[Suggestion] Battlerifles need some love.

They suck. And thats putting it nicely.


Over range they are inconsistent at hitting things, which for a marksman/support weapon is really bad.

What is the PURPOSE/ROLE of the Battlerifle?

I've been getting Infantry kills with the Archer ... If Medics got Archer, I'd never even consider TESTing the Battlerifles in TrainingRoom much less Trial'ing them in real fights

Seriously though, Medics need more fun weapons and Archer is one of them :\

Agreed. The Reaper has better accuracy than it, even though, you know, it has a far shorter barrel

BR's are supposed to better then LMG's over range.

But they FAIL at longer then LMG ranges & LMG's beat BR's over range.


Thats....... thats hilarious.

The BattleRifle fails at doing its job, actually I think for all extensive purposes the battlerifle is unemployed.

i thought the thread title said 'butterflies'. Because yes, butterflies do need some love.

Battle Rifles do not deal enough damage to justify the insane recoil they have.
Sure they have long range but attachments suggest a short range use should be possible (laser sight and nv scopes) but they get outperformed by basically everything.

Stats show it clear: lowest kpu and kph among all the primary weapons of the game

I honestly like battle rifles as they are now. It is my go-to engi weapon, and I find it sufficiently effective at most ranges. Even the hip fire is serviceable with laser sight. Probably because I've never cared to compare them to other weapons, just took them how they are.

I'm not sure what could be done to make them better, without turning it into scout rifles or LMGs.

I would love a full auto version, like BAR, but with the amount of bloom and recoil it has now, it would be pointless.

"Turning them into Scout Rifles" is one of the solutions people get drawn to, actually. Neither the Battle Rifle category nor the Scout Rifle category accurately reflect the weapons they contain, so the allure of promoting them into Scout sidegrades and adjusting access rights isn't weird. At least it would clear up the oddity that a Battle Rifle lies at in the middle of and at the end of the Scout Rifle Directive; at best, it would actually move the former-Battle Rifles into a position a lot more people find attractive.

I'd attribute that to LMGs being too accurate as much as battle rifles being bad (admittedly I consider them inferior scout rifles). From other games I kinda got the impression LMGs were supportive/suppressive weapons. But I digress.

Their muzzle velocity is actually pretty decent now at 600m/s (still lower than a number of LMGs, but I digress). As Iridar says not quite sure what you could do to them without treading on the scout rifles' toes.

*EDIT* Although Fate's notions above about their crossover, especially in the directive tree, is food for thought

Raise damage to 334 already.

Battle Rifle made its purpose being an accurate semi auto weapon for non-infiltrators, while infiltrators wield more powerful scout rifles.
The same way infiltrators don't have access to more powerful automatic rifles.

If Battle Rifle is transferred into Scout Rifles without any adjustments, no infiltrator will even use it. Scout Rifles as they are used very rarely, especially those that aren't Vandal. Battle Scout Rifle wouldn't see any light whatsoever.

If Battle Rifle is changed to be more similar to other scout rifles, it's gonna become another bland sidegrade, like half the weapons in this game already are.

If Battle Rifle is changed to be a sort of heavy automatic rifle, like BAR, it wouldn't make sense to have it in Scout Rifles.

This is scout rifle (mass: 3.3kg). Not this (mass: 7.25kg).

I wish to see an improvement on a battle rifle too. Currently, its advantage seems negligible with an existence of automatic weapons.

NC's A-Tross rifle has slightly faster fire rate and lower damage, but it's a lot of better than a battle rifle in most situation because it can fire in automatic.

Given the oversaturation of powerful automatic weapons in this game, being a HSR-1 side-grade is probably the most balanced thing an AMR-66 could possibly want to become. The former would trade raw damage for the latter's velocity and theoretical rate of fire.

I don't think the Battle Rifles should become automatic weapons. Gain burst or charge alternate fire modes, maybe (based on faction?), but not gain fully-automatic fire.

Burst fire is pointless, unless they find a way to make burst fire viable as they rebalance burst weapons.

There's only one difference between automatic weapon and fast firing semi auto weapon: you have to spam left click. Convenience. I don't see reason to deny convenience. It would also become a more accessible contender to NC's hard hitting 200 damage weapons for all factions and most classes.

Please don't start with "NC is the hard hitting faction". All factions have access to weapons that do a lot of damage per shot.

There's no oversaturation with powerful automatic weapons. Lack of popularity of semi auto weapons is explained by this:

1. People are forced into close quarters to contest objectives, and there's nothing to do outside bases.
2. Self-regenerating shields and long TTK mean that even at range where a semi auto precision weapon should be effective, it's gonna be hard to kill a soldier, as he'll have ample time to hide in cover, and emerge from it later with at least half health. So OHK bolt action rifles take prevalence.

It's not that semi auto weapons suck. It may appear that they either don't do enough damage per shot (scout rifles, battle rifles), or don't have the accuracy to land several shots in a short period of time (semi auto sniper rifles).
But in reality there's just no place for them, as there's always a gun that's gonna perform better in current circumstances. Vandal has its own niche thanks to 75% ADS and having NS sound, but others are not used.

I've also taken a look at the monthly stats, and I really don't see the problem. Battle rifles have higher usage stats than any scout rifle, including the Vandal and automatic scout rifles.

Why should that come as any surprise? The Scout Rifles can only be used on the Infiltrator, whereas the Battle Rifles can be used across multiple classes and are among the few competent semi-automatic-style weapons to which those classes have access. Meanwhile, for Infiltrators, the semi-auto Snipers are arguably better at mid-ranges, the SMGs are definitely better at CQC, and nothing beats BASRs at long range.

The prevalence of powerful automatic weapons is not a point that can be argued against. (You didn't either. You want to sound like you argued against it, but you really listed reasons why few people rely on the semi-automatics, hence why automatic weapons are more powerful.) If there really was a semi-automatic weapon that was deemed "powerful" in the same situations that fully-automatics were functional, that weapon would be used. That Battle Rifles still get used by some people suggests an interest in the style persists, at the least.

Your point about map-design space compression is astute but that leads only to wonder if semi-automatic weapons are adhereing to the wrong space-compression rules. Fully-automatic weapons have been gaining power at range due to changes to recoil control, mainly. Some weapons have gotten better due to standign cone of fire and bloom, though not many. Perhaps the non-Sniper semi-automatic cone of fire could be brought closer to that of a Carbine or a pistol to make weapon handling more appealing.

I still believe the Scout Rifles and the Battle Rifles could be brought together harmoniously, with all classes that currently have access to any of the weapons retaining access to the combined weapon category, and no one will ever notice. I don't know whether that speaks to the lackluster of the weapons or how thin the divide between the categories.

And no one will ever complain that they get a Battle Rifle after completeing their Scout Rifle Directive ever again.

Wall Text Kombat!

Not surprise; my point is - why remove the weapon from the few (enough, though) people that are using it? You didn't clearly state it before, now that I see your idea is to "make scout rifles available to all classes that have access to battle rifles". In that case nobody's gonna use the BR, because it's worse than scout rifles in situations where scout rifles are worth using over other options.

Don't confuse absolute power with relative. If all the game was played at ranges of 3m, everyone would use shotguns. It wouldn't make BASR not OHK on headshot, wouldn't make it weaker. Just not viable in current circumstances.

I have the mindset that a proper way to fix this is to broaden viable circumstances. Make semi auto weapons worth using by adding more ranged scenarios, and easing up a bit on close quarters routine.

You have an interesting point that it may be a better idea to buff/change the semi auto weapons to compete with automatic weapons at close range. But it's not gonna work. A buff to accuracy and hip fire would help, but not completely.

The main issue with semi auto weapons is that it's hard to pin several shots on a moving, firing target. No amount of buffs can fix this, because this is the very basic weapon mechanic - high rate of fire is desirable for close quarters.

Pretty sure that within full auto range battle rifles are just shamelessly spam fired. That's how it works for me, at least. BRs are surprisingly good at that, but this is not a typical use of "accurate placement of several shots" that you would come to expect from a semi auto weapon.

So.... are we all in agreement BattleRifles need buffs?

I really liked the BR, used it primarily on the engineer. I feel like it stands halfway between the semi-auto scout rifles and any common automatic weapon. It works well in open areas, where you can flank large groups on your own. However, that's not where the game primarily takes place.

If the majority of players have more trouble with the BR's than they're worth, I might go for a small damage buff. Make those shots count more, reward patient aiming.

i agree they need something possibly some better movement accuracy maby less recoil something along those lines

Battlerifles win fights where the opponent is behind cover. Its a good weapon for the engineer behind the front lines. It deals good damage where there is only a small window of opportunity. I've gotten some good streaks with my BR in biolabs of all places, just killing people who are 90% behind cover. All I need is a few frames of skin to get a kill. In this situation, automatics tend to just waste ammo.