Helldivers 2 patch 1.000.102 tweaks heavy enemy spawns to improve the ‘leg meta’

Arrowhead has released a fresh update for Helldivers 2, with patch 1.000.102 targeting the rate at which heavy enemies are spawned to help reduce the reliance on the ‘leg meta’ for dealing with Terminid Chargers.

Having resolved most of the server, stability and progression issues from around launch, Arrowhead has been able to turn their attentions to the game balance in the last couple weeks. Last week’s main update saw them rebalance the game’s weapons in an effort to reduce the reliance on a single weapon combo that players had latched onto, while making a few key improvements to other weapons in the process. However this came alongside what seemed to be an increase in the number of heavily armoured enemies that were spawning at higher difficulties, especially for Terminids.

In response to community feedback on this and what they’ve seen in the analytics, Arrowhead has made some changes here, in particular to reduce the spawn rate of Chargers and Bile Titans on difficulties 7 and up – though increasing other spawns to compensate. They’ve also noted the “leg meta” where players would target Charger legs, and while they are not getting rid of it, they are making other more obvious weak spots (namely the head) more vulnerable. A well-placed Recoilless Rifle or EAT-17 should kill a Charger instantly.

Here’s the Helldivers 2 update 1.000.102 patch notes:

Balancing

Enemies:

• The amount of heavily armored targets that spawn on higher difficulties, especially for Terminids, have been a big discussion point online and internally. The intent is for groups to have to bring some form of anti-tank capability but not to the degree previously needed. To that end we have reduced the spawn rate of Chargers and Bile Titans on difficulties 7 and up. In addition we have reduced the risk of spawn spikes of Chargers and Bile Titans. Please note that we have changed the distribution of enemy types, not reduced difficulty. Expect other enemy types to appear in greater numbers instead.
• We are humbled by the community’s ability to find things like Chargers “leg meta” in our game, however spending your heavy anti tank weapons on legs instead of the obvious weak point seems counter to expectation. We are not changing anything regarding the Charger’s legs, we are however lowering the health of the Charger’s head. It should now be at a point where a well placed shot from a Recoilless Rifle or EAT-17 instantly kills a charger.
• Together with the unfortunately undocumented change of last patch that increased the armor penetration ability of less well placed shots for EAT-17s and Recoilless Rifle shots, Chargers should now be easier to handle by well equipped groups.

Gameplay

• “Electronic Countermeasures” operation modifier, which had a chance of giving you a random stratagem instead of the one you input, has been removed in order to be reworked, and will be reintroduced in a future iteration.

We found that this modifier wasn’t communicated clearly enough and overall caused more frustration than excitement with the way it was currently implemented. This change was made in 1.000.100 but was unintentionally omitted from the patch notes.

Fixes

• Fixed missing text on several HUD / UI elements.
• Fixed several subtitle / VO mismatches in the news videos.
• Fixed various crashes that occurred mid-gameplay and when deploying to missions.

Known Issues

These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.

• Game crashes when attempting to use a stim while inside an Exosuit.
• Pink artifacts may appear in the sky when setting off large explosions.
• Automaton Dropship seemingly disappears and slides in after being shot down.
• Shots from arc-based weapons may not count towards kills in post-mission stats.
• Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
• Cross-platform friend invites might not show up in the friend requests tab.
• Players may be unable to select loadout or return to ship when joining a multiplayer game session via PS5 Activity Card.
• The Exosuit can destroy itself with rockets if it fires while turning.
• Text chat box display is obstructed by the cinematic letterboxing during extraction.

via Reddit