The fov - field of view - in this game is already quite low, and there is no option for increasing it. I can't be the only player feeling like I often get jumped from someone coming out of nowhere (not just from above). I therefore really don't understand the choice of making fov higher when wielding a melee weapon - it would make a huge difference to have that fov with a ranged weapon. As long as we can't change fov this is another big advantage for melee classes.

Is this a deliberate choice by the devs to somehow limit ranged classes? In that case I think this is the worst option - add recoil, bullet spread or whatever instead.

Switch to pistol when you are in close quarters. Narrow FOV helps performance at range. Makes sense to me.

But I have zoom/ADS/whatever this game calls it for that.

I imagine the reason not to allow changing the field of view is because it's a third-person shooter, and a wider field of view would give you a level of situational awareness disproportionate to what you'd get in a first-person shooter.

Or maybe that was the reason for not letting players swap their two-handed gun to the opposite hand and the camera to match, to satisfy the needs of people who see with the other eye than the game's designed for.

First off, hip fire accuracy needs to be drastically nerfed. Accuracy in general while firing from the hip, on the move needs to be drastically reduced. Those that take the time to aim while stationary should properly rewarded. Those that take the time to aim while KNEELING, while stationary should have the best accuracy possible. The fact that there's no noticeable difference in accuracy between hip firing on the move versus kneeling using the "zoomed in" view ... total crap.

So once we see proper Accuracy bonuses for using the "zoomed in" fire mode, then hell no the FOV should not stay wide when using this improved accuracy firing mode. You give and you get. You give up a bit of situational awareness for improved accuracy. That's more than fair.

If you're addressing the default 3rd person FOV while simply moving around the game world, then I'm in agreement that this should be looked at.

There was apparently some science behind it. Apparently humans have a dominant eye like we have a dominant hand, and the handedness we use guns with depends more on which eye is dominant than which hand is dominant. Apparently this can also translate to first-person shooter games when the gun is on the wrong side for our dominant eye, and gets worse in third person shooters when the character is on the wrong side.

That was a typo... I was thinking about what I was going to say and hit enter by mistake.

of course it is deliberate, why would it be there otherwise?
the closer FOV likely represents how the character is focused on aiming in a similar way it becomes practically a first person view when using the zoom of certain longer range weapons.
on the other hand a close combat weapon will allow the wielder to be less focused on a single distant point in particular for near awareness is more important than focus in such situations.

but there's more than just a slim transposition of real life logic into gameplay, balance:
ranged combatants have the upper hand when aware of the enemy, for this reason the devs either have to make close combatants able to soak way more bullets than they already can (which would be an immersion breaker on top of a less entertaining and challenging solution) or encourage them to use flanking tactics; outflanking puts the ability to move of the close combat guy against the ability to see of the ranged guy, by making the FOV wider we end up giving the upper hand to the ranged guy when the idea is to have some semblance of balance between the 2 styles of combat.
if you want to counter flankers you need to git gud at checking your rear and flanks and remember that you are not supposed to be a turret camping a single direction

more recoil or spread conflicts with the representation of lore more than the astartes not seeing a guy coming to stab his butt

While I lack the expertise to know if this change would improve anything, I'd like to mention that one of numerous reasons I'm interested in replacing Planetside 2 with Eternal Crusade in my gaming routines is that Eternal Crusade makes heavy use of hipfire outside of certain sniper weapons like the Stalker Bolter.

I'm generally bad with ADS-style things, as I find it hard to get my crosshairs on the target and my playstyle heavily favors weapons I can use on the move. I tend to simply rush headlong toward the objective with little regard for my character's safety and well-being, and only stop sprinting when I encounter something I have to kill.

However, so long as there remains a class and weapon that lets me do that kinda effectively, I'd be fine with the general hipfire goodness getting nerfed. I generally don't care about my KDR, and I'm okay with dying 3 times for every 1 enemy I kill so long as I'm doing something that makes me feel useful, even if only as a distraction. I wouldn't like hipfire being nerfed, but I'd survive it so long as it's still not totally useless.

With the current hip fire model, you're harder to hit because you're moving, you retain the wide field of view which increases situational awareness, with no accuracy or FOV drawbacks. Versus an opponent that's statinoary, that's kneeling, that's using the zoomed in view.... the moving hip fire player is on even footing with the stationary, kneeling player. That's total bullshit IMO.

If you're going to take advantage of the increased FOV and being harder to hit while hip firing on the move, there should be a downside. More importantly, those that are firing while in a stationary position, while kneeling, while zoomed in should receive proper accuracy bonuses.

While it's true an Astartes is capable of accurate fire while hip firing on the move, have no doubts his battle brother that's kneeling, that's stationary, that's looking down his sights can fire more accurately than the moving, hipfiring Astartes.