Since the release of Star Wars Battlefront in November, one in-game weapon has seemed to dominate the competition: the DL-44.
The iconic blaster of Han Solo himself, the DL-44 packed a powerful punch, fast fire rate and was slow to overheat. It also came with every "Deluxe Edition" of the game, which means that the vast majority of players had unlocked the weapon from day one.
Finally, two months later, the DL-44's reign of terror has come to an end. Developer DICE has just released the patch notes for the first major Star Wars Battlefront update, and it will be making the DL-44 significantly less powerful.
First is the fire rate. No longer will you be able to pop off multiple powerful shots in rapid succession, as the weapon's fire rate has been changed from 250 to 180. DICE also says the weapon's "overheat" has been tweaked (whatever that means).
However, it isn't only the DL-44 that is getting some much-needed attention. One of the top Star Cards of choice in the game is the infuriatingly easy-to-use Homing Shot. The weapon is a one-hit kill rocket that locks onto other players and can seem to hit you from across the battlefield. DICE agrees, as the Homing Shot now takes triple the time to lock on, has a shorter range and a slower projectile speed.
Numerous other Star Cards and weapons are seeing some minor adjustments, but the other major change is to one of the game's most popular hero characters. We are, of course, talking about Boba Fett, whose long-range rifle can be a true weapon of mass destruction in the right hands.
DICE is knocking the bounty hunter down a few pegs by lowering his weapon damage over distance, reducing the damage of his wrist-launcher explosive and removing the wrist-launcher's ability to lock on.
For players who enjoy fighter squadron but have yet to take a flight in the Millennium Falcon or Slave 1, today's changes should better your odds. The health of the hero ships in Fighter Squadron mode have been reduced by 30 percent so that the chances of one player hogging the hero ship all game is reduced, and the hero vehicle power-up itself now has more random timing to prevent players from camping the spawn points.
Those are just a few of the big changes. In addition to the various tweaks, all players have received a free multiplayer map and new costumes for Han and Luke. You can read the full patch notes here.
