To give you a sense of how aggressive the damage and accuracy dropoff is for some weapons, the default sniper rifle, the SMLE MkIII, can be dialed to a maximum of 300 meters, a far cry from the kilometer-plus frags you might see in BF4. Guns like Madsen MG, which we saw in the alpha, eat up big chunks of screen space. When I hop on a static MG, I have a comically narrow window to spot enemies through. Piloting the bomber plane is like flying a fragile hippo.
In previous Battlefields, I could barely tell the difference between an AK-12 and an M4 (BF4 has 19 assault rifles!), especially after all the lasers and custom gadgetry were attached. Maybe I’ll feel underwhelmed by the weapon set once I can tinker with BF1’s weapon mods (they aren’t in the beta), but right now, this is the most personality BF’s weapons have had in a long time, and it’s in large part due to their flaws.