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Following the loss of Vernen Well, players have expressed concern over ever-demanding modifiers. As you might know, upon visiting any planet, you are presented with a set of environmental conditions that usually negatively affect the players’ stats. In addition to those, fans playing on higher difficulties (levels 7 to 9), also receive operation modifiers that make the missions more challenging. Recently, fans accused Helldivers 2 developers of making the modifiers too extreme.
Arrowhead Under Fire Over Operation Modifiers
The_FoxIsRed said: “I actually don’t mind playing bots at all but I cannot f**king stand s**t like this. Makes the game incredibly unfun. Remove this garbage from the game, Arrowhead, and players might just consider playing bots more often”. The OP is talking about the recent chaos that surrounded a Defense Mission on Vernen Well, which is “an Automation planet”. Many fans said they prefer fighting the bugs. Obviously, those who don’t mind fighting Automatons have a lot to say about Operation Modifiers.
Players offered advice on what could be changed to make the game more enjoyable. A Reddit user under the name decrementsf said: “Some scaling of rewards could be cool. Harsh environmental effects? Higher potential rewards for the contract”.
Another idea comes from deltazechs. They said: “Good game design is when you have counter-play, rewarding players for being clever and knowing what to prioritize. -1 Strategem? You can do that, but allow me to earn it back by doing the operation in a certain order, such as destroying a fortified Bots AA emplacement will let me deploy 4 stratagems again in the next op mission”. They also explain how reduced vision would be fair if it applied to both sides, making the game more balanced.
As N1GHTSTR1D3R said: “It’s almost like they forget the ultimate goal of a game is to have fun”. This statement is quite interesting, as recent claims by the Community Manager stated that their entire goal was to make the game as fun as possible for the players.
Players Ask for an Extreme Change in Their Approach to Modifiers
A fan, wickeddimension, called out Arrowhead for having a “big identity crisis” over what they are trying to accomplish with the game. This player explained that it seemed the developers wanted to create “an immensely hard, niche game for hardcore dedicated players”. The crowd that actually plays the game is mostly there to “blast some bugs and bots with their friends”. They continued: “These designers seem so focussed on changing everything so people play in exactly the way they envisioned at the difficulty they desire”. The same applies to all the debuffs. This player suggested: “You need to challenge players to be creative and work around limitations, not just nerf them across the board, you already got difficulty levels for that”.
Of course, implementing anything like that would require a lot of work, so, at least for now, the players have to be patient. Stranger_Danger420 has found a bit simpler solution. They said: “If they are gonna give us all those modifiers we need better weapons and armor perks”.
It seems, one way or the other, the developers will have to make some changes. Thankfully, the fans are quite clear on what they want for this game, so it’s up to the devs to listen and try to adjust so both their artistic vision and their fans are satisfied.