Balance can be a fickle thing in a game like Helldivers 2, with so many variables to any given session or loadout. In a recent stream, two devs addressed nerfing the AR-2 Coyote, a somewhat controversial incendiary weapon, confirming changes were made to stop it from being too reliable.
An assault rifle with added fire damage, it emerged through watching players that the flames were tuned a little too highly. One bullet could kill an enemy, because it would just burn afterward, and according to Niklas Malmborg, design director at Arrowhead Studios on Helldivers 2, this necessitated a rethink, though he was reluctant to get into it.
"I'm not sure if I should go into this. The Coyote [put enemies on fire] by one bullet, or sometimes two," he said. "We wanted to touch as little as possible with that weapon, without it being the Breaker Incendiary, but better."
The team wanted to stop the gun from being a "firing click, and then [the target] dies" weapon. "So it was like, 'Well what if it takes two bullets?'" Malmborg adds. "I guess it removes a certain playstyle that was nice, but we tried to keep it as intact as we possibly could."
He acknowledges some players were unhappy, with accusations of a "shadownerf" getting thrown around. "I think it plays good," he finishes.
Felix Fritzell, art director on Helldivers, then jumps in. "We don't want any one weapon to be, 'This is obviously the best weapon in the game,'" he states. "At the same time, a weapon shouldn't be nerfed down so it feels unrealistic as to what the main fantasy of it is. It should be, it does what it's supposed to and fits in the game, and if it doesn't it probably doesn’t have a room in the game."
I actually noticed a change in the Coyote myself, as it was among my go-to weapons due to how easy it made taking out waves of bugs. Other incendiary weapons got weaker as a byproduct, as the fire effect wasn't as strong overall.
The alteration forced me to consider the rest of my arsenal more, the kind of experimentation that'll keep Helldivers 2 thriving. It won't be the last debuff Arrowhead has to rollout, but whatever comes next probably won’t be any less controversial.
