The notion of firearms having wildly varying damage depending on YB was so unrealistic I'm having trouble caring about my character anymore. The whole point of early firearms (and crossbows) was that they did their full damage after a recruit received a few minutes of training. Sword and bow OTOH take a lifetime to learn. Without that change, we'd still be living in feudal societies instead of republics defended by citizen soldiers.
Hand a child a sword and put him into a duel with a master fencer and he'll be ground beef. Hand a child a pistol in a duel with a Special Forces commando and it's a crapshoot who walks away. The US Army's own research on this recently confirmed the ONLY thing that mattered in pistol-range combat was how quickly one dove for cover. Excessive target practice with pistols was actually harmful; turns out being an expert shot made it more likely you'd die, because you were more likely to stand still and take your own shot before running.
Why even include guns if they're just more fanservice for high-level players? They were called "equalizers" for a very good reason. It's fine for high-level characters to be hard to hit, but a headshot from a firearm should be a fatal blow to anyone it does hit.
And no, I'm not mad 'cause somebody killed me. I'm way out in the boonies and have hardly even seen any other players, much less been shot at. It's just a philosophical objection, as your system is practically the opposite of how guns really work. And you've clearly put in so much work getting so many things right.
