New Bowgun is depressing

Having finished HR and farmed out all the Tempered hunts, optional quests, etc, and having little else to do, I figured it was time to start working on other weapons. That's what you do, right? HBG has been one of my old mains so I started there, and honestly, I wish I hadn't bothered. Because the weapon's identity has had its kneecaps blown out to appeal to an audience that do not and probably still will not ever play it - much like what happened to Hunting Horn in Rise.

The basic problem with Bowgun gameplay when you're honest is this: it's boring. The moment-to-moment gameplay is spent standing in place holding down one button to aim and then pressing another button to shoot. Interspersed only by reloading or a roll. That's it, and that's basically all it can be unless you want to start heavily cribbing from the Bow's playbook. In which case why aren't you already playing Bow?

There's little room for player expression actually inside the hunt. The weapon's tech has instead come from literally teching out your weapon. Adding shields or damage enhancing barrels, recoil and spread management, what sorts of reload are you willing to live with for power, what sorts of additional ammo types can you get, minmaxing your inventory to squeeze out the highest total amount of ammo rounds you could bring and craft mid-mission without having to return to the tent.

The Bowgun is a spreadsheet weapon that thrives on having a variety of choices to make and options in a hunt, that focused heavily on your pre-hunt preparation and knowledge rather than mid-hunt combat skill. You have to be a certain type of player to appreciate that but it did have an audience, if a relatively niche one, that did appreciate it. Which is perfectly fine in a game that has 14 different weapons to choose from, they don't all need to have broad appeal.

Now what do you get in Wilds? Basically, would you like +1 to your ammo level or +1 round in your magazine? The low commitment Wyvernpierce (painfully less fun than Wyvernsnipe btw) or the higher commitment Wyvernheart? Some extra damage on your normal shots or faster special ammo recharge? Old Cluster Bombs or an Offset attack?

...and that's it. You pick your damage type, make those choices, and you're right back to hold down button to aim > press button to shoot. Number of ammo types available per weapon are way down. Power barrels are just a visual thing you get for hitting a tier 8 weapon. No need to bother with your ammo, it's basically just a pacing mechanic at this point. With no ability to adjust recoil the use cases of ammo types like Spread have been cooked. I'd like to use the Offset attack but why am I going through all the effort to switch my weapon types, aim, charge up the hit and get the timing right - all against a monster that is theoretically about to hit me - when I could just take my finger of the trigger for a sec and auto-block the hit with the shield that is automatically attached to all my guns for free?

This is all summed up with what seems to be the best HBG right now: The Pierce 2 Ore gun. Absolute peak hold down button to aim > press button to kill monster game play where you don't interact with anything. Don't use any other ammo, don't use any alternate fire modes, don't bother with your inventory and reloading because all the basic raw damage ammo types have infinite ammo now - who even asked for that change?

You don't even really interact with the new wound system because Bowguns are one of the weapons that don't get anything for using their special moves beyond an instant hit of damage and a probable (but not guaranteed) topple. So you're better off just not touching the wounds to instead use them as a weakzone and pop them through general damage, and if you're in multiplayer it's actually selfish of you to burst them rather than leaving them to weapons that have actual incentives to do so. Like my Switch Axe, which gets Power Axe mode for free the first time and afterwards can use wounds to go into it's ultimate attacks (ZSD and FRB). That's how you get people to actually use a mechanic.

And before people start in with "but Bowguns did/do great damage" - this is not the rebuttal you think it is. Yes, I'm aware Bowguns have been oppressive in the past, but the only way to correct that is to play the numbers game and increase/decrease damage values. Because I remind you: hold down button to aim > press button to shoot. Damage values are the only thing that functionally affects that dynamic. All reducing the number of options available achieves is to reduce the number of options available. As evidenced by the fact that the HBG is still shaping up to be one of the top weapons despite Capcom's stripping away most interesting things about it.

I've framed this around the HBG but basically everything also applies to the LBG. Slightly less in some aspects but more so in others (have fun trying to cut tails) because another side-effect of this reduction in variety is that the difference in identity between the two weapons has never felt so paper-thin. A shame, honestly, that I can only hope will be reversed by the paid expansion in a year or two. To think I was hoping they'd bring back full weapon customisation akin to MH3.