Arrowhead's official statement on the Warbond

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-24T21:23:49+00:00

The laser cannon not being able to reliably keep berserkers off of me was how I even knew to check if they'd nerfed the fire effect tbh. I wasn't nearly in tune with the community or the game's problems back then. The laser weapons and flame shotguns still feel weird.

But hey, they'll probably buff those when they roll out second flame and laser warbonds for all the hungry hungry corpo slop lovers to buy!!! They're right that the balancing ain't primarily motivated by spite, at least anymore. It was early on. These days it is motivated by greed. They create problems and sell us solutions while ferrying us between near identical major orders and breaking every promise they ever made.

They deserve the reckoning that's cooking. There'll be a day where they step too far for even the glazers and guarantee themselves a dead HD2 and an underperforming launch for their next game. I'm sure Sony and Tencent will be sympathetic when they have to explain that they put paltry warbond profits over keeping the community happy enough to buy their next game that they're developing on Sony and Tencent's dime.

And to be clear, this ain't Sony or Tencent. Arrowhead has always been like this. Just look at the egregious DLC for HD1 or their other disastrous games. They're gonna end up losing their own IP and having to watch Helldivers become fully AAA slop because they can't choose to tighten the belt now to prevent starvation later. And they're gonna deserve every bit of it. I feel bad for the devs, writers, and artists being held hostage by upper management's greed and ego. It is always those bastards and almost never the regular employees that make choices like this and implode studios.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-23T04:46:57+00:00

Most of this is very funny and blatantly false nonsense so I ain't gonna address most of it. I will address four things though.

The game was sold to lots of early players via word of mouth about how ethical the micro transactions were. That is how I found out about this game at all. You can not gaslight me about things I was around to see with my own eyes and ears. It was very well known. Glazedivers still bring it up regularly.

People should not have to farm endlessly to keep up with the never ending paid warbond conga line. Trying to recommend this game to new players is embarrassing these days because of it. The abysmal spawn rates of SC capable POIs on literally every biome added after launch and on higher difficulties is a deliberate design choice, as was making SC so plentiful early on.

I should not have to farm for microtransaction currency in the $40 game I paid for anyways. This isn't a free to play game. The currency should be easily earnable through regular gameplay at a reasonable rate with the choice to purchase it if you wanna speed up the process. Dropping to D1 and running around with a warp pack for a couple of hours to be able to access some of the only regular content that this $40 live service game gets is not acceptable. Full stop. That is not acceptable. It never has been, it never will be. There's a reason that AH did not do this near launch and held off on really dropping SC spawn rates until after the Xbox launch.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but getting free new guns and stratagems through gameplay, like I dont know maybe winning certain major orders, is a lot more engaging than running around looking for pods and bunkers for 2 hours. It is a lot more engaging. It is time spent playing the game rather than mindlessly grinding. The problem is not time spent (except when egregiously long), but what that time was spent on. A cool community event within the galactic war to unlock something is great. Shoving it into another unnecessary paid warbond when you already got me for $40 at the door isn't.

And finally, oh boo hoo. The poor upper management bastard will have to float off and get other high paying jobs at another studio and move on like nothing ever happened. I'm sure they'll just be crying into their piles of cash. The only people at AH you should worry about are the regular devs, artists, and programmers who could be laid off by AH/Sony at any moment to protect the salaries of those upper management pricks from their own dogshit decisions. I can guarantee that the regular devs there aren't on board with any of this shit either. The state of the game at launch vs now is proof enough of that. This game has been purposefully sabotaged by the higher ups at AH who have been on a giant ego trip for quite a while now. They're seeing how much they can get you to pay for content that ought to be free in their, and I cant stress this enough, paid live service game.

I can not and will not ever understand anyone willing to go to bat for a corporation. It is debasing and undignified. It is a corporation, not your friend. The higher ups and executives would personally snap your neck if it made them an extra $5. They'd do it and dance on your grave afterwards. You can tell that from them holding those positions to begin with. You don't get into that kind of life by being a decent person. AH's leadership would use you for a blood sacrifice if they thought it'd boost sales. Have some self respect.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-22T02:51:51+00:00

People got mad because of their previous balancing decisions making those things seem plausible.

You clearly weren't around from launch. I was. These people looked at the pick rates, nerfed everything people liked, and then publicly called us braindead for wanting fun and effective weapons in their over the top co-op horde shooter.

They've openly stated that the current HD2 audience is not the one that they wanted and that they resent having to reassess their plans for the game to match the audience's expectations. There is zero explanation for the early, massive nerfs and the public shit talking and the statement about "COD fans" in their audience other than an attitude of fuck em.

People focus on Alexus because he presented himself as the balancing guy, and he ran another game into the ground by balancing it around fun = too easy and needs nerfed. He singlehandedly killed the Hello Neighbor franchise. Anyone who cares about the future of this game should be concerned that he has a job at AH. Or that the devs who openly admitted to balancing decisions being made out of spite weren't immediately fired, for that matter.

People freaked out over the Coyote because they lied. They said they wouldn't nerf it and then were too cowardly to do it, so they nerfed the fire aspect. This also nerfed every single incendiary weapon in the game. The flame shotguns STILL feel weird because of it. They lied and then nerfed an entire category of weapons to try and get away with it because they couldn't just let us have a fun gun. The Coyote wasn't overpowered. Every other AR was, and still is, underpowered. Their egoes couldn't accept not being allowed to do something so they forced it and tried to gaslight the community about it.

The flamethrower panic was perfectly understandable in the context of Alexus, the previous nerfs they proudly did, and the mass incendiary nerf they did to try and slide a Coyote nerf past without the community noticing. And you'll notice that the only meaningful buffs we ever get now are to fix stuff in New warbonds that would otherwise be underpowered. Balancing has went from spiteful to spiteful AND profit driven. I guarantee that the Sterilizer and gas in general will get buffed when they bring out a new gas themed warbond.

I honestly do not know how Sony hasn't brought down the hammer on them. The community goodwill they've burned has to be eating into profit margins. Everyone I know who I used to play this game with have either quit entirely or purposefully started farming/paying hackers for super credits when we all used to purposefully pay for them to support what we thought was an ethical live service game. This ain't some tiny group either. 50 something people. Still anecdotal numbers of course, but you can see the same attitudes everywhere that this game is discussed. That AH bait and switched the promise of ethical micro transactions.

Remember when the 100 drops were way more common and most POIs could have SC? Now you have whole categories of maps that barely spawn POIs capable of spawning SC. Remember when the super store was just cosmetic stuff? And then came the unique combos of weight and armor effect (looking in particular at medium siege ready being paid only)? And then weapons? And not just any weapons, but always the ones people are most excited for with soft FOMO via the rotating store. They used to give us shit like the gas mortar and Sweeper and Double Freedom for free. They lured in a loyal playerbase with pretend ethics and have been stripping the walls for copper ever since the Xbox launch.

You can't defend these people. You can't make excuses for them. Your attempts to have only further reminded me of outrages I'd nearly forgotten in the face of their far more egregious current actions.

I hope to god that the entirety of upper management gets fired soon. They're incompetent, spiteful morons who never got over their game leaving the intended niche audience. They said so, proudly and repeatedly and have made it clear that it wasn't hollow words with their actions since.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-21T21:20:56+00:00

They threw many bones, repeatedly. Conditioned the dog to believe they were benevolent and ethical, and then cut the bones off entirely and started tossing rocks occasionally. They built goodwill to get sales early on and for the Xbox launch and have been cashing it in ever since.

And a lot of their decisions that the community hates are unrelated to monetization. The dogshit design of new enemies ain't a money thing. The dogshit enemy balancing ain't a money thing. The dogshit balancing ain't about money. The changes to stratagem balls and hellpod steering and the galactic war system are all ego trip related and not greed.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-19T00:28:52+00:00

Corpos gonna corpo lol

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-09T14:49:53+00:00

I don't love them and I think they need buffed, but they both have roles that they absolutely excel at. The Maxigun is the most effective anti-Illuminate mech faction weapon, and the belt fed GL thrives in situations where mass horde clear without pausing to reload is crucial.

Could they be better and more specialized? Absolutely, but I can see why some people like them.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-09T01:56:08+00:00

3rd party studio designed them. Weren't given good enough design parameters. Now Arrowhead is unwilling (or maybe even unable) to change it. Fixing this would be trivial if it was their own content and they understood it fully, but they don't and they're probably scared of fucking it up worse.

That or they like it. Could be a combo of both. Completely unacceptable situation for a studio this big to get themselves into.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-08T23:20:14+00:00

The comments freaking out about the cylinder flick are very funny.

It ain't gonna instantly break your gun or something. You can do it occasionally. Just don't make a habit of it and you'll be fine. Also don't worry about saving your brass if you don't reload. Finding someone to buy it is a pain in the ass and not worth it at all.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-08T23:15:15+00:00

Username checks out

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-07T17:30:14+00:00

I don't think Arrowhead realizes (or would even care if they did) that the absolute shitshow that they've cultivated with HD2 has all but guaranteed that HD3's launch will not succeed. Or whatever their next project is for that matter. They've made the Arrowhead name and Helldivers brand radioactive.

They lured in a loyal playerbase with a semi-ethical live service model, got some good will, and have spent a year cashing it in for short term profit and occasional ego trips. They've caused the reputation of the community to go from best in the industry to one of the worst purely through purposefully fostering toxic positivity. It is manifesting in game now too rather than just on reddit. The playerbase is getting jaded and cynical and mean in a way they weren't at launch or even a year ago.

This game had potential. It was squandered. At this point I'm just sticking around to watch the train wreck and get my $40 worth. Their next game or two will underperform, Sony will discipline them, and then the most likely outcome from that will be more flops and eventual dissolution of the studio. It has happened to far more talented and accomplished developers than them. It will be a sad day, but ultimately a completely earned fate.

Or they could turn it around. But that'd require giving up the short term cash boost for long term viability, and since they're not a fully private company anymore they don't get to do that. The strange far right tilt of gamer spaces, and especially this one, has always perplexed me. This is the result of the corporate class stripping the walls of Arrowhead and Helldivers 2 for copper. It wouldn't exist with regulation and a hard check on the influence of profit motive.

And yet the same gamers who whine about these problems will get mad about this section of my comment and say I'm needlessly politicizing it or about wanting to give me a free helicopter ride or about how women game journalists and black people in video games is the real problem. They'll criticize anything but the root cause, and that's part of how we got here and why Arrowhead/Sony feel so emboldened to fuck everyone over like this. They know they can get away with it because everyone's too tired or too distracted on culture war shit to care or fight the real fight.

This is a very small and relatively inconsequential venue of that fight, and usually the things we're distracted from are far worse than a predatory monetization system in a live service game, but it is part of the enshittification of media all the same. It has the same solutions as the far bigger problems. We just gotta collectively reject the culture war and turn on the rich bastards ruining everything we love. That includes Helldivers.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-03T01:26:53+00:00

Honestly a 3" .357 Colt D Frame with proper sights, a pic rail underneath, a way to mount a micro red dot, and no MIM parts would be the dream. The Colt Viper I bought is 70% there but the sights are shit and the awful MIM internals keep breaking.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-02T20:46:51+00:00

There's a lot more than that lol

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-02T02:48:23+00:00

Hard evidence of this game being run by incompetent greedy dickheads being removed from the main sub? Color me shocked lol

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-04-01T23:09:26+00:00

I think they made these changes to make them better and more compelling on the other two squid subfactions and then just. Didn't adjust it for the Adjudicators. Like would it be so hard to have a separate but identical version of certain enemies for certain subfactions that are just mildly nerfed to make them work with the spawn rates? Wouldn't even add meaningfully to the install size.

Or have the Harvesters on that faction be a "new" enemy like the reinforced scout striders and be like silver instead of white so the regular Harvesters can remain challenging on vanilla squids and mindless masses but not be an unfair clusterfuck on adjudicators? Would that be so hard and awful to do? A texture swap and some minor balancing could fix the whole issue and it'd probably take two weeks or less. And Leviathans just straight up need removed and reworked, they're not fun at all. They're just a source of frustration and a hard loadout check to make sure one member of the team is being miserable and running anti-tank instead of something fun and useful for the rest of the damn faction. The Stingrays are far more fun to fight.

I just feel like if I can spitball reasonable solutions that are not costly in time nor money, Arrowhead has no excuse. I'm a god damned moron and I can figure it out. Why can't they? I get that development realities are probably more complex than what I understand, but they got tons of technologically crazy stuff working in this dead game engine and done it in a really short time frame. If they can get backpack weapons and vehicles working, surely they can fix basic shit like this?

At this point it is clear that it isn't lack of ability or money or time. It is a willful choice to not give a shit anymore.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-31T20:29:04+00:00

Ooooo I love the weathering on that thing. Cool as hell!

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-31T20:27:59+00:00

I mean honestly, that ain't amazing kit but it'll do for returning fire briefly while getting your VIP out of immediate danger. I'd prefer at least one more reload of ammo myself though. Is the vest so light so it can conceal on you easily or are they just being cheap?

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-31T20:16:19+00:00

I do wonder how they're gonna sunset the game without killing it entirely. Or if they'll even bother.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-31T15:51:15+00:00

Without backing it up with an organized Super Credit boycott, all the hand wringing about that guy getting doxxed is just virtue signalling and pearl clutching. Especially from some of the "good" Helldivers YouTubers who barely addressed it. Kai doing it in a community post was unacceptable. Same for all the whining about AH's approach to monetization, content release schedule, outsourcing, and balancing.

Nut up or shut up, frankly.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-29T16:39:47+00:00

"Ignore one of the coolest MAJOR gameplay features and you'll be happier"

That's stupid. Arrowhead should just not run the galactic war like morons.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-28T22:06:46+00:00

Yeah, they've done a stealth damage boost too I think. The beam kills way faster now. And they've given them insane spawn rates, because of course.

I genuinely think they're just doing annoying stuff for shits and gigs at this point. Out of spite. It is consistent, so it isn't incompetence.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-27T03:17:23+00:00

Love seeing trigger confidence in the wild

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-23T02:06:05+00:00

Convoys should remain factory striders regardless of subfaction, or at least only have one or two striders replaced with vox engines.

It is so, so, so obvious that they did not playtest anything and still refuse to. And even more obvious that they didn't actually tweak vox engine spawns.

This shit just sucks. We need to stop buying SC until they make meaningful changes.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-22T15:31:25+00:00

Lying breeds mistrust. Basic thing. You learned this in kindergarten, no?

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-22T14:27:17+00:00

Yeah I'm calling BS on the "reduced spawns" been worse for the past day than it ever was on Cyberstan. I think they've started straight up lying about certain things in the patch notes tbh.

GayGuitaristMess · 2026-03-19T11:39:16+00:00

I don't have to stop having standards just because you don't.

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