And fixes a ton of bugs
In case you missed it, Borderlands 3 welcomed its second DLC campaign this past week, Guns, Love, and Tentacles.
But in typical Gearbox fashion they’ve also delivered a huge patch, which impacts the entire game beyond the scope of the add-on. The big takeaway from the newest patch is easily the level cap increase, which now involves a max level of 57, as well as three new guardian rank skills and a guardian rank increase across the board.
Gearbox is touting the “C’mon and Slam” skill as a huge breakthrough, as it allows players to slam (a downward thrust melee attack) at any height, which “should make slam gear a lot more interesting.” There’s also “Too Angry to Die,” which extends your second win meter through damage. You can also start the DLC with an “auto-leveled character” if you want (games like Destiny sometimes charge for this) and “Moxxtail events” can convert Twitch Bits into in-game buffing beverages for streamers (man 2020 is weird).
The team also crammed in a ton of bug fixes and stability alterations, which you can read below. One step closer to fully optimizing the game on PC, which actually runs a lot better now after all this time (I swapped to Steam when the opportunity presented itself, and brought my characters along for the ride).
Patch Notes 3/26/2020 [Reddit]
Patch Notes:
- Added support for Borderlands 3 campaign add-on: Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock
- Level Cap increase – New Max Level 57
Here it is! Two capstones, everyone! We’re excited to see what interesting new builds everyone creates with these additional skill points!
- 3 New Guardian Rank skills and Guardian Rank Increase
Here are the first 3 new Guardian Rank Perks! In the Enforcer tree we’ve added “C’mon and Slam,” allowing you to use the slam at any height. This should make slam gear a lot more interesting. For the Survivor Tree, you can now enable “Too Angry to Die,” allowing any damage you do to enemies in Fight For Your Life to slightly extend your down time. Finally, in the Hunter tree we added “Harmageddon,” where additional damage is done to enemies that have received multiple static effects.
- New campaign add-on Game Menus that will allow players to start the campaign add-on with an auto-leveled character
You can now immediately jump into new DLC content right from the menu! You’ll start the game with a character leveled up to where the DLC content would be unlocked, and you can start right in the new content.
- Support for the ECHOcast update and new Moxxtail Events
Viewers can show their appreciation for their favorite streamers with Moxxtail Events, which let you convert Twitch Bits into in-game beverages that provide the streamer with various limited-time buffs. We have a full explanation of how they work in our Moxxtail Events guide, so be sure to check that out if you want to dabble in some Borderlands 3 mixology.
Stability
- Addressed memory leaks that occasionally occurred on Split Screen join/leave
- Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur after spending a large amount of Guardian Tokens
- Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when quickly navigating Crazy Earl’s shop
- Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur during the objective to collect tokens in the “Kill KillaVolt” mission in Lectra City
- Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur during the “Melee Mine Cart” objective of Angels and Speed Demons in Konrad’s Hold
- Fixed a crash that sometimes occurred when loading into Grand Opening in Moxxi’s Heist of The Handsome Jackpot
- Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when transitioning from The Spendopticon to The Compactor in a four-player game in Moxxi’s Heist of The Handsome Jackpot
Performance
- Optimization improvements
- UI Optimizations
General
- Gear lower than level cap no longer drops when player and enemy characters are each at level cap
We saw the community feedback here and agreed that seeing gear below the level cap, when at the level cap, was not an ideal experience. Characters at max level should no longer receive gear at a level lower than their character through chests and drops from enemies that are also at the level cap.
- Added the ability start a campaign add-on with an auto leveled character
- Added support for more Guardian Rank perks
- Re-balanced game stage regions starting from about Act 2 on to better follow the player growth
Based on data and community feedback, we have adjusted the leveling experience post-Act 2 to better ensure that enemies are properly leveled to players as they move into the second half of the game. This change will only impact characters created after this patch is live.
- Addressed a reported concern that Anointed enemies would not always encase themselves in Eridium when dying
- Removed the status effects from Anointed enemies after they crystallize to prevent players from taking damage when shattering the crystal
- Addressed a reported concern that the beam attack from Graveward’s head would occasionally only do a little bit of damage
- Addressed a reported concern that enemies would sometimes not play their physical death actions if interrupted by animation actions
- Addressed an issue where The Mystery Cube in Desolation’s Edge would sometimes no longer respawn when reloading the map
- Addressed a reported concern that Pappy and Pappy’s Jalopy would sometimes re-spawn when quitting the game after dying with Pappy’s Jalopy during “The Feeble and the Furious” mission in Devil’s Razor
- Addressed a reported concern where Tediore weapons with the sticky part modifier would sometimes disappear abruptly when bounced off of an interactive object
- Fixed an issue where the Bangarang XL bullet VFX would sometimes remain on the host’s screen when thrown
- Changed the visuals when looking through the glass bottle scope of some COV Assault Rifles
- Shields that trigger effects while depleted, like Brawler Ward, can no longer be trigger multiple times while the game is paused
- Shields that trigger effects while full, like Commuter Re-Charger, can no longer be stacked when taking enough damage to deplete it in one hit
- Shields that project a shield while crouching will now properly destroy the projected shield when the shield is removed while active
- Addressed a reported concern that the Phasezerker class mod sometimes displayed temp text when rolled with 2 points in Conflux, 2 points in Clarity and 1 point in Anima
- Addressed a reported concern where players could sometimes see maps the host had not discovered yet when playing multiplayer
- Addressed a reported concern that mission-specific weapons could occasionally spawn at the host’s level instead of the player in TVHM during multiplayer
- Addressed a reported concern that mission rewards would sometimes spawn at the host’s level instead of the player’s level in TVHM
- Added four specific dialog lines that can be played from the Main Menu, one for each character class
- Addressed a reported concern that incorrect subtitles would sometimes play when loading into maps after starting a new game
- Addressed a reported concern that mission weapons like Rogue-Sight could be mounted on the wall in the Players Quarters
- Addressed a reported concern where the Fast Travel Stations of the Zone challenge progress would sometimes not update properly after fast travelling to the Fast Travel in Meridian Outskirts
- Addressed a reported concern that the total number of Eridian Writings were sometimes displaying incorrectly
- Fixed an issue with duplicate loc text was sometimes not getting translated
- Fixed an issue where Eridium Jars would sometimes not replicate properly
- Addressed a reported concern where VoG from Tannis could appear improperly in certain situations
- Addressed a reported concern where VoG from Lilith could appear improperly in certain situations
- Addressed a reported where VoG from Lilith could sometimes appear white after she loses her powers
- Addressed a reported concern where the Galaxy Map would occasionally appear in the Minimap when closing the ECHO device
- Addressed a reported concern that players were sometimes not seeing Cryo status effects after entering FFYL with the Cryo effect active
- Addressed a reported concern that weapon skins would appear to revert to the default skin after opening the inventory again
- Addressed a reported concern that players could occasionally get stuck in character select when joining a host that is viewing the opening cinematic
- [Console Only] Added a limited pause menu for the primary player during splitscreen when the second player joins late in the intro cinematic
- [Console Only] Addressed an issue where two sets of subtitles would sometimes appear on-screen during cinematics in split-screen
- [Console Only] Addressed a reported concern with black lines sometimes appearing along the sides and bottom of the viewport on consoles
- [Console Only] Addressed a reported concern that the load character menu would sometimes fail to read save games for a splitscreen player if the controller was disconnected before they were added (which would cause the menu to spin for a long time)
- Nativized micropatches (older hotfixes are now in the game permanently)
