The Borderlands sequels have been bittersweet for me. I heavily enjoyed the stories, the dialogue, and the interactions that the original was missing, but when I was playing the first Borderlands, it didn’t matter, because the hunt for loot was what kept me so addicted to playing it, and that’s what the sequels are lacking in I feel- the loot. Giving us legendary non-gun items was awesome, and I want to see more. The gun’s though, they were so limited in comparison to the original. So in BL3, please return to the original game’s gun parts system.
In BL1, the manufacturer was a separate variable to the gun parts. This meant that there were 5 grips/bodies/barrels/stocks/etc. available to each manufacturer. In the sequels, this is not the case. This severely limits the variety within each rarity level of a gun type. Also, this allowed legendaries to have even more variety in quality and rarity. I know there is some variability in legendary quality in the sequels, but there could be more. And I think most gamers are ok with “more”. It gives us more to hunt for.
Another cool reason to return to having manufacturer separate from the gun parts is because we could have hybrid guns. This was when a pearlescant gun also had a legendary part (though Pitchfork never gave us a skullmasher bessie hybrid, like, dude, c’mon), and we got even more variety and kick-ass weapons.
I also would love to see a return of skins as a separate and unique gun part. The sequels designated skins based on rarity level, and this further reduced the gun options. In BL1, I could find three legendaries with all the same parts, with only the skin differing, and get three different stats (leaning towards one side of a balanced set of stats) and looks to choose from. More variety, though I never found my Urban Corrosive Anaconda. I had way too many hours logged into the first game and never finding my holy grail gun just shows that with that level of diversity in loot, I still have more to hunt in that game, and it came out 6 years ago.
A return to these old gun parts would also give more naming options, which further altered stats based on a rarity level. This was why orange gun levels had three shades, from yellow to dark orange. More variety, more rarities, more guns. I would be happy to see the numbering system come back too (e.g., AR390). It didn’t change the gun stats, but did make identifying parts a bit quicker.
I think returning to the original gun parts system would be a non-issue because it would just give more variety, more loot, and that’s what this franchise is built on. Especially if GBX applies this same system to the non-gun items like shields and grenades. All it means is more items.
The more controversial part I would like to see go away is the sequel’s dramatic manufacturer gimmicks. The fact that many refer to these pronounced differences in manufacturers gun behaviors as ‘gimmicks’ should clue you in to the often ridiculousness of them. In BL1, manufacturers had different effects on the gun stats, but they were less pronounced; noticeable, but less. Dahl had the best RR, Hyperion the bast accuracy, Jakob’s, the highest damage, and so on. But if I wanted a burst shot rifle, I could choose a burst shot rifle from three different manufacturers. I wasn’t restricted to Dahl.
Moreover, give us back all the gun types of the first one. The sequel’s gun system had reduced parts, and reduced types. We had 2 types of shotguns, rifles, snipers, and pistols, plus revolvers. And eridian guns. Those useless (*mostly 
) eridian guns. Please bring them back too.
TL;DR: Please make BL3’s gun system like the original by making manufacturer and gun skins separate and unique gun parts, bring back the additional gun types from BL1, and apply the original parts system to non-gun items too like shields and grenades. It gives us more loot, and encourages the hunt. And I wouldn’t mind seeing the gun gimmicks by manufacturer be less exaggerated. Thanks all for reading. Share your thoughts.