Things that are holding Wonderlands back from being a better game...

[Macdallan]

It's not a terrible game. I am definitely enjoying parts of it, but I'm very unhappy with some of the choices they made because they are preventing this from being one of the good Borderlands titles.

The biggest issue is the writing, the majority is pretty bad and all of it pales in comparison to the writing in the good Borderlands games. There is the occasional exception where something is actually funny or interesting but overall it's nowhere near what it should have been for a Borderlands game. I'm rather shocked that most of the dialogue actually made it into the finished product. There's also a bit too much time spent listening to characters yapping about things but I think that wouldn't feel so bad if the writing was actually good.

Mike the Paladin, that yappy GTFO goblin, the poetry goblin, and and some of the other characters are extremely annoying and it's not just the horrible writing but also the way they are voiced. I don't know what they were thinking with some of them but it's not fun to listen to it for 10 seconds let alone for several minutes at a time every time they update you on your mission, and they do that a LOT. It's a shame because I think most of the voice actors are clearly talented so it's not their fault because they were just doing what they were paid to do. Sadly it almost ruins the game completely. The canned voice lines that the skeletons keep spewing out get old pretty fast, and since you encounter so many of them every single time you make a new character it really starts to get annoying. A lot of the skeleton's lines are simply not funny or interesting and it's all so repetitive that the very few lines that are slightly funny get worn out in minutes.

Unable to skip from character creation into the actual game, being forced to re-watch the same cutscene every time you make a new character.

Not being able to skip the initial tutorial level(s) is another issue. i don't need to be slowly spoon fed that info in the first place, I really don't need to go through it every time I make a new character. Just give me a basic gun, spell, and melee weapon and plunk me on the world map. I saw someone say "Why would you skip it? If you skip it you miss loot." Yeah, I miss bottom tier, bottom level loot that I drop or sell after the first 10 minutes... so it's no great loss. I'll find better stuff within 10-20 minutes anyway so that's not a good reason to be forced through the tutorial over and over.

To be honest I see no reason we can't skip ahead to the point where we get the ship whenever we make a new character. Everything before that feels like it's just an extended tutorial and re-playing it every time I want to try a new class is boring because nothing changes. It's the same every time.

The overland is just... too slow. The character doesn't move fast enough, feels like the game just wants to waste our time instead of letting us get to the good stuff. The game should have had a proper open world like the other Borderlands games, it was a mistake to do the overland this way.

Speaking of slow - looting cash items is also too slow. There's a completely unnecessary delay after you open the containers and if you move away just a little bit too early you have to stop and go back. This happens not only on the overworld map but in the FPS section as well. It's just wasting my time, no need of the delay at all.

Too much trash loot. I know it's a "looter shooter" but come on, it's silly. After the first 20 minutes I don't pick up anything that isn't at least green level, so why bother dropping so much of that trash? Too many consumables lying around, too. Chests EVERYWHERE full of ammo. I have not once had an ammo shortage.

Clunky systems that waste my time. Why do I have to use new cosmetic items that I find? Why don't these auto-use when I pick them up if I don't have them? All they do is eat up inventory space until I use them, and it's not like I'm am not going to use them, right? Why do we get repeat cosmetic item drops? Make them a bit less common, don't have any repeats, problem solved with that. Why does the inventory auto scroll when I mouse over something that's not quite in the middle? It's annoying, shouldn't do that.

Why aren't the little icons explained when comparing items that boost class bonuses? I have to jump around the menus to see what each of them does. Doesn't seem to be any mouse over tool tip on them at all. Why do so many cosmetics that aren't actually "new" always have the yellow diamond on them? When I start my 4th or 5th new character I don't care if any of the cosmetics are new or not but every time it seems like the game forgets that I've seen everything. it puts that yellow diamond back on everything.

Lazy implementation of "random" encounters and "camps." They're all the same frickin' maps and enemies just spawn out of thin air. They "end" whenever you kill enough enemies. These could have been fun, interesting, varied but instead they're just lame.

[salxicha]

For me the game is par with Borderlands (I dont see all this difference in writinh and etc) but some of the characters just talk too much which makes some parts kinda cringe

The the item "comparison" is not done right. They should have gone with DPS calc instead of Damage since which means nothing due to the fire rate and magazine variants

The spell isnt well explained so you need to keep testing whatever you dropped until you figure the system

The cometics drop not automatically activating doesnt make sense

I'm having much fun with the game (14 hours so far) but these could certainly be improved for QOL

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by salxicha:

For me the game is par with Borderlands (I dont see all this difference in writinh and etc) but some of the characters just talk too much which makes some parts kinda cringe

The the item "comparison" is not done right. They should have gone with DPS calc instead of Damage since which means nothing due to the fire rate and magazine variants

The spell isnt well explained so you need to keep testing whatever you dropped until you figure the system

The cometics drop not automatically activating doesnt make sense

I'm having much fun with the game (14 hours so far) but these could certainly be improved for QOL

I know you said "for you" but this game is very far from being on par with Borderlands or Borderlands 2. It's not even close. I do agree that there's a bit too much yapping, and some of the dialogue is very "cringe."

Yeah, the spell system could, and should, not be so obfuscated. Some spells clearly detail what they do, some don't. No reason for it.

I would not prefer a DPS calculation over seeing the damage value because knowing the per hit damage is often more important than knowing the DPS when it comes to making certain builds. They could, of course, have BOTH and then everyone would be happy.

The word bloody is repeated dozens of times in the first few hours by Paladin Mike. There ARE other words they could have substituted to make listening to Mike slightly less grating but, for some reason, they chose not to use them. I've been playing a fair bit lately, trying out all the classes, and I'm getting awfully tired of hearing "Fatemakaaah" over and over and over. I think the writers were too busy patting themselves on the back over the plethora of extremely lame "jokes" that they came up with to realise how bad the story and dialogue really is. The writing is not even close to acceptable and the more I play the worse it gets. I really have no idea how they thought that it was anywhere near good enough.

Then there's this from the Steam store page:

“Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is Gearbox Software's best game.”
9.5/10 – Game Informer

This game is certainly nowhere near a 9.5/10, it's maybe a 6/10 at most and that is only if I'm being very generous. This is not Gearbox Software's best game, but it's definitely a solid contender for their worst.

... and then there's this:

“Excellent, laugh-out-loud writing”
8/10 – IGN

No. Again, this is a 6/10 at most. Definitely not an 8/10. There's no excellence in the writing here at all, and it's almost never "laugh-out-loud" funny. Yes, there's the occasional line that is actually funny, but overall the dialogue and story are very, very, very poorly written and not funny at all.

[Macdallan]

At this point I have gone through the intro section with each character class and I hope I NEVER have to start fresh again. There absolutely should be a SKIP option for the dialogue and there should also be a "skip tutorial" option to fast forward us to the point where we get the ship because, honestly, everything before that is nothing more than a boring, repetitive slog of a tutorial.

And then there's my arch nemesis - Paladin Mike.

The horrible accent is grating on my nerves. The delivery of the voice lines makes me cringe. The low quality of Mike's dialogue (it's roughly a 1/10 in case you are wondering) which would be slightly higher if not for - yes, you guessed it - the word bloody being used way, way, way too often. I really have no idea what they were thinking or how this made it out of the studio in this state. It's not a terrible game overall but it absolutely has more than a few terrible components that are dragging it down. I think I was too generous saying this was a 6/10 at most. It's more like a 4/10. I'm glad I waited on a really deep discount before buying this one.

[AlexrAltr]

It always make me laugh when people bang on about the writing of the borderlands games, and hold borderlands 2 up as the gold standard of whizzbang bang loot game writing. I most definitely enjoyed it when I was in my late teens, early 20's. In 2024 however, doesn't scratch the same itch.

Doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, still do, still get a few chuckles. However, I gotta say, acting like we aren't just enjoying the shooting and looting and instead sitting on our reading chairs with a cigar and a book instead of a mouse and keyboard, is just absurd. These games have always been very very satisfying to play, and visually great to look. I recommend it! - Also the writing does it's job, immerses you and you have a good time.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by AlexrAltr:

It always make me laugh when people bang on about the writing of the borderlands games, and hold borderlands 2 up as the gold standard of whizzbang bang loot game writing. I most definitely enjoyed it when I was in my late teens, early 20's. In 2024 however, doesn't scratch the same itch.

Doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, still do, still get a few chuckles. However, I gotta say, acting like we aren't just enjoying the shooting and looting and instead sitting on our reading chairs with a cigar and a book instead of a mouse and keyboard, is just absurd. These games have always been very very satisfying to play, and visually great to look. I recommend it! - Also the writing does it's job, immerses you and you have a good time.

The writing in some of the Borderlands games does what it's supposed to do. It does not do its job in this game, quite the opposite, and that's one of the biggest issues with this game. It kills the immersion, isn't fun, isn't funny, adds nothing, makes it harder to enjoy...

If you think this game is equal to the first 2 in the series in any way, particularly the writing, then you're just lying to yourself or your standards are pretty low, or a bit of both. Borderlands 2 is the best of the bunch by far and in every way possible, but it's not what I would call the gold standard of whizzbang bang loot game writing, whatever that's supposed to mean. It's just the best game of the lot overall.

[Bankai9212]

Originally posted by AlexrAltr:

It always make me laugh when people bang on about the writing of the borderlands games, and hold borderlands 2 up as the gold standard of whizzbang bang loot game writing. I most definitely enjoyed it when I was in my late teens, early 20's. In 2024 however, doesn't scratch the same itch.

Doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, still do, still get a few chuckles. However, I gotta say, acting like we aren't just enjoying the shooting and looting and instead sitting on our reading chairs with a cigar and a book instead of a mouse and keyboard, is just absurd. These games have always been very very satisfying to play, and visually great to look. I recommend it! - Also the writing does it's job, immerses you and you have a good time.

While not amazing writing bl2 has its moments that’s still pretty good till this day. Bl3, this and new tales is just plain bad with no small redeeming factors.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by Bankai9212:

Originally posted by AlexrAltr:

It always make me laugh when people bang on about the writing of the borderlands games, and hold borderlands 2 up as the gold standard of whizzbang bang loot game writing. I most definitely enjoyed it when I was in my late teens, early 20's. In 2024 however, doesn't scratch the same itch.

Doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, still do, still get a few chuckles. However, I gotta say, acting like we aren't just enjoying the shooting and looting and instead sitting on our reading chairs with a cigar and a book instead of a mouse and keyboard, is just absurd. These games have always been very very satisfying to play, and visually great to look. I recommend it! - Also the writing does it's job, immerses you and you have a good time.

While not amazing writing bl2 has its moments that’s still pretty good till this day. Bl3, this and new tales is just plain bad with no small redeeming factors.

The pre-sequel had a few good lines here and there but in general it was mediocre. Haven't loaded up BL3 yet, sad to hear it's bad... hopefully it's not quite as horrible as this game's writing.

[Bankai9212]

Pre-sequel works well when paired with bl1 and 2’s plot. On its own hard to care about most of the characters. Then said how constructors were made is horrifying.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by Bankai9212:

Pre-sequel works well when paired woth bl1 and 2’s plot. On its own hard to care about most of the characters. Then said how constructors were made is horrifying.

There are aspects of it that work well, but overall it's a mediocre entry in the series at best. Still better than this game by quite a bit, but overall it's still pretty meh.

[Bankai9212]

Originally posted by Macdallan:

Originally posted by Bankai9212:

Pre-sequel works well when paired woth bl1 and 2’s plot. On its own hard to care about most of the characters. Then said how constructors were made is horrifying.

There are aspects of it that work well, but overall it's a mediocre entry in the series at best. Still better than this game by quite a bit, but overall it's still pretty meh.

Understandable, being on mainly a moon for most of the game can drag it a bit. Does have the most interesting cast of classes though.

[Gila]

I remember people asking for dialogue/cutscene skip since the Pre-Sequel days.
Sadly, this feedback was either not noticed or just flat out ignored.
It's the same in Borderlands 3.

Why not do a compromise: "force" the player to suffer through all this cringe, but only on first play? And then "unlock" a "feature" of having an option for a cutscene/dialogue skip, perhaps even automatic, after completing a story once?

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by gila:

I remember people asking for dialogue/cutscene skip since the Pre-Sequel days.
Sadly, this feedback was either not noticed or just flat out ignored.
It's the same in Borderlands 3.

Why not do a compromise: "force" the player to suffer through all this cringe, but only on first play? And then "unlock" a "feature" of having an option for a cutscene/dialogue skip, perhaps even automatic, after completing a story once?

There is absolutely no reason to force someone to go through it at all, even on the first playthrough, but... a restricted skip option would be better than no skip options at all.

The main problem that's happened here is that the team that made this, and especially the writers, sat around congratulating themselves a bit too much. They were clearly a bit too happy with what they churned out and decided it's so good that everyone needs to sit through it all repeatedly. They also seem to think that more is more when it came to the dialogue, when in reality less is more. A few quality jokes, a few good voice lines, a couple good dialogues trumps a mound of poorly written dialogue, jokes that aren't funny, and over-used words or phrases that you hear constantly. The "funny" dialogue the skeletons are constantly spewing, for example, is poorly written and the majority completely fails to be funny. It would be less annoying if they weren't almost constantly yapping and the fact that it's not funny or well written would not stand out as much if they didn't spew the same handful of lines over and over.

We really didn't need the long, drawn out, and largely pointless dialogues from Paladin Mike in the early stages of the game. The vast majority of Paladin Mike's dialogue is nothing more than the writers shoehorning another lame joke that isn't funny or awkwardly insert some "witty dialogue" that isn't witty at all, and two or three more repetitions of the word bloody, into the game.