Would someone please explain weapons to me

I'm really struggling with how damage and weapons function in this game. I come from playing Borderlands 1 and 2 so the format looks very simliar, but I struggle when trying to decide which gun to use. How do you figure out damage when it seems so much information is missing. For example. I found an assault rifle that did 224 damage with no elemental affects. Later I found another assault rifle that did 112 damage but did fire damage. This is where I feel there is missing information. How much fire damage does this weapon do? How often does the elemental effect happen? How long does the effect happen?

So in the end, I struggle to decide which weapon to use. Or is the 112 of the fire rifle already taking the elemental damage into account?

Easy answer. Turn on show damage numbers in the menu. That way you can see what your output damage is on each gun.

It IS kinda confusing at first, There are several variations of each gun. Sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious. For Example, Theres a VOT Blaster that does 113 Damage, a decent Rof and horrendous accuracy. There is another VOT Blaster looks exactly the same but does 40damage, a high Rof, and fires 3 bullets at once for every 1 round. so a 50mag = 150 bullets shot. Thats really the main difference between the different weapons in the same category type. Just subtle changes to what/how they fire. When it comes down to it, your personal preference will decide what weapon you want to use, and turning damage numbers on in the settings might help in your decision

Yeah turn on the damage numbers, also choose a weapon that suits your playstyle. Most people for example use LMG's and AR's out of the 3 weapons that all share the same ammo, but I love the smg and have no problem getting high damage with them.

I'll give turning the damage numbers on and see if that helps me out, thanks for the suggestion.

I just wish they would add a bit more information to the elemental guns to help you. Elemental % alone would be really nice.

All you need to know is which weapons are the best:

TACC ARs
SAW LMGs
Detonators, preferably the self detonated kind with 6+ mag.
Auto Shotguns for that skill based, bunny hopping to top of the score board fun.
Explosive Shotguns for same reasons as previous.
Infectors since this really effects scoring in Arkfalls and co-ops so combine it with the above ftw.

Other guns, there is a few that are not so bad but all them barely hold a candle to the ones I just listed.