Borderlands 2 - Critical Questions @ Gamespy

Gamespy fired up their anti-hype machine and came up with 5 questions and concerns about Borderlands 2 labeled as critical of which this is one:

Still No Level Scaling

This one, sadly, is confirmed: if I have a level 30 character and you have a level 10, we can join each other's co-op game, but it's not fun. If I join your game I'll be one-shotting every enemy; if you join mine, every enemy will one-shot you. Just like last time, the only way to play together effectively is for everyone in your group to start a new character at the same time and not play unless the whole group is together.

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More information.

Hmm, the level scaling thing is unfortunate. I feared this would happen. I remember being overleveled for a large majority of my SOLO playthrough because I did too many quests. And I was overleveled for all the DLC as a result. Only once I finally finished the second playthrough and unlocked the hidden and undocumented scaling mode, was the game challenging again.

I sure wish they'd implement a easy dynamic scaling system. So if you are level 40 and join your level 20 friend, you get downleveled so you both can enjoy the gaming. After the game, you're back to level 40 and keep all loot and meager experience you earned. I've heard Guild Wars 2 does this type of thing for PvP.

Regardless, even if this game is Borderlands version 1.5, it will still be great.

Bad Link?

When I follow that link I get a 404 error from the Gamespy server.

Corrected that.

Still needless vendor-specific features as well, like extra graphics only for nVidia cards. They could have afforded to use a non-vendor-specific middleware if they bothered.

Just means another ignore from me, shame.

kalniel said:

Still needless vendor-specific features as well, like extra graphics only for nVidia cards. They could have afforded to use a non-vendor-specific middleware if they bothered.

Just means another ignore from me, shame.

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What vendor neutral physics solutions are there? My understanding is PhysX is the easiest and best system out there for developers to add realistic effects, cloth, smoke, fog, and so on to games. I don't know of any game ever that uses stuff like this without using PhysX. So I'm honesty curious if you know of any.

I don't see how you can fault Borderlands for offering the best visual effects for nVidia users. It isn't like AMD has an alternative is it?

Brumbek said:

What vendor neutral physics solutions are there?

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To answer my own question, there's Havok of course you nub! Well, true. Although I believe Havok is mostly for realistic ragdoll systems. I don't know if Havok can do cloth, smoke, fog and so on. Probably it could but it would be cumbersome for that focus.

Anyway, Borderlands on PC looks fantastic with PhysX. I'm glad I switched to exclusively nVidia years ago. I realize it stinks for ppl who buy budget AMD systems, but BL2 is a great game regardless of hardware.