The latest Helldivers 2 PC patch makes life a bit easier for players fighting the Terminids, aka monstrous hellbugs, on difficulty level 7 or higher, with tweaks to spawn rates for Chargers and Bile Titans, while increasing the spawn rates of certain other, less heavily armoured Terminids to fill the gap. The developers have also lowered the health of the Charger’s head, allowing for instant takedowns with a Recoilless Rifle or EAT-17, without (in theory) entirely doing away with the community’s treasured “leg meta”, which sees players blasting the juggernaut’s limbs to sabotage it.
Out today, with patch notes on Steam, the update also fixes various unspecified mid-game crash problems and UI problems such as missing HUD elements and mismatched UI/voice-over text. Arrowhead have also removed the “Electronic Countermeasures” operations modifier, which gave you a chance of executing a random Stratagem whenever you called one in.
“We found that this modifier wasn’t communicated clearly enough and overall caused more frustration than excitement with the way it was currently implemented,” the developers note. They actually removed the modifier in the previous patch, while rebalancing Helldivers 2’s weapons, but neglected to mention this – it’ll be reworked and reintroduced to the game down the line.
Here’s how the new Helldivers 2 update tweaks Terminid spawning at higher difficulties in depth:
The amount of heavily armored targets that spawn on higher difficulties, especially for Terminids, have been a big discussion point online and internally. The intent is for groups to have to bring some form of anti-tank capability but not to the degree previously needed.
To that end we have reduced the spawn rate of Chargers and Bile Titans on difficulties 7 and up. In addition we have reduced the risk of spawn spikes of Chargers and Bile Titans.
Please note that we have changed the distribution of enemy types, not reduced difficulty. Expect other enemy types to appear in greater numbers instead.
We are humbled by the community’s ability to find things like Chargers “leg meta” in our game, however spending your heavy anti tank weapons on legs instead of the obvious weak point seems counter to expectation.
We are not changing anything regarding the Charger’s legs, we are however lowering the health of the Charger’s head. It should now be at a point where a well placed shot from a Recoilless Rifle or EAT-17 instantly kills a charger.
Together with the unfortunately undocumented change of last patch that increased the armor penetration ability of less well placed shots for EAT-17s and Recoilless Rifle shots, Chargers should now be easier to handle by well equipped groups.
Alas, Helldivers 2 remains subject to a vicious infestation of Known Issues. Come shake your fist in anguish at the sky with me, while we read the list of Helldivers 2 bugs and glitches that are still to be addressed. Whomst amongst the developers is Super Earthian enough to save us from the Pink Artifacts of Sedition and the malfunctioning Stims of Disloyalty?
Game crashes when attempting to use a stim while inside an Exosuit.
Pink artifacts may appear in the sky when setting off large explosions.
Automaton Dropship seemingly disappears and slides in after being shot down.
Shots from arc-based weapons may not count towards kills in post-mission stats.
Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
Cross-platform friend invites might not show up in the friend requests tab.
Players may be unable to select loadout or return to ship when joining a multiplayer game session via PS5 Activity Card.
The Exosuit can destroy itself with rockets if it fires while turning.
Text chat box display is obstructed by the cinematic letterboxing during extraction.
Some people are unable to accept friend requests. This is mostly an issue cross platform.
The aforementioned gun-balancing update aside, Helldivers 2 made headlines recently for introducing mechs, or rather, imperiously demanding that players liberate those mechs from one particular planet. Have you had a chance to take one out for a drive? I mostly just see them in the hands of other players, shortly before they’re mobbed and destroyed.
