-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Battleborn Open Beta thread: April 8 (PS4)/ April 13 (PC/XB1) - April 18
- Thread starter ashecitism
- Start date
After the awful alpha I'm surprisingly really enjoying what I've played of this so far despite Gearbox's typical lightweight shooting mechanics. I'll the give the PC one a go next week when it's up.
However, it's very unlikely this is a game I want to actually buy. There's just too much in May I want more and this is right at the bottom of the pile. They should really consider releasing this in a dry month like July where you get very few releases, where there's very little competition.
However, it's very unlikely this is a game I want to actually buy. There's just too much in May I want more and this is right at the bottom of the pile. They should really consider releasing this in a dry month like July where you get very few releases, where there's very little competition.
Captainbojanglesiii
Banned
Haha, why does every game end 100-0?
JHoNNy1OoO
Member
Hehe, just lost a game of Incursion 0-2. Our team of randoms vs team of 2x2 and a random. We pushed them completely from 99-2 and then instead of continuing to dominate and just push the one and only lane together one last time, the rest of the team tried over and over to backdoor. Needless to say it was not a winning strategy since they just continued to kill them over and over one by one and in the end out-leveled us and just stuck together and pushed.
Fun times.
Not all of em! Read above. Incursion really does have a snowball effect though. Once you push the lane you can grab all the shards and the middle camp and your camp and buy minions and towers nonstop pretty much. Just have to stick together and not be stupid and chase too far.
Fun times.
Not all of em! Read above. Incursion really does have a snowball effect though. Once you push the lane you can grab all the shards and the middle camp and your camp and buy minions and towers nonstop pretty much. Just have to stick together and not be stupid and chase too far.
This game is a ton of fun when the matches are close. Lost 497-500 in meltdown. Felt real good. I can't play rath worth a damn. I think the FOV is too small for me and I lose track of my targets when they panic and jump around. Warming up to marquis though. Its probably frustrating as hell for the opposing team when marquis players can pick off all of their support structures from a safe distance in a few shots.
JStein0222
Member
I have no idea what goes into this, but if Star Wars battlefront can do it, it must be possible. Would LOVE a third person option
Hero Prinny
Member
yea, i actually find it really annoying, its not funny at all.
I think I'm just starved for a class-based shooters, but I'm really enjoying this game. At the same time, every criticism people have leveled against it is pretty true. I look forward to playing it at launch, but the game is absolutely doomed unless they mount a brain-melting ad campaign to push it near release.
i'm the biggest borderlands fan ever. but i'm not sure why i would play this over smite. shit is too chaotic, nauseating, obfuscated. its shame they couldnt pull back a bit on the art direction. as it seems like there might be a fun game underneath all this shit popping up on screen.
Well considering it's by the makers of Borderlands, this isn't really a surprise.
NightShift
Member
Played it and yup, they should have made Borderlands 3. I can't find anything the FPS audience would enjoy out of this. It's so caotic yet players have so much health which I guess comes from the MOBA part of the game. I'm sure the game is for someone, maybe the MOBA crowd I'm not sure. There are a few cool character designs so I can give it that credit and I did get a hang of a few characters quickly which is nice.
Lol this and Smite are two separate things. Smite is your typical MOBA. Battleborn feels like a class bases shooter with MOBA-esque elements.
NightShift
Member
Yeah the game does look just like Borderlands without the cell-shading. Kinda sad they couldn't get away from that art style.
I defend the fuck out of the humour in Borderlands (NOT the memes) but the humour in this is off. I guess it's because they only talk over you playing the game and there are no interactions with the npc's. That does severally impact the immersion of the world and thus, it's comedic tone.
This. So much of the problems with this game would be solved by pulling back the camera as far as possible. But I guess that they wouldn't do it though because people playing in third person with have a huge advantage.
honestly, theyre both class/hero based shooters. one just has a narrow moba focus. the other is a jack of all trades, master of none.
Finaika
Member
The game has attitude.
JHoNNy1OoO
Member
Servers just blow up?
Been playing as Shane and Auryx for about 4-5 matches and that is the new Phoebe from Alpha. Incredibly OP. Just like Phoebe the shield overcharge on successful fetch gives it waaaay too much shield and the damage is bonkers especially when paired with stealth. The only thing I die to is when I get greedy and just jump into a bunch of creeps.
Been playing as Shane and Auryx for about 4-5 matches and that is the new Phoebe from Alpha. Incredibly OP. Just like Phoebe the shield overcharge on successful fetch gives it waaaay too much shield and the damage is bonkers especially when paired with stealth. The only thing I die to is when I get greedy and just jump into a bunch of creeps.
Smite is in no way a shooter...Don't get me wrong, Battleborn sucks, but Smite has no fucking vertical axis, it's no more a shooter than any other moba is in terms of skillshots.
killertofu
Member
Melee characters...oof...
How can people play this
How can people play this
JHoNNy1OoO
Member
Servers are back and seems they pushed a playlist update. You can't select Incursion or Meltdown anymore. Just "Versus Maps". Wonder what that is all about.
Miggytronz
Member
Enjoying it so far. Yeah it's mindless as all hell but oh well.
Chronospherics
Member
Went into this optimistic but I came out disappointed.
Animations are crap, texturing is awful and even if we resign to the idea that it's intentionally low quality in order to keep up with the action on screen (it shouldn't need to be when games like Titanfall can be equally chaotic yes visually, several grades above this), various visual elements stand out as being super-low resolution.
Even the AA solution is poor, heck there's aliasing all over the character select menus even. It's a very ugly game.
As for how it plays? It's okay. I only played a few rounds, and two co-op matches, but I found it felt rather monotonous, the game appears quite orientated towards coordination and team work, with AoE abilities, stuns and such, but with the janky and over the top animations, the game just looks much more visually busy than it needs to.
Heck, as a very basic example when Oscar Mike reloads, his arm covers more than half of his screen. It's visually obstructive without reason and I don't feel that much attention has been placed on how this may negatively impact the games design. That's an issue at the most basic level, but speaking more generally powers gunfire, animations etc. all interact to make an experience that's not that comfortable to play visually, and this has a cascading affect on how enjoyable the game is to play.
In regards to the singleplayer / co-op play, I found this very mindless. High health makes it very forgiving, and I found myself playing passively after a very short span of time. Enemies are bullet sponges and do not adapt or enforce immediate consequnces to your mistakes, therefore you can get into a habbit of holding R2 mindlessly until the game begins warning you that your shields are gone, or your low on health, then take cover for a bit. Even if you die, you simply respawn, no big deal. I'm sure there are difficulties which make this more engaging, but that doesn't help the gameplay overall, it should be entertaining at a basic level, and it just isn't for me. I shouldn't be falling asleep playing the missions on normal difficulty. They were very reminiscent of strikes on Destiny. About the same in quality, though I appreciate that the dialogue was better in Battleborn.
Stacked upon other issues, such as the lack of offline singleplayer and co-operative options, I don't see myself enjoying this. I have my hopes on Overwatch instead.
Animations are crap, texturing is awful and even if we resign to the idea that it's intentionally low quality in order to keep up with the action on screen (it shouldn't need to be when games like Titanfall can be equally chaotic yes visually, several grades above this), various visual elements stand out as being super-low resolution.
Even the AA solution is poor, heck there's aliasing all over the character select menus even. It's a very ugly game.
As for how it plays? It's okay. I only played a few rounds, and two co-op matches, but I found it felt rather monotonous, the game appears quite orientated towards coordination and team work, with AoE abilities, stuns and such, but with the janky and over the top animations, the game just looks much more visually busy than it needs to.
Heck, as a very basic example when Oscar Mike reloads, his arm covers more than half of his screen. It's visually obstructive without reason and I don't feel that much attention has been placed on how this may negatively impact the games design. That's an issue at the most basic level, but speaking more generally powers gunfire, animations etc. all interact to make an experience that's not that comfortable to play visually, and this has a cascading affect on how enjoyable the game is to play.
In regards to the singleplayer / co-op play, I found this very mindless. High health makes it very forgiving, and I found myself playing passively after a very short span of time. Enemies are bullet sponges and do not adapt or enforce immediate consequnces to your mistakes, therefore you can get into a habbit of holding R2 mindlessly until the game begins warning you that your shields are gone, or your low on health, then take cover for a bit. Even if you die, you simply respawn, no big deal. I'm sure there are difficulties which make this more engaging, but that doesn't help the gameplay overall, it should be entertaining at a basic level, and it just isn't for me. I shouldn't be falling asleep playing the missions on normal difficulty. They were very reminiscent of strikes on Destiny. About the same in quality, though I appreciate that the dialogue was better in Battleborn.
Stacked upon other issues, such as the lack of offline singleplayer and co-operative options, I don't see myself enjoying this. I have my hopes on Overwatch instead.
JHoNNy1OoO
Member
So just like story mode now, they are funneling everyone into one playlist and then having you vote for which map/mode you want. Fantastic...
First match and it's my random team with 2 level 1's against a full party of 10+. Yiiipeeeee
First match and it's my random team with 2 level 1's against a full party of 10+. Yiiipeeeee
Pontiaction
Member
Expected to dislike this game. Decided to try the beta because why not. Ended up actually enjoying it kinda, not 100% sold but had a good time even playing with randos. Normally not even my thing.
Decided to try to learn the mechanics with one character first until I got comfortable with the game, the maps, etc. Went with Thorn (the archer) and did the first story mission solo to warm up. Thoughts:
- It was a bit too long. I'd get bogged down at some parts in what felt like an artificial way because I was soloing it.
- Lots of pickups, not a lot of clarity about what they're for or even what they're doing. Eventually figured it out, but had trouble using them in a strategic way -- would clear out a room and only then be rewarded with pickups that I didn't need because I wasn't in combat.
- Dialog is very Borderlandsish. Recognized a lot of the voices even. ISIC is like an overgrown Claptrap. Humor felt more forced than BL but I did chuckle a few times.
- Presentation is very good, very colorful, art style is OK but I much prefer Overwatch's style.
- Interesting world, made me want to do more story / lore stuff.
- Typical amount of Gearbox challenges, objectives, unlockables, tons of crap to do and collect.
- Every character taunt is a cringe-fest.
After story mission 1, I moved on to some PvP. Did a couple incursion games. As per my usual skills with a controller, could barely hit or kill anything. Focused on support instead and built tons of buildables, minions, etc. and tried to use Blight as much as possible to AoE groups of smaller enemies. My team won both games 100-0. Not quite understanding how scoring works.
Performance was fine. Only one memorable moment of low-FPS stutter all night. Queues less than 1 minute each game.
Only thing that really bothered me was low, low FOV. Can't believe the tunnel vision. It's real bad. Shockingly bad.
Had to quit for the night but wanted to play more. Very pleasantly surprised. Figured it was gonna be Overwatch all the way for me, and I'm still getting it, but am now contemplating Battleborn too. Kind of not good because I really don't have enough free time to get good at both, heh.
Decided to try to learn the mechanics with one character first until I got comfortable with the game, the maps, etc. Went with Thorn (the archer) and did the first story mission solo to warm up. Thoughts:
- It was a bit too long. I'd get bogged down at some parts in what felt like an artificial way because I was soloing it.
- Lots of pickups, not a lot of clarity about what they're for or even what they're doing. Eventually figured it out, but had trouble using them in a strategic way -- would clear out a room and only then be rewarded with pickups that I didn't need because I wasn't in combat.
- Dialog is very Borderlandsish. Recognized a lot of the voices even. ISIC is like an overgrown Claptrap. Humor felt more forced than BL but I did chuckle a few times.
- Presentation is very good, very colorful, art style is OK but I much prefer Overwatch's style.
- Interesting world, made me want to do more story / lore stuff.
- Typical amount of Gearbox challenges, objectives, unlockables, tons of crap to do and collect.
- Every character taunt is a cringe-fest.
After story mission 1, I moved on to some PvP. Did a couple incursion games. As per my usual skills with a controller, could barely hit or kill anything. Focused on support instead and built tons of buildables, minions, etc. and tried to use Blight as much as possible to AoE groups of smaller enemies. My team won both games 100-0. Not quite understanding how scoring works.
Performance was fine. Only one memorable moment of low-FPS stutter all night. Queues less than 1 minute each game.
Only thing that really bothered me was low, low FOV. Can't believe the tunnel vision. It's real bad. Shockingly bad.
Had to quit for the night but wanted to play more. Very pleasantly surprised. Figured it was gonna be Overwatch all the way for me, and I'm still getting it, but am now contemplating Battleborn too. Kind of not good because I really don't have enough free time to get good at both, heh.
Ended up having to close the app and restart to re-connect to the servers.
I played 1 match of meltdown and enjoyed it it's what I want from a Moba but man I just can not play for anymore than an hour at a time. Hurts my eyes. I enjoyed story missions too. Not sure how you could solo with every character though. Fun boss fights. Still some small things they need to fix mechanics wise.
I kinda want to see how the full release turns out, but I doubt any of my friends will want to play it and there's a ton of stuff coming out in May.
I played 1 match of meltdown and enjoyed it it's what I want from a Moba but man I just can not play for anymore than an hour at a time. Hurts my eyes. I enjoyed story missions too. Not sure how you could solo with every character though. Fun boss fights. Still some small things they need to fix mechanics wise.
I kinda want to see how the full release turns out, but I doubt any of my friends will want to play it and there's a ton of stuff coming out in May.
you still have to aim. and you shoot stuff. and use a reticule. and you aim up and down to change the distance of shots. i dunno. maybe thats not a vertical axis. who cares. wasn't really looking to get into an argument about whether smite is a shooter or not.
-MD-
Member
Huh? I usually go for melee characters in FPS games, is there something wrong with them in this game?
Diarrhea all over the screen makes it hard.
High skill cap makes them difficult to play and difficult to fight. They kinda ruin the experience.
Chronospherics
Member
A lot of people here seem really positive about the game so I'm going to give it another go, despite a negative first impression.
Redownloading it now. I want to like it, I really do!
Redownloading it now. I want to like it, I really do!
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
I watched a streamer destroy everyone as Phoebe. She looks fun.
I'm starting to notice melee character being a preferred choice in this game.
I'm starting to notice melee character being a preferred choice in this game.
Codiox
Member
What's the game main part? Multi-player? Only played a singleplayer mission and it was so long I had to quit it after the second boss because it was really boring. The characters are fucking unique though, but you can see straight ahead that this is just the borderlands engine without cell shading.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
The multiplayer is the main game. I hear the single player is like playing in raids. Which would explain why they are long.
Never thought I would say that, but I am really enjoying the game. The storymode may be the most boring thing ive ever played, the humor is forced and some of the heroes are absolutely not for me, but this is the first mobaesque game I have fun with. Shane, Oskar, Orendi an Rath are my favs so far. I hope I can get my hands on a promo copy or find a cheap copy of the game. It's still not a fullprice title for me.
I tried the beta on PS4 and I must say I actually quite enjoyed my time with it. The co-op missions were a lot better than I thought they would be with interesting bosses in a shooter for once, acting like bosses should. They had unique looks, phases, different attacks you had to be aware of. Much more interestingly designed than what I've seen lately like in The Division where you take one guy, slightly make him bigger and give him more health. Gearbox have definitely improved in that area.
Multiplayer was pretty fun too, its like a shooter but a little more focus on different objectives like a MOBA but not full-on-MOBA.
The only problems I had was the narrow FOV, the 30fps cap and that I am horrible at using controllers in FPS games, it was a bit hard to keep up with what is going on when using a melee character. I think all of that will be fixed once I try the PC version.
Multiplayer was pretty fun too, its like a shooter but a little more focus on different objectives like a MOBA but not full-on-MOBA.
The only problems I had was the narrow FOV, the 30fps cap and that I am horrible at using controllers in FPS games, it was a bit hard to keep up with what is going on when using a melee character. I think all of that will be fixed once I try the PC version.
kraspkibble
Permabanned.
i played a little last night but had to stop. the gameplay itself is fun but the controls feel a little awkward and everything feels so light. i can't really explain it well but there is no weight behind any of the movement/attacks.
what truly put me off was the low framerate/fov and the heavy zoom in when aiming. i had to stop because i felt nauseous and a headache coming on. i feel a game like this needs to be 60fps and have adjustable fov.
what truly put me off was the low framerate/fov and the heavy zoom in when aiming. i had to stop because i felt nauseous and a headache coming on. i feel a game like this needs to be 60fps and have adjustable fov.
I tried the beta on PS4 and I must say I actually quite enjoyed my time with it. The co-op missions were a lot better than I thought they would be with interesting bosses in a shooter for once, acting like bosses should. They had unique looks, phases, different attacks you had to be aware of. Much more interestingly designed than what I've seen lately like in The Division where you take one guy, slightly make him bigger and give him more health. Gearbox have definitely improved in that area.
Multiplayer was pretty fun too, its like a shooter but a little more focus on different objectives like a MOBA but not full-on-MOBA.
The only problems I had was the narrow FOV, the 30fps cap and that I am horrible at using controllers in FPS games, it was a bit hard to keep up with what is going on when using a melee character. I think all of that will be fixed once I try the PC version.
I assure you, Battleborn sucks plenty without comparing it to a completely different game.
Codiox
Member
Okay, what should I try? What is the best MP mode in the beta to get the best impression?
GwyndolinCinder
Member
Severs down? Seems psn is downdue to" maintenance "
JasonUresti
Member
Im digging it. Got into once I unlocked Isic and his no reloading charge weapon and turret mode. My style, at least with a console FPS.
I find the humor better in this than Borderlands. Probably because Borderlanda forced it viciously with long unskippable cutscenes and dialog, and these are just short voice overs.
I find the humor better in this than Borderlands. Probably because Borderlanda forced it viciously with long unskippable cutscenes and dialog, and these are just short voice overs.
Troubled Bat
Member
I actually really enjoy this game, although I'm not sure if it's a buy. I've been playing it a lot as well. Lol
It's awkward seeing yourself at Rank 21, while everyone is at 6-11.
It's awkward seeing yourself at Rank 21, while everyone is at 6-11.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
They pretty much all have the advantage on ranged characters unless your team is actually working together, then it's slightly more balanced.
GwyndolinCinder
Member
Are the match types rotating?
They changed it a few hours ago to not let you pick and instead have a vote for the map.