Within the wake of yet one more blowup amongst the Helldivers 2 group over an unpopular stability patch, recreation director Mikael Eriksson says Arrowhead “did not hit our goal with the most recent replace,” and laid out the studio’s plan to do a greater job with future patches.
The issue is the Escalation of Freedom replace launched earlier this month, which amongst many different issues nerfed a fan-favorite flamethrower, making it far much less efficient than it was in opposition to Chargers. Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani shortly waded into the fray, doing his greatest to mollify the plenty with a courageous face; “We have to do higher” with future updates, he stated after a couple of days, including that “simply speaking about it is not sufficient. Actions matter.”
Now we have got an concept as to what kind of actions the studio plans to take. In a message posted on Reddit, Steam, and the Helldivers Discord, Eriksson laid out Arrowhead’s objectives for the subsequent 60 days:
- Proceed to re-examine our method to stability. Our intention is that stability must be enjoyable, not “balanced” for the sake of stability.
- Replace how the hearth injury mechanic works to tweak how the flamethrower serves as an in depth vary help weapon. (A fast straight revert received’t work, as it will break different issues)
- Rework gameplay to stop extreme ragdolling
- Re-think our design method to major weapons and create a plan for making fight extra participating
- Re-prioritize bug fixes in order that the extra fast gameplay-impacting bugs are prioritized.
- Enhance recreation efficiency (body price is a spotlight)
- Rework Chargers
He additionally shared a “greater image perspective”:
- Exploring creation of an opt-in beta-test surroundings to enhance our testing processes and we take into account this a high-priority.
- Put up common participant surveys to assemble extra insights and suggestions from the group.
- Enhance our course of for patch/launch notes – offering extra context and reasoning behind adjustments.
- Extra weblog posts and streams the place we increase on these matters for these .
“We’ve spent the final week listening to suggestions, reflecting concerning the path forward for Helldivers 2 and the way we wish to proceed creating the sport,” Eriksson wrote. “In brief, we didn’t hit our goal with the most recent replace. Some issues we simply didn’t get proper—and different extra elementary inconsistencies in our method to recreation stability and recreation route.
“All of that’s on us and we’re going to personal that. As a lot of you have got identified, and we agree, what issues most now’s motion. Not discuss.”
This is not the primary time the Helldivers 2 group has flipped out over a stability patch, neither is it the primary time Arrowhead has tried to sit back everybody out about it: In Could, as an illustration, former CEO and present chief inventive officer Johan Pilestedt stated the studio had “gone too far” in a few of its earlier efforts to stability the sport, and promised to “discuss to the workforce concerning the method to stability.”
I feel, although, that that is the primary time Arrowhead has laid out its plan in such particular element. Will or not it’s sufficient to fulfill vocal Helldivers 2 critics? That is still to be seen, however the excellent news for Arrowhead is that regardless of the seemingly countless uproar, loads of persons are nonetheless completely satisfied to dive in and blast away at bugs and ‘bots: There are at the moment greater than 36,000 individuals enjoying Helldivers 2 on Steam, and whereas that is a far cry from the heady days of February when the sport first launched, it is nonetheless a wholesome quantity, and greater than sufficient to make it one of many most-played video games on Steam.
