While I like where your head is at, I think it's the lighter armored guys who're mainly angry with crossbows.
Hmmm...if so then: drop all crossbow damage by 2 and increase regular pierce bolts and steel bolts damage +2 to compensate. Now create new cut bolts with +1 cut damage which would bring all crossbow to -3 damage but only when using cut bolts. Now how to get people to use inferior bolts? Raise the cost of regular bolts to almost the price of current steel bolts then raise the cost of steel bolts too. Now comes the price of cut bolts.......very low like low enough so when they are repaired it's zero cost. Another idea which could be used in conjunction with those or even separately is just make a new crossbow which is cut damage only and is less accurate than all the other crossbows yet it is super cheap like even cheaper than hunting crossbow but maybe with the damage of regular crossbow.