Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 419

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Ultimate General: Gettysburg, Offworld Trading Company, The Long Dark, Special Guest C.J. Kershner From Ubisoft, All About That Loot, Your Emails and More!

This week Shawn, Elysium and Julian are joined by Ubisoft's C.J. Kersher to talk about loot!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined.

Chairman_Mao's Timestamps
00.02.33 Skyrim
00.04.41 The Long Dark
00.12.26 Ultimate General: Gettysburg
00.19.51 Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
00.25.37 Offworld Trading Company
00.30.29 This week's topic: Loot!
00.55.44 Your emails!

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Comments

Borderlands actually does combo the loot and the ability set. There was a limited amount of it in the first game, and a lot more of it in the second game.

For instance, Zero is very good with sniper rifles on account of his bullet speed and zoom enhancements. He can make an auto-sniper with a low magnification perform better, or attack from so far away that he's basically invulnerable if he gets a gun with a high enough zoom rating.

Axton's teleporting turret enhancement can combine with his turret nuke enhancement to allow him to bomb-and-kill from line of sight, basically. The thing you want with that is a line-of-sight teleporting grenade (Longbow) with a gravity function (Singularity) so you can spot a group of enemies from sniper range, bunch them together, and then nuke it all. Ideally, you want a Longbow Singularity Slag grenade for maximum effect.

The Borderlands forums are all about build-and-gear combos.

Here's an example of an Axton Immortal Commando build-and-gear that's all about never, ever, ever dying:

http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=281967

It has a recommended gearset that the build author prefers, but there's a bunch of other gear that modifies performance in several ways, or substitutes for optimum gear in case you're still working your way to it, or simply want to play the build immediately.

When I play Borderlands, I never look too carefully at the looted guns as I am missioning, unless there is something drastically better (easy to identify by colour grade), I simply discard anything <$amount. It really isn't a big deal.
Borderlands has that one special loot chest at the end of an area which may or may not drop "THE BIG ONE".
I was a loot whore in Morrowind, and Oblivion, but now have my loot calculator calibrated for Bethesda games ... value/weight. (great story on the podcast btw re:Skyrim)
The best loot system ever was in Knights of the Old Republic, where you can dismiss your followers to sell your crap loot for you....genius !
At the moment I am lost in EVE, and that has a fabulously well balanced loot system and economy. The best trading opportunities available in any game.

I found Skyrim loot to be completely pointless once you could craft all the uber gear.. in the end I was actually kinda disappointed with that direction.. I enjoy the feeling of finding or completing a long quest that results in a significant gear upgrade.

Give me the option to quest or find good loot with the bonus that I can adjust the look so I still look cool and I'm happy

Borderlands 2 combos the loot in several ways. One, of course, is class build, built around the COMs that each class can acquire and equip. Axton's Immortal Commando build is based on the Unstoppable Pointman COM, configuring your gear and build so that your shield and your health regenerate almost instantly (like, literally one second) combined with his ability to ignore death hits half the time. The build regenerates shield and health so fast that he can regen everything in the open. Like he doesn't need cover because even a slight pause in getting hit allows him to regen to full immediately.

Other ways BL2 does gear:

Elemental theme: Axton has an Explosive build built around Torgue weapons and grenades. Maya has a Corrosive build built around melting everything with acid.

Manufacturer theme: built around the look and mechanics of specific gun manufacturers, centered around the artifact that gives bonuses to manufacturer gunsets.

Playstyle theme: Go for melee, close range skirmisher, or long range sniper. Zero has a ninja build-and-gear theme that's all about killing everything with a knife.

Gear Exploits: some gear, especially unique ones with wonky properties, simply interacts unpredictably with other gear. Sometimes, this creates broken or incredibly powerful combos. Some build-and-gear setups are created to maximize the unfairness of these items.

Great Skyrim (or was it Oblivion?) story from C.J. That's really taking loot hoarding to a higher level.

I loved the loot system in borderlands, but then I tend to drive my wife bonkers because I constantly want to rearrange my inventory in the middle of a mission she's trying to spectate.

Borderlands 2 made some welcome improvements to the inventory management, but I didn't like the mission design as much. I felt like I was spending too much time walking back to the point I last died, only to die again and have to walk all the way there again.

Borderlands 2 would be just about perfect for me if it had quicksave.

Awesome show, having C.J. Kersher on was a great idea, I love his humor, and really related to his Elder Scrolls stories. I'm a bit of a loot whore myself, although perhaps not quite at that level. I most definitely would load up to the very limit of my encumbrance, going so far as to save rings and amulets to boost it. And I would not run, but walk back to town. I think I've done the corpse dragging thing a few times too.

The loot system in Borderlands was okay. I mostly enjoyed colored guns exploding from corpses, but my interest had mostly waned by the time the second installment was released. I'll probably get the Pre-Sequel eventually, but... not now. And I agree with DT, Borderlands *needs* a quicksave. There's nothing worse than being almost done with an area than to have to unexpectedly quit because of some random RL reason. And yeah, I know I could just leave the game running, but that's just impractical.

As you were discussing the topic (my ears were bleeding when you introduced the topic, btw ), I thought of Dragon Age 2 which completely just owned up to the fact that a lot of the stuff you pick up and carry around is... junk. File it away in its own tab, auto sell at store, bam. As a gamer who doesn't have as much free time as I used to to compare and make spreadsheets of the different types of gear, that makes me happy. I used to love that, tracking different types of damages, etc, but no longer.

I still love picking stuff up though, and I think Guild Wars 2 has a nice loot system. And they have that awesome, awesome "Drop all collectibles" button which will send certain item to your personal bank. Which is great, since you can't craft in the wilderness anyway. And I'm absolutely in love with the "auto-loot" function which I mapped to one of my thumb buttons on my G500. And now that I'm playing The Witcher 2, I'm disappointed that it doesn't do the same thing (and for the life of me, I couldn't find the option panel to remap the controls, I think I need to take a little trip in the dedicated thread in the forums).

Also... Congrats Alan "Pryoman" Cook!! I had no idea the big day was so close, it feels like the engagement was last month. Time sure does fly. Best of wishes to you both.

MeatMan wrote:

Great Skyrim (or was it Oblivion?) story from C.J. That's really taking loot hoarding to a higher level.

I forgot to mention that C.J.'s story reminded me of this scene:

Actually, when I heard "cheese wheels", I thought of this:

Eleima wrote:

As you were discussing the topic (my ears were bleeding when you introduced the topic, btw)

I think of you every time I mangle the French language.

Dragon's Crown has a pretty good loot system. You can get gear that your current character doesn't need, but you can have multiple characters of different classes and levels on the same save file. You only get to see what you obtained when you head back to town, plus you have to pay to have it appraised, but you are given some indications about what it will do as equipment is graded and appraisal costs more for better items (and if a stat has two digits you'll see "??" but if the stat has three digits you'll see "? ? ?" ) Also characters can share loot in an inventive match up.

Everyone can use Amulets and each class has a specific weapon type.

Belts are worn by Wizards, Fighters, and Dwarves.
Gauntlets are worn by Dwarves and Fighters.
Gloves are worn by Elves and Wizards.
Mantles are worn by Dwarves and Elves.
Boots are worn by Amazons and Elves.
Glasses are worn by Wizards and Sorceresses.
Earrings are worn by Amazons and Sorceresses.
Bracelets are worn by Amazons and Sorceresses.

Amazons use Pole Axes.
Fighters use Swords and Shields.
Dwarves use Hammers/Short Axes.
Wizards use Staffs/Rods.
Sorceresses use Wands.
Elves use Bows.

The only annoyance is getting gear that's above your current level. It's worst in the endgame, cause once you get into the high 90's, having to hang onto stuff that's just too high for you is a chore thanks to the slower leveling.

Eleima wrote:

Actually, when I heard "cheese wheels", I thought of this:

The shame of those Nords wasting food like that when there are millions of starving children in Morrowind! Tsk!

Eleima wrote:

...I most definitely would load up to the very limit of my encumbrance, going so far as to save rings and amulets to boost it. And I would not run, but walk back to town. I think I've done the corpse dragging thing a few times too.
...

I always get confused when people say things about 'limit of my encumberance' in Skyrim. I know there is a weight limit beyond which you *become* encumbered and can't fast travel, but is there actually a hard limit to the weight you can carry and still move at all? Presuming that the in-game weight is pounds, my character regularly carts 2 tons (assisted by the 'fast jump forward' shout). If you are willing to just walk, couldn't you literally pick up everything in the game?

Mousetrap wrote:

I always get confused when people say things about 'limit of my encumberance' in Skyrim. I know there is a weight limit beyond which you *become* encumbered and can't fast travel, but is there actually a hard limit to the weight you can carry and still move at all?

Not that I've ever found, but I get impatient enough when my character gets encumbered that I generally get on a horse as soon as is convenient and fast-travel to somewhere I can sell or stash stuff.

Skyrim horses are tough.

There are two limits to your encumberance in the Elder Scrolls, if I'm not mistaken. There's a first threshold at which you can neither fast travel nor run, and there's a second threshold a bit higher at which you still can't fast travel, but most especially can't move at all!

Interesting conversation, the bit about the horses and the corpses was amazing, i liked the loot system far more in borderlands 1 it was way easier to find good weapons on the other hand a very good one (with all the good parts) could last you a lot of levels due to the scaling, in borderlands 2 they changed the scaling system and in UVHM you literally had to throw away your weapons almost every level because a white of the appropiate level could outperform even legendaries two levels below, the funny thing is that some of the best weapons in the game were mission rewards and a lot of people were farming it for the perfect version at the adequate level, i liked more the borderlands 1 system, But i must confess that when the end game becomes the endless search for the perfect piece of loot i tend to get bored, don´t like farming

Gettysburg was designed with tablets in mind, I am not sure if it is out on iOS yet but it definitely will be.

Wait, it gets so could you have underground tunnels to move around in during winter? I'll keep the snakes and spiders, thanks.

Sonicator wrote:

Wait, it gets so could you have underground tunnels to move around in during winter? I'll keep the snakes and spiders, thanks.

Word!

TheGameguru wrote:

I found Skyrim loot to be completely pointless once you could craft all the uber gear.. in the end I was actually kinda disappointed with that direction.. I enjoy the feeling of finding or completing a long quest that results in a significant gear upgrade.

Give me the option to quest or find good loot with the bonus that I can adjust the look so I still look cool and I'm happy :)

I kind of like the way I can wean myself off cheap loot. Then when i'm fairly financially stable, I can start feeling kind of proud about all the things I don't have to thieve.

Eleima wrote:

I thought of Dragon Age 2 which completely just owned up to the fact that a lot of the stuff you pick up and carry around is... junk. File it away in its own tab, auto sell at store, bam. As a gamer who doesn't have as much free time as I used to to compare and make spreadsheets of the different types of gear, that makes me happy.

I'll admit that even knowing that, I couldn't take someone's "threadbare scarf" from the Alienage. Just about broke my heart to see that in a barrel there.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Sonicator wrote:

Wait, it gets so could you have underground tunnels to move around in during winter? I'll keep the snakes and spiders, thanks.

Word!

"Oh boo hoo. I can't handle the idea of seasons."

Eleima wrote:

The loot system in Borderlands was okay. I mostly enjoyed colored guns exploding from corpses, but my interest had mostly waned by the time the second installment was released. I'll probably get the Pre-Sequel eventually, but... not now. And I agree with DT, Borderlands *needs* a quicksave. There's nothing worse than being almost done with an area than to have to unexpectedly quit because of some random RL reason. And yeah, I know I could just leave the game running, but that's just impractical.

I've never really minded the lack of saving in Borderlands. Shrug. What I do really miss is the mark-as-junk ability they took out in The Pre-Sequel. It was such a good way to keep junk straight from recently picked up and potentially interesting items. And not being able to sort weapons by level or price drives me crazy.

Eleima wrote:

As you were discussing the topic (my ears were bleeding when you introduced the topic, btw ), I thought of Dragon Age 2 which completely just owned up to the fact that a lot of the stuff you pick up and carry around is... junk. File it away in its own tab, auto sell at store, bam. As a gamer who doesn't have as much free time as I used to to compare and make spreadsheets of the different types of gear, that makes me happy. I used to love that, tracking different types of damages, etc, but no longer.

Dragon Age II is exactly how not to do loot, imo. First is the part you touched on, that you're hoovering up what is ostensibly people's belongings. Sometimes in their houses/shops right in front of them, with no consequences. Your party members don't think it's weird, even if you're a 'good' Hawke. A common RPG situation, to be sure, and one that really bugs me. I often try to make a rule for myself to not pick up any of that kind of stuff, but in DA2 it came undone. All those sad barrels have a sparkly glow on top that nags at me, and doesn't clear unless I empty it of all the items. And any dusty crate might actually be the one that has some important gift for a companion or fetch quest item, so it feels bad to ignore them.

And there's just so much junk. How much sense does it even make for Hawke to pick up a Moldy Rag Doll, put it in his/her inventory and sell it for a mosquito's fart worth of cash? It's just busywork in a game that certainly didn't need the padding. It works in Fallout, not at all in Dragon Age.

It works in Fallout, not at all in Dragon Age.

I think it works when you're a destitute refugee. Not so much when you own your own mansion.