The r99 meta needs some nerfs

Well R301 is still much better at mid range, but it is a little funny that after the recoil randomness nerf for the 301, it actually has much more random recoil than the R99. R99 has a weird and hard to control pattern, but it's too consistent for a weapon that's not intended to be used at longer ranges. I think all SMG's should get the R301 treatment and get recoil randomness increase, essentially limiting their effective range a bit more. R301 should have a little more edge at mid range over the 99 than it currently has, so that loadout consideretion would have more nuances, rather than which secondary weapon to bring to what fight. There's little downside to having 99 as primary as it is now. That's not a bad thing, but I do think the game could be a little more nuanced if it lost some of the range.

On the other hand, SMG's could also have much slower bullet velocities, making shooting moving targets much more difficult at range.

P.S. R99 is not the only "always best" weapon as it is now, there are a lot of equally good options(e.g., for strictly CQC - alternator is better in some situations, devotion, while more a longer range weapon is also much better in some situations and of course for mid-range, R301 and flatline are still better). It's just that there's little reason to ever drop it, since there's not much downside (apart from it chugging light ammo like crazy).