Developer Arrowhead Game Studio recently rolled out a massive patch for Helldivers 2, bringing over 100 changes, tweaks, and enhancements to everything from weapons to the Galactic War Table. But one of the game’s most iconic tricks has been changed to better fit how players use it, rather than how Arrowhead intended it to be used.
Helldivers 2’s Precision Orbital Strike is a trick that calls for – you guessed it – an orbital strike on a single location. Unlike an orbital laser, the artifact does not sweep the battlefield but simply explodes your chosen location before disappearing. The Arrowhead’s “original intent” was for players to use it in “fixed locations” — such as robot factories or insect nests — but that hasn’t stopped divers from “using it against almost anything,” according to a recent study. Blog post.
Instead of making changes to push players to use the gimmick the way the team originally wanted to use it, Arrowhead instead refined the gimmick to accommodate what players were already doing. As part of the new patch, Orbital Precision Strike has a reduced summon time and a lower cooldown, making it more effective against moving targets and “more competitive compared to Eagle Tricks.”
Arrowhead is slowly making changes to how it handles successful game balancing as previous patches swung too far and banished some fan-favorite tools into oblivion. The latest patch is part of a (seemingly successful) effort to rebalance the game, which is why updates will slow down from now on.
Helldivers 2 will not get a story mode because “that’s like building a whole new game,” according to the CEO.
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