Scope Glint needs to go.
Honestly, the claim that scope glint is the only way to balance scoped weapons in gameplay is a lazy excuse for an equally lazy mechanic that effectively not only punishes players for using a scoped weapon, but also renders the sniper roll and class useless in its intent and purpose. It's also now become so comically bad with how bright it gets that stealth isn't really even an option.
Why is it so bad? In my opinion, it's because scoped weapons have pretty much blended with their carbine and battle rifle counterparts. Mechanics like quick scoping, and the ability to move rapidly while aiming down the scope is pretty much what has made the sniper and marksman weapons so overpowered. And while the scope glint mechanic may make sense in games like Call of Duty or Destiny, where small maps limit movement and gameplay to fast paced, run and gun tactics, Battlefield is a self-proclaimed "military game" which allows and encourages different roles and play styles.
While I'm not calling for Battlefield to be a full on mil-sim like ARMA, it is, and mostly has been, a fast paced, military based, almost simulator like game. And scope glint is one of those mechanics that, in my opinion at least, detracts from that spirit, and very much breaks the immersion of the game.
So here's my suggestion for balancing scoped rifles:
Stop treating sniper and designated marksman rifles and roles the same as other classes. The purpose and intention of those roles and weapons has usually been as either a stealthy force multiplier in the case of snipers, or with the designated marksman as a stationary overwatch similar to machine guns but with more precision and range focused capabilities. As such, make the mechanics of those weapons and classes match those roles.
Remove mechanics like the ability to quick scope and limit ADS capabilities when moving with magnified optics. Anyone who's ever used a scoped weapon in real life could probably tell you how difficult it is to quickly aim down a scope and acquire a target, let alone while also moving. Magnified optics usually require quite a bit of intention and patience to employ when engaging a target.
A good way to do this would be to apply ADS penalties based on magnification. A 1x magnification, such as red dots or iron sights, would effectively have no penalties. Low powered magnifiers of around 2x to maybe 5x would have slight penalties and be slightly more difficult to aim without some small amount of patience to engage medium range targets.
With high powered scopes, such as 10x or higher, make it more challenging by making the weapon shine when the player utilizes a stable shooting position, and exercises more patience when acquiring and engaging targets. This doesn't necessarily have to be in prone, but at the very least, the player is not moving, and is holding through the scope at a specific area of engagement. The more stable the position, like shooting prone off a bipod, offers the greatest capability over less stable positions like standing. This could also allow for additional mechanics to help stabilization like using walls, trees, or barricades for support. Any major or rapid movements would create artifacts in the scope, like reticle parallax, or loss of focus or eye relief, and clear sight picture would be restored once the player finds a stable shooting position again. Small or slow movements would cause little to no issues, and again, the lower the magnification, the less impact movement has on aiming.
Another mechanic is the use of smoke trails similar to that found in the original Halo multiplayer. In this case, carbines and battle rifles would have none, DMR's would have minimal if no smoke trails, while snipers would have very brief and light trails that could be traced to a general direction, and larger more powerful rifles, like the M82 or M200, would have slightly longer and more visible trails.
I believe these mechanics would stay true to the DMR and sniper classes and the roles of the weapons without inherently punishing players for using them. It would also encourage more diverse play styles with these different weapon systems as well as encourage better tactics to counter those different play styles. Which I feel is really the core of what Battlefield is. Players taking different roles to work together and complete the objective.
Example photos from StoneMountain64 gameplay.
