So I am beginning to see more of where this game is headed. The problem with weapons was people hot-swapping/double-gunning while hipfiring. The fix was to simply debounce (put a timer) on switching weapons. Instead we got a total combat revamp that went much farther than was necessary.
HIPFIRE CHANGES
The pistol and rifle are barely viable at more than 10-feet. The rifle is absolutely not reliable even within ringing distance of the lower bell on the sloop. Stand there within literal touching distance, and try and hit it with only hipfire with every shot. I am pretty sure that with an actual rifle, laying a barrel onto a target and pulling the trigger would land you a hit.
The pistol loses a lot of it's effectiveness between 10 and 15 feet while hipfiring. Again, same thing... stand at the front of the sloop and try and hipfire the bell (or the mast for that matter). You will hit a few shots, but they are so wildly unpredictable now.
SWORDPLAY
I don't know what the deal with swordplay is, but I boarded a guy that was chasing me while I was solo slooping earlier two separate times and both times I got hit with a sword (not lunging) and was knocked 20 feet backwards over the back end of the sloop. At one point I accidentally switched to a gun, and it was in reload animation, and I could not sprint at all. No idea why, and I was unable to repeat that testing... so that may have just been a fluke. The thing about the knock-back is this, though -- I was hitting him exactly as he was hitting me. Why did he not go flying?
This update, as far as combat goes, is literally punishing players for having skill. I had the skill to hit someone with the rifle and pistol at medium distance... so I am being punished for it. These changes were NOT necessary to fix "double-gunning", which frankly would not have been an issue had Rare listened to me when I submitted a ticket for it almost a year ago (several tickets, several forum posts, reddit posts...you name it, it was not an issue until a streamer did it, and every pre and teen decided to copy them). It was not "summit" that caused these changes, it was every other person that started trying to do it (99% of them can't even hit what they are shooting at).
I don't even know what was going on with being knocked off of the guy's boat during a me lee encounter, but it seemed pretty ridiculous both times it occurred.
I am not even sure what the purpose of most of these combat changes were but they really feel unnecessary and punishing. "Double-gunning" sure...get rid of it...but you basically just saw a cockroach in the kitchen and blew the house up to get rid of it.