I love the look of the Barrel Bombardier set. It's chaotic, piratey, and reminds me of fun characters from other properties like the Krimzon Guard from Jak 2, the bandits from Borderlands, the pirates from Rayman 2, and of course Junkrat from that old game whose name I forget. It also has the very peculiar psychological property of compelling me to stack gunpowder barrels aboard my ship, which is... just great.
But the weapons. The sword, blunderbuss, and Eye-of-Reach all work fine no matter how they look. But the way we aim with the pistol means that its performance is greatly affected by its cosmetic appearance, and it is the only thing in the game, besides sails, that is really impacted in this way.
We all know that certain pistols, in particular the Mercenary and its variants (Ebon Flintlock, Aristocrat, Cultured Aristocrat, Silver Blade, Sapphire Blade) are easier to aim with, they essentially have iron sides and a very tidy barrel, and I applaud Rare for not locking these behind a paywall. Most others lack these benefits, but are still useful enough if you aim well with your remaining eye.
Then there are the pistols that totally block the view of the target. They don't simply lack sights, they obscure your site completely: if you can see you target while aiming with these pistols then you will absolutely not hit it. The parrot pistol and its variants are particularly bad at this, which is a shame because they look really fun. But the Barrel Bombardier pistol is the absolute worst. I can stand right in front of the Weaponsmith's practice target and I have to obscure the entire board to actually hit with a shot, and where I hit will not be revealed until I lower the weapon. I've also practiced with pigs and skeletons, and while I can sometimes hit my unseen targets it is an absurd situation. And against other players, forget about it. They bounce around like Daffy Duck and aiming with this weapon is the equivalent of shutting my eyes and thinking of England.
This is a real shame, since pistols with flared barrels can very often be the handsomest, or just OTT fun. But essentially impossible to use in practice. When it's an Emporium cosmetic, it becomes "pay-to-lose" which is a very curious business decision on the part of Rare, they can hardly be expected to shift many of these once people start discussing that fact. And again, it looks really cool, except when actually using it. And with a single spiked stud on the barrel that could have been centred on top like a makeshift iron sight, well, that's just taunting me.
It would be great if pistols whose flared barrels wholly obscure the bullet's trajectory to this degree, such as Bombardier, Parrot, and any others I have not tried, were simply held slightly lower in our first-person view when aiming so we can actually see what we're aiming at. With such a change I think these kinds of cosmetics would see more use, and I for one would very happily drop money on this set, or better yet, on a recoloured version based on the Athena Treasure Keg of Ancient Black Powder.