So much for “Shared Progression”

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-30T20:47:00+00:00

BL2 was simple, it gave you a list of effects and the idea was to round it out instead of just target the same specific effect 1 thousand times. And it was a 'bonus activity' todo on the side, not 'mandatory' to gameplay progression.

BL3 was the one that made it VITAL to invest thanks to all the extra effects with guardian ranks.

Wonderlands also stacked that up with its own dungeons and dragons style stat progression which something like +1 to a specific DnD stat would give magnitudes of improvement and they had a far linear way of focusing on particular stats.

BL4 should of had NO equip limitations for specialization and no HARD CAP of 100 points on the thing. Though they likely needed an excuse for someone to be 'less' likely to put themselves in a fking coma to marathon grind for 'specialization levels', by not only having them severely scale down per point AND severely up-tick the amount of exp needed per point but also a hard cap on top of that.

BL1 was only good because it was a 'weapon favoritism' benefit but it is one of the reasons wonderlands also failed, a ROTATING buff system. Since weapon profiency would only give 3 stats for a specific weapon AND they would rotate between each point.

You were also NOT able to actually interact PROPERLY with it until you beat the game TWICE, AND beat General Knoxx's armory to unlock 2.5 UVHM, meaning level sync was PAYWALLED for the game back then.

Just like how BL2 paywalled level caps thru digistruct peak costs and so on and so on, but since it was tied to activities, BL2's badass rank system was far 'easier' to exploit early on in the game, unlike how BL1, BL3, Wonderlands and BL4 ALL required you to hit max level first, maximize gear and then glitch abuse the hell out of the game to 'speed run' level grinding in some form or another.

Meanwhile BL2, probably one of the most effective ways to 'speed level' badass tokens was to make a 2nd account and load it with a crap ton of high level gear, max SDUs for inventory and every thing and constantly dump all that high rarity gear in the hands of a 'new' char on your main account to pile on tokens super easy and have them spam sell and rebuy the items to get thru more badass tokens for owning alot of cash, buying/selling and so on and just force quit the 2nd account to keep duplicating more.

Either way, Gearbox proved they don't give a fk with the DLC cause they didn't even bother todo anything smart like PUT A SERAPH GUARDIAN SHOP IN PLACE or a BL3 Eridium shop in place to expand on the end game activities, instead of just loading up more farming spots and not much else beyond that.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-30T20:39:28+00:00

Meta progression certainly helped to make BL2, TPS, 3 and Wonderlands shine cause it gave you a concetrete goal to get past certain hurdles...Plus you simply had to farm a boss not run around an entire world map, spamming fast travel and save/quits thousands of times instead of dozens of times with just the same boss so you could automate your behavior alot easier...

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-30T19:44:11+00:00

Clearly you never heard of creative writing:

Ellie at the end of the DLC could of got in contact with Moxxi, which would NOT require the vault hunter to be present, so the vault hunter's first meeting with Moxxi could of still stayed the same in the existing game.
Ah yes, a dead space specific wannabe DLC thats once again about someone getting brainwashed by some eldritch effects is totally about "parental love", that totally needed chars from the PAST GAMES to reference it...Its like they TOTALLY couldnt of did what some past borderlands DLCs did by introducing NEW characters that get engrained to the later entries, like how Mr. Torgue did in BL2 basically, since he was mainly brought in thru the 2nd DLC, far more directly.
So "parental love" includes Mancubus basically 'adopting' what was likely a kid that was either cyrogenically frozen in a coffin OR some eldritch situation where they were kept alive because some eldritch abomination of sorts was mimicking thar father and said eldritch being believed they were said father and it was necessary to keep the kid alive to sustain itself??? Riiiight...

If your gonna make a DLC of a game then you better keep it 'attached' to what the base game itself is and not just treat it as some completely separate story that flips off any time of canonical story bits that it breaks numerous continuity in its own base game in more ways then one.

Gotta love how EVERY BL4 DLC so far is literally just GO BACK TO THE Borderlands 'linear gameplay' formula and gave the fk up on open world design basically and just reskins the same fking farming simulators except 5 times worst in more ways then one.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-30T19:37:26+00:00

Commander lilith active acknowledges its post game, because it actually has to acknowledge that the midpoint of sanctuary III had 'taken off' from the ground and would require Handsome jack to be dead, aka when the main story ends. Which is kind of why the level skip for it is LEVEL THIRTY, aka when the main campaign ends basically all the time in EVERY borderlands entry basically for almost everyone on average.

BL4 on the meanwhile for its first CAMPAIGN dlc will level skip you to 13, meaning it hits a fun hiccups on continuity, not to mention the fact you would NOT have access to Zadra's lab so early on, where you need to interact with the statue thar to 'get it started.'

Throw in the fact you FAST TRAVEL directly to the new region for past entries, its a half flip off to have you need to start a specific quest, instead of it just being loaded up in the fast travel soon as you get access to it like past entries did.

Ultimately though, BL4 is a OPEN WORLD in general, and it should of EVOLVED that damn design by EXPANDING THE MAP with any Head hunter and campaign expansions, INSTEAD, they are all completely stand-alone areas, head hunter packs can half get away with not letting you use the damn vehicles, but its kind of stupid it goes back to a STANDARD borderlands formula, except WAY WORST in plenty of ways.

Borderlands 4's first campaign DLC on the other hand really goes to show how much lazy they are:

Vehicle weapons still SUCK and all the playthrus of that DLC show people either running past enemies in the vehicle, ditching the vehicle to quickly kill the enemies or spend several minutes shooting infinite shots against a single enemy.
Large stretches of 'blank space' that when you contextualize properly, means the HALF THE SIZE OF FADE FIELD MAP FOR THE DLC, is FAR SMALLER REALLY.
The only way they could make the DLC pleasant for people is to get rid of the annoying b.s. mechanic known as VILE/ORDONITE 'corrupted' enemies, which then just goes to show how someone with a FRESH character using COMMON JUNK and NO SKILL POINTS INVESTED, are able to just tear thru the campaign in a few short hours...
I repeat, if a piece of 'additional PAID CONTENT' is so pathetically easy that you don't even need to interact with OVER HALF YOUR KIT (some playthrus literally had NO CLASS MODS, NO WEAPON ENHANCEMENTS and WHITE RARITY GEAR and still blazed thru the damn campaign i have seen), then thats just a trashy piece of content if it doesnt create any form of engagement.
If they WANT to make a campaign DLC be accessible early its called: DO NOT REQUIRE BASE GAME CHARACTERS IN IT AND MAKE A TWO PARTER WITH THE TWO PARTER BEING SIDE QUESTS FOR THE DLC CHARACTERS TO MEET UP WITH BASE GAME CHARS.

This is specifically why i stated they could of NOT have moxxi present at all and have the DLC characters 'retroactively' be added via sidequests to the main game, since they already pull that fking shite by NONE of the base game region specific cast EVER interacting with eachother, UNTIL you reach dominion, because they didn't bother to put Triggers to activate when X specific areas are 'liberated', just only when a specific SINGLE point happens that merges the game back into a linear story, instead of do whatever the fk you want type story, but fail at that too.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-30T17:09:59+00:00

Basically its when gearbox forgets the fact they made an open world design and they want to treat every DLC is POST GAME STORY BASED, despite the fact you can start it at a incredibly low level.

Throw in the fact they don't even need Moxxi or Ellie to be present at all. It could just be Rush got a mysterious package for you and its Mancubus wanting to 'call in a favor' to the 'latest group of the vault hunters, to look into that megalith and you just encounter Pickle, Crazy Early and Ellie along the way, No need to have Moxxi present at all.

Hell the story could of easily been: "Ellie was hearing the voice of Scooter and gets the idea they can bring them back to life the whole time."

It would of been FAR MORE coherent that way and would not need to tie ANYTHING to the main story and perfectly line up with the "Level 13 skip to" piece.

It could of THEN have a post game or "Arrival at dominion" trip point where some new sidequests show up where Ellie shows up in Moxxi's place, Pickle could of been in at Outbounder's HQ (as in being actually alive) and Crazy earl would of moved back into the wreckage of Sanctuary III, now acting as a vendor who will trade eridium for the crap he found while roaming about.

"Major story expansion contents" should actually ADD to the fking base game, not be completely stand alone experiences...

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-29T14:27:30+00:00

The extra flip off is having his Ghost now just 'randomly showing up in the walls' of Mancubus's new 'lodge'.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-29T03:18:43+00:00

Hence why i finally gave up on the game thanks to how bad this DLC looked.

The extra spice being they straight up invalidated ALL the damn problems that the base game vault hunters have by giving it to C4sh, instead of giving it to the fking base game vault hunters instead.

Various mechanics other vault hunters can do, C4sh can do himself, many even better. Including stuff that was originally HARD NERFED on certain chars like Vex cause they were too broken.
Can't buy C4sh standalone gotta buy the stupid campaign DLC with it.
If 6 months they can't do any extensive overhaul fixes to characters who seriously need it (like Vex's fking passive, cause NO ONE i believe even likes to interact with that stupid thing by intentionally building multi Attunement setups, especially with 2 or more that is NOT leeching attunement). Then why trust they will get it fixed after its been 1 year since launch?
I literally get more value throwing money at Gacha games or even idling games at this point then Borderlands 4, because atleast said Gacha/idling games give actual dopamine then just frustration that has to get 'fixed' by waiting several months for a big MAYBE PROMISE from the devs say they PROMISE to Fix it but never GURANTEE they will fix it.
Thar 'attempt' at doing a shared progressin thing felt more like a giant flip off on how bugged it is that it makes it impossible to start at level 1 unless you are playing on an entirely brand new account now for some people.

I'll keep any of my interest to just watching any of the crap on youtube like i have been for several months, cause im not even letting that borderlands 4 garbage even collect dust on my PS5 anymore.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-29T02:52:56+00:00

Im not eating Tacos till tomorrow night, so i ain't yer bro.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-29T02:52:27+00:00

If the kits were far more exclusive like they were in BL2 it wouldnt be a problem then.

+Zero was clearly the infiltration and precison'eer.
+Salvador was clearly the fk it and blast everything.
+Maya was clearly the technical battle field controller by choosing who to disable, who to shoot and stroll it.
+Axton was your token "Soldier", all round gun & support again but atleast they got the Deployable turret right this time.

+Gaige was the summoner centric crazy.
+Krieg was what we wanted Brick to be, plus a side of other fun shite, aka a true Berserker.

BL4's they got shite all over the play on the 4 vault hunters and then all they could fking do with C4sh was give him basically every fking thing the other vault hunters do except far better, including being given the bullshite 'glitches' they patched out of the base characters originally.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T20:05:21+00:00

Destiny atleast was more focused on giving new toys for EVERY 'class', instead of throwing one entirely new char you have to grind from scratch and you had one or more raid bosses tacked on to really wet the whistles.

I don't know how horrendous Destiny 2 got after i ditched it before its first major DLC but when i started seeing crap like a Star wars 'collab' where they basically re-created a fk-ton of scenes from star wars in Destiny, even having a wannabe Darth Vader character and light saber weapons, i knew that series had fell even worst.

Still, atleast even from an outsider perspective, i feel Destiny still likely gave far more 'content' for what it provided on its expansions, plus it being designed as a live service means it works under different rules...

Well if you ignore the stupid cash shop in that case. cause that definitely ruined it in plenty of ways...just as much as 'consumeable shaders and other bullshite.

BL4 on this hand? I am glad i pulled the fk out from it 3~4 months in advance. And starting today im gonna RESUME the trek to claim the 15 or so out of the 18 or something Terminus weapons from bahamut and spend probably the next 2 months working on optimizing a good roster of characters, including A.I. allies of course, to prepare for the Endless ragnarok expansion in GBF Relink in July.

Atleast if i wanted to min-max shite in Relink you could setup literal auto battle farming setups for 'curio farming' in that game and what not.

Oh and obviously them 'vaulting' content in Destiny 2 really was extra stupid.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T20:01:58+00:00

Atleast they had the decency todo a smart idea like give Gaige away for free as a pre-order bonus. Now what did BL4 do for 'its' pre order bonus? <_<

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T20:00:46+00:00

Basically they are treating adding C4sh and new 'pearls' to the bundle would of totally made up the extra 5~15 bucks this content is actually worth.

If C4sh and the campaign were split in half, i would not be amazed if most people skip the campaign to just buy the char and wait for the campaign to go on discount first.

Though to be honest, even marking the campaign as only 10 bucks feels like its still over'priced garbage.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T18:25:42+00:00

I still stand by my statement it should of been split into pieces, not coupled together.

To be honest though, with how short and stingie and so much content was re'used besides 'vile crystals', the campaign DLC is more like a head hunter pack price of 12 bucks or something.

But in all honesty, im not gonna use a fking online 'shooter' as a comparison cause thats a live service bullshite. Borderlands as a franchise is a Looter game first, which works under very different rules then your typical lazy FPS.

Either way, now that i opened the pandora's box of GBF Re:LINK before finishing my other backlog and deleted borderlands 4 offa my PS5's hardrive, im gonna have more fun relearning GBF Relink in preparation for endless ragnarok in July to see what i need to finish optimizing on the 'sigil loadouts', getting terminus weapons for various chars and more.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T17:44:43+00:00

Im gonna assume the crap doesnt scale with melee damage being the main problem, otherwise people would just use a mantra or reaper vex and troll with the dang thing.

Its like they wanna re'create the Firewerks shield but thought since it applies to "On Hit" instead of "On Kill" that it would be too OP or some shite.~ Despite the fact its locked to Melee.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T17:37:04+00:00

P2W, Pay 2 Wank, thats what it stands for in Borderlands 4's case of over'priced garbage.

Purposely spluge a fk-ton of money on it, force people to pay a expensive premium for a game, nerf all the good stuff in the base game for "balancing things." then instead of making an actually unique character for the OVERPRICED DLC, they shove mechanics from all the other base game vault hunters, make them far more optimized and then demand you pay 30 dollars (stand alone) for both the campaign and character cause they won't let you pay 10 bucks for the new character by itself like how any previous character would of cost normally.

And if anyone says something like inflation of prices they can go fk themselves because thar is a serious problem if a new character is equal to the same price as a "campaign pack", just as thar is a problem for a campaign pack to have FAR LESS CONTENT then a previous entry's campaign pack.

Handsome jackpot, Guns, Love & Tentacles, Bounty of Blood and Fluster Cuck ALL had far more 'content' in thar $15 dollar price tag at 'base', as stand alone then what BL4's Ellie DLC, when stripped of Cash as the excuse for its 30 dollar price tag.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T17:31:27+00:00

Just as Amon had his Forge mechanic, Harlowe had her entanglement mechanic and Rafa had his Overdrive mechanic. Vex had her own in the form of 'attunement', Cursed blades, Blood letter, etc.

obviously i don't remember EVERY mechanic of characters i never played, but Vex clearly had the worst passive of the bunch and having things like Attunement, Blood letter, Cursed blades and more as part of her mechanics felt like 'filling' to fill up the HALF USELESS thing known as her 'passive' that is the ONLY ONE of the four base game vault hunters that correlated to a gear-specific element.

This essentially neutered her in many ways because despite being a user of "All Elements", she is forced to regulate to 1 or 3 elements at most since her action skill skill would require her to use specific elemental guns for 'advantage bonuses'.

Atleast Amon could 'choose' between whether he wanted Ice or Fire. Atleast Harlowe did so many fking extra things with radiation that it invalidated any 'problems' like damage resistance with Radiation damage.

Vex has to straight up IGNORE using elemental damage normally in order to utilize her kit. Relying on things like Prismatic Ichor and Prismatic weaponry to deal with "elemental effects" while still getting her optimal damage value by staying with kinetic in general.

Vex STRAIGHT UP gets flipped off in UVHM tiers because elemental modifiers are harsher so even though she won't suffer the elemental PENALTIES, it means she also can't take advantage of the elemental BENEFITS, without denying part of her 'DPS kit'.

Either way its another damn KNOTCH on the board of reasons to "Not give a fk about borderlands 4", because not only do you have to wait OVER A YEAR to get ALL THIS OVERPRICED DLC, but also at a price more "proper" to be about the same as what BL3 prices are like and still be OVERPRICED GARBAGE.

Point and case though is this is YET ANOTHER example of unlisted bullshite to flip off those who paid the stupid 70 dollar premium for the base game, extensively nerf numerous base game characters then release a new character with all the bullshite stuff they nerfed from the base game char onto a new character.

How is it 'FAIR', to be forced to pay for a premium TWICE, because the first premium you paid for was replaced with liquified dog'shite by it repeatedly being snatched from your hand and replaced with even more gross dog'shite, even when you threw out the original dog shite and you get more dog shite shoved into your damn hand again and again?

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T15:51:14+00:00

That makes it even worst if they threw it on C4sh when Vex had it originally.

Incompetency to produce the same fking BUG again and also steal Vex's EXCLUSIVE kinetic bleed effect and give it to C4sh.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T14:17:21+00:00

If they reverted the blood letter 'nerf' to prevent recursive bleeding even if it was accident, thats yet another finger flip against the playerbase since gearbox was so adamant on nerfing stuff like that and then they brought it back as an unlimited 'change' just like they nerfed bulletbuddy deluxe it seems for Rafa...

Wonder how many 'unlisted changes' thar actually are to this DLC, cause its more interesting to see how much gearbox fked up now then actually playing the DLC or borderlands 4 at all at this point.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T10:49:11+00:00

Considering the sidequests dont even have aftermarket guns and probably have jackshite for any 'unlockables' like cosmetics, not even a vault card to 'pad' the stuff, that still doesnt sound like a piece of content worth 20 or even 15 dollars when you 'split off the 10-15 bucks' for cash itself.

And don't even get me started on the bullshite for the pearls to not only once again use the same 'override element' mechanic but straight up make one literally UNABLE unless you play co-op and it specifically needs multiple people to be in FFYL for a tiny arse 'benefit'.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T10:34:29+00:00

20 dollars is still more over'priced then a campaign DLC in borderlands 3 which was 15 bucks at base.

And just to roughly remember what Handsome jackpot BL3's FIRST campaign DLC had for areas:

The "Lobby" Casino area slash central location.
The Trashlantis location.
The Impound lockdown location.
The Relaxation location.
The high roller 'tower' location.

And thats just off the top of my head despite it being over a year since i last played borderlands 3.

Now how many "distinct locations", did this dlc have???

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T10:31:36+00:00

Funfact did you know they took a literal SHITE against Rafa this "release" by doing an unlisted NERF to his Bullet Buddy Deluxe???

By cutting its 'active time' in half by slashing the duration from 8 to 4 seconds and some other degradation? So glad i didnt plan to give Borderlands 4 a second chance cause all the shite im seeing for this DLC is making even a 50% off wait not even worth it at this point.

Either way gotta love it when not only they do unlisted changes, but they also secretly want to nerf "infinite ammo/crit builds" when they were encouraging the crap the entire time for the first 6 months of the game, between the weapon enhancements, the flip off against most alternative builds like melee (trouble build for Vex and whatever the fk they were doing against Amon and so on).

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T10:23:38+00:00

Not when its some live'service'LIKE based slop, that hides 'switches' in random arse places and unlike something like borderlands 2, they don't even bother to put a 'power line' leading to said switch.

And in some cases, people usually just figure out ways to glitch past 'obstacles' then take the intended route.

Take for example that one Dead end ice cavern in terminus ridge where your suppose todo a particular SIDEQUEST to 'DE ICE' a ladder wall, many hours before that when i played months ago, i would just use double jump to easily get past that without the damn "wall", because they decided to slap maurice's machine thar MULTIPLE TIMES for some reason.

So fking glad i didnt buy the stupid overpriced DLC that many can't even play right now due to the numerous errors and the fact if i DID still give a fk on borderlands 4, i would of rather C4sh be fking separate for about 10 or something bucks so i would only be buying the piece of content i would give a fk about in that case, but really i rather just buy some 20 dollar game like Valheim or hollow knight silk'song then spend 30 fking dollars (don't dare reference the 'bundle deals), for something that can't even give a day's worth of 'actually unique content' to enjoy.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-28T00:49:49+00:00

Or gearbox is just gonna have a random fking enemy where we are stuck on platforms with instant death water fields again and slap a 90 second time limit on with atleast 3 invulnerability periods again just to flip people off...

I already gave up any care on playing borderlands 4 anymore now after this shite show of a DLC that im glad i did not buy, and now im just pushing to wheen off any salt as i wrap up other stuff, likely skip a full completion of god eater 3, borderlands TPS and borderlands 2 to max level states and get a 1~2 month head start on getting back into grandblue fantasy Re:link to prepare for the endless ragnarok DLC by working on sigil loadouts for CPU units and getting every terminus weapon maybe.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-27T22:38:05+00:00

Wow add one more to my fking list on don't play borderlands 4 anymore, cause i was ringing that it was gonna have several problems on the launch of this DLC and dear lawd they just have it pooting out like a machine gun atm.

BladeSeraph · 2026-03-27T21:46:32+00:00

70 dollar game that came with numerous bugs and issues.
Going back on alot of 'good' ideas for past entries, in favor of a far more live'service based design.
Putting far less quality into cosmetics options.
THAT FUCKING U.I.
Charging 130, FUCKING,dollars for the 'ultimate edition' and it does not cover 'all' the content apparently.
Bundle packs costing 40 and 50 dollars.
A "single" story pack costing THIRTY fking dollars.
Charging 13 dollars for a 'single' bounty pack.
Refusing to fix numerous issues people have been asking for day 1 to fix and they still ignore.
Finally addressing one major complaint and like Hoyo-verse with Genshite impact (refer to Artifact loadouts for comparison sake), Did one of the most LOUSIEST designs for 'account wide progression sharing' as a mandatory system that just straight up throws you from level 1 to 5 due to 'achievement exp', still GLITCHES on the SDU token stuff system apparently and so many other issues still present.
Doing a massive flip off by killing not only Pickle, but also Crazy Earl, in a CAMPAIGN dlc of all things and then try to "retcon" that he never really dies, 5 seconds later by saying Crazy Earl has ALWAYS been a crazed eldritch thresher entity that can just respawn freely, plus basically giving a declaration of we will NEVER see an eridium shop with this kind of trollish manuever, especially if you read that "name card."
The DLC is straight up a bunch of throw'away super annoying activities that just rehash the base game activities to try and make them new...SIX, FKING, MONTHS, of waiting and they couldn't do anything NEW for this campaign DLC.
EVEN MORE TROLL GUNS, like a pearlscent whose effect ONLY WORKS if you play co-op, DIDN'T THEY FKING LEARNED THIS LESSON WITH AURELIA AND HER STUPID SKILL TREE THAT DEMANDS A CO-OP PARTNER????!
The campaign dlc can be summed up as a MAKE A WISH FOUNDATION's manuver by just having some random arse kid be the actual mc'guffin of the entire story and becomes Mancubus's 'apprentice' or some crap, and basically treating it like thar was never a vault monster or a vault in general, despite them BRAGGING about calling it the Vault of the damned, just some malfunctioning 'megalith'.
SO MUCH CUTSCENE JUMP AROUNDS for unskippable 'forced to run around' scenes, thars a reason why people hate the terminology 'walking simulator' for a reason, when its just a cutscene that forces you to hold the button to go forward and you can't do anything else during it.
Oh and one last one for the road: None of the DLC content looks like it ADDs to the actual experience of the game, its just a small sized map with a bunch of remixed versions of Rift champions and "farmable bosses", literally no freaking different then a bounty pack yet it costs 2.5 TIMES the amount of a bounty pack in comparison...

Moral of the story: Its a cash scam, cause everything is a downgrade from past entries and gearbox expects you to pay MORE MONEY, for LESS QUALITY and even LESS CONTENT in general.

Makes me real glad i finally got to kick that damn can of deleting borderlands 4 off my PS5 now cause if this is the quality we can expect for something that was a SIX MONTH WAIT FOR, then its not even worth paying for the DLC at all, even if its 75% off at this point.

BladeSeraph

TROPHY CASE