An honest question for the Helldivers 2 community

[Arya]

Ever since I came here, something's been bothering me. More than any game community I've been part of, the Steam Helldivers community in particular is one of absolutes and extremes. Issues that could easily be ascribed to accidents or mistakes are ascribed to the shear unhinged malice of Arrowhead, the most evil developer in the world. Minor disputes about loadouts become all-out nuclear flame wars, fought with the desperation and fury of the defenders of Stalingrad.

There is no middle ground. There is no moderation, no self awareness, no consideration of the trivial stakes involved. My question is simple: why? Why be this upset about a goofy little PC game that ultimately we all enjoy and we all play, regularly.

I'm aware a lot of the internet is like this. However I've never seen a Steam forum be this quite this internet.

[kevin]

they're not evil they're incompetent and dislike their playerbase

[Khamul]

I just want to punch stuff, shoot stuff and nuke stuff. Other than that... Maybe we all are a little bipolar? Or maybe not.

When people are passionate about something somethimes it goes from 0 to nuclear in a 0.1 seconds.

[Baroon]

With any popular/large community, especially associated with a game, there will be polarising views which will clash (in part due to the demographic). Basically, don't worry too much about it. The most vocal will always be the extremes at both ends of the spectrum, and the most "middle ground" and "content" people will naturally not post much anyway, and be ignored (Because drama is more interesting than none).

On the topic of Arrow Head, the nature of the game (or atleast the direction most people see the game as going in) and the juxtaposition of the views of those who are creating it, imo, has created a strange communication void between the community and developer. Not to say they are not listening and doing there best, but it has just taken time to do so (also in part due to Sony and sale requirements etc).

[Geomancer]

Its just the nature of Steam discussion pages. Seems to be on more than half the games I play. Just have to ignore it

[Smegmius]

I dislike arrowhead because while they have made A LOT of mistakes, they were given leeway by the community. However, they have shown not to respect their player base by straight up lying several times to them and going back on their word and punishing players when they were wishing the opposite. They expect us to pay money for new stuff yet make the new stuff boring or annoying to use.

[Relkin43]

Likely most of these people are here worshiping their salt gods because they got banned from the discord or they are are part of the group of people that have this weird aversion to discord. *shrug*

That statement is a bit disingenuous obviously - when people get really passionate about something they sometimes go overboard. Given that valve as a company barely enforces any of its own rules combined with this particular forum going unmoderated by AH this will just be allowed to spiral as it has.

[Cabbage]

The only sane steam forum is a dead steam forum.

[Lachdamon XD]

Originally posted by kevin:

they're not evil they're incompetent and dislike their playerbase

proving OP point, well done

[Helldivers™ 2]

Because it's an extreme case in the first place. You have a very cool concept, filling a gap in the market, hyped to hell before release, made by one of the most hilariously bad studios to make a known game.

So on one hand you have people defending everything that is wrong because they like the concept and feel personally invested, and on the other you have people hating that they can't enjoy the concept because nothing works, so it's a wasted opportunity.