Arrowhead has officially debunked the ricochet damage rumor after it dropped the latest Helldivers 2 patch, but the team has discovered another issue in the meantime. While some of the community was in a frenzy over the belief that patch 01.000.300 made some explosive rounds ricochet back at you and kill you, it was quickly debunked by others. Arrowhead also debunked this with its own research, but found that there are actually some problems with shrapnel damage instead.
So what happened? After the latest Helldivers 2 patch dropped, a rumor started to spread that players were being killed by their own ricochet damage. Videos ended up on social media, and angry posts called for Arrowhead to fix the issue in the co-op game. The only problem? Explosive rounds aren’t ricocheting and killing you in the game.
While Helldivers 2 patch 01.000.300 made a lot of great changes like less fire damage, a big shift to the ammo economy, and more reason to play in groups, accidental explosive ricochets were never on the agenda. Now, Helldivers 2 associate community manager ‘Spitz’ has released a statement, and it looks like shrapnel damage is a problem instead.
“We looked into the possibility of rockets and other explosives being affected by ricochets. This has since been debunked by the community, but nonetheless, our Ministry of Defense team also ran a number of tests today and confirmed that rockets and explosives are not ricocheting,” Spitz explains.
“However, we have noticed another issue through these posts and community feedback that has identified the possibility for shots from the R-36 Eruptor to explode and rebound shrapnel at the shooter, which has a high enough damage value to instantly kill the player.”
To stop this, Arrowhead is looking at completely removing the shrapnel effect from the Eruptor. To combat a drop-off in effectiveness, the Eruptor will get a damage increase that will act as a buff. Spitz goes on to explain how both ricochets and shrapnel work in the game.
“Currently, with the systems in place, only small arms should be able to ricochet on armor. If you see an explosive VFX at the point of impact, the projectile is not causing a ricochet, as explosion effects are not triggered when a ricochet occurs. Shrapnel, however, can still explode outwards from the point of impact and kill the player.”
So there you have it, there’s no conspiracy about the latest patch making ricochets kill you more often, but shrapnel still can.
If you want to do your best to protect yourself from shrapnel damage, the best Helldivers 2 armor should help you. Otherwise, the most effective Helldivers 2 weapons can keep the enemies so far away you won’t need to worry about what you’re wearing.
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