Increase bullet velocity by 5%, and damage drop-off range by 10% for all infantry guns. Would make long-range gameplay a bit more interesting.
The whole game needs faster velocities. You can almost run faster than the rounds you're shooting. You're better off throwing tank shells.
So you think a weapon with a 514m/s muzzle velocity and damage decay that ends at 66m is better that a weapon with 490m/s muzzle velocity and a damage decay that ends at 60m. This is the TRAC 5, by the way. What weapon did you plug these numbers into that they produced such dazzling results you had to post them?
Early after the game's release they quickly realized low TTK weapons were dominating everything. Er...maybe "quickly" isn't the word I'm after, I don't remember how long it took them actually and given their track history of realizing something is overpowered and then finally doing something about it... anyway you get the point. Eventually they nerfed the hell out of their recoil patterns, added extra damage drop-off, adjusted flinch, etc. What happened? Well...most people still use them, or they use weapons as close to their TTK is possible without getting the extra drop-off(Carnage, Terminus, Jaguar). And the NC gets their super accurate not-quite as low TTK options @ 167/600 or 200/500. Giving extra velocity to already dominant weapons will further skew balance - the only ranged weapons that'd really significantly benefit this are carbines because their velocity and drop-off sucks and they're pretty much nerfed ARs at this point. AR and LMG velocity and drop-off is already good enough that it won't make a substantial difference to the longer range focused ones IMO. I definitely don't like ranged combat in PS2 where it is and the guns do feel unnecessarily weak - CoFs + horizontal recoil + damage drop off and it feels like often you may as well not even try. However I don't think blanket buffs applied equally to all guns is the solution. I think we need base / capture point design adjustments, and then more nuanced weapon balancing.
I think automatic weapons have been made deliberately weak at range in order to create a niche for sniper rifles (and scout/battle rifles) within the 300m render range. According to Wikipedia, a gun shouldn't even be considered an assault rifle if its effective range is under 300m, and sniper rifles have effective ranges from 600m to 2,300m, depending on type of cartridge. Scale that down to fit in the game's render range and you get what we have.
The ironic part is that IRL tank shells travel faster than small arm bullets. 5.56 has a muzzle velocity of less than 950m/s. A 120mm tank shell has a muzzle velocity of upwards of 1,750m/s. Almost twice as fast as an assault rifle bullet. Tanks don't lob shells... they shoot infantry faster than infantry can shoot back, at much flatter trajectories than any puny little rifle cartridge. So if infantry feel that bullets are moving too slowly... imagine how tankers feel.
Then maybe reduce the whole map size, character size, environment size, so that the 300m feels much larger. Aside from that, sniper gameplay in PS2 isn't too much fun either, for either ends. Really unreliable to shoot down people at range, and really frustrating for people getting OHKed. Maybe buff semi-auto sniper rifles with higher velocity?
Reducing the size of objects wouldn't change anything. It's not like the Distance Police are enforcing this arbitrary 300m limit. It's a number the devs chose because they thought it was a decent balance between epic scale and server performance. If they made all the objects half the size, they'd just have to reduce the render range to 150m.
Oh no, it wouldn't. How would this make long-range gameplay more interesting? By making it easier? With the current velocity you need much more skill and accuracy to be able to hit someone, long-range weapons actually matter for this. By increasing muzzle velocity and drop-off range, you reduce the effectiveness of long-range weapons in comparison to short-range weapons. Nt by much, but I feel that since most battles seem to be fought between short to mid range there's no reason to increase anything.
