Trapper Tree bugged as s**t. I give up

Borderlands 3 FL4K the Beastmaster
#1

I haven’t updated the pet compendium and other resources because I was holding out hope that GB would fix at least some of the issues with Trapper before the end of the year. That hasn’t happened, and the more we dig the buggier things get.

By the will of the devil some evil soul (cough @NotQuag) managed to brainwash @Ratore into testing purple tree, and it’s just making me sad.

Monke Do In case you needed any more proof that Trapper is an unfinished mess
At 1/5 Monkey Do - When the pet crits, FL4K gets a x1.86 multiplier to their next shot's damage. - Damage is converted to kinetic. - Applies to Splash and Bonus Elements. Works just like legendary amp, meaning multi-pellets make it worthless. Not additive to anything, so it's essentially its own Amp. - Pet gets x1.14 crit.
At 5/5 Monkey Do - When the pet crits, FL4K gets a x1.86 multiplier to their next shot's damage. Yes, the same as 1/5. - Same stuff as above. Pet gets x1.7 crit.
Yes, the character with most multi-pellet synergy gets a skill that says ■■■■ that, have a legendary amp copy-paste. At 1/5, the skill is already stronger than what the card says it is at 5/5 for FL4K. The listed value is completely wrong on all occasions, investing more than 1 point is worthless unless you want to make your pet less worthless.
Of course, the pet crit is completely in line with the card’s increase though.

  • Loaders can stack St4ckbot with Throatripper
  • Using the second line here so you get disappointed when you find out after reading this quite long sentence that the Loaders also just reset St4ckbot anyway, an interaction that was fixed with the other pets MONTHS AGO.

And there are some reports of Gotta Go Fast causing the pet to literally just disappear for some reason. I’m not even going to bother checking because at this point there are about 15 bugs associated with this tree, so I won’t doubt anything anymore.

Needless to say, this is just ridiculous now. I wasn’t expecting GB to push out dozens of fixes during Christmas or Thanksgiving, but there were 6 other weeks they could’ve fixed at least some of the bugs associated with purple tree, and nothing has been touched as of yet. The first piece of content I’ve actually paid for in this game has been for the sake of bug testing it when streamers already did that job 3 weeks prior to release. I’m just about done with it now. I’ll update the resources when playing this char isn’t so dang depressing.

If anyone else wants to join my whine-fest feel free. I’m feeling more violated by bugs right now than Sakura Matou.

23 Likes
#2

So, basically they managed to stack broken on top of sucky. . .

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#3

Fl4k the Beastmaster Bugmaster :joy:

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#4

I was honestly hoping to return to the game at some point since deleting the game in May. I started with Fl4k and have a Zane. I am glad I got out of the game when I did, but it to me is more of an unfortunate event, in that I used to love this game. Especially playing Fl4k after pre M2.0 mess after pet buff and heavy crit combo. I feel like with every update I won’t ever return and no idea why I even bother checking here anymore,…

8 Likes
#5

I’m built like this down the purple tree for my CoV allegiance FL4K (with the Eridian Skag). These particular skills seem to work as advertised? I haven’t noticed the pet disappearing, but I’ll keep an eye out for it, but do tell if any of these others don’t work as advertised. My usual combat tactic is to start condensing a mob with a singularity grenade and Eridian Skag Attack Command, then throw the Gravity Snare into that mix and work the enemies over with as much shared AoE as I can throw at them. At some level, for this build, I’m primarily here for the following reasons:

  1. Variety (it’s a self-imposed rule that I use this Action Skill and tree)
  2. Forage (to feed those thirsty CoV weapons)
  3. Fuzzy Math (even mildly precise automatic weapons give me and pet good tankiness)
  4. Take This! (I love having a second offensive shield in the fight)
  5. Agility Training (the rest of this build foregoes reload buffs, and those CoV weapon repairs are agonizing without this).
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#6

Agility training is inactive while the pet is dead or you are in FFYL

Capacitance doesn’t work off of your total shield, it’s either base shield or whatever your capacity is when the skill is activated, I can’t recall which atm.

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#7

Got it, thanks (weird that it’s based on the pet being alive), though while a nuisance, those aren’t deal breakers for this playstyle. I’m legit considering skipping Capacitance for another point somewhere else… threw a point in it because I was already at the bottom of the tree.

I’m considering swapping Gamma Burst and Gravity Snare between two of my Hunters, but if Forage is actually needed to sustain those CoV pistol and AR ammo consumption, I’ll stick with the current allotment.

#8

Sadly, I’ve used Fl4k the least since the Designer’s Cut dropped. The one time I did try some purple skills, I quickly went back to my original build.

It does seem like there would be some interesting possibilities with Tediore chucking in the build since you a) can automatically get all your ammo back, b) get 40% reload speed in tier 1 and c) can amp your next shot through Monkey Do (not sure how this works with Tediore reloads but +70% would be nice).

Keep playtesting, guys, I know it’s a gruelling process. All the stuff we brought to their attention with the base game skill trees ended up bringing a lot of change but it took time. I should hope we’re getting a significant patch in January and that will give them enough time to begin addressing these things. What concerns me is how little communication there has been recently and how long things will take if they have indeed reduced their support on the game.

4 Likes
#9

Is there a reason why you take Better Toys instead of Throatripper?

#10

I’m enjoying the purple tree (and the others) for all its warts… took on a single mob with my CoV allegiance and Gamma Burst (instead of Gravity Snare) at MM11, and absolutely ran out of both launcher and pistol ammo before the mob was done, so Gravity Snare it is for that level… I still prefer Gamma Burst for this build, and the weapon damage isn’t so ammo-pool depleting at lower Mayhem levels.

1 Like
#11

I gave Flak’s purple tree the benefit of the doubt when it was released and tried it out but it’s definitely one of my least favorite trees in the game. A few too many lame skills, no damage, you’ve heard it all before… And the new action skill sounded cool but I felt a bit disappointed upon using it. I hoped maybe the purple tree would receive some changes (buffs, bug fixes, skill reworks) but it doesn’t look like it. And obviously Gearbox doesn’t talk much so who knows what’s going on.

Can’t wait to see BL3’s Community Patch though. I bet Flak’s purple tree will be sick once the fans can fix it

6 Likes
#12

Unfortunately for console players I’m afraid UCP is the only redemption on the horizon for the Trapper tree.

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#13

You think the Trapper tree can be redeemed? Possibly, I suppose. The only mystifying thing is - why does the community have to redeem a game that’s still being supported?

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#14

And I’m a console player lol. But I am very likely going to be changing that since I can’t get the Borderlands experience I desire through the vanilla game. If it was even 80% what I wanted that would be fine (BL2 had many issues IMO but nothing like what BL3 does to hurt my personal enjoyment), but there is so much that bothers me I just can’t take it anymore. I want to enjoy Borderlands so badly, it’s the game I’m currently in the mood for so it looks like ditching consoles is the only option if I want to satisfy that itch.

We can only speculate. I had high hopes early on for BL3 because Gearbox seemed driven to actually make changes quickly unlike they did with BL2. But for some reason all of the changes they made were silly nerfs (which I’m not against in principle) then after tons of backlash they just decided to go back to hermit mode and cut communication over time, deliver worse and worse updates, leave bugs in the game for months and months, etc. Somehow the support has basically been BL2 all over again, which was one of the things that I disliked about that game as well. Seems like they just don’t learn and all of their past experience has been forgotten. They saw how the Bl2 community rallied around mods for things like balancing so instead of using the thoughtful people in the community to help deliver a better vanilla experience they just randomly buff guns by 4-300% and leave tons of legendary class mods as complete trash.

Gearbox should be aiming to make the community patch obsolete, but it’s the opposite; the community really has their work cut out for them.

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#15

Agreed on all points, great post!

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#16

This is exactly the point I was driving at with my initial comment. Why would, should, and does the BL3 community have to “fix” BL3 to make it what it should have been and still can be? It’s not like it’s undoable. Just do any of the 10,000 things suggested here and other BL3 enthusiast forums. Or come up with something better if the playerbase’s suggestions are ■■■■■. This literally does not compute for me. GBX should be fixing these things, not the community. Why it is acceptable to them that the community is having to fix their mess, is beyond me. But honestly, I really shouldn’t speculate about the motivations. It’s enough to say that I don’t understand it.

9 Likes
#17

Things simply take time. Also, the amount of time things take varies depending on project, on management, on budget, etc. We can maybe assume BL3 has the budget and isn’t that badly managed (read up on Anthem or Lab Zero Games for what I mean by bad managing), but it has some pretty spaghetti code, if I had to guess, which slows everything down.
You said there’s 10 000 suggestions here. I say that based on their track record so far, if GBX wanted to make just 10 of them (any 10), it would take them all year. AAA graphical expectations (+hacky foundations) don’t make for fast development. But hey, maybe I’m wrong, maybe the devs spend their workdays whistling jaunty tunes about how easy it is to work with such a robust engine while a personal assistant gives them refreshing shoulder massages, and management corrals emotional support puppies in the office. Game development still wouldn’t be fast.

I’m curious when a bug-free UCP will even come out for BL3. I guess time will tell.

PS: game developers have ideas of their own. It’s kind of why they got into the business in the first place. They aren’t obligated to do what the forums say.

PPS: If I sound like some GBX apologist, it’s not because I really am. I was just giving you possible answers to your question that might not be brought up otherwise.

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#18

I think your comments are fair, but speaking only for myself I’ll say that I really don’t mind waiting for positive updates if there’s a good line of communication to keep players up-to-date. Since that hasn’t been the case it’s caused a lot of (hopefully undue) negativity toward the game I’d care to guess. I sit and I wonder, “is Rushin’ Offensive ever going to be fixed? It’s been… 6 months hasn’t it? Are they even aware it’s broken?” I wish my worst problem was wondering when a problem will be fixed, not if it will be fixed. Is development time slow, or does Gearbox just not care? Maybe there’s some other cause. I wish I knew!

But there’s really no reason I have to worry about that if there’s a relay or line of communication between the developers and the community. Maybe they’ve been looking for a fix for the thing that bothers me but for one reason or another it’s been delayed. Knowing that information would transform my unease/uncertainty and put it into reasonable terms. Because like you said, I also try to give Gearbox some credit; I imagine the work they do takes time and I try not to think they do things out of laziness (or for other negative reasons). I just want to be in the loop. Is Gearbox looking into more buffs to Legendary Class Mods? I certainly hope so because that would mean a lot to me, but I’m left here to hope for the best (and assume the worst). Are they looking into Purple Tree adjustments at all? Are they looking into removing more anointments (or reworking anointments in a more substantial way)? Do they have a sensible method for determining gun buff amounts? Is there going to be continued support for BL3 much longer after the launch of DLC6? I wish I knew… and I admit, it’s getting a bit tiresome. I can accept that I might not always hear the answers I would like, but I’d rather just know what’s going on behind-the-scenes than sit here like I am just wishing for future improvements that may or may not ever come.

5 Likes
#19

If this wasn’t the 10th time I’ve heard this, then sure. But it’s honestly not asking that much.

I get that it’s live service, but when Warframe releases a patch or hotfix, if they get reports of issues caused by the hotfix they will fix them the within minutes or within the week. More substantial bugs may take a month or 2, but they give you detailed hotfix notes so you know when it’s fixed. Even if the community may not have been 100% on board, the changes DE made to the game (status 2.0, melee 2.0, rivens and arcanes, changes to old content like Railjack and releasing new content like Duveari) are planned and known months if not years in advance. Yes, that means it takes them years to implement these, and they often release in a buggy state, but at least I can be confident that it will be fixed.

At some point, I stop having sympathy for how difficult development is if paid content is some of the buggiest ever released for the game with the least amount of fixes post launch as any other content. Keep in mind the only fix to any issue regarding purple trees was Arms Race exploits and IC scaling. Nothing else.

Nothing wrong with that, but when your ideas are hypocritical (it’s ok for one VH to do this thing but not that one), vehemently disliked (I get that there are people that like the mayhem system, but the fact that both M4 and M11 exists speaks volumes to how disliked it is as well), or literally counter to how the game you designed says it works (the dozens of incorrect skill and anointment descriptions), you should expect backlash.

I understand wanting to play Devil’s Advocate, but I don’t think there is any way to explain this. DLC 5 is paid content, and not even considering any arguments about how powerful/useful the tree is, more than half of the skills in the tree are bugged and several of those are major impediments to the tree. And that’s not taking into account the broken ASA anointments.

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#20

Things do take time. But that explanation/reason is only valid when time hasn’t been provided, allowed, or however you want to term it. BL3 was in development for at least 4 years that we know about, and probably for longer than that. Then it released, and it’s been 15 months since release as of now (I think my time-counting skills are correct, 9/19 - 12/20 = 15 months).

GBX just sold a second season pass, and BL3 is still well within its supported life, but at the same time there is serious talk about a community patch under development to “fix” the game so that it works how the developers appear to have intended it to work? Why? Why aren’t the devs making the game work the way it appears they intended it to work? We can only speculate at how the devs intended the game to work based upon skill descriptions, etc., and so I recognize that this kind of speculation is and can be dangerous, but I feel certain you understand my point.

I just don’t “get it,” I guess that’s my problem. I am not trying to be overly harsh, unrealistic, or unsympathetic to what’s going on in the world right now and the development and management complexities that this pandemic and our response to it have created. But the whole thing is just confusing to me.

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