Helldivers 2 continues to excite many players over a year after its release on Steam. With a new update, the developers aimed to make the enemies smarter, but this destroyed the performance for many players.
How did the developers plan to make the enemies smarter? In the latest update of Helldivers 2, the developers tweaked the artificial intelligence of the enemies. This determines how the opponents behave in the game and is a crucial element in Helldivers 2. The cooperative shooter thrives on unleashing a variety of enemies on players.
With the new update, the artificial intelligence controlling the enemies was supposed to perform more calculations. This was meant to improve the reaction speed of the enemies, especially in large battles. However, the developers also announced that this would negatively impact performance. Players are now complaining that Helldivers 2 has been ruined.
This trailer is where it all started with Helldivers 2:
Performance Drops When It Matters
How does the update affect the game? There have been little reports on the improved AI so far. Instead, players are gathering on Reddit to complain about the new poor performance. Even on good systems, the cooperative shooter seems to perform much worse than before the update. Those who already had a weak computer can hardly play now.
The first to mention this is Reddit user bob451111, whose system is equipped with an RTX 4090 graphics card and an Intel i7-13700K processor. He writes: “The change in AI calculations has destroyed performance. This is not ‘slight.’ […] Anyone who played difficulty level 10 before this change and now plays difficulty level 10 will tell you this is by no means a ‘light’ performance drop.”
For Reddit user Lazzitron, the problem is even worse: “It’s especially frustrating because one second, the FPS is fine, and then, as soon as you get into a major firefight, they suddenly disappear, and you are dead.”
On Completedspoon’s computer on Reddit, it looks like this: “It was running poorly before. Now it’s even worse.” Systems that already struggled with the cooperative shooter are now also affected.
This aligns with the developers’ description in the patch notes (via arrowhead.zendesk.com), “We have increased the number of AI calculations the game can perform. This primarily affects scenarios with a high number of spawned enemies and improves the reaction times in such situations. […]” That users now have problems exactly in the situations where the improved AI is supposed to take effect is likely.
The developers have just released a patch intended to fix some issues. However, the problem described by players does not appear in the patch notes (via Discord). It remains to be seen whether the improved artificial intelligence will be disabled for the sake of performance. Strong artificial intelligence is not the secret sauce that made Helldivers 2 so successful, but a flying boulder: The success of Helldivers 2 on Steam started with a stone hitting a player.
