Where did it go wrong?

I actually think the action skills are still worse than what we got in 2, ghost blade is fun but the guerrillas in the mist equivalent is jus better most of the time. Too many of them are just "this does damage but isn't a gun" when shit like Decepti0n dictated everything about how you played zero right down to using maliwan grenades for slagging and healing because you only got one shot out of it or had to chain melee. Or generally everything about Salvador. Then we got shit like moze whos action skill can render all her gun skills pointless.
Dunno, I feel like they're better in some ways but I kind of liked when we had one all-defining action skill per character. Amara is pretty good tho.

I mostly agree that characters felt more cohesive with more than one action skill, but it's a tricky spot because you want the action skill to be something that defines how you play, what sort of gear you value, and how you prioritize targets in combat. It should be right up with "move" and "shoot" as primary verbs. But if it's powerful and the cooldown is low, you stop using anything else (Krieg after level 40, Moze, Clawbringer to an extent, Spellslinger if you consider the spells 'action skills' in that context). If the cooldown is high, it's a nuke that you always feel like you have to keep in reserve (Krieg before level 40, Roland). If it's too weak to matter, no one cares about the cooldown and you're just using guns and passives.

They sometimes hit the sweetspot with stuff like Maya where it feels impactful every time but you have it when you need it, but most of the time it does end up being a not-gun like you said. No clue how/when/if BL4 is going to come out, they've kinda ratfucked themselves both story-wise and with mechanics.

I completely agree. I generally think Gaige and Krieg action skill wise are the weakpoint of bl2 (though they make up for it in actually having unique skill trees)
Ambidextrous definitely feels like a strongpoint because we haven't had a "two grenades" class up to this point and spells generally speaking are more interesting and varied so it was a perfect idea. But then theres shit like Sporewarden who has two action skills that were clearly just made to apply wrath of nature and exploit ASE/ASA annoints. Or stabbomancer who's ghost blade doesn't actually get any of the unique bonuses of your melee weapon so why not just melee.
I think any actin skill that's just focused on doing damage rather than augmenting the character in some way is just weak design.
Even axton's turret drew aggro/stunned with nukes, or was his main source of slagging/defence with barrel/shields.

>gearbox
>epic exclusive
>dead cow IP
nuff said

no pirate no buy simple as.

they should have focused on making more magical items instead of putting lipstick on the borderlands pig. or magic spells or something I'm so sick of not having a game in 2022 made with updated graphics where I can play as a god damn wizard or mage that can cast tons of fucking spells.

There's something to be said for characters who aren't particularly gear dependent, though. I really enjoyed Bloodsplosion chains with Krieg, and that was powered by raw skill synergies (and also the fact they raised the level cap and allowed for two capstones at once, completely destroying the balance of every class). Borderlands has the serious problem where sometimes your guns suck ass and there's no great way to get new ones reliably, and trying to farm gear can just make your level even higher and make the problem worse. Wonderlands is especially egregious about this on replay because the Dice are per-account not per-character, so there's literally hundreds of loot drops that the game is balanced around that later characters don't get.

Krieg is definitely fun, I love Krieg, I probably have the most play time on him. But i'll never not be disappointed that the best gun Krieg renders his action skill essentially a form a suicide. And knowing that as Moze I could at any time just throw all my gear on the ground and press Q to win sucks a lot of joy out of her gunplay. Also I fucking hate level 80/op10 and I still haven't bothered to grind my way up on all characters. OP8 was a perfect sweet spot.
I didn't know that loot dice didn't carry over per character either. That sucks. I don't think I would have picked spore warden as first.

The tranny shit is out of control in this one

They should really just let you skip dialog.

I did clawbringer/brrrzerker first and it was fun being a melee/focused elementalist. Companion AI is still garbage, but the hammer counts as melee damage so I was able to open chests from across rooms to see if there was anything worth walking over for. Second playthrough was Spellslinger/Necromancer and Spellslinger is OP as shit. The chain of shooting guns whose crits restore spell charges and casting spells while every kill can reload your gun means you're constantly vomiting out damage. I used a level 15 class mod until level 30 because it gave +1 to the skill that increased max spellweaving stacks.

If nothing else about Wonderlands, the fact it was a return to form of BL1 where a good purple could last you for 10 levels felt wonderful. BL2's hyperaggressive exponential scaling made me always feel underequipped.

How many of these games do you need? Gearbox became a one trick pony.

I hope they stick with the low level cap / less grindy post game (relatively speaking compared to going from mayhem 3 4 10 or the whole shebang with what happened with OP10 release making all your op8 gear into worthless level80 gear.)
The single playthrough was a pleasant surprise since I like to reset at max level/difficulty with no gear anyway and that just cuts down the time.
Grinding chaos levels is kind of obnoxious but you get more than 1 per chamber run now at least.
Less skill points has always been more fun. Zane is the prime example of a character who gets less fun the more of his tools he's allowed to play with at once. Fucking just spam cannons and hold m1 bullshit.

It's a good game if you want to shoot stuff, especially if you want to do it with your friends.
It's the equivalent of going to McDonalds: You go for a quick fix. If you want to have high standards and have a proper burger you're supposed to go to another place.

So to answer your question: Nothing really went wrong.
It's a low standard game made for people with either low stantards or just want to pew pew enemies and it's a good game at that.

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Why is borderlands so fucking unfunny bros