Do you count Borderlands in the same bracket as games like Warframe, Destiny, The Division, Anthem, etc...?

Deleted member 7051 · Feb 23, 2019

Rhaknar said:
a real anwser by the way, is that Borderlands never felt like the main game didnt matter, that you were only shooting for (no pun intended) the end game, everything mattered, which isnt the case with the current batch of "loot shooters"

Yeah, Borderlands was all about progressing through the story and then buying the meaty expansions later - which is how games like Destiny should be. Which shows because the story in Borderlands is actually a cut above the rest. I can't be the only person who thinks Where Angels Fear To Tread is one of the greatest missions in an fps of all time because of how epic it feels to climb a mountain while Jack, the villain, is breaking down because of what you plan to do when you get to the top. Then you have the final dlc of Borderlands 2 as well - I can't think of a single expansion in either Destiny game that comes close to Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep.

I also appreciate that all the characters in Borderlands have distinct personalities and play styles, whereas in games like Destiny and Anthem you're usually playing a blank slate that's little more than a walking skill tree.

Fuck I need Borderlands 3 soon and I hope they don't change a damn thing because, as long as they don't, it'll be enough to blow all these other loot shooters out the ocean.

GalvoAg · Feb 23, 2019

I view it as a better game than all of those.

Deleted member 203 · Feb 23, 2019

I voted no, mostly because of how Borderlands is structured. You're kind of just supposed to replay the story over and over. For a game all about farming loot, it sure wasn't structured in a way that made loot easy to farm. It's also very lacking in social features.

Steel · Feb 23, 2019

astro said:
Honestly.... that doesn't sound like more than the standard at all. Most of the other games listed have these things too.

Destiny has more than a couple of raids, and raids are more complex than single bosses right?

I don't see how BL does more here.

Raids are more complex than single bosses but most of them are not much more complex than the dungeons already in the DLC/main game line of BL while having far far less. You can spend far more time on the main content of Borderlands 2 than you can in these other shlooters and it still adds more content later with DLC, and it still has an endgame.

Yautja_Warrior · Feb 23, 2019

Yeah in a way but Borderlands wasn't rushed out before it was finished, had a decent amount of content at launch and didn't rely on online servers to be playable, although it was even better with Co-Op.

It was more of a traditional game in it's design (and better for it) than these newer GaaS.

freakybj · Feb 23, 2019

Absolutely. I never played Warframe, but I enjoy Borderlands a lot more than Destiny, Division, and Anthem. Reason being is that Borderlands was a complete experience on day 1 - no need for a roadmap with features that would eventually be added. Also, it was a game that was fun to play solo as well as in a group. These other games are more multiplayer focused.

Chief Malik · Feb 23, 2019

Yes, wtf. Those other games stole they whole template from borderlands. All these games Diablo with shooting tacked on.

AaronMT · Feb 23, 2019

It's a shlooter, so yes.

astro · Feb 23, 2019

Steel said:
Raids are more complex than single bosses but most of them are not much more complex than the dungeons already in the DLC/main game line of BL while having far far less. You can spend far more time on the main content of Borderlands 2 than you can in these other shlooters and it still adds more content later with DLC, and it still has an endgame.

Again, nothing you've written shows to me that BL does it better in terms of amount of end game content, which was the point we were discussing.

I'm more than happy to concede the point if it can be shown to be true.

BeaconofTruth · Feb 23, 2019

Yes, varying degrees of quality depending on perspective(all trash as far as I'm concerned), but they are all loot games. The others intend to be more pseudo mmo about it, where as Borderlands is more diablo scaled

EloquentM · Feb 23, 2019

cyress8 said:
Most of the games listed could learn from Borderlands. Warframe is the only one that actually is better than Borderlands, the rest lack content and ass loads of different types of loot.

We should make a rule in this thread that if you don't know what you're talking about with regards to the games and you make shit up you probably shouldn't post.

EloquentM · Feb 23, 2019

astro said:
Do you think the shared world mmo-lite aspects of the other tiles that BL lacks don't matter in this classification?

It does. All your question stands to serve is that ppl have a bias towards borderlands when it's not the same type of game on a macro level as any of the others.

oni-link · Feb 23, 2019

Probably, but Borderlands can be enjoyed SP more so than the others, and is a more complete package if you want to play it 100% offline

The others are lesser experiences if you play offline/solo, and they're poor as SP experiences in general

astro · Feb 23, 2019

EloquentM said:
It does. All your question stands to serve is that ppl have a bias towards borderlands when it's not the same type of game on a macro level as any of the others.

This could be true, it's something I considered when I made the thread... do you see any other way the question could be proposed while avoiding this potential bias?

Nome · Feb 23, 2019

Silky said:
It's already GAAS lmfao

What doesn't make it GAAS

It's not GaaS, because it wasn't run as a service; there was no live operations component to the game, just preplanned DLC.

Silky · Feb 23, 2019

Nome said:
It's not GaaS, because it wasn't run as a service; there was no live operations component to the game, just preplanned DLC.

The SHIFT Key and Shift system, as well as the holiday events, would count as their live ops

astro · Feb 23, 2019

Nome said:
It's not GaaS, because it wasn't run as a service; there was no live operations component to the game, just preplanned DLC.

Nice succinct articulation, thanks.

Silky said:
The SHIFT Key and Shift system, as well as the holiday events, would count as their live ops

I think they could be counted as early forms of GaaS perhaps, or lighter forms, but I don't think it's comparable to the entire game being built around this GaaS model. And I think that differentiates too much for them to bracket the same.

HighFive · Feb 23, 2019

astro said:
And can you explain your reasoning either way please?

Curious to see how people stand on this as there's been some disagreement in recent threads. I'll reserve my opinion from shaping the discussion from the start.

OP, i think the people not agreeing with you need to open their eyes. Borderlands start it all! Anthem, Destiny are just copies of Borderlands!

Ratazk · Feb 23, 2019

Mechanically, they are similar.

But I'd rather deal with jank, losing screens, and micro transactions than whatever it is Borderlands considers humor.

astro · Feb 23, 2019

HF2014 said:
OP, i think the people not agreeing with you need to open their eyes. Borderlands start it all! Anthem, Destiny are just copies of Borderlands!

...but I disagree with those people. :p

I think BL might have helped shape these things, but I don't think it's in the same bracket for a variety of reasons (articulated ITT).

El-Suave · Feb 23, 2019

No, but I fear we will get there with BL3 - daily and weekly quests, time limited challenges and all that crap that turns a game into a job.

Nome · Feb 23, 2019

Silky said:
The SHIFT Key and Shift system, as well as the holiday events, would count as their live ops

IIRC Shift was more of an incentives system, less live ops.
Live ops is more complicated than running events; it's about continued optimization of the product. AFAIK there was never any attempt at continued user acquisition for any Borderlands games, for example. Compare this to something like Destiny, which outwardly is kind of similar in its approach to events, DLC, and MTX, but made it a big deal to continually acquire users and optimize its funnel.

Conkerkid11 · Feb 23, 2019

Nah, gunplay's ass, driving's ass, the world's empty, and there's no endgame.

Skittles · Feb 23, 2019

astro said:
...but I disagree with those people. :p

I think BL might have helped shape these things, but I don't think it's in the same bracket for a variety of reasons (articulated ITT).

? borderlands came out in 09 and was a huge hit. Warframe didn't come out till 2013. and didn't start development till 2012

astro · Feb 23, 2019

Skittles said:
? borderlands came out in 09 and was a huge hit. Warframe didn't come out till 2013. and didn't start development till 2012

You'll noticed I edited that way before you even quoted it... I was talking about BL2.

Did BL1 have many shared world and end game style features? I really don't remember these games well.

Haubergeon · Feb 23, 2019

I voted yes at first but after reading more of the arguments here I actually don't think they're directly comparable, no. Borderlands doesn't have the same structure of the other GaaS games, nor the always-online, unnecessarily connected nature of them that exists to perpetually sell you more piecemeal content. Borderlands also arguable did "loot" better than most of the current crop of GaaS "looter shooters" in addition to being much more consumer friendly in practice, so I'd actually argue the entire Borderlands series is much better than most of these kinds of current games.

impact · Feb 23, 2019

The term GAAS needs to die.

But yes. Shoot bullet sponge enemies with poor gunplay and get new guns that also do no damage. Rinse and repeat. Sounds like all of these games

Cathcart · Feb 23, 2019

The good games bracket? Sure, I'd count it there.

astro · Feb 23, 2019

Haubergeon said:
I voted yes at first but after reading more of the arguments here I actually don't think they're directly comparable, no. Borderlands doesn't have the same structure of the other GaaS games, nor the always-online, unnecessarily connected nature of them that exists to perpetually sell you more piecemeal content. Borderlands also arguable did "loot" better than most of the current crop of GaaS "looter shooters" in addition to being much more consumer friendly in practice, so I'd actually argue the entire Borderlands series is much better than most of these kinds of current games.

I wonder how many others did this....

I've updated poll options so you can edit your votes now if you want to.

Steel · Feb 23, 2019

astro said:
Again, nothing you've written shows to me that BL does it better in terms of amount of end game content, which was the point we were discussing.

I'm more than happy to concede the point if it can be shown to be true.

I mean, I had more fun playing through the DLC after finishing the base game than I did for any of this shlooter content. Grinding to finish off the raid bosses and figuring out strategies to beat them was more fun than I had with Destiny's raids.

Nome said:
It's not GaaS, because it wasn't run as a service; there was no live operations component to the game, just preplanned DLC.

astro said:
This could be true, it's something I considered when I made the thread... do you see any other way the question could be proposed while avoiding this potential bias?

I'm not sure you're realizing your own bias here. The games are practically the same structurally outside of a couple of details. What you're doing is the equivalent of positing that a game with an in-game store can't be the same genre as a game without one.

HF2014 said:
OP, i think the people not agreeing with you need to open their eyes. Borderlands start it all! Anthem, Destiny are just copies of Borderlands!

Op is of the opposite opinion, actually.

astro said:
...but I disagree with those people. :p

I don't think BL started it all. Warframe was in development way before that.

Warframe is the least like all the other games, though! When it launched it didn't even have any shared-world component at all! It was all just matchmaking into missions to gather materials. There wasn't any loot even. Not to mention this point is wrong in the first place.

Nome said:
IIRC Shift was more of an incentives system, less live ops.
Live ops is more complicated than running events; it's about continued optimization of the product. AFAIK there was never any attempt at continued user acquisition for any Borderlands games, for example. Compare this to something like Destiny, which outwardly is kind of similar in its approach to events, DLC, and MTX, but made it a big deal to continually acquire users and optimize its funnel.

So, what you're basically saying is the difference is marketing strategy, not gameplay.

dalq · Feb 23, 2019

The main differences that I see are that in BL, you don't play as "you", you play as Salvador, the dwarf dude that can carry two machine guns, or Zero, the emoji ninja, and that, unlike Destiny, they don't have a constant stream of content.
Next week there will be a new season starting on Destiny with god knows what kind of new stuff to do, whereas on BL, after they launched the last DLC, that was that, but I'm 100% sure that is going to change on an eventual BL3

TheDarkKnight · Feb 23, 2019

No. It's structured to me as an offline or peer to peer co op game over story missions. Not designed for the MMO like dungeon/raid grind for new gear sets. It's a different gameplay loop

Also all the other games listed are disposable games. Once the publishers pull the plug the game they're gone.

gaogaogao · Feb 23, 2019

Silky said:
It's already GAAS lmfao

What doesn't make it GAAS

you can play it offline
and if you are online the game does not auto populate players in the world

cyress8 · Feb 23, 2019

EloquentM said:
We should make a rule in this thread that if you don't know what you're talking about with regards to the games and you make shit up you probably shouldn't post.

Point out what was wrong with my post. Everyone of them listed have been light on content and loot side of things, except for Warframe. Stop being so aggressive when someone talks bad about your favorite video game.

astro · Feb 23, 2019

Steel said:
I mean, I had more fun playing through the DLC after finishing the base game than I did for any of this shlooter content. Grinding to finish off the raid bosses and figuring out strategies to beat them was more fun than I had with Destiny's raids.

Great, but were were talking about comparible amount of end game content, not how much you liked each one.

Steel said:
I'm not sure you're realizing your own bias here. The games are practically the same structurally outside of a couple of details. What you're doing is the equivalent of positing that a game with an in-game store can't be the same genre as a game without one.

I don't consider them the same, the same as almost half the people ITT. There have been many articulations why these differences are substantial enough.

Steel said:
Warframe is the least like all the other games, though! When it launched it didn't even have any shared-world component at all! It was all just matchmaking into missions to gather materials. There wasn't any loot even. Not to mention this point is wrong in the first place.

There was loot from day 1 (closed beta, at least), mods. And the game has grown into shared world, so it stands.

And that post was edited ages ago, I was talking about BL2 and was confused about release dates.

Fenrick · Feb 23, 2019

I think it kind of depends on what aspect you want to look at.

Gameplay loop wise, I think it is the same bracket. Level up, kill stuff, grind the harder content, get loot.

But I think it gets less defined when you look at other aspects. It's not a mmo-lite like the others are, its straight solo or co-op. It also has a much bigger focus on quests and story, and has a much more defined endpoint than something destiny or warframe which wants you to play in perpetuity.

I'd still say they are the same bracket, but with a big asterisk and footnote next to it.

impact · Feb 23, 2019

Nome said:
It's not GaaS, because it wasn't run as a service; there was no live operations component to the game, just preplanned DLC.

People on this forum think anything with any DLC is GAAS. Don't even think about it.

TheGhost · Feb 23, 2019

CloseTalker said:
No, Borderlands is just first person diablo. It had dlc, but isn't supported in the same way long term the other games mentioned are

Actually if I recall with borderlands 2
They blew through the season pass so quickly they just started to give away free updates. They definitely did a great job with DLC, especially Tiny Tina's fantasy-esque dlc. That was my favorite.

Plus I believe they introduced two new heroes, the one, the girl, I think her name was Gage was just addicting to play because it involved more damage as long as you never reloaded. Plus she had that huge mech bodyguard.

The thing that ruins borderlands is the grading system. 3 weeks in and everyone is running around with custom duped weapons that basically made you a god that never died. Takes all the fun out of it.

EloquentM · Feb 23, 2019

astro said:
This could be true, it's something I considered when I made the thread... do you see any other way the question could be proposed while avoiding this potential bias?

You probably should've done your own analysis before starting the thread, to give a framework. Usually open ended threads like this are basically people screaming at each other about their favorite game listed, devoid of any critical thought.

Without direction people are so fixated on the fact that while the GaaS looters share design and gameplay aspects with BL, their entire philosophy on how to approach that design is obviously much more shared world and multiplayer focused, which clearly distinguishes these games from BL.

It's more applicable to compare these games to MMOs, as has been the status quo argument for multiple years, because unlike borderlands these games are designed a shared world co-op experience in addition to the looting and shooting. This borderlands argument has been around for a while too, but with GaaS games notoriously releasing in Shitty states (this is a caveat of having a philosophy different from borderlands where online connection takes precedence over a almost wholly single player experience) I feel as if people have accepted these games as mmo-lites, and now that that's settled it's time for the argument to compare it to something else I like better than this sub-genre.

mogwai00 · Feb 23, 2019

It isn't 'interconnected' like the others.
But it's pretty similar.
And the best one, by a huge margin.

astro · Feb 23, 2019

EloquentM said:
You probably should've done your own analysis before starting the thread, to give a framework. Usually open ended threads like this are basically people screaming at each other about their favorite game listed, devoid of any critical thought.

Without direction people are so fixated on the fact that while the GaaS looters share design and gameplay aspects with BL, their entire philosophy on how to approach that design is obviously much more shared world and multiplayer focused, which clearly distinguishes these games from BL.

It's more applicable to compare these games to MMOs, as has been the status quo argument for multiple years, because unlike borderlands these games are designed a shared world co-op experience in addition to the looting and shooting. This borderlands argument has been around for a while too, but with GaaS games notoriously releasing in Shitty states (this is a caveat of having a philosophy different from borderlands where online connection takes precedence over a almost wholly single player experience) I feel as if people have accepted these games as mmo-lites, and now that that's settled it's time for the argument to compare it to something else I like better than this sub-genre.

Hmm, I think you're right... that would take more effort than I wanted to make, but I think it's the only way to have avoided what you suggest might be happening.

Ze_Shoopuf · Feb 23, 2019

I think it's more fun than all those games.

I'm really glad they went thru the effort of making it co-op, and I love the funny spin they put on the characters. So refreshing compared to all the rest in the poll.

deafmedal · Feb 23, 2019

Steel said:
Knoxx isn't in borderlands 1?

Yes, Knoxx was in BL1. Introduced in the final DLC drop "The Secret Armory of General Knoxx" which also included Crawmerax. You could kill Knoxx then glitch into the armory and open every single chest. Good times!

OT, as already stated they are similar but I still think BL is just different enough to classify it differently. Not to mention the loot isn't instanced which really bothers me and makes me not want to play co-op since everyone just dupes, ruining the fun of finding new loot imo. BL2 wasn't as solo friendly as BL1 and I played it significantly less as a result. But you can totally play the BL games solo around max level and have fun/get loot whereas the others pretty much require a team (I guess The Division would be the most forgiving regarding this, you *could* run the DZ in end game but yuck).

EloquentM · Feb 23, 2019

astro said:
Hmm, I think you're right... that would take more effort than I wanted to make, but I think it's the only way to have avoided what you suggest might be happening.

Borderlands is a game I could play completely alone because it was always designed to be that way first and foremost, and as you can probably tell by playing high level activities in destiny and division, this is very very difficult even for the best players. Destiny raids literally require 6 man teams by design.

DWarriorSN · Feb 23, 2019

Yes but compared to the others in BL playing solo is a viable strategy where you kinda HAVE to play with other people in the others.

Imo it doesnt really differentiate enough from those other games for it not to be in the same category.

Yeah theres some little things but its not really meaningfull enough

Btw i hope BL3 keeps or expands the skill tree system from BL instead of dumbing it down since i really liked it.

skeezx · Feb 23, 2019

wouldn't be surprised of Borderlands 3 gets in on the GaaS action... but no the first two games were fairly standalone

Dringus · Feb 23, 2019

I don't, not sure why, but I'm excited as hell for BL3 and would love for it to be similar to destiny/division and do whatever the hell it is that keeps me playing those games for an insane amount of time.

Skittles · Feb 23, 2019

El-Suave said:
No, but I fear we will get there with BL3 - daily and weekly quests, time limited challenges and all that crap that turns a game into a job.

Randy seems to be against most things plaguing modern games.

Steel · Feb 23, 2019

astro said:
Great, but were were talking about comparible amount of end game content, not how much you liked each one.

The DLC content is more end-game content than Destiny's GAAS content, is my point.

I don't consider them the same, the same as almost half the people ITT. There have been many articulations why these differences are substantial enough.

And there have been many articulations on why these differences are not substantial enough. And half the articulations that you agree with have been "No, because Borderlands is so much better" which is a bias against associating borderlands with games they do not like.

There was loot from day 1 (closed beta, at least), mods. And the game has grown into shared world, so it stands.

And that post was edited ages ago, I was talking about BL2 and was confused about release dates.

Oh, come on. Mods were loot but not in the same sense as the other games. You could make a better case for Warfame being in a separate category than Borderlands.

impact said:
People on this forum think anything with any DLC is GAAS. Don't even think about it.

GAAS is basically a way to get more money from an individual over a longer period of time while releasing... Not more content than a borderlands season pass. Destiny is basically Borderlands struture + GAAS with less base content by several orders of magnitude and less content in the GAAS content than the borderlands DLCs.

astro said:
Hmm, I think you're right... that would take more effort than I wanted to make, but I think it's the only way to have avoided what you suggest might be happening.

What you're reading is basically that poster wanted you to imply a result, which in turn means your inserting your bias to get a specific result. Your current title already leans toward a result. If the title was "Is borderlands a looter shooter" you'd be getting a much different result.

deafmedal said:
Yes, Knoxx was in BL1. Introduced in the final DLC drop "The Secret Armory of General Knoxx" which also included Crawmerax. You could kill Knoxx then glitch into the armory and open every single chest. Good times!

OT, as already stated they are similar but I still think BL is just different enough to classify it differently. Not to mention the loot isn't instanced which really bothers me and makes me not want to play co-op since everyone just dupes, ruining the fun of finding new loot imo. BL2 wasn't as solo friendly as BL1 and I played it significantly less as a result. But you can totally play the BL games solo around max level and have fun/get loot whereas the others pretty much require a team (I guess The Division would be the most forgiving regarding this, you *could* run the DZ in end game but yuck).

I got confused between knoxx's armory and the time-limited armory loot you can do in one of the BL 2 dlcs. It's been awhile.

TitanicFall · Feb 23, 2019

I think they are similar in the gameplay loop, just that one gives you all the content upfront, while the others patch the content in over time. They wouldn't be able to release a barebones Borderlands game at launch, but these GAAS products seem to get away with saying, "Here's an appetizer, the main course we'll have ready in 3-6 months. Hope you'll stick with us for that long." Another thing is Borderlands isn't really designed to extract more money out of you beyond you buying the main game or the handful of expansion packs. The other games are designed with the intent that you'll keep regularly pumping money into them.

Do you count Borderlands in the same bracket as games like Warframe, Destiny, The Division, Anthem, etc...?

Do you count Borderlands in the same bracket as the games in the title?

Yes

No

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