ACV General Discussion

[Twin-Skies]

Rifles are high DPS KE weapons, as well as being lighter. Battle Rifles are high damage (not DPS) CE weapons. A BR will kill a standard MW real fast, whereas a rifle will take much longer. MWs have high KE and low CE defense is why. They're like slower, higher damage rifles that do CE instead basically.

Which actually makes sense in context of IRL weapons.

Assault rifles seem to fire a lower calibre bullet than the BR's; real-life guns generally have less options for specialized ammo the smaller their calibre gets. For example, a typical assault rifle is usually limited to standard jacketed, armor-piercing, or tracer ammunition. Bigger guns such as .50 or 20-mm AT rifles can use these, along with more exotic bullets such as APHE, AP, HE, or even flechettes.

They even got the terminologies right:

Assault Rifles = Fully automatic fire, built for close-to-mid-range combat (Ex. M4A1)
Battle Rifle = Heavy bullets, semi-automatic fire, mid to long-range combat (Ex. Mark 14 Mod 0 EBR)

Sorry about the comments if they're OT - just geeking out over how much research From Software seems to have put into the gun physics