 Story DLC’s (Moxxi’s Heist of The Handsome Jackpot, Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright and Hammerlock, Bounty of Blood: A Fistful of Redemption, and Psycho Krieg and The Fantastic Fustercluck)
2 FREE Takedowns (Takedown at the Maliwan Blacksite and Takedown at the Guardian Breach)
Multiple FREE Level Cap Upgrades
Multiple FREE Limited Time Events (ie: Revenge of The Cartels)
Better Year One Content
Borderlands 2
Borderlands 3
0voters
Personally I would say Borderlands 2 had better content after a year just due to the fact that they added so much to the game. But on the other side of things a lot of the content we’ve received in Borderlands 3 has been free which has been a huge upside.
As a whole the DLC of 2 vs 3 lean in favor of 3. But…Tiny Tina was just awesome. What skews it in favor of 2 is the two new playable characters. Free level cap increase. That was very poorly done IMO. Just enough to make gear obsolete.
2 Likes
The_Cyberbaron
(Cybernetic Ghost of Pandora's Past from the Future)
#4
I can’t lie that the freebie levels, mayhem modes from them and free takedowns (new equivalent to a “raid”) are a massive improvement but they’re hidden behind paywall character improvements, paywall/“limited time only” weapons and an overall lack of balance from littering the game with top tier loot and never really going back to fix everything to compensate for the 200+ legendaries and doubling drop rates from base game and (at least) quadrupling it from the previous entry.
We had more interesting stuff to do previously, as well. A less haphazard storyline to go on with it, and probably double the content from just adding the two new VHs and the two new rarities. Sucked only 3 of the pearls worked, though. And that technically was a “paywall”, too.
I guess it’s up for some kind of debate, but I say the quality of the previous game’s content was a lot higher. Once they’re all off the season pass paywall, all of the current dlc content, people might use their nostalgia goggles on the new game instead of the old game. A lot of us picked up BL2 when it was at the end of its life cycle. After the majority of buggy loot and quirks with certain skills were fixed.
■■■■, most of the bl3 players picked up BL2 when the Commander Lillith dlc came out and nearly ALL of the player characters got reworks along with a whole bunch of secret tweaking to guns. To be frank, gearbox doesn’t always tell you they changed something, they just change it. This has always been the case. ■■■■■■■ with everything from Cutsman, to Garcia to Maggie in base game without really telling the player. Part of a “universal reworking of the games mechanics”., not a good one though. Part of why devoted fans aren’t super happy. They just get their favorite gun nerfed or buffed randomly without any warning or compensation elsewhere. Distrust. We at least last game, trusted them much more.
Maybe by the end of season pass 2, they’ll have made the important universal changes. For now, we wait for a full package re release of the game with all current dlc. That will help with those nostalgia goggles working full force.
Didn’t vote, but lvl cap increases in bl2 were a boon and in bl3 were a bust.
I was not happy with the permanent changes for bl3 in the first year, but did enjoy the events.
A shame they wrecked the events by increasing the lvl cap after I earned a ghast call, or a valentines day rewards or an OPQ.
Don’t create events that you then immediately nullify. That’s just terribly incompetent design.
Edit to clarify: the above doesn’t include DLC opinions. I think the 4 for BL2 and BL3 were about on par. However, the best was in BL2 (Tiny Tina’s) and the worst was in Bl3 (Krieg). On the whole, though, the DLC experience (ignoring DLC5 for BL3) was around the same as a whole, for me.
4 Likes
The_Cyberbaron
(Cybernetic Ghost of Pandora's Past from the Future)
#6
The rollout of them, especially in relation to the events preceding them and the DLC coming out was piss poor. Just almost malpractice.
But actually having the lvl boosts is a good thing.
4 Likes
The_Cyberbaron
(Cybernetic Ghost of Pandora's Past from the Future)
#8
Yeah, should have been part of a UVHM rather than like BL1, which just throws you into a 2.5 playthrough where you’re told “good luck and find sick ass gear” while all the Bullies and Psychos get 250% health and good legendaries are as rare as pearls. You lose the ability to use your current legendaries past oh say two or three lvls, and you’re forced down to a much lower level of power.
We will also need a bonus skill point like BL1 if they cap it at 80, 65 SP was just one point less than enough to get a capstone, and 78 is enough to fill two capstones and get the damage buffs/survivability skills you need from a third tree, but without maxing out one of your final skills, and just taking a one pointer and a 2/5 skill.
narfkeks
(May this forum rest in peace - Davin Dittrich)
#9
I’ll say something somewhat “controversial”: For the majority of players BL3’s content rollout was far better suited. This is due to the level of accessibility for all content and due to the amount of free reasons to “come back” every so often. Also, mindless repeatability of mobbing areas like the CoS are great for almost all players.
However: For hardcore fans of the series and/or the genre the lack of endgame content is seriously limiting the time one might put into the game. And the problem is that endgame content not only defines itself by repeatability (which BL3 has plenty), but in incentive. We need more raid bosses with exclusive gear, multi-layered fights and the potential to increase our challenge.
If BL3 should do just 2 things with Season 2 then it should be this:
Add multiple interesting and complex raid-level bosses (like Wotan) in the classic style of old raids like Terra.
Give us the option to buff them by for example feeding them Eridium, which should result in more damage taken, more health and a much better chance of getting any exclusive gear.
The amount of actually meaningful endgame content for the hardcore fanbase is next to non-existent. I’m happy that the Takedowns are there for everyone, but those are not enough to keep the community going, not for 2 years and for sure not for 8 years. In that regard I can almost guarantee that 10 years after both games’ release BL2 will have far more more players still playing in 2022 than BL3 will have in 2029.
Well, I am biased in that since 2017 I have played about 7000 hours of BL2.
BUT, BL3 does have some things going for it, in the plot and questions/answers dealt with
There are some BIG questions from BL1, and to a lesser extent in BL2, answered in BL3. So that is a big win!
But, I like BL2 a great deal… But I will always play BL1, BL2, BL-TPS, as well as BL3.
{I am an “old-fart”, am retired, and I have nothing else to do except play the BL franchise}
Borderlands 3 was broken from the day it was released and today after over a year, still has many issues. Friends with very high end systems crashed or were near unplayable. Every time Gearbox released a fix, several other things were broken. Weapons constantly buffed or nerfed. BL2 Has always run smoothly and just feels and plays so much better.
A better testimony is, I have several friends who played BL3. Most quit after 2.0. Today I can’t get one friend to play BL3, although several have gone back to, and still play BL2. Many of the BL3 friends have never played DLC3 or DLC4 even though they payed for that content. I tried a few times but also pretty much quit after 2.0. I have no interest in going back to BL3, and can only say, I am glad I waited for a half price sale before I bought it and still feel I got ripped off. (I have over 2000 hours on BL2.)
I thought over what is wrong with BL3 compared to previous BL and concluded that it is just not fun, It is a boring repetitive by the numbers corridor shooter masquarading as an open world game it has no replay value at all, I tried to replay it for the latest event but quit and fired up the Prequel instead so currently getting my BL fix playing as Claptrap in Claptastic Voyage which is fun.
