Borderlands 2.0

[Valence]

I'm not gonna make definitive statements because that would be silly only one afternoon after release. So far my first impressions are:

1. Mostly thankful for the devs to have not butchered the whole map into something else like for Shatter. I feel the map retained what made the old one fun in terms of layout (notably elevation and capturable points).
2. Still torn about the teleporters: while they definitely do allow people to get back into the fray in the middle when nodes pop, this certainly restricts opportunities for skirmishes even more.
3. I'm not sure about the damage increased areas around capture points so far? If a team holds it, they just have to stand inside and nuke everybody approaching in a heartbeat? Since there is no skirmishes happening because it's blobs vs blobs, it feels this is not filling its purpose as a gameplay gimmick. It's incredibly small and works for 4v4 at best (which never happens), and beyond that going in is the best way to just die immediately when it's blobs fighting around it.
4. Tactical points go up WAY too fast. Games can be over under 10 minutes. Everything feels incredibly fast and unsatisfying. Added to teleporters it feels like the mode is designed to fast forward only to the climax moments, which feels very cheap and like I missed some part of the whole experience?
5. The PVE: frankly, stack markers and towers? Really? And it also gives battle high (a lot over time)? That's just a negative for me.

-> I do feel like the new additions to the map are not filling what they are designed for, or adding negatively to the game overall.

What do you think of the map?

[Mawlzy]

I'm not gonna make definitive statements because that would be silly only one afternoon after release. So far my first impressions are:

1. Mostly thankful for the devs to have not butchered the whole map into something else like for Shatter. I feel the map retained what made the old one fun in terms of layout (notably elevation and capturable points).
2. Still torn about the teleporters: while they definitely do allow people to get back into the fray in the middle when nodes pop, this certainly restricts opportunities for skirmishes even more.
3. I'm not sure about the damage increased areas around capture points so far? If a team holds it, they just have to stand inside and nuke everybody approaching in a heartbeat? Since there is no skirmishes happening because it's blobs vs blobs, it feels this is not filling its purpose as a gameplay gimmick. It's incredibly small and works for 4v4 at best (which never happens), and beyond that going in is the best way to just die immediately when it's blobs fighting around it.
4. Tactical points go up WAY too fast. Games can be over under 10 minutes. Everything feels incredibly fast and unsatisfying. Added to teleporters it feels like the mode is designed to fast forward only to the climax moments, which feels very cheap and like I missed some part of the whole experience?
5. The PVE: frankly, stack markers and towers? Really? And it also gives battle high (a lot over time)? That's just a negative for me.

-> I do feel like the new additions to the map are not filling what they are designed for, or adding negatively to the game overall.

What do you think of the map?

The last time this was available was during my false starts with 14 and I had no idea what was going on. I still have no idea what is going on. The only input we got from people who did claim to know what was going on was in the form of map coordinates without any additional comment which is completely useless, and a popular Aether trend on all maps.

First match took 18 minutes, possibly because nobody knew what was going on.

An explore mode would be nice. The map cannot communicate the elevation nuances.

Based on videos of the OG, 2.0 seems more dynamic rather than just running back and forth.

I don't think I'll bother with it until someone puts out a decent visual guide. I'm guessing there may be some interesting strats, but without knowing what they are I'm just riding around clicking buttons.

[Fatch38]

to me, 2 years of "rework" for this was a pure waste of time, it was the map i'd rather skip before because it just didn't felt fun (because running everywhere is boring) and now i'll just skip it entirely again because it's more of the same : boring, little incentives on skirmishes (which is dumb in a mass pvp mode), they just reduced the timer for middle spawn and called it a day.

[Mawlzy]

Have to say I haven't taken to it yet. It seems almost as contrived as RW.

[PotatoTree]

This is probably the worst map out of the bunch now. This map really punishes the stronger team that can get an early lead, cause they can't protect their lead with any sort of chokepoint. No matter how good a team is they can't fight 2v1 meaning they can't protect flags on the cw and ccw directions at the same time.

In the past getting battle high wasn't as easy, so the leading team was somewhat protected against a 2v1 by having more battle high. Now it seems like everyone and their mom can get it, and with all the lbs and role actions going on it's easy to just wipe even a skilled team. Basically what I'm saying is the skill differential has been vastly reduced, making games more of a coin toss.

[Exmo]

I found it to be hugely fun. It's very quick paced and the flow of battle can change very rapidly which I enjoy.

The teleporters are very well implemented. After teleporting you're invulnerable for a few seconds, so no risk of getting immediately punted off mid. I like how teleporters are only active for the first 30 seconds when mid spawns, so you might miss the opportunity to zoom to mid if you're not paying attention or if you get CC'd, OR you might explicitly decide to not teleport to mid so you can retain command of side nodes. I expect a meta will form over time that assigns small teams to either flank to skirmish over flags while mid is active.

I don't understand everything that's happening at mid. I don't really know what "boosted" means yet. I like that the largest alagan bot ends with a super large and lethal donut. I like how there's more stacks and chaser mechanics which give you the opportunity of hijinks with enemy teams.

It's a lot of fun to Full Swing a player off the side of mid. 10/10

So far it feels chaotic, which I like. I imagine that will subdue in time at everyone gets more familiar with the mode, myself included.

I did find at times that teams could very rapidly swarm and decimate each other. When I was playing there was an organized premade in most matches that tried to control the game by zerging. They lost the vast majority of matches they were in, but in time they'll adjust their strategy and become a nuisance, as usual. Once that happens, it might turn this fun game mode into a boring slog.

[Cidel]

Borderlands 2.0 is an improvement over the original (unlike Shatter), but that's not saying much. Borderlands was always the map I wanted to skip, because majority of the time it devolved into moving as a giant group to capture an adjacent flag, only to find almost nobody was there and then realizing the other team is in the process of capturing your other adjacent flag on the other side of the map, then running back and forth. Large skirmishes for flags were rare, and almost always interrupted by either A) Mid objectives spawning, or B) The third team scumming all the other flags while the bulk of the other 2 clash on one(still happens).

What 2.0 does well is giving quicker transportation to mid, having a clear indicator when mid is spawning (as opposed to having someone "in the know" keeping track of respawns based on last node's ToD), having a few more flags to encourage slightly more movement, and node mechanics are a little more varied and chaotic than simply targeting them and spamming damage like on ice in Shatter. I don't know how I feel about getting Battle High off simply hitting nodes at mid... I mean yes, I can benefit from it, but it makes nodes way more valuable than they should be. Battle High should be what you earn from attacking other players, not from hitting point piñatas.

What bothers me about 2.0, is now an even heavier emphasis on fighting nodes and drones at mid instead of other players. I mean, yes, you can attack other players at mid (and people do), but while flags are important to control, the frequency of mid drone events constantly feels like the mid timer is purposefully breaking-up flag skirmishes every minute and calling people to come to mid to whack training dummies, made easier by the warps right next to the flags. It's weird, but the silver lining I guess is some people are going to earn your team points by focusing on nodes, while others can headhunt stragglers and overextended enemies.

The other thing about 2.0 that is going to be either a love-it or hate-it is that Secure is "comeback mechanic: the map." I mean really, from Shatter 2.0 basically exemplifying "teams with a good lead almost never lose it" to Secure 2.0 flipping it to "having an early lead means almost nothing other than you'll get double-teamed if the other teams aren't sharing the same brain cell..." This was somewhat true of Secure 1.0 anyway, but I've seen such radical and rapid shifts of leads in this one mode today than most other matches in my years of Frontlines. Basically, if both teams decide you don't deserve your lead anymore, there is very little you can do other than back-off and be pushed to your spawn and lose all your flags and access to mid until someone else takes the lead, or pray that they come back into conflict with each other over their adjacent flags and forget your team still has the lead.

Hell, I've seen almost-distant last place take the win at the end because they teamed-up with the other team to stop 1st place from winning with 200 points to go. Scummed all the flags and mid while 2nd place zerged 1st's respawn for the better part of 3 or 4 minutes. When 1st pushed-back 2nd, 3rd was there from the other side. Depending on who you ask, this is either a good thing or a bad thing. I think PotatoTree makes a lot of good points though about this map being the hardest 2v1 to prevent, and yes, majority of the games did in fact feel like a coin toss until the last couple minutes.

[Araxes]

I absolutely hate it. Its worse than shatter now. They didnt rework anything. Its the Same Map with additional PvE mechanics. I have lost any Hope for good pvp in this Game.

[Mistress_Irika]

I've only spent an hour of it, and for once I actually enjoyed myself for the most part. Here are all the crazy things I did and noticed.

I sat guard in one space as a DNC while a WHM sat at the other. WHM felt froggy and gets to casting spells. I did nothing. They kept at it until my MP dropped below 25% which I decided to charm them and drove their HP below 10% before they decided that it wasn't worth and ran away. Thanks additional role action.
I got caught in a fight and didn't pay attention to the spawn nodes until the last second. The jump pad turned off on me upon nodes spawning leaving me to fend for myself. I lived.
I made it to mid the next spawn just to charm the dominating team that had a ton of BH. I looked back to my team mindlessly doing nodes, and I instantly got nuked when the charm wore off before someone decided to dive in after I died. I am slowly starting to relearn that range do not lead the team. As a bonus, I didn't realize until the game had ended that I went headfirst into Olivia's group (alone) who was already invading my data center.
Got caught in another fight, and because I was stuck in guard the node committed suicide taking me with it. I think you now earn points if it goes down instead of the entire room bring punished for the Object 130 casting, and I think you can live it if you're in guard...barely. During that instant the premade group loses a fight, looks score, and screams "premade" upon respawning. Umm, hello?
Went for an engage in that group an instantly got nuked for trying to be bold and charm the entire leading team right in their faces.
Despite the constant sandwiching for the remainder of the game 8 people just wouldn't die. My team finished second.

I'm not sure if the monopoly strategy is worth it. There's too many bases to capture. Plus I don't know how the scoring is regarding base holding. I have to study videos for this. I wonder is that's why the finishing score is now 3k instead of 1600. If I decide to search for this answer I'll have to unrust and stop treating the patch like I'm in ShB. I haven't played in over a year, and I'm feeding my tail off. Punting seems less of a thing with the teleporters, although I know that some is still going to get pulled to their deaths. Overall, things seem decent here. Everyone is being kept busy at least. The adjustments to battle high may be current deciding factor as to whether this map is favored. I'm not sure if I'm ready to play again. That would mean trusting my team who usually only prioritizes objectives.

GGs Olivia.

[Kisshu]

Happy to have it back, but did these changes really need (checks notes) 2 f*ing years to be changed. It was removed in 6.4 which was May 2023.