Borderlands is a series that is best defined as a first-person shooter role-playing game (FPSRPG) that was first released by Gearbox Software in 2009. The Borderlands series has received critical acclaim for its animation style, blend of compelling story and humor, character and level progression, and loot system.
The first game of the Borderlands series, Borderlands (Figure 1), is set in the year 2864 on space western planet of Pandora (think Mad Max in space), on which the player assumes the role of one of four Vault Hunters – Lilith the Siren, Mordecai the Hunter, Brick the Berserker, and Roland the Soldier. As a Vault Hunter, the player seeks to complete quests and survive on the planet Pandora while seeking the legendary Vault – a gateway which is believed to lead to fortune, fame, and power. The player eventually finds the Vault only to discover that it contained an ancient alien guardian known as the Destroyer. The player defeats the Destroyer, only for the Vault to collapse.
Figure 1: Borderlands Cover Art. [1]
The sequel to this Borderlands was released in 2012 with the title Borderlands 2 (Figure 2) and is held as the current best game in the series. Borderlands 2 is set five years after the events of Borderlands. Handsome Jack, the game’s main antagonist, has taken over the Hyperion Corporation (one of the many weapon manufacturers in the game) and has declared himself Dictator of Pandora. In this self-proclaimed position, Handsome Jack spends his time committing atrocious actions on the people of Pandora in order to eliminate those who he sees as unfit to be alive. The player assumes the role of one of six new vault hunters – Axton the Commando, Maya the Siren, Salvador the Gunzerker, Zer0 the Assassin, Gaige the Mecromancer, and Krieg the Psycho – and is tasked with killing Jack to restore “peace” to Pandora.
Figure 2: Borderlands 2 Cover Art. [2]
Core Mechanics and Gameplay
While first starting Borderlands 2, the player is able to select to play as one of the six Vault Hunters, which essentially act as classes in the game. Each class offers a different play style through the use of the character’s special ability and skill tree track (Figure 3) and allows for the player to put skill points in the class that best suits his or her play style. For example, players that prefer to go in guns blazin’ would ideally pick Salvador with the Gunzerker skill tree. The special ability and class characteristics of each Vault Hunter becomes available to the player after he or she earns enough experience (EXP) to reach level 5. The player gains experience through completing quests and defeating enemies and is typically able to reach level 5 before exiting the initial starting area of the game. Once the player reaches level 5, and every level thereafter, he or she receives a skill point to place into the skill tree. Fortunately for the player, the player is able to reset his or her skill points at any time, which in turns creates multiple play styles for each character. For example, Zer0 the Assassin is very powerful when building up his Sniping skill tree and using primarily sniper attacks at a distance or using his stealth-melee build for assaulting enemies up close. Having the choice to not only play as one of six unique classes but also to have multiple play styles in each class adds a significant amount of replayability and value to the game.
Figure 3: Zer0’s skill tree.
The flow of the rest of the game outside of the initial area completely depends on the player. Borderlands 2 borrows elements from RPG games, specifically which the player is free to roam wherever(excluding the fact that some areas are locked until certain quests are completed). The player is able to complete the story at his or her own pace and is able to fight enemies and complete side quests as he or she sees fit.
To enhance survivability on the planet Pandora, the player is able to collect and equip the following pieces of gear (Figure 4):
Shields
Shields are a rechargeable piece of equipment that prevents damage from being inflicted on the player.
Relics
Relics are pieces of alien equipment that the player can equip for some sort of effect or bonus (e.g. increased combat effectiveness).
Class Mods
Class mods are modulus that the player can equip for some sort of effect or bonus (e.g. increased combat effectiveness). Usually, this effect is character specific.
Grenade Mods
Grenade mods are modules that equip to standard grenades to enhance their effects. This can be anywhere from creating a blackhole-like effect to creating a MIRV-like effect after the initial grenade explosion.
Weapons
Weapons are the primary pieces of equipment through which the player damages enemies. Borderlands 2 utilizes a random number generator (RNG) system to randomly create guns based on a pool of parts to ensure that no weapon drop is the same as the last. In fact, Borderlands proudly boasts the fact that it has the ability to have more gun varieties than all of the other shooter games combined, totaling 17,750,000. Borderlands 2 features the following base weapon types: sniper rifles, rocket launchers, pistols, sub-machine guns, shotguns, and combat rifles. Although there are only six types of guns, the weapons manufacturer, element attribute, and RNG systems ensure that the player will never get tired of using one type of gun.
Figure 4: Menu of the player’s items.
The manufacturer system in Borderlands 2 builds on and improves the original Borderlands mechanic that guns display certain gimmicks depending on the manufacturer. The player, through in-game advertisements of the weapons manufacturers, generally easily learn how and when to most effectively use a manufacturers particular weapon. The major weapons manufacturers and weapons gimmicks include the following:
Bandit
Bandit weapons have the largest magazine sizes in the game but are typically average to poor in every other category.
Dahl
Dahl weapons are known for their accuracy, low sway, and burst fire. Typically, Dahl weapons switch to burst fire when the player aims down the sight (ADS).
Hyperion
Hyperion weapons are mostly at least semi-automatic and become progressively more accurate as the player holds down the trigger.
Jakobs
Jakobs are traditionally known to be non-elemental weapons that output a lot of damage with low magazine sizes. Weapons such as its snipers have a fixed fire rate while others such as its shotguns fire as fast as the trigger is pulled.
Maliwan
Maliwan weapons always come with an elemental attribute.
Tediore
Tediore weapons have a grenade-like mechanic, enabling the character to throw the gun at an enemy as opposed to reloading the gun. This is because Tediores weapons are viewed to be cheaper than the ammunition.
Torgue
Torgue weapons all fire explosive projectiles.
Vladof
Vladof weapons are known to have extremely high fire rates.
Any weapon, outside of Jakobs weapons, can support an element attribute. These elements include fire which deals bonus damage to flesh enemies, shock which deals bonus damage to shielded enemies. corrosive which deals bonus damage to armored enemies, and slag which causes them to receive double damage while the effect lasts. Several weapons have E-tech variations, which replace standard ammo with energy bolts at the cost of double ammunition consumption. The element attributes introduce another level of strategy to the game, a mechanic which players emphasize greatly throughout their playthroughs.
Players can obtain any of these pieces of gear by completing quests, opening loot chests, and defeating enemies that drop loot. Each of the pieces of equipment has various levels of rarity, which generally indicate its combat effectiveness. The rarity classifications are the following: White (Common), Green (Uncommon), Blue (Rare), Purple (Epic), Orange (Legendary), Magenta (E-tech), Pink (Seraph), Cyan (Pearlescent).
In addition to the equipment power bonus that the player receives, players can increase their base stats (e.g. health, damage output, and damage resistance) through the use of the Badass Rank system. Borderlands 2 offers certain challenges (e.g. kill 1,000 enemies with a combat rifle or score 10,000 critical hits) that when completed, award the player Badass Points, both of which are shown in Figure 5. These Badass Points are what allow the player to increase his or her combat effectiveness through the Badass Rank system. If the player desires more of a challenge, Badass Rank effects can be turned off at any time.
Players can also use the in game currency of cash or Eridium to buy gear and ammo from vending machines and player upgrades from the Black Market. Both cash and Eridium can be obtained from, cash rewards, world drops, and loot chests.
Figure 5: Badass Rank and Challenge menus.
To add another layer of playability to the game, Borderlands 2 has multiple playthrough systems. These different playthroughs essentially reset the campaign progress for the player while retaining his or her equipment and current level. The difficulty of the enemies increases per playthrough (e.g. regular Psychos in Vault Hunter mode will start off as Armored or Badass Psychos in Ultimate Vault Hunter mode), but at the same time, so does the weapon quality and rarity drop percentages. There are currently 3 main playthrough levels Vault Hunter, True Vault Hunter, and Ultimate Vault Hunter. The player can increase his or her level through these playthroughs until level 72 is reached. At this point, the player has the option to complete the Digistruct Peak challenge, which is a long gauntlet that consists of defeating strong swarms of enemies. Completion of Digistruct Peak allows the player to unlock Overpowered levels, which scale from 1 to 8. When playing overpowered, enemies and weapons scale throughout the game, but the player level does not. This adds a quite a level of difficulty to the game, which is appealing to players who want a challenge and want the best loot in the game.
The enemies in Borderlands 2 continue to offer challenge and variety to the player. The player can face standard human enemies such as Psychos, Bandits, and Goliaths to enemies native to Pandora such as Skaggs, Varkids, Spiderants, Threshers, and Rakks, as shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7, respectively. Unique to Borderlands 2 is the fact that some of these enemies (namely Varkids and Goliaths in the base game) can evolve in real time, adding a sense of urgency to taking out the enemy. For example, a Larval Varkid that survives long enough has a chance to evolve into a Supreme Badass Varkid known as Vermivorous the Invincible if not dealt with. Through interactions with all of these enemies, the player eventually learns when and how to defeat enemies effectively and optimally by striking their critical hit areas.
Figure 6: A Lunatic attacking the player.
Figure 7: An Adult Varkid evolving into a Badass Varkid.
Although Borderlands 2 offers players the ability to play through multiple times with gradually increasing levels, much of the satisfaction of playing Borderlands 2 comes from farming for gear by defeating raid bosses or bosses with high drop rates of specific weapons. This sense of acquiring the best gear through the RNG loot system appeals to both the completionist players and the players who like the sense of gambling.
Describing Borderlands 2 without randomness is difficult, as most of the rare weapon drops are based on RNG. In terms of proficiency in the game, players often have to rely on a boss dropping a specifically farmed weapon for a character build to survive in the game at harder difficulties; however, the luck factor of surviving on easier difficulties does not really exist. That being said, the randomness of obtaining good loot is somewhat detrimental for those who are trying to optimize his or her survivable build on harder difficulties. Also, the chance for some enemies to evolve is completely random and based on percentages, so the player will never be completely sure, for example, if a Badass Varkid will stay at the Badass stage or evolve into a Super Badass. These unpredictable circumstances keep the game new and exciting for both new players and end game players alike.
Types of Players and Fun
Borderlands 2 is unique in the sense that it can appeal to multiple types of gamers without seemingly catering to one specific type of gamer. The gamers to which this game appeals can best be described using Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types for reasons defined in Lazzaro’s Four Keys of Fun and Koster’s Theory of Fun.
Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types classifies gamers by the following four categories [3]:
Killers
Killers like to provoke and cause drama and/or impose them on other players in the scope provided by the virtual world. Trolls, hackers, cheaters, and attention farmers belong in this category, along with the most ferocious and skillful player versus player (PVP) opponents.
Achievers
Achievers are competitive and enjoy beating difficult challenges whether they are set by the game or by themselves. The more challenging the goal, the most rewarded they tend to feel.
Explorers
Explorers like to explore the world – not just its geography but also the finer details of the game mechanics. These players may end up knowing how the game works and behave better than the game creators themselves. They know all the mechanics, short-cuts, tricks, and glitches that there are to know in the game and thrive on discovering more.
Socializers
Socializers are often more interested in having relations with the other players than playing the game itself. They help to spread knowledge and a human feel and are often involved in the community aspect of the game (by means of managing guilds or role-playing, for instance).
Under the scope of Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types, players have fun in their respective play types, at least in some aspects, because of types of “fun categories” that are identified in Lazzaro’s Four Keys of Fun, which include the following [4]:
Easy Fun (Novelty)
Easy fun satisfies curiosity from exploration, role play, and creativity.
Hard Fun (Challenge)
Hard fun satisfies fiero, the epic win, from achieving a difficult goal.
People Fun (Friendship)
People fun fosters amusement from competition and cooperation.
Serious Fun (Meaning)
Serious fun players gain excitement from changing the player and their world.
In terms of Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types and Lazarro’s Four Keys of Fun, Borderlands 2 caters to all of these player types. Killers are sure to get enjoyment out of the Hard Fun aspects of the game, which include the variety of ways to defeat enemies using the millions of guns in the game, which. Achievers and Explorers would almost certainly appreciate completing all of the game quests and exploring the Borderlands 2 universe for better gear and different character interactions, which involve the Easy Fun and Serious Fun parts of the game. Also, the Borderlands 2 community is one that has created several extrinsic challenges such as speed run completions or playing through the game without picking up a new weapon. Socializers would enjoy the People Fun components of Borderlands 2, specifically how it promotes and supports cooperative play, especially during times in which the players are trying to take down a raid boss.
Koster’s Theory of Fun gives more depth to Lazarro’s classifications of fun, by explaining why players have fun with their fun-types. Koster’s theory suggests that fun is an emotional response to learning how to play the game and that games serve as a low-risk learning tool. Koster’s theory further explains that playing the game is a “solution space” and that players get amusement by learning how to solve the “solution” by learning the game’s mechanics, the relationships of the mechanics, how to explore the world, and how to optimize his or her efforts. Koster explains that boredom sets in once the player learns or solves the game and that the introduction of randomness or other content will encourage the player to not be bored.
Borderlands 2 does a fantastic job at making sure players do not become bored of the game, as mentioned previously with the variety of enemies, weapons, characters, and quests. Borderlands 2 does a great job at allowing the player to play the game how he or she wants, while at the same time allowing them to easily learn how to use and optimize his or her play style (at least as first). The games various “tutorial” quests help aid the player in learning the core mechanics of the game which were previously discussed. The player also learns a great deal through playing the game, especially when fighting raid bosses. The player may find himself or herself in feedback loop-like situations, in which they attempt to take down an enemy one way, see the effectiveness of his or her method, and then attempt another method until the optimal way is found. This feedback system is best exhibited during times where the player is fighting a new enemy or raid bosses. The player also learns what gear is best in what situations, such as having a stockpile relic to increase ammo in times of boss fights or having a high-damage resistance shield for instances where bosses have strong attacks.
Play Balancing
Play balancing is a critical part of Borderlands 2, as the developers did not want players to feel as if they could only get the best gear and defeat bosses with one specific character. The developers also did not want to have the game seem so challenging in the Ultimate Vault Hunter and OP levels that the game would seem obnoxiously difficult. Much play testing and community feedback went into making sure the game was both fun, yet challenging. The developers also spent a great deal of time, again with community feedback, altering some of the drop rates of certain weapons. As there is no real competitive multiplayer component of Borderlands 2, the developers needed not to worry about PVP balancing.
Conclusion
Borderlands 2 is a fun game that offers variety and an assortment of challenges to any type of gamer; however, the gamers that will enjoy Borderlands 2 the most will probably be those who enjoy FPS games or games that involve level progression and loot collecting. As the Game of the Year Edition can be picked up on Steam for $7.49 on a Steam Sale, it is a title that is definitely worth picking up.
References
[1] Madigan – http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2009/12/the-contrast-effect-the-cover-art-of-borderlands/
[2] Awvaugn – https://wucomsvisualliteracy.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/borderlands-2-cover-art/
[3] Kyatric – https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/bartles-taxonomy-of-player-types-and-why-it-doesnt-apply-to-everything–gamedev-4173
[4] Marczewski – https://www.gamified.uk/2013/06/05/gamification-user-types-and-the-4-keys-2-fun/
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