Helldivers 2 Developer Q&A and Meta Discourse
Reddit Posts (9)
The Q & A Interview was painful to watch
Edit - Good god. I refreshed the page when it was at 70 votes, 51 minutes old. Maybe 20 mins later... 550 votes??? I'm glad that this post I threw together on a Sunday morning speaks for so many of us. I love this game and I want to continue enjoying it. Anyway, I won't make this edit too long. Also, as much as I'd like to be able to reply to all of you, I just can't do it Captain! I don't have the power!! *(Star Trek TOG reference \[And Ace Ventura, which is a hilarious movie\])* One final thing before the rest of the post. At this point, I think Arrow needs to appoint someone to be their community ambassador of sorts if they ever intend on communicating with the players with the design direction for the game. It is clear they don't play it, so much as they develop it. And that disconnect shows. But this requires them to be willing to adapt to what the game has become. Switching the Leviathan's guns to beam weapons is by far the best example of the sort of back and forth communication that's needed. I was so happy when Nik said "So we did!" in the update video for that. After all that being instantly deleted suffering. \------- *Warning, long list ahead. But still a shortened version lol. Numbered for discussion purposes.* **So, the flag increasing the fighting spirit of our Helldivers is space magic, but a warp pack isn't.** 1 - We have impalers on the bug front who can extend their multiple tentacles dozens of feet underground to reach its target. 2 - We have a Stim Gun, that even though it isn't very powerful, we still can't heal ourselves with it. 3 - We have suppressed weapons that have the same detection range as all of the other weapons, with no benefits, despite that the weapons with the suppressor have a tag that says so. 4 - We have bleed damage that \*will\* kill you in seconds. 5 - The explosion radius of our bombs is vertical and not circular. Allowing enemies to survive direct 500kg hits. This also applies to the Ultimatum. 6 - For a while there, we were given a flying enemy who had wings that meant nothing if you destroyed them, even though the release video for the update said that the wings were the weakspot. This enemy's bile attack also has no correlation with its vfx (Visual effects). This is the Dragonroach for those unfamiliar 7- To this day, we have a wildly different experience fighting the enemies as the client than the host does. If you ever want to experience this yourself, join a game on Bugs D10, fight the bugs for a while, then have someone kick you. You will immediately notice the difference when you are switched to being the host. If you were around before they reworked Rupture Strain, and you were host, you knew about this. 8- Speaking of rupture strain, we still have burrowing enemies that can travel underground faster than you can sprint above it. 9- We can't reload our teammates' weapons from their own backpack. 10 - We can't carry more than a few clips for our most basic weapons, unless we choose a special perk. 11 - We can't land on any tall rock or structure to gain a height advantage. And if you somehow manage it, the enemies will magically teleport to you. 12 - We can't use melee without extreme risk to ourselves and guaranteeing losing stims fast, and yet they still nerf melee just because you could kill a charger with it if you were careful enough and it was alone. 13 - Enemies still don't care about being on fire. 14 - Our divers still spend half a second chilling on the ground after recovering from being ragdolled 15- And finally, the developers claim they don't want one weapon to outshine all of the others, and yet something like the Eruptor still exists. I've tried using other weapons in its place, I've tried finding different loadouts that would compete with it, but I found nothing that destroyed everything like that gun does. Heck, I've spent so much time using it, I know how to shoot it within a couple of meters to kill an enemy, and basically never kill myself. I don't enjoy how that gun makes all of the others feel inadequate. But all of you still reading at this point know what arrowhead would do, right? Nerf the Eruptor of course. ***But a flag that increases the fighting spirit of our fanatical Helldivers? Space Magic!*** \----- Last night, after painstakingly clearing a flag on spread democracy and feeling like I was about to accomplish the goal and have that nice music play with all the dead enemies around me, a single hunter hit me once in the chest. I killed him and I still had half health, but because he made me bleed, within 5 seconds I was dead on the ground because there was no way I could have called in a resupply quick enough or grabbed my supply pack which was 40 meters away. I just stood there and watched myself bleed out and collapse before I left the game. That was when I decided, I don't find this fun anymore. They've made too many changes to make it less fun, and there are other games out there. \------ And as pointless as it might be to say this, I'm still gonna throw it out there. All of my criticisms come from a place of loving the game and really disliking the parts where it shouldn't be the way it is and it should be more fun than it is. I don't like the way arrow consistently make decisions that nerf the players good time. They appear to want a small group of players who enjoy playing their grunt fantasy rather than taking advantage of the fact that their game has become a global smash hit The best example of nerfing fun comes from them having disabled the adreno defibrillator's ability to keep you alive as long as you're inside a Mech. That did not affect game balance, mechs are fragile with limited ammo. Arrow just removed it because people enjoyed it. I'm convinced of that. *(Because they've shown a consistent pattern of removing things from the game they didn't intend, that don't or barely affect the game balance, and that the players enjoy using. If similiarly something the enemies have \[or that's wrong with our equipment\] gives them an unfair advantage, it takes MUCH longer to see a fix, if said fix happens at all. Case in point the delay to recovering from Ragdoll \[no. 14\], implemented to hotfix the wormdiver bug.)* I'm sure I'll be back at some point, this game always manages to drag me back before I again get tired of all the anti fun decisions the devs make. \----- Final edit/thoughts: I have probably hours and hours of footage saved from the game. For now I'm going to settle into occasionally making videos for the sub (when not playing other games) showcasing what the different weapons can do etc, for example the default frag grenade is actually amazing. And I plan on making a video showing that at some point. The eruptor too deserves a guide video for all the excellent uses it has. So, until next time. \----- Peace.
I hope they reblalance boosters at some point
As it is, you pick the big three and muscle enchancment if on a snow planet or planet with sandstorms, otherwise experimental infusion, anything else is just objectively worse
What are the in-lore reasons the ennemies of Super Earth aren't fighting each other ?
They obviously occupy different sectors of the galaxy, but they share borders. You might think the Terminids keep expanding like the pest bugs they are, and end up on occupied territories. The Illuminates and Automatons could also harvest bugs line we do. Squids could reanimate and mind control bugs for their armies like they do with SE citizens, and Bots already process our human plasma for fuel so they could attack Squids or Bugs for it too. PS : this is purely a lore question, I'm not hinting at what would happen in-game if 2 ennemy factions were on the same planet we're trying to liberate.
Three niche but "realistic" buffs for the One True Flag
The idea was to think up small buffs that add to the utility of the flag while also adhering to the verisimilitude of the setting. Historically, standard-bearers were the ones leading the charge into battles, and by wearing the Flag on your back (or waving it in your hands!) you'd be able to gather a small army of SEAF without having to explicitly seek them out; they're pretty effective at providing fire support, and just having a flag on your back can increase your firepower tremendously by way of picking up stragglers. Meanwhile, planting the Flag in areas is an explicit declaration that you claim that territory - so naturally, SEAF forces in the vicinity should rally around it. This lets you designate important defensive locations (such as extraction zones, flag-raising missions, chokepoints near enemy outposts, etc) for SEAF to take positions at, allowing you to build up support elements without having to manually herd them to locations and tell them to hold position. And finally, since we're raising flags to claim territory in the name of Managed Democracy, surely that means more flags is even higher levels of patriotism. Potentially leads to "flag meta" on those missions; it would be extremely funny seeing four flags taken, and even funnier if players kept them around and added more flags to each flag-raising as their flags came off cooldown (such as by transporting them stuck to an FRV; imagine a flag-raising mission that ends with 16 flags stuck into the roof of an FRV as a mobile beacon of democracy).
All Helldivers will find the Orbital Laser Stratagem waiting in their Armory!
"The Spirit of Reckoning has left a present for all Helldivers, who proved their virtue this year through unhesitating sacrifice in defense of Freedom."
Should the illuminate have a boss?
I think the harvester as more akin to a charger than it is an actual Factory Strider type heavy There could be a middleman like a crab style factory strider and then this as a boss enemy It could patrol around the edge of the map so any objectives in the middle shouldn't be as harassed We do have the Leviathan but that's more of a hazard than a fight. It just flies around shooting at you and then flies away This is just a reference but something like the BOR7 Horus from Horizon could be a cool reference (A massive enemy, That's a fun battle and one that's completely optional) It's getting a bit long now but I'm just adding that it won't snipe you like the old Leviathan it only aggroes if you engage it
The Flamethrower used to be more effective than this, right?
I had not picked up the Flamethrower in a while. I remember being able to fire in sweeping arcs - the enemy getting hit with direct fire every time I turned back to them - and have fodder Bugs fall before me. Now, it seems that if you do not sustain your fire, it barely does anything at all. I have seen Scavenger be nearly unkillable when using the Flamethrower how I used to. The Hunter in this clip is actually one of the quicker kills I've had. It's too bad. I used to have lots of fun with the Flamethrower on Bugs, but it seems comically bad right now.
Lucy charcoal drawing
Love her very much
Riddle me this devs, if the flag isn't magic, why does it summon waves of enemies when I try to raise it on their undemocratic planets??
Don't take this post too seriously
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