SOE nerfed this, adjusted that, buffed something else, but still ignore battle rifles. Even with the slug round nerf for shotguns the slug is still a better option than the Battle Rifle for any ranged engagement. Just fix the round gravity AKA round drop. Right now I think I can throw a grenade further away than I can fire the AMR-66. That round leaves the barrel like an azthmatic lung cancer ridden fat kid blowing a pea out of a toilet paper roll.
I agree, the performance of the AMR-66 is really underwhelming. Not sure how the BR's for the other factions are.
Battle rifles and scout rifles are weapons SOE seem to wish they never had released. We keep hearing off hand remarks that they're "taking a look" at them but never anything more than that.
I would love to use my Battle Rifle more, but its pointless. Its like nerfing yourself everytime I use one.
I feel the same, after Higby posted that they will do a pass on all weapons back in January on Twitter i had hoped that the will do something about the BR/Scout Rifles. After they released the VR its easy to see that every Full Auto Weapon can kill Targets faster in Single Shot Modus than a Semi-Auto BR and that Compensator/Forward Grip is broken for BR. Maybe someday a Dev will notice these Threads and give us a replay. I would like to see High Vel Ammo, dmg Increase to the level of Scout Rifles (as both Weapon Types are actually the same) and a Recoil decrease of 50%. With this Changes you would be able to kill a Target on Range with 4-5 Bodyshots or 2-3 Headshots in the same time it takes a Full Auto Gun in Single Fire Modus (for example Pulsar C) to kill the same Target.
I think the bullets to kill are not too many, it's from 4 to 6 bullets in average which is fine, the scouts rifles have less ammo and thus should be more powerful and the battle rifles are made to be more forgiving and versatile. The problem is in their ability to land those 4/6 shots. A bit less recoil (down from 1 to 0.8) and some more bullet speed (up to 550 from 500) would make the battle rifles much more useful than they are now. Also, the laser sight should actually work. Its effect is nearly unnoticeable compared to the semi auto scout rifle's laser sight. The damage can change, but the overall bullets to kill should remain the same. For example, 300/240 damage would still require 4 to 5 bullets to kill a non-nanoweave target, but the added damage would allow to have 4 btk at a longer range (not it's only at 10 meters or less) and would increase its effectiveness against shielded targets and nanoweave users. This is a change that should be made for all semi-automatics, it would increase their effectiveness at range without lowering their ttk.
The problem are not the semi automatics. The problem are all the other automatic weapons. SOE uses dumbed down automatic rifles so every CoD kiddie can use them. Carbines, ARs, SMGs, LMGs... doesn't matter, just pull down the trigger and kill a target in mid range full on auto. No real skill needed, no need to shoot in bursts like in BF3. Thus the automatics are so easy and OP compared to semi automatics that the semis would need huge buffs to make up for that. But SOE seems like they don't want to because they know the problem. On top of that comes that with the current performance problem of the game slower fire rate weapons have disadvantages over fast fire rates. The faster you fire the less it hurts you to miss a bullet, especially when you are struggeling with around stuttering 15 fps. Now semis with single fire mode are a pain to use with 15 fps. Together with sluggish and real edgy enemy movements it is senseless to use precision rifles. There are different things that must be done to balance out the semis: - Higher dmg output. 1/3 or 1/4 of rof basicly means you need 3x or 4x the damage of the automatics to make up for that. Which means around 450-600 damage per bullet. Even only 450 damage means it would kill enemies with 3 bodyshots. I want to have buffed semis, but I know you can't hand out weapons that just kill with three bodyshots when real sniper rifles already need three shots. Missery for SOE and their not very well thought out general weapon design and damage numbers. Nevertheless BR and semi scout rifle should kill reliably everything (which includes certed HAs) with 4 bodyshots and the semi long range rifles should kill with 3 bodyshots. On any range. - Higher bullet velocity. Semis should be spot on up to medium ranges. You aim for an enemy, you shoot, you must hit. Leading the aim more than with an AR is stupid. Need a comparison? The standard Gauss Rifle of the NC has 625 velocity, The Impetus has 500. A sniper rifle, designed for long ranged, has lower bullet speed than a short-medium range AR. This is just one of the reasons this game feels unlogical and artifical. No semi automatic should have lower bullet velocity than any automatic rifle. 650 velocity at least for all semis! - Recoil and CoF. If we have insane numbers on those stats than give us fitting damage numbers and bullet velocities, or tune them down to reasonable values. The sniper rifle Impetus has less recoil as the semi auto scout rifle although it deals more damage. Woot? Another point why this game makes no sense with its weapons. - Only disadvantages, no advantages for semis. As they can not (at least I don't see any way they could) balance semis and autos the semis need some extra game mechanics on them. High bullet power should mean they slow down an hitted enemy for a very short time so it gets more vulnerable for follow up shots and for others on the team. Would be a very nice support effect for oneself and others.
I think the main problem for the number of Bullets is the timeframe you need to deliver them. Any full auto weapon in this game can switch to single fire mode. If you shoot fully accurate you can deliver a leathal number of bullets in less time than with a BR/Scout Rifle. The Problem here is that BR/Scout Rifles do more dmg but have a much smaller Recoil decrease and the Recoil on them increases faster than the Dmg resulting in much more time needed to deliver the same amount of dmg if you shoot fully accurate (waiting till the recoil comes back). In addition BR/Scout Rifles have broken Compensator/Forward Grip, no Adv. Forward Grip is available and no HV Ammo is available. There are several ways to fix the issues for these Weapon Types. - decrease the Recoil - increasing the Recoil decrease - higher the dmg (at least the min one) - lower the min dmg for all full-auto guns
Yeah, all semi's could use a little boost. I own all three, the KSR, HSR and the AMR for my TR. The KSR and HSR are great if you're amazing at getting headshots in close quarters but suffer if you can't. The AMR is actually pretty decent at mid range but again it's nothing compared to an automatic LMG designed for range like the TMG-50. I think the KSR and HSR could use a fire rate and projectile velocity buff, possibly even a recoil decrease while the AMR could use a projectile speed increase and increased damage. Maybe not all together but they could certainly use some love.
Drop the "yet", they have no plans to make Battle Rifles better. However, the "new" Combat Rifles should be in the shop soon.
The issue is currently the effective range on LMGs and some ARs need to be reduced. Battle rifles should be available for Heavies and medics. Battle rifles should be effective out to where the longest range LMGs/ARs are at now with obviously semi auto and little more damage per shot. Currently there are heavies with LMGs destroying snipers at long ranges by flinching them to death and still doing good damage, and the sniper no way to fight back. Scout rifles should be for Infiltrator and engineer. but instead of making them just like a battle rifle, to give them their own unique role, just give them specialized ammo like venom rounds that immediately add a DoT to health even if shields are up, and maybe nanite rounds that deactivate the targets class ability for 1-2s.... and maybe all scout rifles have built in tracers in their rounds and any target hit with one gets auto spotted (dorito-ed) for 5s and show as red dot on the minimap for 8)
The big Problem for them will be to find a fitting role. With the current Full-Auto Guns its possible to simply full auto targets away (especialy as heavy) and in single fire mode all full autos are at least twice as good. Even if you would bring BR and ScoutRifles in line with the single fire mode of full auto weapons they would still need something to compensate für the missing full auto wich would bring these guns closer to the Bolt Action guns. Its a wired big problem caused by the way they designed the full auto guns.
