First thing that I wanna say here is that this would be practically a "net-buff" for guns, but In a reasonable way.

So what brought me to make this suggestion is the fact that I actually spent decent time exploring mechanics and testing guns.

I came to a conclusion that guns are very variable in strength when you consider their intended purposes.

For example, Mosin Nagant Carbine deals 3.5 hearts of damage on point-blank range, which can further be increased with headshots, supression and combination of both. This can LITERALLY one-shot a person if they wear Swiftness pants (leather). It still did not creep into PvP Meta.

Gewehr 98 deals slightly less damage (3 hearts instead of 3.5) with requirement of target being decently far way.
This is definitely by FAR less powerful than Mosin Nagant(carbine) because further you go from the target, it is harder to hit.

Gewehr 98 DID creep into PvP meta.

Why? I think this is the most important question here.
I think it is because some weapons simply have things in same "slot" that are just better. For example, If you are very close to an enemy, you might as well just use a sword instead of a Mosin Nagant. But if your enemy is VERY far away as is often the case with sieges, you simply do not have any better option than Gewehr 98.

So some things can easily be much weaker in their "power level" while still being "best in slot" for their purpose. And I think that gun balance suffers from having inbalanced weapons for each purpose.

One good example for this is mp 18. It is designed for very close-range engagements, and only situationally (when enemy is shell shocked by cannon fire). It still fails to beat the sword even when it's requirements are met. There is simply no use for mp18 when you can use sword to better effect for the same purpose, which is "pushing" into enemies while they are shell shocked.

And as for machineguns, I am aware that they are meant as a support weapon, but they slow you, they are hilariously Inaccurate on long range and they are only good if they are combined with "gun spam", Realistically, the only current good use for machineguns is if a "PvP-er" brings one while he is meleeing enemies so he can help the "Gunspammers" a little who are more often than not using Gewehr 98 from far away anyway.

This my opinion completely ruins any balance in PvP because some things that are objectively weak end up being more utilized than other things that are arguably much more powerful.

What I would do to adress this issue is:

1) Increase long range damage for all guns. There is no reason for a gun to deal less damage the further you are from the target, You are much less likely to hit a target when you are far away and this alone should be enough to make guns less viable for longer range, or in other words, simply not having increased long range damage is enough instead of having it DECREASED. In my opinion, a proper "max range" headshot with a Gewehr 98 should do around 8 hearts of damage, or nearly one-shot. When someone is that far away, he only gets hit occasionally and almost never ends up in situation where he can die before he just pots, eats a burger and walks out of the way.

2. Increase all Machinegun damage. Machineguns are good for their ability to buff the damage of rifles, so they are never going to be obsolete as long as rifles are not obsolete, which means no matter how much damage a machinegun does, it is never going to be underpowered. However, this does NOT mean it should actually have meaningless damage. I would simply reduce machinegun's "immediate" range damage so it can not be used to burst down enemies quickly when you can't miss, and increase its overall damage. Maybe add damage multiplier to EVERY machinegun from shell shock.

3. Make shock weapons actually worth using. Theoretically, one mag-dump from mp18 is enough to kill a person. But what does it matter when the time that takes for that to happen is probably more than enough to do the same thing with a sword, and if the target you are shooting simply drops a single health potion or just has some saturation points stored, you are not killing them in one mag, which means you gonna be reloading and they gonna be going to full HP and therefore you can never get a kill anyone with such a weapon. I would simply straight out buff it and then keep nerfing it little by little as I see how effectively and how often is it being utilized. (buff can mean literally 3x damage)