Hotfix delta is the next upcoming patch that will address a multitude of things, such as light weapons, av, snipers, and sidearms, but to me the most important things within this patch are sidearms and light weapons.

It seems to me that CCP has yet again missed the opportunity to really balance sidearms and light weapons, don't get my wrong on paper we have a very solid balance and it looks very good. But the most prominent issue with this balance that rarely gets looked at is how effective each weapon is outside of their intended range, this issue is what makes or breaks short range weapons and what makes long range weapons OP. When this balance is not met, as it is now, it allows for weapons to be over effective for example the rail rifle.


A simplified comparison of the rail rifle and assault rifle, the rail rifle does not reflect every long range weapon out there but it does reflect the effectiveness of long range vs short range weaponry.

Rail rifle: 400 DPS

Pros:
long range
Low hip fire dispersion (what needs to be fixed)
Low kick for assault

Cons:
High kick for the normal variant


Assault rifle: 450 DPS

Pros:
Low hip fire dispersion (although higher than the rr)
Low kick

Cons:
Short range


When comparing the assault rifle and rail rifle you can see that you can overcome all of the "cons" of an AR by using an aRR while getting all the positives of both for a miniscule sacrifice of 50 DPS (slightly over 10%). This creates bad balance between the two, along with the combat rifle, when you can be effective within all ranges while short range weapons are stuck at short range WITH NO UPSIDES FOR THAT. You cannot use an AR whatsoever outside of 40 meters, it is useless and ineffective past it's range; but any weapon with longer range be it a CR or a SCR is extremely effective from range 1 to its specific range.

I have written many posts concerning this issue since the release of the CR and RR and this issue has yet to be addressed and will remain an issue as it continues to be ignored.

It is a simple proposal that will bring a lot of balance to the game from the tweak of a few numbers, this can be fixed in two ways:

1) Increase the DPS (again) of short ranged weapons; 10% DPS is not a fair trade off for the extreme benefit an extra 40 or even 10 meters provides. They would require possibly a 15% buff to damage. This route would turn (as I've said jokingly) the AR into a mini balacs GAR, unfortunately this is the route that must take if long range weapons will not be addressed.

2) Decrease the short ranged effectiveness of long ranged weapons, this is not merely just an increase of dispersion increases but a combination of increases to hipfire: kick and dispersion. This is by far the best approach to fixing the issue. Unfortunately this would require changing the values for every weapon which is a lot of work on CCPs part which is why fix 1) is an option.

I expect the bolt pistol to be the next big thing. Why? Because it has extremely high alpha and currently it has good stats for cqc and it has the best range. The ion pistol will be decent but it will not live up to the longer ranged sidearms because they will also be extremely effective at short range.

The same can be said for the AR, and maybe the breach, in delta.