Why it is a Critical Time for Arrowhead.

[Mikado]

I put this in response to another thread, then thought well the wall of text deserves it's own thread because it pretty much sums up what collectively is going on from what I have observed. So wall of text incoming because I simply want to see this game really soar and not crash and burn.

Well they better put their listening ears on and take note.

I am quite disappointed with several aspects that have eroded my confidence in Arrowhead. I have stopped playing more for the fact I have pretty much got max resources and am waiting to use those resources. The MOs have been a mixed experience so I have been 'touching grass' until my interest returns.

So here is the rant/beef/whatever in response to the situation that has developed (It was in response to a thread about the Dev responsible for Balance) and a few others who have been discussing this. So congrats if you do read it. This is just a cathartic exercise for me because of the frustration in seeing a potential Train Wreck coming that could be avoided.

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Time is now against Arrowhead for a variety of reasons and the release of the new Warbond may be not a good idea right now.

From Patch 1 they chose the wrong path and did not listen to the community properly because they had an agenda that was diametrically opposed to the expectations and motivations for hundreds of thousands of Gamers to purchase and participate.

The whole essence leaving aside the satire of Helldivers 2 is THE WEAPONS of Managed Democracy.

Blowing things up with powerful weapons with more and more impressive firepower is totally and utterly attractive to a very wide gaming base.

If you neuter the capability for players to experience this then you neuter and gradually erode their motivation to play.

Their frustration turns to anger and then you really have a problem on your hands as a Developer.

Telling them what is best for them is telling them to gtfo and they will.

Without a proper collaborative dialogue with the people who actually put in literally hundreds of hours playing the game you are looking at Zero Sum destruction of all your development efforts.

I have lost count of the number of Studios that have gone under because their tone deaf egos and stubborn non-collaborative, dictatorial attitudes totally poisoned their potential success.

Gamers will chew your Studio up and spit it out if you just simply ignore, override and outright demean them.

There are many, many ways of putting in the appearance of insurmountable odds instead of just hamstringing the player with their tools of managed democracy spreading.

It is incredibly amateur and such a horrible blunt instrument to use and for experienced Gamers it is a sign you the Developer do not play your game nor test it properly to any significant degree.

Especially when they get surprised with a reaction from the community to something.

That is a dead give away and a warning sign of trouble ahead.

That is also a pure sign of actually not listening and getting to understand your customers and it is fatal in the long term to a Studio.

Since Day One Players have been scrambling to find ANY GOOD WEAPON and then get frustrated for the wrong philosophy applied to the game by people like the Dev
responsible for Game play Balance whose attitude, competence and philosophy is absolutely shocking btw as I have seen the dialogues on Discord and this matches pretty much what has been discussed on another Thread.

If this continues, if it has not already begun, it will actually cost them considerable revenue and player retention now I suspect unfortunately.

The Galactic War

This has been a real concern since the beginning and is fundamental to the game loop. The current iteration and previous iterations have been fundamentally flawed and actually created factious behaviour and toxic play on a very large scale amongst the player base.

This was totally unnecessary and could have been utterly avoided.

The way the Galactic War has been implemented is actually quite bad, unhealthy for the players and downright poorly constructed for this game. The UI alone speaks volumes of how disconnected the Player is in knowing just what the hell is going on, let alone knowing where to go to make a difference other than just looking for a 'blob' and hoping for the best.

Arrowhead seriously needs a dialogue with the GM Team and the players and not hide away all mysterious like. All that says to me is they have been scrambling in panic for quite sometime and also become very defensive which cracks have appeared on their Discord that have been evidenced.

Also the excuse 'well they did not count on so many people' is pure rubbish when it comes to the actual system they implement for the game play.

The technical side is where you can forgive them with respect to the vast sea of players arriving on their doorstep. The actual mechanics though of the Galactic War however is just a mess like their balancing.

They seriously need to enhance their communications and information/feedback gathering with experienced and capable people who can competently work with the community in a positive and constructive way instead of the 'my way or its the highway' approach.

Outright banning or dismissing people for a different opinion is a pure sign of panic and failure to actually listen and constructively interact with the dialogue.

I have seen some of their employees get a brutal lesson in this which either humbled them or silenced them. It is the silent ones you need to be concerned about.

It would be good if they did a Pre-Warbond release stream and showed off the weapons explaining the reasoning and demonstrating the power and potential.

If they do further balance patches they also need to do balance streams to explain the reasoning, demonstrate the power and new potential.

This is the basic industry standard, it is MIA and sorely needed.

The more feedback through things like regular surveys and a gazillion other practical methods the better the lines of communication to the people that make the decisions.

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I am very concerned about the strength of the Community Support Team, their experience and their Manager's experience. How they are connected to the Development Team will be crucial for the future.

We have a few that are capable and some absolute gems among the Mods on their Discord too.

So again Arrowhead need to be onto this asap as time is against them.

Several random polls on discord a CM who has gone above and beyond on their Discord is not going to cut it now.

Real Dialogue, Real Listening, Real Collaboration.

[Mr. Tiddle Widdles]

You are correct in what has been written here, and I don't disagree at all.

They would do well to begin listening now, otherwise they will suffer further damage considering that there doesn't seem to be too many people playing their game in contrast to how many there were prior to the Sony situation.

That alone has seemed to have caused irreparable damage to their player count and future revenue. The current situation will get worse and kill the game off much faster if they continue to further irritate those that remain.

[Juice]

Sony will just enforce the PSN ♥♥♥♥ and then go happy like a baby seal over the new 100k signups.
Then since the game is about to tank because low player count, it will be on Sale every 30 days until its about one year old.
Then Sony decides that Servers are expensive and 100mbit Servers are fine too, to keep it running another 1-2 years before turning off the game.

I will remember HD2 forever as the time I got off Coke for playing HD2 instead of snorting it from silicon tits of ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Mikado]

Yes the coming days and weeks are going to be very critical to the future of Arrowhead with respect to several current issues as I have stated and some new developments coming to light:

1. Sony; how and when the '177' are returned to the Helldiver's Community.

2. The motives and communication around Weapon and Stratagem Balance.

3. The conduct and attitude of Arrowhead Employees engaging with the global community on various platforms.

4. The capabilities engaged to effective and efficient communication between those responsible for community engagement and actually reaching out to effectively report back and collaborate with the broad player base appropriately rather than narrow lensing discrete communities.

Those respective cadres of the population I am referring to are stakeholders such as those that use Steam Discussion, on Twitter, on Discord, on Reddit which can risk alienating or disenfranchising the larger player populations who do not engage with those platforms.

This can therefore put at risk skewing the perception of the global community opinion.

5. The structure and transparency of the Game Play Loop with respect to the Galactic War element.

The tools used to effectively communicate this game feature such as improvements to the UI and in game communication and co-ordination tools as well as the GM Team's activity and preparedness to stop hiding and actually properly engage with the community.

[Furia]

i think it's too late already. not like they jumped off a cliff in the 1st place. hard to earn back trust that was lost over the time/patches.

a nerfing patch now after the PSN drama will prob be a nail in the coffin. how hard is it for AH not to nerf a thing for 2 months? impossible. someone is getting paid to do it and that person don't know what uniqueness is. every weapon gets nerfed into oblivion and ended up feeling more of less the same.

[Oobaneko]

Originally posted by Furia:

i think it's too late already. not like they jumped off a cliff in the 1st place. hard to earn back trust that was lost over the time/patches.

a nerfing patch now after the PSN drama will prob be a nail in the coffin. how hard is it for AH not to nerf a thing for 2 months? impossible. someone is getting paid to do it and that person don't know what uniqueness is. every weapon gets nerfed into oblivion and ended up feeling more of less the same.

Nerfing come from whiners that didn't like to have a risk of using eruptor. Some of them literally claimed Eruptor's shrapnel as game killing feature.

[Mikado]

Well they released the new Warbond anyway during a Swedish Holiday which is Ascension Day. For those who do not know this is really an extra long weekend from Thursday until Monday in Sweden.

Ascension Day in some circles is considered a day that if you did Work of any sort it was thought to be very unlucky and in particular if you did any washing it was considered a bad idea as the superstition was that someone in your family would die!

So there is probably a skeleton crew of the non-superstitious or whatever that are going to deal with any fall out for today through to Monday if at all in Sweden.

The Friday is typically granted by employers as an additional paid holiday. So my guess AH are no different.

In Sweden, public holidays are categorised as Christian or non-Christian observances that the nation takes time out for.

It is common practice for businesses in Sweden to close at noon the day before a public holiday too.

Given how the week and the last weekend has been for AH I think I would take advantage of this and 'Go Fishing' right now!

What could possibly go wrong.....?

[Mikado]

Well looks like the new Warbond has issues to say the least, even the snow boots don't apparently grip on ice.

I get the impression, because of how Sony authorises patches, the pressure of deadlines also probably from contractual obligations on the Devs for producing product; that Arrowhead knew about these things and they are somewhere in a patch pipeline that could be weeks away!

This does make it now look more and more like a Slow Train Wreck developing.

They need to sort it out asap as people are not necessarily patient and there is only so much 'unfun' to put up with before you actually go find fun somewhere else.

I am more convinced each time a new 'drama' starts that I suspect there are sadly internal problems in the staffing of Arrowhead.

I hope I am wrong this would be very disappointing for a game which certainly pre-patch 1 could really be the GOTY even game of the era.

[Mikado]

The removal of further countries today who used to be able to purchase this game is a really bad sign that the community could well have been played and played badly. I am hoping this is not the case and at some point soon the missing 177 will return.

However as it stands on the points about transparent communication and communication from Arrowhead Staff this does not bode well as it seems the communications from Arrowhead may not be matching the reality we are currently presented with.

More evidence further that it is a critical time for the Developer and the Community.

[Mikado]

So this could be Patch Tuesday or maybe not, usually is.

If a Patch arrives today this could make or break Arrow Head for another week of criticism and reviews.

There was a lot of positive progress vibes from Devs and CMs like the exceptional Twin Beard on Discord yesterday now that Sweden has recovered from the extra Long weekend and in some parts a very divisive Eurovision Finals.

Will all their talk be all 'smoke and mirrors though'?

Action speaks louder than words.

I hope there is Action this week, player count and effort is dropping off with repeated failures on MOs most likely the norm than the exception for the near future.

We are still missing the 180!

Bring our brothers and sisters in Arms back please.

[Mikado]

So we are at the new weekend and now it is apparent the trend on Player Pop is declining even though a Warbond was released recently. MOs are continuing to fail too and most likely are getting adjusted asap...or not...

So as I pointed out in the OP there are considerable events going on behind closed doors with the occasional hint of some near imminent announcement and my suspicions are this is going to cause more frustration if it is about the situation with Sony.

My guess is that Sony will only accept those who purchased the game in the 180 to remain playing the game.

Those within the Sony Biome will be still expected to be given the option to sign up to PSN. Arrow Head will not have the right to make the game purchasable in the 180 as Sony is keeping to them to their contract.

Arrow Head would most likely have to renegotiate their contract with Sony for them to co-publish the product to enable access again to the 180. In order for that to happen it will take time and money.

It is also possible they are going to look at decoupling the patch process between the Sony Biome and the PC Biome so they can react more quickly to the PC Customer's issues through hotfixes. This could also mean Cross play will be limited when the patches differ and realign when they are the same.

PC Players are notorious for enjoying and demanding timely and quick solutions to their issues be it technical or game QoL and if it does not happen efficiently they simply get frustrated and either grumble about it and stay loyal to the brand or most likely go play something else that 'works' and is 'fun'.


This is probably now looking at the most optimistic outcome.

Arrow Head in the meantime has a mission to revitalise Helldivers and I believe the '2nd Galactic War' announcement alludes to putting all the mess behind them and turning a new page in the game.

Ever weekend now is of upmost importance to Arrow Head. People have the most free time and free cash to use in that time.

Every weekend needs something tasty to bite into, those Bacon Apples better be grilled!

[ZigZack]

Originally posted by Mikado:

So we are at the new weekend and now it is apparent the trend on Player Pop is declining even though a Warbond was released recently. MOs are continuing to fail too and most likely are getting adjusted asap...or not...

So as I pointed out in the OP there are considerable events going on behind closed doors with the occasional hint of some near imminent announcement and my suspicions are this is going to cause more frustration if it is about the situation with Sony.

My guess is that Sony will only accept those who purchased the game in the 180 to remain playing the game.

Those within the Sony Biome will be still expected to be given the option to sign up to PSN. Arrow Head will not have the right to make the game purchasable in the 180 as Sony is keeping to them to their contract.

Arrow Head would most likely have to renegotiate their contract with Sony for them to co-publish the product to enable access again to the 180. In order for that to happen it will take time and money.

It is also possible they are going to look at decoupling the patch process between the Sony Biome and the PC Biome so they can react more quickly to the PC Customer's issues through hotfixes. This could also mean Cross play will be limited when the patches differ and realign when they are the same.

PC Players are notorious for enjoying and demanding timely and quick solutions to their issues be it technical or game QoL and if it does not happen efficiently they simply get frustrated and either grumble about it and stay loyal to the brand or most likely go play something else that 'works' and is 'fun'.


This is probably now looking at the most optimistic outcome.

Arrow Head in the meantime has a mission to revitalise Helldivers and I believe the '2nd Galactic War' announcement alludes to putting all the mess behind them and turning a new page in the game.

Ever weekend now is of upmost importance to Arrow Head. People have the most free time and free cash to use in that time.

Every weekend needs something tasty to bite into, those Bacon Apples better be grilled!

I’ve been following the HD2 player stats out of curiosity ever since March. The game is definitely starting to die and I don’t see it making a massive recovery (literally the post Sony victory did nothing at all). If Arrowhead has to walk back anything with regards to Sony, I think that’ll be the nail in the coffin for them.

To be honest, the game is fun but its loop gets really repetitive over time. It’s not like LFD2 which has a whole modding community to keep it alive (I’ve heard it being compared to that as the greatest Coop game to have ever been created).

Also, HD2 is extremely lucky that no other blockbuster indie title has come out recently like last Fall. Lethal Company had 250K players in November and ultimately 100K till HD2 came out. So, it had roughly 4 months of solid popularity compared to HD2 which has 3 months and is already dropping like a brick. Side note: While I put 25hr into HD2, I had roughly 200 in LC last fall (was the most fun I’ve had in years). It was VR Chat + Adventure + Phasmophobia combined. I could quickly find servers where it was people living right around my area!

Now ask yourself this: how much lower would the HD2 player count be if say another successful indie title came out today? No one would even be discussing HD2 anymore. It would drop drastically and people would move on to the latest thing, which is why no one should be too heavily invested in a fun/arcade game in the first place (it’s not a comp game like CS2 or Dota2).

You did a really solid analysis mate. Really enjoyed reading your thoughts on the matter :)

[BlueSpark]

A very good, thoughtfully written post. Kudos. You make a lot of compelling points.

Personally, I am not and will never be in agreement that weapon nerfs are a universially bad idea – on the contrary, I agree with the devs that a balanced approach of nerfs and buffs is the ideal way to make many weapons equally viable while keeping the overall difficulty of the game intact.

That said, it seems clear I'm in the minority with this opinion. Many gamers hate the idea of their favorite weapon(s) being weakened, which I largely attribute to either an emotional attachment or the desire to make the game as easy as possible for themselves.

There's also the fact that Arrowhead have dished out more than twice as many buffs compared to nerfs so far, but judging by the outcries of a vocal minority, you would think that it's been the opposite.

All of that said, some of the specific nerfs and changes the developers have pushed out have been questionable. So I think it's good that the CEO announced they're going to review internally how they're going to handle their balancing decisions from here on out.

[Percival]

Well, their lead developer wakes up in the morning and tries to 100% a bunch of casual beat saber like games for a few hours before he does anything Helldivers 2 related. Whereas you have 'toxic angry entitled fans' waking up in the morning and getting straight onto the forums and the news about Helldivers 2, a game they're passionate about and don't want to see fail.

They need to fire him, and hire one of our most vocal.

[ZigZack]

Originally posted by Midnight Prince:

Well, their lead developer wakes up in the morning and tries to 100% a bunch of casual beat saber like games for a few hours before he does anything Helldivers 2 related. Whereas you have 'toxic angry entitled fans' waking up in the morning and getting straight onto the forums and the news about Helldivers 2, a game they're passionate about and don't want to see fail.

They need to fire him, and hire one of our most vocal.

Wait, does he really beat saber for a few hours each morning before work? Hahahaha

[Tibi]

Well said brother. I have completely lost faith in Arrowhead the moment I found out they didn't know the Spear was broken MONTHS AFTER THE RELEASE. Anone who used that weapon for more than 5 seconds knows it doesn't work.