As the Helldivers 2 Community Argues Over Nerfs and Buffs Following the Latest Patch, Arrowhead Explains Increased Patrols for Solo Players

ign.com:

Whenever Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead releases a big balance update for the PC and PlayStation 5 co-op shooter, the community debates the various nerfs and buffs as it gets to grips with the evolving meta. After this week’s release of patch 01.000.300, which tweaked a long list of weapons, stratagems, and enemies, the debate was especially vociferous.

A change to the beloved Quasar Cannon is but one that has led to claims that Arrowhead has nerfed fun out of Helldivers 2. The game’s Discord and subreddit are especially spicy as Arrowhead community managers address concern about nerfs even as they point out that in reality, the patch made significant buffs to a number of key weapons. The Adjudicator, for example, has enjoyed a meaningful buff, as has the Punisher Plasma, and the Counter Sniper. The regular Guard Dog and the Railgun also got some love. Other weapons were rebalanced with a combination of buffs and nerfs.

As the row over Helldivers 2’s apparent nerfs continues, Arrowhead has addressed another aspect of the patch that has drawn controversy: patrols for solo players.

In the patch notes released this week, Arrowhead said patrol spawning was increased when there are fewer than four players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For four-player missions there is no change compared to before. But “the biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties.”

Essentially, Helldivers 2 is now tougher for teams of three players and less, and much tougher for solo players. Helldivers 2 is designed to be played co-op, ideally in squads of four, but of course sometimes that’s not possible, and indeed there are plenty of players who prefer to play solo, challenging themselves to complete missions on their own and on the toughest difficulties even though Helldivers 2 can be incredibly difficult played this way.

Following the release of the patch, Arrowhead released a statement attributed to design director Niklas Broström, who explained that