Poll: Borderlands is 9 years old

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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
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.
You don't know what you're talking about. Here's a hint: try reading my posts (especially the one above), and looking at the picture I posted that shows my character level.

Repeating above: playthrough 2 (currently level 42, about to take on Sledge), and he's doing just fine.
 
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Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
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 just didn't find her nearly as fun in the sequel. I don't think it was necessarily the character so much as the game itself that made her feel weaker. What's interesting is that with each release, I found that I didn't like the characters nearly as much. It's just that their abilities -- especially the talents -- are just not nearly as interesting. I didn't even make it about 15 minutes through The Pre-Sequel because I didn't like any of the characters. I sat there going through the talent trees, and everything just felt so bland.

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.

Honestly, most of my hours on Steam for Borderlands 2 comes from me leaving the game running. That may sound crazy, but building up your Anarchy stack can take some time, and it's even worse if you happen to die in the middle of a "dungeon" (not sure what to call them) and lose all of your stacks. There's a talent that makes it easy to get to 100, but the thing is... 100 isn't strong enough to make you able to run-n-gun.

You didn't mention the profound lack of quality guns after BL2! 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.

That's what I get for writing it off the top of my head. :p The guns are actually one of my larger complaints about the game, but not just their claim of the game having more guns. (I recall someone doing the math and finding that the original has more guns.) One of the biggest changes with guns in the sequel is that they made it so gun level matters a lot more. In the original, it wasn't crazy to use a lower level weapon at a higher level just because the weapon is that good. If I remember right, I'm using a level 40-something Combustion Hellfire on my Siren in the original, and I do just fine with it. I can understand why they'd want to do that, but when your weapons are boring and you have to swap weapons just to be effective, you may end up with a gun that you just don't like.
 

Elfear

Diamond Member
May 30, 2004
7,096
640
126
2 is my personal favorite, but that does not take away from the awesomeness of the first nor the aussie-ness of the pre-sequel. While we are talking about the pre-sequel, the jet pack is a feature that is undeniably fun to play and needs to be in every future borderlands game.

I thoroughly enjoyed the jet-pack feature as well although the Pre-Sequel was probably my least favorite of the three main games. BL2 was my favorite due to the same reasons already mentioned. Wonder if they have a mod to add jet-packs to BL2...

Melee Zero was my favorite build although very difficult to do right in UVH OP levels. Athena was my 2nd favorite, mainly due to the co-op play where her shield was so effective in reviving downed comrades from a distance.

As for DLC, I have to agree with Zenoth that Tiny Tina's was the best. Epic story line, map, and enemies.
 

EXCellR8

Diamond Member
Sep 1, 2010
3,979
839
136
Borderlands 1 was most memorable for me and therefore my favorite of the series, even though the sequel was much better balanced and dialed-in. I still haven't played the pre-sequel since I've heard both good and bad things about it. I do have the handsome collection on PS4 though that I like to play with my girl, so I might try it at some point.

I really like the series though and I waited like 2 hours at Pax to play 15 minutes of BL2 in 2012 lol

Are the Telltale games series worth trying? Kind of off-topic I suppose but I feel like most people enjoy them.
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
40,730
670
126
I loved 1 and 2 and liked the pre-sequel (but much less than 1-2).

Siren in BL1 is fun and easy if you use phase as a reposition-to-cover escape and get ammo regen and/or find a gun or two with infinite ammo. Until then, just also carry a machine gun and auto pistol and swap as needed when your SMG ammo is low.

The DLC is recommended too.

Solider and Hunter are fun too. I don't remember playing Brick much.

BL2 has an awesome story with great voice acting, and a fun new set of classes. Get the complete pack with DLC so you can play as a Psycho and Mechromancer as well as play through the new story areas.

BPS has fun voice acting and interesting new game mechanics, and does a good job of explaining how the villain of BL2 became what he was.
 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,189
184
106
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.

It's obviously very subjective but:

- I for one really liked Claptrap in BL2. He is very far from being an annoyance and he put a smile on my face every time he was there, or just goofying around in the Sanctuary hub. Plus, the writing for him was great (unless you happen to not like that sort of humor, obviously) and the voice actor did an amazing job.

- Not sure what you mean there, you mean Maya specifically? Or Lilith? They're both a 'Siren', but they play rather differently. You might have to elaborate on that one, but I assume that you're referring to how the Siren in BL1 was better than the Siren in BL2? Then that's very subjective too. They're both good on paper for the situations that they're good in, and they both have situations where they wouldn't excel. That goes for all the classes of the three games. There's moments where I'd rather have the Commando's turret, situations or specific enemies where I wish I would Phaselock for more CC, etc. I finished BL2 on my own with all the classes except the Psycho on the two main difficulty settings (Normal, and TVHM) and I never one moment thought that overall Maya was 'garbage'. Nor did I ever think that Lilith in BL1 was ever 'over-powered', she was good but so was the Soldier and the others.

- The UI on PC could have been better, sure. But it does a decent job as it is. I've seen MUCH worse in the likes of Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3 and 4, Dragon Age Inquisition and plenty of other games with very large icons, large windows and few maximum items in inventory screens, etc. In Borderlands the UI is 'angled' in such a way as to at the very least give it some style if anything. But in terms of functionality I really have nothing to complain about here.

- I agree with the Anarchy tree being sub optimal, they could have done a better job there. It's too dependent on very specific weapons to be effective, greatly reducing the choices available and arguably the playstyles too (by being so reliant on specifics, one can't really use any and all weapons and be free to explore play styles with all types of weapons, unfortunately). However, to be honest, almost all classes in all three games have at least one 'less popular' or 'less effective' skill tree, or if not there's always a bunch of specific skills that you just don't see the utility of and just usually ignore it. Just taking BL2's Zer0 as an example, I could never be bothered to build him around his Bloodshed / Melee tree since I perceive him as a Sniper more than an "Assassin". But that might just be me. All of this is pretty subjective anyway, even for the Anarchy tree I'm sure some people out there managed to come up with a crazy build for it and would completely disagree with us here.

- Now this I completely agree with. However, I for one mostly ignored Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode until I found a mod that removed enemies' automatic health regeneration (which I always hate in most games, with the rare exceptions when it either makes sense on a specific type of enemy because of lore-related reasons for example, or when it's done on a Boss but the mechanic isn't the only one trick gimmick it has to provide a 'challenge'). Until I found that mod I was always content with "just" completing BL2's Normal and True Vault Hunter settings. I did play UHVM with the Commando, originally (before the mod came in) and couldn't be bothered to stay in that mode past Level 53 or 54 (I was Level 51 I believe on that Commando when I finished the game in TVHM).

The mechanic of having to Slag enemies first, and then switch to another weapon to finish the job, I thought, was a complete misunderstanding on the developers' part on how (else) creatively they could have provided a superior challenge over TVHM. You don't have to give enemies cheap health regeneration (which pretty much ensures that it just ain't gonna die if it wasn't Slagged first) to ensure "challenge" is there. They could have come up with more creative ideas, new enemy types, new mini bosses per map regions, completely new types of weapons used by enemies, different spawn points, decreasing money earned or found in chests and containers, increasing prices in vending machines, etc. But indeed the default UVHM in BL2 is rather atrocious in design. That part of BL2, in my opinion, is its single most obvious and clear-as-day negative; its major flaw. And I will always think that Pre-Sequel's version of UVHM went in a better direction for having removed the Slag mechanic altogether (from what I read anyway, because I never actually played TSP's UVHM yet).

- Again, rather subjective concerning the DLCs for the three games. I also liked Secret Armory. But I strongly believe that Tiny Tina's Assault is the best DLC of the Borderlands trilogy overall. Then again yeah, it's my opinion. I just preferred it over the others, but I liked most of the DLCs for both BL1 and BL2 honestly (most, but not all).

I mean, I'm not saying that BL2 is "perfect", like actually perfect. But it's one such game that I like to consider virtually perfect. It has flaws, but there's so many positives that they far outweigh them. It's in the veins of other similar games (for me, that is) in the likes of Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild, Diablo 2, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Quake, etc (I.E. not comparing them and saying that they're all the same, they're different types of games; but they are what I like to refer to as 'virtually perfect' games). I do strongly believe that BL2 is, for all intent and purposes absolutely superior overall, over BL1 and Pre-Sequel. And I will be extremely shocked if Borderlands 3 tops the sequel, even if I do suspect that they will keep the formula relatively untouched (I.E. I feel like it's still going to be about 'Vault Hunting', but that the scale will be tripled, we might even travel from one planet to another, and it might have a very heavy online aspect to it which I'm not sure if I'd like to see happen; but time will tell).
 

Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2007
3,494
470
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.
The second one is a bit more refined, but it's honestly more of the same. If you didn't like the first one, you might not like the second.
didn't they nerf that pretty hard, long long time ago? I don't think any class still touches Lilith for being OP.

Honestly I'm not sure. The last time I played was right after they released the Legendary 3X patch and were doing that Monster Hunt event so they probably did nerf Zer0 into the ground. Ice always talked about how he didn't like how Zer0 was able to one-shot bosses, but they couldn't change how B0re worked. It always alluded to them changing his melee capabilities which is sad because I loved chain-killing everyone in a camp while using his special. Unless there was a Goliath, then it was always a game to see if I could get him to transform to GOD-liath.

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).
Noooooooooo.... I had no idea there were mods and now if I look around at Borderlands 2 mods, I might start playing again. My backlog was finally getting whittled down.
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
40,730
670
126
Noooooooooo.... I had no idea there were mods and now if I look around at Borderlands 2 mods, I might start playing again. My backlog was finally getting whittled down.

Yeah, I'm trying to finish Pillars of Eternity while playing a little Star Trek Online and resisting the urge to start anything else new. The last thing I need is to spend another 50 hours in BL2 :)
 

bguile

Senior member
Nov 30, 2011
529
51
91
OP definitely pick up Borderlands 2. It improves on one in so many different ways (most of which have been listed already) that I'm sure you love it, if you liked one. Only draw back is the guns and the gore. The gun selection in two is underwhelming compared to one, too much focus on manufacturers. I guess they did it so there would be 100 million gun variants instead 1 gajillion, in order to be able to better balance the game, but that just forced people to gravitate to legendaries and specific mission reward items. There is less gore as well, which I miss. But there are so many other improvements, that its worth the trade off. As for the pre-sequel isn't bad, it just doesn't excel in any one area like the other two. Plus maybe the aussie developer thing. And playing on a moonscape turns out to make for some dull scenery. The story was good though, and the lone dlc was really good.

Also there is nothing wrong with Roland. In fact I'd argue that the soldier class is the one class that the designers at gearbox got right. They are not overly strong, but not overly weak either, and can get through the game just fine. The rest all have their issues one way or another. Usually one tree overpowered, while the others are underwhelming. For example, Sals Brawn tree wasn't alI that great, but give him a Ruby while your gunzerking and it's almost impossible to die, so why even bother with the Brawn tree. You see tons of Melee Zero's and people running around with infinities with him, but hardly any true snipers. Maya's phaselock is great for mobs, but not so much against bosses, but she makes a great healer. I swear, it seems like that when they sit down to develop the character skills, they just run with whatever cool idea they come up but then don't bother to balance them.

And Tales from the Borderlands is awesome. I avoided for it a long time, but got it this Christmas for something to kill time over the holidays. By episode three I was completely hooked, and could overlook whatever kind of nonsense the characters were involved with, because I was enjoying the story so much.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,094
146
It's coming. Randy Pitchford is taking his time because he wants it to be better.

agh! the bastard is slow, though! :mad:

I actually didn't mind TPS all that much. I really liked a lot of the classes, tbh. and yes, it is hard to play any of the others without the O2 booster mechanic. Simple things like that really make for fun times. The main disappointment for me, though, was the terrible DLC.

You go in expecting typical, worldclass Borderlands DLC: maybe some extra classes, but certainly ~3 mini-game super worlds or maps. ...and it was more or less advertised as such...except that as they started coming out, the total "4 DLC!" was divided into the 2 classes, the one map, and uh, I forget the other. some crap, or something. Lame as all hell. Prior to TPS, advertising "4 DLC" = 4 maps, + some other stuff, like new classes.

While Lilith in BL1 is the unquestionable best of the series, BL2 is probably the better-balanced, more useful utilitarian bunch of classes, I think TPS actually had a greater number of classes that I actually enjoy playing. They were all "good" (except for that stupid claptrap), if not any one of them being as solid as the top BL1 or BL2 classes. If that makes any sense. But really: Nina was great, Athena was great, Jack was great, Wilhelm was great, and the Barroness was pretty good, too, if a bit cheesy and samey late in the game.
 

ondma

Platinum Member
Mar 18, 2018
2,718
1,278
136
I voted for 2, but liked the first one as well. The second game is probably in my top 10. I absolutely hated the prequel though, both for the platforming and the plot, which tried to make Jack a somewhat sympathetic character. I have really lost interest in gaming lately, but the two games that might get me interested again would be a well done (good single player campaign) full Borderlands game or a new single player Elder Scrolls game.
 

Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2007
3,494
470
126
I lost interest in TPS within the first ten minutes. The very first boss was a blatant rip off of the first boss in BL2 which they tried to spin off as an homage. The classes were bland and the platforming was pretty bad. I think the only thing I enjoyed about TPS was the new ice mechanic. The low atmosphere was kinda neat but they could have done so much more with it.
 

EXCellR8

Diamond Member
Sep 1, 2010
3,979
839
136
I didn't realize Gearbox was planning another game. I met a few of the developers at PAX East in '12 and they seemed like a fun bunch of dudes. I'd be all for another Borderlands game, maybe with 6-player coop and weapons customization? Oh, and less midgets...
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,094
146
Torgue is, by far, my favorite NPC in the series.

It isn't even close. Then Zed, probably.



...I actually thoroughly dislike Tiny Tina.
 

OCNewbie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2000
7,603
24
81
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.
I should have probably added: He is probably the weakest of all 4 classes in BL1, but he's still viable to kill most everything.

Crawmerax is a relative cakewalk with Lilith. Yes, you can kill it with any class I presume, but Lilith does it with much less effort, and much more consistency. You don't need to memorize Crawmerax's animations, or have the best guns, etc., you just need to have the skill points in the right places, etc. You go into Phasewalk, restore any health you've lost, and position yourself to hit it in the crit spots, and rinse/repeat.

If you don't think you'd start having fun until you're high level with her, then yeah, don't play her if you can't stomach that initial slog/grind. The more points you have in the PW support skills, the more powerful she gets. You don't have to have them all maxed, but having more into each support skill gradually scales up her power to where the game becomes trivial mode. I still think you're severely underrating the ability though. I actually tried another recent playthrough with her, and got bored somewhere in the 30s because it was a little too easy. I did get a Hellfire SMG though, and it rolled with good damage, etc., so I'm sure that also played a big part in the facerolling.
 
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EXCellR8

Diamond Member
Sep 1, 2010
3,979
839
136
Started a new game in BL2 last night just for the hell of it... I certainly missed playing it.
 
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Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2007
3,494
470
126
Hate to rain on the parade, but Borderlands 3 is only confirmed (so far) for PS4 and XBox 1. The official Gearbox forums and GameFAQs forums only have sub-forums for the two consoles available. Randy Pitchford said in an interview (at PAX I believe) that a PC release will happen, but it's not their top priority at the moment. This leads me to believe they are going to try their hand at mimicing the Destiny craze that swept over the console crowd when that game hit the market.

I hope I'm wrong, but I just get the feeling like we are going to see a quick bastardized cash grab for the console crowd while we're left with a horrible port.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
Hate to rain on the parade, but Borderlands 3 is only confirmed (so far) for PS4 and XBox 1. The official Gearbox forums and GameFAQs forums only have sub-forums for the two consoles available. Randy Pitchford said in an interview (at PAX I believe) that a PC release will happen, but it's not their top priority at the moment. This leads me to believe they are going to try their hand at mimicing the Destiny craze that swept over the console crowd when that game hit the market.

If that's their goal, they ought to know that Destiny 2 released on PC too. :p
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,094
146
Hate to rain on the parade, but Borderlands 3 is only confirmed (so far) for PS4 and XBox 1. The official Gearbox forums and GameFAQs forums only have sub-forums for the two consoles available. Randy Pitchford said in an interview (at PAX I believe) that a PC release will happen, but it's not their top priority at the moment. This leads me to believe they are going to try their hand at mimicing the Destiny craze that swept over the console crowd when that game hit the market.

I hope I'm wrong, but I just get the feeling like we are going to see a quick bastardized cash grab for the console crowd while we're left with a horrible port.

I still don't understand why people bother with FPS on consoles. It makes no effing sense.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
I still don't understand why people bother with FPS on consoles. It makes no effing sense.

Well, with how GPU prices are only just coming down and memory prices are still high, I can't blame people too much for shying away from the higher price tag.