Playing multiplayer games on your own is, in some ways, self-defeating. Why on earth are you even trying to do that, when you’re self-flagellating yourself into sub-par performance and progression? Well, if you’re anything like me, that doesn’t matter, and you too play Helldivers 2 solo all day long.
Before moving onto the discussion of whether playing Helldivers 2 on your own is a fool’s errand or not, there’s some context I need to share: yours truly has been doing this well before Helldivers 2 was even on the docket. Heck, I spent a non-insignificant amount of time playing the first Helldivers game solo. Payday 2, too, as well as Destiny 2, Warframe, and a downright ridiculous number of other games that specifically bill themselves on being dedicated co-op experiences.
Why? Good question! There’s something nice, neat, and calm about not having to coordinate with other folks, even if the game doesn’t necessarily lend itself fully to the concept of single-player gaming. Are all of the aforementioned games more fun and engaging with a full squad of players running around the place? Oh, for sure. Does it matter, if you’re – like me – particularly stubborn about it? Surprisingly enough, no!
Playing Helldivers 2 solo isn’t recommended, but it sure is (was) viable
The thing that usually puts a dampener on my quasi-single-player adventures is that most of these games require a persistent online connection to do much of anything. Helldivers 2, for one, doesn’t let you go offline at virtually any point while playing the game, which makes sense given its live-service inclinations. This isn’t a problem in and of itself, necessarily. As shoddy as my Internet connection may be due to poor provider coverage, I don’t usually suffer from in-game disconnects. Usually.
No, the problem instead lies in balancing. Up until Arrowhead’s recent patrol and enemy spawning changes, it was comfortably challenging to go into missions up to difficulty levels 5-6 all on your own and get most stuff done if you’re efficient about it.
The key was in choosing your battles. Though Helldivers 2 doesn’t actually advertise it as such, there is in fact a semblance of a stealth mechanic in the game. You could run around without being harassed all around the clock, in most situations. Avoiding patrols, luring them into favorable engagement conditions, and efficiently dealing with enemies before reinforcements drop in used to be a mini-game all of its own, and a delightfully fun one, at that. This changed with a fix, however.
A few weeks back, as part of update 01.000.300, Arrowhead Games confirmed that Helldivers 2 had an enemy spawn bug present from day one. “Patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than 4 players,” said the patch notes. “The fewer the players the bigger the change. For 4 player missions there will be no change compared to before. The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties.”
A-OK, you’d think. Except, it wasn’t A-OK, to the point where a massive chunk of the community began finding Helldivers 2 extremely challenging even when engaging enemies with a full four-player squad. Don’t believe me? The problems have been so severe that Arrowhead promptly promised to resolve them and reel back the spawn rates roughly to where they were, pre-fix.
As I’m bringing this up in the context of playing the game solo, it should be obvious that Arrowhead Games’ decision to “fix” the spawn rates essentially broke this option for many of us. For sure, it’s still possible to play Helldivers 2 on your own, but it’s become unenjoyable to the point of annoyance.
What used to be a lovely cadence of jumping in and out of firefights is now an ever-escalating crescendo of violence that makes it all but impossible to complete objectives at a satisfying pace. It’s not even about difficulty, necessarily; if you tried to play Helldivers 2 solo before, and allowed the enemies to call for reinforcements before taking them down, you were still punished heavily for failing. The difference, though, is that it used to feel fair. Now you’d be overrun in a matter of minutes, even if you do everything right.
Thankfully, Arrowhead has decided to react and re-tune the game to better accommodate for solo players and two and three-man Helldiver fireteams, but here’s the kicker: they wouldn’t have, had the community not gotten fired up over the issue.
And that is the crux of the issue. When you’re playing a live-service game in anything less than an optimum player setup (i.e. a full fireteam), you’re at a potentially massive disadvantage by default. And even then, the developer can decide to tune you out of the power curve completely. Or, hell, do so completely by accident, as was the case with Helldivers 2.
Is supporting solo players in multiplayer games a problem?
It makes you think, doesn’t it? Obviously, there is a non-insignificant number of people enjoying Helldivers 2 solo. More obviously, we are not the primary target audience. Helldivers 2 was made for, and it’s being balanced with, squads of players in mind. The fact that Arrowhead Games supports solo missions is phenomenal – Destiny 2, for one, does not let you run regular Strikes and whatnot solo – but how far will this support realistically stretch?
Balancing is a serious concern in live service games, always. The fact that some of us want to go around and duke it out with anti-democratic mooks all on our own, guerilla-style, is not and, arguably, should not be the primary consideration in these situations. Yet, it obviously needs to be of some consideration, given how riled up the player base has gotten over the issue.
Now, to be perfectly fair, it’s possible that the real reason people are so angry with Arrowhead over the patrol spawn “fixes” lies elsewhere. Remember: Helldivers 2 has been going through a very rough patch regarding weapon balancing, which meant that people were already primed to be unhappy about… stuff. Making a game this much harder on top of nerfing good weapons was a push too far, and something had to give.
Naturally, the balancing pendulum keeps swinging no matter what, and I’m reasonably sure something along the lines of the problem outlined above will crop up again, sooner or later.
In the interim, with Arrowhead Games’ promise to bring spawn rates roughly back to where they were before the infamous patrol update, I’m poised to get back to playing Helldivers 2 solo as soon as this is delivered. I’m sure I’m not the only one, either. As for whether solo gameplay will stay viable for years to come, though, that much nobody knows. Not even Arrowhead Games, for that matter.
