Newcomer at Pandora

[Binnatics]

With Borderlands 2 coming up soon, and the mentioned co-op functionality, I couldn't leave this GOTY edition behind for the 10 bucks it costs now ;)

I had a minor problem during setup; the game couldn't find "physxcudart_20.dll" and thus wouldn't w@&k. I could symply download the file from the net and put it into win32 folder. Problem solved. ^-^

When starting the game, I found myself in a 640-480 resolution or so, which is pretty weird with a 24" widescreen :-D
Could change that and the graphics look good and crisp... but:
I've noticed lots of vsync problems. The game seems to constantly mess up upper and lower parts of the screen which can be a bit annoying sometimes. Can't find a function in the options menu to change that. Plus the aiming isn't working quite smooth. When I aim, it seems my cross-hair is moving over a raster, which doesn't really help since I decided to be Mordecai this first time :-\\

So far so good, I've had a first try and am flattered by the start of the game. It looks all good and works all nice, the tiny robot is funny. I just repaired it because a bunch of bandits blew him to pieces (almost). I love the amounts of blood splashing round when performing a critical hit :-() :-X
It reminds me of a game I played last year. I game that was called something like 'Anger' or 'Fury' or something like that, I can't come up with the correct name somehow 8-X
One more thing surprised me, and that is that I don't need any serial key. I do have one, but wasn't asked for it at any moment. Maybe they ask for it once I set up an online account.

Do any of you have tips about the vsync problem and, more important, the aim sensibility? I did change the in-game sensibility bar, but that only made me aim faster or slower, not more or less precise.  :-\\

[Fiach]

I cant help you as I played the 360 version, but I hope you get sorted and enjoy the game Binn, it's one of my all time favourites :)

[Art Blade]

strange problems. First the missing dll and second the v-sync issue and third, the aiming. Sounds like a graphics card driver problem to me. Hope you get it sorted :)

[Binnatics]

Decided to not bother for the vsync flashes, it's not too annoying. And didn't bother for the raster-like aiming. It's doable and you get used to it. I think it's meant to be like that? Anyway, I'm getting a hand on it. I already found a truckload of weapons around the first few missions. Especially when I went out to kill Nine-Toe. Hehe, that was a ruff fight.
Them scags all around can be pretty annoying. I had to fight for my life several times to survive, especially when meeting some lvl 9 adult scags close to where Nine Toe had his hideout. I'm surprised how much Cough... r-Rage-ge... cough looks like this game. It's like an exact copy where in Borderlands they don't care for crisp textures but give nice gameplay and a nice explorable world.

I have another question, this time about the gameplay. I can only hold a small amount of weapons in my backpack, but some weapons I found along the way look somehow 'special'. They are marked green or blue. Should I sell them too, to make room? Or keep them? I'd like to keep a nice shotgun for example that I bought during a special offer. It gives some nice extra firepower for close encounters with heavy scags when I meet them. But there's also a gun marked in blue, which seems more or less valuable (it has an additional blade attached to it which may come in handy with a close fight). All together these weapons consume room in the backpack and I'd like to be able to bring found guns in for cash. :-\\

I was very surprised when attacked from above. Some pre-historic birds tried to eat me. With the heavy sniper I found in the grave of the old man's wife, I could bring them down easy though.
First impressions: Great game! Good game music too :-X :)

[Binnatics]

Sometimes I'm a lazy ba$t@rd. Anyway, out of curiosity I started reading some more topics and found good info:

You probably know this, but just in case you aren't aware.

The more you use a weapon type, the more proficient you become in that weapon type, so if you spread your types too thinly, you will be less powerful.

A good idea would be to examine the skill trees, eg. Mord has skills in one tree for sniper and in another for pistols, so it would be a good idea to level up one or the other and use the skill tree to add more proficiency.

There are times when you really need a shotgun (Spider ants for example or midgets, stuff that gets in close). But after awhile you will notice that certain weapons suit certain characters and although there is no set rule, I would avoid using too many different weapons.

A good rule of thumb would be Lilith SMG, Mord Sniper or Pistol (inc Repeaters), Roland Assault Rifle (inc Combat Rifle), Brick .... stuff that goes boom! Then add another weapon or two at the most and get their proficiency up a little bit (less than 10 anyway).

My pistol Mordecai uses only a 2 shot pistol, but his skill tree and weapon proficency allows him to fire faster and reload faster, so even though it only holds two bullets, I can fire it almost constantly.

I'm glad to see you are enjoying it, I think its a really fun game :)

Thanx Fiach, and Art :-X ^-^

Btw, I think Mordecai is a perfect guy to start with. I'd like to try another time with the girl, with her fast moving skills and interesting electric abilities etc. But that seemed to be more for experienced players.

[Art Blade]

 :)

I enjoyed playing with Mordecai immensely and kept using pistols but also shotguns. Try find and read mmosu's modding topic/posts, there you will see which weapons are valuable. I think purple and turquoise are the best regarding value and power. I modded most of my few weapons so I didn't need to look for random stuff.

[Fiach]

Every time you repair a claptrap, your inventory gets extended, so keep an eye out  for them.

Shoot scags in the mouth when its open.

Be careful with shotguns, find a balance between magazine capacity and damage, you may pick up one with great damage, but only holds two shots, or one that fires four shots at a time, there are some really bonkers weapons in the game. I think one of the early bosses drops an awesome shotgun, the boss beside your first base drops an awesome SMG.

Only hold on to weapons you need to be profficant with, look at your skill trees and use weapons accordingly, eg. Lilith gets bonus damage to elemental weapons, eg an incendary SMG.

Glad you are able to play it now :)

[Binnatics]

This game is really cool, guys. Today, driving home from w@&k, I wanted to get back into it again. That's a good sign :-X :)

Also a bad one, because I still have to plan our holiday in Scotland which starts the 20th of Juli

[Binnatics]

My favourite loadout right now (I'm about to enter the cave where Sledge is hiding) is:
GGN29 Sniper
ZZP30 Painfull sweeper
RV21 Static Revolver (just replaced it in place for the static rifle I had, which was very effective)

What a massive cave full of monsters and scum was that Sledge's hide-out place, lol

[Fiach]

It can be a tough fight, try to use something with electricity to negate his shield, theere will be other enemies in his room too, so be careful when you run away from him, so you can shoot them on sight.

I think it was sledge, if he has a shotgun, its the right person.

[Binnatics]

In a minute I'm going in. I found out about the electric effect to shields when stumbling through his hide-out full of bandits and mutant little bastards. I spent my entire load of money to buy new ammo and grenades because I couldn't get past these first 2 or three rooms. Then I got a hang of it and, indeed, killed the shield with electric rifle and then pumped them full of shotgun lead >:D
With the huge boss, the key-keeper so to speak, I was very lucky. He thought he could smash me through a wall, but that didn't w@&k. He was stupid enough to keep trying, and in the mean time I could kill him with any lead I had left in my magazines ;)

I'm still carrying that old sniper with only 3 round per clip, but it's so damn deadly I really like it until now  :)

Now I'll find out about the modding first, and then take it up against Sledge ::)

Edit:
I though Mmosu's topic was about in-game modding. I won't start with 'external' modding now. First I'll play the game mint, and then, maybe after that, I might mod some thing. I'm not really a modder in fact. I like to play the games the way they were supposed to. Borderlands is pretty entertaining on itself ^-^

[Binnatics]

Well, I left Sledge aside for a moment and went roaming around a bit. I found the lost cave and got in to explore it a bit. I saved another Claptrap and killed dozens of enemies :o
There are lots of them in there. I guess I killed them all 3 or 4 times, since I've been roaming around a bit too much. I didn't "accept" the rescue Claptrap mission so when I found the repair kit I couldn't get it ????
Took me quite some time to figure out what was the problem. Anyway, I collected a truckload of fine new weapons again. I also found a sniper rifle that costs over 6000 and can only be used when reached lvl 25 :-\\

First thing I did with the massive amount of money is upgrading ammo capacity. I fully upgraded the first 2 sniper functions (accuracy and damage) and am now upgrading the birds.

I have another question. What to do with all these grenade upgrades? Usually my inventory is loaded with these things. I don't use grenades much, but when I use them I like transfusion and the one with fire and extra additional grenades. But are these upgrades only working for a short amount of time? I don't want to keep my inventory blocked with that stuff and want to sell them :-\\

I have been stupid by the way not to sign up at all the sidemissions right from the start since I will have to go in the lost cave AGAIN to get the cristals and will have to find these sniper rifle parts again which I know I've seen somewhere. :-D

This game is bludy entertaining :-X :)

[Fiach]

I only used Transfusion tbh.

That cave is cool, because there are some pretty easy to get chests there, clear the cave, loot all the chests, log out and back in and the chests and enemies will respawn, so its great for farming XP and weapons, the crawler things give great XP and are so easy to kill and you have the vending machines to sell unwanted stuff.

[Art Blade]

Although I am usually extremely fond of hand grenades, I almost never used them. The firearms are so much more effective that I preferred to use my backpack space for those rather than clutter it with bazillions of different types of grenades.

[Binnatics]

...bazillions of different types of grenades.

You can say that again, lol.  ^-^
I'm more of a shooter guy too. Damn fine sniper guns btw. I have a revolver with electrical charge now which is very great. Did I mention the sniper gun I found that will only be usable when reaching lvl 25? That must be a top gun 8)

I'm impressed by the enormous quantity of guns all around. I'm getting used to selling all that is not the best, although it's still hard sometimes when I sell a purple gun.  :-D

[Art Blade]

 ^-^

The more you level up, the more powerful weapons you can use. If you are now amazed at how cool one particular weapon is, wait until you look at the same weapon when you are like 20 levels from what you are now. You'll find it rather pitiful  :-D

[Binnatics]

That is what I'd expected 8)

And it's true. Today I did all sidemissions I'd missed so far, and went back to areas prior to where I got my new weapons. The weapons I have now are too powerful for the enemies there. But it's very cool. The game keeps you animated in that way. I remember Rage had the same sort of 'upgrading' stuff. But they just upgraded your bullets instead of your weapons. And you didn't get new ones (or find them). So that made it less attractive.

My next step will be entering the cave, finally. But that's for tomorrow ^-^

[Binnatics]

I killed Sledge. Damn ba$t@rd was hard to get. I found out that throughout the game reviving gets pretty expensive. That goes for bossfights a swell :o
15.000 to get resurrected is quite something.

The good thing is (and probably also a minor point of critics) that most bosses can be dealt with from a somewhat safe distance. E.g. when I entered the arena to fight the guy in his tank (forgot his name) I got killed very fast. His patrol cars / helpers blew me away before I even knew what was happening. When I got back, resurrected and all, I found out I could get lut ofmy car just before entering the arena. The boss and his mates were driving circles there already, so all I had to do was bust them with my rocketlauncher. They couldn't hit me because their bombs would smash against the threshold ^-^ Same happened with the first boss, the giant key-guard in Sledge's hideout.

I found the weird ghost sniper rifle with infinite ammo. Great gun!!! I won't sell that one. And I also found a corrosive artefact, but it's meant for the berserker mode of another character. Should I keep it just in case? Or sell it?

[Art Blade]

as you can't use artefacts that are not meant for your character, you can sell those.

I did not realise what you found out about that arena boss. Nice one  :-[ ^-^ I had a bloody long and unpleasant fight there but did manage eventually.  :-D

[Binnatics]

Well, the arena boss easy tactic I discovered out of greed, so nothing to be proud of in fact :-D
Besides, I'd wanted to find out the 'real' tactic to take him out. btw, what happens if you run out of cash? Will you be dead, as in finished playthrough? Thanx for your stay and enjoy a re-match? ???

[Fiach]

I think its a percentage of your current money,,,, but I'm drunk, so what do I know :)

[Binnatics]

   :-X Drunk people speak the truth, so I'd better spend my money than ^-^

[Art Blade]

yes.. easier to load a save game though  ^-^

[Binnatics]

yes.. easier to load a save game though  ^-^

What you mean? In my case the game always saves everything if I quit and re-enter. I didn't find out a way of 'loading' a savegame ????

[Art Blade]

Haven't played the game since but I think there is an options menu where you can at least restart a mission. Else, the automatic saves you get in many games can be backed up and restored in case you really screwed up.