To keep it relatively brief, weapons like the SMG’s, Assault rifles, and one of the Shotguns suffer from having a rate of fire too high to feel properly satisfying to use. Personally, when I use a gun I like for it to feel powerful in my hands, but what does powerful actually mean? I think in order for a gun to feel powerful it needs to meet 3 criteria: good sound design, slower rate of fire, and higher damage output to reflect the R.o.F. This is properly demonstrated in the Carbines, Burst Rifles, and both shotguns for Merdian, and Sabrask. They all feel much weightier and feel far more satisfying to use than the weapons with a far faster R.o.F. The reason for this more satisfying feel is because these guns support a more “hit or miss” philosophy compared to the “spray and pray” methodology the ARs, and SMGs have. You either get hit with a carbine hit and dealt 30% of your hp or you don’t. You either get a full face of buckshot, or they wiff entirely and deal little to no damage. It’s far more engaging to get in these types of fights where you and the opponent are portaling around trying to hit each other with these meaty shots, rather than the glorified pissing contest the ARs and SMGs support. The use of these “hit or miss” weapons also makes shots far more impressive, and far more clip worthy when you hit a clutch head shot, or snipe from across the map. So what would the solution to the “spray and pray” weapons be? From my perspective there are 2 options that the dev team could take that are ultimately worth thinking on. You could either redo each of the “spray and pray” weapons to fit into the “hit or miss” style which I believe would take far too much time, or you can do my personal favorite option and do make the loadouts like the First Splitgate where the AR and SMG do far less damage, but they can be your secondary weapon instead of the pistol. This will allow players to bring both a more satisfying weapon that can deal the majority of your damage, and a weapon for finishing off weakened targets or catching them off guard with a surprise flank. You could even implement this idea with the movement mechanics by adding weapon weights, that affect movement speed. You’ll move fastest when equipped with a normal primary and a pistol, slower with an SMG, and the slowest with an AR. Power weapons would not get affected by this change and will keep the players’ current speed in order not to dissuade players from using them. This will also promote the use of the weapon pickup system as you could change your speed by picking up a different secondary type off the floor if needed.