A Rant About the State of Helldivers 2 

I kinda wish they added mixed missions. This time it is Generator, one Egg Hive and one Flag Raising. Next time it is Kill a Bile Titan, Establish Uplink and Oil Pumps.

You know what really forced me to change my playstyle? The airburst rocket. We got that as a free stratagem....and that made me want to try out other things instead of going Eruptor Quasar Redeemer build. I wish there was a free strategem that rotated every week.

My 2 cents: Arrowhead is in survival mode while they make some smart hires. I assume the devs are drowning trying to handle an unexpected overnight success. So, they're likely in survival mode while the hiring happens and then they reassess priorities (ie patches vs warbonds vs story development).

I agree. Warbonds should come every three months, a seasonal event. Of course they would cost more SC, but you would also have more time to farm. It's a lot of content to release monthly in an adequate state, meaning original, innovative, well balanced and without so many bugs. The main offenders are the armor sets, these last 2 warbonds are basically reskins of previous ones because they all have the same passives, and the last original passive has been useless so far (electric protection).

Great synopsis regarding Warbond frequency and such high dev load to put these out every month vs. focused clean up & work on the passives. (Still haven't seen the helmet passives)

While the game has its issues, I think something people need to realize is that Arrowhead is a AA studio that’s being pressured into performing at the pace of a AAA studio. While I think they need to take a breather and figure themselves out, I’m not gonna pretend that we don’t have a good thing going.

A problem with a PSN account is that roughly a half of earth's population don't have a legal way to use it (counting by the population of banned countries). And sony do actively ban people for scheming with their location in order to use their products. And now about a half of helldivers will face problems with playing the game they've paid for

Hot take: i bougth the super citizen upgrade only to get the stratagem hero in my ship

While I'd like to feel optimistic about them pulling through and give the benefit of the doubt etc etc good will. I live in the Philippines and the game wont be available to me after the surprise deadline. You'd think they would have blocked sales to my country if this was gonna happen. Right now it feels like I was caught in a sneaky trap. "Oh well its your fault for not reading the fine print" kinda trap.

I’ve always called my dog a pooper trooper and now I get to be one

It feels like Sony found the goose that laid the golden egg, and is now proceeding to wring the poor thing for all it's worth. I have confidence that Arrowhead will do their best, but 36 weapons per year (among all the other content they have to churn out) makes me think there's going to be a lot of dead and forgotten content very quickly

I've been wearing the same armor since I started playing. It's not because of the bonus, it's because it looks awesome. The impact these armors have is virtually non-existent. Then there's the helmets which have absolutely no in-game impact, solely focusing on looks. There is so much more that they could be doing instead of making a war bond each month and Mass linkage of PSN to steam. I'll play until I'm forced to link my steam and then I'm gone

I personally think that with the primaries it’s the fluctuations of war, so that way nobody is using the same thing forever I wish they would explain it like The factories have gotten more people when they would Buff weapon should be the reason they should give us an in Game reason

Bro, you need to send this video to Sony CEO, it is so powerful that I bet that when he sees this video it will be right in the middle of the meeting. I do then imagine him closing the laptop, standing up, turning his back to the board directors as he faces the window and says "I guess the real live service are the friends we made along the way."

LOL, dude was getting wrecked at that energy station terminal. F'ing bile spewers and ninja chargers are the worst. To the point of your video, I agree. Just like the other ongoing issue that I don't think you touched on in this video, Sony is the culprit with regard to forcing updates every month and what not. I would also love to see fixes and quality over quantity. Yeah, what do I need 36 different types of primary weapons for. Variety is great, but it does seem like it's going to be overkill eventually. Edit: I see you did touch on the Sony and ongoing PSN issue at the end of the video.

biggest problem is that half of game doesnt work

the slugger nerf make no sense shoot like a sniper,nerf the stager and remove the option to destroy door but nothing for the range of it.

The arc thrower change pived me the most when they removed the quick charge glitch, that actually took skill to get it dowm consistently and it was in the game for so long that I assumed it was an intended feature of the weapon. You know charge it up to full and now that it is internal maintaining a consistent charge you don't have to charge it up as much the next times when you rapid fire it. I get that wasn't intended but you are stealing your players agency each time you take away a feature of a weapon that a player loves, makes people feel like they just shouldn't learn or try new weapons unless they work the best and like the rest of them.

Yeah, once a month with 5 new weapons is way too fast to release. It snowballs the variables in attempting the balance the game.

My guess on the changes was for balancing for the Illuminate, like a number and data based change. The Illuminate in HD1 had energy shields, staffing runs and high fire rate was very effective. Splash was as well, maybe that was the intention for the crossbow change

Is it possible that they have a stockpile of creative ideas so they aren’t having to “invent” new things for awhile? And the time right now is being spent on coding and getting those items into a somewhat usable state? Not saying it’s good or bad, just a random thought I had

Im fairly certain at some point they are going to release attatchments and modifying perks or something in warbonds instead of new weapons

“We want you to use Stratagems” oh you mean the thing that has a 4 min cool down. I mean geez you made weapons that had their own built-in trade offs and then proceeded to tell us we aren’t playing your game as intended????

The Dominator nerf was uncalled for and felt like they just hate the weapon and think it's overpowered. It started at 200 damage and horrible handling when the Slugger did 280 with crazy stagger I don't understand the logic at all especially since the Dominator doesn't get a damage boost from shoots fleshy spots, it didn't even have armor pen over the slugger at first. The 300 to 275 change was completely unnecessary and malicious, on a weapon that is so difficult to use effectively compared to its alternatives it deserves to do 400 damage.

Damn, Dr.! That's a lot of very sane and well thought out takes that align with my own love/worry position on the game and it's recent drama. Been watching your videos for a bit, but I guess I'm a full on Pooper Trooper now!

Weapon modification upgrades using samples to unlock. Example: Scopes, laser sight, mag increase, etc. Worked in the first game. More perk/buff armor bonuses (Fire resist!). Helmets also adds bonus.

Was that charger at the start having a hunter snack.

I feel like it would be way healthier to get a new warbond every two months with small patches and updates in between.

What i really hope they adress soon is the heavy armors problem. Nobody is using them, and for good reasons : they do not provide a big enough defensive upperhand compared to the speed and mobility we loose by wearing them. At the very least, all heavy armors should provide more resistance, like maybe a hidden health boost or something and nulliify or greatly reduce other effects like terminid acid, flames, flinch and so on. This way they could actually be usable as a frontline specialist playstyle that deals with all medium and small targets.

I would love for missions in an operation to affect each other. Such as "Thinning their numbers" reducing patrols on other missions in the same operation or something like that. A reason to do missions in a given operation in a particular order to generate different mission effects.

Hey DrPoopLove, I say this with love. If it falls on deaf ears or whatever. So be it. Helldivers 2 is established, it may have peaked (though Apex Legends has proven that they can re-peak years later with big updates etc.) But from here on out. Despite all the good will and things they're doing right, (and they're doing so much right, more then most actually before the revisionist historians kick in a year from now) please understand that the positivity at launch is not necessarily coming back but that doesn't mean it didnt happen and that its not the lasting imprint on most people who love HD2 but who've naturally moved on or just come back now and then. Live service communities are too deep in the sauce that from here on out, we're out of the honeymoon phase, you will see more whining, moaning, crying and a lot of hate. From "fans" who will bum everyone out. You are only human and being as deep in the sauce as you are now. Being a HD2 RU-vidr. You're especially more submerged in the brewing toxicity. You'll see it more then most. Perhaps one day you may spread a bit of it. Hope not. Try to remember that the bitching by vocal minorities online isnt really the reality for your average Helldiving joe. You may not even notice it but try not to get too sucked into negativity or being gaslit. Stay above water. Sentiments will arise, Oh it wasn't as good. They ruined this. Blabla. This is the nature of successful live games. Humans be this way when they love stuff. So, the vibes will naturally become more critical, passionte and a downer. People are ungrateful and blind to what they have. I don't think you will EVER be happy with the guns, its not possible to be. You have to realise this sooner or later because I think you're not yet seeing that live games today HAVE to constantly change metas to keep people switching it up, using guns etc. Its seems negative and to the most dialed in people like us, it sounds bad or annoying. But is it really? Do bugs die still? Does it feel impactful? Try to realise or understand there are "Eras" of guns. The Railgun era was a place in time and its likely never coming back. But thats why it was memorable and fun. But there will be new eras with new guns. That Quaser Cannon isn't going to last. We are in that era atm. So just enjoy things in their prime and try to accept that its inevitable that you're never going to be happy about this. These weapons will change. New guns come in. Its not Factions where guns are permanently frozen in time and thats just the chess piece everyone has. Metas will keep changing. They'l never be perfect. That IS okay. It keeps the game fresh, even if it feels unfair & bullshit. It may feel artifical, even if Arrowhead have good intentions. Even they know they cant balance and spin plates for hundreds of weapons and 4 more are added every month. You can't get bogged down or put too much thought into things being outdated. It is what it is. Please try not to get too lost in the weeds with all these other tryhards and "fans" who just make playing Helldivers a job. It is a fun game, that changes weekly. Thats good. Stay above all the negativity bs. Otherwise you'll thrive long enough to become what you hate. People love to bitch and you'll get more views critiqueing Helldivers then positive. That comes at a cost. You'll see but man, I just don't think its worth it. It will make it devoid of fun. Im not saying preach toxic positivity but just see these sentiments for what they are and try to be over it. You can have a blast talking about new guns and builds but do so knowing each build will not last and its a fleeting moment in time as we go from event to event in this galactic war. Try to enjoy rhe ride and if you can be a cool tour guide for YT and frster a positive fun community as you have been, great. Nobodies perfect but just try to maintain the fun of Helldivers or ask yourself, are you getting too absorbed? Do you want to be one of the youtube who feels they have to talk about every miniscule % change to a stat that'll be irrelevant a month later or rather how dope this new gun is and the smart ways to use it. I am ranting, sorry and i mean no offense. I known you longer then all these new pooptroopers. I just gotta call put what I'm seeing. You may not agree but its what I am seeing. Fuck twitter and gamers, they suck. Smell the rises. That said, psn situation is shit. Sony are F'ing up Arrowheads goodwill. Shame but ultimately it won't matter. Player activity is up again, 100k negatives on steam are meaningless. Its not going to stop being best selling game. Its a made game. It will have 50k+ users beyond PC and console for years. Whales. The lot. In fact, Sony are smart to do this to Helldivers because all this drama will bow be lessened for Tsushima Legends this month, and Cobcord and eventually Marathon etc. Soon it'll be as normalised as Xbox has and is kn PC & console. Even IGN lead Dustin seems to have forgotteb thats the norm in all xbox live games. anyway. just arrowhead continue to bring out fun mechanics, guns and such to keep me popping in as more new games take me away. They always only ever planned for a 10k community like the OG. Theyre made men. Good luck bro, all the best! You do great work, sorry for the rant. And to anyone reading this thinking I'm crazy or talking nonsense. Lick my scrote! 😂

@Dr.Pooplove I think maybe they did the patch like that because they still don’t want to take away from the Co-op or the teamwork aspect of the game, I think if they buffed more weapons it will only encourage people to stray from the group they wouldn’t move as a unit or squad that it emphasizes

The newest passive practically does nothing because it is so niche that they armor is brought out just for style over function. I don't like that 2 of the new armor sets coming out in the Polar Warbond look nearly identical to each other but have completely different armor passives that aren't interchangeable between one another. What is the logic there?

they push out warbond.. weapons feel good.. Nerf them before next warbond comes.. rinse- repeat. Railgun nerf happened just before next one came in.

i can get some of the nerfs. the jar may have been over tuned it did go from 200 to 300 so maybe a little to much for some break points. the eruptor i get it.i never came close to running out of ammo even while destroying objectives, so now i have to pick up a random ammo pack which the map is littered with. but the crossbow i cant put my ape mind to find a use other weapons do better.

"Mag size, sorry" The best way to know someone's reading their comment section to see people lose their minds over the nomenclature.

to make it easy for you every firearm uses magazines with the revolver being the exception its a cylinder, use battery and heatsink for energy weapons and the autocannon uses clips to reload.

The recipe to fix the current situation:- A-Fire most of the community managers, hire ones who don't attack the community. B-Slow content updates down. C-Add third alien race that was in the first game. D-Fix all issues with the game before adding new warbonds.

Did the Dr play HD1?

If they keep bugs in that the previous armor not working correctly or the new big of stratagem impact should follow where the beacon goes (aka on a bug and towards you) then suddenly fix these bugs after having the game for awhile it feels like they are changing the gameplay deal on us. When the armor patch hit it made the heavy armor comparable to the state of armor previously with light armor being much weaker while introducing headshot mechanics on Helldivers which felt really really bad cause you would just randomly get instant killed by quick headshots. I fear that it will be the same with the stratagem impact placement relative to the beacon, I'm fine with the other funny stuff happening but if a bug jumps at me with my Percision Strike that has over a minute cooldoen I am just going to be upset.

I like the idea that warbonds could cost different amounts an have more or less content in them depending on price. That way they could release a light warbond for cheap with just an armor and a weapon which would free up some devs to work on something bigger and higher quality like a new mission type or special enemy." Also what you said about goodwill leading to better economic return for the studio is spot on. I've hated microtransasctions and have never really engaged with them in any game... except helldivers 2. I bought $20 of SC because I respect the studio and feel like they respect me back by having minimally predatory financial practices.

There's some good points here - like what's the point of the dagger other than to just round out the weapon count for one of the warbonds? No one uses it, and I think they will struggle to buff it into relevance. I would rather prefer a much more varied set in a single premium warbond every quarter or something.

IMHO. 1. Devs lack game experience in their own game. Like wish they played dif 7 at least. 2. Strange weapon balance. It's either the gun works or not. And they don't give any info about changes. Why was it buffed/nerfed? Liberator explosive, spray'n'pray and some other guns are dead long time. Where's that 'data what weapons players use' when it's needed? 3. Enemies balance. Idk but bugs are WAY easier. Hunters are so slow now and have 999 ping in their reaction. On the other hand bots are straight aim-punch machines. 4. Also, that 'only host can use fire stratagems' is the worst for me.

They probably have months of war bonds designed in advance, but I’m also going to assume they couldn’t predict so much time would be put into bug correction. I think 1 war bond every 1.5 month might be a happy medium.

I'd be content if most warbonds were all or mostly cosmetic. They could develop a system where maybe 3 or 4 warbonds per year introduced new weapons, and the rest were all cosmetic or maybe added a grenade or stratagem or some other kind of equipment.

Regarding the warbonds, there's probably a breadth of weapons from Helldivers 1 still, but if you haven't noticed already there are already a bunch of redundant weapons, ergo every AR that is just worse than the Sickle. In addition, the grenades are already having this problem when we still have the DoT bug, and after the first warbond, including the next one, we have 3 of 5 DoT nades that are unusable because of the DoT bug (Incendiary, Thermite, Impact Incendiary). Armor you've mentioned already with them almost all being reskins other than the Arc Armor set. The balance team also needs to take their heads out of their own ass and realize their "vision" doesn't put fun first, which is the most important for a PvE game like this.

In regards to the video played while talking about this you can pre-fire charge the Quasar Cannon before aiming to not be standing still aiming for so long.

It's definitely a great game. A few years ago I said that I would never be playing another online multiplayer game again because I simply no longer have the patience to deal with the behaviour of people online, however this game made me go back on that decision. I was concerned about the monthly war bond as well. If you add so many new weapons, eventually there will be weapons that aren't used at all. If you've ever played League of Legends, you'll see that with their champions. The balance changes didn't upset me very much, I'm fine with experimenting with new builds because I find that this game starts to get repetitive otherwise especially after over 200 hours. I disapprove of the PSN thing, I personally dislike Sony and that I have to make an account with them to continue to play. I'll try feeding as much false information to the account as possible to limit what they can collect but I'm certain they have other methods that we can't see. I'll continue to play the game, however I feel that they desperately need another to win to turn this downhill spiral around and that it has lost a lot of its original charm.

I didn't notice that new armors from polar warbound is recolour of existed armours, except helmets

I really your mom dramatic take on the state of current affairs on helldivers 2 Too many people are dramatic and looking to shock or get people angry. Thank you for this video

I don't appreciate what they did to my Crossbow, was my main gun against the bugs until the nerf and complete change in its identity as a weapon. If you wanted a gun to do what it does now they should have just made a new weapon in the future

The Plasma Punisher buff pushed the weapon away from an amazing skill shot weapon against the bots to a more shreemlined generic grenade launcher feel, yes it is an improvement and I do really enjoy it because now I don't miss but I would have really preferred that they increased direct damage with the less damage drop off so the skill gap of the weapon still exists. Arrowhead needs to learn that just because a lot of people aren't using a weapon doesn't mean it needs a drastic change, their is almost always a niche group for each weapon and you hurt that committed part of your community when you take away skill based, take away play styles, or change the identity of a weapon they have been using. I'm on Helldivers 30-40 hours a week and I feel like I have a better grasp about how to balance the game then Arrowhead does.

As far as warbonds go I think at some point they are going to add weapon customization. Let's look at the erupter and dominator they are basically the same weapon except for 3 changes the action, magazines and ammo. Basically all they are doing is balancing different characteristics of the weapon families.

I think they're under contract with Sony to release a new warbond every month. They're literally forced to do it as part of their contract.

are you citywokcitywall ?

Excellent and well balanced take on HD2. Good work.

User I don't mind small buffs to try to bring up the other weapons to fun/usable levels. This way, they can keep buffing until they're at the right place. However, the massive nerfs, particularly the ones that have made the Rail Gun not worth taking for over a month, are not okay. On the other hand, overtuning a weapon just so it needs a nerf a month later (looking at the Blitzer). I fully expect the stagger to be reduced now. It's time for quality-of-life updates, such as a way to toggle hiding things you never want to use, like armor, weapons, or stratagems. Features like favorites lists are sorely needed, especially with the increasing amount of content in the game. Without these updates, it's becoming increasingly difficult to navigate through all the data Having four heavy armors that essentially do the same thing can be cumbersome. Personally, I only need the one I like best in terms of appearance. Join the Review Divers, fight for freedom, from the PSN over lords, I did my part

i honestly wouldn't mind if all primaries received minor nerfs (imo the sickle with 3 mags v balanced but ars need more ammo less recoil) and eagle and orbital call ins had more options, ik theres things they are gonna add that are a little more mission utility specific but we haven't gotten a new eagle or orbital yet

points I agree(wont elaborate because you already said it): sony's involvement dominator nerf Aside from that I have many points where i disagree: The eruptor was THE weapon to bring. Worked on bugs and bots and nothing was better. Gameplay gets real stale when everyone everywhere brings the same weapon because it just works. Even after nerfs this things is crazy and still one of the best options. Just because you like it now doesn't mean you wont get sick of it from overuse. Personally love bringing the ballistic shield and an smg on bots when the build is severely outpaced by shield gen and anything else primary wise. While the dominator nerf is pretty pointless, it shows that they care not just about the big things like guns that cant compete or guns that over compete, but they care about the guns closer to the middle that might get the group of people who love the gun and will use the gun no matter its state, into the right balanced place. Nit picky but you said you didn't understand how the business model of 1 warbond a month is sustainable but then immediately complained about how the warbond didn't have the armor you wanted. Holding out on features like that is probably how they save on recourses as the next warbond legit has a defender smg clone in it and all one of the weapons look simple. It seems like holding out in aspects of the warbond is how they save on their recourses. Regarding the bugs and things that have been broken since release; take a look at the bug fix section of the patch notes and then tell me they aren't working on it. You complain about the flood of content, and while i am concerned about the way they are going to balance that many new things, I have seen the leaks. They have big and small things in the works. In both instances we have seen the leaks for a long time without release. Why do you think a fully functioning vehicle or a carpet bomb haven't come to the game despite being pretty much complete from the available footage. They are working on a big thought out update as we speak and they are making sure it releases how they intend. That's my two sense on the current state of the game. I could be wrong about everything above or you could be wrong about the whole video. I'm not saying that they completely know what they are doing, it's a revolutionary game in the way it provides live service, and revolution comes with mistakes. But we finally got a game with a dev team that cares and makes educated decisions. I personally will trust the process until the process starts to have substantial problems. So in conclusion, let arrowhead cook.

I read they said that those outside of the PSN region won't have to do that, but we'll see.

Very well said ❤

I heard someone saying that this game could use a testers server; where new content arrives 1 or 2 weeks earlier, and selected players that apply to it can use and test this new content and fix/balance them before the public release. Clearly they are lacking testers atm

2:27 That's one aspect of the game i really disagree with. The guns imo should be the main weapon against your enemies. Stratagems should be there as support, not the main thing needed to overcome our enemies. I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be effective, they should. Yes, we should utilize all our available kits, especially on harder difficulties. But we should also be able to rely on the guns we have, and not just the CAS and Orbital stratagems. Right now, it feels like there's too little ammo and too little power on our guns. But too much survivability on our enemies. I'd also like to add that out of the two factions we have so far, the bugs feel the least fun to fight. At least to me personally. Which was a far cry to how they were in the first game for me. To me, they were fun to fight in Helldivers 1, with the Bots being harder and sometimes not so fun. In Helldivers 2, surprisingly, the Bots feels fun to fight and feel more balanced. For the most part, most of their heavies/big bads have multiple ways to overcome. For example, the Scout Striders. You can just outright shoot them with a weapon like the Anti-Materiel rifle. Or in the absence of that, you can lure them into a grenade blast. Or just outright try to flank them and shoot their pilots. It's a different story with the bugs. For example, you also have to flank Chargers. But they turn so fast relative to their size, even mid charge, that it is a chore to do so. Especially if you have other bugs swarming on you, which there almost always are. Since the little buggers are so sneaky due to their lack of audio cue. The design between these two factions are so distinct, in a bad way for the bugs, that it's just not fun.

Well said. With 365 hours in the game I still fun but it’s boring at the same time. Plus the 40 minute missions are daunting sometimes since you can’t put down the controller at all, always playing. Also the galactic war progression needs some changes cause only doing 0.000003% impact from 1hour and half operation doesn’t feel impactful for me to say “I’m doing my part”. Missed opportunity for narrative impact vs a number impact. 36 new primary’s will be to much. Good video man

The polar patriots warbond really made me lose my excitement for the upcoming warbonds. What i really want is for them to focus on adding things that spice up the loop of playing. Since launch the only exciting things imo that have been added are the new enemy types and missions types and i think they really need to focus on that more. I want balance patches too but i want fresh missions new enemies and new challenges i feel like weve all mastered the game and they gotta add new gameplay changing thing to keep people from getting bored

It's been a little annoying that things like strategems not tracking properly when stuck to targets, misaligned scopes, and fire tick damage being broken have gone unfixed so far. That and a reoccurring pattern I'm seeing where if something is good, it gets nerfed. I understand not wanting to have a meta loadout, but a meta is always going to arise, and I'd rather they buff bad weapons than nerf good ones (unless a weapon is REALLY good like the OG Railgun that kind of overshadowed the competition) And maybe it's a skill issue but I think bots need some work so they aren't noticably harder than bugs, especially with the amount of explosives and heavy armor that gets spammed at you.

They keep nurfing what we like. And specialized weapons that everyone didn't use. I've gone from the slugger to the jar to the eruptor back to the jar. Blitzer on the bugs now. Eruptor now is like 3 shots to devistators and kills one bot, only damaging others around it. Doesn't take striders anymore. It's useless considering the mag size reload and fire rate. It's less fun now.

I'm not complaining eventually they would fix afterwards if not I'll be glad the amount of content they jammed out it only one year. I have a feeling this game will be around

New weapons, strats, etc are nice, but this game REALLY needs more mission variety ASAP. Could easily start by just making longer versions of the shorter missions like eradicate, blitz, asset extraction (evac meh), etc. With so many difficulty levels, they should just put out new missions and work out the balance later. It's what will happen, anyway.

Just so you know it doesn't matter what country you're in you can register for psn. I'm in the Philippines I have a US psn account.

Toxic metas, pre-nerfs, every bugfix, and the balancing team do not understand how to balance a weapon because they don't talk with the designer, so every change makes the guns feel lopsided and weird... Yeah, that would be the issue with firearms... And stratagems... Honestly, the whole idea behind their balancing philosophy feels counterintuitive to the nature of Helldivers 2. They want guns to be weak, but like how weak? They never set the goalpost; they just pretend like it's there, pointing in any direction that fits them. They want us to use stratagems, but if the stratagems work, they nerf them instead of establishing a baseline. There is no balance on the scale; it's just who's line is it anyway, where balance is pretended, and the game feel doesn't matter.

The Adjudicator is a a semi sniper rifle, it's most effective against bots who engage you from a distance.

Helldivers surrounded by 3 hulks, 20 devastators, a tank, a factory strider. The Bot: just prefect time to call a Bot Drop🎉

Arrowhead: we want players to use more strategems Also Arrowhead: [destroys the usefulness of entire classes of strategems at the upper level through unfun modifiers]

You make some good points but man that's a lot of words to say what you said

I thought the new Polar Patriot warbond armors were gonna have winter/snow related perks. Like "you don't get slowed down on snow planets" idk something like that. Lil disappointing ngl.

They realized no other assault rifle could match the Dominator, and they also realized the Adjudicator sucks hard. So they used the ol' bell curve method.

Balance patches where they just tweak the numbers (not reworks like the announced changes to the Eruptor) _is_ content too, and should be much much less work. Something might become over- or underpowered, but I can't see just number tweaks causing new bugs to be introduced. Honestly, put one guy on number tweaking and release small incremental balance patches every week in June, and let the rest of the team work on the Known Issues.

The Warbonds could be a page or two bigger and come out every quarter instead so that they could work on the existing issues with the idea of making the Warbonds more frequent once this has been accomplished. Then they could drop a new stratagem every other month or enemy type or climate effect so on and so forth. With their current debacle they could and should make it optional and incentivize it. At this point I'd recommend they give everyone who logs in to play on a given weekend/week free access to a Warbond of their choice as a sort of apology.

1) I agree that I think it is okay to slow down Warbonds releases. Focus on fixing bugs for a month or two without new Warbond release. We are currently in a technical "debt race" with the game. The code foundation is shaky and they keep introducing new stuff before the old stuff is fixed. If they don't start focusing down on that stuff, I got a feeling one day the game stability would go further nosedive (disconnect issues, glitches, clipping through obstacles, certain guns not even working right etc.) 2) Allow transmog on armor. There are a lot of cool armor I want to wear asethetically, but I want other effects instead. That original "apple tastes like bacon" response from AH is rather baffling. 3) Disconnects should boot you back into YOUR OWN INSTANCE of the game so that not all your efforts are wasted. Getting kicked and wasting 40 minutes of work is JUST NOT FUN. 4) You can nuts in a PvE game because you never have to worry about PvP. Instead of nerfing people's favorite guns, bring other guns up to par. Create more variations of enemies that may counter meta strategies and force the players to readjust to new combat situations. That way it's more fun for everyone involved.

Charger took the hunter for a ride, but I'll enjoy the game for the short time I have left with it, sure hope they rollback on this decision.

Don't forget they have almost a decade of stuff to pull from with HD1. A ton of this stuff we have and are getting we already had in HD1. The factions, the weapons the game modes, the planets, the biomes....... This allows them time to create new stuff while re-releasing older stuff that's refreshed for HD2. Let's also not forget Sony published HD1, still supports it AND believed in them for HD2. Did they know they would stike gold this time? Probably not but they did anyway and they are a company about making money by any means necessary. Lots of companies these days are doing stupid stuff that's far more anti consumer than "create a psn". Ubi soft says you should get use to not owning your games.... Paramount is removing PURCHASED movies from your devices.... Amazon adding ads to prime then says pay us more not to see them.... I could write a book about this stuff but bottom line is every company wants to monitize everything. Shareholders cream their pants at Sony saying "we got 800k new accounts to possibly turn into return customers". It's all a game, the one we play and the one they play. Bungie is the worst comparison, they rarely put out content AND it sucks.

The reason the buffs to Jar etc were small is because good devs / companies see the value in making incremental changes over the long term. Only companies who have long term plans for a game do it this way. To make bigger changes, to me, signals impatience l, and tends to unnecessarily stir up the player base. If I was a dev, I'd rather make 10 small changes over 10 patches than big rewrites over two, as it's be too jarring for players.

I want more missions / variety. For warbonds I wish they were longer or atleast another big free one

Well to be honest as someone that played the first helldivers since 2016 the federation of super earth its not a fascist dictatorship and also not a communist dictatorship its actualy more like a centrist dictatorship

We already have enough weapon variety, making it like 12 warbonds a year is bit too much, i'd rather have performance fixes and crash fixes out every month than more warbonds because On my system i still get the bug where HD 2 does not use my GPU but eats like 70% of my cpu along side 50% of my ram and i still get fps drops to like 30 when im fighting hordes sometimes and drops to 5 when come out from the pod. . Maybe warbonds once every 3-5months is enough for me. And mix around with old armor passives and introduce new ones, like make it so i dont make sounds when i run, or dont slip down on bad terrains etc on top of my recoil going down when i crouch. Also recent new patch In my opinion Nerf in general to the players. Yes we had like 22 weapon buffs but all that was made irrelevant because of 1 line of text. Increased patrol spawn rate. and YOU ACTUALLY FEEL the consequences of that change. Does it really matter that your guns deal 5 more damage per shot when you have to deal with 5 more bile titans , 15 more chargers, 20 more brood commanders and 30 more bile spewers and 50-100 more hunters? thats not including the bot front... the amount of devastators and hulks i have to deal now is insane on 7+ when 1 or 2 person leaves due to crash. The AH seem to be buffing the frustration aspect of this game much more and seem to be going in the direction of "frustration = difficulty" more and more, hear me out. I understand the stalker buffs or to be more exact bug fix. Stalkers did look goofy when when they turn "invis" which made them stand out more when they were visible, ye shrieker nest and fog generators were bit too easy it doesnt really change much you just have to shoot them more, BUT why does hulks need that "stagger resistance" buff? that thing chases u at mach 5 with flame thrower range of infinity that 1 shots you and only thing gives you more breather room is the stagger. Why does devastators need more attack speed? When there is like 100 of them firing from other side of the map with pin point accuracy that oneshots you in the head, alongside with their more annoying shield and rocket cousins Why do they need more attack speed? and im not even including the 100s normal bots ,Tanks ,turrets ,artillery, Gunships and Factory striders that shit them out once every 15 seconds. Why do we need explosive resistance scout striders? yea they are VERY easy to take down individually , but When you are trying to take down medium/heavy fabs when there's like 5 tanks and turret emplacements , "you're in range of enemy artillery" , somehow Jammed on one side of the enemy base, 4 gunships incoming with the hulks and chainsaw bots and devastators and one of them happen to carry factory strider, there's that jetpack bastard with suicide bomb on its back chasing you at mach 5 DO WE REALLY NEED EXPLOSIVE RESISTANT scout striders?? Why? Difficulty slider on this game should be something like "you have deal with more objectives" like i dunno, egg hatcheries on ICBM missions. or taking down titans on civilian extract mission (not scientist extraction ones cuz fuck those xD) etc And that would make it difficult but fun cuz you get to mix stuff. On the weapon front Quasar wasn't even that strong its was contending fine with anti-tank and recoilless rifle only thing good about it was the infinite ammo, but with recent level 4 upgrade on the ship module, you basically have infinite ammo on Recoilles rifle and it does better job than Quasar ever did, combine that with ammo backpack on the shooter and team reload that thing takes down hulks tanks drop ships chargers bile titans and even factory striders like swatting flies now! are gonna nerf recoilless rifle next and solo reload is only like 4 seconds? nobody i know uses Quasar now, even before nerf everyone went back to autoguns after the hype died down on Quasar, now with 15 seconds why would i run quasar? This Railgun buff shows that railgun didnt need a nerf back then, its just everything else was dogshit and railgun was the only decent choice, even tho its buffed it still shit, pen is high but deals too little damage, still gets outshined by quasar and thats saying something. Things that are unhealthy for the game IMO is if they are the "everything" solver and now recoilless rifle is just that. oh and fuck sony, im gonna change my review back to positive when they make acc linking optional or just get rid of it entirely. If it does go through and be the final decision, i'll request manual refund on steam. This is just scum behavior and outright theft from sony

They wouldn’t need so many new editions to the game if they just did a better job of balancing the things that are already in the game and making them more fun.

The last patches nerfs were the last straw for me, .......used the Eruptor a lot, even optimized my loadout to it, mastered it as it needed some time to get used to in order to fire it without killing other players or yourself...... 200 hours in and uninstalled.

It's normal for each game studio havin their own vision. But vision only matters if it's makes the game fun. Atp i just cant shake off the feeling that their vision is killing off the fun. If players are having fun while using a weapon, stop messing with the weapon, stop killing the weapon's identity (Railgun's penetration, Slugger's stagger, Crossbow/Eruptor's explosive, Quasar's recharge time). Makes me feels like the devs is not havin fun while watching players having fun with their weapons. I'm been 60+ lvl ady, feels good when my skill is improved, but feels bad when my favorite weapons just keep getting weak and weaker. If players are not having fun while using a weapon, make it actually fun to use it, be it buff or QoL improvement. The Senator and DCS is a great example. But most of the other weapon's buff are still missing the right point, especially the Spear lockon issue, ppl are asking for that since Day 1. Also pumping warbond monthly doesnt make me enjoy looking forward to these at all, if most of these are going to be mediocre or just plagued by the current existing bugs bcuz they prioritize speed over quality.

My hot take is, they need to take a moment and fix the bugs, stop tweeking weapons, and for the love of all that is holly let go of their intentions prior to gamd release.

Not sure if that is correct but I heard by multiple sources now that Arrowhead is mandated by contract with Sony to put out Warbonds every month. So the more I hear the more I get the feeling that it is Sony "manhandling" Arrowhead and forcing them to push out stuff like crazy. Also the thing with account linking does not seem to be Arrowhead's idea but Sony's. While the developer surely has part of the blame to carry for signing a contract like that, I feel it is Sony who is ruining the game for demanding too much.

Honestly, even as a pretentious gun snob, the whole clip/mag thing doesn’t matter too much in the context of this game. I think the only weapon that utilizes clips and has its own distinct loading mechanic due to clips is the Auto Cannon with its 9 + 1 capacity and 5 round clip loading system. Maybe I’m forgetting about another weapon that’s similar?

Okay so I agree with the whole *lore* aspect but as a company, they need to be upfront about changes to the community. There reaches a point where it's no longer roleplay and where a need for actual dialogue must take place. But also media literacy is extremely low in this community so who cares, people think this "managed democracy" is actually this ideal that's portrayed in modern Americana.

I question the Nerfs on weapons overall, its not a PvP game where they need to balance and fine tune everything, they can just make everything strong and fun to use, and to sort of counter that, crank up the difficulty a bit, add more enemies per Bot Drops/Bug Breaches etc. I don't want to find the most optimal way to kill bugs/bots, i want to kill bugs/bots with everything available in-game.

I think they getting a lot done while the game is fresh and in the gaming news. Now is the time to put in content and balance with all the players they have that can do the involuntary playtesting. I have no expectation that they'll keep up this rate of patches and warbonds. In a month or three, they'll start slowing down the output of the devs, as the gamer populations peaks and income from the game starts to fall of. Arrowhead and the gamers will eventually have to live with some issues, as the company moves on to the next game. I'm just going to enjoy it while it lasts. It's just the natural evolution of most games that don't charge subscription fees.

I know Arrowhead has the nerf ready for weapons on the next warbond. (I'm salty about the crossbow)

I feel like a lot of people dont realize that Arrowhead's last game Helldivers 1 had a miniscule playerbase by comparison, they had no idea HD2 would be such a massive hit like it is. And if Sony really cared, they would be supporting Arrowhead through this, but it really feels like Sony wants to rule this game with an iron fist and let arrowhead drown through the consequences of the actions of some greedy CEOs. I can tell by how the community managers are responding (in less than favorable ways) that the team is feeling a lot of stress to get this game right, and if too much stress builds, mistakes are made. While I get the frustration from the players, I feel like the anger should be sent directly to Sony, and not Arrowhead for the most part. (the discord is a freakin nightmare right now and I cant help but feel sorry for the devs who have to deal with the consequences of contractual obligations we may never fully see). This has been by far my most favorite game to come out in a LONG time, and I really don't want to see it die so quickly because some suit that doesnt understand the nuances of consumer trust kill a game with so much charm to it.

i completely agree!!!! Im sick of the constant changes to gameplay. this last big balance patch with the last straw. They are changing everything every week it seems, and now make it impossible for 90% of players to do nothing more than fight patrols. They cranked everything up, then bent the knee to sony. Its too much after dropping close to 160$ for the game and credits to help fund them. But they did a total rug pull on everything. I work all day, just wanna come home to have fun with friends. But the game is gone too far on bugs and constant changing. I can see minor balance fixes, but to ramp patrols on solos and anything less than 4 players is crazy. And screw over any viable guns to deal just to add on insta kill ricohets for not seeing the heavy in the crowd.

Here is the issue, its not the fact they are nerfing things to make people use other items, (and the rail gun was nerfed due to a bug not the fact by itself it was god tier btw) its they are nerfing things AND buffing the enemies. When the nerfed the rail gun it opened the door to show the EAT's Spear and the Recoilless are also just as good to use, all be it a bit slower they are just as good. Here is the issue they shadowed buffed the bile titan a few days before nerfing the quasar. So on a good day with out a super cracked diver it now takes upwards of FOUR shots to kill a bile titan with the EATs Spear and Quasar. And even with the rail gun "Buffs" it still takes an insane amount of rail gun to kill turrets, tanks and bile titans. (oh yeah and it doesnt even open up the container doors) They nerfed the rail gun and other things SO HARD that even when buffed they are still useless compared to other options. OH YEAH LETS NOT FORGET THE RAIL GUN IS A LEVEL 20 STRAT AND NEEDS A LOT OF SKILL WITH LITTLE TO NO REWARD They buffed some starting weapons great...but they also buffed the Adjudicator...which completely made the Liberator penetrator useless. it does almost DOUBLE the damage with the same mag and a better scope... WHATS THE GOAL HERE?! They have completely removed any reason to use the lib pen, rail gun, and even some stratagems entirely... And and incase you were also unaware, the dev team working on new warbonds ALSO do bug fixes so...a lot of the bugs legit can NOT be fixed due to the license agreement they have with Sony to do a warbond a month oh yeah and lets not forget hte PSN requirements...this game was doomed to fail even with out sony here JUST bebcause they dont have a dedicated bug fixing team and warbond team. The game is doomed ot be bugged FOREVER or as long as the contract with Sony lasts, but lets be real it'll be fully dead in about a month or at least in a state that no-one will want to play it

I've been expecting them to have a bit of a slow down after getting the 3rd faction out (whenever that will be) and as a result solidifying everything into the image they wanted. Leading to a pay for non game changing cosmentic rout to keep super credits flowing. However i think the warbond issue you bring up will come to a head with sony and their greed. I fully expect sony to eithet A: keep the course with psn so they can prevent the game from ever going onto xbox (idk why, they would start to siphon Microsoft cash if it did go to xbox) or B: use it as leverage to make the game more monetized in order to not go through with the psn demands. I kinda expect the super credit collection in missions to end either way as that was unsustainable cause once you've got a lot of people who paid once you still need a way to keep the servers running once everyone has a copy. I'm hoping this is just a sony executive following the logic of option B cause they dont want this to hurt their wallets later (and as a result are more willing to hurt it now to secure their cash flow later, which dont get me wrong is still scummy as all hell) However if this is to follow option A, it will inevitably lead to option B regardless and the combination would kill the player base for the most part (and im praying they are just greedy and stupid and not self ending and brain dead at sony)