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Helldivers 2 |OT| Another bug infested game

Spyxos

Gold Member
With private match? Never had any issue (on PC at least). It's working just fine never had anyone else joining when this was enabled. I did not find anything like this reported on Google too.
I had it multiple times. I played with 2 friends, and constanly someone would still join.
 
I need to watch some high level youtube gameplay videos because I have absolutely no idea how you are supposed to kill the stronger enemies without a railgun, like the majority of the support weapons are absolutely garbage. There was an anti-tank mission last night and Jesus Christ that thing sucks, it literally wouldn't kill some of the smaller bugs. And you get a single shot with it.

If they nerfed the railgun significantly I guess I would go back to to the autocannon, but I'm not sure how fun it is going to be unloading a billion shots into a chargers ass again to kill them. It was already kind of silly how many rail gun shots a charger would take to kill. It could be anywhere from 3 if you hit the front legs (which sometimes can take 5 or more for no apparent reason) to like 8 or more, even if you are hitting them in the broken armor side.

If anyone has any pro gamer Youtube videos that show how you can easily kill 2-3 chargers at once without using the Breaker and Railgun, please share.
 

Alebrije

Member
It's a planetary modifier called electronic countermeasure or something, I'm not English so I don't know the name. Randomize your stratagem but you can see which one is "activated" before launching it once you finished the input. If iot's not the one you want just switch to your weapon and try again. Damn annoying.
Got it, the problem is that when You land You ask for your support weapon or backpack ASAP (specially on harder levels because You are surrounded by enemies) so I asked for rail gun but throwed the 500 kg bomb and killed 2 team mates...:(
 

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
I had it multiple times. I played with 2 friends, and constanly someone would still join.
That's weird, maybe your friend was not set in private? Has this happened recently? I searched but really I can't find anything so maybe it's on your end or your friend?

Never had any issue with private match so it's working for sure.

I need to watch some high level youtube gameplay videos because I have absolutely no idea how you are supposed to kill the stronger enemies without a railgun, like the majority of the support weapons are absolutely garbage. There was an anti-tank mission last night and Jesus Christ that thing sucks, it literally wouldn't kill some of the smaller bugs. And you get a single shot with it.

If they nerfed the railgun significantly I guess I would go back to to the autocannon, but I'm not sure how fun it is going to be unloading a billion shots into a chargers ass again to kill them. It was already kind of silly how many rail gun shots a charger would take to kill. It could be anywhere from 3 if you hit the front legs (which sometimes can take 5 or more for no apparent reason) to like 8 or more, even if you are hitting them in the broken armor side.
Exactly, but you'll find people saying "use an orbital beam" or "muh, use a 500kg bomb" and not seeing the irony of these extremely limited options with a long cooldown, therefore not viable.

If anyone has any pro gamer Youtube videos that show how you can easily kill 2-3 chargers at once without using the Breaker and Railgun, please share.
You can't.

Got it, the problem is that when You land You ask for your support weapon or backpack ASAP (specially on harder levels because You are surrounded by enemies) so I asked for rail gun but throwed the 500 kg bomb and killed 2 team mates...:(
Oh trust me I feel you.

TrebleShot TrebleShot See? This is the kind of stuff I don't mind at higher level cause shit happen!
 

Spyxos

Gold Member
That's weird, maybe your friend was not set in private? Has this happened recently? I searched but really I can't find anything so maybe it's on your end or your friend?

Never had any issue with private match so it's working for sure.
It happened yesterday. Could be his mistake, but he said no, who knows.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
I need to watch some high level youtube gameplay videos because I have absolutely no idea how you are supposed to kill the stronger enemies without a railgun, like the majority of the support weapons are absolutely garbage. There was an anti-tank mission last night and Jesus Christ that thing sucks, it literally wouldn't kill some of the smaller bugs. And you get a single shot with it.

If they nerfed the railgun significantly I guess I would go back to to the autocannon, but I'm not sure how fun it is going to be unloading a billion shots into a chargers ass again to kill them. It was already kind of silly how many rail gun shots a charger would take to kill. It could be anywhere from 3 if you hit the front legs (which sometimes can take 5 or more for no apparent reason) to like 8 or more, even if you are hitting them in the broken armor side.

If anyone has any pro gamer Youtube videos that show how you can easily kill 2-3 chargers at once without using the Breaker and Railgun, please share.
With the autocannon you can shoot the back of the legs to open a weak point, not easy but doable.

With the arc thrower you can try to aim to the front legs, 2-3 hits and you should strip the armour like you do with the railgun, not super reliable tho.

I heard that now the flamethrower can fuck up a charger pretty fast, just focus on the legs.

Or just use the railgun in unsafe mode, 2 hit to open a weak point and like half mag of a primary weapon to kill, you should not use the railgun to hit weakspot on chargers, but just to create them.


For bile titans the thing get way more complicated i guess, i know for a fact that aiming to the open mouth while they vomit do the max damage, you can probably still 2-3 shot a titan that way in unsafe mode, i think they just nerfed safe mode...right?
 
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GymWolf

Gold Member
Which weapon should I use now? I've tried all the others, but nothing even comes close to Breaker.
Slugger or the first smg or the jar 5 or the vanilla liberator.

They are not particularly close but they are the best alternative options imo.

But i haven't played since the last patch so maybe now they turned the spray and pray into something viable (hardly doubt it).

Some people love the incendiary breaker, i tried it 3 times and it was dogshit imo...
 
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Solidus_T

Banned
Which weapon should I use now? I've tried all the others, but nothing even comes close to Breaker.
Breaker incendiary and Defender (probably the strongest gun in the game) are other sick guns. Also the Liberator penetrator is okay, but not as good as the two I mentioned and the Breaker.
 

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
Still waiting for anyone playing difficulty 8 or 9 to tell me how to take down 6 Chargers and 3 Titan now (with Hunters and all of course).
Saw this post on Steam that sum it up perfectly:
Sans_titre.png

i know for a fact that aiming to the open mouth while they vomit do the max damage, you can probably still 2-3 shot a titan
It really feels like it's random to me. Sometimes I will one-shot a Titan at 300 meters and sometimes I need 10 shots in his head to take it down. Really weird.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Still waiting for anyone playing difficulty 8 or 9 to tell me how to take down 6 Chargers and 3 Titan now (with Hunters and all of course).
Saw this post on Steam that sum it up perfectly:
Sans_titre.png


It really feels like it's random to me. Sometimes I will one-shot a Titan at 300 meters and sometimes I need 10 shots in his head to take it down. Really weird.
I think you have to shot in the center of the mouth while he vomit, that was the only time i had a 2 hit kill consistently (kinda), it is just pretty hard to nail the precise spot at the right moment i guess, the angle probably change the damage aswell, hitting from below or from the front or from an high place, the railgun pierce so traveling along the whole body maybe does the trick...
 
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cebri.one

Member
Still waiting for anyone playing difficulty 8 or 9 to tell me how to take down 6 Chargers and 3 Titan now (with Hunters and all of course).
Saw this post on Steam that sum it up perfectly:
Sans_titre.png


It really feels like it's random to me. Sometimes I will one-shot a Titan at 300 meters and sometimes I need 10 shots in his head to take it down. Really weird.

Railgun is still pretty effective in unsafe mode. But 6 chargers are impossible unless you use chaff.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Grenade launcher works OK.
Not...really?

It bounce against every decent armour and it takes a while to kill a charger if you aim to his ass (and you have to be a sniper or the granades are not gonna hit the yellow part)

And against a titan it's basically useless, not sure how good it is against the bots tho.

I think that weapon is more for crowd control and closing nests from afar.
 
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John Bilbo

Member
Not...really?

It bounce against every decent armour and it takes a while to kill a charger if you aim to his ass (and you have to be a sniper or the granades are not gonna hit the yellow part)

And against a titan it's basically useless, not sure how good it is against the bots tho.

I think that weapon is more for crowd control and closing nests from afar.
True, it is better in crowd control, but I think you can kill chargers with it when aiming under their legs so the grenade explodes under their belly.

Edit: I don't know how it works against titans as I've rarely encountered them. I've mostly played on hard difficulty. The bile spitting enemies are an easy kill with grenade launcher though.
 
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GymWolf

Gold Member
True, it is better in crowd control, but I think you can kill chargers with it when aiming under their legs so the grenade explodes under their belly.

Edit: I don't know how it works against titans as I've rarely encountered them. I've mostly played on hard difficulty. The bile spitting enemies are an easy kill with grenade launcher though.
I don't know, i think like the autocannon does everything the granade launcher does, but better.

Only downside is having your back occupied by the ammo backpack, but you also have way more ammo than the gl.

I don't particularly like the gl, i find it too unprecise to kill a charger and too unprecise in general because the granades travel in a different way compared to bullets.

If i want an unprecise weapon to deal with crowds i can just bring my arc thrower that also has infinite ammo and shreds hordes even better than the gl.
 
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John Bilbo

Member
I don't know, i think like the autocannon does everything the granade launcher does, but better.

Only downside is having your back occupied by the ammo backpack, but you also have way more ammo than the gl.

I don't particularly like the gl, i find it too unprecise to kill a charger and too unprecise in general because the granades travel in a different way compared to bullets.

If i want an unprecise weapon to deal with crowds i can just bring my arc thrower that also has infinite ammo and shreds hordes even better than the gl.
I haven't got the autocannon yet. I almost bought it but found myself buying something else instead.

It's fun to try different loadouts even though they don't all work as well as others.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
I haven't got the autocannon yet. I almost bought it but found myself buying something else instead.

It's fun to try different loadouts even though they don't all work as well as others.
I think that to have fun in an hard game, the weapon must be at least viable, stuff like the laser cannon or the flamethrower were too much dogshit to really enjoy them, hopefully the buffs solved that.

Autocannon is probably the most "fun" weapon of the bunch.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Some good changes but i'm not sure about nerfing weapons as opposed to just buff all of them and just adding new difficulty modes...
This makes 0 sense.

The presence of overpowered weapons are just as bad for a game as the presence of underpowered weapons.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
This makes 0 sense.

The presence of overpowered weapons are just as bad for a game as the presence of underpowered weapons.
Not when the majority of weapons feels like pea shooter on the hardest difficulty.

Between having an unbalanced game with few choices and an unbalanced game with many choices, what do you think people would prefer?

Having perfect balancement is ideal of course, but almost nobody achieve that.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Not when the majority of weapons feels like pea shooter on the hardest difficulty.

Between having an unbalanced game with few choices and an unbalanced game with many choices, what do you think people would prefer?

Having perfect balancement is ideal of course, but almost nobody achieve that.

Then just drop it down a few difficulties.

The great thing about having 9 difficulty levels is you can cater your play session exactly to your preference.

The game was already too easy on Helldive (pre patch). Buffing everything up to be as powerful as the rail gun, breaker, shield backpack would make it significantly easier.

Helldive difficulty should be hard. It's more rewarding to play, and win, when the odds are stacked against you. The goal should be balance, not ease.
 
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cebri.one

Member

Hello everyone! My name is Patrik Lasota, I was the designer on the first Helldivers and am currently Head of Product Testing at Arrowhead. A bit of a grandiose title, but what it means in this context is that I’m responsible for how Arrowhead listens to feedback and balances its games. I’d like to talk about the changes we made in this patch and why.

Primary weapons

First I’d like to speak to the general power of primary weapons. Many have commented that they aren’t powerful enough and are unable to deal with all the enemies either by the amount of ammunition required or their raw DPS. This is very much intentional, you need to rely on your Stratagems, and the Stratagems of your team to deal with all the enemies effectively. Either by Eagle Airstrikes, Orbitals, Support Weapons, or Turrets, some of your loadout/team should be tailoring their loadout to killing the weaker stuff more efficiently.

This doesn’t mean that your primary weapon shouldn’t feel good to use, but please understand that it is primary only in the sense that it’s something you always spawn with.

Nerfs and Fantasy

flamethrower3-1024x576.png


I have since the game released seen many who say “Don’t Nerf, only Buff” and other similar ideas. However as a designer I can tell you this is not a great idea, but I understand where the sentiment comes from. All too often in the games industry the core fantasy, and what makes a weapon feel good and fun, is ignored for the sake of Balance. I believe players are scared of Nerfs, because it will ruin the fantasy of a weapon, ruin their fun. It is extra important to us to tread carefully so that we don’t ruin fantasy and fun when we do nerfs. We hope you, our players, will tell us when we cross that line inadvertently.

Let’s take a closer look at the changes we have made for this balance patch.

SG-225 Breaker

The Breaker was quickly pinned down as the “meta” weapon, vastly overperforming other weapons and being the “best” choice for all Helldivers, at least if YouTube is to be believed. Helldivers veterans will remember the breaker from the first game and how powerful it was, something we have made an effort to mimic in this game as well.

When we looked at the Breaker and the data we have on its usage it painted a picture of a well liked weapon that was great at killing chaff and generally had a few more kills than other weapons. It was however not necessarily better at making you succeed in a mission, and no real damage nerfs were warranted. The calculated total damage per magazine was quite high compared to other weapons however, and something that could be reigned in, while reinforcing the intended fantasy.

The fantasy of the Breaker is a powerful automatic shotgun that bucks wildly as you hose down targets in front of you. It should be deadly up close, with high DPS and its major drawback should be ammunition management and pacing your fire so as not to overshoot a target. To that end we have lowered the amount of shells in each magazine and increased the recoil.

SG-8 Punisher


Punisher4-1024x576.png



The Punisher is a powerful pump shotgun that should hit hard, but be limited by its slow reload and fire rate. Its rounds reload allows you to have it constantly topped up and makes the ammunition efficiency fantastic. Unfortunately the Punisher had a bug with only half ammo being picked up each time you picked up ammunition, making its supposed great ammunition economy quite poor instead. It also had a weak impact when firing on enemies, often requiring multiple shots even at shorter range.

To bring it more in line with its intended fantasy we increased the damage per shotgun pellet, the stagger amount and the total amount of ammunition you can carry. We hope this will make it feel more punchy as even if you don’t kill a Hunter with the first shot, you will most likely stagger it, giving you time for a follow up.

SG-225SP Breaker Spray&Pray

The Breaker S&P was intended to be an even wilder, more point and destroy version of the regular Breaker. Something where pacing yourself would be even harder. A shotgun that requires you to get closer, but in comparison have a higher damage potential once up close. As many players commented however, it was mostly good for tickling anything larger than a scavenger.

To bring it closer to the fantasy we increased its armor penetration, increased its fire rate from 300rpm to 330rpm and increased the amount of shotgun pellets in each shot from 12 to 16. To compensate for this additional firepower we reigned in the magazine capacity from 32 to 26 as to not make it outshine the regular Breaker too much in the ammunition economy department.

Railgun

Another one of the current meta weapons enforced by its convenience and efficiency. The Railgun is really intended to be a high powered anti-tank sniper rifle, requiring both timing with the unsafe fire mode and accuracy with where you hit the enemy. It was vastly over-performing in how safe it was to use and how convenient it was, not requiring a backpack or assistance to be effective, and not requiring risk to take out even larger armored targets.

To that end we have changed it so that the safe mode is capable of penetrating medium armor, such as Automaton Scout Walkers, but not more heavily armored enemies like Chargers and Bile Titans. For those targets you now must run it in unsafe mode and overcharge it. In addition we reigned in the Railguns ability to damage massive body parts, meaning to get any real efficiency out of it you must score hits on heads and other weak points.

We are aware it rose to prominence as part of other anti-tank weapons not being as convenient or efficient in comparison. We are monitoring the situation closely and will adjust more based on how this change plays out.

Flamethrower

The Flamethrower is really the embodiment of stepping into a queen’s lair and torching all her eggs, as done by a badass action heroine. It should be powerful up close and an inconvenience to enemies that are lit on fire or want to walk through the fire and flames. As many have commented the flamer has felt a little too anaemic, not outputting damage at a rate that is warranted by a weapon with a shorter range and large volatility such as the Flamethrower.

We have increased the flamethrower direct damage to be able to barbeque enemies that get close much faster. Please enjoy your Terminid Barbecue Device responsibly, as this also makes it even more volatile for any Helldivers caught in the stream.

Laser Cannon

LaserCannon1-1024x576.png



Our original intent was that the Laser Cannon has the role of a Machine Gun, but with theoretically infinite ammunition. However many players were somewhat disappointed by this role, expecting more armor penetration from the large drilling beam that it looks like. Especially when looking at the Orbital Laser, that can drill down and kill even the heaviest targets given enough time. Here we have decided to side with the community and shift the Laser Cannon more towards the players’ expectations and their fantasy.

The Laser Cannon has gained additional damage versus massive body parts, increased armor penetration to make it capable of dealing with medium armor and better ergonomics to make it easier to stay on target. As this is quite a major change from the original intention of the weapon, please be prepared that it might change again in the future if these changes don’t work out well. For now, let us know how it feels!

Shield Backpack

The Shield Backpack is safety at the expense of a backpack slot. Unfortunately the safety offered up by the Shield Backpack was a bit too great, essentially allowing you to ignore many mechanics that contribute to the fun of Helldivers, such as knockback, shockwaves, and giant explosions obliterating your and your friends.

To that end, we have increased the time the shield needs before it starts regenerating if not broken quite significantly. This essentially means that you can’t hide behind a rock for 5 seconds to get your shield back to full, instead it will be a degrading health bar until it breaks. When the shield breaks, it will take longer to regenerate than before, but still significantly shorter than if it has not broken. To compensate for these extra times, the regen speed of the shield itself is near instant to max hp.

This is only a partial solve in our minds for the Shield Backpack, but it should bring it out from the “must have” meta slot it has filled currently.

120mm and 380mm Barrages

The fantasy of these is an artillery storm, denying entry to the area in which they are active and raining down powerful shells on the target for a longer duration. They are primarily different from Eagle Stratagems in that while the Eagle Strikes are fast to arrive and have pinpoint accuracy, these have a longer active time, but are less accurate.

They have however not delivered on the feel of being active much longer, or the saturated area denial effect. To bring them closer to the fantasy we have decreased their scatter area and given them an extra salvo. They should still solve a different problem than the Eagles, but have more value now.

In closing

I hope this gives you a greater insight into how we are thinking around balance and why we make the changes we have. Happy Helldiving!
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Then just drop it down a few difficulties.

The great thing about having 9 difficulty levels is you can cater your play session exactly to your preference.

The game was already too easy on Helldive (pre patch). Buffing everything up to be as powerful as the rail gun, breaker, shield backpack would make it significantly easier.

Helldive difficulty should be hard. It's more rewarding to play, and win, when the odds are stacked against you. The goal should be balance, not ease.
Lower difficulties are boring when you reach a certain level of skills.

And the game getting too easy is why i said to add new difficulty modes with maybe new enemies to spice up things.
 
Alright. Question.

For PC, is the anticheating software really that intrusive of files on the hard drive? Like still remains even after a clean uninstall of the game, etc, etc?

I really want to get this game but I feel like the research on that aspect is muddied by people who either mindlessly don't card/want fun or people who despise any Anticheating/DRM and they are all the devil.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Lower difficulties are boring when you reach a certain level of skills.

And the game getting too easy is why i said to add new difficulty modes with maybe new enemies to spice up things.

But there's 9 difficulty levels. Just find which level you find the most fun.

The reason why adding more difficulty levels is a sub optimal is because the game already chugs on Helldive difficulty. It's far easier to tune each difficulty they already have to the correct player type.

This game is awesome when it organically makes you work as a squad that has to lean on eachother. The railgun, breaker, shield backpack combo made the solo playstyle too viable and hurt the experience as a result. I haven't played the new patch yet obviously.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
But there's 9 difficulty levels. Just find which level you find the most fun.

The reason why adding more difficulty levels is a sub optimal is because the game already chugs on Helldive difficulty. It's far easier to tune each difficulty they already have to the correct player type.

This game is awesome when it organically makes you work as a squad that has to lean on eachother. The railgun, breaker, shield backpack combo made the solo playstyle too viable and hurt the experience as a result. I haven't played the new patch yet obviously.
Not really true, even a squad with meta equip get fucked up in helldive if they are not skilled or work like a team, going solo means a lot of stealth where you avoid problems instead of facing them.

Dude i'm not against perfect balancement, i just know how fuckind hard it is so i chose the more fun alternative when perfect balancement is not achived, and if they can, even better.
 
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Personally, I don't see a reason to go above 7 right now. I already have all ship modules.

Flame thrower has been very effective against chargers. And slugger might be my main weapon from now on.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
You know...like the one in the movie only a bit smaller and not as good looking. (Note to self: gaming and gas doesn't work) 😅
You mean the bugs with the yellow\green sack?

those get fucked easily if you shot the mouth with almost any decent weapon, unless it's the armoured version.

I only use granades to close nests tbh.
 
Personally, I don't see a reason to go above 7 right now. I already have all ship modules.

Flame thrower has been very effective against chargers. And slugger might be my main weapon from now on.
Yeah, after patch, I'm sticking with level 7, at least until I figure out the build I want to main. The flamethrower is awesome now! Loads of fun
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Well shit, apparently many weapons got some changes that are not included in the list, for example the slugger has more ammo like the punisher...
 
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