Johan Pilestedt, Hell divers 2‘s creative director and CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios thinks the development team may have “gone too far” with balance updates.
Following the release of the third-person multiplayer shooter in February, Arrowhead has been consistent in rolling out almost weekly patches and frequent content updates, some of which have made significant adjustments to the game.
While consistent balance patches can be a good thing, it seems some players aren’t too happy with the way changes are implemented – often at the expense of ‘fun’ – and the game’s director, Johan Pilestedt, agrees ( through Eurogamer).
One player in particular did that X/Twitter to tell Pilestedt that the game has become “unfun” for them, even after spending hours in the game. They further explained that the balance changes in recent months have made the game “unplayable” and that it is “sad to see balance changes taking priority over fun.”
In his answerthe game director agreed with the player that Arrowhead may have focused too much on balancing in certain aspects.
“Hey, yeah, I think we went too far in some areas,” Pilestedt said. “Will talk to the team about the approach to balance. It feels like every time someone likes something, the fun is gone.”
Elsewhere, another user said they felt like every weapon in the game was disabled at some point to the detriment of the fun, which Pilestedt acknowledged by saying “that’s not a great feeling”.
The Arrowhead CEO also said in the thread that he sees “a bit too much balancing using damage instead of other measures like recoil, reload speeds, accuracy, projectile speeds, and equip speeds” and that “simply adjusting damage numbers is a blunt tool is”.
Hell divers 2 just received another huge one balance update in which a bug was found to burn damage, as well as other adjustments to weapons, strategies and enemies.