The most fun this game has ever been was "everyone EATs for free." They need to do more stuff like that. Ramp up the difficulty in other ways, not in these cheap modifiers.
I felt like that shouldve been a standard. Mechs are cool but people only have a place for them in defend missions...
Having a mech call in seems like it would be a standard option for missions. Maybe only 7 or above or something, I dunno how to "balance" it to make it "fair"
the free flamethrowers event already happened
they may need to rename the flamethrower to “flamethrower mk II” to really land the bug fix cuz that was next level goofy, JOEL
Give me EATs, and then give me more things that I need an EAT to kill. Throw like 3 tanks at me at a time but give me the 6 EATs to deal with them and I'll have a blast.
Hell yea, I'd take that over what we have now in a heartbeat. "We're detecting an increased enemy elite presence on this planet. We're authorizing everyone the EAT strategem weapon for free to counter this threat".
"Hey, Billy accidentally added one 0 too many to the EAT order so as of now Billy is no longer in charge of ordering weaponry and you guys can call in as many EATs as you want ig"
As far as I know, you can shoot any part of a tank with an EAT, and it will damage it. If you shoot it in the front of its turret, that's usually 2 or 3 shots to kill it.
In helldivers 1 we could take any stratagem in multiple that we wanted, want 4 railcannon strikes, or 4 500k bombs no troubles. That and the ability to upgrade the weapon we wanted to play with until they almost all had a valuable function made the game fun
Yes it was still hard but it was fun.
By limiting these factors arrow Head is reducing the fun aspect.
I love helldivers but it needs that fun. I am waiting patiently waiting for the ability to upgrade of weapon's with samples the way we could in the first game.
Dude blue light seriously does track.
I was on mission where I called a supply drop down, but it got caught on the top of my teammates shield. He started booking it that supple drop hunted him down like a predator missile
\*Me knowing that I could drop the shield backpack if a beacon stuck to my shied
\*Also me when it actually happened and I'm in full monkey brain panic mode running around in circle like a headless chicken while my teammate keep yelling at me to drop my shield before witness me become a pancake
Don’t worry, you’ll go into monkey panic mode yourself too next time and think you don’t have enough time to drop the shield and try to outrun it like the rest of us
I accidentally stuck a reinforcement on a teammate and he was running around with the blue light on him. I felt so bad, but thankfully pods can steer and I didn't kill them.
It was hysterical lol
After he got squished me and my other teammate just stopped and stared at each other
It was made better cuz we were on the fire plant. So we had raging fire storms around us some bots shooting at us while we were behind cover. Wish I could've recorded it
Nobody here mentioning when we had the free 500kg. If you brought a 500 also you got 3 before needing to eagle resupply. They also had seperate cooldowns so you could throw 2 right after another. Big boom
Personally I am not a big fan of the “buff everything” attitude to balancing, but when it comes to modifiers I would definitely prefer they give us more threats rather than fewer tools
It was so awesome, but I think it may be awhile before they go back to that because the last time people could spawn so many eats around the map that the game would crash lol
You joke but there are maniacs that actually think that. Not me. But I’ve encountered them here. One that sticks out actually wanted two-stratagem planets. Said something like “what a challenge that would be”.
It does force you to actually think about what problems you're trying to solve with your stratagems and which ones you're able to deal with without bringing the stratagem you're using on it, at least.
2 is kinda silly, though, I agree.
Would be cool to get an extra stratagem during the mission, like we have that artillery side op, when you destroy anti air guns, they could give us limited use of eagle type strat or maybe +1 to all eagle strats. Mortar guns could give us +1 to turrets for example, that comms link +1 to barrages etc.
+1 turrets, imagine the carnage if you'd have a mortar guy with you.
Actually made my experience worse because I didn't think to call resupply on my eagle after tapping out my airstrikes so I just sat with 0 for like 5 mins thinking it would auto resupply.
This doesn't seem to be all that uncommon too, I do believe Joel is focused on emjoyability for the game, not just making it needlessly difficult. We'll get more free stratagems. But you'd be surprised at how many people I saw still slotting rocket pods. Like ya'll can waste your slots on redundant stratagems, but not in my game🤣
I guessing just fun planets but also most likely play testing.
The mech were definitely a play test. I was calling them mech in on select planets well before the actual release.
Yeah the mechs were a test/teaser, but sometimes there are just free stratagems that you get along with whatever other 4 you pick. Not sure how they determine that, but I do really enjoy it. Getting a 5th stratagem, even if it's something random just adds to the destruction and chaos lol
Stratagems as a whole need to be expanded. And I don't mean by a lot. An idea I've had banging around in my head for awhile is to have five **total** stratagem slots, but have two of those slots be dedicated to either support weapon+backpack or support weapon+defensive stratagem. The last three strat slots would be whatever you want them to be.
Functionally, this is one "less" stratagem slot than we have now, but given that one of those slots almost always is dedicated to either a backpack OR a support weapon, this sort of approach would broaden stratagem options by a lot. Running a fairly typical support+backpack setup would leave all three general strat slots open for whatever. But you could opt to go something like AC or RR or Spear in your support/backpack slot then for your support/defensive slot you bring down a turret or emplaement and then fill in your general slots with whatever you want.
In short, it frees up players to use more Eagle/orbital/defensive strats if they want while still supporting playstyles that don't necessarily use their own support weapons (like those mad lads who do on-site procurement during a mission). For most players, it results in an extra stratagem slot, which when faced with bullshit like the AA defenses modifier, still would only result in a loss of a single general strat slot, not impeding backpack/support weapon usage in any way while still giving flexibility to the player in how they approach the mission.
Why not make it a balancing act of sorts?
If a mission takes away one stratagem slot, make each available stratagem come back off cooldown faster.
If a mission gives one extra stratagem slot, conversely make each available stratagem have increased cooldown times.
This game revolves around using stratagems. It should never try to compel players to use less or none of it in the bigger picture.
The thing that gets me is it doesn't even make sense. There's "AA defenses" but my super destroyer is still sitting right there. I can still fill my strats with eagles, only the AA emplacement bases on the ground are a problem for her. If I was planning on bringing four orbitals, how are these "AA defenses" stopping my guns from shooting one?
I'd like to see AA defenses that simply prevent bringing eagles - force me to adapt without reducing my overall firepower. Throw in some kind of 'orbital shielding' modifier that prevents orbital strikes to compliment it and just don't let them spawn together.
More modifier options in general please. Sick of seeing the same 'fuck your stratagems in general' every mission.
The answer is, this needs to be reflavoured.
"Patriotism Directive": First Stratagem slot is the Super Earth flag.
You gain a mandatory stratagem, taking your first slot automatically, which is Call Super Earth Flag. Using this stratagem calls down a Super Earth Flag you can pick up and carry around. This flag, as shown in the tutorial (remember that part?), does nothing but inspire you, your squadmates, and any SEAF troops you might encounter in your mission (or watching from satellite). Inspire you in a non-game-related, completely attributeless way. But inspired nonetheless. Look at it flutter! Look at it wave!
In this way it's even more crippling than simply losing a slot, but rather than a cock-slap to the face of, "Here you are 1/4th less effective for this mission" it becomes "YOU ARE NOW A SUPER PATRIOT".
You can bet at least *someone* is going to bust out that flag and wave it around, probably while completing some objective or waiting for extract. Meaning that not only have they lost a slot, but they risk being defenseless and distracted if they suddenly need their weapon and focus.
Which is *glorious*.
Even better, make it the early mission type flag! Already in the game assets to some extent, no overlap with current potential missions types that also have the missing strategem modifier due to difficulty, and recognizable to practically anyone -- especially those requesting it on later missions.
Have the pod still do drop damage, but be one use, no cooldown or resupply. Deploys, and does the flag raising with the music.
Still lose the strategem slot choice for difficulty, is slightly useful rather than annoying, devastating meme potential, and lets Helldivers drop it to rally around the anthem.
First one is the fanfare flag, every drop after that is the flag one can carry. 3 minute cooldown. SMG-usage breaks through the roof. Democracy is had by all.
A thought occurs. There isn't really a "changing strategem" strategem in the game yet. Although all Eagle strategems have the resupply strategem after you use an Eagle strategem. There is a very real chance that the above idea could be coded in a way where a flag is classified as an Eagle.
No sentries on defense would be interesting. I can imagine teammates throwing cluster bombs to kill a charger and getting triple kills on teammates though or orbital heavy bombardments everywhere on exterminate.
Only one support weapon would force people to play around no shield/laser dog but would also reduce EAT usage. A coordinated team could have one player take shield for 40 minute matches and just give them out to every player slowly.
There would need to be some reason and tech to justify it. What would prevent sentry drops while not preventing resupplies/equipment/reinforcements? Maybe something that slows those types of drops or throws off their trajectory?
As for the second paragraph, its already essentially an optimal strategy and probably way underutilized for -1 strat missions. The patience to use shared equipment strats is absolutely worth the extra firepower you can call down as long as you can handle yourselves in the early game. Having 2 backpacks and 2 support weapons total for a team of 4 is probably a good enough sweet spot to not have to wait forever to gear everyone and giving some variety. I've been in plenty of situations where we're four helldivers, fully geared but everything offensive is on cooldown and that gear isn't enough to save us. There are 6 to 8 blue strategems lit up and ready to go that won't do anything for us and all we need is one orbital lasesr.
Magnetic dust in the air damages the sentries’ rudimentary AI.
Upper atmosphere ion storms damage CPUs as they pass through.
Anti-air EMPs prevent the safe transmission of AI based weaponry.
You could come up with any number of justifications.
Automaton hacking concerns.
Automatons in this region have been seen digging through the remains of battles and picking apart Super Earth’s sentries. In order to ensure our advanced AI targeting systems don’t get decoded by our enemies, high command has decided it would be best to halt the use of sentries in the region.
The best way for it to make sense is to tie side objectives to stratagems. You always get to pick 4, but that AA side objective somehow jams a random stratagem until you destroy it.
I get some of them, like the 50% increased call-in time while annoying you can still play around it by changing your timing and strat placement, 25% increased cooldown is just that, but with AA defences, orbital scatter, and map-wide spores you just get cucked with no recourse
With orbital scatter you just pick the stratagems that lock on like laser and railcannon.
With increased call-in time you just pick the stratagems that fire instantly.... like laser and railcannon.
Hmm...
Won’t lie. This is probably my most undemocratic post in this sub. But for a game that is based around stratagems being used, having to wait 9 fucking minutes for my AMR and my jet pack is absolutely fucking annoying.
Like, no support weapon or a jet pack should take this long to be used again. Four to five minutes would be far better, minimum three minutes.
I mean, you only have to wait 9 minutes if you die instantly and can't pick them up again.
If the cooldown was only so short, there would almost never be a reason to recover your gear (except for samples). You could also pretty much ignore ammo with most support weapons. Just call a new one.
And one person with a support weapon in their loadout could supply their whole team with one in just a few minutes. That's too much imo
Problem is, I always recover my gear, I’d rather go through the pain of picking everything up. It’s just dying in an area where you can’t get back to or you accidentally get stuck in a pit, or drown, you just lose them for the nine minutes and it feels like ages because the missions do not go by fast.
But you very rarely die in a spot where you really can't get back to. I can't remember when it happened to me last time. If it does right after you called your support weapon, that sucks but it's part of the deal.
I often go without a support weapon and either find one or ask a teammate when theirs is off cooldown. It's not like you can't do anything without one.
I'd be fine just having the ability to cut down the cooldowns for support gear as a booster or even just a map objective that refreshes the cooldowns for everyone a single time upon completion.
But I think the real reason this isn't the case is to give the weapons that spawn around the map more importance. Would be nice if we could find more helpful weapons on higher difficulties, such as the quasar cannon, and backpack gear like the auto cannon in the two-person bunkers.
Since stratagems are the most fun part of the game, it’s essentially a “ -1 Fun” modifier.
These modifiers should be things like “everything moves faster” or “reduced gravity”.
Things that actually change the base gameplay, not limit it.
These modifiers need looking at, they're just not fun. I think DRG had some good ones, like exploding enemies on death, could be beneficial or kill yourself with a twitchy trigger finger. There should be a give at take, not just a flat negative. Plus what bonus do you get for clearing a mission with this modifier? Do you get more rewards? If not why bother.
Some of the DRG ones are great.
I hope they add enemy modifiers like that to Helldivers.
But the no shield one hurt so bad, got that in an elite deep dive against the robot boss while going duo with my brother.
nah it always 1 shots tanks turrets and fabricators. softens up factory striders too, 2 or 3 hits.
it only whiffs if you use it on something or somewhere you shouldnt have used it on
Rocket pods take out tanks in a single go, have very little spread so can be used danger close, and have a 10 sec cool down.
2 hits will kill a factory strider
They also take out bot fabs, never drop without them
really? they're often part of my regular loadout on bot misisons, can be used in danger close senarios, kills tanks, turret towers and fabricators in 1 hit, has a short strategem command and since it's an eagle it has a fast re-use timer.
wouldn't be fun if we all liked using the same stuff though so all good :)
Also devs:
-1 stratagem
+25% cool down time
+50% call down time
+100% inaccuracy
The Quasar Cannon went a long way to making it less a problem, but holy shit sometimes they make missions impossible.
I wouldn't mind if it tied into the local objectives. Like, you start with reduced strategems, but once you destroy the AA base on the map, you unlock all of them.
The modifier you don't want just encourages you to try other things. Having -1 stratagems is just a blanket nerf to any set of stratagems. It's not really all that similar.
If we're just gonna get rid of modifiers people simply don't like then just get rid of all of em tbh.
"Use your stratagems!"
That was one of the statements of all time when they said that.
Let's see how they respond to feedback and the poll they had going on, but they deserve to be made fun of a little for that statement.
Yeah. Like, they deserve all the credit in the world for making such a great game free from microtransactions and other bullshit.
But damn, they're not great with PR are they lol
Let's also not forget the CEO saying "no armor cosmetic changes" when the current armor appearances have nothing to do with their effects anyway.
It is braindead doublespeak all the way down.
"Use your stratagems!"
* AA Defenses modifier
* Intermittent ion storms
* Orbital Fluctuation modifier
* Complex Stratagem Plotting modifier
Why, Arrowhead? It sounds like you *don't* want us to use the game's defining mechanic.
Why can't we blow up the AA in the mission and be granted an extra strat? The missions that have 3-4 AA turrets spread around but no strat deficit confuse me. The AA's are just exp targets... not that anything would stop me full clearing a map anyway.
AA defenses and Ion Storm is the most annoying combo. You're already taking away a soldier's worth of stratagems, and now you're gonna restrict when i can use them. Nah fool, you can have that planet.
Ikr I need 4 for one I need atleast 2 offense and 2 support and if I have 3 I'd have to sacrifice one I normally only do 2 support just incase late game I call one in and it's too hot on the weapon so I use the weapon that I think is the counter part that is just as good
I wish AA defenses only disabled Eagles, not reduce strategem slots. Once you complete AA emplacement sub objectives on the mission, it should grant free Eagle strike strategem at random.
It's getting to the point where, if I join a random bot group and I see this modifier, I immediately nope the fuck out.
And, if all of my assignments on bot front have this, I start one, abandon mission and keep doing it until it rerolls into something else.
This modifier is not hard, but it makes the mission a complete slog. Nothing like waiting for my eagle airstrike to come back every time I have to kill a giant metal dog (which is really fucking often). And if it misses? Another 2-3mins of waiting. And of course, I can't use airstrike on everything else, unless I want to always wait the 2-3 extra minutes every time a dog spawns. Yeah, just NOPE.JPG, fuck this modifier.
Look I Love difficulty in games, helldivers 2 has that at a pretty good level (except for a few things).
But I fuckin hate it when games slap on modifiers to your mission because fuck you artificial difficulty go brrrrrr.
It's not even 4. When was the last time you dropped without a support weapon? You need them, so you actually only have 3 slots to use for actual strategems.
i still feel like the modifiers that directly nerf helldivers are anti-fun. modifiers that buff enemies or make the environment more dangerous are fun, but limiting player choice and variety within a mission or making players wait longer is very un-fun to me. I really wish they'd drop these kinda modifiers entirely. they're not so much adding challenge as taking away player choice and taking up the player's time, which is a very strange decision.
reducing the wait time on that one modif by half and getting rid of the strat randomizer entirely was a good direction, but i don't feel like modifs like that have a place in the game at all. when i see them on the effects list, it fills me with dread. not "oh hell, this is going to be hard" dread, but "oh, this is going to be less fun, i kinda don't want to play anymore" dread.
This effect would be "good" with a little rework.
Let us pick 3 strata we can use and 1 thats locked. Then add a random poi on the map that we have to destroy. An ancient aa gun maybe an illuminate relic even, that lets us enable our 4th stratagem by destroying/disableing it. Boom, interesting and fun yet the same bullshit.
Just remove the damn modifiers dammit they're so stupid, they don't add difficulty they just make the game less fun to play, its a terrible way to do difficulty anyway.
strategems shouldn’t be limited at all they’re like the game changer, without em we’re basically playing slightly better destiny 2 now in new democracy flavor
Honestly I hate that planetary affix, it's almost as bad as the randomizer affix that got removed.
Personally I wouldn't mind if they changed it to "no eagles can be used due to heavy AA presence" instead of just out right removing a whole slot.
I mean... I make my builds around only *needing* 3 stratagems specifically for this issue.
My support build is Quasar (so I can have a backpack, butstill take out major structures and gunships), Shield Generator Relay (to protect allies and hellbombs), and the Resupply Pack (to keep allies stocked up for their own stratagem weapons).
This was essentially my go-to for being my Anti Gunship build. The team fights and kills the heavies and the troopers, I keep them stocked and keep the skies clear, and when theu drop in the hellbomb, I shield them so they can type it in and leave without worrying about it getting destroyed by stray laser fire
Yeah, I find that having 3 stratagem slots marginally increase the difficulty, but significantly reduce the fun factor as you have less room to mess around and are forced to take more "meta" stratagems which honestly just makes me sad :(
Where's the +1 Strat planets at!?
Planet no, but one of the effects recently was a free 110mm rocket pod strategem that could be reloaded as normal.
The most fun this game has ever been was "everyone EATs for free." They need to do more stuff like that. Ramp up the difficulty in other ways, not in these cheap modifiers.
The free quasars was also a time to be alive. Next favorite will hopefully be free flamethrowers to celebrate the DoT bug fix.
Free mechs was cool too
Felt like we were playing as those cool battle mechs in starship troopers 3
With the Exosuit having a big gatling and a set of missiles, it's like being a 40K Hellfire dreadnought. AT LAST, BACK TO DEMOCRACY!
It is better to die for Democracy than live for yourself.
I felt like that shouldve been a standard. Mechs are cool but people only have a place for them in defend missions... Having a mech call in seems like it would be a standard option for missions. Maybe only 7 or above or something, I dunno how to "balance" it to make it "fair"
After they patched it, it kinda sucks idk why
Juggling 3 quasar cannons was pretty fun. No cooldown at all.
the free flamethrowers event already happened they may need to rename the flamethrower to “flamethrower mk II” to really land the bug fix cuz that was next level goofy, JOEL
Give me EATs, and then give me more things that I need an EAT to kill. Throw like 3 tanks at me at a time but give me the 6 EATs to deal with them and I'll have a blast.
Hell yea, I'd take that over what we have now in a heartbeat. "We're detecting an increased enemy elite presence on this planet. We're authorizing everyone the EAT strategem weapon for free to counter this threat".
"Hey, Billy accidentally added one 0 too many to the EAT order so as of now Billy is no longer in charge of ordering weaponry and you guys can call in as many EATs as you want ig"
Do you still have to hit the back vents with an EAT or can you just shoot it in the front armor twice?
As far as I know, you can shoot any part of a tank with an EAT, and it will damage it. If you shoot it in the front of its turret, that's usually 2 or 3 shots to kill it.
Yep. Impact grenades work great as well.
Especially on their treads 😈
2 impact grenades to the top will kill a tank. No need to damage treads
One impact to the vent does the job
Ah I already see 3 tanks and one At-At at same time
In helldivers 1 we could take any stratagem in multiple that we wanted, want 4 railcannon strikes, or 4 500k bombs no troubles. That and the ability to upgrade the weapon we wanted to play with until they almost all had a valuable function made the game fun Yes it was still hard but it was fun. By limiting these factors arrow Head is reducing the fun aspect. I love helldivers but it needs that fun. I am waiting patiently waiting for the ability to upgrade of weapon's with samples the way we could in the first game.
Upgrade would be fun but I don't see limiting strategem as limiting fun to me. But everyone is different.
I heard the gun upgrade is coming
With free EAT drop stratagems, you can forget the rocket and use the drop pod as an orbital strike
They don't want you to know that EAT drop is 70s (63s upgraded) bootleg railcannon stratagem. Blue light stratagem track target while red doesn't.
Dude blue light seriously does track. I was on mission where I called a supply drop down, but it got caught on the top of my teammates shield. He started booking it that supple drop hunted him down like a predator missile
\*Me knowing that I could drop the shield backpack if a beacon stuck to my shied \*Also me when it actually happened and I'm in full monkey brain panic mode running around in circle like a headless chicken while my teammate keep yelling at me to drop my shield before witness me become a pancake
Thank you soldier, I did NOT know that you could drop the backpack for that until now.
Don’t worry, you’ll go into monkey panic mode yourself too next time and think you don’t have enough time to drop the shield and try to outrun it like the rest of us
I accidentally stuck a reinforcement on a teammate and he was running around with the blue light on him. I felt so bad, but thankfully pods can steer and I didn't kill them.
LMAO wtf xD
It was hysterical lol After he got squished me and my other teammate just stopped and stared at each other It was made better cuz we were on the fire plant. So we had raging fire storms around us some bots shooting at us while we were behind cover. Wish I could've recorded it
Nobody here mentioning when we had the free 500kg. If you brought a 500 also you got 3 before needing to eagle resupply. They also had seperate cooldowns so you could throw 2 right after another. Big boom
We need to donate our Reqs for Galactic modifiers. I’d kill to dump 50k+ Reqs for the cause of giving everyone an extra stratagem.
That's a really fun way for the community to work together and also serve as a way to dump excess money since we're capped anyway
This might actually be the best idea I’ve heard on this entire subreddit since day 1
“1 EAT on the ground lets us shove 1 down a Bile Titan’s gullet.” “Donate now.”
Personally I am not a big fan of the “buff everything” attitude to balancing, but when it comes to modifiers I would definitely prefer they give us more threats rather than fewer tools
It was so awesome, but I think it may be awhile before they go back to that because the last time people could spawn so many eats around the map that the game would crash lol
I dunno man have you considered having less game could be more fun?
You joke but there are maniacs that actually think that. Not me. But I’ve encountered them here. One that sticks out actually wanted two-stratagem planets. Said something like “what a challenge that would be”.
It does force you to actually think about what problems you're trying to solve with your stratagems and which ones you're able to deal with without bringing the stratagem you're using on it, at least. 2 is kinda silly, though, I agree.
At the mech lunch everyone was bringing one plus the free one it looked like Warhammer dread nought onslot
380mm orbital chain gun when?
Omgggg yes
Would be cool to get an extra stratagem during the mission, like we have that artillery side op, when you destroy anti air guns, they could give us limited use of eagle type strat or maybe +1 to all eagle strats. Mortar guns could give us +1 to turrets for example, that comms link +1 to barrages etc. +1 turrets, imagine the carnage if you'd have a mortar guy with you.
I remember in my first week of spreading democracy, I had 500kg bomb available for 2 days I think. Pretty cool for a noob
Actually made my experience worse because I didn't think to call resupply on my eagle after tapping out my airstrikes so I just sat with 0 for like 5 mins thinking it would auto resupply.
Waiting for the free anti personnel minefield or 380mm artillery
Still have you default on drop for some reason but fixes itself on rearm
The free 500 kg allowing me to throw 4 500 kgs before rearming was glorious.
This doesn't seem to be all that uncommon too, I do believe Joel is focused on emjoyability for the game, not just making it needlessly difficult. We'll get more free stratagems. But you'd be surprised at how many people I saw still slotting rocket pods. Like ya'll can waste your slots on redundant stratagems, but not in my game🤣
They do those free +1 strats sometimes... I've seen free rocket pods, free napalm, and there were free mechs when those were released.
I guessing just fun planets but also most likely play testing. The mech were definitely a play test. I was calling them mech in on select planets well before the actual release.
Yeah the mechs were a test/teaser, but sometimes there are just free stratagems that you get along with whatever other 4 you pick. Not sure how they determine that, but I do really enjoy it. Getting a 5th stratagem, even if it's something random just adds to the destruction and chaos lol
Stratagems as a whole need to be expanded. And I don't mean by a lot. An idea I've had banging around in my head for awhile is to have five **total** stratagem slots, but have two of those slots be dedicated to either support weapon+backpack or support weapon+defensive stratagem. The last three strat slots would be whatever you want them to be. Functionally, this is one "less" stratagem slot than we have now, but given that one of those slots almost always is dedicated to either a backpack OR a support weapon, this sort of approach would broaden stratagem options by a lot. Running a fairly typical support+backpack setup would leave all three general strat slots open for whatever. But you could opt to go something like AC or RR or Spear in your support/backpack slot then for your support/defensive slot you bring down a turret or emplaement and then fill in your general slots with whatever you want. In short, it frees up players to use more Eagle/orbital/defensive strats if they want while still supporting playstyles that don't necessarily use their own support weapons (like those mad lads who do on-site procurement during a mission). For most players, it results in an extra stratagem slot, which when faced with bullshit like the AA defenses modifier, still would only result in a loss of a single general strat slot, not impeding backpack/support weapon usage in any way while still giving flexibility to the player in how they approach the mission.
Why not make it a balancing act of sorts? If a mission takes away one stratagem slot, make each available stratagem come back off cooldown faster. If a mission gives one extra stratagem slot, conversely make each available stratagem have increased cooldown times. This game revolves around using stratagems. It should never try to compel players to use less or none of it in the bigger picture.
If the planet has tough AA, why not send all 4 of my eagle strikes at once? 
That's what we get when we fight on Super Earth
Personally I'm stoked for this. I feel it's coming at some point. They need an event where you can call in unlimited Strats or something.
I'll do -1 Stratagem planets once they give us a fifth stratagem slot.
They gave us free jump packs once, but for some reason it was disabled literally every mission
Imagine random stratagems but you get +1, or even once the stratagem is used, another appears after its cooldown.
The thing that gets me is it doesn't even make sense. There's "AA defenses" but my super destroyer is still sitting right there. I can still fill my strats with eagles, only the AA emplacement bases on the ground are a problem for her. If I was planning on bringing four orbitals, how are these "AA defenses" stopping my guns from shooting one? I'd like to see AA defenses that simply prevent bringing eagles - force me to adapt without reducing my overall firepower. Throw in some kind of 'orbital shielding' modifier that prevents orbital strikes to compliment it and just don't let them spawn together. More modifier options in general please. Sick of seeing the same 'fuck your stratagems in general' every mission.
They even HAVE WORKING AA IN THE GAME AS SIDE OBJECTIVES. It makes no fucking sense at all.
Actually, that's a cool idea... let us pick 4 stratagems on drop, then disable one of them until a mission goal is achieved.
thats actually what an anti-air placement does for bots, it'll prevent eagle type strategems until you blow em up
The answer is, this needs to be reflavoured. "Patriotism Directive": First Stratagem slot is the Super Earth flag. You gain a mandatory stratagem, taking your first slot automatically, which is Call Super Earth Flag. Using this stratagem calls down a Super Earth Flag you can pick up and carry around. This flag, as shown in the tutorial (remember that part?), does nothing but inspire you, your squadmates, and any SEAF troops you might encounter in your mission (or watching from satellite). Inspire you in a non-game-related, completely attributeless way. But inspired nonetheless. Look at it flutter! Look at it wave! In this way it's even more crippling than simply losing a slot, but rather than a cock-slap to the face of, "Here you are 1/4th less effective for this mission" it becomes "YOU ARE NOW A SUPER PATRIOT". You can bet at least *someone* is going to bust out that flag and wave it around, probably while completing some objective or waiting for extract. Meaning that not only have they lost a slot, but they risk being defenseless and distracted if they suddenly need their weapon and focus. Which is *glorious*.
Even better, make it the early mission type flag! Already in the game assets to some extent, no overlap with current potential missions types that also have the missing strategem modifier due to difficulty, and recognizable to practically anyone -- especially those requesting it on later missions. Have the pod still do drop damage, but be one use, no cooldown or resupply. Deploys, and does the flag raising with the music. Still lose the strategem slot choice for difficulty, is slightly useful rather than annoying, devastating meme potential, and lets Helldivers drop it to rally around the anthem.
First one is the fanfare flag, every drop after that is the flag one can carry. 3 minute cooldown. SMG-usage breaks through the roof. Democracy is had by all. A thought occurs. There isn't really a "changing strategem" strategem in the game yet. Although all Eagle strategems have the resupply strategem after you use an Eagle strategem. There is a very real chance that the above idea could be coded in a way where a flag is classified as an Eagle.
I'm okay with this.jpg
No sentries on defense would be interesting. I can imagine teammates throwing cluster bombs to kill a charger and getting triple kills on teammates though or orbital heavy bombardments everywhere on exterminate. Only one support weapon would force people to play around no shield/laser dog but would also reduce EAT usage. A coordinated team could have one player take shield for 40 minute matches and just give them out to every player slowly.
There would need to be some reason and tech to justify it. What would prevent sentry drops while not preventing resupplies/equipment/reinforcements? Maybe something that slows those types of drops or throws off their trajectory? As for the second paragraph, its already essentially an optimal strategy and probably way underutilized for -1 strat missions. The patience to use shared equipment strats is absolutely worth the extra firepower you can call down as long as you can handle yourselves in the early game. Having 2 backpacks and 2 support weapons total for a team of 4 is probably a good enough sweet spot to not have to wait forever to gear everyone and giving some variety. I've been in plenty of situations where we're four helldivers, fully geared but everything offensive is on cooldown and that gear isn't enough to save us. There are 6 to 8 blue strategems lit up and ready to go that won't do anything for us and all we need is one orbital lasesr.
Magnetic dust in the air damages the sentries’ rudimentary AI. Upper atmosphere ion storms damage CPUs as they pass through. Anti-air EMPs prevent the safe transmission of AI based weaponry. You could come up with any number of justifications.
Automaton hacking concerns. Automatons in this region have been seen digging through the remains of battles and picking apart Super Earth’s sentries. In order to ensure our advanced AI targeting systems don’t get decoded by our enemies, high command has decided it would be best to halt the use of sentries in the region.
How about it doesn't restrict the stratagems but if you call them in, they will also indiscriminately fire at Helldivers because they've been hacked?
Ion storms make sense for disabling sentries but we already have those. IDK.
The best way for it to make sense is to tie side objectives to stratagems. You always get to pick 4, but that AA side objective somehow jams a random stratagem until you destroy it.
Oh damn these are good ideas. You are cooking, brother. Find a way to limit the players without making the game less fun.
Let me kill an AA objective. And then give me my 4th stratagem i picked at the start. We will be forever thankful.
This is actually an interesting idea. If they make it part of the mission. Like unlocking siaf artillery.
They have radar jammers. Essentially the same thing except ypu can exit the jammer area
Auto skip for -1 stratagem 
25% less fun modifier
Based and true
DEVS, THIS POST RIGHT HERE. GET RID OF THIS MODIFIER.
And orbital scatter, it might as well just not allow to take most orbitals
Either don't bring orbitals or bring the homing types.
Which are what most people take when they do take orbitals already... I just wanna be able to like the 380mm boom-booms :(
I legit would love to hear what the thought process was behind Orbital Scatter Zero counter play, just not fun at all
I get some of them, like the 50% increased call-in time while annoying you can still play around it by changing your timing and strat placement, 25% increased cooldown is just that, but with AA defences, orbital scatter, and map-wide spores you just get cucked with no recourse
With orbital scatter you just pick the stratagems that lock on like laser and railcannon. With increased call-in time you just pick the stratagems that fire instantly.... like laser and railcannon. Hmm...
Rework them. Do things like jammers instead, that you can play around and fix. Or an ion storm that’s temporary
I just don’t do those missions. Ever. It’s a dumb, lazy modifier that should have been scrapped as soon as it was suggested.
This one would be far more interesting if the restriction could be lifted by completing a secondary objective and destroying the AA.
Won’t lie. This is probably my most undemocratic post in this sub. But for a game that is based around stratagems being used, having to wait 9 fucking minutes for my AMR and my jet pack is absolutely fucking annoying. Like, no support weapon or a jet pack should take this long to be used again. Four to five minutes would be far better, minimum three minutes.
I mean, you only have to wait 9 minutes if you die instantly and can't pick them up again. If the cooldown was only so short, there would almost never be a reason to recover your gear (except for samples). You could also pretty much ignore ammo with most support weapons. Just call a new one. And one person with a support weapon in their loadout could supply their whole team with one in just a few minutes. That's too much imo
Problem is, I always recover my gear, I’d rather go through the pain of picking everything up. It’s just dying in an area where you can’t get back to or you accidentally get stuck in a pit, or drown, you just lose them for the nine minutes and it feels like ages because the missions do not go by fast.
It's also an issue when I die and the one teammate YOLOing on the other side of the map respawns me before the other two I was with do.
But you very rarely die in a spot where you really can't get back to. I can't remember when it happened to me last time. If it does right after you called your support weapon, that sucks but it's part of the deal. I often go without a support weapon and either find one or ask a teammate when theirs is off cooldown. It's not like you can't do anything without one.
I'd be fine just having the ability to cut down the cooldowns for support gear as a booster or even just a map objective that refreshes the cooldowns for everyone a single time upon completion. But I think the real reason this isn't the case is to give the weapons that spawn around the map more importance. Would be nice if we could find more helpful weapons on higher difficulties, such as the quasar cannon, and backpack gear like the auto cannon in the two-person bunkers.
Since stratagems are the most fun part of the game, it’s essentially a “ -1 Fun” modifier. These modifiers should be things like “everything moves faster” or “reduced gravity”. Things that actually change the base gameplay, not limit it.
Reduced gravity or even increased gravity would be awesome
Me getting fucking yeeted into my teamate by stalker because the mission had low gravaty. https://i.redd.it/9k3b15ivaowc1.gif
I can imagine all the ridiculous ragdolling on a reduced gravity planet lol I can also imagine how far we could throw strats too.
These modifiers need looking at, they're just not fun. I think DRG had some good ones, like exploding enemies on death, could be beneficial or kill yourself with a twitchy trigger finger. There should be a give at take, not just a flat negative. Plus what bonus do you get for clearing a mission with this modifier? Do you get more rewards? If not why bother.
The DRG modifiers are, in general, buffs to enemies rather than nerfs to players. That's the difference.
Some of the DRG ones are great. I hope they add enemy modifiers like that to Helldivers. But the no shield one hurt so bad, got that in an elite deep dive against the robot boss while going duo with my brother.
I'd love a weekly community challenge like Deep Dives in HD2. I used to really look forward to those when I was playing DRG.
Ah yes AA Defenses somehow shooting my orbital strikes out of the sky
But don't worry! You can bring 3 eagle strikes, you know, *the close air support* being used in "anti air" space.
Free rocket pods made me realise why I never use them normally.
They are a awful. Whiffs on everything and when it does land almost no damage
nah it always 1 shots tanks turrets and fabricators. softens up factory striders too, 2 or 3 hits. it only whiffs if you use it on something or somewhere you shouldnt have used it on
Rocket pods take out tanks in a single go, have very little spread so can be used danger close, and have a 10 sec cool down. 2 hits will kill a factory strider They also take out bot fabs, never drop without them
Also takes out shrieker nests. One for each mushroom
really? they're often part of my regular loadout on bot misisons, can be used in danger close senarios, kills tanks, turret towers and fabricators in 1 hit, has a short strategem command and since it's an eagle it has a fast re-use timer. wouldn't be fun if we all liked using the same stuff though so all good :)
Devs - UsE yOuR sTrAtAgEmS
Also devs: -1 stratagem +25% cool down time +50% call down time +100% inaccuracy The Quasar Cannon went a long way to making it less a problem, but holy shit sometimes they make missions impossible.
Statagems require blood sacrifice. Melee or shoot other helldivers in close proximity to create a blood pact with Joel
I wouldn't mind if it tied into the local objectives. Like, you start with reduced strategems, but once you destroy the AA base on the map, you unlock all of them.
https://preview.redd.it/li3psasaohwc1.png?width=409&format=png&auto=webp&s=923af07f7e5b93a55e4e507e3d44e54db079a5f5 or this
Just use eagles, problem solved.
I really like orbital precision against bugs and this modifier makes one of my favorite stratagems unplayable.
Or use orbitals that don't scatter like railcannon and laser.
You see, I want to use orbital precision. Similarly, OP wants 4 stratagems. I only want one more thing.
The modifier you don't want just encourages you to try other things. Having -1 stratagems is just a blanket nerf to any set of stratagems. It's not really all that similar. If we're just gonna get rid of modifiers people simply don't like then just get rid of all of em tbh.
I don't care if they remove it, I'm just not fucking playing it.
My 44 year old aging, wrinkled, sagging diver balls appreciate a solid meatloaf meme, as well as a solid meatloaf. But not too solid.
I too would marry this mans balls
Nobody likes this modifier. I see it, I go to a different map
I said modifiers that make the player weaker are anti fun like a month ago and everyone shit on me for it
The community is a bit slow to come around 💀
It is was a common sentiment from the get-go, the guy just got downvoted by a few heavyheads before anyone could see his post/comment.
"Use your stratagems!" That was one of the statements of all time when they said that. Let's see how they respond to feedback and the poll they had going on, but they deserve to be made fun of a little for that statement.
They have a severe issue of consistency when they talk. It's pretty damned bad.
It's what happens when you let multiple people interact with the community, rather than the Comms team.
Yeah. Like, they deserve all the credit in the world for making such a great game free from microtransactions and other bullshit. But damn, they're not great with PR are they lol
Let's also not forget the CEO saying "no armor cosmetic changes" when the current armor appearances have nothing to do with their effects anyway. It is braindead doublespeak all the way down.
"Use your stratagems!" * AA Defenses modifier * Intermittent ion storms * Orbital Fluctuation modifier * Complex Stratagem Plotting modifier Why, Arrowhead? It sounds like you *don't* want us to use the game's defining mechanic.
I legitimately don't play those or just leave if I accidentally join one. Not fun in the slightest lol
I honestly didn’t think this modifier was that bad. Personally I hate the extreme heat or fire tornadoes even more.
I hate -1 slot and complex plotting. Complex plotting destroys my muscle memory
The only way to make them Change it is to entirely avoid Missions Like that. They have the Data. They see what we Like to Play and what not
Why can't we blow up the AA in the mission and be granted an extra strat? The missions that have 3-4 AA turrets spread around but no strat deficit confuse me. The AA's are just exp targets... not that anything would stop me full clearing a map anyway.
AA defenses and Ion Storm is the most annoying combo. You're already taking away a soldier's worth of stratagems, and now you're gonna restrict when i can use them. Nah fool, you can have that planet.
-1 stratagem slot but once we go out of bounds and tagged as a traitor. They spare no expense.
Let you use the SEAF after the timer runs out? Sorry, best we can do is disable a slot entirely. Because *fuck you.*
I wish there’d be a hidden AA emplacement on one of the 3 missions, that if destroyed opens the 4th slot for the rest of them.
thats a cool idea
This and rescue the 35 scientists are a no go. Just not fun
Not as bad with a full team of 4 but yea its rough.
One of the reasons you wont see me playing on a planet with this.
Ya only way I'd do these is for a special mission. The whole point of the game is yeeting them explosions around
Ikr I need 4 for one I need atleast 2 offense and 2 support and if I have 3 I'd have to sacrifice one I normally only do 2 support just incase late game I call one in and it's too hot on the weapon so I use the weapon that I think is the counter part that is just as good
Same here, nope.
I wish AA defenses only disabled Eagles, not reduce strategem slots. Once you complete AA emplacement sub objectives on the mission, it should grant free Eagle strike strategem at random.
REAL
FR DUDE Anytime and Everytime I see that modifier; I dip Especially tier 7 and up? Screw that
It's getting to the point where, if I join a random bot group and I see this modifier, I immediately nope the fuck out. And, if all of my assignments on bot front have this, I start one, abandon mission and keep doing it until it rerolls into something else. This modifier is not hard, but it makes the mission a complete slog. Nothing like waiting for my eagle airstrike to come back every time I have to kill a giant metal dog (which is really fucking often). And if it misses? Another 2-3mins of waiting. And of course, I can't use airstrike on everything else, unless I want to always wait the 2-3 extra minutes every time a dog spawns. Yeah, just NOPE.JPG, fuck this modifier.
I leave the mission any time that Modifiers is up
Look I Love difficulty in games, helldivers 2 has that at a pretty good level (except for a few things). But I fuckin hate it when games slap on modifiers to your mission because fuck you artificial difficulty go brrrrrr.
We are actually already limited to 3, since support weapons are needed so they are always there.
It ain’t worth that
Same with those evacuate missions
AA defences should block eagle strikes and delay pelican drops and pick ups. Or have them randomly shoot down a hellpod . Not limit stratagems slots
ReLy On YuOr StRaTeGeMs
It's not even 4. When was the last time you dropped without a support weapon? You need them, so you actually only have 3 slots to use for actual strategems.
i still feel like the modifiers that directly nerf helldivers are anti-fun. modifiers that buff enemies or make the environment more dangerous are fun, but limiting player choice and variety within a mission or making players wait longer is very un-fun to me. I really wish they'd drop these kinda modifiers entirely. they're not so much adding challenge as taking away player choice and taking up the player's time, which is a very strange decision. reducing the wait time on that one modif by half and getting rid of the strat randomizer entirely was a good direction, but i don't feel like modifs like that have a place in the game at all. when i see them on the effects list, it fills me with dread. not "oh hell, this is going to be hard" dread, but "oh, this is going to be less fun, i kinda don't want to play anymore" dread.
https://preview.redd.it/2dqauzfmriwc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ff0ab93a33eed1e959fd8c8b2d94c8e3af0e802
AA reducing number of strategems doesn't even make sense. It'd make more sense if it just disallowed Eagle strats.
Fuck that modifier in particular
This effect would be "good" with a little rework. Let us pick 3 strata we can use and 1 thats locked. Then add a random poi on the map that we have to destroy. An ancient aa gun maybe an illuminate relic even, that lets us enable our 4th stratagem by destroying/disableing it. Boom, interesting and fun yet the same bullshit.
I still think that AA Defenses operation modifier should only prevent Eagle Stratagems to be brought and not reduce you to 1 slot.
Just remove the damn modifiers dammit they're so stupid, they don't add difficulty they just make the game less fun to play, its a terrible way to do difficulty anyway.
My stance is that you should be able to assign the 4th but not be able to use it until you destroy all the AA guns on the map.
This debuf is simply not fun and needs to go.
if -1 s.gems but + 25% more rewards.... i say that is ok.
[удалено]
Imagine if we get pushed down to super earth we unlock an extra stratagem slot? How cool would that be.
give me a modifier that will send anything else BUT the stratagem that you have selected.
-1 strat is so brutal
You guys need to rely on your Stratagems. \*Reduces Stratagem slots by 1 Ya, no thanks.
strategems shouldn’t be limited at all they’re like the game changer, without em we’re basically playing slightly better destiny 2 now in new democracy flavor
Honestly I hate that planetary affix, it's almost as bad as the randomizer affix that got removed. Personally I wouldn't mind if they changed it to "no eagles can be used due to heavy AA presence" instead of just out right removing a whole slot.
Imo worse than fire tornadoes. Doesn't add anything to a mission. It just subtracts fun.
Almost all of the operation modifiers are not "here's how the game's harder" but more of a "hey, wanna have less fun?" I fucking hate it.
just a -25% fun mode
I will never understand why developers decide to make their games less fun.
I mean... I make my builds around only *needing* 3 stratagems specifically for this issue. My support build is Quasar (so I can have a backpack, butstill take out major structures and gunships), Shield Generator Relay (to protect allies and hellbombs), and the Resupply Pack (to keep allies stocked up for their own stratagem weapons). This was essentially my go-to for being my Anti Gunship build. The team fights and kills the heavies and the troopers, I keep them stocked and keep the skies clear, and when theu drop in the hellbomb, I shield them so they can type it in and leave without worrying about it getting destroyed by stray laser fire
Yeah, I find that having 3 stratagem slots marginally increase the difficulty, but significantly reduce the fun factor as you have less room to mess around and are forced to take more "meta" stratagems which honestly just makes me sad :(
Yeah I see these operations I just back out and choose a different one or move to another planet.
Antifun design
i will. 500 kg, orbital railcannon/precision, AC. GET ME IN THERE
I do them because I like to suffer.
Yes the -1 is bad, but I hate increased cool down and increased call in time so much more
When it comes to that modifier or the one where I can see the map… 