Helldivers 2 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 weapon in particular was killing players more than it should.
After this week’s release of patch 01.000.300, which tweaked a long list of weapons, stratagems, and enemies, a debate emerged about the state of ricochet. 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 getting killed more often by shots that ricochet, 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 redditor Zenbast investigated the issue and blamed it on the Eruptor.
The Erupter is an explosive weapon that causes shrapnel, and, Zenbast found, it was this shrapnel that was killing 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, Arrowhead has issued a follow-up 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, destroy fabricators, etc. This will, overall, be a buff to the weapon 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 kill 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, destroy fabricators, etc. This will, overall, be a buff to the weapon 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 explosion effects are not triggered when a ricochet occurs. Shrapnel, however, can still explode outwards from the point of impact and kill 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 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.
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.
