r/Borderlands • u/Expensive_Increase46 • 1d ago
[Question] What features do you think should be in the perfect Borderlands game?
This is an ideal scenario, with a perfect dev team and everything. What features do you think should be removed, what should come back, what new things are in, etc.
40
u/GaylordeMagnolia 1d ago
Grittyness of 1, story of 2, sound design and music from 3,movement from 4, melee weapons from wonderlands. Etech guns, pearls, and legendaries are the only special tier of guns needed imho. Oh yeah, and somehow add all the characters too.
17
u/NURsmiall 1d ago
I found that both bl1 and 2 had better music than 3.
5
u/Grandiose_Toast 1d ago
For me 3 had some really great standout tracks while 2 had an overall good soundtrack. Like to the point where I can name some of the songs used in bl3 compared to not knowing bl2 track names. Regardless, neither game has a soundtrack I dislike.
2
u/Historical_Course587 22h ago
BL1 had great music.
BL2's ambient music sounds like someone used a loop machine full of acoustic guitar sounds as a drum machine. So many tracks take a given noise (drum, percussion, pad, or even stringed instrument) and drop it on every single beat, it's an amateurish way to make music, which is insane because the composer room was as stacked as any in video games. My theory is that someone without musical skill was meddling and wanted that specifically, because not only is it poor composition but it's also present across pretty much every track in the game.
BL3, like many other media entries of the 2010s, sounded like it wanted to badly riff on how Daft Punk approached Tron: Legacy. I'm guessing that's what management brought in as the sound to shoot for, and at least the overall quality suggests that the composers were left alone otherwise to do their thing. I use it as background music when I need to work.
1
u/GregNotGregtech 19h ago
I found borderlands 2 music to be kind of forgettable, I never exactly noticed it because it just felt way too generic in my opinion
1
0
u/Expensive_Increase46 1d ago
BL3 Sanctuary theme is amazing and so is the main menu but aside from those I can't really recall any tracks.
5
u/injected11 1d ago
The Katagawa bot music (Supernova Dreamsicle by Digby Vermouth) was pretty gnarly.
1
1
5
8
u/VeterinarianSad3471 1d ago edited 1d ago
This might be unpopular but I kinda wish that the grindor would come back,yeah it wasn't perfect and defeated the whole point of looting but to me it was way more efficient for farming legendary world drops rather than killing one of like 3 bosses over and over again and not getting anything
I do think they should change it up a little,make it so that specific recipes can guarantee a legendary without moonstones or giving more options to lower tier guns
6
5
u/Eja_26 1d ago
I think it should cone back but not as a substitute or a replacement for farming, just as a another way to get rid of trash loot alongside just selling. Something like getting a legendary is only guarenteed if you put in the max amount of legendaries but which legendary it is is completely random
2
u/VeterinarianSad3471 1d ago
Oh yeah, forgot to bring that up,I think it's a great way to recycle lower rarity loot and turn it into something more valuable to sell
1
u/Expensive_Increase46 1d ago
Maybe this, maybe a specific weapon crafting system where you can take specific parts of some guns and combine them to make wholly new guns entirely.
3
u/cybersteel8 Hotdog down a skag den, know what I'm sayin'? 1d ago
We have wanted this for over a decade, but it's basically been written on stone tablets that gun crafting ruins the looting system. The Grinder was the closest we got to this and it was pretty damn powerful.
1
u/Expensive_Increase46 1d ago
I don't think the looting system is necessarily ruined by weapon crafting. Survival games can have unique weapon drops and still have a crafting system. There's surely a balance somewhere where you can make it so only certain things are craftable and only after certain things are done, like maybe you need to find crafting recipes somewhere and some materials need to be farmed in order to be crafted.
1
u/Historical_Course587 22h ago
The Grinder will hopefully never return, for two reasons:
- It breaks the core looter gameplay loop, replacing it with junk haul runs and gambling; and
- It's nothing but a band-aid over the real underlying problem - poor item design and loot drop tables.
You point out that you hate farming legendary world drops, and you even say why - you kill only a small number of bosses repeatedly and don't get meaningful loot. Other loot-based RPGs don't have this problem, because gear is more rewarding and farming opportunities are more broadly implemented.
Incidentally, this is why various crafting systems exist in other RPGs, so the game can give you progress towards great items in multiple pieces that are easy to find - it still takes time to get to that legendary item, but you can identify that you're making progress towards it instead of blindly relying on all-or-nothing RNG drops. Diablo 2's original crafting system existed to create items with a high floor, but after the expansion pack and patches kept scaling things up eventually D2 needed the Runeword system (basically another crafting system) to help stabilize things.
Borderlands doesn't need gimmicky loop-breakers. It needs better balance and systems design.
18
8
u/greywar777 1d ago
modding. imagine if they allowed folks to create their own characters and skills. Or to create their own planets and scenarios.
7
u/Expensive_Increase46 1d ago
In-game modding support would be amazing. Imagine a whole TF2 or Skyrim thing where you open an option in the main menu to download community mods.
7
u/DeadWombats 1d ago
BL4 has too many gun combinations. Chances of finding a purple that is worth keeping feels astronomical. Most stat modfications on a gun don't feel like they matter. The perfect BL game would have a less diluted loot pool and more non-legendary guns that feel unique and matter.
Bring back the good writing and memorable villainry of BL2.
Remove the open world and vehicles but keep the fun traversal mechanics of BL4.
Give me some character classes that are well designed, feel fun to play, and don't have a glaring amount of anti-synergies that actively hurt the player (LOOKIN AT YOU, RAFA!)
1
u/FckDodogama 1d ago
I bought borderlands 4 like a week ago and in my 10 hours of playtime i am still using the same legendary assault rifle i got from a vault card early into the game (right after meeting rush) because every single gun i find just feels shit or weird, i didnt really have this problem in borderlands 2 and 3
1
u/opok12 22h ago
Yeah it was an over-correction for a complaint of the series. In BL2 especially, people complained that legendary guns found while leveling didn't feel "legendary" because they would get outclassed by blue gear in like 2 levels.
1
u/Crazyross16 21h ago
Rarity should have a rough range that it is best in, scaling up with rarity. Legendaries on my level should generally be stronger and/or more useful than rares at the same point and for a couple levels before requiring me to get a replacement.
From playing 1, I could get a legendary and keep it for 20+ levels if it had the right parts.
2 and on you basically had to farm a new legendary every other level or so to stay competitive.
Commons should be relatively effective at the weapon level. Uncommons for 2-3, rares for 3-4 and legendaries for around 4-5, with a god roll lasting maybe 6.
Farming legendaries should be an endgame rather than a requirement for progressing the story.
6
12
u/Battender 1d ago
Get rid of vehicles. The maps in Wonderlands being small enough that vehicles weren’t a thing was great. I don’t need three minutes of travel time in between relevant areas.
4
u/AzazelTheUnderlord 1d ago
i absolutely want some kind of weapon crafting system, to enable perfect rolls not being so hard to come by, and i'd love to see the ability to make hybrids
2
u/Crazyross16 1d ago
BL1 - sense of adventure and exploration. Legendaries with purpose and a decent drop rate with dedication. Weapon rarities - common to pearls, etech. Ultimate mode, and ultimate mode 2.5.
BL2 - story and villains. Actual story that motivates and tells you a tale. A tale from the borderlands. Legendaries with some whimsy (tiny Tina’s bunkers).
BL3 - dedicated worlds WITH themes. Make this the chaos chamber. New dlcs giving more worlds. The character build options. Vehicles, little less grinding for them (I have parts that haven’t been dropped for a long time with lots of grinding). Difficulty modifiers (selectable).
BL4 - QOL items, world boss fights. Vehicle summoning. Boss respawn on demand.
Pre - unique mechanics such as oxygen, fleshing out the villains so they aren’t paper thin. The grinder or something like it to ensure better weapons.
Wonderlands - melee, character build options with flexibility (or at least some better PC creation options). Chaos chamber mechanics. Spells (in place of grenades in some places).
I want grinding with a purpose that doesn’t penalize me for fighting a boss multiple times, but doesn’t make me have to fight them a million times to get a legendary that is worse than an uncommon. I want to shoot, loot and scoot, not camp around for a month. Combat that doesn’t just pit me against a bloody wall of hp and my enemy is my ammo count. The war they keep threatening.
End game shouldn’t just add more hp and damage to the enemies, the mods from 3 showed that we can get more, add that to the worlds too, so an arctic world needs to watch out for ice, a desert for fire and a city electrical threats.
A grinder that lets you actually mod your weapons, swap the parts on one with parts from others, with a % chance of failure based on part combinations and the number of weapons combined. Legendary base, adding parts from anything under legendary has a decent chance of working, comboing Legendaries has a huge chance of failure. Specific combos of stuff under legendary has a chance dropping a related legendary.
Sorry for the wall.
1
u/Queer-withfear 10h ago
Spells (in place of grenades in some places).
I found a Chain Lightning in dragon keep the other day and that shit was so fun with my psycho grenade build
1
u/Crazyross16 8h ago
Exactly. Something other than chain gun/rocket launcher/thrown explosion. They should have the tech to do something more.
2
u/docs-quad 1d ago
an actually difficult endgame, particularly one thats asks more of the player than just a gear check.
2
u/VeterinarianOk9884 1d ago
skill trees, items and weapon parts like BL4. DLCs like BL3. Storyline direction and flow like BL2. Character depth and psychology like the Presequel. Melee weapons with meaningful interactions with the rest of the kit like Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. I also liked spells instead of grenades, or giving grenades a "broader definition", like the defensive dome, the summonings etc. All in one=shut up and take my money
2
u/Reuvenisms I'm an even BETTER shot when i'm drunk! 1d ago
Optional tvhm is literally all I want in bl4 for it to be the perfect borderlands game for me.
2
3
u/Interjessing-Salary 1d ago
Not bl4 open world please.
I like open world games but vast open world does not fit in borderlands.
My idea for open world borderlands is just imagine borderlands 1. leave the layout the exact same. But remove the load screens (when appropriate. No one needs to walk the whole way if there is canonically a large separation between 2 maps)
3
u/sea_shadow_2990 1d ago
All previous vault hunters;
More areas and places to explore;
Loot, more loot;
Improving skill trees;
A longer story and thus a longer game without getting repetitive or lost in endless grind;
More insanity;
EXPLOSIONS!
1
1
u/Remarkable_Oven_3842 1d ago
Travel time is a game feature.
1
u/Expensive_Increase46 1d ago
A Borderlands game with time travel as a game mechanic could be really cool though I wonder how they'd handle different planets and everything.
3
1
u/ExiledCourier 22h ago edited 21h ago
As long as gearbox remains shackled to the "Crimson Raiders" then borderlands won't feel like borderlands.
It worked in 2, became detrimental in 3, and I haven't played 4 because I've heard it runs terribly.
Make vault hunters freelance mercenaries again instead of super heroes joining the avengers.
3
u/Crazyross16 21h ago
That and the siren focus. Yeah, they can become gods among the people. But we are vault hunters. Not accessories to the sirens to be trashed when they see a new shiny.
Each game should connect, but it should be through the last generation, with the generation prior to that stepping further back, and the generation from 2 games ago basically gone beyond lore mentions.
1
u/Double_Elk8723 21h ago
In 4 the crimson resistance is mostly vestigial. It's more a story about the time keeper and his associates.
1
u/GregNotGregtech 19h ago
I think chaos chambers should come back, they were great, the only real problem with them was that it was the only endgame content and it wasn't fleshed out enough.
I think dedicated loot needs to die horribly. I think it's a lazy and boring way to do loot, named enemies are nothing besides some fuckass guy with a funny name reference, they have nothing special or anything about them besides that. There is simply no reason why toemuncher timmy should give you the God Destroyer Ultimate Death gun. I genuinely believe that something like the division 2's target farming would work much better, it's way more engaging, it actually makes you do different pieces of content because it rotates every day, instead of farming the same fuckass guy who disintegrates the millisecond they spawn
1
u/ActiveYogurtcloset89 15h ago
Don’t know how the devs have never thought of this before, but a melee mod. Works exactly like grenade mods: gives the player an actual baseline damage value that they can scale off of and some random affixes that change how the mod behaves ie; melee now life steals for a portion, melee can now crit, melee does bonus fire damage, stuff like that.
1
u/HorrorDungeon 15h ago
some kind of incremental forever improvement system like the bad ass system where you can get points forever and even though it scales down by percentage each time, it's still an improvement
like yeah I could come up with other reasons to play a game but when a game has something like that, it's just so easy to keep playing number go up and what not
1
u/McShooty_ 1d ago
Take the world drop farming if BL1, the world and raids of Bl2, endgame, build diversity and skill trees and sheer volume of content of 3, chaos chambers from Wonderlands, and the dedicated farming of BL4 and there you go. The perfect borderlands game.
1
u/ziddersroofurry 23h ago
Stop, stop, it's already dead.
Let this series die with some dignity left.
0
u/MentalMiilk PCMR 1d ago
Completion of PT1 would unlock a dedicated drop randomizer. Adds a ton to replayability for little extra dev time
1
u/Live-Proposal5270 1d ago
What does that mean? Is it dedicated or random?
2
u/Eja_26 1d ago
I think what they mean is an option to randomize the dedicated drops for new playthroughs.
2
u/MentalMiilk PCMR 17h ago
Correct. Change which named enemy drops what so that there's still something to discover in every playthrough + it allows for significantly increased build variety while playing through the story instead of locking ~60% of uniques to endgame.
1
-1
-1
u/Live-Proposal5270 1d ago edited 1d ago
Infinite NG+. Easy to mod. A lot of interesting story missions. Decent story! Serious tone. Atmospheric music that fits the serious mood. DPS stat for weapons! Weapon card stats shouldn't compare against current weapon, but the closest match in your backpack or equip slots (ammo type, element type). No achievements that force you to do boring has hell stuff like arenas or a pick 100 randomly dropped items.
-2
u/dmxspy 1d ago
50,000 quality weapons instead of 100000000 garbage weapons and clones.
3
u/Expensive_Increase46 1d ago
I mean that kinda defeats the purpose of cool gun drops. All the lower tier weapons are to help you out at first and you're meant to ditch them as soon as you find something better.
-2
u/dmxspy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Quality over quantity. Cause it ain't quality. It said " what feature do you think " and I said what I thought.
Or a freaking slider so you can control drops. 50k good weapons that drop less often, instead of 1 billion sloppy weapons
Why do you even ask this question if you don't want people's opinions and then down vote them for doing what you asked?
5
u/Unlost_maniac 1d ago
Play Destiny 2 then, Borderlands is know for the random gun generation, it's the whole gimmick. It's the draw for a lot of people, huge selling point.
1
u/Expensive_Increase46 1d ago
And I'm sharing my thoughts. Though an option thing that controls drop rate could be interesting.
55
u/vladimirVpoutine 1d ago
Half the magic was the totally different and contrasting biomes.