Arrowhead CEO says "we need to do more" after incendiary reaction to flamethrowers in Helldivers 2 : 'Me talking about it isn’t enough, actions are important'

Helldivers 2 is experiencing balance issues. Morgan Park, a fellow PC Gamer author, noted last week that the major update Escalation of Freedom has not only brought in a lot of cool new features, but also set the entire game on fire. Again.

Helldivers 2 is also constantly wrestling with its balance philosophy, just like Ides of March. This is despite Johan Pilestedt, then-CEO and now CCO, writing in May that "it feels as if every time someone finds a fun thing, the fun gets removed." While the promises of bigger and better patches are now a reality, the shift to a number-tweaking strategy and a shorter time-to-kill have not.

Shams Jorjani is the new CEO of the studio. He has taken to Twitter and Discord, where he has shared his two super-credits on the situation. For the most part, he has maintained a cool head, saying that if people are not passionate, then they should be.

His responses on Discord paint a different picture: a studio that is racing to keep up the demands of this loud and passionate playerbase. Jorjani writes, "I haven't talked to everyone--but many are disappointed on several levels... I think that a lot of people point out 'wtf'--we've been through this earlier in the year. Why are we back here again?

He goes on to explain that the problems have a lot of to do with the scale, the lead in development times, and Arrowhead’s relative inexperience in running a live-service game in the modern age--experience which it is currently gaining the hard way.

"We have a long lead time on development." What you see are the results of weeks and even months of development. Some changes take a while to show up. "Not much time has passed since the June balance round, and most people are still in vacation."

He adds that this shouldn't just be interpreted as making excuses or cleaning up the whole thing a second time. "We need to do a better job of understanding what players want, and marrying that with the development process. We want each release to be a positive step forward. Constant improvement. I don't believe we feel that this is what we are doing. We need to do more. It's clear that just talking about it won't be enough. "Actions matter."

In a subsequent message, he says that "[being] brutally truthful, the company hasn’t released a single game in 8 years." Last time, I'm certain there were many different voices -- but nowhere near as many as today. He says that this is "probably the largest reason for our missteps".

He also reiterates what Pilestedt said a while ago--that the time it takes to defeat the enemies of democracy still is too long. "I don't believe it's just a matter of buffing weaponry", he says, noting that he wants players to have the right tools to do the job, rather than a proliferation of overpowered bug blasters. "But we still have an Autocannon mech which needs about 20 rounds to kill a Bile Titan. So we're still not there."

Helldivers 2's players have heard these words before. The response on the subreddit for the game has been harsh: "That is exactly what Pilestedt stated before stepping down as CEO to'set the right'. One player writes, "Yet here we are again." Another asks, "Has anyone told the CEO that he's the CEO of AH?"

A poll conducted on Discord, which had over 68,000 respondents, showed that most players were not happy with the patch. 26% of players responded "it's good", while 36% said "it's bad", while 39% responded "I'm neutral/not sure."

I don't think Arrowhead has a great job. And while it's good to listen to the community, I don't think it's a good idea to just spread your arms out and say, "Share with me your concerns!" It's only going to go one way. It's frustrating to watch Arrowhead spin around in the same ditch, even from a distance. For developers, progress is slow. But for players, it can seem like an eternity. Fingers crossed for the liberty's flag to fly high again.