Information from Borderlands Players

[Tongs]

NOTE: This thread just deals with information that was learned first-hand by people who have played Borderlands. It isn't ALL the information about the game. This is just one of several FAQs that you should read if you have questions.

Other FAQs can be found at the top of almost every section of the Borderlands forums. There isn't much information overlap, so if this is your first time here, you should read them all.


Recently, two forum-goers were selected to travel to Gearbox and get some hands-on time with Borderlands. They're back, and have been answering the community's questions from the moment the NDA was lifted.

This thread is a compilation of the information they've gathered about the game from their experience and from talking with devs.

This is the thread that is to be used for asking them further questions that haven't been addressed here:
http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com...ad.php?t=72747

Some questions aren't posted here because they did not have a definite answer. If I missed anything important from the above thread, please PM me and I'll fix it. If they reveal any other new stuff we haven't heard already, I'll update this thread. Here we go!



Characters and Abilities

Can I name my character?
Yes, you’ll be able to name your character.

Can I customize my character’s appearance?
You’ll be able to choose the color of three main sections on your character. This can be done at New-U stations.

How do the Skill Trees work?
We actually hit a goldmine of info here.

Starting at Level 5, you will get a point to put into your skills. If you do the math, that means that by the time you reach the level cap of 50, you will have accumulated 46 total points. Your first point must go into a basic starting ability, which will then unlock the Skill Tree for your character. iLXeNk made this super nice chart to demonstrate this:

---- Starting Power ----
Tree 1 - Tree 2 - Tree 3
A - B -- A - B -- A - B
C - D -- C - D -- C - D
E - F -- E - F -- E - F
- G ------ G ------ G -

5 Points in a combination of A/B for each individual tree lets you get to C/D
5 Points in a combination of C/D for each individual tree lets you get to E/F
5 Points in a combination of E/F for each individual tree lets you get to G of that tree
G = Super Power
You can put 5 points in to G
To max out a tree you would have to use 5x7 = 35 with 45 total skills you could completely max out 1 tree and have 10 points. To reach G takes 5x3 / 15. You could take 3 skills or combinations there-of from each tree by the time you're 50 and never once use any of the "Super Powers"

Points start when you hit level 5 (so cap is 50 you get 46 skill points although you HAVE to spend 1 on the starting power so you get 45)

There is now an actual picture of a skill tree chart (Brick's) at the bottom of this post, for your viewing pleasure.

Pretty straightforward. Once you spend that one point on the great big Starting Power, you have a choice of A or B in Trees 1, 2, and 3. Once the amount of points between A and B is five, C and D get unlocked. And so on, until you reach G, which is a very strong ability. As you can see, with only 45 points to use in the trees, this will require the player to think about which areas to improve the character, as maxing everything isn't an option.

Any word on the starting ability for each character?
Most likely: Mordecai: Bird, Lilith: Phase Walk, Brick: Berserk, and Roland: Turret.

Tell me more about each character's starting abilities.
GrayHood made a nice summary of the four starting abilities:

Brick: We have all seen the roid rage. That is his first skill you put 1 point into it to unlock his tree at level 5. You push the left bumper/L1 to activate. Then there is a cool down before you can use it again. I don't know specifics but I was following a brick around alot in my time playing. Keep the tank up is rule #1 for healers.

Lilith: Phasewalk. With this you become invisible, get a speed boost and do damage in an AOE when emerging. When dueling you do become invis to the palyer you are fighting. This can be increased through her skill trees. She does have an assasination tree where if you attack to come out of phase you do bonus damage.

Roland: Turret. It shoots baddies it gives out ammo if skilled, It gives healing if skilled. It is possible in the trees to get it to do both. Cd based only every so often. I should have timed but didn't. I would say a minute to 3 minute cooldown hard to say with the speed of the game.

Mordecai: Bloodwing. Eveyone gets him. Increase to dps I believe he has a tree that helps with this again it is hard to remember stuff that I didn't play as. Mikey has confirmed there is an artifact that makes him blow people up. He does not have a hp bar from what I saw. The little bastard is fast and it would be luck that hit him not skill. I say this because he moves faster than your reticle.

Describe some of the characters' other skills and abilities.
Well, we know the most about Roland's skills right now. The turret is his starter skill, which unlocks a tree that starts with upping turret damage, a tree that activites an AOE healing around the turret, and his Medic tree. A skill halfway down the Medic tree gave him the ability to heal teammates by shooting them, so this often talked-about ability must be worked toward. The earliest skills in the Medic tree included a personal health regeneration, and a bonus to overall health. The effectiveness or total bonuses of both were decided by how many points were put into them. Healing bullets add a percentage of the damage they would normally cause to an enemy to the target's health; this percentage can be increased by adding more points and heal your teammates quicker and with less ammo.

There might be a mix-up in there, maybe a skill or two listed under the wrong tree, but you get the idea.

Can I go back and add points into previous skills if I don’t like the way I progressed?
Yes, for a fee at a New-U station or shop, you can pay money to re-spec your character.

Do useable abilities like Roland’s turret and Lilith’s phase walk have cooldown timers?
Yes, you must wait for them to recharge before they can be used again.

Are there many passive abilities, or do the Tree abilities tend to be more active than passive?
Abilities acquired from the Skill Trees tended to be more passive, giving lifetime bonuses or “perks”.

As Roland, did you have to do anything other than shoot your allies with standard ammunition to heal them (assuming he had the “healing bullets” ability)?
Nope, GrayHood said he just had to turn his gunfire from the enemies onto his allies and they reaped the benefits. Although they obviously hadn’t read up on “healing bullets” and thought that he was trying to team-kill them. He also mentioned using a rocket launcher for area-of-effect healing. That’ll cure what ails you.



Loot/Inventory

Is there going to be system that helps distribute loot, or is it free-for-all?
Right now, it’s free-for-all, with people able to take loot when they’re within reach.

Any awesome new stuff I should know about?
Well, they found a yellow-colored drop that surprised just about everyone present. It was some sort of godly sniper rifle. Pretty neat. There was also some kind of sticky grenade and one that sucked away enemies’ shields. Other than that, nope, just expect to be surprised by some of the stuff you’ll find.

HellFace offered some clarification on that "yellow" weapon. Here's what he said:

"Yellow Colored Weapon" - was Orange. Mostly.

All our weapon colors have a nice emissive to show up brightly. On many TVs or Monitors, when you add emissive to orange, it shows up looking more or less yellow.

The Orange/Gold/Yellow weapons are the Legendary weapons. I expect there are many people even here who have not seen them all. Each manufacturer has it's own set of Legendary weapons that can be found. They are the most remarkable weapons in the game.

The sniper rifle found was Maliwan's Legendary Sniper Rifle.

Can I quickly swap out my equipped gun for a new gun I've found as loot?
Yes, holding down the button to take loot when taking a gun will exchange your gun for the new one, placing your old gun in the inventory.

Do I have to go around picking up each individual object?
You can hold the loot button down within range of a pile of loot to take all loot within your reach. Unless you're looking right at a specific gun, this probably won't swap out your gun for any in the loot pile.

What’s the news on Armor?
No one found any armor during their playtime, so it’s very possible that there isn’t any. Shields should effectively fill that role.

Did you many chests like the ones seen in screenshots and gameplay videos? Were there any other containers or objects in which you guys found loot?
Not many chests were found. But they found many containers with money and the occasional grenade inside.

Additionally, chests will be different colors depending on how valuable their contents are.

How does the inventory system work? Is it easy to use?
The system is pretty easy to use. You just select stuff from a list of some format; not too many specific details on that.

Can I access the storage deck (inventory) anywhere, or do I have to be in a specific place, like a New-U station?
You’ll be able to bring up your inventory wherever and whenever you need it.

How much stuff can I hold at one time in the storage decks?
They couldn’t hold a lot of stuff, but they didn’t have any upgrades that expanded their inventory space. It’s likely you’ll be able to hold much more when you find these upgrades.



General Gameplay

What happens when I die?
There are places called “New-U” stations that act as checkpoints, autosaving your game when you pass them. If you die, you go back to the last New-U station that you passed. The stations also have a few other uses as well. From what we’ve heard, the stations are plentiful.

Is there a “tether” that keeps me within a certain distance of the other players, or can I go anywhere I want?
The areas they played in were not too open, so we still don’t know for sure. But, he said that within the areas they played in, you could go pretty much anywhere.

Edit: No, there is no tether that keeps players close to one another. Still, it's not always advisable to run off alone.

Could you pause the game during co-op?
No. Neither player was the host of their game, so it’s unclear whether the host has this option; but when they brought up the pause menu, the game kept playing regardless. Apparently GrayHood died while using the inventory. Good times!

Were large/boss fights frustrating?
According to iLXeNk, no. While challenging, they were by no means frustrating or anger-inducing. He said knowing that the penalty of death wasn’t very serious was one factor that contributed to this.

If I'm looking through my scope and I get hit by enemy fire or take damage, do I exit scoped mode?
Nope, you'll stay scoped in even when taking fire.

Any achievements you guys can remember off the top of your heads, just in case playing an unreleased game and generally enjoying yourselves wasn’t enough to keep you occupied?
Yeah, the super-exclusive achievement where they’re selected to go to Gearbox and play Borderlands for a few hours. 500 Points. Bet you’re sour about that one!



Vehicles
Sorry guys, there wasn’t a whole ton of news in this department. Seems they were strictly on foot during their brief stay on Pandora.



Combat

When I'm firing a weapon, do things like standing still and/or crouching improve my accuracy?
Yes. This will be a game where you become less accurate the more you're moving around, so standing or crouching will improve your accuracy a lot.

When dueling, does a dome actually fall down around the players? When it’s finished, do I get any health back that I lost?
Yes, a physical dome of some kind will appear around the players, keeping them inside. If you lost health during the duel, you’ll need to recover it afterward because it will not be restored to you.

Any way to get health back during a fight?
Well, in addition to the things Roland can do to heal his teammates, there are health kits and health vials. Kits can be used from the menu/inventory, and Vials are just picked up and automatically used in the field.

Can you tell us about any environmental damage you witnessed?
GrayHood shot some acid-filled barrels, which exploded, causing nearby bandits to be caught in the blast and get all melty. Also, when set on fire, one bandit ran into some of his friends, spreading the fire to them, too. Commentary below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7KK7bXJV2c

Will bullets penetrate thin objects or walls?
iLXeNk says he remembers that a shotgun blast may have penetrated some thin sheet metal and hit him/one of his party, but he isn't totally sure. So consider that a possibility for now.



The World

Was there a map of the world or surrounding area?
They didn’t look at a world map, but they did check out a smaller map of the surrounding area, so smaller area maps will be available for sure. The area map was fairly large, and could be moved around to look at different parts.

Were there waypoints or markers on the map?
Yes, there were quest markers.

Any interesting NPCs?
According to GrayHood, the couple NPCs he spoke to were pretty interesting and had some character. Always a plus.



Weapons

Any new developments regarding weapons?
Well, grenades can be customized with Grenade Mods, so instead of having to keep track of picking up twenty different kinds of grenades, you can just swap out different Mods to achieve different grenade effects.

Tell me all about bullet mechanics. Are they hitscan, meaning they strike the target the instant I pull the trigger (as in most games), or do the bullets actually take the time to travel and hit their targets, like in some weird games no one likes? (Juuust kidding…)
Well, this wasn’t established for sure. Apparently they were focusing more on staying alive and not timing the flight time of the bullets they were squeezing off frantically into other guys’ faces. Fancy that! But at this point, it would be safer, for simplicity’s sake, to assume that the bullets are going to be hitscan. Plus, GrayHood felt like it was probably hitscan.

When you were looking down the sights of a gun, or looking through the scope, did you notice that your aim swayed? If so, how much? Additionally, did your look sensitivity slow down when zoomed in?
There is a slight gun sway. And yes, the look sensitivity was decreased.

What about melee weapons?
There will be no pure melee weapons in the game. Each character has a melee attack that they perform unique to them. If a particular weapon has a melee attachment, like a bayonet or blade, then that will be used as the melee attack, provided it is stronger than the character's standard melee.

How extensive was gun customization?
In their time with the game, they were not able to customize their weapons. Either they didn’t get to a point where they could, or this just is not a feature.

Were you satisfied with the sounds, animations, and overall feeling of the guns?
Yes.



Enemies

Did you fight any badasses? Were they difficult?
Yes, some badass enemies were fought. They were significantly more difficult than standard enemies.

How did Nine Toes (a boss enemy) compare to the Badass enemies in terms of difficulty?
That boss was harder than the previous Badass enemies. It’s likely that bosses will be much harder than the Badasses that are around their “level”.

How is the enemy AI?
The AI seeks cover, communicates, and attempts to point out the locations of the characters, if they can see them. Overall good impression of the AI. Methods of AI aggro remain to be tested.



Technical

Did you notice any lag or loss of framerate when things got intense?
No, even during heavy firefights and other stressful situations the game played smoothly.



Special thanks to iLXeNk and GrayHood, who did all the "field research".


iLXeNk made a list of useful information back in that thread, which I'll put here. Check it out.

Movement:
Movement was good. Didn't feel clumsy or anything.
Sprinting was infinite from what I could see.
You could reload while Sprinting.
Jumping felt like Halo almost but toned down some.
Crouch is a toggle (don't know if it can be changed... I wouldn't unless it was on PC) and yes you can Crouch Jump... I had to at one point to get out of Nine Toes area.... don't ask me to explain because I won't.

Shooting:
Felt like Counter-Strike/Halo mix. Some weapons felt more like CS and some more like Halo (I use those names as they're most easily recognizable).
Any weapon while zoomed in slowed the look speed down to 1/2 or possibly 1/3 look speed.
It was easy to see stuff while you were zoomed in. Did not notice any multi-zoom weapons (not saying there aren't any just that I did not see any). The weapons that did have scopes felt like it was 1.8x the distance. Not to zoomed but enough to make those headshots easier.
Iron sites were easy to use except for one of the pistols I had... definitely not good if you want to pistol snipe via iron sites LOL

Melee:
There are no outright melee weapons that players can use. You will see some human(oid) enemies using melee weapons however. No you can not get those weapons from them.
Weapons can have blades on them and if they do you will then use that weapons blade to melee with instead of your default.
Lilith's default melee is a palm thrust.
Roland's is the combat knife slash.
Mordecai's is the sword.
Brick's I didn't see. Probably his fist.
If you melee while reloading you will cancel your reload.

Enemies I saw
Spitter Skag: Spit this green goo bubble that was totally cheating because a few times I dodged and it course corrected to hit me while it was in mid-air.

Fyrestone area:
Badass Skag
Skag Pup
Skag whelp
Bandit
Nine Toes
Rakk
Bloated Rakk

Co-Op area:
Badass Spiderant (Green)
Badass Spiderant (Blue)
Gyro Spiderant
Badass Bandit w/ baby arm action

Also, KahLriK managed to dig up some info from another person who attended the event, from a different community.

This information's all about Mordecai, the sniper.

"yeah, mordecai is the guy i played during co op, and prolly who ill play single player as well... the bloodwing is pretty cool, although i telt like the recharge time on it was a little too long... does a lot of damage though, and can do stuff like make the enemies drop stuff... i focused mostly on the sniping skills, the stuff that increased critical hit rate and damage. if i remember correctly there were skills to increase rate of fire, reload speed, a few support skills that give you and everyone near you extra experience when scoring a crit, etc."

Taken straight from the post of a Shacknews community member who played Mordecai during the few hours with the game.

Additionally:

You guys can thank Radio Babylon of Shacknews for your answers. I contacted him with a few questions and this is what I got back.

Quote:
crosshairs sway, but there are skills for mordecai to reduce sway. there may be equivilent skills for the other characters, but i dont know because i didnt play them. also, crouching appeared to reduce sway.

bullets APPEARED to hit immediately, but there may well have been travel time, its hard for me to tell because a) i was ALWAYS OUT OF AMMO (grr!!) and b) i suck and so tended to only shoot big things that werent moving much, so as to not waste the EXTREMELY LIMITED AMMO (grr!!)

As for the rest:

"When you crouched, how noticeable was the effect on your accuracy?"

it felt fairly pronounced. it looked like the accuracy rating of the gun also affected the level of crosshair sway when zoomed, but both could be my imagination.

"Did enemies fall over/stop moving/slow down when they were shot by your rifle?"

depended on the enemy. HUGE monsters, not really... but stuff like skags and bandits, yes... it was actually very impressive... the guns really felt like they were doing damage (utterly the opposite of how HGL felt, if you ever played that)

"And lastly, how much damage difference was there between a headshot and body shot? Did it make the difference between a 1 shot kill and a 2 or 3 shot kill in most cases? Did critical hits only occur when the target was struck in the head?"

a LOT of difference in damage. it appeared that you also get random crits from shots, but not often, whereas a shot to the weak spot on a creature always yields one. truth is, with a lot of the tougher mobs, youve just about got to crit the hell out of them if you want to survive, or at least it felt that way to me...

Skill Tree:

Forum member gnrfan228 found this wonderful picture of Brick's Skill Tree chart. It's a, well, picture-perfect example of how the trees will be visually represented.

I found a nice, resized version of it in another thread. I'm going to use that one for convenience.



As you can see, each icon representing a skill has a #/5 indicator for how many skillpoints you've put into that particular skill.
No word on what the square backgrounds mean versus hexagonal ones. Anyway, great find gnrfan228.

[Ballinup]

1st post??? Beatiful job, maybe if you go back you could put more sections, kind of some large paragraphs, this will be helpful, i didnt like all that page flipping, my computer is slow and it takes a while for the transition ahha

[Tongs]

Don't worry, it's under construction. Couldn't do all the editing at once, so right now it's a bit of a mess.

[Ballinup]

Alright sounds good, at first i was worried if i could post or not, because nobody else had haha

How long did it take?

And i Put a link to here on the other thread

[KahLriK]

To clarify a point about AI: They did not instantly know the player's location, from what the pair of players said. I wouldn't call it total confirmation of being able to snipe an enemy and leave the rest confused and scared in a stealthy manner, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

[DiBBs]

Wow!
1 place to find any question you have about gameplay.
nice work, Tong tong tong tong tongs!

[GrayHood]

looks good took 50 pages to one amazing

[Ballinup]

Lets start a chant??? haha

[Orangetriangle]

nice job tongs

[r0land]

Nice tongs.. Thanks man i was getting to think about all the poor people who would maybe read all 60 pages of the other one.