Helldivers 2 dev responds to growing balancing concerns, answers key player questions

Now that it’s officially become the fastest-selling PlayStation game ever, it should come as no surprise that Helldivers 2 is bound to stay in the limelight for a good long while. Yet, the game has been going through a rough patch lately, and one developer stands out as someone keeping those conversations helpful and honest.

Specifically, one of the Arrowhead Games’ community managers, Thomas Petersson (aka Twinbeard), has responded to a number of community questions over on the official Discord. In the Helldivers 2 community, Petersson is widely praised and often brought up as the golden standard for communication, which has been a stellar source of goodwill for Arrowhead. Judging by Petersson’s responses, his popularity is bound to grow further still, and his methods have sparked a new round of productive conversation and criticism over on the Helldivers subreddit.

Things might be looking up for Helldivers 2’s item and weapon balance

Redditor povbear20 assembled a comprehensive list of Thomas Petersson’s comments and responses on Discord, rounding up everything that’s been said for Reddit. Overall, the vibe is quite positive, and folks seem to really appreciate Petersson in particular, which is good to see.

The community manager has touched on a lot of community concerns, so to recap for everyone, some of those Helldivers 2 Discord conversations include topics like:

• Helldivers 2 Warbond cadence being internally discussed
• The papier-mache mechs being review
• A Helldivers 2 test server is a possibility
• Arrowhead might be aware of punishing enemy spawn rates for smaller squads and solo operatives
• More player polls are coming
• Arrowhead wants to improve game balance at large, allowing each weapon to shine in a niche
• Many Arrowhead developers effectively “lost” a week to the PlayStation Network issues, and had to leave in-game considerations aside to resolve it.

This shortlist is very truncated, of course, and I recommend reading up on Petersson’s responses properly, as posted by povbear20, if at all possible. Broadly, though, the information on offer here is well-thought-out and meaningful, and if Arrowhead manages to get back its mojo, the game should be back on track to greatness in relatively short order.

The idea that Helldivers 2 is having trouble keeping up with its own success isn’t new, of course. The fact that Premium Warbonds are coming out on a monthly basis, in particular, hasn’t sat well with the community due to the state of the new weapon releases and some questionable approaches to item balancing, and some feel that Arrowhead should slow things down until they get everything sorted out in full.

It’s going to be interesting to see what comes of Helldivers 2 next. Even the Arrowhead CEO feels that the game’s balancing has gone off the deep end over the last couple of weeks, which should suggest some big changes in the near future. With no firm confirmation as to whether that’ll happen or not, though, Helldivers can only wait and see what Super-Earth has in store for them next.