Helldivers 2 Weapon Stats Aren’t What They Seem

[Mytheos]

https://primagames.com/news/helldivers-2s-weapons-have-hidden-stats-says-arrowhead-ceo

"According to Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt, the four weapon stats we’re shown in-game are among 50 other “hidden” stats. This means when you’re looking at nebulous attributes like “damage” what you aren’t seeing are dozens of other attributes – likely things like recoil, bloom, armor penetration, and more. These levers and wheels can be tweaked by the team over at Arrowhead without actually changing the core stats of the guns, meaning balance adjustments will likely be done completely independently of what we’re shown in-game."

"So, as he says in his post over on Twitter, “Use the [weapon] you like the most.”"


This seems like a bizarre statement to me, perhaps I dont understand...but how can people use the weapon they like the most when devs hide the stats from us?

For example if a player likes sniper rifles, and you give them a solid sniper rifle, SniperA, they will say SniperA works great as a sniper rifle, I like it.

Then they see SniperB and it has the same stats except it does more damage, so the player uses it as a sniper rifle and it feels like its trash or broken because the damage seems all over the place but mostly like it does much less damage? Maybe its bugged?


Well the devs hide 46 out of 50 stats so it actually has high damage fall off you are unaware of and also has high explosive area of effect shells and a bonus damage to swarm enemies.

So at long range SniperB does half the damage due to high damage fall off, but at short to medium range it does more, and also if used as a grenade launcher against weaker swarm types it works really well.

The devs expect if I like grenade launchers to test all the sniper rifles to see if they secretly made one function like a grenade launcher?

The CEO wants us to extensively test weapons in every way, for stats and abilities we arent even aware exist so we can find out a bunch of hidden stats that we need to know in order to use the weapon as designed and balanced?

So when they patch and change the 46 hidden stats, we're supposed to just go back and spend hundreds of hours more to test them again?


What does everyone think about this, do you enjoy just testing everything in every way every patch or would you rather just have the info not be hidden?

[Kashra Fall]

Originally posted by Mytheos:

Originally posted by St0rmFury:

One can argue that they hid the stats to prevent even more meta-gaming.

I think letting people know what the were doing would lead more to builds/kits and play styles vs people feeling everything sucks outside a select number of weapons that function as expected...

I feel like hidden balance just leads to people thinking things are poorly balanced or simply broken because they just cant understand whats happening.

Look at the breaker. See how it says "330 damage!" that is what people like about it. Yet, anyone will tell you, this thing is an ammo hog, because the only enemies (On the bug side.) that has over 330 HP is the commander (Which requires light/med pen on certain parts.) The hive guardian (Which requires medium.) the charger (Which requires AT or butt blasting.) the bile spewer (Which can get a med armor face.) and the stalker (Which has med armor on various parts of the body.) We won't count the bile titan because you can't hit that with a breaker anyways.

So, what does this mean? It means with all that power, you're wasting it on enemies that have 50-150 HP such as the mites, the acid ticks, the hunters, the jumpers etc. So you become a power house, but an ammo hungry power house. So, just use what feels comfortable to "You",

[Sea Base]

Originally posted by Mytheos:

Originally posted by Sea Base:

Only if said data mined information is useful.
Most of those stats aren't useful to know as a hard number. All games have this as every object the player interacts with will have 101 other properties that the game needs to know to function, but isn't useful to the player.
The only bit of data that we could do with extra is the hard penetration value, since it's clearly not just light/medium/hard.

If there are 46 hidden stats there could be things like Damage Fall off, damage types, AoE values, body part damage multipliers etc.

There are probably a ton of of other useful stats as well.

... if those are actually useful, sure. But things like damage fall off is kinda irrelevant in a game where you are 90% of the time fighting within 50m as soon as you start upping the difficulty. Damage type is already given to us. Damage multipliers is based on the targets properties, not the weapon, we could do with a Bestiary in that case.

[♥♥♥♥ Spacien]

i dunno, i played 30+ hours and tried most of the guns and almost all of them suck. srsly 95% of guns are totaly uselles and have no useble cases. in that time breaker that deals tons of damage in realy long distances. almost all weapons made just to use them before u unlock something like breaker railgun or autocannon. why they cant balance it and make lots of weapons for different roles.

and those scopes in fp are awful, atleast they could make less powerfull gun but with better visuals in scope.

[The Rinja]

I completely understand *wanting* wikipedia levels of data. But if you can't figure out if sniper A or sniper B is better on your own then you have more serious problems...

[Mytheos]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Originally posted by Mytheos:

I think letting people know what the were doing would lead more to builds/kits and play styles vs people feeling everything sucks outside a select number of weapons that function as expected...

I feel like hidden balance just leads to people thinking things are poorly balanced or simply broken because they just cant understand whats happening.

Look at the breaker. See how it says "330 damage!" that is what people like about it. Yet, anyone will tell you, this thing is an ammo hog, because the only enemies (On the bug side.) that has over 330 HP is the commander (Which requires light/med pen on certain parts.) The hive guardian (Which requires medium.) the charger (Which requires AT or butt blasting.) the bile spewer (Which can get a med armor face.) and the stalker (Which has med armor on various parts of the body.) We won't count the bile titan because you can't hit that with a breaker anyways.

So, what does this mean? It means with all that power, you're wasting it on enemies that have 50-150 HP such as the mites, the acid ticks, the hunters, the jumpers etc. So you become a power house, but an ammo hungry power house. So, just use what feels comfortable to "You",

But how do you find something comfortable?

Thats the problem for people...they expect to find a good shotgun by going and trying all the shotguns...because they want something to fill the role they use a shotgun to fill.

The game however might have a sniper rifle that functions essentially as you would expect a shotgun to because it has Area of Effect High Explosive rounds, but the player doesnt know that because of hidden stats.

So either you go through just the shotguns and miss out, go read all the stats someone data mined and added to a wiki, or I guess you go test every other weapon in the game looking for a shotgun...and hope they dont change the hidden stats in a patch.


I guess people feel bad when the game forces you to test stuff when people are also reporting being kicked for not using the Meta gear.

[Mytheos]

Originally posted by Sea Base:

Originally posted by Mytheos:

If there are 46 hidden stats there could be things like Damage Fall off, damage types, AoE values, body part damage multipliers etc.

There are probably a ton of of other useful stats as well.

... if those are actually useful, sure. But things like damage fall off is kinda irrelevant in a game where you are 90% of the time fighting within 50m as soon as you start upping the difficulty. Damage type is already given to us. Damage multipliers is based on the targets properties, not the weapon, we could do with a Bestiary in that case.

Damage fall off would mean everything if you try to use a medium ranged weapon and it only works at short range?

Either way the CEO sounds like they are saying...

Hey Community there is a bunch of depth you dont know about so dont complain weapons are trash, they just have hidden attributes that make them useful for things you have no idea about unless you test them in every way possible.

So he sounds like he is saying the hidden stats are important to know as if we did...we wouldnt think they were trash and we'd understand their designed purpose.


And then after we spend that time testing to find stuff out, they just patch and change who knows what?

[Mytheos]

Originally posted by The Rinja:

I completely understand *wanting* wikipedia levels of data. But if you can't figure out if sniper A or sniper B is better on your own then you have more serious problems...

Better for what? A sniper rifle? Clearly SniperA.

So SniperB is trash and useless...people complain about it.

The CEO says for example: SniperB is not trash, there are just hidden attributes and it isnt meant to be used as a sniper rifle, you are using it wrong really.

Thats the issue, not people knowing SniperB is bad when used as it is labeled.

[Dougiee Jones]

anyone who wants to find a "meta" in a Co-Op PvE shooter and needs useless stats to figure out what weapon he needs to use, is not someone a Co-Op PvE shooter dev should listen too.
Oh no, You can't read 46 meaningless stats to figure out the most optimal build during the first month of a games launch, poor you.

[Hampamatta]

what stats are shown and what stats are hidden doesnt matter. we all know breaker is the best gun bar none. and the vast majority of guns are so far below it that they are not worth picking even just for fun.

even if all weapon stats where hidden we all would have come to the same conclusion that that breaker is by far the best gun.

[Mytheos]

Originally posted by Dougiee Jones:

anyone who wants to find a "meta" in a Co-Op PvE shooter and needs useless stats to figure out what weapon he needs to use, is not someone a Co-Op PvE shooter dev should listen too.
Oh no, You can't read 46 meaningless stats to figure out the most optimal build during the first month of a games launch, poor you.

He seems to be saying weapons arent as bad as people think because they dont know about hidden stats...that would indicate he feels they are important as if we knew about them, we would understand the weapon isnt so bad, right?

Either way seems like people just want to not unlock 3 new weapons that seem like they were labeled wrong or just trash...and dont know half the fun the devs expect us to have was uncovering the true use of things vs what the info we have says.

[capybaras are cool]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Originally posted by Mytheos:

I think letting people know what the were doing would lead more to builds/kits and play styles vs people feeling everything sucks outside a select number of weapons that function as expected...

I feel like hidden balance just leads to people thinking things are poorly balanced or simply broken because they just cant understand whats happening.

Look at the breaker. See how it says "330 damage!" that is what people like about it. Yet, anyone will tell you, this thing is an ammo hog, because the only enemies (On the bug side.) that has over 330 HP is the commander (Which requires light/med pen on certain parts.) The hive guardian (Which requires medium.) the charger (Which requires AT or butt blasting.) the bile spewer (Which can get a med armor face.) and the stalker (Which has med armor on various parts of the body.) We won't count the bile titan because you can't hit that with a breaker anyways.

So, what does this mean? It means with all that power, you're wasting it on enemies that have 50-150 HP such as the mites, the acid ticks, the hunters, the jumpers etc. So you become a power house, but an ammo hungry power house. So, just use what feels comfortable to "You",

you arent managing your ammo properly if you are having ammo issues with the breaker. it has 128 shots. you can do way more with those 128 shots and way faster than you can with any other primary.

[Hampamatta]

Originally posted by Mytheos:

Originally posted by Dougiee Jones:

anyone who wants to find a "meta" in a Co-Op PvE shooter and needs useless stats to figure out what weapon he needs to use, is not someone a Co-Op PvE shooter dev should listen too.
Oh no, You can't read 46 meaningless stats to figure out the most optimal build during the first month of a games launch, poor you.

He seems to be saying weapons arent as bad as people think because they dont know about hidden stats...that would indicate he feels they are important as if we knew about them, we would understand the weapon isnt so bad, right?

Either way seems like people just want to not unlock 3 new weapons that seem like they were labeled wrong or just trash...and dont know half the fun the devs expect us to have was uncovering the true use of things vs what the info we have says.

yhea that statement makes me worried that they wont actually buff stuff because "we dont use them the right way"

we didnt come to the conclusion that breaker is the best by looking at stat cards. we figured it out by testing every weapon and constantly go back to breaker because no other gun could compare.

[Katitoff]

Originally posted by Amaranth:

Don't bother with stats. Use the weapon that you prefer

This.
Pick what you like.

I do try to pick last when pugging, to make sure nothing is lacking, but first and foremost I pick what I like.

[Mytheos]

Originally posted by Hampamatta:

Originally posted by Mytheos:

He seems to be saying weapons arent as bad as people think because they dont know about hidden stats...that would indicate he feels they are important as if we knew about them, we would understand the weapon isnt so bad, right?

Either way seems like people just want to not unlock 3 new weapons that seem like they were labeled wrong or just trash...and dont know half the fun the devs expect us to have was uncovering the true use of things vs what the info we have says.

yhea that statement makes me worried that they wont actually buff stuff because "we dont use them the right way"

we didnt come to the conclusion that breaker is the best by looking at stat cards. we figured it out by testing every weapon and constantly go back to breaker because no other gun could compare.

I agree it does seem like a nightmare to try to bug fix or balance things when players just assume a bug is a hidden stat or a hidden stat is a bug.

So you probably cant tell if people figured it out and it still needs love or they didnt figure out the secret purpose so they think its bad.

Its like a bug fixing and balancing Meta game the devs created for themselves to play lol.

[phamaton]

Originally posted by Mytheos:

Originally posted by Hampamatta:

yhea that statement makes me worried that they wont actually buff stuff because "we dont use them the right way"

we didnt come to the conclusion that breaker is the best by looking at stat cards. we figured it out by testing every weapon and constantly go back to breaker because no other gun could compare.

I agree it does seem like a nightmare to try to bug fix or balance things when players just assume a bug is a hidden stat or a hidden stat is a bug.

So you probably cant tell if people figured it out and it still needs love or they didnt figure out the secret purpose so they think its bad.

Its like a bug fixing and balancing Meta game the devs created for themselves to play lol.

Arrowhead studios are hiring, maybe you should apply :)