Borderlands (1, 2, 3, The Pre-Sequel, TftB)

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DeadwastePrime said:
shit humor has been a constant staple of the human experience for thousands of years as we do it all the time in our lives to the point we made jokes about it
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Yeah but they keep mentioning "shit farm" from the first vault hunters backstory. What even is a "shit farm"? I remember the fallout show also having a shit farm as well and the joke was "You keep feeding people to shit so they can attract flies so others can eat for protin".
 
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Secret Boots said:
Vex origin story. She works retail, Borderlands Black Friday comes, she gets siren powers at gunpoint and then kills everyone. Humor is a lot better than I expected.
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Ngl it gave me a good laugh, honestly feels very borderlands-ish. If they can keep the same level humor, the game aint completely fucked yet.
 
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Chin of Campbell said:
I'd like BL3 if the game let me play it. Tried playing through it with a buddy and there are no fucking enemies. Anywhere. We were doing long walks through fucking completely deserted cities on our way to the next 40 minute "comedy" setpiece where we'd get blabbed at by characters, unable to do anything until they were done talking about a story neither of us gave even a single shit about.

During the 20-30 second sequences where the game would finally spawn 3-4 enemies we would immediately mulch them and then it was back to walking or listening. Fuck Borderlands 3. Even the Pre-Sequel got the "dungeons full of enemies" shit right.
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The "Dialogue Skipper" mod is necessary for replays and new games if you have a PC. Makes the game way better.
@naffatune I'd argue the opposite. I think base game BL3 maps are great, and a lot better than base game BL2 maps. The expansiveness of maps like Devil's Razor lends itself to more sub-locations, and therefore more things to see and do. Sprinkling in the Crew Challenges was also a cool feature, gives you more of reason to look for hidden mini-bosses and explore the map in general. Maps in BL2 on the other hand, felt a bit too small and at times linear.
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I disagree. In fact throughout Borderlands 1 and 2 and the Pre Sequel many of the levels feel too big and too stretched of content. 3 made it way worse. The "interesting content and combat" to "doing literally nothing but walking and trying to Bunnyhop or drive to the next slice of content while these trash mobs do pitiful damage to you or your car" is a staple in the series that never got fixed. Which is absurd, because it's supposed to be a high octane looter shooter. I hate that. I love borderlands, 2 with all DLC's is my favorite but even the DLC maps stretch out the playing field for way too long just for the sake of it being a "big planet". I don't care for that shit. It's not fun and only wastes your time. Every fucking game has this problem as far as I know. They need better level design. I am immersed into 1 and 2's Pandora but at the cost of it being way too large for its own good. Only thing I'll give 3 is letting you fast travel from anywhere which is immediately murdered by their shitty real-time cutscenes and character animations you cannot stop which waste your time way worse than jumping to the objective across the long level in 1/2/PS.

The issue wouldn't even be a thing if they let you speed up your movement and if sprint actually fucking did something or was able to be upgraded. Nope! Have slightly faster movement. The speed boost candies in the Halloween level in 2 were on the right track

This is the other oddity; why have these character classes if they don't play too differently? If I have a siren that bitch or punk should glide at a rapid pace. Give classes multiple core abilities to justify no more DLC characters. I love all the different abilities but you'd think an experienced game designer team would have had this figured out by the beginning of 2's development. This leads me to believe BORDERLANDS 1‐4 is not playtested thoroughly among its developers and its handed off to playtesters and other people who don't have input with the game design. How the fuck do you see the appeal of Diablo type games and allow this formula to stagnate? 3 had some good ideas but they were lifted from existing trendy games at the time and didn't do much to prevent the design pitfalls that have been a plague since 1. I know Gearbox will never be the team who made Half Life Opposing Force again but holy shit they've needed a better team since 2.

I say all of this because Borderlands is treated like the junk food of this subgenre. And while it isn't some artistic masterpiece it deserves way better than what it's been given because I think the concepts that it piggybacks off of are amazing. It began as this Mad Max bootleg and any other 2000s game look, but then they saw Ben Hibon's CODEHUNTERS short film, pulled the greasiest ghost ever after contacting him in 2006/2007 and went full speed on the artstyle change.
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Safe to say the art style was the bulk of their success. We wouldn't even be discussing it here beyond "that mediocre 2008 game" if it weren't for them ripping off Ben Hibon. Frankly, I don't care since I live in a timeline where BL2 exists; it's shitty and he should be credited but they can get away with it because Randy Pitchford is the master of grease. The art style got expanded in 2 to be a way more colorful and diverse universe than 1 showed.
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To show what I mean by "this series deserves way better", both on the FPS and RPG side of mechanics we'll look at NIOH 2 for example, it elevated these "soulslike" and "Diablo" elements and stands as one of the best ((action)) rpg games in modern gaming. It plays as a character action game but has particular gimmicks that allow for true skill expression with an ARPG PoE/Diablo/Grim Dawn style tree system for each weapon you favor. It's one of the only skill trees I don't roll my eyes at because you are allowed to invest as much as you desire to put into a weapon which unlock more ways to fuck up the enemies. Experimentation feels great. You're rewarded for using a weapon, scoring more familiarity and profeciencies which allow new skills to be unlocked, which you can then customize to an extent. You even get optional status rewards similar to the BL2 badass token system which give great bonuses for playing well and achieving certain goals like "kill this enemy 50 times", it's addictive and serves as a reason to continue playing even on NG+2.

I think Borderlands is capable of being on the level of "simple fun", and "FPS skill expression" in a way Nioh 2 was for its genre. Gearbox are just too lazy to innovate or change the bed they made to lay in. Borderlands can be so much more than just the "looter shooter". It can be an even higher octane BADASS experience that truly gives a memorable addition to the Diablo (arpg) + FPS formula that it attemped to establish.

Borderlands shouldn't have this meaningless abundance of guns, I think each gun type should play into the way you handle combat. SMG's should be useful, like making enemies stagger which opens up a window into the criticals. Big brute is dragging you down? You can take him out with a normal dainty pistol but a rocket launcher/rocket pistol (TORGUE BRANDS), explosive splash damage would yield better results that can blow him apart from a crit or stagger him. The way borderlands handles damage types and the way enemies are affected by them only got a little important in BL3. 2 experimented with it by having corrosive damage as a priority against the Hyperion robot army but all it did was trivialize the fuck out of them. But even that's not the end, their weakpoints made the corrosive status weakness not as much of a priority when you can just spam shots in their red visors or joints and call it a day. I think there should be an evolution of damage types and usages (and the ways enemies can use them against you depending on the character you are) which give you a reason to keep different weapon types instead of finding a one trick pony revolver (which you could still do, but it'd make the weapon lineup more interesting). The way Crits are handled should also be addressed. I think crits should be able to eventually stagger enemies in rapid succession to reward skillful aims. They'd have a stagger/stamina gauge under the health bar like Nioh but it would be more useful in bossfights or against tankier enemies, which opens up expansions into the way melee is handled. I think Melee in Borderlands should be more than just a lame joystick push then an animation. You should be able to go a full melee route for characters and go METAL GEAR RISING on enemies once you trigger a stamina break. Different characters have different melee gameplay styles. A ZER0 ripoff would have the Raiden moveset with an emphasis on aiming at critical spots in conjunction with Max Payne slowdown abilities from his katana tree, KRIEG would have a buzzsaw rampage system that gets more powerful as you pull succesive kill combos, etc. The skill paths for the expanded melee system would be called something like BLOODLUST. This is all something I am just conceptualizing FOR FREE as a fan, I may as well make my own damn Borderlands adjacent cel shaded game with Blackjack and Hookers.
 
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Finished Borderlands 3 and...that's it. There really in not much to say. I really liked the foreshadowing that Troy was going to betrayal Tyrine but it was like they remembered only women can be the major players in the game and pulled back in the last second. I found the game to be much easier then the older games. The bandits not having shields made fire build very effective since they what you fighting 80% throughout the game. Weapons drop was also better. I always got a new weapon every 2 levels or so and it felt like a big upgrade. Some hate it because it makes epics and legendary feel well, less epic and legendary but i welcome the change. Worst part of borderlands 2 or pre-sequal was being stuck with a underpowerd weapon. Will try the DLCs on a later date on TVHM

On that note I want to be Moze personal little scrub.
 
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Hermiöne Granger said:
Randy Pitchford just showed off every area name and marcus bobblehead location in Borderlands 4. No more secret location for you :story:

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That's what I love about video games. Random items and objects scattered around for the player to collect.

I've seen Borderlands 4's UI. Compared to Borderlands 3's UI, it looks too clean and generic. I know Borderlands takes place in the future, but does the UI have to look so sterile?
 
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Gravityqueen4life said:
Whats up with Moxie wanting to kill most of her EXs? The one she sent me to kill was hosting a tournament were if you win, you got to have sex with him. What a retarded plot line.
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I really didn't like Moxxi in BL3. Her overly vengeful attitude to that guy rubbed me the wrong way when she's a revolving door of partners.

I know they tried to turn her into the sassy head of the burlesque manor from BL2 onwards, but my favourite iteration of her was honestly the Underdome. I remember a bunch of different lines she said while you suffered through that particular DLC, but for the life of me I can't remember anything she's said since then besides being a bitch.

She had great tits music back then too:

 
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The Last Stand said:
That's what I love about video games. Random items and objects scattered around for the player to collect.

I've seen Borderlands 4's UI. Compared to Borderlands 3's UI, it looks too clean and generic. I know Borderlands takes place in the future, but does the UI have to look so sterile?
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It doesn't look too sterile to me, it just looks weird and blocky. I think I'm a fan of taking a new direction for the UI, seeing as BL3 had basically perfect design (minus the constant popups for tokens, cards, points, etc) but I'm skeptical of how it's going to hold up. Just looks distracting to my eye

That Chris Guy said:
I really didn't like Moxxi in BL3. Her overly vengeful attitude to that guy rubbed me the wrong way when she's a revolving door of partners.
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Not that the story has ever been taken too seriously, but BL3 was so retarded with absolutely zero decent character development that it's hard to even treat any of it as canon. They could have taken so many awesome directions with the characters introduced in 2, and they decided on a bizarre gynocentric fanfiction-style plot that would feel more at home in my little pony than in BL. Typical loser activist political injection was to be expected but still beyond disappointing. I plan on doing a BL3 rewrite at some point, just for my own sanity.
 
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