The question of this week is if the development team over at Gearbox Software is still working on content for Battleborn. The answer is yes although this might not be visible for everyone to see. Due to the lack of hotfixes in the latest Battleplan (46), I have been seeing comments that some people are disappointed and wondering if there is still new content coming to their game. In response to those comments the Dev Team gave some more insights about the lack of hotfixes and the reason is pretty simple. They are working towards releasing a patch and before that time big changes are basically on lockdown. Also, remember that some things are simply fixed with some number adjustments and this can be done with a hotfix. However, there is other stuff that needs a bigger update through the means of a patch. When a patch goes through the certification process the 3rd party platform holders will check the impact of the patch. This process can take some time before they give their approval, so a bit of patience is required for these things.
However, that still keeps us with the question of what changes are coming with the next patch. Well, this is something the marketing department likes to keep top secret until everything is finalized and ready to ship. They do this because of proper promotion and damage control if things don’t make it into the game. Looking back at previous patches Gearbox has always done some (performance) optimization, bug fixing, balance work, and occasionally reworked some of the Battleborn heroes. While there is no definitive list yet there are some hints to be found on the web. Randy Varnell, the Creative Director of Battleborn, has shed some light on a few subjects by answering some community questions.
Possible Upcoming Patch Details
- Bots Battle Lore Challenges – There need to be some adjustments on how they track the bot’s data for some lore challenges in order to recognize the event.
- Bugs with Phoebe – Are being on the things-to-do list
- Orendi – Pillarstorm is very likely getting some work done on it in the next major patch. Though, while it is dramatic, it’s quite situational and late-game. GBX likes where Orendi is generally, but they wanted to take just a bit of the edge off her primary attack, without losing the quality-of-life improvement that the projectile speed offered. Statistically, she should be in a good strong place still, but is losing just a touch of her outlier damage bonus. Randy has been playing her with this damage reduction internally and is still very effective with her.
- Beatrix – GBX is working on her, as she is still a beast. They are about to start testing a chance internally where Fulminate silence applies a stacking debuff, where each projectile adds about .3 – .5 seconds of silence. Beatrix’s ability to silence an entire team for multiple seconds puts her WAY over the outlier curve with her silence. You’ll still be able to spray a team and effectively Silence (interrupt) them, but you will have to focus on a single character with Fulminate to get the big Silence to stick. It adds a bit more skill and versatility to the ability and pulls it out of abusable territory. That and a few other tweaks for her should also appear in the next major patch.
- Galilea – GBX is working on some toning down of Galilea’s CC, yes. There are currently about 14-15 changes they have queued up for Galilea in the next patch that add a lot of scaling of her abilities based on her Corruption. She’s not losing tons of her versatility, but they will be less of a hard counter to other players and will be, in most cases, less effective.
- Boldur – He definitely has some targets on him, but GBX is looking at some bigger meta changes currently that rebalance supports and defenders as groups to reinforce the archetypes a bit more solidly. Boldur is a good example of a Defender whose damage far outpaces where it probably should, late game.
- Other characters – Battleborn has a lot of playable characters but these are on the top of the list to get some balance work: Alani, Attikus, Ernest, Kid Ultra, and Montana. El Dragon also has some additional minor, but important, enhancements coming.
- tie-breaking bug – this bug has been identified and a fix should roll out with the next content update.
Confirmed Patch Details
- Fixed an issue where certain characters could stun friendly Thralls and Minions.
- Fixed some issues where allied teammates could take Aurox out of the air when Shayne activates Fetch.
Work in Progress
Randy Varnell also apologized for the amount of time it takes to really fix some of the problems. However, they are still trying to work on new content while maintaining balance, and that in itself is sometimes hard to balance he said. But what more can we expect to see coming to Battleborn. I compiled a list of things that have been mentioned in the past that Gearbox is working on or looking into.
- Trial Version – The answer to “Will Battleborn go Free2Play” is being worked on.
- Better bot AI – With the popularity of Bot Battle the AI of the CPU-controlled Battleborn can use some upgrades and the team was going to look into that.
- Rework Gear – Last year Randy did mention that they were looking into Gear Crafting, but more recently he mentioned a thing called Reactive Gear.
- Ranked Mode – During the Choctaw Festival of Gaming livestream it was mentioned that Scott V. is working on the foundation of a Ranked Mode. No ETA.
- Super Charge – A new PvP game type that has officially been announced but still awaits its release. You can already see the new Super Charge stats icon in your career menu.
- CC Meta – This is mentioned to require some big attention, so this is skipping the upcoming patch and hopefully will be addressed in the next one. One of the things that could tie into this is a new Cleanse ability.
- API – GBX is exploring some possibilities of opening up some API thingy to the community so they can build tools.
- VIP PASS – While this boost has been announced in the winter update stream this bad boy hasn’t been released yet.
Well, this is what I could dig up on actual facts that Gearbox is working on. There is probably more stuff they are looking into but haven’t told. This is also the moment i would like to give a word of caution; Looking into things doesn’t mean they are actually coming. I also would like to throw in 1 speculation that I do hope they are working on. I hope they are working on more story DLC for Battleborn and some hints let me to theorize about a season 2 for Battleborn.
