Helldivers 2 got its biggest update in months today: the Escalation of Freedom patch adds a new highest difficulty (Level 10), a swamp planet biome, new enemy types, and missions. It's a great day to return to what is still easily my game of the year so far, but in the loudest corners of the Helldivers 2 community, conversation around today's update has been dominated by two bullet points in the patch notes. The fan-favorite flamethrower got nerfed, and the subreddit has gone nuclear over it:
What this means is that the flamethrower's flames no longer penetrate the thick armor plating on Chargers. That's a shame, because the flamethrower's penchant for melting Chargers in seconds was considered one of the best reasons to bring it as your support weapon—its power justified the risk of burning yourself and teammates in the process.
The nerf is already very unpopular on the Helldivers 2 subreddit and on Twitter, where Arrowhead's CEO Shams Jorjani has been fielding feedback from fans all day.
"Words cannot express how disappointed and angry I feel right now. MORE NERFS? REALLY?" wrote Reddit user Gn0meKr.
It's worth noting that this reception isn't what I usually expect from a single change to a gun in a videogame—people aren't just annoyed about this, they're furious in a way that's disproportionate to the offense. The flamethrower isn't as good anymore, and I think Arrowhead should probably reverse this weird change, but some people are using this as a jumping pad to declare that Arrowhead is once again out of touch with its fans, doesn't actually play its own game, or just enjoys being the fun police.
It seems like these people aren't that mad about the flamethrower, a weapon I hardly ever see Divers using in the wild, but are angry that Arrowhead has the gall to consider more nerfs after that whole dust-up over balance in June. That controversy resulted in a well-received patch that buffed guns and stratagems across the board, but as we're seeing now, it also created an unusual sensitivity to the very idea of nerfs in Helldivers 2.
"You and @Pilestedt lied to us, promised us the moon but NOTHING changed, you just keep nerfing stuff for no reason, shit on player feedback and have no clue about actual balancing," one particularly perturbed reply to Jorjani reads. "Don't be surprised if you're reviewbombed again."
Jorjani, meanwhile, is keeping a cool head about it. He hasn't made any direct statement about today's nerfs to the flamethrower and Breaker Incendiary shotgun, but is more generally reminding players that balance is a process, and he'll be passing this feedback onto Arrowhead's balancing team.
"One thing to bear in mind is that it's a constantly evolving thing. Add one gun or enemy to the mix then everything needs a tweak pass," Jorjani replied to one fan. "Something that felt [overpowered] last week might feel nerfed the other. We don't want 'constant nerfing' and will keep at it."
What Jorjani might be getting at is the new Warbond coming to Helldivers 2 on Thursday, Freedom's Flame. The $10 premium bond will add two new flamethrowers to the game, one in the primary slot and one secondary, as well as armor that negates most fire damage. A primary flamethrower that can burn straight through Charger armor does sound so potentially powerful that it makes all other primaries obsolete, so I can understand why Chargers are now mostly fireproof. But what of the support flamethrower? That one is meant to be the most powerful weapon you're carrying—maybe it was caught in the crossfire of changes meant for these smaller flamethrower options.
It'd be disingenuous to frame the Escalation of Freedom patch as a series of nerfs. As usual, Arrowhead has mostly buffed underperforming guns and stratagems, including the SG-8S Slugger, the Exploding Crossbow, Guard Dog, and Orbital Walking Barrage.
Jorjani made another comment on balance that I find interesting: What we see from the outside isn't indicative of the whole Helldivers 2 community, and in fact, not everyone is constantly asking for 'no nerfs, only buffs.'
"Some are going 'buff everything!!' Others are saying 'it's too easy!' Most are in-game—just playing."
It's natural to join a united front on Reddit or in a Discord server and believe you represent an entire fandom, but it's never that simple. Jorjani doesn't say this to absolve Arrowhead of balancing choices it may determine were too far and reverse, but to gently push back at the notion that Arrowhead is making things less fun on purpose.
Jorjani goes on: "Every new big update requires a bit of playtime before we know which direction to fine tune things. Appreciate the patience!"
I jumped into a few missions with the new flamethrower and, yep, fighting Chargers ain't what it used to be. They're nearly impervious to fire from the front (it seems you can sneak some flame damage into their joints if you aim carefully), so your best bet is to stun them first and target their big ol' butt. The good news is the flamethrower is still remarkably good at dealing with every smaller tier of Terminid. It's still so good that I wager most of the people jumping back into Helldivers 2 today haven't noticed the difference.
But I really do hope they let the big flamethrower chew through Chargers again, because I've been dreaming of a fire knight build where everything I touch burns to ash.
