Borderlands - More like boring..er..lands.

[Clockwork Knight]

Forced grinding = good thing? lolwut?

Doing quests and leveling because of them is not forced grinding, but ok. Otherwise, Oblivion is incredible because you can complete it on level 1 = no grinding at all

I fail to see the logic of how guns should start doing more damage because you leveled up more.

Game. Plus, as I said the game doesn't normally put you into a situation where you do 1 damage anyway, so the reduced damage isn't a real problem.

In diablo you could easily beat enemies much stronger then you if you had good player and character skill. In borderlands, replace 'skill' with 'level grinding'.

Not true. You CAN powerlevel to easily roflstomp everything, but you can also win with player and character skill.

My level 40 MIRV grenade does 111 damage and might hit them more then once if it works out well.

My level 25 gun does 90 x 2 damage per shot, can crit the head for massive damage, and can fire 12 shots a second.

My best guns outdamage the grenades, too. But you can spam grenades, covering a large area, hurting lots of enemies at once. There are also grenades that suck enemies health and give it to you. The grenades aren't used as raw damage, but as an auxiliary weapon.

Close enough for most of the game. Fine, 10 damage on a critical. Against the random badass enemies, that might dent their health by 10% with an entire clip.

Well, so maybe it worked that way for you. I play the sniper guy so a few shots to the head takes care of the stronger enemies. I survived the last level on one arena against several badass enemies maybe 1-2 level above me by headshotting them.

Nope, absolutely true. Just ran over some random bugs that were 7 levels over me. They only deal about 200 damage with their attacks to my vehicle (1k health), but running them over made it blow up instantly.

I wasn't being facetious, there is no scratch damage. They attacked your vehicle's engine, or a freak bug (lolpun) happened.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

My level 40 MIRV grenade does 111 damage and might hit them more then once if it works out well.

My level 25 gun does 90 x 2 damage per shot, can crit the head for massive damage, and can fire 12 shots a second.

My best guns outdamage the grenades, too. But you can spam grenades, covering a large area, hurting lots of enemies at once. There are also grenades that suck enemies health and give it to you. The grenades aren't used as raw damage, but as an auxiliary weapon.

Yeah, I'll give you the grenades that return health. I can see those being useful if you don't have your own healing (I did).

Close enough for most of the game. Fine, 10 damage on a critical. Against the random badass enemies, that might dent their health by 10% with an entire clip.

Well, so maybe it worked that way for you. I play the sniper guy so a few shots to the head takes care of the stronger enemies. I survived the last level on one arena against several badass enemies maybe 1-2 level above me by headshotting them.

If Badass enemies are only 1-2 levels ahead of you, then you didn't win by any player skill. You won by level grinding. Normal enemies I fight are at least 2-3 levels above me for christs sake, do you do every single random quest in the game?

Nope, absolutely true. Just ran over some random bugs that were 7 levels over me. They only deal about 200 damage with their attacks to my vehicle (1k health), but running them over made it blow up instantly.

I wasn't being facetious, there is no scratch damage. They attacked your vehicle's engine, or a freak bug (lolpun) happened.

Just tested. 15 shots to blow up my ride on any section of the vehicle. Pure BS.

High level enemies = you die.
Low level enemies = they die.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

If Badass enemies are only 1-2 levels ahead of you, then you didn't win by any player skill. You won by level grinding. Normal enemies I fight are at least 2-3 levels above me for christs sake, do you do every single random quest in the game?

...Yes? The quests are there. Doing them isn't level grinding because they don't "respawn" neither are they randomized (I'll assume that by "random", you mean unimportant). Once you do a quest, it doesn't appear on the list again. You can't really complain the enemies are unkillable if you're ignoring opportunites to get stronger on purpose. And if normal enemies are 2-3 levels above you, then you are ignoring a lot of stuff.

btw

Going back on forth through maps farming enemies for XP = grinding

Doing quests and killing whoever is in the way = not grinding

It's a shooter. You're expected to shoot things that appear. As long as you kill whoever appears during a quest, you'll be on a reasonable level.

And it was certainly player skill. I had to use all my ammo, including grenades, and jump like a monkey all the time, keeping the weaklings alive for a possible Second Wind. The generci fights I win because of level consist of me taking potshots at enemies who don't really pose a threat, not 6 badass bruisers with elemental rocket launchers.

Just tested. 15 shots to blow up my ride on any section of the vehicle. Pure BS.

High level enemies = you die.
Low level enemies = they die.

So I may be wrong about the critical hit on vehicles (I'm pretty sure I could destroy vehicles on one hit by aiming, but ok. Maybe the game registers it as killing the driver, like you can kill a guy behind a turret).

BUT there is no scratch damage. Plus, that never happened to me (touching = damage). Whenever I run over something, they die. It's actually unbalanced really, I killed that Mad Jack sub boss without even noticing because he has a palette swap generic psycho model and I rushed over his camp. I had to get out of the car to properly fight two spiderling bosses because they'd die in 2 scratches from the vehicle (I tested it later, when they respawned).

So either I'm massively skilled to the point of hax, or you're mistaken about enemies touching your car and exploding it.

fake edit: nvm, you tested it and probably aren't lying for lulz. I'll try to find info on this subject. I'm positive it doesn't happen, though.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

If Badass enemies are only 1-2 levels ahead of you, then you didn't win by any player skill. You won by level grinding. Normal enemies I fight are at least 2-3 levels above me for christs sake, do you do every single random quest in the game?

...Yes? The quests are there. Doing them isn't level grinding because they don't "respawn" neither are they randomized (I'll assume that by "random", you mean unimportant). Once you do a quest, it doesn't appear on the list again. You can't really complain the enemies are unkillable if you're ignoring opportunites to get stronger on purpose. And if normal enemies are 2-3 levels above you, then you are ignoring a lot of stuff.

My complaint is that the 'getting stronger' part is badly implemented. Essentially there is not much more beyond leveling up your character. Your build doesn't matter much, your guns don't matter much. All of that can be compensated for by being another level above your enemy. All of the character building and cool item-finding is trivialized when you realize that the real reason you are killing something is because the last level you gained causes you to do 50% more damage (number pulled out of ass, but it feels like that at times).

Yes, I ignore a lot of stuff. I do main quests, kill everything in my way, maybe break off for a short side quest if its along the same path. I don't feel SIDE quests should be FORCED, and I can't think of a good game that forces you to do tons of side quests just to gain levels. Again, pointing at Diablo (which borderlands obviously is trying to imitate), you can just go through the main areas and not bother with cleaning out respawning hordes and be decently leveled and powerful for the storyline.

BUT there is no scratch damage. Plus, that never happened to me (touching = damage). Whenever I run over something, they die. It's actually unbalanced really, I killed that Mad Jack sub boss without even noticing because he has a palette swap generic psycho model and I rushed over his camp. I had to get out of the car to properly fight two spiderling bosses because they'd die in 2 scratches from the vehicle (I tested it later, when they respawned).

No, its not scratch damage. Its pretty much you die or they die, nothing in between. Probably some half-assed attempt to stop people from rushing ahead in the game and killing enemies 20 levels above them with the car, getting a million experience. Which would actually be fun and solve a my complaint about level grinding

 

[Sceptic]

Didn't intend to stir up the hornet's nest :D thanks for the feedback though.

Its OK if you can bear the fact that, because damage is scaled by level, there is absolutely no fun playing more then a few levels outside of your level range for the entire game. Area design is kind of bland for a lot of the game, but it has a few good points.

I don't mind the scaling as long as I can stay at the "required" level just by doing quests, without having to just go out and mindlessly grind on respawning enemies. Bland level design is a big con but if it's sprinkled with highlights and if even the blandness has some kind of cleverness from time to time I don't mind.

As for gun realism

I don't care much for realism, unless it's so unrealistic that say a pistol is more powerful than a mini-nuke. As long as the shooting mechanics are fun I can live with any lack of realism.

You shouldn't be expecting more "rpg" than skill levels and diablo-loot.

That's about what I was expecting. To be honest I'm looking for a shooter with RPG elements in the Hexen 2 style and this one seems to have more RPG stuff, so that's fine by me.

The quests are standard "go there, push button", "go there, kill X". But they are very humorous, and you can take more than one quest at a time

That's a little more barebone than I would like but the if the humor is well done and keeps things moving I can live with them especially if you can load up on quests and do them at your leisure. I can't remember now which game I played not long ago had "one quest at a time" and that pissed me off badly.

All I can figure is the MMO feel of the game scratches my MMO itch without costing $15 a month.

That doesn't sound promising. I'm no fan of MMO and if the game has a lot of "bring me 50 pelts" I doubt I'll get very far.

The gun variety is by far the best part of the game though. Not only just better stats, but the feel of them can change fairly dramatically. That aspect is surprisingly well done, though rocket launchers seem the most useless.

Interesting.

I find myself playing this occasionally, enough that I pirated all the DLC too.

How are the DLCs? Do they only add extra quests or do they enhance things from the start and should I therefore get them all while I'm at it?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Didn't intend to stir up the hornet's nest :D thanks for the feedback though.

Its OK if you can bear the fact that, because damage is scaled by level, there is absolutely no fun playing more then a few levels outside of your level range for the entire game. Area design is kind of bland for a lot of the game, but it has a few good points.

I don't mind the scaling as long as I can stay at the "required" level just by doing quests, without having to just go out and mindlessly grind on respawning enemies. Bland level design is a big con but if it's sprinkled with highlights and if even the blandness has some kind of cleverness from time to time I don't mind.

You can easily stay leveled by doing some/most of the side quests... but the side quests are all about going through mostly similar areas with the same respawning enemies. There are certainly a number of decent area's though, but you will still have to deal with the everything-in-dog-shit-brown color for most of the game.

I find myself playing this occasionally, enough that I pirated all the DLC too.

How are the DLCs? Do they only add extra quests or do they enhance things from the start and should I therefore get them all while I'm at it?

They add completely separate areas with their own little storyline. Unfortunately, they REALLY point out the problem with leveling. They have a set level, so if you go in too early you get raped, go in too late and you wonder why you bother. Go in at the right time, then when you get done you are 10 levels ahead of where you entered, and the main storyline is boring as hell when every enemy for the next hour basically dies as soon as you look at them.

The zombie island and the general knoxx ones are pretty decent. The stupid arena fight against respawning enemies for hours with no reward other then a single skill point, not so much.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

You can easily stay leveled by doing some/most of the side quests... but the side quests are all about going through mostly similar areas with the same respawning enemies.

This problem exists, but can be alleviated by taking lots of quests at once, so you don't have to run through the same areas too many times (which will also take care of the respawning, since they only respawn when you leave the area - make it so you don't have to come back soon and the respawning won't be noticieable).

one game where respawning was a real problem was Far Cry 2 - enemies respawn as soon as you get 20 ft away from the spawn point.

That doesn't sound promising. I'm no fan of MMO and if the game has a lot of "bring me 50 pelts" I doubt I'll get very far.

the quests aren't MMO like (they aren't anything to phone home about, either. Standard "go there and kill / touch / talk to X"). He probably means the feel of the world, with leveled enemies and guns.

Your build doesn't matter much, your guns don't matter much. All of that can be compensated for by being another level above your enemy.

It works both ways, you don't need to be above your enemies level if you have good guns and skill. But yeah, it is easy to get carried on and powerlevel. It isn't a problem particular to Borderlands, though.

All of the character building and cool item-finding is trivialized when you realize that the real reason you are killing something is because the last level you gained causes you to do 50% more damage (number pulled out of ass, but it feels like that at times).

Finding a good gun will make you visibly stronger during your current level. The sniper rifle I posted made me change the playstyle to a more agressive one (the bullet spreads, letting me run and gun with a sniper ) because I was killing fleshy enemies more easily.

No, its not scratch damage. Its pretty much you die or they die, nothing in between. Probably some half-assed attempt to stop people from rushing ahead in the game and killing enemies 20 levels above them with the car, getting a million experience. Which would actually be fun and solve a my complaint about level grinding

Incidentally, you DO get reduced xp from running over enemies. Not much, 20% less I think.

 

[Dire Roach]

It's ok for what it is. It has a handful of glaring flaws, but it's an overall superior co-op experience compared to almost every other recent FPS out there.

 

[racofer]

 

[Twinkle]

Oblivion is incredible because you can complete it on level 1 = no grinding at all

Fail example - it requires at least level 2 to complete the mainquest. And yes, it's a better game than Retardolands.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Why?

 

[Twinkle]

Why, my first three or so hours in Oblivion were enjoyable. Borderlands sucks from start to finish.

PS: You are right, mainquest can be completed with lvl 1 char.

 

[Jaesun]

If Borderlands didn't have that fucking shitty massive re-spawn rate, I would have actually enjoyed it.

Better game that Fallout 3.

 

[Hoodoo]

By itself its a pretty meh game, but with friends it has some really good moments - more levels like Old Haven would have been nice and the Boss fight comes up on you pretty suddenly and is the easiest fight in the game

 

[starfish]

BUT there is no scratch damage. Plus, that never happened to me (touching = damage). Whenever I run over something, they die. It's actually unbalanced really, I killed that Mad Jack sub boss without even noticing because he has a palette swap generic psycho model and I rushed over his camp. I had to get out of the car to properly fight two spiderling bosses because they'd die in 2 scratches from the vehicle (I tested it later, when they respawned).

So either I'm massively skilled to the point of hax, or you're mistaken about enemies touching your car and exploding it.

fake edit: nvm, you tested it and probably aren't lying for lulz. I'll try to find info on this subject. I'm positive it doesn't happen, though.

I can attest that Manatee is right. I had a glitch in my game where a certain NPC went through his scripted death well before he was supposed to. I was at level 5 or so and all of a sudden I had level 20-something bandits chasing me all over the map, killing me on sight. I tried to run them over with a car (since I couldn't kill them otherwise) and merely brushing up against them in the car was instant death.

 

[Metro]

The car makes thing a bit too easy but it isn't invulnerable from what I recall. When the shielding is gone you'll blow up.

 

[random_encounter]

Game is really much better online with friends than alone. After I had hit fifty, one thing I did was to connect to random games and freely drop a few purples, blue, and orange uniques from earlier runs.

My complaint is that the 'getting stronger' part is badly implemented. Essentially there is not much more beyond leveling up your character. Your build doesn't matter much, your guns don't matter much. All of that can be compensated for by being another level above your enemy. All of the character building and cool item-finding is trivialized when you realize that the real reason you are killing something is because the last level you gained causes you to do 50% more damage (number pulled out of ass, but it feels like that at times).

I've never noticed this. If anything, finding new weapons and putting more points in the relevant skills made things easier, even against enemies that were one or two levels above my own (I initially had a Siren build).

I farmed Old Haven once I had access to it and had a caustic weapon with an x4 multiplier which melted armor like hot butter. At the time, Lancers were about one or two levels above me meaning that any XP I'd get from that area would be huge. The gun was a lucky find, but the enhanced elemental effects and increased weapon damage I put points into contributed to how quickly enemies went down. I also relied on weapons with heavy doses of lingering damage, such as burning or caustic, ensuring that it would keep working even while I reloaded or ducked behind cover.

Picking the right weapon type for whatever foe you want to kill is extremely important. Aliens were easy as pie once you had electrical weapons with high enough multiplier damage. Fleshbags were easier to tag with flaming weapons, and Crimson Lancers were pussies against caustics.

Online, one problem I've seen is that too many people try and use the same damn weapon against EVERYTHING which only makes them work harder for that kill even when they have the right one in their inventory.

One thing that bothers me about how damage is measured in the game is where rockets or car-mounted rockets are concerned. They're shit. I'd usually jump out of a buddy's car and kill whatever he was trying to blow up with that thing myself because it was faster and I hated seeing ineffectual explosions do nothing but repeat more trigger pulling insanity. I also remember reading in one preview that they had planned to allow the player to mount all sorts of weapons on your vehicle, but it was dropped for the roof ornaments that spit on enemies instead.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Just like the Siren character was supposed to be a psychic/biotic/plasmid/pick your poison character who had a shit-ton of powers, and didn't really need to use guns. It was supposed to have been an entirely different play style.



A lot of things changed during the later stages of development.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I was lucky enough to get this from that Slither boss, right before Old Haven

Special version of The Dove (bottomless clip) Slither drops. No need to reload + corrosive damage bonus from Mordecai's Assassin class = raperaperaperape

 

[Gerrard]

It looks like they improved saving of the weapon cards.
And by improved I mean made it how it should have been from the start.

I don't know what's with the empty space to the left though, some screenshots don't have it.

I was lucky enough to get this from that Slither boss, right before Old Haven

Special version of The Dove (bottomless clip) Slither drops. No need to reload + corrosive damage bonus from Mordecai's Assassin class = raperaperaperape

 

[Metro]

Just like the Siren character was supposed to be a psychic/biotic/plasmid/pick your poison character who had a shit-ton of powers, and didn't really need to use guns. It was supposed to have been an entirely different play style.

A lot of things changed during the later stages of development.

That's the impression I get -- I, too, find the specializations really don't make a huge difference in terms of play style at least for solo play. You can pretty much destroy anything so long as it isn't a prohibitive three or so levels above you where you do no damage.

It just looks like they half-assed a lot of area to get it out of the door and the after release support has been garbage. I suppose the specializations might make a difference when you're with three other people and the enemies are stronger but I can't bring myself to play with randoms and the people I know who bought it just power leveled through two play throughs. I put the game aside a couple of months ago... still haven't finished the main campaign.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Just like the Siren character was supposed to be a psychic/biotic/plasmid/pick your poison character who had a shit-ton of powers, and didn't really need to use guns. It was supposed to have been an entirely different play style.

A lot of things changed during the later stages of development.

That's the impression I get -- I, too, find the specializations really don't make a huge difference in terms of play style at least for solo play. You can pretty much destroy anything so long as it isn't a prohibitive three or so levels above you where you do no damage.

The biggest difference I found is that Mordecai's bloodwing skill becomes quite ridiculous if you max out that tree and get a decent item to buff it. Press 'F' to kill any non-boss group.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Yeah, Mordecai is broken. One of the skills in the tree makes X% of the damage inflicted heal you, even.

But the skill that makes Bloodwing hit more than one enemy is borkeded and he sometimes doesn't.

 

[JrK]

That is either because he gets stuck (pathing for the bird is atrocious) or he has no other targets left. If the latter happens, he has struck all the available enemies once already, it takes a while before he decides that he can strike them again. For that reason it seems best that if you are going to use the Ranger classmod to not max Bird of Prey. Alternatively, if you have the 1sec cooldown (max predator with +4 from Ranger classmod) you can just recall Bloodwing (press action button again) and release him again almost immediately.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Going to admit I was wrong and I actually am addicted to this. Not sure why I changed my mind on it so much, maybe the beginning was easier/worse than I remember due to how much fun I've been having later on. I'm doing the Knoxx DLC in playthrough 1 and having a grand old time.

I'm turning into a popamole.