After a very mixed reception to the latest Helldivers 2 update, the game's director is tackling the feedback with a 60-day plan to make things right, alongside a list of longer-term changes the studio intends to make in how it communicates with players.
"I want to directly address the feedback you've raised about the Escalation of Freedom update," game director Mikael E says in a message shared to players on social media, including Reddit. "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. 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. As many of you have pointed out, and we agree, what matters most now is action. Not talk."
In terms of action, Mikael E says "our aim within the next 60 days" is to do the following:
- Helldivers 2 boss told launch players not to buy until servers calmed down, and it "took 5 minutes until I got a call from the friendly people over at PlayStation asking what the f*** I was smoking"
- Helldivers 2's funniest feature was removed last year, but it's finally been reinstated – although it won't save you from certain doom anymore
- 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
Balance has been a particularly hot topic since Escalation of Freedom dropped with a big change to flamethrowers that effectively nerfed them just before a flame-themed Warbond, making the weapon far less effective against the infamous Chargers. Community ire drew comments from Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani, who admitted that those nerfs are "disappointing after we had a similar misstep earlier."
In today's post, Mikael E also notes that the team is "exploring creation of an opt-in beta-test environment to improve our testing processes and we consider this a high-priority." Earlier this month, Arrowhead noted that a test server is "on the wishlist." The devs also intend to conduct more player surveys, offer more detailed patch notes with explanations for changes, and provide the community with larger blog posts going into even greater depth.
