Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Risky Bisquick
Jan 18, 2008

PLEASE LET ME WRITE YOUR VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT SO I CAN FURTHER DEMONSTRATE THE CALAMITY THAT IS OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.



Buglord
Which TPS raid boss, ECLIPSE/EOS? In MP that fight is a nightmare. in SP that fight can be down to like 4-5 minutes which begs the question about the scaling for MP.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Risky Bisquick posted:

Which TPS raid boss, ECLIPSE/EOS? In MP that fight is a nightmare. in SP that fight can be down to like 4-5 minutes which begs the question about the scaling for MP.

Isn't the redo version of Empyrean Sentinel the only raid boss in BLPS? I thought EOS was a regular boss.

Mikedawson
Jun 21, 2013

I beat the Borderlands 1 GOTY Enhanced DLC and have decided I wanted to replay the other games in chronological order following that. (Yes, I realize there will be a QOL drop between presequel and 2). Do the community patches still work? Also, a really big issue for me is that I hate how the bosses (esp late-game) regain all their health after you die in single player. (On the other hand I think I might have a better chance of finding people to play with than I did when I first went through the games)

I'd rank the DLC campaigns as follows:

1. General Knoxx
2. Moxxi
3. Robolution
4. Dr. Ned

General Knoxx was a really fun villain, Athena ruled, the Crimson Lance are a fun enemy faction to fight, and "collect much loot as you can in 2 minutes" was a cool concept, and aesthetically I like the idea the map being a big highway but I hated all the backtracking (with no fast travel!) and it kind of sucked how Shank/the prison was pretty much just a gay joke when by and large the series is usually pretty decent with gay people. I thought the Underdome was a cool idea for a horde mode, but didn't really do much of it as it feels like it was built more for MP when I was doing SP. Robolution was alright but I just wasn't particularly crazy for it. Dr. Ned had a couple good jokes but by and large was kind of unfunny, and the zombies felt like a bit of a chore to fight at times.

Risky Bisquick
Jan 18, 2008

PLEASE LET ME WRITE YOUR VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT SO I CAN FURTHER DEMONSTRATE THE CALAMITY THAT IS OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.



Buglord

Cease to Hope posted:

Isn't the redo version of Empyrean Sentinel the only raid boss in BLPS? I thought EOS was a regular boss.

It's gated by stones (20) but it's not any different than when you fight it the first time I thought. I never found it any different in TVHM and UVHM.

Tinfoil Papercut
Jul 27, 2016

by Athanatos

Mikedawson posted:

it kind of sucked how Shank/the prison was pretty much just a gay joke when by and large the series is usually pretty decent with gay people.

Shank was pretty clear that he was not gay. Chaz was just a really great guy. :a2m:

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Nothing in Pre-Sequel can match up to the setpieces in Borderlands 2 and it's exacerbated by the samey environments and just a general lack of soul.

I beat the Bloodshot Ramparts quest and I love how it introduces Hyperion's armed forces. You spend half the time feeling sympathy for the bandits getting mercilessly slaughtered by unflinching robots and the other half laughing at Flanksteak's attempts to haggle down his own price for Roland while the place is still under attack, and the soundtrack absolutely rips.

Bloodshot Ramparts and the assault on the Bunker are some of the best fights in the whole series.

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Mikedawson posted:

I beat the Borderlands 1 GOTY Enhanced DLC and have decided I wanted to replay the other games in chronological order following that. (Yes, I realize there will be a QOL drop between presequel and 2). Do the community patches still work? Also, a really big issue for me is that I hate how the bosses (esp late-game) regain all their health after you die in single player. (On the other hand I think I might have a better chance of finding people to play with than I did when I first went through the games)

The community patches work but you need to install them manually rather than with the now-broken mod manager. Presequel's community patch is a lot less important for a regular playthrough; it's really focused on making the endgame less sterile and reliant on Gibbed.

Some thoughts:

Pre-Sequel is set both before and after Borderlands 2. The main story is actually a flashback, with Athena explaining the events of BLPS to the cast of BL2 after the end of BL2. Neither game spoils the other.

Pre-Sequel's second playthrough, True Vault Hunter Mode, has new narration, with a fan-favorite character badgering Athena into retelling the story and making it sound harder this time. I guess it assumes you know and care who Tiny Tina is from BL2, although all you need to know is that she's a hyper teenager who codeswitches apparently at random.

The DLC for BLPS, Claptastic Voyage, is one of the best DLCs for any BL game. It's funny without being too dated or memey, although it obviously involves a whole lot of Claptrap. Do it after finishing BLPS's main story; it bridges BLPS's ending right up to the very beginning of BL2. It starts from Deck 13 1/2.

There's two other BLPS DLCs but they're nearly content-free arena fights that mostly serve to fix a hosed up part of the leveling curve in TVHM mode. You can safely skip them or just do them whenever.

Borderlands 2 is a lot more tolerable for a single blind playthrough if you pick one of the characters who gets a lot of juice out of their early talents, like Gaige, Maya, or arguably Axton, rather than a character with a super OP gimmick that comes online at level 30 or higher (the rest of the cast).

Captain Scarlett's pirate DLC (starting in Oasis) and Torgue's DLC (starting in the Badass Crater) are good, better than the overall level of writing in BL2. You can start them after level 15, which is usually around the time you derail a train in the main story.

The other two big DLCs are set after the main story, and are only available at level 30 anyway. Sir Hammerlock's DLC (starting in Hunter's Hollow) is trying to parody Heart of Darkness, but it's real bad and real real racist. The villain appears in BLPS and Tales but this one is super skippable.

Tiny Tina's DLC (starting in Unassuming Docks) is a bunch of silly D&D parody stuff that also tries to provide some emotional closure for the main story. Most people seem to love this DLC, although mixing twee and maudlin doesn't do a lot for me. It's a lot of Tiny Tina.

The rest of the BL2 DLC are little one-off vignettes (the Headhunter packs) or low-effort arena filler (Creature Slaughter and Digistruct Peak). The Headhunter packs are charming but short and mostly thin on story, and the arenas are totally skippable. Creature Slaughter in particular mostly exists as a DLC to punish people who originally bought BL2 used.

Tales from the Borderlands is very, very good and you should play it. It is set after BL2 and BLPS.

AkumaHokoru
Jul 20, 2007

This is a man who was in denial of who he was. this does happen in the gay community. there's even more of that level of resistance to one's self in the black community so I never saw it as over the top but as a reality. (including the dudes willing to kill to hide their preferences)

Mikedawson
Jun 21, 2013

Cease to Hope posted:

The community patches work but you need to install them manually rather than with the now-broken mod manager. Presequel's community patch is a lot less important for a regular playthrough; it's really focused on making the endgame less sterile and reliant on Gibbed.

Some thoughts:

I have already played through TPS and 2 so I won't be missing out on continuity stuff, but I appreciate the effort! Thank you for telling my about the patches, though.

AkumaHokoru posted:

This is a man who was in denial of who he was. this does happen in the gay community. there's even more of that level of resistance to one's self in the black community so I never saw it as over the top but as a reality. (including the dudes willing to kill to hide their preferences)

Yeah I know it happens a lot (I'm bi and had some denial issues myself before coming out) it just bothered me how a lot of it felt like a crude attempt at a joke from straight people.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
That's because for the most part it was a crude attempt to tell a joke from straight people.

Kaysette
Jan 5, 2009

~*Boston makes me*~
~*feel good*~

:wrongcity:
Gameplay reveal May 1st: https://borderlands.com/en-US/news/2019-04-15-tune-in-may-1-borderlands-3-gameplay-reveal/

AkumaHokoru
Jul 20, 2007

Mikedawson posted:

I have already played through TPS and 2 so I won't be missing out on continuity stuff, but I appreciate the effort! Thank you for telling my about the patches, though.


Yeah I know it happens a lot (I'm bi and had some denial issues myself before coming out) it just bothered me how a lot of it felt like a crude attempt at a joke from straight people.

This is true. the game came out when anti-gay humor was still acceptable in the mainstream.

Andrigaar
Dec 12, 2003
Saint of Killers
I didn't realize there was new narration in TPS on TVHM. We'd skipped a ton of the side missions on normal out of frustration so I thought all of the new dialogue was stuff we'd missed.

And, yup, the raid boss is just the final story boss with tons more HP and L52. At L50 we got stomped, at L51 we squeaked through a win. I think the first form was way more aggressive than normal, but the the back half wasn't, leaving us mostly monitoring our HP and using Vault_Hunter.exe to regen out of tough situations. Also lots of high fives so we could ignore the electric floor. Wasn't easy, but mainly just took 30+ minutes of holding mouse1.

Lordshmee
Nov 23, 2007

I hate you, Milkman Dan

Tinfoil Papercut posted:

TPS is like if you had a kid who was ginger.

You have to love it because it's part of your family - but you know deep down there's no soul there.

Euro racism is so weird. All I see when I read poo poo like this is, “Racism, racism, racism. Ni**er!” Like, wtf.

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

Lordshmee posted:

Euro racism is so weird. All I see when I read poo poo like this is, “Racism, racism, racism. Ni**er!” Like, wtf.

It's a dumb south park joke. It's bad American fake racism spouted from a character you're not supposed to like.

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011
It predates South Park but it wasn't ever funny.

Lordshmee
Nov 23, 2007

I hate you, Milkman Dan
Of course. Well that explains a great deal.

Orange Crush Rush
May 7, 2009

You don't need thumbs for revenge
And then TPS happens, which was a crude attempt to pander to the gay community by straight people

Orange Crush Rush fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Apr 19, 2019

Andrigaar
Dec 12, 2003
Saint of Killers
Spent close to an hour in solo TPS UVHM:

-Deadlift is a jumping side of beef that hits too hard and takes too much damage. Can't do more than like 20% damage to his shields before the AI just charges me down and ends me.
-This is even more boring and tedious somehow.


I think I'll use the save editor to crank one of each class to L50 and mess around, but this one's shelved forever. I enjoyed Kreig into the OP levels, but the design flaws in TPS just get more pronounced with each difficulty increase.

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

AkumaHokoru posted:

This is a man who was in denial of who he was. this does happen in the gay community. there's even more of that level of resistance to one's self in the black community so I never saw it as over the top but as a reality. (including the dudes willing to kill to hide their preferences)
Not gonna say that couldn't have ever worked, but the additional context that they're all prison inmates is what tips it over into :yikes:territory.

DaveKap
Feb 5, 2006

Pickle: Inspected.



As soon as I read this, all I could think was this line of dialog:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6rGUlVvVJ4&t=406s

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Orange Crush Rush posted:

And then TPS happens, which was a crude attempt to pander to the gay community by straight people

Nah, gently caress off with this. Not all of the jokes with Jenny Sparks land, but Jenny fending off creepy dudes left and right but turning out to be a creep herself is funny and not in any sense pandering.

AkumaHokoru
Jul 20, 2007

John Murdoch posted:

Not gonna say that couldn't have ever worked, but the additional context that they're all prison inmates is what tips it over into :yikes:territory.

fair enough

Orange Crush Rush
May 7, 2009

You don't need thumbs for revenge

Cease to Hope posted:

Nah, gently caress off with this. Not all of the jokes with Jenny Sparks land, but Jenny fending off creepy dudes left and right but turning out to be a creep herself is funny and not in any sense pandering.

It would be if she ever got called out on it. Also that joke about changing her accent to sound like Scooter and saying “Homophobia!” was just a bit too much.

I will say Springs was much better in Tales at least.

Dirt Road Junglist
Oct 8, 2010

We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are

Orange Crush Rush posted:

It would be if she ever got called out on it. Also that joke about changing her accent to sound like Scooter and saying “Homophobia!” was just a bit too much.

I will say Springs was much better in Tales at least.

Predatory lesbians are a pretty gross trope in fiction, and Janey crosses that line for me from time to time.

I say this as a queer woman who is overjoyed most representation in fiction, especially vidja games. Maybe there's a different connotation for that sort of behavior in Australia.

She's not the worst, but I find myself yelling, "oh, come ON," at the game way too often.

Zedsdeadbaby
Jun 14, 2008

You have been called out, in the ways of old.
Bad writing in Borderlands? :monocle:

Venuz Patrol
Mar 27, 2011

Cease to Hope posted:

Nah, gently caress off with this. Not all of the jokes with Jenny Sparks land, but Jenny fending off creepy dudes left and right but turning out to be a creep herself is funny and not in any sense pandering.

whoa. never expected someone to go to the mat to defend Jenny's writing

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Venuz Patrol posted:

whoa. never expected someone to go to the mat to defend Jenny's writing

it's weird to see someone importing the gay-characters-are-pandering-to-gays nonsense to SA :shrug:

Orange Crush Rush
May 7, 2009

You don't need thumbs for revenge

Cease to Hope posted:

it's weird to see someone importing the gay-characters-are-pandering-to-gays nonsense to SA :shrug:

Yeah because finding a main character's dialogue that is best described "btw did you know SHE IS A LESBIAN and wants to gently caress MOXXI AND LILITH because SHE IS GAY, GAY FOR WOMEN" as cringy and eye rolling, is the same thing as finding all gay characters ever to be gay pandering. You loving nailed it chief.

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Orange Crush Rush posted:

Yeah because finding a main character's dialogue that is best described "btw did you know SHE IS A LESBIAN and wants to gently caress MOXXI AND LILITH because SHE IS GAY, GAY FOR WOMEN" as cringy and eye rolling, is the same thing as finding all gay characters ever to be gay pandering. You loving nailed it chief.

how is jenny sparks pandering to gay people, like you said here?

Orange Crush Rush posted:

And then TPS happens, which was a crude attempt to pander to the gay community by straight people

if you think she just sucks, then okay. i'm not going to die on the hill of defend the quality of borderlands writing, lol

Orange Crush Rush
May 7, 2009

You don't need thumbs for revenge
Because like what Dirt Road says, she often gets borderline predatory about how much she chases after every other female NPC, most of which are known to be straight, but never gets called out on it. And in fact Tina seems to cheer it during the narration ("You go girl get that puss!"). Also when you first meet her as a male VH, some of the flirt with her a bit and then she launches into a whole deal about men who assume every girl is straight are about as bad as the baby eating bandits or some poo poo.

So maybe it wasn't pandering to gay people as much as it tried to pander people on Tumblr.

Dirt Road Junglist
Oct 8, 2010

We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are

Orange Crush Rush posted:

Because like what Dirt Road says, she often gets borderline predatory about how much she chases after every other female NPC, most of which are known to be straight, but never gets called out on it. And in fact Tina seems to cheer it during the narration ("You go girl get that puss!"). Also when you first meet her as a male VH, some of the flirt with her a bit and then she launches into a whole deal about men who assume every girl is straight are about as bad as the baby eating bandits or some poo poo.

So maybe it wasn't pandering to gay people as much as it tried to pander people on Tumblr.

This. It came off as trying way too hard, and also leaning into some really toxic stereotypes about horny lesbians.

Honestly, I liked Axton's (accidental) sexuality. Sure, it was originally a bug in his voice lines, but then the writers leaned into it. Him being casually bi is good representation, IMO.

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Dirt Road Junglist posted:

This. It came off as trying way too hard, and also leaning into some really toxic stereotypes about horny lesbians.

idk. i'm inclined to cut sparks a lot more slack because it seems like pretty much everyone who expresses any sexual interest in anyone else at all in BLPS is gay or bi, but i take your point here.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Or jack casually threatening the one scientist's wife during one of the wildlife preserve missions.

The portrayal of non binary sexuality in media can bug me where the writers are clearly trying to be progressive and showcase their relationships. They think they're normalizing gay relationships but instead it comes off as maintaining the exceptionalism angle because they draw waaay too much attention to it. You keep treating things as exceptional so you can be praised for your diversity but you still keep up the wall that prevents you from normalizing these relationships.

Springs in TPS is the Borderlands equivalent of that one friend who will not shut the hell up about her boyfriend whenever you go out for drinks because she assumes if people don't know she's in a relationship everyone wants to jump her. If the only thing memorable about your personality is your propensity for talking about your orientation or relationship status, you're poorly written or shallow. I know Janey Springs also has her scavver background and her mechanical skill but neither of those things stick out because her constant chatter about how she's a lesbian drowns it out.

Scooter is a socially awkward hick moron and also a mechanical savant and the games explore both of those angles, even if the second game did play up how much inbreeding messed with his brain

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Arcsquad12 posted:

The portrayal of non binary sexuality in media can bug me where the writers are clearly trying to be progressive and showcase their relationships. They think they're normalizing gay relationships but instead it comes off as maintaining the exceptionalism angle because they draw waaay too much attention to it. You keep treating things as exceptional so you can be praised for your diversity but you still keep up the wall that prevents you from normalizing these relationships.

this is why sparks doesn't bother me, though. she (and tiny tina) are super loud and annoying about being attracted to women, sure. there are lots of games where there's One Exceptional Minority Character, but not BLPS: moxxi, athena, hammerlock, and a handful of minor characters are all gay/bi without being super loud and annoying about it. jenny sparks isn't a token character; she's one of several gay characters in the game, and happens to be super loud and annoying about it because she's super loud and annoying in general.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
But then you're still left with an obnoxious annoying character with little else to her but gay stereotyping. Was Claptrap really improved in BL2 by everyone doubling down on the idea that he's an idiot robot jackass nobody likes?

Tales from the Borderlands proved that you can keep the dumber aspects of characters and still make them into compelling characters. Not clichés, but actual characters.

Tendales
Mar 9, 2012
Is there a specific joke behind people calling Janey Springs Jenny Sparks? Because I've seen it other places besides here and I can't tell if it's a reference to something or just a collective brainfart.

Anyway. I'm also in the camp that Tales went a long way to fleshing out and improving Janey's characterization.

Kerrzhe
Nov 5, 2008

i forgot hammerlock was gay.

is it offensive if i say it shouldn't matter whether a character is gay or not? i have no idea these days.

Tendales posted:

Is there a specific joke behind people calling Janey Springs Jenny Sparks? Because I've seen it other places besides here and I can't tell if it's a reference to something or just a collective brainfart.

also this, who the gently caress is jenny sparks??

Andrigaar
Dec 12, 2003
Saint of Killers
Oh man, I'm getting my rear end in a top hat torn to shreds in BL1 right now. It's the mission where you have to shut down 4 smoke signals while armored lancer guys swarm and murder you from behind an entire level of waist-high walls to hide behind. I honestly don't recall this many enemies just spawning around you and murdering you from behind.

But it's TVHM, so maybe the spawn rate is higher. Which would just mean a mission I think is poo poo is made even shittier.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

eonwe
Aug 11, 2008



Lipstick Apathy
drat tiny tina dlc is good

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply