After two weeks of not having to deal with Muskets, it seems abundantly clear to the vast majority of the player base that Muskets in their current incarnation do not have a place in New World’s weapon pantheon, and it would be more enjoyable for everyone and healthy for the game if it were disabled indefinitely until it can be redesigned.
The reasons why are pretty straightforward:
1 ) Non-interactive
The Musket in its current form is totally non-interactive. It punishes both the Musket player and his opponents for wanting to actually fight each other in a way that exposes both players to risk.
The Musket player wants to be far enough away that no weapon can match his accuracy of fire, often atop a obstacle like a rock or a wall and protected by multiple players between him and his targets. In its typical use, unlike virtually all other weapons, there is no real counterplay to a Musket from a non-Musket player except to hide. The fact that Muskets routinely run 50 or less CON is a testament to this fact.
2 ) Difficult to balance
Musket is totally unused in PVE. And its only use in PVP is to abuse its hitscan properties to oppress other players from a position of impunity. Perks like Mortal Empowerment, which are otherwise balanced by the risks one must take to get kills, allow a Musket to quickly gain unsurmountable advantages. It is not rare at all to see a Musket with dozens more kills than the next non-Musket player in an OPR, all without a single death.
3 ) Cheating
Cheating is rampant in New World right now. EAC has proven inadequate for stopping third-party software, and the Musket is a weapon that is uniquely exploitable by these cheaters. Just on my server alone, two Musket players have been revealed to be using aimbot in the past month or so. Both have definitely been repeatedly reported for cheating in the past. That no action has been taken against them severely undermines player confidence in the developer overall.
4 ) Barrier to entry
A lot of people on social media often dismiss complaints about the Musket as “cope” and how only newer or weaker players whine about it. But that in and of itself is a huge problem. Musket players target and repeatedly kill the newest and/or weakest players on the enemy team to build their Mortal Empowerment stacks, and once they are fully stacked, there’s not much even the more experienced players can do about it.
Focusing specifically on the newbies, there’s pretty much no way to learn and improve against a Musket except to avoid getting shot at in the first place. There’s only so much abuse that someone can take before they just decide to stop playing game modes like OPR all together. That means longer queues and less PVP activity in general.