[PC] just bought Boarderlands 2 GOTY on Steam, any tips or suggestions for a new player?

Kreig is fun but I wouldn't play him first. Borderlands is a shooter and it's all about the guns. If you go with a melee character first you are missing out on a ton of the game. Kreig was a DLC for a reason.

I would recommend that you start with either Maya or Salvador. You are least likely to get stuck or get frustrated if you power through with one of those two.

I would recommend that you do the main story only up to level 30 only taking a break somewhere in the middle, perhaps when you have level troubles, to do either Captain Scarlett's DLC or Torgue's DLC. After you finish the game the first time I'd recommend that you then do Hammerlock's DLC before starting over in TVHM. After you start in TVHM you can do basically the same thing but doing the other two DLCs instead. Do Scarlett's or Torgue's during the main story and then Tiny Tina's last, after you've beat the game for the second time.

I recommend this order for a few reasons. Scarlett's DLC and Torgue's DLC scale in such a way that you can start them whenever you are halfway through the main story (whether in NVHM, TVHM or UVHM) so they are good to do in the middle when you want a few levels or a break. Hammerlock's DLC and Tina's DLC are set at the max level for your playthrough, they are meant to be done after you beat the main story. I recommend that specific order, saving Tina's for last, because most people consider it to the best and so it's great to look forward to. Story-wise, it's also best as the very last part of the story that you get.

After that is done you will have a pretty powerful character and be familiar with most of the game. You can then decide if you want to try UVHM, start a new character or go do some of the side missions that you've been ignoring up to now.

Finally, the reason that many people ignore the side missions is that many of them give Unique weapons as rewards but they give them at the level that you do them. If one of those Unique weapons is really great for your build then you generally want it at a level when it is most useful (fighting some huge boss or starting out at the next higher difficulty level). Until you are familiar with side mission rewards, what you should do versus what you should save, it's not bad to just save them all and stay on the main story.

/r/Borderlands2 Thread