Did y'all know that Randy Pitchford is now tweeting shift codes? His Twitter handle is @duvalmagic. Also, the codes don't appear to be time-limited but rather quantity-limited.
The last one I saw didn't work for me. Either it ran out or I typo'd, and I was too tired to see which. Do you not know how to use Twitter?
From Facebook: A fresh batch of Golden Keys are coming your way this weekend via the Borderlands Facebook (facebook.com/borderlandsgame) and Gearbox Software Twitter (twitter.com/gearboxsoftware) ! Think you can handle that, Tman?
Why do I want to go to Facebook? I hate facebook. Every six months when I log into facebook, I'm start getting all this spam email. To answer your last question and this question - I don't do twitter. Sigh, I can get them off the gearbox forums - but they're not always on the first page, and I sometimes may have to go to page 3 or 4 because of all the traffic there.Here on BF, I'm almost always guaranteed Borderlands is on the first page. Think of my fingers dammit! I don't have the strength to do all this clicking. That's reserved for games like Borderlands and Castle Crashers and Dota2 and I'm already doing way too much typing.
For you jerri blank: PC / Mac SHiFT Code for a Golden Key in Borderlands 2: WTW3B-BB3SK-WXBJJ-3BB3J-ZSXKX [Active for 3 Hours:
Thanks, Tman. That won't work for me (360 here), but I appreciate the heads-up that they've been posted. ALL THE FACEBOOK CODES:
Ooh, I just discovered something - the codes they post on Facebook are different than the ones they post on Twitter. I'm about to find out if I can use both. Facebook codes: PC / Mac SHiFT Code: 5TW3B-HFH6W-W6BJB-TTJJB-BX3RS Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: K3W33-5SX59-69R36-563T3-H6WTT PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: CJ5BB-FT5HW-J5CWT-HBCB3-BC5XK Twitter codes: Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: KJKBB-XTH5S-R9RTF-5XBJJ-HXHC6 PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: KBC3T-SCK9C-JCCWT-ZJK3J-CB5TF PC / Mac SHiFT Code: WTW3B-BB3SK-WXBJJ-3BB3J-ZSXKX
Oh god! The Morningstar won't stop talking! I swapped it, put it in my backpack, and sold it and it just. keeps. talking!!
new shift codes jerri blank useful up to 2am CT PC / Mac SHiFT Code: KBK33-BSS6C-5FBJ3-TBBJJ-9B6XS Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: WTKBT-XSX5H-X9RT6-5RTT3-ZJB55 PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: KBCJJ-Z3WZW-J5WWB-SJWTT-TW3W6
5-8 am Central Saturday TWITTER PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code for a Golden Key in Borderlands 2: W3CT3-CX5SC-BCWWJ-ZBWTB-FSBKH Xbox 360 SHiFT Code for a Golden Key in Borderlands 2: W35TT-BKS5Z-69R36-CR3BJ-SFJJK PC / Mac SHiFT Code for a Golden Key in Borderlands 2: K3WTT-6BTZW-C6TB3-TJJTB-BZWR9 FACEBOOK PC / Mac SHiFT Code: 5JKJT-W9S6C-5FJBB-3BBTB-CBXX3 Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: KT53T-SH6CZ-FSXBX-WFT3T-KB9KX PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: K3CBT-3CKS5-BKW5B-9BCJJ-R9ZXH Schedule for the next drops: Saturday, December 1 - Post at 11AM CT, Active until 2PM CT Saturday, December 1 - Post at 3PM CT, Active until 6PM CT
Remember back in the day when people played games in the hope of that better loot drop? Yeah, I hate these code giveaways.
I KNOW THEIR RUINING THE GAME RIGHT What you SHOULD be doing is endlessly farming bosses. That's way more fun.
Thank you for taking the time to do this jerri, I appreciate it. The keys are a silly concept, but at the same time, they do help to get better loot if an item drops from the chest that is by far and away better than anything I currently have, which subsequently makes future farming efforts easier.
I can't believe jerri is farming key codes. Remember back in the day when you had to fight through the whole game with a yellow sword that looked like an arrow? Yeah, I hate these extra weapons.
The keys are only useable when you open the game, so what they're basically doing is renewing interest every week or so, which will also help them sell DLC. Pretty clever, imho.
Facebook: PC / Mac SHiFT Code: CB53T-R99X5-5XTJJ-BB3JB-BWTKR Xbox 360 SHiFT Code: WTCBB-JBH59-FHX3R-KXJJ3-T9XW5 PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code: C3CJT-KWCZK-BCCC3-HB5JJ-SBHW9 Twitter: PC / Mac SHiFT Code for a Golden Key in Borderlands 2: 5TW3T-S3BHW-56TTJ-TTJJJ-96HTT PlayStation 3 SHiFT Code for a Golden Key in Borderlands 2: 5T5BB-R6CZC-JK55T-S3KJT-W6F5C Xbox 360 SHiFT Code for a Golden Key in Borderlands 2: 5J5T3-CKZKS-FZX36-56TBT-XK6KW
So I've beaten the first playthrough on two different characters (both of which are now in TVHM now), got my main to 50, finished the Scarlett DLC, got part-way through the Torgue DLC, and generally spent a lot of time on this game. Over the weekend, I loaded up my level 10 Commando, just for giggles. And my god, was it slow and boring and painful to play him after spending most of my time on my level 35+ Assassin and my level 50 Siren. It really highlighted how dreadful this game can be for the first 20 levels or so, in terms of character progression and development. You don't get the final skill in a talent tree until level 31 at the earliest - right about the time you're likely beating the first playthrough. And IME, that final skill can be a game-changer. So you're just about done with one playthrough before you get the juiciest ability in your arsenal. It's a little weird that the game basically expects you to start over and replay the game just to spend any real time using the entirety of your skill tree. I feel like Gearbox could do better, here. For much of the first playthrough, the classes don't play very differently because you just don't get many distinctive abilities. (Consider that you have to be level 20 before you finish just the third skill tier; if you're splitting points between trees, obviously that takes even longer.) Going back to that level 10 Commando was just a non-starter. I'd love to play a Commando, but I have no desire to slog through those first 20+ levels in the hopes that it eventually gets interesting. Obviously part of this is my own overfamiliarity with the content at this point, but playing a character at that level after spending most of your time on characters in the 35-50 range really highlights how lackluster those early levels can be.
Finished the game with my kids at around level 30 (Zero, Axton and the Gunzerker). I've also played solo for a bit with the other characters, logged almost 80 hours, and as much as I loved almost everything about the game, I was about damn ready for it to be over. Even my kids were like "Okay, no more side quests, let's get this over with". At the end where you go through what felt like three successive boss battles in a row...ugh. That said, none of us were min maxing very hard, we didn't grind up on levels, and we were probably woefully underpowered so we had to just grit through it. Still one of my favorite games ever, and I'm shocked at the sheer depth of content in it. If only they made it an MMO...
SuperJay - I completely agree with you on the skill trees. IMO, it was the one thing that really soured me on the game. It really is worthless on the 1st play-through and if you want to get to the end of a tree, you have to dedicate yourself to that tree. It's very limiting. Even after play-through 2, I don't feel I've reached the potential of my build if I just had 10-15 more points to spend. The problem of course is the time investment needed to get even that far - nearly two complete play-throughs to get to level 50 and then what is the end-game? Repeating the same content for what? This could be a reasonable use of Iridium after you've maxed out everything else - Buy a skill point for 50 Iridium. Great post. You summed up a lot of my thoughts on the problems with the skill tree.
The opposite problem, of course, are games where you hit the level cap well before the end (I'm looking at you, Mass Effect 2). If you're 2/3 through the game, and there's no progression in an RPG sense, the story and combat had better make up for it. My problem so far with Borderlands 2 is that it's less than the sum of its parts. Each bit -- the skill trees, the characters, the weapons, are awesome on the surface, but as y'all have noted, that first 20-25 levels seems like a grind with no real payoff, and the characters aren't that different. In the multiplayer runthrough I'm doing with my LAN party buddies, we're running three different classes, but we mostly all use sniper rifles and stay at distance. Powers aren't used that much. It's all just a little disappointing.
I agree with Super Jay as well, the problem for me is that the individual parts of each skill tree don't really have an affect on your play style, at the same scale as picking a skill in Diablo 3 or Torchlight 2. The only skills that radically affect play are unlocking the action skill, the major skill at the middle of a tree, and the final skill at the end. Everything in between those three points doesn't have anywhere near the same impact. And as it was mentioned already, it takes a long time for you to actually get to those different skills, far more if you like to spec between the three trees. This makes the grind between levels far worse compared to other skill trees as you're not getting that gratification on level up with unlocking something new and cool compared to other ARPGs. I think that's why there is a greater distribution of class items to help specialize your character more. But it doesn't really work for the same reason that the majority of skills don't: there just incremental upgrades/downgrades to your basic stats. I think there should have been more class items like the artifacts from the first game, that add elemental damage to your action skills but take that a step further with more effects.
As Case says, it's certainly just as problematic to front-load the distinctive, interesting skills (or the skill progression) which could turn the latter half of the game into coasting with very little sense or progress or reward. I think I'd like to see a few things handled differently to make the early levels more engaging. Start distributing skill points right away. Those first five levels are unforgivably boring and all the classes are identical until you unlock the Action skill. Granted, those first five levels probably don't even amount to an hour of gameplay, but what purpose does that hour serve? Just a Fisher-Price "My First Video Game" thing, for the three people in the world who haven't picked up a controller before? Next, make the early skills more meaningful. I've only played the Siren and Assassin extensively, and in both cases the first skills that I chose were just back-end boosts to stats that didn't have any tangible impact on gameplay. Maybe other classes / trees have more interesting things up-front? Next, give each spec a kill skill earlier on. Some trees have them as early as the 2nd tier, which would be level 11. Some trees don't have kill skills at all; some are buried so deep that you don't unlock it til 26. My siren (level 50) has so many triggered abilities (kill skills and otherwise) that I sometimes have four or five of the timer icons appearing above my healthbar. This is cool and fun and would have been really neat if I'd seen even one of these prior to level 25. Lastly, I'd like to see that final skill in the tree be accessible earlier (somehow), since it can be such a game-changer for some classes. (For example: my middle-tree Assassin, the final skill grants those explosive throwing knives that you can use during Deception. They do massive elemental damage, don't break stealth, and grant that Zero mark debuff. That one point turned him into a far more offensive class. Which was good, in a way, but it begs the question, did his Action skill need to feel quite so ineffective for 30 levels just to make that final point more valuable?
What boggles my mind, is that they made this same damn mistake in the first one, and it really gives a bad impression of the game.
By the way, on a related note, I'm not a fan of games that *expect* you to play through more than once. Playing a game multiple times to expose all the elements of a game is not fun, it's just a grind. I don't mean games where you might play through a 2nd or 3rd time to try out multiple classes. Rather, I'm talking about games which don't let you complete your character more than once, or don't reveal all the cool stuff until 2nd or even 3rd replays (yes, Diablo III, that's you I'm talking about.) I'm talking as someone who's probably played all three Mass Effect games a total of a dozen times between the three. But never once did I think that a second playthrough was a requirement to give a sense I'd finished the game.
I agree. As much as I like B2, I can't really get excited about starting over in TVHM just to get to Level 50. I played Bioshock multiple times because I wanted to; not so with B2.
Having gotten two characters to level 50, (Gunzerker and Mechromancer,) the thought of trying to get another class up there makes me cringe. It really is the first playthrough that's the problem. My thought is that you should be able to start a new character 10 levels higher for every character you've gotten to 50, and go straight to TVHM after 3.
I wish you could use the respec machine to change your character class altogether. I'd like to play a Commando, but I'll be damned if I'm going to start one, at least anytime soon. (Never say never, sigh.)
If you have any sort of higher level friend to help out, a character can be leveled awfully fast. My brother and I took my secondary Gunzerker character from 1 - 30 in a few hours of play. He was level 50 and trashing nasty stuff while I hid in the corner and soaked XP.
I don't think Borderlands 2 expects a person to play through more than once. For people who want to beat SP and have a sense of completion, one play through will do it. The plot is finished, the whole world has been explored, there's nothing significant left to do and everything has been wrapped up satisfyingly. What the second play through offers is simply more of the same for people so enamored of the core gameplay mechanics that they want more even if it means no new content. This "new game +" mentality has been around in JRPGs for ages and works well there. I certainly am not going to fault Borderlands 2 for it because nothing in the game implies that a person is expected to play through again. It's an option, but the game didn't save anything for the second playthrough that a player couldn't experience on the first.
