It's no secret that a large number of Helldivers 2 players were unhappy with the game's latest update. Fan-favorite weapons like the flamethrower were nerfed, among other unpopular changes. In response, players protested by allowing Helldiver 2's world, Super Earth, to be nearly overrun by enemy forces. Now, the game's developer, Arrowhead Game Studios, is sharing a message to Helldivers 2 fans with a roadmap to fix the title in 60 days.
"We've spent the last week listening to feedback, reflecting about the path ahead for Helldivers 2 and how we want to continue developing the game," said game director Mikael Eriksson on the Helldivers 2 Reddit page. "In short, we didn't hit our target with the latest update. Some things we just didn't get right--and other more fundamental inconsistencies in our approach to game balance and game direction. All of that is on us and we are going to own that."
Unfortunately for fans of the flamethrower, Eriksson noted that a simple revert would cause other problems in the game. He did add that the developer will update how the fire damage mechanic works, and reiterated that the game should be "fun, not 'balanced' for the sake of balance."
Over the next two months, Arrowhead Game Studios plans to re-prioritize fixing gameplay-impacting bugs first, in addition to making combat more appealing and "engaging." Arrowhead also intends to improve Helldiver 2's frame rate and "prevent excessive ragdolling." Additionally, Eriksson noted that Arrowhead is considering an opt-in beta-test environment for Helldiver 2 that may prevent the developers from making the same mistakes in the future.
The full list of planned changes is below.
Additionally, from a bigger picture perspective we will be:
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"We've spent the last week listening to feedback, reflecting about the path ahead for Helldivers 2 and how we want to continue developing the game," said game director Mikael Eriksson on the Helldivers 2 Reddit page. "In short, we didn't hit our target with the latest update. Some things we just didn't get right--and other more fundamental inconsistencies in our approach to game balance and game direction. All of that is on us and we are going to own that."
Unfortunately for fans of the flamethrower, Eriksson noted that a simple revert would cause other problems in the game. He did add that the developer will update how the fire damage mechanic works, and reiterated that the game should be "fun, not 'balanced' for the sake of balance."
Over the next two months, Arrowhead Game Studios plans to re-prioritize fixing gameplay-impacting bugs first, in addition to making combat more appealing and "engaging." Arrowhead also intends to improve Helldiver 2's frame rate and "prevent excessive ragdolling." Additionally, Eriksson noted that Arrowhead is considering an opt-in beta-test environment for Helldiver 2 that may prevent the developers from making the same mistakes in the future.
The full list of planned changes is below.
- Continue to re-examine our approach to balance. Our intention is that balance should be fun, not “balanced” for the sake of balance.
- Update how the fire damage mechanic works to tweak how the flamethrower serves as a close range support weapon. (A quick straight revert won’t work, as it would break other things)
- Rework gameplay to prevent excessive ragdolling
- Re-think our design approach to primary weapons and create a plan for making combat more engaging
- Re-prioritize bug fixes so that the more immediate gameplay-impacting bugs are prioritized.
- Improve game performance (frame rate is a focus)
- Rework Chargers
Additionally, from a bigger picture perspective we will be:
- Exploring creation of an opt-in beta-test environment to improve our testing processes and we consider this a high-priority.
- Post regular player surveys to gather more insights and feedback from the community.
- Improve our process for patch/release notes - providing more context and reasoning behind changes.
- More blog posts and streams where we expand on these topics for those interested.
Source