If you had asked players what one of their biggest grievances was about Borderlands 3, you would probably hear the answer of drop rates. Players complained about the drop rates in Borderlands 3 because legendary items would drop far too often. It made the experience feel boring, and it ultimately led to legendary items feeling worthless. There was no more chase. Now that Borderlands 4 is out and dedicated drops are back, what are players complaining about? Drop rates. This time, they hate grinding for legendary items because it takes too long.
Borderlands 4 Players Complain About Drop Rates
One of the bigger Borderlands YouTubers, JotzDude139, recently posted on X talking about the Borderlands 4 drop rates. Previously, YouTubers such as him complained that Borderlands 3 lacked dedicated drops and that legendary items would drop far too frequently. His post, however, sings an entirely different, but all too familiar tune, saying, “Dedicated drop rates in Borderlands 4 are NOT fine in new game runs. World drop rates ARE fine. I farmed over an hour for nothing. I feel like I’m forced into a linear, non-unique playthrough since legendaries are locked behind an excessive, slow grind.”
User ab2dii reposted JoltzDude139’s post on the Borderlands 4 Subreddit, asking the community what they think about the drop rates. The results are similar to those of JoltzDude’s post.
One user responded, “This is probably the first game in the series where I wouldn’t mind an increase to dedicated boss drop rates.” Another user stated, “Exactly. I’ve done the wild card mission this week 20 times so far, and I’ve gotten the Armored Bod variant every. Single. Time. The grind is that much worse when you’re farming a boss that probably won’t even drop the item in question AT ALL.”
The Borderlands community cares about having dedicated drops, but it appears as though Gearbox has made the drop rates far too infrequent after making them far too abundant in the previous title. We can relate to the pain after farming the Timekeeper for over an hour to get one Plasma Coil.
Other YouTubers, such as Ki11erSix, stated that the drop rate for dedicated drops is about 3%, saying, “Dedicated drops happening about 3% of the time on 500 runs of Axemaul is just horrid.” For context, the dedicated drop rate for Borderlands 2 was about 3.33% at launch, but was increased to about 10% later in the game’s life. Currently, Borderlands 4 seems to have about the same dedicated drop chance as Borderlands 2 did at launch, which players have noticed and have been quick to call out.
Gearbox has not made a statement about whether it plans on increasing the dedicated drop chance, but we imagine they would if the feedback is loud enough. After all, the developer has listened to other criticisms in the past, such as the desire for a combat radar.
