#wouldntitbecoolif

A: ...we had some authentic Mexican food this weekend?

C: ...we could drive to the Gulf and catch a boat to Mexico this weekend?

Castellan

Turret focused soldier class. The Action Skill this time can be used to redirect and even channel the ebb and flow of the battlefield. The turret thrown down is more a deployable shield, designed to look like the front of a castle. Battlements can be added, with crenelations for turrets and rocket launchers. The turrets are upgradeable, and more can be added, as well as a series of new functions. Upgrades alter the physical appearance of The Keep (this is not called a turret, this time round). Visually, it initially starts as a single wall with crenelations at the top, slightly higher than the player's waist. The Keep is especially vulnerable to melee attacks

Action Skill name: The Keep

Tree 1:

Final tree skill - Shorty Don't Need No Help

Rejoice, all ye vertically challenged weekend warriors! The Keep now stands tall and mighty, covering you from danger. As an added bonus, your bullets now not only pass through the shield (one way) but they are given a boost in speed, dealing and extra X% damage.

Tree 2:

Final tree skill - BOGOFF, JOFF!

Double up on turrets! Adds two battlements on either side of The Keep with crenelations for machine gun turrets and rocket launchers, one on each side. The main central turret now transforms into a static shocker, disrupting enemy shields, overloading robotic enemies and stunning organics.

Tree 3:

Final tree skill - The Zone of Terror*

Adds a moat (filled with acid) and murder holes, to spew death upon those who stray too close to your murder wall

  Skills tree upgrades include the ability to;

- a drawbridge is added, increasing The Keep's resistance to melee damage

- turrets now fire more shots

- turrets now cause more damage

- missile launchers are now added

- reduce the damage of all incoming ballistic and explosive damage by X% (upgradeable)

- enemies are now unable to walk through The Keep

- The Keep is now taller, and completely covers your character

- The Keep is now wider, and can cover several of your fellow Vault Hunters

Permanent Character increases:

- health

- shield capacity and recharge rate

- melee damage

- reload and weapon swap speed

- gun and grenade damage

- cooldown rate

Individual skill tree skills to come later…

Upgrades can increase the width, height and general appearance of The Keep. The aim is to create an Action Skill that lets you block off certain entry points to either redirect the battle, block up a spawn point (however temporarily) or cover an exit as you beat a hasty retreat. The Castellan is the tank class, due to its immobility.

I don't usually name characters, just classes, but given the focus of this, I think either DonJon (maybe DJ?) or Bailey fits (for those not in the know, Bailey is the inner courtyard of a castle, and Donjon is the central tower).

Tick followed tock followed tick followed tock...

Time. It waits for no man. You can watch it. Waste it. Cherish it. It's finite, at least on an individual level, yet the challenge most games offer in relation to time stretches to...attack. Racing games take the lead here, while shooty-bang-bang-games have competitive modes, or even full titles like The Club, asking you to navigate levels with (largely) scripted actions and memorisable spawn points. And I'm not against this at all, but with most FPS' eschewing time based missions for fear of alienating casual players, it's easy to take things at your own pace, and lose that "oh dear god, we're all dead if the counter runs down" panic.

Coming back to The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Downright Weird, I mentioned about doing something a little different for Borderlands. For those in the know (and if you don't know the brilliant Borderlands series almost intimately, why are you here?) action skills are the limit to any time based activities, with cooldowns your only time-based constraint. But what if the talents you could access were directly tied to a timer that constantly counted down and reset itself? Krieg pushed us to jump into the fray and swing the buzz axe into faces, but plenty of builds managed to ignore this and still play incredibly well, offering satisfying approaches. So...

Presenting: TickTock

Featuring on the bottom corner of your screen, TickTock is a small clock that downs down from 30 to zero, then resets itself. And continues ad nauseam. Kills are registered near to TickTock, and depending on your class, reaching a set number of kills grants you access to a higher level of action skill. This is an ADVANCED character class. There are no newbies here. Presenting two of my favourite characters to utilise this feature...

Necrotic Puppeteer

Kill, kill and kill some more! The NP can instantly turn the tide of battle by unleashing a veritable army.

Upon killing an enemy their death and stats (including weapon, health and shields) are recorded and logged in TickTock. Hitting the action skill reanimates the enemie/s as undead allies. TickTock exists to place a limit on how long you have to reach your Puppet limit, which in turn is dictated by the relevant skill level.

Musings...

The one question with the Puppeteer is, reset. Well, less a question and more a verb. As a question, we have to ask, how long do you keep the puppets? At every reset of TickTock, do you forever lose the kills you made during the last countdown? Or are they stored until the next kill is made, and then the kills made during that count wipe out the previous?

Instinct says it goes a little like this...

Kill five Lvl 1 skags during a 30 second cycle and PLAY them as your action skill (hitting RT) before the reset, logging them as your default (we'll say that the skill which dictates Puppet count is set to five, right now)

These five skags will stay with you until they are destroyed, at which point they are gone forever (could be individually or as a group). For now, we'll say you lost two

Three skags take down two Lvl 3 bandits, and before TickTock resets, you again hit RT to log them. You now have three skags and two bandits

Rinse. Repeat. Rinse again because you're covered in skag blood

There are balancing issues, and the timing is more relaxed than it could be if TickTock wiped all kills at the end of every revolution, forcing you to be in the middle of it all 24/7, but that, potentially, is too much bastardry.

Mathemagician

And you thoughts nerds were just good at science and stuff. Remember, guns don't kill people. Science does...

The Mathemagician collects damage numbers bled by enemies and uses these as his attack, with more damage numbers accumulating and unlocking (albeit temporarily) better Action Skill perks.

As TickTock counts down, all damage numbers are collected and fill the NomNomNomber , a small counter next to TickTock with several levels (think of the church roof fund counters you see in quaint comedies set in the countryside). Enemy damage numbers fill the bar and improve the quality of your Action Skill, eventually resetting after a full TickTock revolution. BUT ENOUGH TALK!

Attack Levels;

Who Turned Out The Lights - a black hole absorbs bullets and explosions in front of you

Sunblock 5000 - enemies spontaneously combust within a certain radius, dealing big fire damage

Your Theory Sucks - a mega black hole sucks in enemies for insta-kills

Split The Atom - a major nuclear explosion, which you can direct

Each attack is represented by a small symbol on the NomNomNomber, and your Action Skill action is your character scribbling equations on a notepad. As you level up, the limits to reach the next attack increase, making it more difficult, but so does the damage, making it infinitely more delicious.

Musings...

The Mathemagician succeeds where others fail thanks to its sheer versatility - even without dealing any damage, thus filling the Nomber gauge, you'll still have a powerful skill at your disposal, and combined with the ability to agro enemies, can be a solid tank, while later skills allow opportunity to deal huge AoE damage. Plus, even being penalised by jumping into games with significantly stronger enemies, you can still deal damage and build the counter.

Does it need a larger or more varied set of Nomber gauge rewards? Are they instantly available or added to the counter later through AP expenditure? It's all to play for...

So far, all of the character ideas and action skills have been very much in the same vein as previous Borderlands instalments. Looking back, and forward thanks to The PreSequel, we've always had characters that were traditional in terms of skills, either forcing us to tank our way through waves of enemies (Salvador and Roland lead the pack here), get up close and personal (Krieg and Brick, bringing the love) or find a happy middle ground (most of the rest.

Even with The PreSequel, we already know the game will stick with the traditional play styles. The Gladiator will be our tank (thanks to that Captain America-esque shield). Wilhelm's future upgrades are likely to focus on causing mass destruction across a wide area (I assume with an auto-aiming laser turret, gatling/rocket hand upgrades, plate body armour and maybe even a new HUD for that boxy robot head look). Claptrap, as a guess, will transform into an immobile turret of death-dealing-awesomeness. And Jack's love interest? That's all to play for. First reaction says a Red Dead style quickdraw and aim facilitator, but that seems too obvious. But my point...

We know what sort of things we're going to get in terms of character archetypes. That's why with the next few, I've gone for something a little...weird.

Phase Fighter

Melee focused Siren. Glows and moves incredibly quickly, with Brick style punches during action skill but done for less damage at an incredible rate. Left trigger is a quick dash, right trigger releases a flurry of punches. Killing enemies can level up the Phase meter with future perks and allow you to stay in it longer, potentially forever. Left trigger dash move can be upgraded to instantly transport you behind whichever enemy you click at. Melee strike (traditional) delivers a kick that can be upgraded to launch enemies across the screen, becoming human cannonballs (small chance of this, most likely a normal kick). Can also unlock a skill that causes all nearby enemies to float. Restores shields and health when first used.

Action Skill name: Phase Jump

Tree 1:

Final tree skill - Blink And You'll Miss Me

Left trigger dash is now replaced with a teleportation skill that brings you behind any enemy in your crosshair [with a small cooldown, lowered by skill points]

Tree 2:

Final tree skill - Overcharge

An aura of energy surrounds you, reflecting a portion of all projectile attacks and blowing back enemies who attempt to melee you

Tree 3:

Final tree skill - Focus

Left trigger now charges your power (but removes your dash), increasing your punch damage exponentially but for only one hit, then returning to normal levels after

I Can Do This All Day - right trigger punch flurry now lasts indefinitely, with a boost to damage

Cannonball! - Melee override, will now launch non boss level enemies like a cannonball, causing damage to any enemy they collide with (15 second cooldown)

Reload the Cannons, You Filthy Dog -2 seconds for melee override cooldown for every level up to a total 5 second cooldown

This Is My Rifle, This Is My Gun...No, It's A Fist - Killing an enemy increases your action skill period

Permanent Character increases:

- health

- shield capacity and recharge rate

- melee damage

- reload and weapon swap speed

- gun and grenade damage

- cooldown rate

Vetruder

Vetruvian Soldier

Action skill produces a hologram either side of your character. For every nth bullet fired there is a n% chance the holograms will fire a real bullet. Master tree skills include adding several more holograms, massively increasing the chance to fire a real bullet or your decoys running at enemies and exploding for massive (elemental) damage when destroyed

Action Skill name: Projection

Tree 1:

Final tree skill - Wanna Be In My Gang?

Double up on decoys, four total

Tree 2:

Final tree skill - Charge Of The Light Brigade

Upon reaching 20% health, decoy/s charge the nearest enemies, each causing a small nuclear explosion when destroyed

Tree 3: 

Final tree skill - Guns. Lots Of Guns.

Decoys now gain a massive increase to their chance to fire a real bullet (+10% increase every decoy bullet fired will be a real bullet)