Anti-material rifles desired Y/N?
I believe it would be a great addition to the game. There are some out there now irl so why not in game?
Forum Discussion
In your mind, what would a anti-material rifle be in BF6? The PSR is close to the Barrett .50 but its just one of the sniper rifles. What would be different?
Anti-material to me in BF6 would have HEI rounds or AP and do more dmg to vehicles vs "soft targets." It should be able to 1 shot all gadgets. Maybe 2-3 shot the buggy, but the heavier stuff is question marks.
The problem comes in with how effective it would be against armored targets and air targets. Since anti-tank is so weak in this game (unless from behind) you can't have a AM rifle out perform an RPG. You can't have a sniper rifle be more effective against air targets than the ground mounted AA gun. So then the question becomes, what would be the point of adding it?
IMO this calls into question the whole AT/AA weapon damage system and how under powered they are. Previous posts on the Javelin and Stinger (AA manpad) complain at how weak they are against their intended targets. Adding in an anti-material rifle before these are addressed would be dumb. Its pretty sad that the most effective AT weapon is the simplest mine that is easily visible and avoidable with minimal effort.
Battlefield has always been sold on the fantasy of “realism with fun gameplay.” If we’re gonna gatekeep every new weapon behind “but the balance isn’t perfect yet,” we’d still be playing with WW2 bolt-actions only, it should have the iconic tools of modern warfare, including proper anti-materiel rifles that actually act like one. Real anti-materiel rifles go way beyond the common Barrett .50 BMG. We’re talking the Denel NTW-20 that can swap barrels and fire 14.5×114mm or full 20mm rounds
You already laid out exactly what it should do (HEI/AP rounds, shreds gadgets, big damage to light vehicles, etc) That’s perfect. The fact that the current AT/AA system is gutted and underpowered is not a reason to not add it, it’s the exact reason we should add it. A real anti-materiel rifle would expose how weak and boring the vehicle game currently is and force DICE to actually fix the Javelin, Stinger, RPGs, etc. instead of just ignoring the problem.
"what’s the point” Right now there’s an armored car in the game where you literally cannot shoot the driver or anyone in it, The only way to kill the driver is mines or an RPG, C4, tanks etc. That’s already completely broken and anti-realism, yet it exists. So we can have janky vehicle protection that makes no sense, but we can’t have a proper .50 BMG or bigger anti-materiel rifle that actually does what they do in real life? Come on.
An anti-material rifle wouldn’t even need to out-perform a dedicated AT launcher. Make it high-skill (bolt-action, long reload, massive sway, loud as hell, visible tracer) give it crazy penetration and gadget deletion, solid damage to light/medium vehicles, and only chip damage to heavy tanks and air (maybe disable components like tracks or sensors). It fills a perfect niche that the PSR currently pretends to but doesn’t actually deliver.
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