The Greatest Enemy in Helldivers 2 Isn’t the Bugs or the Robots — It’s Farmers

ign.com:

Helldivers 2’s great war to spread democracy across the galaxy is being undermined by an unlikely source: farmers.

Arrowhead’s phenomenally popular co-op focused third-person shooter features a galaxy-wide war that pits the forces of Super Earth against Terminids (alien bugs) on one side and Automatons (alien robots) on the other (check out our Terminids and Automatons enemy list for more). The idea is to “liberate” planets from alien infestation by completing operations, which are made up of a variety of missions. If you start an operation then fail to complete all the missions within it, the operation counts as a loss for Super Earth.

You can see the effect your work has on the status of each planet’s liberation as you complete operations. And, taking a higher level view, you can see how the community is doing generally against each faction sector-wide. But it isn’t just bugs and robots who are fighting against Super Earth, it’s traitorous players.

Helldivers 2 is currently in the throes of a farming problem. No, cows aren’t shooting the place up. Rather, players who ‘farm’ resources such as medals (used to work through the battle pass), requisition (used to unlock stratagems), and XP (used to level up) from easy-going missions, like the fast-paced Automaton eradication missions that charge players with simply killing a certain number of enemies (mortal sentries held here), are then resetting the operation to rinse and repeat.

Completing eradicate enemies missions over and over again is seen as a more efficient way to farm resources than completing the operation via another mission type that takes much longer, so even though Helldivers 2 provides bonuses for completing operations, these rewards are not good enough to convince farmers to do the right thing.

The problem, of course, is that by failing to finish all missions in an operation, farmers are damaging the overall war effort. As Arrowhead has confirmed, quitting after only half the operation counts as a loss for