Originally Posted by
polity4life
Another bee in my bonnet I have is world layout. Maybe I'm not recalling things correctly but it seems to me that Borderlands was far more open and less cluttered than Borderlands 2. I end up in corners surprisingly often, corners created by random world debris, and it's my fault for not noticing. However a question comes to mind that I feel should be asked: what were the developers thinking about how the player was going to move in this game?
Borderlands, at least the first, was predicated on shooting on the move almost all of the time. For almost all characters and builds, you were strafing or kiting everything. Rarely was it effective or desirable to stay in one place for too long. In Borderlands 2 that doesn't seem to be the case. The landscape has a lot of stuff in it: rocks, boxes, random junk, etc. It adds some flavor and gives you some cover when needed. The issue is that Borderlands isn't a cover shooter. There is no developed mechanic to accommodate combat while in a static position. The player is still supposed to keep moving and that is by design, from the enemies to the skill trees. For example, when a Badass melee monster is charging me, I'm not supposed to stay behind the crate and fire from cover. I'm supposed to shoot, move out of his way, and keep shooting as I avoid his attacks.
So it seems like Gearbox tried to have it both ways. The game plays as though combat and movement are made to be very dynamic but the landscapes say otherwise, that the player is meant to remain in some places to avoid fire. It feels like we have half of both and the sum of that doesn't equal the whole of either. This doesn't make for a broken or bad game or gaming experience. It's just an odd mix of implications about how the player should play.
Just some thoughts. I'm going to play this game to hell and back since it is very fun.