This week saw yet another balance pass slide its way across the entirety of Helldivers 2, as Arrowhead continues to tweak the knobs of power for several of the co-op shooter’s toys.
Highlights of this patch include a longer cooldown for the beloved Quasar Cannon weapon, changes to the Adjudicator that make it more of an assault weapon both in categorization and fire, buffs to the Senator pistol that increase its damage and give it a speed loader when it’s completely out of ammo, and fewer heat sink magazines for a pair of specific laser weapons.
The patch has also increased the number of enemy patrols that spawn for those who don’t play in a full team of four and made sure that ricocheted shots against heavily armored enemies bounce back at players “properly.”
As usual, the playerbase has plenty of opinions about the changes, ranging from a belief that Arrowhead is making sure weapons aren’t too much fun, to presumptions that solo players are being punished for wanting to play solo, and feedback that nerfs are heavier while buffs feel lighter. Players have also found some bugs with the patch, including one where using a plasma grenade launcher with a shield causes the projectile to blow up in a character’s face or rockets bouncing off of armor back at players.
Arrowhead has since been working to address some of the feedback points players have brought up: On the subject of wayward ricochets, players and developers have already debunked the rocket bounce as a myth, but investigations did find that shrapnel damage for the Eruptor rifle was too high, so shrapnel effects will ultimately be removed from it and its overall damage will be buffed.
A CM also elaborated on the enemy patrol tweaks, explaining that patrol sizes were scaling incorrectly. “The intention is that one player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to four players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th,” the dev reports.
