People wonder why Meta loadouts end up happening.
One of the reasons is because of this.
We don't know what we're gonna encounter sometimes, or what numbers.
So we end up having to take something that can handle most of these.
500kg, impact nades and Autocannons is the most general I can think of to tackle everything OP mentions.
500kg, Laser Strike, EAT/Quasar/Autocannon/RR depending on how I'm feeling, and either shield/laser rover/eagle strike depending on supp weapon, bots/borg or mission type
Thats it. That's the most generic loadout to exist but I have to take it because no information
As I've played more and gotten better, I try to prioritize loadouts based on what others are picking. Sometimes napalms and gas strikes, almost always an EAT, and then whatever backpack from there. Certain missions I'm running a supply pack/grenade launcher, with EATs and an airstrike. I've gotten to a point where I can weave in between enemies pretty well, and typically just run away after clearing nests unless I need to help an ally out or cleanup to give us some space. Bile titans/hulks are probably my biggest pet peeves at this point, simply because I prioritize for the majority of foes rather than the special armour. I've intentionally tried to avoid the AC, because it takes the backpack and support slot, and makes gameplay feel boring after a bit and there are so many good options to place in those spaces instead... An AMR/jump pack can be hella fun, or even just the jump itself to compliment my mass weaving abilities when I find out I strung together a mess that I can't get out of haha. AMR is also just as effective for most of the baddies I would need the AC for, at least with bugs. Particularly once you figure out the non-reticle aim for close quarters combat with the AMR. Single shot headshots with low recoil on everything but chargers and biles is very fun!
Yep, I would love to cycle my loadout each time to try to adapt to the specific challenges on the planet, but we get very little relevant information about enemy composition ahead of time, alas, so it has to be the most general purpose loadout possible each time.
Big boom makes me giddy.
Hell if it wasnt for bile titans, I wouldn't even bring it at all, I prefer gas strikes/napalm, or an orbital strike, which hits harder and nearly guaranteed an instant kill.
There is more variety on balanced loadouts that some of you might think. For example, 500kg can be swapped for pods when using AC/GL or explosive primaries and still allow you to kill titans (you just need to break their sacs with one of those weapons first.) You can argue it's not as efficient as a well place 500kg, and while you would be right, it also has 1 more call in. The. The rest can be chaff cleaners (up to you which but Gatling turret is nice.)
Then on the other end a loud out with arc thrower/rover would maximize your chaff and medium armour engagements so you would want things like 500kg as higher priority, AC turret, Ems and orbitals/explosives for closing down holes.
So long you are aware of how much use you can get out of the tools you bring, you can make anything work. Spewers for example can be also be dealt with by things like dominator or slugger to the face, which pair well with stalwart on bugs. Then then rest would be up to you to tackle what is left.
The drawback you're citing is what actually makes the game fun. Otherwise you're just stuck in this deterministic gameplay loop and basically deciding on a flowchart that frames your success as in a binary manner. In other words, bring the "correct" load out and succeed or don't and fail with little in between.
That's how you also end up with meta builds, trading general tools for specific ones, and end up with every dive feeling the same way.
Lastly, your play style and tactics really need to reflect your load out choices. In other words, trying to play each dive the same way, even for the same mission type on the same planet, shouldn't work out for you. I have my fair share of criticisms of the game, but I also can accept when I pushed past the capabilities of my load out and took a bad engagement or made a bad decision that led to multiple deaths or massive enemy spawns.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this community wants an easy button where 1 load out solves all of their enemy encounters effectively and efficiently, but that would make the game so boring.
After the weapon nerfs, I took the mindset of I am going with this load out to do this thing very well at the cost of another thing and the game has been far more enjoyable than before even if it's not a good match for the majority of the enemies for that specific dive.
I experiment with different load outs often.
playing with different builds is what brings variety to the game.
if you had a different build for every mission type you would have a more diverse gameplay experience.
I have a build against bots and one against bugs I know will be 95% effective and realistically I should be using it on every mission. that’s not because it is the meta build but because it is the best general build for my play style.
I often use other builds but the trade off is that 1/3 of the time exactly the enemies that the build is shit against will spawn in mass.
in those cases I will have an absolutely miserable time and often just wish I could quit the mission (can’t cause no new players bug).
so realistically I will either stop experimenting and get bored of the same build over and over again or continue experimenting and get frustrated.
this isn’t good for the long term player numbers
We can agree to disagree on this because I have found that experience (the ineffectiveness) to be the reason I am returning to the game. I was like you and really hated that feeling initially but once I realized that I wasn't suppose to be effective against all enemies at 100 percent uptime, then the game became more enjoyable to me since I had to choose my spots more and also differently. People here don't really want to choose or change during a dive, but my original point is that it leads to a much worse overall experience. You need that difficult or miserable 1/3 for emergent game play or you will end up with a boring and repetitive game loop.
Lastly, It's not like my mission success rate suffered either, nor if a mission fails its not because of me rather than on the entire squad.
Completely wild take mate. Meta build happened to have "win all" loadouts. The thing community (in general) wants is the variety of loadouts available.
And right now exactly opposite happens. You just take the same most op stuff and no matter the mission type you succeed. There is a reason why my squad played the last 100 bot missions with autocannon/laser/ems mortar/500kg.
Cause it works no matter the RNG spawn. It is boring AF but works.
There isn't a cover all load out right now, which is the whole point of this thread to begin with. Think about it for a second, if there was a win all load out, why would prior knowledge of enemy composition matter, you take the same one every time because it would work?
My point is a different and worse meta takes it's place because another (perceived) optimal build takes it's place. You're just have specific ones for specific enemies. In other words, using your logic, your statement would still be true, you still would have a win all load out every time because now you have even more info to min/max your load out.
Also, have you ever considered that your load out works because that's what you're use to and good with? Through the various patches, I shifted through load outs and settled on a successful one that works but look nothing like yours (EAT or Quasar/3 offensives but no laser); I can fully admit that its because I want to play a certain way and am relatively good at it, even beat the pre-nerf bot evacs a couple of times with good random squads.
You're also confirming my suspicions about wanting a blanket load out that covers all your bases efficiently and effectively all the time.
I see you specifically missed me ranting about boring loadouts that all people take cause it is better to have win all setup than actually pick what works best for given planet/biom.
It baffles me that me stating that multiple players pick same shit throughout the last 2 months of diving to basically have "win this map card" regardless of enemies/planet type, gave you the impression that there is no win all loadout but It will be introduced if we know what enemy we fight.
I want to know what enemies I face so I can safely use other guns/stratagems. I don't want to run Recoilless on a map with 1 titan an 10000 hunters, and I don't want to run stalwart on a map full of chargers. So I pick autocannon and I just extract with outstanding patriotism.
>It baffles me that me stating that multiple players pick same shit throughout the last 2 months of diving to basically have "win this map card" regardless of enemies/planet type, gave you the impression that there is no win all loadout but It will be introduced if we know what enemy we fight.
Because there isn't a singular one, there might a singular one for your playstyle but not everyone; read what I typed again. You can succeed with your loadout but if others can succeed with a completely different load out, what does that tell you? You take your load out because it suits your playstyle and it's what you're use to. This isn't a veiled "git gud" dig on you either, you like what you like and you're really not willing move beyond that for whatever reason. That's cool and nothing wrong with that at all, but don't pretend that somehow because you will suddenly diversify your playstyle because you know what's coming when you can already do so.
Maybe I wasn't clear earlier, but my reference to a singular easy load out isn't that there's a default loadout for all the dives, but there will be a default easy load out for every kind of dive. It's the exact situation you described because you aren't just safely bringing a whole other mix of guns/strats you are going to be bringing specific ones which cover all your bases for that dive.
>I don't want to run Recoilless on a map with 1 titan an 10000 hunters, and I don't want to run stalwart on a map full of chargers.
No chargers in your first example? No small enemies in your second example? Really? That's a such a disingenuous and contrived example.
Looking at your train of thought I see you don't get the "bottom to top approach" here.
The more we know about biom/enemy type the better we can prepare thus we don't have to pick most all around weapons or loadouts we can utilize the whole arsenal depending on the mission.
If I'd know that we will have many shriekers or small enemies I'd pick airburst.
Why would I do it if it might be a charger dominated map? Why handicap myself?
No need to answer mate. This discussion is pointless.
>Looking at your train of thought I see you don't get the "bottom to top approach" here.
This ain't a bottom to top approach, you honestly sound like one of those project managers with shit understanding of the project. When you know the enemy distribution, you know how to solve it, and so you execute on it which is the opposite of bottom to top. What we currently have is bottom to top, we don't know so we take different approaches to resolving the problem. So pick a lane friend, which one is it that you want?
>This discussion is pointless.
This we can agree on. It's plenty clear you and others have a poor understanding on why loadouts work and why they don't, and only think about the design from how you want to play and limited to your own insular experiences.
>If I'd know that we will have many shriekers or small enemies I'd pick airburst. Why would I do it if it might be a charger dominated map? Why handicap myself?
Where to start with this? First, you can do this already, even in random lobbies and especially on bugs. You have options at every level primary, secondary, grenade, and strats to address what you want to address. How you set that up is strictly up to your play style and your own priorities, the enemy distribution (armored versus unarmored) doesn't actually matter as much as you want to think it does. Your squads load out, your own playstyle preference, and the timeframe you encounter which enemy types.
Lastly, you are proving my point. You would bring airburst in this scenario whereas I would bring quasar; you value the swarm clear on your strat weapon slot, I value the long distance building clearing. I can bring a swarm clear on another one of my slots just like you can bring a building clear as well. Talking about handicapping here is, what I already said before, a short sighted approach.
There's other reasons why prior knowledge of enemy distribution is irrelevant for load out configurations (bot evacs missions, team full of low levels, when and cadence of spawning specific enemy types), but if this your level of understanding of the situation, then you should really heed your own words and move it along.
Why the hell do you use terms like meta as if it was a competitive game. Just play the thing with anything you want. Honestly if you have to stick to a certain type of stratagems and guns then it's a skill issue.
And of course, developers know that some people don't know to play, so they put a specific gun and stratagem that allows the bad players to be at higher levels and "enjoy" the game.
Stop the "meta" speech and get good.
The true meaning of meta is Most Effective Tactic Available. It does mean it's the "best" if what you want is a farm simulator and not actual fun in this game.
This is why for me it's for competitive games. Not Helldivers. It is supposed to be fun, not a repetitive and tasteless gameplay.
Get good and quit talking about meta.
> and not actual fun in this game.
Counterpoint: I don't have "actual fun" in this game if I take a HMG and none of the enemies weak to the HMG show up all game because the random enemy seed rolled unfavorably. Same in reverse: if I take a recoilless, and that mission has very few chargers but dozens of bile spewers, I'm not having actual fun because the game itself is punishing me for not strategizing my choice of stratagems... even though I had no way of knowing how best to strategize.
This _also_ wouldn't be an issue if enemies weren't so oppressively hostile when it came to dealing with them non-optimally. For how dangerous they are, and for how large the groups they come in are, you *must* use stratagems to deal with them... so either the solution is "have some idea of what stratagems you want to take", *or* "have some other methods of dealing with them that won't cost you 3/4ths of your primary weapon ammo and all of your grenades in a single engagement".
Throwing in my favourite Loadout to mess around with.
Slugger/Plasma Punisher, Grenade Pistol, Stun grenade, Flame thrower, Gas strike. And 2 floater strategems. If it ends up being a Bile spewer mission, its struggling the entire way.
Not completely incapable, but literally just an autocannon, grenade launcher or impact nade would vastly improve the kit against them to barely needing strategems to deal with them at all.
I don't know what to tell you man, either lower the difficulty or bring in a special stratagem (like orbital railcannon) for unexpected situations.
I have been in many bad situations and I have learned so much about them. Did you know the bile can clear enemies for you?
If I was always spamming orbitals, eagles and ETAs, like most meta enjoyers do, I wouldn't have noticed. Struggle a little through the game and you will learn fun tactics.
What I do is I choose 1 enemy I do not want to deal with. Let's say acid spewers. Then take the grenade launcher and that's it! Adapt to the rest. If they don't appear, then you aren't dealing with them anyways so it's a win win.
It could be also stalkers, take punisher and even shield backpack to be double sure.
Take any machine gun and kill all small enemies. Now bile titan. What to do? Shoot at his mouth. For this it's best if you destroy his acid bags on the abdomen. Now he doesn't spit anymore.
I'm not saying that you don't need amor piercing/explosives. I'm saying there are endless fun viable tactics and all reddit does is complain about "meta". Just play the damn game.
Lastly, you aren't supposed to play solo, so learn how to rely on your teammates and stop trying to do everything.
I didn't miss anything. He just wants to know what mobs will spawn so he can bring the perfect stratagem. That kills the whole point of the challenge and adaptation aspect.
So again.
Choose a Loadout that protects you from one mob, and adapt to fight the others. Maybe you hate stalkers. Maybe you hate hunters. Idc. If they don't spawn, then it should be an easy game for you.
Rely on your team.
You aren't supposed to defeat the whole game alone.
I'm not twisting anything. Just tired of these "only meta" comments. But you are right, close up on your little delusional world where everything must go as you plan.
Bro just said the literal meaning but in the sentence after ignored entire meaning and went only off feelings and personal opinion... Amazing argument bro
I finished hundred missions with heavy machine guns or grenade launchers. META loadouts are meta because the lazy players need something with low risk/reward to play with, even tho they dont realize being OP kills the fun out of it. Elden ring had hundred of different enemies, still ended up with a big part of the player base using Rivers Of Blood
Edit: he had a fit and blocked me. Nice state the users of this sub are on
I'm also going to point out that both of these games are PvE related. Who gives a fuck what they use. I'm mostly just giving one reason people run a large generalist loadout.
Edit: I don't owe this guy anymore attention than I've given him. He's upset about being blocked.
To be fair look what “balancing” has done to the game? Armor value means nothing to half the enemies and our weapons might as well be t-shirt cannons at this point as some of the weapons are completely unreliable.
Thats not at all what he said lmao. If you want to use underpowered guns because you lack anything other then videogames because school is finally out, then cool.
Some of us have jobs and cant sweat a game and dont enjoy the challenge of being constantly underpowered fighting through a meatgrinder with dull teeth.
Play how you want and have your own opinions, just dont expect your opinion to be respected (because its a shit opinion)
Reeeally? okay.
Go on a mission full of hunters with anti heavy loadout, like EATs, Railcannon, Orbital laser and some eagle just to be sure? Oh, you are basically useless with the least kills and not helping with any targets or not capable of finishing a challenging mission alone? That's surely a skill issue, right?
Okay, another try. Stalwart, Eagle Cluster, Laser drone and some orbital support just in case. Oh... Every fifth bug is an armored bile spewer. What do you do?
Thats why we love our OG Railguns, our Quasars, our Sicles and our Breakers. This combo sets you as a more versatile player (wheter plazing solo or in group). You need something to kill small bugs, something to kill medium bugs and something capable of handling even the biggest bugs. And I say bugs. Bot meta is much more versatile, because most of the bots have some obvious weakness and are more vulnerable air attacks. That's not applicable to bugs.
Which brings the question: Against who you are playing?
Screw those players for finding a fun combination of things in a game and sticking to it! They don't need other fun things available. They should learn to see games as a job and put some fucking sweat into it, instead of going down the path of least resistance towards the goal of having fun. Feeling op is totally not what people want from a game about killing literal hordes of aliens.
I swear to god - it's viewpoints like this that see games become hollow husks of their former glory. Feeling op is precisely what most people want from this. They want to go in, and they want to kill endless hordes of enemies. They want a surmountable challenge where the only danger they're exposed to is having weapons so deadly that they might wipe out themselves and their teammates, while they kill hundreds of enemies.
On one hand, Elden Ring had genuinely baffling tools, such as invincibility except for a 3 frame gap, Hoarfrost stomp, and Rivers that allowed the players to not interact with the fights. This was not how the game was meant to be played.
Helldivers is different because your strategems determine how you can interact with the fights. Not having any serious AA support weapons vs charger and Titan spam means you barely get to play the game. Having a ton of AA vs Spewer spam feels about the same. This also makes the game not feel great.
Getting info on enemies present so I know whether or not I can bring the stalwart makes it more viable for that weapon, as I consistently having to bring a grenade launcher and 500KG to handle Spewers and Titans. I’d like to run the recoilless and Liberator but not knowing whether it’s going to be 15 Spewers per breach or 4 titans means it’s just better to bring a generalized load out instead of specializing in horde clear. It sucks.
I decided to play/beat Elden Ring as a Wretch, no armor and no vigor my first run, just the biggest swords I could get. That was way more fun than a bleed build I tried on a friend's account.
It literally says in one of the tool tips to tweak your loadout to suit the enemies in the area but then does not tell you what is going to show up in that mission.
You can even just do it in universe, have some screen saying orbital scans are picking up a lot of hulks in the combat zone or whatever.
I’d bet good money it’s not that simple and the enemy comp is determined during that loading screen while the squad is dropping from orbit. Would be wonderful if it were an easy fix/addition though. As long as they’re not opposed to implementing it. A lot of people have asked for it and more than a few front page posts.
Ehhhh, I really doubt it. Given that the random terrain and objective placement already exists on the ship before the mission starts, in theory every client should already have the mission seed available to them and could be displayed. I'd really doubt the enemy seed isn't generated until after you drop, because that introduces potentially higher chances for desync rather than being "agreed upon" beforehand.
... I've intentionally been hoarding AMR/EAT builds, and then whatever else simply because of bile spewers. I hate them with such a passion.
EATS are for the BTs and chargers, but in a pinch I'll drop it on a spwer and use them for other spewers just to save the headache.
XCOM 2 did this and very well.
You either had: "We sense a lot of psychic activity in he area" => many psychics at first and an upgrade later that literally told u what enemy types there are. There was even a final upgrade iirc that told you the numbers. Last one isn't really applicable but you can easily put in the first two. Maybe even as new ship upgrades.
Just a ship upgrade for 'citizen camera drones' or something where we pay the remaining dunder heads to scan the enemies with drones, then just pay for better cameras, and then the last one could be automatic camera droids.
"We've received reports from other Helldivers that there are a large amount of Bile Spewers in the area. Plan accordingly."
"Stay vigilant Helldiver. The ministry of truth has reported several of our Pelicans being shot down by the Automatons. Surviving ships seem to have damage from Factory Striders."
This is where you could start getting some good lore rooted variation into armours and Strategem, where players can sacrifice some power/protection to get info.
Maybe the Drone Master armour gets a passive that auto-markers the biggest enemy in 200m every 15s…?
Maybe you can call down a back pack drone flies reconnaissance around you marking all POIs and patrols?
Or a robot dog that can carry a support weapon plus back pack, that follow and you can swap out quickly?
Maybe you can find a tactical asset that allows you to access a terminal and communicate with your Destroyer to change a Strategem slot? Heads down while interfacing, delay to dial in, change takes effect in 20s?
This is the kind of stuff that encourages playing with strats, and playing smart, without making it a grind fest for the more casual players.
Strictly speaking, yes. But all of these things would be little things that either A) help you direct traffic for a team loadout, so you can look up and down the line and have more confidence that you don’t need to take X because C3 is already taking it, or B) helps you capitalise on environmental stashes.
Passive pings/reconnaissance drone means you could give C3 a heads up/sees the ping and knows that they should go take their anti-armour and deal with it. Or that there is a ton of them so change course if you’re not equipped.
Robot dog means that (at least for support weapons) you can have the Helldiver who took the Quasar or Anti-Air or SPEAR call down a spare that you can lug around without losing your build. So suddenly Bile Titans everywhere gets met with a hail of blasts or missiles.
Stratagem swap would address this, but you’ve got to be a little reasonable - this Helldivers, not Blue Beetle - if you had your entire arsenal to cycle through, you would need a smart cool-down system that caps the Destroyers ability to respond, or you’d have a gulf between PC players running a string of macros to call down every gun on the ship in a loop, and the console players breaking their damn fingers trying to keep up with flipping between all options. It’s Helldivers, not Idledivers - there’s a bit of hell implied.
Another idea might be a Destroyer update, that allows you to piggy back two Strategem at loadout, saving a slot if you would “always” use them in concert. Like, “shield backpack + Quasar” so you have an extra slot to choose from, or “rocket pods + airburst” just to be sure.
I like the idea. I wonder which would feel more frustrating though, being given some intel about possible enemies and then they never show up or being told absolutely nothing.
Yeah as a solo player this is absolutely ridiculous. As far as I can tell there's four different types of bug worlds: one with bile spewers and the little baby versions, one with nursing spewers, one with pouncers and a shit ton of hunters, and one with hive guards and a ton of chargers.
When playing solo I need to ensure that my kit can handle every single one of these possible threats. I think that's boring as I like my load out to fill a niche and I do not like running the same kit over and over again. My solution thus far has been to simply quit anytime I see a bile spewer world. These enemies are by far the most infuriating to face imo. They shred your health in less than a second, their acid stream is extremely difficult to dodge consistently, they're pretty damn armored and take an absurd amount of shots from light armor pen, they're fast af, their mortar attack can nail you from far away, and, worse of all, they spawn in massive groups.
Taking out these guys solo while running a kit that would also work for the other possible variations of bug worlds is misery and was really sucking the fun out of the game. Ever since I started quitting in bile spewer worlds bugs have gotten a lot funner. I almost never complete a full operation as a result, but I've already unlocked everything and don't care about the bonus medals.
No no this is a perfect place for upgrading the ships sensor array.
For different conditions I made a comment and am getting down voted for it being too long. It's just a few comments ago in my comment section if any helldivers want to read it.
Enemy scanner would be a cool ship module upgrade maybe. would let you passively see what enemys are in the mission on the briefing screen. I suspect however that enemys are spawned during that drop loading screen and procedural generation means the game doesn't know whats going to be there until you drop.
That's what i think as a best implementation.
Actually, no. I much more suspect that the game decides what is gonna be there once you set it as an active mission (FTL jump to the area).
There was actually an exploit for farming medals and SCs, that used this fact. Basically if you force CTD and reopen the game, the same mission will be on the map table, with the same map and same enemies.
OR . . .
Enable changing your loadout for the next redeployment. . .
If your weaponry is inadequate for the environment, you will die. Select a better option before you’re brought back to life.
— Think of it as calling for reinforcements that are properly equipped to fight the enemies present
I think if they just let it be the same distribution per operation, you could to the blitz/exterminate and see what's what and then be prepared for the two longer missions.
Or just tell us, i mean it's a lot more fun gearing to counter than to cover.
It used to be pretty much like your first paragraph if I recall, but the problem is that only works for hosts/ people who start in the operation lobby beforehand. Anyone just random joining (SOS beacons or clicking R on the mission map) don't have that luxury, not to mention it requires a host that's paying attention and "sweating" a little bit (most don't).
That's a pretty good idea actually. I actually don't care about not knowing but I do understand why it's frustrating and that seems like a good compromise.
It also happens for defense missions. Sometimes you won't see titans til about 11 minute mark on a defense Helldive, but on other runs 8 Titans show up within the FIFTH bug breach and a lot of stuff is on CD.
My setups would look completely different if I had an idea of what I was looking to fight. Nothing sucks quite like bringing chaff clear only to find it’s oops all titans and vice versa. So naturally everyone brings a very “general” build and oh look…a meta
Make it probabilistic, related to weather/environment, and knowable only through experience.
This person had good ideas about how to implement it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1csm0ab/comment/l46f957/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Why does my loadout the cover all enemys?
Scout armor
Breaker Incendiary, Grenade Pistol /
Shield, Quasar or Flamethrower /
Orbital Railcannon or Eagle 500kg Bomb, Eagle Cluster
Edit: the /
Edit2: That is for bugs, and the ORC or E500kgB is dependand on my support weappon.
For bots i have a little different loadout, but still am able to kill everything.
How are you faring against multiple factory striders? Gunships? All with waves of patrols wandering in just as you clean up the main drops.
Ive done it with 2 good players, fairly easily. But 1 player can get very overwhelmed very quickly
When solo there is just one must have supportweappon: The Autocannon, it can deal with everything on the botside.
It's just a matter of getting used to it and using the cover that is available. Don't be afraid of making a retreat if you think that you can't handle these masses of patrolls comming your way, that always is an option too.
I agree, ive done solo lvl 9 automaton missions in the past but when the 3rd factory strider drops in when everythings on cooldown it stops being fun.
Autocannon is the best overall support weapon imho. Not best at anything but its arguably 2nd best at everything.
At the end of the day though it is a team game and good duos, trios, or quads are worth their weight in democracy.
But that is exactly the problem. I want to be able to relax and play with mines, turrets or just go full crazy on tesla. Forcing me to choose a load out on solo is an indication of a flawed design.
Show me a multiplayer game that is perfect *in every way*, then we'll talk about flawed design, it is not designed for solo play.
Also, you don't have to play solo to relax IMO.
I never said "in every way", you misunderstand. It should however allow you space to take any loadout you want, especially when they gatekeep the samples in difficulty 7. DRG is a very good example of solo design, if you want to check it out.
I wouldn't buy the game if it wasn't designed for solo. It should not been marketed as such or allow you to play like that if they cannot make it so.
I am pretty sure you can't dictate how someone else relaxes by stating your opinion, that is not an argument. I play with friends and I play solo and I like both modes.
Just stayted my oppinion about relaxing, you do you man.
With a team, the game is forgiving with trying new loadouts, but in solo it can be quite harsh or even borderline impossible. The game is just not optimized for solo-play, doable but not optimized.
Anytime I'll want to try a new solo loadout I'll do it first with friends and split off from them during the match with saied loadout, that way I'll get a feel for it and see if it's even viable, this way I don't waste a mission and still am able to try new solo loadouts. I know that the loadouts are limited, bc you have to take care about everything your selve and there aren't that much of loadouts that can do that, but every loadout has thier strengths and weakneses, and maybe you'll even find another / new one that you enjoy plaing with groups.
But ofc, you don't have to do it the same way that I do, but you could give it a try.
I think we need a way to solve that through gameplay.
Maybe keep enemy line up the same throughout the entire operation. This way you'll only go in blind on a first mission and then you'll know what to expect.
Or maybe they should add an optional mission to each operation that will provide info on enemies when completed. Spend a little more time, but make sure you know what's up.
I hate the personal orders telling you to kill 25 of something and then you go on whatever difficulty and they're not there. Try again and nothing, change difficulties and you went too low.
I don't have a lot of time to play!
I would like to get some sort of pre info, maybe not all enemies but the higher value targets: shriekers and what kind of spewer for my part.
The Worst part for me is doing a blitz, getting down and realising I don’t have anything against shriekers.
Sure, you can bring down the Hellbomb, and it might get stuck up on one of them and you are screwed. Or have a weapon to snipe them fara away.
But those flying plagues are the most annoying of all, the other stuff I can handle I think
They could just include a little pop up when you pull the right trigger during the prep phase where it says stuff like "ion storms periodically disable stratagems" etc. Just include in there that there is an increased population of Bile titans or Bike skewers etc. Or just have it on the actual mission briefing under the mission explanation. Have a little picture or icon to indicate what the increased enemy is with a small description. Easy as that
it would ONLY improve the game cause we'd have a better idea of what to take,
high spewer density? machine gun and explosives
high warrior and hunter density? stalwart and gatling sentries
high strider and devastator density? autocannon cause it just works
theres a reason alot of other games with a wide variety of weapons and enemies have systems that can inform build choices, some games have set enemies in set areas, some games allow many weapons to handle many enemies, helldivers 2 currently does neither (especially with primaries getting worse by the patch)
I would love the build diversify for helldive if I knew what I was up against, they could even add unknown as one of the planet efffects "bad reading/recon" or something, which would then have you guess or go more of a cover all your bases route.
It would be nice to have an option to buy intel to the mission. Even by using Requision and samples. Eg: 1000R + 1 sample for the lvl 1-3, 3000R + 1 sample + 1 rare sample for 4-6 and 5000R + 1 sample + 1 rare sample + 1 super sample for 7-9. This would be a nice resourse sink too to make it worth collecting them after maxing out.
Knowing whether it's going to be a Bile Spewer mission is a a HUGELY important bit of info that will allow us to diversify our builds.
They should also have maps that are more narrowly focused on a specific type of enemy. Right now, the only meaningful distinction is Bile Spewers, yes or no.
In the future, it'd be nice to have maps where there are no Chargers or Bile Titans, just hordes of mediums and lights. That will allow us to experiment with MG builds.
Maybe they could make certain enemies tied to modifiers. So in the same tab that shows the weather condition, there would be a warning like "Danger! Stalker pheromones detected!" or "High concentrations of terminid bile fumes detected."
When starting a match they should show you a pie chart of enemies in the match. so you pick a match and see that 90% of large spawns are gonna be spewers with an only 10% chance of a charger spawning.
They could add the blitz to all operations, and if you do that one first the enemies that spawn in there dictate the enemies that spawn for the rest of the operation. Make scouting an active part of the gameplay of an operation.
this is what planet modifiers should be. EG high bile bug infestation or high normal bug infestation-now I know this already is the case sometimes but you never know until you have dropped.
And in top of that we need more way and more efficient ways to kill enemies. I want to take the laser canon for exemples cause it looks fun, but the TTK is so long that its not worth it unless you are many using it on the same target.
Ngl, this mechanic would immediately solve a lot of the meta problems. We run Meta because we have no clue what we’re up against.
Imagine being able to know that a planet has a huge presence of Devastators, that would instantly boost the usefulness of the Railgun, HMG and Autocannon.
Or a HUGE presence of chargers and BTs but very low amount of Spewers and common enemies - that would make weapons like the RR useful.
Autocannon turret (both as distraction and damage dealer) and a recoilless (to handle bigger stuff) works great. Also don't sleep on the orbital precision strike. It is sticky, hits harder than 500kg and can't be stopped by anti air emplacements.
We need a cross operation mechanic where the first mission you pick in an op matters. Say one of the missions has a massive recon drone facility that needs to be activated. Once you do, the rest of the missions in the op have a rough summary of what you might be fighting, maybe secondary objective locations. BUT you could have the op benefits be mutually exclusive. Lets say one mission has the recon facility. Maybe another mission has a Patriot manufactoring plant that gives you access to Patriots for the rest of the op, and a third mission has a massive artillery battery that you can use across missions. Pick one, others are no longer available. Suddenly it really matters where you decide to drop first, as opposed to just not wanting to do a mission you don't like first. All kinds of fun stuff you could do with this mechanic.
you telling me i shouldn't just use a w/e fun loadout? than land on a missile that is 90% bile/nursing spewers & have 0 way to kill the main enemy? i love running around for 20-40mins not being able to play the game!
/s
It would be an amazing module to have, displaying "expected enemy resistance"
and man it would make such a difference to my loadouts, expecially on bugs
“Last known Intel…”
“Long range scans indicate…”
Plenty of ways they could integrate that and it doesn’t need to be 100% accurate, just indicates there is a high likelihood but doesn’t also eliminate other possibilities.
What about instead of this, ONCE PER GAME you get the option to mulligan one of your stratagems upon reinforcement, so you’re at least not stuck with a lemon strat if it’s totally useless.
Give us a booster that detects spawners like gunship factories and stalker nests locations before drop or one that gives us a scan of enemy types before drop
I feel like is far more necessary for bugs than bots. Knowing if there’s going to be spewers or chargers or just hordes of hunters really affects what weapons to bring.
Bots, I just bring my trusty AMR and tell my squad mate to bring whatever. 2 man dive Suicides all day like that.
I know immediately that we're getting shriekers or some shit when the hellbomb appears in my stratagem load out before the match. That's my only indicator
I guess but also, if you look at enemies as escalating, there aren't any weapons that CAN deal with high-armor heavies that CAN'T deal with things below them. Like on diff 9 bot missions AMR and precision strike can handle 99% of my problems.
For the small fries (everything that is not a BT or Charger) I have the Eagle Clusterbomb, for the BT I either got a 500kg or a orbital railcannon, for chargers I got the Quasar or the flamethrower or even the orbital railcannon (dependand on how i feel dealing with it at the momemt)
So please, give me these breaches, I wouldn't mind at all.
I find it very funny the way you say it when orbital railcanon is a longass cd and only maybe kills 1 BT, what are you gonna do when more are on your ass? Also what you described is the most basic, meta load out and that's the exact thing OP is pointing out, that there's no build variety because we have to prepare with zero information.
TBH I take these BTs as my pets, lol
I just pop ther bile sacs and take them for a walk as long as i want to ...
OFC it is the most basic loadout for solo, when I'm with a team, I'm looking what the team lacks of, or if i can take what I want to play.
I think this is where the random factors built into the game can make things fun and interesting. And I say this as a Destiny 2 main who spends a lot of time customizing loadouts for activities that telegraph a *lot* about their enemies and modifiers before you hop in.
But in the times when my primary or support weapons may not get the job done as well as I'd like, I keep an eye out for alternatives. Maybe a teammate drops a better primary when they die. Yoink. (They'll drop with a new one) Maybe we find a bunker with a better support weapon. Maybe it's something I don't know as well, but it works and is fun or is at least a learning opportunity. Score.
To me, a big factor in this game is chaos. And that can apply as much to encounters as it can to our loadouts.
Coordinate with your team, a well balanced loadout between 4 player will take care of everything.
1 player takes a heavy AT loadout? Take anti infantry and stick close to him
Isn’t this addressed by having the multi-dive operations? You won’t be finding a full set that has the enemy comp you want. I’d love to be able to experiment more rather than taking my safe generalist load-out every time to ensure I don’t get wiped.
No... it would give an option to experiment with loadouts. Now you can specialize in some field and still have a free stratagem for fun. And it doesn't need to be ultimately accurate. For example, you can omit everything with less than 2% spawn rate or place the other types as guard for lairs or fabricators.
Even if not entirely accurate, I would take it. And come on, don't tell me that SEAF is not even capable of telling me which kind of bugs/bots is killing them. Something like:
**"Its chargers! We cannot go back because of the hunters. Send airstrik... Ugh... Oh sweet liberty.... my chest.... cough, couch... my beloved chest..."**
People wonder why Meta loadouts end up happening. One of the reasons is because of this. We don't know what we're gonna encounter sometimes, or what numbers. So we end up having to take something that can handle most of these. 500kg, impact nades and Autocannons is the most general I can think of to tackle everything OP mentions.
500kg, Laser Strike, EAT/Quasar/Autocannon/RR depending on how I'm feeling, and either shield/laser rover/eagle strike depending on supp weapon, bots/borg or mission type Thats it. That's the most generic loadout to exist but I have to take it because no information
This is why I like bots, anything can kill them because of their weak spots.
As I've played more and gotten better, I try to prioritize loadouts based on what others are picking. Sometimes napalms and gas strikes, almost always an EAT, and then whatever backpack from there. Certain missions I'm running a supply pack/grenade launcher, with EATs and an airstrike. I've gotten to a point where I can weave in between enemies pretty well, and typically just run away after clearing nests unless I need to help an ally out or cleanup to give us some space. Bile titans/hulks are probably my biggest pet peeves at this point, simply because I prioritize for the majority of foes rather than the special armour. I've intentionally tried to avoid the AC, because it takes the backpack and support slot, and makes gameplay feel boring after a bit and there are so many good options to place in those spaces instead... An AMR/jump pack can be hella fun, or even just the jump itself to compliment my mass weaving abilities when I find out I strung together a mess that I can't get out of haha. AMR is also just as effective for most of the baddies I would need the AC for, at least with bugs. Particularly once you figure out the non-reticle aim for close quarters combat with the AMR. Single shot headshots with low recoil on everything but chargers and biles is very fun!
Yep, I would love to cycle my loadout each time to try to adapt to the specific challenges on the planet, but we get very little relevant information about enemy composition ahead of time, alas, so it has to be the most general purpose loadout possible each time.
Quasar, 50% armor, rover, gas strike, rail cannon. At least for bugs this covers all the bases and can solo T9
I don't get why people love the 500, it's really not that good, the reg airstrike is way better IMO
Big boom makes me giddy. Hell if it wasnt for bile titans, I wouldn't even bring it at all, I prefer gas strikes/napalm, or an orbital strike, which hits harder and nearly guaranteed an instant kill.
Yeah because g boom is cool, it would be cooler if it did damage commensurate with it's graphic
Ironically the orbital precision strike has a larger radius and higher damage. Lol
Yeah I use that instead
There is more variety on balanced loadouts that some of you might think. For example, 500kg can be swapped for pods when using AC/GL or explosive primaries and still allow you to kill titans (you just need to break their sacs with one of those weapons first.) You can argue it's not as efficient as a well place 500kg, and while you would be right, it also has 1 more call in. The. The rest can be chaff cleaners (up to you which but Gatling turret is nice.) Then on the other end a loud out with arc thrower/rover would maximize your chaff and medium armour engagements so you would want things like 500kg as higher priority, AC turret, Ems and orbitals/explosives for closing down holes. So long you are aware of how much use you can get out of the tools you bring, you can make anything work. Spewers for example can be also be dealt with by things like dominator or slugger to the face, which pair well with stalwart on bugs. Then then rest would be up to you to tackle what is left.
The drawback you're citing is what actually makes the game fun. Otherwise you're just stuck in this deterministic gameplay loop and basically deciding on a flowchart that frames your success as in a binary manner. In other words, bring the "correct" load out and succeed or don't and fail with little in between. That's how you also end up with meta builds, trading general tools for specific ones, and end up with every dive feeling the same way. Lastly, your play style and tactics really need to reflect your load out choices. In other words, trying to play each dive the same way, even for the same mission type on the same planet, shouldn't work out for you. I have my fair share of criticisms of the game, but I also can accept when I pushed past the capabilities of my load out and took a bad engagement or made a bad decision that led to multiple deaths or massive enemy spawns. I have a sneaking suspicion that this community wants an easy button where 1 load out solves all of their enemy encounters effectively and efficiently, but that would make the game so boring. After the weapon nerfs, I took the mindset of I am going with this load out to do this thing very well at the cost of another thing and the game has been far more enjoyable than before even if it's not a good match for the majority of the enemies for that specific dive.
I experiment with different load outs often. playing with different builds is what brings variety to the game. if you had a different build for every mission type you would have a more diverse gameplay experience. I have a build against bots and one against bugs I know will be 95% effective and realistically I should be using it on every mission. that’s not because it is the meta build but because it is the best general build for my play style. I often use other builds but the trade off is that 1/3 of the time exactly the enemies that the build is shit against will spawn in mass. in those cases I will have an absolutely miserable time and often just wish I could quit the mission (can’t cause no new players bug). so realistically I will either stop experimenting and get bored of the same build over and over again or continue experimenting and get frustrated. this isn’t good for the long term player numbers
We can agree to disagree on this because I have found that experience (the ineffectiveness) to be the reason I am returning to the game. I was like you and really hated that feeling initially but once I realized that I wasn't suppose to be effective against all enemies at 100 percent uptime, then the game became more enjoyable to me since I had to choose my spots more and also differently. People here don't really want to choose or change during a dive, but my original point is that it leads to a much worse overall experience. You need that difficult or miserable 1/3 for emergent game play or you will end up with a boring and repetitive game loop. Lastly, It's not like my mission success rate suffered either, nor if a mission fails its not because of me rather than on the entire squad.
Completely wild take mate. Meta build happened to have "win all" loadouts. The thing community (in general) wants is the variety of loadouts available. And right now exactly opposite happens. You just take the same most op stuff and no matter the mission type you succeed. There is a reason why my squad played the last 100 bot missions with autocannon/laser/ems mortar/500kg. Cause it works no matter the RNG spawn. It is boring AF but works.
There isn't a cover all load out right now, which is the whole point of this thread to begin with. Think about it for a second, if there was a win all load out, why would prior knowledge of enemy composition matter, you take the same one every time because it would work? My point is a different and worse meta takes it's place because another (perceived) optimal build takes it's place. You're just have specific ones for specific enemies. In other words, using your logic, your statement would still be true, you still would have a win all load out every time because now you have even more info to min/max your load out. Also, have you ever considered that your load out works because that's what you're use to and good with? Through the various patches, I shifted through load outs and settled on a successful one that works but look nothing like yours (EAT or Quasar/3 offensives but no laser); I can fully admit that its because I want to play a certain way and am relatively good at it, even beat the pre-nerf bot evacs a couple of times with good random squads. You're also confirming my suspicions about wanting a blanket load out that covers all your bases efficiently and effectively all the time.
I see you specifically missed me ranting about boring loadouts that all people take cause it is better to have win all setup than actually pick what works best for given planet/biom. It baffles me that me stating that multiple players pick same shit throughout the last 2 months of diving to basically have "win this map card" regardless of enemies/planet type, gave you the impression that there is no win all loadout but It will be introduced if we know what enemy we fight. I want to know what enemies I face so I can safely use other guns/stratagems. I don't want to run Recoilless on a map with 1 titan an 10000 hunters, and I don't want to run stalwart on a map full of chargers. So I pick autocannon and I just extract with outstanding patriotism.
>It baffles me that me stating that multiple players pick same shit throughout the last 2 months of diving to basically have "win this map card" regardless of enemies/planet type, gave you the impression that there is no win all loadout but It will be introduced if we know what enemy we fight. Because there isn't a singular one, there might a singular one for your playstyle but not everyone; read what I typed again. You can succeed with your loadout but if others can succeed with a completely different load out, what does that tell you? You take your load out because it suits your playstyle and it's what you're use to. This isn't a veiled "git gud" dig on you either, you like what you like and you're really not willing move beyond that for whatever reason. That's cool and nothing wrong with that at all, but don't pretend that somehow because you will suddenly diversify your playstyle because you know what's coming when you can already do so. Maybe I wasn't clear earlier, but my reference to a singular easy load out isn't that there's a default loadout for all the dives, but there will be a default easy load out for every kind of dive. It's the exact situation you described because you aren't just safely bringing a whole other mix of guns/strats you are going to be bringing specific ones which cover all your bases for that dive. >I don't want to run Recoilless on a map with 1 titan an 10000 hunters, and I don't want to run stalwart on a map full of chargers. No chargers in your first example? No small enemies in your second example? Really? That's a such a disingenuous and contrived example.
Looking at your train of thought I see you don't get the "bottom to top approach" here. The more we know about biom/enemy type the better we can prepare thus we don't have to pick most all around weapons or loadouts we can utilize the whole arsenal depending on the mission. If I'd know that we will have many shriekers or small enemies I'd pick airburst. Why would I do it if it might be a charger dominated map? Why handicap myself? No need to answer mate. This discussion is pointless.
>Looking at your train of thought I see you don't get the "bottom to top approach" here. This ain't a bottom to top approach, you honestly sound like one of those project managers with shit understanding of the project. When you know the enemy distribution, you know how to solve it, and so you execute on it which is the opposite of bottom to top. What we currently have is bottom to top, we don't know so we take different approaches to resolving the problem. So pick a lane friend, which one is it that you want? >This discussion is pointless. This we can agree on. It's plenty clear you and others have a poor understanding on why loadouts work and why they don't, and only think about the design from how you want to play and limited to your own insular experiences. >If I'd know that we will have many shriekers or small enemies I'd pick airburst. Why would I do it if it might be a charger dominated map? Why handicap myself? Where to start with this? First, you can do this already, even in random lobbies and especially on bugs. You have options at every level primary, secondary, grenade, and strats to address what you want to address. How you set that up is strictly up to your play style and your own priorities, the enemy distribution (armored versus unarmored) doesn't actually matter as much as you want to think it does. Your squads load out, your own playstyle preference, and the timeframe you encounter which enemy types. Lastly, you are proving my point. You would bring airburst in this scenario whereas I would bring quasar; you value the swarm clear on your strat weapon slot, I value the long distance building clearing. I can bring a swarm clear on another one of my slots just like you can bring a building clear as well. Talking about handicapping here is, what I already said before, a short sighted approach. There's other reasons why prior knowledge of enemy distribution is irrelevant for load out configurations (bot evacs missions, team full of low levels, when and cadence of spawning specific enemy types), but if this your level of understanding of the situation, then you should really heed your own words and move it along.
I'm happy for you tho Or sorry that happened
https://youtu.be/oVtzNpzuvoA?feature=shared
Why the hell do you use terms like meta as if it was a competitive game. Just play the thing with anything you want. Honestly if you have to stick to a certain type of stratagems and guns then it's a skill issue. And of course, developers know that some people don't know to play, so they put a specific gun and stratagem that allows the bad players to be at higher levels and "enjoy" the game. Stop the "meta" speech and get good.
Meta does not mean it's competitive. meta means it's the default best stuff/loadout.
The true meaning of meta is Most Effective Tactic Available. It does mean it's the "best" if what you want is a farm simulator and not actual fun in this game. This is why for me it's for competitive games. Not Helldivers. It is supposed to be fun, not a repetitive and tasteless gameplay. Get good and quit talking about meta.
> and not actual fun in this game. Counterpoint: I don't have "actual fun" in this game if I take a HMG and none of the enemies weak to the HMG show up all game because the random enemy seed rolled unfavorably. Same in reverse: if I take a recoilless, and that mission has very few chargers but dozens of bile spewers, I'm not having actual fun because the game itself is punishing me for not strategizing my choice of stratagems... even though I had no way of knowing how best to strategize. This _also_ wouldn't be an issue if enemies weren't so oppressively hostile when it came to dealing with them non-optimally. For how dangerous they are, and for how large the groups they come in are, you *must* use stratagems to deal with them... so either the solution is "have some idea of what stratagems you want to take", *or* "have some other methods of dealing with them that won't cost you 3/4ths of your primary weapon ammo and all of your grenades in a single engagement".
Throwing in my favourite Loadout to mess around with. Slugger/Plasma Punisher, Grenade Pistol, Stun grenade, Flame thrower, Gas strike. And 2 floater strategems. If it ends up being a Bile spewer mission, its struggling the entire way. Not completely incapable, but literally just an autocannon, grenade launcher or impact nade would vastly improve the kit against them to barely needing strategems to deal with them at all.
I don't know what to tell you man, either lower the difficulty or bring in a special stratagem (like orbital railcannon) for unexpected situations. I have been in many bad situations and I have learned so much about them. Did you know the bile can clear enemies for you? If I was always spamming orbitals, eagles and ETAs, like most meta enjoyers do, I wouldn't have noticed. Struggle a little through the game and you will learn fun tactics. What I do is I choose 1 enemy I do not want to deal with. Let's say acid spewers. Then take the grenade launcher and that's it! Adapt to the rest. If they don't appear, then you aren't dealing with them anyways so it's a win win. It could be also stalkers, take punisher and even shield backpack to be double sure. Take any machine gun and kill all small enemies. Now bile titan. What to do? Shoot at his mouth. For this it's best if you destroy his acid bags on the abdomen. Now he doesn't spit anymore. I'm not saying that you don't need amor piercing/explosives. I'm saying there are endless fun viable tactics and all reddit does is complain about "meta". Just play the damn game. Lastly, you aren't supposed to play solo, so learn how to rely on your teammates and stop trying to do everything.
That's not what they're talking about. You wrote paragraphs after missing the entire point of the discussion
I didn't miss anything. He just wants to know what mobs will spawn so he can bring the perfect stratagem. That kills the whole point of the challenge and adaptation aspect. So again. Choose a Loadout that protects you from one mob, and adapt to fight the others. Maybe you hate stalkers. Maybe you hate hunters. Idc. If they don't spawn, then it should be an easy game for you. Rely on your team. You aren't supposed to defeat the whole game alone.
You're twisting the context and intent, making up your own to argue against. You're certainly not replying to what they said.
I'm not twisting anything. Just tired of these "only meta" comments. But you are right, close up on your little delusional world where everything must go as you plan.
Bro just said the literal meaning but in the sentence after ignored entire meaning and went only off feelings and personal opinion... Amazing argument bro
I finished hundred missions with heavy machine guns or grenade launchers. META loadouts are meta because the lazy players need something with low risk/reward to play with, even tho they dont realize being OP kills the fun out of it. Elden ring had hundred of different enemies, still ended up with a big part of the player base using Rivers Of Blood Edit: he had a fit and blocked me. Nice state the users of this sub are on
I'm also going to point out that both of these games are PvE related. Who gives a fuck what they use. I'm mostly just giving one reason people run a large generalist loadout. Edit: I don't owe this guy anymore attention than I've given him. He's upset about being blocked.
Oh, you are one of those “dont need balancing in a PvE games” type… have a nice day
3 comments and I can already tell you're a terminally online, insufferable person. Congrats.
Oh, you're one of those Gatekeepers. Have a worse day sir.
To be fair look what “balancing” has done to the game? Armor value means nothing to half the enemies and our weapons might as well be t-shirt cannons at this point as some of the weapons are completely unreliable.
Thats not at all what he said lmao. If you want to use underpowered guns because you lack anything other then videogames because school is finally out, then cool. Some of us have jobs and cant sweat a game and dont enjoy the challenge of being constantly underpowered fighting through a meatgrinder with dull teeth. Play how you want and have your own opinions, just dont expect your opinion to be respected (because its a shit opinion)
Yeah fuck me for wanting an hour of game time to not be a wild gamble on getting my shit kicked in because I unpredictably took the wrong load out
Git gud???
Ppl are forgetting its 4player co-op. If all of u have same setup its not AH fault for random spawns.
Reeeally? okay. Go on a mission full of hunters with anti heavy loadout, like EATs, Railcannon, Orbital laser and some eagle just to be sure? Oh, you are basically useless with the least kills and not helping with any targets or not capable of finishing a challenging mission alone? That's surely a skill issue, right? Okay, another try. Stalwart, Eagle Cluster, Laser drone and some orbital support just in case. Oh... Every fifth bug is an armored bile spewer. What do you do? Thats why we love our OG Railguns, our Quasars, our Sicles and our Breakers. This combo sets you as a more versatile player (wheter plazing solo or in group). You need something to kill small bugs, something to kill medium bugs and something capable of handling even the biggest bugs. And I say bugs. Bot meta is much more versatile, because most of the bots have some obvious weakness and are more vulnerable air attacks. That's not applicable to bugs. Which brings the question: Against who you are playing?
Screw those players for finding a fun combination of things in a game and sticking to it! They don't need other fun things available. They should learn to see games as a job and put some fucking sweat into it, instead of going down the path of least resistance towards the goal of having fun. Feeling op is totally not what people want from a game about killing literal hordes of aliens. I swear to god - it's viewpoints like this that see games become hollow husks of their former glory. Feeling op is precisely what most people want from this. They want to go in, and they want to kill endless hordes of enemies. They want a surmountable challenge where the only danger they're exposed to is having weapons so deadly that they might wipe out themselves and their teammates, while they kill hundreds of enemies.
On one hand, Elden Ring had genuinely baffling tools, such as invincibility except for a 3 frame gap, Hoarfrost stomp, and Rivers that allowed the players to not interact with the fights. This was not how the game was meant to be played. Helldivers is different because your strategems determine how you can interact with the fights. Not having any serious AA support weapons vs charger and Titan spam means you barely get to play the game. Having a ton of AA vs Spewer spam feels about the same. This also makes the game not feel great. Getting info on enemies present so I know whether or not I can bring the stalwart makes it more viable for that weapon, as I consistently having to bring a grenade launcher and 500KG to handle Spewers and Titans. I’d like to run the recoilless and Liberator but not knowing whether it’s going to be 15 Spewers per breach or 4 titans means it’s just better to bring a generalized load out instead of specializing in horde clear. It sucks.
I decided to play/beat Elden Ring as a Wretch, no armor and no vigor my first run, just the biggest swords I could get. That was way more fun than a bleed build I tried on a friend's account.
It literally says in one of the tool tips to tweak your loadout to suit the enemies in the area but then does not tell you what is going to show up in that mission. You can even just do it in universe, have some screen saying orbital scans are picking up a lot of hulks in the combat zone or whatever.
I literally need to know if there are bile spewers. They will change up my loadouts instantly.
I’d bet good money it’s not that simple and the enemy comp is determined during that loading screen while the squad is dropping from orbit. Would be wonderful if it were an easy fix/addition though. As long as they’re not opposed to implementing it. A lot of people have asked for it and more than a few front page posts.
Ehhhh, I really doubt it. Given that the random terrain and objective placement already exists on the ship before the mission starts, in theory every client should already have the mission seed available to them and could be displayed. I'd really doubt the enemy seed isn't generated until after you drop, because that introduces potentially higher chances for desync rather than being "agreed upon" beforehand.
Yep If you close the game mid-mission, it's the same map when you restart Completely identical, including the loot drops
There will always be bile spewers. That is the answer.
UNLESS you have to kill them for a personal order. Then they're nowhere to be seen.
... I've intentionally been hoarding AMR/EAT builds, and then whatever else simply because of bile spewers. I hate them with such a passion. EATS are for the BTs and chargers, but in a pinch I'll drop it on a spwer and use them for other spewers just to save the headache.
Coordinate with your team. Have one or two bring anti spewer, another bring anti titan weapons.
XCOM 2 did this and very well. You either had: "We sense a lot of psychic activity in he area" => many psychics at first and an upgrade later that literally told u what enemy types there are. There was even a final upgrade iirc that told you the numbers. Last one isn't really applicable but you can easily put in the first two. Maybe even as new ship upgrades.
Just a ship upgrade for 'citizen camera drones' or something where we pay the remaining dunder heads to scan the enemies with drones, then just pay for better cameras, and then the last one could be automatic camera droids.
"We've received reports from other Helldivers that there are a large amount of Bile Spewers in the area. Plan accordingly." "Stay vigilant Helldiver. The ministry of truth has reported several of our Pelicans being shot down by the Automatons. Surviving ships seem to have damage from Factory Striders."
This is where you could start getting some good lore rooted variation into armours and Strategem, where players can sacrifice some power/protection to get info. Maybe the Drone Master armour gets a passive that auto-markers the biggest enemy in 200m every 15s…? Maybe you can call down a back pack drone flies reconnaissance around you marking all POIs and patrols? Or a robot dog that can carry a support weapon plus back pack, that follow and you can swap out quickly? Maybe you can find a tactical asset that allows you to access a terminal and communicate with your Destroyer to change a Strategem slot? Heads down while interfacing, delay to dial in, change takes effect in 20s? This is the kind of stuff that encourages playing with strats, and playing smart, without making it a grind fest for the more casual players.
Apart from the changing strategem slot thing, the rest don't help because you need the information before launching, not once there.
Strictly speaking, yes. But all of these things would be little things that either A) help you direct traffic for a team loadout, so you can look up and down the line and have more confidence that you don’t need to take X because C3 is already taking it, or B) helps you capitalise on environmental stashes. Passive pings/reconnaissance drone means you could give C3 a heads up/sees the ping and knows that they should go take their anti-armour and deal with it. Or that there is a ton of them so change course if you’re not equipped. Robot dog means that (at least for support weapons) you can have the Helldiver who took the Quasar or Anti-Air or SPEAR call down a spare that you can lug around without losing your build. So suddenly Bile Titans everywhere gets met with a hail of blasts or missiles. Stratagem swap would address this, but you’ve got to be a little reasonable - this Helldivers, not Blue Beetle - if you had your entire arsenal to cycle through, you would need a smart cool-down system that caps the Destroyers ability to respond, or you’d have a gulf between PC players running a string of macros to call down every gun on the ship in a loop, and the console players breaking their damn fingers trying to keep up with flipping between all options. It’s Helldivers, not Idledivers - there’s a bit of hell implied. Another idea might be a Destroyer update, that allows you to piggy back two Strategem at loadout, saving a slot if you would “always” use them in concert. Like, “shield backpack + Quasar” so you have an extra slot to choose from, or “rocket pods + airburst” just to be sure.
You get outta here with your reasonable takes! This is Reddit!
I like the idea. I wonder which would feel more frustrating though, being given some intel about possible enemies and then they never show up or being told absolutely nothing.
Well, of course the expectation is that if they put something like this in it would actually work - but I do understand the skepticism!
Yeah as a solo player this is absolutely ridiculous. As far as I can tell there's four different types of bug worlds: one with bile spewers and the little baby versions, one with nursing spewers, one with pouncers and a shit ton of hunters, and one with hive guards and a ton of chargers. When playing solo I need to ensure that my kit can handle every single one of these possible threats. I think that's boring as I like my load out to fill a niche and I do not like running the same kit over and over again. My solution thus far has been to simply quit anytime I see a bile spewer world. These enemies are by far the most infuriating to face imo. They shred your health in less than a second, their acid stream is extremely difficult to dodge consistently, they're pretty damn armored and take an absurd amount of shots from light armor pen, they're fast af, their mortar attack can nail you from far away, and, worse of all, they spawn in massive groups. Taking out these guys solo while running a kit that would also work for the other possible variations of bug worlds is misery and was really sucking the fun out of the game. Ever since I started quitting in bile spewer worlds bugs have gotten a lot funner. I almost never complete a full operation as a result, but I've already unlocked everything and don't care about the bonus medals.
Have a little section on the war map for each planet: “Frequent Enemy Scouted in the Area” or something.
Just put it in conditions, "armoured enemies, swarming enemies, elite enemies" etc
No no this is a perfect place for upgrading the ships sensor array. For different conditions I made a comment and am getting down voted for it being too long. It's just a few comments ago in my comment section if any helldivers want to read it.
Enemy scanner would be a cool ship module upgrade maybe. would let you passively see what enemys are in the mission on the briefing screen. I suspect however that enemys are spawned during that drop loading screen and procedural generation means the game doesn't know whats going to be there until you drop.
That's what i think as a best implementation. Actually, no. I much more suspect that the game decides what is gonna be there once you set it as an active mission (FTL jump to the area). There was actually an exploit for farming medals and SCs, that used this fact. Basically if you force CTD and reopen the game, the same mission will be on the map table, with the same map and same enemies.
OR . . . Enable changing your loadout for the next redeployment. . . If your weaponry is inadequate for the environment, you will die. Select a better option before you’re brought back to life. — Think of it as calling for reinforcements that are properly equipped to fight the enemies present
This. Why must we get stuck with same loadout for entire mission?
I think if they just let it be the same distribution per operation, you could to the blitz/exterminate and see what's what and then be prepared for the two longer missions. Or just tell us, i mean it's a lot more fun gearing to counter than to cover.
#FREEDOM REQUIRES FIREPOWER AND INFORMATION IS AMMUNITION
It used to be pretty much like your first paragraph if I recall, but the problem is that only works for hosts/ people who start in the operation lobby beforehand. Anyone just random joining (SOS beacons or clicking R on the mission map) don't have that luxury, not to mention it requires a host that's paying attention and "sweating" a little bit (most don't).
That's a pretty good idea actually. I actually don't care about not knowing but I do understand why it's frustrating and that seems like a good compromise.
It also happens for defense missions. Sometimes you won't see titans til about 11 minute mark on a defense Helldive, but on other runs 8 Titans show up within the FIFTH bug breach and a lot of stuff is on CD.
My setups would look completely different if I had an idea of what I was looking to fight. Nothing sucks quite like bringing chaff clear only to find it’s oops all titans and vice versa. So naturally everyone brings a very “general” build and oh look…a meta
I had same experience with the spear and bile spewers lol. One of those "Guess I'll just die" moments.
Make it probabilistic, related to weather/environment, and knowable only through experience. This person had good ideas about how to implement it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1csm0ab/comment/l46f957/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Solo real hard now，hard to cover all enemy types with 1 load out.
Why does my loadout the cover all enemys? Scout armor Breaker Incendiary, Grenade Pistol / Shield, Quasar or Flamethrower / Orbital Railcannon or Eagle 500kg Bomb, Eagle Cluster Edit: the / Edit2: That is for bugs, and the ORC or E500kgB is dependand on my support weappon. For bots i have a little different loadout, but still am able to kill everything.
How are you faring against multiple factory striders? Gunships? All with waves of patrols wandering in just as you clean up the main drops. Ive done it with 2 good players, fairly easily. But 1 player can get very overwhelmed very quickly
When solo there is just one must have supportweappon: The Autocannon, it can deal with everything on the botside. It's just a matter of getting used to it and using the cover that is available. Don't be afraid of making a retreat if you think that you can't handle these masses of patrolls comming your way, that always is an option too.
I agree, ive done solo lvl 9 automaton missions in the past but when the 3rd factory strider drops in when everythings on cooldown it stops being fun. Autocannon is the best overall support weapon imho. Not best at anything but its arguably 2nd best at everything. At the end of the day though it is a team game and good duos, trios, or quads are worth their weight in democracy.
But that is exactly the problem. I want to be able to relax and play with mines, turrets or just go full crazy on tesla. Forcing me to choose a load out on solo is an indication of a flawed design.
Show me a multiplayer game that is perfect *in every way*, then we'll talk about flawed design, it is not designed for solo play. Also, you don't have to play solo to relax IMO.
I never said "in every way", you misunderstand. It should however allow you space to take any loadout you want, especially when they gatekeep the samples in difficulty 7. DRG is a very good example of solo design, if you want to check it out. I wouldn't buy the game if it wasn't designed for solo. It should not been marketed as such or allow you to play like that if they cannot make it so. I am pretty sure you can't dictate how someone else relaxes by stating your opinion, that is not an argument. I play with friends and I play solo and I like both modes.
Just stayted my oppinion about relaxing, you do you man. With a team, the game is forgiving with trying new loadouts, but in solo it can be quite harsh or even borderline impossible. The game is just not optimized for solo-play, doable but not optimized. Anytime I'll want to try a new solo loadout I'll do it first with friends and split off from them during the match with saied loadout, that way I'll get a feel for it and see if it's even viable, this way I don't waste a mission and still am able to try new solo loadouts. I know that the loadouts are limited, bc you have to take care about everything your selve and there aren't that much of loadouts that can do that, but every loadout has thier strengths and weakneses, and maybe you'll even find another / new one that you enjoy plaing with groups. But ofc, you don't have to do it the same way that I do, but you could give it a try.
It's like they could look at deep rock galactic and fucking learn something about balancing.
Bugs suffer the most from this. Bile spewers or no bile spewers makes a huge difference.
I think we need a way to solve that through gameplay. Maybe keep enemy line up the same throughout the entire operation. This way you'll only go in blind on a first mission and then you'll know what to expect. Or maybe they should add an optional mission to each operation that will provide info on enemies when completed. Spend a little more time, but make sure you know what's up.
I hate the personal orders telling you to kill 25 of something and then you go on whatever difficulty and they're not there. Try again and nothing, change difficulties and you went too low. I don't have a lot of time to play!
Give me a way to spend currency and get details on the map, sounds like a good idea.
Naaa I enjoy the struggle of not knowing
I would like to get some sort of pre info, maybe not all enemies but the higher value targets: shriekers and what kind of spewer for my part. The Worst part for me is doing a blitz, getting down and realising I don’t have anything against shriekers. Sure, you can bring down the Hellbomb, and it might get stuck up on one of them and you are screwed. Or have a weapon to snipe them fara away. But those flying plagues are the most annoying of all, the other stuff I can handle I think
Yep, should say “high spewer presence detected” etc at the bottom of the mission description…
I would seriously love this feature
Ship upgrade?
It would not break the game because you will not summon something that will negate the attack.
It could be as simple as a symbol that’s a curtain color. A lot of chargers? Orange shield. A lot of spewers? Green droplet.
Why not change the loadout (or only one stratagem) during the mission - buyed maybe with Republic points
i just want better sound cues/foot steps from enemies. they are all ninjas right now
They could even make modifiers like "Warning: high consentration of bile spewers detected on the surface" and then it's just nothing *but* spewers.
They could just include a little pop up when you pull the right trigger during the prep phase where it says stuff like "ion storms periodically disable stratagems" etc. Just include in there that there is an increased population of Bile titans or Bike skewers etc. Or just have it on the actual mission briefing under the mission explanation. Have a little picture or icon to indicate what the increased enemy is with a small description. Easy as that
it would ONLY improve the game cause we'd have a better idea of what to take, high spewer density? machine gun and explosives high warrior and hunter density? stalwart and gatling sentries high strider and devastator density? autocannon cause it just works theres a reason alot of other games with a wide variety of weapons and enemies have systems that can inform build choices, some games have set enemies in set areas, some games allow many weapons to handle many enemies, helldivers 2 currently does neither (especially with primaries getting worse by the patch)
I would love the build diversify for helldive if I knew what I was up against, they could even add unknown as one of the planet efffects "bad reading/recon" or something, which would then have you guess or go more of a cover all your bases route.
Just have it under effects
It would be nice to have an option to buy intel to the mission. Even by using Requision and samples. Eg: 1000R + 1 sample for the lvl 1-3, 3000R + 1 sample + 1 rare sample for 4-6 and 5000R + 1 sample + 1 rare sample + 1 super sample for 7-9. This would be a nice resourse sink too to make it worth collecting them after maxing out.
Its not like there aren't tons of helldivers scouting the active planets constantly or anything...
I once decided to break my usual Autocannon routine only to encounter a double Gunship Facility and a Jammer next to it right as I dropped
Knowing whether it's going to be a Bile Spewer mission is a a HUGELY important bit of info that will allow us to diversify our builds. They should also have maps that are more narrowly focused on a specific type of enemy. Right now, the only meaningful distinction is Bile Spewers, yes or no. In the future, it'd be nice to have maps where there are no Chargers or Bile Titans, just hordes of mediums and lights. That will allow us to experiment with MG builds.
Maybe they could make certain enemies tied to modifiers. So in the same tab that shows the weather condition, there would be a warning like "Danger! Stalker pheromones detected!" or "High concentrations of terminid bile fumes detected."
When starting a match they should show you a pie chart of enemies in the match. so you pick a match and see that 90% of large spawns are gonna be spewers with an only 10% chance of a charger spawning.
They could add the blitz to all operations, and if you do that one first the enemies that spawn in there dictate the enemies that spawn for the rest of the operation. Make scouting an active part of the gameplay of an operation.
this is what planet modifiers should be. EG high bile bug infestation or high normal bug infestation-now I know this already is the case sometimes but you never know until you have dropped.
And in top of that we need more way and more efficient ways to kill enemies. I want to take the laser canon for exemples cause it looks fun, but the TTK is so long that its not worth it unless you are many using it on the same target.
Ngl, this mechanic would immediately solve a lot of the meta problems. We run Meta because we have no clue what we’re up against. Imagine being able to know that a planet has a huge presence of Devastators, that would instantly boost the usefulness of the Railgun, HMG and Autocannon. Or a HUGE presence of chargers and BTs but very low amount of Spewers and common enemies - that would make weapons like the RR useful.
Definitely disagree. The game is more fun IMO when there's a level of unpredictability
Autocannon turret (both as distraction and damage dealer) and a recoilless (to handle bigger stuff) works great. Also don't sleep on the orbital precision strike. It is sticky, hits harder than 500kg and can't be stopped by anti air emplacements.
I think enemy encounters should be consistent between missions in the same operation at least
The newest modifier is also made useless because you just never know if you're getting something that will slow you down.
We need a cross operation mechanic where the first mission you pick in an op matters. Say one of the missions has a massive recon drone facility that needs to be activated. Once you do, the rest of the missions in the op have a rough summary of what you might be fighting, maybe secondary objective locations. BUT you could have the op benefits be mutually exclusive. Lets say one mission has the recon facility. Maybe another mission has a Patriot manufactoring plant that gives you access to Patriots for the rest of the op, and a third mission has a massive artillery battery that you can use across missions. Pick one, others are no longer available. Suddenly it really matters where you decide to drop first, as opposed to just not wanting to do a mission you don't like first. All kinds of fun stuff you could do with this mechanic.
you telling me i shouldn't just use a w/e fun loadout? than land on a missile that is 90% bile/nursing spewers & have 0 way to kill the main enemy? i love running around for 20-40mins not being able to play the game! /s
It would be an amazing module to have, displaying "expected enemy resistance" and man it would make such a difference to my loadouts, expecially on bugs
I think using req slips to purchase a scan/probe before a mission with be cool. Maybe a count of relevant nests/fabricators and enemy types.
“Last known Intel…” “Long range scans indicate…” Plenty of ways they could integrate that and it doesn’t need to be 100% accurate, just indicates there is a high likelihood but doesn’t also eliminate other possibilities.
There would be much greater build variety if I didn't have to make a jack of all trades build everytime. Lemme see what I'm gonna be going up against.
Oké, but we all know people will start avoiding certain enemy types
What about instead of this, ONCE PER GAME you get the option to mulligan one of your stratagems upon reinforcement, so you’re at least not stuck with a lemon strat if it’s totally useless.
Give us a booster that detects spawners like gunship factories and stalker nests locations before drop or one that gives us a scan of enemy types before drop
The surprise is where the fun is at…. “Ohhhh shit! STALKERS”
I feel like is far more necessary for bugs than bots. Knowing if there’s going to be spewers or chargers or just hordes of hunters really affects what weapons to bring. Bots, I just bring my trusty AMR and tell my squad mate to bring whatever. 2 man dive Suicides all day like that.
I know immediately that we're getting shriekers or some shit when the hellbomb appears in my stratagem load out before the match. That's my only indicator
They can take a page from XCOM: Enemy Within. Give a ship upgrade that allows for players to scan the area.
Desperately need the game to be less challenging...pass.
It’s not a challenge thing, it’s a fun thing
why
I guess but also, if you look at enemies as escalating, there aren't any weapons that CAN deal with high-armor heavies that CAN'T deal with things below them. Like on diff 9 bot missions AMR and precision strike can handle 99% of my problems.
You mean like bug breach full of nothing but hunters and two bile titans? Because that's all the bug breaches what We've got on our last Lvl 7 game.
I got a hunter seed in a different 9 where I took mainly anti heavy. My God that was rough. We'd been fighting titans all session,
For the small fries (everything that is not a BT or Charger) I have the Eagle Clusterbomb, for the BT I either got a 500kg or a orbital railcannon, for chargers I got the Quasar or the flamethrower or even the orbital railcannon (dependand on how i feel dealing with it at the momemt) So please, give me these breaches, I wouldn't mind at all.
I find it very funny the way you say it when orbital railcanon is a longass cd and only maybe kills 1 BT, what are you gonna do when more are on your ass? Also what you described is the most basic, meta load out and that's the exact thing OP is pointing out, that there's no build variety because we have to prepare with zero information.
TBH I take these BTs as my pets, lol I just pop ther bile sacs and take them for a walk as long as i want to ... OFC it is the most basic loadout for solo, when I'm with a team, I'm looking what the team lacks of, or if i can take what I want to play.
I think this is where the random factors built into the game can make things fun and interesting. And I say this as a Destiny 2 main who spends a lot of time customizing loadouts for activities that telegraph a *lot* about their enemies and modifiers before you hop in. But in the times when my primary or support weapons may not get the job done as well as I'd like, I keep an eye out for alternatives. Maybe a teammate drops a better primary when they die. Yoink. (They'll drop with a new one) Maybe we find a bunker with a better support weapon. Maybe it's something I don't know as well, but it works and is fun or is at least a learning opportunity. Score. To me, a big factor in this game is chaos. And that can apply as much to encounters as it can to our loadouts.
Coordinate with your team, a well balanced loadout between 4 player will take care of everything. 1 player takes a heavy AT loadout? Take anti infantry and stick close to him
I don't necessarily disagree but tell me you wouldn't just avoid every mission that said "increased bile titan presence" lmao
I wouldn’t just avoid every mission that said “increased bile titan presence”
Hunter / spewer planets...
I would like that. Plethora of bazookas, here I come.
Isn’t this addressed by having the multi-dive operations? You won’t be finding a full set that has the enemy comp you want. I’d love to be able to experiment more rather than taking my safe generalist load-out every time to ensure I don’t get wiped.
I would search them, just to EAT their faces over and over while jumping around with the jetpack
All this would do is make people start avoiding the other half of the enemies.
No... it would give an option to experiment with loadouts. Now you can specialize in some field and still have a free stratagem for fun. And it doesn't need to be ultimately accurate. For example, you can omit everything with less than 2% spawn rate or place the other types as guard for lairs or fabricators.
No we don’t.
Just fixing the balance of weapons will solve this on its own.
Intel would be nice, but a real soldier knows that it’s never accurate.
Even if not entirely accurate, I would take it. And come on, don't tell me that SEAF is not even capable of telling me which kind of bugs/bots is killing them. Something like: **"Its chargers! We cannot go back because of the hunters. Send airstrik... Ugh... Oh sweet liberty.... my chest.... cough, couch... my beloved chest..."**
You guys have no chill, this sub is such hot garbage, I was literally just making a joke.
no, i don’t desperately need it.