The Woes of New Gear
UVHM doesn’t add a lot of “actual” content, but does include a few pearlescent weapons and Etech relics. Both of these items drop almost exclusively from loot midgets, which have been upgraded to legendary loot midgets (except JJ, he’s apparently legendary enough) and are slightly more common than before. Considering it can take quite a while to find one of these guys, most people just do the JJ trick and kill them in bulk. Since you will routinely find 3 or 4 of these guys in a run, their new drop charts are somewhat problematic.
You see, in addition to dropping the newly added content (which aren’t that great, especially the worthless relics), these midgets also have a chance to drop some or maybe even any legendary weapon in the game. This not only undercuts the usefulness of practically every boss in the game, it gives people a one-stop location to obtain whatever you want. Obviously it’s still better to farm blank boss for an exact weapon, but if you’re looking for all the weapons, then it’s something of a paradise.
For those of you interested in obtaining certain seraph weapons, be warned that TVHM raid bosses won’t drop the crystals with this DLC or really anything useful whatsoever. If you already have all your crystals, be prepared to fight them anyway, since several weapons have reallotted as raid boss drops. This change only seems to affect people on UVHM, so prepare for a grind if you’re a fan of the Interfacer, Evolution, Tattler and several other guns.
VERDICT
The Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack is exactly everything you don’t want to do in one costly bundle. The additional cycle is more tedious than enjoyable and above all it’s the same. The new upgrades are welcomed, but quite costly to unlock. Level 61 gear makes TVHM broken and can make it hard to justify playing with someone who doesn’t have UVHM. Like seraph weapons, the new gear is largely useless unless it just so happens to suit your build and obtaining it downplays the need to really farm. All in all, this DLC pack does little more than limit the enjoyment of future packs/people you can play with, all at a price you can easily avoid.
[Editor’s Note: Borderlands 2 was reviewed on the Xbox 360 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
I have to say giving it a 1 is pretty ridiculous. I don’t think the UVHM should have even cost any money since really it doesn’t give any new content, but still it doesn’t deserve a 1.
And while a majority of the new gear is crap, I’d have to say that Bone of the Ancients is actually pretty good since it combines two of the best relics in the game (Proficiency and Elemental Damage) into one.
@ Kiddo
If you don’t think it should have cost money, doesn’t really give new content and adds items you mostly think are crap… why is it ridiculous to give it a low score?
it’s ridiculous because it’s not a fair representation of the quality of work and enjoyment it gives.
they justify the score by continuously reminding us that we have to pay for it, but in actual fact they gave this update out for free to season pass users.
the season pass was never supposed to include this but they did as a sign of good faith. What about the other players? you may ask. The truth is, any one who is interested in the upgrade will get the season pass first, this will allow access to the rest of the game and this upgrade. so the editor who wrote this trash didn’t do his research, which is poor journalism.
Not to mention that the editor never even considered the context of this release. He reviewed this like any new game or DLC when infact it’s tailor made for hardened BL2 players. It’s obvious to me that this guy never so much as visited the BL2 forums to see how other fans react, how the player base is reacting, how the target audience is reacting to this. If he did, he would notice it’s quite positive.
If you are not writing for your target audience then who? yourself? if so, keep your shitty review on your personal blog, don’t post it on a professional web site, let alone as your job.
I promise you that the BL2 community will all disagree with this review. Every one including myself feel this is a much needed upgrade and we are appreciative of GB for releasing it.
Look at the difference in the user score and his. it’s ridiculous. That alone proves my point.
JPS, if you are a journalism service with integrity. fire Grant Gaines, or at least give him a good talking to. I’m sick of seeing so called critics and journalist blab about their personal feelings on this. i expect an objective, well researched article when i read and watch reviews.
It’s quite obvious that this game apparently isn’t for you. Giving it a 1? Really? For all the new content this contains?
It was free for Season Pass users, by the way. It’s something that was not even supposed to be in the season pass, yet GBX decided to be generous.
And you’re forgetting that enemies scale to your level constantly. Being Level 61 doesn’t break the game, since enemies’ HP increases by 15% per level, while your own increases by 13% per level. Sure, there’s skill points to offset this. But if anything, UVHM is harder at Level 61 than Level 50.
And Elemental Damage not mattering in TVHM? Are we playing the same game, or were you just 5 levels overleveled all the time? Sure, Elemental Damage wasn’t a necessity, but it sure as hell helped.
Also, if you’re using the Sham and the Norfleet, of course it’s going to be easy. Or The Bee and Sandhawk.
Overall, this review reeks of poor journalism, bias and stupidity.
terra and pete are hard….. 5.9 second terra solo in uvhm http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=265363
pete in uvhm killed by a lift http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=268190
really challenging kills…
I remember back when all we ever wanted was the game to continue. Now all I hear is we have to pay for this or that. It was 5 bucks not 20 still worth it to me. Also I’ve always hated fighting through a game and coming out the other end still feeling 2nd best to some of the regular enemy’s in the game. I want to come out the true badass or in this case the ultimate badass when I’m done with the game. I don’t mind a good fight I have the mile high club achievement from cod4 try to get it. It’s a lot of fun or don’t if you have a short temper.
And about terra and all the other bosses play the game without getting online first to see the easy way. I had a hard time I didn’t have the cc or the bee and me and my wife that’s riding my back to get through most games still managed to kill terra. I waited until I got bored with the gun’s I had to get online and find out how to get them and to figure out what made things easier for us. The bee and the cc ok let’s go kill the warrior 50 times and 49 times the legendary weapon wound up underneath him or there was no weapon at all. Let’s not even talk about the bitch gun’s the bunk3r drops well suppose to drop I’ve killed it about 150 times and the only one I have is the analytical bitch that someone gave me. Rinse wash repeat is what breaks the game for me drop rate needs to be higher. So paying 5 bucks to get to level 61 THANK YOU gearbox. Also I would pay for a higher drop rate cause I still don’t have the skullmasher I’ve killed that boss about 75 times.
Quite frankly, this mode sucks. They buffed slag and enemy health both up so much that if you’re not slagging everything (or have already farmed a ton of stuff in the past), it feels like you’re fighting with a BB gun. That is something less than even remotely fun.
When a simple weak trash enemy can take two clips of ammo worth of direct head-shots and still be standing, something is way off with the game balance.
@Aldershot – Games are a subjective medium, and all reviews are subjective. You can’t objectively review art or fun, and anybody who claims their reviews are “objective” is lying to try and sucker people into believing it.
1? Are you kidding? This is a minor DLC clearly targeted towards hardcore players who found TVHM too easy, and no casual player will ever consider to go through the same game for the third time. It adds some cool stuff and it makes tactical use of slag more important, but even in TVHM elementals were extremely useful. This review is extremely biased plus the person who wrote it clearly didn’t played the game for more than a coulpe hours, maybe he didn’t played this game at all and just watched some youtube vids
I WANT A REFUND I GOT NOTHING AND IM STILL MY LVL 14 FOR GUNZERKER THIS GAME IS A RIP OFF I GOT NO MODE OR ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!