Helldivers 2 ‘gets less fun with every patch’ complain fans after new changes-Adam Starkey-Entertainment – Metro

Some Helldivers 2 players are all fired up (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Arrowhead is once again having to deal with frustrated Helldivers 2 players, after a new update nerfed several weapons.

While Helldivers 2 is one of the biggest breakout games of the year, the positivity around the shooter has dimmed in recent months.

Following its successful launch in February, the PC version of the co-op shooter was briefly removed from sale in over 177 countries, as Sony was forced to backtrack on the decision to force PC players to link a PlayStation Network account in order to play. This prompted a backlash which the game’s player numbers still haven’t recovered from.

Three months later, a new update has sparked another wave of negative reviews, with complaints about recent balancing changes that have ruined players’ fun.

Earlier this week, the developer launched the Escalation Of Freedom update which added new enemies, mission types and a new extreme difficulty level. This update, however, also came with some balance adjustments, specifically to flamethrower weapons.

As listed in the patch notes, flame effects have been adjusted to ‘work more realistically’. While this sounds innocuous on the surface, as players have pointed out, this means fire no longer penetrates through all material, making it less useful against armoured enemies like the Charger. You can still target beneath the Charger’s armour with fire to take them down, but it is noticeably less effective.

This change to the fire effects has been under heavy critcism as it was rolled out ahead of the Freedom’s Flame Warbond update, which arrives on August 8. This update adds several new flamethrower weapons, but with the aforementioned nerfs, people are wondering why they should be excited since flame weapons have lost their fun factor.

This fiery downgrade has also impacted the SG-225IE Breaker Incendiary shotgun, which was one of the best weapons for dealing with the Terminids. Following the latest update, the shotgun has a reduced number of magazines and increased recoil.

In a post on Discord, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani explained why the weapon was targeted with nerfs. ‘The Incendiary Breaker was like 30% of all Terminid sessions at some point,’ he wrote. ‘Very much a meta gun. Is that a problem? Yes. Is it a big one? I don’t know. We’ll discuss it.’

Since the update, Helldivers 2 has been hit with a wave of negative reviews on Steam from those irked by the changes. ‘They have nerfed the weapons that are most effective and in doing so have nerfed the fun out of this game,’ one player recently wrote.

Another added: ‘This game gets less fun with every patch.’

Over the past two days, over 1,000 players have posted negative reviews on Steam, next to 500 positive within the same window. It’s only a fraction of the 221,000 negative reviews from the PSN debacle, but it’s the biggest negative spike since then.

Arrowhead has indicated that it is taking on board the feedback. In a post on Twitter following the update, CEO Shams Jorjani wrote: ‘We’ve got a ton of players returning to the game to give it a go. We’re tracking bugs/issues and planning ahead of the hotfix.’

He added: ‘Every new big update requires a bit of playtime before we know which direction to fine tune things. Appreciate the patience!’

Since the update, Helldivers 2 player numbers on Steam have almost doubled to over 62,000. This is the highest amount of players since June, but a far cry from its overall peak of 458,709 when it launched in February.

While there’s every chance Arrowhead could walk back these changes, the studio’s rollout of weapon nerfs has been a recurring issue in recent months.

The negative review spikes on Steam for Helldivers 2 (Steam)

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