Borderlands 3

Yuuuup. And it's pretty sweet.

Oh my God yeessss.

We really have come a long way.

Now are we at the point where the game acknowledges which character your playing.

That's good, at least. My last foray into the series was with the Baroness on Pre-Sequel, and they did a pretty poor job incorporating her dialogue in, honestly - which isn't exactly the same thing, but it's a related issue. Mostly because it made the whole "All of the NPC lines are a framework with sockets in it to slot in Vault Hunter lines" setup very obvious.

In fairness she was a DLC character.

Those are a bit harder to write in.

-snip-

Ah. You meant Baroness' lines were bad. My mistake.

Eh. I haven't found any class mods yet. I expect they're still going to throw mods for every other character you're not currently playing as. Time will tell.

Also - the intro sequence. Bless the people who animated and storyboarded that.

Edited by Soble on Sep 12th 2019 at 8:26:50 AM

^Not bad, per se; they're all entertaining. It's just that there's a lot of places where they don't quiiite lead into the next line properly. I don't recall any specific instances, but it's stuff like:

Jack: We need to get down to Pandora. Are you coming or not?

Aurelia: Quite so, good sir, but could you tell me the best place to locate endangered animals?

Jack: Ooookay, let's just go.

You know? They don't quite mesh, which is weird considering they must have had Jack's lines written well before release and Aurelia came out much later.

So, uh...

I'm afraid (MASSIVE CHARACTER SPOILERS) people who like Maya is going to hate this game.

Huh does she go out historically?

Let's just say Maya and Roland now have something in common.

As are Handsome Jack and Troy.

To be honest I feel like this game's dialog doesn't really acknowledge who you are at all. Like, Lilith never acknowledges that Amara is a Siren, and there are tons of other places where it doesn't sound like they're even responding to what you said. So I think that example from TPS is quite appropriate.

Also Maliwan guns are pretty weird now. They aren't just "the same, but better at elemental damage" instead they all have this charge time and are uniformly weird energy weapons.

Well, that's what I get for going into this topic on release day. Any word from Axton and Salvador?

(2) Yeah, correcting what I said but still holding out hope because I'm not that far, Amara introduces herself to Marcus but it's still "neutral dialogue from NPC's with VH replies socketed in."

Which I think is kind of necessary for this type of game when multiplayer is involved. TPS did things like having Janey and Nisha respond to Athena and Jack with romantic intrigue, and I can't imagine that's not going to happen here when the last game pulled it off.

I'll go ahead and ask the BL3 players here who have progressed in the story. I don't mind some of these spoilery questions myself but you could spoiler tag them for the others who are yet to try the game:

• Do Gaige and Krieg make a return? If so, what are they doing in the third game?
• It appears as though the Weapon Manufacturers are becoming more as political corporate organizations? Are the new and old Vault Hunters allied to some of them?
• How is Tiny Tina's Character Development now? Did Roland's death change her in some way different than her previous characterizations?
• Any mentions of the following characters thus far, more or less a Call-Back or Continuity Nod? Handsome Jack, Roland, Scooter
• How is FL4K related to Zer0?

How do you see the new characters' skill sets/trees? Any more Composite Character tropes that can be applied to the character page? Fans say Amara is a Brick Siren, Moze is Gaige but with a bigger Robot, and FL4K is Zer0 with summons... Are these true? Is there anyone who resembles Salvador's kit? I really like his Gunzerking in the second game...

Noting on player character deaths, I'm thinking the pattern is shifting from "Soldiers who deploy robots" to "Characters that can heal others", if the above spoiler implications are true.

Moze is quite like Sal, with a bit of Axton thrown in. Her Iron Bear is basically a more powerful but less versatile gunzerk, and she does heinous explosive damage. Zane is a versatile speedster with a good balance of damage, survivability, and utility who's unique in that he uses two merged playstyles rather than one. Think of him as being somewhere between Wilhelm, Roland, and Timothy. Amara is somewhere between Maya and Brick. Lots of punching, lots of highly varied elemental damage. Fl4k obviously takes a lot from Zer0 and Mordecai, but also from Lilith and Gaige. He can be a rogue or a pet-brawler, not just a sniper.

Edited by Iaculus on Sep 13th 2019 at 5:56:17 PM

Playing as Amara, Day 2

• Female psychos are cool
• The enemies actually shout "It's a Siren!"
• I like the new antagonists already. "Like, subscribe, and obey."
• Map's a decent size
• First boss killed me with the environment and I hate that
• I've succumbed to using Incendiary weapons
• Bumrush enemies, choke the sh-t out of them, or slam dunk them with six arms - also, the skill trees are a little more varied and you can multi-class easier... or at least they lay out that your tree is pretty open - though I don't know why you'd bother multi-classing on the first run and sacrifice the end of the skill tree
• I knew some of the Tales characters would show up but I was pleasantly surprised to see Vaughn so early in the game. He transitioned well.
• Good lord if you have the option to play this game with more people do it
• The dialogue is a bit stilted. One conversation went like "how do I look ... you're almost as good as me ... oh come onnnn I knooooow."

Edited by Soble on Sep 13th 2019 at 8:33:28 AM

Zane has trees that start strong and end relatively weak, in order to encourage you to level two evenly rather than racing for the capstone of one like you might with, say, Amara's Brawl tree.

I did not see Dr Zed in the game, but if the Commander Lilith DLC was anything, he probably went to medical school to have his license reinstated. There is no indication on what Axton, Gaige, Krieg, and Salvador are up to. And don’t worry, I’m not posting spoilers, so your eyes should be safe.

Edited by Mr_Madman on Sep 15th 2019 at 7:31:50 AM

That sounds like an awful lot of franchise staple characters just missing for this game. Any word on Fiona or Sasha?

I'm just gonna point out the obvious answer to any perceived missing characters:

DLC

Well, duh, that's an option. Though I don't see the point to putting the word 'percieved' in there, They're either there or not. Percieved makes it sound like it's up for debate if they're in the game.

But it's still a lot of missing characters from just the base level. And the DL Cs of the past tended to introduce new, interesting, and soon-to-be fan-favorite characters like Torgue or Moxxi. Assuming the DL Cs even do that, that's a long checkbox list of characters people want to see back. It's also a massive lost opportunity considering how one of the best parts of the second game was seeing the original cast get personalities and interact. Now Axton, Gaige, Krieg, and Salvador won't get that. And I'm not sure if Zer 0 and Maya interact at all.

Also, just saw a video of Rhys' new voice... I fucking hate it. Troy had far better comedic timing, intonation, and character expression. This one sounds, honestly, pretty phoning it in. He sounds too self-confident, or not nearly as nervous but egotistical as Tales portrayed him. And lines that read on paper like Rhys just... kind of sound bland? A better voice actor could do more with them where this one just misses the mark.

Edited by InkDagger on Sep 15th 2019 at 5:54:49 AM

At one point you go to Rhys office and there a picture of Sasha on his desk.

Uh considering Rhys is now running a company him being more self-confident & egotistical may be the point.

Ok, self-confident is the wrong word. It's not that he IS self-confident, but that he's not nervous and anxious like he was in Tales. I'm trying to describe the lack of something, rather than the reverse of it, if that makes sense? His portrayal feels pretty lacking.

So its that he feels more different with not enough of his original traits then?