Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: StealthSigma Sep 25 2012, 06:35 PM

Noticed at least a couple people have this game.

I would like to start out with the bounties.

$5,000,000,000.00 for Axton for war crimes.
$32,000,000,000.00 for Zer0 for political assassination.
$99,000,000,000.99 for Salvadore for manslaughter, theft, arson, destruction of property, trespassing, cannibalism, public indecency, and profanity.
$720,000,000,000 for Maya for being a siren.

Posted by: Halinn Sep 25 2012, 09:21 PM

What? No http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking? (TV tropes link)

Posted by: CanRay Sep 25 2012, 10:15 PM

No, and they decided to leave out his crimes of "Mass E-Mail Spamming" and "TV Tropes Linking" as they need enough of the body to properly ID him.

Posted by: _Pax._ Sep 25 2012, 10:23 PM

HELLS, yeah.

Posted by: Critias Sep 25 2012, 11:20 PM

So far, Mrs. Crit and I have been having a blast with it. We're only up to level 12 each in our co-op game (running Axton and Maya, renamed and appropriately skinned as "Archer" and "Lana"), but just having absolutely a great time.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Sep 26 2012, 12:41 AM

BRILLIANT!

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 26 2012, 05:03 AM

Yeah, Critias, it only gets better. If anything, the writing for the main and side quests is better than BL1.

Posted by: CanRay Sep 26 2012, 05:38 AM

*Sighs* And I can only afford XCOM or Borderlands 2.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Sep 26 2012, 05:49 AM

X-Com... nothing against BL2... but really, that's not a hard decision.

Posted by: Thanee Sep 26 2012, 07:51 AM

Wait 'til they are on sale and get them both.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Seriously Mike Sep 26 2012, 08:36 AM

Preordered, reached level 16 yesterday. Who the hell puts a sidequest on the most confusing map AND makes you backtrack to an area with TWO bosses? Sure, they are pushovers when you go back there, but it doesn't change the fact they're still annoying.

Posted by: StealthSigma Sep 26 2012, 12:45 PM

Which sidequest? I'm a lv20 Zer0 right now. Being extremely vague here, but I noticed that after certain events involving Sanctuary my progress got excessively more difficult. I might be underleveled or have crappy weapons and gear.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 26 2012, 01:37 PM

I assume he means the Incinerator quest; yeah, that one was confusing until you remember to follow the signs like the first time.

Yeah, I like how the main plot is harder than before, StealthSigma. I tend to do all the sidequests before advancing the plot line, but it's definitely a challenge if you're at/near the mission level. The upside is you get tons of XP on those, so you move fast.

I'm really enjoying the increased variety of gear, esp. shields and grenades. I love the way the grenades can be sticky, transfusion, slag, *and* MIRV, at the same time. And deciding between an absorb, an amp, or a booster shield is a nice problem to have.

Posted by: StealthSigma Sep 26 2012, 02:02 PM

Well, it's kind of ridiculous. Constructors. I hate Constructors. GUN loaders are trivially easy. 1-2 shots. Even badass loaders go down with maybe 4-5x that number of shots. Constructors? Stupidly small crit location with a lot of attacks.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 26 2012, 02:12 PM

Yeah, but they don't move either, so you can just (hurr) go to town on their crit location. I'm mostly playing Gunzerker, so he has the extra DPS when you need it, and the slag/combo option.

One problem with 'overleveling' on sidequests is that slot machines are keyed to the level of your plot quest. It sucks winning a weapon that was good 2 levels ago. And in coop, it feels like overleveling doesn't even help. The game is much harder (or at least, slower) with even 1 other person, even if you're just helping them on quests like 5 levels below you. :/

So, has anyone met the NPC 'vault hunters' who randomly show up at shops, especially Marcus' in Sanctuary? They're loaded for bear and they hand you blue/purple guns when you talk to them… which is cool, but still random.

Posted by: StealthSigma Sep 26 2012, 02:15 PM

I wasted my golden chest key by accident.

I still haven't met Brick though. BRICK. WHERE ARE YOU?!

Posted by: _Pax._ Sep 26 2012, 04:20 PM

Hmm. GUN and HOT loaders I've found - my Axton is around level 25 now - take 3-5 shots (plus however many times I miss, lol): left arm, right arm, then a couple to the "face". EXP loaders take 3 (arm, arm, finisher), War Loaders take 10+, and god help me if a Badass War Loader shows up.

But, constructors? Eh, it'll take some ammo, but ... I just drop a Sabre dead in front of it, then unload on the constructor's eye with a caustic weapon.






The who, and the what, now? Are you sure someone generous hasn't joined your game, or something??

Posted by: Critias Sep 26 2012, 04:35 PM

That's actually Gearbox sneaking in an appearance from a big Borderlands fan who lost a fight with cancer before the sequel came out. He's a random guy in Sanctuary who you have the opportunity to talk to (and whose facial appearance is modeled on this real-life fan), who then just randomly gives you a reasonably rare drop. So not only did they bring the guy back as an NPC in the game franchise he loved, but they made him a totally POSITIVE one, who just gives you free stuff to give back to the community.

The whole thing's pretty awesome of them, if you ask me.

Posted by: CanRay Sep 26 2012, 05:02 PM

From what I've heard, he's also an Achievement/Trophy. Which is even more Epic, as he'll live forever on your account!

Posted by: Critias Sep 26 2012, 05:20 PM

Yeah, you get "Tribute to a Vault Hunter," I think it's called, when you interact with him.

Posted by: CanRay Sep 26 2012, 05:27 PM

Class act those Gearbox guys! Salute!

Posted by: StealthSigma Sep 26 2012, 05:31 PM

Loaders are two shots for my Zer0. Left Arm, Right Arm.

Posted by: _Pax._ Sep 26 2012, 08:39 PM

... really?!? Okay, that's just friggin' awesome. WTG, GearBox!!

Posted by: _Pax._ Sep 26 2012, 08:41 PM

Yeah well, you have sniper-damage-enhancing skills. I don't.

'course, a dozen loaders at once, in a tight group, is ONE "shot" for me - 'cause that's when I throw out my Sabre. And I I have a singularity grenade, one of those too, just to add insult to the egregious injury the sabre is about to inflict.

Posted by: Mäx Sep 26 2012, 08:42 PM

Have been having ton of fun with this one, pretty much a perfect sequal(like the original, just better all around)
The gun making engine is pretty damm nice and produces some very funky guns, like bolt action revolver sniper rifles.

Posted by: StealthSigma Sep 26 2012, 08:53 PM

I have critical hit damage enhancing skills and a weapon that typically has a base damage about 2.5x the value of assault rifles.

I have also taken out 5 loaders with 2 shots before.... For some strange reason they were all perfectly lined up so that men penetrating shots went through the crit area and into the crit area of the next one and so on.

--



Speaking of funky guns.... I believe I got a Tediore gun with a blade enhancement. I though that to be humorous.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Sep 26 2012, 09:14 PM

I have a tediore rocket launcher. It's actually rocket powered when I reload and throw it.

Posted by: _Pax._ Sep 26 2012, 09:17 PM

My Assault Rifle:
"Flush Rifle", Jakobs
Damage 297, Accuracy 90%, Magazine 23, RoF 19.2, Load 4.2

My Sniper rifle:
"Auditing Policy", Hyperion
Damage 714, Accuracy 96.3, Magazine 5, RoF 0.9, Load 4; Elemental: 30% burn for 150.3

Oh, and my class mod gives 23% Load speed and 18% magazine size to all guns.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Sep 26 2012, 09:29 PM

I keep jumping back and forth between Zer0 and Axton (both around 20). I'm waiting for the Mechromancer to come out.

Posted by: Bastard Sep 26 2012, 10:39 PM

This is awesome!

I am only at level 12 as well... I haven't found this guy yet. Do you have to reach a certain level first?

By the way, the game is a perfect sequel. It's not just a thrown together replay of the first like many sequels are. Vast improvements made on a game that already kicked ass, and I am only 12 levels in.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 26 2012, 10:52 PM

I've seen him most often at Marcus' place in Sanctuary, at various levels.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Sep 27 2012, 03:18 AM

I have found that rubberized grenades bounce ridiculously far sometimes.



-k

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 27 2012, 03:58 AM

I don't like them much, though, because you can't lob them at all. If they bounced after a lob, that'd be okay. Instead, they're sort of terrain-following. :/ But it's a pretty tiny complaint. Another is that even max backpack and bank can't carry all the crap I want.

Posted by: Critias Sep 27 2012, 04:12 AM

I first ran across him right next to the news/propaganda stall in Sanctuary, and then another time he was over close to the hiring board IIRC, and finally I spotted him just standing on a corner in the middle of town. He seems to just kind of randomly appear from time to time, you get a piece of gear from him, and then maybe you run into him on your next trip (maybe not). It's pretty cool of 'em, all in all. For us it's a fun little piece of free swag, for Gearbox it's a very nice gesture that I'm sure this fan appreciates from the other side.

Posted by: StealthSigma Sep 27 2012, 11:12 AM

A good place to farm kills for the corrosive and nova shield....

Boom Bewm. Kill Bewm, leave Boom alive on the cannon. Psychos will constantly spawn 2 at a time about every 15 seconds. Find a corner where Boom can't shoot you and the psychos can reach you. Let psychos kill themselves.

This also works for the nova shield but you need health regen to avoid dying.

The nice thing is this will increase at least 4 other challenges at the same time. The ones to kill enemies at day/night, the one to kill psychos, and if you're doing the nova you'll get progress towards the restore health challenge.

Posted by: Stahlseele Sep 27 2012, 12:00 PM

There are actually Mine-Craft references in there.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Sep 29 2012, 05:02 AM

I found a shotgun that seems massively overpowered for my level.

In theory it does only 111 x 19 damage, which should be a little over 2200 damage if all the pellets hit.

But if I hit something with a 3000 damage rocket launcher and it takes off only like a fifth if it's life bar, whereas the shotgun takes off like 80% of the same bar with one blast, and kills it outright on a crit.

I dunno why it's so powerful. And it reloads like in a third of a second.



-k

Posted by: Critias Sep 29 2012, 10:18 AM

Mrs. Crit and I hit level 20 earlier. I am woefully underprepared for this, it feels, in that I need a much better assault rifle. I snagged a pretty sweet shotgun not too long ago, but we'd kind of out-leveled the main quest line for a while so we spent several side quests running around getting gear three, four, or more levels below us. We want to do side quests so we don't miss out on the game, but it feels like trying to do them all really kind of gimps you.

Big steps in the last few days' gaming:

1) I got a cooler Commando class mod that not only cuts down my turret cooldown time, but also gives a bonus to the Sentry skill (so that the turret shoots more while I've got it, AND it lasts longer). I've started to really lean on my turret more and more, and I sucked it up and just accepted that it's awesome instead of thinking of it as a crutch.

2) I realized that my skills are just all over the friggin' place. So many of the easy-tier skills just look too all-around useful, dangit. Impact is sexy as hell for just plain "more dakka" in this FPS game. Preparation is a huge lifesaver in our co-op game and the fact I heal like Wolverine means Mrs. Crit gets dibs on all the health (which makes for easier coordination). But the more I like my turret, the more I like Sentry...and what I say for each introductory skill also goes for the totally bitchin' cooler stuff further down each tree. I want them all, and I'm trying to take them all, and I need to admit I'm spreading myself too thin, in trying to do so.

3) Helping with (2) a little, I've got a solo game, also running a Commando, where I'm about three levels behind our main co-op gig. So in theory I should be able to play my two different Axtons very differently, an experience more of what the class has to offer. This isn't the case, though, because I'm retarded. So I'm all "Man, Preparation has been awesome, and it would be totally great for a rugged loner who hasn't got his wife playing, too!" Only I say that about everything I have any experience with, so my playstyle continues to be "shallow but broad," as opposed to "specialized and awesome."

4) We can't get the sacrifice to the Gunbringer Shrine to work. Oh well.

5) Slot machines continue to be awesome and addictive as all hell.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 29 2012, 01:48 PM

What continually gets me as I play through this game is how many, big, detailed, entertaining zones/maps there are. Even for apparently tiny sidequests, they really put in the effort.

Yeah, I agree that you're always straining for more skill points, especially because everything is useful *and* no diminishing returns.

Also, timed quests suck.

Posted by: _Pax._ Sep 29 2012, 03:12 PM

Every single time you're in Sanctuary, check ALL the gun kiosks, and Marcus as well. Turn those trash drops into cash, and then turn the cash into useful guns / shields / grenades / classmods.


First skills I went for, were Sentry 5, Laser Sight 5, then Scorched Earth. Next push, I went with Preparation 5, Healthy 5, and Phalanx Shield. (Though I'm not sure how much good Phalanx Shield really is, yet).

The next 20-odd points will go up the center tree - Impact, Overload, Steady, and split the last 8 points evenly between "willing" and "able".

As you can see, I'm quite happy with my "crutch" being more awesome than I am. Oh, and I love how Axton talks up the turret being his girlfriend, hahahaha.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 29 2012, 03:34 PM

Of course, one great thing is that you can always respec and try something else, new class mod, whatever. The cost is trivial. It can be jarring, though, when you respec your gunzerker from Brawn to Rampage… and forget that you no longer regenerate.

Posted by: Critias Sep 29 2012, 07:10 PM

Oh yeah. We do that -- I just tend to keep finding "something awesome besides an assault rifle," which is what I'm looking for. I've got a really cool launcher, an awesome shotgun, even a super badass two-shots-at-a-time revolver. I'm just using an assault rifle (a purple, in my defense) that's nine levels lower than me. So the whites and greens I'm finding are a little weaker than it, and I'm able to hold my own...but I'm not awesome with it, which is killin' me.



Mrs. Crit is less of a fan, because I've started doing the same thing, despite her sitting on the couch next to me and playing, too.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 29 2012, 09:04 PM

I tend to roll with whatever the best guns I current have happen to be, but I guess the gunzerker is less specialized than assassin or commando. I notice it's hard to find a decent shotgun, and there's huge variability (compared to BL1) in the number of 'pellets', etc.

Posted by: Seriously Mike Sep 29 2012, 10:25 PM

Nonsense. If you want to go for turret efficiency, either go for Mag-Lock (makes it harder for melee enemies to reach the turret) and Longbow, or Phalanx Shield (gives you a nice umbrella to dive under when things get hairy) and the first Guerrilla tree skills (for longer turret duration and more dakka). Center tree is pretty much useless - the right one's for tanking, the left one's for turrets and the center one is pretty much BS, well, maybe with the exception of Longbow.

Posted by: _Pax._ Sep 29 2012, 11:07 PM

I disagree. [Impact], [Overload], and [Steady] are pretty strong skills, IMO.

Posted by: Sid Nitzerglobin Sep 29 2012, 11:27 PM

I got extremely pissed w/ the level design/poor mapping on this one as well.... 20-30 minutes of wandering around trying to find my way in while listening to each of the other guys I was playing w/ get fragged one by one as they hit the objective area individually had me cursing Gearbox.

Other than that it's been pretty good so far (only level 15 w/ the Gunzerker, who I have a feeling is going to be pretty meh for me as he levels, but we already had an Assasin, Siren, and Commando). Pretty much like the first one but a bit better, which is to say pretty darn fun in co-op, not nearly as much fun single player.

Sucks that they still apparently hate on the AR though...

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 30 2012, 05:13 PM

It all depends on what you find. Currently I'm using a couple good ARs: one of those neat x3-shot ones, and one that shoots non-slow slightly bouncing explosive rounds (it's weird, it's not a Torgue-style, but it's also not a Grenadier-style, which shoot little pokemon balls). Along the way, I've had some solid Torgue-Vladof ones (gyrojets, rotary barrel), which were really fun.

Honestly, it's probably just observer error: I just finished complaining about trouble finding good shotguns, you said AR, the next guy will say SMGs tend to be weak… everything but sniper rifles, really.

Posted by: Sid Nitzerglobin Sep 30 2012, 08:27 PM

My guy is only 15th level so far as well, that could have something to do w/ it. The only AR I can stand the shooting mechanics on so far is a burst when zoomed carbine I found at ~4th level that's 6th level and does pathetic damage w/ a 20 shot clip and massive reload time. I've been far better off using the free burst sniper rifle from the dude at Zed's for what I would usually want an AR for.

Killer pistols, SMGs, and snipers definitely seem to be in abundant supply for me. I haven't really played w/ any shotguns yet aside from the Assassinate the Assassins mission.

Posted by: _Pax._ Sep 30 2012, 09:23 PM

It's all luck.

For the longest time, I found only crappy ARs. Then I found a few Torgue ARs that were palatable, but still not super-good (not accurate enough, and slow projectiles - Torgue ARs are apparently "gyrojet"-style weapons).

I've got a new AR now ... a Jakobs, I think it is. Good ROF, burst fire when zoomed, nice accuracy, normal "immediate effect" bullets, reasonable-sized magazine. Main drawback is, no Elemental effect.

...

And that's been the story all along, for every gun: I'll like the gun in every way except one. Those Torgue ARs were "slow inaccurate projectiles" ... but they were AoE due to Blast element damage, so together with decent magazine, ROF, and base damage levels, they worked. The current ones, nice in every way IMO, except that lack of an Element.

Posted by: Critias Sep 30 2012, 09:31 PM

Sounds like a Dahl. "Burst fire when zoomed" is kind of their schtick. Jakobs is all semi-auto (aka, "fires as fast as you pull the trigger!"). Jakobs assault rifles tend to have good damage and accuracy and stuff, but lack the satisfying dakka dakka factor.

Posted by: _Pax._ Sep 30 2012, 09:32 PM

Could be.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 30 2012, 09:38 PM

Luckily, elemental weapons are (seemingly) less dominant in BL2. In BL1, they basically applied a big multiplier in addition to the weakness effect, so non-element guns simply couldn't compete (this is esp. why the Hellfire, Defiler, and Orion were insane). I haven't noticed that huge raw damage boost from elements in BL2, just the expected enemy-weakness effects. But I'm only like 25, so who knows what the Legendaries are like.

Posted by: Critias Oct 1 2012, 12:26 AM

Mrs. Crit and I are stuck perpetually outleveling our quests, which is kind of frustrating. We just got to New Sanctuary, and got maybe a dozen quests upon arrival (including some that took us back to old Sanctuary) -- but we're level 20-21, and got a bunch of level 15 jobs. We want to play them (because we like the story and like the voice acting and like the world, and want to explore it)...but at the same time, it just gives us more experience, and we keep getting trash guns (even as quest rewards) because we're doing stuff of "trivial" difficulty left and right.

It's gotten a little irritating. Are we just expected to skip a ton of content, suck it up and do a couple main story quests to raise the bar a little, and be content?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 1 2012, 03:16 AM

On the other hand, if you do no sidequests, the main quests get very difficult hella fast. Presumably, they balanced the game intentionally so that you can't really do none of them, but you also needn't do all/most of them. I tend to do them all, too, so I do get the 'overleveled' thing you mention. :/

Posted by: CanRay Oct 1 2012, 06:04 AM

And are made out of bloody WOOD!

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 1 2012, 07:43 AM

Well. Tonight, I finally met the vault-hunter tribute NPC.

Also, I shot Handsome Jack in the face. And the crotch. About nine hundred times each. ^_^ Then played with a ... well, kind of boring end-boss. They made it interesting mainly by being annoying, not actually making you THINK about how to beat it.

Posted by: Seriously Mike Oct 1 2012, 08:23 AM

Was he as easy to beat as Wilhelm? Because Wilhelm was a pushover - a couple of sticky electric MIRVs to the face and half a crate of pistol ammo used in conjunction with my acid handcannon made him fold pretty quickly.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 1 2012, 10:25 AM

I just slagged him and while my turret (w/ rockets) tore him apart.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 1 2012, 11:50 AM

Was this right after the whole bit with Lilith and Sanctuary? That is about when I noticed a huge difficulty jump.

--

I have a full set of purple weapons now. My pride is the purple Jakobs sniper rifle I got out of the car chest in Lynchwood. I'm missing a purple grenade for the purple achievement...

--



You mean like the final boss to Borderlands, where you could perpetually stand behind cover and never have to worry about getting hit and as long as you had ammo regen it was game over man?

Posted by: Mäx Oct 1 2012, 02:31 PM

I doubt anything can be as easy as Wilhelm, special caustic gun and mirv grenade i got from Tiny Tinas missions made the Wilhelm fight last about 15s on my Zero game(only one i'm that far at this point)

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 1 2012, 02:36 PM

Hmm, I was less-well-prepared for Wilhelm (no caustic gun or grenade), so it took me a bit longer than you guys report.

The prevalence of loaders in B2 has convincd me that a caustic gun, preferably an AR, SMG, or Shotgun, should be considered "required gear".

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 1 2012, 02:44 PM

Well, given the nature of BL, I usually have one of each flavor of at least two whole categories. Usually snipers, and then something else.

If you're talking about Crawmerax, the sniper perch was a bug, and you still had to hit his back somehow. Hehe.

Posted by: Tanegar Oct 1 2012, 05:24 PM

A caustic gun was required gear in Borderlands, as well. Late-game caustic revolvers were absolutely vicious.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 1 2012, 05:58 PM

I ran about with a Roland that had equipped.....

Explosive Rocket Launcher
Fire Rocket Launcher
Electric Rocket Launcher
Caustic Rocket Launcher

I also had something like +20 team ammo regen.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 1 2012, 06:44 PM

No way, I had my revolver that fired like a shotgun (and was super accurate because I was Mordecai, plus it ignored shields, say goodnight, Guardians).

But it was probably the most required of all the elemental weapons.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Oct 1 2012, 07:01 PM

I have found that the game doesn't save anything unless you pass one of the respawn stations, or do a proper game exit.

The game crashed once right after I did a turn-in, when I rebooted the game was reset to the last time I spawned on that map.

Re-tested this a few times, I was able to check out the semi-random quest reward, if I didn't like it, I force-closed the game and restarted it and I was back to before I did the turn in, and the next time I turned in the reward had slightly different stats. But if I walked past a respawn point the game locked-in whatever I had at that moment.

I was expecting it to save after every quest turn-in, but I guess not!



-k

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 1 2012, 10:51 PM

Just got the gun named Bane. Love it as from the huge penalty you have when it's your active weapon.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 1 2012, 11:41 PM

Yeah, and the various other talking weapons. There's so much random fun stuff in this game.

Posted by: CanRay Oct 2 2012, 02:13 AM

Talking weapons?

Damn, and I had to go for XCOM...

Posted by: Seriously Mike Oct 2 2012, 09:22 AM

Wait.
You killed a guy...
...WITH A TEAPOT?!

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 2 2012, 11:31 AM

Well, Bane gibbers like a psycho and doesn't utter their lines.

But come on, the quest that grants the achievement "Well that was easy." is probably one of the best quests in the game, aside from the one where you help Scooter compose the love poem and Claptrap's birthday party.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 2 2012, 04:45 PM

Once Xcom hits - you will not regret that decision. Sectoids, Floaters, Mutons, oh my!

Posted by: Critias Oct 2 2012, 05:02 PM

It might have all that, sure, but does it have the best tea party ever?

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 2 2012, 05:13 PM

Does it have.... Moxxi?
Does it have.... Claptrap?
Does it have.... weapons that are so disposable that rather than reloading it's cheaper to toss them as a grenade and have a new on reconstructed in your hands?
Does it have.... talking weapons?
Does it have.... a robot spooning a human?
Does it have.... a ridiculous number of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShoutOut?

Posted by: Mäx Oct 2 2012, 05:14 PM

Not really, the five Caustic Fuster Clucks i threw at him did pretty much all the killing

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 2 2012, 05:16 PM

Does it have.... a Hyperion reconstruction station that tells you when you're reconstructed to not think about the fact that you're reconstructed and that your original body died a long long time ago?

Posted by: Halinn Oct 2 2012, 05:23 PM

I'll go with the one that has all the hats. Yay TF2

Posted by: Seriously Mike Oct 3 2012, 07:44 AM

Somehow I still prefer any grenade that's sticky. They can't run from it.

Posted by: Tiralee Oct 3 2012, 09:11 AM

Adding a reply now, as my other one was eaten by a fearsome grue.

As akin to most of the above posters, loving' the ever-slagging shit out of BL2. Scarily, it's (to the power of people playing it) better with friends (not so much with the loot ninjas, thank fuck for invite-only games) and it's set a nice high bar for fun and RSI.

From my usual "wandering conciousness":
Let's see, how's this going...
Claptrap - ah..Oh, there's only one now?
Angel - Check (And yeah, done THAT mission now, and felt like a real monster afterwards)
Scooter - sounding a bit tired...oh god, this inbred's love life is just nightmare fuel waiting to burn.
Moxy - Check. (Oh god, her daughter...Scooter is now explained. Oh, and Scooter has a crush on his sister/half-sister.) I do like some of the additional backstory they've included now re: Moxy's family.
Marcus - Check.
Dr Ned/Zed: Is it just me, or is he sounding more tired/creepy now? Please, let there be a Day-Zed expansion....

The other Vault-Hunters.
Lilith: Eredium junkie?! She's got it under control though. For reals.
Roland - Mr Dependable. I remember him more as the walking ammo regen, though...
Mordaci - too much drinking, Love Bloodwing. Also love how the bird has a 6 billion dollar bounty, and Mordy's got $20.
Brick - Apart from him saying "slab" too many times, he's ok.

Gun! Gunz! GUNZ! Unz! UNZ UNZUNZUNZUNZ {drop}
There's some wild shit out there.
And stay away from the poker machines - those things be addictive. Also at low levels (ie: it's a fast way to farm Eredium for SKU unlocks. Also grenades to the face.
SKU unlocks - why U no unlock more?! Space, you needs it.

Missions - God..Jack. HAAAAAAAAAAAATE him more than any single protagonist so far, and that includes the bastard from Bioshock.
- This hatred manifests itself in 5 minutes of starting the game.
- - The slag and Eridum experiment logs are nightmare fuel if you've met Tiny Tina and can connect the dots.
- - - Oh fuck him so much! (the lovely and I were shouting at the TV on one mission. She played Mordi on Borderlands 1. Guess the mission.)

What the Hell, Hero? - This trope is soooo in there.

"Love your parents, but love me more" - After Angel, this was really, really creepy, considering....
Nightmare fuel - just listen to the Psychos. After the first few scripts, they go to some bad places.

So far:
Siren - Loved Lilith the bullet-hose in BL1...in BL2, Maya's more of a heals, crowd-control and save-the-bacon sort of gal. Main Character:P
Commando Archer (took someone's suggestion and am running with it. It's hilarious.) Thought this would be weak but the turret makes Roland's little popgun look like a toy. Also watched a level 22 slaughter his way to my level 30 Siren with it. Mad skills!
Zero: The one-hit wonder, 195K sniper crits for fuck's sake. The melee is interesting as well. I needed to heal the player a lot though (Maya's bullets heal - nice touch)
SalvatorrraaaRRRRGHHHH SMASH. Was playing with a noob to the game and suggested that rather than hulk out with pistols, he use those rocket launchers. Cue mad gunzerk love.

Basically, lovin' it - more to come:)

-Tir.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 3 2012, 11:10 AM

Wildlife Preservation? Jack is an adorable lovable douche.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 3 2012, 01:15 PM

Yeah, Tiralee, one great thing about BL2 is the way everything's tied together, discoverable backstories for everyone, etc. Love it.

Posted by: Seriously Mike Oct 3 2012, 01:18 PM

You unlock hats in BL2 too. You get a hat for each character if you happen to have a BL1 save on your HDD. You win hats and color sets through quests and slot machines.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 3 2012, 03:28 PM

You also earn "hats" for vehicles. And by hats I mean color sets including the awesome Turquoise color set for the bandit vehicle that puts what I believe I Lilith in a bikini top on the hood.

Posted by: Critias Oct 3 2012, 03:57 PM

Mrs. Crit and I are still lovin' it. We hit level 25 last night, with a bank robbery in Lynchwood.

I really dig Handsome Jack. I mean, I get that I'm supposed to hate him -- but the voice actor just did a great job with this bastard. This utter, utter, bastard.

Posted by: Tanegar Oct 3 2012, 04:18 PM

See, before, I was definitely going to pick up Borderlands 2 after XCOM. Now I'm torn between the two.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 3 2012, 04:41 PM

I did that last night as well. Did you find all the echos of Axton? Amusing. Also, my turret is better at the game than I am.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 3 2012, 05:02 PM

I'm 1 level away from getting the badass Zer0 ability in the sniper tree for stacking benefits from successive critical hits.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 3 2012, 05:24 PM

That's what Singularity Grenades are good for. They CAN run from it, but it puls them back in ...!

(Also, it gathers groups of enemies for my Sabre Turret's Rocket barrages ...)

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 3 2012, 05:32 PM

I believe the proper phrase is http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard. Which Handsome Jack certainly qualifies for, IMO.

DANGER! That's a TVTropes link! Follow it at your own peril!!

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 3 2012, 07:31 PM

Singularity grenades are good for sucking bandits into the whirlpool in the Bloodbath Stronghold.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 3 2012, 07:44 PM

It would be really hard not to get that you're supposed to hate him, though. It starts light (oh, he sneers a lot), but very quickly amps up into various war crimes and unspeakable atrocities… impressive.

Posted by: CanRay Oct 3 2012, 09:32 PM

Try being able to afford only one.

Posted by: Tanegar Oct 3 2012, 10:25 PM

That's what I'm saying. Two $50 games in one pay period ain't happening.

Posted by: CanRay Oct 3 2012, 11:03 PM

Try not being able to afford Borderlands 2 until it hits the $10 shelf is more what I'm aiming at.

Posted by: Critias Oct 3 2012, 11:39 PM

So write more! It only takes about a 1,500 word gig to score a new XBox game.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 4 2012, 01:10 AM

Then I have three words for you. They are:

(1) Steam;
(2) Holiday;
-and-
(3) Sale.

^_^

Posted by: CanRay Oct 4 2012, 04:43 AM

Oh, like Freelancers get paid. Oh, like I'll have money during the Holidays.

Posted by: Tech_Rat Oct 4 2012, 05:12 AM

I say we all pitch in and help our most favorite of all drunkards writers get BL2. I have $2.50USD in my pocket right now.

Posted by: CanRay Oct 4 2012, 05:45 AM

I'm Canadian, not a drunk.

Although it can be hard to tell the difference at times.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 4 2012, 05:47 AM

And who said you would be the one paying for it? If there's a good sale, maybe I'll make with the "ho-ho-ho"-ing.

Posted by: faultline Oct 4 2012, 05:49 AM

Finished BL2 just the other day with Maya, and I have to say its one hell of a game it has much more personality than the first, cant wait to see the DLC.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 4 2012, 11:19 AM

The game producers came out and said that Handsome Jack is a douche.

Butt stallion!

--

CanRay, what's your steam ID?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 4 2012, 01:36 PM

Right, but I'm saying that's just not true. A douche drives up the left side of a line of merging cars on the highway. Hitler was not 'a douche'.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 5 2012, 11:13 AM

Side note. I've acquired a Hyperion sniper rifle that nags me about killing people and is starting to make me feel guilty about killing bandits.

Somewhere out there is an orphan who doesn't know it yet.

Posted by: Tiralee Oct 5 2012, 12:27 PM

Finished on Maya as well - Level 32 and had a reasonable time of it, more due to a lucky selection of weapons for the end boss than any specific strategy.

Apparently, Jack has a bit of dialogue to say at the end, but as I just punched and punched and punched his twitching corpse for 3 minutes in a red-haze...I can honestly say I don't remember much of it.

Going on the "real" mode was a bit of a kick - after a respec I'm living and heal like a mofo but ammo dependancy is killer at the moment. Maybe I should start plugging a ton of Badass medals into melee and equip a melee pistol/rifle...

Great game - better with friends though, god.


And when the fuck are they going to drop to mechanomancer/dlc's:P


-Tir

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 5 2012, 01:07 PM

Oct 16, like they said a while ago.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 5 2012, 04:04 PM

Worse than that, I had a bug where it was nagging every time I reloaded ANY weapon, even after I threw it in my bank. (that's the rifle you get as part of the XKCD reference).

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 5 2012, 05:41 PM

Sucks to be you.

Posted by: CanRay Oct 5 2012, 06:04 PM

Fixed that for you.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 5 2012, 06:47 PM

I hope you referenced the song from that awesome awesome musical....


Apparently not.

Son I am disappoint.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 5 2012, 06:52 PM

Thank god logging out and switching charactrers fixed it.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 5 2012, 08:10 PM

I'll leave this here...

http://www.wubwub.eu/demake.php

Posted by: Tanegar Oct 5 2012, 09:42 PM

I got paid today, and thought about snapping up Borderlands 2, but I'm just not prepared to drop $60 on a game anymore.

Posted by: Critias Oct 5 2012, 10:47 PM

The main reason I preordered it (instead of waiting to buy it used like I normally do) is that some of our gaming buddies were excited to get it and wanted to play co-op with us, so we didn't want to wait like a year or two to get to play with them...and because my wife went "ooh!" when she saw some preview/concept art for the Mechnomancer DLC chick. So since that locked it in that we'd be picking up the DLC for her, I might as well preorder (and get it for free) instead of waiting (and having to pay $10 for the DLC).

But yeah. It's pretty rare for me to buy games new, and there are THREE this year that have enticed me into it (Sleeping Dogs, Borderlands 2, and Assassin's Creed III). That's...never happened before. I'm normally a huge "screw it, wait a few years and get it for $20" guy.

Posted by: Tanegar Oct 5 2012, 11:13 PM

I never got through the first Assassin's Creed. There were just too many silly things, like galloping being a capital crime, or masquerading as a monk by bowing my head despite the sword hanging from my belt.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 5 2012, 11:52 PM

Ditto, Critias: my brother wanted to play together, and free Mechromancer.

Posted by: Critias Oct 6 2012, 12:12 AM

I haven't played any of the AC games since Assassin's Creed II, which was a huge improvement over the first one (in my opinion). I skipped over the other two, but I'm too big a fan of the period involved (what with teaching courses on it) to pass up any game set during the American Revolution. Even aside from the novelty of the setting, AC:III just looks like a solid game in all the trailers, etc, that I've seen. Naval combat, set-piece battles, guerilla-style fort raids, skirmishes in the streets of Boston, frontier hunting/tracking/killing action, and an hour of exclusive gameplay for my brand new PS3 (not counting my preorder special stuff)?

Yeah, I'm'a give it a shot.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 7 2012, 02:53 PM

I'm an achievement/challenge whore... so is there anyone who has the PC version of BL2 that wouldn't mind helping me with some of the challenges?

Posted by: Critias Oct 7 2012, 06:04 PM

Sorry man, just got the 360 version, here.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 8 2012, 03:46 AM

I'm on PC, but ...

(a) I'm not an Achiever type;
(b) I'm about to be very busy playing Dishonored and XCOM:EU.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 8 2012, 04:21 AM

What he said.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 8 2012, 11:15 AM

I found a pugger that was wanting to do them plus I've been joining into Playthrough 1 games where people are doing the Hyperion arena so getting teammate revives is easy. So unless I missed something I got all the lv1 challenges (win duels, revive teammates, and trade) and the non-level challenges related to coop done. Now there's only one thing that I know I need to do coop for and that's reviving someone on my Steam friend's list. Oh, and possibly killing Terroricus Tentaculus (I know that's not his name but it's not at catchy as Crawlermax).

Hodunk Raceway, Pimon and Tumbaa, Jackpot in Sanctuary, and defending the turrets defending the gateway to Hero's Pass. I might have 1 or 2 others unearned that I don't know about.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Oct 8 2012, 02:37 PM

So, I bought Borderlands on Steam tonight. Fought my way from some fucking glacier of doom to Sanctuary on foot with crap guns that I was overleveled for. The best things I ever saw drop were some blues.

I randomly get a HOLY CRAP purple Hyperion SMG that shoots fire like nobody's business and has blades on the end, out of one of the god-damn LOCKERS in Scooter's upstairs.

Wander around the town, did some of Marcus' crap quests.

Power goes down for a split second.

I LOST THE GUN.


I feel like I lack the will to go on.


[e]And I've searched. Evidently Gearbox decided to encrypt the BL2 saves, so no easy WillowTree savegame editor (yet). Goddamnit.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 8 2012, 03:44 PM

You'll get tons of other guns, and you can win with any random crap anyway. The real problem in these games is too many good guns, forcing to you get rid of them.

I'm surprised you didn't wander past a save point, though. I find that I'm constantly saving (accidentally, as evidenced by that flashing A vault icon).

Editing is cheating. Hehe.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Oct 8 2012, 05:04 PM

I liked that gun!



There aren't many save points in Sanctuary. Actually, I don't think there are any beside the one at the front.




Yes it is! And it's damn fun, too. I miss assembling ridiculous beardy cheeseguns in WillowTree for Borderlands.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 8 2012, 05:13 PM

I'm sorry you lost a good gun, but you will get others. If you only just got to Sanctuary, it's very much "early days" yet.

New guns are literally everywhere. Open every container, kill anything that moves and isn't friendly, and vaccuum up everything.

Also ...? "Blues" are pretty decent drops in general. White (Common) <--> Green (Uncommon) <--> Blue (Rare) <--> Purple (Epic) <--> Yellow (Legendary) <--> Orange (Unique) <--> Cyan (Pearlescent)

Though I'm honest5ly not sure if Pearlescents exist in BL2, yet.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 8 2012, 05:16 PM

The problem is, there's no difference between single-player saves and multiplayer saves.

Cheating is fun and okay if everyone involved agrees with doing it.

Cheating is not okay, if only some of the people playing have agreed to it.

And while you might not use those "beardy cheeseguns" in multiplayer with strangers ... many many many other people would, and get an extra kick out of their "better awesomeness".

Plus, Achievements.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 8 2012, 06:10 PM

Except you already have people who have +xxxx% bonuses from badass rank hacking, and they can go online with it.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 8 2012, 08:16 PM

First off, cheating is cheating. If they're hacking that badass rank, then they're cheating, and that's that.

Secondly, hacking aside ... BadAss ranks are generally going to give you around 5%, maybe as high as 7% or 8% at the level cap. My current character, a level 34 Commando early in the Second Playthrough, has:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c313/GMPax/BL2BAR.jpg

None of that gamebreaking. Certainly not even close to the level of those "beardy cheeseguns" mentioned before.

Thirdly, those bonusses are no different from a lucky, but legitimate, drop: they're legit, so you can get them without cheating. ANYone can get them without cheating.

And finally: just because someone ELSE is cheating, does not make it right to start cheating, yourself. Not until literally everyone is cheating, openly and with the full consent of everyone around them.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 8 2012, 08:23 PM

I was more pointing out about making a gun with WillowEdit. You already have people duping and whatnot with high level weapons, shields, etc. Putting a gun together seems more like convenience option. I love sniper rifles but I hate running into Dahl rifles (damn burst fire on zoom). So maybe I'd just take those basic stats and move it over to say... a Jacobs (minus elemental effect) or Maliwan so that I don't have to deal with burst fire, but still have a better weapon.

I couldn't really care less either way.

Posted by: Mäx Oct 8 2012, 08:29 PM

Considering it takes 464 tokens(requiring a Badass rank of around 62k if you spend all the points for same think) to get a 100% bonus, it's quite save to say none legitimately has multiple that kind of bonuses.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 8 2012, 08:41 PM

Your explanation of badass rank confuses me. Where are you getting a 5-8% figure for level cap? Are you aware that badass is account wide and not character specific? My lv36 Zer0 (the only character I've played) current has every bonus with a value of at least 5.2%. The way it works out is that you can prioritize 6 or 7 bonuses and only have benefit to those bonuses.

It's quite simple to farm badass rank on the console versions. Much harder on the PC. On the console versions you can just keep making characters over and over and get the 166 badass from winning duels. I'm not sure if both characters in splitscreen count towards badass. If they do, then it's probably more cost effective to farm the trading challenge.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 8 2012, 08:57 PM

Yes, they're account-wide. So maybe if you play multiple characters to the level cap, you can get higher.

But for a single character, I think my estimates are reasonable.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Oct 9 2012, 12:05 AM

Wait, really? Badass tokens are shared?


God-damn that's stupid. That was easy enough to cheat with using frigging CheatEngine, for crying out loud.


I didn't even want to fuck with the tokens, I just wanted a nice gun.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 9 2012, 03:42 AM

Oh god, that's incredibly tedious. Why bother?

Why shouldn't Badass be shared? It's not about cheating, unless you're just dying to waste hours 'farming' instead of playing. The nature of the badass rank means you get very little until level 4-5 on any challenge, which takes a while regardless.

If you want a nice gun, or the exact same gun but not Dahl, go find it. That's not a moral position, like Pax's. It's just not fun to magic yourself whatever you want.

Posted by: Critias Oct 9 2012, 06:06 AM

What's stupid about badass tokens being shared for all of a given player's characters? That it's easy to cheat? So what? Fuck cheaters, you can't build a game around trying to make life hard on folks who're going to hack themselves into winning anyways.

Posted by: Mäx Oct 9 2012, 07:08 AM

No it's not, thats the whole point of the Badass rank system, it being infinite and it does have dimishing returns as you need more and more ranks for a new token as your rank rises and the token bonuses go down the more you use them for same stat.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Oct 9 2012, 07:12 AM

Actually, you can. It's good that they don't, as a general rule, I'm just amazed that it's so easy to hack up something that's permanent across all your characters.

Ah well. I guess I'm glad they didn't, but I'm still kind of amazed it was so simple.

Posted by: Seriously Mike Oct 9 2012, 08:00 AM

You can't spend all the points on the same thing, your picks are randomly selected - for example, you can't take Gun Damage bonus twice in a row, because when you take it, it's out of the rotation for another token.

Posted by: Mäx Oct 9 2012, 08:32 AM

I'm pretty sure i have from time to time gotten the same bonus twice in a row.
But really the fact that you can't spend all the points in one category or really even for only two or three, just makes the point i was making even more true.

EDIT: Mechomancer tonight woot woot!

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 9 2012, 12:04 PM

I believe duels have a lower top end than trading (50 for lv 50 of the challenge [I think]) but both characters get credit for the trade. It's as simple as opening up trade and accepting on both characters. You could easily do 4-6 of these a minute, possibly even more which means you can pretty easily net 166 badass rank in about 10 minutes. If both characters are on the same badass account then that's 332 badass rank. Assume that you take about 2 minutes (top end) to delete/create new characters you're talking a rate around 1660 badass rank per hour.

For the count, I'm somewhere around 3 days of playtime (I think) and I have a badass rank of around 8600. The same amount of playtime spamming trades would accrue around 119250 badass rank.

I also noticed that my earlier statement of at least 5% in all the bonuses is erroneous. I have 4.2 or 4.8% in grenade damage. All the rest are 5.2% or higher.

Posted by: Seriously Mike Oct 9 2012, 01:24 PM

That's odd, such a thing never happened to me. I already have a lot of badass tokens spread across ten or so bonuses: gun damage, accuracy, shield recharge delay, elemental effect chance, pretty much everything.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 9 2012, 03:36 PM

It's happened to me, several times. But then, at 5353 badass rank, I've spent SCORES of tokens now.

Posted by: Adarael Oct 9 2012, 04:06 PM

Here's the thing that confuses me about all of this cheating angst. A couple of co-workers have been having a fit about it, too:

Borderlands 2 isn't competetive, so if you play with a cheater, all they're doing is making the game easier for you. It's not like a wallhacking, aimbotting jerkface in Battlefield, where one guy can ruin the fun of 31 other people.

There's no pvp, no auction house, no ladder or ELO Ranking system to game. You don't wanna play with someone who cheats? Great. Don't play with them again. Unlike competetive You can only play with 3 other human beings, and you can only do so in a co-operative fashion. If someone's a dick, you block them and don't play with them again, end of story. There is no reason to prioritize cheating prevention over actual content creation. Yes, it's INCONVENIENT to be placed with someone who cheats, but it's also inconvenient to be placed with someone who screams "DICK FAGGOT BUTTS! DICK FAGGOTT BUTTS!" over voice chat the entire time.

The solution is the same in either case: block them. Problem solved.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 9 2012, 05:13 PM

Apparently you've never played a game with a loot whore. If you have then you would understand why it's a problem. It's also the whole reason I respec Zer0 from sniper rifles to melee kills whenever I decide to play public games if I at all care about loot. This is the single biggest thing I love about Diablo 3. Independent loot drops.

You also entirely ignoring the fact that people do not cheat because they do not want an easier time. Therefore, someone who does cheat is providing you an artificially easier time which is akin to cheating even though you aren't engaging in it and want to avoid.



The match making system is utterly horrendous and it sounds like you haven't actually played the game but are rather commenting on what you think it is like.

Posted by: Adarael Oct 9 2012, 05:50 PM

You would be assuming incorrectly. I have been playing the game extensively.

I would counter that:

1) Loot whoring will occur regardless of cheating.
2) Loot whores can be handled the same way as cheats: block & ignore.
3) I am not ignoring the reasons people do not cheat. I have no idea how you could assume that my statement "Cheaters cheat to get an easier time, and if you don't like it, don't play with cheaters" could assume I don't understand why people don't want to play with them. I do not play with cheaters for that exact reason.
4) Your opinions on the matchmaking system are orthagonal to cheating, and do not reflect my own experiences with it. They also ignore the fact that it's possible on XBox 360 (and Steam, I believe, but haven't tested) to block players so that you do not have to play with them again.'

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 9 2012, 06:18 PM

So, exactly as I said: insanely tedious and unfun.

I don't even understand this 'play with cheaters' question: you guys play with randos? Gross.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 9 2012, 07:23 PM

I did, to earn the basic challenge of the leveled challenge that requires partners and to get the unleveled challenges that require a partner.

I also do randos to do the hyperion arena since I find it immensely enjoyable. It seems like that's the only thing I get rando'd into after beating the game and completely all quests by the Terroricus Tentaculus (which I don't think can be done with a group of 4 ~lv36s).

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 9 2012, 08:29 PM

No, that's not all they're doing. They're also trivialising all your NOT CHEATING effort and work to build your character, collect decent (and legit) weapons, etc.


I didn't want to play with them in the first place.

Rampant cheating in BL1, is why I stopped playing with random PUGs ever, EVER again. I don't want to waste my time joining games (or having others join MY game), discovering cheater(s) in it, and leaving said game ... over, and over, and over. I'd rather spend that time playing.

Oh, also? DUELS. Direct PvP.






*shrug* I have exactly three people in my Steam /friends list ... two of whom I've met face to face (hell, one of them I live with). I'm not a social butterfly.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 9 2012, 08:58 PM

Sure, but you only need a couple for BL2. I guess I'm just not a pugger in general. It was bad enough in ME3 trying to find competent teammates.

Posted by: Adarael Oct 9 2012, 09:43 PM

By the same token, if someone ever turns on God Mode to get a perfect game of Doom, they are trivializing your own Doom scores? Or more pertinently to this board: if I cheat and make a Shadowrun character with 5000 karma and 20 million nuyen that I didn't earn, am I trivializing all of the effort you've made in your game to get 50 karma and 100,000 nuyen? Only if I play at your table. If I tried that at your table, you'd kick me out and not play with me again, because I've broken the social pact of the game. But the problem would be solved - you wouldn't agonize over the fact that there are other power gamers out there, playing Shadowrun with ill-gotten gains. I hope.

Which brings me to point number 2...



Then really, don't play with PUGs. That's the answer, right there. I play with PUGs largely because I sometimes need to research matchmaking systems or how games work with random players, but I wouldn't choose to play with randoms for fun.
If you play with someone once who is kinda cool, and you get a sense they don't suck? Friend them and continue to play with them. Or play with people you talk to on Dumpshock, or other forums.


...That you only have to engage in if you feel like it, and which provides no reward other than Badass ranks for *engaging* in it. That's not competetive, that's a choice. The game is not predicated on duelling.

Really, here's the thing: it is extremely difficult to harden a game against cheating. Next to impossible. To harden Borderlands 2 in the way people are clamoring for would have taken them - I estimate - at least 6-8 months just to get the game ready for launch, and would have required constant patching after that to stay current. It's not economically feasible unless the game is predicated on competetive play balance or ranked play of some kind, which BL2 is not. It is cheaper, easier, and generally more rewarding to have your answer not lie in code, but the statement "Don't play with assholes you don't like". Why more rewarding? Because all of those man-hours that once may have been spent on security features can now be spent on expansions and DLC for the game.



And yet there is no one on Dumpshock you'd sling guns with? For shame! There are dozens of us here who will shoot people in the face with others, without cheating.

Posted by: Stahlseele Oct 9 2012, 09:48 PM

Well, probably without cheating friends and buddies at least . .
After all:"if you are in a fair fight, you have done something wrong"

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 10 2012, 02:12 AM

Of the three? One hates shooters, one doesn't have a computer able to run BL2, and one lives in Greece (so his schedule's a wee bit "off" compared to mine).

*shrug*

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Oct 10 2012, 05:30 PM

How? Because their gun is a little more powerful than yours? Because they can carry all the ammos because they gave themselves all the Eridium they'd ever need and bought all the Storage Deck Upgrades the moment the Black Market opened? Because they gave themselves a ridiculous shitton of Badass points and have a lot of small bonuses compared to you?

I was in an open game this morning, all Mecromancers. Of them, the first person who joined my game (in Liar's Berg) was fascinated when I explained how I intended to "cheat my ass off with this character," but ultimately decided not to cheat for himself - which was cool.

The second, third, and fourth, were happy to reap the rewards. We spent like an hour in Moxxi's, with me supplying the cash and all of us just gambling the night away, joking about drops (and how I was the unluckiest bastard there, since I never got anything better than a green when all of them had had two greens and a purple from the slot machines,) then someone else joined who had figured out the secret to infinite gold keys, and we all piled into the transit station and MADE IT RAIN.

Does that "trivialize" any legit drops you get, or legit work you put in? No, because you put in legit shit, and we're clowning around for fun, profit, and the amusement of being loaded down with more purple gear than God and still killing badass psychos with a claw-hammer charge of four teenaged girls and their deathbots.

We tore that bastard apart. Granted, I was killed in the process and one of the others was dying when he went down, but it was fucking hilarious.


This isn't Counter-Strike. Cheaters aren't out to ballistically skullfuck you with impossible prescience and aim. Chances are we're just clowning around because it's how we have fun, which is kind of the point of the game. If you get some cheater who's being a grumpy old sourpuss and waving his cheating e-peenor in your face and saying he's better than you because he has all the goods, block him and ignore him; not because he's a cheater, but because he's a flame-spewing volcanic asshole.

But don't shit down on people just because they like to have fun differently. They're not trivializing your work, not at all, and they're not bad people. Hell, if you showed up with a 10-something character in my game, I'd probably ask if you wanted to sift through the loot and take your pick.





Yeah! They should stop having fun their way and be forced to play the game the way you decree it should be played! No, wait, that's not what I meant to say at all. Pretty much take what I just said there and turn it around to mean, like, the exact opposite.




Big freaking deal. Don't accept duel invites and you're golden. It's not like someone can come onto your server with all the purple gear ever, run right up to you wherever you happen to be, murder you and spawncamp you 'till you're broke or something.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 10 2012, 06:14 PM

If they do it in Single-player? Or only in games where everyone consents to their using Godmode? Bully for them; have lots of fun, I say.

If they do it in a game where I am playing - and where I haven't consented to anyone using cheats? Then yes, it's a problem.


If both characters are in the same game? Yes. (NOTE: that includes the whole of Missions.)


Great. So you're saying that public co-op - a major selling point of the entire franchise - is something I shouldn't be able to do, because I elect to play the game as intended ...?

No. Absolutely, totally fuckin' no. I reject that premise with every fiber of my being.


It's not the game that is the problem.

It's lowlife scum who cheat in multiplayer and don't first find out "hey, everyone here is okay with my cheating, yeah?" ... those're the problems.


What part of "I am not a social butterfly" did you not get? I have a diagnosed condition of social anxiety. Making friends, meeting new people - even over the internet - is especially difficult for me. (One of the reasons I resent being, in essence, locked out of PUGs in order to avoid cheaters; PUGs give me just enough arms-length anonymity to be comfortable meeting complete strangers without huge chasers of adrenaline-fuelled anxiety.)

To put it simply: making friends does not come easily to me. Any more than stairs come easily to someone in a wheelchair, which is to say, "nigh on impossible".

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 10 2012, 06:14 PM

"A little" ...? Yeah,right.

And it's not just guns. Classmods, relics, shields, and grenades count, too.


Wasn't someone suggesting 100%'s across the board, a little upthread? And, since all the challenges can be repeated ... yeah, I can believe at least +50%. To everything.


Yes, if you take it into a game with me.


As long as their fun doesn't step onmine, I don't and won't. But when it does ...? I have every god-damned RIGHT to complain.

Cheating is fine, as long as everyone in the game has consented to it. I cheat with both hands, in single-player games. I would never cheat in WoW, nor would I cheat with a character in BL2 who I ever expected to go multiplayer with (and I would have to keep track of how many badass tokens it earned, and NEVER SPEND THEM). Cheating should never touch the gamespaces of those who don't want to cheat.


If their cheating is going to affect my game? Damned friggin' straight, they should be forced to play "my way"!!


... and an entire part of the game is taken away from me, because some people don't know how to play games by the same rules they've chosen to play by.


... onto my server? Public games are just that, public. And because of rampant cheaters, I am essentially locked out of that entire aspect of Borderlands.

Posted by: Adarael Oct 10 2012, 07:17 PM

No, what I'm saying is that you are being impossible about this. In any multiplayer game, you have two choices:
1) Play in public, and deal with cheaters either by accepting it, or kick/banning them and not playing with them;
2) Don't play in public.

You are asking to play in public where you do not have to deal with cheaters, and yet at the same time say:



These statements are mutually exclusive. You cannot solve human desire to cheat, so in order to solve the problem of cheating, the game must be treated as the problem. Treating the game as the problem, developers have only two solutions, again:
1) Rely on players kicking and banning on a personal level to solve the problem - cheap, easy, intelligent (in the sense that it is adaptive).
2) Harden the game so that cheating is not possible - expensive, difficult, "dumb" (in a linear and non-adaptive sense).

They encrypted their save files, which is about all you can do without it being crazy expensive to block cheating of the type that you are annoyed by. The only other solution is to get Diablo 3 on the problem: you have to be online, all the time, always, in order to play the game. And I think if you look at the Diablo 3 thread, you can see how THAT goes.



I would suggest that there is a SIGNIFICANT spectrum of introversion between "not a social butterfly" and "diagnosed with severe social anxiety".
I'm sorry you have this problem, however. It must suck, hardcore! But Borderlands 2 can also be played solo. If you are unhappy playing the game solo, and you are unable to make social attachments, and you are unwilling to deal with the wilds of the internet and all of the cheating, swearing, jackassery that goes with it, you may just have stumbled into the perfect storm of a game that is almost what you want but hard to play in the way that you want.

The only method of truly preventing cheating in PUGs is by investing huge amounts of man-hours into security & security infrastructure, including invasive Diablo 3 type "always on" connections. Even VAC type solutions aren't good enough by themselves, because of semi RPG-ish nature of the game - witness how much cheating still occurs in TF2, despite VAC-Secure servers and years of development.

Kick/ban + friends only play is the only economical solution for Gearbox to pursue. And while that sucks for you, personally, it is the statistically superior method of error handling for their customer base at large.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 10 2012, 08:25 PM

I think there's an important aspect being lost here... you have to allow it to bother you. Just don't let it get under your skin and you're gold.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 10 2012, 08:56 PM

It goes remarkably well actually. I notice that a lot of the pro-cheats are also people that complained more about D3.

Posted by: Adarael Oct 10 2012, 09:06 PM

Sure, but you and I - I don't mind either - are in the silent faction. Lots of people everywhere are very vocal about their butthurt over the always-on portion of the game. Like I said in the D3 thread: Blizzard's already won, because the game has sold crazy well. But it doesn't mean that there aren't a LOT of angry players.

Posted by: Critias Oct 11 2012, 02:11 AM

While the fact it's a co-op rather than competitive game does cut down on the impact of cheaters, for sure, I think it's silly to say that it completely removes that impact.

Just because you're cooperating with your fellow players in, say, Shadowrun or D&D, does that mean it's fun to sit down at a convention with someone -- and I've got to say a con game is about like playing on-line, in that maybe you've got a mix of friends and strangers in a one-shot -- that's a rampant cheater? If someone sat down to play a Missions game with you and their every die roll just happened to be twenty dice, all coming up 6s, and they had a 10 Edge? If they were a Technosamuraisummonermancerfaceadept that did everything from casting overcast spells to summon spirits (of Man, with no drain, of course), to shooting and stabbing, to tearing up the Matrix?

Yeah, maybe you get to reap the rewards when they rampage all over every single NPC and you get your share of the pay, but...would you feel like it was fun? You, with your character that was meticulously made according to the Missions FAQ and rules, with your stack of experience point/advancement sheets, tracking your legal progress from game to game, making it work within the letter of the rules...only to have one guy do everything better than you, and make you at best redundant and at worst absolutely worthless?

Just because it's co-op, doesn't mean playing with a cheater is fun.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Oct 11 2012, 03:49 AM

Crit:

The difference is that there's a few magnitudes of order more investment in a tabletop RPG than in Borderlands.

If someone is dual-wielding uberguns and invincibly stomping all over everything to the point it's not fun for you, you have two easy options:

1 (If not host): Leave that game, find new game.
2 (If host): Ask the guy to come back with a less gamebreaking character, and if he won't, kick him from your computer.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 11 2012, 05:31 AM

I recently tried to run a game (didn't end well, and at least 60% my fault). I had six players.

I owned every SR4 PDF with crunch in it, plus Herolab and every Shadowrun supplement for it, and an extra single license.

Another player owned most or all of the books, but no software.

A second player owned the Core book, arsenal, and Augmentation.

The other four didn't own a single two-dolalr PDF between them. And three were only learning the rules and setting as we played, too. Not everyone invests a lot into an RPG.


Fixed that for you.

Oh, also, in both cases add: "YAYY, confrontation! Stress is FUN!! *sigh*

Cheating is fine in single player. And it's fine in groups where everyone consents to it.

But not anywhere else.

Posted by: Critias Oct 11 2012, 07:08 AM

No one's saying it's an impossible situation with no way out, and you'll find yourself forever locked in a video game you don't want to play, lashed to someone you don't want to play it with. We're just explaining that maybe it's not fun, and maybe it sucks that someone else cheats and ruins our fun. You're insisting that hacking is harmless and a good time and everyone else should just lighten up about it, and if that's your personal opinion (or the opinion of the people you play with), then fine. But don't say so specifically to belittle the opinion and try to handwave away the concerns of folks that don't want to play that way.

Because there's a third option that you forget to list, and that's "3: Wish for a world where other people hacking doesn't mean I have to find new games."

Posted by: Mäx Oct 11 2012, 09:01 PM

Woot woot, first campaign DLC in 4 days.

Posted by: Critias Oct 12 2012, 02:39 AM

Dang, they're not wasting any time, are they?

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Oct 13 2012, 02:08 PM

Investment in terms of time, hard thought and emotion, not money. Financially speaking, I've invested more in Borderlands 2 than I did in the Saga Edition of Star Wars, but Borderlands 2 can't hold a candle to how much time and energy and effort I've put into Star Wars gaming.



1: How hard is it to see that someone's carrying all purples/golds/pinks? They tend to be visually distinctive, and, if they're pink, they have very noticeable firing methods. The more insidious form of cheating would be if they gave themselves like, 5,000 badass points and have like, +50-100% to all their badass-affected stats, but otherwise use regular crap guns.

The first case, you'll notice right around the first time they unload in combat, assuming you didn't think it was odd that someone was carrying around a truckload of beautiful uberguns in town. Total amount of time "written off" - five to ten minutes, twenty at the outside.

In the second case, you may never notice - so what's the problem? What you don't know won't hurt you, so shut the fuck up and shoot something.

2: If you skip the "ask him to leave" and go straight to "kicking him," then it takes you approximately twelve seconds, IF you're completely unfamiliar with the interface. YAY, twelve seconds out of your shooting time. I have a rocket launcher that takes almost that much time to reload.


And in both cases: WHAT confrontation, jackass? You just leave his game, or remove him from your own. Either way, it's no skin off you.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 13 2012, 11:57 PM

I value my twenty minutes more than you do, that much is clear.


Except I will know it - just not as quickly, and, just not as provably (which would make an accusation paint ME as the dick, rather than them). If they've got 100% to everything, then with the same gear, they are literally twice as good as I am. For every enemy I kill, they'll get 2. For every 10 I kill, they'll take down 20.


Makes me an asshole. Full stop.


That. That right there.

See, now you're saying I am a jackass just for wishing people wouldn't cheat. To which I respond with a hearty fuck you; I'm shy of confrontations voice-to-voice, but not on a forum. Jackass.

Posted by: CanRay Oct 14 2012, 01:25 AM

Children, play nice before the Mods lock this down.

Posted by: Tiralee Oct 16 2012, 04:45 AM

...Or move the cheaters vs non-exploiters thread elsewhere?

Yeah, the patch was a bit..interesting. I miss Michael (I haven't seen him, not once, since the patch) and apparently a lot of the exploits were removed in order to facilitate a more balanced games play. I seriously miss that guy.

And yes, the Mechanomancer is a fun character but the robot is a rape-machine. God, that thing took down a level 16 GOD-lith (I was level 12 and not really boosting the robot skillz) while I hid behind a wall and tossed grenades and harsh language at it.

At level 50....yeah. Maya is so damn valuable in a party (The insta-res got another 100 badass rank in like 10 minutes of playing co-op) but at the moment, I'm like 5 skill-points from being an absolute hurt machine that can heal. The 150+/sec party healing is a nice bonus as well, but the slagball of stupendious hurt in addition with cohesion makes for some hilarious combat situations. I just wish the people I played with would take the hint and toss a turret or grenades into the clusterfuck suspended in the sky there...

The gunzerker can be hilarious in the wrong ways ("I charge and shoot everyone! Rez me, plz!") while z3ro players at least seem to think before charging in and dying. TheAxton guys seem to be smarter as well in the face of overwhelming odds - GF goes in first:)

Playing with a level 50 Mechanomancer was eddifying - it's not the character, it's the player that makes the game enjoyable. After the 6th group wipe because they insisted on shooting the big-ass electroball while we were in the middle of a group we asked them if they'd any other friends playing and then kicked them.

Anyhow, I'd really like to see the new DLC realsoonnow...trying to fight Tenticulasticular solo didn't exactly pan out how I wanted. (If the Bee and the conference call drops though, yeah, hurt time until the next patch)

-Tir.

Find me under Darshivadancer on X-box live. Jack must die...again.



And someone finish Shadowrun Returns soon. Dammit.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 16 2012, 08:01 AM

Yeah, I forsee a big ol' Nerf-stick treatment on that robot in the very, very near future. My own Mechanomancer is still under level 10, but ... damn, that robot is like having THREE other higher-level players show up to rape the NPC mobs, while I calmly skip along, humming to myself, looking for boxes of shinies to open up. Seriously. O_O


I think it's because the different class abilities lend themselves to different playstyles to begin with.

Gunzerking will appeal to people that already WANT to run out into the middle of a big group of enemies, and proceed to lay down the smack in unprecedented quantities.

Z3r0's stealth is well-suited for loners, who don't really coordinate well with the rest of a team.

Whereas Axton's turret promotes a more "I need to put the turret THERE, then go over HERE, so I can get these bastards in a crossfire" plan-then-act playstyle. Even if the plan is a simple as "I should put my turret there, befor runnign around shooting stuff".

Maya ... haven't tried her abilities yet, but I'd say she's a bit more crowd-control/support than the other classes, which also lends itself to the playstyle of thinkers/planners more than get-out-there-and-DO-STUFF players.

... and Gaige, well ...yeah. Just ... yeah. O_O


"Friendly fire ... isn't!"

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 16 2012, 11:58 AM

He was broken on Sanctuary 1 for the console versions. His spawn rate was set to 100% for Sanctuary 1 but would return back to 10% on Sanctuary 2. The PC was never broken.

--



Zer0 is well.... odd. Mostly due to Deception but also due to some of his class mods and skill trees. You either give him a sniper rifle or you give him a pistol and go WTFBBQSAUCE on bandits through Deception and melee. The reason you don't see many charge in and die Zer0s is because most play sniping.

Skills that Improve Melee Damage [I ignore +Critical Hit Damage]. Skills with a * in front of them are increased by either of the two legendary class mods.
Zero:
*C0unter Strike (Tier 1 Cunning, 5 levels) - After getting hit, your next melee attack has a chance to deal +50% damage per level.
Ambush (Tier 2 Cunning, 5 Levels) - +4% damage per level when attacking enemies from behind or when attacking an enemy who is targeting someone other than you.
Rising Sh0t (Tier 3 Cunning, 5 Levels) - Each successful ranged or melee attack gives you +2% Gun Damage and +1.8% Melee Damage per level for a short time.
Unf0rseen (Tier 3 Cunning, 5 Levels) - Your decoy explodes when you become visible causing shock damage to nearby levels. (Included since a melee Zer0 is almost always going to be exiting Deception around enemies than a sniping Zer0)
Deathmark (Tier 3 Cunning, 1 Level) - Dealing melee damage marks a target for 8 seconds. Marked targets take 20% additional damage from all sources.
*Killing Bl0w (Tier 1 Bloodshed, 5 Levels) - +100% Melee Damage per level against enemies with low health (% unknown).
*Ir0n Hand (Tier 1 Bloodshed, 5 Levels) - +3% Melee Damage and Maximum Health per level.
Be Like Water (Tier 2 Bloodshed, 5 Levels) - Shooting an enemy gives +6% damage per level to your next melee attack. Melee Attacks give +4% damage per level to your next gun attack.
F0ll0wthr0ugh (Tier 3 Bloodshed, 5 Levels) - Killing an enemy gives +8% Movement Speed, +6% Gun Damage, and +8% Melee Damage per level for a few seconds.
Backstab (Tier 3 Bloodshed, 5 Levels) - Your melee attacks deal +8% damage per level when hitting an enemy in the back.
Execute (Tier 3 Bloodshed, 1 Level) - While Decepti0n is active and a target is under your crosshairs, melee to dash forward a short distance and perform a special melee attack, dealing massive damage. 3 meter range.
Resurgence (Tier 4 Bloodshed, 5 Levels) - Killing an enemy with a melee attack restores up to 4% of your health per level depending on how low your health is.
Like the Wind (Tier 5 Bloodshed, 5 Levels) - +3% Gun and Melee Damage per level when moving.
Many Must Fall (Tier 6 Bloodshed, 1 Level) - Killing an enemy with a Melee Attack during Decepti0n deploys an additional holographic decoy and extends the duration of Decepti0n instead of ending it.

Salvador:
Divergent Likeness (Tier 3 Gun Lust, 5 Levels) - +6% Damage when Gunzerking with two of the same type of guns. [Assuming you can melee while gunzerking]
Keep It Piping Hot (Tier 5 Gun Lust, 5 Levels) - While Gunzerking is in the process of cooling down you gain +5% Gun Damage, +6% Melee Damage, and +5% Grenade Damage per level.
All in the Reflexes (Tier 2 Rampage, 5 Levels) - +6% Reload Speed and +4% Melee Damage per level.
Fistful of Hurt (Tier 3 Brawn, 1 Level) - Throw a heavy punch dealing massive damage and knockback. Has a cooldown of 15 seconds.

Axton:
Crisis Management (Tier 5 Guerilla, 5 Levels) - +7% Gun Damage and +6% Melee Damage per level when shields are depleted.
*Impact (Tier 1 Gunpowder, 5 Levels) - +4% Gun Damage and +3% Melee Damage per level.
Battlefront (Tier 3 Gunpowder, 5 Levels) - +6% Gun, Melee, and Grenade damage per level when turret is deployed.

Maya: Cataclysm
*Mind's Eye (Tier 1 Harmony, 5 Levels) - +5% Critical Hit Damage and +6% Melee Damage per level.
Backdraft (Tier 3 Cataclysm, 5 Levels) - Your melee attacks deal additiona Fire Damage. Also, when your shields become depleted you create a fiery explosion, damaging nearby enemies. Your shields must recharge between explosions.
Blight Phoenix (Tier 5 Cataclysm, 5 Levels) - Killing an enemy causes you to deal constant Fire and Corrosive Damage to nearby enemies for a short time. The damage is based on your level and the level of Blight Phoenix.

Gaige: I don't know Gaige's bonuses specifically, but it looks like she has 3 melee oriented skill options.

So yeah... not knowing how these stack, I'm going to post both the additive and multiplicative stacking methods.

Axton gets +87% or +114%.
Maya gets +54%.
Salvador gets 80% or +102%.
Zer0, well Zer0 has a lot more contigent bonuses but none of them are mutually exclusive and some stack... +1551% or +32125%. For the sake of disclosure, I'm adding in the +4 ranks you can get from a specific class mod. A lot of this damage bonus is caused by two abilities. Counter Strike (+450%) and Killing Bl0w (+900%) which require that you have recently been hit and that you're attacking a low health enemy (<33%). I also haven't checked if every ability can be gained.

Now if you add a bladed Weapon, +50% damage and have a 5.2% BADASS bonus to melee damage....
Axton gets +142 or +338%
Maya gets +109% or +243%
Salvador gets +135% or +320%
Zer0 gets +1606% or +50694%

More hilarity with Zero's melee, I've read that 500k is a low ball number for Zer0's melee with 7500k damage being attainable. You can also melee Bunker with Zer0, something that can't be done with other characters.

Posted by: Mäx Oct 16 2012, 05:33 PM

I haven't noticed DT being that good at killing the enemies, but that might be because i have been tricking the game to think there are 4 people in my solo game.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 16 2012, 05:38 PM

Yeah, and that makes all enemies much, much tougher.

But, just single-player, by yourself? DT steals the show. In a big way.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 16 2012, 05:47 PM

Honestly, I can kill so much stuff with a sniping Zer0 so fast. My problem is when I try or bother with multiplayer games the lag makes it brutal to score the headshots and criticals that are necessary to make him brutal at sniping. That's part of the reason I've been considering migrating and respeccing to the melee build for him. Now that I'm reading about it, it looks like that's really the only way to play Zer0 in MP or even in SP PT2.

Posted by: almost normal Oct 16 2012, 05:59 PM

I felt like BL2 rewarded and punished the wrong things.

It seems off that in a game where guns are supposed to be over the top fun, they punish the gunzerker and make certain areas of play near impossible, and his specialty of wielding two guns nearly always gets him killed. Meanwhile, they decide to reward cowardly 'Dur-hur, can't find me gilbert!' zer0 play, which doesn't use guns at all.

The game doesn't let me get out my aggression like the first one did, and with XCOM and Dishonored out, I just don't find myself even wanting to play this failure of a game anymore. Shame, too, the first one was so fun.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 16 2012, 06:12 PM

It's obviously only a failure to you.

Posted by: Adarael Oct 16 2012, 06:57 PM

I admit, I haven't experienced this at all with my Gunzerker. If anything, I find him more survivable than any other class except possibly Gaige, since I haven't gotten her high enough to see yet. I wonder if this is because I am just more cautious than the average "BLAHURRR! KILL!" type person, tho.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 16 2012, 07:18 PM

I know Zer0's survivability is horrible when playing in the Sniping tree. It almost requires you use the Survivalist (I think) class mod. That's the one that grants health regen and a health boost. You really need a high capacity high recharge rate shield

I have to play with his melee tree, but I suspect his survivability is significantly better in close combat since you have abilities that grant HP on melee hits. I really want to try him with Love Thumper equipped (Roid Damage shield that has a 3 minute recharge timer).

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 16 2012, 07:52 PM

It seems like the Gunzerker has tons of tank options, so I wonder what kinds of builds we're looking at.

Posted by: Critias Oct 17 2012, 12:34 AM

Playing as Axton while Mrs. Crit plays as Gaige is...I almost feel lazy. Like I can just find cover and pitch my turret out over the top of it and hunker down, she can send out Deathtrap and then go get a soda or something, almost. Our mechanical murder machines do so much of the work for us, it's pretty hilarious.

Posted by: CanRay Oct 17 2012, 03:57 AM

"And that's why we build our own friends."

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 17 2012, 01:27 PM

Respec'd my Zer0 to melee. Found him doing around 3k hits at level 38 which is comparable to the ~4k damage I am dealing with non-crit sniper rifle shots. Didn't really mess around too much with trying to get various modifiers to apply.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 17 2012, 03:58 PM

Law and Order. Makes a melee zer0 crazy.

Posted by: Tiralee Oct 17 2012, 11:14 PM

Hoi kids - Tiralee again.

Okay, killed the warrior (Level 52) yesterday on true vault hunter mode with a level 32 mechanomancer and a level 42 Commando (I was a level 50 Maya). Jack dropped some nice thing which were ninja'd by the commando, but that's another story...

Interestingly, the robot consistantly did a lot of damage to the warrior, especially once I cracked open a few chestplates and it could use the lazzzors-O-death. The Chrylisks were hugely annoying (and responsible for the other players levelling up x2) the turrets, when properly placed (and not shooting down those volcanic raks whick I needed to kill for my near-constant second winds) were also a constant supply of pain, as were any seeking grenades.

I also died, a lot. As in I started with 2 million in funds and ended up with $3200. The treasure got me close to 200k again though, which was nice, (before the sell off)

Some more thoughts on killing bosses for fun and shinys -

King Mong is the easiest and simplest to farm: Equip your 5% bonus drop artifact, go to the Eridum blight, Catch a Riiiiiiide! and then drive to his spawn sites, waste in the MG-equipped vehicle, grab a few easy chests, quit and save, wash, rinse, repeat. Tends to drop an artifact (still looking for an ability cool-down faster than my blue level 36 (24% Reduction)) and a grenade, and at least one purple gun.

Saturn (and we all know who he is, right?) has been nerfed, hard, since the patch. No longer is he the pinata of treasure but he does drop a purple class mod and a purple grenade mod each time he goes down. Which, face it, is often as the rabid scags are a lot tougher. (Saturn is the "mech-loader" in Firestone, that spawns on the elevated road and then jumps down to spew death at you. Often gets caught on the overpass infrastructure and can be finished off with rubber-band on your controller and a corrosive pistol if you've blown the lazer cannons off of him first.) Also: a 17-19 x high-level corrosive shotgun can take 5-10% health off of him per shot due to the critical areas. Bandit makes them, but they take forever to reload and I chew through ammo a LOT.

Tried farming Hunter Helquist, drops crap after the patch (used to have a 1% chance of dropping oranges, was the source for the Bee and that orange sniper, apparently.)

Bonehead 2.0 now (also post-patch) drops absolutely nothing. As in ~ $1000 total after farming him 6 times. Pre-patch I managed to snag a corrosive lead-wind and a shock lead wind (Forgot the name) which made the 1.0 warrior fight very, very easy.

Good news! Moxy's guns (tip her at level 50 for the best weapons) still obliterate (Good touch and bad touch, fire and corrosive, respectively) and make the loaders cry like little....robots.



Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd DLC! (Captain's scarlets' Pirate booty, Arrrgh!)

It's level 30+ so get your "I just tea-bagged the warrior" asses out there. It's also got a nice, unsettling creepy vibe happening as well.
At level 50, my shield was killling everyone so I'm going to have to level out another character (Probabily mechanomancer:)) and get them to wander about. Loot isn't half bad (some nice guns, the named ones are pretty awesome.) and again, great story.

It's really feeling like "Pirates of Fallout: New Vegas" - the Hunter S. Thompson character is a standout for "what the fuck's on the TV" from the lovely.

Also - Loving Gaige's dialogue.



-Tir

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 18 2012, 07:09 AM

See, games like Diablo III make it so that the loot that drops, is YOUR LOOT; only ou can see it. Thus, zero Ninja-looting.

Why don't ALL games do that?!?


Awesome fun, though I dislike the weapons setup on the skimmers.

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 18 2012, 11:23 AM

BORED! BORED! BORED! BORED! BORED!
BORED! BORED! BORED! BORED! BORED! BORED! BORED!
I am really bored!

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 18 2012, 04:41 PM

Ha, Tiralee, nice summary. My internet's been out at home since before the patch, so maybe I should just leave it off for farming. … Nah.

Posted by: Tiralee Oct 26 2012, 02:20 PM

Hi kids - back again as life's got a great way of tearing off your manly parts and shoving them into the blender...

Okay - The Pirate booty DLC is INSANE if you've defeated the warrior on true vault mode, yes, everything's level 50+ but they are so...friggin...tough...

But...The drops are also scaled up! Scoring that acid-glob rifle drop by Beardless can dissolve Saturn or pretty much any loader or constructor in a magazine. Shields are...frankly useless as the OF tend to hit you for 5-12k per glancing shot.

Places to avoid post-warrior vh2 mode: Anywhere that you don't have a clear escape route that allows you time to sprint and take on stragglers. The Caustic caverns are an indescrible death-hole, the Highland Stalker-blinds are horrible and the non-stop madness of Opportunity is just foul. So, yeah, if the Foreman drops a shiney unique, chances are, you're better off doing it before trying to kill the warrior, again..

Also - the +5% rare drop artifact doesn't seem to really work much in the last two stages of the Main Quest, but the drops come thick and fast during the DLC. I don't know if this is an intentional nerf, pure bad luck on our parts or some in-game balance I'm missing, but I get better drops from Skags than from the constructors at Hero's pass.

Note: Gearbox ARE going to nerf the fuck out of the Bee, so your "let's go farm tenticulastor" summer days are over. (The Bee is a unique shield that is like the amplify shields (your next shot is amped, but drains the shield a lot) that amps a ton, and drains none. Note: shotgun damage is calculated per pellet, so on true-hunter mode, you're talking ~ 5-8k extra, per pellet...makes a helluva mess) Saw a gunzerker using it to take down a level 52 VH2 mode Warrior in ~ 2 minutes (the cryalisks kept him damaged)

Stream-of-conciousness continues, but wends it's way back to the DLC:
What else? Oh, the 2 "post story" bosses are stupidly, stupidly hard to kill. And no, I've not met a team dedicated enough to kill either one, and I've simply not got the time to slowly whittle down the "HP in the billions" easy-peasy melee one (Saying that only shows you've not damaged him enough - his tomahawks do ~ 100k damage when he's actually hurt)

Killing them will give you shiny new currency, which can be used to buy artifact-level weapons from some guy in Oasis. And seriously, that place is still creepy as hell. Said weapons are very, very high-end, but a bit poorly-thought out, due to the inherent problems of balance within a randomly-generated weapon system.


My lovely and I are now on seperate gamer tags, so if you're on Xbox live and looking for a hand, just drop Retooled Looter a message. (Seperate tags now as we're playing 4-man get-togethers with longtime friends in Sydney. It's basically Snipe, Robot Rape, Gunzerk, Healz all around and rez the gunzerker, rinse, repeat.)


And lootin's:
KingMong is still an easy farm, even at level 52. Just whittle him the fuck down in that MG-equipped ride, ride forward when he leaps so you don't get pounded for 12k a hit, and then finish him off on foot with a suitably-monsterous weapon. Dropped the Bandit lev 50 multiple-launch MissileLauncher tonight, a few nice guns for a level 50 'Zerker and yet more +36% health artifacts. After that, warp to Oasis for the chests, Back to Claptrap's place for still-level-50 Knuckldragger (drops a Dahl rare acid pistol) and then to the Southern Shelf to see if Boom-Bewm is going to drop that insane grenade mod again (Each Mirv splits again. Equipping it on a gunzerker with the "double grenade" skill means there's 36 or do of the mirvs in carpet-bomb mode per grenade, hilarious from a distance, not so good up close)

Skags are a bane of my existance atm - the Rabid scags are stupidly-tough and aggro from a mile off, much to the concern of passer's-by and the odd jet loader (watched in amazement as a skag leapt and caught a jet-loader chasing me, and then I carpeted the area in hellfire)

Anyhoo,

Good huntin'
-Tir

Posted by: StealthSigma Oct 31 2012, 11:59 AM

So. Players who hack Borderlands 2 to cheat for better guns and ammo by enabled the unenablable badass hardcore mode are now causing serious griefing issues on the 360 version.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20136922

Badass mode was a removed feature (removed in the sense that players didn't have access to it) that caused permadeath but you have much better item drops. However simply joining a game with someone that has cheated for badass mode causes a character to be put into it and a character who has it and joins another game infects all the other players in it.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 31 2012, 09:28 PM

See? SEE?!?!?

THAT kind of mother-f*cking sh!te is why I resent cheaters who can't keep it in their own pants (which is to say, keep it only to games wher EVERYONE consents to cheat before any cheating happens).

NOW DO PEOPLE FECKING UNDERSTAND?!?!?!?

This crap is costing people their whole, entire character - and the characters of anyone they play with after "just leaving". How's that for "your" cheats, having consequences on "my" gameplay ...?! Eh? Eh??

Posted by: Adarael Oct 31 2012, 10:20 PM

Whoa, hold up there. Order of magnitude of difference.

The first cheat is an exploit used to boost oneself.

The second is a legitimately game-breaking bug used to grief others.

Don't put words in our mouth: nobody said THIS kind of asshattery is okay.

Posted by: Halinn Oct 31 2012, 10:52 PM

It might have started as a way to boost themselves, as the article said that it did give increased drops. The first people to use it probably did not know that it would spread. By now it probably spreads unintentionally, from people who don't yet know they got it.

People used it to try and boost themselves, only this time it directly hurt others. No difference, except that the outcome was direct instead of indirect.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Oct 31 2012, 10:56 PM

Jesus christ, Pax, take a couple of handfuls of chill pills.

I seriously doubt that anyone is intentionally using this to griff (well, now that it's known and published, they will,) but it was probably accidental in the first place.

I'm sure the devs are working triple-time to institute a patch that strips the badass tag from everybody's save files.

Posted by: _Pax._ Oct 31 2012, 11:14 PM

No.


From the linked article (emphasis mine):

Gearbox warned about the problem on 22 October saying some gamers were using it to "maliciously disrupt the experience and sabotage characters of legitimate Borderlands 2 players".

And: it's cheating, that has had a direct negative (and catastrophic) effect on players, at least some of whom had no interest in cheating themselves.

And I'm pretty sure you'd go absolutely ballistic yourself, if YOU lost a level 45+ character to something like this. Just because you haven't felt the negative impact, doesn't mean there is no negative impact at all.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 1 2012, 05:23 PM

Even if this is the case, that's kind of the problem. Hacking their own setup hurt others. Oh no, they could never have foreseen this… but it's still all their fault.

Posted by: Tiralee Nov 20 2012, 09:35 AM

MISTER TORGUE!

Q: What's your favourite type of explosion?

A: YES


Enough Said.

-TORGUE's DLC out today, if the fucking interwebs aren't still clogged with BlackShadowOpsIIStabULite players wondering why their games aren't working.

Re: the recent "hack" (enabling of the UltraIronman Mode - that was a bit dangerous to have in the final build yeah.) the patch seems to be working, according to the Russian's with whom I've been farming Levithian. And yep, they get the pop-culture references as well.

Oh, item duping still works as does the skag-sucking Meatsick slaughterfarm XP grind. Frankly, I'm in two minds over this, as I've had the Bee (Level 49, oddly enough as it's on true vault mode and AFTER I've killed the Warrior again) drop after my 134th Hunter Helquist slaughter and it makes level 50 enemies die...not easy, but without using 200 rounds or 25 headshots.

Even with the various Siren shield refresh and boost abilities (The Bee only gives you a ~ 20k shield, 30k with all the trimmings as opposed to ~70k with purple level 50 shields) I have to play a LOT smarter though, using cover, etc, rather than relying on the shield to take a few hit for you.

Oh, and Tetramorphus the Invincible, I went hunting after his ass ASAP after getting used to the bee (and farming the Levithian 4 times, god) and dropped him to 5% before an errant tentacle ended that attempt, so I tried again.

23 times.
Without success.

So, skill also supplies success:)

RE: farming: Ming-mong has dropped multiple Bandit unique rocket launchers now, much to the delight of my Gunzerker buddy who just unleashes electric hell on...well, everything.

Classes:

It seems the Commando has a big-ass decline in survivability from 37-48, everything was eating me and I was reasonably tricked-out. At level 50 though, the mods and shields and artifacts just combine to make Axton a hurt machine. Speeding up redeployment is a big priority.

Siren: I am kicking myself I've not played about with the Motion tree more (apart from convergence, which is sheer fun-in-a-ball-with-gunzerking-rockets-inbound) after I finally had a go with Sub Sequence (When an enemy dies under the effects of Phaselock, there is a chance for your Phaselock to seek out and affect another target (20% chance per level). Basically, it means that the phaselock rubberbands from enemy to enemy, dragging and hoovering up multiple enemies as each inbound grenade/AOE blast kills the rest in the ball. Stupid amounts of fun and damage if you've got Helios as well.

But for sheer surprise, it was finally specing out of the Best-Friends-Forever tree (Ie: GF-mode) into the "Little-Big Trouble" tree (The Anarchy tree, meh) for the Mechanomancer. Suddenly, the robot's not just anally-fisting bandits (Hilarious and so satisfying), but everything's on fire and being electrocuted....EVERYTHING. Also, telling people to avoid shooting the big electro-ball until it hits a bandit is a smarter way to play. Robofisting is also maintained.
Although I DO greatly miss being able to stack an extra 4% melee damage each kill and extending the Robot's residency time to some stupidly-long time (163 stacks...that's like 652% extra melee damage) I am disappointed that they've still not fixed the Mechanomancer melee damage weirdness. (FYI: it seems that unless wielding a +% melee damage weapon, Gaige's normal melee is ~ 1/10 of what it should be. Eh, like I care, that's what a robot's for.)

Gunzerker, I've not played extensively yet but it seems that adjusting your play to suit your style is the biggest advantage. The health regen is mild (especially considering the Siren's insta-heal via bullets) but the bullet regen is a great way to make friends.

Zero: Eh...as people have said, trying to headshot during lag-happy sessions is troublesome. However, using a shotgun (especially a stupidly-offensive one) with the Sniper tree is an easy way to get out of that, as well as noscoping the big-uns up close from stealth. Melee is..ok, frankly. Although you can really stack the damage with a 'Roid shield and a lot Bloodshed unlocked) Cunning was pretty meh, although Deathmark is so tasty as is counterstrike (see the roid shield reference for why)

Anyhow, time to restart and see if they've unleashed MOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAR EEEEEEEEEEXPLOSIOOOOOOOOOOOONS


-Tir

Question: HOW MUCH WOOD COULD A WOOD CHUCK CHUCK IF A WOOD CHUCK COULD WIELD TORGUE?
Answer: THE WOODCHUCK WOULD BLOW UP THE FOREST BECAUSE WOODCHUCKS GIVE ZERO F*CKS
[–]MISTERTORGUE[S]

Posted by: Halinn Nov 20 2012, 12:37 PM

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/13gsxi/iama_mister_torgue_and_will_answer/

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 4 2012, 11:08 AM

Yesssssssssssssssss-

According to Randy Pritchard, 6th playable class character incoming.

Torgue's little playtime was fun...and god, wasn't Piston lampshaded? But it was quite fast (Someone tell me how to get the damn explosive sniper, please?) once you finished the main quests and just sat and re-slaughtered the level 52 badasses for enough torgue tokens for those sweet, sweet uniques.

(Note: level 50 Bonus package is instakill. That shit be wrong.)

Still not found a good way to farm tokens yet - but a level 50 commando with the Bee and enough grenades will clean out that bar pretty fast, but those rat-bastards, oh holy shit, I shot one and found he'd stolen ~ 67 million from me. (Much to the delight of the povo buddies I was playing with.)

Anyhoo, time to go - need to level a Mechanomancer enough so that Death-trap Robo-fisting makes bandits explode without me having to shoot them.

-Tir.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 4 2012, 02:26 PM

Brain bleach, please.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Dec 4 2012, 07:05 PM

Why? That's pretty standard fare for Borderlands.

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 10 2012, 08:40 AM

Finally got around to playing a Gunzerker (level 30) and I have to say, with the Torgue expansion, Pandora has never been more deadly.

My favourite gunzerking thing (apart from dual-wielding good/bad Moxy SMGs) is to go deep into the Rampage tree and "Double your fun" (you throw 2 grenades for the price of one while gunzerking) with a Bonus Package equipped. A close second is to use Rolling Thunder .

Also, the "So Much Blood" achievement isn't really an achievement, but more of a playstyle. My record has been to gunzerk and kill the first group of bandits at Lair's Berg, and finish the gunzerk at the Lift on Captain Flynt's ship. (This was only able to be done with a fully-juiced up Yippee Ki Yay ability.) Guns and grenades, it doesn't matter as long as you're the one to kill them. Fun!

I'll also mention that I managed to get a hold of a level 28 "Double-Penetrating Unkempt Harold" and it does a stupid amount of damage if you crit with it, it's only ~ 950 or so listed damage, but it just destroys.


Get some!

-Tir.

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 17 2012, 11:03 PM

Aw fuck - the recent patch has nerfed the Bee (the "Go-To-And-Slaughter" Sheild) and the Fleshstick xp exploit.

Damn, now I'll just have to level the old-fashioned way:P

-Tir

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 18 2012, 01:59 AM

Please tell me that is not the name of an NPC. o.O

Posted by: _Pax._ Dec 18 2012, 02:10 AM

No, it's a gun.

Posted by: StealthSigma Dec 18 2012, 12:39 PM

With a game like Borderlands..... it could be a NPC....

Posted by: CanRay Dec 18 2012, 05:40 PM

With a game like Borderlands, it could be both an NPC and a firearm.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Dec 18 2012, 06:02 PM

You mean it should be, right?

Posted by: _Pax._ Dec 18 2012, 06:36 PM

... at the same time. "I like being a gun." Hahaha.

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 22 2012, 07:42 AM

What-ho fellow vault hunters, Sir Hammerlock's Safari expansion drops 15th January!

From what industry gossip that's about, and considering that Borderlands 2 is now available on the Mac, and the lengthy period required to push through the damned patches on all platforms, the 15th was the earliest they could do (they were, apparently, looking for a pre-Christmas release, but so it goes.).

And for all you lovers of the swag, you can download Sir Hammerlock's dulcet tones for your phone:)

Other fun drops: (spending some hilarious time online with friends)
WTF (Shield) Level 25 and it's a fast way to kill your entire team (On hit, chance to drop a shield booster...that spews electro-grenades.) Bought from a vending machine at Dr Zeds, of all places.
Transformer (shield) 20 - damn, this is a good shield (Adsorbs hits, converts to ammo) always immune to electricity, apparently. (drops from Bunker)
Deliverance: (Shotgun) Teledore shotgun, good damage, decent reload speed and when tossed, the gun chases down your enemies and shoots them, then explodes....I cannot tell you how much fun this is.
The Hornet (Dahl pistol, always acid) level 2, level 30 and level 50 (!) Drops from Knuckledragger, eats robots. Burstfire is stupidly damaging.
Another 4 (!!!!) Whackadooms - Bandit multi (6-8!) rocket launcher, from level 23 to 49-50. (dropped by King Mong) I had 3 drop in a row, the instant one is stupidly awesome, only 50k damage per rocket, but no travel time - rocketspam like a demon.

Apart from that, this is a game that is designed to be played with friends. Never alone (unless you're levelling alts:) as you need a witness to the sheer awesome that your average player can pull out, by sheer accident, curiosity and "hold my beer, I have an idea"-edness.

-Goodgame
-Tir.

Posted by: Critias Dec 22 2012, 08:36 AM

Mrs. Crit and I finally sat down and worked on wrapping up the Torgue -- excuse me, the TORGUE -- expansion, and had a lot of fun throughout. It reinvigorated our laugh-out-loud adoration of Tiny Tina (even though she didn't feature real heavily), and then we spent the better part of a half hour picking and choosing from among our friends, assigning them Borderlands characters to costume as at various conventions. Some of us would need to go as alt-costume bits of various characters (depending on the hair color/outfit chosen, my beard's pretty spot on for Axton's "Roguish Renegade" face), but we got almost everyone accounted for and it would make for an epic costuming group at Dragon*Con or something.

Sadly, of all of us, we're the only two who have played the game! So if we show up at our gaming buddy's house and just bust out with "We want your 13 year old daughter to dress up like this gigglinh psychopath, and you're going to be what's called a Gunzerker," no one else will appreciate our keen eye and superb taste. Because they're gaming buddies, no one will call the cops or anything, but some of the awesomeness is wasted.

The Philistines.

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 22 2012, 10:55 AM

Re: Cosplaying

I've seen a Moxxie cosplayer (she's got a twitter linked to the gearbox one now) and she's not bad - I know I'm a shoe-in for Marcus ("No Refunds!") and I play regularly with an old friend of mine that looks like a ginger Salvadore...

Hilariously, he's stopped playing his level 34 Gunzerker because I badgered him into playing a siren (So he could heal his Zero-playing sniper GF, who was a noob to the entire console shooting thing and is now doing HORRIBLE things to people on a regular basis) and now he's reluctant to go back, simply for the joy of healing, and killing.

I'm hopscotching around now, trying to level but not "over level' so I can still play happily with my buddies but not be "that guy".

Recently, the majority of the conversations were along the lines of, "OMG, TELL ME you all saw that!" as we develop into team roles (I'm flexible, also, familiar with all characters so it's cool) and are now power-chomping our way through the opposition...good times.

Funny thing is, it's not easy per se - we still die and almost wipe on a regular basis, even with a good healer, as we're stretching our skills (their level 30's were playing with my level 20 Commando - they were horrified at how easily you could split and separate attacking groups and funnel them into killing zones (Rolling thunder takes a bit of getting used to, but it's good times now) using the turret, grenades and some clever deception skills.

So it's a team-building, fun group game, that's rewarding good players with better players, and good times. Holy crap - who'd a thunk it?

Also, it's stupid fun watching the gunzerker toss multiple MIRVS down a hole full of baddies. Good times, good times...


-Tir.
(Russians LOVE the sniper class - are horrified that as a healer, I can make their jobs easier.)

Posted by: Bigity Dec 22 2012, 01:59 PM

Was just gifted this (I was waiting for spring sale, which would be after my bonus), looking forward to more whacky BL action.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 22 2012, 11:19 PM

I bought Borderlands 2 yesterday, when it showed up in Steam's holiday sale for 50% off, so I got the game plus the Season Pass for the regular price of the game itself. Currently playing a gunzerker. Probably going to specialize in the Rampage and Gun Lust trees.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 23 2012, 01:04 AM

One thing that annoys the living fuck out of me is that elemental weapons are no longer hitscan. WTF?

Posted by: _Pax._ Dec 23 2012, 01:27 AM

... "hitscan" ...? What's that??

Right, educated myself.

I hate to say it, but borderlands has NEVER used "hitscan".

The only change BL1 -> BL2, is that some projectiles in BL2 are significantly slower than the default for BL1, which was often fast enough people thought the game was using hitscan modelling .... but it wasn't. It is and always has been a projectile-modelling game. Every bullet you fire, the game tracks it. Individually. And shotguns fire multiple projectiles at once ... each of which is tracked. Individually.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 23 2012, 06:17 AM

Regardless, every single elemental weapon I have discovered thus far shoots projectiles that are far slower than those fired by similar, non-elemental weapons, and I cannot figure out the reasoning behind this.

Posted by: _Pax._ Dec 23 2012, 06:50 AM

"Bad luck". Seriously. My various and sundry elemental weapons are no slower by and large, compared to nonelemental weapons of the same ty-

Oh.

OH.

You've been using EXPLOSIVE-element guns, haven't you? That element specifically, yes, is much slower. And also has an AoE at the point of impact. It's part and parcel of that specific elemental type: it's not firing bullets, it's firing GYROJETS ... micro-rockets. Especially, any Torgue-branded gun works like that. The point of explosive guns, is that you don't have to actually hit your target dead-on. "Close counts" and all that. Indeed, it can be easier to aim for the ground at their feet, than trying to aim at a mobile enemy directly.

If you're on PC, we should get together and I can show you the difference, demonstrate a few elemental guns that're just as quick from barrel-to-bandit as normal bullets.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 23 2012, 06:52 AM

So far my only elemental weapons are explosive and incendiary, and they both have slow projectiles. Except the incendiary sniper rifles, now that I think about it. I've got incendiary pistols and SMGs, and they all have slow projectiles.

Posted by: _Pax._ Dec 23 2012, 08:17 AM

The incndiary might be another type of projectile - HOMING. They, too move slower ... but they'll follow an enemy, and are very hard to actually miss with. But that's not all inendiaries, just some.

I've had plenty of shock, incendiary, caustic, and slag guns that hit pretty much instantly.

Oh, and there's E-tech guns ... energy weapons. Those're generally slightly FASTER projectiles than normal.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 23 2012, 10:19 AM

No, they're not homing. I oughta know, I miss enough.

Anyway, I was extremely happy to see that Patricia Tannis is alive and well. She was easily my favorite character in Borderlands, and retains her sociopathic charm in the sequel.

Posted by: _Pax._ Dec 23 2012, 01:09 PM

Hmm. What system are you playing on? PC? A screenshot might help me narrow down what's going on.

I agree about Professor Tannis. She remains quite loopy, totally disconnected from the reality around her ... yet still crucial to your success.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 23 2012, 06:08 PM

I'm on a PC, but the point is kind of moot now since I have actually started finding fast-projectile elemental guns.

I think Roland just took gold in the Biggest Understatement Ever contest: "I know Tina can be... odd..." I'm sitting here thinking, "Odd? Girl is the new trope codifier for http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AxCrazy."

Posted by: CanRay Dec 23 2012, 07:39 PM

TV TROPES WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE!!!

...

And I helped them now.

Posted by: Halinn Dec 23 2012, 07:48 PM

Stop enabling them!

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 23 2012, 07:51 PM

You forgot the link. Fixed it for ya.

Posted by: CanRay Dec 23 2012, 08:31 PM

Go to the Shadowrun TV Tropes, they now have a Character Sheet.

Look under Kane.

Posted by: Halinn Dec 23 2012, 08:49 PM

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Shadowrun
This?

Posted by: CanRay Dec 23 2012, 10:33 PM

Yes.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 24 2012, 01:52 AM

Filed under "A" for "Annoyances carried over from Borderlands:" as soon as I go down, all enemies in sight run away, hide behind cover, and begin tonguing each others' assholes, preventing me from getting the kill I need to get back up.

I might have made up the part about them giving each other rimjobs.

Maybe.

Posted by: _Pax._ Dec 24 2012, 03:07 AM

However, in BL2, you are down BUT NOT IMMOBILE. You can still move around, albeit very slowly.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 24 2012, 03:40 AM

It rarely helps.

I don't want to seem completely down on the game, because I actually am enjoying it.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 24 2012, 04:24 AM

OK, now I need guidance.

Posted by: Critias Dec 24 2012, 04:54 AM

Through the cyrstalisks is the right way to go; to me, the answer was "get close and shotgun the crap out of them." Just remember each leg can only take X number of criticals before you've got to target other legs. I move quickly, blast 'em, and...well...yeah, that's about the only advice I can really give.

You're going the right way, it just takes some work. They're also really pretty slow, though, so if you're totally getting stomped you can always try to speed run through/past stuff.

Posted by: _Pax._ Dec 24 2012, 05:27 AM

Kill crystalisks by aiming for the CRYSTALS on their LEGS.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 24 2012, 05:33 AM

Turned out the crystalisks were completely irrelevant at that stage. Maybe later. I overlooked a little wheel to the left of the door blocking my progress. I got back to Sanctuary (OMG stalkers need to die).

Posted by: fistandantilus4.0 Dec 24 2012, 05:44 AM

Singularity grenades and electrical weapons are a win/win when it comes to stalkers. Also, playing as the assassin, when you go into Deception mode, you can see everyone/thing, even others that are stealthed. It's a lot more useful when you're high enough level to stay cloaked after making a kill.

Posted by: Mäx Dec 24 2012, 08:01 AM

Where the slow projectile ones purplish pink in color?
Those are E-tech weapons that are based on Eridian technology and and all fire different kind of special projectiles some of witch are quite slow.

Posted by: Critias Dec 24 2012, 09:03 AM

It sounded like it was a pretty early-game complaint, so I doubt he was finding E-tech stuff left and right.

Posted by: Mäx Dec 24 2012, 09:11 AM

Well he only had 3 elemental weapons at that point a sniper(that worked normally) pistol(possibly the reward you get from the doc mercy quest) and a smg(one E-tech find isn't that unlikely)

Posted by: StealthSigma Dec 24 2012, 12:21 PM

Grenades and Rocket Launchers are your friend. No seriously... rocket launchers are my go to weapon for second winds.



Pics or it didn't didn't happen.

--



That point is a difficulty ramp up.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 24 2012, 05:11 PM

How are you throwing grenades when down?

Posted by: Mäx Dec 24 2012, 06:06 PM

Axton has a game changer that allows this(Do or Die), but also after a while you get quite apt at throwing a grenade a moment before going down.

Posted by: StealthSigma Dec 24 2012, 06:19 PM

Yep yep.

Posted by: Critias Dec 24 2012, 09:59 PM

Why do you think they keep so many midgets around?

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 25 2012, 03:16 AM

Oh good, people are playing Borderlands as they are supposed to

re: down-and-out: Gunzerker has skill that allows them to gunzerk when dying - only really uselful with BIG bosses. Axton(Commando) has a skill that allows him to toss grenades when dying also, but frankly, it's always better to toss a handful BEFORE dropping, then switch to a rocketlauncher/Shotgun and then obliterate anything that moves.

In True Vault Hunter mode, enemies KEEP SHOOTING your dying ass, so it's easier to get kills, usually. (Boss fights sorta suck because of this)
If you've engaged them from a distance, or some bastard's just dropped a missile onto the explosive barrel you were hiding next to, yep, you're going to have a hard time - non-vault mode, the bandits have a much smaller "field of interest" and aggro at much closer ranges, so they may ignore you to bunk off behind a bike shed for a quick rusty trombone from Giggles the midget.

The "Crawling and gasping" makes it tremendiously easier for people to rez your ass as you can act as "Bait" and maintain the aggro while they heal you. (Or in the case of sirens, heal you by shooting you while you ressurect them)

And I know I've said this before - but play with a friend, or 4. The game is so much more fun. Even online with strangers, if you've got shit, chances are they'll dump some of their lesser-used crap if only to make you more deadly and able to save their asses.

Oh, and level cap - UNNNNGH...god, what my 50's could do with another 5, or even, god, 10 skill points.....nice to see gearbox working hard to make their dlc's actually good, and engaging.

RE: recent patch, if you're wanting to work on other characters (Ie: use the un-nerfed Bee and the Fleshstick exploits) just lose your xbox cache or roll back the patches (if you're one of the glorious gaming master race) and don't bother to play with others. Frankly, only good if you need to use the 'ploits to mass-level some alts or farm with greater ease.

But forget about playing online with others if you're unpatched - although I personally don't think the Bee was that stupidly game-breaking - as people are still trying to loot via Ironman mode...silly buggers.

-Tir out.

Posted by: Critias Dec 25 2012, 03:22 AM

Anyone heard anything about when/if they're gonna raise the level cap? Mrs. Crit and I are both 50, and it hurts every time we kill someone or tackle a quest, because I feel like the XP is being wasted. Vanished. Tossed into the ether, never to be seen again. *cries a single, manly, tear*

I tend to kick a lot of ass with my Commando once I'm knocked down and bleedin' out, in part because I just pretty much always have a turret up (which gets me a kill pretty often), and in part because I can throw grenades, and in part because I do extra damage and stuff when I'm down. Mrs. Crit runs over to help, and normally by the time she's got me halfway revived, I'm back on my feet and running around blastin' fools.

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 25 2012, 05:02 AM

[ Pip] Oh, glorious day! [ / Pip]

Sat down with my level 50 commando, to have another go at Tetramorphuwhateverhisfaceis. Took him down, hard, in about 5 minutes (no conference call here) on my first attempt. I'm shocked, frankly.

Dropped crap, apart from the "Slayer of Tetramorphetc.." Mod, for a Commando...that a nice Russian guy had passed along to me a month ago, for saving his life (and the run). Oh well:)

Oh, I tell a lie, this gives me at least an extra 2k in health, not shabby at all!

Turrets helped, a LOT (kept tenticula occupied while I just unloaded all the smg ammo I had into his eyes) and I tossed about a few bonus packages to keep the lazer tentacles, etc, down. Also helps to have 2 x turrets, with rockets and shields.

Had a nasty surprise, while I was teabagging the rest of the bits he dropped, those tentacles can come back, leading to a sudden "ooooppphshit, turrets, kill" moment.

I can only hope to reproduce the same with my siren.
Hopefully. (The Siryn mod is _sick_)


-Tir

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 25 2012, 09:16 AM

So...today so far: 24 Tetramorphous kills
21 (!) Commando mod uniques
3 Assassin mod uniques
2 x pitchfork (unique dahl sniper)

Most kills completed with commando solo, assassin drops were gained when using Maya (lev 50), Zero (Level 28) and Salvatore (level 31)


Apparently, the drops are supposed to be random but the number of axton drops seems a trifle weighted:)
Anyhow, it's good hunting.

-Tir

Posted by: Critias Dec 25 2012, 05:46 PM

Nice! Hooray, Axton drops!

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 27 2012, 12:19 AM

Too f*ckin MANY Axton drops, IMHO.

Finally had a Siren drop (good one too, +8k hp, 25% burn, 25% burn chance) and the top sniper one, now I've reinstalled the patch and I'm crying as I remember how the bee was pre nerf:(

Keeping score, that's 31 Terramorphus kills (all via Axton, as those sentries draw sooo much aggor, it's awesome) solo and with a sit-in (to see if the drops were different) Basically, it IS random, but biased (~ 60%) towards the one doing the most damage.

Apart from the pitchforks, nothing of note dropped, no shields, not one other unique - lotsa glorious purples though, so that's fine.

Cruised about the lands on the Siren (Warrior kill x 2, so everything's level 50-52) trying to get another infinity drop (From Dr Mercy) but after wasting his ass 40 times, I've gotten a little bored trying for it.

Managed to get a 50 Neogenator off of Spycho (Frostburn canyon) by accident and that sucker's going to my gunzerker friend (when he's high enough). I was running from a level 53 God-lieth loot goon that happily killed every fucking thing in the place before sucumbing to a rocket->face barrage. Gleaning through the wreckage, yep, legendary. (Was looking for the hellfire, as that is sick DOT damge with an elemental-specced Siren with the Tetra mod on (~ 107% burn chance, or something stupid)

Amazingly, got a level 41 Baby-maker off of Madam VonBartably with my Axton (not killed warrior, so not level 50+, mores the pity) first go, but as the Bee's been nerfed, it really doesn't have the wow factor it used to. (It's a Teledor SMG, that when tossed, explodes and spawns another smg, which also explodes. Teledore loads used to get the Bee amp so you could murderize anything in seconds with a gunzerker tossing them at almost full-load)

Uh, stupid me - Hellfire drops from Scorch, not Incinerator Clayton. Oh well, kill them anyway:)

Good hunting kids - share the stories, no one else will believe you:)

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 27 2012, 01:41 AM

I started a new game with Axton, after realizing I was hardly ever using Salvador's Gunzerk ability. I like Axton's turret much better.

Posted by: Bigity Dec 27 2012, 03:38 PM

Man, I just got this the other day, and unlike BL1, playthrough 1 is no joke.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Dec 27 2012, 05:15 PM

He treats it like his girlfriend for a good reason.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 27 2012, 06:11 PM

No kidding. Even with minimal upgrades (the talent that increases shots-per-volley and duration), it kicks more ass than I do. I can't imagine what it will be like when I add rocket pods to it.

Posted by: StealthSigma Dec 27 2012, 06:18 PM

I'm quite content with deceptioning and meleeing the snot out of everything.

Posted by: Critias Dec 27 2012, 07:32 PM

The shields are also nice. And so are the longer bursts. And the second gun. And the auto-slag effect. And all of it, ever, that it does.

While playing BL2 with Mrs. Crit and her Siren, I loudly and politely thank the turret -- over and over again -- for being my most useful and trustworthy squadmate, for saving me so very often, for being so competent and fearless in a scrap, and for asking for so very little in return.

Posted by: StealthSigma Dec 27 2012, 08:23 PM

Were you.... shaming... your wife....?

How long did she withhold the goodies from you for doing that?

Posted by: X-Kalibur Dec 27 2012, 09:12 PM

I bet it would piss her off even more if you were playing as Gaige and using Deathtrap.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Dec 27 2012, 10:19 PM

Oh man... I wish I trusted my computer enough to try and run Brolands 2 on it.

Four Gaiges is hilarious. And by that I mean it's the unholy rapetrain. The players can oftentimes just sit back and do nothing.

Posted by: CanRay Dec 27 2012, 11:25 PM

Considering how accurate she is, not surprising.

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 27 2012, 11:43 PM

The 4 x Deathtrap Robo-Fist extravanganza IS hilarious, and beyond messy if there's more than one electro-mechanomancer playing, but having seen 4 x Axtons, mostly with multiple turrets? Yeah, that got wrong VERY fast. (One went full retard, the middle tree, so when he tossed a turret, it set off a nuke. That got everyone's attention, then we tossed out the GF's and sat behind a rock, lamenting that we didn't have a gunzerker for bait/ammo regen.)

I also healed (Siren) 3 x gunzerkers - that was pretty hectic as I barely got a shot off before someone was down and they needed another heal/rez.

Was also cruising with an elemental (Helios/convergence Siren) and 2 x assassins - the might have health regen but combined with mine, they were recovering something like ~ 600hp/sec, and that was before I got people stuck in a bubble. The assassins love convergence - makes multiple melee kills easy.

Mixed groups are lots of fun - makes the drops more interesting as well:)

-Tir

(God, level cap 50, how I hate thee.)

Oh, and Canray - if the Mechanomancer's missing, chances are she's an Anarchy spec and bullet-spewing in order to get ricochets. Another give away? If she's jumping around a lot, yep, Anarchy spec. (tricky, and mainly of use later in - say, level 30+, when she is a bit more survivable)

Posted by: Critias Dec 28 2012, 03:53 AM

What? Of course not!

Just praising my turret, is all. *whistles innocently*

Posted by: CanRay Dec 28 2012, 03:54 AM

Somehow I doubt he's going to properly explain the black eye.

Posted by: Tiralee Dec 28 2012, 07:03 AM

Or the gold-edged membership to the Adonis club...

And Bigity - wait until you hit "True Vault Hunter" mode. Difficulty starts to ramp up right away and keeps ramping. Bring a friend!

-Tir

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 28 2012, 05:44 PM

My new favorite tactic: finding a goliath in the middle of a crowd of enemies... and sniping his helmet off.

Posted by: taeksosin Dec 28 2012, 07:25 PM

I'm debating if it's worth trying to grab it at 25% off, or seeing if they pop it up for 50% off one more time.

Posted by: StealthSigma Dec 28 2012, 07:27 PM

Why wouldn't that be fun? The goliath's drop quality increases as he gets more killed and hulks out to even greater degrees. For even more fun, snipe the helmets off all goliaths when there's a pack of 4.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 28 2012, 07:59 PM

I haven't managed to get one up to GOD-liath status yet; none of the camps in the early game have enough bad guys for them to kill. Where's a good place?

Posted by: Bigity Dec 28 2012, 10:06 PM

Yup, my assassin sniper loves this.

I even had one trying to attack one of those banshee vehicles, jumping way up into the air and swinging at it.

Posted by: fistandantilus4.0 Jan 9 2013, 06:44 AM

Frostburn Canyon (or whatever the F the name of the place with the train is , escapes me at the moment). Sometimes you need to run the buggers around, a couple of shots to keep them chasing you, then run them into a bunch of varkids. I've heard you get a certain percentage of experience based off of what the goliath killed in order to get leveled up, but the main reason to do it is for the better loot. There's also plenty of goliaths in that region to pop the tops off of, so if one goes down, you can find another one.

Posted by: Tiralee Jan 9 2013, 11:10 PM

*Goliath Kills*

When enraged, if a goliath kills another (bandit, whatever) and you manage to kill the goliath, you will have 3x the xp of that individual kill (scaled to your level), chained with each goliath "level up", ie:
Bandit 1, normally 120 xp, killed by rampaging pencil-neck, kill the goliath, get 360 xp
Bandit 1 and a baby spiderant, normally 120 xp and maybe 25 xp, total of 435xp when the goliath drops. ((120 x 3)+(25 x 3))
And so on.


This can develop into a stupidly-high xp gain IF you chain high-kill goliaths.
ie: get a Godlieth, piss off another Goliath, almost kill the godlieth, have the Goliath kill the bigger one, wash, rinse, repeat.

And that's how you can accidently get 45-90K xp (MAD XP if you're tagging along with someone a few levels (Less than 5) higher than you)

...Well you could pre-patch, they may have capped the xp to a maximum of ~9k in one hit (going on level 1 characters tagging along for a tetra kill, and many multiple Warrior slaughters)

But yes - get a high-level Godlieth (or a big un) and let it whale on anything as you run like a little girl and the xp drop's rather juicy - also useful to create a diversion if the bandits are getting unecessarily grumpy.

-Tir

Posted by: Tanegar Jan 13 2013, 12:54 AM

So, I took a little side trip to Oasis, to break up the tedium of replaying the bits I'd already played as Salvador. I haven't gotten far, but I have to say that Shade has the kind of smile that makes me reach for the reassuring heft of a really big gun. Plus, that whole thing with the townsfolk who are totally not dead.

Posted by: fistandantilus4.0 Jan 13 2013, 01:53 AM

Not surprisingly, you tend to get better loot from the DLC. Good stuff there.

Posted by: Critias Jan 13 2013, 03:56 AM

Yeah, both DLCs were a lot of fun. The Torgue one had me literally laughing out loud several times, though.

Posted by: CanRay Jan 13 2013, 04:01 AM

*Feels left out due to being broke*

Posted by: Tanegar Jan 13 2013, 11:48 PM

So, a couple levels ago I added rocket pods to my Sabre turret. Sweet Cthulhu's naughty tentacles, I totally understand why Axton refers to it as his girlfriend, because now I want it to have my babies, too. I just fought Grendel, and it was a breeze. The turret opened up such a can of whoopass that I barely had to fire my weapon and was never in danger.

Posted by: Critias Jan 14 2013, 12:04 PM

Yyyyyyup. Just wait until you max out that tree. Extra accuracy, extra-long bursts, extra duration, missile pods, TWO guns, and it causes slag? There's a reason I belittled my wife for the entirety of our gameplay time, and insisted my turret was my real partner and she was just this NPC that helped me out sometimes.

In other news, another of my favorite things about BL2 is just how cheap and easy it is to re-spec whenever you want to. Especially once you're plateaued at 50, it can be a lot of fun to just fiddle around a little and try a whole different branch, and it's so trivially cheap (oh no, cash money!) that you don't mind doing it even just for one game session. Right now I'm fiddling around with maxing out the middle tree, and then investing in the third -- so that my Axton is a murder machine, and the turret is something he longbow-launches (that sticks to walls and ceilings), that he mostly uses as a distraction and to give him MORE damage bonuses whenever it's deployed. It's a total gameplay shift from my first build, feels like a whole different game...and when I get bored, I'll just change back and it's no big deal.

I so love cheap/easy respec.

Posted by: taeksosin Jan 15 2013, 01:01 AM

So, I'm playing through the first game since I never finished it, and even though I picked up 2 on sale, I'm not allowed to play it until I finish the first

Anyways, decided to roll as Mordecai, and I remembered how much I LOOOOOVE revolvers in that game. Currently maxing out the bloodwing tree, then finishing out the pistols/revolvers tree. Sniper rifles are nice and all, but I do a mean headshot with iron sight revolvers. That being said, once I start BL2, which class is gonna be up my alley? Have they really changed all that much from the first, or is it still Turret-Guy, Disappear-Chick, Sniper-Guy, KindaSucks-Guy?

Posted by: StealthSigma Jan 15 2013, 12:39 PM

Imagine how I felt switching from a sniper rifle Zer0 to a melee Zer0.

Posted by: Tanegar Jan 15 2013, 04:29 PM

Oh, man, in the late game of Borderlands, a spread of good elemental revolvers will carry you through anything. In particular, I massacred the Crimson Lance with an acid revolver and lots of headshots.

I can tell you that Axton ("Turret Guy") is 100% fucking awesome, particularly once you put points into upgrading the turret. I started out playing Salvador the Gunzerker, but wasn't really using his action skill. Haven't played Maya or Zer0, so I dunno about them.

Posted by: Critias Jan 15 2013, 05:47 PM

I always love it when Roland or some no-name NPC uses their turret. I then get to holler [Hollywood Aussie Accent] "That's not a turret! Now this is a turret!" [/accent] and toss my girlfriend out there to razzle dazzle 'em.

Posted by: binarywraith Jan 16 2013, 04:16 AM

I play Gaige, and that's pretty much exactly how i feel when Axton throws out his turret and I introduce him to my Deathtrap.

He's such a cute little murder machine!

Posted by: CanRay Jan 16 2013, 04:35 AM

I want this game now.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jan 16 2013, 12:23 PM

A murder machine?
This is not the way to go.
Inflict death yourself.

Posted by: Tiralee Jan 16 2013, 02:52 PM

Canray - if possible, you might want to hold off on the buy until the GTOY edition's out (and you know it's going to be a solid one) or if you're not one of the glorious gaming master race (PC users) get a "Season Pass" as the expansion are lengthy, fun and in regard to the latest one, HARD.


Yep, it's hunting season folks - Sir Hammerlock's invited us for a fancy weekend of hunting and class-based humour (as in, high and no class) but some idiot's gone and drunk from the fountain of stupid and it's up to you and the ton of guns you have to make the weekend enjoyable.

First: Level 30, minimum. And you may want to have finished the main story unless SPOILERS. Meh.

Second: Oh holy fuckstick and Andraste's boiling knickerweasels! This is a MONSTER step up in AI and I live in fear of the first bastard to mod the NPC behaviour to the main game.
Basically, there are bosses (usually witch doctor types) and you're going to want them dead first.
If you dont, well, have fun.
They Buff, they heal, they force respawns, they slow you and your vehicles, they suck the life out of you and THEY USE THAT TO LEVEL THE BASTARD SAVAGES until they're something like 4 levels higher than you. (assuming you're in a scaling/Vault Hunter environment.)

Example: My level 41 Gunzerk, a level 44 buddy siren and his level 35 assassin GF went for an adventure in True Vault mode. Ok, level 41 beasties about, nice xp, ok, time to kill that guy, oh holy crapsticks...

It took us 3 vehicles (each with ~234k health) and most of our ammo (yes, I was ammo-regen ~ 2.1/sec) to take out 3 of them, mainly because we didn't afford them the usual respect. It also caused about 6 fight-for lives and 2 player spawns, mainly because while you're trying to kill this apparently-unkillable level 45 (!) Devil-Savage that's levelled up after the shamen's finished sucking your Siren dry and healing the rest of the group (area heals, also Line-of-sight if the shamen are badasses).

We've not seen the witchdoctor types level this way, but the badass versions are very hard to kill. Also, if they're in a group, seperate and destroy, one at a time. AOE-armageddon doesn't mean much if just one weak-ass on the side can heal them all up in 5 seconds because he's untouched.


Not to mention the non-stop wave-attacks that a lot of the savages seem to crave. The AI's smarter now, using and sniping from cover, then getting out to pepper the rest of the group if you're destracted by the melee badass in your too-close group.

Animals are...not fun. After the super Spore pods, you'll wish for raks. The skorpid things don't like fire (or explosives, it switches) much, but a lot of them are immune to melee ("No Effect") and they tend to swarm like skag pups.

Maps are big - get in your new fan-boat (Like the sand barges, but in Acid (fast, need lead shot, small splash), Electric (Big splash, slow, small ball, big effect, sticks for 3-5 seconds) and fire (FLAMETHROWER, small range, enormous fun.) with a big enough footprint that your fancy new painjobs look rather nice.) and bring a good rifle with you, sniper or assualt, but scoped and able to do the damage as the maps are big and ranges long.


Basic class thoughts on the new DLC:

Gunzerk - The ammo-regen is a godsend, as the enemy AI (Screaming waves, supported and buffed by elites) makes for frantic gameplay and lots of ammunition use. The extra DPS helps as well, but not as much as decent and repeated crit-shots. (Enemy hp is high->boss) Explosive revolvers and sniper rifles, and a ton of grenades and rockets. Shops aren't at all handy - long trips back for more when you could be killin'
Siren: Health regen for the team, distance res and convergence are really tasty here. Elemental damage does get a bit of a say, but the high HP and witchdoctor-dispells/buffs makes things tricky. SMG and sniper, with the Rocket-launcher in it for desperate times.
Axtron (Commando) Oh, the turret's going to get a workout here. ROF boosts for the team are delicious. If you went full-retard into the centre column, now's the time where you laugh mockingly at your detractors (Me) and toss that turret intoa bunch of crazies with the accompanying nuke-it noise. Otherwise, use the turrets defensively and take them enfilade as they charge, screaming, into death. Assault-rifles, if they're good and well-scoped. Sniper and whatever works, depending on the combat situation.
Gaige: Ulgh - the deathtrap's not much use, unless if you're pressed and in close-quarters (when having aoe and melee-bonuses work for you nicely) as the majority of the opponents are only able to be seen at long-range. The electricity-immune/resistant bastards are also in thick supply - bring a lot of guns that fire really fast and use a lot of bullets. Bandit SMG's worked well. (BLagggagggagagagah and the Bulls, mostly.)
Zer0 - snipe away! Long maps and melee-resistant enemies makes close-quarter Zer0 cry. Team crit bonus slotted for preference - choose your shots and a lot fo the DLC are one-hits. Crit-area vision is a godsend, let your buddies know where to shoot. Crits are always there...


...Apart from the helmeted (masked) witchdoctors and some hardass badasses.
If possible, run them over in a flybarge and then smash them when they're down. Then repeat. Work together as a team:)



Anyhoo, time for bed!

Oh, and they've fixed the duping bug present in the Borderlands series, so no more "drop shiny things and then log for your buddies to loot", as well as some of the unique duping. (Some maps, notably Sanctuary, seem to still sort-of work.) The bee's still nerfed (boo) and you need ~ 100 Eredium to open up the raid boss, so get some level 50 buddies and make a mess. Sereph chrystal rewards incoming:)

-Tir

Posted by: taeksosin Jan 16 2013, 03:17 PM

Tir, I <3 your writeups for this game. Yet another thing to add to my spring break list (classes this semester are gonna be killer )

Posted by: _Pax._ Jan 16 2013, 04:14 PM

<--- PC gamer. Has Season Pass.

That Pass isn't a console exclusive, you know.

Posted by: CanRay Jan 16 2013, 06:58 PM

I am holding off until GOTY comes out. But I don't like FPS' on PC. That said, I do have a gamer rig now and am getting some very nice strategy games.

Also, I have one question to ask...

EXPLOSIONS?

Posted by: _Pax._ Jan 16 2013, 07:29 PM

CanRay, do you have a big TV? Can it take DVI or HDMI input? Could you run an appropriate cable from your PC to where the TV is?

If so, Steam's "Big Picture" mode sounds like it was made for you!

Posted by: Tiralee Jan 16 2013, 08:41 PM

_Pax_ - god, I so hate you now, Rub in the superiority of the glorious PC master race why don't you?

...Actually, Ironic, considering your handle:)
-Tir

Posted by: _Pax._ Jan 16 2013, 08:45 PM

^_^

I was once a very Console-centric player - because my finances made it easier for me to play via Rental services, than to go about buying everything myself. Plus I couldn't afford a gaming-capable rig.

Now, though ... let's just say "I just sank three and a half grand into a new PC", and leave it at that. ;D

I don't think there's any "superiority" between PC and Console, though .... just different areas in which each excels.

Posted by: CanRay Jan 16 2013, 08:57 PM

Done and done. Well, VGA connection to my TV, there's no HDMI connection on my video card for some reason.

At least, I don't think there is... ... Either way, it's the controller I have issues with. Mouse and keyboard don't work well with me after I broke my elbow. Controllers are easier on my pain levels now for FPSes.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jan 16 2013, 09:13 PM

While I get what you're saying, I just cannot play FPS at all on console (notable exception going to Goldeneye on the N64... not sure why).

Speaking of strategy games, I've still got a free copy of Civ 5 hanging on my steam account from buying XCOM if you want it.

Posted by: CanRay Jan 16 2013, 09:15 PM

Just got some DLC for CivV, which I got on release day. It's very nice and is one of the things that keeps me sane at times. Tropico 4 is another. Gratuitous Space Battles just got a renewal on me.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jan 16 2013, 09:23 PM

I actually haven't played it in a while. I picked up Alpha Centauri on GOG and that eats up my strategy niche (well, and JA2).

Posted by: StealthSigma Jan 16 2013, 09:26 PM

EXPLOSIONS? ENCHANTMENT? ENCHANTMENT!

Posted by: Halinn Jan 16 2013, 10:24 PM

Silly CanRay, EXPLOSIONS! isn't a question. It's the answer. To everything.

Posted by: _Pax._ Jan 16 2013, 10:32 PM

Wired or Wireless Xbox controller - depending on the proximity of your PC to your TV. In fact, Big Picture was made with Controllers in mind, specifically.

Even for gaming at my desk, a lot of the time I prefer to use my Controller rather than KB+M ... for the same general reason you cited: pain. Though in my case, just due to age, and parts wearing out.

Posted by: _Pax._ Jan 16 2013, 10:36 PM

Except when the answer is really BIGGER [Torgue] EXPLOOOOSIONS!!1!!eleven!!!barbarastreisand!!! [/Torgue]