Replying to a player on Twitter who said recent patches have made the game “unplayable,” Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt conceded that he’s not satisfied with his studio’s current balancing approach.
“Hey, yeah I think we’ve gone too far in some areas. Will talk to the team about the approach to balance,” he wrote. “It feels like every time someone finds something fun, the fun is removed.”
It does seem that whenever a primary gun feels fun to use, it’s nerfed into the ground.
They do that to keep people chasing the new primaries from the war bonds.
The cycle is pretty obvious at this point: warbond comes out, weapon is god, weapon gets nerfed, repeat.
I really have to disagree with this. Can’t think of another weapon besides the eruptor to have god status aside from the release breaker on the free starter warbond.
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I wasn’t there at the time but I remember people talking about the railgun being god status.
True but the railgun isn’t a warbond weapon. It’s a support weapon free to everyone.
Ah good point. I’ve put 150 hours into HellDivers 2, this should have been second nature to me. Although I picked up Stardew Valley to play 1.6 during the account fiasco and now I’m totally lost in that.
I remember COD Warzone being notorious for this back when I played it during COVID
Butbthere you had to fight other people using weapons that are just better and you had to grind the game to get it. If a weapon is fun in helldivers, i will use it, even tho there might be a better option. I have a blast with the crossbow and the senator, which I don’t really see people using. I think people would enjoy the game more if they would stop reading patch notes and youtubers who tell them which guns are good or bad and just get out there having fun with whatever they want.
It still is
League of Legends did this when they released new champions. New champ is overtuned for about a month, then it gets nerfed back down to baseline. Who knows how much money they got when people bought RP to get the sexy new champ and all their skins.
It’s only a matter of time before Arrowhead starts making thirst trap Pool Party Helldiver armor.
Are you saying the medic armor isn’t shady thirst trap armour? Just look at them when they’re at the mission selection table!
If this is the case why has the scorcher been so damned good forever?
You’re probably right though, I bet they’ll nerf it before too long here.
Didn’t they just nerf if? Isn’t the dominator better in every stat?
Is the Dominator the one that handles like old people fuck?
Sounds like them too.
Just do what I do and main the Autocannon. Apparently the whole team thinks that it is the perfectly balanced weapon so they won’t touch it.
People mistaken fun and trivializing.
The game is balanced around being difficult, so that you need your team and stratagems (weapons included) to beat it.
When you get a new overpowered weapon, it feels great because the game is so hard/tedious otherwise. But it is actually an overpowered weapon.
I’m pretty sure targeting a shot so splash shrapnel goes somewhere beneficial to you is not an “exploit” so much as “good tactics” in the same way that aiming for a weak spot to do extra damage is…
Agreed, but at the same time if feels wrong intuitively for that to do more damage than a direct hit. Feel like there should be a system to let the round actually penetrate a small bit before the shrapnel goes off if you hit the target in a weak spot.
Fair enough
I sort of like the changes. Who knew I would go from the liberator, to punisher, to spray and pray, to eruptor, and finally to the punisher plasma with the bugs.
I only play lvl 6 to 7.
Every time people are freaked out about a weapon being unusable and trash, i continue using them and i would never know if people weren’t crying about it. The only thing i immediately realised was the senator buff. I only play on helldivers difficulty
The slugger having stun removed killed my main build. That one was immediately noticeable to me.
Luckily I unlocked the dominator which fools the exact same role.
I gotta try the dominator, I was fucked up when the slugger lost its crazy stun
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I thought they nerfed guns specifically so there were no “meta” loadouts. They want you to pick a gun based on your playing style, not because it is a known fact that it is the “best” gun
Also, don’t touch my dominator.
I’d prefer they not attempt to balance things so much as change aspects of interactions with the environment and even enemies that force us to reconsider and utilize weapons and tactics we normally wouldn’t.
Then again I’m only level 17. So honestly, what do I know.
You’re not even wrong tho. It is a co-op game. There’s no need for “balance”. All they need is to have a reason to consider bringing something other than a single standard loadout.
At the end of the day, the type of player who cares will find the single mathematically best loadout and will just use that, even if they nerf everything into the ground.
What they should focus on is making sure all loadouts have their uses. And perhaps work on matchmaking so the kind of person who plays with randoms won’t get kicked from games for not using The Meta; ideally by matching those non-meta-kickers together so the normal people can have fun.
If I’m being honest, and because I’m still grinding for modules and such, I tend towards the Orbital Laser and Grenade Launcher with Supply Pack. It seems to trivialize pretty much everything when used correctly.
I mean, imagine a Bug system where a hidden event is keeping tabs on common weapons used. The numbers show a large amount of explosives. Event triggers and says the Bugs have begun evolving to be faster and are spread out more, though less massive enemies appear, which would force a loadout swap to focus on agility within that sector.
I dunno, things like that.
That’d be rad.
It occurred to me that Helldivers has that kind of potential. What if the Bots and Bugs clashed in a previously unknown middle sector and we are sent into the chaos on the pretense of, “This is our chance, Helldiver! While those mechanized tyrants and grotesque arthropods are distracted with one another go down there and give them a lesson in Managed Democracy!”
Different scenarios would balance equipment on their own, with maybe micro changes needing to be made for outliers. Of course this would probably also mean magnitudes more work.
So long as we’re airing our dreams, I would kinda love if eventually the player faction realised the real problem was the Super Earth government all along and we got to fight the rest of SEAF.
No idea how the hell that would work mechanically, though.
That sort of thing is my hope for a future Campaign. With it either ending with the Super Earth’s real leaders activating some form of failsafe alien reset button or if enough players complete the game some form of significant change of power balance in the Universe.
Buuut yeah, dreams probably, unfortunately.
The game already works like this. Automatons and terminids behave extremely differently, and push for very different weapons. And in each faction some enemies will be more easily dealt with with specific weapons.
Two infamous examples are the berzerker bot and the stalker bug. Control weapons (weapons with high stagger) trivialise them. But most people don’t use these weapons, and thus those enemies are among the most hated ones by the community.
I only hate the stalker because I don’t see them coming lol
In my head I was thinking more along the line of Mutations for the Bugs and Augmentations for the Bots. It would be cool to face a variant of the Charger that can jump or fly a short distance, or a machine weaker to small arms fire due to some kinetically-based shield that grows stronger the harder the weapons hit. Based on events though. I’m not sure this is a good game for enemies like this to show up randomly, even rarely.
In its current state, HD2 has a fraction of the enemy types HD1 had. More will be coming as the story unfolds.
I don’t get it.
There is no need for balance in PVE.
Just make every primary viable to use (within a reasonable level by boosting them all), then balance the enemies off that and add new enemies and guns.
As long as you don’t get severely punished for not using meta weapons, then why does it matter? Not everything has to be perfectly balanced, especially a non-competetive game…
I fucking hate the “meta” era of online gaming we are in. Everything has to be meta. “You shouldn’t use that gun, it deals 0.3 DMG less than the others”, “that armor is bad since patch 27383727 3 minutes ago”, “how dare you play this champion that has a 2% lower win-rate”.
Fuck off, meta is something that became relevant for pro gaming. I don’t give a shit about the meta, this is bronze, it literally doesn’t matter at the skill level 99% of players are at. People just want to have something to blame when they lose: “of course you won, that weapon is OP/imba/busted”.
And it’s making its way into pve/coop too now. Every time I launch a new online game I have to learn what people want me to play so that I don’t get yelled at. How about you just let me play? So what if my build is not optimal?
I think gaming has made amazing strides, but along the way some people forgot that the main goal is to have fun.
MWO and EvE have entered the chat
What are you going on about lol? I am saying that anyone can use any gun without being literally unable to play higher difficulties because it is too bad… If something is so fucked that you will never get close to winning without using X gun, then that is literally a “meta” that you can’t win without and I am arguing against doing that?
Helldivers is literally one of the least toxic games I have ever played. Nobody gives a fuck what you use or do as long as you don’t intentionally team kill or screw the team.
I was agreeing with you but ok.
What I’m talking about is the culture of constantly balancing everything, which inevitably creates a meta that needs to be followed. In pve games like helldivers, no need to balance imo. Back when constant patches in games weren’t a thing, a strong gun was just that, a strong gun.
Also, even though I don’t play the 2nd game, from cursory readings of Reddit and Lemmy posts that reach the front page, it seems a lot of players are quite mad at some weapons being stronger than others.
You are describing balance, actually. If all weapons are viable and you’re not punished for using one instead of another, it means that they each have their niche or they’re balanced well. And the balancing target is the enemy.
It’s easier to balance in a pve game because the AI behave predictably and have known stats. Tweaking AI and enemies is a good tool for pve balance, but only as it can allow some mechanics to be viable. Tweaking enemies will do nothing to balance weapons between themselves.
There is another balancing bullet too : making the game so easy that the relative power of weapons between themselves doesn’t matter. But it cannot work with HD2 because the game is supposed to be hard.
What they mean to say is that they’ve been proven to make new weapons that are behind micro transactions are released OP and then needed right before the new batch of weapons is released.
Micro transactions? You mean the super credits you can fairly easily farm without paying a penny of real money extra?
Doesn’t seem very “locked” to me…
For real, I didn’t pay anything after the game was in my Library and have all Warbonds with enough SC to go for the next.
how do you farm super credits other than purchasing them with medals?
You generally find them in caches on the map when playing (highlighted beacons you can see from a fair distance). The super credits are automatically given to everyone when one person picks it up.
Technically, there’s a way to farm these indefinitely by essentially replaying the same map. But you can’t unlock the guns/capes/gear in each warbond without medals, which you can only get by doing missions.
Personally, I like the gameloop and how microtransactions are done enough that I don’t bother with the “farm” since credits are so easy to gain overtime. The real grind is the medals and samples which you need a team to gather efficiently.
To add to this, I didn’t buy premium pass that came with either the extra warbond unlocked or 1000 SC (can’t remember which), and I have 140 hours in the game and have unlocked every warbond with earned SC (I have almost 1700 in the bank as well). If you run 2 and 3’s you’ll farm them up pretty easily
with medals? I don’t think that’s a thing.
super credits can be purchased using real money, or you can just find them in-game. it’s always a good idea to sweep the map completely before extract.
It is a thing. you can buy super credits in war bonds
ohhhh yes that, you’re right thanks.
You play the game? You usually find credits on most maps. Not huge amounts, but it adds up. Also, every warbond comes with unlocks that give you some super credits for medals.
only adds up if you find them, which is pretty hard on higher difficulties, considering you’re in a mad rush to finish the mission, much less survive long enough to extract.
It’s trivial to find them on higher difficulties.
Edit: I suppose skill issue. Keep in mind that you needn’t extract to collect on these.
Credit grinding is only possible on high level missions, which are easier done with the unbalanced weapons. Even then on average you will extract with 5-10 credits per mission, which makes the 1000 point buy-in take ~150 missions to complete, ranging from 25-40min per mission.
So you estimate someone playing an average of 30min per mission * 150 missions = 75hrs of play time (if you’re lucky to survive and extract each mission that is).
Or someone can pay $10 and instantly have access to those clearly over powered weapons.
This is by definition a setup of micro transactions, which is weighted to put players who don’t no life the game to feel like they have to keep buying credits to get usable gear.
It doesn’t take nearly so long. I have about 100hrs of playtime and I’ve unlocked three premium warbonds without paying anything.
Each premium warbond gives you 300 SC (the free one gives a lot more), so the real number you need is 700.
Credit grinding can be done solo on any difficulty, and is pretty quick on the easiest (Trivial). No need to extract - once you pick up the credits you can leave. There are usually 20-40 SC per mission you can find. I did this for an hour or two (maybe 300SC worth?) but decided it wasn’t worth my time. The vast majority is from playing with friends.
I think in a few years there will be too many warbonds to possibly grind out as a free player, but IMO right now it’s fine.
Maybe you have the premium currency confused with samples? Samples are the upgrade materials that are a REAL grind, you need to extract with them to keep them, and they are not available from microtransactions at all.
The first one gives something like 850 and I had enough between it and missions for a warbond by the halfway point and around 20 hours, I really don’t get where they think this is that bad
You do have to play a lot, and the whole system is designed to be addictive and prey on poor impulse control. 20-30 hours per warbond/month is a lot of time to dedicate to one game.
Helldivers 2 has all the bones of a game built to exploit you, it just isn’t that bad compared to some other games.
The entire warbond system was built on the precipice of a very slipery slope but I think they haven’t quite lost their footing yet. Warbonds could have been time limited, but they opted to make them permanent. The grind could have been extraordinarily tedious, but i think SC gain is steady enough that I haven’t felt the pressure to buy into it (for context, i work full time and I have the drive to play maybe 8-10 dif8 missions per week)
I get credits all the time and I rarely crack hard
The other person covered most of it, but also, I’m at about 20 hours, only level 9, have mostly done solo level 1s with some 2s and a handful of missions with friends.
I’m around halfway through the first warbond and between what you can get in it and from missions, I have about 1200 super credits, at least 600 of which I got in mission.
(Edit to add: 5 to 10 per mission? You’ll find multiple pickups of SC most missions and each one gives something like 10 so that’s nowhere near accurate)
It is absolutely farmable. I know several people who’ve unlocked multiple premium warbonds without paying a dime, under level 30 and not no-lifeing it.
On top of that, nothing in the premium warbonds are significantly better than everything in the base warbond. You could never bother touching the premium warbonds and do perfectly fine.
Plus, these are not micro transactions. They’re not pay to win, they’re not predatory expendable items to boost a mission or something like that. If anything, they’re micro DLC that you can fairly easily unlock just by playing.
I wonder if you’ve even been playing the game at this point because these are all things you’ll figure out pretty quickly if you do.
Edit to add: I see someone responded and deleted their reply but it was something about how the other warbonds only give 30 SC each. That is completely inaccurate, they each give 300, with 100 in each unlock. This is incredibly easy to verify, all you have to do is log in, open the warbonds, and look. As for the rate of acquiring them otherwise, I refer to how long I’ve played and how many SC I’ve gotten in that time of very casual play. Just logged in to check and it’s at 1160 SC, 550 of which is from warbond unlocks. So, no. It’s not particularly grindy.
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The new warbond disproves this. 1 good weapon and 2 bad ones.
They should focus less on weapon balance and more on things like grenade exploits.
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Kinda what happened to dota.
Rip octarine core with aetherlens recipe
ITT: people describing that they don’t want balance, but actually want balance.
