Arrowhead Game Studios has released Helldivers 2 update 1.000.100 on PC and PS5 (PS5 getting it soon-ish), and this brings a load of balance changes to the game! As the studio mentioned previously, the Breaker auto shotgun has seen a nerf, with the studio explaining the rationale behind these said weapon changes.

Helldivers 2 Update 1.000.100 Patch Notes:

Major Updates

Planetary Hazards active

• Many planets now have additional environmental challenges that will appear at random while you are deployed, from fire tornadoes to meteor showers and many more.

Balancing

Eradicate Missions

• Eradicate missions now require more kills and enemies spawn more often. The time to complete the mission was previously shorter than intended and should now usually take twice as long to complete.

Primary, Secondary, & Support Weapons Balancing adjustments made to the following:

• SG-225 Breaker
• SG-8 Punisher
• SG-225SP Breaker Spray & Pray
• RS-422 Railgun
• FLAM-40 Flamethrower
• LAS-98 Laser Cannon

Stratagems Balancing adjustments have been made to

• Shield Generator Pack
• Orbital 120MM HE Barrage
• Orbital 380MM HE Barrage

Fixes

• Fixed armor rating values not reducing damage as intended.
• Fixed certain Bug Holes (including Stalker Nests) that were unnecessarily hard to destroy.
• Fixed anti-aliasing toggle not working on PS5.
• Balanced lighting across all planets to solve cases where the game was too dark.
• Improved flashlight efficacy.
• Increased visibility during “sand rain” weather on Erata Prime.
• Updated tutorial materials and lighting.
• Improved cases where some materials could look blurry if “Lighting” graphic setting was set to “Low”.
• Fixed timing issues that could occur in the “Extract E-710” primary objective.
• Changed button interaction behavior for buttons in bunker POIs. Helldivers will now let go of the button after holding it for a few seconds.
• Fixed some cases of large assets floating if the ground beneath them was blown up.
• Helldivers standing next to ICBMs during launch will get properly toasty with a chance of not-so-spontaneous combustion.
• Fixed unthrowable snowballs after ragdolling.
• Fixed being able to use grenades after drowning.
• Camera no longer locked on the player’s own corpse and blocking spectator mode.
• Helldivers now take damage from fire, gas etc. generated by other players.
• Armor no longer stretches when dismembered.

Known Issues

These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.

• Picking up items from caches may cause characters to freeze in place for an extended period of time.
• Picking up items from bunkers and caches in quick succession may render one of the items unpickable.
• Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
• Players may be unable to select loadout or return to ship when joining a multiplayer game session via PS5 Activity Card.
• Occasionally mission reward multiplier may not be applied.
• Mission objective HUD displays different numbers for client and host during some missions.
• Default armor is always shown while viewing the warbond, regardless of the armor that player has equipped.
• Text chat box display is obstructed by the cinematic letterboxing during extraction.
• Some text in the HUD/UI is missing or not displaying correctly.
• Players may experience issues when many players attempt to login and/or play at the same time:

🔹 Login rate limiting
🔹 Players may become disconnected during play
🔹 Various UI issues may appear when the game interacts with servers
🔹 Some games may not be joinable by others for a short period of time

Over on the Helldivers 2 Discord channel, the studio gave the exact values of the balance changes:

• Breaker: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55
• Railgun: Decreased armor penetration, decreased damage against durable enemy parts
• Flamethrower: Increased damage per second by 50%
• Laser Cannon: Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics
• Punisher: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet
• Breaker Spray & Pray: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26
• Energy Shield Backpack: Increased delay before recharging
• 380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread

Helldivers 2 Latest Patch Balancing Changes Explanation From Arrowhead:

According to Arrowhead Game Studio’s Alex K, this is the “first round” in a “never-ending series” of balance changes incoming to the game. They want to be completely transparent about game balance, and their goal is to give players a wide range of weapon choices, and where each gun has its purposes and none is “strictly better” than another.

Here is the explanation from Arrowhead’s Alex K. regarding the changes where the Autocannon is used as an example of a well-balanced weapon.

“The AC-8 Autocannon is a good example of a well-balanced weapon: it packs a powerful punch, has a very good range, but requires you to carry an ammo backpack or have a friend assist you. The GL-21 Grenade Launcher is the opposite example. It’s a good general purpose weapon that gives you so much flexibility, it obviously can’t deal too much damage without becoming overpowered.”

Alex K. then explains how the current meta is, and how the Breaker, Railgun and the Shield Generator Backpack have become “too powerful” with little downsides to them.

“But weapons that are both powerful and versatile become a no-brainer choiсe during the weapon selection phase. It robs you of your own agency, as stale “meta” builds force you to make an unfair choice between a fun weapon and an effective one. In short: Powerful weapons can’t be too versatile, versatile weapons can’t be too powerful.
Having said all that, after analyzing player feedback and the data we’ve collected over the past month, we found three biggest offenders of that principle:
SG-225 Breaker
RS-422 Railgun
SH-32 Shield Generator Backpack

All three of those were quite strong with too little downsides, overshadowing all other options on higher difficulty levels. So with this patch, they’re getting significant downsides to balance their power. However, we strongly believe that the changes won’t ruin this build, but rather help the affected items find their place among the other options and stay effective in capable hands.”

Lastly, the designer knows that people who use those three items will be ticked off a bit by the nerfs, and how it seems like a punishment for being “too good at the game.” Alex K. implores players to not compare a changed item to its older version, but to “evaluate the existing one as it is and see if it still has a place in your heart.”

Will this change the meta of the game  — especially since a few weapons were buffed? We’ll know for sure in the next coming days!

While this balance patch didn’t bring the EXO-45 Patriot Mech into the game, that should be incoming soon still. Once we know more about that, we’ll let our readers know.

Related Reading:

• Arrowhead Boss Shoots Down Sony Acquisition Rumors, Studios Is “Independently Owned”
• Helldivers 2 Early Weapon Stats Page Revealed, Pulled Since It Was Deemed “Too Complex for Players”
• Helldivers 2 Weekly Report – Helldiver Crowned Local Hero, A New Threat With a Name, and an Update on Malevelon Creek

Source: Hellidivers Discord