3081

So I’m trying to play this coop with a couple of friends and … for some reason, the game keeps throwing +2 elites at us. Level scaling is HUGE in this game, so +2s are hugely not fun (just bullet sponges basically), and elites on top of that are pretty much unkillable.

Is there any way to change this somehow? I found a tweaking guide that let me change a txt file but I see no effect. Still got a +2 Badass in the very first combat bowl in a certain mission.

I wouldn’t mind having a horde on me, but these constant +2 elites are just boring, to be honest. There can’t be any strategy/tactical fun downing them since all they are is bullet sponges that hit very very hard. :/

3082

I like that it’s tough. It brings an entirely new method of play - basically shoot at the badasses until you get knocked down and then use the fodder for the 2nd wind. Focus fire works really well to knock them down as well.

Those team based COMs you ignore in SP? Use them in Coop. Extra team damage, extra team elemental effect, reduction in team cooldowns. All very nice when they’re stacked.

I personally find Moe & Marley almost insane to play against in Coop. It took us a long time to take them down. To me, it’s the insanity of having 2 or even all 3 of us knocked down, reaching for second winds which gets me hotter for even more coop borderlands.

To answer your question - I don’t think there is any way to adjust the difficulty level.

3083

Usually the complaint is that players outlevel the quests, rather than the other way around. Usually you’ve got a big backlog of easier stuff to do if what you’re doing is featuring too-hard enemies. Or you can just grind lower level enemies, like any RPG.

3084

What are COMs? If you’re talking about class mods, they don’t show up at this level yet. Likewise talents at level ~13 aren’t much to write home about either - even maxing out my healing/gun talent doesn’t do much when I’m doing 5hp of healing a pop vs. their 100 (no exaggeration, we were getting 3-shotted by the Badasses) weaponry.

I found the tweak in the text file and turned it to half increase based on player count; much better. We were still getting badasses but not as frequent, nor were they at +2 all the time. Makes for a much more dynamic mix for some reason - seems like 3 players is the magic number to trigger the “all badasses all the time” mode which sucks.

2 levels further we got our class mods and things got better, but I’m not turning it back. This is just much more fun to play.

If anyone else is having a hard time, the tweak is in My Documents/My Games/Borderlands/WillowGame/ and I believe the WillowGame.ini file. Turn difficulty from += 1.0 to 0.5.

3085

I started playing this in SP two days ago, reached level 14 and I just cannot continue. Fighting lvl 16 enemies is not fun at all, when killing single bandit takes two magazines of my combat rifle (best one I found so far). Grinding in SP game? Fuck that. Not to mention environments are same and got pretty boring pretty quickly too, quests are 100% fetch based…etc.

Going to put this into “discarded” pile and forget I bought it (and ignore BL2).

3086

Sounds wonderful to me. I tired of Borderlands much more when everything would drop to one or two rounds. The loot collecting kept me going, but I’m hoping they do a more thorough job of balancing skills and making them more enjoyable in 2.

And what was with launchers being crap compared to all guns, especially pistols later on? Some scary explosives in Borderlands 2 please.

3087

I think launchers were crap because they were poorly balanced with the skill system. Launchers do high single-shot damage, but low DPS - and you can’t really get crits. That and they drop so seldom in comparison to their more bullet-ey compatriots that you get less optimized versions (since often you can find a gun that’s basically the same as the one you have, but slightly better)

3088

Not to play the “you’re doing it wrong” card, but this game has a problem of giving you more quests than you need and thus making you out-level content too quickly.

You’re probably missing a quest hub somewhere.

3089

Sounds about right. Level 14-16 is around the time you get sent to Headstone Mine to fight Sledge. That always seems to be a rough spot for me as well, where you almost have to grind out all possible side quests to get through.

Not many quest hubs at that point…
Fyrestone Bounty Board
Shep Sanders
Dr Ned
TK Baha

Hope that helps if you decide to pick it back up, Paul.

3090

BL2 will be a day 1 purchase for me, which is rare. The ONLY other game I bought on day 1 or pre-purchase was Dead Island. Hell, I bought Borderlands 8 months after release, and I got it used (physical media). I repurchased it on steam during the last summer sale (GOTY ed. for $8) because it included ALL the DLC.

I’ve finished the game with Roland and Mordecai (both level 61). I’ll have to try out Siren one day.

Anyway, Mordecai’s skill that bypasses shields make the game (and PvP) way easy. When you do direct damage to health, it pretty much halves the HP total.

Elemental weapons are a HUGE adavantage, especially fire and acid. I drop enemy vehicles in 3-4 shots with a pistol.

3091

BL’s biggest fault is its level difficulty system. You just shouldn’t take on anything that’s two levels greater than you are, when only at level 14. The game is terribly rail-y in that regard.

That said, do just a bit of grinding and/or look for some other quests to get yourself within 1 level of the enemy (or even with them) and you will be fine. 1 level makes THAT much difference. Finally, it’s a random loot-based game (the biggest draw for me): you may have just had really bad luck with drops to this point.

3092

Up to 14 everybody has had bad luck with drops, because nothing worth having really falls out until you get deeper into the system. The game went from pretty damn frustrating to drool-on-controller easy (except for the boss fights) after I hit whatever point at which you get class mods. It was worst for me in multiplayer, where the enemies are artificially bulked up, but it’s still pretty hassle-y in single. I’m pretty sure I just did every single side quest that was available, shot everything that moved along the way, and got myself a comfortable level or two ahead of the competition at all times, and that’s when I started really enjoying myself.

3093

From my experience, I have to work to not be higher level than the guys I’m fighting. Seeing people talk about having a problem with going up against enemies that are too high level is odd to me. Just the main quest and a few sidequests here and there are enough to keep you on pace, so if you find yourself too low for the dudes you’re fighting, that means you missed some quests somewhere. The difficulty system, as others have pointed out, is pretty damn goofy, but it’s workable.

3094

Glad you said that because that is exactly where I hit a road block and decided to take a break from the game.

3095

There was this point in the game as you left the starting hub and went to the second one where you could end up facing +2s if you didn’t do every sidequest before then. It was around level 12-14 on Playthrough 1. Typically this affected the people just playing the required story quests just to get through the game.

3096

All they need to do is make every enemy scale to the player’s level. Doesn’t seem like it would be terribly difficult to do and it’s not exactly a new concept. City of Heroes pulls this off damn near perfectly. They even let you change pretty much every aspect of the level of difficulty.

3097

Interesting find, but I think once you get to level 22 or 24 (once you get to New Haven) you’ll likely turn it back up because the game lets you outlevel the baddies pretty good if you do all the quests.

I’m currently at 2nd playthrough and we’re level 66-67’s. Baddies (aka Knox, and the like) are at level 70. Once you complete the vault for the 2nd time, all baddies scale everywhere. It’s awesome.

3098

Didn’t everyone bitch when Oblivion did that?

Why would you want EVERY enemy to scale? I loved being able to obliterate Skags when I got to high enough level.

3099

It was only a problem in Oblivion because there were non-combat possible playstyles. Mass Effect 2 it wasn’t a problem at all, because you played different combat styles. Borderlands should be able to handle it too, as it a pure combat game.

3100

Not at all. It also craps all over the verisimilitude of the world (so, what, the bears just ate all the wolves?) and takes away the important part of CRPGs where you get to feel like your balls are big when you go back to that displacer beast that mauled you when you were still a baby and you get to slap it across the face and neck with its own scaly tentacles and ask it why it’s hitting itself.

The proper response is to make SOME enemies scale to level. Specifically, sentient enemies. Beasts and random encounters should be set per environment, while staged encounters should be variable in level. At worst, I think you’d want to implement a very soft scaling effect on your random dudes to take care of players on the low end trying to sneak into somewhere they’re not supposed to be (make it marginally easier for Tiny to maybe kill the Octoroc), but you still want those enemies to be trivial to an over-leveled character.