The latest Helldivers 2 patch features what looks like a massive buff to enemy patrols for teams with less than four players, and Arrowhead Game Studios shared more insight regarding the change.
Initially, the Helldivers 2 patch notes stated “patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than 4 players” and that full teams shouldn’t notice any changes, while the most noticeable change is for solo players. Helldivers didn’t take this buff lightly, as playing the game solo is already challenging. In a Reddit post on April 29, an associate community manager from Arrowhead shared clarification from the design director regarding the change.
The message stated that previous patrol spawns for teams with less than four players were unintentional and that they should’ve been higher from the beginning. “The intention is that 1 player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to 4 players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th,” the post wrote.
The dev added that patrol scaling is now linear, which means solo players now encounter 25 percent of the patrols compared to a four-man team instead of the previous 17 percent. The same goes for duo and trio squads that should have 50 and 75 percent of patrols on their missions, respectively. However, there’s still a cap on patrols, and in dense situations, like the extractions, even solo players shouldn’t notice a difference.
According to the statement, the change is made to “make the world feel less empty for 1 and 2 player lobbies, especially on high difficulty missions which was also slightly too easy for solo players compared to our intentions.”
While the numbers make the situation much clearer, the fact that solo missions are now generally harder remains. More patrols mean you’ll likely encounter more Bot Drops and Bug Breaches, and there’s only so much you can do as a solo player.
