u/Ambitious_Wonder_789

So, after not watching anything other than Spiderman since Endgame, and getting into Marvel Comics, I decided to try and watch all the MCU movies in order, except for Thor: The Dark World, because I REALLY hated it the first time. Overall, I've enjoyed every single movie so far more than I thought I would, and liked most of them more than I remembered, but I do have some thoughts about Black Widow.

For one, my main exposure to the character in comics has been her usually brief appearances in Daredevil books, where I really rather like her when she shows up. However, in the MCU(which was the first place I saw her), I have always wondered why, exactly, she's even there. She and Hawkeye always seemed like such lame ducks alongside the other Avengers, and she(neither of them, frankly) didn't have enough personality to catch my interest. When she died in Endgame, I kind of didn't care.

I did enjoy Black Widow quite a lot, though! My only question is, why in God's name did they not make this movie after Civil War? While I can't say that Natasha's characterization in this movie was a HUGE improvement for me personally, it definitely would have made her death hit a little harder, and might not have made me just go "oh, her again" every time she showed up in the other movies.

A side thought that I had, again, just personally, I kind of feel like Red Guardian was a bit of wasted potential, being relegated to mostly a comic relief jackass. It would have been very interesting to see the Soviet mirror of Captain America if done earnestly and thoughtfully. Captain America is the perfect American, because he's a man of incorrigible moral fiber standing for the highest American ideals, not the American reality. A Red Guardian of incorrigible moral fiber who stands for the highest Soviet ideals coming to terms with the darker realities of the Soviet Union and looking for a place in the world now that it's fallen could have been a great character!

That said, Yelena and the Red Guardian were still my favorite parts of the movie, and I'm looking forward to Thunderbolts and seeing them return!

So, we all know that BRIV isn't a functional BR. Queueing for BRIV means an automatic uptier to BRV, which means you're about to be badly outgunned. It sucks, because there's some cool, iconic equipment at BRIV that I would love to use more often, but here we are.

There's a VERY easy, VERY obvious solution to the problem: make BRIV matchmaking -1/+0, leaving BRV to play by itself. This is a good solution, because the equipment gap between BRIII and BRIV is a very reasonable one, no worse than the gap between I-II or II-III. The community managers' response to this idea is that "then people will just start complaining about being uptiered from III to IV", which, if they played the game, they would realize is a stupid thing to say.

With this easy, reasonable, obvious solution shelved, let's think about some other ideas. I think that we should start by identifying the problems with BRV uptiers; select fire rifles being the biggest, followed by, potentially, certain vehicles such as jets.

Idea 1:

Make a BRVI, with the intention that it's a "false" BR. Never intended to be filled out and fully playable, but just a place to scooch the BRV stuff that shouldn't have to play with BRIV. BRV game can be uptiered to BR6, and you can use SVT-40s and Gewehr 43s without facing FG42s and AVS 36s. It's not the most elegant solution, and people will whine that there's not enough equipment in BRVI. Possible solution to that is to call it BRV+ or something instead of BRVI, off the top of my head

Idea 2:

The existence of select fire rifles isn't the issue, the preponderance of them is. This is my personal favorite solution, but it may not be popular. Add a new Squad Leader/NCO class. A Squad Leader/NCO can be added to any infantry squad, and can be equipped with Rifles, Submachine Guns, Assault Rifles, and Select Fire rifles. For certain squads, particular Rifle squads, it could be possible to add two of these. Historically, this is most often how these weapons were distributed, and it gets rid of 9 man squads with select fire rifles at high BR while adding a bit of flavor at low BR. This would require Select Fire Rifles to actually be reclassed differently from Semi-Auto rifles, which doesn't sound like a big deal to me.

Idea 3: Another obvious one: nerf the fuck out of SF rifles. Make full auto useful only when braces or at point blank range. This is less fun than either of the other two ideas, but just as healthy for the game.