Helldivers 2 devs “own” mistakes of latest update and hand out a bullet-pointed emergency roadmap to fix things

There was an ever-so-brief point in human history when Helldivers 2 was the absolute bomb. Everybody was playing, players were excited to buy and the devs at Arrowhead were taking everyone along for the ride with them.

While not quite the whole asteroid+dinosaurs scenario, with a dedicated player base comes increased pressure and it is fair to say Helldiver 2 has gone off the boil and some of its more recent changes have been viewed in the same way as a T-Rex eyeing that fiery ball in the sky and thinking the game could be up here.

Now Helldivers 2’s Game Director Mikael E has taken the unusual step of posting an open letter to the community underlining that they know they got it wrong and that they are now working round the clock to not only fix the game but gain back some player trust.

Most of the issues seem to be around how the latest patch unbalanced the game which has not gone down well, to say the least. The post addresses this by saying, “I want to directly address the feedback you’ve raised about the Escalation of Freedom update. 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.”

The post goes on to underline a two-month roadmap for what will be incoming for Helldivers 2 by continuing.

“Our aim within the next 60 days:

• 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.”

It’s always good to see devs embracing their community. Helldivers 2 may be going through it’s first real rough patch after the honeymoon period, but we are not at the point of needing a Jurassic Park-style rebirth just yet.

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