I have two other minor complaints....The death animation...wtf...in BL1 you died, you got that tunnel screen and boom, alive and running.
Now you watch that stupid materialization thing which seems to take forever.
The black market...why did they need to have two types of currency? does the black market get used for anything but the ammo upgrades and such? quite annoying.
This is most certainly a lot harder than BL1
Loving it though.
Agree completely with complaint #1. The respawn animation takes too long and should be skippable.
For point 2... I don't mind the black market.
They have 2 problems they need to address:
1) New mechanism for obtaining backpack SDU upgrades to keep game from feeling too identical to predecessor, but it can't be *too* easy to get them (storage, after all, is an incredibly valuable resource in a slot-machine dungeon grinder).
2) Give players an incentive to pick particular classes of weapons despite an overall reduction in gun->class specialization (which is a huge positive change).
The black market nails both, and does it in a way that maximizes player choice. There's the inherent tradeoff between storage capacity and ammo capacity that each player can balance to their tastes, and the ability to generalize or specialize on weapon types (via ammo count) to any extent desired, while ultimately gaining all the bonuses in the end.
They also did a good job of limiting the scope of the black market. Both ammo count and storage space are highly useful, but both are ultimately convenience features. It's feasible to complete the game without either, but it would be significantly more annoying, tedious, and filled with dead space (e.g. repeatedly running back to storage vendors or intentionally bypassing combat/loot). You have to work for your convenience, but nothing truly essential is gated by the secondary-currency system.
Lastly, it gives grinders a temporary, fleeting, and largely unimportant advantage which doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the end. Little things like that matter in games which are basically built on grinding. The people who choose to spend more of their time grinding want to feel like there's some payback for their decision that more casual players can't reap. That exists, but the gap closes by endgame, and then it comes down to luck with rare loot (where the grinders again have some advantage just on account of opportunity to get showered with RNG love).
Edit: On a general thought, huge props to Gearbox for making an effective melee option. Love how Zer0 can either be a sniper or a crazy melee. He's ludicrously OP from a PVP perspective, but this isn't a PVP game. Definitely takes some effort to avoid just getting hellamunched by every pack of mobs (especially early on), but offers a fun alternative to just blasting away.
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