As is often the case with most looters, many players have been reporting disappointment with a prominent feature of Borderlands 3, specifically calling out the dedicated loot drops that came to the game post-launch. Balancing loot drop rates in any game that revolves around looting can sometimes seem like an impossible task, as players can never seem to agree on what “fair” really means in the case of RNG.
Regardless of what the usual trends within the looter genre are, many Borderlands 3 players have noted that the current situation simply isn’t working thanks to over saturated loot pools, tedious boss fights, and anointed perks. So, that begs the question: How can Gearbox fix the problem that it seems to have with dedicated loot drops that appeases players while also maintaining a satisfying grind?
The Problem With Dedicated Drops?
For players unfamiliar with the meta of Borderlands 3’s loot system or the current format of dedicated loot pools, it may seem confusing to be upset at having a more direct path to grinding out the best weapons. The issue comes more from the way that RNG still affects those loot drops as well as how easy or difficult it is to continually fight and kill the enemies that drop whatever the best guns to grind at the moment are. This combination ends up making farming for a specific weapon nearly impossible, or a task that could take days to accomplish.
First, there’s the issue of the size of the farm-able bosses’ loot pools with dozens of already available weapons and new legendary guns releasing with DLC. Obviously, there are more impressive legendary weapons than there are bosses and rare enemies to attach them to, which means most enemies have multiple weapons that can drop each time they are defeated. This means that even with a 50% legendary drop chance (which is not the case for most bosses), players are still fighting a second layer of RNG to see if they get the specific weapon they are searching for.
To add to the multiple levels of RNG that players have to contend with, there is also anointed weapons. The anointed perks have become some of the most sought after rolls for legendaries, meaning that players looking for a specific weapon with a specific perk now have to fight against another layer of chance. With 51 anointed perks that could mean that getting the right roll becomes a 2% chance after getting through the chance of the legendary to drop in the first place.
Finally, there are some tedious enemies out there that can take a considerable amount of time for each fight, making the grind feel even longer, as it can take ages just to earn the opportunity for a new weapon roll. This is particularly nasty when it comes to weapons that only drop off of Circle of Slaughter bosses and enemies locked behind the Trials, as well as rare spawns that can take hours to finally show up. All three of these issues combine to create the current farming woes that players are complaining about, so fixing dedicated drops comes down to fixing these specific aspects of loot pools.
Too Many Legendary Guns
A simple solution to de-saturating the loot pools that are currently overloaded with legendary guns would be to spread those dedicated pools out to other bosses or rare enemies. By just shifting the loot drops around to include some bosses that don’t currently have dedicated drops and maybe even taking some of the less popular weapons out of the dedicated pools entirely, this can reduce that extra layer of RNG. This is a fairly obvious fix, but does require tons of work if Gearbox is looking to keep powerful legendary weapons behind the tougher, more time consuming content.
Completely removing certain legendary guns from the loot pools would also be a fairly extreme measure that would require Gearbox to pay close attention to the meta and trends, to know when certain weapons have shifted into public favor. Another option would be splitting the current drops across different levels of Mayhem depending on the rating of each weapon, so that only one appears in the loot pool at a time. Regardless of how Gearbox addresses the issue, the crowded pools should easily be its first priority when fixes do begin to roll out for dedicated drops.
Anointed Perks
This one is somewhat of a continuation on the previous issue of an over saturated loot pool, with another step of RNG really mucking up the farming process. A simple solution would be to pull a full Marie Kondo on the current list of anointed perks and start removing some from rotation on the dedicated drops according to general player preferences and meta stats. This wouldn’t require increasing drop rates from their current form, but instead just making each drop more likely to give the player something that they can actually use.
This is again a problem of too many rolls in the loot pool, so the only real option is to either empty the pool or increase how much loot drops with each run. Similarly, considering how necessary anointed perks have become to the builds capable of surviving Mayhem 4, the more challenging mode should come with guaranteed drops. However, when it comes to talking about guaranteed drops, the whole gameplay flow of a looter ends up going out the window.
Circles and Trials
Now, it should be noted that the complaint isn’t about the Circle of Slaughter or the Trials in general. These can be some of the most satisfying experiences for players that have already beaten the story and are looking for more content to keep the Borderlands 3 train rolling. Similarly, with how challenging these encounters can be, it makes sense to hide loot behind some of the most difficult bosses and enemies in order to make the fights feel even more worth the effort.
Some solutions suggested online include adding the weapons at a reduced rate to additional enemies that spawn during the lengthy encounters. However, another fix may be making a small alteration to how these fights are approached for farming. If Borderlands 3 allowed for Circle of Slaughter and Trial bosses to be reloaded without having to go through the entire encounter again, that could prove to be enough ease on the access to the loot pool to even make some of the over saturation problems feel manageable. This would of course need an offset, such as forcing players to restart an encounter after reloading the game when signing out or going idle for to long, meaning that the farming runs could only last as long as a single play session.
Whatever method or approach Gearbox eventually chooses to take on the issue of dedicated drops, it needs to happen soon. At this rate, most players that are still engaging with Borderlands 3 are dedicated fans, farming the best weapons for their various builds. However, with the drop rates the way they are now, even the most loyal veteran will have trouble finding a reason to log onto the game in not much time at all.
Borderlands 3 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
