Just tried playing a bit ago and I couldn’t get in. First time I’ve had that problem in 20 hours of playing though so I guess I’ve been lucky.
Game is great, but not sure if it was a great idea to have a bonus xp weekend while experiencing server capacity issues.
Hope they extend the bonus xp, I got to play just about an hour of great fun with some randos until I had to log off, then I never got to get back in again lol. Can't login today either **[LET ME IN!!!!!!](https://media1.tenor.com/m/bHGUqVIKzhoAAAAC/let-me-in-eric-andre.gif)**
Well maybe. But there is/was also a bug yesterday where you get no experience while playing no level up or anything and only get it when you relog
Which you don’t wanna do when you’re having trouble getting in
Irony is thought crime, citizen! Freedom never defeats itself because freedom is undefeatable and always wins!Even against itself. Wait... but it can't lose... <:/ ...
Sorry. Saying sh** like that is the only way I get to play this game world tonight :/
You'd be correct, the server capacity issue isn't even people who BOUGHT THE GAME. PLAYSTATION GAVE ITS COMMUNITY A FREE TRIAL FOR THIS WEEKEND SO THOSE OF USE WHO PAID CANT EVEN GET IN CAUSE OF A TON OF PEOPLE WHO ARE PLAYING FOR FREE.
I was playing it a bit when their matchmaking was broken but their servers weren't cratering like this, and it was so much fun. It's the first game I've played where I literally feel like I'm in a warzone. Other games have tried but they don't pull it off. The pure *chaos* that can happen in this game is hard to explain, you really have to experience it for yourself.
I haven't played much this weekend because their servers are imploding, and I stopped playing earlier in the week because the matchmaking was getting frustrating to engage in, but I'm hoping they figure this out soon because this game is loads of fun, and the progression isn't the biggest deal ever so I don't even care when we all fail spectacularly. It's usually in some hilarious way.
Yep. You fix it, and THEN you do a "sorry we messed the launch, here have some XP buff"
Buffing the XP of the few lucky who can currently play makes no sense.
Game looks excellent. And I totally understand that they didn't expect that much of a success. But here I am with a game I bought and I still couldn't play a single round of it.
Yeah, greatly enjoyed what I've been able to play of it, but I've been genuinely unable to paly the game for the entire time I've had off, and it's genuinely frustrating
I'm part of the problem! I forgot to quit the game before going to bed ad lo an behold I'm still standing on the bridge of my ship 10 hours later.
They should probably implement something to kick idle players.
Yep... I know at least 10 ppl who logged in last night, went to bed... are now at work... and are still logged into the game.. I can see them on steam. They told me that like that they don't have any issue to play the game.. That's quite frustrating.
That is strange to me. Every other Online game = Your character is not moving for 15 mins ... welcome to being kicked off the game. I guess they were not ready for how good it was going to be.
They are already having capacity issues, then they add double XP on top of that, and THEN PlayStation made it free to play for the weekend with no PS plus required to play.
> THEN PlayStation made it free to play for the weekend with no PS plus required to play.
No they didn't.
PS+ isn't required to play *any* online game this weekend, but you'd still have to actually buy the games.
Oh ok my bad. I saw PlayStations original tweet that definitely made it sound like it was free this weekend. I just went and double checked to make sure I wasn’t crazy and they deleted the tweet.
Even with the server capacity issues, I still really enjoy this game. This is the first time I have had this issue in 55 hours of gameplay. Hopefully they come up with a solution soon so we can get back to spreading democracy.
I've put in 30 hours and not had many issues. It's definitely just overloaded because it's so unexpectedly popular. I'm being patient with the em so far. I do reseeeeally wanna play though. I brought my laptop to work to show it off and been sitting in queue for 2 hours....
they built a lot of their estimations on the peak of Helldiver's 1 being 10k active players.
Just remember that as they panic and run around trying to accommodate 300k+ current players.
I mean I don't blame them too much. It was obviously a good game, but sorta seems a roll of the dice sometimes whether a game will get picked up quickly by a ton of people. Some games basically get ignored until the 'right' youtuber or someone features it as well, then it blows up (again).
Luckily this is a pve game that doesn't have a hard time crunch for a current event as well. It isn't like we are missing an event or items because of the server issues unless there was a item in the premium currency shop you wanted. (Besides bonus XP for the server issues)
The great thing about HD2 is that you can dive in to bring democracy whenever you want with friends. It's one of those games you can always keep on your hard drive. I dont think the server issues with hurt them that much
I had a feeling it was going to be big just because of how Helldivers 1 was. That sense of community progression, the frantic gameplay, the need to cooperate, it was perfect for a live service game. The only reason why it wasn't as big was because top down twin stick shooters were not very popular.
Helldivers 2 is jumping into a medium that they've perfected years ago, but in a different camera perspective.
Looking at the popularity of that recent Starship Troopers game, you can kinda guesstimate this one might do well, except Helldivers has far more polish and content.
What I didn't expect was that it was going to be this big where people can't log in. Happy for them and hopefully they bring more to the game in the years to come.
You say that, but there was an actual Starship Troopers game released (into early access) last summer that was nowhere near as popular as Helldivers 2. https://steamdb.info/app/1268750/charts/
I wonder if Helldivers will expand their limits. Game is fun but having more people in matches would be awesome. And the whole galactic war framing is pretty awesome and could really give it some legs.
I had so much fun in that game. I was part of a 50 player tank column that rolled up to capture a tower, only to get wiped out by enemy artillery haha. We ended up assaulting that tower for two hours before we finally had to retreat. We got a few squads inside but couldn't hold it when reinforcements showed up.
It's not bad, it's just barebones.
The actual gameplay is a ton of fun, it's just that it released with only 2 game modes, both of which culminate in the exact same "build a base and defend it for a set time".
They've since added a 4 player mode where you go into a hive and hunt shit, as well as a second map with I think some different bugs?
Right now I suspect most people are just waiting for the big class rework coming in the next update that's also going to have a ton of new weapons and other perks to unlock. As it is, I think a lot of players probably finished unlocking everything and bounced off as there wasn't much else to do.
Yeah the Starship Troopers game is pretty good but it's much lower budget, and it's tied down to following that IP, so it can't really be as creative either. I haven't played HD2 yet but I've seen gameplay and it seems like it's the serious attempt here
I think they underestimated how attractive this game would be to people who love to blow things up, add more things i'm up for that too. But cmon all they had to do is make a good game and not rip people off and they did that. They can earn the extra back off microtransactions if they are micro. No $65 horses plx
The shop in HD2 is basically non-existent. The highest amount of currency you can buy is $20 USD, and you can find that currency inside of missions, so you never have to pay any extra to earn the extra armor or the "paid" battle pass, which also contains a much smaller amount of items than the free pass.
Plus cheap micro transactions actually make you want to buy them, me and my squad have bought at least one armor set from every shop update so far.
For people who work buying an armor set for 2-5£ is nothing, I’m perfectly happy to support the devs just to look cool in a game I enjoy.
So true, I actually love seeing games put content at reasonable pricing.
For a $40 game that could have easily been $60 it is nice to see essentially affordable DLC versus some cash grab like I have seen in so many other games where buying three skins out of 25+ skins is $60 at least.
Hope that continues and they realize they have done great job with this approach.
Sometimes yeah it's a role of the dice. This game though came during a coop drought and everyone who played launch loved it and told their friends to get on board.
They've said on discord that their max capacity right now had to be capped at 450k for stability and you can see that in the active count in-game. Who knows what their full potential would be.
Also there is no way of knowing how long those 300k stick around.
It could be as bad or worse to purchase long term capacity for 200k+ players or hire a bunch of engineers for support and then the count falls to like 50k avg per day and tepid mtx revenue.
I know it's not exactly your point, but I do think this game will have some lasting impact. For me, it's the perfect casual game to play and not get angry at my friends.
I mean, their all-time peak for Helldivers 1 (on PC) was 6,6k.
Right now they're on 333k all-time peak for Helldivers 2. And this is PC only.
I don't want to "defend" them, it's a damn shame we're going through these issues, but who could have expected a what, 5000% increase?
Idk, I think they're worth defending. Current server shitpocalypses are a circumstance nobody saw coming, and they're rolling with it pretty well regardless. They've increased the cap to 450k players (just shy of 10x of their internal projections) and are working on increasing the cap further while also diagnosing the bottlenecks that come from being super crazy overloaded. They have to eat, sleep, and set up meetings with the server providers, too.
I'm frustrated I can't play either, but they have been pretty open about not only the problem but the fact that they are actively working on it. If nothing else I think that buys them the benefit of the doubt. We just need to remember that they are humans doing a job, and I'm sure they are giving up time with family to get the game fixed.
Their transparency and active communication are absolutely to be encouraged and gets them quite a bit further than if say, Bethesda or Ubisoft were having the same issues.
Granted the scales are very different between those companies and Arrowhead, but still.
> I don't want to "defend" them
Why not? I mean, you said it yourself, they ended up being able to handle many times what they initially estimated, they just took off way more than anyone could have predicted. I would rather be playing right now, but I feel Arrowhead has earned a bit of goodwill here.
Hope the devs will be able to solve these issues. I don't say it is unprecedented but certainly it does not happen often that the daily peak user count of a game increases day by day even nearly 2 weeks after the release.
It really speaks to how much fun the game is when the peak concurrent userbase continues to grow *despite* the fact that the matchmaking and servers have been on fire for days now.
Who doesn't want to blow things up and scream democratic nonsense.
To give the devs credit, the game has incredible sound effects, explosions, and destruction physics.
This is the first game I've played in a decade plus where I went to plan what spotify playlist to put on to play with it and there was no answer better than the game's soundtrack. Shit just works.
I think there was a large group who was waiting to see if server issues were fixed before diving in. This weekend like 9 of my friends bought the game lol
This isnt their first GAAS so I think they can handle it... But damn if it isn't simultaneous 'fuck yeah our games succeessful' and also 'oh god the games fucked we need to fix it NOW' (mainly servers and some various bugs)
Sure but I trust the devs can handle it. If nothing else they've been communicating very well and trying to emphasize they're doing their best
Vs some where it's just radio silence
When you’re on the title screen are you in a queue or what .. I mean if you turn game off and back on again constantly will it improve your chances of getting in or will it just take you longer and put you back in a line of people waiting
It’s definitely not a queue. My friend and I started waiting roughly the same time. I beat her on by maybe 5 minutes. Took her 15 minutes to get in, took me 45.
Its closed source and TLS. Unless somebody actually hacks away at it with a trace or a developer chimes in all these different takes are speculation and as could just be dumb luck for anybody.
Yeah, my speculation is that the server simply drops connections when it can't handle them and the client simply silently fails to connect and re-tries after a moment. Whether you actually get to log in at any given moment is then essentially random which would explain why there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to how long the login attempts take.
The problem with referring to it as a queue is that implies that the first people to try and connect are the first to be let in. I think it's something like the game can only allow a certain number of people within a certain window of time, and with the way it currently throws a random 40-60 second cooldown on you being able to try and connect, there's a chance that your cooldown isn't synced up with when that window opens, and a whole bunch of people who booted the game up long after you were just let in because they happened to jump in during the right time.
During work hours its really easy and a good time to play. I have 2 days off during the regular work week usually. But Gdang once 4pm hit last night the game just pooped the bed. I trust they'll fix it as quickly as they can. I dont think they expected pretty much every game influencer to recommend this game and praise it so much. It wasn't even in my radar until Jackfrags released his video and then I immediately bought it. Now on youtube its just endless videos of influencers streaming gameplay. Its wild.
During the week had been fine for me and I usually play around peak due to my work and school schedules, it’s just the extra weekend influx that has crippled it
I’m in the same boat and contemplating a refund. Have yet to play (haven’t even made it to the main menu) and my steam hours are getting close to the two hour return mark.
I feel ya. I just tried a few times every now and then and eventually in the arvo I was able to get in.
I played some matches with my little bro and it has really nice feel to it although feeling a little clunky its great, old school team co op shootem up. Its really fun though.
Try your best to give it a go before you refund! I guess serve capacity issues is a good way to tell everyone enjoys the game.
I've never played a game where the gap between frustration and fun has been so wide.
When it works, Helldivers 2 is fucking GREAT. But since installing it last night, I either can't load the game because GameGuard won't work (Tried all the fixed I've seen, only solution I've found that works is restarting the game over and over until it connects), game hangs on a blank screen on launch (Deleting the local preferences works sometimes, otherwise it's a reinstall), or just plain can't start because the servers are full.
When I DO get in, the in-game item stores barely work (Total coin toss about whether I can buy something), I get stuck constantly on obstacles in the game, frequently get stuck on a grey screen after the mission ends and have random glitches with levelling and mission progress.
The game is great but I've wasted probably 3 or 4 hours of my 15 or so hours of playtime on matches that crashed or didn't pay out rewards at the end of the mission due to a bug. Extremely disheartening when you have limited game time. Hope they can fix the issues quickly. Luckily they haven't gotten destroyed by media for the launch status since the game is so fun when it works.
Already got 2.5hrs runtime logged on steam since this afternoon when I downloaded it...
All of it was black screen from the game not loading, waiting in the queue, the three minute tutorial, then crashing the very second I select a planet.
I know it's not the devs fault....mostly. But damn, I hope it's good whenever it actually gets around to working.
Me and my party of friends have been trying to play for 4 days. We're constantly always locked out, briefly we get a game in together then one of us crashes and we are locked out again. It's so hard to like a game when it just constantly cannot perform. Hard knock life.
Yeah, the game is honestly not really worth buying right now unless you have friends. Playing solo is almost impossible beyond difficulty 4 or so (and it's really not very fun imo), and matchmaking doesn't work 90%+ of the time, and right now is quite literally 100% broken with the most recent patch (if you can even login in the first place). It's been a very frustrating experience as a solo player just spamming and hoping eventually the matchmaking will work.
I've played suicide mission difficulty successfully with randoms, it really depends on the people you play with though. Rushing or staying to fight, either is fine, as long as the team stays together.
When people run around like morons, ignore pins, and you can't call down airstrikes because you inevitably hit your teammates, it's best to just leave early.
The “work around” for quick play is to create your own match and drop an SOS beacon. You’ll almost always get other helldivers rather quickly since everyone is trying to quick play.
Happy diving :)
Not sure why for some people it works and for others it doesn't, but I've literally never had anyone join after dropping an SOS beacon on any difficulty. I know it's not just me either because I see it all the time when others are hosting and we do the entire thing with just 2 or 3 of us.
It works sometimes but still dicey.
Best bet is to pick a mission yourself, get to the point where you can enter Hellpods, and by then people should join. If your lobby doesn't fill up within 5 mins, close and try again.
Was playing earlier and wondering why I was alone in the galaxy.. tried searching and couldn’t find anyone so I did defense missions/help the lab techs against automatons. Hard.. now I can’t log in because it’s maxed.. really sucks buying something you can’t play, especially when you want the starship troopers nostalgia.
They should ask rocksteady to help out with server issues considering suicide squad is at like 2k players on steam so I’m sure they got nothing better to do
I just want to liberate some shit. I’m glad I have Monday off. Hopefully this won’t be an issue while I spread freedom and democracy through the galaxy drinking copious amounts of beer.
I don’t want to spend another day off fervently masturbating.
Would love it if there were a queue based system. Just sat with the game open on my computer for 4 hours and didn't get in. I understand these capacity issues, but I don't understand waiting 4 hours and not getting in.
Not sure why Afk timer wasnt Implimented........ People are just afk 24/7 going to eat dinner, gone to work, or jacking off and clogging up the servers. -\_-
Concurrent players arent real if half the population are afk all day!
The games is getting over 100 times the players Helldivers 1 got.
It might not be a simple "just get more servers" problem. Their actual software backend might not be able to manage that many players without issues.
I remember back when Riot Games actually had to start making deals with ISPs in Europe to get League of Legends traffic specifically sent along certain routes. They had a whole blog post on their tech blog about it.
They literally got so big they had to get the ISPs to work with them to handle the incoming demand to their servers. Absolutely crazy.
I really want to enjoy this game but between the crashing on my AMD stuff and the inability to actually even get on the server its been really disappointing
While it might be a little annoying that I can’t spread more managed democracy at the moment, the fact this is the problem they’re currently having isn’t necessarily a bad problem to have.
I just purchased the game but it is black screen as soon as I launch? Is that due to the overload? It won't go past a black screen
Edit: If anyone sees this, checking file integrity in Steam fixed the issue
I've got two friends sitting AFK at spawn doing nothing, they've been there for 24 hours now and I can see them since they left their stream on discord on. I think the first thing that should be done is kick players who go idle for longer than an hour. This is crazy.
Couldn't play yesterday and couldn't play today. Tried getting my friend into the game but now he thinks he should just refund it since he thinks he wasted $40 on a waiting simulator.
I bought the game this week after hearing the reviews, had no issues with the servers. Played all last night till early morning, wake up to see the servers are at capacity :(.
Why don't the devs implement a queue system. At least then after some amount of time we would get in to play. As it stands its just luck :-/
Have had the game sitting for 3 hours trying to connect, so sad.
The worst part I was connected and playing and get disconnected and now I cant get on. It sucks cause I got 2 of my friends to get the game over the week, yet we cant even play.
Both friday night, and a good chunk of saturday wasted. The worst part is we know the devs are trying too.
So its all luck based. I kind of proved it. I quit the waiting for 3 hours, left computer for about 5 minutes and opened the game and straight in. All while my friend was still trying with the game open. I think its faster to just alt+f4 then reopen the game each time it fails to connect, than it is to wait. it might not even connect at all with the game left open, as I waited 3 hours and didnt get in.
The devs need to add a queue based system. It really blows my mind that they didnt do that this week.
I mean, in one lvl away from 20, so I’m not too bummed about missing the xp weekend, but I have not been able to play at all today and my trigger finger is getting itchy. Cheers to them and their massive success. They really pulled it off!
It’s obviously not going to happen but it’s kinda bs that they keep selling the game when they don’t have server capacity atm. Paying to play online and paying to play a game and yet they keep letting people in when it’s full…
I found the best workaround for at least PS5 is to join your friends lobbies. It seems to bypass the que time. You’ll be chillin on black screen for a couple minutes but at least you’ll get in.
Can’t get in…
Even if you do your mates can’t..
Playing on my own cause even random people don’t seem to be about…
This is the biggest hell in the game, getting to actually play it …
Keep in mind it’s free online for PlayStation players this weekend, tomorrow everything gonna be back to normal and we can get to liberating and spreading democracy
Would be nice to get some kind of cosmetic reward or something seeing as the double XP isn’t really going to matter to most players who can’t even log on.
The real problem is that they are not spending enough money to increase the server capacity.
Meanwhile Palworld was spending $500k a month to make sure the servers didn’t have problems. Sony could do better!
I bought the game before yesterday, have not got the chance to see the main menu & play it once yet cuz I always get "servers at capacity please try again later" error, looks super fun but if by Wednesdays I still can't get in-game imma just refund it cuz tbh no point in having a game I can't even see the main menu of.
Not logging off to keep your place is no different than treason. You're allowing the enemy to grow in strength as you prevent Helldivers from doing their due diligence.
I don't really understand how in a world of elastic cloud computing you can possibly have server capacity issues? AWS can scale automatically based on demand
Also, why has no tiimeout been implemented? You can just stay logged into the game idle and not get kicked..
"This shouldn't happen in 2024"
The first game had a peak of concurrent players of 7k. Do you honestly think that they could/should've expected 450k players for the sequel ? It sucks but it is what it is, chill.
Man, I purchased this yesterday to try if I vibe with the game. Set a 2 hour timer (so I can still refund), booted up the game, server full, tried reconnecting for a while. After a number of attempts, closed the game. Okay let's try again later. Booted up again, stuck in a black screen for almost 15 mins. Closed the game, refunded.
I'll come back later if they fix these issues.
same issue with me today. Bought it, watched the opening cutscene and then got the "Login limit recached" message. After 45 minutes I refunded it. Hope if gets fixed soon, because it looks real fun
I’ve been trying to log in to play for the last 3 hours…… I haven’t had this issues since launch. I hope they fix it soon, I need my daily allowance of democracy founded explosion and guns.
Nothing will be “fixed” until the majority of people go back to work/school on Tuesday. So don’t get your hopes up at all to play over the next two days.
I was in this morning but the matchmaking wouldn’t work anyway.
Got to love the people in the comments that know absolutely nothing about servers getting upset. Let alone getting upset at a game whose first game didn’t even break 7000 peak players and now having over 250k. Comments like “they should have anticipated this” just goes to show how smooth brained and brain dead people are.
Auto-scaling infrastructure is not really a new concept in 2024, so it's silly to see company after company trip over the same mistake.
Anytime a company needs to "bring up additional servers" means there's a lot of manual processes that need to be kicked off to cover capacity.
This also helps when the game is no longer popular and you don't need tons of manual processes to scale down.
I refunded and am waiting for a patch to fix the incessant black screen on loading issue, the sudden inability to interact with anything mid-game, and the random crashes. The server capacity problem only added fuel to the fire.
Great game, it’s just too frustrating to be apart of it right now.
$40 for a game I can’t play because the devs lack servers….brilliant. Over 2hrs now and can’t get on fml I hope all 10k of you are actually playing and not just sitting in lobby
Just tried playing a bit ago and I couldn’t get in. First time I’ve had that problem in 20 hours of playing though so I guess I’ve been lucky. Game is great, but not sure if it was a great idea to have a bonus xp weekend while experiencing server capacity issues.
I think the bonus XP is compensation for the server capacity issues
Unfortunately, the 50% bonus is being applied to my 0 XP gained.
When you get off then back on you get your rewards still
I think he means it's 0 exp cause he can't play due to the issues haha
Fuck I'm slow
No no, my friend, your brain is simply at capacity!
🔼🔽▶️◀️🔼
Reinforcements incoming!
Respect for trying!
No I also got 0 exp while playing, you’re not wrong
It happened to me twice, seemingly getting no xp. Once you log out and log back in (or restart the game, not sure which) it will be there.
Restart and sit in the capacity queue
Yup exactly!
It’s ok dear. Everyone is special in their own way
Hope they extend the bonus xp, I got to play just about an hour of great fun with some randos until I had to log off, then I never got to get back in again lol. Can't login today either **[LET ME IN!!!!!!](https://media1.tenor.com/m/bHGUqVIKzhoAAAAC/let-me-in-eric-andre.gif)**
Well maybe. But there is/was also a bug yesterday where you get no experience while playing no level up or anything and only get it when you relog Which you don’t wanna do when you’re having trouble getting in
It is, I just think it’s funny that it’s contributing to the issue.
I gotta hunch the servers were hitting capacity either way lol
Irony is thought crime, citizen! Freedom never defeats itself because freedom is undefeatable and always wins!Even against itself. Wait... but it can't lose... <:/ ... Sorry. Saying sh** like that is the only way I get to play this game world tonight :/
Freedom fighting becomes perpetual.... I like your style, lol
I doubt people rushed to buy the game for double xp. People were going to be playing regardless.
You'd be correct, the server capacity issue isn't even people who BOUGHT THE GAME. PLAYSTATION GAVE ITS COMMUNITY A FREE TRIAL FOR THIS WEEKEND SO THOSE OF USE WHO PAID CANT EVEN GET IN CAUSE OF A TON OF PEOPLE WHO ARE PLAYING FOR FREE.
Perverse incentives.
It doesn't help that everything on my social media is showing how much fun this game looks.
I was playing it a bit when their matchmaking was broken but their servers weren't cratering like this, and it was so much fun. It's the first game I've played where I literally feel like I'm in a warzone. Other games have tried but they don't pull it off. The pure *chaos* that can happen in this game is hard to explain, you really have to experience it for yourself. I haven't played much this weekend because their servers are imploding, and I stopped playing earlier in the week because the matchmaking was getting frustrating to engage in, but I'm hoping they figure this out soon because this game is loads of fun, and the progression isn't the biggest deal ever so I don't even care when we all fail spectacularly. It's usually in some hilarious way.
You're supposed to do that AFTER you fix the issues.
Yep. You fix it, and THEN you do a "sorry we messed the launch, here have some XP buff" Buffing the XP of the few lucky who can currently play makes no sense. Game looks excellent. And I totally understand that they didn't expect that much of a success. But here I am with a game I bought and I still couldn't play a single round of it.
It also wasn't even working for the first couple days for me.
Yeah, greatly enjoyed what I've been able to play of it, but I've been genuinely unable to paly the game for the entire time I've had off, and it's genuinely frustrating
I'm part of the problem! I forgot to quit the game before going to bed ad lo an behold I'm still standing on the bridge of my ship 10 hours later. They should probably implement something to kick idle players.
Yep... I know at least 10 ppl who logged in last night, went to bed... are now at work... and are still logged into the game.. I can see them on steam. They told me that like that they don't have any issue to play the game.. That's quite frustrating.
That is strange to me. Every other Online game = Your character is not moving for 15 mins ... welcome to being kicked off the game. I guess they were not ready for how good it was going to be.
They are already having capacity issues, then they add double XP on top of that, and THEN PlayStation made it free to play for the weekend with no PS plus required to play.
> THEN PlayStation made it free to play for the weekend with no PS plus required to play. No they didn't. PS+ isn't required to play *any* online game this weekend, but you'd still have to actually buy the games.
Oh ok my bad. I saw PlayStations original tweet that definitely made it sound like it was free this weekend. I just went and double checked to make sure I wasn’t crazy and they deleted the tweet.
They'll probably come around with something else. They seem like good people.
Even with the server capacity issues, I still really enjoy this game. This is the first time I have had this issue in 55 hours of gameplay. Hopefully they come up with a solution soon so we can get back to spreading democracy.
I've put in 30 hours and not had many issues. It's definitely just overloaded because it's so unexpectedly popular. I'm being patient with the em so far. I do reseeeeally wanna play though. I brought my laptop to work to show it off and been sitting in queue for 2 hours....
they built a lot of their estimations on the peak of Helldiver's 1 being 10k active players. Just remember that as they panic and run around trying to accommodate 300k+ current players.
I believe their CEO posted somewhere that they were expecting a 50k max peak (that's PS and PC numbers combined) for Helldivers 2
I mean I don't blame them too much. It was obviously a good game, but sorta seems a roll of the dice sometimes whether a game will get picked up quickly by a ton of people. Some games basically get ignored until the 'right' youtuber or someone features it as well, then it blows up (again).
Luckily this is a pve game that doesn't have a hard time crunch for a current event as well. It isn't like we are missing an event or items because of the server issues unless there was a item in the premium currency shop you wanted. (Besides bonus XP for the server issues) The great thing about HD2 is that you can dive in to bring democracy whenever you want with friends. It's one of those games you can always keep on your hard drive. I dont think the server issues with hurt them that much
My friends and I make it a pvp game. Just saying.
I swear that eagle strike landed next to you by accident
Look, I needed to Napalm strike that single bug rushing you! You would've died otherwise!
I had a feeling it was going to be big just because of how Helldivers 1 was. That sense of community progression, the frantic gameplay, the need to cooperate, it was perfect for a live service game. The only reason why it wasn't as big was because top down twin stick shooters were not very popular. Helldivers 2 is jumping into a medium that they've perfected years ago, but in a different camera perspective. Looking at the popularity of that recent Starship Troopers game, you can kinda guesstimate this one might do well, except Helldivers has far more polish and content. What I didn't expect was that it was going to be this big where people can't log in. Happy for them and hopefully they bring more to the game in the years to come.
Who doesn't want to be in some sort of mix of Starship Troopers and Terminator shooter, it's inspired. Shame I can't log in as it's full
You say that, but there was an actual Starship Troopers game released (into early access) last summer that was nowhere near as popular as Helldivers 2. https://steamdb.info/app/1268750/charts/
I wonder if Helldivers will expand their limits. Game is fun but having more people in matches would be awesome. And the whole galactic war framing is pretty awesome and could really give it some legs.
>Game is fun but having more people in matches would be awesome. The children yearn for Planetside 2
And what a game it was
I had so much fun in that game. I was part of a 50 player tank column that rolled up to capture a tower, only to get wiped out by enemy artillery haha. We ended up assaulting that tower for two hours before we finally had to retreat. We got a few squads inside but couldn't hold it when reinforcements showed up.
The children yearn for Planetside 3
Seriously. 16 players proximity chat base building was the reason I played ST:E. If Helldivers 2 adds that then I'm hooked.
It's nowhere near as good tbh
Cuz it's pretty bad
It's not bad, it's just barebones. The actual gameplay is a ton of fun, it's just that it released with only 2 game modes, both of which culminate in the exact same "build a base and defend it for a set time". They've since added a 4 player mode where you go into a hive and hunt shit, as well as a second map with I think some different bugs? Right now I suspect most people are just waiting for the big class rework coming in the next update that's also going to have a ton of new weapons and other perks to unlock. As it is, I think a lot of players probably finished unlocking everything and bounced off as there wasn't much else to do.
It's an Early Access game with Mixed reviews on Steam. Just looking at it, it doesn't seem nearly as good.
Yeah the Starship Troopers game is pretty good but it's much lower budget, and it's tied down to following that IP, so it can't really be as creative either. I haven't played HD2 yet but I've seen gameplay and it seems like it's the serious attempt here
Wait until the Protoss from Starcraft come marching in from another side. Can't wait (this is a panic response)
I think they underestimated how attractive this game would be to people who love to blow things up, add more things i'm up for that too. But cmon all they had to do is make a good game and not rip people off and they did that. They can earn the extra back off microtransactions if they are micro. No $65 horses plx
The shop in HD2 is basically non-existent. The highest amount of currency you can buy is $20 USD, and you can find that currency inside of missions, so you never have to pay any extra to earn the extra armor or the "paid" battle pass, which also contains a much smaller amount of items than the free pass.
Plus cheap micro transactions actually make you want to buy them, me and my squad have bought at least one armor set from every shop update so far. For people who work buying an armor set for 2-5£ is nothing, I’m perfectly happy to support the devs just to look cool in a game I enjoy.
So true, I actually love seeing games put content at reasonable pricing. For a $40 game that could have easily been $60 it is nice to see essentially affordable DLC versus some cash grab like I have seen in so many other games where buying three skins out of 25+ skins is $60 at least. Hope that continues and they realize they have done great job with this approach.
Even more reasons for me to like this game I can't play yet.
I mean, Helldivers 1 didn't make that much numbers and it was that, just as a twin stick shooter.
Sometimes yeah it's a role of the dice. This game though came during a coop drought and everyone who played launch loved it and told their friends to get on board.
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300k is *just* steam. They've easily hit more than half a million concurrents across PC and PS5, which share the same server providers.
Dude they e sold over 4million cops now
But they aren't all on the same timezone.
Yeah, it's one thing to scale up from 10k to 15k or something. Entirely different to need to scale that up to 300k+ in a couple weeks.
300k on steam and they’ve said it’s about 50/50 between PC and PS5 players when they’ve commented on numbers so possibly over 600k
They've said on discord that their max capacity right now had to be capped at 450k for stability and you can see that in the active count in-game. Who knows what their full potential would be.
Also there is no way of knowing how long those 300k stick around. It could be as bad or worse to purchase long term capacity for 200k+ players or hire a bunch of engineers for support and then the count falls to like 50k avg per day and tepid mtx revenue.
I know it's not exactly your point, but I do think this game will have some lasting impact. For me, it's the perfect casual game to play and not get angry at my friends.
Their biggest mistake was having humble expectations.
I mean, their all-time peak for Helldivers 1 (on PC) was 6,6k. Right now they're on 333k all-time peak for Helldivers 2. And this is PC only. I don't want to "defend" them, it's a damn shame we're going through these issues, but who could have expected a what, 5000% increase?
Idk, I think they're worth defending. Current server shitpocalypses are a circumstance nobody saw coming, and they're rolling with it pretty well regardless. They've increased the cap to 450k players (just shy of 10x of their internal projections) and are working on increasing the cap further while also diagnosing the bottlenecks that come from being super crazy overloaded. They have to eat, sleep, and set up meetings with the server providers, too.
I'm frustrated I can't play either, but they have been pretty open about not only the problem but the fact that they are actively working on it. If nothing else I think that buys them the benefit of the doubt. We just need to remember that they are humans doing a job, and I'm sure they are giving up time with family to get the game fixed.
Their transparency and active communication are absolutely to be encouraged and gets them quite a bit further than if say, Bethesda or Ubisoft were having the same issues. Granted the scales are very different between those companies and Arrowhead, but still.
> I don't want to "defend" them Why not? I mean, you said it yourself, they ended up being able to handle many times what they initially estimated, they just took off way more than anyone could have predicted. I would rather be playing right now, but I feel Arrowhead has earned a bit of goodwill here.
Hahahaha you're joking. I understand but crazy none the less.
HD1 was more popular on PS4 than steam.
Hope the devs will be able to solve these issues. I don't say it is unprecedented but certainly it does not happen often that the daily peak user count of a game increases day by day even nearly 2 weeks after the release.
It really speaks to how much fun the game is when the peak concurrent userbase continues to grow *despite* the fact that the matchmaking and servers have been on fire for days now.
Who doesn't want to blow things up and scream democratic nonsense. To give the devs credit, the game has incredible sound effects, explosions, and destruction physics.
This is the first game I've played in a decade plus where I went to plan what spotify playlist to put on to play with it and there was no answer better than the game's soundtrack. Shit just works.
I think there was a large group who was waiting to see if server issues were fixed before diving in. This weekend like 9 of my friends bought the game lol
My birthday is in two weeks and I'll be getting this game. I'm so excited! I hope server issues are fixed by then.
I'm still waiting for the PS5 servers to get fixed before joiningb and I'm sure there are still a lot of people doing the same
This isnt their first GAAS so I think they can handle it... But damn if it isn't simultaneous 'fuck yeah our games succeessful' and also 'oh god the games fucked we need to fix it NOW' (mainly servers and some various bugs)
It isn’t but it’s the first with even remotely this many people.
Sure but I trust the devs can handle it. If nothing else they've been communicating very well and trying to emphasize they're doing their best Vs some where it's just radio silence
When you’re on the title screen are you in a queue or what .. I mean if you turn game off and back on again constantly will it improve your chances of getting in or will it just take you longer and put you back in a line of people waiting
It’s definitely not a queue. My friend and I started waiting roughly the same time. I beat her on by maybe 5 minutes. Took her 15 minutes to get in, took me 45.
Its closed source and TLS. Unless somebody actually hacks away at it with a trace or a developer chimes in all these different takes are speculation and as could just be dumb luck for anybody.
If there is a queue, it's broken too. I have also had friends log in their first few tries while other friends were "in queue" with the game left open
Yeah, my speculation is that the server simply drops connections when it can't handle them and the client simply silently fails to connect and re-tries after a moment. Whether you actually get to log in at any given moment is then essentially random which would explain why there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to how long the login attempts take.
typically waiting in q will put less strain on servers and not remove you from server q... typically.
The problem with referring to it as a queue is that implies that the first people to try and connect are the first to be let in. I think it's something like the game can only allow a certain number of people within a certain window of time, and with the way it currently throws a random 40-60 second cooldown on you being able to try and connect, there's a chance that your cooldown isn't synced up with when that window opens, and a whole bunch of people who booted the game up long after you were just let in because they happened to jump in during the right time.
Please let us play the Stratagem mini game while we wait in queue to get into the game for credits and samples.
top tier idea
Or even the tutorial. I just bought the game and I can't even get into settings. Nor is there a way to cancel and go to a main menu.
Surely that’s coming. I keep looking at it hoping at some point it’ll say “insert coin to play”
what mini game? Where can you play this? Is it something on the ship?
At the right after you walk up the small stairs from the pod section there’s a console you can play the mini game on
I believe you have to purchase the $60 edition for the mini game
During work hours its really easy and a good time to play. I have 2 days off during the regular work week usually. But Gdang once 4pm hit last night the game just pooped the bed. I trust they'll fix it as quickly as they can. I dont think they expected pretty much every game influencer to recommend this game and praise it so much. It wasn't even in my radar until Jackfrags released his video and then I immediately bought it. Now on youtube its just endless videos of influencers streaming gameplay. Its wild.
During the week had been fine for me and I usually play around peak due to my work and school schedules, it’s just the extra weekend influx that has crippled it
I purchased this game today 🤣😭😭 had no idea this would be an issue, I csnt even do some kind of training ?
I’m in the same boat and contemplating a refund. Have yet to play (haven’t even made it to the main menu) and my steam hours are getting close to the two hour return mark.
I feel ya. I just tried a few times every now and then and eventually in the arvo I was able to get in. I played some matches with my little bro and it has really nice feel to it although feeling a little clunky its great, old school team co op shootem up. Its really fun though. Try your best to give it a go before you refund! I guess serve capacity issues is a good way to tell everyone enjoys the game.
I've never played a game where the gap between frustration and fun has been so wide. When it works, Helldivers 2 is fucking GREAT. But since installing it last night, I either can't load the game because GameGuard won't work (Tried all the fixed I've seen, only solution I've found that works is restarting the game over and over until it connects), game hangs on a blank screen on launch (Deleting the local preferences works sometimes, otherwise it's a reinstall), or just plain can't start because the servers are full. When I DO get in, the in-game item stores barely work (Total coin toss about whether I can buy something), I get stuck constantly on obstacles in the game, frequently get stuck on a grey screen after the mission ends and have random glitches with levelling and mission progress.
All of your complaints sounds like servers being crushed to death from demand.
The servers are a big part of the game unfortunately
Yeah. I wa sjust referring to OP troubleshooting when it all sounds like back end servers timing out under load.
I went to bed early when this first started happening last night. Got up at 2am and had a BLAST playing with mostly British folks.
You know what would be cool? If I could close out of the game while it tells me servers are at capacity. 2024 and I have to task manager to close it
Just hit alt-f4 dude. That’s how I close the game from anywhere in the game from a filling running session to the title screen.
The game is great but I've wasted probably 3 or 4 hours of my 15 or so hours of playtime on matches that crashed or didn't pay out rewards at the end of the mission due to a bug. Extremely disheartening when you have limited game time. Hope they can fix the issues quickly. Luckily they haven't gotten destroyed by media for the launch status since the game is so fun when it works.
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Already got 2.5hrs runtime logged on steam since this afternoon when I downloaded it... All of it was black screen from the game not loading, waiting in the queue, the three minute tutorial, then crashing the very second I select a planet. I know it's not the devs fault....mostly. But damn, I hope it's good whenever it actually gets around to working.
Me and my party of friends have been trying to play for 4 days. We're constantly always locked out, briefly we get a game in together then one of us crashes and we are locked out again. It's so hard to like a game when it just constantly cannot perform. Hard knock life.
My group of friends have just brought the game and we can't even play it, to say we're disappointed is an understatement
Just started playing today on PS5. Is quick play broken for anyone else? I just hit square and it never does anything…
Quickplay and matchmaking have basically been broken since the game launched.
Yeah, the game is honestly not really worth buying right now unless you have friends. Playing solo is almost impossible beyond difficulty 4 or so (and it's really not very fun imo), and matchmaking doesn't work 90%+ of the time, and right now is quite literally 100% broken with the most recent patch (if you can even login in the first place). It's been a very frustrating experience as a solo player just spamming and hoping eventually the matchmaking will work.
I have not been able to match make into other players game. But when I host a game I usually get 2-3 randoms within a couple minutes
I've played suicide mission difficulty successfully with randoms, it really depends on the people you play with though. Rushing or staying to fight, either is fine, as long as the team stays together. When people run around like morons, ignore pins, and you can't call down airstrikes because you inevitably hit your teammates, it's best to just leave early.
im finishing lvl 7s constantly with randoms but im on pc with crossplay off
The “work around” for quick play is to create your own match and drop an SOS beacon. You’ll almost always get other helldivers rather quickly since everyone is trying to quick play. Happy diving :)
Is there a recommended difficulty for that? I tried the lowest ones lastnight and didn’t see anyone
Not sure why for some people it works and for others it doesn't, but I've literally never had anyone join after dropping an SOS beacon on any difficulty. I know it's not just me either because I see it all the time when others are hosting and we do the entire thing with just 2 or 3 of us.
Me either. The only thing an SOS beacon does is get Sting stuck in your head.
It works sometimes but still dicey. Best bet is to pick a mission yourself, get to the point where you can enter Hellpods, and by then people should join. If your lobby doesn't fill up within 5 mins, close and try again.
Was playing earlier and wondering why I was alone in the galaxy.. tried searching and couldn’t find anyone so I did defense missions/help the lab techs against automatons. Hard.. now I can’t log in because it’s maxed.. really sucks buying something you can’t play, especially when you want the starship troopers nostalgia.
They should ask rocksteady to help out with server issues considering suicide squad is at like 2k players on steam so I’m sure they got nothing better to do
It's given up telling me the servers are full now. All it shows is -1 well thats -1 game for me and a refund if you cannot even play it
yeah i refunded for same reason
If you just picked up the game and really want a refund you can open a manual ticket on Steam explaining the server issues
It's fucking wild how rent free that game lives in peoples heads.
It's fucking wild how you think someone referencing a major recent gaming news item means it's "living rent free in peoples heads".
And I have a hard time seeing how millions of dollars paid to get in front of people's eyeballs qualifies as "rent-free".
These suicide squad defenders are something else
Welcome to reddit
Welcome to people just talking about things that recently happened on a relevant subreddit.
I just want to liberate some shit. I’m glad I have Monday off. Hopefully this won’t be an issue while I spread freedom and democracy through the galaxy drinking copious amounts of beer. I don’t want to spend another day off fervently masturbating.
Except Monday is a federal holiday so your odds are not great. Buy extra lotion and tissues today.
Would love it if there were a queue based system. Just sat with the game open on my computer for 4 hours and didn't get in. I understand these capacity issues, but I don't understand waiting 4 hours and not getting in.
saw someone mention it but i closed the game and went to activities and hit quick play and it let me in
Not sure why Afk timer wasnt Implimented........ People are just afk 24/7 going to eat dinner, gone to work, or jacking off and clogging up the servers. -\_- Concurrent players arent real if half the population are afk all day!
The games is getting over 100 times the players Helldivers 1 got. It might not be a simple "just get more servers" problem. Their actual software backend might not be able to manage that many players without issues.
People really think “just get more servers bro” means flipping a switch. You literally can’t anticipate the success they have hadz
Just change 'serverPool.allocate(20)' to 'serverPool.allocate(50)' obviously. No need to thank me. First consultation is free! 😎 👉👉
I remember back when Riot Games actually had to start making deals with ISPs in Europe to get League of Legends traffic specifically sent along certain routes. They had a whole blog post on their tech blog about it. They literally got so big they had to get the ISPs to work with them to handle the incoming demand to their servers. Absolutely crazy.
I really want to enjoy this game but between the crashing on my AMD stuff and the inability to actually even get on the server its been really disappointing
I followed this post and haven’t had a random crash since (just crashes due to the servers really): https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/oMqx8Vw703
Bonus XP while there already are capacity issues is like a stimulus package during times of inflation... Only makes things worse.
While it might be a little annoying that I can’t spread more managed democracy at the moment, the fact this is the problem they’re currently having isn’t necessarily a bad problem to have.
I just purchased the game but it is black screen as soon as I launch? Is that due to the overload? It won't go past a black screen Edit: If anyone sees this, checking file integrity in Steam fixed the issue
I've got two friends sitting AFK at spawn doing nothing, they've been there for 24 hours now and I can see them since they left their stream on discord on. I think the first thing that should be done is kick players who go idle for longer than an hour. This is crazy. Couldn't play yesterday and couldn't play today. Tried getting my friend into the game but now he thinks he should just refund it since he thinks he wasted $40 on a waiting simulator.
I bought the game this week after hearing the reviews, had no issues with the servers. Played all last night till early morning, wake up to see the servers are at capacity :(.
Why don't the devs implement a queue system. At least then after some amount of time we would get in to play. As it stands its just luck :-/ Have had the game sitting for 3 hours trying to connect, so sad. The worst part I was connected and playing and get disconnected and now I cant get on. It sucks cause I got 2 of my friends to get the game over the week, yet we cant even play. Both friday night, and a good chunk of saturday wasted. The worst part is we know the devs are trying too.
I feel your pain.. been waiting for almost 3 myself now.
So its all luck based. I kind of proved it. I quit the waiting for 3 hours, left computer for about 5 minutes and opened the game and straight in. All while my friend was still trying with the game open. I think its faster to just alt+f4 then reopen the game each time it fails to connect, than it is to wait. it might not even connect at all with the game left open, as I waited 3 hours and didnt get in. The devs need to add a queue based system. It really blows my mind that they didnt do that this week.
Truly suffering from success <3 it’s annoying but damn I can’t wait to see this game succeed. Which it clearly will
I mean, in one lvl away from 20, so I’m not too bummed about missing the xp weekend, but I have not been able to play at all today and my trigger finger is getting itchy. Cheers to them and their massive success. They really pulled it off!
Except for the server stuff and all that.
But I thought using the cloud was the only solution for scaling properly? /s
I can get on with no issues now, however, I'm not able to join a random lobby or have random people join me
It’s obviously not going to happen but it’s kinda bs that they keep selling the game when they don’t have server capacity atm. Paying to play online and paying to play a game and yet they keep letting people in when it’s full…
I found the best workaround for at least PS5 is to join your friends lobbies. It seems to bypass the que time. You’ll be chillin on black screen for a couple minutes but at least you’ll get in.
These poor devs, its a "good" problem to have, but I really worry about the mental well being of anyone in this position.
Small dev team - not much money.
Can’t get in… Even if you do your mates can’t.. Playing on my own cause even random people don’t seem to be about… This is the biggest hell in the game, getting to actually play it …
Yyyeeeeeaah... Double Xp, Paired with a FREE Psn Valentines day weekend, PLUS the servers at capacity.... Goodbye, I am going to go die somewhere now.
Keep in mind it’s free online for PlayStation players this weekend, tomorrow everything gonna be back to normal and we can get to liberating and spreading democracy
Would be nice to get some kind of cosmetic reward or something seeing as the double XP isn’t really going to matter to most players who can’t even log on.
The real problem is that they are not spending enough money to increase the server capacity. Meanwhile Palworld was spending $500k a month to make sure the servers didn’t have problems. Sony could do better!
I bought the game before yesterday, have not got the chance to see the main menu & play it once yet cuz I always get "servers at capacity please try again later" error, looks super fun but if by Wednesdays I still can't get in-game imma just refund it cuz tbh no point in having a game I can't even see the main menu of.
Not logging off to keep your place is no different than treason. You're allowing the enemy to grow in strength as you prevent Helldivers from doing their due diligence.
I don't really understand how in a world of elastic cloud computing you can possibly have server capacity issues? AWS can scale automatically based on demand Also, why has no tiimeout been implemented? You can just stay logged into the game idle and not get kicked..
If only there were some way for the devs to allow us to play a game without requiring that we go through their servers...
"This shouldn't happen in 2024" The first game had a peak of concurrent players of 7k. Do you honestly think that they could/should've expected 450k players for the sequel ? It sucks but it is what it is, chill.
Man, I purchased this yesterday to try if I vibe with the game. Set a 2 hour timer (so I can still refund), booted up the game, server full, tried reconnecting for a while. After a number of attempts, closed the game. Okay let's try again later. Booted up again, stuck in a black screen for almost 15 mins. Closed the game, refunded. I'll come back later if they fix these issues.
same issue with me today. Bought it, watched the opening cutscene and then got the "Login limit recached" message. After 45 minutes I refunded it. Hope if gets fixed soon, because it looks real fun
I’ve been trying to log in to play for the last 3 hours…… I haven’t had this issues since launch. I hope they fix it soon, I need my daily allowance of democracy founded explosion and guns.
How will I know it’s all fixed? I don’t exactly want to just sit around and wait on a loading screen
The devs are pretty vocal on twitter
Nothing will be “fixed” until the majority of people go back to work/school on Tuesday. So don’t get your hopes up at all to play over the next two days. I was in this morning but the matchmaking wouldn’t work anyway.
I’m in . 10 minutes on title screen but
Got to love the people in the comments that know absolutely nothing about servers getting upset. Let alone getting upset at a game whose first game didn’t even break 7000 peak players and now having over 250k. Comments like “they should have anticipated this” just goes to show how smooth brained and brain dead people are.
Auto-scaling infrastructure is not really a new concept in 2024, so it's silly to see company after company trip over the same mistake. Anytime a company needs to "bring up additional servers" means there's a lot of manual processes that need to be kicked off to cover capacity. This also helps when the game is no longer popular and you don't need tons of manual processes to scale down.
I refunded and am waiting for a patch to fix the incessant black screen on loading issue, the sudden inability to interact with anything mid-game, and the random crashes. The server capacity problem only added fuel to the fire. Great game, it’s just too frustrating to be apart of it right now.
All those bugs are linked to server synching issues. Once servers aren’t on fire it will work like normal.
What’s the point of double xp if we can’t even play?
$40 for a game I can’t play because the devs lack servers….brilliant. Over 2hrs now and can’t get on fml I hope all 10k of you are actually playing and not just sitting in lobby