GamesThird Person ShooterHelldivers 2Arrowhead Games is feeling the pressure from Helldivers 2’s successes—and its blunders, community manager reveals: ‘many of us at AH more or less lost a week’ due to the PSN controversyWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

GamesThird Person ShooterHelldivers 2Arrowhead Games is feeling the pressure from Helldivers 2’s successes—and its blunders, community manager reveals: ‘many of us at AH more or less lost a week’ due to the PSN controversyWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Arrowhead Games)

An image of a citizen of Super Earth giving a PSA, holding his hands out in a calming manner while the word: INVASION is stamped in block-type over a screaming man crying for sweet liberty.

Helldivers 2 is going through some growing pains—its runaway success is a blessing for any developer, but it’s also thrust the game into a burning spotlight. With a massive playerbase comes scrutiny,review bombing, andcommunity dramain heaps.

As part of said growing pains, CEO Johan Pilestedt recently admitted he believes the game’sbalancing patches have “gone too far”. Recent replies from community manager Twinbeard on the game’s Discord have subsequently confirmed that there’s a ton of balancing talks going on at Arrowhead HQ right now—and that the pressure’s been building.

In a series of 10 questions offered to Discord-goers, Twinbeard noted that the team was “aware there’s a lot of concern regarding warbond cadence and us possibly over-balancing and/or nerfing too much,” and that the team has been “discussing it a lot internally ATM!”

Twinbeard states that, while he doesn’t want to “speak on other people’s behalf,” he believes that Arrowhead Gamesislistening. “I really do hope it’s not a matter of us not listening or dying on a hill, rather than admitting if [something] is off. We’re nothing without the players.”

(Image credit: Helldivers 2 Discord)

A Discord message that reads: “5) I wouldn’t want to speak on other people’s behalf, but I really do hope it’s not a matter of us not listening or dying on the hill rather than admitting if sth is off. We’re nothing without the players. Sure, we have a vision to follow and need to believe in that, but that vision will change over time, and secondly a vision is the overall goal, but it’s made up of many small details. Those details we always should be willing to change, and we should always adhere to player sentiment. Another thing is that the cadence and initial months since launch have been high and hectic respectively. We’re still playing catch-up, and there are undoubtedly elements in the game process that have suffered from that. We’re getting there, and I hope we can continue to swing our destroyer around and go forward in a clear direction together with you. 🙂”

The devs of Helldivers 2 have expressed apretty concrete set of design goalsfor weapon balance in the past, namely that the “don’t buff, only nerf” philosophy shouldn’t always be adhered to. But while it’s clear that something’s off (and there’s certainly plenty of reasonable points happening) I’m not sure Twinbeard’s further note that “we should always adhere to player sentiment” pans out.

As an example, ricochet changes had a swarm of players decrying them, but it turned out it was an issue with the shrapnel of a specific gun, and thatrockets being reflected was a myth. The rumour mill churns out lies faster than truths.

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What interests me more is Twinbeard’s confirmation that: “the cadence and initial months since launch have been high and hectic respectively. We’re still playing catch-up, and there are undoubtedly elements in the game process that have suffered from that.” I never had much doubt this was the case, but to hear the studio’s been wrestling with success for certain is perhaps reassuring for the game’s future—if they can catch up, at least.

According to Twinbeard,the PSN controversywas also a huge tax on resources. “When [something] like the PSN-gate (™) happens, a lot of things come to a halt. Many of us at AH more or less ‘lost’ a week due to this, and only now are slowly getting back to what we were doing before all of this.

(Image credit: Helldivers 2 Discord)

A Discord message that reads: “8) It is, but if you ask me personally, I think the biggest issue so far has been that we were overwhelmed already by launch. It takes time - a lot of time - to bounce back and get ahead with such massive pressure, and what can easily can be perceived as us being slow or not listening is more (IMHO anyway) the fact that we’re still not up to speed. Also, the game is still only three months old, but due to is being such a massive success, there’s a ton of sentiment, opinions, suggestions and great feedback, some of which we lack the time and resources to always handle satisfactory. We’re hiring and learning, though! ❤️”

I don’t envy Arrowhead Games' position one bit—well, maybe I envy the money, money’s always nice.

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