Getting frustrated with Borderlands

[J So]

[edit]

Thanks to the help on this thread I figured out I was using the wrong weapons and as soon as I found some that did x3 elemental damage I easily cleared these stages.;

[/edit]


Man I don’t know what it is with this game but it’s frustrating the crap out of me.

I’m not a rookie gamer and the most similar game to Borderlands I’ve recently played, Fallout 3 gave me no problems what so ever.

I’m playing a the Hunter class, I’m level 17 and I just get worked over and over again. I’m stuck on the Arid Badlands where I only have 3 missions left, the third and final battle in the arena, killing Moe and Marley and then killing Sledge.

Since I can’t kill Moe and Marley and the two “badass” skags at the end of the arena level 3 I’ve not even bothered with Sledge yet.

What’s so frustrating is that even the Elder Skags just fall at my feet when using my machine gun, repeater or submachine gun but the Badass Skags.. it’s as if I’m spitting on them, an entire magazine dump just moves the health bar a tiny fraction. I’ve got a shield that puts out 242 which is the best I’ve seen so far and just a couple of hits from the big guys throw me across the screen and take a huge chunk of that down then once the shield is gone it’s pretty much over.

I keep reading people saying how easy the game is.. maybe I just picked the worst character as he can’t take a beating or maybe there’s a trick to dodging as circle strafing sure as hell doesn’t work and neither does walking backwards while firing.

I’m going to try and level up again tonight.. maybe try to find some better weapons but Portal 2 is calling my name and I was hoping to beat Borderlands before playing Portal 2.

 

[MacLeod]

Sniper rifle my brother. Get you one of those mack daddy sniper rifles with 300+ damage and pick them off. A few head shots will get the job done. I pretty much played 2/3 of the game with nothing but the sniper rifle.

 

[nakedhand]

First of all get/find a good sniper with elemental damage, preferably x4

Badass Skags can be shut down quick using corrosive or better sniping (or other) when they open their mouths and roar. This spot is very vulnerable.

Moe and Marley can be dealt with, using a good sniper and sub machine gun combo (maybe you can get a corrosive of fire version). Do not forget to use your Bloodwing (set for corrosive) either. Start at a distance and see if you can pick one off at a time. Facing both head on is trouble. Apart from that a lot of running involved, lots of relocating.

I played a hunter to cap with no real problems here. It´s all in the approach. Tries these things out, and don´t give up. Borderlands is a great game, and you have lots of fun ahead of you. Also recommended is co-op. Its just wicked

 

[Katalysis]

Moe and Marley were harder than any of the other bosses or missions in that early part. I am playing a siren and I just kited them down to that little area at the bottom of the hill, jumped up on something, and shot at their open mouths till they died.

 

[mtrupi]

unless you are an xbox controller savant, pulling this off on a console might be close to impossible. Well, for me anyhow it was.

edit: I stopped playing at Baron Flynt. Maybe I'll try finishing it some day.

 

[J So]

Maybe I don't undersand how the weapon stats work as most of the sniper rifles I've found are flaming and they do 72-75 damage. Last night I found an explosive sniper rifle but it didn't do much damage and was "white". I've never seen a corrosive weapon before.

I figure my sub gun does 47 damage each round so that would cause more damage much faster than the sniper at 75.

I just got my first atrifact and it's shock, last night. I don't think I have the option to set blodwing to corrosive right now.

 

[scaarbelly]

You should be able to find/buy a sniper with around 175 damage to shoot Moe and Marley in the mouth. A decent SMG will also do, but you have to run up and shoot them in the mouth and then run away. It the 3rd part of the arena you do the same thing but with smg or shotguns. After you kill them off, go to kill sledge. You can run circles around his shed shooting him with the sniper.

 

[J So]

I'll do that when I get home tonight, I'll go try and find some better weapons, maybe go "mine" some areas as well trying to find better loot.

 

[Bigbacon]

find elemental weapons. Skaggs are pretty weak vs a lot of the elements specially fire and acid (I think)

I never gave elemental weapons a thought until I was doing the DLC and fighting all those armored guys in General Knoxx would have been impossible without elemental weapons.

And remember Skaggs are weak in the ass end or in their mouth when it is open. head on attacks are useless.

If I am thinking the correct bosses, there is a place i found where you can stand and snipe them without having to worry about them getting to you.

 

[Thuleman]

I haven't played BL in a while and don't have my saves anymore but I do recall having a bit of trouble with the Hunter early on in the game as well. Someone here suggested to go Gunslinger instead of Sniper and it was pretty damn easy from there on. Especially the 2 or 3 shot revolvers/guns have mad damage and the skills go really well enhancing those guns. May want to give it a try if you have a decent handgun.

 

[DWolvin]

I stuck straight sniper, and those two were rough. The best rifle I had found at that point took something like six open-mouth crits, with a good amount of kiting and getting up on things they couldn't reach. If you can one-shot elders and badass's, you should be fine with planning. If you can't, re-run the town on the way to Sledge 'till you get some better weapons. Also- the more you use the sniper, the better it works (weeapon skill tab), less sway and faster reloads, and a damage boost of some sort (I think).

 

[jiminator]

I played sniper until mid 20's then switched to gunslinger. that class was so much more fun. The main thing you need for gunslinger is an ammo regen mod. Unfortunately I doubt you have any mods at your level from what I remember.

As for missions, you are probably doing them wrong. Look at your available missions and stop doing them per area. Mission difficulty is set at time they become available, so if you leave a bunch on the boards they probably all rank as easy. So collect all the available missions. Do them in sequence from easy to hard to impossible. Actually the difficult ones will probably be normal by the time you get to them.

As for weapons, you should stick exclusively to pistols or snipers. You get bonuses for the weapons you use. Pistols can do phenomenal amounts of damage, especially with the gunslinger mod. Issue is that they slurp up ammo, so ammo regen is mandatory for it to work well otherwise you have to scrounge a lot.

My favorite weapons were a pestilence defiler (4x corruption revolver) and a 1x corruption repeater @ 14 RPS. There are also revolvers that do 7x pellet damage and 4x fire elementals although about 3-4 rps.

Combine the pistol fire rates with the gunslinger bonuses and the hunter can shred anything fast except badasses and bosses. I did not bother doing anything with the bird. The points were better spent elsewhere.

 

[Krenum]

I hear ya , I cant get the godamned configuration utility to work. It keeps turning off my keyboard and mouse.

This game pisses me off, Ive already beaten it, I just wanted to install it again and play it for a bit. But I have to spend time to configure the fuckin .ini files (FOV/Keybindings ect...) This shit should have been already configured when it came out to play on PC's.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

Terrain/geometry exploits.

 

[DarkSaturn]

Another +1 for the Gunslinger options, you might not be able to take much damage but you can deal it out.

Mordecai in general is pretty weak against high health bosses when playing solo. Found I had to be a good 2-3 levels above the recommended to handle Skagzilla. Then becomes crazy powerful late in the game thanks to shield penetration vs. enemies with low health/big shields.

I recall finding play-though 1 being tough until I found an orange 'Malevolent Bitch' SMG, that thing was awesome for a good 10 level stretch.

 

[TheToE!]

You think it's frustrating now. Wait till you see the ending.

 

[tyguy]

I just picked up this game too and have a question. If you join a higher level game and complete a quest does that count towards your playthrough? Or will I have to go back and play through it solo to mark it as complete?

 

[Adam.C]

I just picked up this game too and have a question. If you join a higher level game and complete a quest does that count towards your playthrough? Or will I have to go back and play through it solo to mark it as complete?

AFAIK you will be ineligible for those missions. So no they wont count. Been a while since I played.

To the OP. I had no issues playing through with the Hunter class. I have a lvl 48 I think. Just use your class to your advantage. Like for hunter class go sniper.

 

[rob2000]

it just takes practice. i died a few times vs sledge but the other bosses were fairly easy, skagzilla took awhile to kill it due to all its health. Go exploring and check the vending machines the inventory changes a bit. some of them not super great, but early on fire or explosive damage weapons and corrosive work well. the bird is mainly helpful when you face multiple targets at once. buying the ammo and weapon slot upgrades help a lot to, that way i had a rocket launcher, 2 sniper rifles, a revolver and either a machinegun or shotgun. use your nades and run and gun while the your shield recharges, if you can find a regen shield that will last you many levels. especially if it regens fast. kill some extra baddies if your having trouble, a couple levels can be a world of difference.

i only stopped playing cause i could not get my saved game working on steam when i went from vista to xp,

 

[tyguy]

AFAIK you will be ineligible for those missions. So no they wont count. Been a while since I played.

To the OP. I had no issues playing through with the Hunter class. I have a lvl 48 I think. Just use your class to your advantage. Like for hunter class go sniper.

Ok I see, so lets say I host a game with a character I have thats a bit higher than my brothers. Can I accompany him with his missions to get him caught up to the one im on? Or does the host have control over the missions?

My machine is the faster machine and I port forwarded mine as well, so mine is better for hosting.

 

[gimp]

As for missions, you are probably doing them wrong. Look at your available missions and stop doing them per area. Mission difficulty is set at time they become available, so if you leave a bunch on the boards they probably all rank as easy. So collect all the available missions. Do them in sequence from easy to hard to impossible. Actually the difficult ones will probably be normal by the time you get to them.

This. I remember having to go between areas to finish the missions in order from "easy" to "hard"

Ok I see, so lets say I host a game with a character I have thats a bit higher than my brothers. Can I accompany him with his missions to get him caught up to the one im on? Or does the host have control over the missions?

My machine is the faster machine and I port forwarded mine as well, so mine is better for hosting.

iirc, it's the hosting player that gets the mission completions. Whoever hosts the game, is the game that's played. So you would need your brother to host, to advance his game.

 

[tyguy]

This. I remember having to go between areas to finish the missions in order from "easy" to "hard"



iirc, it's the hosting player that gets the mission completions. Whoever hosts the game, is the game that's played. So you would need your brother to host, to advance his game.

So, if he played the entire game with me as just a client and we beat it together, he wouldnt get the missions completions?

 

[J So]

I played sniper until mid 20's then switched to gunslinger. that class was so much more fun. The main thing you need for gunslinger is an ammo regen mod. Unfortunately I doubt you have any mods at your level from what I remember.

As for missions, you are probably doing them wrong. Look at your available missions and stop doing them per area. Mission difficulty is set at time they become available, so if you leave a bunch on the boards they probably all rank as easy. So collect all the available missions. Do them in sequence from easy to hard to impossible. Actually the difficult ones will probably be normal by the time you get to them.

As for weapons, you should stick exclusively to pistols or snipers. You get bonuses for the weapons you use. Pistols can do phenomenal amounts of damage, especially with the gunslinger mod. Issue is that they slurp up ammo, so ammo regen is mandatory for it to work well otherwise you have to scrounge a lot.

My favorite weapons were a pestilence defiler (4x corruption revolver) and a 1x corruption repeater @ 14 RPS. There are also revolvers that do 7x pellet damage and 4x fire elementals although about 3-4 rps.

Combine the pistol fire rates with the gunslinger bonuses and the hunter can shred anything fast except badasses and bosses. I did not bother doing anything with the bird. The points were better spent elsewhere.

I did the missions in order, I'm down to the last 3 avalible to me before I can even get more.. unless there's a way to get more missions without beating Sledge. The funny thing is that right now the Moe and Marley missions is listed as "trivial" for difficulty but it used to be "Hard"

 

[sculelos]

I just ran through the game and did the missions in sequence, at no part did I really have much difficulty. IMO in my opinion using the bloodhawk is the easiest way to play Mordaci but I prefer Roland.

 

[limitedaccess]

I bought it recently during sale, and so far I've been over leveled basically for all the missions while doing them in sequence, except one of the DLCs missions for General Knoxx(which I read is by design this way). And I just ran by a lot of areas well and avoided fighting, so it wasn't from farming enemies.

Anyways if you want frustration, its later on with how the DLC is setup. No fast travel combined with starting at the beginning of each DLC area every time you quit the game, lol...

Probably the most frustrating sequence in the game happened to me last night. I was doing Circle of Duty:Sergent. First try I got to the end basically, but killed a Badass Lancer Pyro up close, and it exploded killing me. Fair enough, my mistake, wasn't paying attention. Retried it, killed everyone, and the last guy is stuck inside the map (known bug). What made this frustrating is the there are apparently two ways to kill the stuck guy, use Transfusion grenades (which I had already randomly lobbed all my nades trying to kill him before reading how to do it), or using an Eridian weapon that shoots globs of acid (which I had just sold before starting the round thinking it was useless).

 

[bleethob]

You need to get better weapons as others have said. Hunter is pretty hard when you have a weak sniper and pistols.

Go rerun some of the "dungeons" and check the vendors items seem to change once a reload or so if I remember right.

Dont shy away from that awesome shotgun or smg either. Think I finished the arena with a +fire smg. Don't think corrosive weapons drop in the first part.

 

[Q-BZ]

http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=85874

Always has to be shown in any Borderlands thread.

 

[sculelos]

I bought it recently during sale, and so far I've been over leveled basically for all the missions while doing them in sequence, except one of the DLCs missions for General Knoxx(which I read is by design this way). And I just ran by a lot of areas well and avoided fighting, so it wasn't from farming enemies.

Anyways if you want frustration, its later on with how the DLC is setup. No fast travel combined with starting at the beginning of each DLC area every time you quit the game, lol...

Probably the most frustrating sequence in the game happened to me last night. I was doing Circle of Duty:Sergent. First try I got to the end basically, but killed a Badass Lancer Pyro up close, and it exploded killing me. Fair enough, my mistake, wasn't paying attention. Retried it, killed everyone, and the last guy is stuck inside the map (known bug). What made this frustrating is the there are apparently two ways to kill the stuck guy, use Transfusion grenades (which I had already randomly lobbed all my nades trying to kill him before reading how to do it), or using an Eridian weapon that shoots globs of acid (which I had just sold before starting the round thinking it was useless).

Circle of Duty was just plain glitchy for me, I definitely did it 3 or 4 times before it registered as complete

 

[Signal]

iirc, it's the hosting player that gets the mission completions. Whoever hosts the game, is the game that's played. So you would need your brother to host, to advance his game.

All players can get the mission completions if you are are both on that mission. My friend and I play online on PS3 and if we're doing the same missions then we both get completions. The only problem is if one of us plays solo and gets a few missions ahead, then it starts showing ineligible for the player who is behind.

It really helps on the DLC for the collection quests because you both get the collectible. We did the Zombie DLC collectible quest together and it was a lot faster that way.

 

[jiminator]

I did the missions in order, I'm down to the last 3 avalible to me before I can even get more.. unless there's a way to get more missions without beating Sledge. The funny thing is that right now the Moe and Marley missions is listed as "trivial" for difficulty but it used to be "Hard"

Do you ever get the "new missions are available..." when going into a new area? means you need to talk to some people or visit the bulletin boards. I don't think I ever had only 3 missions available, except perhaps at the end.

 

[J So]

Okay found an incendiary SMG today and it made all the difference in the world. Finished both of those levels, almost with ease and then went on to beat a couple of more.

Thanks for the advice I had no idea how much of a difference the extra elemental damage did!

 

[limitedaccess]

Circle of Duty was just plain glitchy for me, I definitely did it 3 or 4 times before it registered as complete

Luckily I tried it again today and did it and Medal of Honor without issue. I actually had an "oh no" moment partly into Sergent because I realized I forgot to buy any grenades.

Okay found an incendiary SMG today and it made all the difference in the world. Finished both of those levels, almost with ease and then went on to beat a couple of more.

Thanks for the advice I had no idea how much of a difference the extra elemental damage did!

Was it a Hellfire? I believe it is like one of the best guns in the game. I used that when I got it earlier on (lvl 21 version I think) all the way until lvl 40.

 

[yimingwuzere]

I just picked up this game too and have a question. If you join a higher level game and complete a quest does that count towards your playthrough? Or will I have to go back and play through it solo to mark it as complete?

If that quest has a prerequisite quest that needs to be completed, no. Otherwise, yes.

Probably the most frustrating sequence in the game happened to me last night. I was doing Circle of Duty:Sergent. First try I got to the end basically, but killed a Badass Lancer Pyro up close, and it exploded killing me. Fair enough, my mistake, wasn't paying attention. Retried it, killed everyone, and the last guy is stuck inside the map (known bug). What made this frustrating is the there are apparently two ways to kill the stuck guy, use Transfusion grenades (which I had already randomly lobbed all my nades trying to kill him before reading how to do it), or using an Eridian weapon that shoots globs of acid (which I had just sold before starting the round thinking it was useless).

Some of these arena levels are bugged, the Bandit arena in the vanilla game also has a similar issue that can only be solved with exiting the game. These bugs only occur when you died and are retrying the mission without exiting the game.

Okay found an incendiary SMG today and it made all the difference in the world. Finished both of those levels, almost with ease and then went on to beat a couple of more.

Thanks for the advice I had no idea how much of a difference the extra elemental damage did!

Well, *3 and *4 elemental guns usually dishes out a lot more damage than regular weapons irrespective of the high initial damage values on normal weapons.

 

[[LYL]Homer]

I played hunter class as well and concur on elemental sniper and pistol weapons. IIRC I was able to go past to New Haven where there were much better weapons around that level, then I came back to that area and killed these bosses you're having trouble with.

 

[jiminator]

depending on when you last played new haven was nerfed because of the chest farming. a little silly. but w/e.

 

[gimp]

I did the missions in order, I'm down to the last 3 avalible to me before I can even get more.. unless there's a way to get more missions without beating Sledge. The funny thing is that right now the Moe and Marley missions is listed as "trivial" for difficulty but it used to be "Hard"

the difficulty is based on what level you are vs what the level the computer is for that specific mission. The quest/mission details tell you the level "requirements" for each mission. When you're a lower level than it states, it will say difficult, hard etc. When you're a higher level than the "requirement" it goes from easy to trivial, depending on how much higher level you are.

All players can get the mission completions if you are are both on that mission. My friend and I play online on PS3 and if we're doing the same missions then we both get completions. The only problem is if one of us plays solo and gets a few missions ahead, then it starts showing ineligible for the player who is behind.

It really helps on the DLC for the collection quests because you both get the collectible. We did the Zombie DLC collectible quest together and it was a lot faster that way.

ahh, that makes sense.

I haven't done any multiplayer, I just remember reading up on it a bit.

 

[Cmustang87]

You're going to be so sick of shooting skags and bandits, over and over and over again.

I enjoyed Borderlands, but only for about 1 playthrough. After that I was like... ugh.. more bandits.

 

[eggrock]

depending on when you last played new haven was nerfed because of the chest farming. a little silly. but w/e.

Do you mean Old Haven? Once you get there you're set for the rest of the game, but IIRC it's enemy drops that give the best weps.

OP, fire & acid are the most useful. If you can handle another playthrough try Lilith, who gets ++elemental chance/damage mods and can deal elemental damage when entering/exiting phasewalk, can do elemental melee damage etc.. Phasewalk makes the game pretty easy, maybe too easy.

 

[Katalysis]

the thing that is frustrating me? my FOV changing back to normal every time I get in a vehicle.

 

[J So]

I beat Sledge with ease last night, thanks for the help understanding how the weapons work.

Sledge had me cracking up with his.. You know it's working because of the burn.