I really appreciate your mature, level headed take. In the grand scheme of things, the game is still probably sitting at an average high of 70-100 k a day, between both platforms. That is not bad at all for a AA game that's been out for 6 months, has had a bunch of growing pains, in a content lull, and more than half the world can't even buy it right now on PC. That said, the one piece I really hope the developers are considering is the need for big 'inflection points' to excite the community, and encourage returning players. Warbonds, the odd new stratagem, and the occasional unique story beat are cool, but they just aren't what is going to really encourage people to return. Most live service games have season or expansion launches to serve this purpose; Helldivers 2 probably eventually needs something like that. Perhaps releasing a giant and more expensive Warbond, multiple stratagems for free at once, and adding new enemies/ biomes at once; with some marketing behind it. I know that might be hard to do given the narrative campaign of the story, but I do feel like it'll eventually be a necessity for the commercial product of the game.
Thank you for the love and mature response! I do agree, the game could use a little more push. Perhaps a quarterly or yearly expansion that brings a bunch to the game. That would be nice.
I think the biggest problem is it's hard to make a big push when you are still struggling to stabilize the game. And I say this as a guy that loves the game, and have played almost every day. But no denying they struggle every time something new comes out.
The problem is, and I say this as a guy that loves the game. The smaller drops right blow up the game for a week or two at a time. I can't imagine how buggy it would get if they went with the larger drops you suggest. I think the biggest problem for this game is when they launched they expected about 10k a day at most. And have been trying to play catch up ever since. And I don't know that they are built to do what you suggest....at least for another 6 months while they ramp up. PS Sorry for the double post, I was trying to expand my thought. And didn't realize it was in the same thread. Lol
I've unlocked just about everything in HD2, and it still has me coming back because this is just about the most fun I have ever had with any game. Yeah, there are some technical glitches, but the good just outweighs the bad by so much that it's hard to complain. I've tried to play some other games, but nothing hits quite like Helldivers.
I think the strongest part of this game are the actual maps. Fighting bugs on Esker is so much different from Crimsica. The Bile Spewers just blend in. Feels frustrating but exhilarating at the same time.
The game is constantly improving, people seem to got a bit stuck on the nerfing thing and keep repeating the same words on every thread. They buffed most weapons and strats to where you can use everything and it's great fun with friends.
Yeah, just yesterday I saw people complaining about nerfs, when pretty much all nerfs were reverted, and things that weren't nerfed were buffed. They feel like people who started shitting on the game, and because they don't really care about the game, they didn't see that their complaints are all almost null now
@@ceballos-exe yeah it seems to be the main focus for people on social media and a lot of content creators on yt. But then when you play most people are just chill and having fun. I think the game will be fine on the long run i.e., way smaller playerbase than launch but more likeminded people who actually like this type of game.
@@darthkang_ yeah, its just a massive goalpost to expect a game to hold onto half a million players for longer than half a year, some games survive on less than 10k players daily, and no one would dare call them dead
The numbers will rise when we get new content drops, an example of a truly dying live service game is suicide squad. I mean it's considered AAA game, is about characters we all know from DC comics, and game has less players than marvel avengers (an already dead live service).
Those games are live service?🤣 I though the whole gameplay loop of suicide squad was a sunset overdrive ripoff and even then I didn’t know wtf you actually do in those games
You and others like you are delusional. Too many burns in one spot with Helldivers 2 it's a waste of effort expecting the devs at arrowhead or sony to actually care about the game
@@ariandilfanian959I've found level 3 is the best for looting, if you don't need samples. All buddy bunkers and other POIs have credits , medals, and gear.
I just bought the game last week and although I felt like I missed out on the hype train when more players were online, I'm kind of glad I joined the fight later on. I came in with no expectations and I'm having a blast playing!
It’s better now without the login queue xD The in-game feeling is pretty much the same as before, you don’t feel a change from 500k players down to 100k at all, since you only meet up to 3 at a time.
I think the game is sitting at a great spot, with devs tackling a different (more fun) approach to balancing as well as taking their time squashing bugs and developing the warbonds. I still personally play on a weekly basis, keeping this in rotation with the other games coming out SES Spear of the Constitution, logging out o7
People don’t realize most of initial players were not players for this game. They did hop in because novelty but I anticipated that the real player base would be 50k-100k at real peak.
It amazes me how people are trying to make other think HD2 is dead. It's still well and alive and it's nimbers spike every Warbond, New Strategem, and major update. Plus, if we ever do get Helldivers 2 available to the world again, it's popularity will once again spike.
When I first saw the trailer for the game, I went crazy inviting people around me, but by the end, everyone left. I won't say every decision made by AH was correct, but I'm sure they didn't try to make people hate the game. Don't give up, my fellow Helldivers. I’m still fighting for democracy, and I hope those who have already left the game can find one they like. A 479 hour playtime Helldiver form Taiwan
Reminder that this game went waaaaaay over the devs expectations at the start that server issues were the main problem. Like, they probably only expected 5-10k players and never expected it to get this big to begin with, especially with the hype going around at the time. If it’s only 5k+ players playing now, it’s still a success to them like their previous titles.
I suspect that Arrowhead prefers a smaller player base. I don't believe they have the competency to maintain with half a million eyes constantly on them
I just want them to fix the social menu which has been broken since launch. It worked for a while but broke again and has stayed that way. I don't care if they're a small studio, the lack of urgency to fix this important feature is unacceptable.
@@the_backburner when they took the range off the arc thrower I was bummed. It's so slow you can't use it well in close range. The Blitzer has basically made it pointless. Before I would use it to cover my team's six while we moved.
Sure it doesn’t have as much players at launch (that would be extremely impressive) but the average is probably around 80k-100k players at a time which still puts it on the top 10 list of most played games right now, so I would say it’s far away from being that but still good video
that was a month back dude...... nowadays the steam part of the game is lucky to break 50k players on peak days with the total players from both steam and playstation on peak hours being something like 53k-70k from what I seen (still pretty impressive granted but I do have some fears on how long even those numbers would last)
Never really died imo. Just kind of settled into the intended player base count. If the Devs expected over a million they totally would’ve pushed out way more updates way faster.
on an individual level, i think the game is still great and super enjoyable, hell i just brought in another 3 friends on board and we are having a blast. But I can't shake the fact that i do worry for the game's future. The whole banning in countries thing also bugs me and i would guess thats probably where a major portion of the playerbase was lost
Helldivers 2 will be just fine... Helldivers 1 survived since 2015 with a 3-digit playercount, sometimes 4. Gamers have a tendency to see a lower playercount as a "DOOMED STATE" for a game, which is extremely confusing to me since it is always the same kind of people that play Trash Games that they criticize so much for ruining the "game industry". :I Yes, the gaming industry is ruined... long live Indie Gaming.
I want Illuminate more than I want them devoting time to creating the infrastructure they'd need to sell the game in an unlisted country. This subject is a dead horse.
Even after I unlocked and completed everything I still play. The game is super fun. It has its ups and downs but overall it is a blast to play. That said I’m gonna take a break and play other games like RiftBreakers new dlc, Elden Ring, and Dawntrail. ZZZ comes out tomorrow as well as 1st Descendent and when September rolls around 40k Space Marines. Ton of games out there and I know that HD2 will always be there.
"Is helldivers still good in 2024?" I've seen a couple of channels use that title. Yes it's fun, don't burn yourself out though. Its got content coming.
I was playing it daily, have a few hundred hours logged, but now I'll rarely play a single mission. The weird weapon balance choices, the consistent bugs/glitches and especially the patrols patch ruined the game for me, and the fixes/revert hasn't restored faith back in AH. Another big part is the community constantly fighting. Not just bugs vs bots, but the casual vs invested playerbases. Imo as the player count dwindles, it seems more apparent that the divide between those 2 groups is growing, which will make the game harder to win as the 'Super Earth' faction. I've seen no progress outside of MO planets for the last month or so, on either side. It was a fun few months post launch but I don't see myself playing it as I used to, all of my friends stopped playing long ago anyway. Just my 2 cents
I think some people tried to turn this game into a grind. I don't think that HD2 is one of those games. It's very generous with its resources, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Not having to spends weeks slaving away just to get 1 thing. Yeah sure there are some things that do take a fair bit of time to get but compared to other games, it's not a massive time sink. I think thats something to be appreciated
Before even watching the video im just gonna say season 1 hasnt even started yet, the devs are in it for the long haul and the game is just getting started. Now im gonna watch
I think the main issues are the problems in the discord with the community managers, and if you're a solo player, and there are more of us than you think, the game still seems a lot harder than it was a few months back, and not necessarily in a good way. That said, I'm still playing and having fun. Putting super samples ln difficulty six really helped.
Funny you mentions Palworld because this game also received critics about how Palworld lost almost all its players....About 3 or 4 weeks after the game release when every D1 players pretty much did everything the game had to offer. HD2 despite Sony, despite its flaw will not die anytime soon. A drop in players is expected and when we have discount on games of the same genre kinda like Deep Rock Galactic, people are going to just try a bit of everything and come back to HD2 when there is content.
Usually im hooked on pvp comp games like csgo, no pve game has held me at all since borderlands 2 but this game is 100% the type of game that will have seasons and special events. Making meridia a black hole was just the start of whats to come
As a casual games i love this game. I cant play everyday or usually more than 3 or 4 matches when i do. But this is the best thing ive played since friday the 13th. I have noticed team killing is on the rise in the lower levels but i think that will change when school starts again.
Man I didn't know it was already August, because that would be 6 months. Also that 450,000 players with literally a week or two. That was never the consistent number. It was more around 100 to 150,000. Yeah it's down from that but not quite as dramatic as people are making it out to me
I think the game will rise like cyberpunk once every issue is fixed and it gets more hype when it happens and also i dont play much because the game is not on my main pc that i play from
I am getting genuinely annoyed at people defending bad companies and bad decisions. I have taken a few months break only to find the game in a worse state than when I left. Helldivers 2 is cooked because the balance the game like it’s a pvp game
B-but they're just a tiny indie studio 🥺 the funny Twitter guy posts memes and is just like me fr so they clearly have the players' best interests in mind 🥺
As a dad with only a few hours a week to play its not like i have many choices for a fun, quick, engaging game with so much novelty. I tend to hit long strides in a game it was no mans sky, then borderlands 3, then deep rock galactic, then battlefield 2042, and now im playing this. And i think most games i choose like this give me about 100 or so hours before i get tired of the novelty. I might come back for patches and what not. But its such a long spread so I'm not running the game ragged.
Thanks for the honest review. I've been debating to get into it. The only thing, I think, that's keeping me from it is thinking if it will be worth it since I'll be solo-queue. None of my gaming friends are into the idea of it, or any PvE game like this unfortunately, so I'll be into it solo. I was really enjoying Outriders when that was on GamePass, and I did have a friend play with me on that. But again on Gamepass. When it went where we'd have to buy it we just kind of moved on despite really enjoying it. I'd hate to buy this one and have something similar happen until I got at least a good 40 hours of fun out of it. That's my metric, about a 1$ an hour for a game. Anything over that is gravy and makes the game feel worth it. Anything less and it feels like a waste of money.
Don't worry about the WH 40k lore, man, it'll come to you the more you get into it (and nobody understands all of it anyway). Isyander & Koda, Bricky and Majorkill are great lore sources. There are others but they escape me
The devs break the game every single update they kept nerfing player favorite weapons and all the good strong weapons instead of making the useless fodder weapons stronger for higher difficulties. There's still tons of day one bugs glitches disconnecting and crashing issues even me on PS5 the latest jungle biome heavily drops my FPS during big horde fights and fucks me over. Arc weapons misfiring there's still a dozen day one issues and bugs that haven't been fixed and there's a dozen more issues that the devs don't even know about players experience and post every day on the Reddit and Discord about. Its just too much rn. Some people may not be having technical issues with the game but for those of us that do it's really bad
And yes ive seen too many people say things take to long or everything is repetitive. Its like they've never played a game for hours on end. Just take a break.
It was literally just the constant nerf buff nerf buff for a PVE game, nothing short of devs just shooting their own foot and then the PSN thing was nail in the coffin, fun for like a week, a true shame
I got really annoyed when the old game moderator was acting like a sweaty try hard. This game felt very fun and balanced at launch to me, it was as fun as earning the ac 130 kill streak in a call of duty lobby. Then they gave us a bunch of unobtainable major orders and broke all the weapons and enemies. It became very sweaty at only level 7 difficulty and there just wasn’t much incentive to try different weapons for fun anymore. Even tho I know things have changed for the better and I haven’t had a chance to try it out, I still have a bad taste in my mouth especially after the whole Sony controversy and the woke censorship going on in the discord server.
They just need to update it more. And get rid of the country restrictions. Also, maybe some point add it to xbox. My fellow ODST and Halo friends are craving it, I'm lucky because I have both xbox and PS.
Well said sir! Most of my friend group has moved on to other games, but I’m holding out hope that they’ll come back once the Illuminate show up, cause we’ve all had so much fun in this game!
All the Dev team has to do is produce some thing that will allow them time to create more content. Such as something like raids or more variety of missions, or more voice lines. A briefing screen with a monologue. Instead, they want to drop mediocre weapon packs, knowing that eventually all the weapons Will be constantly changed throughout with the additions of new weapons, which is honestly annoying. And not only that the player base is already toxic, thanks to the worst of the community being on discord where there’s furry nsfw moderators, and unnecessarily, aggressive players on Reddit. It’s not dead but it’s not doing well
Players wanted to win or lose first war and take a break, but devs didn't give them this opportunity. Yes there is no illuminates - make first war simpler one! When automatons were eradicated it must have been that way till the end of war. And then bugs should be wiped too. Then - "Good job Helldiver we made it"! This cycle works in first game. And then new war starts. This let players hop off the project and take a break.
Great game. I do think who’s in charge of weapon balancing needs to have some sense slapped into them. They’re argument is they want you to relay on stratagems over your weapon but in solo play you just can do that
@@Lem_Nade_Music agreed last patch with all the strat changes was solid. Tho some things like the rocket pods still need a buff imo. Hoping next patch will be even better 🙏
@@Lem_Nade_Music S tier for bots, C tier for bugs. Can’t 1 shot even normal chargers unless your are lucky enough to land a headshot. Takes 3-4 to kill a bile titan. If it was able to consistently 1 shot chargers it would be great. Until then 500kg, orbital precision, and orbital rail cannon just do its job better.
Does this game kick the entire team out for anyone else, then your just left on your own surrounded with no lives? Happens like 2 out of 5 games for me?
10/10 positive take. HD2 is in a good place. Enough to sustain while they tool up content every couple of months. Maybe they hit the jackpot again downstream. No pot o gold lasts forever.
I think the weapons are as good as they can be. With 4 man squad, the game is relatively easy once you realize you shouldn't aim to take every fight thats available on difficulty 9. If the weapons were more powerful less people would play with squads. Everyone talks about the weapons power but never once say "hey...i need to get better at this game if i want to play on 9."
Taking a break is a good idea, and as you stated so many players are locked out of it. Some say the content is too slow in coming into the game. I agree but playing devils advocate here aren't those leaking things from the game files a problem too? I hate the leaks. Stuff gets delayed cos of that I have no doubt. What can be done?
I’m getting bored because there’s no new content. I’m double the level I was when I unlocked everything. Which says a lot about how fun the gameplay is. But they need to bring out some new features in-terms of unlocking new skills, items or whatever, to get most people back in. And that may be unrealistic. I don’t know.
And this is news? lol. Helldivers at it's very core was nothing more than a fad (like Palworld) that all the sheep in the gaming community (players and online personalities like yourself alike) jumped on. Called it at launch and never even bothered to play it myself. I could see this coming from a mile a way...
I keep playing regularly cuz b the game just feels amazing. i play Isonzo with my buds and it has the same 200 players cycling every other night. 100,000 is pretty raf
Personally I’m happy these toxic ahh players are outing themselves with puke emojis and clown emojis, they are the same people you don’t want to be in a team with.
Helldivers is good, but i cant play the game religiously, as of right now, at least for me, hot fixes, buffs and new skins arent enough to get me back into it, mainly due to repetitive missions
I like the team reload mechanic but i feel you need to be able to reload them from their own back pack. Its kinda dumb you cant. Is there ever a point you would not want a faster reload?
I mean obviously it is not dead. But the momentum died. The impact died. And most importantly: it died in the eyes of the media. Meaning, no coverage, no memes, it simply is no longer part of the discourse. Which could be a blessing, because Sony won't fuck with it anymore. (or they fuck with it anyways, because they got little to loose now) But it is also a curse, because there won't be any funding for a Game, that nobody is playing anymore. Ofcourse 35k concurrent players isn't nobody, but it simply is not enough for anybody to care. I hope in the future AH wisens up and does not partner with a publisher, because the sony deal fucked them hard. (as far as I know they are still independent)
Spot on. The hype around this game in the first month was like something I'd never seen before or since, and Arrowhead fumbled it so bad. After the first big round of nerfs and the disapproval that followed I knew that Arrowhead had no idea how to handle this game. It's a shame, really, because there was so much potential and it just... fizzled out.
Developers haven't done a single thing but Warbonds and a few new strategems plus Sony's greed Yeah, there is a lot of good reasons of why this thing is dead asf
well you have to think about whether this is or is not a "live service" game... it was my understanding that it was. In reality, its more like a Left 4 Dead game AND - if you compare it to something like destiny, ($100/year)... then the $10/month battlepasses that introduce new guns and armor, is really not good value
I'm probably going to play until I unlock everything which will probably be in a month or so but year I'll come back every month because they said they are going to sell a warbond per month
"I play the game with my buddies" My friend that didn't make it to purchase the game after region block: 💀 Sadge we can't play this game together. Probably one of my reason I quit.
Im just tired of waiting for better cosmetic options. Still can't change the colour of our armors, capes, guns, mechs. Vehicles havent been added in despite being playable via a mod for a couple days when they were leaked months ago. So many bugs that are known but not fixed. I still get kicked from missions at random without having said a word. Armor passives are still boring. Boosters are still somewhat boring. Most weapons are extremely lackluster and nerfed into the ground. Hasnt been any major content drops and its been out for half a year. I was very enamoured by this game on release and couldnt even play it. Honestly, the developers are really dropping the ball imo. Lets not forget the god awful mission modifiers increasing cooldown of stratagems and REDUCING the slots by 1 which is enough to make me just close my game. Last patch is 1 bug fix and 20 lines of known bugs
I guess the people who didn't like that, Helldivers 2 getting popular are taking advantage of this situation. The fact that the game is blocked from over 100 countries is being ignored by them and only showing the bad things is the definition of "Cherry picking"
Sony does this to every other game. There are also many region locked games on xbox. This is not a Helldivers issue and you not wanting to see this and/or connecting this issue solely to helldivers is even more cherry picking.
a good game that killed by Sony and its community managers... even they changed the CM, but its seem the main problem is the Arrowhead company as a whole... don't let ppl comment which very dictatorships
I’ve stop playing cause my ps5 keeps on overheating. Spreading manage democracy is putting a toll on my system. Currently getting it fixed I pick it up 2maro. It’s been about 2 weeks. Yeah it sucked