I just saw this thread while looking at some old loading music compilations, but since it's recent, I guess a lot of people still play PR. I wish I did, and sadly, the deviation system is why.
I'm not especially well versed in PR, I've played for the longest time, from initial releases (I still remember staying up and waiting for .4 to come out) but less so once the game began to punish people for even thinking about engaging in CQB or taking non-magnified optics.
But I know very little about the actual mechanics, so what I present below is pretty much 100% anecdotal. Feel free to correct me if my perceptions are in error to the gameplay mechanics. However, almost none of what I encounter in PR's shot deviation system is seen with my shooting experience IRL. (I'm not a dirt killing guy either, I shoot competitively, so I monitor my times and my accuracy religiously)
1. Semi Auto does not work well in CQB, nor does aiming down an RDO. Therefore, CQB fights are won by hipfiring, full auto AK's. This makes no sense. IRL, it's very difficult to shoot, even at CQB distances without using your sights, if not aiming through them, then aiming over them.
Firing from the hip or off the shoulder without indexing the weapon on target generally does not result in a 1st round hit, but rather in wasting precious time having to walk subsequent rounds on target.
IRL, a good shooter can have his weapon from high ready, to making positive, fight stopping hits (8" high center mass chest shots) in anywhere from .5-1.0 seconds at distances 25m and in. As long as it takes to bring the sights up to eye level. That's it. There's no 'settling in' to position, or controlling your breathing (if you're in shape that is, most soldiers are fairly used to their kit, and at the distances being discussed breathing is much less a factor than say, 200m)
See enemy, drive the gun while flipping off safe to semi, see red on vitals, squeeze trigger, reset, squeeze again, repeat until they stop. That's it. Not rocket science, but thanks to the deviation system, it's actually easier to pull off shots at 200m than 25m. That makes no sense.
Subsequent shots are also more easily controlled in semi auto, so rounds should be impacting fairly closely, not erratically, unless the soldier is a complete wet noodle and is not controlling the recoil on his weapon. Virtually NO ONE ever uses full auto, or burst, even in a CQB environment. It gets you no advantages over rapid, aimed, semi auto fire.
2. Moving on past CQB... Pretty well done, actually, lol. Yes, here, the deviation comes into it's own. You can't really simulate scope shadow, and adjusting your cheek weld to get it juuust so, all while trying to control breathing and nestle into a position to engage targets at distance, so the deviation system works well here. Magnified optics are king for this, and since RDO's suck at CQB, because CQB in general sucks, why ever take any red dot/ Eothingy? Anyways, for distance shooting, deviation is timed about right. You're talking about 2-3 seconds from standing to prone, to making a shot at 200m that'll actually get the enemy's attention.
Sometimes you hit, sometimes you don't, even good shooters have bad days. You figure a 4 MOA deviation with the gun/ammo combination means that most Americans are going to have at least an 8" cone at 200m. Other factions will likely have more (not much, just a little, since certain platforms are inherently less accurate than others) In general, PR's distance shooting mechanics are fine. It's frustratingly misleading to see your sights on target, but know you can't shoot yet, but as I understand it, that's a limitation of the engine and one that I can live with.
I'm not sure how to fix the CQB issue without breaking the long-distance mechanics. The bottom line is this- you can still cripple a player's ability to make that 100yard potshot off the cuff without making a cone of fire that's 10' wide at across the room distances. Perhaps if you killed the deviation delay for RDO-equipped guns, lowering it, like IRL, to no longer than it takes to shoulder, but at the cost of no magnification at distance, meaning ACOGs still win the distance fight. Make iron sights take .25-.30 seconds longer to settle.
Or how about this- RDO comes up, deviation instantly reduced to say... 36MOA, aka 36" at 100 yards, 72" at 200 hardly good enough to hit a man reliably, close enough to suppress, but not hit, which is what you'll have IRL if you try to make offhand shots at that distance quickly. But at 25 yards, this means just 9". Again, make iron sights the same, but just take .25sec longer to shoulder. That 9" at 25 yards is the perfectly attainable accuracy standard that I mentioned earlier, hell even an inch bigger, just to account for Pvt. Pyle.
Just to throw some more numbers at it, my typical time to shoulder an RDO equipped weapon and make a shot to a 36MOA standard, from a ready position, is under 1 second (For me, it's around .9 seconds-- based on hitting the 8" zone at 25 yards). The weapon can be shouldered/aimed on target in .5 seconds, so closer than 25 yards, the fight is over as fast as you get the gun up. First man on target wins, not the first guy to shoot from the hip on full auto.
Anyways, after this period of instant deviation reduction to a certain MOA degree, then the deviation can be slowly reduced at the same rate as magnified weapons up to the minimum dictated by shooting position, weapon/ammo combination. This way, RDO's and semi auto, aimed fire can dominate in CQB, but still be outgunned against distance shots made by shooters behind 4 powered glass.
My changes would be this:
-Lower deviation for red dots/iron sighted guns far beyond what it is now, to the point where shooting off the shoulder without aiming is reserved for literal contact shots, ie muzzle touching, or extreme panic.
-Fully auto fire should be another panic option, used solely for suppression, and not even for CQB. Guys who know a lot more than 11bangbang Spc Snuffy do all of their work with semi, there's a reason for that.
-Instant deviation reduction on RDO guns to 72MOA, as soon as a .5 second shouldering animation takes place. (Make an iron sighted shouldering animation take .7 seconds) Then, reduce the deviation to 36MOA across the next .5 seconds, and finally, to the minimum deviation possible given the shooting position and weapon at the same rate as a magnified optic after the 1 second mark.
-Keep deviation for magnified optic guns where it is. Getting a good checkweld and eliminating scope shadow isn't happening in CQB. And don't tell me about the Bindon aiming concept, an RDO will do the job better. Likewise, without magnification, RDO's will not be able to beat ACOGs/SUSATs at distance.
I don't usually make entirely random and lengthy posts at 11:30pm on forums I rarely frequent, but when I do, it's for games I love

It's just that it's frustrating to not suck at shooting IRL, then be dropped into a realistic game where my soldier can't shoot for his life, literally. The current CQB system is broken and unrealistic as hell. Anyone who says otherwise is either not being honest, or does not have the real world shooting background/training to know how easily those shots are made.