Weapon quality is kind of weird

[Caralampio]

Don't you feel that the way weapon quality is treated is weird? The quality of weapons can vary wildly. I mean like one weapon (say a Nue) doing 60 DPS and another doing 600 DPS. How different can a gun be from another gun of the same factory? Pristine quality, better components, better care etc. but such astronomical difference?

But what I find more problematic is how a Common weapon can e better than an Epic. I just did the shooting range quest (the one in 2nd Amendment of your building). There was a M10AF Lexington lying in my booth. Common but it did 140 DPS. Picked it up to use as the Lex is the best hand gun for this quest (big clip and rate of fire). OK I won and Ralph or what's his name gave me the prize: A real nice gun! Well the paint is nice but it was an Epic Lexington that did 58 DPS. Why was it Epic then? I remember I once found a Legendary that Completely sucked, very low damage. It's total uselessness is what was legendary.

Actually the common Lex I found lying there is a much better gun, and also can be improved better because it is common so it uses cheap components to upgrade. The Epic prize is too expensive to upgrade and even if I wanted to, it will never ever reach the quality of the Common. So it goes to scrap. I actually keep the humble Common to use until I can get Lizzie. But this doesn't make sense! There should be a progression where an Uncommon should always be better than a Common (at least before upgrading), a Rare always better than an Uncommon, an Epic always better than a Rare, etc. And also, a Common should never be able reach the level of an Epic or Legendary even with upgrades.

 

[Ayinde_Palmer]

Don't you feel that the way weapon quality is treated is weird? The quality of weapons can vary wildly. I mean like one weapon (say a Nue) doing 60 DPS and another doing 600 DPS. How different can a gun be from another gun of the same factory? Pristine quality, better components, better care etc. but such astronomical difference?

But what I find more problematic is how a Common weapon can e better than an Epic. I just did the shooting range quest (the one in 2nd Amendment of your building). There was a M10AF Lexington lying in my booth. Common but it did 140 DPS. Picked it up to use as the Lex is the best hand gun for this quest (big clip and rate of fire). OK I won and Ralph or what's his name gave me the prize: A real nice gun! Well the paint is nice but it was an Epic Lexington that did 58 DPS. Why was it Epic then? I remember I once found a Legendary that Completely sucked, very low damage. It's total uselessness is what was legendary.

Actually the common Lex I found lying there is a much better gun, and also can be improved better because it is common so it uses cheap components to upgrade. The Epic prize is too expensive to upgrade and even if I wanted to, it will never ever reach the quality of the Common. So it goes to scrap. I actually keep the humble Common to use until I can get Lizzie. But this doesn't make sense! There should be a progression where an Uncommon should always be better than a Common (at least before upgrading), a Rare always better than an Uncommon, an Epic always better than a Rare, etc. And also, a Common should never be able reach the level of an Epic or Legendary even with upgrades.

basically the prime determiner of weapon strength is level.

so when an item is spawned it has a level that matches the player(or enemy, not sure but enemy level is often effected by player level) then it gets bonus damage for rarity, but thats small. Rarity mostly determines the max amount of mod slots on the item. then there are a few randomized Stat bonuses, like headshot% crit rate etc.

if you are the same level Guns don't change drastically from gun to gun.

iconic have fixed stats.

non iconic formula would be like;

item level dropped(+rarity dmg bonus)+random bonus stats+mods(based on rarity)

you can upgrade any gun to the same base stats, based on your current level range, but it gets super expensive the more you do it.

 

[Aenima1]

Yeah I think for the rarity to determine damage you'd need a drastically different gun system. Best thing to do is use the sort filter set to DPS, and then choose the best one. Obviously an old legendary from 12 levels ago will be way less effective than a recent common one, however with the game allowing you to free roam its quite easy to wander into areas outside of your current level. This seems to be the cost of open world without enemy scaling to you. (instead it looks like they scale based on the area ie starting area has weaker enemies than late game areas).
My second playthrough I tried to get some of that branching story stuff to happen by trying things in a different order but all I managed to do was tilt the enemies difficulty so that most fights were one sided - either against me or in favour of me. None of my guns damage made sense either.
You'll just have to familiarise yourself with the levelling on the guns and you'll find it gets easier to choose your weapons.

 

[Niatka]

I only play with bladed weapons. very few guns. the Katana is my primary weapon. then the baseball bat. machete or knife rarely. with these weapons, yes there are also strange phenomena. I often use a basic katana, the Epic or Legendary are rarely beneficial to me.
it's actually the way you use the weapon that gives it its real potency, not the DPS. anyway, in the way I play, that's how it is.

notice; I only play in hard and stealth mode, it's great with a bladed weapon.

 

[brannonb]

basically the prime determiner of weapon strength is level.

And a big part of the disconnect is, I think, that the level of an item is invisible to the player.

Probably would have been better to have LEVEL be the most prominent statistic on items rather than rarity.

Because the main thing attached to rarity is mod slots, and you can easily see how many mod slots an item has, it'd be almost easier to get rid of rarity entirely. Nobody cares an item is Legendary. You care how many slots it has. A zero slot legendary is trash.

I don't at all expect this system to be changed, but we're just discussing it, so if I were redesigning this, I might look at attaching mod slots to level ranges and making them more static, to save players from having to save/reload when they find items. In games where you have loot boxes or purchasable items you might like a random slot system to encourage more sales, but in a single player game it is simply an annoyance.

So you set up something like
Jackets
Level 1-10: 0 slots
Level 11-20: 1 slot
Level 21-30: 2 slots
Level 31-40: 3 slots
Level 41-50: 4 slots

You'd still have a range of quality, as a level 41 jacket with 4 slots is not as good as a level 50 jacket with 4 slots. You'd then set your upgrade crafting system in line with this, so when you upgrade an item you are raising its level, and that's visible to you. Thus if you are level 45 and you upgrade your Jacket to level 45, it is going to be the same armor value as a level 45 jacket you find in the game randomly.

I'd also think it would work to have the upgrade cost based on your level compared to the level of the item you are upgrading. So the cost of upgrading an item that's lower level than you is reduced based on how low a level it is, and upgrading an item beyond your level is more expensive. So it's optimal to upgrade your items to keep up with you and be the same level as you are, but you can upgrade them to be higher level than you are if you want to pay the much higher cost to do so.

But like I said, this is all just fun discussion. The system's not likely to be altered fundamentally.