Borderlands - Mad Moxxi Stuff kinda sucks.

[Dracos]

So folks who listen know I've been a borderlands addict for a while.

Picked up the two DLC today.  Zombie island?  Not so bad.

Mad Moxxi?  Not fucking playable solo.  Unless you're dunefar, then 'maybe'.  My FPS skills were close to the task, but my patience skills sure weren't.

I should elaborate.  Mad Moxxi's opening mission is to complete 3 - 25 wave sets.  These waves rise in difficulty and add custom rules.  They also don't give xp or money or drops or things.  It comes across a lot more like an FPS against a variety of bots in a way.  Like most FPSes (and borderlands), there is always really a small chance that you just get fragged.  A brute happens to spawn with a triple rocket launcher in a dead aim + increased damage round and fires it hitting you in the side from the other end of the arena for instant death.  It happens.  In borderlands, this is not a big deal generally on both fronts.  There's the ability to get a second wind by killing something or be rescued by a friend.  If you die, you just lose some money and charge right back out from the nearest save.

Anyhow, provided you get through a set in one go, we're talking about roughly an hour and a half time investment per set with no in the middle save.  It's really not odd to spend between 2 and 5 minutes per set manuvering and killing things.  These kind of make the sets the longest single levels in borderlands with the slight possibility that the last level might have about twenty five waves in it spread out over the level.  Each five set of waves is capped with a boss fight as well.

What's that provison though about.  Well, if you die in mad moxxi, you get sent back to the beginning over the previous round (each round is 5 waves).  So, in the worst case you are pushed back 10 waves (30-50 minutes).  In the best case, its only 5 waves.  For me going through, I tended to have bad luck on wave 4 if it was going to happen, so it was usually 9 waves for me.  If you're playing with co-op buddies, this only happens if you all die and there's a chance to tag back in out of the penalty box.  But solo?  What a painful margin of error, there's no one that bails you out and the penalty is just as bad.  In fact, I'm pretty sure you also face just as many enemies as the four set would.

Additional bit?  At least in the first arena, enemies always knew where you were and shot at you from anywhere in the arena if they had a clear shot.  This might not sound like much, but it really made ever leaving cover brutal because as a player your sense of where the enemies are is no where near that good and the ability to get the drop on enemies like in the real game is pretty much not happening.  THe second arena was at least big enough that with a super sniper rifle you could pull it off at the very edges, but still, a bit heavy on focused gunfire here.

Other additional bit?  Every 5 waves, the enemies go up about 4 percent in all relevant parameters.  Additionally, you can get up to 4 random penalties for the round, including super tough enemies, health drain, no shields, regen on enemies, enemies are super accurate or evasive, all but one weapon type doesn't work, -99 percent accuracy, etc.  These can stack together to make.

I cleared the first twenty five set tonight solo.  The stats at the end say I killed 400 enemies, though it was probably more as I didn't check if they removed on retry.  I killed eight bosses and died three times. I started the second one and died on wave 9, sending me back to wave 1.  Way to have a penalty system and length setup that makes single player exhaustingly impossible.

I glanced around afterwards seeing if I was missing something.  Was I just playing it dumb?  Apparently every review comments that it's effectively unplayable solo and the one dissent talked about getting hooked on trying to superoptimize his build with the entire rest of the came becoming something he could do blindfolded.

I learned that after you clear the first set?  The next 3 sets are 100 waves long.  Penalty system still there.  No way to save progress midway still a fact.  100 waves at 3 minutes a wave (Not a bad clip really) is roughly 5 hours of play provided you never lose.  I suppose it must go a lot quicker in 3-4 player co-op, but I suspect I'll never know.  To play it with others everyone needs to have it.  Obviously on this kind of experience, I'm hardly gonna go push for others to get it to try it out.  So much for getting some smash tv borderlands on.

It's a pity as I suspect had the punishment level been 'redo the same round' (ouch) or better 'redo the same wave' I would've totally stuck it out and kept going a fair while.  I could always pause and do the 100 set in parts.  But the odds in maxxi of having a either a random death or just poor play death happen over time seems semi-inevitable.

[Anastasia]

Mad Moxxi?  Not fucking playable solo.  Unless you're dunefar, then 'maybe'.  My FPS skills were close to the task, but my patience skills sure weren't.

Que?

[Dracos]

I respect your crazy doom 2 skills :P  Thus the call out in my wacky sleepy sense of humor.