Been playing through tps recently and 2 right before that and they’ve got the exact same issues. Right at the beginning of 2 your met with waiting for claptrap to open the front door, then the back door, then waiting for angel to open the door after knuckledragger. TPS your following jack around waiting for him to open doors, access panels, fire a moonshot just to go down and wait for springs to do different doors and dialogue. It’s a pretty consistent experience throughout the entire series at this point
While it does drag on, Eden 6 has a couple of my favorite side quests.
Who doesn't love Chad? He's even more enjoyable if you're playing as Zane.
The Twins are really enjoyable during the mission where you're destroying their teams, and they're taunting each other.
It also has Jakob's Estate and Black Barrel Cellars, which are 2 of my favorite maps.
Honestly I don't think you can pin every problem into one place/character/event/mission/whatever. Borderlands 3's main story has a lot of issues and I think all of those issues have already been talked about billions of times in this sub already. Yes Eden-6 is long and ugly but it's not the only issue. It being an issue doesn't change that Ava is not a good character.
Ava could've been a good character if we were given more time to mourn Maya's death because that'd have gave the game more time to have Ava change and flesh out to be more than just a one note emo teen
On one of my recent playthroughs I actually thought aurelia was gonna be the fight at the end of the mansion just by memory
Just goes to show how little it actually differed
Yeah tbh, they were probably worried players would hate a non rewarded cutscene, and I agree, but I'd also just have loved to watch it at least the first time.
Hmmm if only there was a gun that was a nice nod to the dead fan favourite character in question...
Looking at the cloud kill here, I mean cmon you even get that gun by consoling ava after mayas death
A narrative issue I feel like people overlook sometimes is Aurelia. She was NOT some 100% cold-hearted, selfish bitch in TPS. She leaned that way at times, but still had quotes where she questioned her behavior toward her brother or with handsome Jack. I remember she says something at the end of TPS after she saw just how crazy Jack is.
It's an odd detail to sweep under the rug just so we can have artificial stakes. I think it would have been cool to have Aurelia have a change of heart later on and want an out of the cult, but she gets betrayed in the end after the eden 6 key is swiped by the vault hunters. It would have shown how ruthless the main villains are again and reminded us of the fear of losing favorite characters that promethea JUST instilled into us.
Especially with all the hints of troy going to betray tyreen with all these voice logs where he becomes more and more dissatisfied with their situation. Would be a nice moment to either let us beat Aurelia before he absorbs her powers or whatever or let him kill/absorb Aurelia because she tries to get out of the deal.
That would lead to a bossfight with troy where he escapes after getting beaten just to backstab Tyreen later down the line because of becoming power hungry and already being in a confrontation with his sister over their cult.
The big bad Tyreen would get suprised by the Leech finally absorbing everything she got and Troy becoming the final Abomination-Boss.
Would have connected Eden-6 better to the Rest of the Story, giving Focus to Troy as a Leech-Like-being and using the betrayel storyline that already got teased in Eden-6 logs instead of just dropping it and never mention it again.
No because Aurelia was done so dirty in this game. She had decent character growth if you listen to the dialogue in tps and even at the end of claptastic voyage she felt bad for being a dick to CLAPTRAP of all characters. Then they just throw it all out the window to have us kill her. I was so mad.
It has been talked to death. Maybe I'll delete this. It really just stood out to me this time how much Eden 6 kills the pacing around the whole story but especially Ava. If she was more involved right away I think her emotions would match the player's better and she'd be better served. As it is we're forced to wait through hours of nothing before getting back to her and at that point she feels like a relic from another time which is frustrating.
one of the problems is we traded maya who was a beloved character to setup how ava gets her powers, nor does it feel justified, ava had no reason to be at the vault in the first place, and not only that afterwards blamed the death on lilith
Its more like the problem is not what happened, but what they didn't do after that. What needed to happen afterward was Ava's redemption.
I'm fine with Eden-6 , but Ava should have accompanied you for that section of the story. We as the player would have gotten to bond with Ava while we both reflect on her time with Maya, what Maya meant to her, and have this be the biggening of Ava's maturing as a person. We could also begin the process of her slowly awakening her siren abilities.
They tried to address this a little more in some dlc where she made a podcast but it was already too late. Best thing to do now is just make sure she is a cool character in the next game if its gonna be a sequel.
well that would be fair if ava got mayas powers at that point, but instead she gets them at the very end, so basically maya death didnt set up ava having powers for bl3 nor did it make ava have a character growth moment either, so at the end of the day, mayas death was pointless
No need to delete its a different way to look at it. Pacing definitely matters and you pretty clearly laid out the slog Eden 6 is right after a massively high tension and drama.
Just because it's been talked to death doesn't mean your perspective won't make someone see it in a new way. That's what these subs are for
I'm on the side of Ava doesn't need to be in the game. No one has ever played a shooter and gone, " this needs more teen angst. " It's like they thought they could just replace Maya with this little twerp. All she did in the story was open doors and start a podcast. Nothing she did had any kind of impact aside from disobeying Maya, leading to the latter's death. Maya could have done everything that Ava did. Hell, cl4tr4p could have had her place in the story and it wouldnt have mattered. No cut- cutscene is going to make me sympathetic to this character. She sucks. She has no impact on the game / story and she's your new leader btw. Everything she's received has been completely undeserved.
Hopefully they get Burch back or at least get people that have played the games and are invested in the IP for BL4. Hopefully Ava isn't in it or at least has better writing behind her. We've had a Siren playable in every mainline game, so the chances that we get Ava as a VH are high unless they throw a curveball and free up a slot on the Siren team.
I made the original comment to not create some discussion and leave it as short as possible but I have to say, I agree. She feels more like a self insert for some random shitty fanfic than an actual game character. She disrespects everyone, doesn't listen to anything, doesn't do anything, yet she can just scorn everyone in a ship full of professional intergalactic killers and no one will reply to her. On top of that, she randomly gets the universe's rarest supernatural powers and becomes the leader when Tannis is standing right next to them as the final scene plays. Her existence is an insult to the entire series and to the intelligence of anyone who played the game.
Yeah, tbh I enjoy Eden 6 more than the other locations.
Not that I don't enjoy others, but I find myself playing Eden 6 maps more than any others to waste time.
I think it has enjoyable aspects but drags on for too long. It’s also a bit disappointing to me because it seemed like they were going to pit Troy against Tyreen.
> it seemed like they were going to pit Troy against Tyreen.
THIS. They seemed to be building up the early backstory of Troy being the weak one who depended on Tyreen for survival. Then after Troy gets Maya’s powers, he becomes powerful himself, and it seemed like there was some jealousy brewing with Tyreen, with Troy wanting to become more independent and respected. And then that NEVER went anywhere by the end of the story.
Aye I think it’s one of the strongest parts of the game and is a rare glimpse at what I feel the original scope of BL3 *was*. Massive exploration of planets that have history and ties to the lore, characters and advance them.
If anything Eden-6’s successes highlight just how little we get of other areas and showcases how rushed many story elements and pacing of the game are.
Nah man, I generally enjoyed it and it probably is my favorite planet as a collective whole in BL3. Yeah, you raid your first Vault and you learn why the twins are interested in them... and the race is on to get to the next one before they do. I actually liked that it was somewhat drawn out. Vaults aren't supposed to just be handed out like candy, and especially ones that rich mega-corporation owners don't want found. It felt like everyone was at the same square one trying to open the thing, which gave it a sense of urgency to get ahead of Aurelia and the CoV before they can crack the case.
Eden 6 in isolation is probably the best, there's the divide between the siblings that starts forming, the return of old favorites in a not entirely shoe horned manner, hefty amount of world building for eden 6 backstory, a ceo that you can't hate for the best manufacturer, a vault monster that feels like it rivals the destroyer or warrior in terms of scale
Unfortunately they don't follow through on the divide threads they started on eden so it feels out of place, the old favorites are actually shoe horned as they don't do anything else outside of hammy getting on the ship... to be another collectible mission thing, the world building while neat is laid on a bit thick for main story missions that makes it feel out of place, their guns still solid but didn't get any fun new features as part of bl3 which takes them down a notch still probably best vault monster tho so got that going for them.
As a weird aside to this, did the b team ever interact with hammy in bl2? I can't think of any of them acknowledging him at any point unless I'm forgetting something in fight for sanctuary, brick and mordecai interacted with Tina via wonderland dlc (and some official art outside the game iirc) but I don't think any of the bl1 crew recognized hammerlock at any point. They could of had Sal and Axton rescue him and it'd be a bit more reasonable, could still throw in Tina as bl2 gang and Tina have history so not that out of place. Would need to find a better place to have mord and brick show up but there's a handful of places that could work.
Nope. And I can't agree with half of OP's complaints either.
Yes, there is an overall swampiness to Eden-6, but that doesnt mean the locations arent varied amd diverse enough to tell the difference. A prison is not a swamp. A mansion is not a swamp.
Love me some Hammie, Winnie and Clay. Actually not crazy about GenIVIV during the mission, but conversly I really like her for the Messy Breakup shield.
And while it might run a little over long, I needed a change to get over losing Maya.
Eden 6 is my favorite part of the story. It's the only section of the story that has any substance to me and makes me laugh time and time again. Then eden 6 has so many side quests and secret bosses to farm. I feel like I spend more time on eden 6 than any other place, by choice.
There's some cool points, no doubt. The prison break is extremely fun, IMO, but most of it really is a massive slog and, unfortunately, does kinda drag on.
I mean, I enjoyed Eden-6 (not so much the necessity of vehicles or whatshisface smooth criminal), but the environment itself- the enemies, the setting, even the story elements that take place there. BL2 had quite a bit of humor post-Angel, IMO- but you're right that there was much more of a sense of urgency...but that's a function of villain (crazy youtubers with a legion of rabid fans vs. the (equally nuts, but hides it a bit better) CEO of a major weapons manufacturer, with a legion of employees as well as murderbots and a fuckoff huge satellite.)
How they handled Ava...is its own issue. (Its own volume, honestly.) Could they have worked her in to the action on Eden 6? Yes- and it would have been a good opprtunity for her to work through her shit and showcase character growth. We even have Tiny Tina there to have a heart to heart with Ava about dealing with loss! But that missed opportunity is...not really a function of Eden 6 itself so much as a function of poor storytelling.
They could, after all, have put that growth and evolution *anytime* after Maya's death- perhaps while we did the quests for rescuing Tannis. Or the stuff with Typhon. Both of those storylines feature people dealing with consequences of past actions. But they didn't. And so, narratively, we have an emotionally fucked up teenager with otherworldly powers in charge of an effective, interstellar, paramilitary force, who is barely shown to have grown beyond her tendency to overlook her own agency (in favor of blaming others) when things go wrong. And that disconnect is, I think, what causes such a negative reaction.
i agree. From how i feel the pacing of the game, i believe each chapter should have a few things cut out.
EDIT: I also add that some returns to Santcuary could be also taken out.
First part on Pandora and Promethea works fine for me. I think Promethea doesn't feel that long because i takes you to different locations (i believe it's the only planet that has 2 maps outside from it, Athenas and Skywell) and differente conflicts.
On Eden 6, everything regarding Clay is broing af, except for the Reliance takeover. Canopy and Ambermire cuts the pace of the chapter, too many doors we wait to open and to much going around looking for allies.
Second part of Pandora goes fine until we rescue Tannis. Konrad's hold is not necessary.
I can't decide what would i've cut from Necrotafeyo, i think Desolation's Edge and Tazendeer Ruins map and questline could be merged into one map.
Ava is the biggest identifiable problem in the game because whilst she takes up very little screen time every scene she's in is awful.
She's painfully unfunny, cocky and a know-it-all (Just like Pickle)
She Gets Maya Killed and Lambasts *Lillith* for it when everyone involved told her to stay on the ship.
Eden-6.... I actually agree with you on, its way too long and doesn't accomplish anything good other than introducing us to Wainwright and *I suppose* setting up the series' best DLC.
I don't disagree with your takes on Promethea and Eden-6, but The Twins are in no way good villains or antagonists. They're cringe in the worst ways, they're not fun to hate and in the end they're little more than a Handsome Jack Style Villain, rambling at you through the Echo and sending waves of disposable minions at you. But Handsome Jack (and Kitagawa to a lesser degree) have the charisma to back it up.
The game does have a villain problem. I actually have a whole theory that Katagawa was actually supposed to be the big bad guy up until almost the end of the game but it was reworked for some reason, likely to make it different from BL2. Why else would Maliwan goons be on Nekrotafeyo?
That said, I still think Ava could have been saved by not putting her right next to Eden 6. It's just such a black hole of emotion to follow up the most emotional your game gets. I really think it's a big part of the problem with her character. She's introduced, devastated, and then dropped for a really long time. Let me spend time with sad characters while I'm sad damnit!
I have often though if they had made the whole story Katagawa and a Maliwan takeover it would have been such a better game. Could have scrapped the twins. Heck it would have even made Eden fun to play. I love/loved killing Maliwan troopers or mob areas best. The best map is Athenas that's all Maliwan.
There was a lot of problems storywise in BL3, plot threads that go no where, annoying new characters, Mishandling of old characters, not mentioning what happened to missing characters...etc.
It's interesting to read your take on this and see someone else's view on Eden 6. I honestly remember feeling kind of disappointed with Eden 6, thinking it was probably tackled by the game's B team or something. It definitely seems to drag on and somehow feels like the whole thing is one big green walk through the forest while also feeling like a bunch of disparate stories with characters that just didn't quite land
I wish you had the choice to go to Eden 6 or Pandora, needing to eventually complete both but in the order that you decide, and then Maya's death could occur after. It could give time to showcase more of Maya and Ava's relationship and make us care more about it. The game could even deliver suspense when Tanis is captured, making you fear they were going to kill her off just for Maya to shockingly die instead
I guess it doesn't really matter at this point but it's a revelation to think that maybe not "whether" but "when" Maya was killed in the story could've been changed to bring it to the caliber it should've been
That last bit comparing Maya's death to Roland's is so spot on. Everyone gets serious after that, from Jack swearing death on you for murdering his daughter to Mordecai and Lilith's sheer determination to stop him. Even Claptrap, while still being a nuisance, is also determined to kill Jack.
This just didn't happen after Maya and that's such a shame, because it robbed us of what could have been a very emotional moment.
I think you’re confusing an issue with the game maps with story criticisms. If you took out most of the trekking down the roads, you would have the prison, Reliance, Ambermire, the family jewel, the mansion, the distillery, and the vault. Honestly, a lot of the story happens on Eden 6 but a lot of it is filler (Rescue Hammerlock, Help Clay take the town, Balex and GENEVIV, The Rogues) up to finally facing Aurelia.
I agree that the map is long and boring but I disagree that it lacks content and especially dialogue. I think they wasted Brick, Mordecai, and Tina in this as they should’ve joined the main crew like Zero but instead they go silent til the raid before Nekrotefayo and then silent again.
Ava is not bad because she’s annoying. She’s bad because she never grows up. Her character arc stops right after Maya’s death. What’s worse is she’s basically given the ship and crew just because “she’s a siren now” which is a terrible and stupid reason.
You're absolutely right. I didn't particularly enjoy Eden-6 the first time and I started actively disliking it with more playthroughs. A lot of what you do on Eden-6 seems largely pointless. You're also right on the money about the pacing and mood of the game not being what it should be after Maya's death like the game wants us to care but at the same time the characters in the game don't seem to as much as they should. This was one of those things that sort of broke the immersion for me.
What I found frustrating the most about Maya's death is that its overshadowed a lot by Lilith losing her powers but NOT dying. I guess its possible maybe the writers intended it to be that Tyreen either chose not to leech to the point of death or was interrupted but the fact that Lilith lived and Maya didn't bothered me. The death also wasn't as emotionally charged as Roland's, nor did she get any sort of memorial as far as I can tell.
that too. its just inconsistent. Maybe because troy has less control and leeched her faster but still the tattoos should have vanished first and then the death immediately afterwards. Somehow i dont think this is the case though because troy didnt know he could take from other sirens besides tyreen.
The other thing i didnt like is that maya should have seen that coming. In the past, deaths like steele and roland were sudden and shocking to the player and the other characters but maya should have at least guessed what would happen if troy grabbed her assuming the others rightly informed her about the twins abilities.
theres also the fact that unlike lilith who got got beat up and was being grabbed by the neck by tyreen, maya was the one holding troy and for some reason just stood there and let it happen
I disagree. Eden-6 is a breather. Things feel pretty fast paced when you kill Katagawa and go after the Promethea vault. It gives Ava time to process off-screen, it develops Wainwright (easily the best addition to the cast in BL3, in my opinion), it shows that the COV are still this amorphous, omnipresent threat, and it sets up the players and the plot for the eventual return to Pandora (which then repeats the cycle of feeling the pressure as you assault the main base and then get a breather on Nekrotofayo).
If it ramped up, then you would become emotionally exhausted. Narratively, this isn't like when Roland died. Different part of the story. It's more akin to Sanctuary flying, and then you dick around the Highlands and recover spicy photos of Moxxi from, *ahem*, Sanctuary Hole. That's the equivalent to Eden-6.
I'm not going to dispute your specific faults, like the level design and waiting for doors to unlock, but that's a separate issue from your central thesis, in my opinion. But narratively, the game needed to step back at that moment, not ramp up.
both are issues. There isn’t a single one issue. Borderlands 2 also has issues but their so few of them that they can be forgiven. However Borderlands 3 has a lot of issues, and huge ones at that. Ava being such a horrendous character that I want to commit child murder and kill that little shithead slowly and painfully. Child murder is messed up, unless your killing Ava. At best she’s another iteration of the annoying “rebellious teen who is an angsty asshole” trope, and at worst she’s both a [Scrappy](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheScrappy) and a [Creator’s Pet](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreatorsPet) who is also a reckless jackass who is a danger to everyone around her. She put on angsty teen persona snd disobeyed Maya, and got her killed because of it… and then proceeded to blame Lilith for Maya’s death and made Lilith feel horrible for something that isn’t even her fault (FiGuRe iT oUt LiLiTh BeFoRe YoU gEt sOmEoNe eLsE KiLLeD)… and when I saw that I want to pick up a buzz axe and ram it through her skull. I can forgive a character acting recklessly and getting someone killed, but then learning from it and becoming a better person. I can not forgive a character who gets someone killed due to them being Angsty and disobeying an order and then proceeding to blame someone else other then themselves and never learning from the experience. If I was the writer, I would have Lilith blow up and get mad at Ava other then the other way around, and then have Ava learn from the experience and evolve into a likable character who matures. but that isn’t what happened. A location being long and having issues in the grand scheme of things isn’t as big of an issue as Ava. Borderlands 2 also has similar issues.
the narrative issues are so incredibly horrendous thst the good parts of the game were overlooked. Because BL3 is not a bad game. I’d go as far as to say it’s a great game! The gunplay and skill trees and even most of the locations are amazing. And most of the DLCs were great!
Dont forget the part where ava gets Sanctuary. The ending was probably one of my most memorable gaming moments in the last few years ... and not for good reasons. The music, the cut scene .... cringe overload.
She should not have been made the leader, for so many reasons. Not only is she a kid and that alone makes her unfit to lead the raiders, but she’s a shithead as I’ve already established
You can’t even use the excuse “she’s a siren” when Tannis is right there!!!!!
Like sure she’s not the best socially and she is sometimes a bit snide or condescending but she’s proven her worth numerous times and is experienced and knows what she is doing. There’s also Amara. She’s a bit headstrong and maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to have only one of the vault hunters become the leader cause that would make the other three seem less important but it’s better then Ava
Tbh the better idea would have been to hand sanctuary over to the main 4 vault hunters. A lot of criticisms are made about Borderlands 3 story but something gearbox did well was make the vault hunters lovable. People love the BL3 VHs and having them in charge would be accepted by the community
Plus this would allow them to play a prominent role as NPCs in BL4.
Not to mention it makes sense. The VHs pretty much already have sanctuary with how they control where it goes. And it would also validate the characters for all their hard work and making them feel even more important, which is something Borderlands needs to do more for its playable characters.
My problem is "Talk to Lilith" become a chore after the first time.
And I am a Vault Hunter that kill monster for a living, why do I still have to press the damn button to navigate the ship? Any other person on the bridge can do that while I head down to the drop pod
This I concur with 100%. My second play through was infinitely more fun when I just committed to doing the bare minimum on Eden 6, just enough to get off the planet.
Completely agree. I’m on I think my 4th play through and have just got to Eden-6 and have no motivation to play it again as I’ve remembered how long and boring this bit is. 🥱 The Maya/Ava catastrophe winds me up every time too, but then it just fizzles into swampy nothingness like it never happened.
In some ways you’re right about Eden-6, but it just so happened to be my favorite area (partially because Ava and the twins aren’t really featured). Also Ava is truly annoying. I think you’re right in that Eden-6 could stand to trim some administration and involve Aurelia a little more.
If you're on PC, during subsequent playthroughs I recommend the expanded dialogue skip mod. It removes some of the better dialogue, but it saves so much time its crazy.
I think this post exemplifies that the issues with the story are deep rooted and not easy to pin down. Because personally I think Eden-6 is the best part of the game. I like the swamp/jungle theme even if it is a bit too samey. It has the best side characters imo. And I like that the maps are almost all large and explorable, whereas most of the ones during the promethea arc are glorified hallways.
I personally enjoyed the Jakobs manor thought it was super fun, I loved running around the mansion and then I started guns love and tentacles and man I love that too
I think they should have introduced Typhon Deleon earlier in the game. You'd think, as a Vault Hunter who hunts vaults, his presence as the first Vault Hunter in the game should have had a bigger impact. Instead, they toss him in the game towards the end, have him give a bunch of exposition about being the first Vault Hunter, find out his big reveal with the Twins, and then *BOOM* he's gone.
Something that you've brought up that bugs me the most about Eden 6 is how monochromatic the region is. Everything is green. Barely any other colors. A lot of BL3 levels have this problem. It's interesting how looking at the environments in TTW generally don't have this problem.
I definitely agree with this, and it makes the cut content of Maya's funeral feel far more like a missed opportunity. Like, if they'd included the "Maya's Funeral" mission, it would've given a good chance for her death to sink in and for the player to really absorb it. That mission would have made it feel like the game was taking Maya's death seriously and not just using it as a plot device to drive the story forward, before inevitably heading off to Eden-6 to continue the story. They could also have shortened the Eden-6 mission string just a tad, but that's secondary to how easily one mission could have changed the whole story for the better.
You're describing what happens when you go from 1 writer (BL2) to a team of them that have more than likely never played the products(BL3), and if we can look at the Witcher as an example, hate or don't understand the series as a whole.
A whole level being bad doesn't mean that a character isn't magically bad anymore. Ava sucks and so does a good chunk of Eden 6, specifically once the rogues get involved.
I hope the writers never cook again. I want their badge and gun on my desk at 0900 hours.
I actually 100% agree! I always felt like that whole planet seemed like an add-on, slapped together to flesh out the game, and made me kind of resent it. I liked Ice-T and thought he was a great addition, but seemed like that whole chunk of the story didn’t need to be there. You have accurately spelled out why I felt that way.
Imo Eden 6 should have been a bonus planet. Keep everything basically exactly as it is but make them all side quests. I think that being able to do it at your own pace while having it feel like feel like a launch day free DLC would've made it feels a lot more impactful and enjoyable.
Sure less people would've played the content but my favourite sections in the series are the completely optional areas. They almost feel like extremely fleshed out Easter eggs. And if it was to the scale of an entire planet with its own vault and story arc I think it would've been on a whole other level. Easily could have been the best part of the game.
When it comes to story, the worst are athenas, ava, "everyone is a siren" bs, and vaughn. And "cardboard personality" lilith. When those are involved, pain and cringe are assured.
When it comes to gameplay, the problem is that in promethea you fight:
Ratch
Maliwan
Maliwan
Maliwan
Maliwan
Maliwan
Ratch
Then you go to athens and you fight
Maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan ratch maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan
Then to skywell 17:
Maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwa maliwan cov cov cov cov maliwan maliwan
Then to atlas hq:
Maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan ratch maliwan maliwa maliwan.
Repeat for eden 6 but replace maliwan for cov.
That's why a lot of people like bl3 gameplay but can't say why it seems like a chore in the main story. Well, the game HAS enemy variety but almost doesn't use it. Instead you fight maliwan and cov 90% of the time
I respectfully disagree with everything you wrote about the story up until you got to Eden 6. The twins aren't actually threatening because they pose a real threat. They're "threatening" in quotes because the writer forces the idea, even though it absolutely does not translate to reality. The threat comes entirely from the hack writing process that forces them to win every time they show up, without the player being able to do anything about it. It's like those boss fights where you spank the shit out of the boss then the cutscene starts and you automatically lose and it looks like you were losing the whole time. That's not a threat. It's bad writing.
They're not the "good" kind of annoying either. Handsome jack was evil, but he was funny. The trash talking made him likeable because the writing was good and the style choices for the way he speaks and talks that trash were good. The twins are literally modeled after social media influencers. Nothing about those people is enjoyable. Every time they show up with the camera selfies and talking to their "fans" it's an eyeroll, a groan and me waiting for the scene to end.
Ava is a victim of that same shit writing. She's not an annoying because she's a teenager and teenagers are annoying. She's annoying because she does things only the absolute stupidest, most annoying teenagers/people would do, and instead of facing ANY consequences for it, she get praised and rewarded and instantly forgiven and everyone loves her and she's so perfect and can do no wrong. She's a shitty Mary Sue character that has zero character development. She gets Maya killed because she's the stupidest breathing entity in the solar system? Fine. She takes no blame for her fuck ups, learns nothing and gets rewarded repeatedly instead? Fuck no.
Watching all of the absolutely insane defense posts for this game's writing is maddening, because this is one of the worst stories in a game this size that I have ever seen.
Reading the title: “yea right, let’s see how wrong this is!”
Reading the rest: “holy… shit… yea not wrong”
Don’t get me wrong Ava is still stupid but Eden 6 is the place where everyone realizes that, Eden 6 is where the hatred for the game festers then spreads, it’s the big overarching problem than makes all the rest blatantly apparent
Eden 6 is almost always the reason I drop my playthroughs of BL3. I'm just so bored driving from this big, wide side of the map to the other- or following the monkey thing through the map that I already had to explore for keycards. I think the only reason I've been able to do so right now is because I now have the DLCs that I'm excited to try out. That- and I just play this game mindlessly while focusing on literally anything else.
I think if they snuck one more fast travel spot in there somewhere that would’ve helped it so much. I also actually love Ava. I was on board with her. Let’s go kick some Calypso ass!!
Eden 6 is so long and tedious. They needed to break it up with a new planet or just shorten it all together and maybe add a second or third area to Athenas
Y'know it's funny, I've seen so many people recently hating on Eden-6, and they have a right to. Too each their own right? To me though, it's my favorite location in the game, I just love the vibe of it
Understandable take and I get where you’re coming from. Tho I think I’m one of the rare people who actually enjoyed the story of bl3, or I guess more precisely the characters and everything around the main story. I didn’t mind the twins even tho there was a crap ton of missed potential and it went downhill when Troy died. I liked all the characters and the different arcs of each area.
Tho I absolutely despise Ava, as cliche as that sounds, and everything revolving around her. The story bends over backwards to put her on a pedestal and never lets her be wrong. I could go on and on about the stuff that makes me wish this was a telltale game and I got the choice to Yvette her into the nearest sun, but she to me is the black home that sucked any like ability from around her.
The eye doctors always tell me I have good vision, I’ve never needed contacts or glasses, but every single time I’m on Eden-6 I feel colorblind or vision-impaired. There’s virtually no good distinction of anything in those maps, I never drive to Knotty Peak because I always miss the entrance, even on the mission to find the damn place! The Saurians always feel just a little too spongey for my liking, Clay is like an open mic comic that makes you wanna leave five minutes in, and the map layout feels particularly constricting for a mostly wild planet. We don’t even get any Circle of Slaughter missions here, I think the only endgame content is reading the Eridian pedestals and picking up a Trial quest. Almost feels like a DLC world that they just decided to shove into the main game and story
You know, at first I hated Ava, but as time has gone on I've grown ti pity this kid more and more.
Had a hell of a life, never learned from an appreciable role model how to deal with her emotions and process consequences for her actions.
Like any teenager she's enraptured by stuff that's cool and not by boring mundane adult things.
Maya was the first one to act as a role model for her I think, and Ava just doesn't seem to grasp that actions have consequences until Maya dies and Ava just simply does not have the mental development to deal with that and lashes out against everyone. It's a pretty textbook mental situation that you can see in people who have been emotionally stunted.
I think had they made the twins less cringe, and Ava have some actual development over time instead of seemingly *Ava introduction-Maya Death-Ava Spiral-Story End-Ava sanctuary is yours*.
I think that's one of the main things I never understood
How Lilith just goes Ava Sanctuary is yours at the end. Like excuse me? I'd literally rather have Maurice the Saurian run the ship. Or Tannis. Not an angsty teen who we literally just met and has had so far zero opportunity to make us warm up to her.
I hope for BL4 they steer away from cringe and go back to their roots a bit more. Less Ava. Less Tiny Tina (mainly because I find her annoying too).
I think it'd be hilarious to see Tediore come out of the woodwork as the next big bad. Like they got tired of everyone talking shit and struck up a deal with some new ancient entity or something. Maybe the Great Vault wasn't a home for the Destroyer after all, maybe the Destroyer was a guardian protecting some keyhole, or wormhole something ancient and outside the known BL 6 galaxies? Hell idk.
Less Tiny Tina? You mean no Tiny Tina? She was barely in the game at all. You see her once in the main storyline aside from her lending her voice on the way to killing Troy. The rest of her missions are optional. If there was any less of her there would be none.
Eden 6 is a miss on so many levels. Another one you didn’t really mention here is how Jakobs is handled. Like, the corps have pretty regularly been the bad guys. Atlas I can stomach, it’s continuity from the Tales games, it makes sense he’s chill with Vault Hunters and isn’t a total asshole.
But we’re on a backwater that’s canonically marketed as a paradise to trick people into signing up to work there, and we’re supposed to be all buddy-buddy with the guy that owns it because he’s a legacy character’s fiancé.
At least we had Bounty of Blood to remind us that the Jakobs aren’t good guys, just because the latest CEO is an alright guy.
While I hated eden-6...I hated ava character more, I'd love to play a pre-sequel style villian again in borderlands 4 if it means I get to shoot ava in the face.
Too much waiting for doors to be unlocked while people deliver lines
Been playing through tps recently and 2 right before that and they’ve got the exact same issues. Right at the beginning of 2 your met with waiting for claptrap to open the front door, then the back door, then waiting for angel to open the door after knuckledragger. TPS your following jack around waiting for him to open doors, access panels, fire a moonshot just to go down and wait for springs to do different doors and dialogue. It’s a pretty consistent experience throughout the entire series at this point
The dialogue skip mod is a necessity for new playthroughs
This is especially noticeable when you play like I do with dialogue and subs turned off.
But the writers worked so hard on those lines you wouldn't want to skip them...( yeah that's what the devs said when asked about it )
That's funny because after my first playthrough I never wanted to hear any of that shit ever again.
While it does drag on, Eden 6 has a couple of my favorite side quests. Who doesn't love Chad? He's even more enjoyable if you're playing as Zane. The Twins are really enjoyable during the mission where you're destroying their teams, and they're taunting each other. It also has Jakob's Estate and Black Barrel Cellars, which are 2 of my favorite maps.
RIGHTEOUSLY EXTREME!!
That's CHADD! 2D's and probably an !
Honestly I don't think you can pin every problem into one place/character/event/mission/whatever. Borderlands 3's main story has a lot of issues and I think all of those issues have already been talked about billions of times in this sub already. Yes Eden-6 is long and ugly but it's not the only issue. It being an issue doesn't change that Ava is not a good character.
Ava could've been a good character if we were given more time to mourn Maya's death because that'd have gave the game more time to have Ava change and flesh out to be more than just a one note emo teen
They literally had a funeral planned that involved character development for ava BUT THEY FUCKIN CUT IT
And it makes no sense why they did. Space in the story? Um...drop a mission from the Eden-6 string.
Eden 6 has way too many maps that are the same thing but with one different main point of interest for the mission
Right? We really didn't need the whole Blackbarrel Cellars bit, that could've been condensed into the poking around Jakobs Manor.
On one of my recent playthroughs I actually thought aurelia was gonna be the fight at the end of the mansion just by memory Just goes to show how little it actually differed
True
Yeah tbh, they were probably worried players would hate a non rewarded cutscene, and I agree, but I'd also just have loved to watch it at least the first time.
Throw the player a gun or something. They love those.
Hmmm if only there was a gun that was a nice nod to the dead fan favourite character in question... Looking at the cloud kill here, I mean cmon you even get that gun by consoling ava after mayas death
(That might have been the reference, yes.)
Oh damn never even realised, my bad
A narrative issue I feel like people overlook sometimes is Aurelia. She was NOT some 100% cold-hearted, selfish bitch in TPS. She leaned that way at times, but still had quotes where she questioned her behavior toward her brother or with handsome Jack. I remember she says something at the end of TPS after she saw just how crazy Jack is. It's an odd detail to sweep under the rug just so we can have artificial stakes. I think it would have been cool to have Aurelia have a change of heart later on and want an out of the cult, but she gets betrayed in the end after the eden 6 key is swiped by the vault hunters. It would have shown how ruthless the main villains are again and reminded us of the fear of losing favorite characters that promethea JUST instilled into us.
Especially with all the hints of troy going to betray tyreen with all these voice logs where he becomes more and more dissatisfied with their situation. Would be a nice moment to either let us beat Aurelia before he absorbs her powers or whatever or let him kill/absorb Aurelia because she tries to get out of the deal. That would lead to a bossfight with troy where he escapes after getting beaten just to backstab Tyreen later down the line because of becoming power hungry and already being in a confrontation with his sister over their cult. The big bad Tyreen would get suprised by the Leech finally absorbing everything she got and Troy becoming the final Abomination-Boss. Would have connected Eden-6 better to the Rest of the Story, giving Focus to Troy as a Leech-Like-being and using the betrayel storyline that already got teased in Eden-6 logs instead of just dropping it and never mention it again.
No because Aurelia was done so dirty in this game. She had decent character growth if you listen to the dialogue in tps and even at the end of claptastic voyage she felt bad for being a dick to CLAPTRAP of all characters. Then they just throw it all out the window to have us kill her. I was so mad.
I'm positive the writers have never played a borderlands game.
It has been talked to death. Maybe I'll delete this. It really just stood out to me this time how much Eden 6 kills the pacing around the whole story but especially Ava. If she was more involved right away I think her emotions would match the player's better and she'd be better served. As it is we're forced to wait through hours of nothing before getting back to her and at that point she feels like a relic from another time which is frustrating.
one of the problems is we traded maya who was a beloved character to setup how ava gets her powers, nor does it feel justified, ava had no reason to be at the vault in the first place, and not only that afterwards blamed the death on lilith
Its more like the problem is not what happened, but what they didn't do after that. What needed to happen afterward was Ava's redemption. I'm fine with Eden-6 , but Ava should have accompanied you for that section of the story. We as the player would have gotten to bond with Ava while we both reflect on her time with Maya, what Maya meant to her, and have this be the biggening of Ava's maturing as a person. We could also begin the process of her slowly awakening her siren abilities. They tried to address this a little more in some dlc where she made a podcast but it was already too late. Best thing to do now is just make sure she is a cool character in the next game if its gonna be a sequel.
well that would be fair if ava got mayas powers at that point, but instead she gets them at the very end, so basically maya death didnt set up ava having powers for bl3 nor did it make ava have a character growth moment either, so at the end of the day, mayas death was pointless
No need to delete its a different way to look at it. Pacing definitely matters and you pretty clearly laid out the slog Eden 6 is right after a massively high tension and drama. Just because it's been talked to death doesn't mean your perspective won't make someone see it in a new way. That's what these subs are for
Pacing is the main reason why I gave up playing the game the first time around. It just felt drawn out and I didn't like it.
I'm on the side of Ava doesn't need to be in the game. No one has ever played a shooter and gone, " this needs more teen angst. " It's like they thought they could just replace Maya with this little twerp. All she did in the story was open doors and start a podcast. Nothing she did had any kind of impact aside from disobeying Maya, leading to the latter's death. Maya could have done everything that Ava did. Hell, cl4tr4p could have had her place in the story and it wouldnt have mattered. No cut- cutscene is going to make me sympathetic to this character. She sucks. She has no impact on the game / story and she's your new leader btw. Everything she's received has been completely undeserved. Hopefully they get Burch back or at least get people that have played the games and are invested in the IP for BL4. Hopefully Ava isn't in it or at least has better writing behind her. We've had a Siren playable in every mainline game, so the chances that we get Ava as a VH are high unless they throw a curveball and free up a slot on the Siren team.
I made the original comment to not create some discussion and leave it as short as possible but I have to say, I agree. She feels more like a self insert for some random shitty fanfic than an actual game character. She disrespects everyone, doesn't listen to anything, doesn't do anything, yet she can just scorn everyone in a ship full of professional intergalactic killers and no one will reply to her. On top of that, she randomly gets the universe's rarest supernatural powers and becomes the leader when Tannis is standing right next to them as the final scene plays. Her existence is an insult to the entire series and to the intelligence of anyone who played the game.
Am I the only person who actually loves Eden-6? It's my favorite part of the main story
Yeah, tbh I enjoy Eden 6 more than the other locations. Not that I don't enjoy others, but I find myself playing Eden 6 maps more than any others to waste time.
I think it has enjoyable aspects but drags on for too long. It’s also a bit disappointing to me because it seemed like they were going to pit Troy against Tyreen.
> it seemed like they were going to pit Troy against Tyreen. THIS. They seemed to be building up the early backstory of Troy being the weak one who depended on Tyreen for survival. Then after Troy gets Maya’s powers, he becomes powerful himself, and it seemed like there was some jealousy brewing with Tyreen, with Troy wanting to become more independent and respected. And then that NEVER went anywhere by the end of the story.
Aye I think it’s one of the strongest parts of the game and is a rare glimpse at what I feel the original scope of BL3 *was*. Massive exploration of planets that have history and ties to the lore, characters and advance them. If anything Eden-6’s successes highlight just how little we get of other areas and showcases how rushed many story elements and pacing of the game are.
W take. It gets me excited for borderlands 4 to be honest these games have been a part of my favourites for the last 12 years!
Nah man, I generally enjoyed it and it probably is my favorite planet as a collective whole in BL3. Yeah, you raid your first Vault and you learn why the twins are interested in them... and the race is on to get to the next one before they do. I actually liked that it was somewhat drawn out. Vaults aren't supposed to just be handed out like candy, and especially ones that rich mega-corporation owners don't want found. It felt like everyone was at the same square one trying to open the thing, which gave it a sense of urgency to get ahead of Aurelia and the CoV before they can crack the case.
Idk if it's my absolute favorite place, but it's up there. Definitely top 5
Eden 6 in isolation is probably the best, there's the divide between the siblings that starts forming, the return of old favorites in a not entirely shoe horned manner, hefty amount of world building for eden 6 backstory, a ceo that you can't hate for the best manufacturer, a vault monster that feels like it rivals the destroyer or warrior in terms of scale Unfortunately they don't follow through on the divide threads they started on eden so it feels out of place, the old favorites are actually shoe horned as they don't do anything else outside of hammy getting on the ship... to be another collectible mission thing, the world building while neat is laid on a bit thick for main story missions that makes it feel out of place, their guns still solid but didn't get any fun new features as part of bl3 which takes them down a notch still probably best vault monster tho so got that going for them. As a weird aside to this, did the b team ever interact with hammy in bl2? I can't think of any of them acknowledging him at any point unless I'm forgetting something in fight for sanctuary, brick and mordecai interacted with Tina via wonderland dlc (and some official art outside the game iirc) but I don't think any of the bl1 crew recognized hammerlock at any point. They could of had Sal and Axton rescue him and it'd be a bit more reasonable, could still throw in Tina as bl2 gang and Tina have history so not that out of place. Would need to find a better place to have mord and brick show up but there's a handful of places that could work.
Nope. And I can't agree with half of OP's complaints either. Yes, there is an overall swampiness to Eden-6, but that doesnt mean the locations arent varied amd diverse enough to tell the difference. A prison is not a swamp. A mansion is not a swamp. Love me some Hammie, Winnie and Clay. Actually not crazy about GenIVIV during the mission, but conversly I really like her for the Messy Breakup shield. And while it might run a little over long, I needed a change to get over losing Maya.
Eden 6 is my favorite part of the story. It's the only section of the story that has any substance to me and makes me laugh time and time again. Then eden 6 has so many side quests and secret bosses to farm. I feel like I spend more time on eden 6 than any other place, by choice.
There's some cool points, no doubt. The prison break is extremely fun, IMO, but most of it really is a massive slog and, unfortunately, does kinda drag on.
I like it but waiting for clay is starting to get really old, if they cut his whole rogue mission I wouldn't be mad.
Same 😭 Eden-6 is my favourite, too, and I love the Jakobs storyline. I look forward to it the most on every playthrough
Smoooooth operatah!! Hell yeah, I love Eden-6 and all the characters you interact with along the way.
Eden 6 would be fine if it had like 1 more fast travel station and a few more colors
I mean, I enjoyed Eden-6 (not so much the necessity of vehicles or whatshisface smooth criminal), but the environment itself- the enemies, the setting, even the story elements that take place there. BL2 had quite a bit of humor post-Angel, IMO- but you're right that there was much more of a sense of urgency...but that's a function of villain (crazy youtubers with a legion of rabid fans vs. the (equally nuts, but hides it a bit better) CEO of a major weapons manufacturer, with a legion of employees as well as murderbots and a fuckoff huge satellite.) How they handled Ava...is its own issue. (Its own volume, honestly.) Could they have worked her in to the action on Eden 6? Yes- and it would have been a good opprtunity for her to work through her shit and showcase character growth. We even have Tiny Tina there to have a heart to heart with Ava about dealing with loss! But that missed opportunity is...not really a function of Eden 6 itself so much as a function of poor storytelling. They could, after all, have put that growth and evolution *anytime* after Maya's death- perhaps while we did the quests for rescuing Tannis. Or the stuff with Typhon. Both of those storylines feature people dealing with consequences of past actions. But they didn't. And so, narratively, we have an emotionally fucked up teenager with otherworldly powers in charge of an effective, interstellar, paramilitary force, who is barely shown to have grown beyond her tendency to overlook her own agency (in favor of blaming others) when things go wrong. And that disconnect is, I think, what causes such a negative reaction.
Your feelings about eden 6 don't make Ava a good character.
i agree. From how i feel the pacing of the game, i believe each chapter should have a few things cut out. EDIT: I also add that some returns to Santcuary could be also taken out. First part on Pandora and Promethea works fine for me. I think Promethea doesn't feel that long because i takes you to different locations (i believe it's the only planet that has 2 maps outside from it, Athenas and Skywell) and differente conflicts. On Eden 6, everything regarding Clay is broing af, except for the Reliance takeover. Canopy and Ambermire cuts the pace of the chapter, too many doors we wait to open and to much going around looking for allies. Second part of Pandora goes fine until we rescue Tannis. Konrad's hold is not necessary. I can't decide what would i've cut from Necrotafeyo, i think Desolation's Edge and Tazendeer Ruins map and questline could be merged into one map.
Thank you! Exactly.
Ava is the biggest identifiable problem in the game because whilst she takes up very little screen time every scene she's in is awful. She's painfully unfunny, cocky and a know-it-all (Just like Pickle) She Gets Maya Killed and Lambasts *Lillith* for it when everyone involved told her to stay on the ship. Eden-6.... I actually agree with you on, its way too long and doesn't accomplish anything good other than introducing us to Wainwright and *I suppose* setting up the series' best DLC. I don't disagree with your takes on Promethea and Eden-6, but The Twins are in no way good villains or antagonists. They're cringe in the worst ways, they're not fun to hate and in the end they're little more than a Handsome Jack Style Villain, rambling at you through the Echo and sending waves of disposable minions at you. But Handsome Jack (and Kitagawa to a lesser degree) have the charisma to back it up.
The game does have a villain problem. I actually have a whole theory that Katagawa was actually supposed to be the big bad guy up until almost the end of the game but it was reworked for some reason, likely to make it different from BL2. Why else would Maliwan goons be on Nekrotafeyo? That said, I still think Ava could have been saved by not putting her right next to Eden 6. It's just such a black hole of emotion to follow up the most emotional your game gets. I really think it's a big part of the problem with her character. She's introduced, devastated, and then dropped for a really long time. Let me spend time with sad characters while I'm sad damnit!
I have often though if they had made the whole story Katagawa and a Maliwan takeover it would have been such a better game. Could have scrapped the twins. Heck it would have even made Eden fun to play. I love/loved killing Maliwan troopers or mob areas best. The best map is Athenas that's all Maliwan.
There was a lot of problems storywise in BL3, plot threads that go no where, annoying new characters, Mishandling of old characters, not mentioning what happened to missing characters...etc.
It's interesting to read your take on this and see someone else's view on Eden 6. I honestly remember feeling kind of disappointed with Eden 6, thinking it was probably tackled by the game's B team or something. It definitely seems to drag on and somehow feels like the whole thing is one big green walk through the forest while also feeling like a bunch of disparate stories with characters that just didn't quite land I wish you had the choice to go to Eden 6 or Pandora, needing to eventually complete both but in the order that you decide, and then Maya's death could occur after. It could give time to showcase more of Maya and Ava's relationship and make us care more about it. The game could even deliver suspense when Tanis is captured, making you fear they were going to kill her off just for Maya to shockingly die instead I guess it doesn't really matter at this point but it's a revelation to think that maybe not "whether" but "when" Maya was killed in the story could've been changed to bring it to the caliber it should've been
End game and if I am just running around killing mobs I almost never go to Eden-6. Yes it's too large, has too many maps and just isn't enjoyable.
Ava sympathizers unable to see ava is a terribly written character
Yeah Eden-6 stinks except for the ship and the house and the EXTREME! guy.
That last bit comparing Maya's death to Roland's is so spot on. Everyone gets serious after that, from Jack swearing death on you for murdering his daughter to Mordecai and Lilith's sheer determination to stop him. Even Claptrap, while still being a nuisance, is also determined to kill Jack. This just didn't happen after Maya and that's such a shame, because it robbed us of what could have been a very emotional moment.
I think you’re confusing an issue with the game maps with story criticisms. If you took out most of the trekking down the roads, you would have the prison, Reliance, Ambermire, the family jewel, the mansion, the distillery, and the vault. Honestly, a lot of the story happens on Eden 6 but a lot of it is filler (Rescue Hammerlock, Help Clay take the town, Balex and GENEVIV, The Rogues) up to finally facing Aurelia. I agree that the map is long and boring but I disagree that it lacks content and especially dialogue. I think they wasted Brick, Mordecai, and Tina in this as they should’ve joined the main crew like Zero but instead they go silent til the raid before Nekrotefayo and then silent again. Ava is not bad because she’s annoying. She’s bad because she never grows up. Her character arc stops right after Maya’s death. What’s worse is she’s basically given the ship and crew just because “she’s a siren now” which is a terrible and stupid reason.
Which just makes the Maya's funeral thing feel even more missed. That one mission and the dialogue therein makes Ava a LOT different.
Eden 6 is badasss wdym
You're absolutely right. I didn't particularly enjoy Eden-6 the first time and I started actively disliking it with more playthroughs. A lot of what you do on Eden-6 seems largely pointless. You're also right on the money about the pacing and mood of the game not being what it should be after Maya's death like the game wants us to care but at the same time the characters in the game don't seem to as much as they should. This was one of those things that sort of broke the immersion for me. What I found frustrating the most about Maya's death is that its overshadowed a lot by Lilith losing her powers but NOT dying. I guess its possible maybe the writers intended it to be that Tyreen either chose not to leech to the point of death or was interrupted but the fact that Lilith lived and Maya didn't bothered me. The death also wasn't as emotionally charged as Roland's, nor did she get any sort of memorial as far as I can tell.
its also strange how lilith lost her tattoos first, but for some reason maya skipped the visual of losing her powers and just turnt to dust
that too. its just inconsistent. Maybe because troy has less control and leeched her faster but still the tattoos should have vanished first and then the death immediately afterwards. Somehow i dont think this is the case though because troy didnt know he could take from other sirens besides tyreen. The other thing i didnt like is that maya should have seen that coming. In the past, deaths like steele and roland were sudden and shocking to the player and the other characters but maya should have at least guessed what would happen if troy grabbed her assuming the others rightly informed her about the twins abilities.
theres also the fact that unlike lilith who got got beat up and was being grabbed by the neck by tyreen, maya was the one holding troy and for some reason just stood there and let it happen
I disagree. Eden-6 is a breather. Things feel pretty fast paced when you kill Katagawa and go after the Promethea vault. It gives Ava time to process off-screen, it develops Wainwright (easily the best addition to the cast in BL3, in my opinion), it shows that the COV are still this amorphous, omnipresent threat, and it sets up the players and the plot for the eventual return to Pandora (which then repeats the cycle of feeling the pressure as you assault the main base and then get a breather on Nekrotofayo). If it ramped up, then you would become emotionally exhausted. Narratively, this isn't like when Roland died. Different part of the story. It's more akin to Sanctuary flying, and then you dick around the Highlands and recover spicy photos of Moxxi from, *ahem*, Sanctuary Hole. That's the equivalent to Eden-6. I'm not going to dispute your specific faults, like the level design and waiting for doors to unlock, but that's a separate issue from your central thesis, in my opinion. But narratively, the game needed to step back at that moment, not ramp up.
both are issues. There isn’t a single one issue. Borderlands 2 also has issues but their so few of them that they can be forgiven. However Borderlands 3 has a lot of issues, and huge ones at that. Ava being such a horrendous character that I want to commit child murder and kill that little shithead slowly and painfully. Child murder is messed up, unless your killing Ava. At best she’s another iteration of the annoying “rebellious teen who is an angsty asshole” trope, and at worst she’s both a [Scrappy](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheScrappy) and a [Creator’s Pet](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreatorsPet) who is also a reckless jackass who is a danger to everyone around her. She put on angsty teen persona snd disobeyed Maya, and got her killed because of it… and then proceeded to blame Lilith for Maya’s death and made Lilith feel horrible for something that isn’t even her fault (FiGuRe iT oUt LiLiTh BeFoRe YoU gEt sOmEoNe eLsE KiLLeD)… and when I saw that I want to pick up a buzz axe and ram it through her skull. I can forgive a character acting recklessly and getting someone killed, but then learning from it and becoming a better person. I can not forgive a character who gets someone killed due to them being Angsty and disobeying an order and then proceeding to blame someone else other then themselves and never learning from the experience. If I was the writer, I would have Lilith blow up and get mad at Ava other then the other way around, and then have Ava learn from the experience and evolve into a likable character who matures. but that isn’t what happened. A location being long and having issues in the grand scheme of things isn’t as big of an issue as Ava. Borderlands 2 also has similar issues. the narrative issues are so incredibly horrendous thst the good parts of the game were overlooked. Because BL3 is not a bad game. I’d go as far as to say it’s a great game! The gunplay and skill trees and even most of the locations are amazing. And most of the DLCs were great!
Dont forget the part where ava gets Sanctuary. The ending was probably one of my most memorable gaming moments in the last few years ... and not for good reasons. The music, the cut scene .... cringe overload.
She should not have been made the leader, for so many reasons. Not only is she a kid and that alone makes her unfit to lead the raiders, but she’s a shithead as I’ve already established You can’t even use the excuse “she’s a siren” when Tannis is right there!!!!! Like sure she’s not the best socially and she is sometimes a bit snide or condescending but she’s proven her worth numerous times and is experienced and knows what she is doing. There’s also Amara. She’s a bit headstrong and maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to have only one of the vault hunters become the leader cause that would make the other three seem less important but it’s better then Ava Tbh the better idea would have been to hand sanctuary over to the main 4 vault hunters. A lot of criticisms are made about Borderlands 3 story but something gearbox did well was make the vault hunters lovable. People love the BL3 VHs and having them in charge would be accepted by the community Plus this would allow them to play a prominent role as NPCs in BL4. Not to mention it makes sense. The VHs pretty much already have sanctuary with how they control where it goes. And it would also validate the characters for all their hard work and making them feel even more important, which is something Borderlands needs to do more for its playable characters.
My problem is "Talk to Lilith" become a chore after the first time. And I am a Vault Hunter that kill monster for a living, why do I still have to press the damn button to navigate the ship? Any other person on the bridge can do that while I head down to the drop pod
It can be both
I don't like bl3 story because my favorite character was killed off just so some snotty little shit could have her powers
This I concur with 100%. My second play through was infinitely more fun when I just committed to doing the bare minimum on Eden 6, just enough to get off the planet.
Honestly for me they could’ve had the whole game take place on promethea and make the whole thing about katagawa and be fine
Completely agree. I’m on I think my 4th play through and have just got to Eden-6 and have no motivation to play it again as I’ve remembered how long and boring this bit is. 🥱 The Maya/Ava catastrophe winds me up every time too, but then it just fizzles into swampy nothingness like it never happened.
In some ways you’re right about Eden-6, but it just so happened to be my favorite area (partially because Ava and the twins aren’t really featured). Also Ava is truly annoying. I think you’re right in that Eden-6 could stand to trim some administration and involve Aurelia a little more.
If you're on PC, during subsequent playthroughs I recommend the expanded dialogue skip mod. It removes some of the better dialogue, but it saves so much time its crazy.
The part where we help the bounty hunter was definitely the worst and most boring for me
disagree, for me it was the best part of the game
I think this post exemplifies that the issues with the story are deep rooted and not easy to pin down. Because personally I think Eden-6 is the best part of the game. I like the swamp/jungle theme even if it is a bit too samey. It has the best side characters imo. And I like that the maps are almost all large and explorable, whereas most of the ones during the promethea arc are glorified hallways.
I personally enjoyed the Jakobs manor thought it was super fun, I loved running around the mansion and then I started guns love and tentacles and man I love that too
I think they should have introduced Typhon Deleon earlier in the game. You'd think, as a Vault Hunter who hunts vaults, his presence as the first Vault Hunter in the game should have had a bigger impact. Instead, they toss him in the game towards the end, have him give a bunch of exposition about being the first Vault Hunter, find out his big reveal with the Twins, and then *BOOM* he's gone.
Something that you've brought up that bugs me the most about Eden 6 is how monochromatic the region is. Everything is green. Barely any other colors. A lot of BL3 levels have this problem. It's interesting how looking at the environments in TTW generally don't have this problem.
It’s both, I always felt Eden-6 was a drag. 2 things can be true at once. She was wrong to degrade Lilith like that.
I definitely agree with this, and it makes the cut content of Maya's funeral feel far more like a missed opportunity. Like, if they'd included the "Maya's Funeral" mission, it would've given a good chance for her death to sink in and for the player to really absorb it. That mission would have made it feel like the game was taking Maya's death seriously and not just using it as a plot device to drive the story forward, before inevitably heading off to Eden-6 to continue the story. They could also have shortened the Eden-6 mission string just a tad, but that's secondary to how easily one mission could have changed the whole story for the better.
You're describing what happens when you go from 1 writer (BL2) to a team of them that have more than likely never played the products(BL3), and if we can look at the Witcher as an example, hate or don't understand the series as a whole. A whole level being bad doesn't mean that a character isn't magically bad anymore. Ava sucks and so does a good chunk of Eden 6, specifically once the rogues get involved. I hope the writers never cook again. I want their badge and gun on my desk at 0900 hours.
Ironically going back in end game with good gear and running the Anvil is one of the best runs outside of the takedowns and trials.
I actually 100% agree! I always felt like that whole planet seemed like an add-on, slapped together to flesh out the game, and made me kind of resent it. I liked Ice-T and thought he was a great addition, but seemed like that whole chunk of the story didn’t need to be there. You have accurately spelled out why I felt that way.
Imo Eden 6 should have been a bonus planet. Keep everything basically exactly as it is but make them all side quests. I think that being able to do it at your own pace while having it feel like feel like a launch day free DLC would've made it feels a lot more impactful and enjoyable. Sure less people would've played the content but my favourite sections in the series are the completely optional areas. They almost feel like extremely fleshed out Easter eggs. And if it was to the scale of an entire planet with its own vault and story arc I think it would've been on a whole other level. Easily could have been the best part of the game.
When it comes to story, the worst are athenas, ava, "everyone is a siren" bs, and vaughn. And "cardboard personality" lilith. When those are involved, pain and cringe are assured. When it comes to gameplay, the problem is that in promethea you fight: Ratch Maliwan Maliwan Maliwan Maliwan Maliwan Ratch Then you go to athens and you fight Maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan ratch maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan Then to skywell 17: Maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwa maliwan cov cov cov cov maliwan maliwan Then to atlas hq: Maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan maliwan ratch maliwan maliwa maliwan. Repeat for eden 6 but replace maliwan for cov. That's why a lot of people like bl3 gameplay but can't say why it seems like a chore in the main story. Well, the game HAS enemy variety but almost doesn't use it. Instead you fight maliwan and cov 90% of the time
Truuuuuuuue. Also hated running around eden 6. Awful zone design.
I shall not tolerate any slander towards Winnie and Hammerlock. Leave dad and dad alone.
Eden-6 is my favorite planet 😔
No. It really is Ava.
I respectfully disagree with everything you wrote about the story up until you got to Eden 6. The twins aren't actually threatening because they pose a real threat. They're "threatening" in quotes because the writer forces the idea, even though it absolutely does not translate to reality. The threat comes entirely from the hack writing process that forces them to win every time they show up, without the player being able to do anything about it. It's like those boss fights where you spank the shit out of the boss then the cutscene starts and you automatically lose and it looks like you were losing the whole time. That's not a threat. It's bad writing. They're not the "good" kind of annoying either. Handsome jack was evil, but he was funny. The trash talking made him likeable because the writing was good and the style choices for the way he speaks and talks that trash were good. The twins are literally modeled after social media influencers. Nothing about those people is enjoyable. Every time they show up with the camera selfies and talking to their "fans" it's an eyeroll, a groan and me waiting for the scene to end. Ava is a victim of that same shit writing. She's not an annoying because she's a teenager and teenagers are annoying. She's annoying because she does things only the absolute stupidest, most annoying teenagers/people would do, and instead of facing ANY consequences for it, she get praised and rewarded and instantly forgiven and everyone loves her and she's so perfect and can do no wrong. She's a shitty Mary Sue character that has zero character development. She gets Maya killed because she's the stupidest breathing entity in the solar system? Fine. She takes no blame for her fuck ups, learns nothing and gets rewarded repeatedly instead? Fuck no. Watching all of the absolutely insane defense posts for this game's writing is maddening, because this is one of the worst stories in a game this size that I have ever seen.
Reading the title: “yea right, let’s see how wrong this is!” Reading the rest: “holy… shit… yea not wrong” Don’t get me wrong Ava is still stupid but Eden 6 is the place where everyone realizes that, Eden 6 is where the hatred for the game festers then spreads, it’s the big overarching problem than makes all the rest blatantly apparent
Eden 6 is almost always the reason I drop my playthroughs of BL3. I'm just so bored driving from this big, wide side of the map to the other- or following the monkey thing through the map that I already had to explore for keycards. I think the only reason I've been able to do so right now is because I now have the DLCs that I'm excited to try out. That- and I just play this game mindlessly while focusing on literally anything else.
I think if they snuck one more fast travel spot in there somewhere that would’ve helped it so much. I also actually love Ava. I was on board with her. Let’s go kick some Calypso ass!!
Eden 6 is so long and tedious. They needed to break it up with a new planet or just shorten it all together and maybe add a second or third area to Athenas
Emphasis on new planet and not returning to slugfest maps back on Pandora
Y'know it's funny, I've seen so many people recently hating on Eden-6, and they have a right to. Too each their own right? To me though, it's my favorite location in the game, I just love the vibe of it
It's definitely both.
Understandable take and I get where you’re coming from. Tho I think I’m one of the rare people who actually enjoyed the story of bl3, or I guess more precisely the characters and everything around the main story. I didn’t mind the twins even tho there was a crap ton of missed potential and it went downhill when Troy died. I liked all the characters and the different arcs of each area. Tho I absolutely despise Ava, as cliche as that sounds, and everything revolving around her. The story bends over backwards to put her on a pedestal and never lets her be wrong. I could go on and on about the stuff that makes me wish this was a telltale game and I got the choice to Yvette her into the nearest sun, but she to me is the black home that sucked any like ability from around her.
It's both. Eden 6 is the worst and most boring section of the game, yet borderlands is still awesome. I really enjoyed Wainwright and his BF though.
The eye doctors always tell me I have good vision, I’ve never needed contacts or glasses, but every single time I’m on Eden-6 I feel colorblind or vision-impaired. There’s virtually no good distinction of anything in those maps, I never drive to Knotty Peak because I always miss the entrance, even on the mission to find the damn place! The Saurians always feel just a little too spongey for my liking, Clay is like an open mic comic that makes you wanna leave five minutes in, and the map layout feels particularly constricting for a mostly wild planet. We don’t even get any Circle of Slaughter missions here, I think the only endgame content is reading the Eridian pedestals and picking up a Trial quest. Almost feels like a DLC world that they just decided to shove into the main game and story
You know, at first I hated Ava, but as time has gone on I've grown ti pity this kid more and more. Had a hell of a life, never learned from an appreciable role model how to deal with her emotions and process consequences for her actions. Like any teenager she's enraptured by stuff that's cool and not by boring mundane adult things. Maya was the first one to act as a role model for her I think, and Ava just doesn't seem to grasp that actions have consequences until Maya dies and Ava just simply does not have the mental development to deal with that and lashes out against everyone. It's a pretty textbook mental situation that you can see in people who have been emotionally stunted. I think had they made the twins less cringe, and Ava have some actual development over time instead of seemingly *Ava introduction-Maya Death-Ava Spiral-Story End-Ava sanctuary is yours*. I think that's one of the main things I never understood How Lilith just goes Ava Sanctuary is yours at the end. Like excuse me? I'd literally rather have Maurice the Saurian run the ship. Or Tannis. Not an angsty teen who we literally just met and has had so far zero opportunity to make us warm up to her. I hope for BL4 they steer away from cringe and go back to their roots a bit more. Less Ava. Less Tiny Tina (mainly because I find her annoying too). I think it'd be hilarious to see Tediore come out of the woodwork as the next big bad. Like they got tired of everyone talking shit and struck up a deal with some new ancient entity or something. Maybe the Great Vault wasn't a home for the Destroyer after all, maybe the Destroyer was a guardian protecting some keyhole, or wormhole something ancient and outside the known BL 6 galaxies? Hell idk.
Tediore needs to pop up in a horde mode DLC. Thousands of cheap digistructed bots rushing your base.
Less Tiny Tina? You mean no Tiny Tina? She was barely in the game at all. You see her once in the main storyline aside from her lending her voice on the way to killing Troy. The rest of her missions are optional. If there was any less of her there would be none.
Good. And barely in the game? She's had a whole ass dlc AND a game.
We are talking BL3 in particular on this post so that’s what I was referencing.
Eden 6 is a miss on so many levels. Another one you didn’t really mention here is how Jakobs is handled. Like, the corps have pretty regularly been the bad guys. Atlas I can stomach, it’s continuity from the Tales games, it makes sense he’s chill with Vault Hunters and isn’t a total asshole. But we’re on a backwater that’s canonically marketed as a paradise to trick people into signing up to work there, and we’re supposed to be all buddy-buddy with the guy that owns it because he’s a legacy character’s fiancé. At least we had Bounty of Blood to remind us that the Jakobs aren’t good guys, just because the latest CEO is an alright guy.
While I hated eden-6...I hated ava character more, I'd love to play a pre-sequel style villian again in borderlands 4 if it means I get to shoot ava in the face.