Borderlands 2 [PS3, X360]

[Cornsnake]

I just maxed out the Bloodshet tree. It makes melee very powerful, especially in combination with the Law pistol and Order shield.

I also have that Bison rifle, I do like it. But it only headshot kills the weakest enemies for me because I haven't invested points in sniping.

The game is still skipping ahead for me every time I play co-op. And now I'm certain that it has also skipped past missions I haven't even done.

 

[Billy Idol]

I wonder if I do it wrong in BL2. I have now over 50hours put into the game. But i am just lvl 31. I did all side missions so far, no excuse and did not die often.

Is there a specific way how to do quests? In a certain order to maximise the EXP you get?

I hear people only playing solo as me for 50hours and reaching lvl 45? How is this possible...

 

[Cornsnake]

If you do all of the side quests you'll inevitability be doing missions several levels below you. The enemies you'll face will also be below your level and hardly give you any XP.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If you do all of the side quests you'll inevitability be doing missions several levels below you. The enemies you'll face will also be below your level and hardly give you any XP.

But the total XP will be higher, unless they've screwed up the XP scaling.

 

[Cornsnake]

But the total XP will be higher, unless they've screwed up the XP scaling.

Killing higher level enemies gets you more XP faster. Kill an enemy of a low enough level and you'll only get 1 XP. And if the next level needs 50000 XP that'll take forever.

I do think they were a little too aggressive with scaling down XP for enemies only a few levels below you. But then again that would make you higher level, making the level difference bigger, causing the same problem.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Well it sort of rubberbands. If you do all the story missions, then you're OP'd for the side missions, and you get less XP. If you go too far ahead on the side missions, then your XP gathering slows down. If you fall too far behind, then you get more XP from kills. I think it's designed that way so you can't get too far ahead or behind where you should be as you progress through the game.

Personally, I like to do all the side missions before I continue with the next story mission. This keeps the story alive for longer, and allows me to explore the different areas, find the fast travel stations (making subsequent travel faster), and generally level up.

I find that if I rush through the story, you just end up with a load of side missions afterwards which makes me feel kind of "meh". Not doing the side missions also tends to leave you underpowered for the story missions, and can get frustrating if you die too much

 

[NRP]

I do the same as BZB.

I really like this game. The combat is so satisfying.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Killing higher level enemies gets you more XP faster. Kill an enemy of a low enough level and you'll only get 1 XP. And if the next level needs 50000 XP that'll take forever.

That's the same with all these games with scaling XP, but it doesn't enable you to gain more experience by doing less side-quests unless they've broken it somehow.

If an area is scaled to a specific level, let's say level 10 and by the end of it, you hit level 12. And let's say that at level 12, monsters in that area only award 1 XP. And let's say that there are 100 monsters in that area. A player reaching that area at level 10 will score lots of XP until, after killing all 100 monsters, they reach level 12. A player reaching that level at level 12 will only get 1XP per kill, but that means they leave the area at level 12+100 XP.

A conventional XP scaling game cannot put you ahead on XP with less kills unless it's wrongly implemented. With my experience of many an RPG, the way to maximise XP in such games is to kill things until you can gain XP no longer, and then cash in your quests for their fixed-bonus XP. Sometimes you'll get a boss who's kill awards a stupid amount of XP when taken early, but even then you should then be slowed down on every other kill that you don't get far ahead.

In Borderlands, side quests award equipment which encouraged their adoption, ensuring you'd be highly levelled in the main quest. I've been playing it through again skipping most side quests and I'm right on the nail for given quest difficulty.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I was under the impression that the side missions in Borderlands don't scale until PT2. So if it's a lvl 10 mission and you don't go into it until lvl 19, all the enemies are still lvl 10 and you get virtually no EXP for doing it.

But on PT2, the enemies in all areas scale to you, so it doesn't matter the lvl of the mission.

At least that's how BL 1 was, and it seems to be how this is working for me so far.

It also seems that it takes a lot longer to level up in B2 than B1. I don't know what it is, I just checked the exp tiers and they are identical to BL1, so it's either the missions or maybe because I'm playing solo for longer than before because I can't find a similiarly leveled character to play with for any length of time this go around.

 

[Billy Idol]

Well, I basically play the same like you guys: do all the side missions (except the three with time limit, no thanks) than move on. Problem is that you are than overpowered for the story mission and don't get EXP for killing (only 1 EXP).

It is exactly the calculation Shifty presented that I fear: getting 1EXP, killing 100 gives you 100EXP plus the mission bonus EXP. Maybe the EXP is somehow broken and you need to do it in the right order.

Problem is, even though killing enemies with 1EXP or say the larger ones with 10EXP: you often cannot rush, because the can still kill you rather quickly. That is why I often think that EXP downgrading is to aggressive in BL2.

An example: I played 3h yesterday. Was level 31. I did three side missions in a new area, basically cleared that area. The mission lvl was 28, 29 and 29. Killing enemies gave me 100 - 200 EXP. So this was ok. Mission bonus was about 15k EXP total. But with all this, it took me the whole 3h to reach lvl 32, with constant fighting and killing. Furthermore did the lost treasure quest...after an hour, lame loot as hell: three green grenade mods


I have now 55h put into the game, am at lvl 32. So in average more than an hour per lvl. But this will increase quickly when I need 3h for each new lvl.

Despite all this: game is amazing, one of the best out there. Game keeps delivering new missions and areas...amazing. One of my favorite games so far!

I used my shotgun yesterday the first time, as I wanted to save me my sniper ammo for the long journey. I somehow looted a purple one, ages ago with 345 x 17 damage. Its called Social Crowdsourcing or something like this...and it is surprisingly my absolute best gun?? Way better than my snipers! It just rips everything apart, even in mid range! I found myself running around like a flak monkey, using snipers only for far away copters. Crazy!

Today, I go for the story mission...which is unfortunately lvl 25...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I was under the impression that the side missions in Borderlands don't scale until PT2. So if it's a lvl 10 mission and you don't go into it until lvl 19, all the enemies are still lvl 10 and you get virtually no EXP for doing it.

But on PT2, the enemies in all areas scale to you, so it doesn't matter the lvl of the mission.

At least that's how BL 1 was, and it seems to be how this is working for me so far.

I've seen enemies scale a little in BL1 (first Skag pups become Skag whelps when you're higher level), but never to the point that XP was relevant. Even with bonus XP advantages, the difference at the end of a first play through is level 35 instead of level 34. I can't see any way to get several levels ahead, other than maybe farming XP at Old Haven or replaying the last area killing Guardians over and over.

Of course, I'm not playing BL2 so probably should keep my trap shut because I don't know how its XP works in game!

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

There's no good or bad way to do the side/main missions in terms of getting more XP. Each story mission comes with a load of surrounding side missions. You can see this by doing all the side missions until there are none left, and then you have to do a story mission. This tends to move you onto a new area with a load of new side missions.

If you consider that each section is basically a story mission with a cluster of side missions, then whether you do the side missions or the story missions first is kind of irrelevant. You will either get more XP from the side missions and less from the story, or more from the story missions and less from the side missions. At the end of each section you will pretty much be at the same level.

That's how the game advances, and there are side missions and story missions that can't be completed until you finish most of the cluster of missions before it. Sometimes you simply can't progress, mostly because you can't easily go up against enemies many levels higher than you. Even if you did, you would get so much XP so quickly, you would level up to them very fast and find yourself getting less XP from the other missions in that cluster.

Personally, I wouldn't want to rush through the story missions anyway. That seems like a way of spoiling the game by not savouring all the other things going on during the side missions. Kind of like going to a buffet and just wolfing down the most expensive thing until you are full, and not tasting any of the other nice things to eat.

BTW, I am level 33 with just over 51 hours playtime. I bet everyone else with a similar playtime is within a 2-3 levels of that regardless of how they did the missions. I do tend to grab all the missions in an area and do them all at once instead of going back and forth all the time.

 

[Scott_Arm]

This game is absolutely great. Still early on, since I'm not playing every day, but every time we do play I have a lot of fun. The enemies are far more interesting this time around.

 

[Billy Idol]

Am at lvl 33 now, took me again 3h. I mean, I know if I want to I can go and farm certain areas which seem always to be high lvl areas, such as Lynchwood, just to fast increase the rank...but I am to lazy for this.

But yesterday, I went crazy: I respected my Zero, which was up to then 28 points spent in Sniping. I think that sniping tree is really powerful. Up to this moment of gaming, I did not run into any real trouble. Of course I died a couple of times, but fortunately this is a non issue in BL2. Have the right snipers with effects, and just rip through them. Important: Bore Skill which marks enemy crit spots while in deception. Use it and learn how to kill. I kill a Badass War Loader just in two shots knowing his weak spots plus crit bonus instead of 10+ shots without crit. Peoblem with sniping tree: top skill is to difficult to use for me. Crit after crit after crit to get the effect...to difficult and not really useful for me.

I completely respected to Cunning, just for the kicks. I tried Death Blossom and it is really as powerful as people write. If your knives hit the target, which is a little bit tricky, it just rips it appart. With lvl 32 I killed a big lvl 31 monster side mission boss with just the kunais in 5 seconds. It is interesting, because now I use Deception more often, whereas for my sniper build I just used it to escape hefty situations.

I will test some more. But I must say that all the sniper skills are missing at first. I have to get used to this. E.G. Critical hit with my Bison rifle is 16k compared to the 36k with the sniper build...fortunately still one shot one kill

It seems: Full Cunning up to the top with Sniping up to Bore is an ideal combination. I need LVL 42 or so for this...

 

[Billy Idol]

Finished the game today.

Lvl 35
63h playtime
Nearly all side missions

Did sneak into true vault hunter mode...boy, this is tough! You really need the fitting elemental weapons to make damage!!

Loot, EXP is much better! Got to lvl 36 in an hour.
Also got my forst legendary from endboss, but maybe have to replace it soon!

 

[Cornsnake]

I respeced into the sniping tree. Considering the general inaccuracy of most guns is a good tree. I like being able to take apart Loaders piece by piece.

 

[Billy Idol]

So true vault hunter mode.

Most people recommend the following: leave side quests until you reach lvl 50, because they scale to your lvl after beating the game again so you get lvl 50 loot from the side missions.

Some people recommend to do all side missions that have no special reward, or only greens. Question: how do I find out which reward I get? I think I have to accept a side mission to see its awards?!? Once activated, the lvl is also listed.

So do those missions rescale to lvl 50, after I beat the game again reaching 50?

Or does this mean that I gave to check a Wiki for the loot reward before accepting a side mission?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I respeced into the sniping tree. Considering the general inaccuracy of most guns is a good tree. I like being able to take apart Loaders piece by piece.

One issue I had with accuracy in BD1 was that it couldn't be improved towards perfect. I could buy mods that would add accuracy, like +50% accuracy, and yet the deviation of the bullet from centre wasn't greatly affected. This made sniping at a distance no good, even with the sniper dude spec'd as a sniper. You'd aim at their heads, pull the trigger, and the bullet would go wide, even on a 98% accuracy rifle with maximum "improved accuracy" benefits.

Is this any different in BL2?

 

[Cornsnake]

One issue I had with accuracy in BD1 was that it couldn't be improved towards perfect. I could buy mods that would add accuracy, like +50% accuracy, and yet the deviation of the bullet from centre wasn't greatly affected. This made sniping at a distance no good, even with the sniper dude spec'd as a sniper. You'd aim at their heads, pull the trigger, and the bullet would go wide, even on a 98% accuracy rifle with maximum "improved accuracy" benefits.

Is this any different in BL2?

I'd say it's about same. The barrel still wanders while you're aiming, the bullets can go slightly off centre, and the gun still kicks after every shot.

The biggest difference are the assault rifles. There just isn't one that can fire accurately.

 

[Billy Idol]

One issue I had with accuracy in BD1 was that it couldn't be improved towards perfect. I could buy mods that would add accuracy, like +50% accuracy, and yet the deviation of the bullet from centre wasn't greatly affected. This made sniping at a distance no good, even with the sniper dude spec'd as a sniper. You'd aim at their heads, pull the trigger, and the bullet would go wide, even on a 98% accuracy rifle with maximum "improved accuracy" benefits.

Is this any different in BL2?

I would say that this is a non issue in BL2. At least for me. Snipers are so accurate, that I do not even border specing the accuracy skill. Bigger problem is bullet speed. If you are far away with fast moving targets you have of course take this into account. But then there is the Velocity skill, which ups the bullet speed drastically.

I even once found an automatic sniper with faster than typicalAssault Rifle firerate which was super accurate.

Assault Rifles are different, they often lack accuracy and are thus for mid range combat. SMG are very non accurate but obviously for close range only.

Thr best thing in BL is: there are this many exceptions, it is super fun. I once even found a Shotgun with 97+ accuracy...could snipe with that thing! Furthermore, if you go for Hyperion made weapons, they have the bonus thst acvuracy increases while shooting! Those things are perfectly accurate...

Shifty, just go and get it...super great game, one of the best this gen, massive content, everything improved from BL1 and what makes me nervous: True Vault Hunter mode (new game+) makes even more fun than playthrough 1....value of yhis game is unlimited!

TVH mode: After I adjusted to the increased difficulty (enemies can down you in 3 shots, or even one; elemental damage and resistance is much stronger, so you often swap weapon to adjust to the enemy...which kind of brings nice strategic play to BL) it is as difficult as the first play through up to now. I just landed in Sanctuary. This time, killing Captain Flint was easier than in PT1. Mainly because of Death Blossom skill in Cunning tree and because I got a legendary Assault Rifle, with 4096 explosion damage and large magazine size and good fire rate

Oh, and you lvl up faster of course. Am now at lvl 38. I really think that Cunning to the top plus Sniper to Bore is a hell of a combination....have to wait to lvl 42 for this

I also read that there are some ugly difficulties on the way...