Why Was Helldivers 2 Helldying? 

making the enemies more oppressive while nerfing weapons into the ground at the same time is beyond moronic

"Players find solutions and those solutions get removed" - AH Balance Team, probably

Democratic detonation was a perfect opportunity to add fire resistance as an armor passive instead of yet another explosive resistance armor set.

The balance team thinks guns should suck.... in a shooting game.

alexus happened

The realism excuse goes out the window when you have a hand held revolver doing more damage than a sniper rifle or even an AR.

"Bile titans now take less damage when spewing." I take it these devs have never seen any movie or played any game where the exact opposite is the case: that being their weak spot. Then again the Railgun was the perfect example that they couldn't know less about risk vs reward.

when the Balance team wasn't even playing the game you know there is a problem

100% nailed it. To me it's insane to release patches and warbonds that don't get people excited because every weapon is worse than the next.

I’m convinced the devs hit the nail on the head with the core gameplay loop at launch by complete accident and then went on to make it worse with each subsequent patch out of incompetence or outright malice

When they constantly make the game less fun to play, less people have fun playing it

The reason why helldivers stopped being interesting to me was because it felt like being shoehorned into few viable builds. They were super happy nerfing strong weapons and strategems, but incredibly lethargic with buffing worthless weapons and strategems. Fun is more important than Balance. If players become too powerful, increase difficulty.

It's funny because even in a dedicated group like mine, no one wants to wear the backpack to help someone else reload.

9:28 Slugger got nerfed because it made the DMRs look bad, and they didn't want to buff the DMRs.

Players: This is fun!....Devs: Not anymore!

The patch when they nerfed the Exsosuit rockets after they completely ruined how the aiming mechanism worked is when i realized these devs are clowns. They're wasting time and energy micromanaging things that don't matter instead of fixing the growing list of bugs and other weapons which were just terrible to use.

Alexus “tWo bUiLdZ” completely gutted the balance. What he did to the eruptor is the peak level of stupid.

I mean, the CEO himself had to step down to try and fix the game; that alone is massive proof of how badly the game was being balanced; let's hope this Thursday we get some meaty buffs

to conclude: Dev's took the fun out of the game.

The path to REALISM Ruins ESCAPISM!! Let us have fun. SIMPLE.

Props to Alexsux and the balancing team to destroy a fucking great game using their fucking spreadsheet

I still remain convinced there were/are two major issues: 1) Alexus is an untalented tool that shouldn't be allowed to balance a personal checkbook, much less weapons for a successful game. 2) Even more important the development team seemed to lack a release manager and did absolutely no QA, two things that are _fundamental development team concepts_ no software of any kind should be without.

They launched a game that, by sheer luck, was a super fun power fantasy for everyone, with a hilarious starship troopers vibe. Then, in a staggering lack of self awareness, they tried to tune the game into some hard-core sweat game (like souls for shooters?), showing that they have no idea who their core audience actually is. Also, they were extremely optimistic about the ability of their small, inexperienced team to push out updates at a very reckless pace.

Whoever was in charge of balance essentially singlehandedly killed the game. He/She should absolutely be fired. 100%. Some of the worst game balancing I've ever seen.

I still haven't psychologically recovered from the Slugger nerf.

I stopped playing because it became clear that the game I bought and loved at launch is not the game the devs wanted to make

The single most egregious and enraging bug has still not been fixed, or even (as far as I know) acknowledged by the devs in any capacity: turret call-ins unpredictably bouncing to worthless places instead of going where you throw them. (though I also find any mention of "turret hp" in the patch notes to be a sick joke, since they die the very instant an enemy looks at them funny)

Game feels like repetitive torture. I get that they are forcing you to use your team but when your team is bad, there is no way to carry. You can to a certain extent but they're purposely making it harder to do. There comes a time when yeah, hard difficulty is fun, but there's a line when it becomes stupid.

Helldivers patch notes in 2025: -Factory striders no longer possess medium armor, it's all heavy armor now -Bile Titans no longer die once the head is removed -Primary weapons no longer deal team damage, nor enemy damage -Support weapons with backpacks cannot be self reloaded -There is a 90% chance your grenade might not go off once thrown -Chargers no longer bleed out from a broken posterior -Stims now only heal 10% health per use -The hellpods may not spawn you in after death, oh wait, we already have that in 2024

it's so crazy to me how they saw the kill rates for burn damage being super low partially because no one was using it, buffed it to an insane degree and then "oh the kill rates were low because of a bug" like cmon

Helldivers was fun by mistake, and Arrowhead have been working hard to fix that ever since.

they nerf the R-36, nerf the arc, nerf everything we can find...what do they expect? Expect us to "git gud"? No, devs, you git gud!

Maybe its time to have a chat with the guy responsible of "balancing" the game.

Yep this is the problem with every live action game these days as well, they constantly were messing with the gameplay loop by virtue of endless gun rebalancing that ultimately burned everyone out. Each patch made the game less fun to play and a chore to relearn what was rebalanced (mostly nerfed), and eventually what that turned into was making every gun that was fun, less fun, in a PVE game where there was no need for a competitive rebalancing on such a tight schedule anyways.

Alexus needs to change departments. Or just be removed from having any say in the game. The dude is so far out of touch with what the players want.

Maybe one day there'll be a patch where the chargers' glowing, unarmored backside is actually a weakspot.

The game is make or break for a lot of people on the 13th i hope to god they just fix the fucking weapons. if they cant figure that out, just revert the damn game. i would not care at all if they removed the ricochet to give us the old eruptor back.

I rarely play these days because I don’t really have a reason to log in either. I played it, I have a personal preference on where I see it’s at and I know what I’ll get out of it. As a consumer, I think it’s also becoming easier to see things more objectively because the consumer base has been abused so much by all these AAA companies. I think D4, and WoW to me was really the first, “you guys have a couple of chances chance before I just don’t care anymore” or actively keeping distance until things change

Alexus single handedly ruined the honeymoon phase of this game. My favorite thing he did was to call a warbond "S TIER nothing wrong, good warbond" and we all got excited. And then all the guns were shit. That was such a funny joke man! Definitely made me want to play more :)

I do still play the game from time to time, but not nearly as much as I used to. Here are my personal reasons some of you may relate to: -90% of guns are completely pointless to use, forcing players to use the same 2 guns over and over -10 new game-breaking bugs with every single patch -constantly dying to stupid bugs (for example falling from half a foot with full HP and dying, or clipping inside of an enemy's corpse and getting launched, a dropship dropping SIX HULKS on my fucking head) -really no usable new eagle / orbital stratagems since launch -still no illuminates -constantly replaying the same planets because the enemies *just happen* to take them back every time we free them -no fun new mission type since the defense mission, and that one is locked behind the defense campaigns for some reason -crashes, performance issues etc. are still rampant, especially within a couple of days after every patch -several mechanics that are just unfun (planets with a constant lack of visibility, 3-stratagem slot missions, etc.) -the hitboxes for small bots are still absolutely horrendous

My old gaming buddies gave up and moved on once their favorite weapons were nerfed badly: for them first it was the Breaker, then the Arc Thrower, but the last straw was the Quasar and the Eruptor. Also I can’t get new friends to play with me because it’s Steam sales are still blocked in my country.

Alexus caused this out of malice

9:22 yeah this shows also that "making the game more immersiv" is just an argument to get out of jail for the devs

Whoever made all these decisions should be charged with treason

I quit playing I got tired of having to keep track of all the nerfs and buffs constantly.

Somebody please strap the devs in a chair and make them watch this on repeat. Preferably Clockwork Orange style. And record it.

Interesting timing dropping this 3 days before the highly anticipated patch. Let's see if they finally get it together.

its like the devs responsible for the balance lowkey want the game to fail and pray for its downfall.

Mid-tier dev team got lucky and then couldn't handle success.

Machine guns that immobilze you to reload should have a team reload function at minimum that allows you to shoot all the the ammo.

Whole reason my friends stop, Sony. That was 20+ people from my group.

buffing the barrages were about effective as trying to kill a ghoul with radiation damage.

Helldivers 2 was supposed to be a gung-ho fantasy game where people just have fun blowing things up Sure, the enemies are many but we get to play with big guns too. But the no-fun Swedes took away the fun toys for "balancing"

This should give you a perspective of things: Not so long ago former CEO (Pilestedt) answered to some dude about Tenderizer mag size increase. He said "we can't increase mag size because MAG 3D MODEL MUST BE CHANGED TOO". And they don't have new one yet. These are the things that bother them. Not your "important" stuff.

"what if we pursued realism BUT, and hear me out here, automatons never run out of ammo"

1 - basic PvE game 2 - no significant new content (new characters, abilities, enemy types, structures, ground effects, etc) 3 - 50 % of the available content (weapons, stratagems, enemy balance during mission) feels bad

its bizarre that in order for Alexus to justify some terrible changes he made "Across the map" mean anything around 50m in this game.

Heh, the devs got what they want and the circle jerk making fun of people complaining about it are finally driving the players away. They really deserves this.

overbalancing has hurt the game, i think they shouldve kept the railgun one shot and buffed the spear quesar and the recoiless to match it so ppl can have variety. Its so dumb that the spear can take 3 shots to kill and the same for the recoiless and then they nerf the railgun too. They have slowed it down too much, i mean shit even in the trailor its a dude one shotting a bile titan like come on!!!!! lol

breaker literally had no reason getting nerfed like that....just cuz majority haven't unlocked other weapons yet doesnt mean that the breaker was OP 17:16 this was a stupid stealth nerf it made trying to pinpoint stalker lairs harder especially with randoms

Dev: Make the game so boring and hard to play, players will love it. Also Dev: Why players are leaving?

I got 300+ hours in the game, here is my brief experience: LAUNCH DAY: DEMOCRACY SHOOT AND EXPLODE EVERYTHING!! WE ARE THE STRONGEST Patch 1: We die a lot more, but we are still the strongest, shoot and explode everything!! ... Current Patch: I have this BB gun and nothing feels like fun anymore. Thanks for the 300+ hours, but I think I'll call it quits here. Good luck to anyone out there still enjoying the game. Just to clarify: A mission on D9 will always look like this > Run from POI to POI > *Rush clear it* > *Avoid* as many fight as possible > do the main objectives > Extract. Clearing a map takes around 30-40 minutes, depending on the fight outbreaks, and if you have everything unlocked, you won't even have a goal to work towards. This game has stagnated way too hard, and they should have added more goals for players to reach. Right now, the only thing I'm missing is 20 levels to reach level 150. I didn't buy the last Polaris warbond, and I won't buy the next trash "predator" themed warbond. I let AH refund me for the Demolition warbond because of the way they butchered it. I was banking all my last hope on the next patch to see if this game would have a turning point, but with that new warbond, even that little bit of hope took a massive dent.

I wish they made this a optional side challenge that gives you bigger rewards for choosing to deal with effects like "Electronic countermeasure"

At this point: I just wish AH to hire OhDough for consulting balance team.

The stims were NOT fixed. The amount of times i visibly see my character jam himself in the neck and get the tire valve audio queue, only to die a split second later is insane.

Due to all this, they will refer to killing a game by needless nerfing of weapons as the Kravchenko Effect.

It is really an annoying feeling to have to re-learn something or simply forget something you knew or enjoyed, because of a dramatic change to it after release of a game. To KEEP doing it to the players of the game week after week is the real reason why people stopped playing.

Claiming realism in a game, at the cost of consistency and enjoyability is a 100% a scapegoat used to mask bad decisions in current game design. Ah yes, the great realism of knee-high wilburs headshoting me. Or the realism of clearing the map of enemy bases and outposts only to have WAYYY more enemies *pop* into existence. Or the great realism of not being able to stim while being torn to shreds by hunters because "It hurt so bad, if only I could save myself by using this stim. But alas! It just hurt to much.". Or enemies having infinite bullets/rockets without needing to reload (*GASP* if enemies had to reload, that would add immersion and counterplay! 🤯) IMO, if the realism being added takes away from the enjoyability then it should be removed or be taken back to the drawing board.

When new paid content come prenerf and shittier than the base game weapon, you know you fk up

Honestly, it's too late for most players. We've all kinda stopped due to bad dev decisions. If this upcoming patch doesn't knock the socks off the existing player base, the game is a good as dead.

In summary, nurf all the fun weapons :(

The most confused I've been on reddit was someone telling me it's a skill issue that I wasn't a fan of the Eruptor's shrapnel being removed

Weak weapons. Im so sick of weapons just making noise and little else.

Crazy how people are tired of playing the same 5 mission types - which are all basically the same anyway.

the "being able to ping POIs" still exists, it only works sometimes though. I can just whip my mouse across the map and find POIs. the HMG first person sight wasn't changed at all, it still fires nowhere near the dot. I'm really hoping they are gonna get things right this next patch. if not, I think we may see a mass exodus of players

TLDR: Alexus, The Destroyer of Fun, is to blame.

Okay, I need to clarify on the Exosuit-45 rocket bug with it instantly killing your mech with a collision. No, they don't need to bring that bug back even if it gives better aiming. I don't think people really remember how bad it was. You could be standing completely still and still blow up (not moving or turning at all). It made tracking targets going to your right impossible because of the risk of blowing up. I'm tired of hearing people act like you could skill around it or just not have it happen if you "aimed carefully." It's just not how it worked. especially with how desync'd some munitions can be in MP. The fix they NEED to implement is reverting the aiming change but making it so the damn rocket can't ever collide with the exosuit.

I love helldivers 2 but I've went hack to 1. It has Cohesive armour, competent players, boss fights, more weapons, more stratagems, and somewhat better balancing.

I could probably belt out a 24 hour meandering rant on this topic but I'll be succinct as possible. Discussing "realism" in a blantantly scifi ip is cringe beyond belief, as much as my brain appreciates mag systems and acknowledging how a firearm works these things often hinder more important discussions, so I'll just quickly kill the "realism" argument in HD2 with a few things I'd noticed. > There is virtually no correlation between apparent size of a cartridge and the expected damage or armor pen, the largest "offender" of this is the autocannon, as the surprisingly small rounds you load it with appear *smaller* than .50 bmg. > The Liberator penetrator is as bad as it is nonsensical, as the weapon has grown considerably in size(and weight presumably) yet it suffers a worse recoil stat. I could go on, nobody wants that, just like nobody asked us to "save" the hmg from "unrealistic" access to ammo. etc etc Did I mention we keep virtually everything in our magic prison pockets? no? okay okay I'm leaving.

Arrowhead makes balance changes and bug fixes like genies grant wishes

The game was hyped on release which results in large player loss regarding retention. Adding in the Sony f up, bad balance, blatantly stupid bugs / glitches, and poor design choices that become increasingly evident yea... Arrowhead was lucky.

8:22 did that mfker really just say “PuT IT oN unsafE mODe” Beside that, none of us could lay this down as well as you did Thank you for bringing awareness to this honestly.

"Helldivers 2 should focus more on fun" Me : +1

Almost every dev team that says they want realism in gun play always butchers shotguns, they are not close quarters only!!

I stopped playing once i realised that every new warbond wasn't even worth unlocking

Can you imagine how many players they would have still if they did what all the competent players asked them to do, which is bring everything up to the prenerf railgun. It would have been crazy! Honestly I’d bet they would still have several times the max players they ended up ever getting. What a magnificent obliteration of revenue by the balance team alone.

I want to play helldivers 2, but every time i play i get bored by how little options there is for weapons and stratagems. Well, how little 'good' or fun options i mean. I like the jetpack and the arc thrower, but beyond that everything is bland and uninteresting. The top tier weapons are boring as hell, the most interesting stuff is trash tier.

4:20 People wanted to use EAT and Recoilless Rifle but they didn't work as they do now. They had a hidden mechanic where a large part of the damage was deflected when the warhead hit a target at a steep angle. It was removed around that time but not documented in the patchnotes. The devs later admitted they changed how the two launchers work on their Discord. This is an immensely important part of the puzzle because there literally was no alternative to the Railgun in the release version of Helldivers 2. All other guns were incapable of dealing with armor to the extent the higher difficulties demanded.

I think it's a cause and effect where we got stale gameplay because of bad balance, which took away a lot of the game's replayability. I saw it all go away before my eyes as well, cause I loved a _lot_ of stuff that eventually got gutted. Slugger was my first favorite weapon. It gave me the hard-hitting accurate weapon I was looking for the moment I realized ARs didn't fit my playstyle, and then they nerfed it. After, I found the Slugger to be ineffective against the fatties I hated so much, so I went on looking afterwards. The Exosuits really brought a lot of life into the game when they came out, and I friggin loved them so much. I'm a huge Titanfall fan, and anything that lets me relive that part of my life is an instant success. But, of course, they made the rockets really difficult to use, which only sped up the realization that Exosuits were, oddly, pretty lackluster. I still run them to this day, but I'm always thing in the back of my mind that I could be doing so much better not running one. Then the Eruptor came out and made my enjoyment in this game skyrocket back up. It was easily my favorite primary released since launch, and it gave me the ability to run more loadouts thanks to its ability to hit heavier enemies and take care of sub-objectives / spawners. I finally had a viable situation where I could run the Stalwart and still contribute positively to the war. Since we can't have good things though, Eruptor ended up getting nerfed and that thing to became straight unusable. Now I'm at a point where nothing quite makes me happy and it causes my interest to wain quite heavily. No primaries appeal to me nor work with loadouts I like, and I've gotten to the point where I feel like I don't need to make any other loadouts ever since I found one for bugs and bots that always does really well. The meta could explode if all the primaries became super good; easiest example would be Eruptor. Back in the Eruptor golden age, you could legit ditch anti-tank and take something like Stalwart and do shockingly well. Nowadays, you basically don't have anything that takes care of all the downsides Stalwart has, which limits loadout building very much. Just make everything good and the rest will do itself. That's why I'm so excited for this patch; it legit could soft release like 7 primaries, 3 secondaries, 5 grenades, and other stuff because the weapons before were so bad that they basically didn't exist. Once everything becomes usable, you now attract many different people who prefer different playstyles than right now or are bored with current playstyles. It's all about taking what we got and making it something meaningful, and that's all the game needs rn.

It also doesn't help that some of the community are standardless fans that are willing to blindly forgive and idolize the developers.

Since that patch where they screwd the weapons, my friends stopped playing and didn't come back. None of my friends play with me anymore. I log in alone, help the newbies, and the higher-level players kick me for reasons I don't understand. I'm also about to stop playing.

There just using realism as an excuse at this point.

Even if they introduce illuminate next patch it will take me few weeks to turn the game on

The realest Helldivers 2 creator.

The "recoilless rifle animation cancel" is basically hit almost any button to reload faster if you time it right. Like an active reload mechanic, it has you pay attention instead of sneaking a sip of a drink or whatever, it's engaging to do. More active reload mechanics makes reloading more fun and has an expression of skill!

Aliens Fireteam Elite did a good job of making interesting guns in a coop game. Most had a unique feel, were effective if used correctly and were fun.

I played a lot when it first came out. But now? I don’t. Because of all the nerfs I end up using the same stratagems even more because there’s no options that haven’t been gutted.

Considering the fact I come to OhDoug's channel for information and numbers...having the one and only lay it all out like this is....depressing 💀. I really think next patch will either be the elixr of life or nail in the coffin...

I remember the time right after the devastator spawns update, when it got actually hard to find 10 regular ones to kill for a personal daily A single alert could literally drop dozens of rocket devs in the most covert position to spam you all day, but we struggled to meet a daily kill counter for regular ones during a single mission.

As the CEO himself said perfectly "every time someone finds fun, the fun gets removed"