Randy Pitchford On Raising Borderlands Level Cap
Any chance of the level cap going up with future DLC?
We’re working on it. I know that’s something that people really want. You asked me earlier how difficult it was to balance everything, and as a customer I don’t care – I don’t want to hear how difficult things are – I just want what I want. I spend a lot of time making excuses, but we want that too, and we’re investing in that and I would not be surprised if we are able to offer that in the future, but at this point I can’t make any promises.
So says Randy in a new interview with GameInformer. Also discussed are the possibility of customizable character appearances and the Island of Dr. Ned.
Comments
Character customization would be nice, but only your mates will be able to see how one looks. (Except those moments where you sit in the car)
And there are also possibities to raise the lvl cap with sg editors.
I've said time, and time, and time, and time again: Raising the level cap would only serve to throw off the nice balance we have unless A) More skills are added to the tree or B) The current skill caps are increased (say to 10). Otherwise we'd eventually just have a bunch of people who are all the same if they are the same character. Fun? Maybe. But it takes away the entire reason there is a respec feature and the need for different spec trees.
As for character customization, I would love to see more. Cosmetic changes that only help you look cooler or more bad-ass are entirely fine by me.
Heaven forbid. It's exactly as Arcell Garza said.
As an ex-World of Warcraft player: every time Blizzard raised the level cap, they had to reconfigure and re-balance the skill trees and even add new skill tiers. It will be the same here. It will get very, very complicated and messy.
I'd rather not see people complaining about "Make Sniper Hunters as strong as Elemental Sirens" the same way you see WoW players do about their skill trees. That's all the result of really high and ever-rising level caps and deep, complicated skill trees.
Remember, one thing Gearbox really did right is make Borderlands more of a FPS than an RPG. By prioritizing FPS elements first, Gearbox made Borderlands simple and smooth. It's hassle-free gaming as compared to WoW.
If I have to petition Gearbox and Randy not to increase the level caps, I will!
First of all, it's common sense that if they raise the level cap they will have to do one of the two things that you mentioned, but that's not a problem at the end of the day. This also cannot be compared to WoW in any way. There is no competitive play in this and WoW is a very large game with lot's of people they need variety. I would like to see tougher enemies which would require a level cap increase.
Untrue.
Many people in the Gearbox forums look forward to co-op and PvPing in the endgame. It's very WoW-ish, but it's what they want, and Borderlands is all about co-op anyway. Even the game's harshest critics say that where it shines.
Similarly, try looking for threads about Roland, his Turret and his skills the aforementioned forums. While Roland is okay for solo play (but then, which character isn't?), he's cited as just too weak for co-op and PvP. Many of his skills are said to be practically pointless:
- He's a support character in a game where character's don't really need it (example: ammo), and yet too many skills are only good for helping others and worthless for helping Roland himself (example: Cauterize).
- Too many of his good or necessary skills rely on the "killing a target" trigger, where most kills are made by high damage Sirens and Hunters. Examples: Metal Storm, probably his best ability; Quick Storm; Stat, the only decent top tier ability.
- Most importantly, too many of his skills are just plain weak. His Scorpio Turret is way too limited in function or easily defeated- doesn't provide much cover, too long cooldown even with Refire and Deploy, Guided Missile worthless in cramped areas such as dungeons, cannot fire behind itself. Most of his skills are taken simply as stepping stones to higher level ones (example: Defense vs. Stockpile). Most of his high tier skills are just weaksauce (example: Grit).
Before Gearbox ups the level cap and does the requisite rebalancing of skill trees, it should fix what's already in the game first.
Lastly, there's still a ton of bugs to work out. I hear the skill-tree wiping bug is still around.
If anything I'd just like to see new modes of play and/or mission types. Given it's probably more likely we'll see this in DLC than anything else. Level 50 is perfectly fine, no need to mess with it really. It CAN be compared to WoW (or Diablo) in the sense that it has skill trees and leveling up. It's been said since the beginning that the RPG element of Borderlands is inspired by Diablo (and so is WoW in ways).
Also, common sense is anything but. Then again we are talking about Gearbox here and they're not morons like some companies (I'm lookin' at you SEGA!) so I would hope it would be common sense to them.
It seems we are both players of World of Warcraft (Well, you are an ex-player anyway.) Though with this, the knowledge we have collected helps our comments.
As you stated you disliked the level cap because of new skills and balance. Well, Blizzard was usually pretty good at getting the classes balanced again. It only took a little while for it to work. This is a bigger problem for the people who PvP... I think this is a highly rounded PvE game. Balance won't matter if they only take a little while to balance it out. It would be adding a new class that might throw everyone off. Going back to skills now. I think adding more skills to the tree is awesome. Borderlands would get dull and boring if the level cap was never raised... You would have like seven level 50's and nothing else to do besides PvP and make a nother character. Level caps are to give the player more to work for.
Even in WoW. It's been like four or five years of WoW since it's realease. If we were still at 60 with only new gear coming out, there would be nothing to strive for. When they raised the level cap to 70, it let level 60 players have a whole new experience on their most treasured character. It allowed a new start, and a whole piss-load of new content to go along with it. Then they raised it to 80. This is the most successful the game has ever been.
Gearbox (or whoever) would do good to raise the level cap. With the power to do so it allows them to keep this game alive for a very long time. No need for a sequel when they can just have level caps and downloadable content to replace it.
I personally feel that raising the level cap is a necessity. Given the fact that most people are going to be level 50 by the time the first DLC comes out (or even sooner), I think it's essential. Perhaps not in the Zombie Island DLC, but for sure in the next expansion.
I fully realize that the game is, at it's core, all about finding sweet guns and blowing shit up. However, once you reach that level 50 cap, the guns don't get better. (Short side note: do level 50 guns exist? Haven't found any higher than 48...) Furthermore, you really don't feel like *you* are progressing at all, since you basically stop gaining experience after filling up your bar for the last time. That kind of puts a halt to the whole progression of the game. BTW, I'm not really considering PVP at all, since I don't play online and haven't found much entertainment in splitscreen PVP yet.
On top of that, after hitting the cap you see level 51 enemies, which kind of leads me to believe that there will be an increased cap.
As far as how it could be implemented... I don't know. I hadn't though of the concept of increasing each skill to max out at 10 points, but I think that could be kind of ludicrous in a way... then again, so is the entire game. Still, I think I'd find that adding even 3 points a piece to Swipe, Bird of Prey, and Swift Strike could end up being just... absurd.
Taking another approach, my friends and I have discussed adding another skill tree to each of the classes, both either per class or per tree, so that each class could have 1 (or multiple) extra tree(s) to increase only after maxing out the final skill of one (or more) trees. that was, you could either take the route of having one ultimate skill tree for each class, or even have an additional skill tree for each branch of each class, making the character even more adept in certain aspects (ie. improving the Bloodwing beyond it's maximum capabilities).
Aside from that, I don't really have any other ideas yet. Sure will be a pain in the ass to balance properly.
As for adding a new character class, I think that'd be absolutely amazing, but I wouldn't want it to happen until after the level cap was increased, and I'd want to definitely make sure the class would be completely balanced with the other characters. hell, even better: adding 2 new classes, as long as they can nail it.
Finally, someone had mentioned Roland being underpowered, and I must say I strongly disagree. That could be because I haven't experienced 4 player co-op yet, however, my buddy and I have played through the entire game twice - from level 1 to 50 - together. I have pretty consistently been about half a level above him for the entire game, and I was Mordecai while he was Roland. Firstly, I feel as though he is pretty consistently getting better equipment than I am, and he kills way more enemies than I do. That isn't to say that I don't get my share of combat, but the assault rifle's ROF is so dominant to the sniper's, while it seems as though the damage barely takes a hit. However, this could be due to the fact that I prefer elemental guns (thus lowering the base damage), and he prefers non-elementals. Still, oftentimes I feel that I would need a 950+ dmg/95+ acc/1.8+ rof and an elemental effect to even come close to some of the damage outputs he gets.
Of course we play a little bit differently, in the sense that I'm more likely to get a few good shots in and let damage build as opposed to his in-your-face type of play, but you can clearly tell he actually gets more of the killing blows based on the ammo drops. Sometimes I feel like I'm really only there to make us some extra cash. :P Could be off base a little, and maybe my feelings are slightly biased, but I'm curious to see how it would be if the tables were turned.
Anyway, sorry for the long post, hopefully I had some useful input.
For reference, this is the discussion I was citing: gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php You can also look around the Gearbox/Borderlands/Roland forums for more talk on his weaknesses and what needs to be fixed.
I'm with Arcell_Garza. Besides WoW, I also played Guild Wars, which never raised its level cap yet kept adding content. That game won a lot of praise for doing all that (its 2nd campaign/1st expansion, Factions, was okay, but its 3rd campaign/2nd expansion, Nightfall, was awesome), and the gameplay from the new content was always new, fresh and solid enough to make the need for a higher level cap irrelevant. I admit GW eventually had its downfall, but it's not because of a lack of level cap or poor basic gameplay- it was because it tried to mimic WoW a little and ended up introducing a ton of grind to the game.
Borderlands is just solid enough. It doesn't need any new level caps. Heck, think of most great shooters that didn't follow an RPG route- they didn't need levels at all, just great gameplay!
@ Zuron:_Usagi: I don't think you can or should compare Blizzard and Gearbox and say they can do the same things, even barring differences in their games and how they play.
Blizzard has much more resources to put into their game- enough to hotfix urgent issues or issue regular patches and mainenance.
On the other hand, despite the change in art style, gameplay excellence and sheer fun of Borderlands, Gearbox has yet to fix a lot of issues with the game. This includes game-breaking ones, like the game permanently wiping out your skill points because of a multiplayer glitch. For a game that's been in development for awhile before release, it shows a huge lack of polish and tweaking. This is despite Randy and his team being dedicated, fun-loving, game-loving software artistes.
If the game's buggy enough as it is, then adding a new level cap and expanding the skill trees won't be as easily balanced as you say it will be.
@ Estabon89: You said it yourself- you don't co-op or PvP. Roland (or any character) does well enough solo- anyone does. But where he runs with Lilith, Mordecai or even Brick, there's naturally some comparison. And the comparison reveals just how different the power is between the four, with Mord and Lilith on top and Roland at the bottom.
As for level 51 foes- that's just to make them tougher, since higher level enemies are harder to hurt. It's the simplest and most efficient way to do that.
Again, you said it yourself in comparing your Mordecai and his Roland. The power of the sniper rifle is in one-shotting a target or getting as close as possible to that. By using elemental weapons, you turn your burst damage into Damage over Time or steady damage. To Roland's credit, the Soldier is the RoF king of the four characters (which is why Metal Storm is said to be his best skill). Your Mordecai is thus competing with Roland at what Roland's good at.
A Mordecai who focuses on single, powerful, critically-hitting shots simply kills targets so fast. Roland has to rely on filling his foes with lead first, even if he's doing headshots. That's why I was saying Roland doesn't get to activate his on-kill abilities- because either Mord or Lilith get the kill first.
I admit that's very dependent on the skill of the players of Mordecai and Roland, but even where players of both are equal, the kills will go to the guy who specializes in critical hits, and not to the guy who has to wind up first to get his thing going.
Lastly: Bloodwing vs. Scorpio Turret. Mordecai's falcon from hell beats the Turret in mobility, flexibility, and power so much, even despite the turret's flexibility and utility. The Bloodwing is easier to use in PvE, whether solo or group, and is almost an "I-win" button in PvP.
P.S. Sorry for the long post.