u/Sini1990

Okay, I think I’m getting dangerously close to officially being done with this game.

The new update has somehow managed to dial ragdolling up to 9000. Even with the armour that's literally supposed to help stop you getting knocked down, I'm still being ragdolled into a whole new district. At this point I'm spending more time airborne than actually fighting anything.

Spawns also seem completely cooked again. Enemies aren't just appearing nearby, they're practically spawning directly on top of you. Half the time it feels less like I'm fighting off an invasion and more like the game has decided personal space is an optional feature.

And somehow, once again, the game's performance has taken another nosedive. FPS seems noticeably worse after the update, which feels like yet another repeat of the same performance problems we've been dealing with for ages.

At this point I feel like I can already see the next few weeks:

Week 1: "The update is amazing!"

Week 2: Steam reviews start falling off a cliff.

Week 3: Arrowhead: Copy-paste the message "We hear you. We need to do better."

Week 4: Patch fixes 12 things and somehow ragdolling launches me into a different postcode.

Then we repeat the cycle again.

Jokes aside, though, I think the biggest problem for me now isn't even frustration. It's apathy.

Every time this cycle repeats, I find myself caring a little bit less. An update drops, things get broken or frustrating again, people complain, we get the usual "we'll do better" response, things slowly improve, and then another update comes along and somehow we're back here again.

I've stuck with Helldivers 2 through a LOT because underneath all these problems there is still a genuinely brilliant game. That's probably what makes it more frustrating. I know how good this game can be when everything clicks.

But my apathy towards it is growing stronger with every update. It's shifting to: what did it break now, every update?

Has anyone else reached that point in their career where you're mentally and physically burned to a cinder and you're just... done with the industry you're in?

I'm honestly exhausted by the way this industry has treated me. I'm tired of constantly feeling like I have to prove myself, tired of companies not seeing my potential or not even being willing to give me a chance anymore. I'm just at that breaking point.

I genuinely feel like I've hit a fork in the road. I either go 100% all in on building my own business for the next 3 years, or I keep chasing this industry knowing it's probably going to be more rejection, rejection, rejection.

And before anyone says, "Just get a temporary job while you build it," I've heard that advice for years. At this point, I don't want it. Part of the reason I'm standing at this crossroads is that I've spent so much of my life listening to what everyone else thought I should do instead of fully committing to what I actually wanted. I'm done letting other people's expectations dictate my path. If I'm going to succeed or fail, I'd rather it be because of my own decisions.

For the first time in a long time, betting on myself actually feels like the better option.

I'm also just tired of constantly having to move for jobs, never being able to save up properly, only for the role to end a few months later and the whole cycle starts again. It's exhausting, and I don't know how much more of it I've got left in me.

Has anyone else hit this point in their career? Did you end up walking away and build your own business or something completely different? How did it work out for you? I'm genuinely interested in hearing from people who've been at this crossroads.

R.I.P democracy. Hopefully gets fixed.

Wow, you know the game is in a poor state when the infiniate loading screen returns or the black infinite loading screen at the end of matches.

I once had a customer come in asking for petrol, bolt cutters, rubber gloves, and a face mask. I remember thinking, "Sorry sir, we don't sell those here..." because it genuinely sounded like the opening scene of a horror movie.

What are the strangest item combinations you've seen customers buy that immediately made your imagination run wild?

Is anyone else finding ChatGPT slightly annoying lately with its passive-aggressive tone or toxic positivity?

For instance, you state cold, hard facts about a subject and ask it to confirm, only for it to say, "No, that's not true" before listing the exact same facts you just mentioned to prove itself right.

Or you tell it, "This is going to happen," and it responds with, "I wouldn't say that yet." You reply, "No, it will; I'm seeing the signs," and it warns, "I wouldn't jump to conclusions." Then, once it actually happens, it hits you with, "Well, if that really did happen..."

While I don't want it to blindly agree with everything, its current behaviour is bordering on obnoxious. I feel like I'm spending more time arguing with it than actually getting things done lately.

I think Helldivers 2 has reached the stage where, whenever a new patch drops, a lot of the community's first thought is, "Right... what has this patch broken?" That's never a good place for a live service game to be.

Trust between the developers and the community has been worn down over time. If another major update launches in a broken state, I genuinely think that could be the tipping point for a lot of players.

I'm still hopeful because I want the game to succeed, and I'm still playing, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to enjoy.

Performance is still tanky, and even after the developers promised improvements, the most recent patch ended up breaking the audio yet again. It feels like one step forward and two steps back, which makes it hard to have confidence that things are moving in the right direction.

I don't think the player base will disappear overnight, but I do think we'll continue to see a slow, steady decline if this pattern continues.

Every problematic update chips away a little more at the community's trust. Eventually, more and more players will simply stop logging in.

Especially now that the way we unlock new content has changed. If players don't log in, they risk missing out on content and progression. At some point, people are just going to say, "Fine, I'm not playing anymore." Once players reach that mindset, it's incredibly difficult to win them back.

I am very curious to find out, that did anyone who has maybe minor prior skin conditions like sensitive skin etc. Get dialled up to 11 since having COVID? For example, I suddenly had psoriasis and flaky scalps more frequently, or my hands often get dry cracks more.

I try to cope with creams like CeraVe, but that only helps so much. Ketoconazole has been a godsend shampoo, as that helps remove a lot of buildup.

But did anyone else have this since having covid?

This is probably a conspiracy theory, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

When Helldivers 2 launched, it attracted a huge audience, including a lot of players from faster-paced shooters like Call of Duty. The gunplay felt satisfying, you could wipe out hordes of enemies, and despite the difficulty, it still had that fun arcade feel.

One thing that keeps coming back to mind is that Arrowhead has talked in the past about wanting to "trick players into thinking it's a horde shooter." Whether people agree with that philosophy or not, it makes me wonder if what we're seeing now is simply that vision being fully realized.

Fast forward to today, and it almost feels like the game has been slowly steering those players away. Between repeated balance changes, making weapons feel less effective, increasing frustration, and leaving long-standing bugs unresolved, the game feels far less welcoming to players who enjoyed that original arcade-style experience.

I'm not saying Arrowhead sat in a meeting and decided, "Let's get rid of CoD players." But I do wonder if they're intentionally trying to narrow the player base down to the audience that matches their original vision of a slower, more tactical co-op experience.

If that's the goal, then from a design perspective it would actually make some sense. It's easier to balance a game around the players you want than trying to satisfy two very different audiences.

Maybe I'm completely wrong, but when you combine their comments about wanting to "trick players into thinking it's a horde shooter" with the direction the game has taken over the last year, I can see why some people might think the original launch audience wasn't the long-term audience they wanted.

Curious to hear what everyone else thinks. Is this reading too much into it, or does anyone else get the same impression?

This isn't even fucking funny anymore ngl

I've genuinely got to ask, why are some of these long-standing gameplay bugs still around? The input bug where you can hammer the reload button multiple times and nothing happens, or hit Stim and your character just doesn't respond, has been frustrating players for ages. These aren't tiny visual glitches either. They directly affect gameplay and can easily get you killed, especially on higher difficulties.

Then there's the newer issue with enemy spawn radius. I've had enemies literally spawn right on top of the host with no warning. It completely undermines positioning and awareness because there's nothing you could have done differently. Getting overwhelmed because of a mistake is one thing. Having enemies materialise beside you is another.

I'm not trying to bash the game because I love playing it, but these feel like pretty fundamental issues. Does anyone know if the developers have acknowledged either of these recently, or are they still being investigated? I'd honestly rather see these kinds of gameplay bugs fixed before more new content gets added.

Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) are increasingly being weaponised as a tool to push out employees based on managerial whim rather than actual performance. When a manager simply doesn’t "click" with someone, the PIP is often deployed as a legal shield to document a pre-determined exit, rather than its intended purpose as a genuine coaching mechanism. It turns a workplace into a rigged game where the goalposts constantly move, crushing the confidence of otherwise excellent, capable professionals.

This toxic tactic becomes blindingly obvious when a new hire is slapped with a PIP within their first month of employment. No one can master a new role, navigate internal systems, or fully onboard in 20 business days. Issuing a PIP during the vulnerable onboarding phase isn't performance management; it is a confession of broken training, organisational failure, and bad-faith leadership.

Is it just me, or have they decreased the enemy spawn radius around the host again? I swear enemies are literally spawning right on top of me now. It feels like they're appearing almost instantly instead of spawning further away, and it's happened enough times that I'm starting to wonder if something changed.

I've been thinking about this lately and wondered if anyone else feels the same.

It feels like a lot of workplaces in 2026 have become incredibly unforgiving. If you don't instantly match the team's vibe or personality, you're often seen as "not a fit." It doesn't always feel like you're being judged on whether you can do the job, but whether you fit into an already established social circle.

Training also seems to have become much harsher. New starters are expected to perform at the same level as people who've been there for years, and if you're not up to speed almost immediately, you're labelled as falling behind. Whatever happened to proper onboarding and giving people time to learn the company's processes?

I've also noticed that when companies hire two people at the same time, it can sometimes feel like an unofficial competition. Instead of both people being supported to succeed, it almost feels like they're being compared from day one, with one inevitably coming out on top.

Maybe it's just the industries I've worked in, but it genuinely feels like companies have become far less willing to invest in developing people and far quicker to replace them.

Has anyone else noticed this, or have I just had a run of bad experiences?