The Disastrous Downfall of Helldivers 2

With the new big Helldivers 2 Update, Escalation of Freedom, being poorly recieved by fans and even the developers, I want to examine the poor state of Helldivers 2 at the moment, what's going on to cause it to be in it, and what potential solutions could fix it.

00:00 Intro and Context
2:23 List of problems Part 1: Updates Content
7:23 Part 2: Balance
11:31 Part 3: Progression

[Blurs]

These developers went mining for silver, found gold, then decided to trade it for copper.

[wdragon]

They need to stop asking why players are picking the top pick rate weapons and start asking why players are not picking the lowest pick rate items. Its similar to survivorship bias.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

The developers accidentally made a 9/10 game and are in the process of patching it into a 5/10 game like was always intended.

[serenity]

Players: Why you nerfing almost everything? Just buff the underwhelming weapons.
Dev: Okay, we nerf this too.
Players: What?!

[lukemehalick]

Never understood why we couldn't have upgrades by ranks. Think about an army grunt compared to a navy seal. Seals have more specialized equipment and training. More tax money is spent per seal than per grunt. Level 2 cadet, you get 4 mags because you are fighting fewer enemies in less important areas. Level 127 general, heres 8 mags because you are fighting the most enemies in the most important areas. Do it by rank, do it by difficulty level. Why couldn't higher ranks have access to a flamethrower with a backpack tank and it spits something similar to napalm and does cook through armor? Would give some purpose to level up and also help balance the weapons over 10 difficulties without entirely wrecking the fun.

[trik]

The downfall of Helldivers2 is the greatest ad for Space Marine 2

[qu]

When Helldivers 2 launched back in February, it was an incredible experience. Everyone on my friends list was playing it. I played with people I hadn't talked to in years. It was amazing. I hadn't had an experience similar to this since the original Modern Warfare 2 in 2009.

Then slowly one by one, everyone began dropping off. Several people dropped out after the infamous railgun nerf, another quit after arc weapons started crashing people's games, another quit after the Slugger got gutted, and the last couple left after the Eruptor and Quasar cannon got nerfed into oblivion. I went from always having a group to play with to always having to play with randoms because I couldn't get anyone to play with me anymore. Any time I'd suggest it, they'd go check the patch notes, see more nerfs, and just play something else.

After this latest update and the developer's response to the backlash, I'm out. They clearly don't understand what made their game fun in the first place and are rigidly sticking to their 'vision', whatever the hell that even is at this point, even as their golden goose bleeds out in front of them. I guess I can't be too mad because I got 150 hours out of a game I spent $40 on. Well, I guess it's back to Warframe for my co-op shooter fix.

[Anarkin-sq]

They already killed Helldivers..
One of the most amazing games we’ve seen released in the past few years. They keep on nerfing everything, weapons and strats.
This recent nerf to the fire aspect of the game, while releasing a fire themed war bond. Basically killed the last bit of trust the community had in AH.

[xxfrostxx]

A live service population drop over time is normal, yes, but it shouldn't all happen within a 5 month period and the biggest drops shouldn't directly correspond with releases of updates and content.

[securion]

It would take one of the devs 20 minutes to give the assault rifles (and preferably also the DMRs) more penetration and damage, but instead here we are and months are ticking away and with them all the players... The devs are basically idiots.

[thomaswilson]

It went from game of the year to disappointment of the year in 3 months. That's actually impressive when you think about it, and they even had Sony cover up a good portion of it.

But space marine 2

[fconstraints]

So few of the weapons are fun or effective. I understand that there's a specific way the devs want gamers to play but if they want gamers to play at all they're going to have to seriously address the nerf issue. I can't believe it's been months since I fell off playing Helldivers 2 and the devs are still shooting themselves in the feet with this. It's the definition of insanity.

[Aweburn]

Why are devs so obsessed with nerfs. Not just AH.

[jumbosizedshield]

look at that, arrowhead snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

[silent]

Love the fact they nerf stuff when the it's a *_Non-competive PvE game_*

[heTexanRebel]

3:00 yeah man, when I hear "new enemy behemoth charger" followed up by a bunch of nerfs to the stuff I used to handle chargers... that doesn't make me want to come back.

[Walt_Chocolate]

It's kind of funny considering that the weapon nerfs could have been an event.

For example, they can announce that the enemy has hit our supply depot. If you fight back against the invasion, the weapons get unnerfed, or maybe even bonus damage or a buff for a time.

[williamturner]

It's my opinion that they failed to integrate their player-choice content with the antagonists.

Nothing properly synergizes.

Break armor on a Bile Titan? Yeah, when was the last time you saw anyone break the Titan's armor and actually kill it with non-heavypen? It's almost like even aiming for the weakspots, from broken armor or the underbelly, is useless. The underbelly weakspot being shot is arguably NOT EVEN A BENEFIT, because now it doesn't stay in one place for twice as long as it's tantrum stomp. Hulks are nifty but we're so significantly discouraged from targeting any strategic weakspots because the arms and legs are so tiny and out of the way compared to its eye or its assvent. The absolute spam of medium enemies significantly subtracts from player choice as well because you can't choose to deal with hordes, since either you're low enough difficulty that basically anythign will deal with them, even a full AT kit, or you're a high enough difficulty that the horde is all medium armor and bringing the Stalwart is basically throwing.

The AT options are poor, in my opinion. Even though breaking armor with a big weapon and then killing with a smaller weapon is ideal, and rewards synchronization and teamwork and specific choices with the kit... why the fuck would you do that when it's just as [hard / easy] to one-shot them with the same weapon that opens them up to damage?

Why is the one-shot AT the same tool as the damage enabler?

The way the AI spawns around you-- ie, anywhere you're not looking-- drastically reduces the potential for STRATEGIC play, and drastically negates the benefits of weapons whose purpose isn't aligned with CQC and eliminating large groups of enemies.

The lack of complex AI reduces the satisfaction that can be gained because it doesn't feel like you're dealing with a thinking enemy, it feels like you're dealing with one that's spawned en masse around you like an invisible admin on a Minecraft server who thought it'd be funny to use the zombie spawn egg a bunch and now you're just facing shit from every side.

The maps are procedurally generated yet all feel so samesy becaues there's no real rhyme or rhythm to them. Bug bases and bot factories are placed random and scattered. I found a radio tower inside a crater sandwiched in cliffs, where it's clearly NOT a great idea for radar towers to spawn. I'd rather have ten high quality map versions per planet than this random noise that makes me feel like I'm trying to find some meaning in a Minecraft biome lmao. I'd like areas that are clearly developed by humans that have been taken over by bugs, with empty natural space between that and what's clearly a slowly growing hive where all the smaller hives are surrounding a much larger one.

There's no depth to the gameplay. Bile Titans can't be shot in the mouth anymore, because people were getting good at that, and any interesting applications are generally removed. Railgun to break armor and then gun down the chargers was so, so good; why can't we have more of shit like that?

Maybe AT does significant damage but the heavy machine gun can break armor? Maybe staggering becomes much, much more commonplace; make the enemies stagger and fumble.

I understand many design purposes are "we are expendable" and based on that, but the enemy is even more expendable, so why does us being so expendable even matter? If the purpose is for us to be more expendable, why can't we take support stratagems that buff us as we come out of the droppod? Why can't I have heavy armor that has 400 armor to reduce incoming damage by twice the next best, but a small amount of the damage taken permanently reduces my HP, so even if I do an excellent job tanking damage and healing through it, by the end of the fight I'm basically broiled and poached inside the armor and at 25% hp maximum, basically guaranteeing that my next fight will be my last-- armor so strong the helldiver can't survive it either.

Why don't helmets just match the color scheme of the torso armor?

Why don't helmets have useful perks like better zoom on ADS, faster concussion recovery time, reduced gas damage, or even threat detect in low-visibility environments like fog and spores? Outlines enemies in red every time your radar pings, synergizing with the booster and armor that increases ping distance?

Why not add alternate firing modes to grenades launchers for airburst and "flash" rounds (flash rounds being tracers, highly visible, so that you can clearly see where they're landing and learn how to better aim, something I imagine would be useful for people being dropped en masse with shit never used prior).

Why not add alternate firing for flamethrowers for gas flame (large AoE, longer fire DoT), or gas stream (higher consumption, higher direct damage, better range and tighter beam)

Why not add alternate firing for weapons based on unlocked content? Load your Liberator's next magazine with AP rounds. Dump your shotgun shells out and load in incendiary. Let us unlock weapon "boosters"; maybe two to a weapon when selecting? Each weapon has its base features that you can add... an alternate ammo type or two, or add additional features. Let's add a scope and AP ammo module to the Liberator to swap mags in the battle to make it Liberator Penetrator, or switch back to default ammo. Or choose concussive and commando, to increase RoF and add AoE stagger.

Why not allow machineguns to have scopes? For real I can't see shit because the game's already dark, plus it's smoky and foggy and sporey, and now the reflex sight with 0 zoom is also a bit dark as well so I can't even see what I'm aiming at unless it's too close for ADS to have any purpose.


The game is just crazy shallow.

Play one match and you've played 90% of the game. Only thing to do now is unlock the guns and that's all that matters.

Ooooh 75% fire damage reduction? I mean, it's still enough damage that I'm going to HAVE to use a stim anyways, with or without fire damage reduction, and the medic armor makes it last longer with +2 stims so... you can just wade through fire for longer with medic armor than fire armor. What the fuck?

[LoneAngels]

The game right now is to engage in a fight, but like coming across a patrol 70% of the time you would rather ignore/run away from. This needs to be the opposite. I'd rather like to engage in a fight 70% of the time instead of running away

[ExSpoonman]

Helldivers 2 is a prime example of why the "Just Send It" method of software development fails. How the hell they thought it was a good idea to develop a game without a dev/test server.... Blows my mind. Swedish They ain't like us