What if both bolt weapons had more of their damage in the blast from the bolt rounds?
Make the blast radius/damage falloff big enough to kill 2 or 3 trash mobs when you hit your intended target, it would feel almost like a full auto grenade launcher with a very small blast radius.
This would make the clunkyness of the boltgun feel more worth it because for the short time you can shoot before reloading you would feel like you have a proper boltgun’s power.
The bolt pistol would compete with the revolver bc it has a niche being the collateral damage while hitting your primary target and accuracy would be less of an issue because of the small blast.
I have a lot of experience with the boltgun, a bit of experience with the revolver and no experience with the bolt pistol, but everyone’s opinion seems to be the bolt pistol is at best a sidegrade or its worse than the revolver.
I feel like the bolt weapons don’t have the impact in combat that you would expect from the lore, but I understand that game balance vs lore balance is a tricky thing to figure out.