Helldivers 2 is having a real problem with its weapons and needs to pump the brakes on putting out new content to fix it.
The game has faced a turbulent few weeks. As the controversy surrounding account-linking starts to settle, players are now voicing concerns about weapon balancing.
There is a widespread belief that whenever a new weapon appears in Helldivers 2, a nerf is surely just around the corner.
It has rendered the game’s experience as a sort of plateau, where experimenting with different weapons just make sense.
For instance, the new Polar Patriots Warbond just dropped, and already, the new Tenderizer Assault Rifle has fallen out of favor in a matter of hours. There is no reason for this to happen, and there needs to be change.
As it stands, there is just no incentive to put time and resources into unlocking the content in these Warbonds. The base Assault Rifle given at the beginning of the game should not overpower one of the newest weapons available.
The Helldivers 2 devs can’t keep looking ahead to the next batch of content when what they have isn’t working the way it should be.
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It feels like there is this belief that no weapon can be overpowered in the game, which would make sense in a game more centered around PvP. But this a purely PvE experience, and there is no need to bring everything to the same level.
Helldivers 2 thrives on the bombastic, and the weapons should reflect that. Instead of nerfing the most popular weapons, the devs should bring the weaker weapons up to that level.
Players just want to have fun and try out new things; constantly nerfing everything is doing the opposite of that. Upon the release of a new Warbond, allow the broken weapons to dominate temporarily, enabling players to fully explore the new tools available to them.
This isn’t to say that the devs should just crank everything up to 11, but everything needs to stop hovering around the lower end of that scale.
The devs did comment on the weapons balancing, saying that they feel like they “went too far” in some respects, and that gives hope that something can be changed.