Helldivers 2 is starting to dip on Steam. The zeitgeist is ending. Queue up headlines folks.
Nah, when they did reach new records CCUs yesterday something else new got saturated (I bet it's the database) and made the game constantly crash during peak hours.
Other than that, login, matchmaking and rewards seem pretty much fixed. Meaning, once they fix whatever caused these crashed they'll be able to continue growing more.
Is this worth buying to play with others? Im an old man but I kick ass and wonder if I should buy it playing solo
I often play solo, and there are videos of players completing missions solo in the hardest difficulty (Helldive).
Each mission -procedurally generated, there aren't fixed missions- has like 9 different (unlockable) difficulty levels. You can complete them alone, it's ok but more challenging (still easy in the easy difficulty levels). But it's easier and more fun when played both with random users or friends.
Communication helps to make it easier and more fun, but you can perfectly play with zero communication or even the sound off. Yesterday I was playing with the game muted while listening the Capcom Cup.
As you keep increasing the difficulty level there are more enemies at the same time and new enemy types appear. There are "samples", some currency types you collect by exploring the map. Higher difficulty levels also means more samples available to be found in each level, and some sample types are only found in harder difficulty levels.
With these samples you buy ship upgrades, which are passive skills that make your life easier. Stuff like detecting enemies from a larger distance, reduce the cooldown from the key stuff you "summon" (special weapons, turrets, ammo...) and so on.
Higher difficulty also means more rewards for competing missions: medals to unlock weapons, armors, emotes, victory poses, profile backgrounds or cosmetic helmets or capes. Currency to unlock "summonable" (stratagems) stuff like orbital strikes from your ship, eagle strikes from support planes, special weapons, shields, support drones or even a jetpack. Stratagems and ship upgrades can be unlocked when you reach certain XP level: higher difficulty also means faster XP increase.
All the mission rewards and collectables are sent to all squad members independently of their performance. There's not even MVP rewards here, or players stealing your loot. Every player gets the same. You can play solo, but playing coop means you'll have more time (missions are time limited) to make more secondary missions, kill more enemies and achieve more secondary targets, so to get better rewards in each missions, and will make the harder difficulty levels more affordable.
