I'm expecting this to get controversial but I gotta say it
Sea of Thieves is not just a sandbox game it's arguably a party game and yet the pvp meta in this game is that of hyper-fast reflexes and high stakes, it is something more akin to hardcore shooter games such as Escape from Tarkov, CSGO, Marauders, Valorant and so on.
One wrong move and you're dead faster than you can even heal yourself or think about taking cover, not for a lack of trying but because the game's healing mechanic literally cannot keep up with how fast a proper sniper-blunder user can kill you.
It is in fact so fast to kill that it's extremely hard to differentiate between someone who's reflexes are just that good and someone who is blatantly cheating.
This brings me to the new weapons: DB gun and Knife are fun but ultimately way too slow. The time to kill doesn't come close to rivaling that of the sniper-blunder combo. Why does the charge of the Knife not insta-kill when the blunderbuss does that already? I can see why the DB gun's charge attack can't do it since it's a side-grade (though I'd still like to argue that it should do more damage) but why not the Knife? It's extremely close range, it requires a second to prepare (just like aiming down sights with the blunder) and yet blunder is still just the objectively better pick. Sure the knife can be thrown further, but that aspect of the weapon is currently very clunky and frankly a blunder-bomb will do the job better and much faster.
Once the novelty of these two weapons wears out you will see a significant decline in their use, especially in pvp, which saddens me but having clocked in 1,000+ hours into your game I do believe this is just what's going to happen. You’ve encouraged a play style that rewards players for using the fastests guns to kill, unless a new weapon comes out that can keep up they will not be used in the long run.
Let me give you an example: I want nothing more than to get into a sword fight, I love the melee in this game because it's simple but fast paced, I love the sound of metal clashing against metal when I pull off successful blocks.
I find it fun yet because of the way those two guns (sniper and blunderbuss) behave I can't use the sword in a serious pvp encounter.
Rule of cool will only go so far, I have to run those two same guns every time I want to get serious, I can't have fun in my preferred way otherwise I stand a significantly higher chance to just lose and the same exact thing will happen with both of the new weapons.
We cannot keep dancing around this issue for a whole decade, if you truly desire to "shake up the Meta" you need to deal with it directly. Not by tweaking things like "Quickswap" or adding new weapons (although they are appreciated) but by dealing with how the Sniper behaves in close range and the Blunderbuss being the only close range weapon that is so powerful that it can one-shot any player, otherwise people will eventually be forced to drop the new weapons whenever they're getting into anything with high stakes, just like how I can't use the sword in a serious fight.
It is true that it's not bad game design to have mechanics that require skill, however it IS poor game design to have mechanics that have little to no counterplay to such a degree that everyone needs to either use that same exact mechanic or just rely on the other player using those tools improperly. I’m positive that any combination that can kill faster than a couple of seconds in a game where most weapons cannot do so falls under the definition of “Overpowered”.
And a couple of seconds is literal, it takes less than 2 seconds to kill someone if I do it right and that’s just ME doing it, I know and have seen other players who are able to double gun way faster than I can, do you seriously call this balanced?
There is clearly new blood in the dev team and if the recent changes are anything to go by it seems they are prioritizing fun above all else so I am hoping that the coming drop in people using the new weapons finally makes Rare realize they need to tackle this issue directly once and for all. Again, the weapons aren’t bad, much like the sword they’re fun to use they’re just not fast enough to kill.
This has to be addressed, especially before that up and coming Handheld-Harpoon rolls in, otherwise it will do nothing but exacerbate the issue.
It does not matter that it (the harpoon gun) replaces one of your weapons, people are just going to hook you into blunderbuss range and instantly kill you. It will just become the "Harpoon-Blunderbuss" meta and this time they'll be able to move around even faster and even go as far as to potentially negate Naval Combat in a lot of circumstances. No sword fighting and no naval? It might as well just be a cowboy game.
I'm sorry if when reading this you are a player that enjoys this weapon combo. I don't mean to upset you nor is my intention to ruin your play-style. I've learned to do it myself and I see its merits, yes it’s not the easiest thing to pull off and yes it is powerful and rewarding when you do so but we simply cannot keep pretending these weapons (being as powerful and effective as they are together) are good game balance, either make ALL weapons fast to kill or remove the blunder’s ability to insta-kill and make the sniper only do 45 damage in close range.
Things simply need to change, to refuse change is to stagnate and stagnation often leads to death. I'd like to keep Sea of Thieves around for as long as possible because I like the pirate genre a lot and this is the only decent pirate game with multiplayer out there but it's hard to keep new players around if we spawn-camp them with a 2 second to kill weapon combo.
We don’t need “Safer Seas”, quests like Siren’s Song (which are currently ignored by most players despite it trying so hard to incentivize pvp) or even new weapons necessarily, we need to overhaul pvp or at least rebalance certain tools so that more players are willing to engage in it. This issue won’t go away just because it gets swept under the rug or gets temporary band-aid fixes, mark my words, as soon as people complete the War Chest commendations the vast majority will just go back to using the sniper and blunder. Nothing will have changed except that now the devs need to spend time and resources to make skins for two new tools that won’t be used much.
