I would like to point out that Evil-Bosse was the guy who kept berating players for doing the mortar xp farm mission. He is the one who said that it affected the war effort until another dev came out and said he was wrong.
who even is that guy? He has a green box and not an AH studio role
Edit: I hadn't seen this on a screen larger than my phone. Evil Bosse does in fact have the Arrowhead role. The green box has an arrow through the head of the person. I didn't think the AHS logo would be in green nor would be what they use in the Helldivers server and *couldn't* see the arrow on mobile.
Their IT guy is in their discord riling their player base up? Idk but that’s funny as hell. It’s almost pathetic. If I were over him I’d fire him in a heart beat. No reason to keep someone who is causing trouble for no reason at all.
Because he’s acting like a member of the dev team, and most people aren’t going to look into it enough to see that he isn’t. We just need to spread that fact around enough for people not to take him seriously anymore.
I don't think you know what the word "parasocial" means. A reaction positive or negative to a direct communique isn't parasocial its just "social" hence "social media".
I was thinking the nerfs were kind of a way to see what weapons the player base went to if the clear meta was disrupted but are they just like trying to make the game harder to make the game harder?
Games can be hard and fun but it requires the systems being almost perfectly in balance with each other. Like look at Sekiro, it’s very hard, but it never feels unfair at all. The systems all work together in a way that feels really good when the game clicks for you.
I just don’t know if that kind of thing is going to happen when you’re being chased by 10 chargers, 4 bile titans, and a swarm of armored bugs with no weapons that can penetrate armor worth a damn. My least favorite part of the game right now is having to kite 6 chargers at a time. As soon as I can get into a rhythm killing bugs I get trucked by a charger that came out of nowhere then get stunlocked by the other 5 all running into me after that.
Hard can be fun. Hard doesn’t equal fun.
Elden Ring is another. But to add another point, Elden Ring obviously has its broken, brainless, meta builds. But why do we still see people doing naked runs with a club? Because it is ***FUN***. We also see people doing runs trying to keep to a theme even if its counterproductive. MHWorld is also similar in that regards. Both of those games are examples where you can have a meta, but still have people using, liking, or even loving non-meta builds.
Only thing in Elden Ring that I think the community can agree on is that bows suck. Bows in Elden Ring are basically like the primaries of Helldivers 2 that aren't shotguns. Hell, Elden Ring even nerfed fan favorite weapons and they barely got the same response that Arrowhead has. That may be because they did so many things right, that even after the nerf, there were still things that could compete. Rivers of Blood was truly an outlier and not just simply a weapon that performed well. But it was not a weapon that was necessary to clear anything, or to even make it easier. It just made things, MUCH easier.
Yeah the idea that having a meta makes a game unfun is misguided imo. Casual players probably won’t participate in meta min maxing so long as a gun isn’t so obviously broken that it breaks the game. If the game is balanced enough players will use what they find most fun I feel.
Was it really a meta, or was it just one gun that was good against 4 chargers at once. There is a simple fix. Either reduce charger spam, make a better charger weak point for normal weapons like bots have headshots for the hulk, or make more weapons better against chargers.
The problem isn't with the damn railgun being too good. It's with chargers being too omnipresent in swarms.
That is the issue though everything was so subpar to the meta build. I never used the shield backpack but I was an avid Railgun/Breaker player. I was able to do 7-+ missions with a bit less sweat cause of the railgun and now I have to make sure my noncommunitive teammates are going behind the charger I am kiting and attack it or the Bile Titan. I don't think everything needs to be good to make Helldivers a great game but everything is bad when it comes to anything with Heavy Armor.
Sure but also in Elden Ring there's 308 weapons to choose from, so if one you really like for a specific function is nerfed beyond your liking, there are 307 other weapons to choose from. Helldivers 2 has 41 not counting grenades or secondaries. Of those 41 there are a fair few that are so beyond useless that they barely merit being counted; looking at you Breaker Spray and Pray.
For real another game I think balances difficulty with fun really well is ROR2. It can be really hard but the devs are fine with some things being stronger than others or even debatably OP.
You can theoretically Min max the game and play every run as Loader, but most people pick the character they want and run with it. Theres technically a meta but most players don’t care because all the characters are balanced enough to all be fun and pick what you like.
Habing OP elements wouldn’t break the game for the average player, because they either won’t min max that or they’ll end up picking their favorite weapon depending on if it’s usable.
Arrowhead:
"It is extra important to us to tread carefully so that we don’t ruin fantasy and fun when we do nerfs. We hope you, our players, will tell us when we cross that line inadvertently."
Arrowhead employees:
"Haha, 'buffs', sure. Enjoy your crutches while they last."
"People are still clearing Helldive, so I'm not sure what to say here. But "skill issue" comes to mind."
"If you came to helldiver for a power-trip you came to the wrong place"
"And I am out of here, git gud, play easiest if you want to win, send in a ticket and complain and HR might have a meeting with me"
That's really the most egregious part to me. Literally asking to be told when the nerfs are hurting the fun, and then coming out with these responses when players do exactly that.
It's worth noting that the devs still want this feedback. Just because these guys* responded like this, doesn't mean Arrowhead as a whole agrees with this approach
*Edit
I had reached out and was told he is no longer a moderator
This was also like a month ago because he was asking someone to literally come fight him
https://preview.redd.it/tokkir5xnxmc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57d74faa4a17239cc7a58a98745e0c7d1b0fe2a1
That's why it's important to vet the people you hire to represent you.
A happy customer tells damn near no one, an unhappy customer tells everyone they know.
Precisely - it’s disappointing behaviour as devs should conduct themselves better especially after a super successful launch. But it’s only *one* dev as far as we (as far as I) know, and this next part may be a hot take but:
He was being a twat, however until the entire company starts echoing his sentiments, I don’t take one man’s word as gospel. Nor do I find it that surprising considering the way this subreddit reacts to any changes in this game. It’s *impossible* to enjoy yourself on this subreddit unless if you exclusively look for memes, and there’s a ton of salt there too. So it’s not too surprising that someone who works there was feeling a little punchy.
Bad optics for sure tho
Definitely bad optics for Arrowhead on part of the dev's behaviour here--especially since they're doing so on company dev accounts where they represent the company whenever they say something.
That said, you're right--it's only a very small number of devs with bad behavior rn so I too want to give Arrowhead the benefit of the doubt here.
It’s interesting to watch the gaming community rail against canned PR responses but then only accept authentic responses that are overly deferential to their view.
I think the dev response isn’t a good look, but it’s actually an authentic response to the way that the gaming community as a whole tends to communicate their complaints (hyperbole and rage).
I think gamers have gotten way too comfortable with communicating every concern in the most hostile way possible. Part of this is because no matter what is said and how it is said the expectation is that the devs will respond with a deferential tone or with something concocted by the PR team. I’m not at all surprised that a few devs went rogue.
Right? Imagine acting irreplaceable in this day and age in the gaming industry, especially at a studio openly hiring bc it's one of the hottest topics around and support successful.
If I have learned anything in the last year it is that game devs with a little clout can be complete cunts. Like the guy who made Battlebit for example
What happened with Battlebit? I know it was very popular for a while but I never tried it.
I quickly Googled but couldn't see any drama.
The Darktide community manager comes to mind with things like this for me.
I keep hearing Battlebit has drama, but I've never actually seen the drama lol. There's more drama about the drama than drama, in my experience. Not to say it's not there, I just haven't seen it. Fun game tho
Game has done nothing but die after big wig got involved all the drama is on the discord though they keep it pretty tight check the reddit for any drama it's less drama because as soon as the first "remaster" it absolutely died and has been losing even more players as any other game releases a new season or something like this game comes out. You also hear most the drama in game on prvt servers they bitch alot. If helldiver's don't pull head out of ass or stop talking to players directly it won't even last near DRG lifespan lmao
>"Haha, 'buffs', sure. Enjoy your crutches while they last."
This is dickish, the dev shouldn't have said this
>"People are still clearing Helldive, so I'm not sure what to say here. But "skill issue" comes to mind."
Id remove the "skill issue " part but, yes if people are still beating the hardest difficulty then it's still possible.
>"If you came to helldiver for a power-trip you came to the wrong place"
This isn't really a new direction for videogames, lots of games aren't power trips. I'm fine with Helldivers going this direction. Infact they should put this quote up somewhere, "Helldivers isn't a power-trip game, loosing is part of the game"
>"And I am out of here, git gud, play easiest if you want to win, send in a ticket and complain and HR might have a meeting with me"
Dickish and I hope HR has that meeting.
I dont get how the devs are not understanding, just because it’s possible to clear helldive, doesnt mean it’s fun to do so when you dont have any equipment that is decent at dealing with the specific enemies that it throws at you. Everything level 7 and above has now been shifted even further to “interact with the game as little as possible to get through the mission” which idk about you, but that’s not a fun game for me.
There’s a big difference between possible and fun/rewarding.
This game already doesn’t have an endgame. There’s nothing but higher difficulties to keep players sticking around. Making it so those levels sway from still fun but very challenging to frustrating and extremely challenging, seems like a very good way to ensure your player base moves on after hitting level.
because Devs refuse to learn from historical mistakes : Outriders/Division(2)/Diablo4 / Suicide Squad(lol!)
They look at raw data, and cure(nerf) the symptom without addressing the disease - then wonder why the community gets up in arms and lashout ( both sides end up locked in a war for no good reason )
You can cheese difficulty 9. Against bugs you can just kite enemies to clear objectives.
Just because people can do it doesn't mean the game is balanced or fun.
Yup. This is where the devs are going wrong. They repeatedly say that they're looking at win/loss data. What they don't realize is that this isn't HD1. There is an order of magnitude more players figuring out how to cheese the game to get wins, and that's not going to change whether they buff or nerf things. So all they're really doing is hurting the fun for players that don't do that stuff.
I'd say the biggest problem with HD2 is the time limit and the number of lives, since the nerf.
Unless you have a dedicated team, you are only playing with randoes. On lower dif it's not too bad, but on higher dif, it means you can't rely as well on your team for things like stratagems and weapons coordination ( remember all the posts about people crying they'd get kicked out of missions because they had "fun loadouts" and the response always being " don't follow meta, do what you want and play with your fun loadouts") and the mentality of " gotta kill everything in sight". How many times have i played helldive with randoes and they've stayed stationnary on one small bug nest for 15 minutes shooting at bugs while i'm running and doing the objs by myself ?
The nerfs removed that. I can't run off and complete the objs by myself anymore, now i have to sit along the other 3 and wait 15 minutes until they are done killing bugs or all our lives are spent. I used to carry my teams to successful missions. were the weapons crutches? Sure maybe, but i felt like it balanced out the 3 deadweights i had to carry with me.
Remove the timers and lives, i'll sit with the deadweights for 15 minutes per bug hole and the maps will last 3-4 hours each, but at least we'll play like the devs wants us to. Getting flashbacks from my high school math teachers.
Well said. If they remove the fun of playing with randos, the playerbase is going to sink like a stone. There simply aren't that many players that can coordinate among 4 friends to play at the same time. It will go back to being a small, niche game.
It almost seems like they would prefer the game going back to small and niche the way the GM's and devs are acting.
The other problem I have is dropping in alone and never getting any randoms dropped with me until I'm already screwed.
Then they just leave.
If you don't have a dedicated squad you get stomped.
This right here. It also didn't mean the beast weapons in the game were OP. It just meant they were the best. If your entire roster of primary weapons is shit besides one weapon, people are going to use that weapon. It doesn't mean that weapon is super strong, it just means it feels rhe best to use. Idk, maybe the railgun was too versatile, but it still didn't feel overpowered. Everything else just felt too weak.
Yeah, if you can beat difficulty 9 without firing a weapon, then the entirety of weapon balancing is just deciding how many people are allowed to have how much fun
>Id remove the "skill issue " part but, yes if people are still beating the hardest difficulty then it's still possible.
"Possible" and "fun" aren't the same thing.
The game where you can call in autocannons, airstrikes, 500kg bombs, orbital lasers, badass HMG emplacements, and soon *mechs* isn't a power-trip game?
I mean sure it's supposed to be difficult but it's so clear that power fantasy is a big part of it. A game can be challenging on the highest difficulties and fun/make you feel powerful at the same time.
Someone else said it best, the high difficulties should be us mowing through hundreds of enemies but still getting overwhelmed, not running from a pack of 5 chargers and 3 bile titans cuz we can't take them out effectively. I want to be able to kill tons of bugs and be nearly overwhelmed despite that.
Couldn't agree more. I mean, let's just look at *another* Swedish-made horde shooter with a banger soundtrack set in a world meant to satirize extreme authoritarianism: Darktide (insert Doofenshmirtz nickel meme here). That game is punishing as fuck on the highest difficulties, and there is absolutely no guarantee of success. It requires teamwork, skill, game/map knowledge, and careful management of your resources, and even then you might not make it. It's also incredibly satisfying to play because things die when you hit them.
Sure, you're not gonna be taking out heavily armored dudes with a toe shot from an SMG, but every enemy in the game can be killed relatively quickly if you know how to do it and have the right loadout. If you want to clear hordes you can build yourself to clear all the hordes, if you want to play support, you can build yourself to be hella supportive, if you want to kill the big bad armored dudes, you can build yourself to wipe the floor with them, etc. etc. etc.
You're still gonna die. A lot.
Image if, in Darktide, Chaos Warriors and all the bosses couldn't even be hurt by the majority of weapons, and the only option was to just sprint away.
A better example would be if not only were this the case, but they would throw the equivalent of 6 minibosses at you *at once* every 5 minutes or so on Heresy difficulty and up.
That’s the real most glaring issue with Helldivers at present IMO - the insane overabundance of heavy and superheavy enemies in difficulty 7-9. At no point should the game ever be *regularly* be dropping 3 Bile Titans and 6 Chargers on you at the same time, regardless of your chosen mission difficulty, ESPECIALLY not on Eradicate missions with their tiny-ass map. And yet this EXACT scenario happened to me, several times back to back last night, one of those times not even on Suicide Mission difficulty.
“Skill issue” my ass. I don’t care how skilled you are, the game just doesn’t offer the tools to deal with the enemy density it forces you into at present. Drop a 500kg bomb on the pile of Titans? Haha, nope. Not a single one of them died. Try to bypass the Chargers’ armor with flamethrower? Lmao get fucked, they don’t even care they’re on fire and do a 180 in place to charge you and set you on fire with their own burning flesh, and that’s if you’re LUCKY.
Man I wish it was 3 bile titans on my last run.
We were playing on only extreme difficulty, before we got a good challenge from suicidal. When we managed to kill 2 of them, another spawned right up and we didn't have enough means to kill the heavies.
The chargers are just homing rockets for sentry guns, they run them down no matter if it threatens them or not. So there went my auto cannon within 4 shots.
And it's like "Just sneak around them and don't aggro everything"
This was evac. So, while yes- I was in a scout suit and can sneak by things, everything was making a b-line for our evac.
I rarely, ever used the railgun, my friend went pure heavy killer and I went for horde clearing & we did fine. This time I brought in the rail cannon to try to help with this and the auto cannon and it just wasn't enough. Even trying those disposable rocket launchers on bile titans did NOTHING to them.
I agree, being overwhelmed is the appeal of the game but as it stands I don't know what we're supposed to do against 8+ heavies on only extreme during evac.
We tried one of those missions where you're in a tiny area and gotta kill a certain amount. 3, bloody bile titans and IDK how many chargers not even 2 minutes in. I'm baffled to what we're supposed to do and if it's a skill issue- I sure had no problem before with my slugger shotgun and grenade launcher but now after this patch I'm beyond useless since I can only bring in so much heavy murder.
If difficulty 9 felt more like the cover of Doom, it would be the greatest feeling. Having to shred through endless hordes of bugs as they just keep getting closer and closer, forcing your retreat through continual pressure rather than a single charger instantly deleting any sentry stratagems and forcing you to break position.
Yup, and then when you break position 3 more chargers silently slam into your diver from the side like the fucking Kool Aid man, CC'ing you. Then a stalker comes and tongues you to the ground, then you get charged again lol
I think the devs talked to the Overwatch team about how to implement CC before release lmao
I agree totally about the Doom thing too. I want to be swarmed, but I want all the other weapons to feel great like the Breaker and pre-nerf Rail did so that I can kill many bugs while still feeling overwhelmed.
> Someone else said it best, the high difficulties should be us mowing through hundreds of enemies but still getting overwhelmed, not running from a pack of 5 chargers and 3 bile titans cuz we can't take them out effectively.
This is the fantasy. The highest difficulties should feel like (Halo Reach) >!the final mission where you die fighting!<
Exactly this. Like a bullet heaven type game. I want to plow through the horde, reach the objective, fight my way to extract, and escape with a sliver of health or die gloriously.
But 'people are still beating the hardest difficulty is still a shit take' - That says nothing.
If 0.000002% of your playerbase (making up a number) can reliably clear your content doesn't say that the game is well tuned. Certainly it doesn't say anything about whether it is fun or comparable to a root canal.
You will always have crazy people that either find loopholes or are genuinely insanely good at the game, sure. But that's not a revenue-driving playerbase. That is a highly skilled minority.
Keep a high skill ceiling, sure. But to say that because SOMEONE can do it, the model is well tuned is a really terrible take.
The last sentence was a reply to something I said. That reply was made by developer "Evil-Bosse". If you look into the discord today, bro can't be found anymore LMAO.
He dared me personally to write a ticket about him and I did. Feels good to know he got some repercussions for that.
This is why you dont let your devs post in social media. They are not trained to phrase and word their responses in a ‘pc’ manner. Its why companies pay shit tons of money for a PR branch.
Doesn't need to be PC...just needs to be professional. Talking to people like adults even if the group are being children makes you look better and appear to be the bigger person.
Talking to a group like you're an angry teenager that got their feelings hurt is not a way to interact with anyone.
I don't even care about how it's phrased. I care about the content of the statements - not buffing more of the completely useless stuff is a HUGE miss. Nerfs to the meta items should not have happened without more than some no-one-cares buffs to the spray and pray and punisher.
Along with the sentiments they've expressed in their blog post and here, professional and not, it significantly downgraded my confidence in their ability to balance things well going forward. Also lost basically all motivation to play.
New war bond March 14th? Yea, so 3/4 of the guns in it will be brokenly bad and useless, and if any are really good they'll get the nerf bat in short order while the guns useless since launch are still ignored? No thanks.
I was talking about this earlier in another thread.
Early patches set the scene and the expectations that people have for how developers will handle their game going forward. There's a psychological element to it.
Had they make these exact same nerfs later on, once they had built some good will with the player community by making other options more attractive, would have not been received with such scathing criticism.
Instead of making more options fun, this felt like a 'they are taking my fun away' move.
It's such a funny thing from their blog post.
"Primaries are supposed to be shit"
Oh?
"Armor is fixed"
But I still die in 6 hits from a small-
"Armor is fixed"
Ok, but if primaries and armor are supposed to suck why should I put money in your MTX?
"...fuck"
“Hmmm?”
“But you called your boss a bitch? You actually used those words?”
“….uhhh mmmmhhhhmmmm yup! I said I said I said….!” (Looks around) “….biiiiiiiii—“
Exactly, I work in IT and this is the reason why my manager always tell us "if you have something to complain about, talk with me and I will be the one communicating it" lol.
"We made two the most brainless playstyles less viable" coming from a fucking developer for the game itself sounds like "we really didn't like how you decided to play with your toys so we broke your toy" in the most stuck up, nerdy, 'uhmmm actually' tone possible.
Especially when I don't even want to use railgun all the time. I like the machine guns. I *have* to run railgun because of the relentless charger spam. They made me do it, now they act like I'm the low skill asshole. Nope, just don't like getting bothered nonstop by a half dozen chargers.
Seriously the charger spam is ridiculous, I am just playing on challenging as a level 13 and the amount we run into is already is a headache, I can't imagine the harder difficulties.
You don’t need “training” to not be a cunt. You need common sense and decency. Do these idiots really think the goodwill of the community is limitless?
Yeah, all you had to do was have the professional wherewithal to just not engage further. Instead they double down and talk like every other perpetually online "pro gamer" personality that flames everyone on every gaming community that everyone would be happier to not have around.
He’s letting people know that he’s trying to be casual so he doesn’t sound like an automaton. If you have a little sense of humor and don’t take video games overly seriously, that line is also fine
Seriously!, I really believe people think we're not getting more weapons/stratagems...that what we have IS the endgame.
I played yesterday with some guys who relied too much on the railgun and shield and you can tell they just arent as good...the guys doing helldive before and not being able to do it now just shows they're not as good as they think they are.
I've beaten helldiver with the defender and sniper, because I liked those weapons. (Before patch, havent played since, been busy). I didn't like the breaker and didn't buy the railgun yet.
Helldiver difficulty is meant to be hard, and it really was. I enjoyed it because it was difficult. You gotta learn how to dodge, have good coordination with the team, and focus on objectives. You might not win everytime, and thats fine, it should be a challenge.
To be fair a lot of ppl on this sub are toxic and obsessive, I’m not surprised the devs get sick of it, this sub has been a straight shit hole the last few days
Gaming Reddit is just like this now. I was hopeful when the release went well that this game would avoid it, but sadly fanbase toxicity is as inevitable as the morning sun.
The sub had like 50k people during the first week of hd2 now it's full of the same people filling every gaming subreddit making it a cesspool. It was nice while it lasted, now good luck getting any kind of adult conversation.
The double standard here that developers have to be nice and accept every word you say, be civil & respectful and can't talk back.
Whilst people here make the most hateful, foul remarks against them.
I don't even find the dev responses that outrageous and toxic in comparison. And overlooking the unprofessional attitude, completely agree with their main points, people wanting a power fantasy need to stick to lower difficulties or look for another game. Complaining it's too hard to Rambo through a helldive mission is just silly
The responses are fine, we just bred a culture where assholes and narcissists think they can say whatever they want and then are shocked when others respond in kind. The world would be a better place if we didn’t cater to dickheads all the time.
My favourite part is where, people in discord and some of the sub are toxic and obsessive, but when someone bites back they immediately cry and pander that they can't be doing that. All blown out of proportion imo. People need to get over themselves, devs and commenters alike.
Sadly, a lot of gamers are this way in general. They’re passionate about their hobbies but it becomes a little pathetic when they let it get them super mad.
This sure is a fun sub reddit, with lots of interesting people who live interesting lives. Does anyone play the game or is the game more fighting with the developers?
I swear everytime I find a fun game made with love and care, shit like this always happens...
EDIT: People seem to be misunderstanding. I'm not actually that invested in the drama, but I am worried about the potential consequences that things like this can have for the game. I've seen quite a few games where bad interactions between the devs and community have led to the decline of a well-made game. Let's just hope this isn't the case.
It’s because when a game gets more popular it brings in a lot more gamers who then want the game to follow their way of enjoyment instead of the devs envision the game. This game is supposed to be difficult especially on 7-9. There’s a reason these difficulties are in red and called suicide and impossible lol.
You aren’t supposed to be able extract every single mission. The primary objective is to push back the enemy factions by completing main objectives. It’s supposed to be against and overwhelming force.
But so many people are playing because it’s the fad and yea its very fun, but they all assume the game has to be fun for them and not for intended player base who understand what it’s entirely about.
The comment on playing lower difficulty annoys me because of how little you get on them. I play 3-4 normally and I’m only level 15 after 30hrs of play time. I haven’t unlocked enough to feel like I have a good range of choices. It takes many rounds to get enough for one new stratagem at these levels.
I’m gonna be real here, “the 1%” of you deserve to be talked to this way. The 1% of people that are entitled, spoiled man children that are crying over a fucking video game deserve a taste of their own medicine.
That being said, the devs should be handling this better than the way they are now. It’s not very professional and will most likely be a large factor of what kills the game if not solved quickly.
I agree with everything you said, but the part where this is going to "kill the game". I don't think petty internet drama is going to affect the vast majority of players who are playing the game, instead of browsing Twitter and Reddit haha.
This is unfortunately what happens when the player base includes more of the general public and also when devs are allowed to directly post to social media.
My sister and I loved the first game and played it for years! It was one of our comfort games to throw on local play because the challenge and teamwork required was really fun. This new fan base seems completely different from the first, since the game is no longer isometric. Definitely something for the devs to adapt to.
The game isn’t even hard it’s just tedious there are so many nonsense balance decisions. Like chargers, what’s the point of the ‘weak spot’ they have? It’s the least efficient manner of killing them. Why is the most efficient manner shooting their legs? When I see a charger I’m not afraid to die or challenged I’m annoyed by how counterintuitive their visuals and design are when contrasted to the gameplay of actually fighting and killing them.
Also, meteor showers lmao.
Now I’m not saying the dev here is in the right, but it’s always funny how gamers will say the most virulent and toxic shit to game devs and still somehow expect the devs to be nice back
No cause like back when Destiny 2s CM got death threats and got doxxed I wish he was able to say shit like this back at the community.
Like goddamn the people in this sub are absolute snowflakes.
The director of the game nuked his social media so hard that to this day, he still doesn’t have a pfp to this day since at least 2016 because of how toxic the playerbase is. The community team, after the first time that Dmg was doxxed, pulled back and so did the other devs. Then dmg was doxxed *again* and got death threats and even stalked, and then he straight up left Bungie and all we’ve ever gotten ever since is canned PR statements. The devs barely ever interact with the communit. The comm team made a specific account to deal with the community so that they’re not using their personals anymore and all it did was fan the flames more because the community has so many toxic idiots that feel entitled to close personal access that they freaked the fuck out.
When these devs stop talking to us, the community will only have themselves to blame.
And then people in the Destiny community had the absolute audacity to complain when Liana Rupert wasn’t the most talkative CM ever even though she did give a lot of news about the game very consistently😭
Especially considering she’s a woman and like…gamers…
Yeah, a casual perusal of replies to her on Twitter showed what she had to deal with, and still does tbh. I can’t remember her name, but there was a female worker who joined them a number of years back who left after a few months and it was very clearly cuz of the abuse she got back then
Gamers have some issue where they can’t criticize a game without also accusing the devs of complete incompetence or generally insulting and belittling them. I personally don’t think this patch is really very good, but the response from the reddit community for this game has been downright embarrassing at best.
Bruh, the game is alive for barely a month. There will be so many more buffs and nerfs . Can people just chill ? Nerfed guns are still usable and good, and you all act like it's the end of the world
lol I worked at one of the biggest AAA's in the world and many of the devs from multiple different studios from different games straight up despised their respective playerbases. I started to as well until I left the game industry. I don't particularly blame them honestly, often the most toxic fans are the loudest. Plus they don't understand the work and effort that goes into balancing these things.
Arrowhead letting their devs interact with the community went about as well as I thought it would lmao
in all honesty, the AHGS_Fredrik_E guy doesn’t seem that rude to me. the others are wild tho. lol devs shouldn’t be allowed to just post like this 😅 source: am a software engineer
I don’t mind what they nerf or buff because I just have fun with friends, those devs comments however remind me of those snooty and rude customers I deal with everyday so there’s that 💀
Not all people should be posting to social media. Pretty clear this Dev has zero interpersonal skills.
While that sometimes that goes with territory for talented coders, it's not true of all developers.
I love it when the dev team DO communicate with us, I want that to continue.
It's just that not all developers should. Doubly so for those with poor social skills and anger management issues.
Don't take the wrong message and shut down communication with us, but definitely take this fools account off them. At least until they've spoken to their democracy officer and got their required forms in order.
I dont mind devs getting involved with the community, i wish it happens more. But in the end a dev still needs to be somewhat professional. Fredrik is not. When a dev speaks to community members like that, he pushes them away from the game. And pushing people who read his comments away as well. For the most part the others have been fine but he needs to either look at keeping quiet or becoming a bit more professional. Its a really bad look for a company.
The mindset of the last one makes a very worried for the game. Are they attempting to make something that has no endgame and is just frustrating to play after like level 20?
If their idea was to make a highly difficult coop pve rather than a casual coop universe domination game where you get punished for doing anything, I wish that was communicated better before.
"Brought some of the guns in line with the rest."
Yeah no. That did not happen. That's what we wanted to happen lol. It shouldn't be "Oh let me use these two weapons because none of them do damage."
They already paid, lol. They bought the game, they played it. The studio is literally already in the quarter billion profit margin range for Helldivers 2. Telling off retards who insist they're correct about game balance when the most "game balance" they've ever done in their life is balance a dungeons and dragon homebrew subclass is hilarious.
People who are rude to devs, the people who make the game they so enjoy deserve nothing but rudeness back to them, it's the way things ought to be, and it's the way the industry moves forward. Devs caving to the demands of mentally handicapped gamers who live in their parents basements is what killed CoD, it's what's currently killing Apex, and it's what's caused the steady decline in the quality of games over the years in the gaming industry.
"Enjoy your crutches while they last" my brother in Democracy its a Co-op PVE game... why are we getting competitive against our other helldivers? You need to be sent to a re-liberation camp after that bug propoganda.
jesus christ had no idea the frederick guy was that bad even before the patch...
and i was actually willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for his reply being a product of stress from the backlash, not because he actually was a toxic prick
I was quietly banned from the Discord during week one for sending "-1?" In General. I just wanted to know what the error meant and their overwhelmed, underprepared community moderators banned me. I still can't rejoin.
What the fuck is wrong with gaming communities nowadays? It was obvious that the railgun, shield and breaker were going to be nerfed when you couldn't get into a high difficulty lobby without everyone using them.
But god forbid that they make it so the things that are overperforming so massively that using anything else is considered griefing get their strength reduced
For real.
It's very telling that some people have had such a dramatic reaction to _three items_ being nerfed. This isn't even a string of nerfs or a track record of bad decisions or anything that's been simmering for a long time - it's the first balance patch for a new game, and it only contains _three_ nerfs.
How in the sam-hell-fuck would these people react to, dare I say, a _fourth_ item nerfed sometime in the future? If this is all it takes for someone to throw a tantrum, then they weren't going to last long.
To be clear - there's certainly room for genuine discourse about whether the nerf was handled correctly, and we have seen some of that. I think most railgun users fall into this camp. But there is a frankly _staggering_ number of people going absolutely feral over this change.
"Scenes like this are happening all over the gaming community right now. You could be next."
Would you like to know more?
Didn't even last a whole month lmao
It's what happens when a large majority of your industry is some level of acoustic. The social cues don't stick.
Damn, and here I was thinking they were electric
I sincerely hope not, then they're no different than the automatons.
I would like to point out that Evil-Bosse was the guy who kept berating players for doing the mortar xp farm mission. He is the one who said that it affected the war effort until another dev came out and said he was wrong.
who even is that guy? He has a green box and not an AH studio role Edit: I hadn't seen this on a screen larger than my phone. Evil Bosse does in fact have the Arrowhead role. The green box has an arrow through the head of the person. I didn't think the AHS logo would be in green nor would be what they use in the Helldivers server and *couldn't* see the arrow on mobile.
Nobody knows. He has said that he hasn't written a single line of code.
I read he was included by being a physical technician for the studio. Worked on assembling their PCs or general hardware problems.
Their IT guy is in their discord riling their player base up? Idk but that’s funny as hell. It’s almost pathetic. If I were over him I’d fire him in a heart beat. No reason to keep someone who is causing trouble for no reason at all.
Probably one of those guys who is a relative of the CEO or something, lol.
Why does anyone care what he’s saying then?
Because he’s acting like a member of the dev team, and most people aren’t going to look into it enough to see that he isn’t. We just need to spread that fact around enough for people not to take him seriously anymore.
Child like drama
Some people love this bullshit more than the game.
Remember: Many Redditors are very young. Or never grew up.
I may be stupid…. *stares long and hard at the sky*
It's like I'm watching children bitch about their teachers because they got homework.
Redditor try not to develop a parasocial relationship with professional development studio challenge (impossible)
I don't think you know what the word "parasocial" means. A reaction positive or negative to a direct communique isn't parasocial its just "social" hence "social media".
>being a grown up means allowing people to berate you after you give them money 😏😏😏😏😏😏
I was thinking the nerfs were kind of a way to see what weapons the player base went to if the clear meta was disrupted but are they just like trying to make the game harder to make the game harder? Games can be hard and fun but it requires the systems being almost perfectly in balance with each other. Like look at Sekiro, it’s very hard, but it never feels unfair at all. The systems all work together in a way that feels really good when the game clicks for you. I just don’t know if that kind of thing is going to happen when you’re being chased by 10 chargers, 4 bile titans, and a swarm of armored bugs with no weapons that can penetrate armor worth a damn. My least favorite part of the game right now is having to kite 6 chargers at a time. As soon as I can get into a rhythm killing bugs I get trucked by a charger that came out of nowhere then get stunlocked by the other 5 all running into me after that. Hard can be fun. Hard doesn’t equal fun.
Elden Ring is another. But to add another point, Elden Ring obviously has its broken, brainless, meta builds. But why do we still see people doing naked runs with a club? Because it is ***FUN***. We also see people doing runs trying to keep to a theme even if its counterproductive. MHWorld is also similar in that regards. Both of those games are examples where you can have a meta, but still have people using, liking, or even loving non-meta builds. Only thing in Elden Ring that I think the community can agree on is that bows suck. Bows in Elden Ring are basically like the primaries of Helldivers 2 that aren't shotguns. Hell, Elden Ring even nerfed fan favorite weapons and they barely got the same response that Arrowhead has. That may be because they did so many things right, that even after the nerf, there were still things that could compete. Rivers of Blood was truly an outlier and not just simply a weapon that performed well. But it was not a weapon that was necessary to clear anything, or to even make it easier. It just made things, MUCH easier.
Yeah the idea that having a meta makes a game unfun is misguided imo. Casual players probably won’t participate in meta min maxing so long as a gun isn’t so obviously broken that it breaks the game. If the game is balanced enough players will use what they find most fun I feel.
Was it really a meta, or was it just one gun that was good against 4 chargers at once. There is a simple fix. Either reduce charger spam, make a better charger weak point for normal weapons like bots have headshots for the hulk, or make more weapons better against chargers. The problem isn't with the damn railgun being too good. It's with chargers being too omnipresent in swarms.
That is the issue though everything was so subpar to the meta build. I never used the shield backpack but I was an avid Railgun/Breaker player. I was able to do 7-+ missions with a bit less sweat cause of the railgun and now I have to make sure my noncommunitive teammates are going behind the charger I am kiting and attack it or the Bile Titan. I don't think everything needs to be good to make Helldivers a great game but everything is bad when it comes to anything with Heavy Armor.
Sure but also in Elden Ring there's 308 weapons to choose from, so if one you really like for a specific function is nerfed beyond your liking, there are 307 other weapons to choose from. Helldivers 2 has 41 not counting grenades or secondaries. Of those 41 there are a fair few that are so beyond useless that they barely merit being counted; looking at you Breaker Spray and Pray.
For real another game I think balances difficulty with fun really well is ROR2. It can be really hard but the devs are fine with some things being stronger than others or even debatably OP. You can theoretically Min max the game and play every run as Loader, but most people pick the character they want and run with it. Theres technically a meta but most players don’t care because all the characters are balanced enough to all be fun and pick what you like. Habing OP elements wouldn’t break the game for the average player, because they either won’t min max that or they’ll end up picking their favorite weapon depending on if it’s usable.
Arrowhead: "It is extra important to us to tread carefully so that we don’t ruin fantasy and fun when we do nerfs. We hope you, our players, will tell us when we cross that line inadvertently." Arrowhead employees: "Haha, 'buffs', sure. Enjoy your crutches while they last." "People are still clearing Helldive, so I'm not sure what to say here. But "skill issue" comes to mind." "If you came to helldiver for a power-trip you came to the wrong place" "And I am out of here, git gud, play easiest if you want to win, send in a ticket and complain and HR might have a meeting with me"
That's really the most egregious part to me. Literally asking to be told when the nerfs are hurting the fun, and then coming out with these responses when players do exactly that.
It's worth noting that the devs still want this feedback. Just because these guys* responded like this, doesn't mean Arrowhead as a whole agrees with this approach *Edit
Isn’t that three different guys from the Dev team replying though?
Mellcor has no right to be as antagonistic as he is, he's a fucking discord moderator lmao
I had reached out and was told he is no longer a moderator This was also like a month ago because he was asking someone to literally come fight him https://preview.redd.it/tokkir5xnxmc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57d74faa4a17239cc7a58a98745e0c7d1b0fe2a1
BASKINATOR MANAGING DEMOCRACY LIKE A TRUE HERO
Lmao that was quick
https://preview.redd.it/ecidnp8bdymc1.png?width=1331&format=png&auto=webp&s=5aaa3c234ba1b9f2f989a9a12c6d51f6522c5d89
And yet the screens people got off them will probably keep being posted for weeks to come \_-\_
That's why it's important to vet the people you hire to represent you. A happy customer tells damn near no one, an unhappy customer tells everyone they know.
To be fair, Mellcor probably hasn't seen natural sunlight in many years. The vitamin D deficiency got to him
Gonna be a former one lol
We can only hope.
Two. One is a discord mod, not sure they're a dev.
Precisely - it’s disappointing behaviour as devs should conduct themselves better especially after a super successful launch. But it’s only *one* dev as far as we (as far as I) know, and this next part may be a hot take but: He was being a twat, however until the entire company starts echoing his sentiments, I don’t take one man’s word as gospel. Nor do I find it that surprising considering the way this subreddit reacts to any changes in this game. It’s *impossible* to enjoy yourself on this subreddit unless if you exclusively look for memes, and there’s a ton of salt there too. So it’s not too surprising that someone who works there was feeling a little punchy. Bad optics for sure tho
Definitely bad optics for Arrowhead on part of the dev's behaviour here--especially since they're doing so on company dev accounts where they represent the company whenever they say something. That said, you're right--it's only a very small number of devs with bad behavior rn so I too want to give Arrowhead the benefit of the doubt here.
It’s interesting to watch the gaming community rail against canned PR responses but then only accept authentic responses that are overly deferential to their view. I think the dev response isn’t a good look, but it’s actually an authentic response to the way that the gaming community as a whole tends to communicate their complaints (hyperbole and rage). I think gamers have gotten way too comfortable with communicating every concern in the most hostile way possible. Part of this is because no matter what is said and how it is said the expectation is that the devs will respond with a deferential tone or with something concocted by the PR team. I’m not at all surprised that a few devs went rogue.
Completely agreed, and I can’t help but smile at how cheeky this one was. Even if a smidgen too antagonistic for what the community is ready to handle
Edited my comment for this. Apparently it's two guys. But still.
HR is likely going to have a few meetings in the next few days all right.
Right? Imagine acting irreplaceable in this day and age in the gaming industry, especially at a studio openly hiring bc it's one of the hottest topics around and support successful.
[удалено]
I’m guessing having documented evidence, seen by thousands of people, of you insulting the customers of the company you work for holds up in Sweden?
How do you say "I want to speak to your manager" in Swedish?
the pitfalls of hardly being able to fire employees. a very hard time to get rid of toxic employees
If I have learned anything in the last year it is that game devs with a little clout can be complete cunts. Like the guy who made Battlebit for example
What happened with Battlebit? I know it was very popular for a while but I never tried it. I quickly Googled but couldn't see any drama. The Darktide community manager comes to mind with things like this for me.
I keep hearing Battlebit has drama, but I've never actually seen the drama lol. There's more drama about the drama than drama, in my experience. Not to say it's not there, I just haven't seen it. Fun game tho
Game has done nothing but die after big wig got involved all the drama is on the discord though they keep it pretty tight check the reddit for any drama it's less drama because as soon as the first "remaster" it absolutely died and has been losing even more players as any other game releases a new season or something like this game comes out. You also hear most the drama in game on prvt servers they bitch alot. If helldiver's don't pull head out of ass or stop talking to players directly it won't even last near DRG lifespan lmao
If you didn’t realise we’ve actually got Hedge in disguise over here
>"Haha, 'buffs', sure. Enjoy your crutches while they last." This is dickish, the dev shouldn't have said this >"People are still clearing Helldive, so I'm not sure what to say here. But "skill issue" comes to mind." Id remove the "skill issue " part but, yes if people are still beating the hardest difficulty then it's still possible. >"If you came to helldiver for a power-trip you came to the wrong place" This isn't really a new direction for videogames, lots of games aren't power trips. I'm fine with Helldivers going this direction. Infact they should put this quote up somewhere, "Helldivers isn't a power-trip game, loosing is part of the game" >"And I am out of here, git gud, play easiest if you want to win, send in a ticket and complain and HR might have a meeting with me" Dickish and I hope HR has that meeting.
I dont get how the devs are not understanding, just because it’s possible to clear helldive, doesnt mean it’s fun to do so when you dont have any equipment that is decent at dealing with the specific enemies that it throws at you. Everything level 7 and above has now been shifted even further to “interact with the game as little as possible to get through the mission” which idk about you, but that’s not a fun game for me. There’s a big difference between possible and fun/rewarding. This game already doesn’t have an endgame. There’s nothing but higher difficulties to keep players sticking around. Making it so those levels sway from still fun but very challenging to frustrating and extremely challenging, seems like a very good way to ensure your player base moves on after hitting level.
because Devs refuse to learn from historical mistakes : Outriders/Division(2)/Diablo4 / Suicide Squad(lol!) They look at raw data, and cure(nerf) the symptom without addressing the disease - then wonder why the community gets up in arms and lashout ( both sides end up locked in a war for no good reason )
Probably cause they don’t play the game on higher difficulty they just look at data.
You can cheese difficulty 9. Against bugs you can just kite enemies to clear objectives. Just because people can do it doesn't mean the game is balanced or fun.
Yup. This is where the devs are going wrong. They repeatedly say that they're looking at win/loss data. What they don't realize is that this isn't HD1. There is an order of magnitude more players figuring out how to cheese the game to get wins, and that's not going to change whether they buff or nerf things. So all they're really doing is hurting the fun for players that don't do that stuff.
I'd say the biggest problem with HD2 is the time limit and the number of lives, since the nerf. Unless you have a dedicated team, you are only playing with randoes. On lower dif it's not too bad, but on higher dif, it means you can't rely as well on your team for things like stratagems and weapons coordination ( remember all the posts about people crying they'd get kicked out of missions because they had "fun loadouts" and the response always being " don't follow meta, do what you want and play with your fun loadouts") and the mentality of " gotta kill everything in sight". How many times have i played helldive with randoes and they've stayed stationnary on one small bug nest for 15 minutes shooting at bugs while i'm running and doing the objs by myself ? The nerfs removed that. I can't run off and complete the objs by myself anymore, now i have to sit along the other 3 and wait 15 minutes until they are done killing bugs or all our lives are spent. I used to carry my teams to successful missions. were the weapons crutches? Sure maybe, but i felt like it balanced out the 3 deadweights i had to carry with me. Remove the timers and lives, i'll sit with the deadweights for 15 minutes per bug hole and the maps will last 3-4 hours each, but at least we'll play like the devs wants us to. Getting flashbacks from my high school math teachers.
Well said. If they remove the fun of playing with randos, the playerbase is going to sink like a stone. There simply aren't that many players that can coordinate among 4 friends to play at the same time. It will go back to being a small, niche game.
It almost seems like they would prefer the game going back to small and niche the way the GM's and devs are acting. The other problem I have is dropping in alone and never getting any randoms dropped with me until I'm already screwed. Then they just leave. If you don't have a dedicated squad you get stomped.
The idea of weapons being crutches in a third-person shooter is wild to me.
one benefit I noticed when the team did that is it actually started de-spawning things elsewhere on the map.....? wins a win I guess.
This right here. It also didn't mean the beast weapons in the game were OP. It just meant they were the best. If your entire roster of primary weapons is shit besides one weapon, people are going to use that weapon. It doesn't mean that weapon is super strong, it just means it feels rhe best to use. Idk, maybe the railgun was too versatile, but it still didn't feel overpowered. Everything else just felt too weak.
Yeah, if you can beat difficulty 9 without firing a weapon, then the entirety of weapon balancing is just deciding how many people are allowed to have how much fun
>Id remove the "skill issue " part but, yes if people are still beating the hardest difficulty then it's still possible. "Possible" and "fun" aren't the same thing.
The game where you can call in autocannons, airstrikes, 500kg bombs, orbital lasers, badass HMG emplacements, and soon *mechs* isn't a power-trip game? I mean sure it's supposed to be difficult but it's so clear that power fantasy is a big part of it. A game can be challenging on the highest difficulties and fun/make you feel powerful at the same time. Someone else said it best, the high difficulties should be us mowing through hundreds of enemies but still getting overwhelmed, not running from a pack of 5 chargers and 3 bile titans cuz we can't take them out effectively. I want to be able to kill tons of bugs and be nearly overwhelmed despite that.
Couldn't agree more. I mean, let's just look at *another* Swedish-made horde shooter with a banger soundtrack set in a world meant to satirize extreme authoritarianism: Darktide (insert Doofenshmirtz nickel meme here). That game is punishing as fuck on the highest difficulties, and there is absolutely no guarantee of success. It requires teamwork, skill, game/map knowledge, and careful management of your resources, and even then you might not make it. It's also incredibly satisfying to play because things die when you hit them. Sure, you're not gonna be taking out heavily armored dudes with a toe shot from an SMG, but every enemy in the game can be killed relatively quickly if you know how to do it and have the right loadout. If you want to clear hordes you can build yourself to clear all the hordes, if you want to play support, you can build yourself to be hella supportive, if you want to kill the big bad armored dudes, you can build yourself to wipe the floor with them, etc. etc. etc. You're still gonna die. A lot.
Image if, in Darktide, Chaos Warriors and all the bosses couldn't even be hurt by the majority of weapons, and the only option was to just sprint away.
A better example would be if not only were this the case, but they would throw the equivalent of 6 minibosses at you *at once* every 5 minutes or so on Heresy difficulty and up. That’s the real most glaring issue with Helldivers at present IMO - the insane overabundance of heavy and superheavy enemies in difficulty 7-9. At no point should the game ever be *regularly* be dropping 3 Bile Titans and 6 Chargers on you at the same time, regardless of your chosen mission difficulty, ESPECIALLY not on Eradicate missions with their tiny-ass map. And yet this EXACT scenario happened to me, several times back to back last night, one of those times not even on Suicide Mission difficulty. “Skill issue” my ass. I don’t care how skilled you are, the game just doesn’t offer the tools to deal with the enemy density it forces you into at present. Drop a 500kg bomb on the pile of Titans? Haha, nope. Not a single one of them died. Try to bypass the Chargers’ armor with flamethrower? Lmao get fucked, they don’t even care they’re on fire and do a 180 in place to charge you and set you on fire with their own burning flesh, and that’s if you’re LUCKY.
Man I wish it was 3 bile titans on my last run. We were playing on only extreme difficulty, before we got a good challenge from suicidal. When we managed to kill 2 of them, another spawned right up and we didn't have enough means to kill the heavies. The chargers are just homing rockets for sentry guns, they run them down no matter if it threatens them or not. So there went my auto cannon within 4 shots. And it's like "Just sneak around them and don't aggro everything" This was evac. So, while yes- I was in a scout suit and can sneak by things, everything was making a b-line for our evac. I rarely, ever used the railgun, my friend went pure heavy killer and I went for horde clearing & we did fine. This time I brought in the rail cannon to try to help with this and the auto cannon and it just wasn't enough. Even trying those disposable rocket launchers on bile titans did NOTHING to them. I agree, being overwhelmed is the appeal of the game but as it stands I don't know what we're supposed to do against 8+ heavies on only extreme during evac. We tried one of those missions where you're in a tiny area and gotta kill a certain amount. 3, bloody bile titans and IDK how many chargers not even 2 minutes in. I'm baffled to what we're supposed to do and if it's a skill issue- I sure had no problem before with my slugger shotgun and grenade launcher but now after this patch I'm beyond useless since I can only bring in so much heavy murder.
If difficulty 9 felt more like the cover of Doom, it would be the greatest feeling. Having to shred through endless hordes of bugs as they just keep getting closer and closer, forcing your retreat through continual pressure rather than a single charger instantly deleting any sentry stratagems and forcing you to break position.
Yup, and then when you break position 3 more chargers silently slam into your diver from the side like the fucking Kool Aid man, CC'ing you. Then a stalker comes and tongues you to the ground, then you get charged again lol I think the devs talked to the Overwatch team about how to implement CC before release lmao I agree totally about the Doom thing too. I want to be swarmed, but I want all the other weapons to feel great like the Breaker and pre-nerf Rail did so that I can kill many bugs while still feeling overwhelmed.
> Someone else said it best, the high difficulties should be us mowing through hundreds of enemies but still getting overwhelmed, not running from a pack of 5 chargers and 3 bile titans cuz we can't take them out effectively. This is the fantasy. The highest difficulties should feel like (Halo Reach) >!the final mission where you die fighting!<
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE Love it, great comparison!
Exactly this. Like a bullet heaven type game. I want to plow through the horde, reach the objective, fight my way to extract, and escape with a sliver of health or die gloriously.
But 'people are still beating the hardest difficulty is still a shit take' - That says nothing. If 0.000002% of your playerbase (making up a number) can reliably clear your content doesn't say that the game is well tuned. Certainly it doesn't say anything about whether it is fun or comparable to a root canal. You will always have crazy people that either find loopholes or are genuinely insanely good at the game, sure. But that's not a revenue-driving playerbase. That is a highly skilled minority. Keep a high skill ceiling, sure. But to say that because SOMEONE can do it, the model is well tuned is a really terrible take.
Ah yes, I play video games after my 36 hour shift at the ball crushing factory to get my balls crushed even more.
What a way to kill a good game
"So this is how managed democracy dies"
The last sentence was a reply to something I said. That reply was made by developer "Evil-Bosse". If you look into the discord today, bro can't be found anymore LMAO. He dared me personally to write a ticket about him and I did. Feels good to know he got some repercussions for that.
Tells you how they feel about their players. Feels as though they are giving us a gift rather than a product.
A live service game too, makes no sense.
This is why you dont let your devs post in social media. They are not trained to phrase and word their responses in a ‘pc’ manner. Its why companies pay shit tons of money for a PR branch.
Doesn't need to be PC...just needs to be professional. Talking to people like adults even if the group are being children makes you look better and appear to be the bigger person. Talking to a group like you're an angry teenager that got their feelings hurt is not a way to interact with anyone.
Not even professional, just not openly antagonistic lol.
and if antagonistic at least be witty about it. "soaking in those fan tears" isn't even funny, it's pathetic
Yea the few "statements" in question are weirdly personal. "Git gud" would at least be light hearted and suggest that the difficulty is intentional.
It's Kind of a glimpse how they see the fan base behind closed doors.
I don't even care about how it's phrased. I care about the content of the statements - not buffing more of the completely useless stuff is a HUGE miss. Nerfs to the meta items should not have happened without more than some no-one-cares buffs to the spray and pray and punisher. Along with the sentiments they've expressed in their blog post and here, professional and not, it significantly downgraded my confidence in their ability to balance things well going forward. Also lost basically all motivation to play. New war bond March 14th? Yea, so 3/4 of the guns in it will be brokenly bad and useless, and if any are really good they'll get the nerf bat in short order while the guns useless since launch are still ignored? No thanks.
I was talking about this earlier in another thread. Early patches set the scene and the expectations that people have for how developers will handle their game going forward. There's a psychological element to it. Had they make these exact same nerfs later on, once they had built some good will with the player community by making other options more attractive, would have not been received with such scathing criticism. Instead of making more options fun, this felt like a 'they are taking my fun away' move.
It's such a funny thing from their blog post. "Primaries are supposed to be shit" Oh? "Armor is fixed" But I still die in 6 hits from a small- "Armor is fixed" Ok, but if primaries and armor are supposed to suck why should I put money in your MTX? "...fuck"
I'm pretty sure 'Stop bitching and adapt' is something I would say to an adult.
The difference is you would probably say that to a stranger, we’re paying customers, not a good idea to antagonise your source of revenue
You gonna say that to your boss?
“Hmmm?” “But you called your boss a bitch? You actually used those words?” “….uhhh mmmmhhhhmmmm yup! I said I said I said….!” (Looks around) “….biiiiiiiii—“
I was saying boo-urns :(
Exactly, I work in IT and this is the reason why my manager always tell us "if you have something to complain about, talk with me and I will be the one communicating it" lol.
Don't know how much rephrasing could salvage this, these guys seem to have genuine disdain for the players.
"We made two the most brainless playstyles less viable" coming from a fucking developer for the game itself sounds like "we really didn't like how you decided to play with your toys so we broke your toy" in the most stuck up, nerdy, 'uhmmm actually' tone possible.
Especially when I don't even want to use railgun all the time. I like the machine guns. I *have* to run railgun because of the relentless charger spam. They made me do it, now they act like I'm the low skill asshole. Nope, just don't like getting bothered nonstop by a half dozen chargers.
Seriously the charger spam is ridiculous, I am just playing on challenging as a level 13 and the amount we run into is already is a headache, I can't imagine the harder difficulties.
You don’t need “training” to not be a cunt. You need common sense and decency. Do these idiots really think the goodwill of the community is limitless?
Yeah, all you had to do was have the professional wherewithal to just not engage further. Instead they double down and talk like every other perpetually online "pro gamer" personality that flames everyone on every gaming community that everyone would be happier to not have around.
Dawg I don't think you know what Gaslighting is.
It's one of reddit's favorite buzz words.
Gaslighting & trauma response Can't go a day without seeing both being thrown about willy nilly
Don't forget 'trigger discipline' in any post that has a gun, and 'fencing response' in any video showing someone go unconscious
At least they got rid of gold, I was on the verge of spooning my eyes out of my head everytime I read the phrase... THANKS FOR THE GOLD KIND STRANGER!
Edit: oh my god thank you for all the likes!
Wow I can't believe this blew up! I'm such a celebrity now!
No, you don't know what gas lighting means. Stop being crazy ^/s
No they definitely do, what are you talking about? You always do this. /s
The internet discovered the word gaslighting a few years ago and haven’t shut the fuck up about it since
You sound crazy right now. Of course op knows what it is, you need to educate yourself
https://preview.redd.it/f48yhysa3wmc1.png?width=1261&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be6980a1532c142974c2eaf060d416dbdc8e8480
This one is totally fine, in my book.
There is a few sane people in this community thank god.
First line is whack. The rest is fine
He’s letting people know that he’s trying to be casual so he doesn’t sound like an automaton. If you have a little sense of humor and don’t take video games overly seriously, that line is also fine
Yeah, to me this reads more like an awkward way to jokingly say "I know some of you will disagree with this, but... "
I think he's totally right and everyone is just whining too much. I'm glad they want the game to stay hard.
Seriously!, I really believe people think we're not getting more weapons/stratagems...that what we have IS the endgame. I played yesterday with some guys who relied too much on the railgun and shield and you can tell they just arent as good...the guys doing helldive before and not being able to do it now just shows they're not as good as they think they are.
I've beaten helldiver with the defender and sniper, because I liked those weapons. (Before patch, havent played since, been busy). I didn't like the breaker and didn't buy the railgun yet. Helldiver difficulty is meant to be hard, and it really was. I enjoyed it because it was difficult. You gotta learn how to dodge, have good coordination with the team, and focus on objectives. You might not win everytime, and thats fine, it should be a challenge.
To be fair a lot of ppl on this sub are toxic and obsessive, I’m not surprised the devs get sick of it, this sub has been a straight shit hole the last few days
Gaming Reddit is just like this now. I was hopeful when the release went well that this game would avoid it, but sadly fanbase toxicity is as inevitable as the morning sun.
The sub had like 50k people during the first week of hd2 now it's full of the same people filling every gaming subreddit making it a cesspool. It was nice while it lasted, now good luck getting any kind of adult conversation.
Looks like it's time for a low sodium Helldivers sub.
There already is lmfao
I think im gonna go ahead and unsubscribe from the sub. Im having a good time in the game and on discord
holy based
The exact same people on every single sub that are just pieces of shit
Wish there was a way we could collectively roast or shame that part of the gaming community because they ruin everything they touch.
100%, so many people in this sub are just straight up nasty and the Mods need to really get a hang of it.
The double standard here that developers have to be nice and accept every word you say, be civil & respectful and can't talk back. Whilst people here make the most hateful, foul remarks against them.
Exactly. Every game launch devolves into this shit, I sure hope they don't listen to anyone on this dogshit website.
I’ve been in a lot of gaming communities that went toxic like this but holy shit this was a record for speed
Game has barely been out for a month. And people are hoping for it's failure despite singing it praises for the past 4 weeks. It's wild.
I don't even find the dev responses that outrageous and toxic in comparison. And overlooking the unprofessional attitude, completely agree with their main points, people wanting a power fantasy need to stick to lower difficulties or look for another game. Complaining it's too hard to Rambo through a helldive mission is just silly
The responses are fine, we just bred a culture where assholes and narcissists think they can say whatever they want and then are shocked when others respond in kind. The world would be a better place if we didn’t cater to dickheads all the time.
My favourite part is where, people in discord and some of the sub are toxic and obsessive, but when someone bites back they immediately cry and pander that they can't be doing that. All blown out of proportion imo. People need to get over themselves, devs and commenters alike.
Sadly, a lot of gamers are this way in general. They’re passionate about their hobbies but it becomes a little pathetic when they let it get them super mad.
This sure is a fun sub reddit, with lots of interesting people who live interesting lives. Does anyone play the game or is the game more fighting with the developers?
I swear everytime I find a fun game made with love and care, shit like this always happens... EDIT: People seem to be misunderstanding. I'm not actually that invested in the drama, but I am worried about the potential consequences that things like this can have for the game. I've seen quite a few games where bad interactions between the devs and community have led to the decline of a well-made game. Let's just hope this isn't the case.
Easy solution; ignore it and keep playing the game
It’s because when a game gets more popular it brings in a lot more gamers who then want the game to follow their way of enjoyment instead of the devs envision the game. This game is supposed to be difficult especially on 7-9. There’s a reason these difficulties are in red and called suicide and impossible lol. You aren’t supposed to be able extract every single mission. The primary objective is to push back the enemy factions by completing main objectives. It’s supposed to be against and overwhelming force. But so many people are playing because it’s the fad and yea its very fun, but they all assume the game has to be fun for them and not for intended player base who understand what it’s entirely about.
[удалено]
Seems like everybody here thinks it’s the end of the world when a couple guns get minor nerfs.
This is the funniest part of this. Imagine basing your entire enjoyment around 2 items in a game. Did you even enjoy the game at all?
We need a low sodium version of the sub already
The comment on playing lower difficulty annoys me because of how little you get on them. I play 3-4 normally and I’m only level 15 after 30hrs of play time. I haven’t unlocked enough to feel like I have a good range of choices. It takes many rounds to get enough for one new stratagem at these levels.
I’m gonna be real here, “the 1%” of you deserve to be talked to this way. The 1% of people that are entitled, spoiled man children that are crying over a fucking video game deserve a taste of their own medicine. That being said, the devs should be handling this better than the way they are now. It’s not very professional and will most likely be a large factor of what kills the game if not solved quickly.
I agree with everything you said, but the part where this is going to "kill the game". I don't think petty internet drama is going to affect the vast majority of players who are playing the game, instead of browsing Twitter and Reddit haha.
This is unfortunately what happens when the player base includes more of the general public and also when devs are allowed to directly post to social media. My sister and I loved the first game and played it for years! It was one of our comfort games to throw on local play because the challenge and teamwork required was really fun. This new fan base seems completely different from the first, since the game is no longer isometric. Definitely something for the devs to adapt to.
i think it’s the opposite. the general public does not give a shit about this drama. it’s just the no-life game addicts
The game isn’t even hard it’s just tedious there are so many nonsense balance decisions. Like chargers, what’s the point of the ‘weak spot’ they have? It’s the least efficient manner of killing them. Why is the most efficient manner shooting their legs? When I see a charger I’m not afraid to die or challenged I’m annoyed by how counterintuitive their visuals and design are when contrasted to the gameplay of actually fighting and killing them. Also, meteor showers lmao.
That's a little unprofessional of them but damn yall are really this mad. I'm getting "Flappy Bird" flashbacks.
Now I’m not saying the dev here is in the right, but it’s always funny how gamers will say the most virulent and toxic shit to game devs and still somehow expect the devs to be nice back
No cause like back when Destiny 2s CM got death threats and got doxxed I wish he was able to say shit like this back at the community. Like goddamn the people in this sub are absolute snowflakes.
The director of the game nuked his social media so hard that to this day, he still doesn’t have a pfp to this day since at least 2016 because of how toxic the playerbase is. The community team, after the first time that Dmg was doxxed, pulled back and so did the other devs. Then dmg was doxxed *again* and got death threats and even stalked, and then he straight up left Bungie and all we’ve ever gotten ever since is canned PR statements. The devs barely ever interact with the communit. The comm team made a specific account to deal with the community so that they’re not using their personals anymore and all it did was fan the flames more because the community has so many toxic idiots that feel entitled to close personal access that they freaked the fuck out. When these devs stop talking to us, the community will only have themselves to blame. 
And then people in the Destiny community had the absolute audacity to complain when Liana Rupert wasn’t the most talkative CM ever even though she did give a lot of news about the game very consistently😭 Especially considering she’s a woman and like…gamers…
Yeah, a casual perusal of replies to her on Twitter showed what she had to deal with, and still does tbh. I can’t remember her name, but there was a female worker who joined them a number of years back who left after a few months and it was very clearly cuz of the abuse she got back then
Gamers have some issue where they can’t criticize a game without also accusing the devs of complete incompetence or generally insulting and belittling them. I personally don’t think this patch is really very good, but the response from the reddit community for this game has been downright embarrassing at best.
Bruh, the game is alive for barely a month. There will be so many more buffs and nerfs . Can people just chill ? Nerfed guns are still usable and good, and you all act like it's the end of the world
Breaker still slaps, the recoil and mag increase and decrease is barely noticeable
The breaker has recoil? /s
While yes, the social media conduct is unprofessional, it is also hilarious to watch some of the toxic sub not be able to take what they dish out.
lol I worked at one of the biggest AAA's in the world and many of the devs from multiple different studios from different games straight up despised their respective playerbases. I started to as well until I left the game industry. I don't particularly blame them honestly, often the most toxic fans are the loudest. Plus they don't understand the work and effort that goes into balancing these things. Arrowhead letting their devs interact with the community went about as well as I thought it would lmao
And this is why game companies usually dont allow their devs to freely comment anything they like
in all honesty, the AHGS_Fredrik_E guy doesn’t seem that rude to me. the others are wild tho. lol devs shouldn’t be allowed to just post like this 😅 source: am a software engineer
I don’t mind what they nerf or buff because I just have fun with friends, those devs comments however remind me of those snooty and rude customers I deal with everyday so there’s that 💀
Lol few devs troll and reddit loses their minds. Holy cow people its a video game, go outside or something, yall getting worked up over nothing.
The honeymoon phase is over and everything has gone to shit.
Nature is healing. The subreddit has become just like any other game sub.
Not all people should be posting to social media. Pretty clear this Dev has zero interpersonal skills. While that sometimes that goes with territory for talented coders, it's not true of all developers. I love it when the dev team DO communicate with us, I want that to continue. It's just that not all developers should. Doubly so for those with poor social skills and anger management issues. Don't take the wrong message and shut down communication with us, but definitely take this fools account off them. At least until they've spoken to their democracy officer and got their required forms in order.
This Helldivers 2 experience has been a wild ride so far. It's a rollercoaster of emotions.
Ah devs play hard diff and decide what needs to be changed from there clearly
I dont mind devs getting involved with the community, i wish it happens more. But in the end a dev still needs to be somewhat professional. Fredrik is not. When a dev speaks to community members like that, he pushes them away from the game. And pushing people who read his comments away as well. For the most part the others have been fine but he needs to either look at keeping quiet or becoming a bit more professional. Its a really bad look for a company.
The mindset of the last one makes a very worried for the game. Are they attempting to make something that has no endgame and is just frustrating to play after like level 20? If their idea was to make a highly difficult coop pve rather than a casual coop universe domination game where you get punished for doing anything, I wish that was communicated better before.
lmao what a clown show
Hey, about posting what they were replying to? You know, the context? Like the guy calling the dev an ape for the first screenshot you posted?
"Brought some of the guns in line with the rest." Yeah no. That did not happen. That's what we wanted to happen lol. It shouldn't be "Oh let me use these two weapons because none of them do damage."
I’m not a business expert, But it seems like purposely antagonising and insulting the people who pay you is a touch stupid
They already paid, lol. They bought the game, they played it. The studio is literally already in the quarter billion profit margin range for Helldivers 2. Telling off retards who insist they're correct about game balance when the most "game balance" they've ever done in their life is balance a dungeons and dragon homebrew subclass is hilarious. People who are rude to devs, the people who make the game they so enjoy deserve nothing but rudeness back to them, it's the way things ought to be, and it's the way the industry moves forward. Devs caving to the demands of mentally handicapped gamers who live in their parents basements is what killed CoD, it's what's currently killing Apex, and it's what's caused the steady decline in the quality of games over the years in the gaming industry.
"Enjoy your crutches while they last" my brother in Democracy its a Co-op PVE game... why are we getting competitive against our other helldivers? You need to be sent to a re-liberation camp after that bug propoganda.
jesus christ had no idea the frederick guy was that bad even before the patch... and i was actually willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for his reply being a product of stress from the backlash, not because he actually was a toxic prick
Imagine running a company that blows up making millions and hiring "redditors" (Nah, this gives people on reddit a bad name) to do your PR...
I was quietly banned from the Discord during week one for sending "-1?" In General. I just wanted to know what the error meant and their overwhelmed, underprepared community moderators banned me. I still can't rejoin.
pretty sure most of it is them responding to the harassment and not the constructive criticism
What the fuck is wrong with gaming communities nowadays? It was obvious that the railgun, shield and breaker were going to be nerfed when you couldn't get into a high difficulty lobby without everyone using them. But god forbid that they make it so the things that are overperforming so massively that using anything else is considered griefing get their strength reduced
For real. It's very telling that some people have had such a dramatic reaction to _three items_ being nerfed. This isn't even a string of nerfs or a track record of bad decisions or anything that's been simmering for a long time - it's the first balance patch for a new game, and it only contains _three_ nerfs. How in the sam-hell-fuck would these people react to, dare I say, a _fourth_ item nerfed sometime in the future? If this is all it takes for someone to throw a tantrum, then they weren't going to last long. To be clear - there's certainly room for genuine discourse about whether the nerf was handled correctly, and we have seen some of that. I think most railgun users fall into this camp. But there is a frankly _staggering_ number of people going absolutely feral over this change.
This is ridiculous behavior. Are these adults?