Helldivers 2's Latest Patch Has Turned Shrapnel Into A Deadly Weapon

thegamer.com:

Helldivers 2's latest patch has dropped, causing players to panic, complain, and every other massively overblown reaction you can possibly think of. One of the bigger talking points during this patch was the consequences of the game's changes to the ricochet mechanic, which was reportedly taking out players faster than a Hulk with a flamethrower. At first, it seemed that even explosions were being ricocheted back at players.

After a little bit of detective work from the more level-headed Helldivers 2 fans, it was determined that explosions weren't actually being ricocheted, but that the shrapnel from a certain weapon was rebounding from enemies and instantly killing the person that fired the shot. This was confirmed by Arrowhead itself, and was explained in an official developer post to the Helldivers 2 subreddit earlier today.

In the post, Arrowhead explains that the shrapnel that is rebounding from the shot of the R-36 Eruptor currently has a high enough damage value to instantly kill a player if it makes contact. That means that if you fire an Eruptor from close range, chances are you're not making it out alive, but there's also the possibility that the shrapnel could cover large distances too, leading some to believe explosions are actually ricocheting.

Of course, bits of metal flying off and taking out a Helldiver in one blow is an issue, and makes the R-36 Eruptor far too dangerous to comfortably use, so Arrowhead is already working on a fix. It explains that the shrapnel released from the R-36 Eruptor deals almost no damage to the target it's fired at, so the shrapnel effect is going to be removed entirely, with a small bump to the weapon's hit damage to make up for it.

Arrowhead then goes on to stress that explosions aren't ricocheting, contrary to any video "evidence" you may see out there at the moment, and that only bullets from small arms will ricochet off of armor.

There is one exception to the ricochet rule though, and it's bad news for