Borderlands 2 "Making the Gunzerker", Part One
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I was part of the group that created the Gunzerker (and the rest of the characters) from the very beginning of Borderlands 2. We started by asking very high level questions about the different types of gameplay that we wanted to achieve, what cool new things did we want in Borderlands 2 that we couldn't do in the first one, etc. The Gunzerker came about from the very strong desire to have dual wielding in the game. and was one of the most requested features from the community. We wanted to deliver dual wielding to the customer, and once we asked the question of (how do you '˜Borderlands up' dual wielding) (answer: by letting the player dual wield rocket launchers and heavy machine guns) the Gunzerker quickly started to create himself.
My role in the character creation process is to be the (skills/gameplay) guy. I'm the guy who designed and built his skill trees. I've spent a lot of time creating skills that nudge the player down a particular path of gameplay to create the experience we want for the Gunzerker. For example, a lot of what the Gunzerker is about is aggression. Get in there and start shooting. Every first person shooter player knows that having to reload is can get you killed, but for this character I wanted reloading to not break the aggressive gameplay so I added the (Locked and Loaded) skill. If you have (Locked and Loaded) then after reloading your gun you get a Fire Rate bonus for a few seconds, effectively increasing the damage you can dish out. This allows the Gunzerker to change reloading from something that would normally slow him down to something you use to plow through enemies faster.
