Déjà vu: PC Borderlands 2 won't suck

[I.S.T.]

Considering it was announced around the same time as Borderlands was, that was wishful thinking at best.

 

[I.S.T.]

A friend of mine scored me a Borderlands 2 code. Fuckin' sweet, I lust for this game.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Borderlands 2 Livestream gameplay video from PAX, featuring Maya (quality not great):

Salvadore gameplay:

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

New Borderlands 2 Trailer: Sir Hammerlock introduces Borderlands 2:

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Boderlands 2 Skill Tree Calculators are up. Go to Characters, choose your character and then choose the skills to see what you can do with your character's skills.

 

[I.S.T.]

I am convinced in normal gameplay, with the right build, Axton is unfuckingkillable.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I am convinced in normal gameplay, with the right build, Axton is unfuckingkillable.

I'm also going to go with Axton first off, as I really like that sort of medium range, high accuracy build, very guncentric, but not as narrowly focussed or as close up as the gunzerker. Plus, I always see the turret as my little distraction/helper in combat. Maybe like Roland, he's supposed to be the "normal/generalist" build that's good for playing the game in single player.

I think it's quite clever the way they've done the skill trees. One skill doesn't just link to the next, there's a sort of fuel bar requirement that fills the skill tree to get you to the next level of skills.

The biggest problem is that I always want to be able to have enough skill points to eventually get every skill in every tree and become an unstoppable killing machine. I don't want to choose which skill I can get, just which ones I want first. I want the skill points to max out at 200, not 50. I want to be able to get everything to max and mow through all the opponents. But they are making me choose! They'll probably raise the level caps in the DLCs just like they did in the first game.

 

[I.S.T.]

Yeah, I do wish they'd have more skill points by default. =\ I dunno if I'd go as high as 200 though, maybe 100'd be best?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Made me LOL when I saw that people are organising themselves to co-op the game with a team of four Axtons just so they can use artillery thoughout the game.

 

[green.pixel]

The biggest problem is that I always want to be able to have enough skill points to eventually get every skill in every tree and become an unstoppable killing machine. I don't want to choose which skill I can get, just which ones I want first. I want the skill points to max out at 200, not 50. I want to be able to get everything to max and mow through all the opponents. But they are making me choose!

What would be the point of character development systems and skill trees then if you could get everything you want in one playthough? :smile:

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

What would be the point of character development systems and skill trees then if you could get everything you want in one playthough? :smile:

What's the point in playing the game through twice when you've just played it through already? Especially if you can't level up and get more skills? If you've got to have several builds on each character to see all the skills, five different characters (including the Mechromancer), and single/multiplayer, just how many times can you play through the same content?

I think I was spoiled because I came to Borderlands late, so that all the DLC was available, it it was possible to keep going up the ranks/skills as you played. There's nothing worse than a loot+level game where you hit your level cap and then everything stops improving. You stop finding better loot, stop levelling up, and if you've already done a playthrough and seen the story, what's the point?

It's one of the things I liked about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning that you could fill out a character's complete skill tree for your chosen profession in one playthrough and you could respec quite easily (though I only did it once). Of course, when I did that I wanted to fill out all the other skill trees too! I think I might have some kind of gaming OCD....

 

[green.pixel]

What's the point in playing the game through twice when you've just played it through already? Especially if you can't level up and get more skills? If you've got to have several builds on each character to see all the skills, five different characters (including the Mechromancer), and single/multiplayer, just how many times can you play through the same content?

Well, the systems should be designed in such way to provide the player quite a bit different experience when playing with a different character. I am thinking about games like Deus Ex and Bloodlines which are like that. Haven't played Borderlands though, but it seems that's not the case there.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Well, the systems should be designed in such way to provide the player quite a bit different experience when playing with a different character. I am thinking about games like Deus Ex and Bloodlines which are like that. Haven't played Borderlands though, but it seems that's not the case there.

You can play the game differently with different character builds, but it's still the same game. They didn't make different content for different characters.

There's some interesting commentary from Randy Pitchford in one of the videos upstream saying how they deliberately didn't make content for specific characters. They didn't want to spend time on content that wouldn't be seen, and they didn't want duplicate content (eg different paths) because then one might be better than the other, and they wanted to give the best experience possible at all times.

 

[banksie]

It is worth pointing out that in Borderlands 2 they now have a vending machine that lets you pay to respec all your skill point allocations, so you can fairly easily juggle em around to try different things if you so wish. Naturally the more skill points the more expensive this gets...

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

It is worth pointing out that in Borderlands 2 they now have a vending machine that lets you pay to respec all your skill point allocations, so you can fairly easily juggle em around to try different things if you so wish. Naturally the more skill points the more expensive this gets...

Yeah, but they are making it painful enough that you have to live with the consequences. They don't want you respeccing all the time. You still don't get enough points to max everything out, but at least you can juggle things around to see what you like.

 

[Rodéric]

Not having played the first one, can anyone describe me how the game plays like in multiplayer ?
(I don't intend to play it solo at all.)
What games is it similar to, what about the pace, is it boring/are you weak before gaining levels ?

 

[banksie]

Think first person Diablo clone. It gets as hectic and crazy in multiplayer as the monsters heavily ramp up in numbers plus nastiness but the various characters have skills that complement each other so team play gets rewarded.

Also the loot gets better in multiplayer too so you find cooler guns.

 

[I.S.T.]

Steam preload is out. Restart Steam to get it.

 

[Billy Idol]

Steam preload is out. Restart Steam to get it.

Already loaded

 

[gkar1]

I remember the first Borderlands was a TWIMTBP game and the cell shaded cartoony effect they added greatly favored Nvidia hardware and hurt AMD based cards' performance. I was about to buy this second installment in the series but a friend came across a video showing that they've implemented Physx effects to the game meaning they are in bed with Nvidia again. So I have to ask, are we in for a repeat of the first one regarding performance favoring one IHV over the other?