HELLDIVERS™ 2 News

Arrowhead emerge with a bullet-pointed peace offering to pacify mutinous Helldivers 2 players

It’s been looking grim for Super Earth recently. I mean, not really. Multiplayer shooty Helldivers 2 is still sitting around 35,000 concurrent players, which is perfectly respectable, if only around 10% of its peak back in April. Still, a clutch of disgruntled ‘divers have recently found a novel way to protest an increasingly unpopular series of nerfs: laying down their guns and letting the bots take the damn planet.

“If Super Earth wanted to remain safe, they would stop nerfing our guns," reads one comment on the subreddit, in response to a post titled “Let the bots advance. Let the Super Earth burn.” It seems to have picked up some steam inside the actual game, too. As of earlier this week, there’s only around a thousand players actively trying to stop the bots advancing perilously close to the home planet, via Gamesradar.

Whether this is all massively overblown for the sake of a dramatic yarn or not, Arrowhead themselves have taken note of player concerns over nerfs. Yesterday, game director Mikael Eriksson unveiled a plan for the next 60 days, directly addressing player feedback over the controversial ‘Escalation of Freedom’ update.

Following the backlash that’s erupted within the Helldivers 2 community in response to the game’s recent Escalation of Freedom update, developer Arrowhead has been busy gathering feedback in various different ways. Now, the studio’s unveiled its plans to act on this feedback, which include making a number of changes within the next 60 days.

If you’re out of the loop, the inclusion of some nerfs to fire damage in the Escalation of Freedom update’s changes seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for a lot of players, with many questioning whether Arrowhead was adopting the right approach to balancing. Some have even gone as far as attempting to let the Automatons reach Super Earth in the game’s galactic war as a protest of sorts against the tweaks.

Now, via a post to the Helldivers 2 subreddit, Arrowhead has shared details of its plan to act on the feedback it’s received in response to the update. “We didn’t hit our target with the latest update,” game director Mikael Eriksson wrote in the post, “Some things we just didn’t get right - and other more fundamental inconsistencies in our approach to game balance and game direction.

With players feeling underwhelmed at some of the changes made in its massive new Escalation of Freedom update, Helldivers 2's game director has apologized to the community and acknowledged that there are "fundamental inconsistencies" in its current approach to balancing the shooter. Arrowhead has also now laid out a 60-day plan to improve the game and overhaul some of its practices.

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A message to the community from our game director

Fellow Helldivers,

I want to directly address the feedback you've raised about the Escalation of Freedom update. We’ve spent the last week listening to feedback, reflecting about the path ahead for Helldivers 2 and how we want to continue developing the game. In short, we didn’t hit our target with the latest update. Some things we just didn’t get right - and other more fundamental inconsistencies in our approach to game balance and game direction.

All of that is on us and we are going to own that. As many of you have pointed out, and we agree, what matters most now is action. Not talk.

To that end, here's what we intend to do in the upcoming updates.

Our aim within the next 60 days:

Continue to re-examine our approach to balance. Our intention is that balance should be fun, not “balanced” for the sake of balance.
Update how the fire damage mechanic works to tweak how the flamethrower serves as a close range support weapon. (A quick straight revert won’t work, as it would break other things)
Rework gameplay to prevent excessive ragdolling
Re-think our design approach to primary weapons and create a plan for making combat more engaging
Re-prioritize bug fixes so that the more immediate gameplay-impacting bugs are prioritized.
Improve game performance (frame rate is a focus)
Rework Chargers

Additionally, from a bigger picture perspective we will be:

Exploring creation of an opt-in beta-test environment to improve our testing processes and we consider this a high-priority.
Post regular player surveys to gather more insights and feedback from the community.
Improve our process for patch/release notes - providing more context and reasoning behind changes.
More blog posts and streams where we expand on these topics for those interested.
We also want to thank you for your patience. We're grateful that so many of you provided constructive feedback and suggestions on the latest update.

Mikael E
Game Director & Arrowhead Game Studios

Helldivers 2 players continue to call Arrowhead's bluff by letting the bots advance, but they're still seemingly on track in the current MO

In what’s turning into a rather remarkable protest, Helldivers 2 players are continuing to let the game’s Automatons get closer and closer to Super Earth in the game’s galactic war. It seems part of the fun folks are having at this point is trying to imagine how Arrowhead and game master J.O.E.L might react if indeed the fighting does reach the divers’ home planet.

As we reported yesterday, the inclusion of some nerfs to fire damage in the Escalation of Freedom update’s changes well and the resulting discourse as to whether Arrowhead’s going in the right direction when it comes to its tweaks is what’s triggered this rebellion o sorts from players. I say rebellion of sorts, because it looks like the community’s still on course to complete the game’s latest Major Order.

As of writing, despite the fact the bot front isn’t too far from Super Earth, with the planet Curia currently being the closest world to Super Earth that’s seemingly been all but abandoned to the automatons’ metal mitts, the current Major Order is still looking on track to succeed.