DLC 4 doesn't resolve any important story issues

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 SPOILERS
#1

From what I’ve seen of the extremely sparse content involving Maya in this dlc, I am extremely disappointed with how little it improves the main story, fleshes out the characters, or resolves any of the huge character development issues present. The final ECHO came across as the writers using Maya as a stand-in to justify their treatment of her in the main story in an extremely half-hearted manner. The DLC basically fulfilled my worst fear, that Maya would be delegated to a plot device and damsel love interest for Krieg’s story, instead of her own unique character with her own thoughts, ideals, and path.

No one seems to remember or care that she is a saviour of the entirety of Pandora and potentially the galaxy. Her sole use in the story is as a tool for other characters development and storytelling, removing all of her agency and the potential she had to stand out as a character.

The DLC doesn’t seem to do anything to flesh out Maya’s story beyond her relationship with Krieg, diminishing what fans hoped for.

Her supposedly prophetic insight that she might die loses any weight or emotional meaning when you remember how extremely forced, nonsensical and unsatisfying her “death” was, and how disrespectful the rest of the characters were towards her. It feels emotionally manipulative, like her death is being used as a cash grab without addressing any of the issues that came with it. Her “gift” to the galaxy being Ava, instead of being her own woman who fought against an entire army and a demi-god, and foreseeing her death to an underdeveloped, comic relief streaming stereotype, and then it being treated like a joke by Tannis (for whom she did immense, life-threatening and heroic things for) doesn’t pull the heart-strings in the way Gearbox seems to have intended it to.

I still believe the only way they can resolve any of the huge story problems the third game brought forward is to just bring Maya back (and heck, maybe even Aurelia), and just pretend the entire game never happened.

8 Likes
#2

I’d settle for force ghost Maya.

2 Likes
#3

No joke, I suspect the next borderlands be like “Borderlands: the inter-sequel” wich takes place between 2 and 3 and has a metric crap ton of retconning and loose end knotting.

4 Likes
#4

Why should this dlc do it? I mean a lot of dlcs are so far away from the base game even in bl2. Captain Scarlett or the Torgue Campaign.

#5

False expectations primarily, they shouldn’t advertise a dlc with a return of fan favourite characters like Maya and Krieg, and completely skim any narrative depth or storytelling, despite the extremely heavy ramifications left by the main story which are almost entirely ignored and dismissed.

That is why it feels like a cash grab, it wants to bank on the emotional and fan connection to Maya without doing anything to give her character the writing she deserves.

6 Likes
#6

Yeah, was very disappointed about that. Didn’t even get to see Krieg’s reaction, or even thoughts, just him saying that he “knows she’s gone”.

Was really hoping he’d get mad and kill Ava, though that was never gonna happen XD

3 Likes
#7

Like the other DLCs of this game, they revolve around the character development of a particular character - in this instance Krieg. And Maya being such a big part of Kriegs story and development so far, it’s weird to not answer questions regarding her.

Of course, everything in this DLC is a manipulation of Kreigs imagination - so he could very well THINK that she is a damsel and that he needed to save her in order to save himself.

However, they put echo logs of past conversations with Maya in the dlc. They showed Maya vouching for him to the crimson raiders, inviting him along with her after they met at the train station and her even going on to leave him an echo log about Ava and why she might not return.

But it did it in a very dissatisfying way where it didn’t really reveal anything new other than he knew she wasn’t coming back. They went on a tangent about how they could take out the sane Krieg and put him into a robot - which leaves many, MANY questions about whether they could just do this to anyone - and vaguely answered how she knew Ava was going to inherit her powers. “I can just feel it.”

It would have been a great moment to flesh out Ava a bit. Instead it came across, to me, that Maya said : “I know I promised to come back but I met this kid so screw you, gonna just dump my powers to her at some point because she’s so much like me when I was a kid.”.

It also feels like they were afraid to commit to an idea - whether Maya could return or not - and just left it in the air. Again.

1 Like
#9

Name some examples from the other dlcs!

In the handsome jackpot were only a few voicelines between moxxy and Timmy what else?
In the 3rd dlc I can’t even tell

The story of dlc 4 is OK, but it has a huge lag on constant

#10

DLC 1 was the character development on Timothy - a fan favourite that people kept asking about as well Moxxi now having access to a casino capable of mass producing robots.

DLC 2 was the development of both Hammerlocke and Wainright as well as providing Deathtrap with a laser that can destroy alien shields.

DLC 3 was about the development of the Jakobs company and how in the past they not only created new weaponry that was deemed illegal by the resident on Ghanna but they also created a creature that was on the same level as a vault monster - information that we don’t know if Wainright had access to before but he certainly does now.

And then finally we had the character development of Kreig - another fan favourite that many were asking about. Even more so after the story of 3. And now Tannis has information about Vaulthalla and what makes a psycho crazy and out of control…to possibly cure future psychos to aide the crimson raiders?

These are big plots canon wise - more so than Captain Scarlet or the other DLCs were. The tiny Tina dlc was about her moving on but that didn’t impact future story. The only thing that’s came close to this kind of development would be the claptrap dlc on the pre sequel BUT that was set before bl2 and so the effects of that were already apparent in 2 (including the explaination of Claptraps product line being gone).

EDIT : deleted previous post that already said this as didn’t want to clog the forum ^^

5 Likes
#11

If you need paid DLC to complete the game’s story then you are doing it wrong.

4 Likes
#12

I don’t think it’s a case of completing the story. It’s a case of it addresses events from the story in a clumsy way that is the issue. And if you are going to reference and even try to answer something that had happened in the main story, it should be a decent explaination.

The DLCs purposely take themselves seriously because they are tied into the story in some way. We got answers from the last dlcs of what happened to certain people - what’s wrong with asking those questions about other characters?

If they wanted to avoid those questions, they could have made different choices with Maya in the DLC. Instead they teased about her, Ava and sirens in general…but didn’t add anything of value regarding them.

#13

Not only that but it’s really obnoxious how BL3 is not only ignoring past open questions and lore but is also completely ignoring it’s own story and new brought up questions.

Each time there is a new piece of content it acts like nothing from BL1, 2, TPS, TftB ever happened and on top ignores the Borderlands 3 main campaign itself.

  • How’s the state of Maliwan.
  • Are the COV dismantling and going back to normal bandit clans?
  • Lilith and Elpis
  • Krieg outside of his mind
  • Axton, Salvadore etc. having the smallest of recognition through skins, posters etc. yet they are still missing.
  • The B Team story (parting with Lilith etc.)
  • Sanctuary II
  • The Lodge mysteries
  • Does Wrainwright has any knowlegde about the Company
  • Nyriad and the Sirens
  • Maya “Force Ghost” and Ava
  • Hyperions new management
  • These “new” kind of Guardians
  • Gaige/ Holloway Robotics
  • the rekindling of the Corporate Wars (which was also already hinted at in FfS)

and probably half a dozen other things I forgotten, and we are only speaking about things in BL3 itself!

Each day I get more and more the feeling that they are purposefully ignoring it all just so they already have content for BL4 without having to put in alot of effort creating some new and interesting stories/side quest content.

I mean seriously Borderlands 3 + all 4 DLC move the story and universe forward so little, if even, that at this point it might aswell could just be one giant reboot.

Edit: Because I realized that this might read like a counter to your arguement, with which I’m agreeing, what I meant with all this is that they should stop throwing hints out at every corner that don’t get resolved anywhere, be it main game or DLC.

4 Likes
#14

All the important issue resolving that I need
Axton new career as a "model " confirmed , he is really the guy going “Commando” on the magazine :rofl:

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I think people started to have waaaaaaaaaay too serious expectations when it comes to Borderlands story, the core of BL is the humor, dlc focus on that and it’s a good thing. They should stop trying the forced dramatic and super serious takes just because they lucked out with Roland death, at the core drama is not what BL is good at.

3 Likes
#15

I do agree with that to a point. They are trying too hard in making twists and deep plot. And I’ve always said to my friends who swear BL2 story was amazing - the story was actually pretty simple. It was the characters that made it amazing : all the personalities and how they connected.

Tales from the Borderlands handled serious moments incredibly well too. I haven’t cried at a game for a long time but I hard cried twice…TWICE.

I would gladly welcome a silly dlc or headhunter pack like we had before (overgrown snowman, son of crawmarax, pirates and treasure). We need more of that and less serious stuff. Just fun craziness.

6 Likes
#16

Have you not seen one of Mozes skins? Can’t remember which one it is but uh…Iron Bear has a pretty good looking Acton posing shirtless on its front >.>

#17

nah
I will remove the dust on IB and check lol

#18

I cant remember its name but Moze has leopard print on herself

1 Like
#19

Which problems were solved in the captain Scarlett dlc? I really can’t remember…

1 Like
#20

BL2 dlcs were silly and fun that had nothing to do with the story of the game. The DLCs of BL3, however, take themselves seriously and are linked to the story and any future stories. Everything that happens in them is being used as setup for future content. BL2 DLCs never had that kind of pressure.

I would happily take a dlc that is just for fun. I’ve seen a lot of bigger namesake - such a story joltzdude or killersix - who would love headhunter DLCs. The Snowman DLC was one my favourites because I loved grinding the two chests at the end for challenge runs. Got my first Pearl from it too

#21

It turns out it is one of the skins sold at Earl: funk up. That s why I missed it, oh well now I put this eridium to good use :rofl:

2 Likes