Ned Cabinmorgan
Pirate Apprentice
Let's agree on one thing, and one thing that you NEED to at least consider before you contribute to this post: POTCO has never had the best weapon balance, and some people might not mind seeing that change. While there was some philosophy behind how weapons were balanced, it's not surprising that we see some of the effects of that lack of balance to this very day. I wanted to inquire the community on this one while giving my own thoughts on the matter: What's one change you would make to one or more weapon class(es)?
For me, the question would be; "What weapons are overpowered or too easy to use, and what weapons are criminally underpowered?" And for the sake of this list, I will be looking over these categories: Swords (cutlass, broadsword, sabre), Guns (blunderbuss, pistol, repeater, musket and bayonet), Voodoo Staves, Voodoo Dolls, Daggers and Throwing Knives, and Grenades.
OVERPOWERED:
Broadswords
Grenades
Blunderbusses
Pistols
MOSTLY BALANCED:
Voodoo Dolls
Throwing Knives
Sabres
Cutlasses
Repeaters
UNDERPOWERED:
Voodoo Staves
Muskets
Daggers
Now, before you comment or reply, please read my rationales for why these weapons are placed where they are, and some ideas that might be able to balance them out.
BROADSWORDS
Broadswords are the dominant sword. The reason is self-explanatory; their combos are barely slower than the Cutlass, its kit contains 3 AOE attacks that all do full damage to enemies, and it specializes in taking down mobs of enemies (a.k.a what you're mostly fighting). This is the problem; now let's try to fix it.
Balancing: Make the Broadsword only do full damage on a direct hit (make full damage register similarly to the cutlass's standard hits), and cut its damage to 50% on hits registered to the side of the player, and cut damage by 66% on hits directly behind the player. This would encourage accuracy while still letting the player take out swaths of enemies fairly quickly. It would also encourage prioritizing the most threatening enemy facing you instead of just going in guns blazing.
GRENADES
Where Broadswords are the most consistent AOE option, grenades are the best in raw damage. They have a near-ridiculous blast radius, frankly overpowered burst damage, and can work reasonably well at close distances. Even the recoil isn't too punishing. You can also speed up the normal throw animation by activating a quick long-volley, which cuts the time to throw and detonate Seige Charges by around 2 seconds if you're throwing it at standard distances.
Balancing: There's so many changes that could tone down grenades, but there are particular tweaks that could be made to tone down the power of the grenade. First: Increase the recoil. For regular grenades, have it be 500. For Seige Charges, make it 1000. This would force the player to play safely and out of the radius of their own grenades, and take heavy punishment if they try to use their grenades as discount melee attacks. Second: Increase the charge requirement to throw a Seige Charge from around 5% to 50%. This means that Long Volley needs to be charged to 50% before the charge even leaves the player's hands. This would fix the problem of the Seige Charge's one downside of a slow, sluggish throw time being able to be pretty much be negated with a very simple trick. Third: Give Seige back its penalty of a slow walking speed.
Honestly, just nerf Seige in general. That's the main reason why the Grenade is overpowered in the first place.
BLUNDERBUSSES
Ridiculous charge time, ridiculous damage, hard to do anything against, and easy to aim. It's got high burst that takes out almost every enemy in the game, a low charge time that lets you obliterate anything in your path, and pierce damage. It's almost ridiculous how good this weapon is for the downsides.
Balancing: Require a 50% charge to fire. Don't make the weapon have an aim assist. Keep the circle crosshair, but don't make it lock on like other guns. Have a small delay for firing that is telegraphed with a muzzle flash; lock the player into a position for 0.5 seconds wherein the gun glows in a very obvious way so that enemies can react. This seems appropriate for something that is so strong and so fierce with its damage, as even other weapons with similar burst damage do this (grenades). Finally, reduce the walking speed by 50% while reloading. Blunderbusses in-game are like miniature cannons; they have to be pretty heavy and hard to reload, right?
PISTOLS
Pistols are like mini Blunderbusses without many of the downsides. Compared to other guns of similar rank and damage, they're pretty strong.
Balancing: They might be fine given their mobility compared to other guns were nerfed a little, so maybe a slight 20% slow effect after firing and a 1-second delay on their reload (or a slower reload in general) would work to let enemies and players close distance while the user's damage is down.
VOODOO DOLLS
Voodoo Dolls are diverse weapons that have a risk factor to them. They can buff, heal, debuff, damage, etc., but their main strength lies in Curse and Life Drain (two attacks that are slightly overpowered).
Balancing: Toning down the duration of Curse should do the trick. Reduce the duration by 40 seconds, while keeping the damage buff the same. For Life Drain, reduce the healing from around 50% of damage dealt drained to 30%. Buff up the cost to 120 Voodoo.
THROWING KNIVES
Throwing Knives are probably the most balanced weapons in the game; not too strong, not too weak. Decent ranged option. Doesn't need too many changes, besides maybe helping it become less reliant on the abilities it provides.
SABRES
Sabres are pretty powerful swords with fast attacks that specialize in quickly ripping through heavy health pools. However, they're slightly underpowered, lagging behind cutlasses and broadswords in damage consistency. What if we gave them a special skill?
Balancing: Sabres could do less damage than other swords, but have slightly more mobility. They can use skills midair and run at about one fourth of their normal speed while performing the skills, but every skill is less effective. For example, Brawl would be activated midair or while moving, but would only stun for 1.5 seconds. Blade Storm would be able to be activated while running, but would only have 3 instances of damage instead of 5 while having the same uptime.
CUTLASSES
Cutlasses are pretty balanced as well, not having any particular skills. Middle-of-the-road combo, decent speed, etc.. One of the few things wrong with the Cutlass is that Cleave is seen as widely useless and was often skipped on in the old game.
Balancing: Increase the animation speed of Cleave to match the rhythm of the rest of the combos, or make it slightly faster for the payoff it provides.
REPEATERS
Repeaters are fairly balanced. Low damage, high firerate, and a low reload time.
Balancing: The only way I can think of to balance out Repeaters more than they already are, I would make Take Aim act differently for the weapon (having less damage but a faster charge time).
VOODOO STAVES
Voodoo Staves are almost criminally underpowered. They have sluggish charge times which lead to slow, lagging gameplay, require a full charge for every single one of their attacks, and are easily shut down.
Balancing: Balancing for this weapon might be pretty hard, but the first thing to address is the charge time for skills and how it's interrupted. Maybe cut down the required charge to 50% and ramp up damage as you get to a full charge. Buff Wither, make Banish charge faster, and make Flaming Skull charge a bit faster with a 75% charge required to fire off a skull.
MUSKETS
Muskets suffer a problem similar to voodoo staves; low mobility, long charge times, complete loss of control of your character for a time, etc.. It's pretty underpowered, especially when it gives an enemy so much time to close distance on you (other weapons that have long ranges and powerful hits don't give these same openings, and if they do, it's not to the same degree).
Balancing: Muskets should be able to move slightly while aiming, keep a slow charge time, but have a longer reload time. This lets enemies have a chance to close distance while letting the musket player keep some control of the situation.
DAGGER
The Dagger is underpowered due to its low damage, low range, and honestly pretty bad combos. Compared to other melees, it's just bad and has nothing special going for it.
Balancing: There doesn't seem to be an easy way to buff the Dagger. It's honestly just the runt of the litter for melees; it would need an entire rework of its combo system or some sort of speed boost while equipped to try and balance out its pretty bad damage and speed.
For me, the question would be; "What weapons are overpowered or too easy to use, and what weapons are criminally underpowered?" And for the sake of this list, I will be looking over these categories: Swords (cutlass, broadsword, sabre), Guns (blunderbuss, pistol, repeater, musket and bayonet), Voodoo Staves, Voodoo Dolls, Daggers and Throwing Knives, and Grenades.
OVERPOWERED:
Broadswords
Grenades
Blunderbusses
Pistols
MOSTLY BALANCED:
Voodoo Dolls
Throwing Knives
Sabres
Cutlasses
Repeaters
UNDERPOWERED:
Voodoo Staves
Muskets
Daggers
Now, before you comment or reply, please read my rationales for why these weapons are placed where they are, and some ideas that might be able to balance them out.
BROADSWORDS
Broadswords are the dominant sword. The reason is self-explanatory; their combos are barely slower than the Cutlass, its kit contains 3 AOE attacks that all do full damage to enemies, and it specializes in taking down mobs of enemies (a.k.a what you're mostly fighting). This is the problem; now let's try to fix it.
Balancing: Make the Broadsword only do full damage on a direct hit (make full damage register similarly to the cutlass's standard hits), and cut its damage to 50% on hits registered to the side of the player, and cut damage by 66% on hits directly behind the player. This would encourage accuracy while still letting the player take out swaths of enemies fairly quickly. It would also encourage prioritizing the most threatening enemy facing you instead of just going in guns blazing.
GRENADES
Where Broadswords are the most consistent AOE option, grenades are the best in raw damage. They have a near-ridiculous blast radius, frankly overpowered burst damage, and can work reasonably well at close distances. Even the recoil isn't too punishing. You can also speed up the normal throw animation by activating a quick long-volley, which cuts the time to throw and detonate Seige Charges by around 2 seconds if you're throwing it at standard distances.
Balancing: There's so many changes that could tone down grenades, but there are particular tweaks that could be made to tone down the power of the grenade. First: Increase the recoil. For regular grenades, have it be 500. For Seige Charges, make it 1000. This would force the player to play safely and out of the radius of their own grenades, and take heavy punishment if they try to use their grenades as discount melee attacks. Second: Increase the charge requirement to throw a Seige Charge from around 5% to 50%. This means that Long Volley needs to be charged to 50% before the charge even leaves the player's hands. This would fix the problem of the Seige Charge's one downside of a slow, sluggish throw time being able to be pretty much be negated with a very simple trick. Third: Give Seige back its penalty of a slow walking speed.
Honestly, just nerf Seige in general. That's the main reason why the Grenade is overpowered in the first place.
BLUNDERBUSSES
Ridiculous charge time, ridiculous damage, hard to do anything against, and easy to aim. It's got high burst that takes out almost every enemy in the game, a low charge time that lets you obliterate anything in your path, and pierce damage. It's almost ridiculous how good this weapon is for the downsides.
Balancing: Require a 50% charge to fire. Don't make the weapon have an aim assist. Keep the circle crosshair, but don't make it lock on like other guns. Have a small delay for firing that is telegraphed with a muzzle flash; lock the player into a position for 0.5 seconds wherein the gun glows in a very obvious way so that enemies can react. This seems appropriate for something that is so strong and so fierce with its damage, as even other weapons with similar burst damage do this (grenades). Finally, reduce the walking speed by 50% while reloading. Blunderbusses in-game are like miniature cannons; they have to be pretty heavy and hard to reload, right?
PISTOLS
Pistols are like mini Blunderbusses without many of the downsides. Compared to other guns of similar rank and damage, they're pretty strong.
Balancing: They might be fine given their mobility compared to other guns were nerfed a little, so maybe a slight 20% slow effect after firing and a 1-second delay on their reload (or a slower reload in general) would work to let enemies and players close distance while the user's damage is down.
VOODOO DOLLS
Voodoo Dolls are diverse weapons that have a risk factor to them. They can buff, heal, debuff, damage, etc., but their main strength lies in Curse and Life Drain (two attacks that are slightly overpowered).
Balancing: Toning down the duration of Curse should do the trick. Reduce the duration by 40 seconds, while keeping the damage buff the same. For Life Drain, reduce the healing from around 50% of damage dealt drained to 30%. Buff up the cost to 120 Voodoo.
THROWING KNIVES
Throwing Knives are probably the most balanced weapons in the game; not too strong, not too weak. Decent ranged option. Doesn't need too many changes, besides maybe helping it become less reliant on the abilities it provides.
SABRES
Sabres are pretty powerful swords with fast attacks that specialize in quickly ripping through heavy health pools. However, they're slightly underpowered, lagging behind cutlasses and broadswords in damage consistency. What if we gave them a special skill?
Balancing: Sabres could do less damage than other swords, but have slightly more mobility. They can use skills midair and run at about one fourth of their normal speed while performing the skills, but every skill is less effective. For example, Brawl would be activated midair or while moving, but would only stun for 1.5 seconds. Blade Storm would be able to be activated while running, but would only have 3 instances of damage instead of 5 while having the same uptime.
CUTLASSES
Cutlasses are pretty balanced as well, not having any particular skills. Middle-of-the-road combo, decent speed, etc.. One of the few things wrong with the Cutlass is that Cleave is seen as widely useless and was often skipped on in the old game.
Balancing: Increase the animation speed of Cleave to match the rhythm of the rest of the combos, or make it slightly faster for the payoff it provides.
REPEATERS
Repeaters are fairly balanced. Low damage, high firerate, and a low reload time.
Balancing: The only way I can think of to balance out Repeaters more than they already are, I would make Take Aim act differently for the weapon (having less damage but a faster charge time).
VOODOO STAVES
Voodoo Staves are almost criminally underpowered. They have sluggish charge times which lead to slow, lagging gameplay, require a full charge for every single one of their attacks, and are easily shut down.
Balancing: Balancing for this weapon might be pretty hard, but the first thing to address is the charge time for skills and how it's interrupted. Maybe cut down the required charge to 50% and ramp up damage as you get to a full charge. Buff Wither, make Banish charge faster, and make Flaming Skull charge a bit faster with a 75% charge required to fire off a skull.
MUSKETS
Muskets suffer a problem similar to voodoo staves; low mobility, long charge times, complete loss of control of your character for a time, etc.. It's pretty underpowered, especially when it gives an enemy so much time to close distance on you (other weapons that have long ranges and powerful hits don't give these same openings, and if they do, it's not to the same degree).
Balancing: Muskets should be able to move slightly while aiming, keep a slow charge time, but have a longer reload time. This lets enemies have a chance to close distance while letting the musket player keep some control of the situation.
DAGGER
The Dagger is underpowered due to its low damage, low range, and honestly pretty bad combos. Compared to other melees, it's just bad and has nothing special going for it.
Balancing: There doesn't seem to be an easy way to buff the Dagger. It's honestly just the runt of the litter for melees; it would need an entire rework of its combo system or some sort of speed boost while equipped to try and balance out its pretty bad damage and speed.
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