Please allow these two practically identical lvl 50 legendaries inform you on just how unreliable an item score is in showcasing what is “better”. Somehow having less zoom on this auto rifle gives it 10 points over the other. Typically zoom is more helpful but in this case the score says otherwise.
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Do they have the same gun parts?
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I never let a score dictate what I feel makes a gun superior. Most games that “score” their weapons are kind of a joke. I don’t think game developers have quite mastered that algorithm yet. Don’t pay attention to score, think for yourself. 
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fool me once…
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They are identical except for the scopes. The one with less scope is being scored higher by 10 points.
Another big one is the +xx% melee damage modifier. Unless you are a melee build like Amara, it’s very misleading when trying to gauge damage output. I had 2 Jackobs pistols with nearly the same power level but the one with the blade actually did about 35% less damage. Not really a fan of the power rating in this game.
That is normal. If a gun has a melee part on the gun, it usually comes like reductions in base bullet damage.
I think their intention with the scores on the card is for the casuals to have a relatively accurate ‘at a glance’ indication of which is better than the other.
I personally have seen many weapons which are superior than another with a higher score. So have always used the score as an ‘at a glance’ indicator.
I couldn’t help but facepalm whenever I realized a gearscore was getting added to Borderlands 3.
I made a post pointing out how silly it is to try and quantity red text effects. Not to mention, in Bl2 there where often blues(sometimes purps) that were better than legs.
If there was no variation in stats/parts on the items I could see it being useful but the way Borderlands functions it is an essentially worthless number bro further confuse new players.
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I’ll say a lot positive about this game but this feels like an added feature that GBX was chasing to try to stay within some boundaries of where the loot genre has gone. Item Score has long been a weird way for companies to try to pre-evaluate their loot before they recognize any of the hard balancing math that makes it important or what the individual player likes. In some cases, like WoW, this can be “helpful” (boy I can’t stress these air quotes enough) for determining what a player has likely experienced given the relative score they have, but in almost any other system if you’re dealing with varied playstyles (and going from just zane and Amar, who have several valid builds) the numbers are going to be meaningless to the individual.
I love a lot about this game, throwing arbitrary numbers at pieces to “help” players make the “right” decision has always been a dumb idea.
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Well none of that matters when your guns stats change from play session to the next. My luscious call has a stat that cange from 50% to 100% but never stays at one. So which one is it. Ide like the 100%
I don’t think item score is a way of telling which player which gun is better. Its just a tool to organize guns based on the overall rarity of its parts, which helps to sort guns to different rarities and sort them in your inventory as well. It also helps administratively in determining which weapons are placed in your lost loot. BL1 had a very similar system of assigning rarity, which is why I’m surprised players are acting like its something new in the franchise, or worse, complaining about it.