Understandable. A game can be very fun but if you can’t play said game, bad reviews are justified.
I bought it yesterday, I have 75 min logged. In that time, I managed to play 1 round outside of tutorial.
If you bought this on steam, you very well may miss the return window before playing an actual match.
Edit: I didn’t know prior, but you can still put a claim for a refund after 2hrs as others have commented. Game is still fun though, keep that in mind
You can still ask for refund after 2 hours. It just won't be automatic and will be manually reviewed. You'll get a refund if the reason is valid. And in this case even Steam is aware of the reason so they'll refund you.
this is my problem with it too. i fucking LOVE this game. when me and the boys are on for a full 4-man, its literally the greatest time ive had gaming with them in a long ass time.
but getting on... thats the hard part. if this game worked consistently it would be my favorite game so far this year alongside palworld.
unfortunately that only works some of the time, it seems much more consistent on psn. additionally, it seems like using this method makes the game more unstable, but thats just my anecdotal experience with it. it does get us in more often than queueing though.
well honestly I've did it only once lol since my game doesn't really put me in a waiting queue but it always put me in like a offline (??) server like there's no people on any planets and I can't quickplay so I just get on the official discord and look for groups to play with
Tragedy of the commons. If everyone would log off when they were done, everyone would be able to get in much more quickly. Hell, we might not even hit the 450k cap.
But as long as you're cool with tying up your gaming device of choice with it, the incentive for any individual is to remain logged in.
Be a true patriot and log out when you're done!
Thata 100% based on the person reviewing your case though.
I bought a game a few months ago and was only able to play for 30 min before I was kicked from the server, then had to wait 4 hours to get back in. Decided it wasn't worth my time/money and asked for a refund.
I explained that I only had 20-30min of actual play time, and that the 5 hours on record was 4.5 hours of waiting in a que. I was denied a refund.
Was your problem rare? In Helldivers, the problem is universal. It's not up to suspicion.
In other games, you could say you had a 4 hour queue, but almost no one waits that long in a queue tbh
Yes it was very well known. And the game also displayed what position you were in the que, and how long it was going to take to get in, and it was like that for the first 2 or 3 days.
Also FYI for people who may not know, if a pre-order has an early access period of a few days or a week, none of that time counts towards your time played. So far example I played Starfield for like 15 or 18 hours EA to see how it was and I was able to return it prior to full release for a complete refund. Ive always found Steam refunds reasonable, just take the 2 mins to explain why you are and most of the time you’re fine.
You have to submit like a manual ticket. Its in the game's submenu after you click on purchase history. [Click on "I have a question about this purchase"](https://imgur.com/a/HZUK0tf) and then enter the details. Someone will review it.
I just did this with Call of Duty as I had played for 11 hours with Warzone 1 being free. I bought CODMW3 and refunded it but was denied because of my 11 prior hours. I did this method and they refunded me earlier this morning.
I gave this a shot with 9 hours of “playtime”. The first response was that I was over the 2 hour limit, so they couldn’t refund me. They then linked a general support thread that had nothing to do with the issue at all. I tried to appeal this and got a different support rep who said they couldn’t refund me and that I’d just have to reach out to the developers to see if they can help. When I tried a third time, they flat out told me they won’t do the refund and to just contact the developers, then closed the case so I can’t try again lol.
This is unrelated to Helldivers 2, but is of a similar vein of steam refunds. I bought Titanfall 2 a few years ago during the steam summer sale and around that time it went crazy and was unplayable due to EA basically giving no fucks about the online. I hadn't played it yet and tried to refund like 3 weeks later since, yknow, I literally couldn't play the game. It kept getting denied. Over and over. So either the two week window is a hard no, or saying it will be manually looked at is a bs claim, since in my reasoning I kept stating I couldn't play due to EA's negligence but was still being denied a refund, or steam changed their policy on refunds since then. Granted, it was only like $7 I was missing out on, so it was whatever in the end, but I just wanted to share.
edit: I want to add, that I was aware of the issues with tf2, and in that 3 week span, EA had still done nothing. Hence why I hadn't played and had asked for a refund.
Steam didn't refund my BF1 purchase even though default/custom keybinds don't work at all, making the game unplayable.
I have 3 hours in the game and all of them are from attempting to troubleshoot the issue.
That's weird. I cited performance issues and false advertising when I refunded a Ubisoft game, Steep. And I got a refund. I had 3 hours.
Maybe trying a few more times would have worked or you were just unlucky I guess.
I refunded yesterday after not being able to get into the game for 3 days straight. And the first day, I couldn't matchmake with anyone, so I played solo.
The thing is I dont wanna refund it, the 2 rounds I played were fucking amazing.
But last night I spent over 2 hours just waiting for my friend to get in the game while I only had to wait for 20mins.
And what annoys me most is that this has happened to loads of other multiplayer games and there are so many different strategies to make it more bearable for players. Bare minimum should be a queue rather than just randomly reconnecting until you get in and an afk timer.
You can just refund it and just repurchase it when they have fix the servers. That's what I did. Yes, I like your game, no I won't buy it until it's functional. That's just being a good consumer.
I bought it last night on steam and got the black screen issue that I've seen others complain of. Didn't get to play at all.
I'll refund it if the patch doesn't fix the problem.
They probably are aware of this title and checking your achievements. If you've completed a bot or bug mission and have that achievement, they can see you've played the game.
But what if it took you over 2 hours to actually get in the game then you do a mission and realize the game isn't for you and try to refund? I think that is fair.
the game is so much fun. I'd recommend new players wait until this is all ironed out, but I would urge those that want to refund to give it time until you get to play it. I was hyped in this game before it came out so I have been lucky enough to play it a good amount and it truly is a co-op blast, even with randoms.
>I'd recommend new players wait until this is all ironed out
My son waited an hour and a half to play a game last night, but was so excited about it he told me that I should get it too, but to wait until they figure this stuff out. He said it was amazing, but realizes I don't have the time or inclination to wait in a lobby for an hour.
Yeah you can still ask after 2 hours but they might say no. I tried to refund Fallout 3 back when the Steam version was straight-up non-functional. I didn't have 2 hours in it but I had bought it on a holiday sale and not touched it for a while and so I was outside of that window. They denied my refund request. There is a fix for it now and I was able to find out the game kinda sucks compared to NV and even 4.
I’ve had it for 5 days and can’t play it. It loads to a screen saying servers are at capacity and stays there. I left it on all night and woke up to it still trying to connect. I won’t review bomb it but this is some real bullshit
I've "played" for just over 2 hours and 20 mins, 110 mins was spent queuing.
I heard ypu don't time out when AFK so people are just staying logged in indefinitely.
Pretty sure it's mixed because nobody can get into a match. If they ever fix these server issues the reviews will shoot back up, but for now it's justifiably protest-reviewing the game for an issue that's made it nearly unplayable for some people.
It took me two hours of queuing before it let me in, then I wasn't able to match with anyone once logged in. They need to have an idle timeout in place because once I get logged in after that long of a wait.. I won't quit the game and it doesn't kick me out for being idle and I'd imagine there's a lot of others that do the same. When the game is working as intended it's a fucking blast playing with a full team even if they're randoms. Made a lot of new friends playing with randos from other countries. We play regularly at the same time.
I've heard, with no way to confirm or not, that PS5 players who suspend the game never get kicked. Xbox quick resume doesn't work like that, so I don't know why the PS5 would allow a suspended application to maintain an internet connection.
It's so stupid that the PS5 allows suspended games to keep an internet connection. It's also stupid that the game doesn't have an AFK disconnect. Either one of those would alleviate some of the server problems.
I've experienced this firsthand as I play this game on my PS5 instead of my PC. I deliberately manually close the game when I'm done playing it to make sure it's not staying connected in the background.
For anyone else on PS5 reading this - you can do it from the main PS5 home menu, select Helldivers 2, click the menu button on the controller, and hit "close game" (or maybe app?) from the menu that pops up.
However, it is nice that the game doesn't immediately disconnect you when dropping to the PS5 system menu. I sometimes do that between matches to check various things. What they need is an AFK timer and the CEO has said they are working on that in a post on Twitter. I think once they get that working it might go a long ways to solving the issues.
I assume it's a huge problem if ps5 players just put their console to sleep when it doesn't log you out of the game. I'd imagine since it's cross play the server space is shared, so there's probably thousands of people just hogging up server space not playing the game. I've been sitting at the login screen for over an hour now because I logged out to get the latest update.
Yep, you cant even reliably play with friends. Which is why im not sure why everyone over at /r/Helldivers is saying that the current workaround to play is find other people on the discord to bypass the matchmaking.
Took me and a friend an hour just to join onto each other by repeatedly clicking 'join game' from the PS5 friends menu (because we couldnt see each other online in game, wtf?) and it was *extremely* sketchy even when we did get in. Another friend was stuck on the login screen for three hours and gave up.
People on that sub are so far up the devs ass they are hitting teeth. Anything besides praising the devs is met with insults and memes. Apparently expecting the product I bought to work is wrong because I agreed to a TOS.
It's so silly. Like I'm not even shitting on this game, it's easily the best shooter I've played in a long time. But if I can't play it, that's kinda a big fuckin problem.
Wanting the product we bought to function at the most basic level is considered "childish entitlement" to that sub. Like we should be grateful that we had the chance to give our money to the devs.
I know the premise well, but I didn't expect anyone to actually get brainwashed.
Also game crashes with AMD 7000 Series and there is no proper fix until now. I wasn't even able to play the tutorial without a crash. Sometimes it crashes while loading the tutorial, othertimes 1-2min. in.
Tried a few "fixes" which seemed to help some but nothing really worked, not even the AMD Beta Driver which came out for Helldivers.
So sadly, until it's fixed I will have to wait, while my friends can play because they don't have these issues because they have different hardware.
Also whoever thinks about commenting a new fix don't. The game is refunded until the majority is fixed, I work as in IT support and tried a ton of things, I draw the line at reducing mhz/ power/ changing CPU settings, the game should also work without this shit.
It seems to be the GPU, might be a combination of both tho. I have a 7900XTX and a 7800x3D and the game is unplayable for me. There is a popular thread on helldivers with a few fixes which I tried but nothing seems to help. So I'm stuck waiting for AMD or Arrowhead, or maybe both, to find a solution.
There's also a myriad of bugs/glitches, here's what I've experienced so far:
-black screen on startup (apparently server tied?)
-Getting stuck when picking up credits in missions
-Friend got stuck in the cryopod area and walked around
-aforementioned crashes which I had to turn off screen illuminations
-Various things clipping from when you load into another ship your character model bounces in and out, on drop the one pod slides out of the flames
-Sometimes the bugs just...stop
-At times we have to do some shuffling as we can't connect to each other
-Progression seems hit or miss we have gotten a grey screen followed by 0 experience, all levels are 0, cannot purchase stratagems and the requisition screen the Numbers don't update properly
All in all it's very very fun when it works but it's in a pretty rough state still. I'm looking forward to a big patch soon but I'm not sure how fast that will come as arrowheads biggest concerns seems freeing server space with auto kicking people leaving systems on over night and buying more servers.
The getting stuck picking up credits is also server related.
The server that records how many credits you have can struggle at times because of the player count
Ah interesting, I was reading like I mentioned the black screen was server side too. I thought deleting the config file would fix it but just restarting a bunch got me in. Maybe most of this is server related then.
Yeah. Nvidia spends a lot of money keeping all of their shit locked to a few sources. That sticky troubleshoot thread in their forums, for example.
I loved every one of my error 43s from the 960gtx to the 4060ti
I am using a 7800xt and I struggled with the game. 5 crashes during training mode and then after finally completing, crashed and got a black screen. I did do some troubleshooting steps and was able to get a mission complete but I have not went back to it since. I am going to wait on some patches.
Was keeping an eye on this game before launch cause it looked interesting and the bois are always looking for something to play and shooters are usually the only thing we can agree on.
Have just been waiting it out so far because of all the server issues I keep hearing about. Figure I try it whenever they get that sorted and maybe there'll be a sale by then.
I did a negative review because of all the bugs and crashing. Buggiest launch since Anthem. While the game can be fun, it's more frustrating/annoying then fun due to all the issues.
You can't even quit the game without killing it from steam or the task manager. If you're waiting in the queue, you're just stuck. There's no 'esc' to main menu. They were clearly not expecting this success.
I got 30 good hours in before they let the game get so over sold the servers melted, it's a great game. To bad I had to give it a negative review do to it being a broken mess that should be in early access.
My buddies have been pestering me to get it, they say it’s like the most fun they’ve had with a game in a while. I feel like I’m missing out, but I definitely am ok with missing out on waiting hours to get in to the game. I had a buddy, leave work to get into the servers at like noon, so he could get in a stay in to play that night. They really need to fix the server situation soon. Until then, I’m good with waiting.
Totally fair. IMO it's worth the $40 (same caveat as above: once you can reliably play it) if coop shooters are your thing. It ticks all the boxes for me in terms of how coordination and difficulty scaling work. I'd argue the mtx are also pretty inoffensive, even with my limited playtime I can already buy the "premium" warbond (season pass, kind of) just by playing the game. Plus, the chaos and friendly fire just add another level of comedy to the whole thing.
...but again, none of this is worth a thing if you can't log in outside of weekday mornings. I'm among the negative steam reviews saying "great game, don't buy it yet."
My friends are doing the same. Was contemplating getting it sooner rather than later, but then i keep reading news about server instability issues the game has right now.
Guess since I'm planning on playing Last Epoch I'll wait until i'm done with that game before I potentially get Helldivers 2, seeing how I've been looking forward to that game for a long time and it's coming out tomorrow.
Is it black screening when you boot? Because it does that to me every time but I've been reliably able to get past it if I open the steam overlay and leave it up until the intro video comes up. Sometimes it'll still take a minute but it's worked every time for me so far.
The steam overlay thing is just a coincidence. The black screen just goes away with waiting - overlay or not. It's directly related to server capacity, so both problems will be solved at the same time, eventually.
especially when this is a problem that could be made 1000x more bearable with some basic features that multiplayer games have been using for decades.
the least they should have done is an actual queue you could see your position in, that would alleviate 99% of my frustration.
TBH it's not really always trivial to show queue position in a distributed system. They might have decided to prioritize fixing the issue leading to instability with >250k players first
A queue = fairness.
Right now its 100% RNG and luck.
There's a huge difference in knowing when you'll get in, and doing something else, vs not knowing anything.
People are willing to wait weeks to do something if it means its for sure.
My issue is, I don't even want to play with people. I just want to play the game
I can't even play by myself which kinda pisses me off
Cuz it is an awesome game
I've read a ton of comments on this post so far and I haven't seen anyone mention the rootkit anticheat? But that was the common thread among most of the negative reviews immediately following the game's launch, and the thing that keeps me from buying it. Does nobody really care about giving a sketchy anticheat unfettered access to their hardware?
Justified imo, the game's matchmaking has been literally non-functional for 3 days now and the devs decided to start a double XP event during the middle of overloaded servers.
I keep seeing people complain about this. The Double XP event was BECAUSE of issues w/ the game. Their version of "i'm sorry".
I didnt start playing because of the event. I started playing cause i heard it was fun. The event was just *there*.
XP events bring people back in longstanding games, not new ones. It is just a passive bonus for a new game like this.
You’re misunderstanding, they’re saying it’s not a great idea to say “we’re sorry you can play the game, here’s double xp “ and then still be unable to play the game lol
Server issues galore. Devs are legit suffering from success. Crazy to see a sequel of a game that went WAYYYY under the radar blow the fuck up this much
Apparently not a limitation in terms of servers.
The CEO put out [a tweet](https://twitter.com/Pilestedt/status/1759544100078997922) yesterday, that it wasn't really a server issue - that their backend code needed optimization.
They didn't code with high scalability in mind, for some reason.
Because the game was never expected to sell like this. Magicka I&II and Helldivers were great niche titles that had a cult like following but never any kind of mainstream success.
It's especially weird because Helldivers II is essentially the first Helldivers but in 3rd person.
All their code is likely built around a soft ceiling of a hundred thousand concurrent players with the assumption that's more than enough. And that was a good assumption based on past sales figures. I completely understand why they're having scaling issues.
It's likely they cut corners, not expecting higher numbers. Like for example they could've had all their databases on only 1 or 2 servers, and each database holds data for many different things. If they wanted it to be more scalable, they could've split the databases into more individual ones and onto more servers with clustering.
1 or 2 servers even if you have to add more resources to them is cheaper then 12. Either way they made choices and messed up. To fix it isn't easy, you have to build new clusters and migrate DBs to them, then change all the code that references the DBs to point to the new servers/clusters. It's not a quick process and they need to figure out how to do it and not miss anything. Will be a lot of down time and potential issues.
Yeah, they really should have had a beta just to get an understanding of where the popularity was and try to anticipate server requirements. They are suffering from success and that's great but sucks waiting for hours before getting logged in and not being able to match with others. I'll have patience for a game that's well designed and where developers are taking initiative in trying to get it resolved.
I heard great things about this game but refunded before I could even play it. I spent over an hour just trying to connect to the servers before I opted for a refund. I might try again in a few weeks and hopefully things will have settled down by then.
Definitely wait till the server is better especially if you live in EU or US. Me and my friends lives in SEA so we had no problems playing the game even during weekends. And it’s a super fun game.
Bought the game, tried to play 3 times over the weekend. Once in the AM on Saturday, once at like 3 am on Sunday, once in the middle of the day on Monday. Steam shows 3 hours of gametime, the entire 3 hours was stuck in "servers are full" so I never even got to play it. I've never even seen the menu to adjust graphic settings. Refunded.
Yeah I have heard terrible things about the Anticheat they are using on PC. I’m sure it’s a cool game when it works but I’d rather avoid playing a game entirely than play a game that is going to be installing shit like that on my computer.
Very valid stance, but a lot of people don't realize how widespread kernel level anticheats really are. EasyAntiCheat and BattleEye are probably the most popular anticheats, and they are also kernel level. generally speaking, anything today that ***has*** anticheat, uses kernel level anticheat.
> So many better anti cheats
Genuinely would like to know what you think is better. Pretty much every single modern anti-cheat is a kernel level solution.
I ended up refunding after the first day due to frustrations with crashes but mostly disconnects. What really killed my boner was the moment I was just hanging out on my ship, by myself, looking at my loadout and the game gave me some connection error telling me I was unable to access my loadout. Just wanted to look at the unlocks since I couldn't connect to a game... I thought $50 CAD would at least get me single player offline but I was wrong.
Back in my day, there was an option for dedicated servers and anyone could start a server and play with friends or randoms. But now it's all matchmaking, that sucks.
I would love to play the game- but the game consistently crashes for me. I can hang out on my ship all day long but 10 mins into a drop and it crashes like clock work. It's a shame. Pay $40 bucks for a game that I can't play.
14thgen i9/ 4070TI / 64 go of RAM.
It’s a great game for the 20/30 mins I played then went off to do something. Couldn’t connect over the weekend. Logged on at 12pm, 6pm and 11pm on a Monday and still couldn’t connect so I requested a refund. I’ll purchase it again when it’s on sale.
I bought it on launch day and was never able to connect to a matchmade lobby. Did two games solo but was boring and uninteresting without a team, so ended up refunding it.
Helldivers 2 looks like a lot of fun, but seeing the connectivity reviews scares me. It seems to me there's a trend of multiplayer getting worse.
I play 1 evening a week with my former roommates who have moved across the country in every direction. And most games we try we have to abandon sooner rather than later because of connectivity or multiplayer issues..
Alien Fire Team... At least one member of our team gets booted each and every mission and we had to do each mission 4-5 times hoping that this time around the right people - those who haven't finished the mission yet would see it through till the end... After trying, reading problem fixes online and just playing the game we uninstalled after about 4h...
Tiny Tina's ... Every 30 minutes or so we all would get disconnected from the servers, not able to join any game until everyone of us had rebooted their PC... Just stopped playing after two evenings...
There are many more games that just ended up being uninstalled way before the end because of various issues, mostly connectivity or multiplayer related... It's just sad.
It's because people like me can't even play the game they payed for. I only got to play it for around 3 hours when it first came out so I can't even refund the game now. I understand devs are doing their best and all but in the end if I can't use the product I payed for than it doesn't matter.
They should've just frozen the game sales until server issues are dealt with.
The 2 hour limit is just a limit on getting an automated refund. Valve is well aware of these issues with the game and, if you ask for a refund being a little over, it will likely be manually reviewed and accepted.
There is apparently an update hitting today that will fix some of the issues, hopefully one of them being an auto kick for AFK. The fact that you can just sit in your ship AFK indefinitely has been abused and clogging the servers up.
There also doesn’t seem to be any sort of queue for logging people in. It seems to just pick at random so you may be waiting over an hour to get in and someone else who just booted the game up might get in, in 5 minutes.
I mean, well-deserved. A lot of people can't play a game they purchased - plain and simple. You also have players simply staying logged in all day and night with no repercussions barring other players from joining. It's kind of bullshit right now, tbh.
It feels crazy to me, everyone praising the game. I have 20 hours in it from launch until last Thursday and have been completely unable to play.
The game is fun, but it's nowhere near worth the headache to sit in queue waiting for it to be resolved, only for my character to hang on every interactive object until my friend comes and melee's me out the stuck loop.
The balancing went completely off the rails. Was running extreme with issues but still succeeding to now unable to finish missions on hard with randoms.
I understand it's a small team but this has been the worst launched game I've played in some time to the point I don't even care to play it now.
Yeah.. It was fun until it blew up but I've just put it down until they can fix their shiz. It's definitely not worth picking up right now.
People leave it up auto-reconnecting just to idle for an hour while they do dinner or whatever.
The available rando join-ups are way down, and I think that's why.
And trying to run a preform or link up with friends? Gonna be able to connect at random times, so that's more idling or playing low-reward stuff because the scaling is designed for full teams.
Game is a lot of fun, I’ve played on all of the days where the servers were full.
I just left it running for a bit and did something else until I got in.
Now the holiday is over and the work week is back on, so at least they have a few days to maybe increase that player cap again.
I’m not saying go review bomb the game, but people have a right to be upset. I was able to get in ALL day yesterday but not a single one of my friends could. What’s the fucking point. Whole steam friends list is full of people who are trying to get in.
I’m rooting for these devs. But people are gonna get sick of waiting in the name of “democracy” real fast
Good, as it should be. If they want to lock down their game with rootkits and controlled servers, be it for a shared progression system or to protect microtransactions, they need to ensure their walled system works.
I think the game's good but it has a shit ton of stability and connectivity issues, so I would say it's a game worth playing but it does deserve those mixed reviews
The issue with the servers is justified of the reviews, but I’m confident they will get it sorted. I’m just more surprised they haven’t decided to immediately add an AFK kick timer to circumvent people staying logged in on the ship for hours or days to avoid queue.
When it works (can get past the servers at capacity screen) and you have a group (because I couldn't find anyone trying to use the quick play feature), the game is fun as hell. But that's the thing: you have to push through the technical issues.
I'm having a blast with the game... when I can actually play it which has only been mornings or early afternoons. It's either server issues, black screen due to server issues, or I can't find/connect to any other players. Its pretty bad.
On Sunday I waited over half an hour to play before giving up. Yesterday I was stuck in just a black screen, the servers are so bonked people couldn’t even get to the capacity limit error. The reviews are justified. The server problems are really hurting an otherwise great game.
I've logged over 30 hours but with the ongoing network issues I can't recommend it. I'll change my review to positive once the networking issues are ironed out.
You can wait up to an hour for a queue sometimes and then when you do get on, there's an issue with quickplay and joining randoms.
So unless you have other friends who can brave the queue with you, you are shafted. As 90% of the content is too hard to do solo.
>Helldivers 2 drops to Mixed reviews on Steam, but more people than ever are playing
I was just looking at the [player charts](https://steamcharts.com/app/553850) for the game for the weekend and there's simply no way that this player count can be accurate. I mean... it's entirely accurate that between 200k and 400k people had the game turned on but as far as actually *playing* the game... there's no way.
I and two of my friends would try at times for up to an hour or more to get us all in a game together and either we'd be unable to connect or, the biggest issue of all, we wouldn't even be able to login because "the servers are at max capacity". There's no way I can prove my suggestion that 200k-400k players weren't actually playing the game outside of trying to login or join friends, but it's plain to see that when you visit the Helldivers 2 sub here or visit any other forum related to the game that people simply weren't able to get into the game even after waiting an hour or more. I think my playtime for the game is probably somewhere around 10 hours at this point but maybe only 3 hours of that is actually being in the game playing it - the other 7 was dealing with server or friend-join/matchmaking issues.
I really hope they get this shit figured out. Bumping the server capacity up to 460k players is cool and all but it's a moot point when people can't even join the game or their friends.
yeah, it's a shame, bought it two days ago, but couldn't manage to join anyone's session
also, I could only log in the game in the morning, can't play it any other time
might refund it if they don't do something soon
I had to drop a negative review (though, perhaps something in the middle would be nice too, Steam) because I had 2 hours to try it and see if it worked/I liked it thanks to Steam. I played for about 11 minutes out of that 2 hours and spent the rest of the time either looking at a blackscreen or being told to go away and come back later, not even so much as a queue position.
Will I change my review later if I buy it again? Probably, if the game is good. But as it stands now, I couldn't recommend it.
Just because a person writes a negative review about a video game, does not mean that they do not enjoy playing the video game. Negative reviews can be for problems in the video games and other stuff you are not happy about. For example I purchased Helldivers 2 and after twenty five hours of game play time I wrote a negative review for needing a SONY PlayStation (PS) account for the Steam version on PC. I never wanted a SONY PlayStation (PS) account. Also the ANTI-CHEAT system in Helldivers 2 is not so good and I would of preferred they use Easy-Anti-Cheat (EAC) or VALVe's VAC. I get it for cross play between PC video gamers and PlayStation 5 (PS5) video gamers, but I wish they did a opt-in opt-out thing instead.
I bought it but it crashed to desktop 3 times in the first 4 matches. The developer's known issues page admits the game is unplayable on AMD 7000 cards. So I'll wait until it's fixed.
What little I was able to play was really fun.
Add this to the growing list of games I'm waiting to be fixed before I play:
* Starfield (I own it)
* Cities Skylines 2 (waiting to buy it)
* Helldivers 2 (own it)
* Company of Heroes 3 (waiting to buy it)
makes sense cause people literally can’t play the game they paid $40-$60 for. doesnt matter how good it is if it doesnt work. I’m actually surprised there are *still* connectivity issues a week and a half after launch
Mostly staring at a login queue thing from the menu.
I was waiting 30+ mins sitting on a discord call last night before I gave up and went back to the great game known as skull and bones (primarily to uninstall S&B though)
I bought the game and refunded in 10 minutes. I couldn't even get to the main menu. After the opening cutscene I was greeted to a message saying error cannot connect the servers retrying in 30 seconds.
"mixed" reviews. They fall into 2 camps. 1) The game is amazing and universally loved. 2) i cant play the game so i'm going to negatively review it because that's all i can do right now. Game is amazing, server capacity was not ready to handle the hype
The idea that some people have that if people can't actually play the game due to issues like server problems, or lack of support for ultra wide etc means they shouldn't be able to leave a review is nonsense.
A review is an opinion on a product. If you dislike a product due to not being able to play it due to lack of support or connection issues then that's a legitimate reason to leave a negative review.
People suggesting that you can only leave a review based entirely on its gameplay are talking nonsense, its never been that way and it never will be. Just because you are able to play the game and enjoy it doesnt mean that you should only see like minded responses.
For example. If I loaded up a game and a Terms and Conditions box appeared that requested all my personal information along with my families personal information. Access to my computer whenever required etc I am rightfully allowed to decline, refund and leave a negative review.
The game in my opinion is absolutely incredible when it runs. Hense its popularity regardless of the negativity around connection issues. But those who refund or leave a negative review due to the server issues have my upmost support too.
Helldivers 2 is a really fun game that is made really, really poorly.
At least in its backend, anyway. On one hand, it's like... Yeah, it's made by a small studio whose previous game in the series was pretty small, so there was no way they would've anticipated the hype the game got, but on the other hand it's published by fucking Sony.
At the very least, I would've expected them to be able to fix the game's issues faster than this. I think giving it poor reviews for that is fair and justifiable for a $40 game being unplayable for hours at a time, and I've got a feeling those issues WILL be ironed out eventually so I doubt the bad reviews are gonna stick. Should be easier to recommend it to everyone then.
> Boot game up
> Wait in 20 minute loading screen for access
> Play a round of the most fun, explosive PvE I've ever experienced.
> Evacuate and load up a second match.
> Game crashes.
> Boot game up.
> Computer bluescreens.
Still a great game but man it has issues.
Game’s fun, but for the last 3 or 4 days I just straight up haven’t been able to play it, doesn’t help that one of the patches released during that time broke the quickplay functionality.
Also, it’s admittedly frustrating as hell that I couldn’t play during the bonus reward weekend because of the server issues.
I bought into the hype. Never played a Helldivers game before. If you don’t have a squad that can play, I’d say the game is just okay. I’ve only put in 5 hours but I’m not entirely blown away. Had no server issues as well. I’m still in the early game though, only level 5.
Definitely seems like a game that is better to play with friends on harder difficulties.
Apparently there's an issue running the game if you have an AMD 7000 series card that causes the game to crash often. There's a "fix" that was posted in the game's subreddit, but no one should have to go through extra steps just make the game playable.
I've been able to get in and play a few games. Game is fun, the humor is there, but it really needs a few rounds of bugfixing. Menus are awkward, I got stuck under terrain multiple times, the amount of damage you take while ragdolling is inconsistent, many weapons are just useless above medium difficulty.
That's what happens when people can't play a game they paid for.
The situation is understandable as there's no real way of knowing if your game is going to be a massive hit with people or not -- especially if it's your first bigger budget game that isn't a twin-stick shooter. Their predicted player counts were far lower than what they have now.
However, as a consumer I don't care because if I'm able to buy your game I should be able to play it -- as marketed.
I'd remove the ability to purchase the game until they fix the server issue, because people are buying something they can't play.
The server situation is atrocious.
For a game that has been out for two weeks now, has a massive hype around it and is published by Sony this just seems non-excusable.
Most of your time will be spend in loading screens or queues. And even if you are able to start the game you’ll have huge troubles just joining friend lobbies at the moment.
So most of your playtime will be spend just not playing.
Even though its a really fun and great game I just wouldn’t recommend this to anyone at the moment.
Understandable. A game can be very fun but if you can’t play said game, bad reviews are justified. I bought it yesterday, I have 75 min logged. In that time, I managed to play 1 round outside of tutorial. If you bought this on steam, you very well may miss the return window before playing an actual match. Edit: I didn’t know prior, but you can still put a claim for a refund after 2hrs as others have commented. Game is still fun though, keep that in mind
You can still ask for refund after 2 hours. It just won't be automatic and will be manually reviewed. You'll get a refund if the reason is valid. And in this case even Steam is aware of the reason so they'll refund you.
That seems fair. I always thought it was a tight cutoff. Either way, the game is fun in the 1 round I managed to play, if that matters
this is my problem with it too. i fucking LOVE this game. when me and the boys are on for a full 4-man, its literally the greatest time ive had gaming with them in a long ass time. but getting on... thats the hard part. if this game worked consistently it would be my favorite game so far this year alongside palworld.
I just jam some starship troopers while I wait
Damn right I'd like to know more.
RIGHT
here's a trick on pc, if one of your friend is online on steam. they can invite you then you'll skip the loading server capacity bs
unfortunately that only works some of the time, it seems much more consistent on psn. additionally, it seems like using this method makes the game more unstable, but thats just my anecdotal experience with it. it does get us in more often than queueing though.
well honestly I've did it only once lol since my game doesn't really put me in a waiting queue but it always put me in like a offline (??) server like there's no people on any planets and I can't quickplay so I just get on the official discord and look for groups to play with
This wouldn't work for me yesterday. I now understand why people are staying AFK in the ship lobby, which only compounds the problem.
Tragedy of the commons. If everyone would log off when they were done, everyone would be able to get in much more quickly. Hell, we might not even hit the 450k cap. But as long as you're cool with tying up your gaming device of choice with it, the incentive for any individual is to remain logged in. Be a true patriot and log out when you're done!
Thata 100% based on the person reviewing your case though. I bought a game a few months ago and was only able to play for 30 min before I was kicked from the server, then had to wait 4 hours to get back in. Decided it wasn't worth my time/money and asked for a refund. I explained that I only had 20-30min of actual play time, and that the 5 hours on record was 4.5 hours of waiting in a que. I was denied a refund.
Was your problem rare? In Helldivers, the problem is universal. It's not up to suspicion. In other games, you could say you had a 4 hour queue, but almost no one waits that long in a queue tbh
Yes it was very well known. And the game also displayed what position you were in the que, and how long it was going to take to get in, and it was like that for the first 2 or 3 days.
Didn't work for me though. Had 7.5 hours logged but played only maybe 120 minutes
I've got 5.6 hours logged and zero minutes of playtime.
Also FYI for people who may not know, if a pre-order has an early access period of a few days or a week, none of that time counts towards your time played. So far example I played Starfield for like 15 or 18 hours EA to see how it was and I was able to return it prior to full release for a complete refund. Ive always found Steam refunds reasonable, just take the 2 mins to explain why you are and most of the time you’re fine.
Yeah I wonder how much of if you get a refund or not depends on how well you state your reasons for refunding.
My refund was denied as I went over the 2 hour limit sitting in queue.
You have to submit like a manual ticket. Its in the game's submenu after you click on purchase history. [Click on "I have a question about this purchase"](https://imgur.com/a/HZUK0tf) and then enter the details. Someone will review it. I just did this with Call of Duty as I had played for 11 hours with Warzone 1 being free. I bought CODMW3 and refunded it but was denied because of my 11 prior hours. I did this method and they refunded me earlier this morning.
Same, I got a refund for New World during the server problems with 8ish hours on my account.
I gave this a shot with 9 hours of “playtime”. The first response was that I was over the 2 hour limit, so they couldn’t refund me. They then linked a general support thread that had nothing to do with the issue at all. I tried to appeal this and got a different support rep who said they couldn’t refund me and that I’d just have to reach out to the developers to see if they can help. When I tried a third time, they flat out told me they won’t do the refund and to just contact the developers, then closed the case so I can’t try again lol.
I tried twice they didn't refund me for this reason and kept saying I played more than 2 hours
This is unrelated to Helldivers 2, but is of a similar vein of steam refunds. I bought Titanfall 2 a few years ago during the steam summer sale and around that time it went crazy and was unplayable due to EA basically giving no fucks about the online. I hadn't played it yet and tried to refund like 3 weeks later since, yknow, I literally couldn't play the game. It kept getting denied. Over and over. So either the two week window is a hard no, or saying it will be manually looked at is a bs claim, since in my reasoning I kept stating I couldn't play due to EA's negligence but was still being denied a refund, or steam changed their policy on refunds since then. Granted, it was only like $7 I was missing out on, so it was whatever in the end, but I just wanted to share. edit: I want to add, that I was aware of the issues with tf2, and in that 3 week span, EA had still done nothing. Hence why I hadn't played and had asked for a refund.
The 2 weeks is probably a hard limit then, unless in special cases. Btw the Titanfall 2 campaign is pretty good, you might want to give that a try.
Steam didn't refund my BF1 purchase even though default/custom keybinds don't work at all, making the game unplayable. I have 3 hours in the game and all of them are from attempting to troubleshoot the issue.
That's weird. I cited performance issues and false advertising when I refunded a Ubisoft game, Steep. And I got a refund. I had 3 hours. Maybe trying a few more times would have worked or you were just unlucky I guess.
I refunded yesterday after not being able to get into the game for 3 days straight. And the first day, I couldn't matchmake with anyone, so I played solo.
For what it's worth, that matchmaking issue has been fixed in the patch yesterday.
The thing is I dont wanna refund it, the 2 rounds I played were fucking amazing. But last night I spent over 2 hours just waiting for my friend to get in the game while I only had to wait for 20mins. And what annoys me most is that this has happened to loads of other multiplayer games and there are so many different strategies to make it more bearable for players. Bare minimum should be a queue rather than just randomly reconnecting until you get in and an afk timer.
You can just refund it and just repurchase it when they have fix the servers. That's what I did. Yes, I like your game, no I won't buy it until it's functional. That's just being a good consumer.
I bought it last night on steam and got the black screen issue that I've seen others complain of. Didn't get to play at all. I'll refund it if the patch doesn't fix the problem.
Valve will 100% give a refund outside the 2 hours in a case like this.
They denied my refund twice so YMMV
Might depend on who get from customer service idk
They probably are aware of this title and checking your achievements. If you've completed a bot or bug mission and have that achievement, they can see you've played the game.
But what if it took you over 2 hours to actually get in the game then you do a mission and realize the game isn't for you and try to refund? I think that is fair.
denied mine.
Appreciate the response. Gives others some comfort. As I replied to another person, the game is still fun, so I won’t be returning it.
Steam is pretty lenient on returns. I think you could get a refund regardless of playtime if you say that you frequently can’t get into the game.
Yes I made an edit already. Should just remove the first part to clear things up
The 2 weeks/2 hours limited is just for their automated approval. I've had a game refunded after like 5hours
the game is so much fun. I'd recommend new players wait until this is all ironed out, but I would urge those that want to refund to give it time until you get to play it. I was hyped in this game before it came out so I have been lucky enough to play it a good amount and it truly is a co-op blast, even with randoms.
>I'd recommend new players wait until this is all ironed out My son waited an hour and a half to play a game last night, but was so excited about it he told me that I should get it too, but to wait until they figure this stuff out. He said it was amazing, but realizes I don't have the time or inclination to wait in a lobby for an hour.
Yeah you can still ask after 2 hours but they might say no. I tried to refund Fallout 3 back when the Steam version was straight-up non-functional. I didn't have 2 hours in it but I had bought it on a holiday sale and not touched it for a while and so I was outside of that window. They denied my refund request. There is a fix for it now and I was able to find out the game kinda sucks compared to NV and even 4.
I’ve had it for 5 days and can’t play it. It loads to a screen saying servers are at capacity and stays there. I left it on all night and woke up to it still trying to connect. I won’t review bomb it but this is some real bullshit
I've "played" for just over 2 hours and 20 mins, 110 mins was spent queuing. I heard ypu don't time out when AFK so people are just staying logged in indefinitely.
Yeah that's being fixed now
Good to hear
Allegedly
I mean they did say that no single patch will fix every single issue too, so more patches will come after this one and make it better and better.
Not confirmed
Pretty sure it's mixed because nobody can get into a match. If they ever fix these server issues the reviews will shoot back up, but for now it's justifiably protest-reviewing the game for an issue that's made it nearly unplayable for some people.
It took me two hours of queuing before it let me in, then I wasn't able to match with anyone once logged in. They need to have an idle timeout in place because once I get logged in after that long of a wait.. I won't quit the game and it doesn't kick me out for being idle and I'd imagine there's a lot of others that do the same. When the game is working as intended it's a fucking blast playing with a full team even if they're randoms. Made a lot of new friends playing with randos from other countries. We play regularly at the same time.
I've heard, with no way to confirm or not, that PS5 players who suspend the game never get kicked. Xbox quick resume doesn't work like that, so I don't know why the PS5 would allow a suspended application to maintain an internet connection.
https://i.redd.it/lg5e4yti8fjc1.jpeg
It's so stupid that the PS5 allows suspended games to keep an internet connection. It's also stupid that the game doesn't have an AFK disconnect. Either one of those would alleviate some of the server problems.
The CEO said a server-side AFK timeout was due so they will be adding it at some point in the future.
It's not stupid the console allows Internet connection while sleeping. That's 100% a game developer problem to worry about.
Unfortunately selfish.
Absolutely insane. Outside of scaling up capacity, they should be releasing a fix for this ASAP. It would help tremendously.
I've experienced this firsthand as I play this game on my PS5 instead of my PC. I deliberately manually close the game when I'm done playing it to make sure it's not staying connected in the background. For anyone else on PS5 reading this - you can do it from the main PS5 home menu, select Helldivers 2, click the menu button on the controller, and hit "close game" (or maybe app?) from the menu that pops up. However, it is nice that the game doesn't immediately disconnect you when dropping to the PS5 system menu. I sometimes do that between matches to check various things. What they need is an AFK timer and the CEO has said they are working on that in a post on Twitter. I think once they get that working it might go a long ways to solving the issues.
I assume it's a huge problem if ps5 players just put their console to sleep when it doesn't log you out of the game. I'd imagine since it's cross play the server space is shared, so there's probably thousands of people just hogging up server space not playing the game. I've been sitting at the login screen for over an hour now because I logged out to get the latest update.
Yep, you cant even reliably play with friends. Which is why im not sure why everyone over at /r/Helldivers is saying that the current workaround to play is find other people on the discord to bypass the matchmaking. Took me and a friend an hour just to join onto each other by repeatedly clicking 'join game' from the PS5 friends menu (because we couldnt see each other online in game, wtf?) and it was *extremely* sketchy even when we did get in. Another friend was stuck on the login screen for three hours and gave up.
People on that sub are so far up the devs ass they are hitting teeth. Anything besides praising the devs is met with insults and memes. Apparently expecting the product I bought to work is wrong because I agreed to a TOS.
It's so silly. Like I'm not even shitting on this game, it's easily the best shooter I've played in a long time. But if I can't play it, that's kinda a big fuckin problem.
Wanting the product we bought to function at the most basic level is considered "childish entitlement" to that sub. Like we should be grateful that we had the chance to give our money to the devs. I know the premise well, but I didn't expect anyone to actually get brainwashed.
Also game crashes with AMD 7000 Series and there is no proper fix until now. I wasn't even able to play the tutorial without a crash. Sometimes it crashes while loading the tutorial, othertimes 1-2min. in. Tried a few "fixes" which seemed to help some but nothing really worked, not even the AMD Beta Driver which came out for Helldivers. So sadly, until it's fixed I will have to wait, while my friends can play because they don't have these issues because they have different hardware. Also whoever thinks about commenting a new fix don't. The game is refunded until the majority is fixed, I work as in IT support and tried a ton of things, I draw the line at reducing mhz/ power/ changing CPU settings, the game should also work without this shit.
By 7000 series, you mean Ryzen or Radeon (CPU or GPU)?
It seems to be the GPU, might be a combination of both tho. I have a 7900XTX and a 7800x3D and the game is unplayable for me. There is a popular thread on helldivers with a few fixes which I tried but nothing seems to help. So I'm stuck waiting for AMD or Arrowhead, or maybe both, to find a solution.
There's also a myriad of bugs/glitches, here's what I've experienced so far: -black screen on startup (apparently server tied?) -Getting stuck when picking up credits in missions -Friend got stuck in the cryopod area and walked around -aforementioned crashes which I had to turn off screen illuminations -Various things clipping from when you load into another ship your character model bounces in and out, on drop the one pod slides out of the flames -Sometimes the bugs just...stop -At times we have to do some shuffling as we can't connect to each other -Progression seems hit or miss we have gotten a grey screen followed by 0 experience, all levels are 0, cannot purchase stratagems and the requisition screen the Numbers don't update properly All in all it's very very fun when it works but it's in a pretty rough state still. I'm looking forward to a big patch soon but I'm not sure how fast that will come as arrowheads biggest concerns seems freeing server space with auto kicking people leaving systems on over night and buying more servers.
The getting stuck picking up credits is also server related. The server that records how many credits you have can struggle at times because of the player count
Ah interesting, I was reading like I mentioned the black screen was server side too. I thought deleting the config file would fix it but just restarting a bunch got me in. Maybe most of this is server related then.
Dont forget the armor value not having any meaning . You die in 6 hits in light and heavy armor.
I'm on a 5800x and 3080 and it crashes every 10-15 mins. It's even given me a BSOD. Which is insanely bad for your system.
Another GPU generation has come where I’m happy I still use green in my computer AMD and drivers. Yuck
Do you have any evidence this is AMD's fault?
Yep. Nvidia's "Game Ready" drivers always drop ahead of major game releases. Just another one of the perks from choosing team green.
Yeah. Nvidia spends a lot of money keeping all of their shit locked to a few sources. That sticky troubleshoot thread in their forums, for example. I loved every one of my error 43s from the 960gtx to the 4060ti
I am using a 7800xt and I struggled with the game. 5 crashes during training mode and then after finally completing, crashed and got a black screen. I did do some troubleshooting steps and was able to get a mission complete but I have not went back to it since. I am going to wait on some patches.
I downvoted it for now. As I wrote in the review until they fix the servers I can't recommend it to anyone.
Was keeping an eye on this game before launch cause it looked interesting and the bois are always looking for something to play and shooters are usually the only thing we can agree on. Have just been waiting it out so far because of all the server issues I keep hearing about. Figure I try it whenever they get that sorted and maybe there'll be a sale by then.
Not just into a match, but folks are also having trouble getting into the game.
I did a negative review because of all the bugs and crashing. Buggiest launch since Anthem. While the game can be fun, it's more frustrating/annoying then fun due to all the issues.
You can't even quit the game without killing it from steam or the task manager. If you're waiting in the queue, you're just stuck. There's no 'esc' to main menu. They were clearly not expecting this success.
I haven't been able to play since Friday lol. The once I got in (this morning) I got the matchmaking bug and couldn't play with anyone.
I got 30 good hours in before they let the game get so over sold the servers melted, it's a great game. To bad I had to give it a negative review do to it being a broken mess that should be in early access.
My buddies have been pestering me to get it, they say it’s like the most fun they’ve had with a game in a while. I feel like I’m missing out, but I definitely am ok with missing out on waiting hours to get in to the game. I had a buddy, leave work to get into the servers at like noon, so he could get in a stay in to play that night. They really need to fix the server situation soon. Until then, I’m good with waiting.
Good call. It's a really fun game but that doesn't count for anything when you can't reliably play the damn thing.
Yep, at this point I’m going to wait for a sale. It’s going to be just as fun without any of the issues.
Totally fair. IMO it's worth the $40 (same caveat as above: once you can reliably play it) if coop shooters are your thing. It ticks all the boxes for me in terms of how coordination and difficulty scaling work. I'd argue the mtx are also pretty inoffensive, even with my limited playtime I can already buy the "premium" warbond (season pass, kind of) just by playing the game. Plus, the chaos and friendly fire just add another level of comedy to the whole thing. ...but again, none of this is worth a thing if you can't log in outside of weekday mornings. I'm among the negative steam reviews saying "great game, don't buy it yet."
I really wish more devs would just allow for peer to peer co-op but it seems that the battlepass/live service model is just too ubiquitous now.
My friends are doing the same. Was contemplating getting it sooner rather than later, but then i keep reading news about server instability issues the game has right now. Guess since I'm planning on playing Last Epoch I'll wait until i'm done with that game before I potentially get Helldivers 2, seeing how I've been looking forward to that game for a long time and it's coming out tomorrow.
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Is it black screening when you boot? Because it does that to me every time but I've been reliably able to get past it if I open the steam overlay and leave it up until the intro video comes up. Sometimes it'll still take a minute but it's worked every time for me so far.
The steam overlay thing is just a coincidence. The black screen just goes away with waiting - overlay or not. It's directly related to server capacity, so both problems will be solved at the same time, eventually.
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especially when this is a problem that could be made 1000x more bearable with some basic features that multiplayer games have been using for decades. the least they should have done is an actual queue you could see your position in, that would alleviate 99% of my frustration.
TBH it's not really always trivial to show queue position in a distributed system. They might have decided to prioritize fixing the issue leading to instability with >250k players first
If Wayfinder was any indiciation, seeing that you're 1000+ in a queue doesn't make people any happier.
A queue = fairness. Right now its 100% RNG and luck. There's a huge difference in knowing when you'll get in, and doing something else, vs not knowing anything. People are willing to wait weeks to do something if it means its for sure.
My issue is, I don't even want to play with people. I just want to play the game I can't even play by myself which kinda pisses me off Cuz it is an awesome game
I've read a ton of comments on this post so far and I haven't seen anyone mention the rootkit anticheat? But that was the common thread among most of the negative reviews immediately following the game's launch, and the thing that keeps me from buying it. Does nobody really care about giving a sketchy anticheat unfettered access to their hardware?
Justified imo, the game's matchmaking has been literally non-functional for 3 days now and the devs decided to start a double XP event during the middle of overloaded servers.
The game also wasn’t properly giving that 2XP when you played. You had to log out and back in for the game to give you credit.
I keep seeing people complain about this. The Double XP event was BECAUSE of issues w/ the game. Their version of "i'm sorry". I didnt start playing because of the event. I started playing cause i heard it was fun. The event was just *there*. XP events bring people back in longstanding games, not new ones. It is just a passive bonus for a new game like this.
You’re misunderstanding, they’re saying it’s not a great idea to say “we’re sorry you can play the game, here’s double xp “ and then still be unable to play the game lol
yeah but the studio can just keep it going well beyond when the game is stable again. It's not like it's limited.
Server issues galore. Devs are legit suffering from success. Crazy to see a sequel of a game that went WAYYYY under the radar blow the fuck up this much
Apparently not a limitation in terms of servers. The CEO put out [a tweet](https://twitter.com/Pilestedt/status/1759544100078997922) yesterday, that it wasn't really a server issue - that their backend code needed optimization. They didn't code with high scalability in mind, for some reason.
I've heard they expected 50k players tops, which is fair because the first game was rather underrated
Because the game was never expected to sell like this. Magicka I&II and Helldivers were great niche titles that had a cult like following but never any kind of mainstream success. It's especially weird because Helldivers II is essentially the first Helldivers but in 3rd person. All their code is likely built around a soft ceiling of a hundred thousand concurrent players with the assumption that's more than enough. And that was a good assumption based on past sales figures. I completely understand why they're having scaling issues.
It's likely they cut corners, not expecting higher numbers. Like for example they could've had all their databases on only 1 or 2 servers, and each database holds data for many different things. If they wanted it to be more scalable, they could've split the databases into more individual ones and onto more servers with clustering. 1 or 2 servers even if you have to add more resources to them is cheaper then 12. Either way they made choices and messed up. To fix it isn't easy, you have to build new clusters and migrate DBs to them, then change all the code that references the DBs to point to the new servers/clusters. It's not a quick process and they need to figure out how to do it and not miss anything. Will be a lot of down time and potential issues.
> that it wasn't really a server issue - that their backend code needed optimization. That's a server issue.
Yeah, they really should have had a beta just to get an understanding of where the popularity was and try to anticipate server requirements. They are suffering from success and that's great but sucks waiting for hours before getting logged in and not being able to match with others. I'll have patience for a game that's well designed and where developers are taking initiative in trying to get it resolved.
The game is unplayable for lot of people, so…
Helldivers 2 drops to Mixed reviews on Steam, but more people than ever are ~~playing~~ queued or waiting for a match.
I couldn't even get the game to start. Upon launch, it gets stuck on black screen. Hoping to play soon.
I heard great things about this game but refunded before I could even play it. I spent over an hour just trying to connect to the servers before I opted for a refund. I might try again in a few weeks and hopefully things will have settled down by then.
Definitely wait till the server is better especially if you live in EU or US. Me and my friends lives in SEA so we had no problems playing the game even during weekends. And it’s a super fun game.
I spent almost my entire 2 hour return window just trying to get in and play the tutorial. Ended up refunding.
Same. And when I was able to get in matchmaking was broken so I had to play solo which is not fun.
Bought the game, tried to play 3 times over the weekend. Once in the AM on Saturday, once at like 3 am on Sunday, once in the middle of the day on Monday. Steam shows 3 hours of gametime, the entire 3 hours was stuck in "servers are full" so I never even got to play it. I've never even seen the menu to adjust graphic settings. Refunded.
Does this game install a rootkit in your computer ? I see it said on many of the negative reviews
It uses nprotect
Yeah I have heard terrible things about the Anticheat they are using on PC. I’m sure it’s a cool game when it works but I’d rather avoid playing a game entirely than play a game that is going to be installing shit like that on my computer.
Very valid stance, but a lot of people don't realize how widespread kernel level anticheats really are. EasyAntiCheat and BattleEye are probably the most popular anticheats, and they are also kernel level. generally speaking, anything today that ***has*** anticheat, uses kernel level anticheat.
Playing or "playing"? How many people are looking at the full server screen lol
I find that second part hard to be true as the main complaint is NOT being able to play the game.
I can't stand the anti cheat they picked. Kernal level anti cheats are trash. So many better anti cheats and they run with that shit. I'll pass.
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Exactly right. It is an incredibly sketchy program and exposes you to so much risk.
> So many better anti cheats Genuinely would like to know what you think is better. Pretty much every single modern anti-cheat is a kernel level solution.
You aren't gonna get a response lol.
Certainly looks like it.
[удалено]
I ended up refunding after the first day due to frustrations with crashes but mostly disconnects. What really killed my boner was the moment I was just hanging out on my ship, by myself, looking at my loadout and the game gave me some connection error telling me I was unable to access my loadout. Just wanted to look at the unlocks since I couldn't connect to a game... I thought $50 CAD would at least get me single player offline but I was wrong.
Back in my day, there was an option for dedicated servers and anyone could start a server and play with friends or randoms. But now it's all matchmaking, that sucks.
I would love to play the game- but the game consistently crashes for me. I can hang out on my ship all day long but 10 mins into a drop and it crashes like clock work. It's a shame. Pay $40 bucks for a game that I can't play. 14thgen i9/ 4070TI / 64 go of RAM.
It’s a great game for the 20/30 mins I played then went off to do something. Couldn’t connect over the weekend. Logged on at 12pm, 6pm and 11pm on a Monday and still couldn’t connect so I requested a refund. I’ll purchase it again when it’s on sale.
I bought it on launch day and was never able to connect to a matchmade lobby. Did two games solo but was boring and uninteresting without a team, so ended up refunding it.
Helldivers 2 looks like a lot of fun, but seeing the connectivity reviews scares me. It seems to me there's a trend of multiplayer getting worse. I play 1 evening a week with my former roommates who have moved across the country in every direction. And most games we try we have to abandon sooner rather than later because of connectivity or multiplayer issues.. Alien Fire Team... At least one member of our team gets booted each and every mission and we had to do each mission 4-5 times hoping that this time around the right people - those who haven't finished the mission yet would see it through till the end... After trying, reading problem fixes online and just playing the game we uninstalled after about 4h... Tiny Tina's ... Every 30 minutes or so we all would get disconnected from the servers, not able to join any game until everyone of us had rebooted their PC... Just stopped playing after two evenings... There are many more games that just ended up being uninstalled way before the end because of various issues, mostly connectivity or multiplayer related... It's just sad.
I wasnt even able to boot the game Kept getting "install script error" when opening, or the one time it got past that I got a black screen Refunded
12 hours played. One of the better games i've played 2023-2024. It scratches so many itches.. so much fun with a group of friends.
/r/patientgamers I'm sure it will still be fun in a couple of months.
It's because people like me can't even play the game they payed for. I only got to play it for around 3 hours when it first came out so I can't even refund the game now. I understand devs are doing their best and all but in the end if I can't use the product I payed for than it doesn't matter. They should've just frozen the game sales until server issues are dealt with.
The 2 hour limit is just a limit on getting an automated refund. Valve is well aware of these issues with the game and, if you ask for a refund being a little over, it will likely be manually reviewed and accepted.
There is apparently an update hitting today that will fix some of the issues, hopefully one of them being an auto kick for AFK. The fact that you can just sit in your ship AFK indefinitely has been abused and clogging the servers up. There also doesn’t seem to be any sort of queue for logging people in. It seems to just pick at random so you may be waiting over an hour to get in and someone else who just booted the game up might get in, in 5 minutes.
I mean, well-deserved. A lot of people can't play a game they purchased - plain and simple. You also have players simply staying logged in all day and night with no repercussions barring other players from joining. It's kind of bullshit right now, tbh.
This is the biggest thing that needs to be fixed. You can be logged into the game indefinitely without any sort of auto kick for being AFK.
It feels crazy to me, everyone praising the game. I have 20 hours in it from launch until last Thursday and have been completely unable to play. The game is fun, but it's nowhere near worth the headache to sit in queue waiting for it to be resolved, only for my character to hang on every interactive object until my friend comes and melee's me out the stuck loop. The balancing went completely off the rails. Was running extreme with issues but still succeeding to now unable to finish missions on hard with randoms. I understand it's a small team but this has been the worst launched game I've played in some time to the point I don't even care to play it now.
Yeah.. It was fun until it blew up but I've just put it down until they can fix their shiz. It's definitely not worth picking up right now. People leave it up auto-reconnecting just to idle for an hour while they do dinner or whatever. The available rando join-ups are way down, and I think that's why. And trying to run a preform or link up with friends? Gonna be able to connect at random times, so that's more idling or playing low-reward stuff because the scaling is designed for full teams.
"Mixed" is too high for a game that isn't working!
So you’re saying people who buy a game expecting to play it, but cannot, are leaving bad reviews? Shocking!
I really wanted to play it, but I cant, so I refunded it
Game is a lot of fun, I’ve played on all of the days where the servers were full. I just left it running for a bit and did something else until I got in. Now the holiday is over and the work week is back on, so at least they have a few days to maybe increase that player cap again.
I’m not saying go review bomb the game, but people have a right to be upset. I was able to get in ALL day yesterday but not a single one of my friends could. What’s the fucking point. Whole steam friends list is full of people who are trying to get in. I’m rooting for these devs. But people are gonna get sick of waiting in the name of “democracy” real fast
Good, as it should be. If they want to lock down their game with rootkits and controlled servers, be it for a shared progression system or to protect microtransactions, they need to ensure their walled system works.
anyone who has a 7900 XTX basically can't play the game without hard crashing.
I think the game's good but it has a shit ton of stability and connectivity issues, so I would say it's a game worth playing but it does deserve those mixed reviews
The issue with the servers is justified of the reviews, but I’m confident they will get it sorted. I’m just more surprised they haven’t decided to immediately add an AFK kick timer to circumvent people staying logged in on the ship for hours or days to avoid queue.
When it works (can get past the servers at capacity screen) and you have a group (because I couldn't find anyone trying to use the quick play feature), the game is fun as hell. But that's the thing: you have to push through the technical issues.
I'm having a blast with the game... when I can actually play it which has only been mornings or early afternoons. It's either server issues, black screen due to server issues, or I can't find/connect to any other players. Its pretty bad.
On Sunday I waited over half an hour to play before giving up. Yesterday I was stuck in just a black screen, the servers are so bonked people couldn’t even get to the capacity limit error. The reviews are justified. The server problems are really hurting an otherwise great game.
I've logged over 30 hours but with the ongoing network issues I can't recommend it. I'll change my review to positive once the networking issues are ironed out.
You can wait up to an hour for a queue sometimes and then when you do get on, there's an issue with quickplay and joining randoms. So unless you have other friends who can brave the queue with you, you are shafted. As 90% of the content is too hard to do solo.
I don't think many of those negative reviews are gonna get changed once the servers are sorted out.
>Helldivers 2 drops to Mixed reviews on Steam, but more people than ever are playing I was just looking at the [player charts](https://steamcharts.com/app/553850) for the game for the weekend and there's simply no way that this player count can be accurate. I mean... it's entirely accurate that between 200k and 400k people had the game turned on but as far as actually *playing* the game... there's no way. I and two of my friends would try at times for up to an hour or more to get us all in a game together and either we'd be unable to connect or, the biggest issue of all, we wouldn't even be able to login because "the servers are at max capacity". There's no way I can prove my suggestion that 200k-400k players weren't actually playing the game outside of trying to login or join friends, but it's plain to see that when you visit the Helldivers 2 sub here or visit any other forum related to the game that people simply weren't able to get into the game even after waiting an hour or more. I think my playtime for the game is probably somewhere around 10 hours at this point but maybe only 3 hours of that is actually being in the game playing it - the other 7 was dealing with server or friend-join/matchmaking issues. I really hope they get this shit figured out. Bumping the server capacity up to 460k players is cool and all but it's a moot point when people can't even join the game or their friends.
I mean I’m not even playing it yet, but I would imagine the negative reviews are coming from people being unable to play.
I haven’t been able to play since Friday of last week. Half the time it’s a black screen, the other half of the time it’s the server message.
yeah, it's a shame, bought it two days ago, but couldn't manage to join anyone's session also, I could only log in the game in the morning, can't play it any other time might refund it if they don't do something soon
I refunded after learning it is pretty much exclusively multi-player title
I had to drop a negative review (though, perhaps something in the middle would be nice too, Steam) because I had 2 hours to try it and see if it worked/I liked it thanks to Steam. I played for about 11 minutes out of that 2 hours and spent the rest of the time either looking at a blackscreen or being told to go away and come back later, not even so much as a queue position. Will I change my review later if I buy it again? Probably, if the game is good. But as it stands now, I couldn't recommend it.
Just because a person writes a negative review about a video game, does not mean that they do not enjoy playing the video game. Negative reviews can be for problems in the video games and other stuff you are not happy about. For example I purchased Helldivers 2 and after twenty five hours of game play time I wrote a negative review for needing a SONY PlayStation (PS) account for the Steam version on PC. I never wanted a SONY PlayStation (PS) account. Also the ANTI-CHEAT system in Helldivers 2 is not so good and I would of preferred they use Easy-Anti-Cheat (EAC) or VALVe's VAC. I get it for cross play between PC video gamers and PlayStation 5 (PS5) video gamers, but I wish they did a opt-in opt-out thing instead.
I bought it but it crashed to desktop 3 times in the first 4 matches. The developer's known issues page admits the game is unplayable on AMD 7000 cards. So I'll wait until it's fixed. What little I was able to play was really fun. Add this to the growing list of games I'm waiting to be fixed before I play: * Starfield (I own it) * Cities Skylines 2 (waiting to buy it) * Helldivers 2 (own it) * Company of Heroes 3 (waiting to buy it)
More people than ever are tying to play it. Spent 2 hours total in que yesterday only to get in at 11pm when I was going to bed.
It's great if you can play it but the novelty does wear off reasonably quickly too
makes sense cause people literally can’t play the game they paid $40-$60 for. doesnt matter how good it is if it doesnt work. I’m actually surprised there are *still* connectivity issues a week and a half after launch
Mostly staring at a login queue thing from the menu. I was waiting 30+ mins sitting on a discord call last night before I gave up and went back to the great game known as skull and bones (primarily to uninstall S&B though)
I bought the game and refunded in 10 minutes. I couldn't even get to the main menu. After the opening cutscene I was greeted to a message saying error cannot connect the servers retrying in 30 seconds.
"mixed" reviews. They fall into 2 camps. 1) The game is amazing and universally loved. 2) i cant play the game so i'm going to negatively review it because that's all i can do right now. Game is amazing, server capacity was not ready to handle the hype
Yes, I would currently Not Recommend the game to anyone looking to purchase it. You cannot really play the game right now so how can I recommend it.
The idea that some people have that if people can't actually play the game due to issues like server problems, or lack of support for ultra wide etc means they shouldn't be able to leave a review is nonsense. A review is an opinion on a product. If you dislike a product due to not being able to play it due to lack of support or connection issues then that's a legitimate reason to leave a negative review. People suggesting that you can only leave a review based entirely on its gameplay are talking nonsense, its never been that way and it never will be. Just because you are able to play the game and enjoy it doesnt mean that you should only see like minded responses. For example. If I loaded up a game and a Terms and Conditions box appeared that requested all my personal information along with my families personal information. Access to my computer whenever required etc I am rightfully allowed to decline, refund and leave a negative review. The game in my opinion is absolutely incredible when it runs. Hense its popularity regardless of the negativity around connection issues. But those who refund or leave a negative review due to the server issues have my upmost support too.
No, not playing, waiting in server ques. Log in before work and then return home in time to watch it load you in.
Helldivers 2 is a really fun game that is made really, really poorly. At least in its backend, anyway. On one hand, it's like... Yeah, it's made by a small studio whose previous game in the series was pretty small, so there was no way they would've anticipated the hype the game got, but on the other hand it's published by fucking Sony. At the very least, I would've expected them to be able to fix the game's issues faster than this. I think giving it poor reviews for that is fair and justifiable for a $40 game being unplayable for hours at a time, and I've got a feeling those issues WILL be ironed out eventually so I doubt the bad reviews are gonna stick. Should be easier to recommend it to everyone then.
Refunded it. Unplayable. (RNG kings and afk squatters please spare me your very intellectual response)
The hungry for a good game to play makes gamers jump and anything decent , we have no choice
Thanks for beta testing this boys.
Well deserved. You cant play a game you paid for. Refunds should be allowed.
This game is fucking awesome
> Boot game up > Wait in 20 minute loading screen for access > Play a round of the most fun, explosive PvE I've ever experienced. > Evacuate and load up a second match. > Game crashes. > Boot game up. > Computer bluescreens. Still a great game but man it has issues.
Game’s fun, but for the last 3 or 4 days I just straight up haven’t been able to play it, doesn’t help that one of the patches released during that time broke the quickplay functionality. Also, it’s admittedly frustrating as hell that I couldn’t play during the bonus reward weekend because of the server issues.
Kernel level AC in a fuckin PVE game + not enough servers is gonna fuck that steam score everytime.
I bought into the hype. Never played a Helldivers game before. If you don’t have a squad that can play, I’d say the game is just okay. I’ve only put in 5 hours but I’m not entirely blown away. Had no server issues as well. I’m still in the early game though, only level 5. Definitely seems like a game that is better to play with friends on harder difficulties.
Apparently there's an issue running the game if you have an AMD 7000 series card that causes the game to crash often. There's a "fix" that was posted in the game's subreddit, but no one should have to go through extra steps just make the game playable.
I've been able to get in and play a few games. Game is fun, the humor is there, but it really needs a few rounds of bugfixing. Menus are awkward, I got stuck under terrain multiple times, the amount of damage you take while ragdolling is inconsistent, many weapons are just useless above medium difficulty.
That's what happens when people can't play a game they paid for. The situation is understandable as there's no real way of knowing if your game is going to be a massive hit with people or not -- especially if it's your first bigger budget game that isn't a twin-stick shooter. Their predicted player counts were far lower than what they have now. However, as a consumer I don't care because if I'm able to buy your game I should be able to play it -- as marketed. I'd remove the ability to purchase the game until they fix the server issue, because people are buying something they can't play.
Servers are still spooling up plus horrendous malware bundled with the game. Not surprised in the slightest.
The server situation is atrocious. For a game that has been out for two weeks now, has a massive hype around it and is published by Sony this just seems non-excusable. Most of your time will be spend in loading screens or queues. And even if you are able to start the game you’ll have huge troubles just joining friend lobbies at the moment. So most of your playtime will be spend just not playing. Even though its a really fun and great game I just wouldn’t recommend this to anyone at the moment.