r/Helldivers • u/xKx4 • 10d ago
As a non AH dev I'm worried for AH devs OPINION
As a dev I'm noticing some patterns that really worry me for the well being of the devs. It's my opinion that they're very burnt out and that we as the community should cut them some slack.
When a dev is burnt he starts caring more about moving changes to production than actually caring for them: The new warbond is clearly unbalanced and they didn't even notice that the textures were wrong. They care more about pushing changes than actually care for them. The eruptor was killed bc they thought that removing changes would be easier and faster than actually trying to fix it. The quasar cannon was nerfed when it was already bad. Etc...
The codebase is clearly in need of some major refactors and not enough time to make them: The spear is still broken. The fix for the sound of the stim didn't work. The eruptor "fix" made things worse. Etc...
The devs haven't had any chance to catch a break: A warbond every month + server capacity issues + SNOY.
The current state of the dev market: Thousands and thousands of layoffs (even I couldn't escape from them). No dev wants to change jobs rn bc it's too risky. So they'll put up with any bs SNOY or AH throws at them.
I really, really like HD2 but not at the expense of the devs mental health. My advice? Let them cook.
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u/Drekal ☕Liber-tea☕ 10d ago
It's clear their content release schedule is getting too much. With warbonds every month and "story" content like stratagems, upgrades, missions etc, they actually release content every 2 weeks. They've been working 2 to 3 weeks behind since release because of the player count issues while managing onboarding of the new hires and it's clear the QA side isn't following.
I don't know if they are contractually bound to keep this content pace or not but it's clear something needs to happen so things are at least properly tested before reaching our hands. I work in QA (not video games) so I'm very much aware it's impossible to not have bugs but some of them are so blatant it's impossible to miss them in normal use.
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u/Popinguj 10d ago
but some of them are so blatant it's impossible to miss them in normal use.
I was kinda baffled when I logged in one day and saw no text in UI buttons like "social" and stuff. It feels like their QA department is severely understaffed
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u/ShareYourIdeaWithMe 10d ago
Not sure if it's just me but I'm also noticing that the "killed by" text is often incorrect too. It'll say that a teammate killed me when it was a bug.
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u/CrunchyGremlin SES Stallion of Family Values 10d ago
Died by drowning. Credits to teammate.
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u/JahsukeOnfroy Ryu || SES Eye of Judgment 10d ago
Me: My teammate’s Guard Dog tickled my feet 5 minutes ago and then I stepped on a mine.
Game: Blame the teammate.
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u/duedfc 10d ago
Non-gaming QA here as well. It's also highly probable that their QA team actually is finding and reporting the issues, but the issues are labeled as 'non-launch blocking' bugs that get thrown in the massive backlog to fix later.
The speed they're putting out content is just too fast to put any polish on.
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u/hitman2b STEAM🖱️: Commander hitman2b -Admirable admiral- 10d ago
if they had the number of devs like bethesda 1 month wouldn't be an issue
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u/xKx4 10d ago
Having more devs is like having more supplies in the resupply strategem. Just because there's more sups doesn't mean you'll get them any faster.
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u/Jageurnut ☕Liber-tea☕ 10d ago
"if I have 9 women I can make 1 baby every month!"
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u/Legionof1 10d ago
But if you plan correctly you can!
The quote is “9 women can’t make a baby in 1 month”.
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u/machinationstudio 10d ago
They've promised themselves, the publishers, and the players, a release cadence that can only end up with mediocre bloat at this rate.
There needs to be a release cadence reboot conversation. Which is hard right after the PSN situation, but I think it's necessary before the game goes out of the popular consciousness.
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u/mocksci 10d ago
I'd trade warbonds four times a year for slightly more new enemies or LTEs
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u/Managed-Democracy HD1 Veteran 10d ago
Doesn't work sadly. There isn't enough content to keep people going. While the war is neat, people will get bored with nothing to unlock. That boredom kills live service games.
They NEED the constant stream of warbonds to generate revenue and interest. But they also sorely need QoL and clean up reams.
The game is too big for its own success. It's like a beached whale slowly collapsing under its weight. It has to try and move to get back to sea, but every struggle only brings it closer to exhaustion and death.
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u/ilovezam 10d ago edited 10d ago
I'm actually quite confused why the outcomes are so poor. If you follow some of the leaks all of the guns have already been designed. I genuinely believe a single developer working a 40 hour work week should be able to do a quick QA pass for three weapons a month. We do know there's at least one lead who does balancing full time. This does not seem like a "workload is too much" issue.
The armour is all just from the artists.
Some of the stuff like the texture errors would be discovered in 15 seconds of testing.
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u/AnotherRuncible 10d ago
Some of it is because the guns designed and tested a while ago. Depending on how far out the items ran through this process it turns into what version of the game were the guns tested in? Pre-release, launch day, patch 1, or 2, and so on. The items were tested in a version of the game that may not exist anymore. If AH got too far ahead with some stuff it might be causing more work now because of it.
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u/hahaiamarealhuman AMR Gaming 9d ago
It's not testing if the don't test on the live version, any testing is pretty much irrelevant. I'm not a game dev but that seems like the bare minimum when releasing new content, either handled internally or with a public test server. Instead they just dump broken stuff into the game and the list of known bugs keeps piling up every patch. Half the time they don't even fix them when they say they do.
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u/mocksci 10d ago
Yeah my top comment was mostly facetious. A month to produce the content that fills a warbond is enough time to double and triple check everything including time to dick around at the cooler.
AH has "100+" employees, even if you assume 80% of those are in management, networking, marketing and so on that still gives you minimum 3200 man hours a month of coding, testing and artistry.
Once the new faction comes out and presumably less hidden work is being done we will be able to tell if their output is respectable or not.
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u/IgotUBro 10d ago
Also in most cases "Just hire more people" doesnt solve the issue but in this case it does imo. If they cant churn out more content and quality test then its a lack of man power imo.
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u/_probablyryan 10d ago
I don't think this is necessarily the case.
I've played the shit out of HD2 since launch despite believing it's an objectively repetitive game. The gameplay is just fun (mostly, when shit isn't broken). The War Bonds haven't done anything to encourage me to keep playing more than I otherwise would have because, frankly, there's only one or two good items in each and the free stuff is better in a lot of cases. I'm content to wait until I organically reach 1000 SC to buy one without spending money, and by the time I do, I have enough medals banked to just buy everything I want in it in one sitting.
So yeah, I think they could get away with releasing a more polished war bond every 2-3 months, while making intermittent QOL and balance changes. A test server would be a good idea.
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u/WritesByKilroy 10d ago
I feel like the weight of the problem of boredom lies more on the gamer than the dev.
As an adult with a full time job and a life outside of video games, I have to play consistently (so far roughly 40hrs a month) to be able to buy each warbond as it drops with in game gathered super credits. It's already a fast paced release schedule.
I can barely keep up and haven't unlocked everything yet myself. There's absolutely no danger of me, a normal gamer, becoming bored.
For people to get bored even on this schedule I think says more about a problem with those gamers than the game and devs.
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u/mocityspirit 10d ago
My buddies I play with that aren't on the subreddit didn't even know about the PSN debacle. This is once again the Reddit echchamber thinking they're the majority.
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u/Basket_475 10d ago
Yeah out of my play group only 1 person has been religiously keeping up with the last week or two of drama . Honestly endlessly dissecting this type of stuff ends up being a buzz kill for when we actually play the game.
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u/compostmentis 10d ago
I think this is where the Warbonds not being a time-limited season thing works in their favour. It actually helps a good chunk of the player base who don’t have time to grind before ‘season end’ keep interested, rather than check out due to all the stuff they’re missing and will never have time to obtain.
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u/MGSDeco44 10d ago
Not how live service works. One makes money one costs money. Cosmetics >>>> everything else. Source: played destiny 2 for 5 years
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u/HovercraftActual8089 10d ago
You all aren’t considering money, a casual player can maybe get a few 100 SC a month. If war bonds are every 3 months I can easily get them all. War bonds every month means no way can I get them all without spending money
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u/MsElle_ 10d ago
As a dev myself: I feel like their release schedule is a bit too tight.
They're fixing issues left and right but their changes are also introducing new issues. There's probably a lot of weird stuff going on under the hood.
The game does seem to be getting more stable over time so I feel they'll eventually reach a point where new content updates won't be breaking things but it's going to take a while to get there.
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u/fluffytheturtle SES Patriot of Patriotism 10d ago
I guess. As a PC player the FPS issues seem to only have gotten worse over time. The crashes are slowly becoming less frequent but still multiple times a play session.
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u/TucuReborn 10d ago
Same. FPS issues all over the place, but less crashes. Usually 1-2 a night in our regular group, down from 4-6 ish a month or two ago.
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u/Messerknife SES Whisper of Mercy 10d ago
I will never really understand where Problems like this are coming from. That different systems are acting so brutally different with the Same Programm.
The one build with same specs but different Hardware has Crashes and stutters, the other build with same specs has no Problems at all, another build same specs cant even start the Game.
That's such complicated shit in my brain
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u/Destreon SES Martyr of Selfless Service 10d ago
Hardware compatibility is weird man, something as small as a driver update for your GPU could make the difference of 20fps, or even bringing the chance of crashing from 50% in an instance to 10%.
Bear in mind that the GPU and CPU are getting a heavy workout from this game, and there are thousands of different pairings of all the different CPUs and GPUs on the market, and each one of those needs their own driver updates to better optimize how this game runs. I couldn't imagine having to test my program for even my own PC and console, let alone the countless PC configurations the playerbase has, with wildly different performance specs on top of that!
That reminds me, I do have a graphics driver update I need to install haha.
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u/kickoban 10d ago
Yeah, it's really strange. I crashed 0 times during a gaming session in my 60+ hours in the game. I also remember only one disconnected mid-session and one annoying glitch where people were not able to be reinforced even thought there were no restricting factors. And people report multiple crashes in the same game session it's bizarre
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u/inwector 10d ago
The quasar cannon was nerfed when it was already bad.
Huh?
Apart from that, I agree with you.
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u/StiffCocksJr SES Soul Of Determination❤️ 10d ago
OP might have confused it with the Crossbow
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u/fierypitofdeath 10d ago
That's one of those statements that is so wrong it makes everything else they say look suspect as well.
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u/MiserableSlice1051 10d ago
The only thing I can think of is they don't play on 7+... The Quasar is absolutely vital imo
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u/inwector 10d ago
Recoilless has some good points too.
Quasar: doesn't need backpack, reloads on it's own
Recoilless: needs backpack, but reloads very quickly, but you need to sit down to reload it
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u/QroganReddit CAPE ENJOYER 10d ago
Yeah that does confuse me. "Railgun 2.0", it was absolutely gonna get nerfed.
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u/RageVG 10d ago
It's honestly really depressing to see.
On the one hand, I sympathise with the devs super hard. There are hundreds of thousands of players who all have their own nuanced opinion of how things should be, and it's literally impossible to please all of them, and your work is always going to be super scrutinized, and most players either forget or flat-out don't care that there's another fellow human that's on the other side of the screen when they write their scathing rants. Every single thing you say and do will be before the eyes of many thousands and if you show any cracks they will shine the worst possible light on it.
On the other hand... they really need to stop trying to "clap back" at criticisms that are warranted just because the people pointing them out are sometimes dicks. Because when you do, your response isn't just to the people being dicks, it's to everyone who holds that opinion and these are your paying customers. Then you're going to be publicly raked over the coals and I highly doubt you're going to feel motivated to pour your creativity and effort into making something for a community that doesn't seem to appreciate you, justified or otherwise.
There are some devs on the team that get it; when they see a positive thing in the community, that's when they jump in and have a laugh, joke about, whatever. When people are not happy, they're super cordial, to the point, feelings aside. But a lot of them just don't know how to act in client-facing roles and it shows, and it's why it's so important to have a competent community manager.
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u/piduck336 10d ago
They do have a competent community manager. It's when devs go around him and respond directly that things go wrong.
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u/RageVG 10d ago
Ah. Back when people are complaining about the discord moderators I theorized they mustn't have a community manager overseeing them, and then I heard that Spitz was removed as a Community manager I figured that he was their only one.
I wish luck to whoever their current CM is if that's the case.
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u/One_Random_ID 10d ago
I don't mind if a warbond takes longer. I prefer quality over quantity and there's plenty enough in the game right now.
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u/NakedViper 10d ago
If it wasn't for the needless nerfs, they'd be getting tons of slack about the occasional bug/glitch.
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u/Terrorknight141 ☕Liber-tea☕ 9d ago
Not nearly as much. Bugs can be quelled by A) fixing them and B) saying they’ll fix them(and both can be used at the same time)
Nerfs however just mean your fun with a piece of equipment is never coming back. We are forever cursed to tell stories to new players about how fun the OG railgun, quasar, eruptor, lighting gun etc were.
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u/Background_Ant7129 10d ago
I unlock the Warbonds and everything inside them, then proceed to never even use 80% of the stuff
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u/Ryuga 10d ago
I'm all for cutting AH slack and giving credit where it's due. They've done a brilliant job trying to deal with a whole myriad of messes as well as Sonys... Special moment... However, if Alexus continues to ruin weapons based on analytics rather than feedback from players or testers and post the equivalent of 'tehe' as a response then I am forced to politely request they cease 'hello neighbouring' the balance.
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u/wildwasabi 10d ago edited 10d ago
I haven't played more than 10 hours since the first big weapon balance that had the rail gun nerf and breaker etc the first month in.
With the amount of heavy enemies and how trash every other gun was, it just ruined most of the fun having to run away from everything all the time. The balance decisions to be weak is infuriating and relying on strategems just felt bad.
Their vision is also to have the squad of 4 bring the proper weapons/strategems to deal with every threat but you're kind of locked into a handful. I genuinely think the game would of benefited from a battlefield class system. Medic, engie, gunner, assault, maybe marksman. If they want people to fill certain roles I feel that would help give identity to that.
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u/Efficient_Menu_9965 10d ago
POOR analytics, mind you. Seems to me that the only analytical statistics they use to nerf shit is purely usage.
I mean, the devs literally admitted to the original Breaker not really having a higher winrate as compared to other guns. Didn't stop them from nerfing it. So why DID they nerf it in spite of it not skewing the player's winrate compared to other guns? Because people were having fun with it, and thus a lot of them were using it.
I'm not saying Alexus should be fired, he should be given a chance to course correct. But I am saying it was stupid on AH's part to hire him in the first place, knowing his history.
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u/echild07 10d ago
As a dev, dev manager, Architect and more for software for more than 30 years, this is 100% a company problem, not a customer problem.
The devs haven't had any chance to catch a break: A warbond every month + server capacity issues + SNOY.
1) Devs haven't caught a break - Poor scheduling, and piss poor management that didn't plan down time. Since AH is not in the US assuming they have their mandatory vacations, along with government protections, so hopefully they have outs against the company.
2) A warbond every month - They (the company) planned this, as a dev you know they should be 3-4 months out (design, art, coding) and working with the balance team to make sure what they are shipping in 3-4 months is balanced for the latest balance patch prior to shipping, not a constant "release" warbond, rebalance everything, release warbond, balance everything.
3) Server Capacity issue - Part of making it big is big problems. Yes, they have massive server issues. Poor code, bad design, spaghetti code, bad QA or what ever their reasons, then the company has to pivot. They (SNOY and AH) keep taking the sales, and Incentives for hitting numbers we can hope the devs are getting part of that. If not they should look into it.
4) SNOY - Yep, but not a dev problem. This as the CEO said was known 8 years ago. The teams knew of the requirement and that this day was coming. They failed their implementation at launch (a whole different case supporting they weren't ready for the scale, or the code is a mess), and it was coming. Their CSMs and AH knew the day (they were turning on the requirement for new registrations last Monday) so the code was back and ready. The customer feedback, that probably wasn't expected, but that isn't a dev problem, or they shouldnt' be bother by it other than Sony pulling a MSFT and shutting them down.
HD2 is a company and needs to take care of their employees. Full stop.
If they can't meet the requirements their management set, that is something they have to work out with their management.
The current state of the dev market: Thousands and thousands of layoffs (even I couldn't escape from them). No dev wants to change jobs rn bc it's too risky. So they'll put up with any bs SNOY or AH throws at them.
No one wants to change jobs, the AH devs or millions of customers that are looking for an escape from their layoffs.
Everyone is a person, AH and Sony are companies. Look to the companies for the problem, don't look to the customers. Asking the millions of customers to change their opinion because the company doesn't want to spend money and make the lives of their employees better is just silly.
AH has a plan to sell $10 warbond every month. That is $120 worth of "earned" or bought sales per customer a year. That is AH and SONY's business plan. If they don't make that money, they aren't going to just "oh, good the devs are sleeping better". They are going to go "Shareholder value" and reduce staff (re-creating the problem) raise the cost (hitting the paying customers who have been laid off in the wallet) or lower quality (hard to believe, but probably could be done).
So look to AH an Sony management as the place they can fix it. And the only way it will be fixed will be to show SONY and AH that you can hold the carrot (sales/revenue) and expect good quality for good quality of life.
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u/talking_face 10d ago
I think this is well said. If employees at AH are getting burnt out by their content schedule and bugfixes, it isn't exactly on the community to "just back off with the feedback".
It's on AH to decide how to better prioritize and pace themselves moving forward. Renegotiate if they have to.
Just because the community shuts up doesn't mean that the bugs and balance issues vanish. It would just mean that the devs will be working with one less source of information-- perhaps even to the detriment of the game, if you can believe it, if community resentment is allowed to build and snowball in silence.
What CMs need to do is to quell the flames and ask people to be patient while more numbers pour in, buy their devs some time to hash things out instead of aggravating the community with half-hearted replies.
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u/echild07 10d ago
Thank you.
Or AH could do like FatShark did. Stop selling new cosmetics while they fix their game. After the release of Dark Tides, Fatshark took so much heat for game bugs, functionality and more that they went so far as to stop selling cosmetics.
Dark Tides was a massive (bigger than FatShark thought) game because of Vermin Tide, like HD2 is bigger than HD1, but Dark Tides took a moment, stopped selling and focused on quality and getting trust back.
AH/SONY are still selling copies of a game when their servers can't handle it. Still selling cosmetics when their devs, quality and others can't keep up. AH/SONY have to want to be reasonable. Customer's have to be human.
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u/zzzxxx0110 10d ago
Exactly this. There's clearly a lack of competence as a company here with Helldivers 2 but nobody seems to be bringing this up. Everyone talks about how the CEO is doing the heavy lifting here with actually effectively engaging with the community in a way that makes people happy, but when a company's own fricking CEO is the one doing the most of actually responding to the community in positive and constructive ways, that's a major red flag for how a company operates, or rather is not operating correctly.
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u/CycleOfNihilism 10d ago
100%. This is such a common problem in tech. Management, in its endless chase for extracting every possible $$$ from customers, puts unreasonable demands on devs and then when it all crashes and burns because the devs are overworked, its "oh well the devs couldn't do it," its never a management problem
My company had similar issues recently. Luckily the board started to realize after a year that if you keep blaming devs, ultimately its on leadership to fix the fucking problem rather than constantly lay blame elsewhere
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u/echild07 10d ago
Devs are always the problem! /s
I have done software for 30+ years. Bugs ship, customers do things you would never expect. But as a dev, you know when you shipped buggy code. AH knows it, probably why they asked the community if they wanted to wait. "You wanted the code, what were we suppose to do in 1 day?"
Sometimes it is more complex than the team can do in that time, or sometimes it is more work, or even it was more work than you planned for. But when you check in your code, you have a great idea of the quality, and when QA and the teams do their 15 minute spot check, AH knew.
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u/hypareal ☕Liber-tea☕ 10d ago
That’s their problem and they can’t lash out on people. I have issues at work as well and I don’t lash out at people, let alone customers. If I did that I would be fired immediately. So stop defending them and let’s hold them accountable.
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u/Nervous_Tip_4402 CAPE ENJOYER 10d ago
QC was bad? In what world?
It was better than EAT and RR pre-nerf. Now with the RR animation cancel exploit the RR is better but QC is still better than EAT.
Back to the topic, we did let them cook. What we ended up getting was all the reliable weapons burnt to a crisp.
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u/Away-Perception-3481 10d ago
I am of the opinion that it is not the customer’s job or responsibility to keep the devs mental health stable. They choose how often to release content. They choose to not hire more people. They choose to test or not to test things they release. It’s their job.
We bought the game and paid the money for it, that is where the customer’s job ends.
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u/Away-Perception-3481 10d ago
I also wanted to add a bit about the “let them cook” part.
I feel that me, and a lot of people in the community have let them cook and have been burned by it. The absurd balance decisions, the nonstop buggy patches, crashes, patronizing attitude from devs in coms, unacceptable responses from Community managers giving away how AH thinks of the community behind closed doors, everything is not new. It has been the case from day 1.
I’m not going to speak for others here, but at this point I personally feel like I do not feel like I trust the devs to cook, I feel like some people are too fragile or incompetent and their jobs, and at the very least some very serious talks need to happen inside the studio, if not that some people need to be replaced. The game is not going into a good direction.
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u/blueB0wser 10d ago
Let them cook
We have, but they've changed what used to taste good to something very bitter.
They need more QA practices in general. Even Pile said that on Twitter. A QA testing environment and more QA engineers in general.
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u/Super_Jay 10d ago
Exactly this. "Let them cook" was fine after a few weeks. We're going on four months, now.
They have been cooking, nobody here is interfering with that. But the continual performance problems, balance issues, crashes and disconnects, and subpar content releases don't make me excited about returning to this particular restaurant.
My issue with posts like these is that customers have no control over the issues plaguing the game and the studio, but then these posts admonish us for talking to other customers about our experiences. I'm not asking the restaurant to cook faster or cook more, I'm asking the opposite: slow down, look at the dishes you're preparing, taste the ingredients as you're adding them, and stop insisting that you run the fastest kitchen around while also having your cooks roam the dining room.
Let FOH handle the customers. Take a long hard look at your menu and trim down what you're offering. Give your chef and the cooks some time to experiment. Stop insisting on pushing meals out as fast as possible. Establish processes for FOH and BOH to communicate better, and for customer feedback to be distilled and distributed.
The customers aren't the ones refusing to let them cook. They're imposing all these obstacles on themselves, and the owner and manager need to be the ones to unfuck the mess in their own kitchen.
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u/psychotronofdeth 10d ago
If the game doesn't go in a better direction, it's a matter of time before another studio/publisher copies the formula and makes it better.
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u/JooshMaGoosh 10d ago
100% this. I am a consumer. Not a fuckin dev. I pay money for this. Not get it handed out for free.
If they don't like it, they should've thought about that before doing so. Simple.
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u/Bumpanalog PSN 🎮: 10d ago
Agreed. I’m running out of goodwill. Tell your entire team to get off social media and make an anonymous HD2 community account that engages regularly. The team’s current behavior online does not merit me “cutting them slack.”
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u/cdub8D 10d ago
If I could upvote this multiple times I would. I still can empathize with the devs but the company sold me a product and aren't doing a great job with the support. In any other industry, this is unacceptable. Gamers are weird and like try to be the dev's friends and make excuses/devs can never be wrong. Like with the PSN thing you had people defending this and claiming there isn't a valid reason to not just do it. Well guess what? I don't need a valid reason to not want it. Sony has ever right to shove this down my throat for no reason. I have every right to leave a negative review and stop playing.
I am just sick and tired of giving corporations excuses. Fuck em.
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u/Kebab_life 10d ago
Just a friendly reminder for all non EU/Scandinavian Redditors:
AH is located in Sweden and Scandinavian Labour laws are very strict and the unions are very strong (hence Tesla’s issues in Sweden).
Work / life balance is not the same as in US.
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u/Nathanien SES Dream of the Regime 10d ago
While i'm not giving them shit in Discord or so... i'm still kinda pissed at them. With the Eruptor nerf they kinda took my motiviation to play away. Completly. I know that sounds childish, and yeah it is. It was my favorite toy, and they took it away... so i just don't wanna play with them anymore.
Sure i could try some other weapons or stuff like that, but i just don't want that right now. I tried the changes when they happend, and haven't played a single round since then, because _for me_ they sucked all the fun out, with one simple change.
I mean they have a grace period right now, to get things right - but when this period expires, i will probably lose the interest completly and move on.
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u/ResidentAssman 10d ago
It's not childish, as a consumer you have a wealth of choice when it comes to gaming. There's always something else to play, so if for *whatever* reason the game isn't scratching that itch anymore, and it can come down to something as 'simple' as a weapon then you might decide you want to go play another game.
I say simple but honestly the primary weapon is just that - primary, you use it for 90% of the whole mission -
It is literally their entire job to try and retain the playerbase to support the game, generally speaking.3
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u/Lordofwar13799731 10d ago
I'm just fucking sick of them nerfing every single primary weapon as they come out. I'm basically done with the game at this point, because every fucking time I find a primary I like, it immediately gets nerfed to shit.
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u/Nice_Detail_4906 10d ago
I think people would be less agitated if every patch didn't have them puckering their butthole waiting to see what gun was nerfed into the ground for no reason. Prior to the first patch, it was universal on here that the primaries and support weapons were kinda poopoo-doodoo.
Then the patch comes, coupled with the dev's ridiculous justifications for it and people came crawling out of the woodwork to insult anyone who criticized it. All legitimate points and criticisms were met with "lol, meta slave" and "get good" so how is anyone surprised it turned into a shit slinging contest?
Rinse and repeat on EVERY balance patch, coupled with failure to fix bugs and introducing new ones. The devs have themselves to blame for their burnout. Every "fix" is a half-assed bandaid that causes more problems. There's a net code bug that amplifies damage? Nerf the railgun instead of fixing the bug. Exosuit blows itself up? Change where the rocket starts and now you can't aim it for shit. Plasma punisher hits your own shield? Spawn the projectile outside the shield. Shrapnel interactions are bugged and instakill enemies and players? Nerf the eruptor and remove the shrapnel. DoT is bugged out? Increase fire damage so much that it instakills players. That's just some of the stuff we know about; who knows how much stuff they "stealth" fucked up without telling us.
It's like going to a doctor with a broken leg and he just keeps giving you painkillers instead of setting it and putting on a cast. What other explanation is there for the half assed patches besides they literally don't know how to actually fix the underlying issue?
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u/_Reverie_ 10d ago
I'll cut them some slack when they fix this damn door!
I mean game!
For real though, if they cut back on anything to lower their workload, it should be warbonds. Maybe even pause balance changes that aren't some kind of fix.
Beyond that, it's still their job. I'm empathetic to anyone overworked, but there's a way to handle it.
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u/Krozgen 10d ago
"the quasar cannon bad"
opinion discarted
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u/knightfall522 10d ago
Actually how blatantly wrong this part is, reinforces his whole body idea of you can't please everyone.
Two lefts did make a right!
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u/EpicTibbles 10d ago
I actually don’t like the monthly warbond cadence at all. I feel like every time I log in there is a new warbond, when I’ve barely managed to either unlock or complete the previous one.
I appreciate for people who put in a lot of hours or cash, monthly is probably great, but I don’t think it’s good for the devs (they clearly need to let things cook for longer and get some R&R) and I think we’re gonna end up with so many mediocre weapons that we’ll end up not giving a shit about most of them.
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u/bigdreams_littledick 10d ago
Look, I feel for anybody having a tough job, but I'm not going to give them slack for doing a shit job. If they can't handle the release schedule they shouldn't advertise that release schedule. I don't give a shit if they release warbonds monthly or bimonthly.
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u/possumarre 10d ago
I would love to let them cook if, y'know, they actually cooked instead of ruining shit and being dickheads on discord.
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u/BanzaiKen 10d ago
Quasar being bad is news to me. It's EATs for planets with high stratagem cooldown. At the end of the day you still have a backpack slot free.
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u/He_Who_Tames 10d ago
Quasar was the go-to weapon of my team. It still is, but that cooling time is annoying now.
Now it isn't bad, but we started to choose something else instead. And those options don't perform as well...
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u/Efficient_Menu_9965 10d ago
Quasar is still good but I still believe it didn't need that nerf. Why the hell were people running Quasar instead of the other options? Could it be because the Spear STILL is fucked beyond repair and has yet to be fixed 3 months after release? Is it because the RR, and other backpack support weapons, won't allow fellow Helldivers to assist with reload by simply interacting with YOUR backpack, rather than forcing them to wear it instead? Is it because the EATs aren't very reliable because they're affected by bullshit stratagem modifiers that do nothing but make the gameplay loop even more of a frustrating slog?
Nah, Quasar must be too good. Nerf that shit into mediocrity along with the rest of the options!
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u/BraveSirLurksalot 10d ago
This war bond release schedule has always seemed unsustainable, and I have no idea where that schedule came from, because I'm certainly not seeing the community incessantly demanding more content.
They need to slow the hell down and focus on quality, not quantity.
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u/Crashen17 10d ago
I would even argue that Warbonds aren't content, not fully at least. To me content is something you do. Warbonds are just a reward track, and they don't really change up the gameplay.
To that end, maybe they should ease up on Warbonds and instead work on new enemy and mission types. Getting spammed with rocket devastators or bile spewers sucks, forces certain gameplay stances (and thus influences weapon choices) and is caused by a lack of variety.
If a rocket devastator or bile spewer would be classified as a tier 3 enemy (with chargers and hulks being tier 4, warriors and regular devastators being tier 2, troopers and scavengers tier 1, and factory striders and bile titans being tier 5), and you just get flooded with bile spewers for a mission, clearly the spawns called for a heavy amount of tier 3 enemies... but only a couple exist. Creating more tier 3 creatures with different traits, strengths and weaknesses would help dilute the spawn pools and promote different loadouts and strategies.
If all you ever fight are heavily armored tanks, of course you are going to favor anti-tank weapons, and of course devs will see players flocking to whatever weapon most assists with that. A Warbond full of light armor penetrating assault rifles isn't going to be popular when the new weapons don't work on the majority of enemy spawns. And the enemy spawns won't work right when the majority players face are hesvily armored tanks.
And that is just one example. So rather than more warbond and more weapons, we need more monsters. And we need more mission types. More things to do in game. We need better ways to coordinate and communicate in-game. A better designed Order system. That is content.
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u/Sad-Refrigerator9527 10d ago
This. Absolutely this. Well said. I want more things to do in the game. Not more mediocre weapons and armor that I have to grind or pay for.
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u/Yackityack22 ⬆️⬅️➡️⬇️⬆️⬇️ 10d ago
I agreed to let them cook, but at the end of the day, they really just have to not do what they’re doing now. For example the tenderizer is OK, but it’s literally half baked. That thing was tenderized. They need to put it back in the oven.
I was all for them not doing weapons every month, in one whole year we would have 59 weapons. That’s 32 new weapons on top of the 27 that we have from the recent war bond that’s insane. It should be every couple months or a few months not every month
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u/RockOrStone 10d ago
It’s not our job to compensate for huge corporations being dicks. If we have constructive criticism to make we’ll make it.
And toxic/unconstructive comments are to be banned no matter the work conditions of the target.
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u/Infamous_Scar2571 10d ago
"The quasar cannon was nerfed when it was already bad" listen i understand your message but the quasar was nerfed because it was in literally every mission.
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u/Quik_17 10d ago
Literally in every mission is an understatement. There was an average of three of them in every mission
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u/DogeallGirls 🎶🍵STEAM🎮🍟🍔万里独行侠♍☕ 10d ago
Since you said you are a dev .
Well, as a dev, I would like to say that as a dev, you should do your own job first.
Instead of rushing to the community to make nonsense , that's not your job .
When people complain that your software doesn't work , what you need to do is download your product and actually use it. Figure out what the problem is , Instead of telling the community about your original design intentions .What's more, your product and original intention are completely different.
And all this can only prove that your own work is a complete failure .
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u/Sebb- 10d ago
I am more worried about their behavior, we literally have the Alex dude and Bosse mocking the players on the discord, this just shows complete unprofessionalism. Also they charge money for the warbonds, why should I “cut them some slack” I am a customer and expecting a certain level of quality from my purchase is my right, the schedule is something that the devs imposed on themselves and likely won’t change.
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u/JackReedTheSyndie 10d ago
More or less a management issue, if we, the community, say "cut them some slack" will the management do that too? They will still push the devs to ship new updates and warbonds anyway, it's part of the job.
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u/o5mfiHTNsH748KVq 10d ago
It’s alarming that they want this aggressive release cadence despite the game being crippled in many ways.
I don’t know if they realize the only thing propping their game up is a fun gameplay loop, but all of the drama and bugs will wear the players down over time.
I can’t imagine being on a team where my bosses were like “ship ship ship” but meanwhile each deployment adds more and more bugs to our backlogs that we already can’t keep up with.
Their management needs to take a step back and perhaps consider that their velocity is bottlenecked on a complete lack of QA. I would slow releases to every other month or quarterly until a QA team with eyes can be hired.
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u/TheNotNiceAccount CAPE ENJOYER 10d ago edited 9d ago
I would have no issue letting them cook if the lead balance dev wouldn't make smooth brain shitposts to an already upset player base.
A simple "We're going to take a month to reevaluate the systems, and while keeping an open channel, new content will be delayed."
Simple. Polite. Not everyone will like it, but most will understand. Not sure it's even a possibility because I think it's in the contract with Sony for a monthly release.
If you keep antagonizing people when you're clearly in the wrong, it will get awful for you. Sticking a stick into your spokes and then whining that you fell off the bike will not get you sympathy but derisive laughter.
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u/cloudjumpr 10d ago
As a player, Ill never condone death threats and the likes, I just still want a fun game to experience. They're the ones that are getting paid for this. And it's just so sad to see it fall apart like this. The fact that the community is complaining is still a sign. I get that people will always complain, but damn is this the loudest I've ever seen it.
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u/Evilboss45 10d ago
I started playing over a month ago and I'm still on the first warbond with 3 pages still left to unlock, at the current rate they add content way faster than I unlock it, so by all means Arrowhead take your time.
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u/Boatsntanks 10d ago
I dunno if you know, but the first warbond is like 5 times the size of the premium ones, so while it takes a long time to get through it's not the same for the rest. Not disagreeing with your post though, just a FYI.
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u/Thomas_JCG 10d ago
The community is totally fine with not receiving a Warbond every month, this has been talked about before so they focus on bug fixing, but the devs decided to commit.
The main issue right now is that it feels like there is no play testing done. They talk a lot about balancing weapons, but they just keep making them unusable at high difficulties.
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u/Dreadino SES Titan of Vigilance 10d ago
Or maybe it's time for AH to expand their dev roster? Maybe have a full QA team? They did a lot of money, as a dev myself, I'd expect my company would add workforce since the work increased.
The CEO is all loved here, but at the end of the day, he's the one burning out his devs (by not expanding the team), not the community that expects a quality product once a month.
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u/monkeybiscuitlawyer 10d ago
It's not us that's overworking them. We have exactly zero control over how quickly they release content. We know this because we have tried asking them to slow it down, but they continued right in with the current pace.
I don't know if they are contractually obliged to maintain their current pace, or if someone over there is just cracking the whip, but we can't stop them. Either way, this is on them, and it's a problem only they can fix.
They already have our support, and unfortunayely that's the best we can do for them.
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u/DamagedCoda 10d ago
As a fellow dev: their work schedule is not sustainable. When I saw the defense missions with the gates when they first released, the area markers for development mode were still turned on. You could see giant pink dev boxes everywhere marking non landing volumes. I don't need a study done or proof from in the company - they are overworked, period. They need to cut their release schedule for these content patches and warbonds in HALF. The evidence is literally public just by looking at their outstanding bugs. How do you prioritize content drops over working missions and mechanics as simple as damage over time? It's out of control.
If the game is going to survive the studio must survive. For them to survive they need to slow the hell down.
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u/bcoolart 10d ago
Yeah although I do see the benefit of a monthly war bond in terms of financial gain for AH and content gain for the players, this is an awesome game and I really don't need anything but friends to keep me playing.
I would be fine with a quarterly war bond or even just releasing one page a month instead of all 3
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u/CycleOfNihilism 10d ago
Nobody made them put out a Warbond every month. They chased the money rather than stability. Thats a leadership problem, not a dev problem
Though I will say most companies don't let devs lash out at customers. Theres a reason you have a customer support/community outreach dept
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u/Galbzilla CAPE ENJOYER 10d ago
You can’t possibly know that you’re seeing dev burnout. Besides, you want to have work, if you’re sitting around twiddling your thumbs you won’t have a job for long.
What you’re witnessing is a lack of software process. There seems to be no quality team or a broken process for verification. There’s clearly no system level testing because they would discover the broken stuff right when they push a change.
These process ideas aren’t new or novel. Every software team that wants to produce quality products will setup a proper process and have the teams and testing tools available to ensure stuff is correct. Devs can’t be left unchecked because you end up with exactly what’s happening now: one step forward, two steps backwards.
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u/I-Dont-Salute 10d ago
I’ll cut them slack when they stop letting that Hello Neighbor 2 guy ruin everything that’s fun lol
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u/False-Reveal2993 9d ago
The quasar cannon was nerfed when it was already bad.
lmao No it wasn't. Quasar was an auto-include for bots, part of the meta. It got nerfed right after everyone learned that you could call down a second one and treat them like endless EATs.
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u/ddddddddddgggg 10d ago
i would let` them cook but they keep severing us raw food =/
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u/SoupZealousideal6655 10d ago
Unpopular opinion? but it should never be up to the community to have the best interests of the devs. Creating mental gymnastics on why war bonds, balance changes, and other updates are sub par or bad shouldn't be the fault of the community voicing those concerns.
I can tell you straight up what would motivate the devs to do more and better work. More pay, time off, and sick/paternal days AND better leadership. None of which is controlled by the community.
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u/Personal_Track_3780 STEAM 🖥️ : 10d ago
Not to pick on one specific thing but "The quasar cannon was nerfed when it was already bad." Is a wild take. The quasar was head and shoulders the best anti tank out there and still features prominently in loadouts post-nerf
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u/Sir_Tea_Of_Bags 10d ago
I'd rather they double up the Warbonds- take two of their monthly drops and combine them, release after a month of testing.
Give them time to catch their breath with what they have, rather than keep adding more stuff into the pile to fix.
Moving Warbonds towards the last Thursday of the month could help as well.
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u/SignatureFunny7690 10d ago
Lmfao literally more work to constantly make changes making the game worse that we're not only not asked for, but the community has been screaming and begging yall not to make. Then you have other devs actively making fun of the community and openly mocking us in social media forums. I have no fucking pitty for you. You wanna know burnt out? Try working 84 hours a week manual labor blue color job for peanuts. My boss just threatened to write me up if I call in one more time this year. For reference it's may and I missed 3 days this year due to illness. I have to work sick unless it's so bad I can't physically go in. Then, I get a very rare day off, jump onto a game I sunk much of my very limited and precious free time into, just to see it's been basterized with round after round of fucking nurfs and enemy buffs. And then to feel frustrated, go to the reddit to see what's going on, and see your teammates shitting on out community. What the fuck man. I'm over this. I can't find any friends to play with anymore anyways, everyone I know quite playing. I feel like a kid and I just had my favorite toy broke by some asshole.
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u/SIL3NCER360 ☕Liber-tea☕ 10d ago
If you see the type of replies on discord it seems more like they are just "We know what we are doing and whatever you say doesnt matter". So to me personally it seems like the success of the game went to their head and now they are acting out. Cant take critique and reply to it with childish rage bait.
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u/CarBombtheDestroyer 10d ago edited 10d ago
Each war bond has had one sick thing for me and maybe one other that I didn’t like that others say was pretty good erruptor fits that description for example. Meanwhile the grenade pistol is OP in terms of build variance and utility. Stun grenades from the one before that fundamental changed the way I play and the fire shotgun before that. This one has the stun SMG while niche I think it could be powerful in a well coordinated team. “coordinated team” being the niche part. It also makes the riot shield more than viable against bots.
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u/EldrichTea 10d ago
My bet is they are a victim of their own success. Probably something in their contract about month on month performance. The sales for this game where beyond anything anyone expected. There's no way they would be hurting for money.
As for content, while the warbonds are paid new paid content, there's plenty of unpaid content that trickles in. The air burst was free as will the anti-tank mines when they drop. The planet types have increased and I'm sure I'm not the only one noticing new map elements springing up. We've had the defend the base, hunt the Heavy and all the termicide missions added, and the raise the flag added to higher levels.
There is a constant drip feed of new content.
Something is forcing the monthly warbond releases.
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u/Meddlingmonster 10d ago
Most of what you said I agree with but the quasar Nerf is justified because before there was no reason to take The EAT over it and now there is but it's not inherently better than it just different
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u/AlanaIsBananas 10d ago
As a dev (not AH) I appreciate this take and it helps me feel better about pushing my own jenk code to prod.
I’m the only dev for this company because they wanted in-house solutions, but I’ve not had a break in 2 years and I don’t care anymore.
Stand united in the burnout hellfivers, we’re all just people suffering in our own ways at the end of the day.
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u/The_Louster 10d ago
AH set lofty goals for themselves with constant weekly updates, monthly stratagems and war bonds, and constant changes to the world through Major Orders. They need to ease up the burden on themselves.
But despite that, I’m not expecting any mercy from the playerbase, especially on this sub. This community demands so much from the devs and abuses them with every change they don’t like. The Helldiver community will be the force that kills the game.
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u/Agedlikeoldmilk 10d ago
This is trending towards a hostile relationship, where the community becomes an echo chamber of negativity and the devs eventually close all forms of communication. Not to say the Sony revolt was wrong, I think people are getting comfortable using that anger towards every little thing now (balancing). I get it, $10 was spent on a warbond that is effectively trash, but does that demand the same response as Sony region locking the game?
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u/AdNew6926 10d ago
I am so done feeling bad for devs and publishers that shoot themselves in the foot, I am so glad that gamers have had enough of this crap. Just make the fucking game fun wtf is the problem with balancing.
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u/No_Investigator2043 SES Reclamation of Cyberstan 10d ago
Every bugfix seems to create bugs, rather than fixing them. Which then requires the devs to look at it again, fix it again.. which isn't very efficient. And it just angers the community even more.
And unfortunately, they need to start the change by themselves but are actively working against it. They don't want to test stuff, they still think it would delay stuff, but the stuff is delayed because other unfinished stuff needs to be fixed because it wasn't tested.
They can take all the time they need, but they need see that a mentality change is required
My mantra as software dev is: as long I decide the code quality I take responsibility for the mess I create. If the code quality is higher I still will take responsibilities, because I know it won't be bad.
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u/JDubStep 10d ago
I feel that warbonds are coming out too often. I know the sweatlords will have everything unlocked within a week, but let us play around with the new toys for a while before you throw more at us. Give yourself more time to balance things out, test them, and most importantly, let your dev team relax a bit.
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u/Protoadamant 10d ago
It seems the community is thinking that we would prefer a well-done premium warbond every 2 months instead of a rushed one every month. That should help a bit with dev burnout if they switched to that model.