Here’s the rub
Bungie is planning another big update for Destiny 2, which it colloquially refers to as a sandbox patch. Update 2.2.2 is nearly ready for deployment this month, and a lot of it will deal with weapon balancing, specifically hand cannons.
Luna’s Howl and Not Forgotten have been contentious weapons since their introduction months ago, and Bungie is finally going to answer a lot of lingering questions with 2.2.2 (it typically takes them ages to alter weapons due to their emphasis on PVP). A mysterious “dev team” member takes to Bungie’s blog to explain: “After significant amounts of feedback, internal discussion, and playtesting, we’ve decided to adjust how these Hand Cannons work. For some players, these weapons can represent a significant investment of time and the personal improvement needed to acquire them. When tuning, we attempt to take into account the time commitment players make to acquire weapons and balance that against how those weapons affect the different game modes.”
The gist is that the main perk, Magnificent Howl(rapidly landing two precision shots grants a short period of bonus damage until your next kill or miss) is dubbed too strong, messing with the time to kill. Since it’s tough to earn the Luna’s Howl and Not Forgotten hand cannons for new players, a lot of folks just don’t find fighting against them fun: it’s the Thorn in Destiny 1all over again. In response, they’ll be 150 RPM hand cannons from now on, and the Howl perk will only impact body shots.
All of this will be part of theSeason of Opulence (Season 7), which is scheduled to run from June through August, and will bring a new raid to the table as well as a “new six player matchmaking activity.” We have no idea what Bungie has planned after that (another season pass of micro content drops that are spread out?), but we’ll probably learn more at E3, convenientlywhen Opulence begins.
This Week at Bungie [Bungie.net]