Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Helldivers 2...huge success...but those servers...yadda yadda yadda. We've all heard it before. It's time we shift the conversation to the game itself and unpack the actual design shortcomings that prevent it, IMO, from being a truly great multiplayer game.
PROBLEMS:
1. The objective variety is weak. They all boil down to "shoot bugs and machines in a specific location". They're so vaguely uninteresting that all the missions blend together in a hazy mess that you can't differentiate between your last 10 drops. For a game that does a good job at allowing the player to play "movie moments" the objectives are very uninspired.
2. The terminal puzzles are bad. This is an 80's/90's style action movie game. Every single one of those movies this was inspired from, has a nerdy, tech genius who tells the heroes to shut up and give him/her time. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the terminal puzzles in this game were designed to be longer and more fun? Right now, it doesn't matter which one of your teammates gets to a terminal because they're all so braindead easy. The puzzles should have enough depth and variety to them that you want to get the Neil Degrasse Tyson of your group to the terminal. Solving a terminal puzzle in 22 seconds gives you obvious advantages over solving one in 98 seconds.
3. The weapon and stratagem balance is rough. You can unlock around 50 strategems but only 10 are actually useful if you want to win. If you're not playing with the Breaker Shotgun, what are you even doing?
4. The mission drop map your team sees prior to mission launch is an awesome idea, and terrible in execution. The only interesting information the game gives you are your objectives, vague red enemy presence clouds, and your extraction point. There is nothing fun, strategic, or worthwhile about looking at this screen longer than the 4.2 seconds it takes your cursor to start at the opposite side of the map. Wouldn't it be nice if your team could look at that map from anywhere between 0 and 10 minutes and come up with a literal strategy? "You and Mike drop near the Mech facility. Felicia and I will grab the radar tower. We'll meet at the stronghold outpost and see if those mechs can break us in." To which Mike replies "No, I can grab those mechs by myself. You guys are going to need Mike at that heavily guarded radar tower. Just trust me on this." Wouldn't that be fun social banter between you and your friends?
5. The difficulty level is too easy. I'm not great at games by any stretch, but I've beaten numerous Helldive difficulty missions without anyone on my team talking. Call me crazy but the hardest difficulty setting should really incentivize teamplay, coms, and strategy. Right now, it doesn't.
6. The enemy variety is weak. The bugs have 5 or 6 enemy types. The machines have 5 or 6 enemy types. Obviously they're going to add a 3rd faction soon, but having 8 - 10 enemy varieties per faction would be superior.
7. The game feels "one note". It's pretty boring game until **** hits the fan. When **** hits the fan, everyone just sprints around doing their own thing for the most part. Occasionally you'll bump into a teammate and help him or her out but all too often you're left dealing with your own set of enemies chasing you.
8. Cooldowns should be replaced with usages. If you only have 3 or 5 Eagles, Orbitals, Turrets etc...you're going to spend them more intelligently. This is a war game that mentions strategy all the time. Usages would make the game more strategic. It would also help Arrowhead balance their stratagems even more. "All I got left are 2 more Anti Personnel Minefields. You think we can tackle this last objective?" Wouldn't that make for a better movie game...because you know...depleted resources are frequently a scene in these movies? It would also help with gameplay variety as you'd be forced to tackle missions in more creative ways.
9. The end game isn't rewarding. Most of us know that in about 6 weeks, we're going to be subject to headlines that read "Helldivers 2's player count is crashing on Steam!" These headlines are inevitable because there's nothing designed for the end game loop. The games current grind for weapons, emotes, skins, and strategems is good enough for hours 1 through 50. It's not good enough for hours 100 through 1,000.
10. Every objective in the game should impact the rest of your mission. If you take out a bug outpost, the map should reduce enemy AI by 3 percent. If you take out a radar tower, the Automatons shouldn't be able to call in dropships. If you take over a weapons outpost, your ammo capacity should be increased for the rest of the match. They do this a bit with the spore tower, the SEAF gun, some radar towers and a few others but it feels like 1 tablespoon of sugar in a cake recipe that requires 2 cups of sugar. This would make replaying missions more fun and it would make looking at that drop map more fun.
11. The geographical variety needs improvement. Go to your strategems tab at Ship Management and scroll down to ORBITAL 380MM HE BARRAGE and take a look at the screen on the right. That kind of elevation and distance isn't played with in the game. It should be.
I'll finish this post by saying I still think this is a fun game. A fun game that will be improved upon over the many coming updates.
PROBLEMS:
1. The objective variety is weak. They all boil down to "shoot bugs and machines in a specific location". They're so vaguely uninteresting that all the missions blend together in a hazy mess that you can't differentiate between your last 10 drops. For a game that does a good job at allowing the player to play "movie moments" the objectives are very uninspired.
2. The terminal puzzles are bad. This is an 80's/90's style action movie game. Every single one of those movies this was inspired from, has a nerdy, tech genius who tells the heroes to shut up and give him/her time. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the terminal puzzles in this game were designed to be longer and more fun? Right now, it doesn't matter which one of your teammates gets to a terminal because they're all so braindead easy. The puzzles should have enough depth and variety to them that you want to get the Neil Degrasse Tyson of your group to the terminal. Solving a terminal puzzle in 22 seconds gives you obvious advantages over solving one in 98 seconds.
3. The weapon and stratagem balance is rough. You can unlock around 50 strategems but only 10 are actually useful if you want to win. If you're not playing with the Breaker Shotgun, what are you even doing?
4. The mission drop map your team sees prior to mission launch is an awesome idea, and terrible in execution. The only interesting information the game gives you are your objectives, vague red enemy presence clouds, and your extraction point. There is nothing fun, strategic, or worthwhile about looking at this screen longer than the 4.2 seconds it takes your cursor to start at the opposite side of the map. Wouldn't it be nice if your team could look at that map from anywhere between 0 and 10 minutes and come up with a literal strategy? "You and Mike drop near the Mech facility. Felicia and I will grab the radar tower. We'll meet at the stronghold outpost and see if those mechs can break us in." To which Mike replies "No, I can grab those mechs by myself. You guys are going to need Mike at that heavily guarded radar tower. Just trust me on this." Wouldn't that be fun social banter between you and your friends?
5. The difficulty level is too easy. I'm not great at games by any stretch, but I've beaten numerous Helldive difficulty missions without anyone on my team talking. Call me crazy but the hardest difficulty setting should really incentivize teamplay, coms, and strategy. Right now, it doesn't.
6. The enemy variety is weak. The bugs have 5 or 6 enemy types. The machines have 5 or 6 enemy types. Obviously they're going to add a 3rd faction soon, but having 8 - 10 enemy varieties per faction would be superior.
7. The game feels "one note". It's pretty boring game until **** hits the fan. When **** hits the fan, everyone just sprints around doing their own thing for the most part. Occasionally you'll bump into a teammate and help him or her out but all too often you're left dealing with your own set of enemies chasing you.
8. Cooldowns should be replaced with usages. If you only have 3 or 5 Eagles, Orbitals, Turrets etc...you're going to spend them more intelligently. This is a war game that mentions strategy all the time. Usages would make the game more strategic. It would also help Arrowhead balance their stratagems even more. "All I got left are 2 more Anti Personnel Minefields. You think we can tackle this last objective?" Wouldn't that make for a better movie game...because you know...depleted resources are frequently a scene in these movies? It would also help with gameplay variety as you'd be forced to tackle missions in more creative ways.
9. The end game isn't rewarding. Most of us know that in about 6 weeks, we're going to be subject to headlines that read "Helldivers 2's player count is crashing on Steam!" These headlines are inevitable because there's nothing designed for the end game loop. The games current grind for weapons, emotes, skins, and strategems is good enough for hours 1 through 50. It's not good enough for hours 100 through 1,000.
10. Every objective in the game should impact the rest of your mission. If you take out a bug outpost, the map should reduce enemy AI by 3 percent. If you take out a radar tower, the Automatons shouldn't be able to call in dropships. If you take over a weapons outpost, your ammo capacity should be increased for the rest of the match. They do this a bit with the spore tower, the SEAF gun, some radar towers and a few others but it feels like 1 tablespoon of sugar in a cake recipe that requires 2 cups of sugar. This would make replaying missions more fun and it would make looking at that drop map more fun.
11. The geographical variety needs improvement. Go to your strategems tab at Ship Management and scroll down to ORBITAL 380MM HE BARRAGE and take a look at the screen on the right. That kind of elevation and distance isn't played with in the game. It should be.
I'll finish this post by saying I still think this is a fun game. A fun game that will be improved upon over the many coming updates.