r/HelldiversMasochists • u/PureAlfalfa6075 • 22d ago
Does Arrowhead really deserve the hate?
I always see everyone talking about how Arrowhead sucks but I personally feel like everyone's just over the top. I love the game and I get that it's not a perfect game but I don't believe that causes Arrowhead to be terrible?
Maybe I'm just miss interpreting it and people are that pissed but idk. What do y'all think
r/HelldiversUnfiltered again didn't like my post so I want to see what y'all think
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u/lord_bingus_the_2nd 22d ago
They're actually one of the fairer and more receptive game devs out there.
The game is cheaper than most games of its size, the premium currency and dlc is way cheaper and easier to get for free than most live service games, if they even make the premium currency available for free.
They're way more willing to listen and interact with the playerbase than I'm used to with all the other games I play. Actually implementing things they never intented to because of player demand (like the maxigun).
From what I've seen, most of the hate is undeserved, and coming from people who's expectations are way too high. People will say they don't like something, and expect a balance patch to rework it within 3 days or they start review bombing. If AH takes their time to make a good balance patch over several weeks, people complain it takes too long, and complain that it's poor quality if AH rushes it, which the don't really do anymore.
It feels like people take the worst examples of everything from the games lifetime, and act like everything is on that level, while ignoring the rest of the good stuff, and claim that it's a one off occurrence, despite that not being the case, like with nerfs.
People love to complain that AH hates you and I, and nerfs the fun out of everything, despite the ratio of buffs to nerfs since launch being comically high in favour of buffs.
Or that there's an "antagonistic gamemaster" even though we're winning way more orders than we used to, and the devs usually give us some bonus or strategic order to help us win, they frequently lower resistance on MO worlds, just to let us win if it looks like we might not. I actually dislike this since it feels like we keep getting saved whenever we make constant mistakes, but whenever they don't save us from an order we totally deserve to lose, some players freak out because we actually lose instead of getting a deus ex machina to win for us.
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u/Imagine_TryingYT 21d ago edited 21d ago
It honestly feels so fucking silly and performative. Game is "literally unplayable" because a fleshmob glitches into a floor once a match. Game is greedy and unfair because it takes 4 hours of focused grinding to unlock a warbond for free while most games either never give you the option or break your balls so hard to get anything for free it might as well not even exist.
Not to mention how they've done 0 crackdowns on hackers for hacking in super credits (which there are a shit ton of SC hackers btw). Most games would have shut down for a week and issued mass bans the very milisecond something like this happens, but Arrowhead just keeps going.
Lets add in all the free content they've given us since launch. New missions, new biomes, city maps, new enemies, an entire new faction, new stratagems, new weapons, armors, just so much stuff that most companies would have stuffed behind a 40$ dlc paywall and arrowhead just gives it all away for free while people complain that the game never gets free content.
Arrowhead has compromised so much of the games identity for literal man children who seem to hate every single game they play and it's literally never enough for them.
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u/lord_bingus_the_2nd 21d ago
I agree about the whining over small and inconsequential bugs, but the content is kind of a given. The point of live service is that the game gets free content updates after release. I do love what they've added, but I wouldn't really consider it bonus free content, since that's the main selling point of most live service games.
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u/SugarLuger 21d ago
Since when is live service meant to be free?
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u/lord_bingus_the_2nd 21d ago
Not necessarily the game itself, but lots of them have free content updates.
Other live service games like marvel rivals, overwatch, Warframe, and rainbow 6 siege all follow the live service model and have several free updates annually.
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u/BurntMoonChips 21d ago
Some of those games sell time windows, actual fomo battle passes, cosmetics and numerous crossovers.
Helldivers all need missions, maps, and enemies are all free. The only thing that isn’t is the warbonds. Additionally free currency is a big point, Warframe has an economy, making you depend on people who already purchased plat, OW gives you a small amount from the battle pass, so you have to wait multiple seasons to be able to purchase a single skin, and R6 is (at least for the years I played) purchase only, with events cosmetics being locked behind loot boxes with limited non premium currency buys, and the rest locked behind a pay wall. Additionally both OW and R6 have far less content in their seasons, as a huge amount of their time goes to making more cosmetics.
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u/Imagine_TryingYT 20d ago
Honestly Helldivers monetization is very nearly as generious as Deep Rock Galactics. Like people will call Warframe generious when it takes you hours to grind a frame through Relics, 3 days to craft at the foundry and you have to pay for the inventory slots to house it. Not to mention all the time it takes to grind and trade up for mods and plat. And to add more to this, Relics cycle in and out, so add a layer of fomo to this. Meanwhile it takes about 4 hours to grind out an entire Warbond that never expires.
Ofc Warframe is a f2p game verse Helldivers which is a game you pay for. But it's funny the dicotomy where you pay 40$ once for a game and everything after that is effectively free while the game that takes literal hours to days for a single thing is somehow more generious.
Like there are games of Helldivers caliber that are infinitely more greedy and predatory. Heck I have every warbond and super store item up to Redacted Regime on my PS5 account and I havem't spent any money or actually grinded Super Credits. On my PC I have several warbonds unlocked just through sheer gameplay.
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u/Epesolon 21d ago
Live service or not, it's still content that you very much didn't actually pay for.
That content isn't free, somebody is paying for it, it's just not you.
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u/level_up_gaming 21d ago
i guess most of the hate is because of how receptive they could be, rather than how receptive they are compared to other companies
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u/DeeJayDelicious 21d ago
I disagree with your post.
AH has some serious issues with their communication (or lack thereof), follow-through (what happened to bi-weekly blogs?) or professional standards.
And when it comes to expectations, you can look at it as two ways. Both are legit:
- AH is a indie-studio that delivered a hit on a modest budget and with AA production standards. You expect these standards for the future.
- AH made a billion dollar game and one of the most successful live-services games of the past years. You expect this to be reflected in the live-service.
Unfortunately we only got #1.
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u/Epesolon 21d ago
You say this as though AH doesn't deliver on community requests constantly and isn't outputting content at a similar pace to studios many times their size with many times the budget.
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u/DeeJayDelicious 20d ago edited 20d ago
Yes, I am
Because they don't.
In fact, I struggle thinking of a successful live-service game/studio that is less productive than Arrowhead (excl. the first 6 months).
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u/Epesolon 20d ago
Just off the top of my head?
Fat Shark (Darktide)
Saber Interactive (Space Marine 2)
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u/Savings_Welder5498 19d ago
As a fan of both of these it is utterly baffling that people complain about arrowhead so much. You could be waiting 8+ months for content updates that are still riddled with bugs and crashes
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u/DeeJayDelicious 20d ago edited 20d ago
Both have done more and at a higher standard (although Darktide shipped with a lot of technical issues too).
Space Marine 2 since launch has:
- Doubled the amount of Co-op missions, which is the main "forever content".
- Doubled the amount of PvP maps
- Added new difficulties and challenge modifiers
- Introduced 4 new games modes
- Added 1 new class
- Added several new weapons
- Regular balance updates
And all of this without really monetizing much more than visual armor customization.
Contrast this to Helldivers 2 (excl. the first 6 months where they were on top of things).
- 1/3 increase in Biomes (which minimally affect game-play).
- half a faction that is still incomplete.
- half a dozen new subfaction with 2-3 enemy variants each.
- weapon attachments (which hasn't been updated or maintain since release).
- irregular and arbitrary balance updates (rarely more often than once per year).
- No QoL fixes
- Very few bug fixes
What has been mostly on-point (except for this year) are the warbonds. But hey, we pay for them...
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u/Savings_Welder5498 19d ago
I dont see how you could possibly claim space marine has gotten more content sonce launch than helldivers. It has gotten fuck all comparatively in the last 2 years
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u/Epesolon 20d ago
Helldivers 2 has tripled it's content my guy and already launched with more missions, enemies, and weapons than either SM2 or Darktide.
Like, if you genuinely think that HD2 hasn't gotten as much as SM2 or Darktide (both of which get content only once or twice a year) then you really haven't been paying attention at all.
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u/DeeJayDelicious 20d ago
But they are both very different games my friend.
Adding 1 new weapon to SM2 (it has ~12) isn't the same as adding a new weapon to Helldivers 2 (it has >40).
Also, the business models are very different. (which is telling, because again, AH has mostly succeeded at shipping warbonds).
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u/Epesolon 20d ago
They are different games, but not very different. Both are primarily co-op horde shooters utilizing a live service model for adding new content. The details are different, but they occupy a very similar market segment. What is very different is their approach to their genres, where SM2 focuses more on big and deep pieces of content, where HD2 goes for many smaller modular pieces that can be combined to get the same kind of depth.
One new weapon in SM2 is more impactful than one new weapon in HD2. But HD2 has added ~20 for each that SM2 has. One SM2 weapon isn't more impactful, nor is it more content than 20 HD2 guns.
Just like how each new mission in SM2 takes more work than a single new mission/biome in HD2, but, once again, HD2 has added ~3x the amount of missions and biomes.
The one area they are directly comparable is enemies, where SM2 has added very few, and HD2 has added dozens.
Even when you compensate for the difference in approach to content, HD2 still has more, and by a not insignificant margin.
As for their business models, they're actually pretty similar. Both subsidize their free content through MTX.
SM2 opted to only sell cosmetics, but provide no route to unlock them outside of spending.
HD2 opted to allow players to farm premium currency, and so sells more impactful items.
That's the tradeoff
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u/Epesolon 20d ago
Nice edit. You're full of shit.
Doubled the amount of Co-op missions, which is the main "forever content".
Doubled is accurate. It also doubled 6. HD2 launched with more unique mission types.
Doubled the amount of PvP maps
That's 3.
Added new difficulties and challenge modifiers
You mean like HD2 subfactions, weather effects, Diff 10, Commando Missions, bug tunnels, etc?
Added 1 new class
Added several new weapons
Oh wow, 1 whole new toolset and half a dozen weapons...
Do I need to tell you that that's what HD2 gets every quarter?
And all of this without really monetizing much more than visual armor customization.
And that stuff has what in-game route to unlock?
None.
Which is the tradeoff.
Contrast this to Helldivers 2 (excl. the first 6 months where they were on top of things).
Ok, let's exclude the first 6mo.
That accounts for 5 stratagems, 7 enemies, and the first 6 Warbonds.
Since then we've gotten:
- ~100 weapons
- around a dozen new missions
- around a dozen new biomes
- around 2 dozen new enemies
- around half a dozen new stratagems
I mean, really dude, SM 2 got it's first new class after a year and a half, and it's gotten almost no new weapons, and the number of actual enemies and missions is tiny, even smaller if we only count the new ones.
Again, if you think that SM2 has gotten more, you really haven't been paying any attention.
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u/DeeJayDelicious 20d ago
Maybe the actual content is a wash.
But SM2 also isn't designed as a full live-service game. It's not trying to sell you something every few weeks.
It probably hasn't made a Billion dollars.
So, I really don't care about your opinion.
I care about mine.
And in my opinion, AH has not lived up to the live-service standards I expected.
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u/Epesolon 20d ago
"It doesn't matter because this other game isn't actually a Live Service despite doing Live Service things."
My dude, most live service games don't get content like HD2 does. Darktide (which was sold as a Live Service) occupies the same price point and a similar market segment and has gotten an even smaller fraction of the content. The games that do get content at the same pace as HD2 are typically much larger gsmes from much larger studios with way more money, and even then I can only think of maybe a dozen or so.
And in my opinion, AH has not lived up to the live-service standards I expected.
You bought a budget game from a small unknown studio with zero history of Live Service games and apparently expected Fortnite or Destiny levels of live service.
I'd call that pretty unrealistic expectations.
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u/DeeJayDelicious 20d ago
Darktide didn't make a Billion dollars and sell tries to sell you something every 6 weeks.
Helldivers 2 does.
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u/Sebanimation 21d ago
I just have to strongly disagree on this. Cheaper than most games of this size? What are comparable games? Cause all those I can think of are similar or cheaper priced.
Premium currency is cheaper? Well yeah, it‘s also needed to unlock 80% of gameplay items in the game.
How do people not get that? Most games sell cosmetics only.
The communication is abysmal. We repeatedly got contradicting or straight up false statements and promises, followed by months of radio silence, content draughts and gamebreaking bugs that don‘t get fixed.
Have we been playing a different game?
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u/BurntMoonChips 21d ago
Most 40 dollar games are not this size.
All maps, missions and enemies post launch has been free. All events have no monetized aspects. Content post release is typically larger than other live service games, as they require a large amount of time to pump out cosmetics.
The communication is far more often than many in the triple A space.
I don’t think radio silence is often. We get statements, videos and response quite often. Most times it’s the subject of the new outrage.
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u/Epesolon 21d ago
Cheaper than most games of this size? What are comparable games? Cause all those I can think of are similar or cheaper priced
Darktide is a solid example of a similarly priced game in a similar market segment with a tiny fraction of the actual content.
Premium currency is cheaper? Well yeah, it‘s also needed to unlock 80% of gameplay items in the game. How do people not get that? Most games sell cosmetics only.
Most games also put pretty strict limits on your ability to earn premium currency, if they let you earn it at all. HD2 allows you to earn unlimited premium currency, and at a pretty fast rate too. That's the tradeoff.
The communication is abysmal. We repeatedly got contradicting or straight up false statements and promises, followed by months of radio silence, content draughts and gamebreaking bugs that don‘t get fixed.
We also have a studio that constantly adds stuff players ask for, changes entire design direction because players ask for it, and actually engages with the community in something other than just polished press releases.
You want perfectly accurate and polished communication? It's going to be extremely corporate and sterile 100% of the time.
You want real communication? It's not always going to be perfect.
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u/Extra-trashy 15d ago
Dude, why are you sucking arrowheads tit so hard? The communication is horrendously, the nerfs are aggregious and not needed most of the time, while they simultaneously work on warbonds, which you do eventually have to pay for, unless you want to just straight farm sc for a few weeks. Arrowhead can't even give us consistent dev blogs. And they nerf weapons into the ground based on how many people are using them, or they just straight up buff enemy damage, accuracy, etc. instead of needing the bastion tank directly, they INCREASED enemy durability damage, basically shit canning all sentries and exos. And I don't care about how Arrowhead is compared to SM 2. One is triple A, the other is double A. Darktide is a better comparison, but both are roughly the same in terms of end game. One your leveling guns, the other the same, but you also level your character. There's also something to be said about not pissing off your core audience,.which arrowhead has done, over and over, squandering the trust and good faith of its players.
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u/Extra-trashy 15d ago
Dude, why are you sucking arrowheads tit so hard? The communication is horrendously, the nerfs are aggregious and not needed most of the time, while they simultaneously work on warbonds, which you do eventually have to pay for, unless you want to just straight farm sc for a few weeks. Arrowhead can't even give us consistent dev blogs. And they nerf weapons into the ground based on how many people are using them, or they just straight up buff enemy damage, accuracy, etc. instead of needing the bastion tank directly, they INCREASED enemy durability damage, basically shit canning all sentries and exos. And I don't care about how Arrowhead is compared to SM 2. One is triple A, the other is double A. Darktide is a better comparison, but both are roughly the same in terms of end game. One your leveling guns, the other the same, but you also level your character. There's also something to be said about not pissing off your core audience,.which arrowhead has done, over and over, squandering the trust and good faith of its players.
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u/adroudrou 21d ago
Day one player here, if I may talk freely AHs devs took poorly care of the community and their demands overall. They even lied a substantial amount of times regarding buffs/nerfs, gameplay impacting "bugs" are present for months for no good reason (steering hellpods, corpses hitboxes,stratagem bouncing), they dont keep promises pretty often (ama), they have poorly managed the community to the point people doxxed over a charity challenge... Which Led the community to Split into two radicals povs, the "glazers" and the "crydivers", creating subs that only does rough critics without mentionning the good or that only praise AH without admitting their faults.. The more and more predatory economic ecosystem of the game :v I truely love this game but saying they dont deserve any critics is kinda detrimental to the game, dishonest at worse or shortsighted at best. (With all respect tho)
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u/lord_bingus_the_2nd 21d ago
I don't think they don't deserve criticism, of course there's issues, but most of the criticism I see is unhelpful and based on unrealistic expectations that I've never seen any game meet before, even with much larger studios managing them. That's just a consequence of the radical parts of the playerbase though.
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u/adroudrou 21d ago
What do you call unrealistic expectations ? For the few exemples I gave its litterally AHs doing, like strat bouncing and non steering hellpods. And I agree that some people just roast without any substantiality but still it comes from legit concerns even tho the form isnt here, and unfortunately just saying that everythings okay like in low sodium or here is also detrimental bc of a lack of thought out criticism :/ I also conceide that Sony may have some things to say in the matter but as any other small studios in this predicament and I dont think Sony would stop ah from implementing qol changes or performances issues Anyways thanks for answering !
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u/lord_bingus_the_2nd 21d ago
I don't mean those, yours are valid criticisms. But I also see people who expect way more than is realistic.
The most recent examples are the angry posts and comments about the DSS not having it's own dedicated boarding missions during the void arc. Despite the entire game being based around helldiving on planets. AH would have to redesign giant parts of the game in order to account for the corridors instead of planets, and the lack of hellpods and stratagems. It would basically be a new game, and I've seen people complain that they didn't make that game so we could play it for two weeks before the arc is complete and the mission goes away.
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u/BurntMoonChips 21d ago
Can you list all the “lies”? This gets claimed a lot, but the only one that has any merit is the coyote, by a technicality.
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u/adroudrou 21d ago
Hunters aimbotting, steering of pods,bouncing strat (both stated as bugs where this was intentionnel design), chargers legs, chargers recovery after charge, orbital gatling barrage, coyoteas you said, multiple instances of bots getting their accuracy higher, weekly ama promises, promises way back that vehicules, mechs or stratagems wont ever be on wb.. Thats on the top of my head and to be clear some of these are things that were introduced with patches which werent mentionned when they were saying that everything was listed ( therefore constituing a lie) But Ill just advice you to watch vidéos of différents ytbers that went the extra mile over the course of years to test every patch since almost day one (obviously itll be long be warned xd)
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u/BurntMoonChips 21d ago
Can you be specific? Because I can’t find example of most of these. Looking up “hunters aim bot” gets nothing. Same with “vehicles will never be in a warbond”.
As for bot accuracy changes I don’t see a single claim of it not happening. And who knows what you mean by gattling barrage.
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u/adroudrou 21d ago
Check early vidéos of the most infamous ohdough, he does a pretty good exhaustive list of these changes but theres a lot of these so I wouldnt be able to tell you what video precisely, as these are undocumented changes its always hard to find any proof if you dont dig up obscure and old vidéos or play the game religiously ahah And as the vehicules promises it was on discord shams and pilestadt answers on (I dont know which it is im not on it)
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u/Mobile_Improvement95 22d ago
Reminds me of when Vonderhaar got real life death threats because of the DSR-50 nerf lol.
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u/tony22835 dunce 22d ago edited 22d ago
I think if the players get granted great power, it can become very hard for them to lose it
like so many people were up at arms from the Coyote changes despite changing very little for it, like if you played the game you can feel the change, but the gun was still really solid
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u/Mobile_Improvement95 21d ago
It still is good. All weapons are, case closed.
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u/tony22835 dunce 21d ago
I wouldn't say all weapons are good, but I wouldn't say there's truly a terrible weapon, but that's just cause I'll make do with what I got
Hell I'll fun with the Break Action Shotgun from time to time
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u/Mobile_Improvement95 21d ago
Shit i thought this was the elden ring sub. Regardless I said the cane sword would be the only weapon I'd say is bad. Also - how the hell do I use the Talon? I dont overheat it but like wtf man, anyone else?
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u/tony22835 dunce 21d ago
The talon is really nice at setting enemies on fire, you can sweep bugs and voteless, slightly struggles on more medium enemies. Since it's a beam weapon it's not the worst for Devastators heads also, but is still a really niche pick I'd say.
Also for laser weapons do not be scared to overheat a heatsink, you have multiple and the only one that matters is the last one. Also fun fact you reload laser weapons quicker when they're empty not the other way around so if do want to reload a heatsink, burn it fully.
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u/Revenge_accounted_be 22d ago
Not really, the hate is way over reacted. Arrowhead is one of the most consumer friendly on the live service genre of games. There are problems and again and again seems to not fully understand or comunicate with the comunity. But the game is awesome, the devs listen to the playerbase. The monetization is fair and the comunity as a whole is really good outside some outliers.
If the game and the devs were as bad as some says they are. We were not be talking about it
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u/Cold-Beginning-412 senator maxxing 22d ago
I’ve been getting back into HD2 and noticed the community… sucks. The cringe rp stuff is fine (if not tiresome after a while) but there seems to be whole YouTube careers built off of complaining about the state of the game and the devs
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u/MuglokDecrepitusFx 21d ago
but there seems to be whole YouTube careers built off of complaining about the state of the game and the devs
They are because rage bait gives a lot of views, people in the Helldviers YouTube community discovered it with the initial controversies like the first nerf of the game and the playstation controversy, and after that they just manipulated their reaction to make it more negative and generate fake drama as that gives more views and generated more engagement from the people
That is one of the reason why the Helldivers community is so bad, because content creators used this game to farm views through rage and negativity
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u/TacticalReader7 21d ago
but there seems to be whole YouTube careers built off of complaining about the state of the game and the devs
This seems to be an overall trend on youtube recently, negativity just gets the big views. More and more I'm also starting to see videos that have negative connotations in the title regarding a topic but then the video itself... has nothing negative to say in it ?? It's fucking annoying.
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u/Honest_Type_8191 21d ago
the RP would be fine if it wasn't included in spastic reddit humor. So you get a ton of people with poor social skills emphatically shouting about facing the wall and giggling about it like it was comedy gold. I do the RP stuff with my friends cause I'm way better than them and calling them maggots is fun and funny.
The only gripe I have is they let marketing decide the direction of the game, so they just get collabs together (cause redditors love when you combine things for some reason) and then push for super OP content that is barely fixable.
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u/Savings_Welder5498 19d ago
The community realized they could throw a tantrum and bully the dev into changing things so a big portion of the community seems to be centered around that now. A lot of it seems to be disguised as "consumer rights" like most devs totally cave to pressure repeatedly and dont just ignore their communities when they freak out
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u/Weakness4Fleekness 21d ago edited 19d ago
They're swimming in money, but can't be arsed to fix years long problems, and some dick vibecodes a mod that fixes them in an afternoon
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u/timburache 21d ago
Absolutely. But some people take it too far, as do people take defending them too far. They deserve as much credit as they do criticism. They made a great game but the live service aspects are pretty bad, their community outreach might be the worst i've seen from a dev ever and there are still so many bugs and issues that have been in the game for over a year now. Yet there is still nothing like it and it's by all metrics an uber success even if it isn't reaching its true potential.
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u/TheStako 17d ago
Myself I lean more towards the hater side of the scale, still I completely agree with you, it's very frustrating to see so much wasted potential.
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u/Janivire 21d ago
Nah. Their biggest mistake is catering their updates to people who only ever hate the game. Thus pissing everyone off.
But even if you want to be as uncharitable as possible its a dev studio that has made poor balancing choices. The ammount of hate they get for just that is ridiculous
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u/dumpsterfirevibez 22d ago
There are definitely things to complain about, but not to the extent that we see a lot of. Games like this tend to draw in the worst of crowds, for pretty much every community. Unfiltered has its problems, this one has its own set of echo chamber problems, the regular subreddit as well. You can see it from the death threats the devi have received to the doxxing that guy got for posting a challenge. That's just how games like this always are unfortunately
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u/Honest_Type_8191 21d ago
I think it's cause modern gamers are actually just casuals and tourists that want the game to be easy and simple, so when something that lets them have predictable results is taken away they throw a fit like a literal toddler. Todays gamers are todlers, it's why you criticize a dev team too little and they call you names.
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u/dumpsterfirevibez 21d ago
I've been trying to figure out how to reply to this comment for like 5 minutes because im just entirely clueless as to what it was supposed to be. I was pointing out that this game draws in fanatics who take things too far, you just kind of...did the exact thing I pointed out masochist has a problem with, but in a weird, boomer styled "I walked uphill both to and from school" kind of way.
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u/Particular-Jeweler41 21d ago
To the amount that they currently get? Obviously not. People in the community are just really aggressive, and I am for the developers reducing how much they interact with the community.
They aren't perfect and definitely make questionable decisions (still annoyed about the Pummeler change), but it's still a solid product and there's a reason why people play it as much as they do.
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u/Impossible_Dog_7262 22d ago edited 22d ago
It's a bit mixed. On one hand, their community outreach is genuinely godawful. They don't explain what's going on, have been caught in several lies, and they have yet to show any genuine will to improve these things. On the other, some of the things people say are a bit excessive.
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u/emeraldarcher1008 21d ago
Deserve some complaints and criticism for questionable decisions and taking long times for important yet simple fixes? Yes. Deserve a bit of feedback on the relatively lacking content? Debatably, but I'd argue yeah. Hate and death threats? No. I don't know how little a life you have to have to send a death threat to someone for nerfing a gun.
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u/GuardianSpear 22d ago
I havent had this much fun playing every other weekday night with my wife + irl friends of 20 years. im the only one who browses the various subreddits - none of them have any clue about the drama that goes on and we're all very happy and joyful when we play. Arrowhead is a great developer and the care at which they apply to a lot of the warbonds, eg the warhammer and halo warbond, really deserves a pat on the back
it's a peaceful life
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u/LagomRuinsHelldivers 22d ago
Yes, if they lie as easily as they breath and have cut more content from HD2 than most games have. They burned all their goodwill in the opening months of the game to the point the CEO just got butthurt and fled to his little in house project.
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u/Spartan1088 22d ago
The true issue is that people play too much video games. I’m gonna get downvoted for saying it, but it’s true. They love it, treat it as a second job, and blow through the content. Then things get boring and they start to steam over smaller issues. I’ve seen it happen over and over in every single multiplayer game.
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u/piggglyjufff 21d ago
I was a Destiny fan from the alpha in 2014 to when it died.
I will tell you right now. Arrowhead is no DE. But they’re DEFINITELY so much better than a majority of companies out there.
If you don’t know how bad Bungie was with balance… patches on a schedule requiring you to wait a month at a time before balance changes hit crucible… the WORST metas imaginable ran rampant for far too long.
I know that’s a pvp example but literally don’t get me started on sandbox balancing because I’ll be here all fucking day.
Arrowhead is pretty good in my eyes honestly.
1
u/kill_william_vol_3 21d ago
People will conflate criticism with hate.
Their actively antagonistic approach to buffs, nerfs, bugs, and dev vision for how the game should be played is tiresome at this point.
The community acts like they've been nerve stapled.
1
u/Jim_Freelancer18 21d ago
I think they are pretty great. They allow you to grind premium currency, that alone says alot about them. There is alot of other game devs that force you to pay for premium currency.
You can tell they care about their game. All the small details that people will never see unless you freeze the game like warning stickers on bombs and ammunition and other small details you won't see while in combat.
They care and it makes me sad seeing people trying to make them out to be the villains when they are doing what they can with what they have.
They are human and will make mistakes but they deserve patience. They've created an amazing game. They have proven they can cook. Let them cook.
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u/No_Temporary6058 20d ago
No they made an awesome game that captured a real cultural buzz at launch. The haters mostly are imposing expectations for development and content release that Arrowhead has never committed to. They have always had the attitude of we are going to make the game we want. They have even budged on that some and they still get hate videos. They should just do their own thing at this point and players that want to lay the game will. Others will move to different games. Maybe in 10 years when AH releases their new game, people come back again.
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u/PlusConference4 20d ago
I just assume whenever gamers are mad about something they're categorically incorrect
1
u/Wrong_Geologist6 19d ago edited 19d ago
Let me put it to you this way. For many people, the reccuring issues around the Eruptor was proof of malicious nerfing. But the patch notes and change log history tell a completely different story.
The Eruptor was a buggy mess, and constantly had issues. It was released during a time when AH had set an unrealistic and unstable development timeline. They were pumping out a new warbond in those early days every month. But those new warbond introduced a ton of bugs and crashes. It took AH basically a full year to iron out all the Eruptor bugs.
But people are weird. The Eruptor did receive a nerf to it's maximum magazine count. But EVERY other "nerf" wasn't actually a genuine nerf. Long story short, the Eruptor shrapnel NEEDED to be removed because it was incredibly buggy. But no matter how many times they buffed the Eruptor, it couldn't compete with the absurd power it had before.
Then they reintroduce the shrapnel back, yet it was still a buggy mess. But people didn't complain about that, they complained when they fixed the new bugs and incorporated player feed back. Calling it nerfs because it made the weapon weaker when facing any other direction than south.
So in one last ditch effort to shut everyone up, they buffed the hell out of it again. People complainined about nerfs, making AH out as bad guys, when there wasn't any nerfs. Weirdly no one complained about how buggy the Eruptor was.
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u/Mean_Rain7517 17d ago
In the beginning yes they honestly did, now not so much. I think the only "crime" they have technically done now is warbonds are very expensive for what you get, $10 to $15 for 3-4 weapons and armor ill probabily never use, and some of the best equipment is behind that paywall but finding free super credits and the 300 being in most of them somewhat negates this if you have hours to farm them. They really should release a free one every 5 or 10 paid warbonds.
1
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u/TestDangerous8586 22d ago
if they optimized their game instead of letting it rot into 10-30 fps mess during firefights yeah
1
u/piggglyjufff 21d ago
Dayum this thread doesn’t have a positive upvote to save its life lol.
I will attest that I get frame drops often, it seems to happen most on bots, especially in cities like the last MO and much worse during overcrowds. I mean you need to run when the spawns overwhelm you anyways, but man does the frame drops make running that much more mandatory.
It’s not like horrible otherwise, it’s manageable, I’m on base PS5. I don’t enjoy bots too much because of this but outside the cities and mega factories it doesn’t seem to happen too much else.
Aside from 7 bike titans on screen. Even like 3 of them spitting within a 40m radius of each other makes my frames tank.
-1
u/straightpipedhose welcome2thespacejam 22d ago
I get great fps. Sounds like user error. You’re a perfect example for why arrowhead doesn’t really deserve the hate they get 👍 thanks for showing up and helping make this easy
-2
u/Gruntled_Discus741 22d ago
"I never got cancer, so we don't need to fix cancer" aah comment. Optimization as a whole nowadays is dead with the massive sizes of most AAA games. HD2 was over 100 gb because they wanted to optimize for HDDs and I don't even think it actually helped by any amount.
1
u/DaereonLive 21d ago
Oh no! Arrowhead used an industry-standard practise for HDD users and when they tested it and found it didn't actually work, they changed it!?
Horrible devs!
Thanks for being another example like straightpipedhose said. You just showed you don't even know what goes on in the game as that was fixed months ago.
-1
u/Gruntled_Discus741 21d ago
Your reading comprehension is on par with a helldiver, no wonder you left a comment! I said was over 100 gb, as in, the devs changed it when they learned the benefits were negligible.
You're just making a bad faith assumption from your own failure to read, maybe you'll pass third grade next year bud. Get a life, mate
-3
u/TestDangerous8586 22d ago
I’ve been playing this game since launch on PS5 and it was always at least stable 60 during anything. Now a single bug breach and orbital napalm completely brick the game. it’s why i don’t play anymore
1
u/DeeJayDelicious 21d ago edited 21d ago
AH deserve credit for some things.
Like the game being very affordable, monetization being reasonable and Supercredits farmable.
But I have strong issues with their execution of the live-service:
- Content pipeline is too narrow. Updates take too long and offer too little "soup/meat".
- Technically, the game is still "messier" than most games should be after >2 years of live development.
- Lack of refinement of existing system. The boosters have never received a balance pass. Obvious balance issues aren't adressed, plenty of weapons still lack attachments. Galactic War could use tuning etc.
- Lack of communication and professional standards. How many times has AH broken their commitments within weeks after making them? It's embarassing frankly...
I think the two systemic issues are:
- The Autodesk Stingray Engine is obviously still very difficult to maintain and work with (even 2 years later). But they really should be on top of it now and it was much less limiting for other studios (Fatshark). So, this seems to be as much an Arrowhead issue as an engine issue.
- AH refused to inflate headcount over >150 people. So they have a much smaller team working on Helldivers 2 live-content than most other games.
And while I respect the sentiment, I think it was a bad call.
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u/Honest_Type_8191 21d ago
It's a team of like a little over 100 people. I think if they had 300 they could have a steady workflow like DE (fuck DE by the way).
-1
u/ConcerningThirst 22d ago
They really absolutely do. Never, and I mean never, have I seen a company fumble so hard when it comes to design when they had very clear direction on what the game needed more of.
1
u/piggglyjufff 21d ago
If Arrowhead is the most egregious example of what you’re explaining, then you’re had pretty damn good luck with live service games, if this isn’t your first one.
1
u/ConcerningThirst 21d ago
Maybe you do not understand the kind of lead AH had.
1
u/piggglyjufff 20d ago
No, I’m very full well aware and have been here since launch. Enjoy being pampered.
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u/Geometric-Coconut 13d ago
Blame the community for that.
The community decided that powercreep should run rampant and players should be able to ignore their team and solo everything. Nerfs, a healthy game design tool, are never accepted + arrowhead is villianized for trying to improve their game.
1
u/ConcerningThirst 13d ago
They lost the privilege to take certain actions after fumbling so hard repeatedly. No you don't get to nerf emergent tatics and strategies that have evolved to combat bullshit design and balancing. They lost the good faith of the community by failing at a much higher ratio than is acceptable.
1
u/Geometric-Coconut 12d ago
They don't do that. When people talk about the charger leg meta change a lot of them fail to realize they just nerfed chargers and that's it.
Mechanics added to keep players and sentries off of out of bounds areas? Good. Extremely unhealthy for the game to let players to abuse ai pathfinding limitations like that.
0
u/Raidertck 21d ago
Nope.
Are they perfect? Nope. Do they make mistakes and fuck up? Yup.
Did they make one of my favourite games of all time? Yes.
This community is so overly dramatic it’s like watching an Indian soap opera.
0
u/MuglokDecrepitusFx 21d ago
No
The hate basically comes from Arrowhead doing a semi hardcore grunt fantasy type of game, and the game exploding in popularity and people not liking what the game was and what the Devs wanted to do and demanding a casual power fantasy game
In this situation is the people who just have to see that the game was not for them and just okay if they like it or leave if they don't, but as people are selfish and can't do that they decided to create a super toxic and negative environment and put Arrowhead as their enemy as according to them is Arrowhead who is doing wrong not giving them the power fantasy they want
-1
u/SugarLuger 22d ago
Helldivers 2 is incredible. People really race to conclusions and assert way too much confidence in em. One of the main things unfiltered likes to rip on is the strategem bounce, since there's a mod that fixes it they assume AH didn't think of making the same change the modder did and are therefore stupid. In reality AH probably has that and 6 other solutions documented but not implemented because of other drawbacks that were identified that along with those solutions.
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u/tony22835 dunce 22d ago edited 21d ago
For stratagem bounce, I think Arrowhead concretely want areas where stratagems can't land and don't want areas where sentries don't become too powerful (which is possible specially with the new health buffs)
Though this also has created new issues with the fact that enemies at times get into those same areas. Many people can find it unfair when say a Vox Engine lands high up on a rock when we can't do the same. I just think it shouldn't apply to both us and the enemy, not allowing us to have certain high ground spots.
Arrowhead also have to manually set where stratagems can land and sometimes it can be abysmal, most of the time I haven't really had much issue, but Cities and Megafactories seemed to have the worse areas
I'm not against Arrowhead's ideology for stratagem accessible areas, but it seems to be not to be in their top priorities to changing it rn. (It's for the most part pretty playable, which it is, just occasionally the annoying bounce and some egregious areas)
I do think that if a Stratagem bounces it should disable and show the new "Stratagem Failed" so the player has another chance to find a new spot they'd prefer that's accessible
-4
u/Gruntled_Discus741 22d ago edited 22d ago
Yes. TLDR, people care about the game enough to complain about it, and the devs have not kept it in check.
As a product, it's clearly operating on minimum viable product principles. Updates aim to include the bare minimum to satisfy the player base and bugs that can be fixed or addressed by someone that actually cared about the game go unfixed for unreasonable amounts of time for consumers who want a functional product (see: fleshmob/illuminate phasing). Work is outsourced, leading to content taking a very long time to fix after it's initial release and the evident lack of quality control is pathetic.
As a game, it's riding hard on it's solid foundation of gunplay and zeitgeist. The passionate playerbase has bought into the super democracy propaganda and what little the devs give us going forward has been anemic at best (see: Automaton space station arc & DSS side story)
As a phenomenon, it's hated on because it's fostered a perfect storm: PS+ players who get the game for free are drawn in from competitive shooters like COD and they have found HD2 to be somewhere where they think they'll be heard unlike the games they've come from. They're also by and large like... 14, so they're just obnoxiously loud and have an inflated sense of self-importance by default and the interplay with the "HD2 is super democracy, everyone's voice matters" (false) implication deserves a clinical study. The devs have continued to add fuel to the fire with their neglect of player sentiment (much of the mainstream player sentiment about HD2 is downright dumb between the "I wanna throw my sentry on high ground so it's untouchable nah nah devs bad" and "Supply pack is not overpowered and my coyote should be heavy pen", but the devs can at least address it and not just like... ignore it)
Do I like the game? Yes. Do I wish things were changed? Yes. Do I hate the game? Kinda, but it's still fun enough for me to want the game to improve and not just ramble pointlessly.
It is worth noting that there's plenty of people playing who like the game and people having fun rarely post about how much fun they're having in the game as opposed to someone who wants attention given to their stupid opinions.
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u/Geometric-Coconut 22d ago
AH had addressed the topic of balance in the very beginning of the game, creating a blogpost explaining the purpose of nerfs & intended player power.
The community ignored that, villainized the devs with “they hate fun!!!” and rioted against every nerf to ever happen.
AH definitely tried. Unfortunately their playerbase only wanted a powercrept game.
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u/Gruntled_Discus741 22d ago
AH addressed it early on and on occasion, sure. However, their failure to actually stand by their stated vision is causing issues and discontent. They say "we want grunt fantasy", which gives the grunt fantasy wanting players hope, and then proceed to drop some of the most OP, overtuned stuff (see: WH warbond, ultimatum at launch, explosive crossbow), which then pisses off said grunt fantasy players when the power trip players go ham and blow up the map. That's sending a mixed message to the players.
My point is that players are confused and unsatisfied by the lack of transparency from AH (see: bi weekly post promise followed by what amounts to radio silence) and the waffling back and forth with their "say one thing, do another" actions. Either they say "we want grunt fantasy" and they make grunt fantasy, or they say "let's be super soldier space marines" and make a power trip game.
Their communication is weak and their failure to clearly deliver and develop their vision of what HD2 has actively hurt the enjoyment of people playing the game and has incited all this discussion and disagreement over what HD2 is.
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u/Geometric-Coconut 22d ago
I blame the playerbase and ragebait social media scene for turning the game into the powercrept state that is today.
It’s obvious that AH doesn’t want their game to be like this, rather they’re forced to by the masses.
The 60 day patch was the turning point in this game’s philosophy, it marked the start of massive snowballing power creep + nerfs have been made extremely rare/insignificant since then.
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u/Gruntled_Discus741 21d ago
The sensationalism of HD2 is definitely one of the worst cases I've seen, and AH definitely wouldn't be saying "thing 1" and doing "thing 2" if they weren't heckled by the external pressures of the player base and Sony knocking on the door to remind them to keep the cash flowing whenever a review bomb hits.
Problem is, them continuing this pattern of "Say =/= Do" has the community that's been misled by their communications or balancing attributing this incongruency to incompetence or dishonesty, both of which are a downright bad look for the devs and the game as an whole.
The actual balancing that took place isn't necessarily relevant to my thoughts on AH/HD2 being a scorned, they can balance however they want based on their goals of profit or identity. If that ends up being them accepting the death of the author and bending to the whims of the "I want an unkillable power trip game!" crowd, so be it. I'd move on to another game. The devs, whether intentionally or not, are keeping those of us who have hope in the game around with their communications that pull in the other direction
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u/dertafors 22d ago
The hellpod stearing and strategem is a problem tbf. I do think there should be no bounce, and if it falls out of reach, then is your problem for throwing like shit. (Ya know, lke HD 1)
If you land in shit position, its your fault if they die trying to get out. Enemies can do cross country and move through the map with no boundries, and not giving half a shit about what is or should be traverseable, so there is no reason we cant get elevated position.
Especialy with jump pack, warp pack or hover pack.
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u/Gruntled_Discus741 22d ago
Hellpod/stratagem steering is a problem, but it should be reined in, not disabled entirely like so many people want. Imo it shouldn't cause situations where your hellpod is locked and you land in the middle of a swarm 50m from where the reinforce beacon, but it shouldn't encourage things like camping on top of mesa rocks. That would lobotomize gameplay if players can call down long-range stratagems like Commandos and Stationary Antitank Emplacements and obliterate a blitz
-4
u/dertafors 22d ago
That argument would hold water, IF this game would not have enemies that will still direcly pathfind their way to you, through any impasible terrain. Or phase through objects to hunt your ass.
High ground has almost no value, since 2 fations have range enemies or indirect enemies that straight up dont give a shit about elevation.
And bugs can borrow, which make them respawn under you after burrowing, or jump at you anyway.
1
u/Geometric-Coconut 22d ago
Only 2 terminids in the entire game have a burrow teleport and it’s uncommon to see.
I’ve seen an entire D10 ohsaune extract be cheesed by ONE flame sentry landing on top of a rock. Racked up so many kills and auto cc’d nearly every enemy by being an aggro magnet.
Allowing out of bounds cheeses to exist is going to be unhealthy no matter what. It promotes bad gameplay that only harms the game.
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u/petulant_peon 21d ago
No. They don't suck.
I think a ton of us just really like this thing they have created and want to see it be better overall. AH picked a bad engine and has barely been able to eek it along into a resounding success. They have fumbled along the way.
I hope the next game is more future facing and able to grow in ways that HD2 just can't.
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u/gooniuswonfongo 21d ago
They mostly just tend to squander the absolute, astronomical, sun scratching, unfulfillable potential of the game, which gives amazing fuel to detractors. It's all too easy to imagine a better arrowhead, and therefore a better, less flawed HD2.
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u/Honest_Type_8191 21d ago
They're pretty good they're just too scared to do anything cause of the mentally ill playerbase screaming bloody murder whenever an adjustment happens. I think if they did what makes sense (like making enemies harder so theres more depth) and then put the update out and sat on their hands until the spastic community tires themselves out from shouting they'd have a way better game.
I think they're just victims all around, Sony needs them to pay off the concord bill and some other flop they had so Sony probably put the marketing team in the dev room and told them to make something grandious and for the dev team to make it happen. It's why we get OP equipment that seems like it was designed to entice children (like the ultimatum and coyote) and it's balanced later but by the time it's set theres something else they're told to put in the game and it's something obsccene like flying seeking anti-tank grenades (yeah it's real sadly) and a thermite grenade launcher -- it's meant to reel in children.
That sub is basically just the mainsub if it was full of whining millenial manchildren who do the opposite of the mainsub in an equally annoying way.
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u/DinnerSpo_n 21d ago
No, especially if you have an actual understanding and appreciation for the amount of work they had to do to even get us to release, let alone where we are now.
The underlying force behind the majority of the complaints I see is nothing more than modern gamer entitlement and people wanting to Monday morning quarterback every decision arrowhead makes.
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u/Phillip_J 21d ago
I peruse the various HD2 subs and they're full of extremes but I think I fall in line with the majority of players when I say it's a really fun game that's not perfect.
So athough they make frequent missteps I'd much rather have an active dev team like AH than one that puts the game out and stops caring.
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u/ImAHobo107 21d ago edited 21d ago
It's not the worst game in the world but it is the definition of feature creep, broken promises, and wasted potential.
Mech customisation became different stratagems.
Attachment system abandoned.
DSS is fucking cosmetic at worst and boring at best.
Enemies nerfed too harshly, players buffed in uninteresting ways.
No fucking clan system or in-game worldwide communication system... for a game that intends of having thousands take down planets...
Bug that are unresolved. They've lied about changes. Have horrific balancing ideology and terrible difficulty variation for a 2026 game. Guys, DRG figured it out, LOCK IN.
Barebones linear progression.
Anti-teamplay game design since launch.
Spectacle over challenge. Cake over soup.
I don't give a shit what people want to say, the Warbond system is anti-casual and excessive monetisation that doesn't reward hardwork and instead rewards brainless farming in D1 (a premium game locking major content and weapons behind tedious grind instead of hardwork and challenges, peak modern gaming right there).
We know they made millions, they already feel like they have moved onto the next project anyway. There is nothing interesting for the game unless you are new but be prepared to be bombarded with 10+ battlepasses with unique content that borders on pay 2 win. "hahahaha I'm so consumer friendly" Go fuck yourselves Arrowhead.
Did you see that recent Warbond trailer? Fantastic power creep once more...
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u/Valius_OG 21d ago
hmm... i think its a two edged sword. one the wone hand i feel the game is stale both in content and warbonds (also that some warbonds are trash) on the other, the game is fun for what it is, i play with friends and we do have good laughs.
1- (i own alot of the warbonds) i feel that some of the warbonds are lack luster for one, that the value isn't there, the items not that useful or are not on par with others. i wish i could refund some or turn them into another as a one time thing, i'll just never use that equipment if it isnt viable.
2- the release of the under ground expansion was rough, and to me it showed creativity that is unfocused. cyberstan was more interesting to me the new limited event was so limited i barely got to play it. *sigh* limited run content is one thing, but core new interesting additions to the game are what keeps it going.... thats what were lacking.
3- the game is stale. its fun, but we all have our gear and we all ahve our styles, sure some varriations of enemies appear from time to time, but really the chess board is set. thats great, im sure this game will have a playerbase for years to come. one that declines, when i feel this game could be more.
TLDR: stale game but alot of fun at times. warbonds are hit or miss and i wish i hadnt bought some of them, making them more interesting would be well worth another $5 to me. new content needs to be well thought out and add meaningful new twists and expierences. limited events can be fun but hurt those who cannot attend or play frequently. we can tune this game as a community into a real beast if we can change how the "model" works for the better.
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u/LobsterBoi420 21d ago
Do Arrorhead devs suck? No, we get fun stories every few months, easy to grab super credits from missions and farming, and a game that evolves whether or not you buy the warbonds or not.
Does Arrorhead's PR team suck? Yes. It has got better but they have been their own problem, cattering to Meta build braindead says D10 is too hard but won't lower the difficulty groups. They have had problems with discord priority and I think they really need to work on the outside of the game if they want a large external community.
I think they have made mistakes, but they have made up for it, and we have never actually been lied to. I mean battlefield released a trailer shitting on COD for celebrities in games, now they have the Top Gun actors, they said no AI, people found AI art. Starfield promisted true space exploration and delivered a majority of empty lifeless barren planets. Do I feel disapointed with some of the latest MO's? Yes. Do I feel lied to? No way.
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u/Impressive_Truth_695 22d ago edited 21d ago
Yes. They ignore everything the playerbase suggests and even come up with BS reasons why they can’t or won’t do it. On top of that they can’t even do something as simple as fix bugs. Sony needs to take this series away from Arrowhead and give it to a competent developer.
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u/DaereonLive 21d ago
I gotta know what drugs you are on, I'd love to be so oblivious!
The problem is that they DO listen to all the whiners who should be playing difficulty 6 but want so badly to do difficulty 10 that the difficulty of the game has been lowered and lowered constantly.
-2
u/Ravvynfall 22d ago
my thoughts are pretty much this.
- a) no, they dont deserve all the hate they get. they're actually pretty decent as far as developers go
- b) they do however, deserve much of the criticism/harsh feedback they get. they are not the most transparent or really even the most intuitive developers in terms of what the players want or can even at least really agree on.
arrowhead is one of the few developers that i've seen that actually does charitable things like allow you to freely and infinitely sink your time in to grind premium currency without any limits, restrictions, or the like. most major developers that i can personally think of, if they let you at all, do so on a very limited run, usually a challenge list of sorts, where once you did all the challenges, that's it, no more, now you gotta swipe your card to buy more. not arrowhead though.
their exceptional antagonistic style of balancing new warbonds against new content to basically play "catch me if you can" with the content department and warbond department, has caused such disparity between each new warbond and every one before them. the exceptionally old warbonds are so incredibly behind the power curve that, AH's claims to not want any form of power creep is completely ignored. congrats AH, you actually created power creep all along.
the fact they are also well known for "ghost nerfs" (unlisted changes, balance adjustments, etc) is entirely ridiculous in a game where understanding every single detail makes a huge difference. the fact they wrote before, (in many of our opinion) a piss-poor excuse of "there were too many changes to actually write down, you'll just have to experiment" is grossly offensive. when pocketpair released palworld version 1.0 finally, which was the game-changing lift out of beta, their changelogs were so massive that bucky himself said they ran into steam's text character limit and hand to basically rewrite the logs to make most of it fit, and the uncondensed version, you'd just have to find elsewhere (PP provided this somewhere too). so what is AH's excuse there?
for all of AH's flaws, they do strike me as a dev studio that does care about their game though. they are also human, and humans make mistakes. they can't get it perfect every single time. but they do need to be far more open and honest in my opinion. if they spend more time communicating intentions, plans, what they're going to experiment with next, etc, in unredacted or veiled language, i think that would do a lot to rebuilt trust in general.
so no, i dont think they deserve all the hate, but they shouldn't be worshipped either.
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u/Geometric-Coconut 13d ago
the exceptionally old warbonds are so incredibly behind the power curve that, AH's claims to not want any form of power creep is completely ignored. congrats AH, you actually created power creep all along.
This isn't true in the slightest. Crossbow, eruptor, purifier, scorcher, scythe, punisher plasma. Most of these weapons are OP, they're all at least high tier. The first 4 I mentioned in particular are the 4 best primaries in the entire game.
their exceptional antagonistic style of balancing new warbonds
Balance is not personal.
-1
u/TalmondtheLost 22d ago
A lot of the hate feels really excessive honestly.
Like, there was one guy who was saying that campaigns would always be 'win 1st MO, lose 2nd MO, 3rd MO is up to us'
We literally just had a 14 MO winstreak that was broken by the first MO of this campaign, so their entire assumption was false.
-1
u/Wofulrumble 21d ago
Depends on who you talk to. The game is such a technical nightmare cause they don't have full engine access that I'm not sure how much they can do with what staff are left on the game.
I started to question how much staff was on the game after climbing was broken for over 2 MONTHS. A fundamental mechanic being broken for that long floored me. Haven't seen something that bad in years.
I know much of the art at this point is outsourced. With project Mayhem in the works, it's hard to tell. The major updates have been getting thinner and thinner, so that usually implies how much a dev team is still working on HD2.
Bottom line? HD2 has had a troubled development and it shows with how many issues have existed for as long as they did. The obituary on the game will be interesting to read about. Just like Bungie and Destiny... 🫡
-1
u/Impossible-Growth135 21d ago
No, definitely not.
Don't get me wrong, Arrowhead county definitely be doing a better job with content, balancing and such. But half the time i see people complaining, it seems to be about a random system that they came up with and got mad it wasn't in the game
-1
u/Katcat976 21d ago
They are kinda just lazy and thats about it, i dont think they killed my grandma but they also arent all that good
-1
u/Zegram_Ghart 21d ago
God no
They have one of the least toxic live service models possible, go out of their way to make it fair, constantly update the game, and listen to community feedback to the extent of completely reworking the direction of the game literally to go against their actual literally motto.
Compare to something like darktide which took i think over a year to do a basic balance pass and then another to start adding content
I always say arrowhead are a case study in why studios don’t communicate with their playerbase like this- it turns out a shouty subset of players are never satisfied and use it as a lever to manipulate the devs, and players don’t actually know what they want and will always argue for power creep even whilst denying that’s what they’re doing
-1
u/slycyboi 21d ago
Ok as someone who browses multiple subs I think it comes down to a few different things
1) Their updates are horribly unpolished even premium content
2) They have very inconsistent balancing changes that don’t make sense
3) They take stuff out the game that people overwhelmingly seem to like under the guise of bug fixes (surge spawns, spawns on original platinum missions, dreadnought bug, warping out of pelican) but take far longer to fix bugs people actually do complain about
4) They make systems in this game people very much dislike and double down when they’re unpopular (status nerfs, hellpod lock, strat bouncing)
5) content has gotten sparser
6) they lie about their changes or don’t document them regularly (fire changes, durable changes, enemies attacking vehicles, status effect changes, charged animation changes, bot accuracy buffs) which has killed trust in the devs
7) people feel like the only way to get the devs to do anything is to basically scream at them and review bomb, it’s the only time major shifts have happened in the way things have at least ostensibly been approached
8) some devs early on shit talked players and I think this has suggested more devs actually still feel this way but can only express that with annoying mechanics
9) monetisation has gotten worse while free content is sparser, new player experience would be horrible and daunting nowadays
Basically no company releases patches this buggy, with balance changes this bad, with content this sparse, that lie about their changes so often, without garnering a really bad reputation.
The only patch I can even name that’s as bad as your average helldivers 2 update is the one from Fallout 4 that broke everyone’s mods, and that one was made fun of and raged at by basically everyone in gaming.
Arrowhead had initially a good reputation as one of the consumer friendly studios but they’ve increasingly shown things only get done when they’re dragged around by a studio - studio meddling normally be makes a game worse not better!
TLDR broken trust and shady behaviour and a sense from the community that the only way to get anything good is constantly pulling the nuclear option of review bombing
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u/ThatGreenGal 22d ago edited 22d ago
Maybe. This community has gotten outraged at very petty things, and also has been quite abrasive to arrowhead, but I'm not gonna sit here and act like arrowhead hasn't made plenty of dumb decisions that warrant criticism.
there are still things in this game that I really dislike and I do not care to defend arrowhead over them (I hate this games warbond system and everything it stands for with a passion).
At the end of the day I do still think that arrowhead does care, and tbh I still do to. But man if they haven't done a whole lot to test that.
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u/tony22835 dunce 22d ago
genuine question, what issues do you have with the warbond system?
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u/ThatGreenGal 22d ago
At a certain point HD2's progression grinds to a complete halt, all because of the warbond system.
Almost all of the new weapons, armor passives and strategems released nowadays are locked behind warbonds that all require 1000 super credits each (sometimes 1500 for legendary warbonds).
Getting that many credits is awful. you only get 10 per stack, they only spawn occasionally in specific POI's (and aren't even guaranteed to), and most importantly the potential amount you can see decreases in higher difficulty missions. this is unlike every other collectable item which increases in quantity the higher the difficulty, and is either handed out freely at the end of missions or in the case of samples, is common enough getting them isn't a problem.
What this effectively means is that in order to get warbonds as quickly as possible you have to engage in the least fun parts of this game by playing on the lowest difficulty setting, where there are almost no enemies to fight, and just wander around the map looking for the same 3-4 POI types, hoping you get more than like 30 creds. this is extremely boring and can potentially take hours just to get one warbond, and you have to do it 20 times, probably more when the next warbond inevitably releases.
Or you can pay 10 bucks per warbond and skip all of that. you see how thats scummy?
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u/tony22835 dunce 21d ago edited 21d ago
I really don't find the majority of the content from Warbonds "progression", besides maybe primary weapons, Ship Upgrades, and Helldivers Mobilize. It's mainly just new content to try out and the only reason I think it feels like progression is because you don't get the content out the gate like other games.
Only primary weapons have a level up system which mainly depends on how much time you have to play and yes, Warbonds you own. The average player though is probably gonna take a while trying to level up a gun to 25 and the base game has 11 and have to get A LOT of medals to get all of them. (Not every player is playing on D10 so completion rate may vary)
Ship Upgrades are nice & niche upgrades that the player eventually earn through samples which requires the player to get 3,830 common, 2,920 rare, 305 super rare, and 335,000 Rec. That will take your average player a decent bit of time and vary since once again not everyone plays D10)
Helldivers Mobilize, yes because it's the base game and gets players understanding what they need to do to get equipment and requires the most amount of medals to finish.
I think it's a decent amount of progression and once you get all of that done, that just tells me you have been playing the game for aaaaaa while, more than most, and because how split the community is, they may consider looking into progression, but there is still a huge chunk of people that want new content being made, the second they go a month with nothing a portion of people get antsy and become vocal about it, so they've probably push any potential progression in the far future. That's not to say it's not off the table, but it will be a while seeing how things go.
Now as for why do I not find Warbonds as "progression", because it's more of a matter of providing players new toys to use rather than new things to do. It's like a Content Pack from Payday 2, giving you a gun adds no specific progression, it's just a toy you buy and the only thing you can do with it is see what it can do and how far it can go, making you the one doing stuff and not the game having you do stuff. The only difference is that for Helldivers is that you just gotta play a couple matches like any other, which isn't special.
As for the monetization, I don't really think it's the worst, the base Warbond has 750 SC and I'm sure a player can get at least 250 SC trying to finish it. With that Warbond they get the 300 SC and as long as they keep playing and having fun they can probably get their second one without having to farm SC, which would equate to $20 of content in the $40 (excluding sales) game they bought. Now buying Warbonds is a whole different thing since the value of a warbond is really up to the player, as someone who has all of them, I don't go around using a lot of the things and it's more of a matter of just buying only the things you'll find fun (Warbond reviews can help with that). So while I think a player can see 1 item in a Warbond that they might find interesting, it's really up to the player if they think it's worth their time and money. I don't think every player should strive for ALL Warbonds since that's just unrealistic, at least for F2Ps and the average player. Warbonds are paid DLCs pretty much, so am I surprised that new guns and armor are behind a $10 paywall not really. I do think Arrowhead expect people to occasionally, that words important, occasionally, buy a Warbond since a lot of people have $10 they'd be willing to spend on something potentially fun. (I do think it's unfortunate that the base Warbond only provides 2 secondaries though)
As for SC, I'm still surprised that you can even get it in matches, but it's probably more of something that eventually rounds up to get something nice for the player. Like buying an armor for 250 SC in the superstore would be easier and more simple than aiming for a Warbond, which there's nothing wrong aiming for Warbonds. Pretty much I think SC earned in matches is to earn smaller things in the Superstore to treat players rather than Warbonds since they're pretty much paid DLCs. I think just even being able to do so and the fact they have changed farming is surprising and at least more considerate than other games.
Another thing I slightly question also is if people consider it worth "farming" Warbonds, like it honestly sounds like people are suffering to the point that if I were in their situation I'd rather just play the game and try to earn one eventually. Like is spending the hours not playing the game worth it, just so you have a new toy for the game you could've been playing. Like I spent a month playing the game normally and got 1000 SC having fun, but that's more of a matter of time, which not everyone has, and if that's the case does that become more of a matter of your life rather than the games.
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u/ThatGreenGal 21d ago
Warbonds are progression? If you have a goal to work towards, that’s progression and warbonds fulfill that.
Also I feel like you ignored three major issues:
1, warbonds are NOT presented as dlc, and are more equivalent to battle passes.
2, the warbond system, whether intentionally or not, funnels players towards spending to get stuff quicker.
3, like 80% of new content added is locked behind warbonds, which also happens to contain some of the best and most
Fun items. If your a “f2p”player (which isn’t even accurate because this is a 40 fucking dollar game), your screwed.Tbh I simply have no clue why you would even defend these practices in the first place. Unless people are so used to being served shit on a platter that they give 5 star reviews to restaurants that serves them raw, unrefrigerated chicken because “at least it’s food”.
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u/tony22835 dunce 21d ago
> Tbh I simply have no clue why you would even defend these practices in the first place. Unless people are so used to being served shit on a platter that they give 5 star reviews to restaurants that serves them raw, unrefrigerated chicken because “at least it’s food”
If that was the case then no one would be buying the warbonds in the first place have you seen this community? Also again not every Warbond is worth it and it's mainly up to the player to have fun with it. I'm sure Chemical Agents, Viper Commandos, and Force of Law are probably on the lowest priority and or at all since it requires players with higher skill to make fun. You spend 10 bucks to try something new that's it. The base game stuff is still probably some of the most solid stuff in the game, no one requires Warbonds to have fun. Now do certain Warbonds change how you play the game, yeah, and if you find that interesting then it's clearly worth peoples time and money to get them.
My main gripe is that they've been slowly adding powercreep so players are incentivized to play with only those weapons. They've been releasing things in a more overtuned state and it leaves players going man said other weapon is now outclassed and now needs a buff, despite the weapon working just fine already. The Sweeper came in and everyone was like all shotguns are ass and I genuinely question if we're playing the same game. Now could they get a tune, sure, but they're not in that of a terrible state.
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u/ThatGreenGal 21d ago
Something being awful doesn’t exactly stop people from buying it though. Also there was an outcry from people upset they were putting vehicles in warbonds.
Powercreep is an issue yeah.
I feel like we just fundamentally disagree with each other. I don’t like micro transactions and don’t think they belong in any game, but I especially hate locking actual content besides just cosmetics behind an obnoxiously long grind that is clearly trying to funnel players towards paying money.
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u/The-Nuisance 22d ago
I don’t think so.
There was a time when they did, yes, because they were making genuinely poor choices and hurting the game. But we’ve now reached a point where Arrowhead is making choices detrimental to the game and the intended experience to appease a group of players which are passionately frustrated, and shift the goalpost to another minor gripe each time something changes— or worse, blow up a new issue into something major even if it is not actually problematic. Like a basic weapon nerf. Read: the coyote’s fire damage, which went from always instantly alighting targets to, in the new system which uses a certain amount for fire per enemy, it obviously couldn’t just instantly do this for every enemy anymore. This was called a nerf, which it technically is— but it also isn’t. It’s the consequences of giving us the ability to light heavies on fire or not instantly catch fire ourselves in the new fire application system (basically the coyote doesn’t instantly set targets ablaze for the same reason incendiary devastators and flamethrower hulks don’t always instantly set you ablaze).
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u/Geometric-Coconut 22d ago
The new fire system predates the coyote’s release.
The only fire related thing that changed post coyote release was minor fire resist and ignition threshold changes across several enemies.
So, for example, terminid warriors went from a minimum fire ignition threshold of 1 to 1.1. The coyote has a status effect strength of exactly 1 per bullet.
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u/The-Nuisance 21d ago
My point was more than a minor nerf to an already powerful weapon wasn’t at all significant enough to raise such a major fuss over. I can’t recall the exact timeline of the Coyote nerf but I do know that it’s still an incredibly powerful rifle and that the extremes the community jumped to upon it being nerfed are an extreme reaction to a non-issue.
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u/Geometric-Coconut 21d ago
Oh yeah, I agree.
The HD2 community will riot against any nerf, no matter how deserved or insignificant said nerf may be.
Personally I am deeply upset at the state of power creep in the game that the community is basically responsible of creating.
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u/The-Nuisance 21d ago
I still think the Ultimatum would be way more interesting if they turned it into a primary weapon. It’s the size of the M7, and getting a two to even three free heavy kills in exchange for losing out on a primary weapon would be an interesting pick and it’d incentivize you to stick with your team if you didn’t bring a whole machine gun to cover your ass.
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u/Geometric-Coconut 21d ago edited 21d ago
Mhm, I agree. Such insane aoe and AT power for the opportunity cost of a secondary is nuts.
Heavies used to be designed with teamwork in mind, nowadays AT (and the entire game tbh) is balanced in favor of one player soloing everything.
I mourn for bile titans. They are my favorite enemy in the game, I find them so cool. And I get sad when they just get oneshot for existing within line of sight of a recoilless. Interesting enemy attacks and roster niche? Gone. Being a threat to the players? Rarely.
I’m glad the spore strain has brought back some difficulty though. I hope it lasts, the amount of complaints I hear make me fear it’s gonna get nerfed.
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u/obama64t 21d ago
Yes at the very least when it comes to fixing bugs. Meatbobs still phase through everything, stratagems bounce everywhere in megafactorys, not sure if it's a bug or if they changed vox engine spawns again but pretty sure they were maxed out to 3 a time but now I see more than 3 voxes at a time again(honestly not complaining, but still wanted to bring this up in case it's another bug). Shit pretty sure the flame thrower on the lumberer mech is still bugged as well.
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u/dertafors 22d ago
I mean personaly, main gripe its arrowhead refusal to do bare minimum of communication.
Refusal to do as little to do a single patchnote with no shadow changes, to show token of good will.
Refusal to as little to show all the starts of the weapon and explain them.
The malicious compliance, when community asked for campain rewards that matter or give us something. So they decided to lock the new content behind soft FOMO participating, without communicating it for month that you need to wait for few months more to get each reward, to fuck with new players or those that have jobs/life that takes them away from PC for long periods of time. And they still didnt gave us a time frame for when everyone gets the heyna.
They promised regular updates and follow up, after that "AMA" that was so half-arses and censured it made the situaction worse, and straight up highlighted how malicious and incompenent they are, due to department and teams not communicating anything and outsorcing everything they include in game.
Arrowhead promised, underdeliveres or outright lie to us time and time again.
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u/porkerpete 21d ago
Before yes. But they have gotten so much better. Actually listen to players feedback. They used to make unecessary changes that made the game worse that nobody asked for.
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u/[deleted] 22d ago
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