Borderlands 3 easily has the best gunplay, gameplay, and endgame build crafting of any of the previous Borderlands. Though it outshines the prior games, there is so much missed potential in all of the aforementioned areas, and when compared against other games of the same type, it definitely falls short. The content necessary to make an RPG you'd spend thousands of hours experimenting with is HERE, but it's not been welded together properly, and there's a lot of sewage to slog through.

As I said before all of the CONTENT needed to make what could be the best RPG of it's generation EXIST. To put it in metaphor: They have enough building material (AAA studio funding, massive prior success) to make a Skyscraper, but the foundation (old RPG/Borderlands tropes and disorderly game design) they plan to build on is misshapen and cracked. Nevertheless they plow ahead and build their Skyscraper (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out 4 DLCs in a year), and surprise surprise the end result is slanted and barely stable (poor performance, imbalanced endgame), and no one wants to revisit the Skyscraper after having been there once or twice (very tedious after your second run through), mainly because you have to take the stairs (a 15 hour long story) every time you want to reach the top because the slant of the tower doesn't let you install an elevator (insistence on making you experience the drawn out story every playthrough).



The most unforgivable, worst crime Gearbox has commited with this game: they think they are master storytellers after having heard people cried at Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, so they focus on making a game that's 90% dialogue, cliche story, and celebrity voice actor, only giving 10% focus the gameplay loop. There is absolutely ZERO replayability for the 4 DLCs. The main thing you are expected to do in these DLCs is enjoy (ha) the story. There's not a SINGLE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ARENA to quickly refight DLC enemies and acquire the DLC loot IN ALL FOUR OF THESE DLCS. Not a SINGLE CIRCLE OF SLAUGHTER. After you are done with the DLC, if you really want to, you can slowly refight the bosses in the same way you first encountered them. Or maybe do a sidequest that rewards you with a garbage aftermarket weapon that you will either sell or put in your safe after trying it out for 5 minutes.

The base game at least has a few circle of slaughters to just zone out and push your build to the limit in. They aren't particularly rewarding but they can be difficult.

They are doing the same thing every other AAA studio is doing right now, and that is making MOVIES instead of a GAME. This must be an unfortunate side effect of video games becoming more mainstream. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hollywood simpletons are discovering this medium and injecting their basic ♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.



I'd bet good money that whoever is in charge of balancing content has no base metric to help them decide what stats to give a weapon or skills. Whenever the community cries out that a weapon/skill feels weak or too strong, Gearbox always seems to give the "problem" a flat 200% damage buff or 50% damage nerf. Instead of examining the entirety of the meta and what makes the "problem" good/bad, they just slap damage boost/nerf on whatever is performing poorly.

Best example I can think of is Iron Bear a few patches ago. Totally useless ability in the endgame, only existing to activate your anointments and maybe give you a few i-frames. Obviously a bad thing; sorely in need of rebalancing. So they buffed it with flat % damage and HP buffs. Feels pretty good in the endgame. But for anyone playing through the early levels, it totally trivialized the experience. In one usage of Iron Bear you could kill a boss/mini boss, clear entire areas, and run through anything and everything. The base damage wasn't the problem, but the level-by-level scaling.

Making a fair endgame for an RPG Shooter is understandably a very difficult line to balance on, but it IS the type of game you are trying to make, so please take the time to do it well.



Legendaries and (very rarely) Aftermarket/Unique equipment are the only rarity you can rely on in the endgame. I heard this quote about video game design philosophy about Hearthstone somewhere but the same applies here,"Legendaries should be cards that, when compared to others of their cost, actually under perform STATWISE, but have very niche and unique situations they excel at dealing with." Unfortunately legendaries in this game are flat out better than any purple you could compare it with.

There are so many useless legendaries clogging the loot pool that you lose the excitement getting a legendary drop, in fact in the highest difficulty some legendary drops are less valuable than the ammo/grenade/health that might drop from the enemies you kill.

By making legendaries strictly better than any of the other rarites, you've effectively thrown all of the guns from Purple on downward in the trash. This is WASTED WORK EFFORT. You are invalidating a part of work you've done on your game. LITERALLY WASTING EFFORT. THINK GEARCOCKS THINK. JESUS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CHRIST.



Why does Lilith call me on my Echo to tell me to talk to her, only to be sent down to same map after we're done talking? So they can load the next version of the map sneakily. There are far better ways of doing this.

Why is Lilith located on the opposite side from the Fast Travel in Sanctuary? Why can she suddenly fly at the very end of the game? I know, it's to cut into the stupid super hero theme that's plaguing American pop-culture.

Why does nobody break both of Ava's legs and jettison her from the ship? Why is Ava becoming a main character? Why is everyone on Sanctuary afraid of confronting a spoiled brat's selfish outburst towards the leaders of what is supposedly a formidable resistance and force of general good?

Why do the Player Vault Hunters cease to exist during cutscenes? Why are cutscenes still a thing in video games? Half-Life wisely did away with constantly shifting perspective decades ago, and everyone agreed it was a groundbreaking brilliant design choice. Valve is successful for a reason.

Why did you try to recapture the tragedy of BL2's Angel's and Roland's death by killing Maya but not using it to develop your two villains/story in any meaningful way? Why does nobody slap Ava upside the head when she starts lashing out at a bunch of people who knew Maya a lot better than she did. Again why can't I kill Ava? I hate Ava. Why does she and not literally anyone else on ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Sanctuary get the leadership position of the Crimson Raiders? When I say literally anyone else I absolutely mean LITERALLY anyone else. I'd ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ take Claptrap instead of that miserable ♥♥♥♥.



There are a lot of problems but I do have to admit Gearbox have put a TON of patches out, at least trying (and failing) to do something about the poor balancing, nothing much can be done about the trashcan story. And that's really the only reason I'd say this game is worth buying at some point. Well, that and the fact that the modding community has already started working on fixing it themselves. Just like how Reborn made BL2 great again, I'm positive that years from now, there will be a wonderful overhaul mod that fixes most everything I've listed.

So maybe wait for a great sale that has the game and all the DLC for under 20 dollars, or for a groundbreaking mod that 1-ups all the idiots at Gearbox dragging this game down. It's not worth 60 bucks, that's for sure.

FYI you can delete the voiceline files off your computer and save yourself loads time and pain medication for any extra playthroughs.


I have somewhere around 600 hours in the Epic games version.

Borderlands 3 easily has the best gunplay, gameplay, and endgame build crafting of any of the previous Borderlands. Though it outshines the prior games, there is so much missed potential in all of the aforementioned areas, and when compared against other games of the same type, it definitely falls short. The content necessary to make an RPG you'd spend thousands of hours experimenting with is HERE, but it's not been welded together properly, and there's a lot of sewage to slog through. As I said before all of the CONTENT needed to make what could be the best RPG of it's generation EXIST. To put it in metaphor: They have enough building material (AAA studio funding, massive prior success) to make a Skyscraper, but the foundation (old RPG/Borderlands tropes and disorderly game design) they plan to build on is misshapen and cracked. Nevertheless they plow ahead and build their Skyscraper (shitting out 4 DLCs in a year), and surprise surprise the end result is slanted and barely stable (poor performance, imbalanced endgame), and no one wants to revisit the Skyscraper after having been there once or twice (very tedious after your second run through), mainly because you have to take the stairs (a 15 hour long story) every time you want to reach the top because the slant of the tower doesn't let you install an elevator (insistence on making you experience the drawn out story every playthrough). The most unforgivable, worst crime Gearbox has commited with this game: they think they are master storytellers after having heard people cried at Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, so they focus on making a game that's 90% dialogue, cliche story, and celebrity voice actor, only giving 10% focus the gameplay loop. There is absolutely ZERO replayability for the 4 DLCs. The main thing you are expected to do in these DLCs is enjoy (ha) the story. There's not a SINGLE FUCKING ARENA to quickly refight DLC enemies and acquire the DLC loot IN ALL FOUR OF THESE DLCS. Not a SINGLE CIRCLE OF SLAUGHTER. After you are done with the DLC, if you really want to, you can slowly refight the bosses in the same way you first encountered them. Or maybe do a sidequest that rewards you with a garbage aftermarket weapon that you will either sell or put in your safe after trying it out for 5 minutes. The base game at least has a few circle of slaughters to just zone out and push your build to the limit in. They aren't particularly rewarding but they can be difficult. They are doing the same thing every other AAA studio is doing right now, and that is making MOVIES instead of a GAME. This must be an unfortunate side effect of video games becoming more mainstream. Fucking hollywood simpletons are discovering this medium and injecting their basic bitch bullshit. I'd bet good money that whoever is in charge of balancing content has no base metric to help them decide what stats to give a weapon or skills. Whenever the community cries out that a weapon/skill feels weak or too strong, Gearbox always seems to give the "problem" a flat 200% damage buff or 50% damage nerf. Instead of examining the entirety of the meta and what makes the "problem" good/bad, they just slap damage boost/nerf on whatever is performing poorly. Best example I can think of is Iron Bear a few patches ago. Totally useless ability in the endgame, only existing to activate your anointments and maybe give you a few i-frames. Obviously a bad thing; sorely in need of rebalancing. So they buffed it with flat % damage and HP buffs. Feels pretty good in the endgame. But for anyone playing through the early levels, it totally trivialized the experience. In one usage of Iron Bear you could kill a boss/mini boss, clear entire areas, and run through anything and everything. The base damage wasn't the problem, but the level-by-level scaling. Making a fair endgame for an RPG Shooter is understandably a very difficult line to balance on, but it IS the type of game you are trying to make, so please take the time to do it well. Legendaries and (very rarely) Aftermarket/Unique equipment are the only rarity you can rely on in the endgame. I heard this quote about video game design philosophy about Hearthstone somewhere but the same applies here,"Legendaries should be cards that, when compared to others of their cost, actually under perform STATWISE, but have very niche and unique situations they excel at dealing with." Unfortunately legendaries in this game are flat out better than any purple you could compare it with. There are so many useless legendaries clogging the loot pool that you lose the excitement getting a legendary drop, in fact in the highest difficulty some legendary drops are less valuable than the ammo/grenade/health that might drop from the enemies you kill. By making legendaries strictly better than any of the other rarites, you've effectively thrown all of the guns from Purple on downward in the trash. This is WASTED WORK EFFORT. You are invalidating a part of work you've done on your game. LITERALLY WASTING EFFORT. THINK GEARCOCKS THINK. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. Why does Lilith call me on my Echo to tell me to talk to her, only to be sent down to same map after we're done talking? So they can load the next version of the map sneakily. There are far better ways of doing this. Why is Lilith located on the opposite side from the Fast Travel in Sanctuary? Why [spoiler] can she suddenly fly at the very end of the game? I know, it's to cut into the stupid super hero theme that's plaguing American pop-culture. [/spoiler] Why does nobody break both of Ava's legs and jettison her from the ship? Why is Ava becoming a main character? Why is everyone on Sanctuary afraid of confronting a spoiled brat's selfish outburst towards the leaders of what is supposedly a formidable resistance and force of general good? Why do the Player Vault Hunters cease to exist during cutscenes? Why are cutscenes still a thing in video games? Half-Life wisely did away with constantly shifting perspective decades ago, and everyone agreed it was a groundbreaking brilliant design choice. Valve is successful for a reason. Why [spoiler] did you try to recapture the tragedy of BL2's Angel's and Roland's death by killing Maya but not using it to develop your two villains/story in any meaningful way? Why does nobody slap Ava upside the head when she starts lashing out at a bunch of people who knew Maya a lot better than she did. Again why can't I kill Ava? I hate Ava. Why does she and not literally anyone else on fucking Sanctuary get the leadership position of the Crimson Raiders? When I say literally anyone else I absolutely mean LITERALLY anyone else. I'd fucking take Claptrap instead of that miserable cunt. [/spoiler] There are a lot of problems but I do have to admit Gearbox have put a TON of patches out, at least trying (and failing) to do something about the poor balancing, nothing much can be done about the trashcan story. And that's really the only reason I'd say this game is worth buying at some point. Well, that and the fact that the modding community has already started working on fixing it themselves. Just like how Reborn made BL2 great again, I'm positive that years from now, there will be a wonderful overhaul mod that fixes most everything I've listed. So maybe wait for a great sale that has the game and all the DLC for under 20 dollars, or for a groundbreaking mod that 1-ups all the idiots at Gearbox dragging this game down. It's not worth 60 bucks, that's for sure. FYI you [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Borderlands/comments/kljusj/psa_how_to_skip_most_if_not_all_base_game_dialogue/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share] can delete the voiceline files off your computer and save yourself loads time and pain medication [/url] for any extra playthroughs. I have somewhere around 600 hours in the Epic games version.