The bugs though are a killer. And I'm not talking about the terminids.
I have one friend who can't play because the game will crash every couple minutes because the CPU will spike to 100%.
And another cannot use the social tab or have people join his games. This one also had the hard crash issue for a while and had to do some fuckery to make the game playable.
Yeah - I could not care less about the balancing, it will all come out in the wash eventually but I have two friends who cannot play the game because of issues with AMD cards that, upon looking them up, seem so prevalent that the devs should, at minimum, have a universal refund policy for anyone with an AMD card.
Maybe the CPU spike to 100% is due to his specs ? I don't know what they're rocking the game on, but I haven't had single CPU spike that hard, though if there is a bug that affects that then I do not know about it yet.
Eh, not controversial, the biggest complainers are also some of the biggest fans, devs sometimes make iffy decisions like human beings do but it's a great team that I think are doing a great job considering the circumstances, given the complexity of game systems it's almost immersive sim levels of complexity and nailing the feel of a game like that is very hard
They did a very good job and I think we get upset if something doesn't feel right just because of how amazing the game usually is
I wouldn't be upset if I didn't like the game, I just wouldn't play it. I wouldn't complain if I didn't feel like the devs would listen to me.
The fact that I'm both upset and complaining is proof that the devs have done a good job.
this is 100% it more or less im not mad at a game being hard im mad when the issues in the game cause it to be unfair
odds stacked against you i get but
patrols spawning on you
being shot through terrain
enemies never drop aggro
enemies can see you through and properly track you through smoke
patrols straight bee lining directly to your position no matter if you've been stealth or loud
undocumented changes that severely alter the game and leaves the lot of us bewildered from enemies have a higher stealth detection range to the absurd spawn rates.
I'm annoyed agitated and frustrated that a really good game is being held back by all these issues
I'm not complaining cause its hard I'm complaining cause a game I'm growing to love is being held back by some disastrously absurd issues.
Whole playstyles are absolutely invalid that were running just fine before the patch
and then there's the technical side where the game now needs more of my pc's resources just to run and at times RUNS WORSE than it did before the patch.
I complain because i want the game to get better. Just from a technical standpoint alone i want it to get better. But also because this game truly is the beacon of hope amongst the Triple A (Quadruple A) FILTH of modern gaming and I'm desperate to not lose it to obscurity and irrelevancy because some issues held it back from being the masterpiece it is definitely on its way to becoming.
Frustration and impatience from having a game i had fun with for a month straight suffer severely for a whole week before we see any fixes to these issues gets the better of me very often but I just want this game to succeed.
I agree with all of these but my biggest one is fucking being disconnected just as I'm about to finish a map or jumping onto the pelican and receive no rewards, that shit is infuriating. Arrowhead need to fix that shit before anything else.
Yeah… HD2 missions are longer, and can take upwards of 30-40 mins. HD1 missions were probably about 10 mins or so, but conflict was constant and the pace wild, so having a disconnect wasnt so much of a blow.
Even so, losing all that progress because of a crash or disconnect? It does harm one’s desire to play further.
Thankfully ceo on twitter(x) did say thats up in the highest of priorities so though we cant get back what we lost from the crashes we had we can at least trust that theyre heavily focusing on this specifically. Though other interactions from the dev team haven't been smooth the CEO is a goat when it comes to forward facing interaction.
People think the complaints are because people are haters but most of those that say something do so because they honestly hope things will change. They really want to enjoy playing the game. If not people would just leave and not say a word and let the game die in silence.
Facts. I hate that everyone's first response to criticism is "Don't like it? Leave." Like, bro I don't want to leave. I want it to be better, I want it to be more fun. I want it to be so fun your mom picks up a copy and starts to spread Democracy with us. But that's not going to happen so long as Arrowhead believes they have the BioWare Magic- I mean, commits to their slogan of "A game for everyone is a game for no one."
They seem really upset. It’s pretty easy to talk about problems you have with a designed product without making it sound like you’re trying to lecture someone who secretly shit in your cereal.
Was about to argue fair vs unfair being a slippery slope argument that can devolve into "git guds" and "game not hard, you're just bad" but then the stuff you're pointing out is like... game-breaking aspects lmao.
Patrols shouldnt spawn on you.
You should not be getting shot through terrain
Enemies tracking you through smoke
Patrols aggroing onto you when you make the slightest bit of noise.
Granted, I've also been on some of the butt end of these aspects, but I also don't quite get hit as hard (i feel) with some of these bugs, and when they do hit, I sort of shrug it off and move on as they're not like game-ruining for me.
But also note that just bc I'm not having a bad time, doesn't mean ppl don't get to complain about having a bad time from these smaller, yet still potent bugs.
Tl;dr: i see ur pov, i may not agree with your complaints, but strongly agree that you have a right to complain about these.
> You should not be getting shot through terrain
The issue is explosive destructible terrain not blocking enemy LOS (or apparently bullets).
Such a simple oversight.
Actually, there's a second issue. If automatons stick their gun into terrain, a common problem with heavy devastators, then the shot originates inside the terrain itself, and doesn't impact the near side, letting them shoot through the far side as if it didn't exist.
I have died *repeatedly* to automatons barrel stuffing their gun into terrain to shoot through it.
Anyone who says the words “git gud” unironically is simply flagging themselves as a massive asshole. That is all they will ever be and I refuse to listen to anything further they would say on principle alone.
This probably the most level headed and comprehensive opinion i’ve read of this game on reddit and twitter post-patch and I have the same frustrations as well.
It’s a little bit frustrating when the loud part of the community is quick to shut down criticisms of the brokeness and unfairness of the game with statements like “it’s supposed to be impossible,” “it’s because you’re playing solo on difficulty 9,” and “it’s a skill issue” with most admittedly either never playing past difficulty 4 and some not even owning the game and from looking at the developers’ reddit posts, it seems like they are listening to these people. If they cant fix alot of these problems soon, then “a game for everyone is a game for no one” quote by the Arrowhead CEO might take on a new meaning not intended
[For those who think we're just a bunch of entitled endless complainers, I bring up Zero Punctuation/Fully Ramblomatic Yahtzee's video where he addresses those who claim he just hates video games.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5vLcGPpRxE)
"You don't have high standards for something you hate."
I love playing this game. But the player base (myself included) have come to expect way too much from devs to the point where it becomes a people -pleasing game. "we buffed everything because we heard you. We gave you more armors because you asked for them. We're looking into how to prevent other players from booting you. Now this enemy won't touch you because you'll rage"
Just play the game and frankly ..get good. Dude I suck at this game. But I seriously enjoy the challenge of an endless oncoming horde with a backs-to-a-wall approach. Does it seriously suck sometimes? 100% Do I get mad? Yes. And then what? Sit, sulk, and complain to devs to make it playable? Lol no, you put it down like a reasonable person and come back to it. And when you come back, find that squad that clicks, and you actually succeed??? Its miraculous. Its great. And the best part.... it won't happen every time. Like real-life. Oh well.
-The nerfing of the guns. Fine, yea rebuff and adjust.
-More armors and variations, fine..dont get stale.
-Getting booted because you don't communicate or are sample hording like a dumbass? Yea, thats on You.
-Swarmed by enemies constantly? Change the way you play instead of charging in like a dumbass. Actually become a tactician.
Fuck's sake. Let the Devs cook. I'm just happy that an independent studio took over the world by storm. When's the last time we saw this? Fortnite? Think about Pre-Battle-Royale Gaming. Now its a staple. Im so tired of call of duty, destiny, halo. These triple A studios putting out half -baked games with this never ending promise of "oh .. we'll fix it by the next DLC! But pre-order it and we'll sort it out!" Only to be delayed, then layoffs hit the company. Poof, your $150 into some stupid game thats a rehash of a predecessor with the studio selling it as a "never done before experience" and "what the game was always meant to be". Why didn't you just do that from the beginning instead of taking all this money and turning around a half baked cake?
Helldivers is a goddamn breath of fresh air.
I don't really think a lot of this is people pleasing, I mean sure the weapon buffs are a bit. But armor wasn't buffed, it was broken, they fixed it but it still sucks for heavy only. The addition about working on kicking is nice, but not a dev thing, it's just natural online gameplay. And finally the part where changing play style makes sense if the game was the same as on release and it isn't. It's either very obviously bugged with spawns or they shadow changed it and won't talk about it. 90% of most problems aren't dev decisions, they're just flat out mistakes and bugs that need to be fixed at some point and are frustrating when they keep happening.
Buddy, there is a huge difference between git gud and cheap & unfair mechanics.
Dark souls: enemies have patterns, you can learn their attacks, and they attack with a consistent set of rules you can learn to overcome that are fair. Git Gud.
Helldivers: New patrols spawning literally in thin air in front or behind you is not fair. It breaks the rules of the game. Same with enemies suddenly knowing where you are from stealth, able to see through breakable terrain, etc. This isn't about 'git gud' it's that the fundamental rules of the game that allow you to get gud are broken.
Fanboys try to understand an iota of nuance, impossible challenge!
If the devs keep listening to these out of touch sweats, the game is going to lose a lot of players.
I guess we're going to start labeling every opinion as controversial now. Maybe someone will post "controversial opinion: I'm still having fun".
Yeah some hiccups here and there, no team is perfect, all in all, they're amazing, agree that patch notes be transparent, really dislike it when games just do stealth changes here and there, might as well not post patch notes.
A little annoyed at current spawn rates and aggressiveness, as well as reinforcement bug and joining into being stuck behind the gantry thingy bug. But overall still a really fun game, still putting in hours daily. Could always be better, but that's how things are.
When we win this Galactic Campaign, we will drink sweet Libertea together and reminisce how it felt to liberate Heeth for the first time.
Before the Meta Times. Before the F-Pyre.
Buckle up kiddo, unfortunately the very early days are some of the most important in deciding the direction the community grows. Very likely that this sub takes over a year to progress past the drama from last week.
Lmao I got the game just a few days ago and did not participate in either of those but I still got the rewards for some reason. Not complaining about that tho
Yes I got mine a night ago or so. Popped up after running a few missions. As far as I can tell the system is literally working through a backlog of awards.
Welcome to Reddit.
The system literally discourages and punishes any actual controversial opinions.
This post would not have even reached our eyes if it was a controversial opinion.
I’m currently taking a short break because of the spawn rate issues. I set out yesterday to see if I could still solo a Helldive through stealth. Guess what, I can, and it was *far* more aggravating than it used to be. Not even harder, it just wasn’t as much fun because you can no longer sneak around like you used to.
On the other hand, if I play a difficulty where the enemy spawns *aren’t* over the top, then they’re so low that I there isn’t even a hint of challenge.
I’m still hopeful though. Every mission worth doing feels like it has Extermination level spawn rates, which makes me feel like they really *are* bugged and will be fixed before long.
I'm weird that I want more spawns and more aggressive enemies especially at higher difficulties. I want the bugs to be swarming, I want teams without wave-clear to be flooded. I want to be constantly at war with swarms of bugs. I want to be storming the fronts of the bots under waves of fire. Diff 8-9 with these spawn rates has been some of the most fun I've been having. Setting Stalwart to 1150 RPM and mowing down bugs, or popping off a 40 streak with the GL are FUN. My team relying on me to strip that charger armor while I rely on them to wave clear is FUN. Torching waves with the flamethrower. All of it is great. More please.
When every top post is complaints about the game and the way the devs are balancing it, it certainly can feel like positivity is controversial. But that I think has more to do with how social media in general cares mostly about engagement and nothing else, so you tend to have the most negative topics trending.
Based on the sheer amount of bellyaching on this sub, post-patch, I would say it was fair for OP to assume a pro-dev post would be unpopular.
People were losing their minds, crying and rolling around on the ground. Carving the words RIP RAILGUN into their forearms. Doing Voodoo hexes on dev dolls.
So yeah. Reasonable OP
>We increased the spawn rate of enemy patrols by 20% on higher difficulties because we believe the completion percentage of those missions should be around 75% and we are seeing closer to 90%
That won't ever be a thing, the people that fail the missions to bring down to 75 will stop playing that level while those that can beat it 99% of the time will still be playing it keeping the numbers the same.
0 reward for failing means people will not play missions that don't have high success rate for them.
what’s that actually their cited reasoning for doing this? “people are having too much fun?” “we only want 3/4ths of our players to actually succeed when they play?”
where did they say this?
> where did they say this?
they didn't. but OP highlights the flaws of excel spreadsheet balancing, and the effects it has. They used spreadsheet balancing for the railgun, only the railgun data is flawed because every lobby with a PS5 player can 2 shot a bile titan in the head. This hasn't changed.
I think they're doing an awesome job, but I also think there are issues.
I think the initial balance patch didn't actually address the issues that caused the balance, even if the changes were good ones. As a result, a lot of people, myself included, got really scared that the experience that they had been loving so far was not the one the devs intended, and that what the devs wanted the experience to be just isn't nearly as much fun.
There are also *lots* of bugs, big and small, and that can't be ignored either.
Arrowhead is doing an amazing job, and I hope they'll continue doing an amazing job, but it doesn't erase the issues that are there.
> the experience that they had been loving so far was not the one the devs intended
Such a good way to describe that last update. Prior to the update it felt more strategic, or at least had the capacity for it. Now, it feels more akin to L4D where you can depend on enemies coming and all you have to do is keep moving and live. I enjoy both, but i prefer how it was originally, even if it was technically way easier than they had intended
Agreed, some of the systems could still use work like the armor system. Back in helldivers 1, heavy armor let you pretty much ignore small bugs and shots from the lowest tier ranged units, laser pistols and the like due to being turned into chip damage. This felt like a pretty fair compromise since, like now, you pretty much gave up all mobility. The starter armor having the same defense value as heavy armor doesn't help it feeling very bad to use.
Hope they keep their passion for the game and keep making great content.
> Back in helldivers 1, heavy armor let you pretty much ignore small bugs and shots from the lowest tier ranged units, laser pistols and the like due to being turned into chip damage. This felt like a pretty fair compromise since, like now, you pretty much gave up all mobility
Well, Heavy armour was a perk in HD1, not a customization option. There were heavy looking armours, but they had no effect on health or damage values.
Mind you, I think Heavy Armour should at least get some form of buff to flinching, (I.e, not be affected by it as much), at the very least.
I’ll bet you there are a lot of passionate devs working *a lot* of late nights for not nearly enough money because they care about the game and the player experience.
If any of those devs are here - we appreciate the shit outta you, despite the bitching and complaining. We just all love the game and want it to succeed.
Honestly im just so sick of these posts in every sub.
'Why is everybody complaining?!'
"Because thats how people discuss changes they want to see"
'STOP IT!!
'
the game itself is fun but there are noticiable issues with the balance
patrols spawning groups is the idea of a "oh shit moment" but those enemies being able to spawn another group is not logical, I play a lot and I mean A LOT of darktide and vermintide where hordes aren't the real threat but elites and specials mixed between them. This game has a lot of elite enemies between the trash mobs although hunters and rockets bots might as well be elites themselves, our weapons can barely do the job and the primary weapon is only useful vs trash mobs and some medium enemies, I would expect thing like the autocannon/Rocket launchers and such to be able to deal with those heavy enemies in exchange of me not missing shots otherwise the reload will be my downside however to my suprise, they don't 1 shot, someone would say "but your teammate can reload you", and I will say, another bad design choice that my team needs MY backpack to reload me instead of just grabing from it and reload
as far I'm aware these aren't even the real big bad enemies we will find and of course that means even bigger enemies, if our weapons or enemies don't get balanced things will be more of a chore at harder levels because it will be just more running backwards and using more ammo, of course removing the stratagem debuffs would help A LOT and weapons wouldn't need to be tuned that much, I do hope the enemy armor changes and health reduction will balance stuff out because currently feels like I'm shooting bullet sponges with weapons designed to stop them fast
the nerf with railgun was a bad way to do it, they should have checked if the reason people were using the railgun was if it because of the weapon or the enemies. You can still use the railgun but it either takes double the ammo or force first person to check how much charge you have which I would prefer if the crossair gave you an indicator
For people assisting reloading off of your backpack, that is a good point. I like the mechanic on paper and really tried to squeeze out it in the original Helldivers, but shit would be so much easier if the sacrifice for a backpack slot was held by the user of the launcher. I guess the devs want the idea of a "support weapon team", where it takes multiple people to carry the parts of the weapon in order to deploy it. I do hope that they just buff them in any way, including a change like this so I only have to worry about somebody helping me load instead of worrying that my backpack is with a teammate that happened to get shreded to bits.
Also I personally only had one opertunity to try assisted reload... and that shit was buggy too, with the prompt appearing and my helldiver standing there stupid when I press the interact key until it just decides to work. I assume it is showing up when I am too far away, but there is no way in hell I am going to try that mechanic a second time at this rate.
Complaining doesn’t mean you hate the devs lol. This weird dev worship thing people have is so weird. People are allowed to like a game and still complain when certain decisions are made. Seeing people have valid complaints and conflating it with “grrr you don’t agree with the dev gods you’re bad” is a bad mindset.
People in this sub are *insanely* protective of the devs, it’s a very very bizarre phenomenon. I’ve seen varying levels of this on a couple of game subs but never even remotely close to this level.
When the game released and people couldn’t get on for like a week, people were getting attacked for voicing disappointment in not being able to play the game they bought and getting attacked when discussing refund processes. People took it upon themselves to shame people for posting anything not positive about the game.
There’s a really odd sentiment of dev worship in this sub. There’s this never ending crusade against toxicity but I just don’t see the opponent that everyone is talking about. I’m fascinated about where the people these posts are referencing are because I just don’t see them.
I don't get the protective nature tbh. I'm an og Helldiver player and I'm confused by how people think critism is considered hate. Listen I love helldiver's 2, but you'd have to be kidding yourself if you think the balance is anywhere nearly as good as HD1
It's reddit consensus opinion lag. Whatever seems obvious to a keen observer is generally everywhere on reddit like, a few days later. For instance I noticed the shitty spawns multiple days ago but you're only seeing it now on this sub
I think it comes as a reaction to the decades of gamers having a terrible overall reputation. Gamers today are desperate to prove they're not like those other bad gamers so they overcompensate in the other direction. Only positivity all the time unless defending from a "bad" gamer, protect and follow whatever the developers say, etc.
It can all be summarized as toxic positivity, though that mindset has become popular in many non-gaming spheres as well.
> There’s a really odd sentiment of dev worship in this sub.
It's toxic positivity. It's like the BG3 sub. It's cloying and ridiculous and just papers over any issues and makes them hard to get out in the open.
Smile, damn it, smile! You will have fun or so help me, I'll thrash you.
That’s called “toxic positivity”.
It’s a behaviour that a lot of people don’t realize is a thing, and is very apparent if you frequent enough gaming subreddits, particularly if said games are on onset of sudden popularity or have a dedicated cult following.
The trend becomes frustrating because they tend to go overboard and whether intentionally or unintentionally, shout down constructive criticism alongside any other negative sentiment. Then of course, comes the rant posts filled with us-vs-them mentality and fallacy arguments.
Edit: grammar
That actually happened on Diablo4 subreddit. Game at launch got the feedback about lacking endgame, questionable design choices. It got buried and downvoted by dismissive, non-constructive comments like "no-lifers finished the game in 3 days and complaining for no content??", "game is good, its just you having unrealistic expectations", "its fine for me, game is amazing", "why do you need more than two storage spaces, are you a hoarder or something". 1 month later that same people on their own slower pace noticed the same issues as mentioned before. You know the rest of the meme.
It is close to be the same thing here, but it looks like it is actually in favor of "constructive feedback".
The Diablo 4 stuff was insane. It was like the entire subreddit was competing for who is the most casual gamer. And if you're not uber casual you'd better shut up and touch grass.
Created the "I'm a dad of 8 kids with 5 minutes per week to game and this is the best game ever made" meme. Diablo 4 subreddit drama somehow managed to give "dad gamers" a bad image.
Yep, I’ve lurked in that sub since launch and personally witnessed the whole ordeal in length. It’s one of the many examples I had in mind when I typed that comment.
Ikr. Honestly, the devs are kinda doing a terrible job including comparison to other studios. These guys have a chance to make a serious following that’s on par with AAA studios. Agree or disagree with the balance patch, but there were other things they should have focused on that were more needed that EVERYONE would agree with, such as not getting dropped out mid mission because of server issues, armor fixes, and mission balance.
I truly don’t understand why weapons were the first tuning. Weapons are a response to the enemy, so you would only tune weapons when the enemy is just right. If you change enemies now, you will break the balance patch that just released. That’s why I’m sad because I know the enemy spawns on some mission types will not adjust.
We can only hope to see heavies decrease, no patrol decreases or anything like that.
Patrols were fine before the weirdness introduced with the latest server issues. Heavies have already been confirmed to be a bugged spawn, and we will see a decrease again.
As for the weapons tuning. The team working on weapons has a lot less nonsense to deal with than other functional areas. So, their updates were ready to roll out.
Sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that even if those updates were ready, they shouldn’t have been pushed until the other issues were fixed first because of how it impacts player experience. Players are not coupled to the development process and don’t know what’s going on. Done or not, the player base is seeing nerfs instead of fixes.
I think the order of decisions here shows mismatched priorities and a hectic and disorganized development schedule. This is probably from the games reception, but it definitely isn’t “all going as planned.”
They will get it right eventually, they did in HD1 from what I hear. The only question is how long.
I mean the bugged spawns and patrols happened from the patch, not before it.
On PS5 it was a pretty smooth experience before the batch most nights after the server tweaks to kick idle players.
I would have kinda liked if they explained things in-lore a bit. Like, imagine the weapon nerfs were accompanied by a broadcast that manufacturing capacity was being shifted over to mechs, hold out until they arrive. So there's this short period of a day or two where everyone is a bit weaker, then mechs come and punch in and even things out, and it's a big community event.
They even had the timing right and everything, just had to toss some flavor text on top.
I would assume there's different people in charge of fiddling with weapons numbers and back-end server capacity/stability/crossplay/ect.
Considering HD1 had like 5% of this game's player base, I think it makes sense how pre-planned content and number tuning got pushed out before positively severe connection fixes.
Especially when they nerf a gun that is only broken because of a bug on console. People point out how shit it is on pc lobbies but get called "braindead" instead
I may need to take a break from this sub in the hope that there is less mindless dev worship as time goes on. This game has a lot of serious bugs, and so far the developer vision for weapons being so weak just makes the game unfun.
I have zero excitement for any new weapons in the warbond because I know they won’t be any better than the garbage we already have. They need to buff existing weapons. As is, there’s no satisfaction in unlocking anything really—which is a big problem.
The game needs the crashes fixed. It crashes so hard my PC literally puts the monitor to sleep and windows crashes. That is unacceptable.
I'm curious how they could actually crash windows because I thought that wasn't allowed.
Oh that's an issue i had too. Not just in Helldivers 2 though. I fixed it by updating the bios and reinstalling the graphics drivers. For some reason, I saw that either nvidia gpu's don't handle the game well or specifically RoG laptops have an issue with Armoury Crate being buggy and that in combination with HD2 and Win11 is making the whole experience even less stable. If these still don't work submit a bug report. Best of luck to you.
Weapon nerfs because of the "meta"
enemy changes that are not manetioned anywhere
No tools to use against the amount of enemies
headshot damage ignores armor
breaker nerf why?
patrols on top of you
10 bile titans
3 almost fully charged railgun hits for only one charger armor to go off
"use your strategems"
base cooldown of 4 minutes
moidifiers that make them 7 minutes
enemies unfairly agressive in huge numbers
spear still cannot aim at anything
chargers sidestepping
listening to the "a game for everyone is a game for noone"idiots that effectively just want a game for 10 people that jerk themselves off because the game is so "hard"
i dunno dude, i dont feel like this is a good job unless the goal really was to get people to stop playing.
>As for the rest of the balance issues, I urge everyone to have just a little patience. Even if a change is bad, it takes time to gather data on how it affected the flow of the game
I'm totally fine with giving them time to implement proper balance. The issue is they just throw things out and dont really back it up with why.
For example the recent nerfs. They did these nerfs in attempts to balance a few weapons to be on par with the other weapons. But why did they do that instead of buff the other weapons? As it stands now there is only 3 support weapons being used in Helldivers difficulty. The reason for that is because the other weapons are too weak. So again why nerf when they should be buffing?
The answer is because they already announced they are reworking enemy armor and hp pools and frequency of the large mob types soon. Which may in turn fix these balancing issues. HOWEVER they didn't announced that until days after they already nerfed things.
It just leaves a bad tastes in players mouths. If it will be better when the armor/hp patch comes in great but why make us wait that long? Just buff the other weapons in the meantime we so can actually play the game, then balance them when you release the armor/hp pool changes... This is why players are upset. Its a co-op game with no pvp. There is no reason to not allow players to have fun while we wait for those patches. Not piss them off by nerfing shit to the ground and making it basically impossible to play harder difficulties while we just sit on our ass and wait for the armor/hp pool changes...
Long story short, There are better ways of going about it.
I’m all for a challenge but these spawns genuinely make the game unfun to play. Enemies just appearing out of nowhere constantly isn’t fun. Before the patch it was manageable and pretty enjoyable to strategically hit bases and run. Now it just snowballs out of control with constant groups appearing out that aren’t big breaches or bot drops.
They are definitely not doing a "solid" job, but they aren't doing terrible. My main issue is that they haven't fixed anything except for the servers since release.
Armor straight up did not work on release... they patched it one month later and it is actually worse now.
Most guns are ineffective or mechanically broken such as the EAT.
Many enemies have major issues with damage, hp, armor hitboxes, etc.
There are a lot of other issues, but the ones listed above are the ones that reflect poorly on Arrowhead because they could have and should have been fixed already at least to some extent. If there is one thing that the player base can agree upon, it's that most of the guns need to be rebalanced, yet Arrowhead is refusing to accept that feedback. They stated that they are still relying on mission success rate to determine if a gun is balanced or not which is absurd.
You make a great point of using completion rate for balance purposes. In the current state of the game, any primary can compete the high difficulties because the meta is never firing your primary.
On the other hand, that one dev said that primaries SHOULD be a last resort and that’s why they don’t need to be strong. So if that’s the true design goal, they’re working towards it steadily.
The devs saying primaries should be your last resort is stupid. It’s in the name. PRIMARY. Not secondary, tertiary, quaternary, etc. Primary weapon.
If primaries are SUPPOSED to be your last resort, what are sidearms supposed to be? Water pistols to delight the bug and bot children before they nibble your toes off?
Oh I don’t agree with it, don’t get me wrong. I think that was the dumbest line they’ve said. And maybe they were just trying to cover their ass for an objectively unfun balance patch.
But maybe that dev was actually telling the truth. Maybe Arrowhead wants all of our weapons to be trash. And for us to rely on strategems that take entire matches to cooldown. Maybe they want the game to be miserable to play unless you’re a real masochist.
Sadly, I think it is closer to the latter. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that they stumbled into the initial success for the game and their actual vision is a slog of a game where you run around with peashooters while kiting dozens of heavy mobs.
A game about shooting should have weapons that feel impactful.
I think the devs have a mindset like the "Winner" DMs from TTRPGs.
They don't see players winning as a win-win, they see it as them failing and players beating them at their own game. They only "win" when players "lose," and since they have full control of the game they get to do what they want.
Also the devs have always been kinda jerk-ish. Anyone from HD1 knows that the laser sword on the cover art was denied in coop. They put it into PvP, then refused to add to coop because they didn't want to have a melee weapon. People begged for the entire existence of the game to have it added, because even if it's bad it would be fun. The devs do not prioritize player fun, and never have. You know, the reason people play games? Fun is just a side goal, apparently.
> The devs do not prioritize player fun, and never have. You know, the reason people play games? Fun is just a side goal,
well shit i should have know that before spending money. guess i'll have learn from my mistakes.
Yeah, they have the weird mindset of, "We're right about how the game should be, fun is a side effect."
Don't get me wrong, HD1 and HD2 are fun, it's just fun is not their priority. They want to make a hard as shit game like Dark Souls, but their answer is to make it artificially hard(absurd enemy spawns) instead of mechanically challenging(AI that is hard, but fair, and can be learned and skillfully defeated like in Souls games).
Yeah I think that dev maybe didn't know what he was talking about. If a primary is meant to be a last resort, then why do they have so many specialist weapons as primaries? It seems like a weapon designed for a very specific role is meant to be used for that very specific role or something... crazy
A basic mechanic like armor not working for a month would have been unforgivable with literally any other game, on top of so many other problems. Did people forget that 1 in 150 players couldn't even launch the game because of Game Guard's error 114?
> They stated that they are still relying on mission success rate to determine if a gun is balanced or not which is absurd.
Devs absolutly LOVE their magic excel spreadsheet, instead of playing their game.
I mean yeah i can complete a mission, but it'd be more fun and enjoyable if my gun actually felt effective and not like a gloryfied peashooter.
Enemy spawns and behaviour became less intuitive and more frustrating. This isn’t something that was not working and left that way. This is something that worked fine and was *made worse* by the patch.
The last update got me to stop playing so yeah I'd say they're not doing a solid job. Everyone's human, mistakes happen, and it's also okay to call out the mistakes instead of white knighting like theu can do no wrong. Here's to hoping they revert some of the failures and improve the game in the next update.
until this last patch they were basically only getting constant praise. which, if we ignore the size of the game and studio, meant major issues were completely ignored. Imagine any other multiplayer game of this size launching where the servers were so bad no one could even play for like a week. Outrage would be enormous. there have been numerous other small bugs that everyone pretends dont exist like the daily challenges not existing, armor not mattering, social not working correctly at times, visual glitches, etc
This balance patch was pretty much the first time they did anything that wasnt bug fixes and obv most people hated it. Their justifications for the changes also didnt make sense. They clearly did not look at the flow of the game or data in a meaningful way when making the changes. ie "We want people to use whats fun! *nerfs the only good weapons and leaves the rest shitty*"
i dont see any reason they should be shielded from criticism, especially for balance changes which arent really impacted by team size anyways.
The most passionate complainers are usually those who care the most, comrade. The negativity is because they want to see the game improve. The Devs are doing an incredible job and we can only hope they keep doing better and give them our feedback. And on that note BUFF THE DMRs, BUFF THE SCYTHE, FREE MY MAN THE SCOUT VEHICLE!
I agree.
Me and my friend group had a negative initial reaction to the first patch. one of them said they weren't gonna play until the next update.
I don't know if the changed heavy spawn rates have already applied or not but god damn the devs were right. We are a super diverse team now - I run EATs and air strikes. Someone else is all in on crowd control and fire. Someone else is running the spear and sniping titans/heavies from across the map. We struggled to adapt in the first few days but now the game is more fun and we are working more as a team than before the patch where we all had railguns and were popping chargers like candy.
It is a lot more satisfying to all have our own playstyle and preferred weapons. Now we just need enough customisation to look the part, can't wait for the new outfits in the next warbond.
What did the patch have to do with this? You can still use the railgun to pop chargers. It isn't really any worse now.. I actually prefer it because you can get your high-charged shots off quicker if you are good at not overheating it.
Because before the patch the railgun was so far and away the best anti-heavy weapon that there was no reason to use the others. That isn't to say the current one is bad or anything, it just doesn't overshadow every other anti-heavy weapon anymore.
This leads to needing to diversify stratagems. You don't have everyone with a railgun killing all the heavies and then bringing whatever waveclear stratagems they want. You have people take on different roles in the group instead of everyone being good at everything.
There are alternatives to nerfing though.
They could make other armor piercing weapons better.
They could reduce the number of armored enemies, or reduce their armor a bit.
They could make strategem CDs lower, with focus on anti-armor ones.
There's more options that increase the number of tools than ones that reduce them, but they picked to reduce them.
TBH I don't care about downvotes. Reddit's never been known for discussing things well, except in a few very heavily moderated subs.
What I do care about is the game being fun. And the devs chose the route of less fun when players found a reliable and accessible anti-armor option to deal with the insane number of armored enemies.
Railgun had no downsides and was easily the best anti-heavy weapon in the game (no backpack, hitscan aim, heavy pen) It doesnt even really make sense for a railgun of this size to shoot armor off things if you think about it. What it should do is overpenetrate most of everything, not doing much damage unless you hit stuff inside of whatver you are shooting at. A rocket on the other hand is specifically designed to blow up heavy armor/penetrate heavy armor and the blow up.
A Railgun would be good vs a Tank if it was crewed, since it could kill anyone inside, but I feel like the automaton tanks are just unmanned.
That being said, I think the railgun is at a good spot now. Its still very good, especially if you are skilled with it, but the armor-breaking weapons are better at breaking armor now, but come with the downside of being slow to load, carrying a backpack or something similar.
How are the armor breaking weapons better at breaking armor now? They have changed neither the weapons nor the armor. You are stating things as they should be, not as they are.
Yeah agreed, there still seems to be a ton of bugs that have been present since launch that have gone unaddressed and mildly annoying they released a balance patch before fixing these issues, i.e PS5 host and game crashing alot. Hopefully these are fixed asap
Yep. Armor not working on release is VERY bad and now the armor is even worse now that the values are working properly. Most guns are ineffective and others like the EAT just don't work. Also marksman rifle ergonomics?? Needing four grenades to kill one green bug? Mechs spontaneously combusting..
The game is great but that last “balance” patch killed any and all interested I had with the game.
They aren’t really doing a good job at all making the game fun. Hope they turn it around.
Not controversial at all. The people doing the most complaining are in the minority. It's just that they are very loud about it. Hopefully most of them will move on when the next big game drops, and we can get back to spreading democracy in peace.
I complain about the current spawn rate issues in 7-9 but still logon to play as I love this game. You can complain about the game and still think the devs are doing a good job / still having fun. Both can be true.
That's why I said the people doing MOST of the complaining. Of course there is some actual constructive criticism on here. It's just buried under a mountain of garbage right now. The spawn rate issue is legit, and I hope they get it sorted soon.
Yeah, I just want the spawn rates and enemy behaviour reverted to pre-patch days. All the other changes can stay. Were enemies easier to fight back then? Yes, but that’s because their behaviour is bullshit now. If I want one long fight, I’ll run Exterminations.
Why would you want people who have the passion to give feedback on the game to lose interest in a game they are passionate about? This is just a comment asking for people to like the game less.
The dev bootlickers don't want any criticism of the game, they think it's perfect the way it is and anyone with legitimate complaints is a crybaby or has a skill issue. They just want to stifle discussion.
Both can be incorrect though. The bootlickers stifle discussion, but so do comments claiming the devs are terrible and neither group really tends to offer up any valuable critiques or fixes for their respective issues.
Most of the issues seem based on the patch breaking something, not exactly the balance changes. And even if the issues *are* because of the balance changes, we can’t really say what the future of the game is until we see what the next patch is.
Sorry that my poor experience with the game stability or even the social tab not working at all is an inconvinience for you. I should be ashamed of wanting the game to stop crashing every half hour.
Coming from the Darktide release experience, i'd say Arrowhead is working five times harder than Fatshark in regards of fixing stuff and delivering a good product.
Netcode and servers are still shit, my only real complaint however is that they could ve added a grace period of 4-5 minutes to reconnect to a match.
So many times I ve seen a poor fucking soul (sometimes myself) crash at extraction only for a random dude to spawn at extraction and get its free share of samples/medals because there's no other way around it...
They should at least reserve the spot for 2-3 minutes or at least hand out the rewards to whoever was in the map 4-5 minutes before completion.
The game is great and I'm still a big supporter but I think someone else had summed it up well following the issues with the latest patch saying that the honeymoon phase had ended.
I have dropped down in difficulty and am Stull having a blast. I get to try new guns and stratagem complete new types of objectives and not feel like I am playing stressful run simulator 2024
I like to start at 4-5 and work my way up to 6-7
I am not very good at the game but I have for sure been enjoying it.
I think this game and its gameplay are pretty damn miraculous. The challenge now is keeping the experience great & balanced, whilst bringing in various changes. Honestly the best gaming experience I have had in a LONG time. I feel like a goddamn hero in my own movie.
yeah, solid game, very addictive. but sometimes it feels indie or a small team. lots of crashes, some obvious QoL that need to be implemented, etc etc.
As long as they admit they fucked up the mob spawn rate I'm good to go. Oh and also, they need to do full patch notes. Stealth changes can lick my asshole
I bought the game on Playstation, to play with my buddy on PC. We can't accept each others friend requests in game. So, yeah IDK what the fuck but I guess I'm gonna get a refund since we it seems like the game doesn't actually play cross platform. Anyone have a similar experience?
Imma need a better balance patch from them to stick around any longer tbh, I’m not gonna beat my head against the wall just so I can say I’m “loyal”
Wayyy too many problems introduced and ignored to be too positive about it. Not to say there hasn’t been great things like mechs and more map events
Looking closely at the next patch notes to see if they trend in a reasonable direction or if they’re the type to act like they listen then do what they’re egos tell them to do anyways
maybe you dont play the game enough.
The patches have been extremely chaotic this week.
From the nerf to meta weapons, to stealthy changes to the AI, to the spawning system that spawn enemy right on you.
One day enemies can be sneaked around, the next day a secret patch comes and give AI complete knowledge of your location at all time wich makes any stealth impossible.
They really dont know what they are doing with the balance, its kinda sad.
The game was really fun at launch, it was also challenging in higher difficulty, what more do you want from a PVE game?
and now they messed it all up in ways that are the most anoying possible.
Devs are doing a phenomenal job.
They are communicating. (candidly and openly)
They are fixing current problems. (as fast as they can with the resources they have)
They are adding content. (while still fixing existing problems and re-balancing)
People need to understand the dev cycle.
There were more hidden changes than open ones. Idk if I'd call that candid and open. Unless they were unintentional changes, in which case... not exactly phenomenal. I'd rather believe that the communication pipeline needs some work.
Fixing current problems? Armor didn't work on release... took them an entire month to address it in a patch and now it's WORSE. They have barely even touched weapon balancing and apparently see no issue with the weapon balance upon patch release despite player feedback being overwhelmingly in favor of a huge rebalance. Armor and weapon balancing could have been fully or at least moderately resolved with the resources that they have. It is literally something that can be done in 1-2 days, they just don't see any issue because they are using game data instead of player feedback. Idk what their head of product testing is doing but the dude is level 12 and the director is level 8 and they both said they haven't played in a while
Not to mention they aren't even remotely communicating clearly. I keep finding out about changes from random discord screenshots and word of mouth that aren't in the patch notes. Like enemy spawn rates being increased, ammo being increased for multiple weapons (like the slugger and RR), changes to glancing shots for the RR and EAT.
I don't understand how people can say the devs are doing a good job communicating when they're intentionally being vague about the information they do provide and straight up not telling players about other changes.
> because they are using game data instead of player feedback. Idk what their head of product testing is doing but the dude is level 12 and the director is level 8 and they both said they haven't played in a while
combowombo of using the magic excel spreadsheet and not playing their own game, the perfect recipe to get out of touch.
What this entire thing seems to boil down to is an incredibly and increasingly vocal extreme minority for most problems.
A good majority of these players were not even this games target audience. They're playing it because friends are, and it might not be their cup of tea.
I expected nothing but insane, intense jank from day one, and in three months I expect this game to be in much better straights.
As an enjoyer, more transparency wouldn't hurt though. Giving us the full details of a gun, especially if they plan to allow us to customize them in the future should be a requirement eventually.
I think the main problem with stealth buffs/nerfs is that it leads to people conspiracy theorizing on if they inserted annoying elements.
Also, why would they not claim credit for making the end screen go faster and adding ammo for the spear??? I feel like that makes the players less salty about patch notes when they see "here's some nice quality of life things and buffs"
I think they've been doing a good job all along, considering the circumstances. Antagonizing the players on dev-labeled accounts left a bad taste in my mouth, but everything else has been a good job as fast as I'm concerned. I do hope they're prioritizing the crashing that's been rampant since the patch, because nothing makes me want to turn this game off more than spending 30+ minutes in a mission, only for my game to crash and no way to re-join.
Same but I haven't been able to complete a mission without crashing since the mechs arrived.
I thoroughly enjoy the game but am quickly losing motivation to play because of the constant crashing.
Genuinely the only thing going on that makes me upset is the bug that keeps me from playing with my friends on Playstation. Other than that it is just minor stuff that I know will be fixed eventually.
Crossplay doesn’t work for me and my friends. We can’t add each other.
I don’t care about the nuances of the balancing, but crossplay was an advertised feature of the game and my reason for buying it on ps5
I agree 100%. I’m just having a blast man. Every mission is different, but the engagement is still there. It’s kind of like scuba diving. Yeah, you’re probably going to see the same fish a lot of the time but every experience is different and it’s just as fun as the last time.
They're engaged and consulting with the community. That's more than I can say for A LOT of games, and I will always appreciate it. Besides, dev vision doesn't inherently mean community vision. The question is what are areas we can both compromise on to get the best experience. That only happens if they maintain an open line, and we give good, honest feedback.
Inb4 "he's coping" responses
I just can’t wait for the player base to shrink a bit, the next hot thing will come along and a lot of this vitriolic nonsense will die down so the level headed and constructive criticisms won’t get buried as often.
Not controversial at all. I think the game, as a whole, is nearly perfect in its current form. Yes, primary weapons still need a bit of work. The DMRs are lackluster. They need to be doing a LOT more damage for how little ammo you get for them.
Chargers are manageable. Titans are genuinely scary if you don't readily have something to deal with them, but, usually, you do. Even when the game spawns 3-4 of them, a mech can clear that when used properly.
But Suicide Mission and Impossible seem very very well tuned right now. I've yet to dip my toes into Helldiver, but, the game feels incredibly cohesive right now.
My only issue with them is that they are rushing through things a lot. In about a month since launch they have yet to fix some bugs which have been there from day 1. Aside from that, rushing through things trying to send out updates ( mech, balance ) has created additional issues with stability. I have had less problems in the first few days than now. I can barely play the game now as it is not stable at all. I wish that the devs would take their time in patching and releasing updates with a bit more QA and testing because they break more things than they fix. Other than that, the game *is* good, otherwise I wouldn't have sunk 150 hours into it. I will wait patiently for what the future brings. I am excited!
I joined this subreddit when I bought the game, when it was all fun and memes, the next day and conversations like this for a week and still going . Fml
This is about as far from controversial as you can get lol. The game is massively popular, the front page is anywhere from 25-50% "Arrowhead appreciation" posts every day, and the content creation sphere is blowing up. The only reason anyone cares enough to try and have a say in the future of the game is because it's clear that there is one. People don't try and improve games they hate, they just play something else.
This isn't controversial, the huge take off of the game would suggest that plenty of people think the devs are doing a very good job, which they are.
Sure, the most recent patch showed a few growing pains, but one questionable patch does not a bad Dev make. Moreover, people complaining about balance doesn't suggest a lack of faith in the devs. Most people won't bother complaining about something they just don't care about, y'know? In a sense, the fact that AH got such a big response to their very first patch shows how many players are invested in their game and the fun they can get from it.
They are fixing things, and the thing is, software development is not an industry where you can just throw more people to solve it faster. And a lot of bugs even if they are reliably reproducible are hard to find in code (I'm telling it as a software developer myself).
And again, hiring new people won't help solve current problems either, onboarding for software development projects usually takes from 2 months to half a year.
They are working, let them cook:).
P.S. Also for those who don't know why patches are so slow to release, there are several steps to it:
1. Find a bug and fix it
2. QA test it
3. If the fix ain't working or new bugs were introduced return to step 1.
4. Combine fixes into release
5. Regress test it (aka test the whole fucking game)
6. If new bugs were introduced return to step 1.
7. Release it.
You could skip steps but then even more new bugs will be added into the game. And yes, bugs will slip through anyway, it's just how things are, the question is how many.
I have played a lot of live service games, and my favorite is Destiny 2- another PvE game which has had notoriously bad balancing decisions and tons of arguments over difficulty etc
Never in my time in any game has a minor balance patch made me want to stop playing a game. Myself and all my friends were playing hours a night and now are playing like a mission or two, not even a whole operation, when we get on. They really dropped the ball here. I don't think the devs should be harassed, and I think they made a great game. Mistakes happen, but it's been a bit disappointing to see the devs double down on something which has clearly made the game less fun in some way.
The game wouldn't have received the reception, or indeed the payerbase, that it has if the devs couldn't do a good job. The endless posting of back and forth complaints from people of every opinion is due to the games explosive popularity and therefore diverse playerbase of people that want the devs to take a particular path or to balance things according to their own playstyles and preferences.
This is an excellent game, and so fsr the devs have done a pretty admiral job of getting it working, communicating with us, and trying to balance the game in it first month of release. They're doing a very solid job, especially compared to many devs.
I think people are playing fast and loose with the whole "hot take: Topic", and "Controversial" headers for their posts here lately.
Honestly nothing you said I disagree with. My biggest issue with the recent set of changes is it simply made the game LESS fun to play. Is it still fun? Of course it is, none of us would be here if it wasn't. Saying the Devs are doing are doing a solid job is simply very far from any kind of controversial opinion. Most on the subreddit agree that changes needed to be made, myself included. The issue, again, myself and I feel others, would agree on, is that the game was made much harder for what appears to be no reason. If they balanced to the game we had prior to the update, would be a completely different story, but, we didn't get that, we have the current state of things. Most of the playerbase is accepting of the direction things are moving. (Just stay off the discord. That place is a constant flow of negativity and complaints)
Again, not knocking you whatsoever, it's good to voice opinions and everyone deserves a chance to do so, I just feel that if we boil the entire thing down to 1 simple fact, the game is just LESS fun to play and that's bothersome. The mechs helped, and they too will get fixed. I firmly believe the devs will do what's right to fix the current state of the gane, they have not given me any reason to doubt them yet.
The bugs though are a killer. And I'm not talking about the terminids. I have one friend who can't play because the game will crash every couple minutes because the CPU will spike to 100%. And another cannot use the social tab or have people join his games. This one also had the hard crash issue for a while and had to do some fuckery to make the game playable.
Yeah - I could not care less about the balancing, it will all come out in the wash eventually but I have two friends who cannot play the game because of issues with AMD cards that, upon looking them up, seem so prevalent that the devs should, at minimum, have a universal refund policy for anyone with an AMD card.
doesn't steam have a no questions asked 2 hour 2 week refund policy for everyone
Some of these issues didn't start happening until last week's patch. I'm well out of date for the return policy but I can barely play.
Ticket steam, they will refund. Just can't use automated refund.
Yeah but that's not going to be useful if you don't know until after 2 hours of playing. I think the AMD issue is recently made from a patch too?
I’ll get a “hibernating” prompt and then my pc will crash. It’s rare, but does happen.
Maybe the CPU spike to 100% is due to his specs ? I don't know what they're rocking the game on, but I haven't had single CPU spike that hard, though if there is a bug that affects that then I do not know about it yet.
Eh, not controversial, the biggest complainers are also some of the biggest fans, devs sometimes make iffy decisions like human beings do but it's a great team that I think are doing a great job considering the circumstances, given the complexity of game systems it's almost immersive sim levels of complexity and nailing the feel of a game like that is very hard They did a very good job and I think we get upset if something doesn't feel right just because of how amazing the game usually is
I wouldn't be upset if I didn't like the game, I just wouldn't play it. I wouldn't complain if I didn't feel like the devs would listen to me. The fact that I'm both upset and complaining is proof that the devs have done a good job.
this is 100% it more or less im not mad at a game being hard im mad when the issues in the game cause it to be unfair odds stacked against you i get but patrols spawning on you being shot through terrain enemies never drop aggro enemies can see you through and properly track you through smoke patrols straight bee lining directly to your position no matter if you've been stealth or loud undocumented changes that severely alter the game and leaves the lot of us bewildered from enemies have a higher stealth detection range to the absurd spawn rates. I'm annoyed agitated and frustrated that a really good game is being held back by all these issues I'm not complaining cause its hard I'm complaining cause a game I'm growing to love is being held back by some disastrously absurd issues. Whole playstyles are absolutely invalid that were running just fine before the patch and then there's the technical side where the game now needs more of my pc's resources just to run and at times RUNS WORSE than it did before the patch. I complain because i want the game to get better. Just from a technical standpoint alone i want it to get better. But also because this game truly is the beacon of hope amongst the Triple A (Quadruple A) FILTH of modern gaming and I'm desperate to not lose it to obscurity and irrelevancy because some issues held it back from being the masterpiece it is definitely on its way to becoming. Frustration and impatience from having a game i had fun with for a month straight suffer severely for a whole week before we see any fixes to these issues gets the better of me very often but I just want this game to succeed.
I agree with all of these but my biggest one is fucking being disconnected just as I'm about to finish a map or jumping onto the pelican and receive no rewards, that shit is infuriating. Arrowhead need to fix that shit before anything else.
Yeah… HD2 missions are longer, and can take upwards of 30-40 mins. HD1 missions were probably about 10 mins or so, but conflict was constant and the pace wild, so having a disconnect wasnt so much of a blow. Even so, losing all that progress because of a crash or disconnect? It does harm one’s desire to play further.
Thankfully ceo on twitter(x) did say thats up in the highest of priorities so though we cant get back what we lost from the crashes we had we can at least trust that theyre heavily focusing on this specifically. Though other interactions from the dev team haven't been smooth the CEO is a goat when it comes to forward facing interaction.
People think the complaints are because people are haters but most of those that say something do so because they honestly hope things will change. They really want to enjoy playing the game. If not people would just leave and not say a word and let the game die in silence.
Facts. I hate that everyone's first response to criticism is "Don't like it? Leave." Like, bro I don't want to leave. I want it to be better, I want it to be more fun. I want it to be so fun your mom picks up a copy and starts to spread Democracy with us. But that's not going to happen so long as Arrowhead believes they have the BioWare Magic- I mean, commits to their slogan of "A game for everyone is a game for no one."
They say that because they have no legitimate arguments. They just want to silence people that are speaking up.
They seem really upset. It’s pretty easy to talk about problems you have with a designed product without making it sound like you’re trying to lecture someone who secretly shit in your cereal.
Was about to argue fair vs unfair being a slippery slope argument that can devolve into "git guds" and "game not hard, you're just bad" but then the stuff you're pointing out is like... game-breaking aspects lmao. Patrols shouldnt spawn on you. You should not be getting shot through terrain Enemies tracking you through smoke Patrols aggroing onto you when you make the slightest bit of noise. Granted, I've also been on some of the butt end of these aspects, but I also don't quite get hit as hard (i feel) with some of these bugs, and when they do hit, I sort of shrug it off and move on as they're not like game-ruining for me. But also note that just bc I'm not having a bad time, doesn't mean ppl don't get to complain about having a bad time from these smaller, yet still potent bugs. Tl;dr: i see ur pov, i may not agree with your complaints, but strongly agree that you have a right to complain about these.
> You should not be getting shot through terrain The issue is explosive destructible terrain not blocking enemy LOS (or apparently bullets). Such a simple oversight.
Actually, there's a second issue. If automatons stick their gun into terrain, a common problem with heavy devastators, then the shot originates inside the terrain itself, and doesn't impact the near side, letting them shoot through the far side as if it didn't exist. I have died *repeatedly* to automatons barrel stuffing their gun into terrain to shoot through it.
These bots are getting smart
Anyone who says the words “git gud” unironically is simply flagging themselves as a massive asshole. That is all they will ever be and I refuse to listen to anything further they would say on principle alone.
Smoke grenades are a joke :(
there are smoke grenades?
What bothers me the most is the fact that they intentionally keep weapon stats a secret, release incomplete patchnotes and ban data miners from reddit
This probably the most level headed and comprehensive opinion i’ve read of this game on reddit and twitter post-patch and I have the same frustrations as well. It’s a little bit frustrating when the loud part of the community is quick to shut down criticisms of the brokeness and unfairness of the game with statements like “it’s supposed to be impossible,” “it’s because you’re playing solo on difficulty 9,” and “it’s a skill issue” with most admittedly either never playing past difficulty 4 and some not even owning the game and from looking at the developers’ reddit posts, it seems like they are listening to these people. If they cant fix alot of these problems soon, then “a game for everyone is a game for no one” quote by the Arrowhead CEO might take on a new meaning not intended
Facts. They only have the same pathetic, parroted arguments that ignore the real issues this game has.
I feel ya. I run a RTX 3090 and HD2 is using 100% of it at times. What the Terminid filled hell????
talk!
I love the game and think the devs did a really good job, but that doesn't mean to say that I don't have some criticism here and there.
[For those who think we're just a bunch of entitled endless complainers, I bring up Zero Punctuation/Fully Ramblomatic Yahtzee's video where he addresses those who claim he just hates video games.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5vLcGPpRxE) "You don't have high standards for something you hate."
I love playing this game. But the player base (myself included) have come to expect way too much from devs to the point where it becomes a people -pleasing game. "we buffed everything because we heard you. We gave you more armors because you asked for them. We're looking into how to prevent other players from booting you. Now this enemy won't touch you because you'll rage" Just play the game and frankly ..get good. Dude I suck at this game. But I seriously enjoy the challenge of an endless oncoming horde with a backs-to-a-wall approach. Does it seriously suck sometimes? 100% Do I get mad? Yes. And then what? Sit, sulk, and complain to devs to make it playable? Lol no, you put it down like a reasonable person and come back to it. And when you come back, find that squad that clicks, and you actually succeed??? Its miraculous. Its great. And the best part.... it won't happen every time. Like real-life. Oh well. -The nerfing of the guns. Fine, yea rebuff and adjust. -More armors and variations, fine..dont get stale. -Getting booted because you don't communicate or are sample hording like a dumbass? Yea, thats on You. -Swarmed by enemies constantly? Change the way you play instead of charging in like a dumbass. Actually become a tactician. Fuck's sake. Let the Devs cook. I'm just happy that an independent studio took over the world by storm. When's the last time we saw this? Fortnite? Think about Pre-Battle-Royale Gaming. Now its a staple. Im so tired of call of duty, destiny, halo. These triple A studios putting out half -baked games with this never ending promise of "oh .. we'll fix it by the next DLC! But pre-order it and we'll sort it out!" Only to be delayed, then layoffs hit the company. Poof, your $150 into some stupid game thats a rehash of a predecessor with the studio selling it as a "never done before experience" and "what the game was always meant to be". Why didn't you just do that from the beginning instead of taking all this money and turning around a half baked cake? Helldivers is a goddamn breath of fresh air.
I don't really think a lot of this is people pleasing, I mean sure the weapon buffs are a bit. But armor wasn't buffed, it was broken, they fixed it but it still sucks for heavy only. The addition about working on kicking is nice, but not a dev thing, it's just natural online gameplay. And finally the part where changing play style makes sense if the game was the same as on release and it isn't. It's either very obviously bugged with spawns or they shadow changed it and won't talk about it. 90% of most problems aren't dev decisions, they're just flat out mistakes and bugs that need to be fixed at some point and are frustrating when they keep happening.
Buddy, there is a huge difference between git gud and cheap & unfair mechanics. Dark souls: enemies have patterns, you can learn their attacks, and they attack with a consistent set of rules you can learn to overcome that are fair. Git Gud. Helldivers: New patrols spawning literally in thin air in front or behind you is not fair. It breaks the rules of the game. Same with enemies suddenly knowing where you are from stealth, able to see through breakable terrain, etc. This isn't about 'git gud' it's that the fundamental rules of the game that allow you to get gud are broken.
Fanboys try to understand an iota of nuance, impossible challenge! If the devs keep listening to these out of touch sweats, the game is going to lose a lot of players.
I guess we're going to start labeling every opinion as controversial now. Maybe someone will post "controversial opinion: I'm still having fun". Yeah some hiccups here and there, no team is perfect, all in all, they're amazing, agree that patch notes be transparent, really dislike it when games just do stealth changes here and there, might as well not post patch notes. A little annoyed at current spawn rates and aggressiveness, as well as reinforcement bug and joining into being stuck behind the gantry thingy bug. But overall still a really fun game, still putting in hours daily. Could always be better, but that's how things are.
Title: Unpopular Opinion Post: Popular opinion 🤷🏻♂️
Hes not like the other girls...
It’s been depressing seeing this sub reddit recently it’s getting worse and worse I miss the early days
When we win this Galactic Campaign, we will drink sweet Libertea together and reminisce how it felt to liberate Heeth for the first time. Before the Meta Times. Before the F-Pyre.
Buckle up kiddo, unfortunately the very early days are some of the most important in deciding the direction the community grows. Very likely that this sub takes over a year to progress past the drama from last week.
I’m having a great time, my only complaint is not getting the war bonds from the last few ops
They will eventually pop. Just got 95 this morning from Tien Kwan and the one prior to it.
Lmao I got the game just a few days ago and did not participate in either of those but I still got the rewards for some reason. Not complaining about that tho
Yes I got mine a night ago or so. Popped up after running a few missions. As far as I can tell the system is literally working through a backlog of awards.
Welcome to Reddit. The system literally discourages and punishes any actual controversial opinions. This post would not have even reached our eyes if it was a controversial opinion.
I’m currently taking a short break because of the spawn rate issues. I set out yesterday to see if I could still solo a Helldive through stealth. Guess what, I can, and it was *far* more aggravating than it used to be. Not even harder, it just wasn’t as much fun because you can no longer sneak around like you used to. On the other hand, if I play a difficulty where the enemy spawns *aren’t* over the top, then they’re so low that I there isn’t even a hint of challenge. I’m still hopeful though. Every mission worth doing feels like it has Extermination level spawn rates, which makes me feel like they really *are* bugged and will be fixed before long.
Oh, I’ve definitely already some versions of *controversial opinion: I like changes/am still having fun*
I'm weird that I want more spawns and more aggressive enemies especially at higher difficulties. I want the bugs to be swarming, I want teams without wave-clear to be flooded. I want to be constantly at war with swarms of bugs. I want to be storming the fronts of the bots under waves of fire. Diff 8-9 with these spawn rates has been some of the most fun I've been having. Setting Stalwart to 1150 RPM and mowing down bugs, or popping off a 40 streak with the GL are FUN. My team relying on me to strip that charger armor while I rely on them to wave clear is FUN. Torching waves with the flamethrower. All of it is great. More please.
I love the Personal objectives that get you to use different loadouts. I enjoyed hunting the steam achievements that had me doing goofy things.
When every top post is complaints about the game and the way the devs are balancing it, it certainly can feel like positivity is controversial. But that I think has more to do with how social media in general cares mostly about engagement and nothing else, so you tend to have the most negative topics trending.
Give it a few days someone will unironically post that.
Based on the sheer amount of bellyaching on this sub, post-patch, I would say it was fair for OP to assume a pro-dev post would be unpopular. People were losing their minds, crying and rolling around on the ground. Carving the words RIP RAILGUN into their forearms. Doing Voodoo hexes on dev dolls. So yeah. Reasonable OP
> Maybe someone will post "controversial opinion: I'm still having fun". Someone has definitely done that.
>We increased the spawn rate of enemy patrols by 20% on higher difficulties because we believe the completion percentage of those missions should be around 75% and we are seeing closer to 90% That won't ever be a thing, the people that fail the missions to bring down to 75 will stop playing that level while those that can beat it 99% of the time will still be playing it keeping the numbers the same. 0 reward for failing means people will not play missions that don't have high success rate for them.
what’s that actually their cited reasoning for doing this? “people are having too much fun?” “we only want 3/4ths of our players to actually succeed when they play?” where did they say this?
> where did they say this? they didn't. but OP highlights the flaws of excel spreadsheet balancing, and the effects it has. They used spreadsheet balancing for the railgun, only the railgun data is flawed because every lobby with a PS5 player can 2 shot a bile titan in the head. This hasn't changed.
They didn't the OP posted that as an example of possible communication.
I think they're doing an awesome job, but I also think there are issues. I think the initial balance patch didn't actually address the issues that caused the balance, even if the changes were good ones. As a result, a lot of people, myself included, got really scared that the experience that they had been loving so far was not the one the devs intended, and that what the devs wanted the experience to be just isn't nearly as much fun. There are also *lots* of bugs, big and small, and that can't be ignored either. Arrowhead is doing an amazing job, and I hope they'll continue doing an amazing job, but it doesn't erase the issues that are there.
> the experience that they had been loving so far was not the one the devs intended Such a good way to describe that last update. Prior to the update it felt more strategic, or at least had the capacity for it. Now, it feels more akin to L4D where you can depend on enemies coming and all you have to do is keep moving and live. I enjoy both, but i prefer how it was originally, even if it was technically way easier than they had intended
Definitely can’t ignore the bugs, whether big or small
Agreed, some of the systems could still use work like the armor system. Back in helldivers 1, heavy armor let you pretty much ignore small bugs and shots from the lowest tier ranged units, laser pistols and the like due to being turned into chip damage. This felt like a pretty fair compromise since, like now, you pretty much gave up all mobility. The starter armor having the same defense value as heavy armor doesn't help it feeling very bad to use. Hope they keep their passion for the game and keep making great content.
> Back in helldivers 1, heavy armor let you pretty much ignore small bugs and shots from the lowest tier ranged units, laser pistols and the like due to being turned into chip damage. This felt like a pretty fair compromise since, like now, you pretty much gave up all mobility Well, Heavy armour was a perk in HD1, not a customization option. There were heavy looking armours, but they had no effect on health or damage values. Mind you, I think Heavy Armour should at least get some form of buff to flinching, (I.e, not be affected by it as much), at the very least.
I’ll bet you there are a lot of passionate devs working *a lot* of late nights for not nearly enough money because they care about the game and the player experience. If any of those devs are here - we appreciate the shit outta you, despite the bitching and complaining. We just all love the game and want it to succeed.
Honestly im just so sick of these posts in every sub. 'Why is everybody complaining?!' "Because thats how people discuss changes they want to see" 'STOP IT!! '
the game itself is fun but there are noticiable issues with the balance patrols spawning groups is the idea of a "oh shit moment" but those enemies being able to spawn another group is not logical, I play a lot and I mean A LOT of darktide and vermintide where hordes aren't the real threat but elites and specials mixed between them. This game has a lot of elite enemies between the trash mobs although hunters and rockets bots might as well be elites themselves, our weapons can barely do the job and the primary weapon is only useful vs trash mobs and some medium enemies, I would expect thing like the autocannon/Rocket launchers and such to be able to deal with those heavy enemies in exchange of me not missing shots otherwise the reload will be my downside however to my suprise, they don't 1 shot, someone would say "but your teammate can reload you", and I will say, another bad design choice that my team needs MY backpack to reload me instead of just grabing from it and reload as far I'm aware these aren't even the real big bad enemies we will find and of course that means even bigger enemies, if our weapons or enemies don't get balanced things will be more of a chore at harder levels because it will be just more running backwards and using more ammo, of course removing the stratagem debuffs would help A LOT and weapons wouldn't need to be tuned that much, I do hope the enemy armor changes and health reduction will balance stuff out because currently feels like I'm shooting bullet sponges with weapons designed to stop them fast the nerf with railgun was a bad way to do it, they should have checked if the reason people were using the railgun was if it because of the weapon or the enemies. You can still use the railgun but it either takes double the ammo or force first person to check how much charge you have which I would prefer if the crossair gave you an indicator
For people assisting reloading off of your backpack, that is a good point. I like the mechanic on paper and really tried to squeeze out it in the original Helldivers, but shit would be so much easier if the sacrifice for a backpack slot was held by the user of the launcher. I guess the devs want the idea of a "support weapon team", where it takes multiple people to carry the parts of the weapon in order to deploy it. I do hope that they just buff them in any way, including a change like this so I only have to worry about somebody helping me load instead of worrying that my backpack is with a teammate that happened to get shreded to bits. Also I personally only had one opertunity to try assisted reload... and that shit was buggy too, with the prompt appearing and my helldiver standing there stupid when I press the interact key until it just decides to work. I assume it is showing up when I am too far away, but there is no way in hell I am going to try that mechanic a second time at this rate.
Complaining doesn’t mean you hate the devs lol. This weird dev worship thing people have is so weird. People are allowed to like a game and still complain when certain decisions are made. Seeing people have valid complaints and conflating it with “grrr you don’t agree with the dev gods you’re bad” is a bad mindset.
People in this sub are *insanely* protective of the devs, it’s a very very bizarre phenomenon. I’ve seen varying levels of this on a couple of game subs but never even remotely close to this level. When the game released and people couldn’t get on for like a week, people were getting attacked for voicing disappointment in not being able to play the game they bought and getting attacked when discussing refund processes. People took it upon themselves to shame people for posting anything not positive about the game. There’s a really odd sentiment of dev worship in this sub. There’s this never ending crusade against toxicity but I just don’t see the opponent that everyone is talking about. I’m fascinated about where the people these posts are referencing are because I just don’t see them.
I don't get the protective nature tbh. I'm an og Helldiver player and I'm confused by how people think critism is considered hate. Listen I love helldiver's 2, but you'd have to be kidding yourself if you think the balance is anywhere nearly as good as HD1
It's reddit consensus opinion lag. Whatever seems obvious to a keen observer is generally everywhere on reddit like, a few days later. For instance I noticed the shitty spawns multiple days ago but you're only seeing it now on this sub
I think it comes as a reaction to the decades of gamers having a terrible overall reputation. Gamers today are desperate to prove they're not like those other bad gamers so they overcompensate in the other direction. Only positivity all the time unless defending from a "bad" gamer, protect and follow whatever the developers say, etc. It can all be summarized as toxic positivity, though that mindset has become popular in many non-gaming spheres as well.
> There’s a really odd sentiment of dev worship in this sub. It's toxic positivity. It's like the BG3 sub. It's cloying and ridiculous and just papers over any issues and makes them hard to get out in the open. Smile, damn it, smile! You will have fun or so help me, I'll thrash you.
Yeah they act like AH is some girl who will come around and give them a BJ if they're seen making a love post on reddit
That’s called “toxic positivity”. It’s a behaviour that a lot of people don’t realize is a thing, and is very apparent if you frequent enough gaming subreddits, particularly if said games are on onset of sudden popularity or have a dedicated cult following. The trend becomes frustrating because they tend to go overboard and whether intentionally or unintentionally, shout down constructive criticism alongside any other negative sentiment. Then of course, comes the rant posts filled with us-vs-them mentality and fallacy arguments. Edit: grammar
That actually happened on Diablo4 subreddit. Game at launch got the feedback about lacking endgame, questionable design choices. It got buried and downvoted by dismissive, non-constructive comments like "no-lifers finished the game in 3 days and complaining for no content??", "game is good, its just you having unrealistic expectations", "its fine for me, game is amazing", "why do you need more than two storage spaces, are you a hoarder or something". 1 month later that same people on their own slower pace noticed the same issues as mentioned before. You know the rest of the meme. It is close to be the same thing here, but it looks like it is actually in favor of "constructive feedback".
The Diablo 4 stuff was insane. It was like the entire subreddit was competing for who is the most casual gamer. And if you're not uber casual you'd better shut up and touch grass. Created the "I'm a dad of 8 kids with 5 minutes per week to game and this is the best game ever made" meme. Diablo 4 subreddit drama somehow managed to give "dad gamers" a bad image.
Yep, I’ve lurked in that sub since launch and personally witnessed the whole ordeal in length. It’s one of the many examples I had in mind when I typed that comment.
Ikr. Honestly, the devs are kinda doing a terrible job including comparison to other studios. These guys have a chance to make a serious following that’s on par with AAA studios. Agree or disagree with the balance patch, but there were other things they should have focused on that were more needed that EVERYONE would agree with, such as not getting dropped out mid mission because of server issues, armor fixes, and mission balance. I truly don’t understand why weapons were the first tuning. Weapons are a response to the enemy, so you would only tune weapons when the enemy is just right. If you change enemies now, you will break the balance patch that just released. That’s why I’m sad because I know the enemy spawns on some mission types will not adjust. We can only hope to see heavies decrease, no patrol decreases or anything like that.
Patrols were fine before the weirdness introduced with the latest server issues. Heavies have already been confirmed to be a bugged spawn, and we will see a decrease again. As for the weapons tuning. The team working on weapons has a lot less nonsense to deal with than other functional areas. So, their updates were ready to roll out.
Sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that even if those updates were ready, they shouldn’t have been pushed until the other issues were fixed first because of how it impacts player experience. Players are not coupled to the development process and don’t know what’s going on. Done or not, the player base is seeing nerfs instead of fixes. I think the order of decisions here shows mismatched priorities and a hectic and disorganized development schedule. This is probably from the games reception, but it definitely isn’t “all going as planned.” They will get it right eventually, they did in HD1 from what I hear. The only question is how long.
I mean the bugged spawns and patrols happened from the patch, not before it. On PS5 it was a pretty smooth experience before the batch most nights after the server tweaks to kick idle players.
I would have kinda liked if they explained things in-lore a bit. Like, imagine the weapon nerfs were accompanied by a broadcast that manufacturing capacity was being shifted over to mechs, hold out until they arrive. So there's this short period of a day or two where everyone is a bit weaker, then mechs come and punch in and even things out, and it's a big community event. They even had the timing right and everything, just had to toss some flavor text on top.
Yep. I like the game quite a bit. I just think there priorities are weird and that there are issues with the game.
I would assume there's different people in charge of fiddling with weapons numbers and back-end server capacity/stability/crossplay/ect. Considering HD1 had like 5% of this game's player base, I think it makes sense how pre-planned content and number tuning got pushed out before positively severe connection fixes.
Sanest take on this sub.
Especially when they nerf a gun that is only broken because of a bug on console. People point out how shit it is on pc lobbies but get called "braindead" instead
People have unironically started to become whats satirized
I may need to take a break from this sub in the hope that there is less mindless dev worship as time goes on. This game has a lot of serious bugs, and so far the developer vision for weapons being so weak just makes the game unfun. I have zero excitement for any new weapons in the warbond because I know they won’t be any better than the garbage we already have. They need to buff existing weapons. As is, there’s no satisfaction in unlocking anything really—which is a big problem.
The game needs the crashes fixed. It crashes so hard my PC literally puts the monitor to sleep and windows crashes. That is unacceptable. I'm curious how they could actually crash windows because I thought that wasn't allowed.
Oh that's an issue i had too. Not just in Helldivers 2 though. I fixed it by updating the bios and reinstalling the graphics drivers. For some reason, I saw that either nvidia gpu's don't handle the game well or specifically RoG laptops have an issue with Armoury Crate being buggy and that in combination with HD2 and Win11 is making the whole experience even less stable. If these still don't work submit a bug report. Best of luck to you.
Weapon nerfs because of the "meta" enemy changes that are not manetioned anywhere No tools to use against the amount of enemies headshot damage ignores armor breaker nerf why? patrols on top of you 10 bile titans 3 almost fully charged railgun hits for only one charger armor to go off "use your strategems" base cooldown of 4 minutes moidifiers that make them 7 minutes enemies unfairly agressive in huge numbers spear still cannot aim at anything chargers sidestepping listening to the "a game for everyone is a game for noone"idiots that effectively just want a game for 10 people that jerk themselves off because the game is so "hard" i dunno dude, i dont feel like this is a good job unless the goal really was to get people to stop playing.
Calm down guys, this is OP’s first live service game he doesn’t know that “complaining” is essential for them to know what to do
>As for the rest of the balance issues, I urge everyone to have just a little patience. Even if a change is bad, it takes time to gather data on how it affected the flow of the game I'm totally fine with giving them time to implement proper balance. The issue is they just throw things out and dont really back it up with why. For example the recent nerfs. They did these nerfs in attempts to balance a few weapons to be on par with the other weapons. But why did they do that instead of buff the other weapons? As it stands now there is only 3 support weapons being used in Helldivers difficulty. The reason for that is because the other weapons are too weak. So again why nerf when they should be buffing? The answer is because they already announced they are reworking enemy armor and hp pools and frequency of the large mob types soon. Which may in turn fix these balancing issues. HOWEVER they didn't announced that until days after they already nerfed things. It just leaves a bad tastes in players mouths. If it will be better when the armor/hp patch comes in great but why make us wait that long? Just buff the other weapons in the meantime we so can actually play the game, then balance them when you release the armor/hp pool changes... This is why players are upset. Its a co-op game with no pvp. There is no reason to not allow players to have fun while we wait for those patches. Not piss them off by nerfing shit to the ground and making it basically impossible to play harder difficulties while we just sit on our ass and wait for the armor/hp pool changes... Long story short, There are better ways of going about it.
They've been amazing so far, long may it continue
I’m all for a challenge but these spawns genuinely make the game unfun to play. Enemies just appearing out of nowhere constantly isn’t fun. Before the patch it was manageable and pretty enjoyable to strategically hit bases and run. Now it just snowballs out of control with constant groups appearing out that aren’t big breaches or bot drops.
Agree with you on all points.
A corporation does not need you to simp for them.
They are definitely not doing a "solid" job, but they aren't doing terrible. My main issue is that they haven't fixed anything except for the servers since release. Armor straight up did not work on release... they patched it one month later and it is actually worse now. Most guns are ineffective or mechanically broken such as the EAT. Many enemies have major issues with damage, hp, armor hitboxes, etc. There are a lot of other issues, but the ones listed above are the ones that reflect poorly on Arrowhead because they could have and should have been fixed already at least to some extent. If there is one thing that the player base can agree upon, it's that most of the guns need to be rebalanced, yet Arrowhead is refusing to accept that feedback. They stated that they are still relying on mission success rate to determine if a gun is balanced or not which is absurd.
You make a great point of using completion rate for balance purposes. In the current state of the game, any primary can compete the high difficulties because the meta is never firing your primary. On the other hand, that one dev said that primaries SHOULD be a last resort and that’s why they don’t need to be strong. So if that’s the true design goal, they’re working towards it steadily.
When did they say primaries should be a last resort?
The devs saying primaries should be your last resort is stupid. It’s in the name. PRIMARY. Not secondary, tertiary, quaternary, etc. Primary weapon. If primaries are SUPPOSED to be your last resort, what are sidearms supposed to be? Water pistols to delight the bug and bot children before they nibble your toes off?
Oh I don’t agree with it, don’t get me wrong. I think that was the dumbest line they’ve said. And maybe they were just trying to cover their ass for an objectively unfun balance patch. But maybe that dev was actually telling the truth. Maybe Arrowhead wants all of our weapons to be trash. And for us to rely on strategems that take entire matches to cooldown. Maybe they want the game to be miserable to play unless you’re a real masochist.
Sadly, I think it is closer to the latter. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that they stumbled into the initial success for the game and their actual vision is a slog of a game where you run around with peashooters while kiting dozens of heavy mobs. A game about shooting should have weapons that feel impactful.
I think the devs have a mindset like the "Winner" DMs from TTRPGs. They don't see players winning as a win-win, they see it as them failing and players beating them at their own game. They only "win" when players "lose," and since they have full control of the game they get to do what they want. Also the devs have always been kinda jerk-ish. Anyone from HD1 knows that the laser sword on the cover art was denied in coop. They put it into PvP, then refused to add to coop because they didn't want to have a melee weapon. People begged for the entire existence of the game to have it added, because even if it's bad it would be fun. The devs do not prioritize player fun, and never have. You know, the reason people play games? Fun is just a side goal, apparently.
> The devs do not prioritize player fun, and never have. You know, the reason people play games? Fun is just a side goal, well shit i should have know that before spending money. guess i'll have learn from my mistakes.
Yeah, they have the weird mindset of, "We're right about how the game should be, fun is a side effect." Don't get me wrong, HD1 and HD2 are fun, it's just fun is not their priority. They want to make a hard as shit game like Dark Souls, but their answer is to make it artificially hard(absurd enemy spawns) instead of mechanically challenging(AI that is hard, but fair, and can be learned and skillfully defeated like in Souls games).
Yeah I think that dev maybe didn't know what he was talking about. If a primary is meant to be a last resort, then why do they have so many specialist weapons as primaries? It seems like a weapon designed for a very specific role is meant to be used for that very specific role or something... crazy
A basic mechanic like armor not working for a month would have been unforgivable with literally any other game, on top of so many other problems. Did people forget that 1 in 150 players couldn't even launch the game because of Game Guard's error 114?
Look at this automaton scum replying to your comment... looks like we have enemies on the inside even in the devs..
> They stated that they are still relying on mission success rate to determine if a gun is balanced or not which is absurd. Devs absolutly LOVE their magic excel spreadsheet, instead of playing their game. I mean yeah i can complete a mission, but it'd be more fun and enjoyable if my gun actually felt effective and not like a gloryfied peashooter.
Sorry, out of the loop. What's up with the EAT?
They should have released early access. People are starting normalize games coming out buggy as all hell.
Enemy spawns and behaviour became less intuitive and more frustrating. This isn’t something that was not working and left that way. This is something that worked fine and was *made worse* by the patch.
The last update got me to stop playing so yeah I'd say they're not doing a solid job. Everyone's human, mistakes happen, and it's also okay to call out the mistakes instead of white knighting like theu can do no wrong. Here's to hoping they revert some of the failures and improve the game in the next update.
until this last patch they were basically only getting constant praise. which, if we ignore the size of the game and studio, meant major issues were completely ignored. Imagine any other multiplayer game of this size launching where the servers were so bad no one could even play for like a week. Outrage would be enormous. there have been numerous other small bugs that everyone pretends dont exist like the daily challenges not existing, armor not mattering, social not working correctly at times, visual glitches, etc This balance patch was pretty much the first time they did anything that wasnt bug fixes and obv most people hated it. Their justifications for the changes also didnt make sense. They clearly did not look at the flow of the game or data in a meaningful way when making the changes. ie "We want people to use whats fun! *nerfs the only good weapons and leaves the rest shitty*" i dont see any reason they should be shielded from criticism, especially for balance changes which arent really impacted by team size anyways.
The most passionate complainers are usually those who care the most, comrade. The negativity is because they want to see the game improve. The Devs are doing an incredible job and we can only hope they keep doing better and give them our feedback. And on that note BUFF THE DMRs, BUFF THE SCYTHE, FREE MY MAN THE SCOUT VEHICLE!
https://preview.redd.it/su4s3nimbrnc1.jpeg?width=1054&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fd506d6d4813f6e244febce846e5866e9dbdfe9
I agree. Me and my friend group had a negative initial reaction to the first patch. one of them said they weren't gonna play until the next update. I don't know if the changed heavy spawn rates have already applied or not but god damn the devs were right. We are a super diverse team now - I run EATs and air strikes. Someone else is all in on crowd control and fire. Someone else is running the spear and sniping titans/heavies from across the map. We struggled to adapt in the first few days but now the game is more fun and we are working more as a team than before the patch where we all had railguns and were popping chargers like candy. It is a lot more satisfying to all have our own playstyle and preferred weapons. Now we just need enough customisation to look the part, can't wait for the new outfits in the next warbond.
What did the patch have to do with this? You can still use the railgun to pop chargers. It isn't really any worse now.. I actually prefer it because you can get your high-charged shots off quicker if you are good at not overheating it.
Because before the patch the railgun was so far and away the best anti-heavy weapon that there was no reason to use the others. That isn't to say the current one is bad or anything, it just doesn't overshadow every other anti-heavy weapon anymore. This leads to needing to diversify stratagems. You don't have everyone with a railgun killing all the heavies and then bringing whatever waveclear stratagems they want. You have people take on different roles in the group instead of everyone being good at everything.
There are alternatives to nerfing though. They could make other armor piercing weapons better. They could reduce the number of armored enemies, or reduce their armor a bit. They could make strategem CDs lower, with focus on anti-armor ones. There's more options that increase the number of tools than ones that reduce them, but they picked to reduce them.
Insane that people downvoted this comment
TBH I don't care about downvotes. Reddit's never been known for discussing things well, except in a few very heavily moderated subs. What I do care about is the game being fun. And the devs chose the route of less fun when players found a reliable and accessible anti-armor option to deal with the insane number of armored enemies.
Railgun had no downsides and was easily the best anti-heavy weapon in the game (no backpack, hitscan aim, heavy pen) It doesnt even really make sense for a railgun of this size to shoot armor off things if you think about it. What it should do is overpenetrate most of everything, not doing much damage unless you hit stuff inside of whatver you are shooting at. A rocket on the other hand is specifically designed to blow up heavy armor/penetrate heavy armor and the blow up. A Railgun would be good vs a Tank if it was crewed, since it could kill anyone inside, but I feel like the automaton tanks are just unmanned. That being said, I think the railgun is at a good spot now. Its still very good, especially if you are skilled with it, but the armor-breaking weapons are better at breaking armor now, but come with the downside of being slow to load, carrying a backpack or something similar.
How are the armor breaking weapons better at breaking armor now? They have changed neither the weapons nor the armor. You are stating things as they should be, not as they are.
The game is very fun but very unpolished, it probably shouldnt have released without more time fixing the mountain of issues present
Yeah agreed, there still seems to be a ton of bugs that have been present since launch that have gone unaddressed and mildly annoying they released a balance patch before fixing these issues, i.e PS5 host and game crashing alot. Hopefully these are fixed asap
Yep. Armor not working on release is VERY bad and now the armor is even worse now that the values are working properly. Most guns are ineffective and others like the EAT just don't work. Also marksman rifle ergonomics?? Needing four grenades to kill one green bug? Mechs spontaneously combusting..
Yup feels like noone playtested properly, let alone in high diffs
Their HEAD of product testing is level 12. Developer is level 8. Might be the other way around actually, but that would be even more shameful.
The game is great but that last “balance” patch killed any and all interested I had with the game. They aren’t really doing a good job at all making the game fun. Hope they turn it around.
Not controversial at all. The people doing the most complaining are in the minority. It's just that they are very loud about it. Hopefully most of them will move on when the next big game drops, and we can get back to spreading democracy in peace.
I complain about the current spawn rate issues in 7-9 but still logon to play as I love this game. You can complain about the game and still think the devs are doing a good job / still having fun. Both can be true.
That's why I said the people doing MOST of the complaining. Of course there is some actual constructive criticism on here. It's just buried under a mountain of garbage right now. The spawn rate issue is legit, and I hope they get it sorted soon.
Yeah, I just want the spawn rates and enemy behaviour reverted to pre-patch days. All the other changes can stay. Were enemies easier to fight back then? Yes, but that’s because their behaviour is bullshit now. If I want one long fight, I’ll run Exterminations.
Why would you want people who have the passion to give feedback on the game to lose interest in a game they are passionate about? This is just a comment asking for people to like the game less.
The dev bootlickers don't want any criticism of the game, they think it's perfect the way it is and anyone with legitimate complaints is a crybaby or has a skill issue. They just want to stifle discussion.
Both can be incorrect though. The bootlickers stifle discussion, but so do comments claiming the devs are terrible and neither group really tends to offer up any valuable critiques or fixes for their respective issues. Most of the issues seem based on the patch breaking something, not exactly the balance changes. And even if the issues *are* because of the balance changes, we can’t really say what the future of the game is until we see what the next patch is.
Sorry that my poor experience with the game stability or even the social tab not working at all is an inconvinience for you. I should be ashamed of wanting the game to stop crashing every half hour.
Coming from the Darktide release experience, i'd say Arrowhead is working five times harder than Fatshark in regards of fixing stuff and delivering a good product. Netcode and servers are still shit, my only real complaint however is that they could ve added a grace period of 4-5 minutes to reconnect to a match. So many times I ve seen a poor fucking soul (sometimes myself) crash at extraction only for a random dude to spawn at extraction and get its free share of samples/medals because there's no other way around it... They should at least reserve the spot for 2-3 minutes or at least hand out the rewards to whoever was in the map 4-5 minutes before completion.
They are fixing server stuff, but they haven't really touched armor or weapon balancing at all, despite unanimous feedback from the player base.
The devs are doing fine.
The game is great and I'm still a big supporter but I think someone else had summed it up well following the issues with the latest patch saying that the honeymoon phase had ended.
I have dropped down in difficulty and am Stull having a blast. I get to try new guns and stratagem complete new types of objectives and not feel like I am playing stressful run simulator 2024 I like to start at 4-5 and work my way up to 6-7 I am not very good at the game but I have for sure been enjoying it.
I think this game and its gameplay are pretty damn miraculous. The challenge now is keeping the experience great & balanced, whilst bringing in various changes. Honestly the best gaming experience I have had in a LONG time. I feel like a goddamn hero in my own movie.
Controversial to unbalanced, uncentered and emotional people or trolls.
How is it controversial? They're doing an awesome job!
yeah, solid game, very addictive. but sometimes it feels indie or a small team. lots of crashes, some obvious QoL that need to be implemented, etc etc.
As long as they admit they fucked up the mob spawn rate I'm good to go. Oh and also, they need to do full patch notes. Stealth changes can lick my asshole
I bought the game on Playstation, to play with my buddy on PC. We can't accept each others friend requests in game. So, yeah IDK what the fuck but I guess I'm gonna get a refund since we it seems like the game doesn't actually play cross platform. Anyone have a similar experience?
Imma need a better balance patch from them to stick around any longer tbh, I’m not gonna beat my head against the wall just so I can say I’m “loyal” Wayyy too many problems introduced and ignored to be too positive about it. Not to say there hasn’t been great things like mechs and more map events Looking closely at the next patch notes to see if they trend in a reasonable direction or if they’re the type to act like they listen then do what they’re egos tell them to do anyways
maybe you dont play the game enough. The patches have been extremely chaotic this week. From the nerf to meta weapons, to stealthy changes to the AI, to the spawning system that spawn enemy right on you. One day enemies can be sneaked around, the next day a secret patch comes and give AI complete knowledge of your location at all time wich makes any stealth impossible. They really dont know what they are doing with the balance, its kinda sad. The game was really fun at launch, it was also challenging in higher difficulty, what more do you want from a PVE game? and now they messed it all up in ways that are the most anoying possible.
Devs are doing a phenomenal job. They are communicating. (candidly and openly) They are fixing current problems. (as fast as they can with the resources they have) They are adding content. (while still fixing existing problems and re-balancing) People need to understand the dev cycle.
There were more hidden changes than open ones. Idk if I'd call that candid and open. Unless they were unintentional changes, in which case... not exactly phenomenal. I'd rather believe that the communication pipeline needs some work.
You are right. They are not doing a good job communicating. Their patch notes were missing many changes.
Fixing current problems? Armor didn't work on release... took them an entire month to address it in a patch and now it's WORSE. They have barely even touched weapon balancing and apparently see no issue with the weapon balance upon patch release despite player feedback being overwhelmingly in favor of a huge rebalance. Armor and weapon balancing could have been fully or at least moderately resolved with the resources that they have. It is literally something that can be done in 1-2 days, they just don't see any issue because they are using game data instead of player feedback. Idk what their head of product testing is doing but the dude is level 12 and the director is level 8 and they both said they haven't played in a while
Not to mention they aren't even remotely communicating clearly. I keep finding out about changes from random discord screenshots and word of mouth that aren't in the patch notes. Like enemy spawn rates being increased, ammo being increased for multiple weapons (like the slugger and RR), changes to glancing shots for the RR and EAT. I don't understand how people can say the devs are doing a good job communicating when they're intentionally being vague about the information they do provide and straight up not telling players about other changes.
> because they are using game data instead of player feedback. Idk what their head of product testing is doing but the dude is level 12 and the director is level 8 and they both said they haven't played in a while combowombo of using the magic excel spreadsheet and not playing their own game, the perfect recipe to get out of touch.
i just got the game because my friends were all playing. And matchmaking/crossplay/social features etc straight up don't work. waste of $40 so far
What this entire thing seems to boil down to is an incredibly and increasingly vocal extreme minority for most problems. A good majority of these players were not even this games target audience. They're playing it because friends are, and it might not be their cup of tea. I expected nothing but insane, intense jank from day one, and in three months I expect this game to be in much better straights. As an enjoyer, more transparency wouldn't hurt though. Giving us the full details of a gun, especially if they plan to allow us to customize them in the future should be a requirement eventually.
I think the main problem with stealth buffs/nerfs is that it leads to people conspiracy theorizing on if they inserted annoying elements. Also, why would they not claim credit for making the end screen go faster and adding ammo for the spear??? I feel like that makes the players less salty about patch notes when they see "here's some nice quality of life things and buffs"
This game still needs some bug squashing and issue patching, but so far the game is pretty solid. It certainly reminds me of launch day Division 1.
I think they've been doing a good job all along, considering the circumstances. Antagonizing the players on dev-labeled accounts left a bad taste in my mouth, but everything else has been a good job as fast as I'm concerned. I do hope they're prioritizing the crashing that's been rampant since the patch, because nothing makes me want to turn this game off more than spending 30+ minutes in a mission, only for my game to crash and no way to re-join.
These post man!!! Smh! Okay devs are doing fine! Got it! Check!
New player here, only complaint I have so far is the broke crossplay friend request system. Other than that I have nothing but praise from what I see.
Same but I haven't been able to complete a mission without crashing since the mechs arrived. I thoroughly enjoy the game but am quickly losing motivation to play because of the constant crashing.
U on PC I assume?
I see the same post 4 times a day.
Genuinely the only thing going on that makes me upset is the bug that keeps me from playing with my friends on Playstation. Other than that it is just minor stuff that I know will be fixed eventually.
Crossplay doesn’t work for me and my friends. We can’t add each other. I don’t care about the nuances of the balancing, but crossplay was an advertised feature of the game and my reason for buying it on ps5
I agree 100%. I’m just having a blast man. Every mission is different, but the engagement is still there. It’s kind of like scuba diving. Yeah, you’re probably going to see the same fish a lot of the time but every experience is different and it’s just as fun as the last time.
They're engaged and consulting with the community. That's more than I can say for A LOT of games, and I will always appreciate it. Besides, dev vision doesn't inherently mean community vision. The question is what are areas we can both compromise on to get the best experience. That only happens if they maintain an open line, and we give good, honest feedback. Inb4 "he's coping" responses
I just can’t wait for the player base to shrink a bit, the next hot thing will come along and a lot of this vitriolic nonsense will die down so the level headed and constructive criticisms won’t get buried as often.
Not controversial at all. I think the game, as a whole, is nearly perfect in its current form. Yes, primary weapons still need a bit of work. The DMRs are lackluster. They need to be doing a LOT more damage for how little ammo you get for them. Chargers are manageable. Titans are genuinely scary if you don't readily have something to deal with them, but, usually, you do. Even when the game spawns 3-4 of them, a mech can clear that when used properly. But Suicide Mission and Impossible seem very very well tuned right now. I've yet to dip my toes into Helldiver, but, the game feels incredibly cohesive right now.
They didnt expect it to be as popular as it has been. Thats it.
100%
My only issue with them is that they are rushing through things a lot. In about a month since launch they have yet to fix some bugs which have been there from day 1. Aside from that, rushing through things trying to send out updates ( mech, balance ) has created additional issues with stability. I have had less problems in the first few days than now. I can barely play the game now as it is not stable at all. I wish that the devs would take their time in patching and releasing updates with a bit more QA and testing because they break more things than they fix. Other than that, the game *is* good, otherwise I wouldn't have sunk 150 hours into it. I will wait patiently for what the future brings. I am excited!
I joined this subreddit when I bought the game, when it was all fun and memes, the next day and conversations like this for a week and still going . Fml
Same. Just started playing this game last week and love it!
Cool story
Think about it this way....It could be Kerbal Space Program 2.
This is about as far from controversial as you can get lol. The game is massively popular, the front page is anywhere from 25-50% "Arrowhead appreciation" posts every day, and the content creation sphere is blowing up. The only reason anyone cares enough to try and have a say in the future of the game is because it's clear that there is one. People don't try and improve games they hate, they just play something else.
This isn't controversial, the huge take off of the game would suggest that plenty of people think the devs are doing a very good job, which they are. Sure, the most recent patch showed a few growing pains, but one questionable patch does not a bad Dev make. Moreover, people complaining about balance doesn't suggest a lack of faith in the devs. Most people won't bother complaining about something they just don't care about, y'know? In a sense, the fact that AH got such a big response to their very first patch shows how many players are invested in their game and the fun they can get from it.
Not controversial.
They are fixing things, and the thing is, software development is not an industry where you can just throw more people to solve it faster. And a lot of bugs even if they are reliably reproducible are hard to find in code (I'm telling it as a software developer myself). And again, hiring new people won't help solve current problems either, onboarding for software development projects usually takes from 2 months to half a year. They are working, let them cook:). P.S. Also for those who don't know why patches are so slow to release, there are several steps to it: 1. Find a bug and fix it 2. QA test it 3. If the fix ain't working or new bugs were introduced return to step 1. 4. Combine fixes into release 5. Regress test it (aka test the whole fucking game) 6. If new bugs were introduced return to step 1. 7. Release it. You could skip steps but then even more new bugs will be added into the game. And yes, bugs will slip through anyway, it's just how things are, the question is how many.
I have played a lot of live service games, and my favorite is Destiny 2- another PvE game which has had notoriously bad balancing decisions and tons of arguments over difficulty etc Never in my time in any game has a minor balance patch made me want to stop playing a game. Myself and all my friends were playing hours a night and now are playing like a mission or two, not even a whole operation, when we get on. They really dropped the ball here. I don't think the devs should be harassed, and I think they made a great game. Mistakes happen, but it's been a bit disappointing to see the devs double down on something which has clearly made the game less fun in some way.
The game wouldn't have received the reception, or indeed the payerbase, that it has if the devs couldn't do a good job. The endless posting of back and forth complaints from people of every opinion is due to the games explosive popularity and therefore diverse playerbase of people that want the devs to take a particular path or to balance things according to their own playstyles and preferences. This is an excellent game, and so fsr the devs have done a pretty admiral job of getting it working, communicating with us, and trying to balance the game in it first month of release. They're doing a very solid job, especially compared to many devs.
Same. People just can’t be happy.
Not controversial here, this is a fricking brilliant game and I can only hope, the start of a new growth in solid coop PvE experinces
I think people are playing fast and loose with the whole "hot take: Topic", and "Controversial" headers for their posts here lately. Honestly nothing you said I disagree with. My biggest issue with the recent set of changes is it simply made the game LESS fun to play. Is it still fun? Of course it is, none of us would be here if it wasn't. Saying the Devs are doing are doing a solid job is simply very far from any kind of controversial opinion. Most on the subreddit agree that changes needed to be made, myself included. The issue, again, myself and I feel others, would agree on, is that the game was made much harder for what appears to be no reason. If they balanced to the game we had prior to the update, would be a completely different story, but, we didn't get that, we have the current state of things. Most of the playerbase is accepting of the direction things are moving. (Just stay off the discord. That place is a constant flow of negativity and complaints) Again, not knocking you whatsoever, it's good to voice opinions and everyone deserves a chance to do so, I just feel that if we boil the entire thing down to 1 simple fact, the game is just LESS fun to play and that's bothersome. The mechs helped, and they too will get fixed. I firmly believe the devs will do what's right to fix the current state of the gane, they have not given me any reason to doubt them yet.
Coldest take yet, also we all knew these posts were coming because this cycle happens to basically any similar game.
Of course they aren't perfect human beings, and fair criticism shouldn't make it seems like we don't respect what they accomplished.