I believe I also recall the GI article stating that there may be a high or low level lock. You can explore certain areas in a map but some of the foes that you fight won't be hurt by your piddly pea shooter. You will have to gear up and come back to take on the tougher goons. So perhaps weapons need to reach a certain point before they are effective against certain enemies.

And that article intrigues me as to how they will do enemy levels. Say, for example, you have 2 focuses maxed (total 40 levels of work), but your guardian can only be up to level 20 at one time, as set by the focuses. This makes me wonder if they will limit enemy levels to 20 and give them superior equipment to compensate, or if they will go above level 20. And, if the latter is the case, how will your guardian be able to combat that, by having their own higher level equipment (level 20 guardian, level 30 weapon), or some other system? Because of how little information has been given, it's a fairly confusing subject to me.

Yeah but that is just going under the assumption that players have an actual player level still. I think I remember an early pic of a player level. That could have been scrapped while in development. For Example: Currently you are a "level 20 void warlock sniper". If you switch up to another build you are a "level 5 flame throwing trollslayer". Basically you keep weapons and levels under a new identity.