At any time when Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead releases an enormous steadiness replace for the PC and PlayStation 5 co-op shooter, the neighborhood debates the numerous nerfs and buffs because it will get to grips with the evolving meta. After this week’s launch of patch 01.000.300, which tweaked a protracted listing of weapons, stratagems, and enemies, the debate was particularly vociferous.
A change to the beloved Quasar Cannon is however one which has led to claims that Arrowhead has nerfed enjoyable out of Helldivers 2. The sport’s Discord and subreddit are particularly spicy as Arrowhead neighborhood managers tackle concern about nerfs whilst they level out that in actuality, the patch made vital buffs to a lot of key weapons. The Adjudicator, for instance, has loved a significant buff, as has the Punisher Plasma, and the Counter Sniper. The common Guard Canine and the Railgun additionally bought some love. Different weapons have been rebalanced with a mix of buffs and nerfs.
As the row over Helldivers 2’s obvious nerfs continues, Arrowhead has addressed one other facet of the patch that has drawn controversy: patrols for solo gamers.
In the patch notes launched this week, Arrowhead mentioned patrol spawning was elevated when there are fewer than 4 gamers. The less the gamers the larger the change. For four-player missions there is no such thing as a change in comparison with earlier than. However “the largest noticeable change might be for solo gamers at increased difficulties.”
Primarily, Helldivers 2 is now more durable for groups of three gamers and much less, and a lot more durable for solo gamers. Helldivers 2 is designed to be performed co-op, ideally in squads of 4, however after all generally that’s not potential, and certainly there are many gamers preferring to play solo, difficult themselves to finish missions on their very own and on the hardest difficulties though Helldivers 2 could be extremely troublesome performed this manner.
Following the launch of the patch, Arrowhead released a statement attributed to design director Niklas Broström, who defined that this modification was about righting a previous mistake.
“We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns in order that they did not spawn as typically as they need to have when lower than 4 gamers,” Broström mentioned. “The intention is that one participant has 1/4th of the patrols in comparison with 4 gamers, but it surely was that they’d 1/sixth.
“Scaling of patrol spawns was exponential earlier than, and that felt good on 4 participant lobbies however a bit too empty when enjoying with fewer gamers, particularly when enjoying solo. So now we made the scaling of patrols to be linear, which implies should you play solo you’re going to get 25% of the patrols in comparison with a four-player foyer as an alternative of getting about 17% of the patrols. There may be nonetheless a cap of patrols that may spawn at the identical time so throughout conditions once we spawn quite a lot of patrols, comparable to extractions, even solo gamers will not discover the distinction. The change is made to make the world really feel much less empty for one and two-player lobbies, particularly on excessive issue missions which was additionally barely too straightforward for solo gamers in comparison with our intentions.
“Hope this clarifies the change for everybody – we’re not making the recreation arbitrarily tougher!”
So, it seems, Helldivers 2 was unintentionally too straightforward for solo gamers, and now it’s at the issue Arrowhead at all times meant.
The patch response doesn’t finish there. There’s additionally a debate a couple of vital change to ricochet: “Photographs that ricochet from heavy armored enemies will now correctly hit the Helldiver who fired them. Set off self-discipline is extremely beneficial.”
After the patch:
The New Ricochet System Sucks🔗Eys-Beowulf | #Helldivers2 pic.twitter.com/RPO0hJcN8t
— Helldivers 2 Media (@Helldiversmedia) April 30, 2024
Players at the moment are reporting getting killed more often by shots that ricochet, however there’s confusion about simply how a lot of a difficulty that is. Clips are doing the rounds on social media that seem to point out gamers struggling embarrassing deaths at the fingers of their very own ricocheting projectiles, (*2*). The prevailing principle is that the patch has made it so the participant now takes injury from their very own bullets and shrapnel when ricochet happens, in comparison with the pre-patch scenario the place they have been immune.
When you’re trying for extra on Helldivers 2, take a look at IGN’s characteristic on the Let Me Solo Her of Helldivers 2, a participant who has answered over 100 SOS Beacons as a part of a mission to assist others.
Helldivers 2 has develop into one among the shock hits of 2024 since launching in February, topping the charts on Steam and reportedly selling around three million copies. In accordance with at the least one analyst, it is nonetheless rising. Try IGN’s Helldivers 2 assessment to search out out why it is happening so nicely.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You may attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.