‘Borderlands 3’s Upcoming Mayhem 11 level of difficulty is exactly what...

While the main story that came out of Borderlands 3 yesterday was the unveiling of the two new skill trees for FL4K and Amara, the one more good news buried in that release was. Borderlands 3 will also have a new difficulty for Mayhem 11 when all these other updates arrive on November 10th.

It’s no harder, despite the numbering. In fact, it’s going to be easier and more costly, but it represents a request that players have been making for ages to turn off Mayhem modifiers.

At the cost of lower drop rates, you can farm Mayhem 10 gear without having to apply any of the modifiers currently required for Mayhem levels 1-10.

The fact that this mode has to exist in the first place is pretty much a reflection of the failure of Mayhem 2.0 when one of the biggest demands on players is that it should simply be eliminated entirely. I understand the principle behind Mayhem Modifiers, the idea that Gearbox could add difficulty in the game without relying on it just Only the health or damage of the enemy increases. But 90% of the modifiers are just too annoying, fill the screen with particle effects, or just plain boring like reducing your elemental or critical damage, making enemies spongier and castrating your builds. Even the “positive” simple modifiers often do more harm than good. Kill enemies to increase your movement speed? Hope you enjoy missing platform jumps in takedowns for Insta-Wipes!

The idea that all of these modifiers can be taken away is just … a dream come true. I honestly wouldn’t mind if they just reverted to the old system of a simple positive player modifier (35% shotgun damage) and an enemy modifier (more accuracy), but whatever, this will work for now. The overall design of Mayhem 2.0 between the modifiers and the 1-10 system with different loot levels was just … not good. And next year I wouldn’t be surprised if Mayhem 3.0 came with this Mayhem 11 extension as a stopgap measure.

How much lower are the drop rates? 50% less it seems and I would predict a lot of players will stay on Mayhem 10, Boss Farming for example, as the modifiers there may not be intrusive for a single enemy fight. Although this reduction reportedly has no effect on dedicated drops. For longer stretches of farming like takedowns or slaughterhouses or providing grounds, Mayhem 11 definitely seems like the right call.

I wish all of these changes were now instead of three weeks if I had exactly zero time to play them, probably for almost a month, considering everything else comes out that time. But I’m looking forward to it … someday, I guess. I think we’re getting new Zane and Moze trees tomorrow so stay tuned.

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