Things have been looking bad for Super Earth lately. Well, not really. The multiplayer, shoot-'em-up Helldivers 2 still has over 35,000 concurrent players, which is still respectable even if it's only 10% off its April peak. However, a group of disgruntled 'divers' have found a new way to protest a series of increasingly unpopular nerfs lately: putting down their weapons and letting bots take over the damn planet.
“If Super Earth wanted to stay safe, they would stop weakening our weapons,” he says on the subreddit, in response to a post titled “Let the bots advance. Let Super Earth burn.” It's apparently picked up some steam in the actual game as well. According to Gamesradar, as of earlier this week, there were only around a thousand players trying to stop the bots from getting dangerously close to the home planet.
Whether or not this is all overblown for the sake of a dramatic story, Arrowhead itself has taken note of player concerns about nerfs. Yesterday, game director Mikael Eriksson responded directly to player feedback regarding the controversial 'Rise of Freedom' update, outlining a plan for the next 60 days.
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“In short, we fell short with the last update. We didn't get some things right – and other more fundamental inconsistencies in our approach to game balance and game management,” reads the post, spotted by PushSquare. “All of this is our responsibility, and we will own it. As many of you have noted, and we agree, action is what's most important right now. Not talk.”
Arrowhead promises that action will take the form of the following bulleted agenda. Is there a joke about how bullets can no longer even earn points due to nerfs? Probably. That would be stupid, so I'm going to imply that I think it's stupid while making basically the same joke. In the business world, this is called “eating your cake and stuffing it in your mouth.” Here's Arrowhead's plan for the next 60 days:
- Continue to reexamine our approach to balance. Our goal is for balance to be fun, not “balanced” for balance’s sake.
- Update how the flamethrower works with fire damage mechanics to adjust how it functions as a close-range support weapon. (A quick and direct return won't work, as it will break other things)
- Rework gameplay to prevent excessive ragdolling
- Rethink our design approach to primary weapons and create a plan to make combat more engaging
- Re-prioritize bug fixes so that you prioritize bugs that impact gameplay more.
- Improve game performance (frame rate is the focus)
- Reprocessing Chargers
Also, from a broader perspective:
- We are exploring creating an optional beta testing environment to improve our testing processes and see this as a high priority.
- Regularly publish player surveys to gather more information and feedback from the community.
- Improve our process for patch/release notes – better explain the context and reasoning behind changes.
- Here are more blog posts and posts where we cover these topics in more detail for those interested.
The flamethrower element seems to be a sore spot for the community here – it's where most of the chaos is centered, especially since it's now much less effective against Chargers. I can see the problem here. Chargers, especially in large numbers on higher difficulties, can quickly throw the game into chaos if not addressed quickly. It's also understandable that both the community and Arrowhead themselves are feeling a bit of fatigue over balance issues. Back in May, former CEO-turned-creative Director Johan Pilestedt said that he felt Arrowhead had “gone too far” in some areas. “I'll be talking to the team about the approach to balance. I feel like by the time someone finds something fun, the fun is gone.” Helldivers 2 could be a great time, so I hope it manages to find a balance that everyone is happy with.