Helldivers 2 received a big new patch today ahead of its Freedom’s Flame Warbond later this week and it has players feeling burned and betrayed. The update brought big changes to the existing flamethrower which is no longer melting heavily-armored Charger enemies with ease and the community is already in open revolt over the unexpected crackdown on intergalactic arson.
The August 6 patch brought some great features to help refresh the hit 2024 co-op shooter, including new difficulty modes, new mission objectives, and fixes to some notorious bugs. but some miscellaneous notes buried deep in the update are what seem to be causing all of the trouble. The changes don’t deal with the flamethrower directly, but rather with its flame effects and how those are handled by the game’s systems. Here’s how they read:
- Adjusted flame effects to work more realistically.
- It doesn’t go through various bodies/objects where bounce off would be the expected behavior, like on armors and static objects.
It’s a seemingly innocent fix that has turned lots of players into bug food. Earlier this year, players discovered the flamethrower was basically Charger-bane for the Helldivers 2 enemies that otherwise deflected bullets with ease. While it wasn’t meta breaking, it made the situational tool a lot more useful than it otherwise would have been. After today’s changes, the flames no longer appear to be able to reach the soft underbellies of the Chargers, or easily ignite burn damage on other weak spots.
It’s also just not as fun to use. “Flamethrower can’t kill chargers now,” wrote one player on the subreddit. “Doesn’t go through their leg armor anymore. It also feels like crap to use, weirdly high recoil.” Another was more succinct. “I love when they take my favorite weapon and make it useless,” they wrote.
The timing of the changes are especially contentious. The Freedom’s Flame Warbond, Helldivers 2's next battle pass, brings its new fire-based weapons on August 8. It’s possible that these under-the-hood changes to flame effects are just part of developer Arrowhead Studios trying to make everything is working as intended when the new guns drop. But plenty of players feel like it’s an underhanded way of potentially pushing them to pay for the new battle passes now that their existing flamethrowers have been nerfed.
Changes like these have long been a sore spot in Helldivers 2, however. While Arrowhead has re-balanced the game at various points to try and keep it challenging and make players explore alternate ways of playing, it can also feel like the studio is just constantly taking away fans’ favorite toys. Players discover a weapon is really good at a thing, they use it religiously for months, it becomes a corner stone of the community culture, and then it gets killed in a new update. For some that keeps the game evolving, but for others it’s a reason to take a break.
“I’m Level 140, played since launch. I had it with the nerfs man. At least make it make sense!” wrote one particularly demoralized fan. “I thought the people complaining were crazy, but I was here a long time and I see the patterns now: Nerf a weapon, forcing everyone to the new meta. AH sees the meta, nerf it, make the enemy ridiculously 10 times stronger.”
Not everyone is against the nerf. Some players have already discovered new ways to use the flamethrower that still make it an effective bug-killing machine, but it requires much better positioning and execution. One theory is that the new behavior will more closely mimic the way the new fire-based weapons act, keeping them all in line with one another. Still, it’s easy to see why players who have been casually enjoying the game as it is are getting burnt out on the constant whiplash of weapon balancing. We’ll have to wait until the new Warbond drops later this week to see how it all shakes out.
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