Newest Helldivers 2 Patch Is Causing Players To Die By Their Own Weapons

Summary New patch in Helldivers 2 introduces self-ricochet deaths, adding challenge & strategy to gameplay.

Debate within community over what constitutes a ricochet, with some weapons causing unintended deaths.

Arrowhead addresses self-ricochet issue impacting weapons like Eruptor and Punisher Plasma, seeking balance.

There are many ways for players to die in Helldivers 2 in their pursuit of democracy, mainly at the hands of the robotic Automatons, the bug-like Terminids, or even mistakes made by their own teammates. A new patch has introduced a new way, however, as players are finding their own weapons are killing them mid-battle.

Arrowhead's latest patch notes state, "Shots that ricochet from heavily armored enemies will now properly hit the Helldiver who fired them. Trigger discipline is highly recommended." which seems reasonable enough, adding another level of immersion to the game and encouraging players to think about their tactics in more detail, as ricochets can now cause damage whereas they couldn't before. Unfortunately, as reported by PC Gamer, this has majorly impacted several players who are finding that they're dying almost as soon as they fire their weapons.

Related Helldivers 2’s Most Important Strategy Has Nothing To Do With Weapons Or Stratagems The best strategy in Helldivers 2 has nothing to do with what Stratagems and equipment players use, and everything to do with how they use them.

Players Are Debating What Counts As A Ricochet

Some Weapons Seem To Be Killing Players For Other Reasons

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There seems to be some debate around what counts as a ricochet and what doesn't within the Helldivers community. Redditor vAErJO posted footage of them using the explosive rifle, the Eruptor, which they initially believed killed them instantly due to a ricochet. It has since been determined, however, that the issue was with the explosive rounds going off prematurely, killing the player first, then the bug, which vAErJO pointed out could be due to user error, or a new issue that has been introduced with the new patch. Others did point out that the ricochet mechanic has made the Eruptor's shrapnel lethal on occasion now though, so there is a possibility this patch may cause similar deaths for those who use the new weapon.

The Eruptor was included in Helldivers 2's Democratic Detonation Warbond.

There had also been reports of rockets ricocheting, although this seems to be either due to bad luck or perceiving this to be the case when another explosion seemed to be responsible, as shown by Reddit user Shard1697 when debunking a clip of a potential ricochet kill. There is, however, one known fault with the Punisher Plasma that is killing players if they fire with a shield active, with Helldivers 2's senior game designer Alexus Kravchenko taking to the official Discord to explain that the plasma projectile now has a proper hitbox that is overlapping with the shield gen backpack.

While it sounds like ricochet deaths seem notoriously unlucky and are being exaggerated by some players, Arrowhead ultimately made death by self-ricochet in Helldivers 2 possible. Therefore, there has likely been some unintended impact on weapons like the Eruptor and potentially the Punisher Plasma with the former's shrapnel and the latter's hitboxes now causing damage to players. While most weapons don't seem to have much of an impact on general gameplay with their ricochets, hopefully, in these more extreme cases, Arrowhead can look into balancing this out somewhat.

Source: PC Gamer, vAErJO/Reddit, Shard1697/Reddit, Helldivers/Discord