A few weeks after discussing its plans for sweeping changes to how Helldivers 2’s Galactic War works, Arrowhead Game Studios has now released an update that brings in these changes. Headlining the patch is the new Galactic Campaigns system, along with the introduction of a new Control Center terminal, a new Forest (Fall) biome, and rebalances to enemies, vehicles, and Stratagems.
Described as the “next evolution of Major Orders”, Galactic Campaigns are between 1 and 3 weeks in length, and have been designed to give players a clearer idea of the ongoing narrative, their progression through the narrative, and what the stakes are for current and future conflicts. The system has also been designed with the idea of providing players more chances to earn rewards, with one reward always being available as long as conditions are met.
“We want to make these rewards special, because we also think players should earn more than just medals,” explained game director Mikael Eriksson.
More details about the ongoing Galactic Campaign will be available through a previously-unused terminal opposite the armory, now known as the Control Center terminal. Along with this, the terminal also includes an archive that will get filled up as the first Galactic Campaign comes to an end, giving returning players a chance to check out which major story beats they may have missed.
On the balancing front, vehicles in Helldivers 2 now have more accurate armor values. For example, while exosuits have a mix of heavy and medium armor, the Bastion gets heavy armor throughout. Enemies have also been given ways to deal with this, thanks to increased armor penetration values. Arrowhead Game Studios has said that the intent behind these changes was to make the Bastion tank feel tankier and be able to ignore small attacks, while maintaining the threat that players might feel when facing a tougher enemy. For more details on the upgrade, check out the full patch notes below.
Helldivers 2 is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Helldivers 2 update 6.3.0 patch notes:
Patch Highlights
- New Galactic Campaigns
- New “Control Center” terminal for Campaigns & Major Orders
- New Biome – Forest (Fall)
- Bastion Tank Patterns
- Vehicle Armour and Enemies Armour Penetration (AP) Rebalance
- Sentry Health Rebalance
- Enemy Rebalances
- Including Durable Damage Reductions
- Reloading Improvements
- Decreased Exo Suit Cooldown
- Weapon Rebalances
- Throwable Amount Rebalance
- Stratagem Rebalances
- Orbital Damage Rebalance
- Speargun and Sterilizer Rebalance
- Bug Fixes
- Crash Fixes
- Weapon & Stratagem Fixes
- Enemies
- Miscellaneous
Balancing
General balance changes
- Vehicle armor and enemies AP rebalance
- Super Earth vehicles now have more accurate Armor values (Bastion gets heavy armor, exosuits a mix of heavy and medium armor, ballistic shield heavy armor).
- Some enemies have received increased armor penetration values so they can deal with the vehicles, but not all. There will be a lot of smaller enemies and explosions that won’t be able to hurt something like the Bastion or the Exo Suits (scavengers, Automatons small arms fire, hunters, small to medium obstacle explosions, cyborg small arms etc).
- But there are still a lot in the enemies arsenal that can hurt you (and also important is that a lot of YOUR arsenal now has a harder time hurting your own vehicles).
- Some enemies have had their durable damage reduced
- There are too many changes to properly list, so we ask you to play and tell us how it feels. The intent is the following
- The Bastion tank should feel “tankier” and ignore small attacks, withstand more medium attacks and its survivability against heavy attacks should be unchanged
- The Exo Suits have a similar change as the Bastion tank in terms of ignoring more small attacks and withstanding medium attacks better. The increase in health should overall make it feel a bit more tanky even against heavy attacks.
- The FRV has received an increase in health that will make it handle medium attacks similar to before, but be able to withstand heavy attacks better granting better survivability.
- The Ballistic Shield should feel like it can ignore small attacks and handle medium attacks better.
Sentry health rebalance
- Increased the health of all sentries by 100% to compensate for the general damage increase of enemies vs vehicles.
- We have previously increased durable damage on a lot of enemies and since sentries are durable they have lost some of their utility. We didn’t want them to become squishier, this change should improve their versatility on the battlefield.
Reloading improvements
- Improvements to make reloading more responsive, part of this is allowing reloading while dodge diving, also remembering the reload state better so if you’re ragdolled while reloading you will continue it when regaining control.
- Introduced the concept of delayed reloads. If you try to trigger a reload while the player is not allowed to do so, the reload will be delayed until the player is able to reload with a maximum of 1.2s delay from when the reload input was pressed.
Bastion Pattern Customization
- If you own the vehicle patterns from a Premium Warbond, they can now also be applied to the Bastion Tank! It does not apply to Legendary Warbonds retroactively at this time.
Decreased Exo Suit cooldown
- Reduce the cooldown of mechs from 10 minutes down to 8. The intent is to find a better balance with mechs and allow more time with fun stratagems
Throwables amounts rebalance
- Intent is to make some of the less used throwables more available and viable options
Orbitals damage rebalance
- Intent is to make the larger orbitals feel more like the large projectiles from orbit as they are so the projectile and explosion damage should better match that.
- Larger projectiles explosions like the 380mm and 120mm are increased to make close hits more effective vs larger enemies like Chargers.
- Compared to explosions like the Ultimatum these will have less damage at the center, but also less damage fall off so it will have a more consistent damage over its total area.
- The Railcannon also got more damage to be more effective vs some of the largest enemies like the Vox engines. It will still not one shot the largest enemies like Factory strider, Hive lord and similar.
Primary weapons
- M7S SMG
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- Moved scope offset closer to the scope so it will be easier to use in ADS mode.
Throwables
- G-48 Giga Grenade
- Increased refill from 1 to 2
- TED-63 Dynamite
- Increased max amount from 3 to 4
- G-50 Seeker
- Increased Start amount from 3 to 4
- Increased refill from 2 to 3
- Increased max amount from 4 to 5
- G-12 High Explosive
- Increased Start amount from 3 to 4
- Increased refill from 2 to 3
- Increased max amount from 4 to 5
- G-16 Impact
- Increased Start amount from 3 to 4
- Increased refill from 2 to 3
- Increased max amount from 4 to 5
- G-7 Pineapple
- Increased start amount from 3 to 4
- Increased refill from 2 to 3
- Increased max amount from 4 to 5
- G-23 Stun
- Increased start amount from 3 to 4
- Increased refill from 2 to 3
- Increased max amount from 4 to 5
- G-109 Urchin
- Increased start amount from 2 to 4
- Increased refill from 2 to 3
- Increased max amount from 4 to 5
- G-10 Incendiary
- Increased start amount from 3 to 4
- Increased refill from 2 to 3
- Increased max amount from 4 to 5
- G-13 Incendiary Impact
- Increased start amount from 3 to 4
- Increased refill from 2 to 3
- Increased max amount from 4 to 5
Stratagems
- Eagle 110mm Rocket Pods
- Intent: Make it better at one shotting smaller heavies like Chargers, Hulks, Harvesters (without shields). It can also kill some larger enemies like Tanks well. It is still not a 100% guaranteed kill, but it will be more reliable.
- Increased explosion damage 200 to 300
- Increased explosion durable damage 200 to 300
- Increased explosion armor penetration Medium to Heavy
- Rockets are fired in a closer pattern to each other to make it easier to hit smaller targets.
- Lower force impulse on explosion from 40 to 10 (This is to make enemies not fly away to much when they die, because we increased the armor penetration of the explosion)
- Orbital Precision Strike
- Increased projectile damage 3500 to 4000
- Increased projectile durable damage 3500 to 4000
- Increased explosion damage 1000 to 1500
- Increased explosion durable damage 1000 to 1500
- Orbital 380mm HE Barrage
- Increased projectile damage 3500 to 4000
- Increased projectile durable damage 3500 to 4000
- Increased explosion damage 1000 to 1500
- Increased explosion durable damage 1000 to 1500
- Orbital Walking Barrage
- Increased projectile damage 3500 to 4000
- Increased projectile durable damage 3500 to 4000
- Increased explosion damage 1000 to 1500
- Increased explosion durable damage 1000 to 1500
- SEAF Artillery Explosive/High Yield Explosive
- Increased projectile damage 3500 to 4000
- Increased projectile durable damage 3500 to 4000
- Increased explosion damage 1000 to 1500
- Increased explosion durable damage 1000 to 1500
- Orbital 120mm HE Barrage
- Increased projectile damage 2500 to 3500
- Increased projectile damage 2500 to 3500
- Increased explosion damage 750 to 1200
- Increased explosion damage 750 to 1200
- Orbital Railcannon Strike
- Increased projectile damage 7500 to 10 000
- Increased projectile durable damage 7500 to 10 000
- S-11 Speargun
- The projectile was negated by the Gas resistance armor which did not make much sense. The explosion of the projectile is still gas elemental.
- Change the projectile damage type from gas to none
- TX-41 Sterilizer
- Increased ammo capacity from 100 to 125
- Increased starting amount of magazines from 2 to 3
- Will be affected less by wind by 60%
- All Exosuits
- Increased health from 1600 to 1800
- Increased health of arms from 600 to 800
- Increased health of legs from 400 to 550
- Cooldown reduced from 10 minutes down to 8 minutes
- M-102 Fast Recon Vehicle
- Increased health from 2000 to 2400
- Increased health of doors by 50%
- Increased health of tires from 300 to 350
Enemies
Terminids
- Charger
- Adjusted the chargers turning arc to make them easier to avoid
- Increase their recovery time after the charge to create a window of opportunity (+1 second). The charger basically keeps running and struggle to stop if it misses its target
- To compensate for this, charge speed has been slightly increased (8->9m/s)
- Alpha commander
- Removed cowardly behavior, it will now be more aggressive.
- Hunters
- Reduced durable damage of normal attack from 50 to 40
- Reduced durable damage of tongue attack from 45 to 30
- Reduced durable damage of pounce attack from 50 to 35
- Warriors and spewers
- Reduced durable damage of normal attack from 80 to 65
- Stalkers
- Reduced durable damage of tongue attack from 50 to 35
Automatons
- Vox Engine
- Reduced health from 11 000 down to 9000
- Reduced max turn angle of its upper body so it cannot turn as far as it could previously (from 180 degrees down to 140)
- Amount of vox engines allowed to be active at the same time limited to 3
- Reduced health of their cannon turrets from 8000 down to 3500
- Reduced the armor of their cannon turrets from 5 to 4
- Reduced durable on cannon turrets from 1 to 0.7
- Increased damage of cannon turrets explosion to significantly hurt the vox engine when it dies
Illuminate
- Elevated Overseer
- Added one attack pattern (short attack burst followed by a longer one)
- Reduced the current attack duration
- Reduced accuracy on moving targets
Fixes
Special Shoutout
- Stimming is no longer interrupted by stagger
Crash Fixes
- Fixed a rare crash that would happen when a player joined a game
- Fixed a rare crash which would occur when causing an excessive amount of explosions in a single frame
Weapons & Stratagem Fixes
- Fixed a bug where several weapon customizations weren’t properly saved when the option was ticked in the player settings
- B/FLAM-80 Cremator no longer shows the ‘Heavy Armour Penetrating’ stratagem trait, following similar incendiary weaponry
- A/FLAM-40 Flame Sentry and EXO-51 Lumberer Exosuits flamethrower can now damage targets within 3 meters of the sentry
- P-33 Missile Pistol weapon now shows the right trait tags in the menu
- The R-2 Amendment reload now continues correctly if interrupted – if reload is interrupted early, it will not lose magazines
- The secondary weapon’s chosen customization correctly persists after death if the menu option is selected
- Orbital Gatling Barrage will play the correct audio
- The StA-X3 W.A.S.P. Launcher can target illegal broadcast transmitter towers
- Part of the Bastion Tank’s barrel can be damaged with a light penetration weapon
- Phalanx divers rejoice! Laser beams, explosion damage, electrical arcs and melee attacks no longer collide with the directional shields of your team-mates when hit from behind.
- SG-97 Sweeper should now reliably eject shells when slamfiring
- The WASP launcher can target the Illegal Broadcast transmitter tower
Enemies
- Fixed physics to allow more representative shooting on the Dragonroach abdomen
- Veracitor will not trigger its charge within a narrow path, reducing instances where they’ll clip though destructible obstacles
Miscellaneous Fixes
- A hidden broadcast terminal was relocated to its correct spot so that the Helldivers can once again access it
- Players are no longer removed from terminals when switching between controller and Keyboard and Mouse
- D-pad/arrow keys navigation can come up and down when viewing teammates’ equipment loadout
- Traversing through foliage such as bushes will no longer interrupt sprinting, which should result in less momentum loss
- Fixed several issues with some mission assets animation being out of sync for joining players
- Fixed issue where the map marker for “Retrieve Mutant Larva” objective always displayed in a radius
- Hints have better placements for the reinforcement Hellpods in commando missions
- SEAF SAM site missiles now have better software to detect and detonate near enemy air units
- Fixed a bug where certain Automaton mines turned invisible when a nearby mine exploded
- Fixed a case where the Helldiver head twitched when leaving the Hellpod
- M-102 Fast Recon Vehicle no longer plays audio for doors if they have been removed from the vehicle
- Parts of the TD-220 Bastion MK XVI barrel base can no longer be damaged with a light penetration weapon
- Fix issues with certain physics collisions having no audio
- Fixed Automaton mines getting under ground after a nearby mine explodes
- Fixed an issue where an Eradicate Automaton Forces level could generate underwater
- Fixed a traversal issue where enemies could not reach the player in one of the levels in the E-710 Extraction mission
- Fixed a traversal issue where enemies could not reach the player in one of the levels in the Annex Untapped Mineral Site mission
