The Jimquisition: A Depressing Post-Mortem Of Battleborn
Added 2016-10-13 00:28:30 +0000 UTCBattleborn might go down in history as one of the most routinely humiliated big-budget games ever.
The wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong everything. Nothing went right for a game Gearbox once described as a "big bet."
What really sucks is that it was a good bloody game!
Comments
I didn't buy it cause I'm sick of Mobas . There are SOOO many out there and I've got other games that require my attention till then.
Aron Marczylo
2016-10-13 21:52:12 +0000 UTCJim, I have always respect you and your opinion, but I have to disagree with you on this a little. Both Gearbox and the game itself are to blame. Battleborn has some major flaws that are not apparent right away and escaped many reviewers during their limited time allowed to explore the game. To the point I would say in confidence that the game would have bombed with or without Overwatch ever existing. 1. Promised solo player was a lie when it came to most character. Few characters where able to solo the story missions and all the maps where designed for teams with solo play being a last thought. 2. Playing support was nightmarish with how exact you had to be with aiming buffs. This may have changed since I played the game a couple of months ago. But when hitting an ally with a buff is just as hard if not harder than hitting an enemy with an attack, that is only going to lead to frustration. 3. Loot is a big fat placebo. I got legendary items only to find that not only are they not worth the crystal cost (which the concept of paying for those each game does not work for this game) but they are sup-bar items. Most players I played with where using the cheaper more cost effective green quality and white quality items. That means the top three tiers of item quality, legendary, epic and rare, where not cost effective or as useful as the uncommon and common items. 4. The fact that items are a big joke and a placebo makes rewards pointless and turns what should be an awesome moment that is getting a legendary item into a shitty reminder that you are getting played by the developers. This legendary problem is similar to the problem Diablo 3 had when it first released. Why make a big grand spectacle of getting a legendary item if that item is going to be useless to you and the uncommon and common items are just plain better. 5. The item issues are just one part of the Battleborn "tried to be too many things" argument. You can't charge people for items each round, expect them to farm items and then give all those items random stats in a game claiming to be a kind of MOBA. (yes, they DID advertised to Moba players as a next gen MOBA) One of those factors needs to go for the battleborn item system to possibly work. But sadly gearbox can't imagine a game without random loot. That's what keeps players grinding and continuing to play, so Gearbox decided to put all three of those factors into the item system. 6. In a universe that was supposed to be going through a fight for survival with different factions and an endless enemy, the story is very "empty." We are told there are factions, but other than the playable characters, the only people we see are frozen soldiers in the snow of some maps. I never felt like there was a big difference in culture between the characters and it did not feel like there where factions at all. I helped a faction but never really met them. Honestly this is something that gearbox really dropped the ball on, if they could have mad the factions more compelling and actually in the game, that would have given people more of a reason to say. 7. The plot feels like we where dropped in act 3 but still expected us to care for the characters and the story like we played through act 1 and 2. Honestly when I saw the advertisements for this game, they made it appear like the factions where going to be fighting with each other for the first part of the game. It would have built the story better if they did fight, then join forces to push back the heartless/nothingness/shadow/darkness but then only to be betrayed by that count vampire guy. I know you mentioned you knew the lead writer, so I want to know what happened? Where they told that "fast based" gameplay was more important than story? Because that's what a dev told me. Which leads me to my next point. 8. Gearbox's arrogance. I contacted one of the dev's myself and brought my issues with the game to him. His only defense was "well other mobas took years to work out all the issues and we deserve the same amount of time to work out ours." There are soooooo many problems with that kind of thinking. first, those games he used as examples, league of legends and smite, both where free to play and did not charge 60$. Second, they where good enough games to stand on there own and keep players, Gearbox should not expect players to stick around while they "figure their shit out." Third, if you still needed time to figure things out, that's what early access is for! They probably thought it would hurt their sales numbers so decided to release this low grade game instead. What company thinks like this? Gearbox I guess. 9. Playerbase refuses to admit that anything is wrong and blames others. Despite what many people think, I don't think this game has anything in common with Overwatch, if Battleborn was more like Overwatch, it would have more players. Whether they want to admit it or not, this game needs a massive top to bottom overall. The fact it could not keep players after the humble bundle is proof that going free to play wont even solve the player issue. Hardcore players (and devs for that matter) going around and denying the issues with the game are not helping the matter. I have never seen fans of a game do what I have seen Battleborn players do. Like go and make bad reviews for other games and act like the other game had somehow drained the playerbase from Battleborn like a Vampire (<a href="http://i.imgur.com/CW6l5rz.png)" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/CW6l5rz.png)</a> or make passive aggressive comments in the comments section of articles about other games, even though the article nor any other comment even mentioned Battleborn (<a href="http://i.imgur.com/GM7ChCv.jpg)." rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/GM7ChCv.jpg).</a> I had high hopes for this game, I really did. In the end I was just down right disgusted with how badly they mislead me with their advertisement and how maliciouse the game was designed. From the items to how you unlocked characters, it was a free to play game that had a price tag stabled on it (probably by Randy Pitchford.)
LurkerGG
2016-10-13 07:42:48 +0000 UTCBlizzard's open beta followed by "beta's over, wait a couple of weeks to play again" for Overwatch pretty much ensured Battleborn's death I think. I remember the promotion during the launch of both games. My friends and I were looking for something co-op after Vermintide and Overwatch sold us. I'm certain we would have tried Battleborn if it were free to play at the time, but that fact that Overwatch effectively was a free game for a month before it came out officially made the choice for us. Those couple of weeks in the middle when we couldn't play it before the retail launch also must have sold copies by the barrel and convinced a lot of people to just hold out and no spend that cash on other games.
Joe Jones
2016-10-13 01:04:19 +0000 UTC
