More similar to Maliwan than Guardian pretty much.
IE: You don’t have people who run it solo try to do the tasks of a group of people, hitting two switches at the same time, one person being on one side of the map simultaneously one on the other completing a timed task. Make sure it is VERY hard solo, just not nearly impossible.
To a degree I guess, but quality is very important. I voted BL2 because it had the quality. It had the longevity. Hell, I quite dislike some of BL2s DLCs and I think BL3 DLCs so far have been better in general. It the overall quality of gameplay that is the problem for me.
I often started BL2 just for the sake of mobbing because it was challenging and fun. I never was a huge fan of farming even back then but I always thought having farmable bosses is one of the biggest reasons to revisit areas and farming in BL2 never felt so goddamn bad as it does in BL3, outside of a handful of pieces.
While I’m not sure, I have a feeling that BL2 base game had more enemy variety than BL3 does to this day, but it might be confirmation bias on my parts from a lot of enemies in BL3 just being absolute pushovers (every single creature / beast in the game is just underwhelming) and the fact that base BL3 was lacking in robotic enemies. BL2 base game Pandora feels more varied in environments than BL3 base game manages to be on 5 different planets but again, this might just be nostalgia talking. I can say that I’m very disappointed in how some of those planets and their different areas are.
I am hopeful BL3 manages to get there in the end but the problem in my books is not lack of content right now. It’s the quality of gameplay and lack of challenge. It’s the absolute slog that farming gear in this game is and this is coming from someone who isn’t even going for superduper overkill meta items.
The things keeping me from voting for BL3 here are the common complaints about scaling, balancing, mayhem and anointments for the most part. It could get there but it would require overhauling these IMO stupid systems and only time will tell if that will happen.
I have a spreadsheet that I use to randomly pick a map for me to play (one for BL2, TPS, and BL3, which includes all of their DLC), and here are my map counts:
I’m pretty close to adding BL3 to my combined Borderlands dice, but am waiting until character development is finished (heard about more skill trees coming).
Other stuff:
replay-ability, longevity: depends on the player? I will be playing all these games for the rest of my life.
Side-quests, repeatable missions - they’ve all got 'em, they can all be reset.
Funny missions - this is where BL2 and TPS are better than BL3, but only by way of a few missions.
Time Trials/Bar Room Brawls - I think they’ve all got these?
Secrets - they’re all full of these?
Hidden vault symbols - they’ve all got these? BL2/TPS had Vault Symbols, where BL3 has Typhon Logs, Dead Claptraps, Crimson Radio Stations, hidden technicals with special parts.
Normal/spawnable bosses - all games have these? That some may be better than others are matters of opinion, but they’re all there.
Raid Bosses - Do the Takedowns count here? The way some people complain about the difficulty makes me think so, but the way I can do them without too much headache by lowering difficulty makes me think not. Seriously though, BL3 doesn’t seem to have a legit raid boss.
End Game longevity - this is entirely up to the player. All games have fresh batches of enemies every time you start a new game, and all missions are resettable, so it’s more about one’s preference for the game than it is that the game has or does not an end game.
Stability - I don’t mean to take away from anyone’s strife, because I know it’s a thing and it legit sucks, but the game has been quite solid for me.
Features (co-op / split-screen etc) - I rarely play with others, but the few times I have (across all franchises), it hasn’t been an issue. I haven’t tried split screen in any of them, but I hear that’s an issue.
The OP raised a lot of questions, but the actual poll was which game has the most, not best, content. And one game is still in active development and likely will be for ay least one more year given it will be brand new to players buying next gen consoles who didn’t buy it previously.
That could potentially be a large audience as young players age up and try games they previously didn’t have access to, and a potential lack of many FPS/ Looter Shooter co-op games might lead people to the Franchise as well. Then there’s the movie…
Timetables will play a factor in how far they push this release and continue to add content. They have two reasons to give it a long life cycle.
The only thing BL3 does better than BL2 is graphics, “gunplay” and it feels more mobile with the wall grabbing/scaling or w/e it’s called.
Then again, face it, BL3 is the same game as BL2 is, there’s not much new or improvement to be noticed, as it felt going from BL1 to BL2. BL3 also takes way too much space, has way too much talking, and because of better graphics it also is more demanding for the system requirements.
Why play BL3 when people can play BL2, which basically is the same game, but is more stable, faster, etc…?
K6 said that he liked bl2 much more but he has seen everything in bl2. For this reason bl3 feels fresh and new. I love bl2 too but the gun Gameplay and movement in bl3 is so much better and I really enyoy it. But I recognized that the endgame is not very big in bl3 and sometimes I don’t know what I can do. If I die on the first boss in the guardian takedown I always go somewhere else because do everything again isn’t funny to me. There are only a lot of high life enemies and it’s not that exciting to kill them over and over again. Still waiting for a few raid bosses without hordes of enemies before the actual fight.
What an honest declaration of love! I love it!
Me too, by the way! All great games. BL2 not so much because it does nothing for me the other games can’t do better. But that’s just me.
Totally true! To be honest, I prefer the end game whatsoever in BL3 over BL2 any day!
Stability - I don’t mean to take away from anyone’s strife, because I know it’s a thing and it legit sucks, but the game has been quite solid for me.
Xbox One player here: I had 2 crashes over the entire year. I know I must be lucky based on the threads in here. But still, really solid when it comes to crashes.
I agree on the delta of feeling when switching from BL2 to BL3 as opposed to switching from BL1 to BL2. But that’s it.
Because it’s all opinion. But to me BL2 is the worst installment of the franchise. Bullet sponginess, disgustingly boring “challenge” they call OP levels. Raid bosses that bore the crap out of me.
And I think as far as build diversity goes (builds include gear AND skill point allocation) BL3 is absolutely not behind BL2. I do think it’s even better in this regard.
I do play BL1 and TPS occasionally. BL2 I cannot get myself into. There’s nothing I want to do in this game while I still theorycraft builds for TPS.
I don’t want to spark a discussion that leads to emotional reactions or something. I just want to showcase that it’s all opinion. And while it seems most people in here love BL2 to death and despise anything else in the franchise, I don’t. Unpopular opinion, I know.
This is just my opinion as to why Bl2 is endearing to many including myself,it was not so much the game play by itself but the synergy and dynamic of the characters,the writing of the main campaigns and dlc’s was what was drew you in from the humor and a great antagonist,this combined all together is why it was played for so long and is loved by so many
I think Bl3 in many ways has improved on the gameplay side but lacks that cohesive synergy that the previous titles have,please don’t get me wrong I enjoy playing Bl3 and play regularly but I feel that it just doesn’t have that same spark,my hope is that the future content for this or Bl4 finds that same dynamic that made the series beloved and viewed the way it is
I get it. I was thrilled too at first when BL2 came out. It was just more Borderlands and awesome classes and ist built on the idea of BL1. But with UVHM and OP levels I grew more and more disappointed with the game. I felt like it abandoned me, lost me.
At the same time, story, character development and humor is something I couldn’t care less about. I’m all about mechanics and interactions. So after BL2, TPS and BL3 - I feel - really developed the synergies and interactions of the classes. That’s why I like both of them better. BL2 was a nice step forward. But to me, nothing more than that.
And I played that game up until TPS hit at least 4 evenings a week. After TPS came out, I never looked back.
That’s super interesting to me. I mean, TPS offers more combat options, but they otherwise seem quite similar to me.
If you’re interested in a fresh look at BL2, use the OP levels to “tame” UVHM to the difficulty level you like. You do need to get each character through OP8 at least once though, but after that, the gates are open.
Get some nice OP8 gear, and bring it to OP0, and you’ll be steamrolling almost everything - won’t feel like UVHM (other than the enemy health regen), but that won’t be much of an issue here.
Get some OP0 gear and bring it to OP8 if you think the game is still too easy and good luck finding enough ammo.
Find yourself some sweet spot in the middle (and if you’re on PC, roll some custom game options with the UCP), and BL2 can be fantastic.
I’m not necessarily saying that this’ll work for you, but this is an option that can take the sting out of UVHM (because you need that to be able to reset missions) if you’re interested. (And if you’re seriously interested and on Steam, I’m down to pull you through Digistruct Peak to get your pass through OP8, because that first run is pretty rough).
Overall I think BL3 has the most content (and more to come still), but BL2 has (for me) a couple of unique replayability factors that BL3 currently lacks:
Tubby hunting and LLM hunting. 
Tubbies and LLMs in BL2 were a special treat: rare spawns that had exclusive, desirable loot in their pools. BL3 has chubbies and loot tinks of course, but the thrill of hunting them is much diminished because they spit out nothing but world drops that can be found quite literally anywhere.
The thrill of hunting those guys is what kept me coming back to BL2 for hundreds of hours, moreso than doing boss runs.
Thank you. Much appreciated. But my interest in BL2 vanished a long time a go. And when TPS came out I never looked back. I don’t like Slag, the scaling, the narrow build diversity, the raids, …
But I actually did some of what you suggested and have several OP8 chars. I did not like the OP system as well :-p
Now that would be an excellent idea. A redux version of BL2 for the PS5 release.
So I fired up BL2 and TPS after having played them for several thousand hours non-stop since their release, going cold turkey to BL3, and here are my thoughts about those as I look through them through the first gap in playing them since then:
I strangely miss throwing elemental effects into water temporarily as we can in BL3.
Mantling doesn’t necessarily get me to higher places than I could go in BL2/TPS (was an ace grenade jumper), but it does give you so many more movement options around any given map… just shortcuts that let you move around easier.
I loved the slam mechanic in TPS and I love it in BL3… definitely miss it in BL2 now.
The ladder handling in BL3 is probably the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with in a video game. I just got used to the way it worked in BL2/TPS until I went back after this break.
Movement is way slower in BL3? My guys in BL2/TPS are straight sprinters. I mean, I can get higher movement in BL3 with some modifiers and skills, but the same goes for BL2/TPS. It’s the default run speed that’s just about perfect in BL2/TPS.
I didn’t realize how much I like the FFYL perks in BL3 until I took a knee in BL2 and was like, “oh, I’m screwed here”… remembered why I build/played around not ever taking a knee. 
Is there more default air control in BL3? Feels like it.
Autopickup is nice… wasn’t until the UCP that I got this going in BL2/TPS, though it doesn’t work out of opened chests.
The map navigation is way better in BL3, where you can bring up the Fast Travel menu from anywhere, and get to some places on the fly. I ran Bloodshot Stronghold to the Ramparts and decided to call it a night. I park my characters in Sanctuary when not playing them, and was “trapped” there, wondering why nothing on the Fast Travel map was responding. 
I think the singularity effects in BL2 are better for crowd control (they peg players to the grenade instead of scattering them), but the singularity in BL3 does pick up barrels. Still prefer BL2’s effect.
I miss the BL2 shield booster pickup; being able to catch them out of the air and have insta-boost was a nice reward vs the risk of missing and having to pick it up manually. BL3 went to an auto-pickup of all fallen boosters that works… it’s just not as fun/rewarding. (I still hope that this autopickup fix is temporary and they’ll dial it in at some point in the future). Shame too… the booster variety is pretty nice in BL3.
I think the PhysX in BL2/TPS is way better… I get that many players didn’t have this maxed out, but it provided very dynamic eye candy, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I went back.
The Goliaths in BL2 are way better, if only because they’re easier to level up to something fun; the BL3 versions are lethal but soft so die easily to other enemies.
I really enjoy the slag mechanic and didn’t realize that I missed it. I play at a difficulty where it’s not necessary, but it will take the edge off if I paint an enemy ahead of time. I can see where playing at high difficulty where it’s almost mandatory would make it irritating, but who would play at a difficulty level that restricts builds/loadouts and otherwise makes the game unenjoyable? 
I’ll be integrating BL3 into my RNG character/map selector this evening - all three of these are indefinitely replayable for me. The only reason BL1 isn’t is because the available combat nuances are so… mild compared to these other installments. I love BL1 and will still step in on occasion though, but not enough to put it on the dice.
This will give me 24 characters, each with unique builds and loadouts, across these three games.
Loved all of the bl2 dlc.I think back then no one really expected too much out of the game but now its like I’m expecting maybe a bit to much straight away and hoping in due time bl3 will be on par with previous games,it definitely could be. Also think it’s much more difficult to make games in general nowadays. Sorry for the rant lol
Could not have said this better myself.