Borderlands 2 Getting Level Cap Increase, Extra Missions, Raid Bosses

[Steven Bogos]

Borderlands 2 Getting Level Cap Increase, Extra Missions, Raid Bosses

The Borderlands 2 Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack 2, and the Headhunter Pack: T.K. Baha's Bloody Harvest will be released this fall.

At a PAX Australia [http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/20/4540210/borderlands-2-dlc-ultimate-vault-hunter-upgrade-pack-2-new-level-cap] panel, Borderlands 2 developer Gearbox revealed several new DLC packs coming this fall, as well as a new free update to the game. The Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack 2 includes 11 more levels, the Digistruct Peak Challenge (a new map), new loot, and an increased level cap of 72. The Headhunter Pack: T.K. Baha's Bloody Harvest includes a new mission, a themed boss fight featuring T.K. "The Wave" Baha, and another boss fight with new character Jacques O'Lantern (three guesses as to what his gimmick is).

The Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack 2 will set you back $5, but pricing for the Headhunter Pack has yet to be confirmed. Gearbox also announced that several additional Headhunter packs, each featuring a new "raid boss" and mission, are currently in the works. Neither of these DLC packs are included in the Season Pass [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119376-Pre-Order-Borderlands-2-DLC-With-Season-Pass].

In addition to this, extra ammo capacity, backpack, bank slots and more character customization options will be coming later this year as a free update. Fans of Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep should know that a fix for its unlockable head customizations is coming "soonsih."

It's quite surprising to see Gearbox putting out a second level cap increase for the game, especially after specifically stating that an increased level cap would break the game [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121998-Gearbox-Cant-Increase-Borderlands-2s-Level-Cap-Without-Breaking-It]. I guess someone figured out how to "unbreak" the game. It is also nice to see some extra content released in a free update.

If you're able to get down to PAX Australia, you can pick up some free DLC codes for some exclusive in-game skins at the Borderlands booth.

Source: Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/20/4540210/borderlands-2-dlc-ultimate-vault-hunter-upgrade-pack-2-new-level-cap]

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[Ghonzor]

The fact that the levels themselves are their own DLC and not included in another DLC (like the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned) irks me to an insane degree.

 

[piinyouri]

They're going to break the game. It's already hanging in there by a thread.

Are they going to make UVHM playable solo? If not, then I'll pass. I've already got 10 levels I'm never going to see, no need to add more.

 

[shirkbot]

They're going to break the game. It's already hanging in there by a thread.

Are they going to make UVHM playable solo? If not, then I'll pass. I've already got 10 levels I'm never going to see, no need to add more.

Oh no, the game is already broken. I, and probably 2K, actually just hope that if they break it enough it'll double back and be fixed. Either way, UVHM is ridiculous, you're right.

 

[Gromril]

To be fair to gearbox, when they refused to put the lvl cap beyond 50 they got massive community backlash, so they caved. Wierdly, it's a nice testament to why devs often seem to ignore community feedback.

Still, I dont want to imagine the horror of a lvl 72 character. thats two skill trees maxed and another pretty well done. This UVHM2 Would have to be monstrously hard to compensate.

 

[Doclector]

To be fair to gearbox, when they refused to put the lvl cap beyond 50 they got massive community backlash, so they caved. Wierdly, it's a nice testament to why devs often seem to ignore community feedback.

Still, I dont want to imagine the horror of a lvl 72 character. thats two skill trees maxed and another pretty well done. This UVHM2 Would have to be monstrously hard to compensate.

Probably will be.

Honestly, I don't care much. I'm too busy squealing like a five year old who's eaten far too many skittles over the prospect of Lvl 72 krieg. I mean...jesus. He was already ridiculous when I maxed out the mania tree, let alone when I started to augment that with bloodlust, let alone when I'll be able to max out bloodlust as well.

 

[Gromril]

To be fair to gearbox, when they refused to put the lvl cap beyond 50 they got massive community backlash, so they caved. Wierdly, it's a nice testament to why devs often seem to ignore community feedback.

Still, I dont want to imagine the horror of a lvl 72 character. thats two skill trees maxed and another pretty well done. This UVHM2 Would have to be monstrously hard to compensate.

Probably will be.

Honestly, I don't care much. I'm too busy squealing like a five year old who's eaten far too many skittles over the prospect of Lvl 72 krieg. I mean...jesus. He was already ridiculous when I maxed out the mania tree, let alone when I started to augment that with bloodlust, let alone when I'll be able to max out bloodlust as well.

Lvl 72 gunzerkers will put him t shame, even after that exploit got fixed that alowed them to oneshot bosses they can still throw out monstrous amounts of damage.

The prospect of being able to fill out all of my lower tier buff traits and kill skilss, as well as having maxed out rampage/brawn?

Yeah.....good luck to anythin with a hitbox bigger than a midget.

Other classes get silly too. The psycho, as you pointed out, will be heinous.

Or a solider with logbow, maglocked and shielded nuke turrets?

Or a siren with super healing and damage output?

Or a mechr.....wait, i'm not even going there.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Another level cap increase? Bloody hell, build diversity already dissappeared with the first one (which I unfortunally got) and UVHM was quiet unnescecary (and poorly designed).

This bloody means an Assassin with Many Must Fall, Kunai AND Bore, OP combo much?

 

[Voulan]

As excited as I was to hear about this, I'm not too pleased that my Season Pass won't help me here, nor that the game would be severely broken as a result. I'll have to sit this one out, I'm afraid.

 

[RJ 17]

It's quite surprising to see Gearbox putting out a second level cap increase for the game, especially after specifically stating that an increased level cap would break the game [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121998-Gearbox-Cant-Increase-Borderlands-2s-Level-Cap-Without-Breaking-It]. I guess someone figured out how to "unbreak" the game. It is also nice to see some extra content released in a free update.

That's exactly what I was gonna say when I read the headline..."Didn't they say they weren't going to bump the level cap because doing so would break the balance of the game by letting everyone become gods?"

Oh well, gotta say I wasn't really impressed with BL2. Not that it wasn't fun for a while, but for me it was just....more BL. That's what was holding me back from getting it in the first place. I loved the first game and played the hell outta it, but by the end of it and its expansions (dear god....I actually solo'd the frickin' arena...every single one of'em.....) I was pretty burnt out on the game. Some friends finally talked me into picking up BL 2 and I played it for a while, jumped around through the missions a lot as I joined up with friends' games, but in the end it was just more BL with different classes so I ended up trading it in before the first DLC was even released.

Oh well, it's still enjoyable, just pretty much exactly what I expected from it.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Neither of these DLC packs are included in the Season Pass [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119376-Pre-Order-Borderlands-2-DLC-With-Season-Pass].

And this is yet another reason why this whole season pass bullshit is bullshit. Get all DLC by purchasing in advance, don't get any. Despicable business practice, nickel and diming at its absolute worst.

Would be interesting to see what effects the increased lvl cap has. Will there be new skills, or simply the ability to purchase more of the existing ones?

 

[Ninjamedic]

To be fair to gearbox, when they refused to put the lvl cap beyond 50 they got massive community backlash, so they caved. Wierdly, it's a nice testament to why devs often seem to ignore community feedback.

I'd say its more how lazily[footnote]Especially when you put Colonial Marines in perspective.[/footnote] designed UVHM is and its horrific balance against solo players along with charging for it that annoyed the community.

Still, I dont want to imagine the horror of a lvl 72 character. thats two skill trees maxed and another pretty well done. This UVHM2 Would have to be monstrously hard to compensate.

Probably just increase the max health of all enemies by 8x rendering most of the skills, builds and choice in the game pointless I'm guessing.

OT: Is it just me, or am I seeing Gearbox's desperation in this? Since BL2 is the only game they have that hasn't tanked as of recent, they're just throwing as much DLC at it as possible to get as much goodwill back from the fanbase. At least that's what I'm guessing.

 

[FoolKiller]

OT: Is it just me, or am I seeing Gearbox's desperation in this? Since BL2 is the only game they have that hasn't tanked as of recent, they're just throwing as much DLC at it as possible to get as much goodwill back from the fanbase. At least that's what I'm guessing.

Or more importantly, getting as much money out of it while they can. This is also why they're probably trying to milk the Homeworld franchises for some quick money.

This is why I, as a Xbox 360 gamer, am waiting for the ultimate fully complete game of the year edition to be released.

I was already pissed when I didn't get the mechromancer for pre-ordering because I didn't pre-order it at the right place. They didn't announce that you had to preorder at certain places till it was too late.

 

[soren7550]

Along with these new updates, are they finally going to enable character achievements for Gaige and Kreig, and leveling up achievements that go beyond level 50?

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

I'm okay with Borderlands 2 extra content being paid content -- it's optional, and frankly some of the DLC packs have been pretty subpar so they're easy enough to ignore. What I'm not okay with is the fact that Gearbox and 2K are charging for material that can substantially alter the flow of the game, and they're not even throwing Season Pass owners a bone by including it in the package. It all reeks of cash-grabbing.

 

[Alcom1]

Get to level 50, spend hours farming for Legendary weapons to max out your Vault Hunter.

Level cap increase to 61 comes out with new DLC.

Get to level 61, do the same thing again because all your level 50 Legendary weapons are useless.

Level cap increase comes out with new DLC.

Get to level 72, give up.

 

[Neeckin]

I'm gong to buy the game after they package all the dlc stuff with the game same as the first one

 

[piinyouri]

Neither of these DLC packs are included in the Season Pass [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119376-Pre-Order-Borderlands-2-DLC-With-Season-Pass].

And this is yet another reason why this whole season pass bullshit is bullshit. Get all DLC by purchasing in advance, don't get any. Despicable business practice, nickel and diming at its absolute worst.

Would be interesting to see what effects the increased lvl cap has. Will there be new skills, or simply the ability to purchase more of the existing ones?

I'm sorry, but no.
I know how much most of this forum loves to doom and gloom about shit, but if you bought the original SP, you got your money's worth. I paid what..40-35 bucks for the SP, and have gotten probably close to 60-70 dollars worth of stuff from it.
How does that not sound like a good deal?

Now I have heard that GB is possibly (probably) going to release another SP as they didn't think they'd be making this much content for this long after the game had released. It's almost a year old now and it's still played like crazy (check out the GB forums) and I imagine they are just as surprised as anyone else about it, so now I imagine they feel like they should keep putting out more content since it's still desired.

I probably won't get another SP though. I have fully enjoyed what I got from my first one but I just don't feel it necessary to purchase another one. Any more new location type DLC's don't really perk my interest anymore and I'll probably just get any more class packs they release.

 

[Something Amyss]

It's quite surprising to see Gearbox putting out a second level cap increase for the game, especially after specifically stating that an increased level cap would break the game [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121998-Gearbox-Cant-Increase-Borderlands-2s-Level-Cap-Without-Breaking-It]. I guess someone figured out how to "unbreak" the game.

Or, given their history, they lied. I mean, we have seen Gearbox do that before, so it's not like I'm talking crazy here.

They're going to break the game. It's already hanging in there by a thread.

Are they going to make UVHM playable solo? If not, then I'll pass. I've already got 10 levels I'm never going to see, no need to add more.

Indeed. Wouldn't be so bad, but all my friends dropped this game because it was boring and repetitive--and went back to playing Hijacked on Black Ops 2 six times in a row.

Yeah.

Oh no, the game is already broken. I, and probably 2K, actually just hope that if they break it enough it'll double back and be fixed. Either way, UVHM is ridiculous, you're right.

A flaw singularity? Chaos so massive it collapses in on itself to become order? That would be epic.

To be fair to gearbox, when they refused to put the lvl cap beyond 50 they got massive community backlash, so they caved. Wierdly, it's a nice testament to why devs often seem to ignore community feedback.

Well, let's be clear. They got backlash in large part for saying it was impossible, which is bad consumer relations since it obviously wasn't. Not sure how nice that really is. In fact, it has Montgomery Scott written all over it.

Further, they've ignored complaints that have existed since day 1 on their own community boards, where they've supposedly been "looking into" them. I suspect the team that is looking into the laundry list of complaints is the same one that is researching Doctor Jones' discovery of the Ark of the Covenant.

Too many TV/movie references....

And this is yet another reason why this whole season pass bullshit is bullshit. Get all DLC by purchasing in advance, don't get any. Despicable business practice, nickel and diming at its absolute worst.

You know, that might be an argument if they weren't up front with what the season pass entailed. I know people hate season passes for not giving them everything, but this was one place where Gearbox was up front. In fact, they even gave us one piece that wasn't initially listed.

I mean, what did people expect?

OT: Is it just me, or am I seeing Gearbox's desperation in this? Since BL2 is the only game they have that hasn't tanked as of recent, they're just throwing as much DLC at it as possible to get as much goodwill back from the fanbase. At least that's what I'm guessing.

I doubt it'll increase goodwill. It will, however, line their pockets.