Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has released a significant patch for the game that makes big balance changes to weapons, stratagems, enemies, and missions.
Patch 01.000.300 includes a much-needed tweak to burning damage, now reduced by 15%. Burning damage was causing chaos to friend and foe alike in the hugely popular PlayStation 5 and PC co-op shooter after a recent buff. Hopefully now planets such as Hellmire, which features fire tornados, will be more manageable.
Elsewhere, armors with an armor rating above 100 now also reduce damage on headshots, and victory poses will now only play for the extracted, which means, as Arrowhead put it in the patch notes: “no stolen valor on my ship.”
As for weapons, it’s worth checking out the patch notes, below, for the details, but one highlight is a quickfire change to the recently released RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher, which was causing havoc. It will now no longer detonate when shot near stratagems (HMG turret, Sentries, Resupplies) and other Helldivers, and has a reduced proximity radius.
On enemies, again, it’s worth checking out the patch notes, but players will welcome a change to Gunship spawners, which now have a much lower cap on how many gunships they can have active at the same time. Meanwhile, patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than four players. The fewer the players the bigger the change, Arrowhead said. For four-player missions there will be no change compared to before. The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties, Arrowhead clarified.
Welcome gameplay changes include the ability to disable automatic climbing and vaulting while sprinting, which will help with movement. There are some fun “democracy spreading” changes, too. For example, when readying up, Helldivers now salute “to ensure maximum democratic readiness.”
And be warned: shots that ricochet from heavy armored enemies will now properly hit the Helldiver who fired them. “Trigger discipline is highly recommended,” Arrowhead said.
If you’re looking for more on Helldivers 2, check out IGN’s feature on the Let Me Solo Her of Helldivers 2, a player who has answered over 100 SOS Beacons as part of a mission to help others.
Helldivers 2 has become one of the surprise hits of 2024 since launching in February, topping the charts on Steam and reportedly selling around three million copies. According to at least one analyst, it's still growing. Check out IGN's Helldivers 2 review to find out why it's going down so well.
Helldivers 2 update 01.000.300 patch notes in full:
Overview
For this patch, we have made improvements and changes to the following areas:
- Balance changes to weapons, stratagems, and enemies
- Change to the Spread Democracy mission
Balancing
General
- Armors with armor rating above 100 now also reduce damage on headshots.
- Victory poses will now only play for the extracted. (No stolen valor on my ship.)
- Burning damage reduced by 15%
Primary, Secondary & Support Weapons CB-9 Exploding Crossbow
- Slightly smaller explosion
- Increased stagger
- Decreased number of maximum mags from 12 to 8
- Increased number of magazines received from resupply from 6 to 8
- Slight reduction in ergonomics
- Muzzle velocity increased
LAS-99 Quasar Cannon
- Increased recharge time by 5 seconds
BR-14 Adjudicator
- Full auto is now the default fire mode
- Reduced recoil
- Increased maximum mags from 6 to 8
- Increased number of magazines received from resupply from 6 to 8
- Now placed amongst assault rifles
LAS-98 Laser Cannon
- Slightly increased damage
- Slightly reduced damage versus large volume bodies
SG-8P Punisher Plasma
- Decreased maximum mags from 12 to 8
- Increased amount of magazines received from resupply from 6 to 8
- Increased projectile speed, but will still keep a similar range
- Decreased damage falloff on the explosion
- Now placed in the energy weapons category
ARC-12 Blitzer
- Increased shots per minute from 30 to 45
- Now placed in the energy weapons category
R-36 Eruptor
- Decreased number of maximum mags from 12 to 6
- Explosion damage drops off slightly faster
LAS-16 Sickle
- Decreased amount of magazines from 6 down to 3
LAS-5 Scythe
- Increased damage from 300 to 350
- Decreased max number of mags from 6 down to 4
RS-422 Railgun
- Increased armor penetration in both safe mode and unsafe mode
- Stagger force slightly reduced
MG-101 Heavy Machine Gun
- Third-person crosshair enabled
63CS Diligence Counter Sniper
- Damage increased from 128 to 140
- Ergonomics improved
R-63 Diligence
- Damage increased from 112 to 125
P-19 Redeemer
- Slight increase in recoil
P-2 Peacemaker
- Increased damage from 60 to 75
P-8 Senator
- Increased damage from 150 to 175
- Speedloader added when reloading on an empty cylinder–speeds up reload on empty considerably
LAS-7 Dagger
- Increased damage from 150 to 200
AR-19 Liberator
- Damage increased from 55 to 60
AR-23C Liberator Concussive
- Damage increased from 55 to 65
JAR-5 Dominator
- Damage decreased from 300 to 275
Guard Dog Rover
- Decreased damage by 30%
Guard Dog
- Slight increase in damage
Stratagems A/MG-43 Machinegun Sentry
- Increased health to match other Sentries
A/ARC-3 Tesla Tower
- Increased health by 33%
FAF-14 Spear
- Added reload stage reload after the spent missile had been discarded
RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher
- Airburst Rocket Launcher will no longer detonate when shot near stratagems (HMG turret, Sentries, Resupplies) and other Helldivers.
- Reduced proximity radius
Enemies
- Bile Spewer and Nursing Spewers movespeed slightly reduced
- Hulks: Force required for them to stagger slightly increased
- Hulk Scorcher direct flamethrower damage reduced by 20%
- Devastator fire rate slightly increased (only the standard devastator)
- Gunships sideways movement slightly increased
- Scout strider Riders now less vulnerable to explosions
- Fog Generators health and armor increased
- Gunship spawners now have a much lower cap on how many gunships they can have active at the same time
Enemy Patrols
We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn't spawn as often as they should have when less than four players. The intention is that one player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to four players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th.
- Patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than four players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For four-player missions there will be no change compared to before. The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties
Gameplay
- Made minor level generation improvements to how we distribute locations throughout the mission map. This should improve variation in distance between objectives, and objectives will likely not spawn as far away from each other as often as before.
- Added setting in the options menu gameplay section to disable automatic climbing and vaulting while sprinting.
- The Spread Democracy mission otherwise known as “raise the flag” can now be enjoyed on higher difficulties for maximum freedom spreading.
- When readying up, Helldivers now salute to ensure maximum democratic readiness.
- Added ambience to the Tremor planetary hazard to underline the severity so Helldivers can react accordingly
- Shots that ricochet from heavy armored enemies will now properly hit the Helldiver who fired them. Trigger discipline is highly recommended.
Fixes Crash fixes
- Fixed crash that could occur when host abandoned mission with squad.
- Fixed crash that could occur if a player tried to enter an occupied EXO-45 Patriot Suit.
- Fixed crash that could occur for all players after or during mission results screen.
- Fixed crash that could occur after shooting from the EXO-45 Patriot Suit’s rocket launcher.
- Fixed crash that could occur for all players apart from the one that rejoined the ongoing mission with different armor and got reinforced.
- Fixed Superior Packing Methodology ship module not working properly.
- Fixed Blast Absorption ship module so that it correctly increases sentries’ resistance to explosions.
- Fixed issue where players could not navigate to the search results in the Social Menu.
- Fixed some issues where items equipped in a Warbond were not actually equipped.
- Fixed an exploit that allowed overly eager Helldivers to use grenades excessively.
- Fixed issue where kills from orbital barrage did not progress Indirect Fire Exercise order.
- Fixed issue that allowed traitors to try to sabotage the extraction shuttle by deploying sentry stratagems below it.
- Fixed issue where ion storms incorrectly prevented extraction beacon from deploying.
- Fixed some stratagem beams using incorrect color-coding.
- Fixed issue where the left stick on a controller could not be used to navigate the Social menu.
- Fixed some issues where various UI elements were cut off, off-centered or too close to the edge of the screen on ultrawide displays.
- Fixed Anti-Materiel Rifle facing away from the Helldiver after deploying it.
- Fixed bug where player could duplicate rounds by canceling the reload of Anti-Materiel Rifle at a specific time.
- Fixed bug where Anti-Materiel Rifle would consume an extra magazine after a canceled reload.
- Fixed bug where Recoilless Rifle would consume an extra shell from the backpack if the reload was canceled just after a shell was inserted, but before the reload was completed.
- Fixed issue where the Sickle and Quasar Cannon could not shoot through foliage.
- Fixed several issues where weapon thumbnails would disappear when scrolling through Armory.
- Fixed issues where Automaton Gunships sometimes could not see the player.
- Fixed incorrect collision being left over after destroying Automaton bunkers or detector towers with hellbombs.
- Fixed issue where Hellbombs would not deploy on certain missions
- Fixed certain issues that resulted in Helldivers drowning in deep water upon landing.
- Fixed issue where Hellpod Space Optimization made ammo go above capacity.
- Fixed issue where Stalkers became very visible in fog
- Mines are now pingable for better coordination with your team.
- Receiving friend requests now gives the player a pop up.
- Improved readability of prompts and hints displayed in the tutorial and onboarding.
- Total experience is now visible in the career tab.
- Added better support for ultrawide monitors by fixing the aspect ratio of menus to 16:9 and adding a setting to control the width of the HUD.
- Keybinds bound to numpad will no longer reset upon restart.
- Fixed inconsistent audio when headphones are plugged into the Dual Sense controller while playing on PC.
- Playing Rock, Paper, Scissors in front of the ship no longer causes player to fall out into space.
- APW-1 Anti-Material Rifle and MG-206 Heavy Machine Gun now trigger hitmarkers while scoped in.
- Secondary weapon no longer remains in the Ballistic Shield ADS position after using a stim with the Ballistic Shield Backpack equipped.
- "Open Text Chat" is now rebindable.
- Explosive weapons such as R-36 Eruptor, CB-9 Exploding Crossbow. GP-31 Grenade Pistol no longer pulls players inward from the blast.
- Disabled the squad invites during the tutorial which caused an overlap in the UI.
- Fixed Primary and Secondary weapons overlapping on the character model in the armory.
- Fixed UI elements during first boot are cut off on a 21:9 aspect ratio monitor.
- Report and block player is now visible in the squad menu.
- Dead Scavengers now stop screaming for help if killed while calling in reinforcements.
- Fixed Anti Air cannons showing up as "Stratagem Scramblers" in danger warnings.
Known Issues
Various issues involving friend invites and cross-play
- Friend Request cannot be accepted when the requesting player changed their username before the request was accepted.
- Cross-platform friend invites might not show up in the Friend Requests tab.
- Players cannot unfriend players befriended via friend code.
- Players cannot unblock players that were not in their Friends list beforehand.
- Damage-over-time effects may only apply when dealt by the host. We expect to have this fixed in the next patch.
- Reinforcement may not be available for some players who join a game in progress.
- Helldiver may be unable to stand up from crouching when surrounded by enemies.
- Game may crash if the host leaves while dead and rejoins the same play session.
- Game may crash if the player changes the text language while on a mission.
- Players may experience delays in Medals and Super Credits payouts.
- Enemies that bleed out do not progress Personal Orders and Eradicate missions.
- Scopes on some weapons such as the Anti-Materiel Rifle are slightly misaligned.
- Arc weapons sometimes behave inconsistently and sometimes misfire.
- Spear’s targeting is inconsistent, making it hard to lock-on to larger enemies.
- Stratagem beam might attach itself to an enemy but it will deploy to its original location.
- Explosions do not break your limbs (except for when you fly into a rock).
- Area around Automaton Detector Tower makes blue stratagems such as the Hellbomb bounce and be repelled when trying to call them down close to the tower.
- Planet liberation reaches 100% at the end of every Defend mission.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
