It's a well known fact that if you zero an undamaged bolt action rifle to 200m and shoot it at something 200m away, you'll most likely hit. There's very little deviation when you toss some lead out of a rifled barrel at supersonic speeds.
In fact, chances are you'll even hit at such a range with an SMG.
It's amazing how RO1 seems to have killed all sense of distance for some folks.
Agree on the rifle, disagree completely on the SMG. Pistol bullets in all their underpowered, round-nosed glory, tumble relatively unpredictably beyond 100 yards. The longer barrel of SMGs and the higher-powered 7.62 x 25mm Tokarev round certainly help things, but it's hard to imagine obtaining consistent hits on a torso-sized target at 150 yards--the rounds just lose too much power over those distances to be reliably accurate.
Heck, you can see the 9mm Luger bullet itself in-flight through an 18x spotting scope when fired at a 100 yard target with a Glock 17. It's pretty cool visually, but not very good for accuracy.
*cough* Shooting unsupported at 100 yards with a pistol--aligning the iron sights was so difficult that only two of ten shots even nicked the paper. Support was absolutely necessary to even land four of ten on paper. *cough*
As far as zoom goes, I personally think that it makes spotting enemies in relatively good concealment too easy, and makes hitting them easier by increasing the on-screen size of the target and 'increasing' mouse sensitivity.
I'm going to wait until sway is increased to see whether or not zoom needs changing. If aquiring and firing at those distant targets is made more difficult, perhaps zoom will not need to be decreased in order to reduce the currently high lethality of ranged combat. It IS true that RO2's zoom delivers the natural resolution of the human eye to the screen, and I respect that particular interpretation of realism. A target at 200 meters, however, is miniscule to the naked eye.
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I also disagree that large, open maps are what is required to have better, more tactical gameplay. Maps like Krasnyi Oktyabr, Stalingrad Kessel, and Bocklin *wince* in Ostfront were close-quarters slugfests, but often slow and methodical as your side sought to clear out that hallway and slowly push into the warehouse or garage. Every grenade was precious, I remember. Rifles were certainly useful to cover the open areas and pin down enemies at windows. Up close, the stopping power of hipfire and bayonets could be a force to be reckoned with.
Curbing the speed to aiming down sights, fixing the overly forgiving wound system, revising MG hipfire, renovating the squad system, and FIXING LOCKDOWN will lead to less rushing for objectives and more methodical play.
I look forward to and eagerly anticipate tension-filled firefights in Station, Grain Elevator, and Apartments, when every decision--whether or not to slice the pie, use a grenade, turn my back to a door--can mean the difference between life and death.