Look at Buck and Blackbeard, the brothers in arms who have always been at he back of Ubisoft's minds when considering changes. During the operation shadow legacy both buck and Blackbeard lost their 2.5x sights on their machineguns, and were confined to 1.5x sights. In the words of Ubisoft this change was implemented to entice people to use their rifles when thinking of long distance engagements. The rifles (the SR25 and the CAMRS) were given the new 3.0x, 2.0x and 1.5x sights. This change effectively did nothing that Ubisoft intended it for. People simply picked a new operator and moved on with their lives. This left the MK17 CQB and the C8-SFW in the dust as less than enticing guns to use, the MK17 CQB because it had almost no ammo and bad penetration(you barely have enough to destroy a wood barricade in one magazine), and the C8-SFW because of it's awful recoil and poor sights. With these changes I understand the changes to Blackbeard's gun (it does have CQB or Close Quarters Battlerifle in the name), however Buck's C8-SFW has this description, "Medium to long range assault rifle. Takes 5.56mm caliber ammunition." It has long range in it's description and may I remind you Buck's only ability is his gun. This change that was made makes buck basically on an equal ground with all defenders in the game who are now mostly armed with 1.5x scopes and most arguably have better weapons. If Buck and Blackbeard had 2.0x scopes I truly think that Ubisoft could right this change. I cannot even count the amount of times I have died as buck to someone who I was unable to see due to the 1.5 or holographic scope being too low magnification. The only ways to use buck effectively is to swing and pre-fire every angle or to hide in a corner like a defender waiting for someone to push you. Hopefully Ubisoft will choose alternate methods in the future to entice rifle usage. The truth is nobody wants to use a rifle unless there is no superior gun available, the only attacker with a relevantly used rifle is Dokkaebi because the BOSG is not a good pick for your average ranked game and her ability is strong, unlike Blackbeard(I'm sorry to all Blackbeard mains and their plastic wrap shields). The truth is some players just don't like using rifles, no matter how many changes you make people still wont use rifles unless they are the most overpowered new meta. Sniping has never and will never be a viable option on siege, even Kali who uses a sniper as used more actively as a close range cannon than a long range gun. In conclusion PLEASE give buck, and maybe blackbeard the 2.0 scope.

I hope I'm not alone here when I say that a lot of the minor changes Ubisoft has made to operator lately have been pretty poor. The idea of nerfing an operator based on their pick rate rather than their effectiveness in battle is strait wack. Recently Zofia's M762 was nerfed to have recoil similar to that of Buck's C8-SFW or Twitch's F2 I can see the reasoning to this nerf but I think this next season is bringing it too far. From removing the smg11 from sledge(one of the game's most balanced and solid operators), to removing the 2x scope on the G36C and the 2.5x the ARX200 for Iana I think we can agree that these changes are pretty rubbish. Nerfing one operator to hope people play others is a bad method of balancing the game. Last season they nerfed Zofia with the hope that other operators would see a rise in pick rate, now with people's favorite operator Zofia ruined by a recoil pattern that is barely controllable people have flocked to the next best thing, sledge and Iana. I can tell you exactly why too, sledge's L85A2 had similar stats to that of the M762 both were reliable easy to use guns, and Iana has the same potential to clear a room with her gadget as Zofia's stuns could(not even gonna talk about Iana also having a 2.5x like Zofia). We can only hope that they see the negative impact in the test server from these constant nonsensible changes. Speaking of the test server, there are more changes in the test server that are pretty rubbish(lots of them are amazing like Fuze's change but some are dumb like the changes to Iana and Sledge). Mute is also an operator who is also being changed in the test server, his jammers are being effectively reduced in range vertically meaning that now hard breachers need only to go to the top of the wall to breach it. In the words of the designers,
"With this change, the goal is to make Mute less of a jack of all trades denial expert and instead make him more focused on intel denial. Since the device's disruption radius is the same at ground level, he'll continue to excel at cutting off drones. This should then open the door to more viable denial picks like Bandit, while encouraging a wider range of strategies and synergies".
Mute's specialty has never been stopping drones, I guarantee not a single pro player (who may I remind you this change is intended for) has ever picked mute for their ability to stop basic drones to reduce intel.. People pick mute for his ability to counter key operators like Dokkaebi, Lion, Twitch with her enhanced drone at the holes next to reinforced wall, and stop basic hard breach attempts. This change change effectively ruins mute when combined with the twitch buff and in their own words is only so that people will go bandit more often. Nerfing one aspect so that people look at another aspect has never been a good strategy. Just look at Buck and Blackbeard, the brothers in arms who have always been at he back of Ubisoft's minds when considering changes. During the operation shadow legacy both buck and Blackbeard lost their 2.5x sights on their machineguns, and were confined to 1.5x sights. In the words of Ubisoft this change was implemented to entice people to use their rifles when thinking of long distance engagements. The rifles (the SR25 and the CAMRS) were given the new 3.0x, 2.0x and 1.5x sights. This change effectively did nothing that Ubisoft intended it for. People simply picked a new operator and moved on with their lives leaving the MK17 CQB and the C8-SFW in the dust as less than enticing guns to use, the MK17 CQB because it had almost no ammo and bad penetration(you barely have enough to destroy a wood barricade in one magazine), and the C8-SFW because of it's awful recoil and poor sights. With these changes I understand the changes to Blackbeard's gun (it does have CQB or Close Quarters Battlerifle in the name), however Buck's C8-SFW has this description, "Medium to long range assault rifle. Takes 5.56mm caliber ammunition." It has long range in it's description and may I remind you Buck's only ability is his gun. This change that was made makes buck basically on an equal ground with all defenders in the game who are now mostly armed with 1.5x scopes and most arguably have better weapons. If Buck and Blackbeard had 2.0x scopes I truly think that Ubisoft could right this change. Hopefully Ubisoft choose alternate methods in the future to entice rifle usage. The truth is nobody wants to use a rifle unless there is no superior gun available, the only attacker with a relevantly used rifle is Dokkaebi because the BOSG is not a good pick for your average ranked game and her ability is strong, unlike Blackbeard(I'm sorry to all Blackbeard mains and their plastic wrap shields). The truth is the casual/quick play community is the heart of siege not the pro players who make up less that 1%. Make good changes Ubisoft so that your community will stay strong on your 6.5 year old and strong game. Entice play styles not by nerfing things that are popular but by buffing unpopular playstyles.