In case you haven't been paying attention to the briefings required by Super Earth, the players of Helldivers 2 have been in a defensive war with the Automatons for some time now – and while there have been some perceived problems among the player base (and you, really), I can't deny that Arrowhead hit its intended goal of making an insanely upbeat story.
Even this second major mission has spawned countless memes, propaganda posters, and an entire “Robot Vietnam” planet to which some 30,000 individual humans are chained with almost no tactical use. They just think it's neat. But it's officially over – those damn dirty robots have won.
We lost the major contract – what’s next? Veld. That's it. While the war against the automatons has been a long, drawn out campaign, the next big order is: “Hey. Liberate a single planet.” Should be easy, right? Nice, breezy mission. In and out, at least one day, quickly secure 45 Warbond medals. Right?
I decided to get some oil from the planet myself for Super Earth, and aside from some distinctly Creek jungle vibes, I didn't find much to complain about. It was a standard bug-killing mission. I laughed, my teammates laughed, a beetle laughed, we killed the beetle. It was a good time. Then I checked the discord again and saw that everyone had a heart attack.
Okay, here's why the scare comes courtesy of helldivers.io and a few guys tearing their hair out on the Helldivers 2 Discord as we speak. Veld initially had a recovery rate of around 7%. This is the number of percentage points per hour that the bugs reach on the planet and the number that players need to overtake and win the tug of war.
Initially, 80,000 souls barely made a dent at a release rate of about 2% per hour. If they wanted to jump more than 7% and make progress, they would have needed around 300,000 soldiers with ground forces. Although some of these predictions may have been premature. A look at helldivers.io shows that these underdogs are currently achieving a 6% clearance rate, with that number just over halved.
Luckily, it looks like Arrowhead Games has its hand on the steering wheel. In literally the time it took me to write this paragraph, Veld's regeneration dropped to 3%, and the 180,000 souls currently destroying insects have begun reclaiming the planet in record time. If the current pace continues, players will achieve victory in less than 24 hours, although the current estimate needle is moving everywhere. Someone fiddles with the dials behind the scenes.
Considering I just watched a 7-3% swing before my eyes, I'm sure a third shoe will drop soon. The full toll Veld will take on the community will become clear once the numbers are finalized, but for now the fireworks are certainly special.
