[STEAM][PRESS]Helldivers 2 Dev to Patch the Eruptor After Community Investigation Reveals Ricochet and Shrapnel Issue

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developer Arrowhead has issued a statement on recent changes to the way ricochet works in the game after members of the community pointed out one ******* in particular was ******** players more than it should.

After this week’s release of

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, which tweaked a long list of weapons, stratagems, and enemies,

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. According to the initial patch notes: “Shots that ricochet from heavy armored enemies will now properly hit the Helldiver who fired them. Trigger discipline is highly recommended.”

Players then reported

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, but there was confusion about what exactly was happening. Clips shared on social media appeared to show players suffering embarrassing deaths at the hands of their own ricocheting projectiles, even from rockets and explosives, but

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investigated the issue and blamed it on the Eruptor.

The Erupter is an explosive ******* that causes shrapnel, and, Zenbast found, it was this shrapnel that was ******** players, not necessarily ricocheting bullets. Zenbast suggested other weapons that have the shrapnel effect might have had a similar issue, but it was the Eruptor that was causing the most chaos.

Now,

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acknowledging the issue with the Eruptor and announcing planned changes to fix it. The developer said it will completely remove the shrapnel effect from the Eruptor but increase its hit damage as a result. “This should make it less lethal to the operator but just as powerful against enemies,” Arrowhead said. “It should maintain its destructive power, and as it is still classed as explosive, it will not lose the ability to break objects, close holes, ******** fabricators, etc. This will, overall, be a buff to the ******* as shrapnel played an almost negligible part in the damage and power it dealt. Its AOE will be unaffected.”

Arrowhead ended its statement by thanking the Helldivers community for working out what was happening. Here’s the statement in full:

The teams have been hard at work testing a number of community issues today, mainly focused on the changes to ricochets and shrapnel. In response to a previous front page post we looked into the possibility of rockets and other explosives being affected by ricochets. This has since been debunked by the community, but nonetheless, our Ministry of Defense team also ran a number of tests today and confirmed that rockets and explosives are not ricocheting backwards. However, we have noticed another issue through these posts and community feedback that has identified the possibility for shots from the R-36 Eruptor to explode and rebound shrapnel at the shooter, which has a high enough damage value to instantly ***** the player. To prevent this, we're looking to completely remove the shrapnel effect from the Eruptor but will be increasing its hit damage as a result. This should make it less lethal to the operator but just as powerful against enemies. It should maintain its destructive power, and as it is still classed as explosive, it will not lose the ability to break objects, close holes, ******** fabricators, etc. This will, overall, be a buff to the ******* as shrapnel played an almost negligible part in the damage and power it dealt. Its AOE will be unaffected. Currently, with the systems in place, only small arms should be able to ricochet on armor. If you see an explosive VFX at the point of impact, the projectile is not causing a ricochet, as ********** effects are not triggered when a ricochet occurs. Shrapnel, however, can still explode outwards from the point of impact and ***** the player. We apologize for this misunderstanding and thank you all for investigating these new changes so diligently, and for passing on your feedback to us. Hopefully this makes sense and these changes should help everyone survive better! If you’re looking for more on Helldivers 2, check out IGN’s feature on

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, a player who has answered over 100 **** Beacons as part of a mission to help others.

Helldivers 2 has become one of the surprise hits of 2024 since launching in February,

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and

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. According to at least one analyst,

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. Check out

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to find out why it's going down so well.

Wesley is the *** News Editor for IGN. Find him on

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at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld.

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