Jcmdaddy: Weapon stat algorithms: I felt like when you capped out, and then they raised the level to 69, that the weapons stopped getting stronger after 50. Hell I had a few revolvers that were mid 40′s that were better than anything else that dropped. Unless of course you did something crazy like try and kill Crawmaxx….which was nearly impossible lol, and the only people who would fight him, customized their weapons on pc to give them insane stats.

Weapons are comprised of various parts, like the barrel, stock, scope, etc. These are generated automatically and at random by the game. Some (rare) parts are way better than others, so it’s entirely possible that you could get a super-rare lower level gun that has an awesome combination of rare parts, and this gun will be better than most guns you’re likely to get later. You know, I must say that I kind of like this system, as I’m prone to becoming attached to a favored weapon. But then I’m also excited when I can at last swap it out sometime down the road for something substantially better.

But don’t get me wrong: I love the game. I’ve also had a lot of fun dabbling in local split screen with a friend. Online co-op — not so fun, mainly for the lack of mics. We need to convince PS3 users to get (cheap!) bluetooth headsets (and to give up on the mic that’s built into the Eye). Xbox users seem more prone to use mics in my limited experience at friends’ houses (but of course they also seem to be more verbally abusive).

Perhaps it wasn’t too bad for you, or maybe between when I finished the game in it’s entirety to you downloading it off the PSN they did some sort of patch. If that’s the case, that patch came way too late.

While strong weapons may seem hard to find and when you do find one, they’re difficult to replace, that does not mean they don’t level correctly. During the time I was finishing the game I encountered some very good weapons, as a Hunter I had my favorite sniper rifle (lv 44) and it stayed with me all the way up to level 69. It did all right, I wasn’t getting owned or anything by the monsters of Pandora, but after I started farming Crawmerax and the Armory extensively I kept upgrading all my weapons. Right now, all my equipment is level 66 minum (since the max level for decent loot is 68) and I have a really hard time finding replacements (it’s not like I need them, it’s just because), but equivalents always pop up, so it’s not like I’m the luckiest guy on earth.

Even though I’ve saved some prized low level possessions, there’s just no way I’m going back, since the stuff I have now is way more powerful.