Peak Performance

While perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea, the first Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack for Borderlands 2 was fairly well received. It gave players who had already worked through both Normal and True Vault Hunter Modes additional levels to grind, and a whole new, third playthrough to enjoy. For those that wanted a harder challenge, and Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode was certainly a harder challenge, this was a solid expansion for the main game that extended the life of the title a fair bit.

But once the first season of expansions for Borderlands 2 were all released, players were still wanting more. Borderlands 2 was a monster title, with new players still coming on regularly, and the expansions sold very well. Gearbox recognized there was still an audience for the game that wanted more content, more levels, and more ways to grind away their time in the looter-shooter, and with Borderlands 3 only a concept of an inkling of something for the studio to work on, the company was more than willing to find more ways to keep players locked in with their title.

The end result was the Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack Two, which added in even more levels to grind (taking the cap from 61 to 72) as well as introducing new Overpower “OP” Levels to grind in the game, and a whole new zone to play in to earn those OP Levels. This meant that players looking for their next challenge, as well as new gear, new abilities, and newer ways to play, had a whole new experience they could spend their hours in.

The main meat of this second upgrade pack came in the form of Digistruct Peak, a new zone where Patricia Tannis, the insane scientist in league with the Crimson Raiders, could oversee training missions. Players could talk to Tannis to get their mission, and then head off into the training zone. Here digital reconstructions (thus “digistruct”) of past monsters and bosses would be dropped into the rooms, and the players would have to fight everything in their path. Enter a room, clear the bad guys, move to the next zone. This was the style of play through the whole area: enter room, fight, enter next room, and then lather, rinse, and repeat until the mission was over.

The trick with Digitstruct Peak was that these missions were long. Unlike a standard mission in Borderlands 2 (where you’d enter a zone, kill a couple of bad guys, pick up an item, and then move on, all in the span of five-to-ten minutes), Digistruct Peak’s training missions could take anywhere from a half an hour, on the low settings, to over an hour, on the high settings. These were long slogs, going from room to room to room until you made it to the final boss of the mission, killed it, and were let out back to talk to Tannis once again.

But length wasn’t the only issue as these missions also had to be completed in one shot. Normally with a quest you could die, warp back to the closest checkpoint, and then pick up where you left off, continuing the mission. Digistruct Peak, though, forced you to earn your completions. You had to one-shot clear the whole mission. No checkpoints, no revives, no extra help. If you died (falling to Fight for Your Life and then failing to revive yourself from there), you’d get sent all the way back to the start of the mission to do all of it all over again. And, remember, these aren’t short missions. If you died at the five yard line after fighting for an hour to get there, the game didn’t care. No mercy and no remorse.

So why would you do this? For the Overpower Levels… well, and bragging rights, I guess. The standard level cap in the game was 72 (or 80 once the Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary came out), but with the OP levels you could get gear going all the way up to an effective value of 80 (72 + 8 OP Levels) with the upgrade pack (or 80 + 10 OP levels with the final expansion included later on). That meant more grinding, more finding the best stuff, and more reasons to keep playing the game for anyone that wanted to have the best load out possible.

You just had to earn it. Each mission at Digistruct Peak would open one OP Level. Completing the mission at level 72 (or 80 once you were in the final DLC) would unlock OP 1. You could then replay the mission at OP 1 and things would be changed up a bit. Different monsters, different enemies, and everything would be a little tougher (as they’d all be tuned to your new one-level-higher OP level as well). OP 1 would unlock OP 2, which was even harder. OP 2 would unlock OP 3, and so on.

And as you played through each one, not only would the monsters get tougher, but further sections of the map would unlock. Eventually you’d have a massive series of rooms you’d have to play through, fighting more and more for longer and longer, all while desperately trying to stay alive as the game grinds you further and further into the mud. These missions were for the Borderlands 2 players craving the ultimate difficulty, and it delivered. You just had to want it.

Personally, I never really did. While I’ve tinkered in the OP levels before, and I can play through many of the missions, I tend to prefer my game tuned down a little bit. Even in just the basic Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode the game can be blisteringly tough, especially if you don’t want to spend a lot of extra time grinding over and over for gear. The grind can be slow, but to get through UVHM you functionally have to do it because a load out of anything less than all orange, on-level gear just won’t cut it. Anyone, like me, that just wanted to drop in and enjoy the game wouldn’t find UVHM to be that fun.

And the OP levels only make that grind worse. Bear in mind that to truly be able to get through the tougher OP levels you’re going to need to have on-level gear. That meant that if you’re going to OP 6 from OP 5, you’d need a load out of good (presumably mostly or all orange) OP 5 gear. And then once you got to OP 6, the next goal would be OP 7. But to get there you’d first need to go and upgrade a bunch of your already solid gear to OP 6 just so you’d stand a chance. The OP levels, while providing more challenge, also made the grind loop of Borderlands 2 that much worse, and that much longer. It fed itself.

Functionally if you wanted to really play through all the OP missions, you’d be spending hours and hours not just in the missions but on the grind as well, and for some that’s just too much. All the credit in the world to those that actually wanted to do the grind (so they said they could), but I don’t blame anyone that install mods so they could make a character starting at OP 10, with good gear from the jump, all so they could enjoy the hard difficulty without all the grind. At a certain point the grind simply becomes too much.

As a way to increase difficulty and give players more to do, Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack Two makes a certain amount of sense. I like it in theory, and I love watching players tool around in the main game at OP 10. But as something to play through for the average user, this expansion doesn’t quite work. It’s overtuned and not as fun as it could have been, expecting grinding as the whole of the experience. I love Borderlands 2, but the grind was never the part that appealed to me.