“It’s never all nerfs or all buffs” Helldivers 2 CEO responds to polarised player views on the latest patch’s warbond weapon balancing
Debates about buffs and nerfs are back on the menu in the Helldivers 2 community, having made a resurgence as a regular course following – as you’d expect – some fresh weapon balancing tweaks with yesterday’s patch. As has often been the case with stuff like this, a senior figure at Arrowhead’s been chatting to players about their thoughts on the changes, with CEO Shams Jorjani being the Discord discusser of things this time.
If you missed Patch 01.002.103 dropping, it addressed the LAS-17 Double-Edge Sickle and the GP-31 Ultimatum from the Servants of Freedom warbond having arrived with “the wrong versions of some files”. As part of fixing that, Arrowhead also made some balancing tweaks to the two guns.
As Arrowhead anticipated in its patch notes, these changes have been met with a mixed reaction from players, as has previously happened following a lot of the balancing changes the studio has made. Different people want different things from different guns and stratagems because they play differently, you know the drill.
So, these Double-Edge Sickle and Ultimatum changes have been seen by some as too far on the nerf side of the equation, and concern about both that and what it might mean for the future balancing approach to the game (which was previously routed more towards buffs in response to player feedback) have been directed at Jorjani duning a recent visit to the game’s Discord server.
In response to one player declaring “please don’t start with the nerfs again this year”, Jorjani wrote: “‘Last time’ as in during the summer – the big problem with balance was that it messed up the fantasy. We’re very careful to maintain that while tweaking balance. It doesn’t mean we’ll NEVER reduce the effectiveness of stuff. but that it needs to be done with care and the overall fantasy in mind.”
“Communities sometimes have a tendency to see things black or white,” he added in response to another player praising the studio for not being afraid to nerf things if it feels that’s neccessary, given the backlash it often faces for doing so, “It’s never all nerfs or all buffs”.
Another player replied to that statement from Jorjani, accusing Arrowhead of “dancing around nerfs, obfuscating the problem because you know the community will flip out if you just flatly nerf things” when it comes to these kinds of changes. “Some of our main metrics for success [are] how many people play the game and player satisfaction,” the CEO reiterated in response, “We’ve got zero interest in driving a particular agenda. But balancing and developing a game for a very DIVERSE audience is tricky. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong and then we course correct.”
He also acknowledged a player raising issue with the studio not having informed players that warbond weapons were “bugged” right away as “fair” criticism, adding: “I’ll make a note of that”.
How do you feel about these changes to the Double-Edge Sickle and Ultimatum so far? Let us know below!