Wall of text incoming. Forewarning - I'm not gun-nut, just some guy who wore uniform in some part of his life in the past (and earned concussion) and who bases all his "beliefs" when it comes to firearms in games on that experience (maybe because of concussion:)). As English (especially technical English) is not my native language, I may misuse certain terms, so if you think I made an error, then I'd welcome a correction. Colour me weirdo, it may be due to my military service (and heavy boots of my drill sergeant if you get my drift:D) or may be because of other games I play (mostly ArmA series), but by my opinion what auto-rifles do need is range buff. Because currently even Halfdan in single shot (which are quite easy to perform) barely can compete (i.e. cannot) with burst rifles. And I don't mean current "long hand" - Blast Furnace, but several shorter ranged ones. While I cannot ask invader in Gambit to stop and let me test various firearms on him (and vice versa), my "live" tests are not really performed in "controlled environment", thus those could be considered "controlled" were done in Private match on willing volunteer:). As I said earlier on another topic, I understand Destiny is not a milsim, neither it tries to pose as one, and, as many types of firearms involved, Bungie has quite a difficult job to balance them all out. Otherwise we all will be running with rifles (no pun intended; there is game with such name). My reasoning for "buff auto-rifles range" is based on two points. First, burst is just firing mode, performed via alterations in trigger mechanism, and some real firearms with selective fire offer both burst and full-auto. Second, because of the first, burst rifles should not have any significant boost in terms if range advantage, if all else is equal. Yes, some may argue that all burst rifles (and one auto - Hard Light) are bull-pap (magazine behind trigger), therefore their barrel length may be longer or same as in auto-rifles of comparable overall length. Problem is, if we compare images from their theoretical breech/chamber area (front edge of magazine well as rough estimate), many burst rifles have shorter barrels. Thus, with all else being equal, they should have less range. My theoretical assumption is to split guns in different categories by their cartridge type, not basing them on their cyclic rate. Which is, by the way, greatly off for all burst rifles - as cyclic rate determined by time needed for moving parts (bolt carrier assembly and trigger mechanism) to perform full cycle: unlocking the chamber, ejecting spent case, cocking hammer/striker while retracting back and resetting trigger mechanism, stopping at rearmost position, moving forward while loading new round in the chamber and locking breech for new shot. This way all so called 450 burst rifles should have exactly the same pause between two separate shots in burst as auto-rifles have. Remember Hazard of the Cast slow "ta-ta-ta"? Compare it with rapid "Brrt" of all 450s, such as Blast Furnace or Go Figure. As I said, my reasoning behind "range" argument is based on cartridges guns could use. Say 7.62x51mm for 300s, Soviet 7.62x39mm for 400s, Soviet 5.45x39mm or 5.56x45mm for 600s and, while it's not really a "rifle" cartridge, but something like 5.7x28mm for 700s. Of course there are other parameters such as barrel length, which, actually, undermines Halfdan's range a lot, or rifling twist, along with actual parameters within said cartridge (powder type and mass, bullet mass) but that's subject for another post:). Issue number one - range. Destiny firefights occur in rather tight spaces, if memory serves, according to DARCI's rangefinder, most areas I measured are within 150 metres. Quite short by rifle standards, so "hitscan" (a.k.a. instant hit) nature of Destiny 2 weapons is more or less justified - modern rifle rounds have rather flat trajectory at this distance, so there is no need to worry about bullet drop. Simply put, all rifles should have little, if any damage drop-off. And even if it is (say, we scale down range by some denominator), it should be consistent. Issue number two - more powerful guns (7.62x51) actually have quite the kick. If you a burly guy, you can somewhat mitigate it, but overall sway will be so great, it will be very hard to hit anything at relatively "long" distance. I'm not saying gun will go like that British Pom-Pom AAA gun - pop-pop-pop into the zenith, but don't expect hitting human-sized target with entire magazine at 100 metres when firing full auto. And that goes for Soviet 7.62x39 as well (although it is more controllable). Small calibre rifles (5.56/5.45) are even more controllable, but again, if you want precision - use single shots. And bad news for burst fans: it won't help that much, you can't trick physics. If you can control your trigger properly, you can execute single shots and bursts of desired length (2, 3, 4, and so on) while having your safety/firing mode selector switch set to full auto. I kid you not, we had this drill. Issue number three - range-weighed damage output. In general, auto-rifles have more linear damage output while burst-rifles have more sine-like due to pauses between bursts. By the way, that's why so called "full auto" perks on burst rifles are meaningless, as true full auto should remove pause between bursts entirely. But I digress. Currently, at relatively short range (say, 30 metres; numbers are random, I don't recall exact figures, sorry) you can kill an Acolyte with 2 pot-shots from Hazard of the Cast. Blast Furnace in this case will be an overkill as 2 rounds will be wasted. Lets increase this range to, say, 80 metres (ditto). First problem - to actually hit bastard's head from HotC at this distance, even firing in single shots, not in full-auto (and I have 13K+ kills with it, so I more or less know how to control recoil on this gun). And even if you do, it will take more rounds as damage falloff will kick in. Blast Furnace won't have a problem to put a burst into his head, and it still may be an overkill by one round. As result, burst rifles do win by proverbial clear speed as their TTK happens to be faster (even if by excessive ammo consumption). In Gambit it makes fending off an invader pointless as you can't inflict enough damage fast enough, while he can dispose of your guardian in 2-3 bursts. And that's even without "longest" Blast Furnace. I admit, my experience with all weapons in game is limited, because I don't have enough slots (or desire) to carry all of them to try on, but I tried enough representatives, both from pre- and past-Forsaken. So with all this we have main problem: how to keep it all fun. My suggestion: split burst-rifles and auto-rifles into "cartridge-based" families (they basically already are split by frames). Their ranges should be approximately the same within category, and firing mode (burst/full) should be up to player preference. Those who can control their fingers well may go with AR, those who don't to (or simply like the looks) will pick BR. As for damage... We can balance TTK. As I understand, we have 3-4 round bursts (plus two exotics with 2 and 5). Least common multiple will be either 12 or 60. So lets see a) what kind of damage rifles can inflict for said amount of shots, and b) what time is needed to do that, and balance results using those numbers. Will it blend borders within "family"? A bit. But not much, guns will still be quite unique. As for individual tuning (recoil direction, handling, etc), to an extent I agree with topic-starter, and to an extent I think it is subject of discussion, whether we want semblance of "realism" or not. As usual, don't shoot piano player.;)