The bots are trying to distract us with more of their "viruses"! I'll not be swayed by false information, only the truth of liberty can move me!
I can't imagine it being a sustained bump. All the new enemies that have been added since launch haven't interested my friend group in the least, unfortunately.
While the nerfs are annoying, I think the biggest issue is that people have grown to expect constant (even if minor) rewards for game play. Whether it be cosmetics through loot boxes, or new gear like in WoW and Diablo. Once there's nothing left to grind, a lot of people stop playing for fun. Something about how the human brain chemistry works.
This aspect of gaming really annoys me. I'm old enough to have played games for months or years because I just enjoyed playing the game. This notion of unlocking shit, seasons, cosmetics etc, whilst fun to be rewarded for, should be a minor reason for playing a game. Once I've unlocked everything in Helldivers I'm likely to continue playing regardless because I find it fun - to the point where I'm not sure exactly what everyone is complaining about. So they unbalanced a weapon to make it a shadow of its former self, just use something else you sook. The tiny attention span of people these days does my head in.
My only issue is I like having reasons to care about finding things at POI... Maxed out with nothing to spend them on, just doesn't feel great to me at that point.
Everything else is still fun and I'll still play it for that, but I do miss being excited to find req slips, and the rare times I get to spend them on something I get a reason to track them down again.
Doesn't even have to be a reward, could just be for a mission modifier or something, just to give me a reason to keep collecting them.
At their core, many video games are just a simulation of acquiring a skill, improving it, and getting meaningfully rewarded for improving at it
Our brains crave validation and the feeling of rewarded growth
