As the Helldivers 2 community learns a whole new meta in the wake of a major balance patch that took a hammer to favorites like the railgun and personal shield, one balance lead from developer Arrowhead has advised players to learn to embrace nerfs rather than constantly asking exclusively for buffs.
"I have since the game released seen many who say 'Don’t Nerf, only Buff' and other similar ideas," writes head of product testing Patrik Lasota, who's responsible for feedback and game balance. "However, as a designer I can tell you this is not a great idea, but I understand where the sentiment comes from. All too often in the games industry the core fantasy, and what makes a weapon feel good and fun, is ignored for the sake of Balance.
"I believe players are scared of nerfs, because it will ruin the fantasy of a weapon, ruin their fun," Lasota adds. "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."
- Helldivers 2's Fallout-grade Ultimatum mini nuke has been nerfed, but maintains its "core identity as a powerhouse" because the devs are "huge fans of big booms booming big"
- Helldivers 2 director says "balance is a myth," and devs shouldn't spend more than 5% of their time on it: "If you balance out all the chaos, you've made an uninteresting game"
Has this patch crossed that line? It's too early to say, but at first blush, it doesn't seem like it. A lot of the doom and gloom feels like normal knee-jerk nerf reactions, which are totally fair and expected, but I'm already seeing a lot of people eagerly embrace the new and realize that their nerfed favorites can still get the job done. In my experience weathering nerfs across many games over many years, that's a very good sign.
This message echoes what another dev from Arrowhead said immediately following the release of the patch: "Having your favorite toy nerfed absolutely sucks." The point, Arrowhead has reiterated, is "to give you a wide range of weapon choices, where each gun has its purpose and none is strictly better than another." When everyone is railgunning everything into next week because the gun is, to put it mildly, nucking futs, that's hard to manage. And to Lasota's point, a never-ending stream of buffs will inevitably make every gun feel functionally the same – with no bespoke disadvantages to balance their strengths – and eventually power-creep the game to oblivion.
The good news is this patch has seen some interesting winners which have shaken up gameplay in fun ways. This patch buffed the flamethrower by a democracy-spreading 50% and now it's a monster that cooks Chargers right in their shells. The overlooked arc thrower, regarded by some as the best gun in the game, also quietly eked out a win of its own simply by not getting nerfed.
Just in case you were finding it too easy, Helldivers 2 has now added "planetary hazards", including fire tornadoes, meteor showers and "many more."
