That being said, I do agree with your point. Gameplay-wise, BL2 is only as fun as the weapons you get are. I never got far with the Gunzerker due to a lack of fun guns to zerk with.
Yeah, hopefully they have a good balance in weapon progression this time around where you can find nice upgrades multiple different ways. The golden key fiasco really ruined that for me in BL2 as once you went down that rabbit hole and got some nice upgrades, it seemed you never could find anything by actually playing worth using.
I still like how in BL1 you could “grind” money and a chance at good loot by farming the same mini runs to certain areas to hit the good loot chests.
I’m in the same boat as some other folks. Loved 1, LOVED 2 and was pretty meh on the Pre-sequal. Still haven’t finished it and have no real desire to. I just kept hitting frustrating bugs that drove me away and the overall quality of the first two games just wasn’t there.
I hope they really knock it out of the park with 3.
God, so very much this. I made the mistake of using a golden key and that was it. Why would you ever search for loot when the best stuff was in that one chest?
I thought pretty much everything in BL2 was better than 1. Writing, class design, gun variety, etc. But yes, the shift keys were a bad idea.
Not to mention the hassle of hunting around for the dang codes. Every time we played our group would spend 10-15 minutes of playing time just entering codes because those weapons were so much better than what you find in the game.
Now that you guys mention it, the golden keys were absolutely a detriment to the game. I rarely found loot comparable to what I got for free in town. So the actual game was just going through the motions.
It’s like the Diablo 3 auction house, except rather than only caring about getting gold in-game, I only cared about getting codes out of the game!
I really like the idea of getting a key though. I remember looking for it for the Prequel even because there is something just more fun about opening something than watching a weapon fly through the air and hit the ground… but they need to bring that element into the game I think.
If I am searching social media and Wikipedia for codes before every gaming session, that’s kind of… not quite right. And even still, I’d pick BL2 with golden keys over the Prequel I am half-ass playing now. Besides oxygen… not really sure I can say much that is even different here.
QFT, Borderlands just got worse & worse as the series went on. I never finished the prequel even with 100+ keys banked.
BL1 is so special the story, the progression, and my oh my the crates. Always getting some good weapons out of the crates! And if you haven’t done the Knoxx DLC, you’re missing out. Such great writing - plus you can gate to to Knoxx right at the beginning of BL1, grab some Level 30+ weapons from the all the crates in the home area of Knoxx, resell them to get money so you can get some badass weapons from the vendors straight away. It’s a great way to jumpstart.
BL2 and the pre-quel for whatever odd reason made it hard to find good weapons and they didn’t last very long. The other thing that annoyed me was that you had to commit 1-2 hours to play otherwise you had to start over. That sucked. BIG TIME.
I have things to say about Borderlands 3. Expectation is the thing that. . . uh. . . something something. Something bad, I think. But it is a series in need of some fresh blood. And it just so happens that there exists a game that can help Borderlands evolve, right now. That game is Shadow Warrior 2.
Interestingly you got a small taste of that sort of base gameplay in the BL1 siren with her ultimate ability, allowing you to zip around battlefields and change the tactical situation. I want Borderlands to play faster. Not twitchier. But faster. I want to zip where I need to go, before I get to the next round of killing. Fortunately, there’s more that Shadow Warrior 2 has to offer.
Without question it has way better RPG mechanics. Borderlands’ problems comes in two forms Firstly, there’s just the one infrequently used active ability. A series of abilities might suit better. Shadow Warrior offers 4, + an ultimate ability. You don’t need to use all 4 but each ability has it’s uses and players adjust to tastes. Secondly, the system avoids the fairly retched attempt at a D2 skill tree that is the Borderlands historical design. Forget significant gating and requirements. Drop cards and let us upgrade those cards at our pleasure. It’s a much better design. And it even uses a number of different passive skills, which are themselves not the problem. I do dislike Borderlands’ focus on kill skills because they can’t always meaningfully apply.
Shadow Warrior 2 has a much superior interface to Borderlands. Ok, that’s easy to do since almost every game has a better UI. But I’m not just talking about the UI design and elements. Eight equipped guns, Gearbox. I both found myself using my other weapons in Shadow Warrior more often and enjoying the saem. You gave us an uncomfortable system of trying to layer elemental damage and take advantage of it but then sort of screwed us in the execution. Weapon swapping must needs be smooth and 8 weapons since I have to spend a good deal of time testing guns out.
And as for that inventory, don’t cap the inventory expansions so low. Give me unlimited town inventory (if I want it) and the ability greatly expand my carry inventory. I don’t mind having to pay for it as part of progression. I’m tried of trying to sift through the gigantic piles of loot while dealing with the limited carry capacity. Seriously guys, it’s bogus.
I would like to see some tweaks to loot progression although I don’t see Shadow Warrior as an inspiration here. Rather, I think they should tweak their systems somewhat. Maybe it involves crafting, I don’t know. But it should definitely be possible to find some of that sweet golden chest loot without playing for 5000 hours. I don’t know what games other people here were playing called Borderlands, but I personally opened a zillion of the “great” weapon crates in Borderlands 1 and got horrible results (and occasionally got awesome results). Likewise my first full playthrough of Borderlands 2 involved zero gold chest weapons and the looting seemed fairly similar to the first game (actually on thinking about it more I think I used one key and got a couple of weapons that carried me through the first third of the game or so). I wouldn’t say the looting was exactly the same but I don’t feel like I can offer a firm comparison. I wouldn’t completely change it with a system where you can craft the entire weapon but I wouldn’t mind being able to tweak individual parts at least. Hell, in two attempts at the General Whatsit BL1 DLC I never got a single upgrade from any of those chests.
The looting does need some overhaul, no matter what form it takes. And maybe newgame+ modes need a touch less bullet sponginess. I feel like that design hurts the game; it would be nice to occasionally gun down hordes of weaker enemies instead of the same “pour entire ammo store into group of 2-5 enemies; repeat” pattern that repeats through both games (and 2 especially) as you keep playing. But really we could use a little help in weapon evaluation and chasing upgrades, to freshen things up.
Lastly, more Tiny Tina pls.
My mouse clicking finger is ready!
I just wish every class was viable as a single player character.
Maybe they can make missions like the Division does it, you get to the mission start and there you can choose to solo or team up for it. I’d like that.
Of the 4 main characters in BL2, I could only finish the game solo with Axton and the double turrets of doom.
I’m just playing through BL2 right now…it’s amazing. The Tiny Tina DLC is one of the best gaming experiences ever…such a great atmosphere, characters, writing, voice acting…so much fun. I would pay 1 bajillion dollars for them to do a proper wizard/RPG first person game that looked like this DLC.
Hehe, funny that you mention this. I was goofing around with Borderlands 2 after playing Shadow Warrior 2 and my left pinky finger kept twitching over to activate the shadow zip…and nothing was happening. It was very weird and confusing.
I played a melee Zer0 and it was pretty ridiculous. If you’re inclined to go back and try him again, maybe try that build instead of a pure sniper build. It does have the downside that you don’t really care all that much about your weapon so loot gets less interesting though.
First one was good, second one was great. The prequel was fucking terrible. Full price game that played like an expansion pack, and not a good one.
Announcement date : March 28th , PAX day 1.
I loved one, finished it coop. Loved 2, finished it coop. No one wanted to keep playing the pre-quel after a bit. We’ll see…
Maybe Pitchford can stay out of Medieval Times long enough for this one to be released.
I played all three, and all the dlc except for Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. I need to go back and do that eventually as I heard it was so awesome.
Borderlands 2 is still the best looter shooter.