This might be a hot take but the biggest issue with Bow and Musket isn’t that they are easy to play. I don’t even think it is that as individual classes they are too OP(though every weapon in this game needs a a touch up). The biggest issue with Bow and Musket atm is that there are too many of them in OPR. Of course you are going to feel oppressed if you are getting shot by 5-10 ranged users at once. That shit is annoying! Does it mean the weapon by itself is OP? Not necessarily. If I am getting shot by 5 bows and all of them are awful and hitting 10% of their shots it doesn’t matter because there are five of them and only 4 of them need to connect 1 shot each for me to die. This isn’t a weapon balance issue, this is a game mode balance issue.
I previously exclusively used the musket since the beta. I only recently started to use melee. Solo melee is significantly harder to play in OPR than solo range. I would go on to say it is pointless to play solo melee in OPR because I can always do more as a solo range.
Play range is a lot easier to use than melee. Not only is it easier to survive, but it’s easier to kill people. That is why there are so many of them.
AGS would either have to take away those qualities or also give those qualities to certain melee weapons for things to change.
If it wasn’t OP, nobody would use it, simple as that! But it’s not the case atm.
If it were so op, these weapons would win on all game modes, but it is not the case.
So dying with 5 bows is not tolerable but dying with 2 melee with one shot each is normal?
Cognitive dissonance
I just simply think that isn’t true. If that were the case than anyone and everyone who puts on a bow set or musket set is dropping 15+ consistently which doesn’t happen. There are maybe 20-25 bows that currently drop consistent 15-20+ in OPR and probably about the same for muskets. It is always the same people that are doing this in those classes and those are generally all the war slotted musket and bows who have 2-3 alts each or more. It still takes slightly more mechanical skill to use ranged weapons in this game and not everyone is going to have that skill.
Please see my other comment for reference but someone using a specific class doesn’t always pertain to it being OP. If that were the case for muskets and bows they would all be 20+ kill dropping gigachads every OPR and most of them(90% of them probably) are not doing this. For the majority of people playing this class I would assume the reason is they either have the mindset of “If you can’t beat them then join them” without realizing that it actually takes skill to use these weapons and they end up going 2-10 but still getting their 3000 points or they do it just for that, to get easy dmg points to get the gypsum /chest.
I get 20-30 kills commonly with the bow by spamming arrows into the enemy zerg. I do not go looking for kills. I can probably aim better than the average person, but to claim that it is hard is not true. You will get kills when you randomly land 4-6k shots.
I guess we are having different experiences with the game.
please send me scoreboards of you consistently dropping 20-30 kills in OPR please.
edit: spelling and grammar
You can do it yourself. You will get kills when you randomly hit people for +4k. You don’t have to run around trying to 1vX people to get kills.
I think most people who struggle with bow/musket do not have proper gear.
The scenario you are describing is kind of a bad example though because legit anyone can drop a penshot or rain on a clump that was already going to die and rack up last hits. This is not what I would consider the mental image I get when people complain about bows and if it is then mortars or meteor shower do the same exact thing so are those OP too?
Bows have no disadvantage over a melee player. That’s my main issue. They hit as hard a GS from distance, they have a lot of mobility and their health is the same or higher than a melee player. It is objectively unfair. They either need less damage, no mobility or lower health. Currently, I don’t see how a bow would ever die to a melee player. I think muskets are the only thing a bow should ever die to in OPR.
Range and team-shooting are my biggest issues with the musket.
Anyway, go try to play melee in OPR. It is an awful experience and range has a lot to do with it. Sometimes balancing a game is about making it more fun.
I used the musket exclusively for over a year and then played melee for about 3 weeks. It made me realize how unfair the game is, and if one were to think think they are “good” with the bow or musket that person would be delusional. There is no balance in new world.
Agree and disagree. I think that. It’s completely possible to use these weapons skillfully, it’s just that the gap between what you can skillfully do with a bow and with a spear or a hatchet for example is huge. All you really need to do is copy the cookie cutter bow build, shoot into clump, and stay near other bows and muskets who will surely shoot anything near the group of you. Bow is easy to use and hard to master, but it also has so much free damage.
Musket is just easy to use and low risk period. The only skillful thing about it is ones consistency in hitting shots. There are people who are adamant that musket is a high risk weapon and I cannot understand that. Perhaps it is in arena or in a tournament where typically a ring of tents is created, but open world, war, and opr? It’s easy mode. A different game entirely.
Game is definitely not balanced in any sense.
You statpads from range, or you cc, cc, cc, cc, and burst. Or you’re a healer. It’s very boring that these are the only ways to play.
Even good bow players die to melee players all the time. The recent changes to light armor dodge reduction due to melee slow brought the skirmishing ability of bow way way down. I regularly see GS/Hatchet players in Orofena dropping 30+ kills solo and when I am playing bow there are definitely some of those players I just stay away from. Your comment on bows hitting as hard as GS is also unfounded and simply incorrect. GS heavies are hitting for about 6-8k atm while a bow heavy hitting someone with 5 resil and 150+ con will hit for about 4-5k(with light attacks hitting for far less and missing more often than not because of the hitbox realignments)
Again, you mention playing melee in OPR(which is the game mode that gets the most attention when people complain about these weapons specifically) to which I say again, it is a game mode issue more than a weapon issue because you are getting shot by 5-10 ranged players which makes it oppressive.
I main bow but I also play melee and they definitely are very different playstyles. I will say OPR as a game mode with the current map can be unfun as a traditional medium melee but that is a map and game mode issue. Those matches would be much more balanced if they figured out a way to limit the amount of ranged per side which might be something they can do in cross server.
I agree. I actually think the bow is even lower risk. When I play the musket, if I’m not paying attention I can die pretty quickly because of 5 con. However, with the bow with 150 to 200 con and a 25% haste, I can make sooo many mistakes and not die. I think it’s much easier to survive using the bow. The musket probably has a kill advantage. I can get +50 kills with the musket, but I haven’t gotten too much above 40 kills with the bow. I do not have a BiS bow or empowering explosive arrow gear, though.
I think that it’s easier to survive with bow, but at the same time as a musket you can potentially be in less danger in general.
So that’s my point.
You ever try to hit that hard with the GS? You have to run 50 to 5 con. The melee player has 7100 to 8500 health and you have like 11 to 12k health with your bow.
Ya…and running that much con as a melee is cancer.
I generally agree due to the range. I will say if I get come up on by a GS user or someone with a cc centric build though that I don’t see coming it is 50/50 whether I get out. If it is a good GS user I usually die 100% of the time if I don’t see them coming because they can burn my iframes and still cc me +the melee slow.
GS is indeed busted as fuck.
I was describing the player they were hitting not what the bow person is running