#The planet hopping makes the game feel so disjointed and wrong to me

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Best decision I ever made when writing H2O au was making every other planet besides Pandora a dlc story instead of part of the main story

Because

A) you're more attached to the main cast because it doesn't rotate every 3 hours to a whole new set of people. Also the B-team and the bl2 VHs are actually around this time since they are very important characters in the series

B) you get to help Ellie and Moxxi build Sanc-3 with crew missions, and that also gave me a reason to bring Scooper back because hello he's adorable

C) the Calypsos are the sole main villain with their cult instead of Maliwan butting in randomly and stealing the spotlight so we can focus on twin character development and maybe some actual set-up plot twists

D) I get to design a new HQ because honestly. The naming system for Sanctuary-1, 2, and 3 still confuses me I thought the flying city was Sanctuary 1 as the mining ship, but apparently its not bc it started flying so the flying version is 2 that blew up and that's why we don't talk about it?? and uhhhhh... I might be dumb. So I just designed Sanctuary-II as my own HQ for the Raiders (cough Roland's rest cough) after Sanctuary (one) blew up in Commander Lily n the fight for Sanctuary (note that it doesn't say 'and the fight for Sanctuary-II' so yknow.)

E) it's understandably way more concerning when the apocalypse happens at the end of the game and Pandora is about to fuckin crumble to pieces bc the ship isn't done yet and the crew has no way of leaving so if Pandora goes bye-bye so does everyone on it. Plus the Destroyer is released. But hey. Who ever cared about the Destroyer clearly not the lore checking team ooooooh

F) Maya is actually on Pandora with Krieg and Ava instead of just dicking around on Athenas 'cause guess what books are hella portable with digistruct technology and Krieg is way more important to Maya than... Whatever she was doing on Athenas. Reading? Meditating? All things she could be doing on Pandora. And Ava being Ava would be more than happy to tag along to Pandora 'cause obviously she hated Athenas in the first place.

And finally:

Pandora can have its environmental diversity back!!! I LOVED the different environments in 2, it showed that Pandora wasn't JUST a desert planet but then they regressed in 3. We got the Arms Race map which is beautiful and amazing, but that's the only one that takes place in a different area. The rest are all deserts and it makes me a bit sad. I was hoping to see more of the highlands with the grassy areas and stalkers and threshers, or the glacial areas with the bullymongs and skags, but :( I miss stuff like that where entering a new area could be *anything*. Like the eridium blight was SOOOO cool the first time through. It blew my goddamn mind, environmental storytelling Ho! But now in 3 every main story planet is basically just a single biome or type of area and ech. I wish there were more, so keeping the game on Pandora gives that opportunity for the characters to explore beyond the small circle of desert they find themselves in during the start of the story. Like they didn't have to go so hard with the Caustic Caverns but they did and I'm forever grateful