I noticed there’s a few weapons that are kinda meh, takes a few hits to kill a normal zombie which is a little annoying as a dropped weapon, However instead of buffing those weapons why not make them a starting secondary weapon?
Obviously upgrades would help too so it could start small and get better, for example:
Knife > Nightstick > Baseball Bat > Axe
I wouldn’t mind having the second slot dedicated to melee weapons, since I usually have a gun in one slot and a melee in the other. There’s pretty much no time I would ever want to carry two guns and having a dedicated slot would prevent annoying cases where I mistakenly pick up a 2nd melee weapon.
Nerfing the starter gun and adding in a melee weapon would also add a bit of a skill ceiling since you would have to switch weapons based on the range you were at, also requiring you to risk taking damage should also buff the doctor by proxy.