With new DLC announced for the 4 player co-op FPS Sandbox game that has been very successful thoughts started to arise. This game is bound for a sequel and seeing as every developers tries to add new features and up their ante on their next game these are some of the things that would do the wonderful world of Pandora justice.
1. Player Customization
This puzzled me from the beginning. This game encourages loot hunting, boss battles, and constant upgrading of your character yet for some reason forces you to be 1 of 4 preset characters?
I understand that every person has thier own ability but wouldn’t it have been cooler to just let the player pick their gender and class then let them make it their own? Multiple things could have caused a feature like this not to happen like time constraints but it would really add to this game to let you roam the world of Pandora with friends when you are all unique and customized.
I think if they allowed just a handful of customization options for your character and added clothing to drops it would just be one more thing that adds to the addiction. So not only are you trying to give yourself a super strong shield to keep you from dying but you also want that awesome jean jacket with the flames up the sleeves and the huge eagle on the back.
Then to top the customization off when you level up certain aspects of your skills it could reflect on your character. So someone who levels up strength type abilities as a Berserker will start becoming larger and more jacked, and things of that nature.
Besides the story didn’t use the characters they gave us anyways. Other than the opening cinematic with the great song the characters weren’t even recognized.
2. Elemental attacks that are all unique
Currently in the original Borderlands you can get weapons that have elemental damage. Things like fire, corrosive, lightning, and explosive are all great but are only used in a Pokemon sort of way. Where some enemies are weak against “this” type of damage and resistant against “this” type of damage.
I am a big fan of elemental damage because I feel a lot more powerful with it but although it may screw that up for me I can see it being really impressive to make all of these elemental attacks unique.
Things like fire damage having the chance to catch the enemy on fire and burn away at their health, Ice actually freezing enemies in place, having lightning bullets build up until a certain point where a bolt of lightning actually hits them, and corrosive being able to dissolve enemy guns, are just some possibilities.
This would make for fun combat and also some really good strategies for teams to use.
3. Raise the Player Capacity
Obviously the norm for co-op games is four players. Strictly coming down to the point that over all these years four players is the highest number a game could handle with 4 people playing on the same television. Epic Games realizes this which is why Gears of War had a 5 player co-op mode and it seemed very odd because we are so used to the default being 4.
Now Gearbox might have just went with 4 because their areas were perfect for 4, or all 4 of the different classes playing together was the idea, or the lag and programming would have been harder for online play. Well they should be aware that the game is very popular and people are still playing it like crazy with great DLC released and the fact that people love grinding for loot.(SO TAKE YOUR TIME TO MAKE YOUR DREAMS FOR THE GAME COME TRUE.)
6 players doesn’t seem like too much to ask and is not an overwhelming difference. Its more about breaking the norm of 4 players and utilizing online gaming by letting a player and 5 friends ride buggies trying to take down an enemy like Mothrakk by firing missiles at it like King Kong while circling it.
This could also lead to different missions where a team of 6 goes into a cave for a mission and are seperated into teams of 3 both having to meet up with each other and stay alive in seperate squads.
4. Stay on Pandora
It is obvious the development team is great with the humor and the variety of missions that are just ridiculous like the General Knoxx DLC that let us go into a prison and fight convicts. We like these characters and want more like their type from Pandora.
BUT! Make it fresh bring us to a whole new part of Pandora. Different color scheme,textures,etc. Seeing as we got a taste of snow towards the end of the last Borderlands why not make it in a more tropical area.
Something like a version of the Amazon but in Pandora. A whole tropical feel to it so players don’t get the new game and have to be bothered with walking around desert and dull colored areas all over again.
Plus as the Amazon is full of terrifying animals to begin with I am sure the creative minds in Gearbox can come up with some pretty crazy versions of some already deadly animals.
5. Community
Gearbox has created a world. Most games try to do this but don’t succeed like this. And what I mean is that Gearbox managed to create a land with its own rules (or lack there of), its own merchant system, and imprinted an ideology for players which is “The stronger, smarter, and well equipped will survive.” This makes the players feel like they are in a version of the Wild West with little to no rules, tons of violence, and a very unique group of people who try to rough it out in this land.
Why not create community by offering true multiplayer in the game? A lobby system similar to that of a game like Phantasy Star Universe where players can hang out in bars or such. Buy,sell,trade items group up for missions and interact with one another.
Allow players to click on each other in places like this and get a good look at their equipment and weapons, because in a world like this it is all about “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”
6. Multiplayer
We have a basic arena mode in the current Borderlands. Which lets you play a maximum of 2v2 and nothing is earned for doing this. It feels like it was added so people couldn’t complain that they offered no PvP in their title.
I think the ability to do up to 6v6 multiplayer would make a lot of people happy. With objectives like CTF or King of the Hill and its own matchmaking system. The Matchmaking system could look at every individual players equipment,weapons,etc. and grade it and averaging a whole teams equipment grade and match them up against similar teams.
Then if they wanted they could offer leagues or tournaments in game. By this I don’t mean Gearbox creates tournaments that people can join but make it similar to like the Underdome where it is part of the game. Like it is a form of entertainment for the people of Pandora and these fighters are just gladiators. Looking for fame in the only sport offered on Pandora.
7. Stop modders/cheaters
Sure some of the things created are cool and fun but when people like that join your game when you are fighting to get better items for your player and they come with extreme weapons or drop modded guns for you it is sort discouraging.
They are showing you that they didn’t have to do anything and their character will still be better than yours and you are just wasting your time. Which could stop people from playing.
8. Release DLC the same way
Gearbox is one of two companies that are actually selling DLC as an addition to the game. Current companies that offer you free codes for DLC as you purchase the game or DLC right after the release is giving a big FU to gamers.
If you think about it they are dishing out stuff one or two months after release which could have possibly been released right with the full game. So you are actually buying stuff that was planned on being on the disc anyways.
Gearbox on the other hand is putting in a good effort to make DLC to “add to the gamer’s experience.” They aren’t rushing out garbage DLC that doesn’t affect the game they are giving you full campaigns to enjoy and new parts of the world to explore and deepen their love for the game.
9. Salvage Gear
There have been countless times where I have picked up really strong weapons but they lack things like a scope, not enough elemental power,not enough ammo,etc.
What if there was a vending machine you could go to in Borderlands that you could pay to salvage your weapon for parts. Now of course there would be a risk for this. First depending on the rarity of the weapon you are salvaging the price will be greater but on top of that there is a chance you might not even salvage what you want.
The reward though is allowing you to take barrels,clips,elemental powerups,scopes,etc. and create your perfect weapon. They could even go a step above this and if you are the first to fully create a weapon like yours it could be named after you and all players after that who create that weapon will be wielding the “Dee Cazo Revolver” or anything like that.
10. Melee Weapons
Not a must but I can’t be the only one who thought the Guardian swords were cool looking and very Halo-esque. The melee in the game was very weak and such an odd animation in the game.
Only very few weapons let you melee with them also they were with a small bayonet on pistols for the most part. With classes like the Siren though which can go into a stealth mode making her really fast and invisible a katana,hammer,nun-chuks, or whatever crazy melee weapons ideas you can think of can add a new dynamic to gameplay and would be a neat addition into a sequel.
Plus I would love to see an achievement like “Complete a full playthrough with only melee weapons.”
Now as I was writing this I noticed some of the things I mentioned are basically asking that Borderlands 2 adds a little more RPG to their FPS. I compared this to Diablo in many ways when I was first playing it and Diablo only got better sequel after sequel by offering more so I expect the same from this game or even more.
