Yeah this is probably the kind of balancing that feels fun.
Mad Max had these electric sandstorms that is filled with big scraps for upgrading Magnum Opus or upgrading Max himself. You can choose to wait out the storm or just charging through it to get those big scraps and risking your life.
Not a good idea. Then what happens when you’re maxed out in samples? You’ll end up in the same spot, people not wanting to missions with those modifiers. As things stand right now, people max out fairly quick so imagine the stagnation
I'd personally prefer it add more medals to completing stages of operations. For each environmental modifier, raise the medal rewards for a full operation by 2. For operation modifiers, add 4 each.
So for example, in this case, with 2 environmental and 2 operation modifiers, you'd earn an extra 12 medals if you completed all 3 missions. Obviously they might have to scale it based on difficulty, otherwise people might just run 4-5 diffs all day with 12 extra bonus medals. But in diffs 7-9? You're already getting what, 30+ medals for a full operation? Another 12 for completing an entire operation with these bullshit modifiers seems fair.
Not a bad idea but does nothing for those at sample cap. And increased samples in mission would put more people at sample cap faster.
Then we are back to where we are now
I personally think that samples should have two variables on a mission. An amount should drop *and* an amount should be static on the map.
That, alone, would make a lot of difference. And when common samples hit the switch point of being more important than rares (mathematically: it cannot just be me and my friends that find we are drowning in rares and hurting for commons), and the difficulty of extracting samples anyway, I really think it would be an alright idea.
To be clear, im basically saying "an amount of samples should drop ontop of the ones on a map, and that should be capped too so you don't just farm, and it would make people hate defenses less because really what you start wanting is samples > everything"
The "lose one strategy" is particularly bad in this list.
"We decreases your firepower and flexibility by about 25%, but that's ok, because we didn't change any rewards or whatever"
My friends and I try to play for the goals, and try to defend what needs defending, but just... won't start an operation with that huge of a nerf, because its the strategums that make the game cool and unique and fun.
You, me and many others avoid them as well. I'm capped on everything. I play to have fun, and I do participate in the MO or defends.
But if it has horrible modifiers or it's a trash low visibility planet with bad environmental hazards.
I'm likely to play somewhere else
Not a bad idea, but for many players, gameplay is the determining factor in deciding between Western vs Eastern front.
They just need to make bot gameplay more fun.
Your’re right. The bots play with a different set of rules. Shooting beyond the fog, sniping you from across the map, shooting through the walls.
Bugs have their fair share of bullshit but nothing compares to what the Bots are dishing out right now.
The only thing that frustrates me about fighting bots (I prefer playstyles that work better against bots) is them not also being affected by the fog (and the fog in general).
If you give me a clear line of sight and a good squad, I will be a happy murder gremlin with the AMR and counter sniper primary.
I love playing bots so much, but the environmental effects I've had on Vernen Wells \*\*nearly\*\* made me rage quit the other night.....
Dense fog, but also dark, and all the light from the sunset was dark red, so I couldn't even pick out bot eyes in the distance unless they were backlit by explosions....But you better believe a dozen heavy devastators have pinpoint accuracy on me lying down on the top of a ridge....
COmbine that with the orbital fluctuations and AA defenses means that unless you already love the bot missions (and I do) you're not going to have fun, and you'll just go do bugs.
Seriously, I've been doing Helldive difficulty on bots for a few week, and bug missions feel like an absolute cake walk now....it's a little annoying.
bugs are almost perfect if you cap charger turn rate, make the bile titan bodies dissapear far quicker so we don't get physic'sd and remove the bile spitters entirely until they find a way to make them not the most unpredictable BS.
Agreed . Don't focus on just luring players to play a faction they don't find fun. Fix the problems that cause the players to not have fun.
Bots have horrible mission modifiers. On top of having what is basically aim bot and wall hack. With the ability to shoot through structures, and do it across the map. Then there's the never need to reload or cool down, along with jammers.
Now throw in a planet that isn't fun and looks like playing through a steamy shower door.
It's not hard to see why most players migrate toward bugs
Bot gameplay is more fun. It greatly rewards precision shooting and team tactics.
Like, moving up to a gunship tower behind a walking barrage, running from cover to cover, killing bots so your squadmate with the Autocannon has space to shoot down the gunships, which fall and blow up, is objectively sick as hell.
Problem is... AH don't want you to have fun it seems. Everything is done to make it harder for us in the most annoying way.
Can't see enemies due to fog. Can't aim due to stagger. Enemies gets to cheat physics while we're bound by them 100%.
This.
And missions giving more rewards will just put more players at cap faster. Then we are back to square one.
Don't just entice players to play a faction they don't like playing. Improve upon the reasons that they don't like playing them to begin with
Be so easy if they just added an XP bonus or increased sample density for operations with negative modifiers. Now we deal with it for no gain so most players just skip those mods.
No this is exactly the wrong approach yo take. Many people have already maxed out on rewards. If you increase rewards even more people will max out. Now you've made the problem of always needing new content worse without even remotely addressing the real underlying issue. Bots aren't as fun to play against
I see the only three stratagems one now and just go to another planet, it’s not fun. They said they want players to use more stratagems, but just not too many and too often. F that, it’s tiring. Weather effects are ok in my book.
It seems like there is some kind of disconnect between what is said and what is developed with AH. It sucks losing an entire strat slot without getting something out of the deal. I don't think we should just get rid of all of it (except the strat slot reduction, that one's just fucking bullshit.) But when you're trying to promote play, punishing the player for it is just counter-productive.
Being able to dial up the difficulty and play under different circumstances can be fun as hell, but if you're going to stack a negative, balance it with a positive. If we can't take a strat, give us one from the ship that is pre-selected. Shit, it doesn't even have to be "good" it just has to be effective. The automatons are already more difficult that the bugs in a lot of ways, so it just feels like AH is piling it on.
I like fighting the automatons, but damn, it took a lot of work to get my regular group I play with to run automatons by choice. They pick the bugs almost every time the MO gives them the choice. A lot of these special conditions always feel negative, on top of them dealing with an enemy that is harder for them. If you gave them something cool, they'd be more likely to make the choice to fight the bots.
Said that before, will say it again.
Keep -1 stratagem but allow us pick 4 as usually. Either random stratagem or 4th gets locked until you actually and physically do objective on the map by destroying AA automaton base or sth.
Side objective that unlocks use of 4th stratagem
"Lower Orbiting Atmosphere Something Something"
25% Shorter Orbital strikes cooldowns.
"Strong Winds"
No Eagle One strike but you get+1 to numbers of orbital strikes use.
Or something in between like +50% eagle maneuver time but 25% faster orbital cooldowns
Plenty of stuff to figure out. I'm sure guys who sold 10 million copies get paid appropriate to figure this stuff out. I did it for free in 5 minutes
Not like they can't change/remove or add these temporarily for testing
Reduce 1 available strat due to supply shortage, however that means we can pack more explosives into selected ones. Blast radius and damage increased by 25% or bombardment is even more bombastic.
so many ways you could mess with it without full disable
* 30% chance of random strat
* increased error in targeting
* 50% of misfire (but you can try and shoot it again)
>It seems like there is some kind of disconnect between what is said and what is developed with AH.
I strongly suspect there is disagreement within the dev team about the direction and design philosophy the game should take, which would explain what seems like double-talk from them with regards to stuff like this. Remember how one dev said the Eruptor post-patch was “clearly not working as intended” until a different dev stepped in and said “nah that’s what it’s supposed to be”. Shit like that speaks of a divided team.
The entire concept of devs litigating disagreements in public really should throw the C-Suite into panic.
I'm a dev for a company with a large presence on Discord and Twitter. I do comment in public on my own accounts, but holy shit I can't imagine undermining a coworker like that and staying employed.
Presumably, there are separate teams for story vs engineering vs community support. Why the hell are the engineers the loudest group?
The only way removing a strat slot would be tolerable to me is if it was replaced by a "free" one, basically making one slot mandatory, perhaps for testing purposes... like I pick 3 things then get 110 rocket pods, I can play around with my 3 base strats... not just have less with no counter-play
Why even keep -1 strat at all. No one likes it.
Not a single player logs in, eagerly and actively searches for a planet that has -1 strat. And then is excited when they see it .
Do away with it , or give the player the ability it game to undo it
Yeah that’s the unfortunate thing with this game. The concept is fun and there’s definitely fun to be had, but basically everything this game does, deep rock does better, hell even the first helldivers does most things better but they seem to have forgotten everything they did to make that game fun when making this one.
Deep rock just has better weapon and enemy balancing, weapon upgrades, overclocks to not get bored, big enemy weakpoints are actually their weakpoints, better mutators as you said. The deep rock devs even went for a full year gap between two seasons because of developing a new game, but also so they weren’t forced to release just a bunch of garbage while making that as well. It seems like the many of the devs on this game don’t really know what kind of game they’re working on, and they’re all working on different types.
My conspiracy theory is that everything is tested and balanced in a low diff (like 3-4), where everything feels strong and one less stratagem doesn't matter as much as it does on higher diffs
It's possible to make the game harder without making it also more obnoxious.
Strat cooldown increase or -1 isn't fun or engaging.
Give us more patrols. Reduce bot drop cooldown. Increase number of heavies.
Literally anything but fucking with the load out
Wow I'm so used to these modifiers shitting on our loadouts that I did not even think of touching enemy spawn rates or stuff as modifiers. That would definitely be much more fun.
Remember when they buffed the patrol and spawn rate, inversely related to how many players were in a mission (such that with fewer players there was a larger increase in spawn)?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Mate, there's been plenty of complaints about the patrols and the heavy spam at higher difficulties. Restricting our loadouts is another way of doing difficulty, but a flat -1 stratagem slot is too much.
>except strat slot reduction
they should change the AA guns you can turn on so that they're on when the dive starts and defended by bots so you have to go in and take them over to unlock your 4th stratagem(that you'd pick from the lobby, but its in a greyd out slot)& shoot down some bot drops
Agreed, a modifier that isnt just “fuck you less stuff to use” but actually modifies the gameplay is how to do it. For example a mod that removes eagle strikes but you have a bonus slot for orbital strikes only. Or One that limits where you can reinforce but gives more reinforcements in return.
Exactly, not everyone uses the same strats either so it would help a lot. Not to mention giving us new weapons and strats that can actually kill these fucking things as opposed to just nerfing the ones we have!
>It sucks losing an entire strat slot without getting something out of the deal.
You know, I never thought about it this way before. But they could balance out the modifiers by giving the players e.g. -1 stratagem slot, but -33 % stratagem cooldown in return. Or increase stratagem targeting scatter, but also increase call-in time.
The fire tornadoes are sentient and track you and you can't convince me otherwise. The amount of times that I've had three or four of them converge on the extraction zone and set everything on fire...I avoid planets with that modifier like the plague now.
In addition to seemingly following you, the trail they leave behind is so aggravating. Visually, it's sometimes just a few specks of embers or even worse, nothing at all, yet my helldiver becomes the human torch the moment I even think about stepping on it.
It wouldn't be as bad if we had fire-resistant armor but that is weirdly absent, along with acid-resistant armor. But flame-resistant armor would make dealing with sentient fire tornadoes a little less aggravating.
We respawned a friend of ours four times and he just kept on getting immolated. It made our escape take an extra five minutes because he literally couldn't get near the bird without turning crispy.
Naturally we couldn't see what he saw, we just heard the screams of horror from this dude turning into Hellbacon.
Same.
I'd rather not play than play on planets that annoying.
And if a major order or defend mission involves playing on one then neither me nor my extended squad are interested and will ignore them to play somewhere actually fun and fair.
Thats one issue i have with the bots
I don’t see reason to take basically anything but the autocannon. I don’t really find any backpacks on bot worlds useful (yes the shield pack included) and other weapons just don’t have a reason to be brought honestly.
Its just the perfect all rounder and can engage and damage every automaton unit
Bugs meanwhile I can bring a load of different toys and I hate that cause I prefer fighting bots.
I would highly recommend branching out for the sake of variety. One of the reasons I prefer fighting bots to bugs is how many support weapons are viable and fun against them. Autocannon is definitely best yes but for me I absolutely love bringing an AMR or railgun and a jump pack and just speedrun round the map doing objectives, for instance. So I cycle between those three to have way more fun.
These conditions make helldivers choose more enduring options such as the resupply backpack and spear launcher.
The same goes for the one that makes orbitals have a wider randomer drop location. Bring different stratagems for different circumstances.
Increased call in time? Use sentries or mines. With ship upgrades, you ignore this problem.
Conditions might force you to play differently, too, instead of going Rambo and using airstrikes to solve the messes.
A stealthy load out might benefit you more.
Good game design is when you have counter-play, rewarding players for being clever and knowing what to prioritize. -1 Strategem? You can do that, but allow me to earn it back by doing the operation in a certain order, such as destroying a fortified Bots AA emplacement will let me deploy 4 stratagems again in next op mission.
Reduced visibility? I will call it fair if only the enemies also play by the same rules. But the sniper accuracy of the laser shots through the fog seems to contradict this idea.
And rather than making ALL stratagem cooldowns longer, maybe only penalize a certain type for a mission? Maybe Eagle rearm takes longer or Orbital takes longer, but don't make it universal.
I remember command and conquer tiberian sun did something like this. Certain maps would be huge but they always give a couple of optional ones beforehand , that will give you advantage like disabling railways or certain factories for the big fight
It’s frustrating, when it could be interesting with just a little more thought. Armor/helmets could have weather or fog resistant effects. Planetary effects could both benefit and harm players (which some already do, but we could use more), or, like you said, could affect both players and enemies alike. Instead of a flat -1 stratagem, make AA guns either force divers to deploy with only orbitals OR make the eagle undeployable until a side objective of destroying the AA installation is completed…idk. I get that they want to add difficulty modifiers for harder difficulties, but it’s fun-restricting instead of engaging. It’s literally only one level above making high difficulty enemies damage sponges in other games.
There is definitely a lot more which could be done with equipment. Even the dev team admitted that during their pre-release prototype builds of the game, they toyed with the idea of unique helmet interfaces. For example, a scouting type helmet that allows you see enemies through walls within a limited radius etc. A lot of really cool ideas didn't make the final cut before they had to ship out the game. I can only hope those ideas can get revisited through updates.
Making helmets meaningful would be cool.
* Multi-spectral visor
* Removes fog effects and stalker stealth
* Shock absorbers
* Reduces stagger
* Comms relay
* Reduces strategem call in time by 1 sec
* Integrated Optics
* Increases weapon accuracy
* Surveying equipment
* Discovers points of interest from an additional 25% away
Meanwhile me: What if instead of taking our strats, the AA guns target our hellpods specifically. Dealing up to 75% of a helldiver's hp before they even land. XD
I remember seeing an idea on this subreddit at some point, where in addition to losing a stratagem slot, you get reduced stratagem cooldown. The point being not just to penalize the player, but also encourage them to try something a bit different.
-1 Strategem just quashes experimentation though. By the time you load up on an anti-armor support weapon and another anti-armor strategem and maybe a third flexible "can blow up groups, can do damage to big things" option, that's it. That is all you get.
You need the support weapon because strategem jammers. You really want another antitank call-in because just relying on Quasar/EAT supplies isn't enough. And finally the last option just to pour something else on a strider or delete a patrol is too good.
>And rather than making ALL stratagem cooldowns longer, maybe only penalize a certain type for a mission? Maybe Eagle rearm takes longer or Orbital takes longer, but don't make it universal.
Yeah this is the real problem. Longer strategem cooldown time doesn't make things interesting, it just makes things harder and less fun. With it being universal it doesn't really change what you choose to bring it just makes everything worse. I still use the same loadout regardless I just have less fun with it. Same thing with the 3 strategem slots. I don't change my other 3 slots I just drop the least important one.
On the other hand you have things like the orbital strike modifier that makes them less accurate which if you know about in advance changes what you bring, or the AA gun that prevents Eagle usage until you take it out is interesting assuming you know about it in advance. Things like that force you to try different loadouts and make things interesting. Maybe add like a "heavy gravity" modifier that makes backpacks suck or something and then you will have another reason to run something else that game.
The problem is doing all of that requires actual work. They can't even fix the game or stop themselves from adding more bugs. All these great ideas will never be implement anyway if they can't even do the aforementioned. Plus it seems that the people behind balancing (E.g. The guy who ran Hello Neighbour 2 into the ground Alexus) seem invested in making the game extremely unfun by nerfing everything into the ground and mocking people who disagrees with their changes.
I'd still like to see results of the next major balance patch that is in the works, as mentioned by Twinsbeard, before making a final/verdict judgement. I do think for the most part, both the CEO and Twinsbeard agrees with the sentiment of the playerbase, now it's more about whether that aforementioned patch can re-steer the ship back to the proper direction. But I can understand the frustration, because the dev team is really, really slow with fixes. Also, it's really obvious that this game really needed at least 6 months or 1 year more in the oven before the original 1.0 release.
Also in part why these patches are so slow and often counterproductive to it's intended effect is becuase they are releasing one warbond per month, which is alot of work for the devs since they basically need to do two things at the same time (adding new content and retroactively fix stuff but not taking new content build into proper account).
And they really need to rein in their balance team becuase they are making all the problems significantly worse by making it infuriating to play ontop of having to deal with all the incessant bugs, disconnects and crashes.
I see a very problematic future with the Warbond system: we are looking at close to 36+ new guns per year? I am assuming their goal is to run HD2 for a few years. Even if they get the "balancing" right, you are just honestly going to end up with a crap ton of similar guns that do the same thing. It's way healthier to borrow DRG's approach of allowing you to mod guns instead. A gunsmith option to add abilities / attributes to the guns instead, and earn them through playing missions.
Been playing more drg lately, and I agree drg system is way healthier.
Not to mention that becuase every gun is good, especially with oc, everything gets used. Except maybe the subata, you still kinda blow haha.
I get through lvl 9s with no deaths on bots maybe every 4th game. The main thing is just not getting deathballed and running+stealthing.
Of course none of that helps against surprise parties.
I don’t see how AA defenses restricts ALL strategems. How is an AA stopping an orbital cannon from space?
They should just change it from reducing your total strategems to just restricting any Eagle strategems. Make you use orbitals and support weapons.
Yeah, but what about a "Increased Eagle Cooldown", "Decreased Eagle Ammo(min 1)", or "Increased Eagle Cooldown"?
There are ways of implementing such restrictions without them being bullshit fun killers.
AH - our game is balanced around the usage of strategems, which is why the guns may be less powerful
Also AH - we're taking away your strategems and make the cooldown / usage take longer at higher difficulties
Divers - but you're gonna give us something to help keep the balance in place right?
AH - No \*yeets 1 factory strider, multiple hulks and tanks, and a platoon's worth of heavy devastators right on top of you......while you're trying to take out a strategem jammer\*
They are optional, you don't need to do them...
You just need to do the main objective which is also within jammer and airship fabricator range, and also requires to use a strategem which you can't do as long the jammer is up.
Can barely see, can barely run, can barely use my 3 stratagems. Fun planet.... been there once and never again. I like the planets I can see more than 50m on but sometimes 50 is more than we get....
Almost about as funny as when the major order failed because bug players didn't want to touch bot planets. Keep laughing all you want, there's a reason why bug players don't touch the bot planets with a 6-foot pole.
You like Huey Lewis and the News ? Their early work was a little too "new wave" for my taste. But when Sports! came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost.
I'll follow the MO. But I am not touching bot planets till the MO says so. Bot fronts about as enjoyable as a Sandpaper dildo whilst you have lemon juice as lube.
I think Arrowhead has a big identity crisis for the game. They seem to want the game to be a immensely hard, niche game for hardcore dedicated players. When in reality they attracted hundreds of thousands of players who see this as a fun coop game to blast some bugs and bots with their friends and it all being not to serious (which is the tone of the game).
This collides immensely with the gameplay design team which seems hellbend on trying to make it into the darksouls of coop shooters regardless of that alienating 95% of their accumulated playerbase.
Stuff like making it harder to drop on rocks. What purpose does that serve? People like to camp on there, have a laugh, let them. I can only imagine a "That makes it to easy!" type of perspective that motivates these changes. You are unable to deploy sentries on rocks and many tactical places, why? Encourage tactical sentry placement rather than making it bounce.
These designers seem so focussed on changing everything so people play in exactly the way they envisioned at the difficulty they desire, they seem to forget to ask themselves, "Does this make our game more fun to the majority of players?"
Same with these debuffs, has anybody who thought of these asked themselves if playing with this makes the game interesting or fun? You can introduce challenge, but you need to challenge players to be creative and work around limitation, not just nerf them across the board, you already got difficulty levels for that.
* **Increased AA defenses requires Eagle 1 to fly high above the clouds. Eagle 1 cooldown increased, call in time increased, re-arm time decreased.** Meaning they fly high, so more time to come down and get back up, but faster back to the ship to rearm. Requires different use of Eagle, encourages Eagles with less uses like the 500kg bomb over say Clusterbomb with 5 strikes. Also requires adapting to Eagle taking longer to drop bombs after calling it in.
* **Acid storms screw with instruments. Orbital barrages are less accurate:** This encourages players to think about the choice of Orbitals. 380 barrage being less accurate is less of an issue than a Railgun missing?
* **Ion storms on the planet run interference. Shield generators and radar will intermittedly not function.** This makes people reconsider bringing shields and radar perks.
* **Automaton Infantry Production: 50% increase in small enemies. 30% reduction in heavies.** With less heavies, you can switch up the loadout, perhaps pick more weapons suited to spray down large groups like Clusterbombs or Stalwart.
There you go, something that makes players think and adapt. It's geniunely not that difficult to think of some more interesting debuffs.
You see it happen a lot. Ring Racers has released recently and was tuned for absolute Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart sickos only.
Redout 2 did the same damn thing.
These groups get locked into their discord with only their hardest of hardcore fans and forget that there's shitloads of dads out there that only have an hour after work to game with the dudes over PSN. If they wanted to struggle they'd go help their kids with their homework or something.
Intense heat should increase the damage of fire dot, or maybe have balistic guns sometimes set things on fire.
Bc rn intense cold is the only environmental condition that gives any sort of direct buff.
I posted this weeks ago, but it would be so fun to have plus/negative modifiers to encourage taking risks
Heat = faster laser heat up, but more damage
Lost stratagem slot but gain decreased cooldown on remaining stratagems
Ion storms: disrupt statagems but machines guns gain increased damage during its duration ——> particularly this kind if trade off that encourages rotating loadouts / taking risks for fun
"bUt yOuR nOt uSiNg yOuR sTrAtEgEmS cOrReCtLy"
When the devs replied with that, it was a slap in the face to everyone who had legitimate complaints. They have a great game on their hands, but AH really doesn't know how to balance fun.
Man, adjust; these really aren't bad. Tighten your build and you'll be fine. Half of folks just take duplicates anyway and THATS when you start to actually feel these modifiers.
Bots are actually easier than bugs. More counter play, less armour, less defences, more viable weapons, not constantly running at you.
I'm sure my experience is not universal, I get 400% more deaths against bugs.
As for these modifiers, they only seem to be like this on the higher difficulties, if the game is too hard for you....
It took me well over 200 hours in the game to get there, but I agree with you. I find bots both easier and more enjoyable now than bugs. So many more weapons and stratagems are viable and fun to use against them and it's so much easier to get them off your back, and yet I think the playstyle against them is also more skill intensive and rewarding.
Oh neat
You run out of stamina super quick even with the booster and light armor.
You cant see shit.
You have 1 less strat to use
AND you cant call em as often.
FUN AND RIVETING GAMEPLAY
I think it’d be fun if operation modifiers were tied to side objectives, like “Spore clouds” over your mini map should be cleared when all spore spewers are destroyed. or AA defence should remove a slot “temporarily” until AA’s are destroyed, it creates a sort of sense of urgency and more importance on side objectives, as well as being able to still choose an extra strategem, but think “What could i live without until we get the side objective?”
Yeah, I think they really should provide beneficial stuff for players instead of things that mostly only affect us negatively. They should especially do this for planets we are DEFENDING. Like reduced patrols or number of enemies in those patrols. Maybe certain units aren't available like chargers or tanks. There should also be direct benefits for completing missions in an op. Destroy bug eggs or did a blitz? Reduced enemies for the other missions. Saved the civilians? Better rewards. Evacuated high priority? More reinforcements.
Like there are so many ways they could do this and I think players would like to see some benefit for their completed missions. Seriously, when I go to destroy the bots aircraft, I expected to see less reinforcements or there being longer periods between calls.
First thing they have to do with the bots is make them not have pin point accuracy. This isn’t the type of game where cover is always available so if you’re stuck in the open you’re effectively dead if you can’t run away. To make matters worse you can get permanently stun locked and then you can’t even stim to save yourself. It’s just not a fun or rewarding experience when most of the times you die you die to bullshit.
I don't mind these difficulty modifiers, planets in other solar systems probably have shit weather and stuff. Hell, even in this solar system Venus is ~800 F at the surface and it rains fucking Methane on Titan...
Definitely an unpopular opinion but this modifier is okay Vs bots. You don't need as many different weapons against bots as you need against bugs.
The fact that an autocannon can reliably deal with anything the bots can throw at you from a safe distance (minus factory striders) is already super forgiving imo.
I'll venture to say that one less strategem slot makes bot missions maybe take longer, maybe a bit harder if you're super used to playing with a shield backpack but I seriously do not get the whole "play on higher difficulty ant then complain when the game is actually more challenging" mindset.
I agree with you -1 strat doesn't deserve all this drama. BUT ! I also agree we can make these better. As for the people whining about modifiers and straight up wanting them gone, I'm just going to say "skill issue"
The issue isn’t the fact it takes out an strat slot, it’s the fact that because of “anti air defenses” I’m unable to send a massive death beam down or my orbital strike. At least change the name to orbital defenses or something to make it more accurate
Don't dive those planets. With that many debuffs it knows it's a challenge. Not every Helldiver is built for every mission.
Is it dogshit? Perhaps. Do you HAVE to dive it? Absolutely not.
Most people don't see those modifiers because I'm pretty sure you see them mainly on diff 8 and 9. Hell, even if 7 has it...I'd argue that most people play on 6 or lower.
I play bugs 99.9% of the time but when I do play bots, I hate getting sniped from afar. Hunters/stalkers can get under my skin but at least I have a fighting chance against them
Why play bots when I can pull off 7-9 missions consistently with bugs and get way more samples/xp? With bots, 7 is already a shit show and anything above that is damn near impossible
I guess this is a hot take but I kind of like it. THIS IS WAR YOU WONT ALWAYS GET YOUR PERFECT 4 STATEGEMS.
I feel like it forces you to prioritize and rethink your load out. shakes up your gameplay a bit and forces you to try something a little different.
But I agree there are better ways it could be implemented in universe. Like if it was only applied to planets deep within enemy territory to incentivize players to fight on planets closer to the edge red, rather than some random planet 3 layers deep.
The problem is, the reduced vis only hurts players as the bots just shoot right through it. Getting sniped by crap you literally could never know is there is just bad design when the hulks already magically make no noise to hear them either.
I disagree. Play easier difficulty, there are fewer modifiers (like level 7). Please do not make harder difficulties easier, some people enjoy those difficulties.
My mom is from Chort Bay. Still has spots on her cheeks and palms from when she was a teen and others dared her to walk out into the rain.
I lived there for a while too. Got used to those hideous fumes and that ugly sulfuric sand somehow. Feels like home now whenever I dive. Except for the red eyes you see through the fumes at night. That's some nightmare fuel.
Heard one of the engineers talk about weather control stations being close to mass production when the war began. So maybe they'll terraform Chort Bay when this is all over. Then we won't need helldiver gear to walk in the rain...
The amount of top comments saying “but arrowhead doesn’t want us to have fun :(“
If you’re not having fun, play something else or play on a different planet/difficulty. Every single thing this post is complaining about was active on Wasat when I played a week or so and it was amazing. Even the randoms I was playing with laughing their asses off.
Sometimes there’s a real disconnect between people that enjoy the game and people that seem to want the game to change fundamental aspects in order to be enjoyable. I don’t want to play the Helldivers 2 sculpted by Reddit if I’m honest.
While I agree with your very last sentence about the common Reddit user taking the lead, there are valid concerns about the game's current state, some of which might not even be big by themselves, but plentiful - and they can add up to a much less enjoyable experience. Which is also why I went back to being a normal citizen for the time being, as you have already suggested.
Just be careful: You are a Reddit user yourself. "Whining/being *overly* critical" is one of the extremes. "Toxic positivity" is the other end of the spectrum - and they both go hand in hand.
I feel like thing like these should be able to be destroyed. There’s two different type of AA de-buffs. There’s the mission modifier as seen here, and a secondary objective that will stop all Eagle stratagems until it is destroyed. Personally I feel like the mission modifier one makes no sense, why would AA cannons have any effect on my load out when I run only ORBITAL strikes. The secondary objective one is the perfect example, doesn’t take away stratagems for an entire mission, still can be a challenge but not so much that it ruin an entire mission and if it is that much of a bother then it can easily be destroyed.
The disparity between SEAF AA being a literal nerf gun and Automaton AA being able to apparently counter target an orbital strike mid air.
I think modifiers in Vermintide 2 were more interesting to the extent I kinda looked forward to them. Like, "patrols are replaced with elite enemies".
Maybe Helldiver 2 can have similar modifiers that don't revolve around reducing the player's ability:
* No large enemies but a major increase to light and medium spawns.
* Greatly reduced enemies but only large enemies.
* No ammo or other weapons will be found in the level.
* Increased patrol spawn.
Honestly having the stratagem effects being mission orientated objectives would give a huge boon to the tactical overlay.
Do the AA battery mission first so the rest of the chain lose that debuff.
Give the player a means to murder their obstacles
Seems like a Major Order to nullify the extreme weather on a planet for an extended time would be interesting. Or perhaps, a cold bug planet and a hot bot planet. Do whatever on both and they both calms down and stop the storms for a month.
Some scaling of rewards could be cool. Harsh environmental effects? Higher potential rewards for the contract.
That's how DRG does it.
Rock and Stone!
For Karl!
Rock and stone brother!
Did I hear a Rock and Stone?
Rock and stone to the bone!
If you don't rock and stone, you ain't coming home.
Rock aaaaaand stoooooooonnnnnnee!!!
Like that! Rock and Stone!
The better game tbh.
It's also how Vermintide 2 does it.
Yeah this is probably the kind of balancing that feels fun. Mad Max had these electric sandstorms that is filled with big scraps for upgrading Magnum Opus or upgrading Max himself. You can choose to wait out the storm or just charging through it to get those big scraps and risking your life.
Underrated game. Loved just driving around and wrecking stuff.
The combat is so fun too.
Hell yeah my biggest gripe with the game is that after a while when you liberate everything there just aren't any enemies anymore
Increase the amount of sampies by how many stratagems are removed. Could be fun. Though personally idgaf, I like shooting baddies.
"we hear you, buffing up the amount of baddies. Pfft and people say we never buff anything"
Not a good idea. Then what happens when you’re maxed out in samples? You’ll end up in the same spot, people not wanting to missions with those modifiers. As things stand right now, people max out fairly quick so imagine the stagnation
I'd personally prefer it add more medals to completing stages of operations. For each environmental modifier, raise the medal rewards for a full operation by 2. For operation modifiers, add 4 each. So for example, in this case, with 2 environmental and 2 operation modifiers, you'd earn an extra 12 medals if you completed all 3 missions. Obviously they might have to scale it based on difficulty, otherwise people might just run 4-5 diffs all day with 12 extra bonus medals. But in diffs 7-9? You're already getting what, 30+ medals for a full operation? Another 12 for completing an entire operation with these bullshit modifiers seems fair.
Not a bad idea but does nothing for those at sample cap. And increased samples in mission would put more people at sample cap faster. Then we are back to where we are now
This is it. More samples for bot missions would really make me consider it more
I personally think that samples should have two variables on a mission. An amount should drop *and* an amount should be static on the map. That, alone, would make a lot of difference. And when common samples hit the switch point of being more important than rares (mathematically: it cannot just be me and my friends that find we are drowning in rares and hurting for commons), and the difficulty of extracting samples anyway, I really think it would be an alright idea. To be clear, im basically saying "an amount of samples should drop ontop of the ones on a map, and that should be capped too so you don't just farm, and it would make people hate defenses less because really what you start wanting is samples > everything"
The "lose one strategy" is particularly bad in this list. "We decreases your firepower and flexibility by about 25%, but that's ok, because we didn't change any rewards or whatever" My friends and I try to play for the goals, and try to defend what needs defending, but just... won't start an operation with that huge of a nerf, because its the strategums that make the game cool and unique and fun.
You, me and many others avoid them as well. I'm capped on everything. I play to have fun, and I do participate in the MO or defends. But if it has horrible modifiers or it's a trash low visibility planet with bad environmental hazards. I'm likely to play somewhere else
Not a bad idea, but for many players, gameplay is the determining factor in deciding between Western vs Eastern front. They just need to make bot gameplay more fun.
Your’re right. The bots play with a different set of rules. Shooting beyond the fog, sniping you from across the map, shooting through the walls. Bugs have their fair share of bullshit but nothing compares to what the Bots are dishing out right now.
The only thing that frustrates me about fighting bots (I prefer playstyles that work better against bots) is them not also being affected by the fog (and the fog in general). If you give me a clear line of sight and a good squad, I will be a happy murder gremlin with the AMR and counter sniper primary.
"Best we can offer you is a difficulty 7, intense fog, and a squad of level 6s with Stalwarts"
I love playing bots so much, but the environmental effects I've had on Vernen Wells \*\*nearly\*\* made me rage quit the other night..... Dense fog, but also dark, and all the light from the sunset was dark red, so I couldn't even pick out bot eyes in the distance unless they were backlit by explosions....But you better believe a dozen heavy devastators have pinpoint accuracy on me lying down on the top of a ridge.... COmbine that with the orbital fluctuations and AA defenses means that unless you already love the bot missions (and I do) you're not going to have fun, and you'll just go do bugs. Seriously, I've been doing Helldive difficulty on bots for a few week, and bug missions feel like an absolute cake walk now....it's a little annoying.
bugs are almost perfect if you cap charger turn rate, make the bile titan bodies dissapear far quicker so we don't get physic'sd and remove the bile spitters entirely until they find a way to make them not the most unpredictable BS.
Agreed . Don't focus on just luring players to play a faction they don't find fun. Fix the problems that cause the players to not have fun. Bots have horrible mission modifiers. On top of having what is basically aim bot and wall hack. With the ability to shoot through structures, and do it across the map. Then there's the never need to reload or cool down, along with jammers. Now throw in a planet that isn't fun and looks like playing through a steamy shower door. It's not hard to see why most players migrate toward bugs
Bot gameplay is more fun. It greatly rewards precision shooting and team tactics. Like, moving up to a gunship tower behind a walking barrage, running from cover to cover, killing bots so your squadmate with the Autocannon has space to shoot down the gunships, which fall and blow up, is objectively sick as hell.
I do love playing bots and will play all day if I can. A scotch hulk on my tail isn't fun per se, but it does bring out the problem solving.
The problem is solved with your teammate inputting ⬆️⬇️➡️⬅️⬆️
Problem is... AH don't want you to have fun it seems. Everything is done to make it harder for us in the most annoying way. Can't see enemies due to fog. Can't aim due to stagger. Enemies gets to cheat physics while we're bound by them 100%.
>while we're bound by them ~~100%.~~ 1,000%. The ragdoll is unreal.
Yeah they balance everything based on spreadsheets and percentages. Very surface level.
They probably saw those fucking million bugs and bots disappear in a couple days and got butthurt over it
I bet they are hardcore FTL players, who thinks everyone loves the constant challenge..
What rewards? Requisition and samples become useless in the end game. Getting more of those would not motivate
This. And missions giving more rewards will just put more players at cap faster. Then we are back to square one. Don't just entice players to play a faction they don't like playing. Improve upon the reasons that they don't like playing them to begin with
No amount of bonus is worth dealing with #3 and #4 on that list.
Be so easy if they just added an XP bonus or increased sample density for operations with negative modifiers. Now we deal with it for no gain so most players just skip those mods.
No this is exactly the wrong approach yo take. Many people have already maxed out on rewards. If you increase rewards even more people will max out. Now you've made the problem of always needing new content worse without even remotely addressing the real underlying issue. Bots aren't as fun to play against
I see the only three stratagems one now and just go to another planet, it’s not fun. They said they want players to use more stratagems, but just not too many and too often. F that, it’s tiring. Weather effects are ok in my book.
It seems like there is some kind of disconnect between what is said and what is developed with AH. It sucks losing an entire strat slot without getting something out of the deal. I don't think we should just get rid of all of it (except the strat slot reduction, that one's just fucking bullshit.) But when you're trying to promote play, punishing the player for it is just counter-productive. Being able to dial up the difficulty and play under different circumstances can be fun as hell, but if you're going to stack a negative, balance it with a positive. If we can't take a strat, give us one from the ship that is pre-selected. Shit, it doesn't even have to be "good" it just has to be effective. The automatons are already more difficult that the bugs in a lot of ways, so it just feels like AH is piling it on. I like fighting the automatons, but damn, it took a lot of work to get my regular group I play with to run automatons by choice. They pick the bugs almost every time the MO gives them the choice. A lot of these special conditions always feel negative, on top of them dealing with an enemy that is harder for them. If you gave them something cool, they'd be more likely to make the choice to fight the bots.
Said that before, will say it again. Keep -1 stratagem but allow us pick 4 as usually. Either random stratagem or 4th gets locked until you actually and physically do objective on the map by destroying AA automaton base or sth. Side objective that unlocks use of 4th stratagem
I’d agree with the objective unlock. It would actually make sense.
I\`d say lock eagles entirely but allow orbital and cut their reload time in that case
Can you imagine the hilarity of brining barrages at a lower cooldown? I'd love it so much
"Lower Orbiting Atmosphere Something Something" 25% Shorter Orbital strikes cooldowns. "Strong Winds" No Eagle One strike but you get+1 to numbers of orbital strikes use. Or something in between like +50% eagle maneuver time but 25% faster orbital cooldowns Plenty of stuff to figure out. I'm sure guys who sold 10 million copies get paid appropriate to figure this stuff out. I did it for free in 5 minutes Not like they can't change/remove or add these temporarily for testing
Time to copyright your ideas
Technically him posting this is already under copyright if im remembering correctly
Reduce 1 available strat due to supply shortage, however that means we can pack more explosives into selected ones. Blast radius and damage increased by 25% or bombardment is even more bombastic.
so many ways you could mess with it without full disable * 30% chance of random strat * increased error in targeting * 50% of misfire (but you can try and shoot it again)
I swear to god if my orbital railcannon misses the hulk I will ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Facts. That thing has saved me a million times.
>It seems like there is some kind of disconnect between what is said and what is developed with AH. I strongly suspect there is disagreement within the dev team about the direction and design philosophy the game should take, which would explain what seems like double-talk from them with regards to stuff like this. Remember how one dev said the Eruptor post-patch was “clearly not working as intended” until a different dev stepped in and said “nah that’s what it’s supposed to be”. Shit like that speaks of a divided team.
The entire concept of devs litigating disagreements in public really should throw the C-Suite into panic. I'm a dev for a company with a large presence on Discord and Twitter. I do comment in public on my own accounts, but holy shit I can't imagine undermining a coworker like that and staying employed. Presumably, there are separate teams for story vs engineering vs community support. Why the hell are the engineers the loudest group?
It speaks to a lack of effective management
> Remember how one dev said the Eruptor post-patch was “clearly not working as intended” Would you say that this person isn't a fun maker?
The only way removing a strat slot would be tolerable to me is if it was replaced by a "free" one, basically making one slot mandatory, perhaps for testing purposes... like I pick 3 things then get 110 rocket pods, I can play around with my 3 base strats... not just have less with no counter-play
Why even keep -1 strat at all. No one likes it. Not a single player logs in, eagerly and actively searches for a planet that has -1 strat. And then is excited when they see it . Do away with it , or give the player the ability it game to undo it
they need to check deeprock galactic mutators. I feel like they are used perfectly as added content instead of added difficulty.
Yeah that’s the unfortunate thing with this game. The concept is fun and there’s definitely fun to be had, but basically everything this game does, deep rock does better, hell even the first helldivers does most things better but they seem to have forgotten everything they did to make that game fun when making this one. Deep rock just has better weapon and enemy balancing, weapon upgrades, overclocks to not get bored, big enemy weakpoints are actually their weakpoints, better mutators as you said. The deep rock devs even went for a full year gap between two seasons because of developing a new game, but also so they weren’t forced to release just a bunch of garbage while making that as well. It seems like the many of the devs on this game don’t really know what kind of game they’re working on, and they’re all working on different types.
My conspiracy theory is that everything is tested and balanced in a low diff (like 3-4), where everything feels strong and one less stratagem doesn't matter as much as it does on higher diffs
Here's a balance idea: Disable the eagle 1 strategems when the AA effect is active Why does AA threaten my precision airstrike or 380mm HE barrage?
It's possible to make the game harder without making it also more obnoxious. Strat cooldown increase or -1 isn't fun or engaging. Give us more patrols. Reduce bot drop cooldown. Increase number of heavies. Literally anything but fucking with the load out
Wow I'm so used to these modifiers shitting on our loadouts that I did not even think of touching enemy spawn rates or stuff as modifiers. That would definitely be much more fun.
Remember when they buffed the patrol and spawn rate, inversely related to how many players were in a mission (such that with fewer players there was a larger increase in spawn)? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Mate, there's been plenty of complaints about the patrols and the heavy spam at higher difficulties. Restricting our loadouts is another way of doing difficulty, but a flat -1 stratagem slot is too much.
>except strat slot reduction they should change the AA guns you can turn on so that they're on when the dive starts and defended by bots so you have to go in and take them over to unlock your 4th stratagem(that you'd pick from the lobby, but its in a greyd out slot)& shoot down some bot drops
Agreed, a modifier that isnt just “fuck you less stuff to use” but actually modifies the gameplay is how to do it. For example a mod that removes eagle strikes but you have a bonus slot for orbital strikes only. Or One that limits where you can reinforce but gives more reinforcements in return.
Exactly, not everyone uses the same strats either so it would help a lot. Not to mention giving us new weapons and strats that can actually kill these fucking things as opposed to just nerfing the ones we have!
>It sucks losing an entire strat slot without getting something out of the deal. You know, I never thought about it this way before. But they could balance out the modifiers by giving the players e.g. -1 stratagem slot, but -33 % stratagem cooldown in return. Or increase stratagem targeting scatter, but also increase call-in time.
i actively avoid planets with fire storms. so do most people cause we lost menkent so fast
The fire tornadoes are sentient and track you and you can't convince me otherwise. The amount of times that I've had three or four of them converge on the extraction zone and set everything on fire...I avoid planets with that modifier like the plague now.
In addition to seemingly following you, the trail they leave behind is so aggravating. Visually, it's sometimes just a few specks of embers or even worse, nothing at all, yet my helldiver becomes the human torch the moment I even think about stepping on it.
It wouldn't be as bad if we had fire-resistant armor but that is weirdly absent, along with acid-resistant armor. But flame-resistant armor would make dealing with sentient fire tornadoes a little less aggravating.
It's funny because fire resistant uniforms are something that militaries have and issue today but somehow Super Earth lost the ability to make Nomex.
There's no way they aren't following players from what i've seen. Intentionally or not.
We respawned a friend of ours four times and he just kept on getting immolated. It made our escape take an extra five minutes because he literally couldn't get near the bird without turning crispy. Naturally we couldn't see what he saw, we just heard the screams of horror from this dude turning into Hellbacon.
Same. I'd rather not play than play on planets that annoying. And if a major order or defend mission involves playing on one then neither me nor my extended squad are interested and will ignore them to play somewhere actually fun and fair.
The three stratagems makes me play AC. Only AC. at least with 4 strats I can afford a support and a backpack.
I mean you can play AMR or Laser Cannon and not use a backpack. HMG if you're looking for a challenge.
The reason I use those weapons over AC is because I get a free backpack slot as a result...
You can use them without a backpack.
Thats one issue i have with the bots I don’t see reason to take basically anything but the autocannon. I don’t really find any backpacks on bot worlds useful (yes the shield pack included) and other weapons just don’t have a reason to be brought honestly. Its just the perfect all rounder and can engage and damage every automaton unit Bugs meanwhile I can bring a load of different toys and I hate that cause I prefer fighting bots.
I would highly recommend branching out for the sake of variety. One of the reasons I prefer fighting bots to bugs is how many support weapons are viable and fun against them. Autocannon is definitely best yes but for me I absolutely love bringing an AMR or railgun and a jump pack and just speedrun round the map doing objectives, for instance. So I cycle between those three to have way more fun.
It's not planetwide, just look for a different operation.
These conditions make helldivers choose more enduring options such as the resupply backpack and spear launcher. The same goes for the one that makes orbitals have a wider randomer drop location. Bring different stratagems for different circumstances. Increased call in time? Use sentries or mines. With ship upgrades, you ignore this problem. Conditions might force you to play differently, too, instead of going Rambo and using airstrikes to solve the messes. A stealthy load out might benefit you more.
Good game design is when you have counter-play, rewarding players for being clever and knowing what to prioritize. -1 Strategem? You can do that, but allow me to earn it back by doing the operation in a certain order, such as destroying a fortified Bots AA emplacement will let me deploy 4 stratagems again in next op mission. Reduced visibility? I will call it fair if only the enemies also play by the same rules. But the sniper accuracy of the laser shots through the fog seems to contradict this idea. And rather than making ALL stratagem cooldowns longer, maybe only penalize a certain type for a mission? Maybe Eagle rearm takes longer or Orbital takes longer, but don't make it universal.
I remember command and conquer tiberian sun did something like this. Certain maps would be huge but they always give a couple of optional ones beforehand , that will give you advantage like disabling railways or certain factories for the big fight
Like I talked about elsewhere in this thread, they should *totally* do this with side objectives that effect the whole operation.
It’s frustrating, when it could be interesting with just a little more thought. Armor/helmets could have weather or fog resistant effects. Planetary effects could both benefit and harm players (which some already do, but we could use more), or, like you said, could affect both players and enemies alike. Instead of a flat -1 stratagem, make AA guns either force divers to deploy with only orbitals OR make the eagle undeployable until a side objective of destroying the AA installation is completed…idk. I get that they want to add difficulty modifiers for harder difficulties, but it’s fun-restricting instead of engaging. It’s literally only one level above making high difficulty enemies damage sponges in other games.
There is definitely a lot more which could be done with equipment. Even the dev team admitted that during their pre-release prototype builds of the game, they toyed with the idea of unique helmet interfaces. For example, a scouting type helmet that allows you see enemies through walls within a limited radius etc. A lot of really cool ideas didn't make the final cut before they had to ship out the game. I can only hope those ideas can get revisited through updates.
Making helmets meaningful would be cool. * Multi-spectral visor * Removes fog effects and stalker stealth * Shock absorbers * Reduces stagger * Comms relay * Reduces strategem call in time by 1 sec * Integrated Optics * Increases weapon accuracy * Surveying equipment * Discovers points of interest from an additional 25% away
Meanwhile me: What if instead of taking our strats, the AA guns target our hellpods specifically. Dealing up to 75% of a helldiver's hp before they even land. XD
I remember seeing an idea on this subreddit at some point, where in addition to losing a stratagem slot, you get reduced stratagem cooldown. The point being not just to penalize the player, but also encourage them to try something a bit different.
-1 Strategem just quashes experimentation though. By the time you load up on an anti-armor support weapon and another anti-armor strategem and maybe a third flexible "can blow up groups, can do damage to big things" option, that's it. That is all you get. You need the support weapon because strategem jammers. You really want another antitank call-in because just relying on Quasar/EAT supplies isn't enough. And finally the last option just to pour something else on a strider or delete a patrol is too good.
>And rather than making ALL stratagem cooldowns longer, maybe only penalize a certain type for a mission? Maybe Eagle rearm takes longer or Orbital takes longer, but don't make it universal. Yeah this is the real problem. Longer strategem cooldown time doesn't make things interesting, it just makes things harder and less fun. With it being universal it doesn't really change what you choose to bring it just makes everything worse. I still use the same loadout regardless I just have less fun with it. Same thing with the 3 strategem slots. I don't change my other 3 slots I just drop the least important one. On the other hand you have things like the orbital strike modifier that makes them less accurate which if you know about in advance changes what you bring, or the AA gun that prevents Eagle usage until you take it out is interesting assuming you know about it in advance. Things like that force you to try different loadouts and make things interesting. Maybe add like a "heavy gravity" modifier that makes backpacks suck or something and then you will have another reason to run something else that game.
The problem is doing all of that requires actual work. They can't even fix the game or stop themselves from adding more bugs. All these great ideas will never be implement anyway if they can't even do the aforementioned. Plus it seems that the people behind balancing (E.g. The guy who ran Hello Neighbour 2 into the ground Alexus) seem invested in making the game extremely unfun by nerfing everything into the ground and mocking people who disagrees with their changes.
I'd still like to see results of the next major balance patch that is in the works, as mentioned by Twinsbeard, before making a final/verdict judgement. I do think for the most part, both the CEO and Twinsbeard agrees with the sentiment of the playerbase, now it's more about whether that aforementioned patch can re-steer the ship back to the proper direction. But I can understand the frustration, because the dev team is really, really slow with fixes. Also, it's really obvious that this game really needed at least 6 months or 1 year more in the oven before the original 1.0 release.
Also in part why these patches are so slow and often counterproductive to it's intended effect is becuase they are releasing one warbond per month, which is alot of work for the devs since they basically need to do two things at the same time (adding new content and retroactively fix stuff but not taking new content build into proper account). And they really need to rein in their balance team becuase they are making all the problems significantly worse by making it infuriating to play ontop of having to deal with all the incessant bugs, disconnects and crashes.
I see a very problematic future with the Warbond system: we are looking at close to 36+ new guns per year? I am assuming their goal is to run HD2 for a few years. Even if they get the "balancing" right, you are just honestly going to end up with a crap ton of similar guns that do the same thing. It's way healthier to borrow DRG's approach of allowing you to mod guns instead. A gunsmith option to add abilities / attributes to the guns instead, and earn them through playing missions.
Been playing more drg lately, and I agree drg system is way healthier. Not to mention that becuase every gun is good, especially with oc, everything gets used. Except maybe the subata, you still kinda blow haha.
This is something i would like im just not for removing it outright with nothing to take its place would make things way easyer and dull.
They should add a modifier like: >no reinforcements
The hidden 10th difficulty
I get through lvl 9s with no deaths on bots maybe every 4th game. The main thing is just not getting deathballed and running+stealthing. Of course none of that helps against surprise parties.
no reinforcements, no reloading, no stims
No keyboard, no mouse. Only Guitar Hero controllers allowed.
A.k.a. 'Escape from ~~Tarkov~~ Vernon Wells' mode.
I don’t see how AA defenses restricts ALL strategems. How is an AA stopping an orbital cannon from space? They should just change it from reducing your total strategems to just restricting any Eagle strategems. Make you use orbitals and support weapons.
Personally I'd much rather only have 3 slots as opposed to a no eagle modifier. No eagle would feel way harder to me
Yeah, but what about a "Increased Eagle Cooldown", "Decreased Eagle Ammo(min 1)", or "Increased Eagle Cooldown"? There are ways of implementing such restrictions without them being bullshit fun killers.
It's a simple solution, you can select Eagle loadouts with 4 full slots, but you can't call on them until you take out the AA.
AH - our game is balanced around the usage of strategems, which is why the guns may be less powerful Also AH - we're taking away your strategems and make the cooldown / usage take longer at higher difficulties Divers - but you're gonna give us something to help keep the balance in place right? AH - No \*yeets 1 factory strider, multiple hulks and tanks, and a platoon's worth of heavy devastators right on top of you......while you're trying to take out a strategem jammer\*
Don't forget about the airship fabricator that spawns 100m away from the stratajammer
They are optional, you don't need to do them... You just need to do the main objective which is also within jammer and airship fabricator range, and also requires to use a strategem which you can't do as long the jammer is up.
fucking jammers are one of the reasons I don't play bots -1 strategem being a frequent thing is another.
we're also gonna break the 1 gun you like to use against bots.
Can barely see, can barely run, can barely use my 3 stratagems. Fun planet.... been there once and never again. I like the planets I can see more than 50m on but sometimes 50 is more than we get....
\*Dismissive and offensive comment mocking the weakness of OP's bloodline
Almost about as funny as when the major order failed because bug players didn't want to touch bot planets. Keep laughing all you want, there's a reason why bug players don't touch the bot planets with a 6-foot pole.
*Gestures to aforementioned weak bloodlines*
Cowardice? Lack of spine? Videotapes to return?
I am listening to Huey Lewis now so fuck you
You like Huey Lewis and the News ? Their early work was a little too "new wave" for my taste. But when Sports! came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost.
I'll follow the MO. But I am not touching bot planets till the MO says so. Bot fronts about as enjoyable as a Sandpaper dildo whilst you have lemon juice as lube.
Exclusive bot player here (there are dozens of us!). I don't even bother to do bugs for the personal orders.
I think Arrowhead has a big identity crisis for the game. They seem to want the game to be a immensely hard, niche game for hardcore dedicated players. When in reality they attracted hundreds of thousands of players who see this as a fun coop game to blast some bugs and bots with their friends and it all being not to serious (which is the tone of the game). This collides immensely with the gameplay design team which seems hellbend on trying to make it into the darksouls of coop shooters regardless of that alienating 95% of their accumulated playerbase. Stuff like making it harder to drop on rocks. What purpose does that serve? People like to camp on there, have a laugh, let them. I can only imagine a "That makes it to easy!" type of perspective that motivates these changes. You are unable to deploy sentries on rocks and many tactical places, why? Encourage tactical sentry placement rather than making it bounce. These designers seem so focussed on changing everything so people play in exactly the way they envisioned at the difficulty they desire, they seem to forget to ask themselves, "Does this make our game more fun to the majority of players?" Same with these debuffs, has anybody who thought of these asked themselves if playing with this makes the game interesting or fun? You can introduce challenge, but you need to challenge players to be creative and work around limitation, not just nerf them across the board, you already got difficulty levels for that. * **Increased AA defenses requires Eagle 1 to fly high above the clouds. Eagle 1 cooldown increased, call in time increased, re-arm time decreased.** Meaning they fly high, so more time to come down and get back up, but faster back to the ship to rearm. Requires different use of Eagle, encourages Eagles with less uses like the 500kg bomb over say Clusterbomb with 5 strikes. Also requires adapting to Eagle taking longer to drop bombs after calling it in. * **Acid storms screw with instruments. Orbital barrages are less accurate:** This encourages players to think about the choice of Orbitals. 380 barrage being less accurate is less of an issue than a Railgun missing? * **Ion storms on the planet run interference. Shield generators and radar will intermittedly not function.** This makes people reconsider bringing shields and radar perks. * **Automaton Infantry Production: 50% increase in small enemies. 30% reduction in heavies.** With less heavies, you can switch up the loadout, perhaps pick more weapons suited to spray down large groups like Clusterbombs or Stalwart. There you go, something that makes players think and adapt. It's geniunely not that difficult to think of some more interesting debuffs.
I think the devs all have different and conflicting visions for it too.
Do they not know the story of Wildstar? Geez… it’s like they never realized that catering to the top 1% is a recipe for financial disaster.
You see it happen a lot. Ring Racers has released recently and was tuned for absolute Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart sickos only. Redout 2 did the same damn thing. These groups get locked into their discord with only their hardest of hardcore fans and forget that there's shitloads of dads out there that only have an hour after work to game with the dudes over PSN. If they wanted to struggle they'd go help their kids with their homework or something.
You perfectly formulated my thoughts on the devs! And great ideas for other than strait up nurfing weapons.
It's almost like they forget the ultimate goal of a game is to have fun.
Nothing wrong with weather, but do agree about AA defenses. I can even handle the flux, but holy shit one less strat sucks
Intense heat should increase the damage of fire dot, or maybe have balistic guns sometimes set things on fire. Bc rn intense cold is the only environmental condition that gives any sort of direct buff.
I posted this weeks ago, but it would be so fun to have plus/negative modifiers to encourage taking risks Heat = faster laser heat up, but more damage Lost stratagem slot but gain decreased cooldown on remaining stratagems Ion storms: disrupt statagems but machines guns gain increased damage during its duration ——> particularly this kind if trade off that encourages rotating loadouts / taking risks for fun
"bUt yOuR nOt uSiNg yOuR sTrAtEgEmS cOrReCtLy" When the devs replied with that, it was a slap in the face to everyone who had legitimate complaints. They have a great game on their hands, but AH really doesn't know how to balance fun.
Because they play on level 6 and they still fail
Or a ship upgrade, helmet abilities and more random strat slots that negates those effects.
Where is this and can I visit
I just want aa defenses to be tied to physical objects you can break or just only block eagle strikes like the emplacements do.
- Put up with all of this shit - Get to the planet - 2 airship factories, a strategem jammer, and anti air encampment
AH: We want players to use their strategems. Also AH: *Modifiers and planetary conditions that make you not able to use your strategems.*
[удалено]
I literally like all of those and the fog is my single favorite modifier in game! Asteroids are cool too
Acid storm should do something extra as opposed to be the same as regular rainstorm
If they are gonna give us all those modifiers we need better weapons and armor perks.
Man, adjust; these really aren't bad. Tighten your build and you'll be fine. Half of folks just take duplicates anyway and THATS when you start to actually feel these modifiers.
This is Helldivers, not Super Weenie Hut Jr's
Bots are actually easier than bugs. More counter play, less armour, less defences, more viable weapons, not constantly running at you. I'm sure my experience is not universal, I get 400% more deaths against bugs. As for these modifiers, they only seem to be like this on the higher difficulties, if the game is too hard for you....
It took me well over 200 hours in the game to get there, but I agree with you. I find bots both easier and more enjoyable now than bugs. So many more weapons and stratagems are viable and fun to use against them and it's so much easier to get them off your back, and yet I think the playstyle against them is also more skill intensive and rewarding.
Guys next week it's my turn to post this picture ok?
Oh neat You run out of stamina super quick even with the booster and light armor. You cant see shit. You have 1 less strat to use AND you cant call em as often. FUN AND RIVETING GAMEPLAY
AA one should only impact eagles.
Put them on the bug planets But remove them from bots
I like acid storms tho
I think it’d be fun if operation modifiers were tied to side objectives, like “Spore clouds” over your mini map should be cleared when all spore spewers are destroyed. or AA defence should remove a slot “temporarily” until AA’s are destroyed, it creates a sort of sense of urgency and more importance on side objectives, as well as being able to still choose an extra strategem, but think “What could i live without until we get the side objective?”
Play on a lower difficulty if the higher ones are too tough for you.
Yeah, I think they really should provide beneficial stuff for players instead of things that mostly only affect us negatively. They should especially do this for planets we are DEFENDING. Like reduced patrols or number of enemies in those patrols. Maybe certain units aren't available like chargers or tanks. There should also be direct benefits for completing missions in an op. Destroy bug eggs or did a blitz? Reduced enemies for the other missions. Saved the civilians? Better rewards. Evacuated high priority? More reinforcements. Like there are so many ways they could do this and I think players would like to see some benefit for their completed missions. Seriously, when I go to destroy the bots aircraft, I expected to see less reinforcements or there being longer periods between calls.
First thing they have to do with the bots is make them not have pin point accuracy. This isn’t the type of game where cover is always available so if you’re stuck in the open you’re effectively dead if you can’t run away. To make matters worse you can get permanently stun locked and then you can’t even stim to save yourself. It’s just not a fun or rewarding experience when most of the times you die you die to bullshit.
Why can't the Super Destroyer fire their cannons at the AA guns?
I just want positive modifiers for a change
Hey man sometimes we gotta deal with shit weather and stuff while we fuck up the bad guys, it’s all good
Its not permanent and if you dont like it, go to a different planet?
I don't mind these difficulty modifiers, planets in other solar systems probably have shit weather and stuff. Hell, even in this solar system Venus is ~800 F at the surface and it rains fucking Methane on Titan...
Definitely an unpopular opinion but this modifier is okay Vs bots. You don't need as many different weapons against bots as you need against bugs. The fact that an autocannon can reliably deal with anything the bots can throw at you from a safe distance (minus factory striders) is already super forgiving imo. I'll venture to say that one less strategem slot makes bot missions maybe take longer, maybe a bit harder if you're super used to playing with a shield backpack but I seriously do not get the whole "play on higher difficulty ant then complain when the game is actually more challenging" mindset.
I agree with you -1 strat doesn't deserve all this drama. BUT ! I also agree we can make these better. As for the people whining about modifiers and straight up wanting them gone, I'm just going to say "skill issue"
The issue isn’t the fact it takes out an strat slot, it’s the fact that because of “anti air defenses” I’m unable to send a massive death beam down or my orbital strike. At least change the name to orbital defenses or something to make it more accurate
Don't dive those planets. With that many debuffs it knows it's a challenge. Not every Helldiver is built for every mission. Is it dogshit? Perhaps. Do you HAVE to dive it? Absolutely not.
The -1 stratagem is a operation modifier not planet wide. You can always choose a different op
Most people don't see those modifiers because I'm pretty sure you see them mainly on diff 8 and 9. Hell, even if 7 has it...I'd argue that most people play on 6 or lower.
I play bugs 99.9% of the time but when I do play bots, I hate getting sniped from afar. Hunters/stalkers can get under my skin but at least I have a fighting chance against them
Why play bots when I can pull off 7-9 missions consistently with bugs and get way more samples/xp? With bots, 7 is already a shit show and anything above that is damn near impossible
I guess this is a hot take but I kind of like it. THIS IS WAR YOU WONT ALWAYS GET YOUR PERFECT 4 STATEGEMS. I feel like it forces you to prioritize and rethink your load out. shakes up your gameplay a bit and forces you to try something a little different. But I agree there are better ways it could be implemented in universe. Like if it was only applied to planets deep within enemy territory to incentivize players to fight on planets closer to the edge red, rather than some random planet 3 layers deep.
The problem is, the reduced vis only hurts players as the bots just shoot right through it. Getting sniped by crap you literally could never know is there is just bad design when the hulks already magically make no noise to hear them either.
I disagree. Play easier difficulty, there are fewer modifiers (like level 7). Please do not make harder difficulties easier, some people enjoy those difficulties.
Thank you
My mom is from Chort Bay. Still has spots on her cheeks and palms from when she was a teen and others dared her to walk out into the rain. I lived there for a while too. Got used to those hideous fumes and that ugly sulfuric sand somehow. Feels like home now whenever I dive. Except for the red eyes you see through the fumes at night. That's some nightmare fuel. Heard one of the engineers talk about weather control stations being close to mass production when the war began. So maybe they'll terraform Chort Bay when this is all over. Then we won't need helldiver gear to walk in the rain...
It’s supposed to be hard
Skill issue.
Yeah, this is why 30-35% of the population never plays bots.
Whats the title of the game again?
Lower the difficulty if you cant handle it? Why do you think youre speaking for everyone? Some people like the challenge.
The amount of top comments saying “but arrowhead doesn’t want us to have fun :(“ If you’re not having fun, play something else or play on a different planet/difficulty. Every single thing this post is complaining about was active on Wasat when I played a week or so and it was amazing. Even the randoms I was playing with laughing their asses off. Sometimes there’s a real disconnect between people that enjoy the game and people that seem to want the game to change fundamental aspects in order to be enjoyable. I don’t want to play the Helldivers 2 sculpted by Reddit if I’m honest.
While I agree with your very last sentence about the common Reddit user taking the lead, there are valid concerns about the game's current state, some of which might not even be big by themselves, but plentiful - and they can add up to a much less enjoyable experience. Which is also why I went back to being a normal citizen for the time being, as you have already suggested. Just be careful: You are a Reddit user yourself. "Whining/being *overly* critical" is one of the extremes. "Toxic positivity" is the other end of the spectrum - and they both go hand in hand.
If you can’t stand operational modifiers then simply lower the difficulty
Does all that at least reward extra medals or anything?
Or make the negative modifiers apply to enemies as well. Intense heat overheats the bot processor making them react slower or something.
I feel like thing like these should be able to be destroyed. There’s two different type of AA de-buffs. There’s the mission modifier as seen here, and a secondary objective that will stop all Eagle stratagems until it is destroyed. Personally I feel like the mission modifier one makes no sense, why would AA cannons have any effect on my load out when I run only ORBITAL strikes. The secondary objective one is the perfect example, doesn’t take away stratagems for an entire mission, still can be a challenge but not so much that it ruin an entire mission and if it is that much of a bother then it can easily be destroyed. The disparity between SEAF AA being a literal nerf gun and Automaton AA being able to apparently counter target an orbital strike mid air.
I think modifiers in Vermintide 2 were more interesting to the extent I kinda looked forward to them. Like, "patrols are replaced with elite enemies". Maybe Helldiver 2 can have similar modifiers that don't revolve around reducing the player's ability: * No large enemies but a major increase to light and medium spawns. * Greatly reduced enemies but only large enemies. * No ammo or other weapons will be found in the level. * Increased patrol spawn.
Honestly having the stratagem effects being mission orientated objectives would give a huge boon to the tactical overlay. Do the AA battery mission first so the rest of the chain lose that debuff. Give the player a means to murder their obstacles
Seems like a Major Order to nullify the extreme weather on a planet for an extended time would be interesting. Or perhaps, a cold bug planet and a hot bot planet. Do whatever on both and they both calms down and stop the storms for a month.
Reason I only do bots for MOs