Devs Deny That Farmers in Helldivers 2 Are Harming the Galactic War
Players looking to make a quick buck on missions in Helldivers 2 aren't negatively impacting progress in the Galactic War. The other thing is that they don't help repel aliens either.
Arrowhead studio didn't address the issue of the "traitor," but the devs of Helldivers 2 had to dealt with the allegations against farmers who were supposedly undermining the Democrats' war effort with their actions.
The developers' reference to the issue has sparked some emotions, as seen from the thousands of "upvotes" in the Reddit thread, where the author argued about the harm caused by players attempting to quickly gain experience and medals. They are slowing down progress in the Galactic War, as one of the game's developers was supposed to prove.
Galactic War
While discussing the plot progression in Helldivers 2 may be an exaggeration, the game does offer a form of storytelling within the Galactic War. In a nutshell: players' actions impact the evolution of humanity's conflict with two hostile factions, the Terminids and the Automatons.
Battles occurring on planets under their occupation impact the control of sectors and the index of liberation. When the last one is filled, the given world is freed from the alien plague, which opens access to the next planet.
Of course, this requires completing missions, but they alone won't be enough. The progress in operations is more important, consisting of three tasks with different goals. The catch is that not all of them are equally profitable from the perspective of a single player.
Defense better than escape
Players soon discovered that the "Eradicate Automaton Forces" mission was the most efficient method for fast advancing and gathering medals. We not only defend powerful fortifications within it, but enemy units are also airdropped (they can be eliminated or at least severely weakened before they touch the ground).
This makes the mission easy and completing it doesn't take much time - it's literally a few minutes of gameplay. Therefore, it's not surprising that it has become the preferred task of "farmers" who have begun to disregard the rest of the operations. Especially since one of the missions - evacuating civilians - is incomparably more demanding and time-consuming, and it doesn't offer proper rewards for experienced players.
In other words, the "farmers" only finish one of the "Eradicate Automaton Forces" objectives and abandon the rest of the mission.
Farmers don't harm, but they also don't help
Some players have been saying from the start that this kind of behavior hinders or even reverses the progress in liberating planets. However, the storm broke out only after one of the devs responded (via Reddit). The developer known as Evil-Bosse confirmed that leaving the operation after only "halfway" completion means a defeat for the forces of Super Earth.
This proof was enough for the campaign against "farmers depriving us of our planet" to gain momentum. At least until Misty stepped in, who at Arrowhead studio is responsible for communication and player support. The developer stated that "Evil-Bosse made a mistake" and abandoning the operation doesn't negatively affect the progress of the planet's liberation, but it isn't "positive" either (via Reddit).
I can confirm that abandoning an operation does not progress the enemy's percentage [of planet control], so people who leave operations do not negatively affect the planet. But they do not positively affect it either.
Even after Misty's statement, some fans still view the farmers' actions as harmful. Operations don't help in the Galactic War, which means that these players don't contribute to the defense of Super Earth.
Nevertheless, many players indicate that this can partly be blamed on the game. If the rewards for completing all missions were better and the evacuation tasks were less demanding, the "farmers" wouldn't have a reason to abandon the operation.
Perhaps the devs will address this issue, but for now they have other things to do. The team at Arrowhead Game Studios has finally succeeded in overcoming the server issues, and in the meantime, the game has received several updates (the latest one today; via Discord).
