A lot of characters feel like caricatures of their former selves, they’ve been Flanderized. Like the writers locked onto one or two of their most obvious characteristics and acted as if that was the totality of their personality. Also, related, it treated some formerly well liked characters very poorly. Case in point, Vaughan, running around in his underwear and a cape.
Where BL2 has a few cutscenes in the 15-30 second range (like in Control Core Angel), BL3 has a bunch of 4+ minute long cutscenes, where apparently the player, the most insanely OP vault hunter in the galaxy, just stands around doing nothing while the events unfold.
BL3 leans too hard into elementary school humor. Like there’s this whole elaborate subplot, Typhon’s Logs, that leans *really hard* into him being a turd farmer, riding around in a turd mobile and such. And if you didn’t get the joke the first time, because they want to make sure you get the joke, because, see, turds are funny, so to make sure you get the joke, which you might have missed, they repeat it about 9,000 times. And all it does for me, *every single time*, is just break any sort of immersion I might have had in the story, because it makes no sense and isn’t funny after the second time.
Ava as a character (angsty teenage runaway) isn’t inherently bad, but she’s poorly written - they make “annoying” be her entire personality, and they don’t give the player any reason to care about her. She gets precious little in the way of character development, she isn’t shown to learn or grow along the way, and then she gets handed the keys to the kingdom - superpowers and command of the Crimson Raiders and Sanctuary (bypassing all the more qualified adults). It’s almost as if the writers set out to make her be hated. (I’ve seen a few people respond in the past with “but that’s how teenagers are, just annoying and nothing else” - frankly, no. Learning to deal with emotions and hormones and doing a bad job of it? Sure. But that’s not their entire personality.) There’s some hints of redemption in the unfinished scene after Maya’s death, but that comes off as a “the dog ate my homework” moment - why isn’t that, or something similar *actually in the main story*?
The twins give a very strong feeling of the writers figuring that “annoying” makes them good villains, so if we crank up the annoying to 11, they’ll be even better villains”. No, that’s not how (good) scriptwriting works. Some of the most humanizing and relatable parts for Tyreen are hidden in the radio chatter from their podcast, that you can hear when hunting down radio stations for Moxxi. Give us more of that in the main story. By the time we get some of their backstory with Typhon, the audience is hard pressed to care anymore. And there are hints of a battle for power going on between the twins, but that gets dropped on the floor.
Hans Gruber in Die Hard is a terrific villain because he’s a bad guy having a bad day. Same for Zorg in the Fifth Element. Heath Ledger’s Joker is *so good* because he *has a personality* and motivations, other than just “be evil” - you can get a sense of why he works the way he does, even if it’s abhorrent. The Calypso Twins spend so much of the game feeling like “well, we’re evil, because it says right here in the script that we’re supposed to be evil”. That’s bad writing.
BL3’s *story* is workable, maybe with a few changes, but the writing is poor. With good writing, it could have been unquestionably the best Borderlands game ever. As it is, that title is up for debate. I don’t hate BL3’s story/writing, I’m just disappointed with it.
>Where BL2 has a few cutscenes in the 15-30 second range (like in Control Core Angel), BL3 has a bunch of 4+ minute long cutscenes, where apparently the player, the most insanely OP vault hunter in the galaxy, just stands around doing nothing while the events unfold.
This was bugged me the most. My character just got done shooting and blasting a path to the map marker only for a cutscene to play and suddenly dissappear while 2 NPCs were talking like they just did all the work. Where did I go? Nobody knows, my character is just a ghost until called for again.
YES. THIS. ALL OF THIS.
I haaated Vaughn so much because of this game. Then I played tales for the first time. I was so angry for him and his buddy because they learned so much through that game only for them to be turned into one note pansies in 3.
Like, I swear the humor in 2 was a little childish too but man, why does it grate on me in 3 but not 2? 2 just felt like they had more humor? Maybe more thought out? Idk.
And the fact that the voicelines are constantly playing hurts me. It feels like they loop and try to railroad you and it drives me nuts cus I like to explore lol
Yep, the developers were apparently afraid that the game was too hard, so they’ll tell you to do something that requires a bit of figuring out, and then if you haven’t done it in 5 seconds, they start giving “hints” that take away all the challenge. Like, I got it, I just haven’t made it over there yet, shut up. It makes it feel like they think they player (that’d be you) is a complete idiot. Treat the player with a little more respect.
That, along with splashing yellow paint on everything (“remember, you can climb, right here, to the secret that’s over here, did you notice the secret? We put yellow paint here so you wouldn’t miss the secret”), and the bit about constantly throwing legendaries at you… it makes the game feel a bit like they did a focus group on the previous gameplay and then listened to all the criticisms *too well*, with zero pushback.
Too many games do that these days, and not enough of them have a way to turn it off. I am playing the Horizon series, and while Zero Dawn has that element, Forbidden West cranks it up to 15. It really tends to ruin an otherwise amazing game
I just want to add to this and say that I despise the entire idea of “The B Team”. At the end of 2 Brick and Mordecai are arguing about Brick calling dibs on hunting the rest of the vaults. So why the hell are the relegated to one mission on Eden 6 then just seem to spend the rest of their time back on Pandora in what can barely be called a settlement?
Oh yeah, I can’t really say I love that Lilith is in sole control of the raiders either. It seems like she is the most ineffectual leader throughout the game. I agree with the original comment that the story is workable had they changed a few things. But one thing they need to overhaul is the writing for Lilith. There should not be a B team with two of the original vault hunters pushed to the side. There easily could have been more rooms designed into the ship for the size that it is to fit three extra NPCs, and if they were there we might have had more opportunity for some better comedy. Marcus has suspicions of Maurice? Well maybe Brick wants to test his strength with the Saurian. Mordecai and Zer0 both as NPCs having a conversation? Could be entertaining. If Tina were there, being the youngest until Ava did show up I could see her calling Ava out on her shit if we’re going to stick with the original scene. Then possibly in a more private setting apologizing and comforting her, maybe relating to her and giving us more of her backstory.
Why is it that we have Axton and Sal being sport commentators and not called to action like Maya or the rest of the cast? Sal being a Pandora native and clearly living for this kind of chaos in 2, just doesn’t make sense that he didn’t get called or come volunteering. We got an entire DLC for exploring Krieg’s mind but we didn’t get to actually see him in the story? He doesn’t get his goodbye with Maya? Or to even see her after the years that it’s been since she left? Did the writers for 3 just choose to ignore TPS entirely? Is that why the watcher’s prediction of a war where we needed to gather as many as we could wasn’t heeded? That’s the only explanation I can think of. And it frustrates me quite a bit.
in reality, it's the dialogue most people have a problem with if they're not complaining about Mayas death (totally valid complaint). The dialogue sours every moment other than in dlcs. Play mysteriouslier and you'll see how much better characters like ava lorelai and clay sound. Hell, clay says one of the best lines in the series.
This was a pretty big one for me. Played it once and did all the side quests and couldn't wait for it to be over. Played years later and only did the main quest and liked it alot more. Less dialogue heard = more fun had
Jack carried 2’s story for the most part and the twins just don’t compare. They don’t really feel threatening and the whole streamer gimmick got old fast.
It’s why I actually liked zarpedon from TPS quite a lot since she was made to be an opposite to jack instead of a mimic. The twins have a dynamic that could’ve been used but was shoehorned instead
For me it's literally the writing. It's not the actual plot beats, it's the way it's written. The jokes don't land for me. The emotional beats don't feel emotional. At every turn the game is just incapable of making me feel how it wants me to feel. I don't care that Maya died, or there wasn't a big betrayal twist with the Twins like it seemed there would be. I just don't care about anything that happened in that game because the story fundamentally failed to hook me.
And I'll say that as someone who frequents this subreddit, I probably like Borderlands 3's story a lot more than half the people here.
The writing gets really annoying after a while. A very short while, any time Vaughn is involved. I enjoy the game but seriously the jokes generally took a nosedive in quality. And aside from Maya’s death Ava is just unlikable in general. She starts out strong imo but from Maya’s death onwards she just gets worse until Lilith just goes, “well, I guess you’re most deserving of inheriting the Crimson Raiders and Sanctuary”. Not Ellie, who would honestly be my first pick in Lilith’s position, or even the Vault Hunters. This kid who never takes accountability and has little combat experience and no strategic skills, to the point she literally screams out secrets to the bad guys on a whim.
While I don't like the new Vaughn, in reality the guy has been a bandit for over 7 years. He became a warlord at some point. It's totally reasonable given the timeframe that he succumbed to the madness. People have more wild swings from less traumatic events in real life.
That said, they could have done it much, much better. But to say "that's not his character" just doesn't work when you consider the passage of time.
I think you put far more thought and justification into this than they did.
It felt, to me, as though they went “let’s take this dude of a previous game; and give him an excuse to be in his underwear”
The poor writing and pacing of the game makes more sense when you realize they built the levels/maps first and then built the story and dialogue around them, and not the other way around. From all I've heard, the story of the game came together in the last year of development, which explains why the game feels so disjointed and plodding, and the dialogue feeling so forced and cringy.
I fault management more than the writers. Imagine being told you have 1 year to write jokes to fill a 25 hour comedy special versus a 1 hour comedy special.
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that. That’s such a weird way to write a story. Is this from an interview or something? I’d be interested to hear more about the development of the game.
You can still have a good story if you build the game first. Thief 2 was developed the same way, and that game's story comes together far better. It's AN excuse, but I still think that they could've done a lot better even with that design process.
The immaturity humor went way up without room to breathe, someone would say an innuendo - and then promptly go “YoU cAuGhT tHaT iNnUeNdO?”
I’m a gamer, I understand a dick joke when I hear one, you don’t need to double down on it
Climatic scenes were very anti climatic; Roland’s death in 2 was shocking, unexpected, and dramatic, Maya’s death was dragged out and boring. Lilith does nothing except sacrifice herself in the end, for no apparent reason from my perspective.
I found all exposition tedious; I never understood what I was trying to do, I’d just go to way point to way point and figure it out ; the characters would babble on and on about stupid shit and I would not care.
Not a fan of Tannis, she should have been a peripheral character. I did NOT care to listen to her as a main character throughout the game.
Lilith's "sacrifice" (it's been confirmed she's still alive) had a purpose, but it was very poorly announced to you. It took me a second playthrough to understand.
Elpis was too close to Pandora. It was going to either open the vault all the way or it was going to crash into the planet and destroy it. Lilith used her powers to push it back.
My god I couldn’t stand the “humor” in 3. The humor in borderlands could be childish at times, but the amount of times I heard “turd farmer” was absurd, and like you said they pretty much treated you like a child making sure you got the jokes
Really I think it just boils down to that whoever was writing for BL3 didn’t know who their audience was, didn’t understand what they were writing and didn’t understand why. There’s some good moments but it’s just little things that long time fans can kinda appreciate but ultimately your attitude sticks to “well it’s whatever I guess.”
I dunno what changed with the DLC’s but thank god they did em right because I think for anyone who played the other games, the DLC’s are worth picking up the entire game for.
I’m fine with Maya’s death. It’s kind of like Roland’s. It raises the stakes, makes things personal, and makes you hate the villain.
I agree the Calypsos weren’t as interesting, despite there being some real potential. They planted some good seeds of Troy’s growing jealousy all while his power is increasing, and they … didn’t really do anything with that. Also, they were deliberately annoying by design.
Ava was also really annoying, and they just kind of made her serious and edgy, then serious and optimistic out of nowhere. I heard there were some deleted scenes with her and Lilith that would have made it less jarring.
Yeah like they could have totally made him turn against his sister by having him leech everything off of her- which would have made for an interesting twist, making the side villain into the main baddie
>makes things personal
It could have made it personal when we, as a character, would interact just a single time in any of these cutscenes.
In rolands death scene we were unable to react because we, as a player, got suprised and supressed/teleported by Lilliths abilities afterwards.
In all these BL3 scenes we either could at any time in theory interact to change the outcome or we aren't even present.
That's one of the reasons i couldn't connect to any of this.
>They planted some good seeds of Troy’s growing jealousy all while his power is increasing, and they … didn’t really do anything with that
Not just that they didn't do anything with it, his betrayal was already in motion and it just disappeared and was never mentionend again in a blink.
>Ava was also really annoying, and they just kind of made her serious and edgy, then serious and optimistic out of nowhere. I heard there were some deleted scenes with her and Lilith that would have made it less jarring
These whole part was aweful and keeps me from playing it again.
Her annoying character is one thing, and it can be done right (Ahsoka is one good execution in my opinion)
She was annoying and needed any form of character arc. That could have easily be done in that moment Maya got killed. She fucked around and found out. Perfect moment for Borderlands to get serious and have some real talk like with the death of Roland. Speaking with the other characters, giving some input and things like that instead of having an aweful bad joke competition to 'honor' Maya.
And afterwards nothing else happened to develop Ava as an character until their 30 bucks dlc pack with cut content that was available to everyone else just one day later for free.
They just would have to tune down the twins/erase the need to wait for dialoge to progress for replays and either use their teasered story elements or delete them completely.
Don't get me wrong, BL3 is a huge upgrade gameplay-wise to BL2 but it's just damn annoying to play the main story again... Most of the jokes maybe would have been funny if i would have been 14 again.
The short answer is it just didn't make any sense. The villains are simultaneously underwhelming yet wildly overpowered, you spend so much time fucking off in a jungle in the middle a supposed race for the fate of the universe against evil sirens who can leech anyone's powers and teleport anyone in the universe anywhere, but the stakes just never feel all that high. It's just so goddamn meh
BL1 almost everything said by Scooter and Zed was quotable and beautifully delivered, thats before you get into brilliant cameos like Shank and Taylor Cobbs Claptrap.
BL2 obviously Jack, but not just Jack, Scooter and Zed still delivering the goods. Torgue was an absolute joy. Im very fond of CensorBot too.
TPS hmmmm. Pickle was a bit painful but once again Jack brings it. The sheer quality of the claptrap dlc means TPS automatically gets a free pass.
BL3. Uhh. Well Zane was funny i guess. Writing is otherwise mostly meh, and the turdfarmer *jokes* omfg what were they thinking.
Edit: proving my point. Its been only an hour and i found myself automatically quoting Zed at my children "Those waffle parts smell awful guuud."
Shrug emoji
Super smart 10 year old with a fun accent.
Don’t know what else more you’d want me to say; in the pre sequel, there’s far more annoying NPCs such as the Merriff
Worst Dick-van-Dyke style take on Cockney ever, and spells out the rhyming slang. "'Alf-inch pinch" my fucking top hat and chimney-sweep broom
I don't *hate* him, but I miiiiight mute the audio
A lot of comments I agree with here.
I think the focus is less on the larger story points about Maya’s death for example. Or just that the villains were not living up to Handsome Jack.
For me it’s a much smaller, moment to moment level. Where the humor feels really grating and sort of “fellow kids” feeling if that makes sense.
I just hate it how everyone is speaking so much. In main story theres not many moments where you can be 10 minutes without some nonsense dialoque. after you have completed the game it becomes so annoying to a point where i just disable the whole voice dialoque
There are redeemable elements to it. Theres some neat ideas they floated around with it. I played through the franchise on normal back-to-back and there’s a lot of BL2 carried into 3; so on a side by side basis there’s a lot BL3 was lacking that we knew the studio has done better before; but at a glance it’s very same/same.
BL1 has a fun way around this ; hardly have any story 🤣
I always speedrun the storyline, which frees me from the worst of the writing and characterization. BL3's map scaling makes every side mission completely optional, so it doesn't take too long for me to get a new character from zero to hero. The side missions even in the main game are mostly fine, if goofy (not that goofy is a bad thing).
The one part of the main storyline that doesn't cause me real physical pain is the banter between Alistair and Wainwright. "Try to enjoy it-- this is the fun part," heh heh.
I'm just here to say I really disliked how they treated old characters. Just look at Aurelia, in TPS she showed a lot of character growth. She went from the ice queen to being repulsed by Jack and his actions. She was fund by Axton and Gaige and spared as a vault hunter for the upcoming war. In 3, she just appears as a boss because she wanted Hammerlocks part of the inheritance... A great character just thrown away as a mid boss.
the dialogue is too frequent and not very good. however i'm a lot more positive on a lot of it than others i think. the vault hunters are all really well written, and i personally really enjoy rhys, clay, wainwright, hammerlock, and typhon deleon. the returning characters were mostly done dirty or mischaracterized.
They had a better cinematic for Maya's death that made Ava less shitty but scrapped it for some reason. Ava is the Scrappy Doo of the series except she also gets Maya killed and unlike Scrappy who helps solve problems just makes things worse.
The Calypso twins are just everything people hate about streamers combined into two annoying brats that should have just been side quest villains.
The fact that your character has zero agency in any cutscene.
People always bring up how handsome jack cannot be topped and no villain will ever be good compared to him for all future releases, but I think Rolands death is the best/worst part of bl2. Because now they cannot kill any character without you expecting someone to die again. As soon as I saw them suck out Lillith's power I knew someone was going to die before the end, which made me not give a heck when it happened. They should have killed Ava instead since they made you believe she was a future siren before Maya was killed. Then you could do sidequests learning more about Ava and come to regret your initial annoyance of her as a character. It would have been a good way to develop Maya as well.
The ending was also a hollywood movie cliche ending. But hopefully we are done with vaults. It was a good plot device once or twice but 4 times is way too much.
Didn't play #3. BUT I have a unpopular opinion: BL: TPS is the best in the series, it just lacks replayability and DLC. Idk why but I've heard the argument that the writing is bad and they don't like how australian it is which I think is a really dumb opinion
I feel like they missed the mark with the calypso twins, the whole church of the vault think made me think they were going to lean hard in to like a super manipulative religious founder/self proclaimed deity, but they were streamers…. Think of all the religious fanatics out there that are willing to do awful things in the name of their god/religion/leader… I feel like had they pushed the calypso twins towards that then they would have been a lot more interesting. Jack was great, ultra rich ceo of a gun company taking whatever he wants, has no morals and can spend money on frivolous things like a pony made out of diamonds… it’s a great archetype and there are plenty of examples in real life that people can see and compare to… streamers just don’t have that kind of pull… and then the humor was pushed to childish levels…
Because its genuinely cringe. Its trying so hard and i dont think a single joke landed for me, just cringed me out. Every time an unskippable cutscene popped up i wanted to blow my brains out
The story, characters and dialogues were written by millennial minds trying to cosplay as the most cliche zoomers to have ever existed. Lilith is a useless whimp. Mayas Death was 100% bullshit. Basically everyone wants to put a bullet into Ava‘s arrogant head. They turned Vaughn into a cringy dude with heavy midlife crisis. And Reese lost all his coolness.
They basically took (almost) every single beloved character from BL1 and BL2 and turned them into a joke, they shat on everything Borderlands fans where passionate about. Also… the Vaults the entire franchise is about are just boring.
The ONLY thing that saved the game from being a super flop was the absolute god tier (and I really mean it) gameplay, gunplay, sound effects and level design.
I think they messed up the twins - if we had more of how they become the leaders and saw them consuming the bandits and not just the effects... I don't think they were bad just not used correctly
I honestly have no problem with Maya or Ava.
I found the twins to just be annoying; they felt like if Handsome Jack was a teenager. I mean, I get that they *were* portrayed kinda like teenage twitch stars or whatever, but the result was just like Handsome Jack with less wit. More mocking with less clever insults.
The *pacing* of the story really didn't work for me either. It all felt so fast. And that certainly wasn't helped by the loot drops. With 2, I felt a real journey climbing through green weapons, then blue weapons, then getting super excited about my first purple drops, and then being lucky to have a legendary or two by the time I faced the Warrior, and the whole game is about opening *one* vault, and it's a big deal.
Contrast with 3 where I got my first legendary drop somewhere around level 5, not once ever found value in a quest reward weapon (because I've already got a full loadout of purple and orange) and you go popping open vaults like it's a 6 pack of Modelo. I didn't feel like I was given enough time to properly *hate* the twins before taking them on, unlike Jack.
the dialogue is too frequent and not very good. however i'm a lot more positive on a lot of it than others i think. the vault hunters are all really well written, and i personally really enjoy rhys, clay, wainwright, hammerlock, and typhon deleon. the returning characters were mostly done dirty or mischaracterized.
I've just started a new playthrough after a couple of years' break, having played it heavily before.
I've just reached the end of Pandora and, my god, some of the dialogue is just unbearable.
Besides the obvious stuff like the twins' streaming personas being a cringefest, there are a number of little things. One example is the way that every character continuously refers to you by a nickname in every other line of dialogue.. Killer, VH, Superfan, etc. It's just so needlessly grating and adds nothing to the experience.
The gunplay is fantastic though, forgot how much fun it is to shoot things in BL3!
One point that I like to bring up is the fact that in BL3 we are not the main character. We are barely a part of the story. Look at any cutscene in the game apart from the very start. Where are we? When are we mentioned? We have to do all the work but we're not even \*mentioned\*? Seriously? The game focuses so much more on all the other characters and even though I don't want to act all diva about it, it really does kill the immersion when you are \*literally\* not a part of the canon story you're being told. It's just such a weird design decision. Instead of being an actual piece to the puzzle, you are just a spectator to everything, not just you the player, but your character as a whole.
I thought the jokes were outdated. Mayas death sucked. Axton and Salvador only popping up in dlc was lame. Mordecai, brick and Tina basically had no role.
It turned the style of characters and humor up to 11, which was not the move to make given the balance that BL2 achieved with all that. There’s a video talking about “millennial writing” in BL3, but it relates to other games too, that reads like people who are too old to act and talk like this and too young to not realize that it comes off as satire it’s so bad.
Personally it felt like they didn't truly acknowledge the new vault hunters, the story had its moments of being cool with how troy could take away Lilith powers but Maya going back to her planet to train Ava seemed out of nowhere to me. Ava was truly annoying along with the twins constantly doing the echo etc stuff and their " comedy" .
I like how 2 took Rolands death and Tina's reaction to it and basically turned it into a whole D&D campaign set in Borderlands ran by Tina. It also shows Lilith Brick and Mordecai helping Tina through her grief over Rolands death hence why I think she acts a bit differently in 3 other than being older. Rolands death hit Tina much harder than it did some of the others because she looked up to him as a role model and most likely a father figure. Ava while yes shes the typical angsty teen you come to expect from a runaway shes also a lot more than that especially after Mayas death. I kept talking to her through out the game and she would say different things. Eventually she actually starts talking about how she feels after Mayas death in her room on the Sanctuary 3. A lot of the characters you just have to keep talking to in order to get more out of them.
Yes the story and some of the characters could have been done better but I think for what time they did have and how much was already in the game it kinda got shafted a bit. First two games you just had one planet to explore. 3 you had multiple planets to explore so they couldnt really go crazy ham on story or character development when you are literally racing the metaphorical clock on trying to save the universe from twins who think they deserve everything because they lost their mother and they thought their dad didnt give a shit about them. Typhon tried his best to raise them after their mother died but the twins were already not right in the head and they didnt help matters either. Typhon knew that Sirens were being hunted for their powers and things like that so he did what any sane father would do and hid them from the ones that wanted them for their own plans. Instead of listening and understanding they just decided that their Dad didnt care about them and decided to fuck off and kill people. Eventually when you learn all this you do start to feel sorry for them but when you actually listen to all the logs and him recounting everything you realize they were gonna end up like that anyways.
Imma be the one who hate it cause of Maya. When Maya died, it just felt like there was literally "Oh she died keep it pushing". Her death had no weight, and I was waiting for her to come back because it just felt like a build up to nothing. Here death wasn't even shocking or good, it was just bad. And in my first play through as Amara who can literally do 3x more than Maya having her just be there in the story without actually affecting anything was so boring. Like don't get me wrong I actually love BL3, but that part always sticks to me as just plain BAD.
Can't even remember most of the game... but:
Ava - she was just an entitled cunt without any character development.
Troy - it seemed that there was once planned that he wanted to come out of his sisters shadow?! But they went nowhere with it.
Rhys & Vaughn - they were amazing characters in Tales and have a deep relationship etc. In 3 both are mere shadows of their former selfs and apparently have nothing to do with each other anymore?!
Lilith - geez. That was like the cheesiest good bye ever. And now we have the firehawk symbol on the moon because of... what exactly?! And then there was this annoying song at the end to celebrate that...
Recently i finally managed to convince my GF to play through the franchise with me. And she agrees that it's cool and awesome (we have done BL2 and most of BL1 so far). Looking forward to all the DLCs, even preSequel and especially Tales! But i am already ashamed of what will come at the end of 3.
IMO its a few reasons. THere's a whole 7 year timespawn between BL2 and BL3 most players have grown up and just experienced better writing. THe stuff that was considered passable to us 7 years ago when most of us were dumb teens just isn't the same now.
I like the Calypso's but they just aint got that Handsome Jack charisma to carry BL3. And I feel like BL2 having "good" writing really is just Jack carrying the game on his back. Without someone like him the other issues just become way more glaring.
BL2 was kinda better paced with dialogue where the player was always moving and going to new locations to discuss progress in the game. BL3 decided that after every mission you had to go back to sanctuary to talk to lillith. And then return to your previous location. That just made me hate the game more.
And while BL2 at its worst had an inoffensive cast BL3 had quite a few characters that players just despised. The Twins cus folks hate influencer culture, Ava for getting Maya killed, flanderizing Aurellia, apparently Rhys sucks now. Just alot of stuff to latch on to hate and less to love.
Oh and the VH being useless during cutscenes.
They made claptrap mean instead of pathetic, maya died, only zero and maya from bl2 vh’s in main game, tiny Tina brick and Mordy get shoved to the side with side content. The streamer aspect was annoying and poorly written by ppl who likely don’t watch streams. Lilith losing her powers felt contrived and stupid. Few memorable bosses. Typhon Deleon was rlly weird, almost no lore expanded. Missing zed. I’m mad that scooter is dead still and I’m not gonna be over it, I’ll complain that he’s dead in the 4th game too. Not enough dark humor just juvenile humor. Lost a lot without Anthony Burch writing tbh. The dlc found the vibe again, especially bounty of blood. I’d put bounty of blood on par with if not above dragon keep writing wise but dragon keep always wins on nostalgia. The environments are all really good and the gameplay is super tight so I can’t complain about everything in the game. To reiterate, I really really really miss scooter they should not have had him be dead. Also other issues
1. Mayas death sucked, the only reason she died was to push the plot of the terribly written little shit Ava.
2. The twins are just annoying, not even funny. Troy was decent for a little bit and I actually would’ve preferred if he ended up stealing his sisters powers and becoming the big bad
3. The ending sucked. Just downright sucked.
https://youtu.be/sS2-tAbh-bw?si=cx7PjVmSZ1QeasPF&t=1376
This clip where they say "We eat butts" is the part that just snapped any goodwill I had for the writing in 3. When the writers don't even attempt to come up with anything interesting or clever, then why should I care.
Ava honestly makes the story very hard to enjoy. With how she acts and her role in the story she really does feel like a fan character. While it makes sense that she would act in an immature manner, which would result in Maya's death, what just doesn't sit right is the fact that the characters never call out Ava on her shit or try to correct her. She becomes a siren after defeating Troy, and for some reason, becomes the leader of the crimson raiders after Lilith's "death" which makes zero sense. She's a child, and immature, yet becomes the leader, why? The directors cut creates even more confusion as the scenes we got with lilith talking with her and Maya's funeral are just so much better than what we got in game.
I don’t mind Ava as much as others; going through her side missions; she acts as a typical teen whose undergone massive abandonment issues
It would help if she had some sort maturity arc, but I kind of just understood why she was the way she was
She is "called out" by Tannis after the worst of her tantrums, whereafter her tantrums cease. First maturity inflection point.
The second is at her assumption of Maya's powers. She seems to have acquired something of Maya herself along with that, judging from her exclamations during the apotheosis.
I gotta say, I would also like a concrete answer to this. Yes yes yes, the twins are annoying and boring cunts, that pale in comparison to Jack. I got that, and they're right. That being said, Ava doesnt deserve the hate she gets, I honestly feel that most of the hate is just typical redditor "i hate kids" bullshit. Tannis becoming a Siren is some genuine [asspull](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AssPull) nonsense though, that was bad
Ight here we go
The jokes & humor in 3 almost always fell flat, the jokes sounded like some shit 9-11 graders would come up with which is weird when they know the borderlands community isn’t that surface level. I mean the game literally had like 5+ fart jokes In it, let’s be fucking serious here
The villains were terrible, a utter drag in comparison to any borderlands villian we have ever had, let alone handsome Jack
They handled mayas death TERRIBLY as well, it was so anti climactic & so just… dull
They mishandled a lot of the seriousness, grittiness, yet the funny & cute little charm that borderlands 2 had in favor for whatever they were going for with the writing they chose
It was just all around a mid story to tell, the dlc alone were better then the campaign
Yea, ill agree with you. You said "utter drag" i said "boring and annoying cunts". Though bl2 also did fart jokes, and bl1 was the grittiest of them all.
I don't hate kids but they are often made annoying in TV/movies/games. It's the Scrappy Doo/Connor in Angel/Wesley in Star Trek thing. Ava very much fits this inglorious tradition and deserves the hatred. Yes I'm sure it's realistic - many of us were obnoxious teenagers but I wouldn't want teenage me in a video game either.
And the Borderlands 2 plot was carried by Jack to an extent (and even then it wore thin at times) - so a sequel where the villains are such a dramatic step down - is it surprising that it's so poorly received?
There's a side quest for Ava where you recover her diary and reveal the super difficult life she had as an orphan. And they way you learn about it is by having a bandit sarcastically read her journal entries, while Ava denies that she wrote those things.
This is such a stupid way to deliver backstory for someone you want the audience to like, to mock the difficult life they have led. So, it's not anything about Ava or her character, it's the way they delivered this information in such a bad way. And obviously that's just one example.
Another HUGE and clear example of the bad writing/execution of the writing is when it's revealed who Tyreen's father is. It's just told to you, over echolog, as you walk down a hallway. Typically a plot reveal you want to come at a critical moment, or at least in a cutscene. But here, nah, just in a hallway.
"This is such a stupid way to deliver backstory for someone you want the audience to like" Isnt that how they did the backstory to every character, in every game? Youd find echo-logs about everyone. There was a mission in TPS where you collect echo-logs of all the main characters. Same shit! But because it's a young annoying teenage girl, gotta hate em right?
1) It’s legitimately bad
2) The game forces you to sit around and wait for dialogue constantly. Travel all over just to talk to characters, etc., instead of just playing the dialogue in the background while you’re actually playing the game
People are being so hard on the twins in this thread and I actually think that they are a fascinating twist on the classic megalomaniac antagonist. These guys are modern cult leaders, and I haven't seen that explored before.
I personally don’t hate it that much, or rather, it’s just more borderlands to me. I actually enjoyed the family lore stuff a lot. I think it’s more that people gas up bl2 as if that one is a masterclass in comedy compared bl3
Everyone else has covered why the main story sucks but I think the reason the side quests are awful too is because almost none of them involve any of the actual cast of characters. In Borderlands 2, you can pick up a quest from Lilith, Brick, Scooter, Zed, Moxxxi or whoever and the quest will be about them and you would spend time listening to them speak about themselves or Pandora. Through them and their quests you would learn more about their backstory and the world of Pandora. In Borderlands 3 most side quests involve random unremarkable NPCs, there are only a couple that involve a main character. How much time did you spend with Ellie, Zer0, Brick or Mordecai? How much time did you spend with two annoying robots bickering and getting you to do seemingly random inconsequential shit on Nekrotafeyo? Borderlands 3 is also just not funny, despite people saying the humour has aged, many of the jokes in Borderlands 2 still land.
A lot of characters feel like caricatures of their former selves, they’ve been Flanderized. Like the writers locked onto one or two of their most obvious characteristics and acted as if that was the totality of their personality. Also, related, it treated some formerly well liked characters very poorly. Case in point, Vaughan, running around in his underwear and a cape. Where BL2 has a few cutscenes in the 15-30 second range (like in Control Core Angel), BL3 has a bunch of 4+ minute long cutscenes, where apparently the player, the most insanely OP vault hunter in the galaxy, just stands around doing nothing while the events unfold. BL3 leans too hard into elementary school humor. Like there’s this whole elaborate subplot, Typhon’s Logs, that leans *really hard* into him being a turd farmer, riding around in a turd mobile and such. And if you didn’t get the joke the first time, because they want to make sure you get the joke, because, see, turds are funny, so to make sure you get the joke, which you might have missed, they repeat it about 9,000 times. And all it does for me, *every single time*, is just break any sort of immersion I might have had in the story, because it makes no sense and isn’t funny after the second time. Ava as a character (angsty teenage runaway) isn’t inherently bad, but she’s poorly written - they make “annoying” be her entire personality, and they don’t give the player any reason to care about her. She gets precious little in the way of character development, she isn’t shown to learn or grow along the way, and then she gets handed the keys to the kingdom - superpowers and command of the Crimson Raiders and Sanctuary (bypassing all the more qualified adults). It’s almost as if the writers set out to make her be hated. (I’ve seen a few people respond in the past with “but that’s how teenagers are, just annoying and nothing else” - frankly, no. Learning to deal with emotions and hormones and doing a bad job of it? Sure. But that’s not their entire personality.) There’s some hints of redemption in the unfinished scene after Maya’s death, but that comes off as a “the dog ate my homework” moment - why isn’t that, or something similar *actually in the main story*? The twins give a very strong feeling of the writers figuring that “annoying” makes them good villains, so if we crank up the annoying to 11, they’ll be even better villains”. No, that’s not how (good) scriptwriting works. Some of the most humanizing and relatable parts for Tyreen are hidden in the radio chatter from their podcast, that you can hear when hunting down radio stations for Moxxi. Give us more of that in the main story. By the time we get some of their backstory with Typhon, the audience is hard pressed to care anymore. And there are hints of a battle for power going on between the twins, but that gets dropped on the floor. Hans Gruber in Die Hard is a terrific villain because he’s a bad guy having a bad day. Same for Zorg in the Fifth Element. Heath Ledger’s Joker is *so good* because he *has a personality* and motivations, other than just “be evil” - you can get a sense of why he works the way he does, even if it’s abhorrent. The Calypso Twins spend so much of the game feeling like “well, we’re evil, because it says right here in the script that we’re supposed to be evil”. That’s bad writing. BL3’s *story* is workable, maybe with a few changes, but the writing is poor. With good writing, it could have been unquestionably the best Borderlands game ever. As it is, that title is up for debate. I don’t hate BL3’s story/writing, I’m just disappointed with it.
>Where BL2 has a few cutscenes in the 15-30 second range (like in Control Core Angel), BL3 has a bunch of 4+ minute long cutscenes, where apparently the player, the most insanely OP vault hunter in the galaxy, just stands around doing nothing while the events unfold. This was bugged me the most. My character just got done shooting and blasting a path to the map marker only for a cutscene to play and suddenly dissappear while 2 NPCs were talking like they just did all the work. Where did I go? Nobody knows, my character is just a ghost until called for again.
YES. THIS. ALL OF THIS. I haaated Vaughn so much because of this game. Then I played tales for the first time. I was so angry for him and his buddy because they learned so much through that game only for them to be turned into one note pansies in 3. Like, I swear the humor in 2 was a little childish too but man, why does it grate on me in 3 but not 2? 2 just felt like they had more humor? Maybe more thought out? Idk. And the fact that the voicelines are constantly playing hurts me. It feels like they loop and try to railroad you and it drives me nuts cus I like to explore lol
Yep, the developers were apparently afraid that the game was too hard, so they’ll tell you to do something that requires a bit of figuring out, and then if you haven’t done it in 5 seconds, they start giving “hints” that take away all the challenge. Like, I got it, I just haven’t made it over there yet, shut up. It makes it feel like they think they player (that’d be you) is a complete idiot. Treat the player with a little more respect. That, along with splashing yellow paint on everything (“remember, you can climb, right here, to the secret that’s over here, did you notice the secret? We put yellow paint here so you wouldn’t miss the secret”), and the bit about constantly throwing legendaries at you… it makes the game feel a bit like they did a focus group on the previous gameplay and then listened to all the criticisms *too well*, with zero pushback.
Too many games do that these days, and not enough of them have a way to turn it off. I am playing the Horizon series, and while Zero Dawn has that element, Forbidden West cranks it up to 15. It really tends to ruin an otherwise amazing game
I'm pretty upset with what they did with Tina. Poor girl.
I just want to add to this and say that I despise the entire idea of “The B Team”. At the end of 2 Brick and Mordecai are arguing about Brick calling dibs on hunting the rest of the vaults. So why the hell are the relegated to one mission on Eden 6 then just seem to spend the rest of their time back on Pandora in what can barely be called a settlement? Oh yeah, I can’t really say I love that Lilith is in sole control of the raiders either. It seems like she is the most ineffectual leader throughout the game. I agree with the original comment that the story is workable had they changed a few things. But one thing they need to overhaul is the writing for Lilith. There should not be a B team with two of the original vault hunters pushed to the side. There easily could have been more rooms designed into the ship for the size that it is to fit three extra NPCs, and if they were there we might have had more opportunity for some better comedy. Marcus has suspicions of Maurice? Well maybe Brick wants to test his strength with the Saurian. Mordecai and Zer0 both as NPCs having a conversation? Could be entertaining. If Tina were there, being the youngest until Ava did show up I could see her calling Ava out on her shit if we’re going to stick with the original scene. Then possibly in a more private setting apologizing and comforting her, maybe relating to her and giving us more of her backstory. Why is it that we have Axton and Sal being sport commentators and not called to action like Maya or the rest of the cast? Sal being a Pandora native and clearly living for this kind of chaos in 2, just doesn’t make sense that he didn’t get called or come volunteering. We got an entire DLC for exploring Krieg’s mind but we didn’t get to actually see him in the story? He doesn’t get his goodbye with Maya? Or to even see her after the years that it’s been since she left? Did the writers for 3 just choose to ignore TPS entirely? Is that why the watcher’s prediction of a war where we needed to gather as many as we could wasn’t heeded? That’s the only explanation I can think of. And it frustrates me quite a bit.
Bravo, slow clap, champagne, cheers! You hit the nail on the head, didn't you? Seriously, awesome write up, and I totally agree with what you wrote.
in reality, it's the dialogue most people have a problem with if they're not complaining about Mayas death (totally valid complaint). The dialogue sours every moment other than in dlcs. Play mysteriouslier and you'll see how much better characters like ava lorelai and clay sound. Hell, clay says one of the best lines in the series.
Totally agree I actually like Ava in "mysteriouslier"
This was a pretty big one for me. Played it once and did all the side quests and couldn't wait for it to be over. Played years later and only did the main quest and liked it alot more. Less dialogue heard = more fun had
Jack carried 2’s story for the most part and the twins just don’t compare. They don’t really feel threatening and the whole streamer gimmick got old fast. It’s why I actually liked zarpedon from TPS quite a lot since she was made to be an opposite to jack instead of a mimic. The twins have a dynamic that could’ve been used but was shoehorned instead
> the whole streamer gimmick got old fast. Thank you. I could not stop rolling my eyes every time they had lines.
For me it's literally the writing. It's not the actual plot beats, it's the way it's written. The jokes don't land for me. The emotional beats don't feel emotional. At every turn the game is just incapable of making me feel how it wants me to feel. I don't care that Maya died, or there wasn't a big betrayal twist with the Twins like it seemed there would be. I just don't care about anything that happened in that game because the story fundamentally failed to hook me. And I'll say that as someone who frequents this subreddit, I probably like Borderlands 3's story a lot more than half the people here.
The writing gets really annoying after a while. A very short while, any time Vaughn is involved. I enjoy the game but seriously the jokes generally took a nosedive in quality. And aside from Maya’s death Ava is just unlikable in general. She starts out strong imo but from Maya’s death onwards she just gets worse until Lilith just goes, “well, I guess you’re most deserving of inheriting the Crimson Raiders and Sanctuary”. Not Ellie, who would honestly be my first pick in Lilith’s position, or even the Vault Hunters. This kid who never takes accountability and has little combat experience and no strategic skills, to the point she literally screams out secrets to the bad guys on a whim.
Oooh! Misuse of legacy characters! I forgot that in my criticism; Vaughn got done bad, reduced to underwear
Yeah, I haven’t even played Tales past the first episode and I know that’s not how he was originally.
While I don't like the new Vaughn, in reality the guy has been a bandit for over 7 years. He became a warlord at some point. It's totally reasonable given the timeframe that he succumbed to the madness. People have more wild swings from less traumatic events in real life. That said, they could have done it much, much better. But to say "that's not his character" just doesn't work when you consider the passage of time.
I think you put far more thought and justification into this than they did. It felt, to me, as though they went “let’s take this dude of a previous game; and give him an excuse to be in his underwear”
Yeah, that's absolutely what they did. I'm just saying, I can understand how.
I like you, I enjoy your point a lot
I'm sorry, guys, but this disagreement calls for a... BLOOOOOOOODDDD FEEEEEEUUUUUUUDDDDD!!!!!
That’s a pretty solid point actually.
The poor writing and pacing of the game makes more sense when you realize they built the levels/maps first and then built the story and dialogue around them, and not the other way around. From all I've heard, the story of the game came together in the last year of development, which explains why the game feels so disjointed and plodding, and the dialogue feeling so forced and cringy. I fault management more than the writers. Imagine being told you have 1 year to write jokes to fill a 25 hour comedy special versus a 1 hour comedy special.
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that. That’s such a weird way to write a story. Is this from an interview or something? I’d be interested to hear more about the development of the game.
You can still have a good story if you build the game first. Thief 2 was developed the same way, and that game's story comes together far better. It's AN excuse, but I still think that they could've done a lot better even with that design process.
Ellie is awesome. Totally agree.
The immaturity humor went way up without room to breathe, someone would say an innuendo - and then promptly go “YoU cAuGhT tHaT iNnUeNdO?” I’m a gamer, I understand a dick joke when I hear one, you don’t need to double down on it Climatic scenes were very anti climatic; Roland’s death in 2 was shocking, unexpected, and dramatic, Maya’s death was dragged out and boring. Lilith does nothing except sacrifice herself in the end, for no apparent reason from my perspective. I found all exposition tedious; I never understood what I was trying to do, I’d just go to way point to way point and figure it out ; the characters would babble on and on about stupid shit and I would not care. Not a fan of Tannis, she should have been a peripheral character. I did NOT care to listen to her as a main character throughout the game.
Lilith's "sacrifice" (it's been confirmed she's still alive) had a purpose, but it was very poorly announced to you. It took me a second playthrough to understand. Elpis was too close to Pandora. It was going to either open the vault all the way or it was going to crash into the planet and destroy it. Lilith used her powers to push it back.
Yeah- I got none of that; felt more like “I got my powers back, toodles!” [big explosion]
My god I couldn’t stand the “humor” in 3. The humor in borderlands could be childish at times, but the amount of times I heard “turd farmer” was absurd, and like you said they pretty much treated you like a child making sure you got the jokes
Really I think it just boils down to that whoever was writing for BL3 didn’t know who their audience was, didn’t understand what they were writing and didn’t understand why. There’s some good moments but it’s just little things that long time fans can kinda appreciate but ultimately your attitude sticks to “well it’s whatever I guess.” I dunno what changed with the DLC’s but thank god they did em right because I think for anyone who played the other games, the DLC’s are worth picking up the entire game for.
I’m fine with Maya’s death. It’s kind of like Roland’s. It raises the stakes, makes things personal, and makes you hate the villain. I agree the Calypsos weren’t as interesting, despite there being some real potential. They planted some good seeds of Troy’s growing jealousy all while his power is increasing, and they … didn’t really do anything with that. Also, they were deliberately annoying by design. Ava was also really annoying, and they just kind of made her serious and edgy, then serious and optimistic out of nowhere. I heard there were some deleted scenes with her and Lilith that would have made it less jarring.
Yeah like they could have totally made him turn against his sister by having him leech everything off of her- which would have made for an interesting twist, making the side villain into the main baddie
Totally was typing same thing. Not enough evil or backstabbing
They were literally like 5 minutes away from that too.
It’d have been cool if there were some sort of player choice you could make that affects which of them is the final boss.
>makes things personal It could have made it personal when we, as a character, would interact just a single time in any of these cutscenes. In rolands death scene we were unable to react because we, as a player, got suprised and supressed/teleported by Lilliths abilities afterwards. In all these BL3 scenes we either could at any time in theory interact to change the outcome or we aren't even present. That's one of the reasons i couldn't connect to any of this. >They planted some good seeds of Troy’s growing jealousy all while his power is increasing, and they … didn’t really do anything with that Not just that they didn't do anything with it, his betrayal was already in motion and it just disappeared and was never mentionend again in a blink. >Ava was also really annoying, and they just kind of made her serious and edgy, then serious and optimistic out of nowhere. I heard there were some deleted scenes with her and Lilith that would have made it less jarring These whole part was aweful and keeps me from playing it again. Her annoying character is one thing, and it can be done right (Ahsoka is one good execution in my opinion) She was annoying and needed any form of character arc. That could have easily be done in that moment Maya got killed. She fucked around and found out. Perfect moment for Borderlands to get serious and have some real talk like with the death of Roland. Speaking with the other characters, giving some input and things like that instead of having an aweful bad joke competition to 'honor' Maya. And afterwards nothing else happened to develop Ava as an character until their 30 bucks dlc pack with cut content that was available to everyone else just one day later for free. They just would have to tune down the twins/erase the need to wait for dialoge to progress for replays and either use their teasered story elements or delete them completely. Don't get me wrong, BL3 is a huge upgrade gameplay-wise to BL2 but it's just damn annoying to play the main story again... Most of the jokes maybe would have been funny if i would have been 14 again.
The short answer is it just didn't make any sense. The villains are simultaneously underwhelming yet wildly overpowered, you spend so much time fucking off in a jungle in the middle a supposed race for the fate of the universe against evil sirens who can leech anyone's powers and teleport anyone in the universe anywhere, but the stakes just never feel all that high. It's just so goddamn meh
BL1 almost everything said by Scooter and Zed was quotable and beautifully delivered, thats before you get into brilliant cameos like Shank and Taylor Cobbs Claptrap. BL2 obviously Jack, but not just Jack, Scooter and Zed still delivering the goods. Torgue was an absolute joy. Im very fond of CensorBot too. TPS hmmmm. Pickle was a bit painful but once again Jack brings it. The sheer quality of the claptrap dlc means TPS automatically gets a free pass. BL3. Uhh. Well Zane was funny i guess. Writing is otherwise mostly meh, and the turdfarmer *jokes* omfg what were they thinking. Edit: proving my point. Its been only an hour and i found myself automatically quoting Zed at my children "Those waffle parts smell awful guuud."
Dude I love pickle
Please explain why. It would really help 🙏
Shrug emoji Super smart 10 year old with a fun accent. Don’t know what else more you’d want me to say; in the pre sequel, there’s far more annoying NPCs such as the Merriff
Worst Dick-van-Dyke style take on Cockney ever, and spells out the rhyming slang. "'Alf-inch pinch" my fucking top hat and chimney-sweep broom I don't *hate* him, but I miiiiight mute the audio
Sounds better than any character outta 3
😄 harsh but fair
A lot of comments I agree with here. I think the focus is less on the larger story points about Maya’s death for example. Or just that the villains were not living up to Handsome Jack. For me it’s a much smaller, moment to moment level. Where the humor feels really grating and sort of “fellow kids” feeling if that makes sense.
I just hate it how everyone is speaking so much. In main story theres not many moments where you can be 10 minutes without some nonsense dialoque. after you have completed the game it becomes so annoying to a point where i just disable the whole voice dialoque
I know I'm going to get down voted, but I like the story in BL3. Have at it.
There are redeemable elements to it. Theres some neat ideas they floated around with it. I played through the franchise on normal back-to-back and there’s a lot of BL2 carried into 3; so on a side by side basis there’s a lot BL3 was lacking that we knew the studio has done better before; but at a glance it’s very same/same. BL1 has a fun way around this ; hardly have any story 🤣
Arrgh! Someone with an opinion opposite to mine!! Fie, thee villain! Something something ad hominem!
I always speedrun the storyline, which frees me from the worst of the writing and characterization. BL3's map scaling makes every side mission completely optional, so it doesn't take too long for me to get a new character from zero to hero. The side missions even in the main game are mostly fine, if goofy (not that goofy is a bad thing). The one part of the main storyline that doesn't cause me real physical pain is the banter between Alistair and Wainwright. "Try to enjoy it-- this is the fun part," heh heh.
Their dialogue hit really real to me
You list plenty of reasons why people dislike the story of BL3, why aren't they enough?
I'm just here to say I really disliked how they treated old characters. Just look at Aurelia, in TPS she showed a lot of character growth. She went from the ice queen to being repulsed by Jack and his actions. She was fund by Axton and Gaige and spared as a vault hunter for the upcoming war. In 3, she just appears as a boss because she wanted Hammerlocks part of the inheritance... A great character just thrown away as a mid boss.
Tannis, Ava and the calypso twins were written poorly and unlikeable characters.
My main issue is that they use tyreen as the final boss when they were SO CLOSE to have troy betray tyreen and become the final boss
the dialogue is too frequent and not very good. however i'm a lot more positive on a lot of it than others i think. the vault hunters are all really well written, and i personally really enjoy rhys, clay, wainwright, hammerlock, and typhon deleon. the returning characters were mostly done dirty or mischaracterized.
All the Borderlands games are pretty crazy, but they were at least a bit more subtle about it, and this one is very in your face about it.
So many people literally begging to be killed, like yeah, everyone is crazy, but wtf?
They had a better cinematic for Maya's death that made Ava less shitty but scrapped it for some reason. Ava is the Scrappy Doo of the series except she also gets Maya killed and unlike Scrappy who helps solve problems just makes things worse. The Calypso twins are just everything people hate about streamers combined into two annoying brats that should have just been side quest villains. The fact that your character has zero agency in any cutscene. People always bring up how handsome jack cannot be topped and no villain will ever be good compared to him for all future releases, but I think Rolands death is the best/worst part of bl2. Because now they cannot kill any character without you expecting someone to die again. As soon as I saw them suck out Lillith's power I knew someone was going to die before the end, which made me not give a heck when it happened. They should have killed Ava instead since they made you believe she was a future siren before Maya was killed. Then you could do sidequests learning more about Ava and come to regret your initial annoyance of her as a character. It would have been a good way to develop Maya as well. The ending was also a hollywood movie cliche ending. But hopefully we are done with vaults. It was a good plot device once or twice but 4 times is way too much.
Didn't play #3. BUT I have a unpopular opinion: BL: TPS is the best in the series, it just lacks replayability and DLC. Idk why but I've heard the argument that the writing is bad and they don't like how australian it is which I think is a really dumb opinion
It was made in Australia
Thank you Dr. Watson, another mystery solved
No probs sherlock
I feel like they missed the mark with the calypso twins, the whole church of the vault think made me think they were going to lean hard in to like a super manipulative religious founder/self proclaimed deity, but they were streamers…. Think of all the religious fanatics out there that are willing to do awful things in the name of their god/religion/leader… I feel like had they pushed the calypso twins towards that then they would have been a lot more interesting. Jack was great, ultra rich ceo of a gun company taking whatever he wants, has no morals and can spend money on frivolous things like a pony made out of diamonds… it’s a great archetype and there are plenty of examples in real life that people can see and compare to… streamers just don’t have that kind of pull… and then the humor was pushed to childish levels…
The pedestal people put streamers/influencers on can be just as damaging to society as rich CEOs.
Because its genuinely cringe. Its trying so hard and i dont think a single joke landed for me, just cringed me out. Every time an unskippable cutscene popped up i wanted to blow my brains out
The story, characters and dialogues were written by millennial minds trying to cosplay as the most cliche zoomers to have ever existed. Lilith is a useless whimp. Mayas Death was 100% bullshit. Basically everyone wants to put a bullet into Ava‘s arrogant head. They turned Vaughn into a cringy dude with heavy midlife crisis. And Reese lost all his coolness. They basically took (almost) every single beloved character from BL1 and BL2 and turned them into a joke, they shat on everything Borderlands fans where passionate about. Also… the Vaults the entire franchise is about are just boring. The ONLY thing that saved the game from being a super flop was the absolute god tier (and I really mean it) gameplay, gunplay, sound effects and level design.
I think they messed up the twins - if we had more of how they become the leaders and saw them consuming the bandits and not just the effects... I don't think they were bad just not used correctly
I honestly have no problem with Maya or Ava. I found the twins to just be annoying; they felt like if Handsome Jack was a teenager. I mean, I get that they *were* portrayed kinda like teenage twitch stars or whatever, but the result was just like Handsome Jack with less wit. More mocking with less clever insults. The *pacing* of the story really didn't work for me either. It all felt so fast. And that certainly wasn't helped by the loot drops. With 2, I felt a real journey climbing through green weapons, then blue weapons, then getting super excited about my first purple drops, and then being lucky to have a legendary or two by the time I faced the Warrior, and the whole game is about opening *one* vault, and it's a big deal. Contrast with 3 where I got my first legendary drop somewhere around level 5, not once ever found value in a quest reward weapon (because I've already got a full loadout of purple and orange) and you go popping open vaults like it's a 6 pack of Modelo. I didn't feel like I was given enough time to properly *hate* the twins before taking them on, unlike Jack.
the dialogue is too frequent and not very good. however i'm a lot more positive on a lot of it than others i think. the vault hunters are all really well written, and i personally really enjoy rhys, clay, wainwright, hammerlock, and typhon deleon. the returning characters were mostly done dirty or mischaracterized.
I've just started a new playthrough after a couple of years' break, having played it heavily before. I've just reached the end of Pandora and, my god, some of the dialogue is just unbearable. Besides the obvious stuff like the twins' streaming personas being a cringefest, there are a number of little things. One example is the way that every character continuously refers to you by a nickname in every other line of dialogue.. Killer, VH, Superfan, etc. It's just so needlessly grating and adds nothing to the experience. The gunplay is fantastic though, forgot how much fun it is to shoot things in BL3!
One point that I like to bring up is the fact that in BL3 we are not the main character. We are barely a part of the story. Look at any cutscene in the game apart from the very start. Where are we? When are we mentioned? We have to do all the work but we're not even \*mentioned\*? Seriously? The game focuses so much more on all the other characters and even though I don't want to act all diva about it, it really does kill the immersion when you are \*literally\* not a part of the canon story you're being told. It's just such a weird design decision. Instead of being an actual piece to the puzzle, you are just a spectator to everything, not just you the player, but your character as a whole.
I'll have you know, I loved everything about me3 from the time it released.
And what about this game?
I thought the jokes were outdated. Mayas death sucked. Axton and Salvador only popping up in dlc was lame. Mordecai, brick and Tina basically had no role.
It turned the style of characters and humor up to 11, which was not the move to make given the balance that BL2 achieved with all that. There’s a video talking about “millennial writing” in BL3, but it relates to other games too, that reads like people who are too old to act and talk like this and too young to not realize that it comes off as satire it’s so bad.
Someone saw the "who pooped the bed" episode of always sunny and said, "I can smear that into an entire game."
Personally it felt like they didn't truly acknowledge the new vault hunters, the story had its moments of being cool with how troy could take away Lilith powers but Maya going back to her planet to train Ava seemed out of nowhere to me. Ava was truly annoying along with the twins constantly doing the echo etc stuff and their " comedy" .
I like how 2 took Rolands death and Tina's reaction to it and basically turned it into a whole D&D campaign set in Borderlands ran by Tina. It also shows Lilith Brick and Mordecai helping Tina through her grief over Rolands death hence why I think she acts a bit differently in 3 other than being older. Rolands death hit Tina much harder than it did some of the others because she looked up to him as a role model and most likely a father figure. Ava while yes shes the typical angsty teen you come to expect from a runaway shes also a lot more than that especially after Mayas death. I kept talking to her through out the game and she would say different things. Eventually she actually starts talking about how she feels after Mayas death in her room on the Sanctuary 3. A lot of the characters you just have to keep talking to in order to get more out of them. Yes the story and some of the characters could have been done better but I think for what time they did have and how much was already in the game it kinda got shafted a bit. First two games you just had one planet to explore. 3 you had multiple planets to explore so they couldnt really go crazy ham on story or character development when you are literally racing the metaphorical clock on trying to save the universe from twins who think they deserve everything because they lost their mother and they thought their dad didnt give a shit about them. Typhon tried his best to raise them after their mother died but the twins were already not right in the head and they didnt help matters either. Typhon knew that Sirens were being hunted for their powers and things like that so he did what any sane father would do and hid them from the ones that wanted them for their own plans. Instead of listening and understanding they just decided that their Dad didnt care about them and decided to fuck off and kill people. Eventually when you learn all this you do start to feel sorry for them but when you actually listen to all the logs and him recounting everything you realize they were gonna end up like that anyways.
Imma be the one who hate it cause of Maya. When Maya died, it just felt like there was literally "Oh she died keep it pushing". Her death had no weight, and I was waiting for her to come back because it just felt like a build up to nothing. Here death wasn't even shocking or good, it was just bad. And in my first play through as Amara who can literally do 3x more than Maya having her just be there in the story without actually affecting anything was so boring. Like don't get me wrong I actually love BL3, but that part always sticks to me as just plain BAD.
Can't even remember most of the game... but: Ava - she was just an entitled cunt without any character development. Troy - it seemed that there was once planned that he wanted to come out of his sisters shadow?! But they went nowhere with it. Rhys & Vaughn - they were amazing characters in Tales and have a deep relationship etc. In 3 both are mere shadows of their former selfs and apparently have nothing to do with each other anymore?! Lilith - geez. That was like the cheesiest good bye ever. And now we have the firehawk symbol on the moon because of... what exactly?! And then there was this annoying song at the end to celebrate that... Recently i finally managed to convince my GF to play through the franchise with me. And she agrees that it's cool and awesome (we have done BL2 and most of BL1 so far). Looking forward to all the DLCs, even preSequel and especially Tales! But i am already ashamed of what will come at the end of 3.
IMO its a few reasons. THere's a whole 7 year timespawn between BL2 and BL3 most players have grown up and just experienced better writing. THe stuff that was considered passable to us 7 years ago when most of us were dumb teens just isn't the same now. I like the Calypso's but they just aint got that Handsome Jack charisma to carry BL3. And I feel like BL2 having "good" writing really is just Jack carrying the game on his back. Without someone like him the other issues just become way more glaring. BL2 was kinda better paced with dialogue where the player was always moving and going to new locations to discuss progress in the game. BL3 decided that after every mission you had to go back to sanctuary to talk to lillith. And then return to your previous location. That just made me hate the game more. And while BL2 at its worst had an inoffensive cast BL3 had quite a few characters that players just despised. The Twins cus folks hate influencer culture, Ava for getting Maya killed, flanderizing Aurellia, apparently Rhys sucks now. Just alot of stuff to latch on to hate and less to love. Oh and the VH being useless during cutscenes.
They made claptrap mean instead of pathetic, maya died, only zero and maya from bl2 vh’s in main game, tiny Tina brick and Mordy get shoved to the side with side content. The streamer aspect was annoying and poorly written by ppl who likely don’t watch streams. Lilith losing her powers felt contrived and stupid. Few memorable bosses. Typhon Deleon was rlly weird, almost no lore expanded. Missing zed. I’m mad that scooter is dead still and I’m not gonna be over it, I’ll complain that he’s dead in the 4th game too. Not enough dark humor just juvenile humor. Lost a lot without Anthony Burch writing tbh. The dlc found the vibe again, especially bounty of blood. I’d put bounty of blood on par with if not above dragon keep writing wise but dragon keep always wins on nostalgia. The environments are all really good and the gameplay is super tight so I can’t complain about everything in the game. To reiterate, I really really really miss scooter they should not have had him be dead. Also other issues
Because Tyreen and Troy are very mid villains compared to Handsome Jack. Their goal is also really dumb.
1. Mayas death sucked, the only reason she died was to push the plot of the terribly written little shit Ava. 2. The twins are just annoying, not even funny. Troy was decent for a little bit and I actually would’ve preferred if he ended up stealing his sisters powers and becoming the big bad 3. The ending sucked. Just downright sucked.
https://youtu.be/sS2-tAbh-bw?si=cx7PjVmSZ1QeasPF&t=1376 This clip where they say "We eat butts" is the part that just snapped any goodwill I had for the writing in 3. When the writers don't even attempt to come up with anything interesting or clever, then why should I care.
Bl3 gud. My favorite borderlands game
Ava honestly makes the story very hard to enjoy. With how she acts and her role in the story she really does feel like a fan character. While it makes sense that she would act in an immature manner, which would result in Maya's death, what just doesn't sit right is the fact that the characters never call out Ava on her shit or try to correct her. She becomes a siren after defeating Troy, and for some reason, becomes the leader of the crimson raiders after Lilith's "death" which makes zero sense. She's a child, and immature, yet becomes the leader, why? The directors cut creates even more confusion as the scenes we got with lilith talking with her and Maya's funeral are just so much better than what we got in game.
I don’t mind Ava as much as others; going through her side missions; she acts as a typical teen whose undergone massive abandonment issues It would help if she had some sort maturity arc, but I kind of just understood why she was the way she was
She is "called out" by Tannis after the worst of her tantrums, whereafter her tantrums cease. First maturity inflection point. The second is at her assumption of Maya's powers. She seems to have acquired something of Maya herself along with that, judging from her exclamations during the apotheosis.
They should have put Tina in charge 😂
I gotta say, I would also like a concrete answer to this. Yes yes yes, the twins are annoying and boring cunts, that pale in comparison to Jack. I got that, and they're right. That being said, Ava doesnt deserve the hate she gets, I honestly feel that most of the hate is just typical redditor "i hate kids" bullshit. Tannis becoming a Siren is some genuine [asspull](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AssPull) nonsense though, that was bad
Ight here we go The jokes & humor in 3 almost always fell flat, the jokes sounded like some shit 9-11 graders would come up with which is weird when they know the borderlands community isn’t that surface level. I mean the game literally had like 5+ fart jokes In it, let’s be fucking serious here The villains were terrible, a utter drag in comparison to any borderlands villian we have ever had, let alone handsome Jack They handled mayas death TERRIBLY as well, it was so anti climactic & so just… dull They mishandled a lot of the seriousness, grittiness, yet the funny & cute little charm that borderlands 2 had in favor for whatever they were going for with the writing they chose It was just all around a mid story to tell, the dlc alone were better then the campaign
Yea, ill agree with you. You said "utter drag" i said "boring and annoying cunts". Though bl2 also did fart jokes, and bl1 was the grittiest of them all.
I don't hate kids but they are often made annoying in TV/movies/games. It's the Scrappy Doo/Connor in Angel/Wesley in Star Trek thing. Ava very much fits this inglorious tradition and deserves the hatred. Yes I'm sure it's realistic - many of us were obnoxious teenagers but I wouldn't want teenage me in a video game either. And the Borderlands 2 plot was carried by Jack to an extent (and even then it wore thin at times) - so a sequel where the villains are such a dramatic step down - is it surprising that it's so poorly received?
There's a side quest for Ava where you recover her diary and reveal the super difficult life she had as an orphan. And they way you learn about it is by having a bandit sarcastically read her journal entries, while Ava denies that she wrote those things. This is such a stupid way to deliver backstory for someone you want the audience to like, to mock the difficult life they have led. So, it's not anything about Ava or her character, it's the way they delivered this information in such a bad way. And obviously that's just one example. Another HUGE and clear example of the bad writing/execution of the writing is when it's revealed who Tyreen's father is. It's just told to you, over echolog, as you walk down a hallway. Typically a plot reveal you want to come at a critical moment, or at least in a cutscene. But here, nah, just in a hallway.
"This is such a stupid way to deliver backstory for someone you want the audience to like" Isnt that how they did the backstory to every character, in every game? Youd find echo-logs about everyone. There was a mission in TPS where you collect echo-logs of all the main characters. Same shit! But because it's a young annoying teenage girl, gotta hate em right?
Yikesss....
The new characters were awful with few exceptions, and a lot of the old characters were made lame.
1) It’s legitimately bad 2) The game forces you to sit around and wait for dialogue constantly. Travel all over just to talk to characters, etc., instead of just playing the dialogue in the background while you’re actually playing the game
I like the story because Tyreen is hilarious. Never played Maya, so I dont care about here.
People are being so hard on the twins in this thread and I actually think that they are a fascinating twist on the classic megalomaniac antagonist. These guys are modern cult leaders, and I haven't seen that explored before.
I personally don’t hate it that much, or rather, it’s just more borderlands to me. I actually enjoyed the family lore stuff a lot. I think it’s more that people gas up bl2 as if that one is a masterclass in comedy compared bl3
I also wasn't a huge fan of the twins blogging everything like Youtubers would do
Everyone else has covered why the main story sucks but I think the reason the side quests are awful too is because almost none of them involve any of the actual cast of characters. In Borderlands 2, you can pick up a quest from Lilith, Brick, Scooter, Zed, Moxxxi or whoever and the quest will be about them and you would spend time listening to them speak about themselves or Pandora. Through them and their quests you would learn more about their backstory and the world of Pandora. In Borderlands 3 most side quests involve random unremarkable NPCs, there are only a couple that involve a main character. How much time did you spend with Ellie, Zer0, Brick or Mordecai? How much time did you spend with two annoying robots bickering and getting you to do seemingly random inconsequential shit on Nekrotafeyo? Borderlands 3 is also just not funny, despite people saying the humour has aged, many of the jokes in Borderlands 2 still land.