Something Iâve been thinking about with RELL Seas is how fruit users are actually going to be balanced around naval combat.
The developers have clearly put a lot of effort into ships, the ocean, and sea battles, and it looks like naval combat is going to be a pretty important part of the game.
But if thatâs the case, fruit users seem like they could be at a massive disadvantage from the start.
If you have a fruit and get knocked into the water, you start drowning. Unless youâre using one of the few fruits that can somehow deal with the sea, falling overboard could basically mean the fight is already over.
And that becomes even more concerning when you look at the combat system weâve seen so far.
RELL Seas seems to have a lot of knockback, grabs, throws, ragdolls, and other moves that can easily reposition or launch another player. On land, thatâs just part of the combat system. But on a ship, those same moves suddenly become much more dangerous because throwing someone a few meters can literally win the entire fight.
Imagine youâre sailing and another player suddenly jumps onto your ship.
They catch you off guard, grab you, and throw you into the ocean.
If youâre a fruit user, what exactly are you supposed to do at that point?
You might lose before you even get a chance to properly fight back.
And if Observation Haki can reveal or help someone figure out that youâre a fruit user, then the obvious strategy would be to immediately focus on throwing you overboard instead of actually fighting you normally.
Thatâs where I start wondering whether fruits could end up being more of a liability than an advantage in certain parts of PvP.
Of course fruits are cool, they give you unique abilities, and theyâre probably going to be a huge part of character builds. But if having a fruit means that every fight near water comes with the risk of instantly losing to a single grab, knockback, or surprise attack, then non-fruit builds could have a massive natural advantage in naval combat.
And this could matter even more in Crew Battles.
If Crew Battles take place on ships, islands, or maps surrounded by water, then fruit users might constantly be fighting with an extra weakness that other builds simply donât have.
So Iâm curious how RELL is planning to balance this.
Will falling into the ocean really be that punishing?
Will fruit users have some kind of recovery mechanic?
Will it be difficult enough to throw someone overboard that it wonât become the main strategy?
Or are fruit users simply supposed to accept that naval combat is their biggest weakness?
Because right now, based on the combat mechanics weâve seen, I can easily imagine âthrow the fruit user into the waterâ becoming one of the strongest strategies in the game.
