Why I Don't Play My Pistol Build In Fallout 76 Anymore

A gimp is a character, character class or character ability that is underpowered in the context of the game (e.g., a close range warrior class equipping a full healing boosting armour set, despite having no healing abilities). Gimped characters lack effectiveness compared to other characters at a similar level of experience. A player may gimp a character by assigning skills and abilities that are inappropriate for the character class, or by developing the character inefficiently. However, this is not always the case, as some characters are purposely "gimped" by the game's developers in order to provide an incentive for raising their level, or, conversely, to give the player an early head-start. An example of this is Final Fantasy's Mystic Knight class, which starts out weak, but is able to become the most powerful class if brought to a very high level. Gimps may also be accidental on the part of the developer, and may require a software patch to rebalance.
Sometimes, especially in MMORPGs, gimp is used as a synonym for nerf to describe a rule modification that weakens the affected target. Unlike the connotatively neutral term nerf, gimp in this usage often implies that the rule change unfairly disadvantages the target.

A nerf is a change to a game that reduces the desirability or effectiveness of a particular game element. The term is also used as a verb for the act of making such a change. The first established use of the term was in Ultima Online, as a reference to the Nerf brand of toys whose bullets are soft and less likely to cause serious injury.

Among game developers, MMORPG designers are especially likely to nerf aspects of a game in order to maintain game balance. Occasionally a new feature (such as an item, class, or skill) may be made too powerful, too cheap, or too easily obtained to the extent that it unbalances the game system. This is sometimes due to a method of using or acquiring the object that was not considered by the developers. The frequency and scale of nerfing vary widely from game to game, but almost all massively multiplayer games have engaged in nerfing at some point.

Nerfs in various online games, including Anarchy Online, have spurred in-world protests.Since many items in virtual worlds are sold or traded among players, a nerf may have an outsized impact on the virtual economy. As players respond, the nerf may cause prices to fluctuate before settling down in a different equilibrium. This impact on the economy, along with the original impact of the nerf, can cause large player resentment for even a small change. In particular, in the case of items or abilities which have been nerfed, players can become upset over the perceived wasted efforts in obtaining the now nerfed features. For games where avatars and items represent significant economic value, this may bring up legal issues over the lost value