Would GBX have been better off not releasing TPS?

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel BL:TPS Discussion
#1

You guys know i love this game to death, but, it sure has generated a lot of negativity and anger towards Gearbox.

Would they have been better off not releasing this game?

Will this have a negative impact on future Borderlands games?

The fact that both BL2, and, to a lesser extent, BL1, are both still so active is definitely a good sign for the future.

1 Like
#2

For me, no. But I can only speak for myself here.

4 Likes
#3

No.

You’ve just made Wilhelm very angry.

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#4
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#5

Does he turn green and grow bulging muscles?

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#6

Nah. He just kinda charges you and forcibly makes you part of Robot Punching City. After all, TPS is a great game and deserves to be part of the BL universe. Also, it’s a good example to not listen to people.

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#7

No, not really. Poeple will literally hate anything.

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#8

All the hate just shows that people care about the franchise, and not just a single title. That’s very promising.

And the game is better than even we fanboi types give it credit for. It’s mostly stable, and the few bugs/glitches out there are either fairly tolerable or DLC-specific enemies inside of Claptrap.

The game didn’t NEED to be made, but it was a good idea to make it. We didn’t NEED the back story on how Jack got to be the evil douche that he was in BL2, but it was nice to have it spelled out letter-by-letter. How’d Wilhelm come to be Jack’s bitch? Now we know. How’d the Sheriff of Lynchwood come to be his squeeze? Now we kinda-sorta know. Why is Claptrap the LAST claptrap in existence, and why’s he SO spiteful toward Jack? Now we know. And we have a few new faces in the crowd of lovable BL characters–Aurelia, Timothy, Springs. I’m quite happy with this.

Negative impact on future BL games? NOT A CHANCE! This very much sets the stage for the next BL title. I call it a net positive for the franchise.

13 Likes
#9

Same, plus it explained how/why threshers randomly popped up on Pandora between BL1 and BL2.

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#10

Alot of good came from this game.
Much more than bad. I’m assuming this game’s success is helping them fund Borderlands 3

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#11

Why would they be? Because TPS scared away potential customers?
Maybe it did, but if BL3 is awesome, they’ll come back. And TPS will help in that.
They made some decisions in TPS, they saw how the community reacted, and they acted accordingly. So in BL3, hopefully, there will not be the previous wrong decisions, like one-time bosses etc.

I, for one, am glad about TPS. It gave us Athena, Timothy, a whole bunch of interesting skill sets, a very balanced game, new areas and mechanics, new awesome dialogue, new NPCs (some better than others), and one of the best DLCs of all time.

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#12

Late, tired, drunk, but…THANKS GUYS!

/RUN SLEEP.EXE

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#13

i know that i would be very sad if tps didnt exist haha well if it didnt exist i wouldnt even know about it, but you get my point

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#14

TPS brought several good things to the table:

  • gravity changes game play quite a bit and was quite fun once you get the hang of dealing with enemies floating all over the place. Actually Annoyed the crap out of me when I first played it but I love it now
  • freeze guns were sweet I hope to see them in the future
  • lazer guns were OK, though I didn’t think there were enough variants to them.
  • moxxi drinks was a nifty concept
  • moonstone chests were great for getting purple/blue/luneshine weapons outside of concordia
  • the core story of handsome jack was a nice addition to the series and filled in some blanks
  • grinder was a great concept just executed wrong. I didn’t like how you basically depended on the grinder for legendary weapons [before most the bosses were fixed to respawn].
  • gun shop loot pool was far better than bl2, in bl2 you hardly got anything outside of white/green but in tps purples/blue show up quite often and even legendary weapons.
  • solid characters to choose from and action skills
  • more character interaction and unique conversations in each characters quest
  • additional dialogue added to TVHM to make the playthrough a slightly different experience

The lack of an end game because many bosses didn’t respawn to farm for was what really hurt the game in my opinion. It’s fixed for the most part now but it came way too late unfortunately.

I also felt like the side quests were weaker than previous installments, while all of them have silly side quests I felt like there wasn’t many side quests that revealed more of the main story or gave you a more in depth look into other characters in the series they felt like just filler.

Overall TPS is a great game and definitely belongs in the series.

8 Likes
#15

I enjoyed it, plus it filled in some of what happened between BL1 and 2, so I’m happy it was released.

1 Like
#16

This is a good question! I reckon no, gbx wouldn’t have been better off without TPS. The supposed main goal - keeping the franchise “on the radar” - worked. I’m guessing bl2 was only played by the hardcore at the time, and TPS was probably at least pirated by non-fans, and the hard-core + some optimistic gamers bought it too.
For a newcomer, TPS definitely has its upsides. I’ve got a buddy who I played the presequel with first, then bl2, and the first thing he said is “so there’s no low grav in this? Where’s the grinder?”. Make of that what you will.
Also, even the bad aspects of TPS work in its favor, because it makes people look forward to BL3 even more. “We didn’t get flying vehicles, maybe in bl3”; “this is just a well-made mod, maybe bl3 will be new”; “still have to pick up moonstones and ammo crates, maybe bl3 will hoover it all up”; “F$@#= RABID STALKERS, MAYBE IN BL3 THEY’LL REALIZE NOBODY LIKES THE JUMPY LITTLE C$#@S” and so on.
Just look at all the bl3 wishlist threads, they were popping up just a week after TPS’s release.

#17

I don’t think people really hate, the game. It was a little bit of a disappointment after the tremendous success of 1 and 2.

#18

It was a disappointment after Youtubers promised things.

#19

[quote=“FlamesForAll, post:1, topic:329985, full:true”]You guys know i love this game to death, but, it sure has generated a lot of negativity and anger towards Gearbox.[/quote]The negativity and anger has such a terrible signal-to-noise ratio that it’s hard to tell if the concern is legit. Are people mad at Gearbox because they don’t like some game feature? Who cares. Are they mad at Gearbox because service ticket responses aren’t handled well? Maybe (I don’t know if this is the case, I’m just reaching for something that might conceivably justify being mad at a company). What do you have in mind?

[quote=“FlamesForAll, post:1, topic:329985, full:true”]Would they have been better off not releasing this game?[/quote]I don’t think so - it appears to have been a commercial success (despite 2K Australia closing shop after its release, which seems to be unrelated).

[quote=“FlamesForAll, post:1, topic:329985, full:true”]Will this have a negative impact on future Borderlands games?[/quote]I can’t imagine it would? Even if it was somehow actually terrible, this is not an indicator that future titles would be bad.

#20

Yes.

Considering how they introduced bland and annoying new characters, ruined the old characters, made the setting a lot more cartoony and made a mess of the story… and it probably will be canon…
I’m a huge fan of BL1 and BL2, but right now I’m not expecting BL3 to be as good as them.
Yes. Would have been better off without tps.