The reasoning for the nerfs, according to the devs are either shortsighted or its unintentionally bad game design.

[Madder Red]

And i quote:

"First I’d like to speak to the general power of primary weapons. Many have commented that they aren’t powerful enough and are unable to deal with all the enemies either by the amount of ammunition required or their raw DPS. This is very much INTENTIONAL" (emphasis by me)

https://www.arrowheadgamestudios.com/2024/03/balancing-the-firepower-in-helldivers-2/

On a sidenote: one should go ahead and compare statements made in the above linked blogpost and its overall message which if we are being honest, can be boiled down to pr- speak and statements which are contradictory aswell (primary weapons are intentionally lacking and talking about power fantasies regarding said weapons) with other statements made from a different arrowhead q&a employee, reddit username Fredrik_E

https://ol.reddit.com/user/AHGS_Fredrik_E

Highlights include:
"It doesn't make sense to rebalance the entire arsenal when the game is only four weeks old, it made far more sense to bring back the things that are vastly overrepresented"

For the attention deficent tiktok generation, here is an easily to digest meme if more than 2 minutes of reading is asking too much:

https://preview.redd.it/i-love-this-game-but-this-skull-admiral-is-tired-boss-v0-re9mxtkcrrmc1.png?auto=webp&s=869570348eeab154dd9943b1c60e3b2de5936a8d


Now lets take a closer look at things:

The first statement taken from the blog sounds fair and somewhat resonable at first glance. Its is anything but.
IF you play the game on anything BUT the higher difficulties (7+) . Because the game at the higher difficulties is designed in a way to go out of its way to either limit or downright disable (in certain situations) the "INTENDED" way to do deal with the enemies, according to the devs.
The stratagems.

Now, if you play on difficult 4 as an example, this whole design idea is totally fine as there arent any modifiers or mission specific objectives that either take away or greatly limit the devs INTENDED way.

If the players main weapons are intentionally and by design lacking, lets look at the tools which are available and are exactly the kind of tools which the player is supposed to rely on:

Stratagems

First off, every stratagem has a set cooldown and/or limited uses.

- Orbital Railcannon Strike : 210s

- Orbital Laser : 300s (can damage heavy armor. 3 uses)

- Orbital EMS Strike : 75s

- Orbital 120mm HE Barrage : 240s

- Anti-Personnel Mines : 180s (unlimited uses, bigger field/more mines)

- Airstrike : 8s, 3 uses. 120s rearm

- Napalm Airstrike : 8s, 3 uses. 120s rearm


While we are at it, lets compare these cooldowns to Helldivers 1 stratagems

Orbital Railcannon Strike : 60s

Orbital Laser : 180s (can't damage heavy armor. unlimited uses)

Orbital EMS Strike : 45s

Thunderer Barrage : 180s

Anti-Personnel Mines : 45s (10 uses, upgrades to Anti-Tank mines)

Airstrike : 90s

Napalm Airstrike : 45s

If the cooldowns were close to those of the first game, the whole dumpsterfire wouldnt even be freakin issue. But wait, there is more.

Mission Modifiers

On the higher difficulties we have the following mission modifiers which negatively affect stratagem usage, the INTENDED way to deal with enemies:

- Orbital Fluctuations: CD increase 50%

- Complex Stratagem Plotting: Call-in time increased by 100% (also effects evac call)

- Electronic Counter Measures: resulting stratagem is randomized

- Scatter: Pretty self explanatory

and lastly minus one stratagem slot for every player in the mission. Thats minus one tool to deal with enemies the way the devs INTENDED. For a whole team this makes 4 which is rather significant at higher difficulties.

Now, if the player wants to add some additional fuel into the fire and experience additonal horrors of war, then off we go playing missions against the automatons.
Now here the player can encounter the folllowing objectives, which can and will (atleast temporarily) either limit or downright disable the developers INTENDED way to deal with enemies (hint: its stratagems)

- Anti-Air Gun placement : Unable to call Eagle stratagems if the player is in range of the effect until destroyed.

- Stratagem Scrambler: Disables ALL stratagems if the player is in the range of the effect until destroyed.

And for the cherry on top, we now have planet modifiers. The worst offender thats affecting the players tools he is supposed to rely on? Welcome to robonam, malevolent creek and the modifier Ion Storm.
Now, how does this work?
At random intervalls an electrical storm rages on the map. Its effect?
Every stratagem is disabled for a while. This can happen anytime. At any moment.

Now,
the player is, according to Patrick Lisota, supposed to rely on the usage of stratagems because the actual weapons were made intentionally week.

Which isnt a problem for players after a few game on lower difficulties. But once the player takes the leap into the higher difficulties, suddenly his access to the very things that the player is supposed to RELY on, suddenly can get:

- MASSIVE cooldowns to the point of absurdity (like several minutes for the railcannon which also can choose to ignore the intended target and blast a smaller one instead)

- Completely disabled until the objective is destroyed or, in case of the ion storm over

- Hindered (anti air stops eagle stratagems)

- and downright a gamble which can go from funny at the first time to downright frustrating (scramble and also have to remember cooldowns etc)


When playing in higher difficulty the player has to deal with unreliable tools, which can be taken away etc. and intentionally bad weapons.
And here comes the at times massive and seemingly relentless enemy spawn with heavy armored units that REQUIRE the afforementioned tools to properly dispose of.

In comes the railgun. Because compared to most anti armor equipment it did the job on the highest difficulties without having to rely on others or deal with inconsistency (spear), slow or forced partner reloads (recoilless) and the eaf which isnt garanteed to knock down that charger or hulk in the first place.

So whats the best course of action? Change the negative mission modifiers which actively hinders the player to use the INTENDED tools to deal with the enemies?
Have other anti armor options not feel like a nuisance when there is wave of chargers closing in on your location?

Having main weapons that actually DONT suck and could deal with these enemies in a pinch??
Nah screw that.
Knock that specific stratagem down.
And while we at it, the shield needs to be tuned down too. Because "hey its just a crutch ecksdeh" while in reality many valued it for the protection of CONSTANT ragdolling all over the place.
This isnt balance for the sake of the game but arrowhead tracks every player and can easily access the amount of weapon usage. So the most popular stuff gets the hammer.

And again, keep in mind that according to arrowhead
"It doesn't make sense to rebalance the entire arsenal when the game is only four weeks old, it made far more sense to bring back the things that are vastly overrepresented"

I shouldnt have to tell you that this is honestly somewhat embarrassing and amateurish coming from a studio with this much experience under their belt. If you remember their previous statements about never anticipating having a playerbase THIS big, the ceo thanking everyone for this huge sucess etc. it somewhat shines a light on their so called perceived "creative vision" for the future of this game.
If the reason for nerfing gear is because its "overrepresented" one can disregard any claim of implied overperformance.

Furthermore: The gear in question was designed, animated, playtested and added into the game at its previous state. So how can something be braindead if it wasnt a problem before and even adding the time limited special operation modifier granting EVERYONE the railgun as a free stratagem shortly after relase??
Isnt this quite contradictory??

With that being said,
in my opinion after having played the game for over 90 hours at this point, the root of the "problem" stems from the fact that the games internal design philosphy is falling FLAT on its own face in the higher difficulties. But according to Fredrik:

"I don't think their opinions are invalid, it's just not aligning with what we want for the game right now"

So using the provided tools in the way they provided those, having been internally playtested and tuned prior to release, isnt the intended way to play the game??

So please dont just skim over this part, dear reader. Let me make one thing absolutely clear. Arrowhead is thinking that THEY know and WILL shape the game into the form they will think its best for you and me, the playerbase in general.

While obfuscating valid and detailed criticsm, moving the flagposts and feeding buzzwords and half-truths to their community. Apparently there were several changes not even mentioned in the patchnotes, as seen it can be seen here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1b95d0f/ehi_arrowhead_can_we_have_a_full_patch_note/

They apparently dont have any real clue, unclear future shape of the game nor an organic vision about what the game is supposed to be and how they perceive it SHOULD be played. All this talk in that blogpost about power fantasy is meaningless when they themselves admit in the beginning that the main weapons, which they did even went out of their way to give them first person reload animations that easily rival popular fps games, are intentionally left wanting in terms of performance.

It should be noted and it is actually a fact and common sense that in that moment your release your game, its not yours alone anymore. Your playersbase, the customers can and will shape the future of it aswell. New way will be discovered to break things, maybe even trivialyse it and in the end this isnt a bad thing.
Other developers have tried NUMEROUS times to dicate and even enforce how and in what specific way their playerbase, the paying customers should behave, engage and interact with a game.

Most everytime this way of thinking has led to massive criticism, drops in revenue and steadily declining player numbers. Grow the game with the playerbase together, in an organic way. Or create animosity and over time drive future sales into the hands of your competitors.

So i want to speak plainly when i say:
Please dont let corporate pr speak and shiny new toy announcements (as seen in the latest premium warband trailer, with a special focus on new weapons. which are, as we were told actually underperforming by design) blind your judgement and disregard any valid and non hostile criticism of a game we all love (or loved to) play. The game has several problems in terms of internal design issues, gamebreaking bugs and is far from the state in which it could and should be.

Reminder:
As a developer or anyone designing a game/a challenge for others to tackle, there is and should be THE one deciding factor moving forward:

IS or WILL THIS STILL BE FUN? WILL THE PLAYERS HAVE FUN? Because if it isnt and there is a split in the community as big as it is currently, maybe some of those criticising and offering feedback do have a point and maybe you should listen to them.
Dont be like the warframe devs for example, who choose to flat out ignore community feedback years upon years while always promising the opposite. Leading to a steady decline of once loyal and paying players while those who remained became increasingly bitter and distrustful.



Thanks for reading my blogpost and excuse my grammar. English isnt my first language.

Edit: To clarify, i got bored with rail/shield and had more fun playing with the nade launcher or the ARM but i can somewhat understand being "unhappy" about this so called balance patch.
Its a kneejerk reaction. Nothing less.

general edit: some cleanup, some formating, some added context.

Another edit:
RR and EAT are basically in a WAY better place now, having received stealth buffs. Posted on their discord.
Why this wasnt mentioned is beyond me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1b95d0f/ehi_arrowhead_can_we_have_a_full_patch_note/

Another discord announcement. Another lack of general communication

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1b9293z/update_from_devs_balancing_on_the_way_for_heavy/

[Madder Red]

Edit: Also what about borderline useless weapons like the diligence counter sniper? But no, we need to balance shotguns. All of them.

[Ferrix]

And to people like yourself who make a good case for why this was wrong, the devs have been caught publicly saying: "You make a good argument (as to why this was the wrong move), but we like where this is going (so we aren't going to undo it)."

Devs don't care, we've been abandoned, Divers.

[Madder Red]

Originally posted by Ferrix:

And to people like yourself who make a good case for why this was wrong, the devs have been caught publicly saying: "You make a good argument (as to why this was the wrong move), but we like where this is going (so we aren't going to undo it)."

Devs don't care, we've been abandoned, Divers.

Wait what?? Mind posting a link?

[Chaos]

Yeah, I also don't understand why they nerf all their old AT guns and strats to the ground like this.
It's not like this game is easier or anything.

[IcecubePAL]

The devs are contrarians.

[Oclas]

+1

[ImHelping]

I use bad tabletop GM comparisons for a reason. Most of them are convinced they are doing a great job even as they twist the knife worse than someone actually out to get you.

"But you doing ♥♥♥♥ damage and your armor being useless proves I made a realistic setting!"
"You gave the dragons 200 extra hitpoints and more extra powers than a warcraft expansion"
"But dragons are cool, guess you hate deep lore huh."

[ZirconX]

Devs need to remember this one simple fact.
it does not matter for the survival of their game what THEY like.
It matters if the community likes it or not.
And I am sorry. After 6 failed Helldive difficulty missions in a row tonight. Because the tools we get are insufficient for the amount of ♥♥♥♥ the game throws at you.
I have had quite enough. Time to let the numbers talk.
When the playerbase dips by 75% they will understand this. Until then. Off to play something else where my effort in playing well are rewarded.
Seriously. Been playing Helldive exclusively since I unlocked it.
It was rough. But it was fair rough.
This is just unfun.

[Eudicots]

For a game that is supposed to have mechs, yeah this statement makes sense.

[Madder Red]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

I use bad tabletop GM comparisons for a reason. Most of them are convinced they are doing a great job even as they twist the knife worse than someone actually out to get you.

Agreed. After reading statements of one of the balance people on https://ol.reddit.com/user/AHGS_Fredrik_E i can only shake my head.

Some highlights:
"I do like stoking the flames of nerd rage a little here and there, but I don't think their opinions are invalid, it's just not aligning with what we want for the game right now.
Surely the devs know best. Funny how that always worked, looking at spiderman 2 etc.

"In general most things are working as intended"
Is this a joke? Diligence Counter anyone? Spear targeting? Autocannon bouncing off armor while the bullets of the same calibre as turret dont etc?
etc.

[Ratch]

I admire the balls of this dev to actually gain the empathy of a rabid fanbase screaming "buy more servers idiots" only to spit in those people's faces the next chance they get.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Originally posted by Eudicots:

For a game that is supposed to have mechs, yeah this statement makes sense.

If you enjoy the idea of being totally helpless outside of an 8 minute CD then you go right ahead but that sounds like ass to me.

[Madder Red]

Originally posted by Ratch:

I admire the balls of this dev to actually gain the empathy of a rabid fanbase screaming "buy more servers idiots" only to spit in those people's faces the next chance they get.

Its honestly baffling to me when reading statements like this:

"I do like stoking the flames of nerd rage a little here and there, but I don't think their opinions are invalid, it's just not aligning with what we want for the game right now"

"It doesn't make sense to rebalance the entire arsenal when the game is only four weeks old, it made far more sense to bring back the things that are vastly overrepresented"

There it is. The freaking prove that this whole thing has JACK to do with ACTUAL game balance

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Grumpy Old Guy:

Originally posted by Eudicots:

For a game that is supposed to have mechs, yeah this statement makes sense.

If you enjoy the idea of being totally helpless outside of an 8 minute CD then you go right ahead but that sounds like ass to me.

"No fair complaining the trains, bus, and roads are out because your new bike is due for delivery next week!"

[PK_Thunder]

Simple solution. Don't be a meta slave.

Crutching on stuff like railguns means you never learned how to actually kill certain bugs. Crutching on the shield means you never learned how to take cover or dodge.

I'm pretty much against nerfs in general but this was necessary, both of them trivialized the game.