What About Battle Rifles?

I think most of us will still agree that the beta gunfire sound was better:

I really enjoy using the Warden, the feedback is nice and it works well even without attachments. The velocity is acceptable and it is easy to compensate for bullet drop.

The Eidolon is just not as fun even though I've used it more. The iron sights are this terrible glowing W and I usually find the 4x scope disorienting. The lack of velocity is not a good trade-off for having no bullet drop. To use it well at range you need to invest in high velocity rounds (and make the recoil worse) or lead moving targets for a ridiculous amount of space. Most of the assault rifles outperform these rifles in TTK, velocity, etc. It only really has utility for the engineer, but if I need to get even remotely close to targets I'm always better off with the Pulsar C.

The small improvements to ranged capabilities are probably fine but to make them more usable than slug shotguns at medium/close range I'd prefer to have them automatic with a better recoil pattern. Right now they are just "long-rifles" instead of upscaled assault rifles.

The long range carbines work well enough at long ranges that the battle rifles are basically useless. The carbines have the range and the versatility, which makes them far more useful. The only way you could make battlerifles better, would be to either remove or nerf the the long range carbines, or make them much more powerful.

He's an example of how effective the long range carbines are:

Make battle rifles ignore HA shields, and do 1.5x damage to light armor and maxes (3x damage on headshots to maxes).

Also, I've noticed that the AMR/Warden lose accuracy after only 3-4 shots, where the Eidolon feels more like a Beamer when you spam it, as the VE33 remains accurate out to about the 6-8 shots when experiencing the same circumstances and firing at the same speeds.
They should all return to the base CoF accuracy about as fast as the Beamer when the Beamer is spammed (near instantly) in ADS.

Do that, and they'd be just as competitive as other primary weapons designed to operate within the same ranges, but with a nice leg up on bullet sponges.

It's only 5% slower than NC/TR battle rifles, but the Eidolon returns to the base CoF about half again as fast.

Personally, I struggle with my AMR-66. I suppose it is just a lack of practice on my part, but if you are interested in feedback, here it goes:

- Bullet velocity is insufficient if I want to shoot at enemies outside of most full-auto guns' effective range.
- Recoil goes out of hand very fast and needs a lengthy resettle time when shooting outside of really close ranges (i.e. where this weapon is at its most vulnerable). Attachments that are supposed to alleviate that don't seem to do much.
- Damage per bullet is insufficient.

Overall, I find myself either pacing shots - which allows my target time to escape or return fire (usually much more effectively) - or I try to shoot as fast as possible and see any semblance of accuracy evaporate after the first two shots.

I dont use battle rifles for 3 main reasons.

1. There are better options.
The added range is not worth giving up your shorter range capabilities.
And im not talking bad like a SAW in CQB, its more on the level of hipfiring a BASR.

2. The recoil makes it annoying to use. It still has too much recoil.
Also doesent help that everything is designed to shake your camera like you are on a boat all the time.
The recoil limits its ranged capabilities beyond any of the other ranged options for the BR classes. So there is no incentive to use BRs over for example a long ranged carbine.

3. Its semi auto.
I dont like burst and semi auto weapons because you have to spam-click to have them reach their full rate of fire potential.
I have been comming up with a solution to it, but it would require some coding time, and it may be too radical:
What if, if you held down the button on a burst weapon, you fired the weapon at its maximum burst rate of fire potential. Sort of like a full auto weapon, but with a delay every 3 shots.
It would probably require them to tweak a few weapons to lower their burst ROF and add more delay between bursts. (so people dont just run around with the SABR at face ranges)
This could be kept as another fire mode to burst weapons, so people could still use the old burst version.
The benefit of the new burst/full auto hybrid would be that you gain more accuracy from not having to spam click your button, but it would burst slower than someone spamming the old burst fire mode.
Hope that made sense.

So to sum it up, my personal problems with BRs.
Bad CQB abilities dont make up for its longer range ability.
Its recoil makes it a horrible longer range weapon.
Semi auto/burst weapons are annoying to use.

I propose an improvement to recoil and FSM.
Also, if possible add some sort of "reverse bullet drop", where it does less damage at short range but more at longer ranges.
Then give it better hipfire. So it can be spammed in CQB and reliably hit things without doing too much damage.

Edit: I got shadowbanned on Reddit, so, thanks for putting this message up here! It warms my heart to know that my feedback is heard.
But, I'm sad that I usually put aside my AMR-66 for my TMG or Carv.

Fuzzbucket has the best buff suggestions of this thread already. The inaccuracy of BRs is what cripples them most, and this is indirectly admitted in the proposed changes to the Gauss SAW (dropping moving CoF).

I'll add a few things to flesh out the argument for a better CoF primarily.
In this game, CoF doesn't begin to reset towards minimum for the stance until after a delay equivalent to the weapon's firetime cycle has passed, that is, the time it would take to fire another round, thus low RoF weapons suffer a relative inability to maintain a competent volume of fire and a reasonable cone of fire to attain a competitive TTK via bursting.
The above compounds on the fact that high RoF weapons are more forgiving when a shot is missed due to the volume of fire. This is an inherent qualitative imbalance which requires compensation in some way. It also doesn't help that high RoF weapons in this game usually have lower bloom per shot and better moving CoF.

If there is insufficient consistency, high damage low rate of fire weapons become frustrating, inconsistent platforms with excessive RNG (which is fun for neither side) elements which forces a playstyle that emphasizes immaculate positioning (which would net one kills with any weapon), or a playstyle which relies on being close enough to get consistent headshots while avoiding / overwhelming opposing fire. In these cases, while the benefit of the high RoF weapons is diminished due to high player skill, the high RoF weapons are comparable in the same situations and outclass them in all other situations.

This is what the BRs are right now: unforgiving and inconsistent. They are outclassed or comparable at all ranges at all skill levels since they cannot maintain a respectable volume of fire with consistent accuracy.

I used the Warden until I realized: why use a 250dmg/bullet semi-auto rifle with insane recoil when I can single-fire a Gauss SAW for 200dmg/bullet, get the same accuracy, same bullet velocity, bigger clip, and have the ability to fire full-auto 500rounds/min when needed?

Empire speci...
EMPIRE SPECIFI...
EMPIRE SPECIFIC PROPERTIES, O GREAT LEADER!

In short, empire specific properties. I want to see the AMR turn into a fast-firing bullet spewer, the Warden can overclock something to increase both damage and velocity by 20%, and the Eidolon can use two forms of ammunition: One laser (faster, more accurate, no recoil, damage reduced by 30%) and one plasma (slower, splash upon contact, increases in radius as distance increases, and 30% extra damage).

AMR-66 not too bad, but not too special. One of most accurate TR weapons - atleast, you can hit something with it.

On other side, DMR-99 are second worstest weapon in the game (after default TR infiltrator rifle). Weak and inaccurate Piece Of ****.
Auraxiumed and planned never touch it again.

I use occasionally for long range engagement but the first shot accuracy could be better and the sheer stopping power of a real life BR is inevitably lost in a game where you cannot realistically replicate it without affecting game playability. If BRs had the ability to ignore a certain amount of infantry armour that might help but just buffing the damage would presumably affect balance with other weapon classes like sniper rig=fles and semi auto scout rifles.

Borgin weapons, they feel like LMGs that won't rapid fire

I think it has too much ammo for a weapon that is expected to be used by engineers all the time, ammunition packs are basically infinite ammo.

I also think the 20 magazine capacity is the main point of discussion for these battle rifles, more damage will implicate even more damage per magazine, eclipsing scout rifles in usefulness, so you sort of have to balance these so they don't become the same, scout rifles = more damage, less mag capacity; battle rifles = less damage, bigger mag capacity.

Their fire rate is also an issue because you're not going to fire these weapons at maximum rate because of recoil so its a wasted statistic.

I have never used them and I dont see myself using them in the future either. The reason is the same I dont use scout and sniper rifles: I dont engage infantry long-range. PS2's inf play is close-quarters mainly. If you play to get a hex, you need to capture and hold points, so you will most likely encounter most enemies at close-range. At close-range there are way better options than BRs.
A situation where I can see it being useful is when you are defending a hex and there is an enemy sundy deployed behind a hill, you might be able to keep inf in check from the base with BRs, but it would be easier at that point (imo) to pull a few lightnings and deal with the sundy itself.

it's not a bad rifle, only i can't find a real use for it
for every situation there is a other weapon better than the battle rifle

if i need a battle rifle i go medic and use the SABR13
now this thing you can call a battle rifle

i also think DBG needs to open up the medic weapons for the other classes
they have the best weapons in the game and i don't want to play every time as a medic
open them up to LA and engi

I think the battle rifle was intended for support classes, so you can stay behind the front line and give support. Not rush in with a shotgun and get killed. A support class can stay back, watch the flanks and if needed give support fire on the frontline. A great use for the support classes that is tactically sound. However why only 1 gun? Since this is a great tactical role for the support classes, give us some more options for it. More battle rifles should solve the different issues people have with dam/range/cof etc, while keeping the gun as is for people who love it. And solve the directive weapon issue all at the same time.

Battle rifles are amazing weapons. Would be awesome if we would get a NS-Battle rifle

I know that Aircraft Machinegun damage does this....

My biggest issue with the battle rifle as a whole is this: they're used on 2 classes that generally dont engage at medium range, and the infiltrator's scout rifle does everything they do better... the recoil on them is abysmal in comparison, and the only redeeming quality i could see in them is maybe, MAYBE, the added utility of having them and a rocket/ammo pack... but again i feel like the infiltrator's cloak with the scout is just generally better thanks to it clearing spots.

I just don't understand why the battle rifles are paired in the scout rifle directory.