: It can't have been a multiplayer-only balance setting, because on normal
: difficulty there seems to be perfect parity between MP and SP weapons. If
: you attack your coop buddy, the pistol does the same damage in MP and
: campaign, and the same is true for other stuff like the AR.

: Whatever was changed, was most likely changed game-wide. But , if they had
: originally balanced the weapon for campaign play and made a last-moment
: change to modify MP balance, why does the result seem so completely
: natural for campaign? It would seem to suggest that the pistol was
: originally crazy underpowered in what was developed as the game's primary
: mode. Unless they realized that, and the change was as much about campaign
: as about multiplayer, even though it's usually assumed to be strictly the
: latter.

: Weird stuff.

The scuttlebut I've always heard was that they considered pumping up the damage to make the pistol a more effective tool against Elites. Most accounts point to it being intentional, one way or another, as opposed to a random number addition or error. But as this interview makes even clearer, the actual *method* of how they bumped up the damage and *who* did it seem very much in the air.