<\/div>In Borderlands you kill dudes with firearmsAnd sometimes with melee attacks, grenades, and special abilities. But mostly firearms<\/span>. Every firearm has a number of properties associated with it: Fire rate, damage output, accuracy, magazine capacity, reload speed, recoil. Then there are other properties that only apply in special situations: Elemental damage, bonus melee damage, extra critical damage, ammo regeneration, and scope zoom strength. These numbers are rolled randomly, but are based on the level and rarity of the item. <\/p>\n The loot in Borderlands is divided into several tiers of increasing rarity:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Also, there’s a layer of complexity over all of this that every weapon is from one of several in-game companies, and each company has their own touches they put on weapons. (And some companies are objectively better than others.) I’ve never studied this much myself, but the wiki can tell you all about it if you’re curious<\/a>. Generally if I want to know how a weapon performs, I just shoot a bunch of people with it.<\/p>\n Since the individual item stats are somewhat varied, the tiers aren’t completely rigid. The screenshot above shows a pretty extreme example of how complex it is to evaluate the quality of a weapon. Here’s a white (trash) weapon that seems<\/em> to outperform a purple (exotic) of the same level. On the surface, the white does 50% more damage. However, the purple holds more than three times as many bullets, while the white gun will need to be reloaded constantly. If we’re just talking about two players shooting static targets side-by-side, then the player with the white weapon will do well for the first few shots because of the extra damage, but then purple will outpace them over time because white spends so much time reloading. <\/p>\n However, in practice this isn’t how guns are used. Players tend to reload at opportune moments when seeking targets or recovering from damage. If you can drop foes in one or two well-placed shots and reload between fights, then the white might actually be more useful. But if you happen to be fighting a damage sponge or something that’s hard to hit then the white will be awful, since you’ll need to reload while still trading fire. In practice the purple might also excel in unlisted properties like recoil, and that burst fire mode might be really good.<\/p>\n The point is that the relative performance of two weapons is incredibly<\/em> situational. It’s shaped by the level of the foeThe game gets overall more damage sponge-ish as you gain levels.<\/span>, the level delta between the player and their adversaryFoes just a few levels above you are very spongy, and foes just a few levels below you are tissue paper.<\/span>, the enemy typeSome foes have lots of armor, tons of hit points, small critical hit zones, or animations that make them hard to hit.<\/span>, your character classFoes that juke around are less troublesome if you’ve got a special power to lock them in place. Or a turret \/ pet with auto-aim.<\/span>, and individual playstyleLow accuracy weapons aren’t a problem if you tend to fight at close range.<\/span>. <\/p>\n One final explanation for the performance discrepancy between the white and purple above is that the game seems to greatly over-value elemental damage in general, and it REALLY over-estimates the value of slagSlag is an elemental damage type, like fire. Except, slag makes foes take extra damage from non-slag weapons. Which means you need to do a lot of weapon-switching to use slag properly. Not worth the effort at low levels when foes die in a couple of hits anyway.<\/span> damage. This is particularly true in the early parts of the game when slag is basically useless.<\/p>\n If the weapon stats happen to have a lot of synergy, a weapon might really excel more than its color might suggest. Meanwhile, a couple of stats with conflicting properties might render a weapon useless. You might find a blue shotgun that has both a large magazine capacity and a rapid fire rate, making it better than the average purple. Or you might find a sniper rifle with an extra-powerful scope and garbage accuracy, making it basically useless. Sometimes you might be able to make use of an oddball weapon in unexpected way. For example, maybe that sniper rifle with terrible accuracy but ridiculous damage and rate of fire will turn out to be useful when fired from the hip like an assault rifle. <\/p>\n The point is that appraising the quality of weapons is a big part of the game. If you find it tedious then this game will drive you crazy. On the other hand if you enjoy looking for treasure, thinking about weapon performance, and switching up your play style to make the best use of your gear, then the procedurally generated weapons of Borderlands can keep you amused for a long, long time.<\/p>\n And speaking of looking for treasure…<\/p>\n I know it’s really obnoxious when people smugly reduce powerful human experiences down to simple brain chemistry. Like “Love is just hormones” or perhaps “You enjoy this thing because it triggers the release of endorphins in the brain”. Saying stuff like this is annoying because it’s dismissive and reductionist, and also because it’s hard to argue against without sounding like a complete sap. <\/p>\n But if you’ll allow me to be dismissive and reductionist for a minute, I want to talk about dopamine and the way it makes videogames fun. I predict some people will roll their eyes at this, “Ugh. Everyone knows this stuff Shamus. Stop trying to sound smart by reposting shit from Wikipedia and acting like you’re Bill Nye.” But the fact is that not everyone knows this stuff, and sometimes it’s useful to make sure the groundwork exists before you try and build on it.<\/p>\n Let’s get this out of the way: Dopamine feels good<\/em>. Your brain releases it when you do something “good”. Catch the ball, solve the puzzle, or impress that attractive person, and your brain will give you a little dose of dopamine. It’s the brain’s way of saying, “Whatever you did to make this Good Thing happen, remember it so you can do it again in the future.” It’s one of the reasons mastering a videogame feels so good. Taking successful action keeps the dope coming.<\/p>\n B. F. Skinner was a psychologist, behaviorist, and social philosopher, and he did not like<\/a> that people informally named the Skinner Box after him. In his own work he called it the “Operant conditioning chamber”. <\/p>\n\n
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<\/div>The Dope Drip<\/h3>\n
<\/div>There’s More than One Way to Skinner Box<\/h3>\n
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