Gearbox celebrates the release of the Borderlands 2 Ultimate Upgrade pack with free in-game loot

Gearbox Software is celebrating the DLC release by giving out more SHiFT Codes today to reward fans win rare equipment in the game. These SHiFT Codes will give players five golden keys for use in the game. This is the developers way of helping players through the new, harder playthrough by providing them with new rare equipment.

[Utalkin2me]

Micro-transactions at it's finest. Then next month we will give you additional 11 more levels for 4.99 and to sweeten the deal we will throw in 5 golden keys on top of that "FOR FREE".

[Ron_Danger]

You do know that this isn't a micro transaction. It's a level cap raise, inventory raise, additional third very hard playthrough, new pearlescent level weapons, and new unique rare artifacts, shields, and class mods.

And if you already had the season pass, they added it to it for free.

This isn't like EA charging $5 or $10 for 2 weapons or a suit in Dead Space 3.

[CraigUK]

And the ammount of extra play it ammounts to, for that price is insane. 20+hours minimum, thats more than most full games.

[Utalkin2me]

Really? Most games come with very hard, which they just left out and added in for DLC. And my point exactly, first game i have seen you have to pay for a level increase. How hard is it to increase your level cap? The game was designed with this is mind along with the other added stuff to make you think you was getting a deal. Just absurd if you ask me and im not stupid enough to pay for it.

But you if want to waste your money on it then so be it.

@CraigUK
So you're saying it gives you 20 plus more hours of grinding, not actual new gameplay.

[CraigUK]

If you play through all the story missions and do whichever sidemissions you feel like it should last you well into the 20+ hours, without grinding.

Also, your point of them designing the game with level cap increase in mind, they have said that isnt true. If fans didnt keep asking about it, Im almost sure they wouldnt have done it, Randy Pitchford has said in interviews that they worked hard to balance the game when it first came out and adding extra levels throws all that out the window.

Like I said, the cost and the ammount of play I am going to get out of it is worth it for me. This update isnt for everyone, and those people who dont want it, wont buy it.

[admiralvic]

Please don't make excuses for Gearbox... it just makes you both look bad.

While Gearbox has in fact stated they never planned on adding a level cap increase, they STILL FAILED at managing expectations. You can't just add a trophy / achievement at level 50 called "Capped out... for now" and think people aren't going to read that as a hint a level cap increase would come at some point (especially since BL 1 got it). However, how much work really went into balancing the game? Gearbox can throw whatever data they want to (cause we can totally trust them /s), but there were people that hacked the game and said having every stat didn't make them unstoppable. My friend was able to do the skill point dupe trick on his Zer0 and the difference another 45 skill points made wasn't enough to make him light years ahead of me. With this being said... if Gearbox wants balance, why do they ACTIVELY seek to ruin the player experience? Don't believe me, well lets bullet point it.

- Ultimate Vault Hunter mode makes enemies more powerful and gives them regenerating life, plus they regain it all if you die.
- Since enemies scale with you on UVH mode, it can be hard to play with your friend. Especially when you consider the game will throw level 63 enemies at you if you're level 61 (meaning you pretty much need to be on the same level as your friend).
- Some Seraph weapons that could have been bought are now drops.
- These extra 11 levels are almost on par with your grind from 1 to 50.
-- 50 = 3,429,728
-- 61 = 6,263,885
- The UVH mode gear is absurdly broken if you use it outside of UVH mode. My level 50 CC was 5220 x 7 attack, where as my 61 CC is 22,200 x 9 attack, which is a pretty standard breakdown. On average gear at level 61 is 4 times the power of gear found at level 50. Now when you assume The Bee (even nerfed it's still useful) can now give 100,000 or more amp power, plus weapons 4 times the previous max, well... would you consider this balanced?

Needless to say, it's a pretty weak point. Similar to your "additional 20 hours for 5 dollars" remark, since you can simply play as a new character (for free) and get the same experience in the end.

[CraigUK]

Well I enjoy it and I think its worth the money, and nobody ive spoken to apart from people on N4G think its a ripoff. Guess what, I also bought the DLC outfits they released. I love the game and support the developers as I want to keep playing it and want them to keep supporting it with DLC so I can play it longer

[cleft5]

For the people that think it's perfectly okay to make folks pay $5 for a level cap increase of only 11 levels. Bethesda is coming out with the 1.9 patch that completely unlocks the lvl cap and adds in a harder difficulty, Legendary for free.

If you folks want to waste your money on more dlc from Gearbox, go right ahead. Hell, more power to you. But please stop pretending like Gearbox isn't like every other company who is just releasing more and more dlc for you to buy. Also, enjoy paying for that new character that isn't included with the season pass. Remember, every time one of you wonders why all these games have so much paid dlc, just look in the mirror.

[LostDjinn]

Forcing us to pay for the privilege of leveling up a character in a game we already paid full price for? Tell you what Randy, next time you get an idea like this do us all (yourself included) a favor and keep it to yourself FFS.

After the whole ACM thing I didn't think you could make yourself look like a bigger douche. To your credit you certainly proved me wrong.

[dooge]

"Deathtrap can no longer restore an enemy's shields, even though it was hilarious."

Haha. Stay classy Gearbox.

[Siren30]

People bitching about paying $5 (free if you have season pass) can either not buy it and keep paying the game as is or not play the game at all.

[FaSCoRP]

Well, actually feels like cheating. I downloaded the Ultimate Vault Haunter Pack (cause already have the season pass), and it is justa couple of kbytes in size. As stated above, they only added "ultra hard" difficulty over the same campaign and DLC scenarios for before. Nothing really new (I cannot count the new color for the weapons). It is sad and perhaps they will do the same with level 70. At least now I can play Hammerlock's DLC with a purpose (going up the levels because I was already on 50 with the two first DLCs)

[Th3 Chr0nic]

Im the type of person that beats a game once and after that it feels like a chore to play thru it again. so for me this would be a waste.

There have been very few games that i wanted to play thru twice or more. and i mean very very few

[LAWSON72]

I really hate the future of gaming. Dlc is becoming more and more oversaturated and it is really ruining my future experiences with my favorite games.