Oghier
2801
I don’t know what the current state of multiplayer is, but it’s also fun solo.
Does anyone know whether the Claptrap add-on will address the level scaling issues introduced in Knoxx?
marxeil
2802
I tried to log into MP a few times but never found any games. SP is fun though in a mindless sort of manner.
Teiman
2803
Borderlands is a COOP experience.
Playing solo is like… humm… well… Facebook withouth friends.
I think is a hint that there are vehicles with 4 slots for 1 driver and 3 artillery guys. And you don’t die directly, you start a countdown where other player can revive you. I don’t think the revive part will work alone, It can’t work.
I am playing Borderlands with a friend right now, and well… the level of fun is more or les like the SP.
JM1
2805
Borderlands works fine as a solo game. The fact that they’ve added bits for co-op doesn’t counter this.
Will the GOTY edition include the 4th DLC?
The game is still lots of fun, but I don’t bother playing online. I play LAN with my friends and solo a lot. Also with the new DLC coming there should be a lot of people online after that if it has died down more recently.
I really enjoy the solo game. It’s mindless, Diablo-with-shotguns sort of fun, but it IS fun. I really like the visceral feel of the gunplay, and it’s especially fun when you’re just a wee bit overpowered compared to your foes. Mindless, yeah, but perfect when I don’t want to think all that much.
I’ve tried some online games but 1) there’s always some idiot howling into the voice chat or playing some wretched music/rap/comedy routine over it, and 2) I’ve still not figured out how to actually coordinate with strangers. So, I just wind up tagging along shooting at stuff, and occasionally having quests done. Oh, and is there friendly fire? Or can I just blast away?
You can blast away. You can hurt yourself but not your friends.
If you are playing soldier and pick up Cauterize then you really have motivation to fire in the middle of your friends.
Seconded. I used Borderlands to wean myself of WoW, which I also played almost entirely solo. It pushed enough mindless MMO buttons to do the trick. Somehow the loot and gunplay just never gets old, and I love how cheap it is to respec. Borderlands is very friendly when it comes to experimentation.
I just finished the Vault quest line last night. I really like how the weapon accuracy system works. Especially with sniper rifles, it reminded me very much of how real rifles work. I kept some low level rifles for a very long time just because they were tack-drivers.
Sniper rifles in particular care about accuracy, since a hit to the head does 3x damage. So you can give up a lot of raw damage if you don’t have to settle for torso shots, or at very long ranges when the accuracy means the difference between a torso hit and no hit at all.
The one peculiar thing is that turrets have some sort of weapon-type specific resistance to sniper rifles. Even if you hit the critical area - which is tough because it’s in the rear of the turret, and usually largely blocked - you do about 1/5th the damage that you get with a scoped revolver.
Yeah, this makes turrets a bit more challenging for the Hunter, which is ok–I just use a Static sniper rifle on them, and it works well (Longbow grenades too).
I have only experimented a bit with the Soldier and Siren, haven’t tried the Bruiser or whatever the brick dude is. I still haven’t really gotten a feel for the differences in the classes, though. My Hunter (who is 31) certainly focuses on sniper rifles and pistols, but the shotgun and a Hyperion combat rifle get nearly as much use. No class seems to have SMG specialization? But that seems a natural fit for the Siren.
I must say though I love the art style. I missed this game totally when it released, but I’m really digging the sort of old-school cartoony look. It’s really well done and to me at least aesthetically well-integrated and satisfying.
TheJare
2816
The game was a total meh for me until the announced the revamped art style, but that’s personal taste. The thing however that this art style does for the game compared to the typical “realistic” look, is that it lets the developers add pretty much anything to the game universe; nothing looks entirely out of place, nothing needs much justification. I can’t imagine the Dr Ned DLC being possible in a more realistic looking game like, say, Rage.
Teiman
2817
Class flavour:
Brick can be built to be a great mele character, and spawn money and items… Burst Melee damage. But thats may mean lowering his survivality, and is bad to be there, on the open, in front lines. But is a fun built, and make the character unique.
The Siren can be everywhere, shotting everyone and if gets in trouble, escape. So is easy to play, and his favorite weapon (the SMB) is more than “in-character”.
The hunter dude in theory give these satisfying “HEADSHOT” moments. In practice Is somewhat bland. But some people enjoy snipers rifle for the idea of a sniper rifle a bit too much (like these poeple that love “love” more than his partners). The game is too “spray happy” to be fun for snipers.
The turret dude is bland, and a puny turret is not what you want in a dynamic battlefield. He don’t have the explosive bonus that brink have, so can’t be special that way. There are not “dropped better turrets”, or areas where the turret is needed (only some ares where it… helps, sorta…). Once everyone has weapons or skills with ammo regen, his ammo regens skills are not mutch needed, either. His skills don’t scale with the game.
Probably makes sense to have the Siren as your main, and have a fun mele-oriented Brick as a alt, for wen you want to go ridiculous.
The Siren has SMG character mods, but no SMG-specific skills. That said, weapon stats tend to outweigh both both skills and class mods for everyone. An excellent assault rifle or machine gun will out-do a mediocre-to-good pistol for a pistol-specialized hunter. It’s the skills that are not weapon-type specific that have more impact on play, such as the Hunter shield-bypass skill, regeneration skills for all classes, Daze effects, etc.
Frankly, I think it’s good that it’s that way. While you get some bias from skills, generally you take a hard look at everything you pick up. The Soldier class would be pretty boring if there was no point to using anything but an assault rifle.
I haven’t played a Bruiser either, mainly because I don’t play Borderlands for melee, I play it to shoot things and collect loot. The other major Brick attributes are rocket launcher bonuses and toughness. Toughness is always useful, but the rocket launcher is such a highly situational weapon due to the very slow projectiles that it’s hard to get enthused about the class.
Cool thoughts, thanks both Gus and Teiman! I haven’t respec’d my Hunter yet, but I may try shifting some of the points out of sniper-specific stuff to more generic bonuses. I do like a fast-firing sniper rifle, though; it’s a fun challenge to take on psychos charging you, trying to rattle off a series of headshots while they are closing on you. But usually I switch to a corrosive revolver or explosive shottie for that. I LOVE the handguns–this is a game where a pistol can be a really killer piece of gear, literally.
I also have enjoyed the Siren, though mine is only like 11 now. The soldier is boring, as Teiman notes. But overall the game has a Diablo feel. Hmm, I need to get my wife playing this. We used to play Diablo and Diablo II incessantly…
I suspect the Soldier is more interesting with a team, mainly because of the Cauterize skill which lets you heal teammates. I’m not so sure about the turret’s boosts - sure it affects the entire team, not just you, but the health and ammo regeneration are still not exciting. Mostly I think the idea is that it’s a distraction, sort of like a WoW hunter pet. This was hard for me to understand at first, since I expected a turret to be a powerful but fixed offensive weapon. I.e. like the automated guns in Half Life 1 and 2.
