Borderlands 2: Am I Missing Something?

[InfinityX]

Don't know why people say handsome jack is a good villain, He's clearly not very smart and has almost no character development(yes I know his backstory too).

First time playing Borderlands 2 Co-Op it was fun, but it has almost no re-play value, and the DLC are basically cash-grabs (though the Tiny tina DLC was pretty good). Also, as mentioned before, there actually isn't much enemy variety. Once you've seen one bandit, you've seen them all.

The base game isn't very grindy, you can pretty much pick up random weapon / have any skill build and beat the story, BUT things like the raid bosses, Legendary items, and Torque Tokens are grindy.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Hey, there's nothing wrong with liking BL. It has enough good points to keep it interesting for a little while, even long enough to make it worth the money if sameyshooting grindfest is your thing. But character building... it can be reduced completely to checklist by going online and finding the 2 effective builds for each character rather than spending about 10 minutes figuring out the exploits by yourself. Yeah, there aren't a lot of really good "lose yourself in the story" rpg's out there. But a good rule of thumb, can you select a perk or stat that has an effect in some way OUTSIDE of combat. Borderlands can't really claim that. Not that such a perk would be useful anyway, it's ALL combat. I'd have wasted a point on a perk allowing me to mark more than one quest at a time. There was an improvement over BL that 2 totally whiffed on.

Almost no RPGs can claim that because almost every RPG is not an RPG like just about every JRPG ever made. There's very few games that I would actually label RPGs. Borderlands just has the character building, which is better than quite a few RPGs. I never played WoW but didn't every class for the longest time only have that ONE build that was the best? An RPG is about how much role-playing you can do, what do can you do and decide outside of combat situations, and most video game RPGs are only about combat like JRPGs, Diablo, Dark Souls, etc. I don't get why so many RPGs primary focus on combat, I can go to other genres for better combat so why should I waste my time playing an RPG with shitty combat and barely any role-playing?

you know that thing that happens at the very start of the game (2 characters falling), that's never explained in the game (only hinted very vaguely at by talking to NPCs).

Did you not pay attention or something?
I don't YET have the platinum (just completed the game and started the second playthrough today) and am at 75% trophies.

Spoiler

Leanne was the 20th child in the experiment to shorten the life of child subjects, 1 killed per year, through quartz manipulation by the Cardinals. Seeing her death as inevitable, she decided to commit suicide a few minutes before her 20th birthday, but her quartz is in her hands and not under Zenith's control. Therefore she does not die. Zephyr, for his part was experimented on to lengthen his life and as such is almost unkillable - which is why he survived the fall.

Though I will say, to throw you a bone, that I have no idea who or what that "demon" child is. I don't think it was ever really explained. Maybe I'll notice it on the second play though.

I was mainly referring to how they survived the fall than the other aspects and Zephyr's backstory is only vaguely talked about.

As for Borderlands, so far story is very minimal and mainly a placeholder to usher you to the next zone. Every so often the bad guy pops up on the airwaves (?) and tells people to kill my character because reasons. And the NPCs send me on grindy missions in a very Diablo clone way.

All I got from the Borderlands story is: "Planet has resources after events of first game and a better vault. Handsome Jack is stopping you because reasons (I still don't actually know why)." Bland, bland, bland.

Meanwhile, Resonance of Fate actually has a proper characterization and backstory for the three party members; excellent world lore and antagonists whose actual ambitions/ goals do not make them into simple cartoonish supervillains. To claim that the story is worse than Borderlands is laughable.

Then again, you did also reduce the strategy to a minimum, forgetting that character position, maintaining bezels, using hero actions and tri-attacks effectively, using ammo types and grenade types, using proper weapon customization, proper accessories, etc... But yes, it's simply about the gun types... [/sarcasm]

In Borderlands, I pretty much use a handgun and a shotgun, aim at the thing I want to have die and hide behind chest high walls sometimes to recover shields. Beyond that I just wait for better gun drops. Ooh, so much strategy.... [/sarcasm again]

Yeah, I don't agree with you at all - no surprise though as I rarely agree with you.

Handsome Jack's motives are simple and make sense. RoF has like no story until the end of the game because all of the missions are basically random jobs to earn some money to survive (which I'm fine with, I actually want more of that from RPGs, I'm so tired of always saving the world). But then the game has to throw in all this story towards the end and a lot of stuff isn't really fully explained. It's very Japanese in the sense that we are going to tell you as little as possible so the story seems more mysterious and better than it actually is.

In RoF, all you do for every fight is move in the same pattern so you can do the tri-attacks, every fight is really ends up being the same. I did all the battles in the stadium or dome or whatever it is and you just do the same exact thing for every fight. The only difference is some enemies need to be gauge broken first, that's it. All you do in any fight is always use hero actions for every move; if you run out of bezels, you're playing the game wrong. Grenades are useless in the game outside of gaining quick levels since your item level will always be the lowest and killing some scratched up enemy with a grenade will level up your items by several levels. The combat is fun and all, but it's not strategic at all, and it can be so much better with some tweaks, added weapons, and mechanics. I'm not saying Borderlands is strategic, I'm mainly saying how RoF isn't strategic. Most JRPGs have very little, if any, strategy to them. Look at the FF series, if you put gambits from FF12 into any main FF game prior to FF12, they will all play themselves. Any game that can play itself with a few if-then-else statements is not strategic. At least RoF realizes player positioning is an important aspect to a turn-based system, which almost every JRPG doesn't realize as you just have enemies on one side and your party on the other trading attacks. The whole point of a turn-based system is to make positioning important like say XCOM or DnD.

 

[Harleykin]

Once you've seen one bandit, you've seen them all.

so how many diffrent enemies would be enough? like 100?
seriously first encounter with a suicide psycho i was like "WOHA motherf..." i was honestly suprised.
and yeah it's basically bandits and bugs and robots but there are variations to them. i'm not saying there are soooo many but seriously look at all the games you enjoyed and boss battles aside how many enemies is enough?

for me just top of my head
metal gear solid 1-3 ? soldiers...wolves bees and i'm almost sure that's it (it's getting late)
every freaking ww2 shooter: tanks and gnatzis
gta series

yes they might be limited by design i know but still everything i heard here was: grindy, so little enemies and dumb story.
did you play the first one? did you like it? did you watch some videos online? (don't dare to mention youtube now )

by the way diablo with guns is a lazy thing to say.
pizza's just bread with cheese what's the big whoop.
i like pizza why don't you?

 

[Raikas]

by the way diablo with guns is a lazy thing to say.
pizza's just bread with cheese what's the big whoop.
i like pizza why don't you?

Eh, if someone knows that they liked Diablo (or that they hated it), then it's a comparison that's quite useful.

Similarly, if I hate cheese, knowing that it's an ingredient in pizza is useful - it's irrelevant if you like it or not, the point still stands.

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

Funny enough, I hear people say this game is a grind yet have no problem playing other shooters where you just run around and shoot people(seriously, don't try to say games like Bioshock Infinite or Call of duty are any different.) Shooters are the worst games to play if you don't like grinds as all conflicts revolve around moving the enemy to the center of the screen and hitting the shoot button.

This game has more variety than most games inside its own genres, if you look at the raw numbers, more varied enemy types with different AI. More gun types and variance outside of numbers. More varied ways to kill enemies.

Borderlands 1 and 2 got big cause it fills in a gap that went missing as the industry started going for "Hard-boiled." It with a few others brought back a lot of mechanics that were thrown to the side for a streamlined pacing(for story telling.)

-Over the top characters in an over the top world.
-Unlinear level design(even though it has linear progression for the most part.)
-Health Bars.
-Optional iron-sights(I might add this game also does this the best.)
-Minimal forced story(gameplay is in the front.)

This is a 90's shooter wet dream with all of it nuisance and problems. I haven't liked where modern video games design has went and this is more focused to me. I like games that know are a game and willing to have fun, I understand where people are coming from when they don't like it but that doesn't make it mediocrity.

It's not that the writing is bad either, goofy yes and your going to have to look for it but it does have the chops. Tiny Tina DLC for example has some rather deep feels for a DLC based on a DnD campaign.

 

[InfinityX]

so how many diffrent enemies would be enough? like 100?
seriously first encounter with a suicide psycho i was like "WOHA motherf..." i was honestly suprised.
and yeah it's basically bandits and bugs and robots but there are variations to them. i'm not saying there are soooo many but seriously look at all the games you enjoyed and boss battles aside how many enemies is enough?

lol 100 unique enemies would be awesome though

What I really meant by "once you've seen one, you've seen them all" is that the first psycho still behaves the same to the last area of the game. That all humanoids all have "shoot at head to kill", all robots are "shoot arms and legs", ect ect. sure there are a few differences (Goiliths) but for the most part, nothing really changes or evolves throughout the game. would be nice to see bandits trying out some eraidon (spelling?) tech / armor or psychos sometimes "faking" their suicide bomb attack. Also, instead of all the Hyperion robots having the same weak spot, each elemental robot could at least have different weak spots or heck, just make random-generated parts for the robots. Something that could require a different tactic per battle.

As for how many would be enough? well, I would like to see least one new emeny per new zone, or if a fixed number, tactics and AI over health pools and bigger damage.

And yea I did play the first one. I did enjoy it more (mostly because it was something different at the time for me), and while I have lot more to say between the two, that would be getting off topic.

 

[daveman247]

I don't think you have missed anything or have down anything particularly wrong. Its just not your cup of tea.

For me the whole game hangs on how much you desire loot, the constant quest for bigger and better guns. The story is very simple but is made entertaining because of the weird and wonderful characters: This game managed to change my stance on claptrap from mildly annoyed (first game) to just feeling pity for him (this game). Similarly Tiny tina is a character I love, find annoying and feel sorry for, all at the same time! Theres only a handful of game characters like that for me

Plus the game fixed (most) of the problems i had from Borderlands 1, the main one being an injection of colour into most levels. That along with the cel-shaded (gotta love cel-shaded) graphics also sets it apart from most other shooters/ RPG's. Even fallout looks quite brown (appropiate but still).

The game never really felt like a grind for me since I never had to "farm" enemies for XP and levels. Though a decent rocket launcher helped the difficulty spikes.

I was happy to play the game singleplayer since it meant I never missed any of the story or dialogue Now that thats done (took me a year) me and my brother are looking forward to doing new game plus in co op.

 

[Bonk4licious]

It's kind of a game that threw me in different directions.

On one hand, I loved the characters, dialogue and environment. I truly enjoyed the first half, probably 3/4 of the game. The guns are all fun, and coop is a blast as long as you have friends who are in to it with you, on the same level.

On the other, the game is really repetitive towards the end and on any replay. They really make the game feel pointless to keep playing because the difficulty never really changes unless you intentionally move to areas above your level, and getting to the level cap at 50 doesn't introduce anything really harder, just the same enemies who are now at level 52, kind of rending all the time pointless.

I feel they could have used a Guild Wars 2 system that auto-leveled you to the level of the area, because joining friends games 10 levels above them isn't fun, and neither is having them join your game and destroying your enemies before you get a chance.

The humor I find is hit or miss for most people, and taking the game critically isn't going to make the humor funny to you, so take it sarcastically or don't enjoy it, kind of your two options. Personally I loved my first like 25 or so hours, so while I complain about it, I love standard playthroughs and changing roles with my friends.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

As others have said it's best played 2 player co op and the story needs to be played linearly without jumping around different parts (that's for replaying really).

BUT... The game is still laborious, especially if you played MMO's to death or in my case, played Borderlands 1 to death. It's almost always a case of collecting X amount of this or killing X amount of these. The enemies are often samey and they throw many of them at you almost non stop.

The game is aimed at people with ADHD who also like dark humour and the cartoony aesthetic.

 

[LegendaryVKickr]

Maybe try some of the side missions? I do a bunch of those as I go and you rack in XP doing that. It's not grindy so much as a good way to make sure you're ready for the big story missions. If you only go straight from one story mission to the next you may be a tad underleveled maybe.

Also, there definitely is a story, and a good one. Borderlands was your typical "go grab the magical maguffins" this one is a more elaborate adventure story with plot twists, rising action, moments in the story where you actually feel for characters. Handsome Jack is also one of those villains that you'll grow to love (and hate). He's pretty well written, paying attention to story is worth it for him alone.

And as for needing another person...I don't think that's true. I played singleplayer only and it's a blast for me, so I would say another person isn't mandatory. But again I'm the obsessive compulsive type that had to do every last darned fetch quest in Skyrim, so what I find fun you might see as extremely monotonous. I figure it's a game where the big appeal is shooting lots of guys and getting cool guns. There are a lot of cool guns and a lot of guys to shoot, so I'm easily pleased.

But overall, no grinding is needed, just maybe do the occasional side missions from bounty boards or when characters give them to you.

 

[NiPah]

Ah I see your problem, you have to press the triangle button to have fun.
It's a common mistake, most people miss the fact that there is a button you press to make the game fun, instead going through the game without pressing said button and only getting the "not fun experience".

That is of course a lie.

You seem to not like the game on a mechanical level, different strokes for different folks, while the couch play will liven up the experience (most multi-player games are) it won't change the core game-play elements that you yourself described as menial mediocrity. Don't try to push it, if you're not enjoying it just accept the fact that entertainment is not universal, I mean shit people enjoy Crip walking and D&D so there are bound to be things out there that you won't understand.

 

[Tom_green_day]

95% of the time I played solo and I found it fine. When I played with a mate I didn't find it any more enjoyable than alone, except that I took ammo when I didn't need it which was odd.
I don't understand why people say it's a grind, surely that only works when there's a clear levelling system for different skills like an RPG? I didn't purposfully grind for XP and now I've finished the true vault hunter mode and done the side-quests I'm level 50 anyway.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Borderlands is a great game if you have a person or group of people that you play with and ONLY play the game with that same person/group of people. It's not fun if you're way higher level than them and you're killing everything while they do nothing, and it isnt fun if they're way higher level than you and you have to sit there and do nothing while they kill everything.

The console version has split screen coop which is great if you have a significant other who plays videogames or a sibling or roommate or something (though that makes the victory makeout after beating a boss or hard part of the game kind of awkward)

Single player it's so-so, but I do think at its core it has solid FPS mechanics and there's a lot of playstyle variety in the characters, especially later on in the builds.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Although S69-5 summed up my feelings pretty well, there's an overwhelming number of you saying it's great for couch play and God knows there isn't enough of that in the world right now.

I have a handful of friends I'm moving close to soon. I'll revisit with them and hopefully we'll have a great time.

Thanks all!

That's the thing. It really is one of the most fun split screen games of this generation. Sure it didn't have much competition but I enjoy it more than cod, and I do enjoy cod sometimes. With a friend you get more guns and get to see how other characters play.