As Helldivers 2 players struggle with a brutal Major Order, dev says GM Joel secretly helps them out: "Short of handing you the win, there isn't a lot more we can do"

Helldivers 2 Game Master Joel is on the right side of history, folks.

For those pitifully sitting on the sidelines in the war for democracy, there's a new Helldivers 2 Major Order tasking soldiers with defending 10 planets against both Terminids and Automatons, and well, I'm gonna level with you folks, it's not looking great. Although Arrowhead has said Major Order progress might not be tracking accurately right now, the current assignment has been an uphill battle from the start.

That has prompted some players to express their frustration with the developers themselves, which has in-turn elicited a rather sharp rebuttal from community manager Spitz on Discord. Specifically countering the argument that the developers are to blame for the lack of coordination necessary to succeed, Spitz revealed that Game Master Joel has actually quietly been aiding players in the battle for democracy, specifically by lowering the decay rate.

"Frankly, you can't continue to blame the developers when the community came up with a plan, asked me if it'd work, I got direct confirmation from the GM that it would work, told you all that it'd work and encouraged you to do it, the GM tweaked the decay rate to make it even easier, and there still wasn't enough of a player effort to make it happen. Short of handing you the win, there isn't a lot more we can do."

For the uninitiated, there's a certain strategy to Major Orders that makes specific planets a higher priority than others, but there's a massive base of casual players that either doesn't care or isn't aware. And in the words of The Washington Post, democracy dies in darkness. And while Arrowhead is working on making this information more accessible, ultimately, Spitz says the fate of democracy is in the players' hands.

"Supply lines and more information on the map is already being worked on," they said. "Even if we dedicated resources and time to adding some method of in-game voting on which planets should be the priority, that does absolutely nothing to stop casual players from ignoring the vote and just continuing to play where they want to play. People who want to engage in strategy and planning are generally already in the discord or reddit because they've sought out like-minded players."

Essentially, Spitz is saying it's a collective skill issue. The cards are only stacked against players in the same sense as any collaborative effort that isn't completely unified in strategy. In this case, Arrowhead even went as far as to lend a hand behind the scenes, but it just might not have been enough.

"It sucks that it's probably not going to work out, but that's how it happens sometimes," Spitz said. "You weren't set up to fail, quite the opposite, you were given more of a chance to succeed."

Now's not a bad time to share these Helldivers 2 tips.