Question on Inventory size progression (+ragevent) (solved - thanks)

Borderlands 2 Gameplay Discussion (Spoilers!)
#1

Greetings,

heard a lot about this game and finally came around to purchasing it recently. The gameplay is awesome so far, the sense of humour just got me laughing under the table from the intro onwards… but…

short version:
I am not even in Sanctuary yet, but I am getting really frustrated by the tiny inventory. It’s a shoot and loot, or so it says, but I have to leave most of the loot lying around and break the flow of the game figuring out what to pick up/keep and what to toss in the middle of a mission with respawning enemies in my back, or have to break it running back and forth for sorting and selling constantly. I read in the wiki that there will be upgrades for this, but I would like to ask:

How long approx into the game can I assume to get around 30 slots so I can get through a mission without having to sort my inventory?
Will the shop and fast-travel-point density remain the same? Or will there be more points to drop off junk/safely sort stuff out in the later levels of the game?
How long into the game (roughly) till I get those two locked weapon slots?

Thanks for considering a reply, I’d really like to know as this is really keeping me from enjoying the game.

Now for the long vent:

What the fokk? Shoot and Loot. Sounds awesome. I understood this was somewhere between RAGE and Hellgate London just with an original setting and more content and jumped on this. Oh how the loot is appraised in reviews of this game. So after the initial sequence I open my inventory, expecting some smooth, cool interface that really makes use and management of all the awesome stuff I’d find easy and painless. And what do I see? Some console-y crapstick with slots to select and lists to scroll that does not even scale to my resolution properly. Wow. What a disappointment. What a pain to use… just comparing weapons, or even just switching them out (which I have to do constantly because of the very limited ammo and only 2 quick slots available…) takes several clicks and buttons and still often does not work smoothly. But the worst… I see that number. Backpack 5/12. So I get to carry 12 items of any type around, and equipped items count towards that limit? With two weapon slots, six ammo types and four types of extra gear? Plus mission logs and what not all counting into that limit? How… why? Whose incredibly bright idea was it to create a game with seamlessly flowing missions, awesome balance and pacing and loads and loads of loot drops… but to force You to leave it all behind, breaking that flow constantly because You can only carry (insert massive amount of swearing here) 12 items? 12? This totally screws up the game experience. Shoot and loot means You cure the itch by grabbing lots of stuff and finding cool new toys… and lots of junk to sell. That is a proven, time-honored concept. Way to mess this up. Awesome. So what is the rationale behind this? Even if You can upgrade that later… no second chance for a first impression. I almost dropped the game and went for a refund, and I bought the GOTY at full price. Just… how does any game-designer/developer get the idea that this was a useful feature? How did this get past beta-testing and balancing? You can not even finish the first side-mission without running back to base on foot (no town-portal, really few fast-travel options) or starting to sort out stuff in the field. Which is annoying. And it is frustrating having to leave stuff behind. Noone wants to leave stuff behind. I get that with the crappy interface-style consoles force You to use (can’t we just get them a mouse and a keyboard port? Like… charity-wise?) You don’t want endless lists to scroll through… but why not a crap-sack to dump stuff in that gets auto-sold later? Seriously. I am furious. I just don’t get the reasoning behind this and i hate it when stupid gets in my way. And I claim that this is utter and total, high quality, 99% pure stupid +4 until someone wants to enlighten me as to the upside of this. 12. Four weapons, shield, grenade, relic and whatever that other slot is for makes for five empty ones. With every other container dropping a weapon. Standing in front of three shields now in-game and can’t pick up even one. Hate. Feel the hate. Feel judged, whoever is responsible. Go home and think about Your life. Then come back and change this. Make it the first and foremost priority in Your existance to change that as a way to try to atone for this atrocity. I want a patch within the week. Graaaaaah. Okay. I know this is not going to happen and noone cares. Would still like to know where this is coming from. So much for the vent.

#2

When you get to Sanctuary, you will have:

  1. A place to buy storage upgrades for your “backpack”
  2. A place (the Bank) to store extra stuff (also upgradeable)
  3. A stash that will allow you to transfer up to four items at a time between your characters

As the game progresses, you’ll also unlock your remaining primary equipment slots (the ones you can rapidly cycle between for guns.)

Patience! You have barely scratched the surface of this game yet!

More details here:

#3

It’s a pain early on, but once you find places where you can farm eridium, it will be much easier to buy the upgrades.

As an off topic aside, this is an area TPS performed far better on than BL2. Moonstone is far easier to acquire than eridium, and you can get all your upgrades much faster.

2 Likes
#4

Yeah, I noticed that You get some more space now that I arrived there, still besides the point. Still, my question has somewhat answered itself - for one I mixed things up thinking equipped items count against the limit, that was just me carrying around custom skins of exactly the same number accidentally until I realized they actually take up space… ahum. Also, yes, I see now that once You get some motorized transportation the quests usually are short enough to grab everything in one go and You can easily go back and sell off junk at a lot of points. Still, thanks. Will have a look at the guide.

#5

If you “use” the skins, they become available at the relevant Quick Change and Catch-a-Ride stations. You can “use” the heads/skins for other characters than the one you find them with. Then, should you start/load up the other characters, you’ll already have a bunch of heads/skins to chose from.

#6

The tiny inventory size early in the game annoys the heck out of me, too. But after a while you’ll realize that you don’t really need to be picking up -everything- that early in the game anyway. Low-level guns aren’t worth much at all (maybe $80 or so for really good ones, which is less than mobs will drop in cash later on) so all you really need to hold on to are guns you plan on actually using. By the time the money you make from selling stuff ends up mattering, you should have 30+ inventory slots already (if you’re like me and upgrade inventory before ammo pools).

Now, I tend to pick up verything at low levels anyway for the challenge progress, but you certainly don’t need to, you’ll hit the ‘loot X [color] items’ challenges sooner or later anyway.

#7

Both using skins (which I probably won’t for a while, I don’t care at all about cosmetics, and I don’t see my guy anyway…) and not picking up stuff really won’t impact the cash outcome in the end. What bothers me is that You have to chose at all - it’s a game, I should not have to fight the mechanics, or somehow learn to deal with them, they should support me and should support the games flow, and this crap simply breaks it. As stated before - stuff drops, You take it, You carry it home and either use or sell it. That is how loot works as a motivating factor. And for a lot of folks that is a driving factor behind games like this one, especially the ones coming more from the hack&slash genre than the FPS background. Leaving loot behind - however worthless - forces me to not OCD on this game, and in my free time, I want to, I chose games so I can do this there and feel good about it. Second, even leaving stuff behind, I still have to take the time and read the stuff and compare it - on the battlefield. With enemies spawning behind me after a minute delay sometimes (this got me killed twice already, damn Pyros coming out of their huts after everything has already gone down…) and on maps that have several consecutive questlines on them… but a respawn rate that refills the camps in an interval that allows me exactly to either sort out stuff taking my time but battling them again, or just grab and run so I can go through “free” a second time. And I get bored having to kill the same guys again and again in the exact same place…
Anyway… this problem probably was never really addressed as it evaporates after reaching sanctuary. Elerium is rather easy to find (for me at least?) and I already got myself several upgrades for backpack and munitions, so it’s no longer an issue. It’s just a really bad first impression…