Helldivers 2 devs are tired of apologizing for nerfs, so beta tests are coming

Arrowhead’s game director addresses negative feedback

Arrowhead / Sony

The Escalation of Freedom update for Helldivers 2 definitely succeeded in escalating something – namely, the community’s grievances about Arrowhead’s approach to game balance. The patch contained a significant nerf to flamethrowers, which had been the community’s chosen weapon to deal with certain tough enemy types. Naturally, that role was basically killed off by the nerfs.

Players did not take this well at all, as it’s not been the first time Arrowhead targeted a popular weapon that was considered fun and well-balanced and essentially nerfed it out of existence. There is seemingly a large gap between the vision the developer and the players have for the balancing of Helldivers 2: Arrowhead wants players to struggle at higher difficulties, while the players simply want to live out a power fantasy – and those desires are at odds with each other.

Not for the first time, players reacted to the balance patch by review-bombing the game and drumming up online support for a boycott. Not for the first time, Arrowhead responded with a public apology, vowing to do things better in the future.

“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,” the game director wrote. “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,” he added.

That promised action comes in the form of a 60-day plan, which contains a crucial admission: “Our intention is that balance should be fun, not ‘balanced’ for the sake of balance.” That sounds a lot more like the balance approach players wanted to see all along, doesn’t it?

Among the more concrete measures planned for the next two months are a rework of the fire damage mechanic to give the flamethrower back some of its power, a gameplay rework to get excessive ragdolling under control, rethinking the design approach to primary weapons and making them more engaging, and reworking Chargers.

To prevent future disasters like this one – and the public apologies resulting from them – the team wants to beta test balance patches ahead of them being rolled out to everyone as well as conduct regular player surveys.