Borderlands 2 - Discussion

[Blackcompany]

I know we have a thread for the UI, and another for the Gore. I was hoping for some discussion of the game itself, however. So lets get started:

Borderlands 2 is an excellent game. Its a huge improvement over the first one in many - but not all - categories. There are some minor issues, and I wish to get the bad out of the way first:

-The UI. Its floaty and off to the side, now. Almost like you are looking at it from an angle, which bothers me for some reason. Also, its messy. Comparing items you might buy with equipped items is cumbersome. In general moving through the UI could be improved. I would even prefer the UI from BL1 to this, to be honest.

-Too many suicide enemies. This is a shooter. You have one basic melee strike. Yet 50% of the enemies you will fight will insist on rushing you as fast as possible. Some will explode suicide-bomber style and others will just pound you. Regardless of their purpose there are simply too many melee/suicide rushers in this game, period, and it gets annoying at times.

-The Return of the Bullet Sponges. Because the difference between a grunt and a boss should involve two things: 1. Better costuming and 2. a FAR larger health bar.

-Weak boss weapons. So far, a few hours in, boss drops - as in the first game - continue to disappoint.

-Quick respawns. Please, please let Gearbox patch the respawn time so once I clear an instanced world space/map it does not respawn until I leave and come back. The loot does not respawn, but once again, enemies do.


That said, Borderlands 2 also features many improvements:

-A living world. Different creatures and factions hate one another. Raks dive bomb Skags, who attack bandits. Bullymogs attack everyone. The world feels much more alive as a result.

-Better NPC's. Many of them move around now, and have some basic, Oblivion style AI. Not quite as in depth as that, but its an improvement. A big one.

-Better graphics/display options. We're treated like we play on PC, this time. Uncapped Frame Rates!

-More exciting guns. Their visuals are more varied and their effects louder and more colorful. Also, better weapons seem to appear toward the beginning of the game, at least in co-op mode, making for more satisfying loot drops.

-Better enemy AI and pathing. They dodge, leap and jump around. The cooperate better, too.

-Physics based impacts. Shotguns and sniper rifles especially will knock enemies backward or off balance, as in Rage. Occasionally a well placed hit will cause an enemy to fall down or drag a wounded leg. Nice touches.


Questionable Changes:

I am eager for thoughts on the following, as some might consider them boons while others despise the changes:


-Many of the better guns now use 2 and 3 rounds per shot. Can be frustrating early, but actually makes ammo matter.

-Shields. The better ones seem to drain health now in exchange for higher shields, making shields a give and take as opposed to the (sometimes overly large and unbalanced) boon of the first game. I found it a little...disappointing, myself, especially with the numerous "suicide bandits" but am learning to work around it.


All around a better game and one I recommend, if you can play it coop. I love BL2 enough to say I do not regret buying it at full price, but I can honestly say at the same time, this formula won't work for me a third time, despite the first two installments.

[auxout]

I take it the game is still quite rubbish if played single player then?

[Blackcompany]

I take it the game is still quite rubbish if played single player then?

I would not say its rubbish. That said, my girl and I recently purchased Torchlight 2 and I stumbled onto Stranger's Wrath HD. Were I to play a game solo today, BL2 would certainly be third on my list of games to play.

[Mohorovicic]

I take it the game is still quite rubbish if played single player then?

It's quite rubbish period. Almost everything Borderlands 2 does Borderlands did either better or with more style. Core gameplay is mostly identical so if you're allergic to FPP aRPGs stay away.

[archonsod]

-Too many suicide enemies. This is a shooter. You have one basic melee strike. Yet 50% of the enemies you will fight will insist on rushing you as fast as possible.

Spike or nova shields quickly sort that problem out. Although so far I've not seen that many melee opponents. Apart from the animals each bandit spawn tends to have two or three psychos at most, and it's rare to see more than one or two suicide bombers for the most part. There's the Goliaths of course, but you can avoid that by not shooting their helmet off (or conversely, shoot it off when they're in the middle of their pals and watch the fun).

-The Return of the Bullet Sponges. Because the difference between a grunt and a boss should involve two things: 1. Better costuming and 2. a FAR larger health bar.

The badass and above this time round seem far more likely to be packing special weapons (element damage, rockets etc). Though the variety of enemies is hugely increased, which is nice.

-Physics based impacts. Shotguns and sniper rifles especially will knock enemies backward or off balance, as in Rage. Occasionally a well placed hit will cause an enemy to fall down or drag a wounded leg. Nice touches.

The effect of bullets on environments is much appreciated too, particularly with the physx turned up. It actually looks like a warzone after the battle is finished.

-Many of the better guns now use 2 and 3 rounds per shot. Can be frustrating early, but actually makes ammo matter.

I think the best change there is the way the different arms companies are now actually distinct from each other so you actually see a difference, whether it's Dahl's 'burst fire when zoomed' or Tediore's disposable exploding guns.
The ammo thing isn't a huge problem since there's plenty of ways to regain ammo (and plenty of ammo scattered in most locations). It's annoying at the start purely because it takes so long before you can upgrade your ammo capacities. On the plus side, it does encourage you to pack more than one weapon type (I also note most of the skill trees also support this, it looks like most characters now have at least two weapon types they can focus on, with most buffs applying to both types).

-Shields. The better ones seem to drain health now in exchange for higher shields, making shields a give and take as opposed to the (sometimes overly large and unbalanced) boon of the first game. I found it a little...disappointing, myself, especially with the numerous "suicide bandits" but am learning to work around it.

Define better. Generally I've not seen much point in the turtle shields; spike and nova shields are more useful, although I'm currently having fun with an absorb shield. I actually prefer the change, it means there's far more encouragement to actually think about which shield to use rather than just going for the highest number.

I take it the game is still quite rubbish if played single player then?

I'm enjoying it mainly in single player. Mind you, I loved the first one in single player too.

[gundato]

Yeah, I've been enjoying it thus far. I think I am at level 25 or so at this point.

A tip: If you play as Axton, the left branch (Commando, I think) is obscene. A few good passive boosts (faster reloads and health regen) and a few REALLY good boosts for your turret (missile launchers, longer duration, more dakka, etc). Combine that with a class mod to lower the cooldown and I basically could probably make it through many areas without firing a single round from any of my "real" guns if I wanted to.

[shaydeeadi]

I'm liking the extra chatter from enemies, a Psycho running up behind you screaming 'look at me when I'm charging at you' had me in stitches and the buzzard pilots screaming Ride of the Valkyries was a nice touch. It's another thing that helps make the world feel more alive. I've been impressed by the soundtrack too which I wasn't expecting to be honest. The gun designs are much more varied now which is nice, but I'm struggling to find any spectacular loot at the moment, maybe I just have high standards, this is SP and co-op by the way. Only just got a slag shotgun at level 20, but I like it.

I will agree what Jim said in the review that the game takes a while to get going, but once the shit goes down with sanctuary it's been getting much more fun. The thresher fight and the beacon defence was intense solo, hopefully one of my buddies hasn't finished that yet so I can jump in and enjoy the struggle once more. Oh yeah, I screwed up the murder mystery and still got the rewards and all sorts haha!

It also runs fantastically on my cheap laptop, with everything turned up except physx and getting a solid 50fps which is plenty for me to enjoy myself. I wasn't expecting much more than a tweaked Borderlands with new loot and areas so I'm very satisfied with it currently.

[Finicky]

Moho clearly never made it past the first few hours of the game, or got his ass kicked a few too many times (the game is much less forgiving than blands 1 ).
I'm allergic to Arpgs and I enjoy blands 2 because the loot actually changes the gameplay all the time.

I take it the game is still quite rubbish if played single player then?

The game is fine singleplayer for several reasons.

*Gunplay is much improved :
-recoil systems
-much more interesting gun mechanics like pistols that shoot slow rounds that follow a ballistic trajectory, or bouncing rounds, slower flying projectile explosive rounds etc.
The first game was mostly primitive hitscan shooting, this is a big step up from the poor shooting in blands1

*The story is entertaining enough, much much much improved over the rubbish story of the first game. I don't play zero so I don't have to deal with the constant meme spam that zero players complain about:p
By videogame standards the voice acting is EXCEPTIONAL (which means, it's decent enough by movie standards with some highlights), almost every single "AAA" game has god awful voice acting.

*the sound track is excellent, glad to see that they didn't go for shitty flavor of the month songs but actually have songs that fit the maps and game.
It's almost up to par with half life and portal.

*Loot actually affects gameplay a lot more now, diff guns cater to diff playstyles, it's not just slower or faster reloads, bigger zoom, higher dmg and moar dots. (this is my reason for liking the game)

At least for siren certain gun types and parts synergise well with certain skillbuilds in a meaningful way : e.g aoe phase shift and ele dmg spec + explosive assault rifle/shotgun or rocket launchers + singularity grenades gives you a very different playstyle to speccing for phaseshift duration + reload speed on kill + fire rate boost during phaseshift + using pistols and snipers + reaper.
The former is an build where you herd enemies together to blow them up from up close, the latter is you doing all the damage yourself with good aim and using phase shift to cc one dangerous enemy at a time with the buffs allowing you to take out everyone else one by one in seconds so you can deal with the badass/dangerous enemy 1v1.

Meaningful loot like this sets a new standard for loot games tbh, and is so much better than just asinine damage/block/hp/dot scaling with ever bigger enemy health bars like in every other loot game.
By comparison:
I took one look at the uniques and high lvl loot of torchlight II and lost interest because it's the usual non gameplay affecting generic stat upgrade tripe.


*AI is a big step up, especially in New game + (true vault hunter mode) it has a lot of tricks : the enemies dodge and weave constantly and fast in ng+ , roll away from grenades immediately, jump to lower and higher platforms, get knocked down or flinch from headshots, seek cover inside enemy shield bubbles, the robots repair and shield eachother in new game +, robots change behavior depending on what bits you blow off of them, enemies throw their own grenades, place turrets, vault over cover, use cover in a non-obnoxious way, they turn on eachother or other enemy types etc etc etc.
Basically they are a lot more entertaining to fight than in most recent shooters, and the ai in blands 1 was pretty basic.

*Side quests elaborate on the main story or story characters a lot, and usually it's interesting (angel, tiny tina, meat stick etc stories are quite sad)

Blands 1 was a big lootwhore carrot with decent style and some humor, and people forgave its mediocre or sub par everything else because it was the first 'diablo fps'.
This game actually has fairly decent gameplay to back it up.


There are some inconveniences and rough egdes like:
-the pacing is crap until you get to sanctuary 2 hours into the game, it's a tutorial for new players I suppose but it should be skippable.
-the lousy inventory/shop ui
- enemies becoming bulletsponges unless you have good weapons in ng+ can put the gunplay in the backseat again. This combined with loot having many more possible permutations and requiring specific loot for a specific build means you can sometimes be 6 levels behind on gear (=bulletsponge enemies in ng+)


Overall the game is vastly improved from the first and seems like a decent port (super stable, no mouse smoothing or acceleration, no input lag, wide FOV, good performance).
Not much more you can ask from a sequel I think than the game being a proper marked improvement.

Some tips after finishing the game to make it more enjoyable :
-Upgrade pistol and smg ammo cap at the black market or you'll struggle for ammo, you also can't carry 2-3 of the same weapon like you could in blands 1 for ammo reasons... unless you like having to constantly scavenge every shitty little box for spare ammo.
You are no longer supposed to just 'choose' a weapon through class mod and then stick with it... I personally always have a sniper or rocket launcher in one slot, a good midrange corrosive weapon in another and a good burn weapon in a third.
Electric weapons are optional not that many enemies are shielded and grenades can usually take care of the shield.
Slag is only useful on bosses and super badasses, imo slag grenades are better than slag weapons since switching out weaps is annoying and enemies never come alone.
Slag only lasts a few seconds and is more of a coop play debuff.

-always have a decent corrosive weapon in your bags that won't run out of ammo fast, you will need them for long periods of time throughout the story.

-respec your talents to suit your guns... depending on what guns you find some builds can be a LOT more efficient than others, respeccing is cheap you should do it every time you change your load out a lot.

-exit to menu > resume game will have you end up back at a teleport terminal, this 'll save you a lot of running about during the game and takes mere seconds on my pc. (which has a busted slow dying hard drive).

-feel free to skip timed quests, you get 2 more changes to do them later (new game + and new game 2.5) and they are a massive waste of time.

-blues, purples and oranges no longer drop like candy like in the first game, not even at the end. orange is basically the new pearl , purple the new orange.
Green weapons and shields can often be surprisingly good.

-try out every quest reward weapon and specific boss drop weapons properly,quite a few of them are very very good because of their unique properties (e.g a "fibber" pistol that does enormous critical hit dmg and is still best in slot 10 levels later, or snipers with extra crit dmg etc)

-don't fret over the golden chest... the loot is good for whatever level you open it at, but it's just purples and no unique weapons. Imo just use it at a point where your current weapons feel inadequate after a bad luck streak in drops.
You are guaranteed to be able to farm something equal or better from the final story boss (or the lvl 50 boss) in no time.

-turn the music volume slider way up, the music is good :p

[gundato]

One thing worth saying: Borderlands 2 uses one of my favorite methods of storytelling. The story is actually REALLY dark and tragic, but it is told in a way that is hilarious and avoids a "grimdark" approach.

And the periodic ECHO calls from Handsome Jack definitely help. Very early in the game you'll probably find out that a beloved character from the first was brutally executed. And while sitting there, somewhat in shock, Handsome Jack will then deliver a hilariously awkward and offensive series of calls, resulting in an inability to do anything BUT smirk/laugh. And the game pretty much straddles that line non-stop. You are never certain if you should be laughing hysterically or (just) wanting to kill the crap out of him.


Of course, I can think of one character I DO want to kill the crap out of :p

[Finicky]

One thing worth saying: Borderlands 2 uses one of my favorite methods of storytelling. The story is actually REALLY dark and tragic, but it is told in a way that is hilarious and avoids a "grimdark" approach.

And the periodic ECHO calls from Handsome Jack definitely help. Very early in the game you'll probably find out that a beloved character from the first was brutally executed. And while sitting there, somewhat in shock, Handsome Jack will then deliver a hilariously awkward and offensive series of calls, resulting in an inability to do anything BUT smirk/laugh. And the game pretty much straddles that line non-stop. You are never certain if you should be laughing hysterically or (just) wanting to kill the crap out of him.


Of course, I can think of one character I DO want to kill the crap out of :p

Even though none of this are direct spoilers I'm still gona white out the text since imo it's part of the charm of the game to not know this.
Yeah it's pretty well done, and even jack's character exposition makes you sympathise with him at points.
It's nice when even the (hilariously over the top) bad guys aren't completely black and white evil..
Jack is a caricature but still has depth..
The only weak chars imo are mordecai and roland.
Jack's voice actor really sells the story at the end.

[gundato]

Another character worth commenting on:

Tina was a particularly well done example. She starts off as "Yay, zany batpoop insane kid with explosives and mental illness", which makes her fit in perfectly with 1. Then her tea party which goes from "Ha ha, torture" to "Holy crap... that poor girl...". THEN you find out later on exactly how her family was murdered and why she is so obsessed with explosives... Which makes sense since Wildlife Preserve really isn't played for laughs beyond VERY mild use of Tannis and one or two of Jack's pre-recorded announcements.

[Finicky]

Another character worth commenting on:

Tina was a particularly well done example. She starts off as "Yay, zany batpoop insane kid with explosives and mental illness", which makes her fit in perfectly with 1. Then her tea party which goes from "Ha ha, torture" to "Holy crap... that poor girl...". THEN you find out later on exactly how her family was murdered and why she is so obsessed with explosives... Which makes sense since Wildlife Preserve really isn't played for laughs beyond VERY mild use of Tannis and one or two of Jack's pre-recorded announcements.

They went even further and elaborated on meatstick who murdered her parents and his back story. Which was also sad and cruel since you saw him getting fried by Tina.
Despite that and the angel back story I still felt sorry for jack when I killed angel.

/massive spoiler

Imo you can almost count on one of the DLC featuring tiny tina a lot more, she is not a gag character like 'catch a riiiiiide' hillbilly whose name I can't even remember or his morbidly obese sister.

[Mohorovicic]

Moho clearly never made it past the first few hours of the game, or got his ass kicked a few too many times (the game is much less forgiving than blands 1 ).

I went up to Sanctuary and did some quests there. The game is indeed more challenging - for the first two hours, where your level 1-5 toon fights enemies in generally 2-7 range; especially since melee has been dumbed down substantially and dodging psychos/bullymongs is simply not an option. But once you grind through the initial areas the game becomes exactly like Bordlerlands(that is, if you do every side quest, you will always be 1-3 levels ahead of enemies making combat a relaxing pasttime).

*Gunplay is much improved :
-recoil systems
-much more interesting gun mechanics like pistols that shoot slow rounds that follow a ballistic trajectory, or bouncing rounds, slower flying projectile explosive rounds etc.
The first game was mostly primitive hitscan shooting, this is a big step up from the poor shooting in blands1

Everything you said was in Borderlands, it's just that "quirky" weapon mechanics were mostly limited to unique/special weapons that didn't spawn normally. And for good reason, because it's annoying to find a clearly superior weapon only to notice it shoots in some zany fassion that makes it mostly unusable.

One thing worth saying: Borderlands 2 uses one of my favorite methods of storytelling. The story is actually REALLY dark and tragic, but it is told in a way that is hilarious and avoids a "grimdark" approach.

No, you're thinking of that other game. What was the name... oh right - Borderlands. That game could've been easily made into Gears of War grimdark with very little effort(mostly turning the graphics real and brown and changing some minor mechanics like gun vending machines).

Borderlands 2 features guns that are reloaded by throwing them at the enemy in an explosive fashion, first NPC you meet is a faux british "hunter scholar gentleman" complete with a (almost)monocle, and Baron Flynt's base has a giant junk sculpture of a dragon breathing fire for absolutely no reason.

Nah, it would take much more than a few touches to turn this into something that can be taken even remotely seriously.

And the periodic ECHO calls from Handsome Jack definitely help. Very early in the game you'll probably find out that a beloved character from the first was brutally executed. And while sitting there, somewhat in shock, Handsome Jack will then deliver a hilariously awkward and offensive series of calls, resulting in an inability to do anything BUT smirk/laugh. And the game pretty much straddles that line non-stop. You are never certain if you should be laughing hysterically or (just) wanting to kill the crap out of him.

"Butt-stalion" - a pony made of diamonds. Yes, how can you not laugh at that?

I think anyone who genuinely finds this game funny is prime 4chan material. It's almost a textbook definition of "trying too hard"

[archonsod]

*Side quests elaborate on the main story or story characters a lot, and usually it's interesting (angel, tiny tina, meat stick etc stories are quite sad)

Claptrap's party was the saddest :P

I quite like the more amusing ones too. So far I've killed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, had something riff off Life of Brian and currently am engaged in something not entirely removed from Moby Dick.

-Upgrade pistol and smg ammo cap at the black market or you'll struggle for ammo, you also can't carry 2-3 of the same weapon like you could in blands 1 for ammo reasons... unless you like having to constantly scavenge every shitty little box for spare ammo.

That depends on the character - the Commando can substantially increase his assault rifle ammo, and the Gunzerker can regenerate ammo. The gunzerker also gets a bonus to dual wielding the same type of weapon during his active ability (although you get a different bonus for two different types of weapon too).
Generally speaking though the more weapons you diversify into, the less likely you are to hit the bullet sponge problem you mentioned. If you don't get any decent drops in your main weapon category it's good to be able to switch to whatever you do have a good drop for.

You are no longer supposed to just 'choose' a weapon through class mod and then stick with it...

I've yet to see a class mod that affects a single weapon type - closest so far has been the loyalty mods which affect all weapons by a specific manufacturer.

especially since melee has been dumbed down substantially

Are you sure you were playing the same game? Melee is identical to BL1 (you have a single melee attack). Of course, one character can now specialise in it, there's more weapons with +melee damage and you now have nova and spike shields to make it interesting. So they dumbed it down by adding more options and making it a viable build for one of the characters?

But once you grind through the initial areas the game becomes exactly like Bordlerlands(that is, if you do every side quest, you will always be 1-3 levels ahead of enemies making combat a relaxing pasttime)

Not unless you're playing on easy, no.

[popej]

....Not unless you're playing on easy, no.

You can change the difficulty?

The games great so far and I play exclusively single player (for those of you having doubts about the purchase). One annoyance I'm having is with the sound though. Specifically, someone fires a gun 400m away but it sounds like they're standing next to you.

I still think there are far better ways to do the levelling system though, I'm at sanctuary now and I'm already starting to over-level a bit :( . Skipping side quests is irritating for a completionist like me. Why they couldn't just SEVERELY nerf the experience gain from killing enemies more than 1 level below you I'll never know, at the moment is just isn't punishing enough.

[Flint]

I'm very much enjoying the game as well and I more or less play on singleplayer exclusively right now. It feels improved on Borderlands on nearly every aspect - I still think the guns be a little bit more random and bizarre, but now at least every one I've used so far has operated at least somewhat differently so it's felt like I've had different weapons rather than just boring reskins. Overall though, it's exactly what I expected and wanted - Borderlands but with the wonks and issues that bugged me removed.

I'm doing every sidequest I see and I don't really feel overleveled, still get a decent amount of challenge fairly often. Though that may just be because I'm playing a sniper Zer0, which means I'm not as strong in the very middle of a heated battlefield as other classes.

[JayTee]

I'm loving it, it's more-or-less a straight improvement over BL1 in almost every aspect.

Grenades are a lot more varied and interesting with the addition of 'mine' grenades, seeker grenades and slag grenades. I've been enjoying the MIRV grenades, like I did in BL1, but recently found a hilariously powerful fire 'mine' grenade which combines nicely with the Acid Cloud spec on Maya and my random spraying of elemental effects from various weapons.

Shields are also a lot more varied, the 'amp' shields are pretty neat for sniping and the odd rocket launcher, while the 'melee' shields are quite fun for dealing with the occasional Psycho swarm.

Guns are more enjoyable because each manufacturer has some more 'theme', the gun models and textures are also a large improvement and there's a seeming LOT more variety in how they look/reload/sound. Enemies also seem to have a broader selection of weapons, rather than just the odd elemental Crimson Lance dude having elemental effects a good number of the Badass and some of the random 'others' have effects which makes for some more interesting manshooting.

The story is vastly improved. Not that that is particularly impressive as BL1 had a terrible story, while I'm quite enjoying the stuff right now. Jack is amusing, he's ridiculously childish at points but actually I'm finding he makes me laugh on occasion. Tanis is awesome, definitely some of the most amusing ECHO messages from her.

So far I've just played Maya, up to level 24 and 'reasonably' into the Storyline. I've been doing a lot of the sidequests but the game is anything but a walk in the park despite this. I've died a LOT more in BL2 than I ever did in BL1, though frankly Lilith was hilariously overpowered in BL1 with the right build and a decent elemental weapon. Maya seems to be a lot more balanced in that respect.

I've a few gripes (UI is a bit wonky, STOP GIVING ME GOD-DAMNED PISTOLS) but a solid improvement over BL1 I feel that merits it at least three and a half Midgets.

[Mohorovicic]

Are you sure you were playing the same game? Melee is identical to BL1 (you have a single melee attack). Of course, one character can now specialise in it, there's more weapons with +melee damage and you now have nova and spike shields to make it interesting. So they dumbed it down by adding more options and making it a viable build for one of the characters?

As if nova and spike are anything but a gimmick. When your shield is gone it's generally time to hide your ass, not go in swinging your sword.

The melee is dumbed down because of the enemy attacks, not yours. Most melee attacks in Borderlands could be dodged, either by backstepping or sidestepping. I killed Badass Psychos with nothing but melee attacks on more than one occassion, and I never even shot a bullet at a Skag.

That was offset by the fact that enemy melee attacks were very strong; a single swing of a Psycho took away all your shields, no matter the actual value, with second you were almost dead, and with third you were in Last Stand. So you could melee them, but if you made a mistake you paid dearly for it.

In BL2 it doesn't matter; none of the enemy melee attacks can be dodged, the hitboxes are simply too large(this is especially funny on the PC with 90 or more FOV since the game's melee attack disance was obviously optimised for something like 60); you're expected to simply press and hold the fire button, and only tactic is "kill them before they kill you".

Then you run out of ammo because you're not carrying an using four different guns like the game wants you to.

[popej]

Are there revolvers like the ones Mordecai specialised in? Or just pistols with high single shot damage/small magazines?

Ta.

[gundato]

We get it mohor, you are awesome and hate the game.

Are there revolvers like the ones Mordecai specialised in? Or just pistols with high single shot damage/small magazines?

Ta.

There are pistols with revolver animations, but they all feel more like "high caliber semi-automatics" to me.

And I have yet to find a masher, which is probably for the best. Mordecai basically stopped picking up new guns after I find my first masher in 1 :p