@redeyesith
Choices do in fact come with a lot of problems and, while I do not agree with the suggestion, I do think double gunning is a problem for multiple reasons, now more than ever as it was stated that hitscan will make its way into the Sea of Thieves. This will probably have an heavy impact on the game and its META.
You can just eat bananas to heal, play on a rowboat or CHOOSE whatever play style you like, but freedom of choice doesn't mean all the choices are equal.
Choices need more balancing, you should make sure that all the choices are balanced, which are currently not. It's even harder to balance Sea of Thieves choices for combat because the opponent crews size can vary. On top of all there's one thing even more important: balancing the game at all level of play which is what I think is the issue here: on an average level of play the META is fine as player do not abuse Double gunning the proper way, but there's a reason if like 90% of the sweaty PvP players use double gun and it's not necessarily a "choice" for all of them.
Let's speak for high skilled matchups on 1v1:
The issue with double gunning is that Blunder+EoR is a pretty powerful combo, an enemy with a cutlass has very low chances of outplaying its opponent:
A. If the Sword player rushes the DG, the latter will shoot with the Blunder before he can get in sword range, as the role of the blunder here is not just to one shot people but mostly to set up the sniper kill by at least dealing 30 damage. At this point the sword player is completely at the mercy of the DG and his accuracy, cause he's one sniper shot away from death and won't be able to heal in time.
B. If the Sword player somehow get in sword range, the DG will have two attempts to kill him as the Blunder can shoot, reload and shoot again before a sword can land enough hits to kill a player. The Sword player can jump around to make himself harder to hit but a good player do have high chances to hit you.
C. If the Sword player has a Blunder as secondary Weapon he will still be on a big disadvantage because it won't change anything for the DG, the strategies above will still work.
D. If the Sword player has an EoR (which is just the stronger version of the Flintlock, you see... you got the choice here too but one gun is just stronger than the other) he still has low chances, if you start aiming at the DB he'll probably rush at you with the blunder, putting you on that one-shot thresh hold, but you'd have a chance of winning here if you are able to side-dodge the blunder after hitting the DG with sniper, as it takes just two hits to kill him and he won't be able to reload; if he's too far away you'll exchange shots, probably heal back while the DG will try to slowly get closer enough to apply his strategy, which usually ends up in the DG win.
This analysis doesn't consider the strongest weapon in the game: blunder bombs.
So, DG (Blunder+EoR) role is to stay close range enough while still staying out of sword range which is pretty easy to do on 1v1, it's harder to kite multiple opponents but you also have the advantage of being able to one-shot one of them. A Flintlock+EoR instead wins automatically if he's far enough from the sword player (unless his aim is very bad), which usually makes it harder to do on sloops but works fine on galleons and is op on islands/underwater.
The only game changer here are blunder bombs, while I am usually able to outplay medium leveled DG with my sword play, by doing the side dodge right when I think he's going to do the blunder shot and then rushing and spamming (if he gets me with the second blunder shot I'd still die, so I need to jump around as much as possible; this said), very good DGs won't allow you to do that, here Blunder bombs can be useful to disrupt, to get enemy's HP at 60 or lower and/or actually just kill with two good hits. But the DG can do such as well. (God Blunder Bombs are broken af)
So yeah, on 1v1 situation DG is better than Sword IF the player has good aim, this is why I mentioned "balance at ALL level of play": Double gunning is a worse strategy FOR Low or medium skill pirates because of its difficulty and is not needed AGAINST low or medium skill pirates as they are not good enough to even counter the sword. DG is good for and against high skilled players.
We could start going in-depth on multiple players fights too but that's where I think it's even more obvious how, for good players, DG is indeed better.
On a 2v2 the Double Gunners will have to focus one of the players and, if done right, they will almost instantly find themselves in a 2v1 situation.
On a 1v2 situation it starts getting harder to talk about high level of play, as in both instances the 2 opponents can try a one-shot by both shooting with their EoR, with the difference being that if they miss a shot DG could follow up with the blunder to easily kill the single guy, but the Sword players won't probably reload in time before the DG gets at least one of them. Even here both crews can coin flip it with blunder bombs.
I don't think there's a point in talking of 1v3/4 at high level as that is really hard to win for anyone. But on low-medium skill level even I, who usually prefer to use the sword, feel forced to Double Gun when boarding Galleons. 1v4 with sword is the hardest as, out of blunder bombs, you do not have enough DPS to to get quickly rid of one player at a time and it is super hard to find an opening with the sword against multiple enemies: the best way to fight sword with sword is to wait for the opponent to miss his slash and instantly attack so that he gets staggered until the end of the combo without any chance of retaliation (but server issues). Against multiple enemies who will attack at slightly different moments it's almost impossible to find an opening and stagger them all together, while it's easier to one shot one and then kite while reloading, specially because the galleon has many tricks to disengage the fight (easiest of all: jump on the balcony from the wheel area, makes 90% of the average pirates think you fell).
This said I also think that jumping around while shooting doesn't look great in a game like Sea of Thieves, it feels out of place for me. But this is just personal.
PS: Also read the comment under this. TY
