Borderlands 3 Impressions - Problematic Fun

[Dansen]

Uggh. I just found out the twin villains are YouTubers. Not like they're voiced by Youtubers, but in universe they have a space YouTube channel and ask people to like and subscribe and they're just try-hard memelords.

The writing of this one seems even worse than usual, and that's saying something

Is it more or less cringey than Torgue banging on about friendzoning and toxic masculinity?

Borderlands has never been well written. It comes off as something written by failed screen-writers in their 40s spending a coffee and tears filled week searching KnowYourMeme for what the kids are into.
Is it MOAR cringeworthy? Honestly I would say so, 'cause at least during BL2 toxic-masculinity and friendzone stuff, circa 2012, was both niche and like not a real thing, it was still just a 4chan joke.
Now adays, with most people forgetting was parody and irony are, yeah YouTuber villains asking to like and subscribe, knowing full well most people won't play it, they'll watch their favorite YouTuber to a Lets Play. Its a little...a lot, painful

The twins aren't super cringe inducing outside of two segments where the writers had them make crappy fake meme videos and unfortunately they have a chance of playing on tv screens in any zone. There honestly could be something interesting to explore by framing a twitch/e-celeb following as a cult. Unfortunately, its only used superficially as a tool to make you dislike them instead of saying too much about the twins or their followers as characters.

The cringiest parts for me have been the sidequests that were obviously written and voice acted by friends of the developers. There is just something in their performances that scream's "aspiring" VA and it takes you right out of the experience when they are right next to professional VAs. Which reminds me, Randy skimped on Troy Baker for Rhys yet could afford both Penn Jillette and Ice-T for brand new characters. They are both b-listers but I can't see them being any more expensive than Troy Baker, seems pretty scumy.

 

[Kyrian007]

Quick question, and this isn't a knock against Borderlands 3. Is in-game currency getting even more worthless? It was totally worthless in BL 1 once you bought the storage deck upgrades. They made it even more worthless in 2, shuffling even that to a premium currency of Eridium. Now in BL 3, SDU's are back to money bought... and all Eridium is good for is a paltry couple of cosmetic choices and epic level loot... where the only loot really worth anything is legendary level.

Now that is a good thing, less things to try and after purchase nickel-and-dime us for with DLC packs and microtransactions. Or at least the value of say trying to sell us cosmetics and/or premium currency for real money is reeeeeallly low. Its just, why even have an in-game economy as worthless as the currency is?

 

[Dansen]

Quick question, and this isn't a knock against Borderlands 3. Is in-game currency getting even more worthless? It was totally worthless in BL 1 once you bought the storage deck upgrades. They made it even more worthless in 2, shuffling even that to a premium currency of Eridium. Now in BL 3, SDU's are back to money bought... and all Eridium is good for is a paltry couple of cosmetic choices and epic level loot... where the only loot really worth anything is legendary level.

Now that is a good thing, less things to try and after purchase nickel-and-dime us for with DLC packs and microtransactions. Or at least the value of say trying to sell us cosmetics and/or premium currency for real money is reeeeeallly low. Its just, why even have an in-game economy as worthless as the currency is?

There is a slot machine that takes eridium in Moxxi's bar, you can win legendary items from it, so you can blow it all on that if you have all the unlocks you want. Not much and its boring but at least that is there. I kinda hope that they bring back the Eridian weapons from 1. Maybe make them only legendary guns and they consume eridium, like that gun you get from Typhon.

 

[Kyrian007]

There is a slot machine that takes eridium in Moxxi's bar, you can win legendary items from it, so you can blow it all on that if you have all the unlocks you want. Not much and its boring but at least that is there. I kinda hope that they bring back the Eridian weapons from 1. Maybe make them only legendary guns and they consume eridium, like that gun you get from Typhon.

It just seems odd is all. Gameplay makes the entire economy worthless. You could spend all your money (after sdus) on the slot machines to win eridium and then all that on trying the eridium slot machine for legendaries, or you could play the game and farm legendaries. It's not really a problem, just kind of a waste. Since BL1 vending machines and money were nearly pointless other than the SDUs. You would never buy a gun that wouldn't be replaced by a looted one within the next hour of gameplay. Farming for legendaries was always a better way of getting them than the slot machines of 2. Even when you got to the vending machine in the DLC where you could just buy legendaries, you had to farm raid bosses for the premium currency... and the raid bosses frequently dropped legendaries. Even the grinder of the pre-sequel was pointless, and I loved the addition of the grinder. I thought it was a better way to discard all the worthless weapons you would get than selling them for worthless money. Just like the vending machines, you would never grind a weapon that wouldn't be replaced in the next hour or so. But it was more fun than just selling them. Its almost as if the economy of the game was added in just to reinforce the gameplay. By including an inferior way to interact with the game, the gameplay loop seems by comparison much better.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

Riff on the writing all you want, Tiny Tina's DLC actually punched me right in the feels. >>

 

[Laughing Man]

Now that is a good thing, less things to try and after purchase nickel-and-dime us for with DLC packs and microtransactions. Or at least the value of say trying to sell us cosmetics and/or premium currency for real money is reeeeeallly low. Its just, why even have an in-game economy as worthless as the currency is?

The gun gun at least adds some value to post game Eridum, saying that I still haven't unlocked all the stuff that can be bought using Eridum. As for cash there are at least 3 legendary guns that use cash as ammo. They never need to be reloaded so long as you have cash you can fire them for as long as your money holds out, which in itself sounds fine but if you then stack one of these guns with a build that increases damage the longer you fire you can create a character build that mows down even the toughest Mayhem 3 bad guys.

Riff on the writing all you want, Tiny Tina's DLC actually punched me right in the feels. >>

The game is often attacked for the very obvious in your face trying to be funny but not funny at all writing. Then you look at the lore going on in the back ground with the vaults, the watcher and the 6 sirens, the echo tapes with Kruger and Krieg, the echo tapes of Jack and Angel, Tiny Tina's entire DLC, the fact that Jack is always held up as a great bad guy. It shows that while the in your face stuff is easy to see and attack there is actually some decent writing going on in the back ground. It's just that most folks won't find it.