There’s been a lot of people asking questions about Borderland’s intricacies over in the Co-op impressions thread yesterday. Specifically, how much of an RPG it actually is. Well, the what-is-an-RPG always opens a particular can of debate, but in terms of character development, that they’ve lobbed the character skill tress online can give you a handle of the whole action/RPG mix. Here’s sneaky-lady Lilith , heavy-frenzied mouthbreather Brick, camping-bastard Mordecai and the hilariously inappropriately named Roland. And some further explanation follows…
Firstly, it’s worth noting this isn’t the whole of character development. You also have skills in individual weaponry, which increase through just use. Concentrate on a single weapon and you’ll increase its skill further, at the expense of flexibility. Secondly, there’s also quite a lot of equipment-based character specialization. As well as things like choosing weapons appropriate for your abilities, you get to plug in fancier ability sets which give you boosts in area. For example, increasing the amount of ammo of a certain gun sort you can carry. And extra slots for carrying weapons and equipment open up as you progress.
But the skill trees very much are the big steps. You get your first skill point at level five, which opens up your top level skill – which is your class-defining showing off ability, which is normally on a pretty hefty timer (go and hover over the actual trees to see the full description). Every skill point can be spent on the top levels. As you’ll see, there’s two skills in each of the leg. Five points are required at each level to unlock the abilities directly above, which are usually fancier and meatier. And… well, it’s a standard post-Diablo skill sort of tree. In other words, there’s three main builds in each of the classes, plus the ability to mix it up a little. For example, Roland could have gone and concentrated his ability on making his gun-turret become more brutal by concentrating as a soldier… but when John plays him, he actually pushed him towards the other two, becoming a support medic, providing healing and… oh no! John’s the healer again.
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I have me another, slightly unrelated to levelling/skills question, is there any sort of gore/violence filter or option?
On a semi-related but not quite note, what’s the language like? It’s rated M for several things, including strong language. Is this a couple of minor profanities, or is this f-bombs being dropped every 3 seconds?
Previous Gearbox titles have included both language and gore filters. I’ve always thought the mentality that says “I want to shoot people, but I don’t want them to bleed or curse about it” was kind of peculiar, but you can reasonably expect that Borderlands will accommodate your needs.
@ DarkNoghri – I watched a video just now where a few f-bombs were dropped, but it’s not super heavy (from what I saw).
@Vinraith – Cool thanks. I guess it depends on why you play games, I play games for fun and I do so with my wife, for us it’s primarily about using the resources we have to overcome foes in a variety of ways. it’s a fun and enjoyable experience and my wife doesn’t enjoy blood, gore and dismemberment – and I can happily give or take it, I don’t feel it adds anything significant or deep to the game. That’s just my two cents, and if people feel otherwise, well, that’s why options are a good thing – because then everyone gets to play a fun game the way they want to. :)
I think it might have more to do with the types of people you play games with. :)
Anyway, I certainly don’t begrudge you the option, and consider toggles vastly superior to the usual other solution (removing gore/language entirely), I’m just a little weirded out by violence without the natural consequences thereof. There’s such a thing as excess, of course, but realistic amounts of blood/language for the context in question actually unsettles me less than their absence. Anyway, to each their own clearly, it’s always good to have options!
I don’t really mind blood and gore, for the most part. I dislike cursing, however. I don’t curse, myself, and I’d rather not hear it. Mind you, I hear plenty of it down at the University, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. At least one person I would consider playing this with would be even less tolerant of language than I am, thus my asking.
And when you mention language filters, do you mean it’s totally removed, or just bleeped out?
No idea, honestly, since it would never have occurred to me to turn that kind of thing off. I would guess bleeped.
@Vinraith – I guess for me, I prefer -not- to have the associated consequences – speaking of extreme gore and such now. I play games to do things I can’t do in real life, and without the downsides. I don’t get tired when I run for 100 kms, I don’t get arrested when I rob a bank or play the evil villain, I can cast spells, duel wield shotguns without wrenching my arm out when I fire them and all sorts.
Whilst I grant you could feel that the detailed dismemberment of limbs is akin to the smoke/particle effects when firing a gun, for me it’s more akin to the tedious cleaning and maintenance of my gun – not the sort of maintenance we see in games, that is often a mechanic either – but the ‘chore’ kind. ;)
I don’t want to know what the insides of someone looks like, but I do want to shoot them and see them go flying through a wooden fence without anyone/anything actually getting harmed. Fallout 3 for example went too far for me, I want the slo-motion “pow-pow”, not the slow motion “This is what a decapitated molerat looks like close up.” – EVERY TIME I KILL ONE. Gah. I’m similarly perplexed by people who enjoy horror films, I wonder why that sort of thing entertains someone. I saw a post on a forum where they were talking about the Saw game and one of them said, “I would love the option when [character whose name I have forgotten] traps [another forgotten character name] to hit a key and just scream over and over.” and I was left thinking, wow… that sounds fun O_O;
Yeah, Fallout 3’s VATS kills could get to be a bit much. When I say I’m put off by an absence of “consequence gore,” I mean realistic gore, not slow motion dismemberment and the like.
@Vinraith – Ah fair enough. Yeah I tend to agree.
RE: Builds.
My post of “leet build right here” was just what I personally thought could be fun and effective to play as lilith with, but I can see how ‘leet’ was probably a poor choice of words and brings up ideas of cookie cutter builds like diablo’s endgame builds (some would say).
With Borderlands I guess there are going to be builds that are a bit more effective at killing or whatnot than others, but looking at these skill trees, to me it seems it won’t matter too much how you spend your skills, you’ll still manage to do well.
I love fun and pwnage and not dying, so I’m just going to put skills in whatever explodes and kills stuff and keeps me alive. :D