Shlooters with even "okay" gunplay?

All the recent Borderlands talk got me thinking: Most shlooters/loot shooters/shooter looters/whatever the hells actually kind of suck for both looting and shooting.

Games like Destiny have some damned fine guns (all two of them...) that "feel" nice as you shoot them and so forth. But the loot tends to be pretty horrible because of the need to ration out the good gear and so forth. I hear 2 fixed a lot of the problems 1 had, but I just can't bring myself to even finish the tutorial in that. And it still seems like the game is built around getting whatever the current "meta" exotic is.

And then you have games like Warframe where you get a constant stream of loot pinatas that are great to murder, but the actual gunplay is pretty plinky. I love my snipers in those games, but it always feels like I am just firing into masses of whatever enemy is spawned right now and focused more on the space ninja'ing.

Which got me thinking: Do any shlooters actually do both well?

Borderlands probably comes the closest. I remember about 60% of the guns feeling "fine" and enough variety that I got an almost DOOM-like vibe when I would leap into battle and start throwing exploding shotguns and firing rocket machine guns all over the place. The loot aspect wasn't much better than the ARPGs of the time (and inventory limits and lack of a pet to sell shit or an instant use portal got annoying), but it was sufficient that I still enjoyed opening chests and re-running pinatas.

Has any game actually done a good job of both? Or even a good job of making the guns "feel" good rather than bullet spongey? Because I kind of have a feeling that I am going to be downloading Borderlands 2 after I get the next tier in Satisfactory.

Maybe EDF? I played a little of EDF 4.1 at a friends house a while ago, and recently saw some videos of EDF 5, and it's making me really want to get into EDF now that I can (but not the new one). Enemy insects can go from bullet spongey to just intantly flying apart into pieces when you get a more powerful gun. The hit reactions, which are an underrated part of making guns feel good in video games, really sell how powerful the guns are, and there's a pretty big variety of goofy/crazy weapons.

I know EDF isn't really thought of as a loot shooter, but I recently came to the realization that it is and can't think of a good reason for it not to count.

I suppose Warframe (when I last played it 3 years ago) also had some decent hit reactions on enemies, but that's only really when they die, so most of the combat feels really floaty and not very impactful.

I think Destiny is closest to doing it right because it's actually fun to play when you play it. I really, really don't like playing Borderlands most of the time. The guns feel so shitty to use that looting them is a punishment.

But yeah I don't think anyone has actually nailed it yet. And it's probably going to be a while longer before it happens.

@brackstone: EDF (at least pre Iron Rain) almost definitely counts. You kill hordes of enemies and get random drops for your health/armor and variants of guns.

I probably should give it another go (I got some EDF with a metric crapton of DLC in a humble monthly). But it has the same problem that a lot of the Musou games have, at least for me. When you kill something they fly. But until you kill them they no-sell everything and barely even flinch. Which I guess is also a problem Borderlands had, now that I think about it.

@gundato: From the gameplay I saw of EDF5, it seems like most enemies flinch to gunfire now, especially with the new bipedal enemies it can interrupt their attacks and such even if you don't kill them.

I’ve grown to despise the loot shooter for its naked treadmill bullshit. I feel like the whole world has gone fucking crazy and taken quality game design with them.

The numbers get bigger!!!

Fuck...

This is like playing games just for achievement points, the entire clicker genre, or the worst of the collectathon genre.

Anyhow, Destiny shoots well. Borderlands is actually a solid game (high highs and low lows). I remember Division shooting well, but the bullet sponge nature of enemies killed any good feeling I got from the shooting itself.

I think making a good loot game is harder than making a good shooting game. I can't think that many games that have walk that "fair and balance" fine line exceptionally well.

The gunplay and movement in Anthem felt good, the rest of the game around it is just a dumpster fire.

Borderlands is probably the best in terms of shooting, those moments where you pick up a shotgun and start working out the math in your head "Hmm, 500 damage x20... let's try this out", enemy turns into mist.

Am i the only one who doesn't like the shooting in Destiny?
There's nothing wrong with it, it's fine, but pretty much all guns within a class function exactly the same and share the same reload animations, i felt like i used the same 3 guns the entire game, so much for the loot aspect. I might be biased because i don't like any of the guns in Halo either, just a Bungie thing i guess, but at least Destiny 2 let you put the crosshair in the middle of the f***ing screen.

I think Destiny has the best Shoota feel in any Loota Shoota, although i prefer The Division 2 ATM cause it's over gameplay loop is more interesting IMO.

I don't know that there's a RIGHT answer to this question, as illustrated by the responses above. There's just too much room for opinion on what "feels right" and what kind of loot is satisfying.

Personally, I'm a fan of Borderlands. I love those games, and I think the loot is fantastic and the shooting is loads of fun.

The Division 2.

There are six or seven types of guns, each with several variants. Each type handles differently of course, but the variants within each type handle differently as well. It has a weapon mod system to further tweak each one. Each weapon type has their own reticle, and the reticle conveys info like accuracy and critical hit range. Every weapon has stats like rounds per minute, reload speed, optimum and critical hit ranges, and damage falloff. Every weapon has talents like improved reload speed, or kills repair armor. Weapons can be recalibrated, so if you find a talent you like you can transfer it between weapons. And there's a pretty great firing range where you can test things like damage per second, accuracy, and range.

The loot comes fast and furious. You're finding better guns and gear all the time, right up to the very end. Once you start approaching the upper limit of gear score it becomes more about finding that perfect drop, or fine tuning what you've already found through recalibration.

The potential downsides: the game is based in reality and uses real guns (not an issue for me personally), and the enemies do get a bit spongy as you advance in world tiers (difficult levels). It's not as bad as it was in The Division 1 in my opinion, but it could still use a bit of a balancing pass.

Borderlands is the answer for me. It has okay, serviceable game play. But when you shoot dudes guns explode out of them, which is what I want from a loot game.

In any other game, either a box falls out of them (Destiny) or components to make a gun (Warframe) or the guns are just boring (Division). Additionally with Destiny because most of the guns are set, or at least when I last played it, once you bought your gun from Xur there was no reason to try and get a better version of it.

Borderlands had some very fun guns and the shooting was pretty decent. Not as good as Destiny's, but definitely what I'd call "okay".

Destiny games are the only one that has truly good gunplay for me. Makes the Borderlands guns feel like cheap plastic toys.

@baconhound: To be fair, I think both of those people said basically the same thing "For what guns there are in Destiny, they feel good". It just becomes a question of if you need more than two guns (I kind of do).

And, to be fair, I think I already knew the answer (no shlooter has good gunplay. Destiny and Borderlands probably come the closest to being shlooters with good guns). But it is interesting to see what other folk look for in their gaming gats. Some people seem to really be all about that optimization and tweaking and don't care. Others just want to watch the world burn and take on hordes (that reminds me, when is the new Serious Sam?). And others still didn't actually read the topic and just complained about modern gaming.

I know folk who love CS and can't stand CoD. And vice versa. I know I personally want to "feel" a big kick when I fire a DMR or Shotgun and that is best handled through damage, hit reactions, and "recoil" animations. And others still enjoy the feeling of going full Rambo 4 with a machine gun.

The shooting in all these games (even Anthem) is okay... good is another matter. I think Destiny comes the closest, it's a shame all the ecounter designs outside of the raids are tedious and repetitive. It seems like thats the problem with most of these games for me, it isnt the spungyness it's the lack of effort put into each fight.

(I've played all of these 'shlooters' with the exception of the Division 2, i've heard that does things better but I also heard the same thing about Destiny 2 and felt deceived.)

Destiny is a lot of fun to actually play. It feels fantastic all around, and that's pretty much the reason why I played the first one for a total of 25 hours or so and the reason why I played the second one for a fair bit more. It's so much fucking to just shoot things in that game that I didn't even mind doing the same missions over and over again, for a time at least. I also think that game looks fantastic. It's too bad that virtually everything else about the game, from UI design to story to characters, are all either flat and boring or downright trash.

But even Destiny pales in comparison to something like Doom 2016. You're just not going to get the damn near perfect gun-feel that games like Doom 2016, Halo, and Half-Life 2 have in loot shooters. Those games only have a handful of guns and enemy types and the designers can focus on making the absolute best versions of those things.

I'd really like to see a single player shooter structured like Dark Souls. No, I'm not talking about its difficulty or online features or obtuseness, but rather its level design and static loot. I think that, in the right hands, that would be a pretty awesome kind of game.

(I also think the guns in Borderlands 2 are some of the worst-feeling guns in any AAA shooter. People complained about Halo's guns looking like Fisher Price toys and going pew-pew too often, but Borderlands 2's guns felt like shooting fucking Nerf darts.)

Division 2 does it the best and it has the best AI(until WT4) in a shooter this gen.