Helldivers 2 - SMG-32 Reprimand vs Terminids

[@chazdean201]

Ran it last night, good damage but the reload time is slow

[@cusman]

Yup, takes time to reload which is part of the weapons balance, so plan accordingly.

[@T4nkcommander]

Kinda reminds me of the Ninja. Poor terminids are just a shooting gallery now. I noticed a Bile Titan on another of your videos went down to less than a quarter clip from the Autocannon sentry, when before it would take nearly a full ammo box to take out just one. Looks like the rule roughly applies across the board - enemies are a quarter strength or less than they used to be :/

[@francesco3772]

Good, now they can be more numerous instead of more spongy.

[@cusman]

@@francesco3772 From when the game launched to now, they only get more numerous if you fail to suppress the Bot Drops or Bug Holes OR the game starts spawning too many patrols all around you and then you get multiple alarms (Bot Drops / Bug Holes). The hardest objectives that remain in the game are ones that continuously cause alarms (like Raise Super Earth Flag) even if you suppress chaff units that raise alarms where you have to hold your ground for extended period of time. When units like Bile Titan or Factory Strider take longer to take out and this keeps your focus off suppressing the other chaff enemies, they can keep raising more alarms and then your Support Weapons, Sentries, Eagle Strikes and Orbital Strikes can be depleted waiting on cooldowns and make things much harder. That's when the advantage shifts from Helldivers to enemies of Super Earth, but you can get out of it by retreating and coming back, except objectives where you have to hold ground or lose progress (which is really only Raise Super Earth Flag at this point). Balancing a game like Helldivers 2 trying to keep it fun while being challenging without being either frustrating or boring is very difficult thing to get right for broad spectrum of players even with players having the choice of playing between 10 different difficulty levels because some players who aren't in good enough teams or have good enough skills to handle the game on higher difficulties still want to play on those and then expect it to be made easier for them rather than play on lower difficulties. As I understand, the issue T4nkcommander has had with the rebalancing attempts is that while Arrowhead Game Studios has made the higher difficulties easier for broader player base (my regular squad now regularly play 9 instead of 7 for Terminids, but still mostly 7 for Automatons), they have also made those highest difficulties not challenging enough for them that had invested in the skills and team coordination to be able to play those fine without needing any nerfs. Over the course that Helldivers 2 has been out, they have reduced many cooldowns, increased clips sizes / restocks, increased damage of various stratagems and weapons, improved defensive backpacks, taken away harsher planetary effects and fixed some defects that make taking out Bile Titans more reliable and Chargers just easier and the Impalers have never really bothered me but I know many other people felt they were too frustrating so they have received some nerfs. The Automatons have received nerfs related to some of their units as well but their new units that show up in higher difficulty and added more challenge haven't been nerfed in the way Impaler got neutered. At the same time Helldivers have also received a nerf in how we take more damage so we now feel Vitality Enhancement booster is more essential and enemies do have more health but the buff in how much damage we do is higher so the rebalancing overwhelmingly favors the Helldivers. I think one of the main ways they have made game easier for both Terminids & Automatons is how much easier it is now to destroy Bug Holes and Fabricators. You have more options which allows for more diverse loadouts and more loadouts to be viable, so I don't really have a disagreement with the choices Arrowhead Game Studios has been making but that doesn't mean I don't understand the disappointment that players like T4nkcommander feel. I think there is room in the discourse for both "this is too weak" and "this is too strong" so I don't like to discourage either but I leave it up to Arrowhead Game Studios as the game designers to evaluate and decide whether to make changes. If / when they do, I adapt because while I don't like unnecessary changes, I am not opposed to Arrowhead trying to address feedback in ways that make sense to them and I don't view it as a one-way street either. If nerfing weapons is unpopular, then they have to introduce new challenges in other ways like how Raise Super Earth Flag went from being easiest objective not even available in higher difficulties to one of the hardest ones.

[@T4nkcommander]

@@francesco3772 Cusman gave you a good reply, but the engine is already at the limit for enemy numbers as is. AH already increased chaff months ago to address complaints, which tanked performance and ended up making everyone mad. The people that thought they wanted it didn't like the hunter mob spam (hence them now having a group cool down on pounce, just stupid) and people like me didn't like it because elites were more fun to fight than the mob spam. Now "elites" are just mob spam. Adding numbers just puts it back to square one, but makes it more frustrating for everyone. Also that doesn't work for the squids, who mess with the player directly. But if the modern player was having trouble with rocket devastators, it is likely the squids mind control will be so weak as to be worthless.

[@austinblair1379]

Because Liberty is working

[@cusman]

Looks like Arrowhead Game Studios figured out the Raise Super Earth flag missions had become a significant difficulty spike, so the newest hot fix patch is reducing enemy spawn rate for those. They have the data and they are paying attention. I had instinct this would happen sooner or later, so I enjoyed while I could. (to be clear, I’ll still enjoy after the change)