PvE or PvP they’re very situational and don’t really hold a candle to other weapons. This goes for all the archetypes.
-
They should definitely have more viability, and I believe that they should have a similar range to hand cannons (or have a shorter range and allow pulses and scouts to compete, idk), acting as a more forgiving alternative at the cost of a worse TTK, but by a very small margin. My take may not be the best, but I just feel like auto rifles would fit well in a medium-range, low-risk kind of category.