The writing is ruining the experience

I am a 45 year old adult. A gamer, who’s been gaming since I was a kid. I also am a guy who loves irreverent, silly, witty humor. Borderlands 2 was filled with this type of writing.

What happened? Not going to spoil anything… but I just did a quest with the most asinine trivial dialogue i’ve ever seen in, jeez, probably any game I can think of. Can we get a rewrite? please? who made the decisions to fire all of the talented writers and hire whoever wrote this drivel. Very disappointing, the last game had such fun dialogue, and this just doesn’t. sad.

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What quest?

coffee

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I love the coffee quest, for I am the Coffee Commander!

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Just you wait for the ubiquitous turd references!

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Maybe your sense of humour has changed over the years? BL2 and TPS were pretty much the same, a lot of the humour made me cringe but it grew on me after a while.

There’s some kinda embarassing humour in BL3 but I think there’s a lot of (imo) really funny stuff too. I did cringe at some of the dialogue in the coffee quest (not a huge fan of Lorelei) but the guy shouting that he’d never stop pursuing the coffee mug made me laugh.

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or the obsession of most characters with abusing dicks in some fashion

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I am a 45 47 year old adult. A gamer, who’s been gaming since I was a kid. I also am a guy who loves irreverent, silly, witty humor. I know that it would be nigh impossible to make a game with dialogue/humor that worked for every player type who hits this game, so I just take joy in the fact that much of it does make me laugh, and ignore the rest. Less than BL2? We’ll see when the full scope of the content for BL3 comes out, but even if less, it’s still enough for me.

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“Get ready to feel my fingers in your eyeballs!” man i love borderlands 2

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What happened is that the writers are different for this game, and while they tried really hard to emulate the 2nd games’ humor, they couldn’t pull it off. The jokes in BL3 are incredibly forced and awkward and you can feel the strain of how hard they’re trying to be clever. It feels almost like 6th grade fan fiction compared to the 2nd game, which was legitimately clever and practically subtle compared to how desperate BL3s jokes are.

The 1st game also doesn’t get enough recognition for its humor. The first game’s humor was much dryer and darker, but I love it almost as much as 2 and I think it made for the best atmosphere in the series. I think the saddest part about BL3 is that the guy who wrote the first game was originally scheduled to be the writer for BL3, but ended up having to step away from the company. It really makes you wonder how good the game could have been had he been able to write it.

The writing quality of one of the first two games paired with the gameplay quality of BL3? Man…that could have been nearly a 10/10 game.

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I think that there were several writers for BL3, without there being a good review of what each person wrote when it all came together.

Several jokes are similar, but said by different characters.

  • “Turd farming” comes up weirdly often.
  • “I have an opinion, and if you disagree you will DIE” comes up weirdly often.
  • Characters that didn’t use to have huge egos suddenly declare themselves to be awesome/amazing at everything, along with those who used to have huge egos. These include Tiny Tina, Marcus, Claptrap, and Mr. Torgue.
  • Just general meanness/abusiveness toward the VH or other characters from some NPCs seems super off. Marcus is a prime example. Tiny tina to Mordecai is another.

I liked the overall story (despite some plot holes/plot armor), but it’s in the characterization of some of the main NPCs and some of the jokes where the writing is at its least best.

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I don’t know, Tina yelled at Mordecai a lot in the Dragon Keep DLC. And Claptrap has been covering up his depression with cheerful egotism since the Robolution.

I’m sort of the opposite of you where most of my problems involve the main plot. The sirens just gaining powers as the plot requires and the retconning of the entire backstory of the series for a character that’s introduced and killed off in the last act of the game are the things that bug me the most. I guess you can consider that the backstory of the Calypsos too, but I think there had to have been a better way to get those characters where they needed to be.

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She did yell at him a lot, but it was seen as a playful child and a supportive patient adult.

It’s different, IMO, in the current context where she, along with Brick’s enabling, are just acting like dicks to him.

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“Shutting the door defenses down…now!”
“Activating additional door defenses. Turrets deployed.”
“God ■■■■■■■ Dammit.” -claptrap
I lol everytime.

In bl3 i havnt had a lol moment at all.

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Yup, BEST.LINES.EVER!
Gone through there countless times & fin love that segment & there’s a few close lines in BL3, but only close. Captain Traunt/Haunt has some good lines if you’re listening, but only one liners

It’s like the wrote it for middle schoolers

It’s forced

The story is terrible and the humor worse

Don’t know who I dislike more typhoon or Vaughn

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In many ways Claptrap is the absolute perfect example of the difference between the writing of BL2 and BL3. In BL2 he’s a dorky, goofy, good-natured screw up that tries hard, but can’t seem to do anything right to the point of it being hilarious. It makes him funny, annoying, and pitiable all at the same time.

In BL3 there’s zero nuance, he’s just extremely obnoxious and absurdly dumb in a very “in your face” way. Everything he says is a terrible, forced joke made to showcase just how stupid and annoying he is. It’s like you can feel the writers screaming “Look how obnoxious and dumb he is, ISNT THIS HYSTERICAL???”

Ugh.

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I like him in BL2/TPS but in BL3 he is just meh.

Actually Typhoon and Vaughn are top notch IMO and I met Vbro in Tales. For a character to be poorly written I feel they must stand out from the scenery as if they don’t belong there. It is my view that Tannis is the most poorly written character, I spent a long time her during BL2 and know her inside out, took interest in the rumor she was going to be a villian for Borderlands 3. Tannis doesn’t seem as transparent as the rest of the cast.

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The lead writer of bl2 was hired by some netflix show. That’s why the writing took a turn.