The writing (keep this conversation respectful and constructive)

[zmartazz]

Borderlands 3's writing may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's worth noting that its impact on the overall gaming experience is often exaggerated. When it comes to gameplay, B3 truly excels, delivering an outstanding gunplay experience that can be likened to a top-notch gun enthusiast's dream. As long as you're willing to set aside any concerns about the storyline and fully embrace the game's wild and wacky elements, you're in for an enjoyable time. The game offers an impressive array of features, including diverse weapon options, an abundance of legendary items, elemental mechanics, the ability to customize weapons, various build paths, a variety of vehicles, engaging platforming, and the exhilarating sliding mechanic. It's a genuinely fantastic gaming experience.

Here, I'd like to address a few aspects of the game's writing that I have found noteworthy:

• The playable character's absence in cutscenes
  
• Confusing and unclear character motivations at times
  
• The main villains' tendency to teleport and remain elusive until defeated
  
• The resemblance of some characters to fan-created versions of older ones (Clay and Hammerlock, Ava and Maya, Ember and Lilith...)
  
• The introduction of the character Lorelei through a distress signal but a lack of challenging situations shown (heard on Pandora: "at least you're not on Promethea!")
  
• The prevalence of shorter male NPCs, reminiscent of their problematic comic-relief status seen in Borderlands 1 (Typhon, Pretty Boy...)

I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences with these aspects of the game. Share your opinions and let's get a civil discussion going!

[Draxuss]

Well said, I couldn't agree with you more. I absolutely love the gun designs and different variations in this game. The gunplay in this game is very good and the writing is just a minor annoyance imo and hasn't stopped me from putting over 800 hrs in.

[Bankai9212]

I mean everyone who’s played already knows this. The narrative just becomes a slog whenever your running a new character, as the gunplay and classes are the most expansive this far.

[Draxuss]

@Bankai. I'll bet my money that you know what's coming next here, right.........

[Bankai9212]

Depends, they just show up write something then run away.

[rughar]

I think the story is just not 100 percent perfect. But its fine and most people just forgive that becouse its mostly minor things. Overall the absence of playable character in cutscenes is probably the most crucial point and even that is not so bad.

Some characters cause mixed feelings but I think its just a question of style. For example Ava is (very obviously) unlikeable person on purpouse. Its not a bad writting. For many ppl its a controversal style becouse they use to see movies and games with characters that are too much perfect or at least likeable which is far from the reality. In the real world we meet people like Ava on every second corner. The positive side of Ava character for me is becouse of her presence I kind of like everyone else. In nonironic way. I truly believe its a purpose.

Overall, implementation of the story has some issues. But the plot of the main story (SPOILER: especially the family reunion in the end) was actually pretty well written.

[Bankai9212]

Originally posted by rughar:

I think the story is just not 100 percent perfect. But its fine and most people just forgive that becouse its mostly minor things. Overall the absence of playable character in cutscenes is probably the most crucial point and even that is not so bad.

Some characters cause mixed feelings but I think its just a question of style. For example Ava is (very obviously) unlikeable person on purpouse. Its not a bad writting. For many ppl its a controversal style becouse they use to see movies and games with characters that are too much perfect or at least likeable which is far from the reality. In the real world we meet people like Ava on every second corner. The positive side of Ava character for me is becouse of her presence I kind of like everyone else. In nonironic way. I truly believe its a purpose.

Overall, implementation of the story has some issues. But the plot of the main story (SPOILER: especially the family reunion in the end) was actually pretty well written.

The issue with the player character not being there in key cutscenes is that it feels like we aren’t relevant despite use doing all the work or being able to do something in the moment. Mayas death we are just there doing nothing and if they didn’t want us there the scene could have played while we were in the vault. Makes the player feel like an npc that is just randomly ignored.

The issue with Ava is that she never grows as a character yet ends up getting everything and being told to lead Sanctuary despite not showing any characteristics that she can. If her being unlikable lead to some growth people would be fine with it. She doesn’t, it doesn’t help that a scene for Mayas death showed they were going to at some point

The story isn’t well written at all, things just happen because the plot needs to move forward the twins being the most passive villains in the series.

[Draxuss]

@rugar. I forgot about the family reunion, that part of the story I never saw coming.

[zmartazz]

Originally posted by Bankai9212:

The issue with Ava is that she never grows as a character yet ends up getting everything and being told to lead Sanctuary despite not showing any characteristics that she can. If her being unlikable lead to some growth people would be fine with it. She doesn’t, it doesn’t help that a scene for Mayas death showed they were going to at some point

It's especially glaring when Ava seems to lead men into battle at the end of the main game. Felt like it should have been Maya there.
This is part of another important aspect of the writing, beside the unclear character motivations, none of the characters had any real arc in BL3.
Claptrap ended up getting a loving girlfriend via his Crew Challenges but that's all I can think of.

[wifeburger]

The dialogue wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't come to a complete halt every time someone has three paragraphs of poop jokes that the writers are just dying for you to hear.

Maya's death was pointless and feels like it was there only to be the game's "Roland" moment. Ava is unintentionally written into the most unlikable character ever. Lilith's problematic attitude that she uses to approach issues all the way back to the Pre-Sequel have yet to be confronted or addressed. Troy's character was completely wasted and both of the twins could have been so much more interesting even with the "evil streamer" premise if they just weren't so unpleasant to listen to.

[TheBioMan]

Originally posted by WifeBurger:

The dialogue wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't come to a complete halt every time someone has three paragraphs of poop jokes that the writers are just dying for you to hear.

Maya's death was pointless and feels like it was there only to be the game's "Roland" moment. Ava is unintentionally written into the most unlikable character ever. Lilith's problematic attitude that she uses to approach issues all the way back to the Pre-Sequel have yet to be confronted or addressed. Troy's character was completely wasted and both of the twins could have been so much more interesting even with the "evil streamer" premise if they just weren't so unpleasant to listen to.

Was just going to say this. Even if I wanted to ignore all the dialogue the game still forces me to wait for characters to stop talking before giving me my objective. Thankfully I listen to podcasts while I play so it's not the biggest issue in the world.

[Bankai9212]

Originally posted by zmartazz:

Originally posted by Bankai9212:

The issue with Ava is that she never grows as a character yet ends up getting everything and being told to lead Sanctuary despite not showing any characteristics that she can. If her being unlikable lead to some growth people would be fine with it. She doesn’t, it doesn’t help that a scene for Mayas death showed they were going to at some point

It's especially glaring when Ava seems to lead men into battle at the end of the main game. Felt like it should have been Maya there.
This is part of another important aspect of the writing, beside the unclear character motivations, none of the characters had any real arc in BL3.
Claptrap ended up getting a loving girlfriend via his Crew Challenges but that's all I can think of.

Claptrap had an entire dlc to expand his character in the pre-sequel even in the post game dlc none of the side characters even bother listening to Ava.

[Antik]

Yes i agree, and that's not everything that's bad about the writing. Personally i find the gun play good, but honestly it doesn't matter to me if i cannot look past what they did to this IP's universe. It's clear the people who worked on BL2 did not work on BL3 in terms of writing, or if they did, they ♥♥♥♥ the bed to say the least.

BL games always had a good mix between being serious and funny, but in BL3 they decided to be "meta", almost like the Velma show. Millennial tier writing in a nutshell. Also, poop jokes and/or sex jokes non-stop, hahaaa...

Main villains are lame as hell, not much to add, not even 1% of the charm, style and impact on the story Handsome Jack has.

Claptrap is a prime example of their ♥♥♥♥ up, he is the "annoying" character, but in BL2 you didn't mind him because he wasn't infuriating and you would go "ohh youuu" every time he goofed around. But in here, you don't even want to listen to him. It's hard to explain, the most accurate way is to again bring up the meta mindset of the writers infused into every aspect of BL3.

Overall it would take hours to write what went wrong, don't get me started on Ava, which is one of the main reasons i stopped playing this garbage.

BL2 = solid gameplay and story
BL3 = solid gameplay

BL2 wins. Not to mention in terms of looter shooters, i'd rather play Warframe which has a mountain of content with way more replayability than Borderlands. What set Borderlands apart was its charm, which vanished in the third entry in the series. No reason to pick Borderlands over Warframe anymore.

[Holografix]

I've played through Borderlands 3 eight times (twice with each Vault Hunter), including all the 4 DLCs.

Personally, the story and writing in Borderlands 3, is the best in the series. I know, I know, people here hate the *writing* and *non-playable characters* in BL3, but after being on these forums and reading all the reasons I can assuredly claim that although you can dislike Borderlands 3's writing/story/characters for personal reasons (just not your thing), but if you were to take any sort of objective measure of dialogue pacing, story emotional twists, and character inventiveness, and claim that BL3 was badly written, you would be completely wrong.

I can disprove each and every metric used to claim that Bl3's writing is bad, but I'd rather play Borderlands 3 than do that. So here's to another thread that completely misses the mark on Borderlands 3; maybe it's time to *think* about the writing instead of just react to it or follow the meme-take on it.

thank you.

edit:
oh, and BL3 has the best OST of the series too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ruPiH6vjM

[TheBioMan]

Originally posted by Holografix:

I've played through Borderlands 3 eight times (twice with each Vault Hunter), including all the 4 DLCs.

Personally, the story and writing in Borderlands 3, is the best in the series. I know, I know, people here hate the *writing* and *non-playable characters* in BL3, but after being on these forums and reading all the reasons I can assuredly claim that although you can dislike Borderlands 3's writing/story/characters for personal reasons (just not your thing), but if you were to take any sort of objective measure of dialogue pacing, story emotional twists, and character inventiveness, and claim that BL3 was badly written, you would be completely wrong.

I can disprove each and every metric used to claim that Bl3's writing is bad, but I'd rather play Borderlands 3 than do that. So here's to another thread that completely misses the mark on Borderlands 3; maybe it's time to *think* about the writing instead of just react to it or follow the meme-take on it.

thank you. :BL3goldbandit:

edit:
oh, and BL3 has the best OST of the series too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ruPiH6vjM

I truly believe we're at a point where this type of writing is like navigating a minefield with the public. This style of quirky, self-aware writing does doesn't jive with people anymore. Even going back to BL2 I personally don't enjoy it nearly as much as I used to as a teenager.

[chris.ferrantegerard]

The playable character's absence in cutscenes

This was pretty annoying and immersive breaking at times. When Lilith gets drained before leaving Pandora, you can argue it happened while you were taking the back exit to get to her location. Then you have situations like Nekrotafeyo where you fend off waves of enemies and then cutscene happens and your character is just gone while the big bad flies in and pwns everybody.

At best you become a bystander in the story, at worst your non-existent in it. TPS handled this much better, your VHs playing a more active part of the story.

The main villains' tendency to teleport and remain elusive until defeated

The twins weren't very good characters. They have the misfortune of being compared to Handsome Jack, one of the most popular video game villains. Overall writing in base story was kind of meh I'd guess. Why does Lilith make Ava, whose still just an immature kid, leadership of the Crimson Raiders over established veterans in the organization?


B3's gameplay is very good through and I personally enjoyed the story DLCs. The first three DLCs are great. Good theming, better writing and characters imo, cool new weapons, etc.