Poll: Borderlands is 9 years old

Your favorite?

  • 1

    Votes: 11 28.2%
  • 2

    Votes: 27 69.2%
  • Prequel

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 1 2.6%

  • Total voters
    39

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,672
2,817
126
I just finished play-through 1 of the Borderlands base game using a Soldier that reached level 37. I made a heavy gunner build with the turret and large magazine guns. I tried the Siren as well but didn't like her as I kept dying and running out of ammunition.

The turret is awesome because it draws enemy attacks and sprays the area with bullets while providing health & ammo regen.

Borderlands2.jpg
Borderlands2.jpg
The cell-shaded graphics and lighting are really nice to look at, and it’s one of the few games to get depth of field right. Instead of just a dumb blur it looks like an atmospheric haze:

Borderlands1.jpg
Borderlands1.jpg
I haven’t played the other two games but I might pick them up in the next Steam sale.
 
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Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,189
184
106
Borderlands 2 is among my favorite games of all time. I'm thinking easily within my top 20. And it's definitely in my top 10 FPS games of all time too.

It's an improvement on the first one in every single aspect. It's the kind of sequel that I like to call "true" sequel. Not only a game that 'follows' the events of the first, but a game that improves from the first in as many branches, nooks and crannies as possible. It's also the type of game that makes it absolutely clear as you play and pay attention to specific game elements that the development team was dedicated to their project, that they really cared about it and wanted to make something good, and fun. The story, characters and the chemistry between them, the general writing is great, the villain is very memorable; the soundtrack is fantastic and fitting for the game, the itemization is much better, the difficulty levels are better balanced, the enemy variety is great... everything is better, period. I could go on and on about BL2 but it's one game that the 2010s gave us that for me is forever in my hall of fame. I had a blast in single player, and it's even better in co-operation online. I think I finished it around 5 or 6 times by now with my cousin, and we always end up coming back to it.

It's also one of those games that I consider essentially perfect. There are flaws, but there's so many positives about it that the "flaws" become negligible overall. There's a level of polish in the game that both BL1 and Pre-Sequel lacked, especially in terms of level design and layout, along with character skills and other 'minor' (polish-related) things and details that I'm the sort of person to pay attention to: like enemy placement (on the ones that are scripted to spawn), enemy variety, visual diversity in levels, banter between enemies or between them and your character, fine touches of intelligent writing especially in the dark humor from the villain, etc. I easily categorize BL2 in the type of FPS games that 'marked' me, had me addicted to them, and ones that made me come back multiple times even after completing it such as Doom 1 (Ultimate) and 2, Half-Life 1, Halo 1, Turok 1 and 2 and a few others. Additionally, the DLCs are great, especially Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep. That DLC is easily one of the best DLCs I've ever had the pleasure to buy and play. It's actually more of an expansion pack than anything else. It's big, full of content in its own region of the game, has a very fun and refreshing spin-off story to it and the writing is absolutely fantastic for Tiny Tina, not to mention that the voice acting is impeccable coming from Ashley Burch (and the voice acting in general, quality-wise is like that throughout the entire game too).

Anyway, I could keep on going about it. But I'll conclude by saying that I finished the first Borderlands as well, once, and never came back to it after. It was fun overall now don't get me wrong. I genuinely liked it. But by the end it was losing a lot of steam (for me) and the last fight itself was extremely underwhelming, anti climactic and frankly bad enough to insult my intelligence even if I tried to take it with a grain of salt. But that's just me I guess. Fast forward to Pre-Sequel, hesitated for many months before eventually buying it pretty cheap during a sales on Steam. I absolutely tried to play it past the 3 or 4 hours mark of playtime during any given session, and I can't. I don't "hate" it, it has its positives. I thought that the 'intro' was fun, and from the amount I did play past that point I'm starting to like the 'descent' in mental stability of... well I won't say too much in case some people haven't played BL2 first. What I do dislike about Pre-Sequel for now is the itemization on the Normal setting; compared to BL2's it's horrendous, weapons are plain and simple boring and the loot pool is just bad in general, and that's saying this while I do think that BL2's Normal setting isn't exactly amazing (but it SHINES like a hyper giant star in True Vault Hunter mode). Also, the oxygen ("Oz Kit") system when outdoors was simply not necessary at all, no matter how hard I try to cut it and accept it as an extra "gameplay mechanic". It's not, it's simply very annoying even if it's sort of generally easy to manage; still don't like it, still wasn't necessary. I managed to finish BL1, but I couldn't be bothered to come back to Pre-Sequel, plus Pre-Sequel's characters - overall - simply don't interest me much (except Claptrap, even though his skills and playstyle is pretty much all over the place and chaotic; not my cup of tea but I can see it's original enough).

I'm also happy knowing that BL3 is being developed. But I honestly don't expect it to ever top BL2.
 
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BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,672
2,817
126
I started playthrough 2 for the first time and I’m absolutely blowing through it. It’s much easier and even more fun than playthrough 1. I’m ripping through enemies with a vast swathe of bullets, leaving behind piles of corpses.
 
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Igo69

Senior member
Apr 26, 2015
716
101
106
Borderlands 2 plus all those expansions and Prequel is amazing I've spent around 500 hours on it if not more on this game.

Borderlands is good but the 2nd is just super amazing, I was blown away how awesome, fun and funny it is.
 
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ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
126
Never could get into the rinse repeat grind aspect of this game...which kind of sucks because I think the characters/story might be interesting from the other things I've seen.
 

Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2007
3,494
470
126
I started playthrough 2 for the first time and I’m absolutely blowing through it. It’s much easier and even more fun than playthrough 1. I’m ripping through enemies with a vast swathe of bullets, leaving behind piles of corpses.
You're going to love all the references to the first game. I screwed up and started with the second game and went back and played the second a few years later and I finally got all the references. For me, Borderlands 2 was a strictly single player game that I put well over 2,400 hours into. It's just a shame they patched the Evil Smasher glitch. That was so fun to exploit on raid bosses when I was bored of farming them normally.
 

calyco

Senior member
Oct 7, 2004
825
1
81
BL2 all the way, bigger and badder. Just thinking about it makes me want to play it again, upgrading all the weapons!
 

OCNewbie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2000
7,603
24
81
I tried the Siren as well but didn't like her as I kept dying and running out of ammunition.
How do you keep dying with the siren? She's the most OP class in the entire series (though Sal from BL2 might give her a run for her money).

What level did you get her to?
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,672
2,817
126
How do you keep dying with the siren? She's the most OP class in the entire series (though Sal from BL2 might give her a run for her money).
Phasewalk is a useless gimmick.

Activate it -> get a temporary reprieve -> runs out -> all enemies are right where you left them.

What was the point of that? Now what?

Contrast the immediate benefit of a turret being dropped to spray enemies and draw off their attacks, especially melee. It's also great for setting up choke points, and throwing it off cliffs while you snipe from above.

What level did you get her to?
About 18. When I restarted with a Soldier there was an obvious improvement everywhere, and I was mowing down enemies far more effectively.
 
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IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,323
4,904
136
Different playstyles. I played a Siren on both BL1 and BL2 and did insane amounts of damage.

Obviously couldn't tank much of anything, but not a problem when you kill everything in a few shots aside from bosses.
 

OCNewbie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2000
7,603
24
81
Phasewalk is a useless gimmick.

Activate it -> get a temporary reprieve -> runs out -> all enemies are right where you left them.

What was the point of that? Now what?
Yeah, that would be pointless, if that's how you used Phasewalk.

First off, Phasewalk itself does some area-of-effect damage when you enter it, and when you exit it. This can be enhanced with different tier/type artifacts. Without artifacts, entering and exiting Phasewalk is, iirc, powerful enough to kill most any non-elite/badass type enemies. One Phasewalk, with the proper accompanying skills, restores 70% of your total hitpoints. You can also use Radiance to do some pretty serious damage while in Phasewalk, all while being invincible. Just stand next to barrels for them to damage unsuspecting enemies, or melt most anything (especially shields) while you're regaining all your health back. The tier 1 skill Silent Resolve gives you a massive damage resistance buff for ~7 seconds after exiting Phasewalk. You can combine this with even just one point into Phase Strike to exit Phasewalk with a high-damage melee headshot, emitting the phase blast (with whatever artifact you have equipped), as well as the huge damage resistance buff. If you get a kill with that melee strike (which you almost certainly will), then all you need to do is get two more kills and Phasewalk is already refreshed again, ready for health regen, Radiance damage, another Phase Strike at the ready, and the aforementioned damage resistance of Silent Resolve after exiting.

Perhaps you bailed out on the Siren too early, because she has, by far, the most survivability in BL1, if not the entire series. She's the only class that makes killing Crawmerax fairly trivial.

There are other synergies with Phasewalk as well (such as Intuition, which makes the movement speed of PW even more ridiculous - it stacks) which just add to the OP-ness of that skill.

I haven't even mentioned Phoenix or her Mind Games type skills that further increase her offensive and defensive abilities (respectively).

To add - The Soldier/Roland is probably the weakest class overall in BL1.
 
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Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2007
3,494
470
126
How do you keep dying with the siren? She's the most OP class in the entire series (though Sal from BL2 might give her a run for her money).

What level did you get her to?
No no no. Melee Spec'd Zer0 can one-shot raid bosses and for other bosses, he can one-shot them (Saturn and BNK3R for example) with B0re.
 

Igo69

Senior member
Apr 26, 2015
716
101
106
I was playing Salvador the gunzerker it was fun shooting from 2 guns
 

Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2007
3,494
470
126
It's weird. I have over 1700 hours logged onto BL2 (probably more since I was without Internet for 5 months when I bought my house and it was the only game I was playing) and I've never played Salvador once. Not even to try him out. Axton, Zer0, and Krieg are my most played. Maya and Gaige come in second and Sal sits in a corner all alone.
 

Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
33,929
1,097
126
I didn't like the first one, but as you say it's been nine years, so I tried to get my friends to try it again. Unfortunately they didn't like the first one either and refuse to give it another shot. :p Maybe I should pick up BL2 on sale and give it a shot.
 

Sable

Golden Member
Jan 7, 2006
1,127
97
91
I love love love this game. It's constant grinding for the next slightly better weapon. BUT! The style, the art, the weapons, the characters, the story. All great.

I actually played the second one first. The pistols/revolvers in the first game are so much better and more fun.

Yes enemies all the the same. It's go the next map point. Fight the baddies. blah blah. Don't care. I love it.
 
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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,091
146
I think 2 is the better overall game, but 1 is still my favorite. The guns are just so much better, and Lilith.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,091
146
No no no. Melee Spec'd Zer0 can one-shot raid bosses and for other bosses, he can one-shot them (Saturn and BNK3R for example) with B0re.

didn't they nerf that pretty hard, long long time ago? I don't think any class still touches Lilith for being OP.

And in BL2, plenty of regular old guns can one shot bosses from nearly any class, with the typical cheese mechanics.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,091
146
Phasewalk is a useless gimmick.

Activate it -> get a temporary reprieve -> runs out -> all enemies are right where you left them.

What was the point of that? Now what?

Contrast the immediate benefit of a turret being dropped to spray enemies and draw off their attacks, especially melee. It's also great for setting up choke points, and throwing it off cliffs while you snipe from above.


About 18. When I restarted with a Soldier there was an obvious improvement everywhere, and I was mowing down enemies far more effectively.

Eh, you just haven't played it enough to properly level the class. Phasewalk is still the best action skill in the entire series, and it's clear you don't know how to use it or how it works

Doesn't sound like you've gotten anything to level 65 yet..or 70. whatever it is BL1

Soldier, next to Berserker in that game, are probably the two least useful classes in the entire series. No one plays those, lol. Soldier is good for maybe 20 levels, then totally poops the bed. He isn't a late game class, at all. His turret does nothing in VaultHunter mode, or whatever it's called in BL1.

The only classes worth spending much time on in BL1, frankly, are obviously Lilith and then Mordecai. Assuming you want to actually play late-end game stuff with toons that can actually do something.
 
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sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,085
5,618
126
Played 1 all the way to the end, just couldn't get into 2. I think by the time I started 2 I just had lost interest in that type of game. Both games, especially early on, are very bullet spongy. I just find that kind of game to be more annoying than challenging these days.
 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,189
184
106
I wanted to add to this thread by pointing at the Nexus network for game mods. All three Borderlands games got modded to some extent, however, they have been modded more extensively since the past year or so (especially BL2 and Pre-Sequel). So, some links for the curious out there:

For Borderlands 1: https://www.nexusmods.com/borderlands/mods/top/

- Notable mod for BL1 being "Borderlands Ultimate Mod".

For Borderlands 2: https://www.nexusmods.com/borderlands2/mods/top/

- Notable mod for BL2 being "Borderlands 2 Unofficial Community Patch" (version 4.0). Now, that one is impressive. It's in the veins of the famous 'Unofficial Patch' mods for the Elder Scrolls games mostly. Plus, it's mostly costumizable (remove portions of the Patch changes you don't want, or actually add and merge separate mods to the Patch).

For Borderlands Pre-Sequel: https://www.nexusmods.com/borderlandspresequel/mods/top/

- Same as for BL2, there's an Unofficial Community Patch for TPS as well (version 2.1). It's very similar to BL2's UCP changes (however, it has perhaps a bit less changes in numbers, but still makes significant changes nonetheless).

As far as I know there's no 'Unofficial Community Patch' per se specifically for BL1, even though BL1's Ultimate Mod seems to bring some changes (and seems to work for BL2 as well, but I haven't checked that one since I never went back to BL1 nor did I kept it installed). Now, with this said, there's also multiple individual users over at the Github site who made all types of mods, specifically for both BL2 and Pre-Sequel (Pre-Sequel is referred to as 'TPS' on modded files), but there's none over there for BL1 from what I can tell.

https://github.com/BLCM/BLCMods (scroll down a bit, check the Readme info)

The mods from Github are all (from what I know) in .TXT format, usually a single text file and nothing else. The way it works is by using a "Filter Tool" (needs to have Java Runtime installed, since the Filter Tool itself is a .jar file) that brings up a GUI window in which we can separately select (check, uncheck) mods or features we don't want to have in the default changes. It's also used to 'import' individual mods (the ones in .txt format) into it, which then allows to save the Patch.txt with the newly-added mods if any. However, it does require the tool to 'Hex Edit' the game's Executable in order to work. Once done, the game is launched normally, and one must enable the use of the in-game Console (such as by enabling it on the Tilde key, or on one of the F keys for example). To actually activate the mod, a command in the console needs to be entered: " exec patch.txt " (without quotes). And a message at the bottom of the screen should show up confirming that it is activated. And, finally, the mods from what I know do not require a new game to be applied, the changes seem to be working on a saved game too (it actually worked on one of my own saved game for BL2 when I tested it).

There's a video tutorial on how to do this in the Borderlands 2 Nexus link.

So yeah, just letting people know that there's still more life put into those games out there thanks to good ol' PC gaming modding.
 
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Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
I tried the Siren as well but didn't like her as I kept dying and running out of ammunition.

The Siren has a problem with ammo due to her suggested use of SMGs and their rapid fire. However, once you get an ammo regen mod, which I'd argue is mandatory, you shouldn't really have a problem with it.

[Borderlands 2] is an improvement on the first one in every single aspect.

Eh, I don't know if I can agree with that. I ended up somewhat disappointed with Borderlands 2 compared to the original. A couple things that stood out to me...
  • Claptrap went from being a fun side character to a huge annoyance.
  • Siren went from being a fun character to being garbage.
  • The UI was optimized for consoles over PC, which is expressed in all its negative manner in the talent tree. (You can only see one tree at a time.)
  • The Mecromancer has a horrible game design with her Anarchy ability.
  • The original was already kind of bad with its nature of adding difficulty through making enemies "bullet sponges", but the sequel takes it to the extreme with the Slag mechanic.
  • No DLC matches the awesomeness of Secret Armory of General Knox.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,091
146
The Siren has a problem with ammo due to her suggested use of SMGs and their rapid fire. However, once you get an ammo regen mod, which I'd argue is mandatory, you shouldn't really have a problem with it.



Eh, I don't know if I can agree with that. I ended up somewhat disappointed with Borderlands 2 compared to the original. A couple things that stood out to me...
  • Claptrap went from being a fun side character to a huge annoyance.
  • Siren went from being a fun character to being garbage.
  • The UI was optimized for consoles over PC, which is expressed in all its negative manner in the talent tree. (You can only see one tree at a time.)
  • The Mecromancer has a horrible game design with her Anarchy ability.
  • The original was already kind of bad with its nature of adding difficulty through making enemies "bullet sponges", but the sequel takes it to the extreme with the Slag mechanic.
  • No DLC matches the awesomeness of Secret Armory of General Knox.

Siren in BL2 is actually still very powerful, just not nearly as good as Lilith. Still my main for that one because she is very effective at crowd control and while SMGs aren't nearly as good as they are in BL1, she can still mow a mob down pretty efficiently once you know the maps and the fights.

I do agree with everything else. Mechromancer sounds cool in theory, but I found quite terrible to play in terms of utilizing her core mechanic. And yes: no other game that I know can touch BL2 and UVHM when it comes to bullet sponging. Such a garbage mechanic for added difficulty.

You didn't mention the profound lack of quality guns after BL1! The system that locks parts to gun types, after BL1, pretty much cut the potential guns in half. Added, with BL2 and TPS, the builds are almost entirely tied to legendary drops and even some Seraph (extremely extremely rare) guns. With BL1, you actually have extremely effective, extremely good blue-rarity guns and certainly tons of purples. I don't mind grinding all that much, but the necessity to do so for legendaries in BL2 and TPS makes it quite miserable.

I mean, OP is obviously a person that hasn't played a proper Lilith with a proper 4x Anarchy, casting judgments against the best class the series has ever known! :D
 
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BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,672
2,817
126
First off, Phasewalk itself does some area-of-effect damage when you enter it, and when you exit it. This can be enhanced with different tier/type artifacts. Without artifacts, entering and exiting Phasewalk is, iirc, powerful enough to kill most any non-elite/badass type enemies.
Unfortunately it isn't. When I was using it, even getting hit with both an entry and exit blast, most normal enemies didn't die unless they were already heavily wounded.

One Phasewalk, with the proper accompanying skills, restores 70% of your total hitpoints. You can also use Radiance to do some pretty serious damage while in Phasewalk, all while being invincible. Just stand next to barrels for them to damage unsuspecting enemies, or melt most anything (especially shields) while you're regaining all your health back. The tier 1 skill Silent Resolve gives you a massive damage resistance buff for ~7 seconds after exiting Phasewalk. You can combine this with even just one point into Phase Strike to exit Phasewalk with a high-damage melee headshot, emitting the phase blast (with whatever artifact you have equipped), as well as the huge damage resistance buff. If you get a kill with that melee strike (which you almost certainly will), then all you need to do is get two more kills and Phasewalk is already refreshed again, ready for health regen, Radiance damage, another Phase Strike at the ready, and the aforementioned damage resistance of Silent Resolve after exiting.
I know how it's supposed to work. I did extensive research before I quit her build. The consensus I got online was "once you get her to level 30 (or whatever high level) and find some kind of awesome SMG, she's unstoppable". I don't want to play a game that takes 30 levels to become fun. I started having fun with Roland as soon as I got the turret at level 5, and he was far more effective.

Perhaps you bailed out on the Siren too early, because she has, by far, the most survivability in BL1, if not the entire series. She's the only class that makes killing Crawmerax fairly trivial.
19 seconds with a Soldier seems absolutely fine to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxisT3OFIuk

The Soldier/Roland is probably the weakest class overall in BL1.
Playthrough 2 (currently level 42, about to take on Sledge), and he's still doing just fine. I don't even have uber gear, just a straight-forward heavy gunner build backed by a turret. The turret has tipped the balance more times than I can remember.
 
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