One reason why the Rail Rifle is so OP is that the weapon roles we have are quite the same as we had in Closed BETA and before. There was only the Assault Rifle and the roles worked pretty good as you had them based on short range. Now with the Rail Rifle having insane ranges (keep in mind that we don-¦t even have a tactical RR yet) they simply don-¦t work anymore.

The roles should still remain the same but with some minor changes:

Assault:
Medium Damage, Very High RoF, Medium Range, Very Large Clip, Mod. Ammo Reserves, Strong Kick, Tight Hipfire Spread
Special: Quick Scoping Sight
Preferred by: Minmatar

Tactical:
Low Damage, High RoF, Very Long Range, Small Clip, Very Large Ammo Reserves, Little Kick, Wide Hipfire Spread
Special: ACOG Sight, Ability to charge shots
Preferred by: Caldari

Breach:
Very High Damage, Low RoF, Long Range, Large Clip, Little Ammo Reserves, Moderate Kick, Very Tight Spread
Special: No heat Build Up (Every other weapon should have)
Preferred by: Amarr

Burst:
High Damage, Medium RoF, Short Range, Medium Clip, Large Ammo Reserves, Very Little Kick, Moderate Hipfire Spread
Special: Very High RoF 5-Round Bursts, Faster Reload
Preferred by: Gallente

These roles would make the four assault rifles more balanced and make fit their respective combat mantras more as well.

Cheers,
Aml

seems good but the Minmatar guns are burst not Gallente

And the Caldari are not the tactical either. That-¦s more or less just lore stuff.
Gallente=CQC/Short ranges and there burst weapons are better

there is only one game out there that has a viable burst CQC weapon and that is the Chicom? CQB in COD and that's because there is no burst delay. Burst weapons are not good for CQC.

One reason why the Rail Rifle is so OP is that the weapon variants we have are quite the same as we had in Closed BETA and before. There was only the Assault Rifle and the roles worked pretty good as you had them based on short range. Now with the Rail Rifle having insane ranges (keep in mind that we don-¦t even have a tactical RR yet) they simply don-¦t work anymore.

The variants should still remain the same but with some minor changes:

Assault:
Medium Damage, Very High RoF, Medium Range, Very Large Clip, Mod. Ammo Reserves, Strong Kick, Tight Hipfire Spread
Special: Quick Scoping Sight
Preferred by: Gallente

Tactical:
Low Damage, High RoF, Very Long Range, Small Clip, Very Large Ammo Reserves, Little Kick, Wide Hipfire Spread
Special: ACOG Sight, Ability to charge shots
Preferred by: Amarr

Breach:
Very High Damage, Low RoF, Long Range, Large Clip, Little Ammo Reserves, Moderate Kick, Very Tight Spread
Special: No heat Build Up (Every other weapon should have)
Preferred by: Caldari

Burst:
High Damage, Medium RoF, Short Range, Medium Clip, Large Ammo Reserves, Very Little Kick, Moderate Hipfire Spread
Special: Very High RoF 5-Round Bursts (Way Higher RoF than the Assault), Faster Reload
Preferred by: Minmatar

These roles would make the four assault rifles more balanced and make fit their respective combat mantras more as well.

Cheers,
Aml

Fixed

These proposed changes would be blatantly unbalanced in the Breach and Assault variants... No.

Ayn ideas for changes? i-¦m open to any feedback.

You fixed what?

Preferred race

The races are how it should be. Amarr prefer raw heavy firepower -> breach
Caldari use technical advantage to multiply their power-> tactical
Gallente are short ranged combat and there burst is better->burst
Minmatar need to put out a whole lot of damage in a short time span -> assault

Last two are debattable.

The races are how it should be. Amarr prefer raw heavy firepower -> breach
Caldari use technical advantage to multiply their power-> tactical
Gallente are short ranged combat and there burst is better->burst
Minmatar need to put out a whole lot of damage in a short time span -> assault

Last two are debattable.

Nope, just look at the rifles and see the truth

I meant how it should be, you wrote how it is right now.

This is how it should be
Gallente is CQC fast killing assult weapons
Caldari is longest range rail guns breach style weapons
Amarr is mid-long range so there tactical
Minmatar is close-mid so burst fits their style

Read this.

Perfect Imbalance/Balancing for Skill is the way forward for Dust. I will summarize each main point of imperfect balance and balancing for skill in the bold sections below.

JOAT(Jack of all trades) Weapons (thanks for this acronym) are 'good enough' at almost everything, but even they have a small, and abscure weakness or two. This basically means that weapons such as rifles, can do fairly well at almost every role, but if a JOAT(again, I love this acronym!) comes across a weapon such as a Laser Rifle user workng their optimal,the JOAT should lose the engagement almost every time, simply because the Laser Rifle will greatly outperform the JOAT at that specific range.

Niche weapons are the most powerful weapons in their respective niches, but have powerful weakness that the user must work around to get the most from their weapons. This is saying that powerful niche weapons, such as the Laser Rifle (I'm using the LR a lot because it is a great example of a niche weapon) have strong weaknesses that can be easily countered with a small amount of tactical play, but, the weaknesses can be worked around with a bit of tactics as well. An example of this is a Laser Rifle use on a 50-60m high roof. The Laser Rifle user is strongly withing their niche at this point and countering them is difficult, but not impossible.

Every weapon or item in the game should have a counter. Something, that once used against them, will win almost all of the time. Sometimes these counters should be hard-counters, and win 10/10 times, but these hard counters should come with drawbacks and fairly strong counters themself. We don't really have an example of this in Dust yet, but a possible example may be something such as an equipment that is specifically designed to disrupt/destroy other equipment in a certain area. It should destroy all equioment, but it should also have a counter as well, such as equipment variants that are specifically designed to withstand the use of this item.


Now we move on to "Balancing for Skill", something many people from EVE are not aware of simply because EVE has never had to balance for skill. These people seem to think that EVE balancing would work in Dust, when it really wouldn't. This is because EVE has never had to balance for skill, as every item in the game is just as hard to use as the next. This has made EVE turret balancing an easy job for the devs, the only problem is that it took them a long time to find the right range to damage ratio to use. I could give countless examples of this taking place in all of the best shooters for of the past 15 years, but I will leave it to you to look for those examples.

Balancing for skill is, essentially, judging how much player skill is require to use an item, and how many drawbacks that the player must work around, along with how strong these drawbacks are; then making that item more powerful depending on how much skill is required to effectively use the weapon. As such, it can be a difficult job and is largely a trial and error affair.
An example of this is the Scrambler Rifle and Combat Rifle compared to the Rail Rilfe and the Assault Rifle. Both the ScR and CR require a larger input of skill from the player to reach their maximum effectivenesses, as such, their maximum effectivenesses should be higher than those of the AR and RR.
These "Balanced for Skill" items should not have hard counters, but should still have strong counters, and oftentimes the strong counters should be easy counters as well. For instance, an AR should be better than an ScR at close range, provided the skill level of both users is equal. However, if the skill level of the ScR user is greater than the skill level of the AR user, the ScR user should have the edge, but not a large edge, just a small one. Enough of an edge for the ScR user to use to their advantage should they realize the edge, but small enough for the AR user to have a chance to win the encounter with blind luck.

If CCP were to take these thoughts into mind with every item they make, we would have a rich, engaging experience, instead of the unbalanced mess we have today.

TL;DR... I bolded the important bits.

Those preferred roles don-¦t support their respective combat mantras.

I disagree

Reasoning?

Caldari: All about range and technical advantage -> Tactical
Amarr: All about pure strengh in both attack and defense -> Breach
Minmatar: All about fast damage output -> both burst and assault fit
Gallente: All about high dps -> both assault and burst fit

Amarr, Gallente and Minmatar are disputable as amarr ships in eve get mostly RoF bonuses but the Caldari should be Tactical is obvious.

You make gallente and minmatar sound the same
Caldari guns like the bolt pistol and rail rifle are similar to breach weapons
Amarr scramblers are mid to long range tactical guns

Ok.

DPS:
1) Tactical
2) Burst
3) Assault
4) Breach

Range:
1) Breach
2) Tactical
3) Burst
4) Assault

RoF:
1) Burst
2) Assault
3) Tactical
4) Breach

Magazine Size:
1) Assault
2) Breach
3) Burst
4) Tactical

Damage Per Shot:
1) Tactical
2) Breach
3) Assault
4) Burst

Hipfire Accuracy:
1) Assault
2) Burst
3) Tactical
4) Breach

ADS Accuracy:
1) Tactical
2) Breach
3) Burst
4) Assault

Assault Drawbacks:
1) High Fitting Costs
2) Short Range

Breach Drawbacks:
1) Horrible Hipfire
2) Low DPS

Burst Drawbacks:
1) Delay Between Bursts
2) Low Range

Tactical Drawbacks:
1) Overheat
2) High Fitting Costs
3) Low amount of carried ammo

Ok.

DPS:
1) Tactical
2) Burst
3) Assault
4) Breach

While I agree conceptually with every single word you said, this semantics game is pissing me off- what you're describing is perfect balance, not imbalance. The balancing of niche vs JOAT is like levers- a big weight (strong advantage) close to the fulcrum (having less versatility) is perfectly balanced against a lighter weight (minimal advantage) further from the fulcrum (more versatile). The weights are different (what you're calling imbalance), but system as a whole is balanced.

The reason this is irritating me is that now we have people shooting down calls for proper game balance by using this semantic straw-man of balance meaning sameness and imbalance being desirable.