Helldivers 2 Exo Experts Warbond has been online for a while now. While some players are engrossed in the game, others have expressed their dissatisfaction in player communities - the reason being the sheer number of bugs and issues!
Some bugs are simply laughable, while others have even caused players some losses. Why has Arrowhead been so careless as to leave the game with so many bugs and problems?
As a Helldivers 2 enthusiast and a consumer, I'd like to share my thoughts for the game's continued improvement.
New Bugs
Recently, Arrowhead claimed to have buffed A/FLAM-40 Flame Sentry in Helldivers 2, increasing its range and damage. Simultaneously, they also released a brand new mech in Exo Experts Warbond called EXO-51 Lumberer, whose Flamethrower on its left arm has also been enhanced.
This should have been exciting content, especially for players who enjoy fire-based weapons.
However, the reality is quite different. Many players have found that A/FLAM-40 Flame Sentry and EXO-51 Lumberer perform terribly in the game - they still allow players to be easily killed by large groups of nearby enemies, completely failing to deliver the promised buffs.
Why is this? Because of an extremely absurd bug: Arrowhead stretches the visual texture of the flames, but the damage radius doesn't increase accordingly.
More specifically, when EXO-51 Lumberer attacks enemies within approximately 10 meters with its flamethrower, enemies within that range take absolutely no damage. The same applies to A/FLAM-40 Flame Sentry.
This is a significant loss for players. EXO-51 Lumberer is only obtainable through Exo Experts Warbond, which requires a large amount of Helldivers 2 Super Credits. If it's not actually as powerful as advertised, why would players participate in Exo Experts Warbond for it?
Old Bugs
Besides the new bugs that appeared in Helldivers 2 Exo Experts Warbond, there are many more bugs that have existed in the game for months or even over a year without being fixed.
Impaler Bug
Impalers are large Zerg enemies with three tentacles. They have a bug: when you kill them, their corpses sometimes suddenly launch themselves extremely high into the air like rockets before falling back down.
This was originally just a funny little bug, but the problem is that the corpses still have physical collision detection during flight. This means that if a corpse hits you, you could be instantly killed.
SMG-72 Pummeler Bug
SMG-72 Pummeler was once disabled by Arrowhead for two to three weeks because of a serious bug - using it would cause the game to crash. During this time, players could not equip it at all.
In the game, upgrading Helldivers 2 SMG-72 Pummeler to the maximum level requires a large amount of resources and time. However, this simplistic and crude approach left players who loved it and maxed it out unable to use it for almost half a month.
Fleshmob Bug
Fleshmob, since its addition to the game about a year ago, has been plagued by an extremely annoying bug: it can pass through stairs, building walls, and even cars to attack players. When surrounded, this "ghostly" attack method is completely unmanageable because it ignores terrain obstacles.
This bug was only recently fixed, persisting for a full year. It's hard to imagine that Arrowhead would delay fixing such an obvious and severely impactful bug for a year.
Read More: Helldivers 2: Hotfix Patch, Monetization Rework, and Ammo Types Teased - Full Developer Response
Meaningless Numerical Adjustments
Besides the frequent bugs in new content, Arrowhead's handling of adjusting enemy stats in existing Helldivers 2 characters has also baffled players. The most typical example is Hive Guard.
Hive Guard is a medium-sized enemy. Originally, its front armor had 500 health points and required a weapon with Medium Armor Penetration to penetrate.
In a previous update, Arrowhead felt the enemy was too difficult to attack, so they removed its leg armor, meaning players could easily break its legs and kill it with any weapon. This change itself was fine, and the community response was positive.
However, Arrowhead then felt Hive Guard had become too weak, so they suddenly made another change, requiring weapons with Heavy Armor Penetration to damage it - essentially buffing its defenses.
However, this change only lasted about two days - due to overwhelming opposition from the player community. Ultimately, Arrowhead had to announce that they had reverted Hive Guard's stats to their original state - meaning they spent months, only to end up changing nothing.
Since the initial design was fine, why keep changing it? Most importantly, if Arrowhead has the capacity to invest time and energy in such meaningless tasks, why can't it find the bugs that truly need fixing?
My Opinion
Why does Helldivers 2 exhibit these bugs and problems? I believe there are two possible reasons:
First, Arrowhead may be overly reliant on outsourcing companies. Much of the new content, including parts of the latest Exo Experts Warbond, was likely done by outsourced teams. Arrowhead placed too much trust in these companies and released it directly.
Second, Arrowhead knew there were problems but still chose to release first and fix later. After all, obvious bugs like those mentioned earlier could not have gone unnoticed with internal testing. Therefore, Arrowhead may have opted for "release first, fix later" without prior testing.
Regardless of the reason, the solution is very simple: either postpone the release of Helldivers 2 Exo Experts Warbond or hire more employees. This is not difficult for a company with a market value approaching one billion dollars.
These are my thoughts. In any case, as a Helldivers 2 player, my only hope is that the game will continue to improve.
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