At last, the sturdy boot of Managed Democracy will be delivered to those who deserve it nearly as much as bugs and bots. The latest patch for Helldivers 2 adds an AFK kick timer to remove AWOL players so that active divers can be allowed to unleash justice.
Following patch 1.000.11, Helldivers 2 will boot lobby-dwellers after 15 minutes of inactivity. There are other fixes with the patch, mind. But the timer is an important addition.
Helldivers 2 gets a much-needed AFK timer to kick AWOL divers
It’s no secret that the game’s community has been clamoring for such an update. Helldivers 2 has been explosively popular, bringing in more than 450,000 players on Steam alone. Some have joked that a small number of those players were likely those who managed to get in the game but refused to leave.
Hopefully, the patch will allow players to jump into the game smoothly rather than having to wait things out. I have a new Stratagem that I need to test on Automatons this weekend.
Granted, it’s probably not a perfect system. Back in my day (I’m old and allowed to say it), players who wanted to stay AFK in a game would use a rubber band on a controller’s thumbstick. It would trick the game into thinking the player was still online, but perhaps hopelessly confused. I agree with those who say players who want to stay should type out a Stratagem cheat code instead.
Other issues addressed, and some things that remain
Here are other issues addressed by the patch (courtesy of Arrowhead):
- Fixed multiple crashes triggered when joining other players’ ships
- Fixed crash triggered when exiting ADS
- Fixed crash triggered when players leave a session while bombardments are active
- Fixed issue where online missions in Galactic War Map were unselectable
- Fixed issue with GameGuard and Steam’s “verify integrity” step
- Fixed issue with GameGuard and the Windows firewall
- Fixed issue preventing access to Ship Management panel
- Fixed issue causing players to get stuck in the defrosting or in the ship intro cinematic
- Fixed crash triggered when the process of buying Super Credits fails
- Fixed crash triggered after consecutive quickplay attempts
- Implemented a functionality that will kick players who remain idle for 15 minutes back to the title screen
There are still some problems that Arrowhead is aware of. Armor values are still messed up, and disconnects continue to occur during matches. Oh, and there’s error code 10003001 on PS5 that I’ve become intimate friends with. Indeed, the road to Democracy is long, but it should be worth the hard fight.
