Be Excellent To Each Other

Hmmm I wonder if that would sort of break the main game or not? I seem to be levelling at pretty much exactly the right pace in the main game, if I go off and put on a few levels with the DLC, I'll be too high level for the main game quests when I get back.

Plus I'm doing Tiny Tina's quests in the main game at the moment, and she's awesome.

Had a proper push this evening and got up to L20 where Sanctuary is up in the sky.

Have got loooaaaads of quests in my quest log but haven't done any of them apart from poor Claptrap's birthday party quest. I do feel sorry for the little robot.

Hit a bit of a rough patch from about 17-20 where I had a load of somewhat underpowered guns in my arsenal (L12-L15 blues and a couple of purples) which were sort of getting the job done but not as effectively as I'd have liked. It was interesting in a way though 'cause I find myself really matching the weapon to the job, especially a fairly unremarkable corrosive pistol that made incredibly light work of waves of robots.

I also took a quick detour and did Fink's Arena Of Carnage or whatever it was called on my way through The Fridge, that was an insanely entertaining shoot out.

I'd probably peg this as a late contender for my game of the year, the main thing is that it's FUN, and it makes me laugh a lot too, which is cool.

EDIT - Also the Anarchy stacks, sort of work up to a point then the inaccuracy becomes really annoying, I've found myself using that talent where you voluntarily unwind a few stacks. Between about 50 and 100 seems to be the sweet spot unless you really want to get up close and personal. Sniping is basically off the menu over 100 I've found.

More joy with this tonight, what a glorious game.

The only problem I'm starting to hit now is too many quests and they're starting to get flagged up as 'TRIVIAL' in terms of difficulty, but I want to see everything and do everything!

In WoW, questing was just a means to an end, with the odd exception of a handful of quest chains (some of which were momentously special), questing was to level up, and nothing more than that.

If you dinged the required level to move onto the next zone, you just binned everything off in your quest log and fucked off, simple as that - it's not like you were going to miss much of anything.

With BL2 I really want to see all the quests and hear all the dialogue and explore all the little nooks and crannies, which is cool in itself, but it does seem to be starting to run the risk that I'll be engaged in 'TRIVIAL' difficulty quests for a chunk of the time.

A small price to pay for such a fab game experience though. Even the awkward 'finding stuff' quests I'm enjoying, which generally I have no patience for whatsoever.

Vault Hunter Mode seems to switch the difficulty of certain areas.

I went to yesterday and the journey there through The Highlands with those horrible vanishing twatty things (rabid ones especially) was much more difficult than protecting it against the incoming robot horde.

First time round I was Second Winding constantly whereas this time my corrosive assault rifle and Bore just made mincemeat of anything that felt it was big or hard enough to have a pop at me.

I don't know if it's intentionally like that or just lucky but it means my interest has still yet to wane which, for a child with a 14 second attention span like myself, is no mean feat.

I take it you need to get a character to 50 before you can have a go at Vault Hunter mode?

So much stuff to do and not enough time to do it in!

I'd very much like to be playing now, but it's during the day and AE Jnr is bouncing around, and the game is most certainly not child friendly.

Nope - once you've finished the main game you get the option to carry on doing side quests or start again in True Vault Hunter mode no matter what your level. You can switch between the two playthroughs as well at any time - all your gear, points etc are consistent to your character regardless of which playthrough you choose.

It couldn't be much more awesome if it tried really.

Borderlands and Borderlands 2 Games on Demand are on sale on a 360 near you today. B2 season pass is 25% off also, and has been yoinked.

It's a bit fucking repetitive, though, isn't it? I mean, running away starts to be the default action. "Fuck those bunch of bandits/loaders/whatever, I've already killed them 8 million times."

You also start to dread getting a drop/opening a chest. It becomes less of a game of shooting, and more a game of peering at arrows. Either they're all red, and you sigh 'vendor trash' or there's some green and some red, and you're not sure whether its fucking better or not. Why do I have to run the math? You're a fucking computer!

Indeed. Since finishing it I've taken a break before I start doing that stuff again.



Heh heh. Not unlike the 'competitive flatness simulator' that is Populous.

That's the genre though, and it very much comes down to whether or not you like that sort of thing.

(Yeah I know, '7/10, if this is the sort of thing you like then you'll like this' etc).

I see Borderlands 2 as WoW running as an FPS and without the MMO bit, and with a lot of the standard issue tedious crap subscription MMO tropes either greatly curtailed or removed completely.

It's also stunningly gorgeous to look at, it sounds fantastic, it's wickedly funny, and the gunplay is immensely satisfying once you start to tailor weapon classes, elemental effects, and talent choices to every given situation.

Yes sometimes running through an area and/or running away is an option, but I don't see that as a problem in and of itself.

As for loot and comparing stats - absolutely 100% a staple of the genre, and I suppose that comes down to horses for courses. I found Far Cry 3's system of handling weapons/storage/ammo/etc annoying to the point that I simply couldn't bring myself to play the game any more, whereas with BL2 I really quite enjoy getting to a vending machine and going through my backpack to decide what to sell and what to keep.

Ultimately I suppose there's no right answer, and I certainly can't say that anyone who doesn't like BL2 or takes issue with aspects of its design or execution is 'wrong', any more or less than anyone can tell me that I'm 'wrong' about Far Cry 3.

I love BL2 to pieces, FC3 annoyed me to distraction - others may feel entirely differently, and each to their own. The cool thing is that we have the choice

Ahhh well I had to give up on DOING EVERYTHING, as every single quest in my log turned to TRIVIAL when I dinged 24, even the single story quest that I had available to me (four levels above a quest's level turns it trivial, and the story quest was 20).

However, having set everything except the story quest to 'ignore' they do now occupy their own category in my quest log, which will hopefully mean I can go back to them at 50 and rattle through them for the sake of completeness.

Because I'm such a gear whore I have spent a disproportionate amount of Eridium on backpack upgrades, (I hate leaving stuff behind, I like to rifle through all my loot at a vending machine before deciding what to keep and what to vendor and making MUCH CASH in the process), so I now have the orange level backpack, whereas everything else is still down at the green updrade level, or in one case, the original white level.

I tried to resume my game tonight and have concluded I need to go back and run around my 'normal' playthrough for a while and level a few times. As it is I'm level 28 and I'm getting absolutely demolished by the level 30/31 marauders and bullymongs in the opening section. Killing the four in the glacier and the six or so in the pond for the "clear Liar's Berg out of bullymongs" mission took ten frustrating attempts as I just can't damage them enough while they kill me in two or three hits.

Installing the Mac version now - this might mean I'll play more of it as well as freeing up some crucial Windows partition space (Sleeping Dogs is now doing the cunt's trick of colossal patches full of locked DLC)

So then, Mechromancer question, how do folks manage their anarchy stacks?

I'm Level 25 now so have got a fair way down the talent tree, including the talents that jump-start 0 anarchy immediately up to 25, and gives a 30% improved chance of adding extra anarchy stacks whenever one is added.

The problem with all of this is I'm finding that over 100-125 stacks basically renders the sniper rifle useless due to the accuracy penalty, which is something of a issue for me as the sniper rifle is my default choice for clearing camps of baddies from a distance, before going in and mopping up whatever's left with closer quarters weapons.

Yes I can use that 'Discord' talent to increase accuracy at the cost of leaking anarchy stacks, which does help somewhat, but I can't imagine ever wanting to max out anarchy. I've had it up over 200 stacks at which point hitting fucking anything that isn't close enough to reach out and bop on the nose becomes an exercise in annoyance.

Also, what's with that talent that damages everything nearby when you kill an enemy whilst in mid air? I find I really don't tend to kill stuff whilst in mid air.

With Anarchy, you have to get close with SMGs or Shotguns eventually. That's really the point.

Hmmm, it's a bit inelegant though, you end playing as a pseudo-melee class, which has none of the majesty of killing from afar with sniper and assault rifles.

I think I'll just keep it at 100 stacks or less with Discord.

Or you could respec into one of the other trees.

Yes I did take a look at them but one of them is clearly a 'team spec' for co-op play, the other one did look OK, the one with the bouncing bullets, so yes, I probably should have a play with that.

The Anarchy tree has all the coolest sounding stuff though.

Yeah, L28 is pretty underpowered to be starting TVHM. I think I was around L34, and even then there were still quite a few hairy moments initially - especially when a Bullyrott or Armoured Maniac appeared.

Actually, I started at 27 and GROUND my way up to 28. I can't imagine having to do that for another four or five levels. Mac Client seems to work okay, just need to move my saves across to it.

Going on sale, 50% off, on Steam in 20 minutes.

How do you get decent relics? The best one I've got is a green one and pretty much the rest of my inventory is purple or orange.

I'm still finding out new nuances to combat 40+ hours in. I spent my first 30 hours abusing shotguns and the sniper rifle - now I'm all about the Assault Rifles and Machine Guns.

Transfusion grenades are the only grenade I ever use though as I love stuff that robs health off enemies. It's like when I used to constantly go for the vampire rune in Quake 2 Lithium Mod for those old folks that remember that far back.

If I remember rightly, I got an orange relic for doing the 'Arms Dealing' quest for Zed in Overlook. It's the only time I've ever seen a super-rare relic (and it finally got me the cheevo for having all purple or higher gear equipped.)

I was very much dependent on sniper rifles until my TVHM playthrough, where the tougher enemies required some close-quarters stopping power. I still favour sniping, but always have a good shotgun to hand for whenever something gets uncomfortably close.

As for grenades, I'm all about the homing. There's something immensely satisfying about taking out some git of a Marauder, who's skulking behind some crates and refusing to pop out, with a nice homing MIRV.

Chatting to a chum on Teamspeak last night he said that he killed Jack at Level 31 and then you decide whether or not to go into Vault Hunter mode.

How does that work then? I realise you could get the DLC (which I will), but I sort of assumed the base game would deliver enough content to get to Level 50?

True Vault Hunter mode is another playthrough right from the beginning again - same quests but much tougher enemies and the chance to find some ludicrously powerful weapons. You keep your weapons and XP from your first playthrough and can switch back and forth between the two games whenever you like, so you can go back and finish off any quests from the first playthrough if you want.

Getting to L50 is a lengthy process, even in TVHM where you get a ton more XP for completing quests, but it's easily done. I think I got about two thirds through the second playthrough before I hit L50.

I'm now leaving my L50 Gunzerker alone until the level cap is raised, and have begun playing the DLC using my (mid L20's) Assassin playthrough.

The Torgue campaign is bloody excellent! There's also some genuine laugh-out-loud dialogue as well.

WELCOME TO THE TORGUE ZONE, BABY! IF YOU'RE NOT MADE OF GASOLINE, METAL OR BACON, GET THE F*CK OUT!

I think I must be nearing the end of the main campaign now, I'm going to have a bit of a charge to get it done and then get straight into the DLC via the season pass.

I'm off work today and AE Jnr is back at school, I may set aside an hour two minutes to knob Mrs AE, but other than that it's Borderlands 2 and Yorkshire Tea all the way!

Heh

Where are you?

According to Wikipedia's plot summary I have half of the last paragraph to go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderlands_2#Plot

Hmmm the difficulty has really ramped up a bit now I'm on level for the main story mission.

That Saturn fucker was pretty tough, although I sort of glitched him a bit.

Now I have an army of loaders and constructors to kill, and they're getting some pretty fancy abilities.

I have just eaten a cold tin of baked beans for a late lunch so I can get back to playing BL2 quicker.

I cannot remember the last time I've wanted to play a game so much.

And there's more Tiny Tina! Must resist!

ARGH!

I am literally on the last fight of the game, and AE Jnr is home from school.

CURSES.

There is a BRILLIANT bit of dialogue in one of the quests, featuring Torgue, Moxxi and Tina, that had me almost crying with laughter last night.

Seriously, virtually every developer on the planet needs to have a long, hard look at Borderlands 2 to see just how to do a script and voice acting in a video game.

Hurrah!

Last boss kill, I managed to sneak it in whilst AE Jnr was occupied elsewhere.

I died on my first couple of attempts, until I happened upon the most amazingly cheap way of killing him. I kind of eyed it up and thought, 'Surely that won't work?.....', except, it does!



ONTO THE DLC!

That's exactly what I did. From the location of the place to stand, i'm not sure it wasn't designed in.

Did you do it straight away or after a couple of deaths?

After dying for the second time trying to do it properly, as I was running down for my third attempt I thought to myself 'Hang on, I can practically see his head above the forcefield, if I could just get to a higher vantage point.....'

Job done

Absolutely fantastic game, can't wait to get started on the DLC.

In the end I did miss quite a lot of the optional quests as I was determined to get a charge on to the end of the campaign whilst I had the chance today, but there's loads of stuff I want to go back and do.

Still not convinced I'll be trying TVHM though, from what's been said in this thread it sounds a bit like hard work.

I managed to kill the final boss by climbing one of the rock pillars in the main area. For some reason it left me almost totally protected from its attacks, and I was far enough away from the damn crystallisks that they couldn't hurt me either.
Thankfully I was playing as the Gunzerker, so ammo wasn't an issue.

I pretty much had it nailed by the end of my second 'proper' attempt, I'd just kind of got ground down a bit too much along the way and died, but I did have his movement patterns sussed out by then.

He's quite a lot like a WoW dungeon boss with the concept of there being a main boss and 'adds' (additional baddies), plus environmental effects (in this case the periodic lava raising), plus healing phases (in this case the timed ammo/health spawns) - it's just a question of getting into the flow of how it all hangs together.

I should have tried to do it properly for a third time really, but once I realised I could ping him with impunity from half a mile away, well, who wouldn't take that option?

Decided I'd go back and finish all five stages of Fink's Arena Of Death (or whatever it's called), as I was somewhat over level for it I got my anarchy capped out which I've never managed before.

So yeah, 300 stacks is insane damage but you really do need to have your nose up their arsehole to be able to hit them due to the catastrophic accuracy penalty.

Insanely good fun, (one clip's worth of carnage from the orange shotgun that dropped off the Warrior boss kills even a Super Badass Goliath), but I can't imagine playing on-level content in that state.

I just read up on that 'orange shotgun' - it's called 'Potential Conference Call' and apparently it's one of the best drops in the game

If I can get equally lucky and get 'The Bee' shield drop from Hunter Hellquist, apparently I have one of the most awesome weapon/shield combos in the game.

Fuuuuuuck. What's it geared for in terms of your level?

As I understand it the DLC scales to your level.

I bought the Season Pass this evening and poked my head into the door of both the Captain Scarlett and the Torgue DLC, and the starter quests in both were showing as Level 30, with my character being at Level 32.

Yep, the DLC scales to your current level. Best played either after you've done the main quest or with a character you don't care all that much about, because it obviously gains you XP/Levels that make you a little overpowered in the main game.

I see. I'm asking more because I'm trying to level my character up to cope with the TVHM still. I've just gone through the Caustic Caverns but I have a long way to go.

Just tried it with my Gunzerker. Starting the DLC in normal mode reveals that the enemies seem to have a level cap of 30. In TVHM they were up at 50/51.
In TVHM I can't see it being any easier a proposition for levelling purposes than just playing the main game, but the difference is that you'd be playing new areas, I suppose. If you switched back to normal mode to play I'd imagine the XP you'd get would be pretty negligible.

My Siren is level 29 so I would have to do it in 'normal' mode.

Thank you for checking!

Bear in mind that my Gunzerker is L50, so the TVHM playthrough was scaled to his level. I'd imagine that if you played it in TVHM with your L29 Siren it would scale back to her level also.

There is also a bit where Torgue screams at Moxxi that he can 'do innuendo' too which had me laughing at my TV screen.

I switched to the 'BEST FRIENDS FOREVER' tree a little while back and I'm having a better time with it. I wouldn't say 'easier' as such, and it's arguably less fun because you simply never get the insane damage modifier of the ANARCHY tree, but at least you can consistently fucking shoot things, especially with the sniper rifle which remains my weapon of choice.

Starting on the Captain Scarlett expansion this evening, I'll play that through and then it'll be Torgue.

Just one question, let's say I play out the Scarlett DLC and hit (for the sake of argument) Level 40. Will all the Torgue stuff still be 30 when I go back to it or will it have scaled out to 40?

At the moment in Scarlett I'm 32 and all the quests are around 30, which is fine.

I'd hate to turn up for Torgue and find everything has turned trivial.

It seems to continue to autolevel along with you. I've been jumping back and forward between the two DLCs and I'm still finding it a fairly decent challenge.

Bear in mind also, the game doesn't seem to change the level of a quest once it's given to you. You might get a L30 quest, and it might dwindle to trivial in your quest log, but if the area it takes place in autolevels along with you, you'll be tackling much tougher enemies than Level 30 when you go to attempt the quest. I've had that happen a few times to me, particularly in The Dust and Lynchwood, which are two areas that autolevel quite frequently.