Destiny veterans will know this story all too well: a weapon is found to be extremely good, with a lower time to kill or a unique perk that makes it truly special. Fans grind for said "Awesome Gun" and start using it en masse. Players have fun with the gun, but they also complain every time they are killed by it. Bungie puts out a patch that nerfs the weapon because "too many people are using it," or it's "too powerful," and "Awesome Gun" is no longer awesome.

That story was all too common throughout Destiny's past, with the most top-tier weapons over the original game's three-year lifespan continuously getting nerfed in the interest of balance. But with Destiny 2's newest "Go Fast Update," as it's being called, Bungie says it is taking a completely different approach:

"We went back to the board and looked at everything and said, 'Hey, here are a couple weapons we feel like are in a really good spot.' And by 'really good spot,' they're kind of hot. They're probably too hot for D2. In D1, people would have said (probably correctly), that means we would nerf those things. They're nails that are sticking up out of the board, and we would have hammered them in to be even with the board. For this update, we did the opposite. We said ‘These things are kind of hot. Let’s bring everything else to them.’ So we started raising each thing up whether it be in PvE or PvP."

In a video teasing the update, which launches tomorrow, Sandbox Design Lead Josh Hamrick says that Update 1.1.4 looks to make players feel more powerful with faster movement, stronger weapons, faster ability charge rates, more frequent Power ammo in the Crucible, and more.

While it will be up to the remaining player base to decide how radically these changes impact Destiny 2, this is definitely a completely different strategy than Bungie has employed in the past. The last time something similar happened was at the very end of Destiny 1's life when the Age of Triumph threw the gates open wide in many ways.

Hamrick went onto say that this update is definitely a step towards Bungie listening to players and acting on their feedback in ways that they want, calling it "a motion towards what we all believe is the right direction.”

Update 1.1.4 is now live.

Destiny 2 and its Curse of Osiris expansion are available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Source: Bungie