Gearbox is reassuring fans that they won’t be making changes to Borderlands 4 that will ruin the game.
A few hours ago, Gearbox creative director Graeme Timmins gave this seemingly ominous warning:
There will be some changes next week to specific gear and those unintended interactions, this is your 7 Days Notice.
It’s reasonable to worry that this could mean huge nerfs. And some fans are worried that those nerfs could ruin their builds, or even worse, make the game unfun afterwards.
Graeme’s Line In The Sand
Graeme received this response from Conker299:
Nerfs in a singleplayer experience is a shit ass take and all of the ones asking for it should be ashamed, is that people can’t have fun?
It’s not like this is a COD sweatfest where everyone is whining about how op that weapon is or some shit like that
Graeme then drew his line in the sand. He said this:
We have future content like the upcoming Invincible that we want players to find challenge/accomplishment in.
If we balanced that content around bad gear, it would remove build diversity, forcing players into specific builds using said gear.
For those who don’t remember, the Invincible Graeme is referring to are the Invincible Bosses.
These bosses are not literally undefeatable. But their health pools are unreasonably high that you’ll probably need to team up to take them down.
So Are We Getting Nerfs Or Not?
Graeme didn’t say that there would be no nerfs in the game. He said that Gearbox doesn’t plan to build Invincible bosses and other content around bad gear.
It seems that Gearbox isn’t looking at their changes and balance tweaks in terms of buffs or nerfs. They may really be looking at it in terms of how the players experience it.
Of course, these are game designers looking at it at a level that the gamers themselves never have to think about. From their end, they need to strike a balance between a game gives players the dopamine rush they crave, but not so easily that they get bored playing.
Unlike other developers, Gearbox doesn’t rely on sex appeal or gacha mechanics to keep their players engaged. In other words, they have to earn their players to keep coming back the hard way.
On a certain level, Gearbox has earned loyal fans who just like the way they make their games anyway. But this design should work enough that new fans will becoming returning fans as well.
We can’t wait but wonder what really waits us when the next big update does arrive next week.
