Borderlands 2, Why you (no)mad, bro? Options

[_Pax._]

I LOST THE GUN.

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.

[_Pax._]

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

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.

[X-Kalibur]

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

[_Pax._]

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

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.

[X-Kalibur]

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.

[Mäx]

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.

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.

[StealthSigma]

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

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.

[_Pax._]

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.

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.

[ShadowDragon8685]

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

keep making characters over and over and get the 166 badass from winning duels.

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) That's not a moral position, like Pax's. It's just not fun to magic yourself whatever you want. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Critias]

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

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.

[Mäx]

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

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.

[ShadowDragon8685]

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.

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.

[Seriously Mike]

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.

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.

[Mäx]

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.

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!

[StealthSigma]

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) That's not a moral position, like Pax's. It's just not fun to magic yourself whatever you want. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

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.

[Seriously Mike]

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.

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.

[_Pax._]

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

[Adarael]

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.

[StealthSigma]

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.

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.

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 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.

[Adarael]

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.'

[Yerameyahu]

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.

So, exactly as I said: insanely tedious and unfun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

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

[StealthSigma]

So, exactly as I said: insanely tedious and unfun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

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

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).

[_Pax._]

Borderlands 2 isn't competetive, so if you play with a cheater, all they're doing is making the game easier for you.

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.

You don't wanna play with someone who cheats? Great. Don't play with them again.

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.

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

*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.

[Yerameyahu]

Sure, but you only need a couple for BL2. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I guess I'm just not a pugger in general. It was bad enough in ME3 trying to find competent teammates.