Can anyone tell me what are the main differences between Destiny and Borderlands 1/2?
sure
Borderlands survives and thrives on the following:
-A general irreverent and funny-ass tone with some great characters, even if you never interact with them all that much
-An enormous variety of weapons and modifications, procedurally generated so getting something slightly better than your current equip happens (in comparison to Destiny) pretty much constantly. Much more like diablo in the loot-equip-proceed feedback loop. So far as I understand there are millions of possible guns that can be generated and some are ridiculous. Guns can be traded.
-Solid multiplayer (but nothing in the sense of serious/organized PvP) for 4 players and generally fun, non-competitive atmosphere. A dash of fun vehicle traversal/combat sometimes too.
-MMORPG-style hub-and-fetch questing that puts you "out in the world" frequently even if the tasks themselves are rote
-Clean and attractive (if not that technically impressive) edge-shaded art design
Destiny:
-Rather vastly, unquestionably superior shooting, melee and locomotion mechanics
-More tactical multiplayer gameplay; consider how a communicative team can leverage Orbs of Light. There is an organized/matchmade and very active PvP side in the Crucible
-Much smaller set of obtainable inventory, with mod variety on legendaries and none on Exotics; makes the possibility of frequent upgrades a lot smaller, but also creates a "collect-em-all" atmosphere and makes certain individual guns (that you know are "the right one" if it drops for you) extremely desirable
-Instanced loot drops at all times (in Borderlands, if two players want an item that drops it's first-come-first-serve or flip a coin or whatever)
-Raids, a content type that has no counterpart in the BL games
Main difference in my opinion is the population of random people in your instance of the world. Having a public event happen and it's a target and you are struggling to bring it down and all of a sudden the cavalry comes in from over the hill and you all take it down together. One of the best experiences one could have with destiny. In contrast borderlands feels very closed, even though there is coop the game in no way is built around introducing you to players or making you feel like you are part of a larger world.
This is a good point, but I feel like some of the other stuff I didn't mention that destiny gets right (public events/the psuedo-open-world matchmaking, general great art, sound, and music, the classes/subclass ability trees) didn't really set it apart as much as they are nice touches. I love the sensation of coming across a stranger and cooperating on the fly though, there's no doubt about it.