Solo players, it's not just you: 1-player missions in Helldivers 2 currently have 4-player patrol spawn times
Helldivers 2, despite being a co-op shooter, does have a respectable contingent of lone wolves. That's for a variety of reasons—including (but not limited to) just liking the unique experience of it more. As of patch 1.000.300, however, solo missions have become a whole lot harder, just likely not in the way its devs intended them to be.
After the changes, players reported a sharp uptick in patrols that made solo play nigh-on impossible, to which Arrowhead Games responded that «the intention [of the patch] is that one player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to four players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th».
This makes sense on paper. However, in testing, Helldivers 2 players have found this design statement doesn't track at all. Solo players have roughly the same amount of patrol spawns as a full team, unless that team's operating in very specific circumstances—in other words, it's not just you: something's borked.
As discovered by sleuth and all-around patrol expert Luchs, part of a team who built out an excellent Reddit thread on the subject a couple of months ago, solo players are getting unduly shafted.
Prior to the patch, your squad's size determined how frequently patrols would spawn. In a difficulty 4 bot match, one player would receive a patrol around every four minutes. Two players would receive patrols every three and a half minutes, and so on. For a squad of four, this timer was whittled down to two minutes, forty five seconds.
As discovered by Luchs and his Super Earth R&D team, this new 2:45 number is now the same across the board.
There are two options Luchs puts forward as to why this is the case. First off—it's just bugged. Busted. Broken. I love Helldivers 2 to death, but this wouldn't exactly be the first time Arrowhead Games has enacted a change with major issues out the gate.
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The second option is far more concerning—as Luchs & Co.
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