The AR has more kick the longer the trigger is held. This is realistic to real life weapons, and should be so. The AR is a industry standard, and will continue the be the best killing weapon for the ranges we fight at normally in real life, as well in game. SGs need more range to bring them to where they need to be. Stop trying to nerf balanced weapons and push for buffs instead. Learning your chosen weapon's range and try to engage from it. Stop trying to use other weapons at AR ranges, you will lose. CQC sub, knives, shotty. Medium ar or sg( still needs to out range ar and be med long range like a tac ar). Long range sniper, forge.

The AR has more kick the longer the trigger is held. This is realistic to real life weapons, and should be so. The AR is a industry standard, and will continue the be the best killing weapon for the ranges we fight at normally in real life, as well in game. SGs need more range to bring them to where they need to be. Stop trying to nerf balanced weapons and push for buffs instead. Learning your chosen weapon's range and try to engage from it. Stop trying to use other weapons at AR ranges, you will lose. CQC sub, knives, shotty. Medium ar or sg( still needs to out range ar and be med long range like a tac ar). Long range sniper, forge.

The problem with modeling recoil on real life, and games that pretend to mimic it, is that it on only takes 1-3 hits to do the job there. It takes 10-20 or more hits to kill a good suit here. While they may need adjusting (and that's a point I'm not sure I agree with), modeling them after the performance of actual AR's isn't how to do it; they aren't even assault rifles to begin with.

The problem with modeling recoil on real life, and games that pretend to mimic it, is that it on only takes 1-3 hits to do the job there. It takes 10-20 or more hits to kill a good suit here

Actually, with a GEK, GLU, or Duvolle, it only takes about 3-5 hits. Which is the problem.

Have you tried using a suit with more than 200 HP?

I can't get on to the game at the moment so I'm using 34 damage as a baseline, I believe that's a GEK's damage, or close to it.

Assuming the user has AR Proficiency IV, that's 38.8 damage per shot.

Against a 600 HP suit, which is a mid range suit, that is:

Body shots: 16 hits
Head shots (1.5x): 11 hits

Prototype suits can have 900 HP, and a Duvolle doesn't have 50% more damage than a GEK, so those numbers increase at the proto level.

SCR and AR are fine. Everyone knows LR needs a buff. Snipers are fine. Shotguns need a bit more range. Forges are fine. HMG's do what they're intended to do, the problems heavies have originate with the suits themselves, and the fact that HMG's do reduced shield damage and damn near everyone shield tanks because Armor sucks. It's quite easy to kill an armor suit with an HMG. Hell a friend of mine is destroying pubs (yes I know, pubs) using a militia heavy suit with an HMG. SMG's are fine, they're not supposed to have the range of a light weapon. Scrambler Pistols are fine. Core Flaylocks are OP. MD's need their issues fixed.

So 2 of the 4 mid range anti infantry weapons are currently broken, and AR's are more versatile than SCR's, although SCR are better against the numerous shield suits. SCR's were also released a week after the universal respecs, and they have no militia version to test them with. Of course AR's are still more common than them.

Can't shake the feeling I'm missing a gun or two.

Changing AR's isn't going to fix guns that are broken.

and yet these still taer through heavy suits like butter

Forge Gun should get a more drastic damage fallof at max range or dropships need a buff. Not saying a FG is OP, but somebody needs to throw dropships a bone.

SCR and LR need some range though. I have corp mates that can still put in work with the LR, but they need to get rid of the iron sights, lens flare, and that little split second kick it has when you fire it. Making a weapon hard to use isn't balancing.

LR has range they just made it a ***** to use at range for some dumb reason. IIRC it's 10-20 more than a TAR?

SCR needs higher optimal from what I've heard, they have better max ranges than AR's but a lower optimal so they lose damage sooner.

Do you happen to know somewhere that has accurate and current stats for guns?

I'd assume all the ARs have some sort of balancing element that's intended to be a drawback. To a certain extent this is provided by range, and damage type.

Optimally:
Gallente Plasma: Short-range, full-auto rifle, hybrid-balanced shield/armor dmg (slightly higher to shields?)
Minmatar Combat: Short-Mid range, burst rifle, projectile-greater armor than shield dmg
Amarr Scrambler: Mid range, tactical rifle, laser-greater shield than armor dmg
Caldari Rail: mid-long range, breach rifle , hybrid-balanced shield/armor dmg (slightly higher to armor perhaps?)

That's... roughly the sort of intent they've described. The AR (Plasma) should excel in short-range engagements with high rate of fire and damage. The Scrambler (laser) is intended to be more apt at longer range precision attacks, and so on. All the rifles will supposedly get variants that ape the traits of some of the other rifles, but you'd presume that the racial rifle would be the best at it's optimal role (or that the weapon traits would bleed over into the variant).

All the rifles presumably have drawbacks that prevent them from being perfect as well. The scrambler has dispersion on a very large margin with the assault variant. The scrambler can also overheat (though if what people say about the heat being per-second instead of per-shot is true, they should probably fix that). So, the scrambler has some built-in drawbacks. The heat (damaging the user) is a big one - and can probably be worked into all variants.

Now, it's hard to say what the drawbacks of the Combat or Rail rifle are supposed to be, since we haven't seen them. We should probably still ask what the drawbacks of the plasma rifle are supposed to be. What's "bad" with the AR if you just unload clip, etc.? Because if the recoil is such that it's a non-issue on fully unloading a clip with razor accuracy... why would you use something else?

In that sense, I think this thread has a point - the AR isn't meant to be perfect. Buffing everything else isn't necessarily a solution either. I still think people sometimes suffer from the idea that everything in the game should kill people quicker. This isn't that kind of shooter - it's a more old-school game where gunning down people is more time consuming (as we wear custom armored & shielded suits).

I already made some suggestions for recoil earlier, but if recoil/kick are meant to be an issue at all with the AR - they're mostly non-existent right now. If recoil/kick are going to be more of a "Combat rifle" issue (or whatever), then some consideration should be given to what the AR's drawback -should- be. If all the new rifles have drawbacks, and the AR does not... that implies issues with balance. Removing all the drawbacks might "balance" things in a way, but at the expense of giving the weapons character. If the AR is the no-drawback weapon, it implies it should be the weakest.

I'd rather AR wasn't the weakest, or at least... that things be balanced so that it can dominate at its intended role (short range, high rof/damage encounters) while not showing up other weapons in theirs. If the AR is better at burst than the Combat rifle, that's bad. We probably don't need to worry about the breach version being better than anything at this point - but that's a separate issue.

Has anyone ever considered the AR's are so good mostly due to the fact they are hybrid weapons, decent against both shields and armor equally? There are some hidden stats with all of the weapons that we can't see. I've always suspected ROF + damage output + any damage bonuses are where it's reliance is based from.

I refuse to use them just for the fact everyone uses them, but I would really like it if my weapons tore people down in 1.2 seconds as well.

I have, but their have to be other hybrid weapons as well. Nothing seems to be as effective as an AR. Honestly every other weapon in this game seems to be pretty close except the Auto AR's, (TAC now seems reasonable).

Imagine removing auto AR's from the game completely. What would be the best weapon? I bet you would have lots of different arguments from lots of different people. Now put the auto AR's back in the game, whats the best weapon now?

This was actually put really well. Better than I could put it to say the least. Can we replace my First Post with this actually?

and yet these still taer through heavy suits like butter

I think this thread gets to that point in a way. If you can put a highly accurate stream of fire anywhere, you can drop a heavy quicky. With an AR, you can use the RoF of something like a Duvolle AR, ADS, and enough of those rounds aimed at a head drop anything quickly. The recoil issue is part of that. It's also why that sort of tactic works better than burst I think, despite the fact burst-fire is conventionally a means of keeping accuracy up in comparison to full-auto. In that sense, the game mechanics are a little borked.

How much of that should be directed at dispersion vs. recoil is a matter for debate. Dispersion amounts to your shots not necessarily going where you aim, regardless of your skill. Recoil means failure to control your rate of fire will make your aim suffer, probably to a somewhat similar effect. The gun has both in theory...

I read these forums all the time, common denominator is this, when someone finds a weapon combined with a suit that rapes people come here and cry until CCP changes it. Whatever the dominat setup becomes you people will QQ until we get a nerf, thats how it is and will be until CCP says get over it or get out. Everyone cried about the D Tac, it and the G 5 are almost identical now, but the D costs 5 x as much, while the Charge does 3x as much damage and costs 1/20. I get owned by kid scrubs setting up in the hills that fail all the time using a Charge, yet I am not here begging for a nerf. These proto weapons are so expensive that they should be the baddest thing on the field, try a fully tanked laser against all of us Caldari shield guys, you will see a very fast kill. People have got to stop trying to make everything equal, the imbalance in the weapons is what gives balance to the game, if you don't see that your probably blinded by your tears. See you on the field, ill have my AR.