Borderlands 2 developer: Raising the level cap could break our game (interview)

GamesBeat's Sebastian Haley: As part of a larger discussion with Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford, I wanted to get the outspoken and enthusiastic developer’s thoughts on the Borderlands 2 level cap.

[JeffGrubb]

Well, then why am I gonna buy the DLC for my maxed out character? NEED THE GRIND!

[admiralvic]

The point of the DLC should be to implement "better" weapons, additional resources, new content or offer new options for builds or builds in general. So far the DLC only adds new options for builds, which is great for that select minority, but is practically useless for everyone else. The DLC also adds new stories (most of which suck), missions and of course raid bosses.

What we need are new features that 2 was missing or at least a new use for eridium past summoning raid bosses. I think it's stupid that they've implemented 50+ new weapons and added 0 inventory or bank spots. Whats the point of having new weapons / unique content is we have the same storage?

[ziggurcat]

how would raising the cap in borderlands 2 be any different than raising the cap in the first borderlands?

lazy devs?

[X]

It might not be as simple as raising a number.

If they allot enough skill points, it can heavily alter the balance of the game if a character can get two gamechangers. Axton with two double gun turrets for example.

Also as jerethdagryphon has pointed out, certain combinations of skills can cause potential conflicts.

[Megaton]

I have a level 100 Axton with maxed trees. It's not as game-breaking as it sounds. The turrets are still mostly useless against level 50 enemies.

[X]

So now let's take the next step then. If you haven't done so already, have you tried being in a group of 4 axtons, each having that setup? If so, how was it?

[1nsaint]

Well at least what there saying in this article that some skill point combinations will break or crash the game is TOTAL BS! I have lots of friends with modded characters with maxed out skill points and bigger inv space, and nothing is crashing or breaking the game...

So yes lazy devs... :(

[jerethdagryphon]

not really if you had a skill that said every point of damage done heals 1 hp , and that was the max in one tree

and another skill in anotehr tree that said every hp healed does 1 damage to targeted enemy

those 2 are never meant to engage together

so raising the level cap to give you one mroe skill point

would create situations where
every damage done healones hp which deals damage which heals which deals damage which heals ad infinatum its potentially gamebreaking,

thats what there saying
we could raise the cap if we changed all the skills ala wow but if we change the skills we may create more problems.

in another example, if you ever played a card game called magic the gathering, certain sets worked fine in a bubble interacting with nothing but themselves

but once those sets got out in the wild and mixed with others potentialy game breaking combos occured

once such combo is stuffy doll + pariahs shield with stuffy doll targeting you, it creates a infinate loop game state.

pariahs shield damage done to you redirects to equipped creature

stuffy doll, stuffy doll is indestructable, damage done to stuffy doll is done to target player,

infinite loop game breaks thats all it is

[TheGOODKyle]

I understand that the devs are worried that their game might be different but that might actually be a good thing. On the flip side perhaps the very last DLC could have a cap increase and people do run over everything. But Gearbox really needs to make the last DLC special for that to happen efficiently and the customers appreciate it like they want.

[Minato-Namikaze]

Then say this beforehand, not after you release the dlc

[admiralvic]

Or make your game with this in mind...

[PhoenixRising37]

Pitchford suggested the level cap raise way too much to back out now. he'll raise it somehow for sure, i don't doubt it. Even if they have to change the skill trees i don't care. just raise it somehow. i'm going to regret buying the season pass if it doesn't get raised.

[InTheLab]

And this marks the last time I will ever order a season pass....

[SolidDuck]

Then if certain skills have points in them, have other skills locked out if it would break the game. Since they raised the cap in borderlands 1, it seems dumb they didn't have any plan set in place when developing 2 to raise the cap. I still love the game, but when I bought the season pass I expected a level cap increase to come with at least 1 of the dlc's.

[febreeze1]

There's an easy solution. Like you said lock out certain abilities or make the abilites cost more. So the abilities will be more powerful but you won't be able to get all the final skills in the skill tree.

[Megaton]

Pitchford should stop talking. He brings a lot of ill will toward Gearbox and Borderlands.

Rest assured, the cap is rising soon.

[dumahim]

You know, this wouldn't have bothered me so much if the experience earned wasn't balanced so poorly on the 2nd playthrough. Why am I hitting the cap before I even get halfway through? It seemed like I was gaining levels faster than the first time through. Higher levels, it should be slowing down. Leave something for people to work towards.

[admiralvic]

I capped out Borderlands 1 on the road to the final boss, so .135% faster (going off your halfway) isn't that much of a difference. Also the game is designed similar to the way Disgaea works and not around levels. By this I mean you get the max level (so you can play around with builds) and then spend the time you would have wasted farming for XP on weapons you want for your build. From here the "new" goal is to kill the raid bosses, which require more than a high level or fancy build. Sure some of them can be beaten with The Bee + ____ weapon combo, but thats your choice to opt out of "work" to properly win the fights.

[HacSawJimThugin]

Why stop at 50? They should of learned from the 1st game that 50 is way too lw considering all of the content they had planned. Poor planning on their part and it sucks for us fans because we- or at least some of us- bought the season pass with expectations of a cap increase. Gearbox saw dollar signs due to the success of the 1st Borderlands and forgot what fundamentally made the game a hit....GRINDING!!

[leemo19]

I have a modded character and played with modders that have raised their level passed 50 and put all points to each skill and not once did the game break like Mr Pitchford claims would happened. The only time the game actually has problems is when using certain modding guns, that either overdue the damage or have to fast of fire-rate causing major lag.
There's no level cap coming, next DlC shouldn't have any side-quest than. Whats the point of doing them when all the xp you get goes to waste.

[admiralvic]

Believe it or not, some people think Borderlands is a fun game to play. I know I know, it's hard to believe... but it's true. The point of the side missions is to simply offer you more to play or some awesome dialog. Like I really enjoyed Mister Torgues reviewer side quest because it was funny and am quite happy they included it.

[profgerbik]

I remember seeing Randy speak about this on X-play. He said there is a very low percentage of players who even have hit the level cap.

He says it's fairly pointless to raise the cap for such a low percentage of players and he talked about he has to look out for the best interest of the game and it's future, not necessarily giving the players what they want which he says based on the monitoring of the game he knows there are not enough people who have hit the crap for them to actually want to increase it.