Copypasted directly from source:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/?emclan=103582791473678397&emgid=4339866697736692015
Fellow Helldivers,
I want to directly address the feedback you’ve raised about the Escalation of Freedom update. We’ve spent the last week listening to feedback, reflecting about the path ahead for Helldivers 2 and how we want to continue developing the game. In short, we didn’t hit our target with the latest update. Some things we just didn’t get right - and other more fundamental inconsistencies in our approach to game balance and game direction.
All of that is on us and we are going to own that. As many of you have pointed out, and we agree, what matters most now is action. Not talk.
To that end, here’s what we intend to do in the upcoming updates.
Our aim within the next 60 days: Continue to re-examine our approach to balance. Our intention is that balance should be fun, not “balanced” for the sake of balance. Update how the fire damage mechanic works to tweak how the flamethrower serves as a close range support weapon. (A quick straight revert won’t work, as it would break other things) Rework gameplay to prevent excessive ragdolling Re-think our design approach to primary weapons and create a plan for making combat more engaging Re-prioritize bug fixes so that the more immediate gameplay-impacting bugs are prioritized. Improve game performance (frame rate is a focus) Rework Chargers
Additionally, from a bigger picture perspective we will be: Exploring creation of an opt-in beta-test environment to improve our testing processes and we consider this a high-priority. Post regular player surveys to gather more insights and feedback from the community. Improve our process for patch/release notes - providing more context and reasoning behind changes. More blog posts and streams where we expand on these topics for those interested. We also want to thank you for your patience. We’re grateful that so many of you provided constructive feedback and suggestions on the latest update.
Mikael E Game Director & Arrowhead Game Studios
I suspect they do have in-house QA, although it is likely a small team, and even when they do identify a bug the Devs don’t have sufficient time to fix them.
An opt-in test environment is great for testing new features to get feedback and it’s the right move, you can’t have an internal team determine if a new feature is great for the player base, it’d be like Arrowhead giving itself a pat on the back for coming up with a great idea.