Patrols are Getting Fixed "Soon" in Helldivers 2

Patrol Spawns are Getting Fixed "Soon" in Helldivers 2
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[@midend]

Maybe they can come up with a level "10" difficulty called "Alexus" where his balance philosophy is implemented fully then we can see for ourselves how bad he is at balancing

[@Jabokrazy]

All weapons do 10 dmg, you get 1 strategem, every enemy you kill spawns 5 more. The only mission type is rescuing citizens with a minimum extract number of 200.

[@DaytonaRoadster]

​@@Jabokrazyand it gives no rewards

[@Pr0m3th310us]

I'd rather see of of Alexus skills lead him straight to the unemployment line

[@zbyszanna]

There were three more difficulty levels beyond helldive in the first game.

[@rsiv5156]

Ha! Great idea. I’d actually love to try that 😅

[@alexthehopeless3778]

"i'm beginning to enjoy it" dough is becoming masochistic 😭

[@MrSolidsnake293]

What part of arrowhead making all rocks and slopes slippery is ok?

[@eclements99]

@@MrSolidsnake293yeah that’s lame af but I guess it’s to stop us from hiding on rocks the whole game but they should make it easier for bugs to climb up cliffs and rocks so then we can hide on them

[@pondracek]

They should just make a 'pheromone' booster that buffs spawn rates to the current levels.

[@NthnLikeCodeine]

I agree, it’s fucking insane that these bots can hit dead accurate over 300+ yards and half of them have full auto laser canons.

[@mawnkey]

What you mean you don't enjoy the "THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP!" of a heavy devastator at 100m putting seven shots in a row through your moving 10 spot to take you from full to zero health?

[@pandapoker]

Robots should be deadly accurate.

[@hawk9mm]

How about them completely ignoring visual impairment? The level fog that the players can't see past 100 yards but bots continue to fire and track your when you're on the otherside of the map!

[@Andyisgodcky]

@@pandapoker I bold take, if not an true one.

[@pandapoker]

@@hawk9mm yeah, but that has nothing to do with their accuracy tho. I also get pissed when they shoot through walls or across the map even if break the line of site for 10+ seconds with them. It makes no sense. But it also doesn't make sense that literal robots are not accurate. They should be as they are if not more.

[@Lilitha11]

The annoying thing is when you wipe out a patrol then turn around and there is another patrol already standing there, in literally the spot you just walked through 30 seconds ago. They did fix the issue where patrols would literally spawn on top of you, but they still come out of no where, fairly close to where you are.

[@mawnkey]

Once you clear primary the patrols are so thick you practically trip over a new patrol trying to deal with a previous patrol no matter how fast you destroy them. _Super_ frustrating if you have a group that brought only anti-armor load outs.

[@corykeena3055]

@@mawnkey I have a screenshot of three simultaneous patrols headed the same direction on the mini map, with a fourth right behind it. That's when I decided I wasn't playing the game until this issue got fixed.

[@mawnkey]

@@corykeena3055 I still play, I just need them to add a Lube strategem for use during extraction.

[@IRMentat]

patrols spawn off-camera so EVERY patrol spawn that happens is automatically flanking you and generally within sight/audio radius of your character/squad. i wish that patrols PATROLLED rather than popped into existence on top of players then instantly called in a breach/drop.

[@lupvirga]

they now spawn ontop of you but now outside player's view. i literally saw a spawn of a patrol in less then 30 meters. i only saw it cause i cressed a hill RIGHT as they spawned. they're bad.

[@gameplayer42069]

The Heavy Devastator really is "Him", I swear bro will hit 80% of his shots from 70m away

[@shemsuhor8763]

They're vicious.

[@torgue5364]

I'd rather face hulks or camels than heavy devastators

[@milksteak34]

Their targeting is broken too, they can full auto you at 90 degree angles when they're facing away lmao

[@skaflow4436]

"90º angle from my gun? no problem. A rock? What rock lul? - Heavy Devastator probably

[@alonfire1337]

Imagine you are the Ceo of Arrowhead, you get all of the huge problems with the game somehow dealt with and calm down the community. Then you realise after looking into the internal logs after three months, that most of the complains of the playerbase and problems are caused by them same person.

[@hawk9mm]

Same few people, the CMs being incredibly toxic and hatful to your paying customers who just want a fun game and the balance devs themselves, yeah, I wouldn't mind being a fly on his wall when he figured that out. Now I think we all want to see actions rather than words, fire these folks, full stop, get proper new blood in that will listen and apply what the players would like while still retaining the game's identity.

[@QuestioningLogic]

It’s not just the increased patrols that bug me, it’s several things over several patches that really irritate me. 1. Enemy accuracy 2. Enemy detection range increased 3. Enemy spawns increasing as you clear objectives If they change it so spawns were heavy at the beginning of a mission & tapered off as you destroyed fabricators/bug holes along with nerfing accuracy & detection range things could be more enjoyable but that’s just an idea and I could be wrong. Also, why don’t radar stations increase our detection range of enemies on our mini maps? Again just a thought, prolly a dumb one since I’m not a game dev lol

[@what_is_that1922]

I agree. There is zero point to destroy fabricators/bug holes as they reward so little and they just increase spawn rate.

[@KapiComm]

Hello, i am CEO of the balance team We got you, next patch we will nerf all meta weapons!

[@RDehuvyne]

I actually assumed that as you destroyed bases and fabricators patrols would decrease when I first started playing. It just made sense that way instead of the way things are.

[@doglog5748]

“It’s not perfect, so it sucks.”

[@kaleidoscope3234]

@@what_is_that1922 "There is zero point to destroy fabricators/bug holes as they reward so little and they just increase spawn rate" funny how the people who says this are always the same people who complain about spawn rate. The reason me and my friends stopped taking out bot fab because we would always end up with boring empty extract, and the same thing happen when we play with randos too.

[@godless1014]

Players: We don't like [insert bullshit] Arrowhead: We agree. Players: So you're gonna fix it . . . Right? Arrowhead:

[@Gemma_626]

This!!!!!

[@dozer1431]

Exactly. I love that the CEO is agreeing with a lot of the community's gripes, but we need actual change, not just a yes man agreeing with everything.

[@joesmith9270]

This is a change they made deliberately, it was in the patch notes. Now they have "noticed" that patrol spawns are not working as "intended"

[@IRMentat]

testing has found their patch didn't boost solo-spawns form 50% from 1/6 to 1/4 it's not it's "4/4" spawn rate across the board solo/duo/trio players are getting the same numbers of enemies that full groups are getting, and while that's broadly trivial for a full-stack solo you don't even get time to reload if it required crouching.

[@BigDBrian]

@@IRMentat it did boost the rate by 50%. that number is not wrong. The 1/6 to 1/4 thing was wrong though, as you said. The single-player rate used to be 2/3 the rate of 4 player, now it matches. This is based on the numbers from the video that called out this issue, from one of the patrol testing guys.

[@Vuntermonkey]

I can't wait until HD2 gets out of beta.

[@napowolf]

The game launched complete then went into beta phase.

[@NthnLikeCodeine]

@@napowolf soon enough they’ll have us coding for them

[@Sam_827e]

they are un-developing instead of developing 😭

[@hawk9mm]

I've been saying that from the very beginning, especially after the railgun nerf patch, this was very clearly a very unfinished product, only 2 factions, balance team didn't know where they wanted the game to go. The only thing that they really had completed mostly was the combat but then that they started to mess with, again proving that this was an unfinished beta product being sold at full price after being developed for 7+ years. That always drove me up the wall, after 7 years of developing your game, how the hell do you not know what direction you want your creation to go?! Now I realize that the game was most defiantly being sabotaged from the inside by bad actors and incompetence so maybe we'll see the game turn around and actually go proper Gold release rather than what we have no.

[@givenchymamajama3859]

@@hawk9mmfull price? 😂 it’s almost half the price of AAA games bro… what’re you on about?

[@Kazrel_VO]

I'm so ready for the Alexus rant.

[@Pawsizedcandybar]

I have been someone who has hated the people lobbying for someone to be fired (I.E Spitz and Baskinator) during the Sony fight, because they are jobs. But fucking hell, Alexus needs to go, he is the WORST BALANCE DEV I HAVE EVER SEEN IN ANY GAME!

[@UmbraWeiss]

I still think they will F up again and make things worse:) )

[@Pr0m3th310us]

​@@PawsizedcandybarI'm sorry but if people are incompetent failures at their jobs they need to be fired. If people don't want to loose their jobs then they better be doing actual work that leads to real success

[@Pawsizedcandybar]

@@Pr0m3th310us Spitz wasn’t even an incompetent failure, he was just kind of moronic. And he’s the one who got actually demoted. Who really needs to be fired is Alexus “Erm, every weapon in the new war bond is S tier”

[@Planterobeets]

Alexus: Tenderizer now deals 5 extra damage, but it has 5 fewer rounds per mag.

[@neziaojuara1768]

"Goodbye neighbor" was a good one. Would be a dream come true see people spam that on discord next time he shows up 🤣

[@krevetka9744]

Every PvE shooter game has one thing in common - incoming damage management. Either only 3-4 enemies at a time allowed to actually hit you or they miss 5 shots in a row if they haven't seen you for some time. I've seen many variations of this system, but the goal is always the same: make it impossible for the player to get insta-brutalized by mobs. In HD2 sometimes you survive for ages spamming dodge and sometimes you're one-shotted and ragdolled to death several times in a row. Another important thing in gaming is CONSISTENCY. If one has a key to a lock then the key unlocks the lock. In HD2 SOMETIMES you oneshot walkers by grenade pistol and SOMETIMES you don't. SOMETIMES you jump prone and land, but SOMETIMES you ragdoll because of a tiny rock. SOMETIMES you heal as you press the button and SOMETIMES not. SOMETIMES resupplying from your backpack works fine and SOMETIMES the character does the animation and nothing happens. We have insane amount of examples of that: 500KG, barrages, nades vs fabricators/nests, headshots etc. Right now I feel like doing pretty much any action in the game requires a dice roll.

[@shemsuhor8763]

Sometimes you shoot the AMR and a projectile simply doesn't come out of the rifle. Sometimes you reload but your gun doesn't actually reload, you just lose a magazine (this happens all the time still, despite them saying they fixed it last patch). Sometimes your gun shoots to the circle reticle, sometimes it shoots to its laser sight, sometimes it shoots to its crosshair center point, or near it. Can we just disable laser sights, by the way? They serve no purpose for the player. Maybe leave them on for allies as a "you can see where your ally is aiming" thing, but for your own character the laser sights add nothing but confusion.

[@krevetka9744]

@@shemsuhor8763 I could use a smaller circle as crosshair.

[@CheeseDanish85]

Spot on. For the challenge that this game WANTS to present, it's just too inconsistent. This produces way too many frustrating moments that feel out of our control. I soloed an entire lvl 4, not a single death... got most of the rares, then sprint to the extraction zone because timer ran out... dodging insane patrols... and get killed in a second from full health by a Scout Strider. Goodbye samples...

[@ShadowFox64]

@@shemsuhor8763 Hey now the laser sight on Pummeler makes it so you can actually aim in first person when you're using the ballistic shield.

[@mrROAR104]

@@krevetka9744 man, you really ought to pay attention to why things happen in the game and adjust accordingly. Just because you bring a grenade pistol doesn't mean it'll automatically hit the area needed to kill stuff. The diving thing is unfortunate when you're not paying attention to the area around and could be fixed to not be as punishing by needing to fall a certain distance off something after sliding from landing a dive. The resupplying from the backpack doesn't go off sometimes but it's entirely consistent and predictable when it won't work. Don't have your character do a climbing animation or a quick turn during it as it cancels (until if/when they fix it). Dropping 500s on things is quite consistent. Not the widest AoE as the explosion goes vertically. Can stun hulks/chargers to make it easier too if need be. Nades vs fabricators and nests work fairly consistent as well. If it's impact things, aim for the back of bugholes. If it's fabricators you have to have enough height to hit the required angle (can't be too far below it) as impact explosions don't go down far enough otherwise. It really just seems like you don't pay attention to shit to me. Use your eyes. Ask questions and figure out how shit works. They definitely should fix/change some of these things to make improvements to the game, but until then you really ought to learn how to make it work the way you want to.

[@blitzhunts3433]

AKA the heavy devastators. why the fuck is no one talking about how rediculously accurate the heavy devastators are? thats what needs changed with the bots

[@givenchymamajama3859]

They have ai targeting systems.. take cover helldiver!

[@BigDBrian]

their bullets can literally turn 90 degrees instantly right after leaving the gun's barrel, it's crazy.

[@thebluehat6814]

they didn't put a cap on the angle at which the projectile can leave the spawnpoint, meaning that you can quite literally get shot at while their gun is perfectly perpendicular to you

[@K-tw4wb]

Horrible change in the first place. Lets just change something that literally no one asked for and make it horrible

[@black_ghost1215]

They only up the spawn do to people completing 8-9 then a video of stealth armor droped saying it *OP* so they made patrols home in on your location even with stealth build.

[@isaaccallaghan4585]

10/10 Yap sesh brother. Asshat the Destroyer of Balance needs to be put in the bin. Hes a stain on an otherwise amazing game.

[@Luke42652]

I was playing the crap out of this game until the patrol change. I felt like before the difficulty gradually eased you into the game, so anyone who was new could just start playing and find their natural difficulty that they were comfortable with. And that was great. But since the "patrol change" (which IMO I think it was more than that), the game just felt genuinely unfun. So I stopped playing for a couple weeks. Then my wife wanted to start playing, so we started her off at a level 1 cadet. -- Starting off at level 1, working our way up to level 5 was a vastly different and frankly unenjoyable experience than what I had. On bots it was playable on level 4, but we had a tank spawn and I don't think these are supposed to show up until later. I could be wrong. Last night we played a level 5 eradicate mission, and the spawn rate was so insane that we just had so many hulks that they'd just 1 shot you the moment you were reinforced. It legit felt more difficult than a level 7. And I've completed eradicate on level 5 solo before they changed things. It was challenging, but I could do it. The way it used to work before as I've said as it would ease people into the game. Meaning that as you went up a difficulty, you'd face new enemies, but at a low cadence so you could learn how to fight them. Since the change, you end up fighting several simultaneously, and as a new player you just have no idea what to do. It's just terrible now. The reason why this is important to me is because my wife has struggled with shooters before, and this is the first game where she feels she can build up that skill at a slow pace. With the change they just ruined it for us. Part of the attraction of the game is it isn't (or wasn't supposed to be) a hard core competitive PvP shooter. There is a wide spectrum of difficulty to choose from and settle into. I agree that the Alexus guy on the balancing team needs to be knocked down a peg or two. So glad they are reverting this. This isn't just a solo hell dive thing. What they did was make the game much harder and unapproachable for new players. For now we're going to put the game down until they revert this.

[@Pr0m3th310us]

No no Alexus needs to be fired, people like him never learn anything until they are completely removed from everything they loved. So longs as Alexus is still apart of the balancing process, and not standing in the unemployment line waiting for food stamps, we will never see any meaningful changes

[@Luke42652]

@@Pr0m3th310us If that's what it takes, that's what it takes. I just want it to be fun again. Sounds like the CEO is going to make sure of that one way or another.

[@IRMentat]

yup, my friend started to play just as the railgun nerf "minor patch" came out (that also happened to TRIPLE the enemy spawn-rate), i had a nice regular trivial-easy-medium-challenging run up the ladder, he had trivial->that-looks-rather-busy->how-do-io-kill-25-bugs-everyu-minute?->why-are-there-3-chargers-running-over-me? even with me covering him with a mostly-meta loadout (was lvl 22 at the time) it was like jumping into hard/suicidal mode in killing-floor on a map you don't know with an unlevelled perk. That was 2-3 enemy spawn-buffs ago. now i can't walk 100m without encountering 2 patrols and they have all but quit playing as it's a SLOG from 15 seconds in to the 43 minute mark.

[@irfkaptan]

Thank you! THIS❤

[@after_midnight9592]

True, I now only play bots on 4th level. It's enough of a challenge for some casual after work. Still get tanks, though, but at least there are no gunships, those are the worst.

[@SilverDrgn14]

While they are reverting patrols can they just go ahead and revert all of the weapon nerfs too. The patrol thing you want is simple. Add more difficulty levels instead of changing how the ones we have work.

[@redcenturion88]

I've been trumpeting this from the rooftops forever. Don't make my 7 feel like a 9 because someone got bored with 9. Makes no sense to have so many difficulties if none of them feel consistent from month to month.

[@NoxBruh]

Yeah for real. I used to be able to do 7’s sometimes solo, comfortably-ish with a buddy. Now we can’t even progress because they’re impossible now. They should have just made difficulties up to 12ish.

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

To be fair. Yeah. Every weapon nerf just wasn't needed

[@JaximusDecimus1]

They absolutely need to revert every weapon nerf. They've buffed a bunch of stuff, which is nice. Good job. But now those weapons that they nerfed seem even worse because of the other buffs. Take those weapons back to baseline, then just see what happens. If they still need tweaked, make tiny adjustments. Don't completely remove stagger from the Slugger. Don't completely remove shrapnel from the Eruptor. Don't make a mostly worthless gun completely worthless (looking at you, crossbow). It's not rocket science. If we had someone that didn't hate players doing the balancing we'd be in a better spot.

[@ldragodestroy4]

@@JaximusDecimus1 I mean let's be fair here. Some of the changes were warranted, even if most weren't. I agree on not removing stagger or shrapnel, but the eruptor as a primary should not 1-shot chargers. The railgun should not be massacring bile titans. They just went overboard with a lot of these changes, but some of the things like the Railgun at launch were legitimately broken and not working as intended. You could argue that's just a "bug fix", but people will consider it a nerf in the end. Now the railgun, if it got a small damage buff, would be a legit good support weapon, but people wouldn't use it much because they'd miss their old OP railgun. It's a thin line. Similarly I think quasar was too good compared to its competitors, but again, a 5 second nerf was too much. 2 seconds would've been enough. There's some genuinely stupid changes like the crossbow, but many of them are just a matter of them being too heavy handed with the numbers rather than the inherent idea of nerfing something being bad.

[@vinbdias]

I think it's so self indulgent when Alexus says that players are "finally catching up to our balance philosophies". Dude, GET OVER YOURSELF. You are a game designer, changing numbers in code for an entertainment product, A VERY GOOD ONE, but still. You are NOT CONFUCIUS, a wiseman, sitting on top of a mountain giving people willing to climb it some kind of wisdom. Sorry, I don't want to start any vitriol towards any worker, but I can't shake off how condescending that sounds.

[@Pr0m3th310us]

Oh no Alexus should be fired, after what Alexus did to Hello Neighbor2 he should never be allowed to work in the industry ever again

[@IRMentat]

if Alexus was a DnD DM he'd be the one that refuses to let the wizard cast magic without first showing the receipt for the components, the tank would not be allowed a magical shield, the ranger would have to actively manage their ammo storage at all times (even tough most DMs say "carry ~100 arrows and i'll presume some of the trash loot covers the running costs), the bards charisma would be capped at 16 (and no bardic knowledge) and EVERY divine-character player would be under constant threat of their deity expelling them from their religion at the start and end of every session. Only to say "you play by my rules or never get to play DnD in this town".

[@andremariaribeirodacunha3695]

I actually think he was being ironic with that statement. I just cant conceive of somebody actually saying that seriously. Anyway, he's gotta GO.

[@thebluehat6814]

Incompetent and uneducated people used to be fired for this.

[@fire_drake12.arc.24]

He needs to be fired and he deserves any and all vitriol. I dont fully understand what you are regarding to with "A VERY GOOD ONE" but if you are referring to him being a good developer; he is not. If you are referring to him helping develop a game with alot a potential; he is and is speedrunning ruining it because all he contributes is horse shit. I understand wanting to be nice, but please know sometimes insults and vitriol even if it is factual is very necessary in this situation against this specific person. Dont know much about the rest of the balance team, but Alexus and all of the Community Management people (Besides Twinbeard) deserve any and all hate and harsh criticism they get and should not have jobs at AH or be developing a game.

[@Royski212]

I was just talking with a friend yesterday about how the balance team feels like they're balancing the game as if the bots and bugs are the players lmao

[@mawnkey]

More testing is _absolutely_ part of what they've needed from day one. I cant count the number of times I've found myself saying "Did anyone even fucking test this?!" Apparently the answer has been "... wait you didn't want that job?"

[@puffer_frog]

So this is the average automaton match for me: >Squad gets spotted by patrol while doing objective >we fight patrol >patrol calls dropships >we fight off dropship >another patrol with 10000 devastators and hulks walks in from a random direction immediatelly and calls in dropships Usually the answer to that is to run tf away and stop fighting but its tough to communicate with bug players who are too used to standing their ground and fight, even with mic.

[@BackwardsPancake]

It's both a matter of patrols spawning in too fast, but also of weapons not being powerful enough to enable you to cut them down in time (Unless everyone is running the absolute most boring minmaxed stuff possible). Also compounded by bots requiring you to use cover and peek (and often flinching/ragdolling you when you do) which slows the flow of the game down even further.

[@richardcole2723]

Changing the treadmill recipe doesn't make the game more interesting. IDK how to engineer those kinds of challenges or mechanics but I do know when I see someone pulling the easy lever. Gotta take it back to the writing, gotta take it back to basics. Present a problem, it'll get solved. The treadmill is a problem, and 7 berserkers chasing me to the edge of the map is not interesting. Present a dilemma and it'll be much more compelling to respond to. Takes a lot more work for a tired team, hope they pull it off.

[@RadmanTheWise]

I haven't done a SEAF artillery for weeks now. It's actually not possible with how they walk AT you all the time. It would make sense if patrols had a route to actually patrol. No they just spawn and walk at you, and you have to run away from the encounter.

[@prabhav1788]

Thing is, it’s fun to stand your ground (or fall back a bit) and fight. I don’t wanna just run away and stealth half the stuff

[@yourtexthere1323]

Let the bot/bugdivers fight the automaton horde. Disengage and destroy the fabs on the map so the bots dont spawn in all direction. You can do it in 5 minutes.

[@droughty666]

What's worse is with the fun in just playing being largely sucked out (just look at the player numbers), the illusion of some sort of organized offensive falls apart with us just haphazardly diving in random areas. It would help if there was some sort of representation of human/enemy lines on planets, something like Planetside 2 did. We conduct missions in a sector and secure it and push them back and continue from there, hell it would even fit with difficulties, low lvl near the front lines and up to Helldive (or above) while balls deep in the enemy territory. Then every now and then a surprise mega breach in the heart of most vulnerable areas. Right now it's binary, either the whole planet is infested or somehow poof they're all gone, and then we're surprised when we have to defend the whole planet that just got pacified days ago.

[@dyroth]

Ugh god bless planetside 2, can’t say enough good things about the sheer SCALE of the massive war in that game

[@IRMentat]

planetside 1 did that way better but i get you. it would be nice if each planet was made of 8 sectors and we had to take it piece by piece rather than watch an arbitrary line/number go up then down, then defend, then defend again, then defend again, then go elsewhere, then it's auto-flipped to the enemy then attack, etc it feels less like a war more like an RNG DDR lining on a hamster-wheel

[@poshib]

The patrol issue to me is really just a symptom to the greater issue, which is the balancing. If more weapons were good at dealing with mobs of enemies, then it wouldn't matter that the patrol spawn was increased. Something that I think needs to be highlighted more than the patrol spawn is the patrol behavior. I REALLY don't like how patrols are always closing in on your exact location at all times. I can extend some grace when I'm in an area blowing stuff up, but if I'm just chillin in a ditch somewhere, there should not be a patrol walking directly towards me.

[@josephhein9497]

I honestly think what people (me) want is a semi-realistically based tactical shooter (risk/reward) that allows for some fantastical elements to take it over the top. What we're getting is a fantastical over-the-top horde shooter with a few semi-realistically based tactical elements (risk/punishment). If I clear an area and set-up a perimeter, that should be rewarded with a realistic result - enemies cannot instantly spawn and overwhelm our position. We should be able to anticipate them if we're watching for them. Random patrols should feel random and we should feel a sense of accomplishment in avoiding them or fighting them - and that reward shouldn't be a follow-up with another patrol right behind them. It should be a moment to breathe before carrying on. If I set up an ambush, I should not be instantly counter-ambushed by enemies that weren't there 5 seconds ago before we initiated the ambush. The game currently punishes you for any and every decision you make to try to beat it. And it does it in the most disrespectful and aggravating way possible, by breaking all the rules that you have to follow.

[@ItsAlpa]

Idk if it's just me but the game feels stale after the last couple of patches. There is nothing that is motivating me to play as of late. These nerfs that keep happening just made the game very repetitive and boring. I seriously hope in the next big balance update they revert many of the changes they did. Alexus and Sony are single handedly praying on this games downfall it's so sad to see

[@kaleidoscope3234]

it's called burned out. It doesn't matter whatever the game is fun or not, it happens when you play the same game for so long, and it happens sooner the easier the game gets. People are leaving the game because it is getting too easy, not because it's hard.

[@black_ghost1215]

@@kaleidoscope3234 that's a lotta cope there. People are leaving do to it being unfun, people are leaving because the challenge is not just hard it unwanted difficult. Keep lying to yourself with the "you just burned out' it the go to for people that cant handle others are not finding enjoyment in the game do to poor patches and horrible balancing.

[@ItsAlpa]

@@black_ghost1215 It has nothing to do with burning out. Rust came out 12 years ago and I still play it to this day. Same goes for DayZ. They are killing the fun in the game. Idk what that guy is talking about

[@hawk9mm]

​@@kaleidoscope3234 Yeah sorry but that game is no longer fun, even just doing 1 or 2 missions is too much for me now. Yet I've played other games that had worse combat and mechanics for years before "burnout" so your logic is beyond flawed, OR your disingenuous because your favorite corporation is under attack and you want to defend them. On top of that, the total player number on Steam is dropping dramatically, so can't just be burn out, customers are pissed and not having fun and are leaving by the 10,000s at a time so stop coping.

[@black_ghost1215]

@@ItsAlpa agreed

[@Takusman]

I don't care about the spawn, if the weapons work as they should.

[@Skeptic_Tank]

the rocket devastators sniping you with their rocket barrage from accross the map needs a nerf. And the hunters spamming their hits on your head non-stop from all angles needs a nerf. Also any big targets like hulks, chargers, bile titans need to make noise when walking near you because they just sneak up on players which should not be happening.

[@lordcola-3324]

I am curious how may people out there really think, A) helldive is too easy and need to be made harder B) making helldive harder is a priority over all the other problems the games has

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

Unfortunately there are for sure people out there who are like that. But regardless of whether they are correct or not. It is NOT even close to the top of the priority list

[@Bertoleyus]

I'm fine with Helldive. Extraction patrols and geological survey spawns are INSANE vs bots. Bugs are fine.

[@PRC533]

Helldive is over represented on twitch and youtube because the creators play games for a living and make content about the hardest difficulty as they would with any game. I think this leads to a situation where their voices drown out the vast majority of the playerbase. This happens in lots of games where the balance gets sucked into just balancing for the top few % rather than the majority.

[@LostThaumaturge]

What makes the balance feel off is the singular moments of frustration that accumulate over the course of a play session. - Getting grazed by rocket and subsequently rag dolled out of cover (or one shot due to the damage taken from impacting the ground) - Getting stuck in prone under a group of enemies or corpses - Getting headshot from 200m+ by a heavy devastator - Being slowed by a bile titan spew that is nowhere near you - Chargers sliding or waddling at high speeds after being stunned - Aim punch preventing you from being even remotely accurate for the next 3 seconds (especially relevant against heavy devastators which require precision shots to kill from most guns) - Animations breaking --> camera getting stuck under the map, supply backpack not restocking your inventory despite making the audio cue, the stim sound going off but the stim does not activate due to being animation cancelled, etc. All of these moments are instances where player agency is removed and are key reasons why people commonly rely on the shield generator pack. While it isn't perfect, it reduces the likelihood of being "cheese killed" seemingly at random. Implementing small QoL changes such as: reducing headshot dmg, reducing ragdoll duration/intensity, implementing a form of one-shot protection to prevent sudden deaths, never restricting standing up from prone, reducing aim punch to ~10% of its current strength would go a long ways towards normalizing the worst feeling parts of gameplay allowing players to predict what will happen to them when playing the game. This separation from what you expect/intend to happen and what actually happens is what drives frustration. While reducing the number of enemies by reducing patrol spawns would reduce this indirectly by reducing the number of possible moments where something can go wrong, it doesn't get at the heart of the issue IMO

[@orangejuice9396]

Lets not forget that they nerfed the shield gen backpack IMMEDIATELY, one of the first things to even get nerfed WHILE ARMOR WAS STILL BROKEN. Why? oh it must have been the high usage rate... except that people were using it because they were under the impression that armor was completely broken, it's clear to me that the balance team just wants a game where the players die randomly i honestly wouldn't be surprised if they made it so you can randomly get heart attacks and die.

[@BackwardsPancake]

0:32 It's not just the accuracy, but the volatility of it. A lot of automaton units have absolutely insane variance for what their attacks will do: They can miss constantly and be completely useless, land the occasional bodyshot and be mildly annoying, land evenly spaced bodyshots so you can't do anything in return due to constant flinch, or land multiple headshots in a row and delete you instantly. On top of that, they also have an abundance of units which can spam explosives and ragdoll you constantly. A lot of the worst offenders for this (Heavy/Rocket Devastators, Hulks) also require precision shots to counter efficiently, which creates a really messed up feedback loop - Their attacks disrupt your ability to shut them down, and the longer it takes for you to shut them down, the more attacks they will get to throw out. It's really no surprise at all that the shield pack is so popular (because it gives you an unconditional chance to avert this loop before it begins), and that impacts and stuns are the only grenades most people run against bots (because they're one of the few things that allow you to break this loop consistently). So the best way to address this might not be to tweak accuracy directly, but to completely rethink how flinch, knockdowns, and damage work in this game. For starters, I think the head damage zone just needs to not be a thing (count it as part of the body hitbox), and more stable stances (crouch, prone) should give resistance to flinch and knockback. Alternatively/additionally, heavier armor could mitigate flinch, and a weaker version of shield could be made basekit.

[@St.Sparta]

Thank you for putting my grievances with Automaton design into words.

[@user-ve3fz3bm7z]

headshots would be fine if it they were consistent to land. The constant movement of the head. either they sway left/right or ride the terrain up/down, pair that with bullet velocity, overlapping invisible armor hitbox and peer to peer hosting, bleh.

[@dyroth]

I really don’t understand what the point of headshots in a pve game is. There’s no way to control how enemies do or don’t headshot u, and it’s more likely they will headshot u (peaking out of cover, and since they all are bigger than us/attack from above), and they happen to go for headshots more often, it’s such a dead end mechanic based on luck to us

[@thebluehat6814]

alternatively, remove the headshot modifier from a game where you notoriously don't fight against other players

[@daethbane]

After thinking about it, I i think you're right about headshots and general accuracy are the bigger issues and I'd personally add detection accuracy as well. Before they changed those things, I actually "liked" being swarmed. This is because you could actually outplay the situation and that felt amazing!

[@Spas176]

"We'll be seeing Goodbye Neighbor real soon" damn that is a spit take.

[@elfireii328]

Im playing on 4-6 and still get stun locked or one shot by a random devastator or cannon from the other side of the map. I also still get one shot sometimes by flame hulks while im in the middle of a dive and the flame just happens to pass over my body at the wrong angle. Also on bot accuracy. If they really wanted to increase it, then they would also need to add way more cover on certain maps. The sightlines and getting randomly sniped through the thick fog is such bs.

[@burn1none]

yeah honestly man I'm a bit divided on Twinbeard's statement. on one hand it's good they're taking a look inward but the way they talk about just going back to a previous build strikes me as either lazy or feels like they're throwing their hands up in frustration. I agree, I think the answer is lots of enemies but it needs to feel less oppressive like enemies with infinite ammo shooting through rocks from all sides with a rocket devastator 60 meters away sniping you.

[@rhetro777]

tbh patrols and spawns have been an issue since the first balance patch, making the game less fun and less immersive. Seems to me that reverting it back to the way it was originally would be a good solution. If it wasn't broke, don't fix it, ya know?

[@alexjamesmalcolm]

It's actually comforting to me the way they're talking about rolling back. I work in software development in the financial sector and the #1 priority is users not being disrupted. People depend on you and if they discover that they can't trust you to not introduce a bug (fix and move forward hurts users while it's broken) then they'll take their money elsewhere. Helldivers 2 isn't a bank but it's a game and players can take their free time and put it to another game. Them rolling back is an acknowledgement that the game is good and should be protected and that the player experience takes priority over the ego of the dev team. I should know, "rolling back" feels terrible! But it's the right choice for the players and if you can make that choice it shows a maturity of the management at AH.

[@redcenturion88]

Overpowered enemies could be managed if we could be just as deadly. As it stands we mag dump, throw our strats, wait for cooldown, then flee. If we could reliably stand our ground getting beamed by omniscient robots wouldn't feel so demoralizing. And no, it wouldnt make us overpowered because we're already outnumbered. We'd simply be at a more level playing field.

[@RDehuvyne]

Roling back is a temp solution while they figure out why their coding sucks for patrols. Faster to go back on the changes made than waiting for them to code it better.

[@fresnel149]

Nah, it's a dev time thing. Reverting to a known-good old build is something you can do NOW when you figure out the current build is too broken to keep using. Creating and testing a whole new build takes man-hours.

[@tianxiu]

The patrol is getting fixed, but my passion is not...

[@kotztotz3530]

Yep, Everytime I get on by myself, I just end up turning the game off after 5 minutes.

[@berserkerpride]

Today's major order, finding a reason to carry on.

[@elfireii328]

​@@kotztotz3530 same. Getting one shot or stun locked into death isnt fun.

[@MrHocotateFreight]

Not till all our battlebrothers return can I truly put my heart back in it. Not till sony has shown they won't try this stunt again, heck they haven't even started honoring THIS promise to stop. This is the stuff I'm almost always talking about. We gotta aim at the head of the snake, sony itself. If these big monopolies get to keep pulling these stunts, all games from all devs are threatened. Good games will get stifled by bad greed if we don't draw a line in the sand. Rise up.

[@BoglinZilla]

​@@elfireii328 I've been getting one shot while my shield pack was still active lately... I dont get it

[@904_nole2]

I played a match of 7 on bugs with only 2 of us yesterday and we couldn’t even leave the spawn area because after we killed the tankiest mob in the game the bile spewers another whole wave would spawn. It was not fun

[@Wavuvi_Speedruns]

Why does no one talk about how Heavy Devastators, Hulks (with the same weapon), and Factory Striders can pump out enough bullets to take out a heavy armored diver with a bubble shield and keep the spray up bullets up 75% of the time? If they felt the bile/nursing spewers needed a damage nerf, then those enemies DEFINATELY need a damage nerf.

[@user-ls1jn1by8m]

I like the idea of keeping patrols high for high kill counts, but the issue is we don't have the right tool to counter the amount of enemies right now. It's funny because they don't technically even need to change much on enemy balancing... just give us kick ass weapons and then don't take them away from us!!

[@IRMentat]

it's not even the weapons, there's such a massed concave of pinpoint-accurate enemies around that merely peaking from cover (or getting too close to it) will see you "chipped" for 1/3 to 2/3 your HP (depending on headshot) by a single hit while 30-50 enemies spread out and suppressive-fire your position and a bunch of screening-forces/tacklers/det-vest-jump-troops/berserkers run at your face to push you out of cover and into the predictive-aim rockets/turrets/machine-guns/acid-spew/hunter-tracking-leaps/green-meanie-spit/brood-charge

[@convergence1point]

Just want to ask. Want made you chose “OhDough” as your KZbin handle? Its one of the fun things, thats always fun to reflect on.

[@daethbane]

If I had to guess it's his propensity to pronounce words funny on purpose (which I find hilarious) and it's a play on OhNo.

[@Gemma_626]

Oh No with a stuffy nose?

[@daethbane]

@@Gemma_626 😂

[@black_ghost1215]

someone posted one of OhDough's video on the steam form talking about the railgun he told it as it is and not like the others parroting the game good just "gut gud" like others.

[@daethbane]

@@black_ghost1215 Yup, that's why I watch him and have mad respect!

[@fowlWarDog]

It's not a hill I plan to die on, but I don't think the whole 'receiving headshots' thing should be present in most if not all PvE experiences. Many moons ago I played Left for Dead with friends, and maybe my memory is failing me but I don't recall getting two tapped by a single walker.

[@BackwardsPancake]

No, this is completely valid. Player headshots make sense in hardcore military simulation games, or if they're a meaningful part of the mechanics that can be played around somehow. But here in HD2, neither of those things are true - We have an arcade-y horde shooter, it's just you versus a computer rolling dice for where the enemies will shoot, and there is no meaningful way to play around being headshot (because the enemy spread is arbitrary and not reactable in any way, since their shots can literally leave the barrel at 45-degree angles). So the only thing player headshots amount to in this context is just a way to generate randomness while wasting a bunch of computing resources in the process, and I don't think this adds anything positive to the experience.

[@IRMentat]

-agreed, ANY mechanic you can't do anything about shouldn't be in there. -headshots -hunter auto-tracking-leaps (bad enough those but they also have a rag-doll AoE. slow-attack a quick-stab-2-combo and also run faster then the player) -the suicide-jump-pack-bots that jump you, explode on death (blasting 5 meters forward) THEN EXPLODE AGAIN WITH NAPALM (the explosion goes through even the p-shield so it's instant-death) -rag-doll attacks that last almost as long as their unlimited-ammo-attack cooldowns

[@orangejuice9396]

in a PvP game it totally makes sense, but in helldivers 2 headshots are just annoying and feel super bad. headshots should be a fairly skill based reward for having good aim not "oh i got hit in the head by that robot from 50m away so i died in 0.2 seconds and couldn't even react."

[@ShadowofProvidence]

I still think headshot damage should just not exist. Removing the "wtf just happened" dead in less than a second lets you finely calibrate how many shots / bites each armor value can take.

[@Zaney_]

i'm def in the camp of less accurate shield devastators.

[@corvusaflame713]

In Deep Rock Galactic, you have 5 difficulties. Haz 3 is best for casuals, Haz 5 is for pros. Difficulties were affected by mutatetors. you could see them from the mission select screen. Some Haz 3 missions could Become Haz 3.5 or higher depending on the mutatetors. Mods allowed for "outside of intended difficulties/gameplay" with SIGNIFICANTLY different play styles (bigger swarms, cheaper and larger ammo supplies, more enemies). This was the BEST experience. Once the base game couldn't keep up with the skill level of the best players. You'd join modded maps where people were tweaking things, in real time to dial in the best game feel. Still able to dip into the base game to do season events without even moment disconnect.

[@25xxfrostxx]

Hopefully this is a sign that they're going to be more methodical and careful with changes going forward. I hope this fix comes sooner rather than later. I absolutely do not like the current state of things at all. Maybe they could allow a toggle for higher enemy numbers in trade for more rewards?

[@nikmagic8350]

What about having certain planets have modifiers that increase enemy presence, call it a "stronghold planet" this can happen when 3 or more galactic supply lanes are attached to a planet, therefor you can invade the surrounding planets to break the supply lane and reduce the amount of enemies travelling to that "stronghold."

[@hawk9mm]

Knowing their history they would just claim that every planet or 95% of planets would be stronghold planets.

[@effive7817]

The biggest issue was implementing these changes on the lower difficulties. The people playing those were playing at that level for a reason. Stacking increased spawns on people already at a numbers disadvantage was just bad. It would be cool if they kept it as-is, for us level 9 masochists.

[@josephhein9497]

Or just add a new difficulty to make it an even 10 - "Masochist".

[@M10art]

0:29 - Panzer of the factory what is your wisdom? - Reinforcements spawns are broken *blasts*

[@daztora]

4:54 the Hulk is like, "What the hell did you just say to me" the pause 😆

[@evanlangley8464]

It's mostly the fact that all the patrols seemed to converge on you at the same time when you were about halfway through the mission that was so frustrating

[@IRMentat]

on balance: 1. Current TTK is a tad harsh given enemy hyper-accuracy, Aoe-ragdoll/DoT/CC spam and current-swarm-numbers (mostly appearing behind you as you fight/push things on an objective, we could double the player HP and still feel under pressure and then not NEED to stim EVERY SCRAPE we get as enemies can 2-3 combo-hit a player in under a second (mostly because ANY headshot deletes 60-70% of your HP), plus most of the big ones can 1-tap or ragdoll into a combo-kill. To that end, 90% of the supply i see called in is for stims, not ammo (yet neither the grenade nor stim passives nor boosters let you replenish more than 2 of each at as time so 2 people can clear out an entire supply just to get their heal-stock back) , the AoE ammo nerf didn't help but we carry 3 separate weapons with their own ammo pools but only 4 stims as-standard (plus grenades which can often be subbed in to prevent some stim-usage but are mostly used for crowd/radiator/sac kills). I have run out of stims within 45 seconds of a medium/challenging drop before now (hunters/rockets/turrets/spewers/shield-devas camping my respawn) but running out of ammo "only" happens to me in multiplayer, when the enemy decides to chain-swarm mediums for 5+ minutes (usually 1/2 a mag per kill and the games throwing 4 mediums at you every 45 seconds) or when i don't take "META" stratagems. 2. 3-4 enemy types are HP-TAX types where you can't reasonably avoid what they do under current gameplay (not without an incredibly lucky/planned AoE-flinch-chain against densely packed mobs) so all you can do is try not to get merced/cat-food-ed in the less than a second it takes for them to turn even a heavy-armour helldiver into gibs then use a grenade/stratagem/support-weapon in the 1-2 second single-enemy "response" time you get against them between their 80 degree incline climbing, never-ending-barrage-ammo supplies and terrain-ignoring machine-gun-fire/rocket-turret-rag-dolls (see various examples of ATAT "nosing into rocks" to kill people who should be safe the other side of a building/terrain-feature). Even in the best scenarios most people will take at least 1 hit in a game where ANY missing HP is a death sentence. 3. Most of our "big-impact" tools feel underwhelming when solo and yet the game's almost entirely trivial in a full group (even without sharing packs/weapon cooldowns within the group). Eagles are the "only" stratagems that "feel good" to use (not counting support weapons as they are functionally mandatory-picks and are broadly okayish. rail/GL/spear notably nerfed/broken). 4. Standardisation-man (this ain't balance, it's pure and simply butchery to remove unique-ness) seems to be out to make sure EVERY primary falls into one of 4 (current) categories AR/pinpoint-hose (defender), sniper/pinpoint (JAR), Shotgun (incen-break) and AoE (puni-plas/Scorcher), note that the "best" in these categories are 3/4 due to their competition/alternates being nerfed into the ground. Weirdly until the new weapon the secondaries had just hit a "perfect" balance point. A +-15% stat-variation on the spreadsheet totals is the least gameplay-engaging method of having "different" weapons. 5. patrol-spawns, i'm not even talking the rate of spawns here. Patrols generate off-camera and since the change that means 30-50m behind/flaning the player, patrols seem to speed-up when near objectives so the monment you open fire there's a 99% chance that within a minute or 2 a fresh set of enemies will spawn, aggro and potentially call in a breach/drop behind or flanking you at a time you already decided to engage an area with multiple enemies, spawners and static-defence. IMO if you attack as base the bug-holes and factories should spawn the patrol-waves and the actual patrol-timer should freeze until you disengage form a "heat" area or the base itself is no longer capable of generating troops. By extension the hellpod anti-navigation path should be removed, as if the enemies are more than happy to spontaneously generate entire squads out of thick concrete or on top of plateaus then a player with a turret and some cooldowns should be perfectly allowed to return the favour and drop their hellpod wherever they so choose, that hellpod anti-steering nerf was yet another troll-move by the devs when it's already simple enough to mantle a lot of terrain to get inside bases (and only having one way in is downright boring)

[@mrg2155]

Excellent points. Also, how frustrating is it to shoot a robot about to shoot a flare in the sky, kill him, only to have his friend immediately do the same thing, kill him also, but then the third one reinforces while you are reloading. There should be a 10 second cooldown on the ATTEMPT of a reinforcement, what the heck is the point then? To frustrate us is the point now

[@IRMentat]

@@mrg2155 good point i forgot abot that part, if you engage with ANY stratagem the enemies can complete the call before it even lands. the call-ins should take 4-7 seconds to allow some ambush/counter-play and 5-15 seconds CD based on intensity/objective-proximity based (closer to objective lower cd) between each call to allow for reloads and spotting the guy over there behind that rock/building/incline as it decides to add more meat/metal to the party you may have not even knows was around you.

[@josephhein9497]

@@mrg2155 YESSSSS. Insta-call-ins and an inability to prevent them is so frustrating! It's like the game is going to call it no matter what, so why try? It's especially frustrating when you take down an entire patrol but there's one guy left and you have just 2-3 rounds left in your mag... Then you fire, don't do enough damage to kill, or there's a leaf in the way....... and he fires off his fucking flare.

[@MrRay568]

Another annoying thing is the bots (when the bugs do it, that's fine because it makes some sense) instantly teleport on top of terrain (Usually the rocks on the sides of small plateaus) and instantly spot me and start firing or sometimes just shooting through walls (MG Raiders, Heavy and Rocket a!@+%$les) which the latter especially can lead to VERY cheap deaths

[@MrRay568]

@@josephhein9497 I haven't played it but in the original HD, the Cyborg Squad leaders (and their higher-tier counterparts) were the only ones who could call in reinforcements right?

[@user-lq3op9gy4o]

Ohdough, Imagine if shooting at bots actually made them less accurate like what the Training Manual on the Loading Screen says, that and getting flinched all the time.

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

The "there may be some minor tweaks" accompanied with the "were reverting" is kinda worrisome to me. Historically their "minor tweaks" arent very minor...

[@hawk9mm]

Or they outright lie about how minor the adjustments are or they somehow misplace a 1 or 0 and suddenly it's not so minor but then it takes them 1 full week to revert a patch. They are a joke.

[@Nitecookie]

@@hawk9mm i swear it's just a wasteland at arrowhead. it's like they just pick the easiest shit to fix (and fix it horribly), and then go and play games on their laptops. there is absolutely no order with their employees, it's just "ok, go and do work for 8 hours, and then you get paid at the end of the week", and then the employees never get checked on again.

[@zapmando]

Would be cool to have more info on each enemy, the kind of stuff some youtubers put out, and even more info about the mission

[@elfireii328]

Yeah having a propper codex to show weaknesses would be better. Helldivers 1 had one.

[@fresnel149]

The Ministry of Science would like to remind you that they are doing their best :(

[@daztora]

Model viewer would be cool to, zoom in, see weakpoints etc

[@jeb6869]

maybe a armor / boostet that would highlight weak points on heavy enemies n stuff

[@ConvoBreaker]

A 10th difficulty that's not scaled down to fewer players and has genuinely insane stuff like a really high cap on patrol spawns & gunships that come attached to drop ships to join the fight every drop. Bile Titans that have shriekers coming out of their backs full time, armored bile spitters are in every enemy constellation, the brown chargers are there sometimes for no reason, etc. This would be The Solo Content Creators Delight, all it needs to say is "WARNING: This difficulty does not change with fewer players" in some lore compliant way to get across that it's not just Helldive 2: Dive Hellier. Maybe instead of more samples/medals it could give 2x squad impact, since it's balanced around 4 players only.

[@Popsickle666]

I agree the accuracy is crazy on the enemies. Random guaranteed headshots is cheap. Also idk how long it's been broken but at lauched you used to be able to do suppressing fire on the bots, making them inaccurate

[@HardcoreQtip]

Yeah. I'm happy about the patrol changes. Me personally, I wish they would increase the number of enemies at objectives instead of balancing the game around patrols. I feel like it is much more enjoyable to feel like you are fighting your way into an area, than having never ending groups of enemies magically bee-line straight to you from nowhere. In terms of an endgame challenge, they eventually will need to add a difficulty 10. And then make it crazy hard, like barely completable without a coordinated squad.

[@II-tv1fc]

I feel exactly the same. I'd much rather patrols just be something to keep you on your toes in transit and the REAL fights be at OBJs and Heavy bases

[@BackwardsPancake]

Agreed. The game tends to flow better when you're fighting in outpost/objective terrain where you actually have decent cover and movement blockers, as opposed to the constant and interchangeable fighting retreats through "random field #3550402 (one rock variant)" which is what the patrols tend to push you into.

[@josephhein9497]

You should definitely suggest that to AH. I would happily welcome that.

[@norbertscheibenreif8336]

They also "patched" that enemies can climb up anywhere, hulk can suddenly elevate on a hill on which you jumped with jumppack

[@BearZerq]

Hey Dough, thanks for turning me on to that game Ravenswatch in one of your previous videos, it's great, the attention to detail in it really goes above and beyond.

[@handlesarecringe957]

Finally, no more hulk appearing out of nowhere when I'm trying to snipe a devastator

[@MrBlack-zb2eg]

Enjoyed the yap! Informative as always. You know it seams to me that lately I have been watching more (about this game) than playing it! I need to manage my time better haha

[@ArheIy]

The main problem with patrols won't be fixed by the headshot damage reduction, because it isn't related to the TTK whatsoever. The main difficulty is that if you're playing in a team and have a few players to fight and a few players to do the objective - it's fine; but if you're alone and have to do the objectives in solo *while constantly shooting* - that's f#%king unmanageable. Completing objectives takes much more time, while some even aren't worth the shooting - like the SEAF artillery, which is an absolute hell in solo after the patch.

[@jamesmckenzie9551]

The gameplay mechanic should be that the actions of the player have consequences. If you agro the enemy, they call in more enemies. Cause and effect, something we can all get behind. But then we get these enemies who know where we are, and the stealth aspect is taken away. We aren't in charge of the gameplay loop at that point, we cannot stealth, and as soon as we fire, the enemy knows we are present, behind what rock we threw the stratagem from etc. When the player has no control over the situation, that's when the frustration creeps in. Take last night, I was doing a level 7 with friends. We drop in, and within the radius of the drop were THREE aircraft towers, with two of them so close they were almost touching. So in addition to the bot ground patrols, we now have 6 aircraft raining death down on us, whilst mortars fire at us from the outpost 200m away. What do you do in that situation, once you've expended your stratagems and ordnance? If you haven't specifically loaded out to take on that many aircraft, what is your gameplay choice? Combine that with the wonky hellbomb that goes off and doesn't kill the factory, it was an unwinnable situation. Or another game last night, where I did level 7 flag plant vs bugs, I took 15 minutes on the SEAF (which I hadn't activated, I stacked the ammo next to it first) due to endless loops of patrols, which I utterly annihilate with the gas/napalm combo, but which always squeeze off that bug hole orange gas as they choke. I am returning to extract with 8 minutes remaining, with the super samples in tow, and patrols of half a dozen spewers walk straight towards me. I could not physically get past them, could not stealth it, agro'd nothing all to extract and had the "mission complete, failed to extract" after spending 40 minutes fighting and killing hundreds of bugs and failed to get any samples off-world. What was the gameplay loop there?

[@TheNinteenhundred]

I heard Pilestedt start working and helping the balancing team. When your CEO start doing your job that mean the balancing team is incompetent. Can't believe they have the worst people in the business for balancing.

[@Zenji16]

10/10 Yap session. The way you spoke and presented ideas was very clear and quite funny. "Im beginning to enjoy it" I laughed so hard. also the end was quite funny! 👍

[@user-ef9qh8dv2d]

After the patch I played a bug match and was overwhelmed with small patrols. I usually average between 400-500 kills on bug matches at Suicide Mission level. I can't get close to that now. I think there used to be less patrols and breeches, so once I survived them I had breathing room to complete objectives and rearm. Now it seems like there are non-stop small patrols and bug breaches and I can't move. I'm not a Helldive player, so I'm not a superstar, but I was able to do well with 4 people in Suicide. I think the adjustment they made was too severe. Like nerfing the Queso Cannon by 5 seconds, it seems like their adjustments are heavy-handed. I may be completely wrong, but that's how I perceive them. A little goes a long way. After the first post-patch game I really did think the balance team was trolling, or lashing out in a fit because of the complaints.

[@linusdogthegameboy1983]

They never gonna add toggles to this game. They’ve already taken the balsey move of having nine different difficulties.

[@jegantdragoch.7088]

i think you are right about needing them to be less accurate - a post was talking about how the rocket dudes should have limited ammo like any other units. maybe shoot 2 rockets than 4 per enemy? i personally think there's some new logic about how enemies spawn more when bases are up - and end game when bases are down, its not patrols that randomly walk around more - but just full armies - so from x amount patrols. they dont increase the x amount - just make the patrols in to armies cause someone obviously were attacking all their bases.

[@GymBossAniki]

Lack of flinch resistance sources outside the E-Shield, patrols sometimes spawning right behind you again (a issue I thought they fixed), and patrol sizes symbiotically combined with “enemies not elites, tanks, or devastators being able to queue attempt call renforcements one after another in minigame of wack a mole with zero cooldown unless one is successful in calling is what seems to be the biggest source of problems other than the headshot stuff currently. Flinch proc and knockover proc needs to be a value buildup/stamina as a dynamic resist factor thing that armors heavier than lightest armor have notable impacts against. Sometimes making a push or a peek is the only option when strategem calling isnt in your favor and being John Marston’ed or ragdoll chain locked for daring to not be married to a solid rock of cover reduces the options you have to “Shield A or B, High burst damage” only setup for consistancy. As for patrols, they need a much larger mercy anti-spawn radius or Patrols need to be distance spawn predictable via passive/unaware dropship drops at medium-long distance that you can account for or even intercept. For the last point... please set reenforcement calling back to a semi-HD1 standard of only workers/brood commanders for bugs and specific bot variants for bots being able to call reinforcements and/or make the severity of renforcements based on how many calls are successfully called in an encounter. In HD1, if you had good aim, blowthru rounds, or AoE on your side: you could plan how to cut off a patrol or who to prioritize at a OBJ to prevent or reduce the severity of enemies called in (as there was no cooldown, instead the enemy class and the amount of calls made in direct succession determined the enemy response strength). I dont want to trivialize enemy calls but only having the option of AoE to avoid wack a hole panic tactics is boring when popping a call away from the team or obj to put the calls on cooldown is simpler and more loadout freeing.

[@vegansuperhero651]

Goodbye neighbor, lol Alexus really made himself the community villain before Spitz was even gone.

[@Shroud83]

Allowing players to customize the number of enemies and the frequency with which they spawn is great for solo play and for teams who can talk it out beforehand. But what about someone who drops into your game and is totally surprised by your settings? Like he came prepared to fight a balanced set of enemies but the settings are totally skewed towards one type of enemy. Maybe make the settings visible for those who want to join. Also changing the patrol setting back to what it was before is fine by me. But What I find strange is: Why does destroying bug holes and fabricators increase patrols? Shouldn't it go the other way? Destroying objectives leading to increased patrols on the other hand makes sense. Why not balance them against each other. So you do both (objectives and bug holes) and in the end the patrol setting is basically as it was at the start of the game because you worked to reduce patrols by destroying bug holes / fabricators. Would incentivize attacking basis instead of ignoring them.

[@JohnLeBoeufLittle]

They absolutely should not add a toggle, that's what the difficulty setting is for. That said, i wouldn't mind a few more mobs in 4-player specifically. I feel like linear scaling with player count is a little questionable because even two Helldivers are quite a bit more capable than one but frankly it feels exhausting if the whole level is 40 minutes of uninterrupted fighting for your life. Gonna take some work to find the level of pressure that works the best

[@asocil4722]

I played a diff 6 with a friend, just the 2 of us, in which dropships dropped 2 devastators and a hulk; or a single tank. But patrols had 6 striders; or 10 light mobs. Not mentioning the HUGE amount of patrols spawns; we were getting 20 kills from a single cluster bomb. It was SOOOO apparent they are bugged, it's impossible the change could have passed QA testing. Although my friend got frustrated, I had fun running around despawning mobs. I just don't want that experience outside diff 8-9.

[@tatsumakijim]

I'm all for difficulty tuning as long as it fits the narrative. Like you can reduce patrols by sacrificing your eagle availability for that round cause they're off creating distractions. Give us more control over some effects we can apply to the mission that are trade offs. Add increased cooldowns in exchange for screwing with enemy accuracy -- stuff like that.

[@Faxanadu_]

12/10 Yap Sesh, looking forward to the balancing team roast (We all know it's mostly Alexus' fault anyways)

[@TheReykjavik]

I hope they manage to find a way to get the best of both worlds with patrols. I want to have a lot of enemies to fight, but also have some moments in between where it is quieter. One way to do this would be to have two different kinds of patrols, one that comes by on the timer (maybe with some random variance on the cooldown), that chooses an objective, base (including cleared bases) near the players to check out, so they spawn in, go to the location (which may or may not be where players are going to, already at, or just leaving). Then, on a separate internal cooldown, have response patrols, which trigger when a secondary or sub objective is completed, or a base is cleared (maybe except light bases), or when a lot of powerful stratagems are used in the same area at once. These planets are getting hit with hellbombs regularly, the ones we find are just the duds, so enemies shouldn't react to just one explosion, but if we bring more than 1 or 2 call ins at a time, they should notice. These response patrols should take a fair bit longer than reinforcement call ins, so if you kill everything with overwhelming stratagems, you should have time to loot and do quick objectives, medium length objectives should have the patrol arriving just as you finish giving a chance to run, while longer objectives mean you have to either leave and come back when the patrol has passed through, or fight the patrol. The benefit of this would be that when they line up to both come at the same time, you have a lot of enemies to fight, and it can chain together with reinforcements to create a fairly sustained fight, but if you manage to dodge a patrol or two, or kill them quickly, you can enjoy a quick break, and a chance to operate unhindered. This should feel more organic, as the enemies don't know where you are unless one of them reports you in, which brings their rapid response forces, or they hear enough disturbance to dispatch a response patrol. I think there should only be one response patrol on the map at any given time, going to the highest priority spot from the enemy's point of view (which should tend to be bases, and never be escape pods). The location based patrols should act similar to the way they do now, where if you are off by yourself, the game generates a patrol for your area. The implication is that the entire map is being patrolled, you just only see the ones near you (and the game can only put so many enemies on screen before computers start melting, so a full map of patrols just isn't practical).

[@void.society]

If you want to make things harder for yourself on your own accord to make the game more challenging, you could always limit yourself in the game in ways the game allows. For example, don't call in any resupplies and rely only on world loot. Use light armor. Take less strategems. Use the default primary and secondary weapons, or a combination of these things. My friend used to "make his own difficulties" this way all the time in other games.

[@hotcoldman9793]

The game has a stealth mechanic but with increased patrols it is almost useless. It is very hard to just win a fight now and most people dont want to just kite the entire map. They should make extra patrols a modifier, so you have a choice if you want it or not

[@shemsuhor8763]

There will still be the same amount of stuff at 4 player. Reduce them for other diffs. Combined with the increased detection radius and reduced ammo supplies, it's too much. We already have to take the same stratagems in every level as it is. A healthier solution is: Buff the garrisons at bug holes and bot depots. Lower the detection radius so every single POI doesn't see you at once if you decide to shoot. If patrols are going to be heat-seeking, then they can be larger and scarier but they can't just teleport in right behind you while you're in the middle of engaging something else. They need to at least be "somewhat" natural - I think the "I just cleared this area 30 seconds ago and now there are 12 marauders there" thing is the biggest issue. Those weren't "patrol" spawns they were just enemies that magically teleported in behind you.

[@Hexblithe]

Toggles would be nice; Having one red mission in the operation to leet you know that _that_ one is gonna be the mean one could also be very good. Lower accuracy, and higher reload times on enemies would be good. Flinch resistance on heavy armor would be a godsend at this point. Oh, and the ESP has to stop. There's one thing to have patrols spawn near you and move around the area, it's another to have them be on a constant march towards you even when you're on your stomach not making a sound. And speaking of sounds... Tip toeing Bile Titans being quiet isn't doing us players any favors, it's just silly.

[@ferdithetank7535]

That spider tank at the beginning was quite funny, ngl

[@Raynis1]

I like what you said about solo players and the thought about changing difficulty levels. I can finish level 3 for the most part but it’s certainly tougher since the increased spawn rate. Anything higher makes it nearly impossible for me to finish or to at least extract with some rare samples. I would love to be able to farm my own samples when i need to and not wait for my friends to be online. I’m slowly gaining skill, but with just a couple of hours a day to play the skill comes slowly. I’m getting old too! 😂

[@Mr__Chicken]

I think this game needs a system like Vermintide 2 has for twitch. For those unfamiliar in Vermintide 2 viewers in twitch can spawn enemies, events, curses, help etc by voting. Not only would this be fun for people watching someone like OhDough stream but maybe in the hellpod section it lets you vote if the map will have lots of bile nurses or stalkers etc. And extra things like being able to have a 5th strategem but there's 2x more hunters from a breach. Or shrieker nests or bile titans are cloaked when patrolling but all sentries and mechs have 20% more ammo.

[@sylokthedefiled3047]

If you need someone to friendly fire test on, I'm your cardboard cutout! After all, General Brasch said that teamkills were an inevitable and acceptable fact of war.

[@Kenny-yu6gc]

Hey dough, I wonder if you notice that recently on the terminid side warrior bugs will occasionally burrow into the ground from a few meters away and pop up out of the ground in front of you. I've seen it once, and I think it occurs either occasionally or when the warrior bug is in a place that'd take too long to detour around to you. I've also seen with the chargers that when I went to a seemingly empty medium bug nest outpost that can typically have a charger, there was what looked to be a charger corpse sunk into the ground and when I got within a few meters of it, it burrowed its way out of the ground. Has this always been the case, or did the devs secretly change up the bug AI? Lastly, I had a shrieker attack one of those hellbomb traps and killed me with it, like wtf, how does a bug brain pos have the brain capacity to set off a hellbomb?

[@JustaFeesh]

Hunters were my least favourite enemy a few weeks ago, now Heavy/Rocket Devs because of their accuracy, been headshot a lot by pewpews and rockets. Bile Spewers having aimbot while and after I'm diving and Flamethrower Hulks headshots happening a bit too often and heavy armor will tank maybe two headshots before becoming a stat. I like the idea with having a toggle for difficulty alongs side our 1-9 for those that have fun with the current patrols, maybe if they redo and/or add some positive modifers we could pick and choose our poisons and boons like you mentioned in a previous vid. I enjoyed having something similar to increased enemy density in Warframe where having 4 player spawns solo with beefed up enemies was really fun compared to regular missions. I enjoyed this Yap Sesh 10/10.

[@Sharkie504]

You nailed it on the head. In my case, I was semi-comfortably soloing at level 7. I would win some. I would lose some. It was all good and I was having fun. Once that patrol change happened, I ended up soloing at level 5 or 6 to get the same feels.

[@edzbienen]

Glad they revert to the old patrol system 🙏 Yesterday I was hosting a game and all my teamates crashed or something, so I was alone for few minutes before some other players join, I was enough to fill the map of a shit-ton of bots making it a nightmare

[@Gemma_626]

They don't know how to program "toggle". If they change something, it's all or nothing. For instance, they made it so you can't land your hellpod up high. In order to do this, they took away power steering within a certain radius of a high place like a mountain. Instead of coding to not land on a certain height, they coded so you can't steer anywhere near a certain height. Same with the Hulk fire damage. Instead of coding for the Hulk, they nerfed fire damage in general. I wholeheartedly belueve that their coders really don't know what they are doing and this is why it took 7 years to put out a buggy game They still have a known bug list that they can't figure out how to fix. I'm really about to just quit. They put out patches and say they fixed stuff when they didn't fix anything. I think they do this for lip service, but just plain lie. Stim effects still sound, but no stim..infinite grenade bug still there, etc etc. And now they say they will revert the spawn, but they are lying because now it'll take them forever to do it when it's just a revert. They'll say anything the make people stop complaining. It's getting old

[@rhetro777]

I'm glad to see they recognize the issues and plan to do something about it. People like you having the integrity to use your platform to highlight issues and give honest feedback has helped, I'm sure. Thanks for keeping it 💯

[@bl00dm0urne]

An issue(s) that they themselves would've recognized if they were testing them before releasing it.

[@ocbwhyte1871]

OhDough, did you ever see the leaked SEAF Squad call-in strategem videos? Even if they die quick, we think it could be fun and cinematic to have 4 players using it so you have these big infantry charges and stands. Anyway, that’s what we hope the result of the current Major Order will be since our objective is to allow SEAF training facilities to be built

[@lordgrey5223]

My biggest issue is with the lack (or very low amount) of counterplay to a lot of enemies. Chargers- turn on a dime or aoe ground pound once close Solution: tone down thier turning radius Hunters- track mid flight and auto lock on a headshot. Solution: Make them jump in a straight line Spewers- shoot out of the side of thier mouth at up to a 90 degree angle. Solution: make them shoot straight Bots auto aim headshots from across the map. Solutions: make aim less accurate or fix thier weird aggro blind firing. Im sure I am missing others but numbers feel okay if patrols didnt know and track where you were all the time and there was more proper counterplay besides just running a shield backpack. Gets really old.

[@hydrocyronapalm3071]

I was diving in suicide mission with the radar boost and scout armor. I saw one patrol just spawned in the map goes near them and about to throw airstrike but I check the map again to see 2 more patrol behind them.

[@pseudowoodo6154]

For the health of the game, patrols probably need to be somewhere in between. Or make something like a High Alert modifier where extra patrols are roaming, a perfectly acceptable modifier imo. Shield devastators need tweaking. 5 shooting laser beam accuracy from 100m+ is insane. With there not being many good scope options, fighting them is difficult. Maybe if the suppression mechanics actually worked better they'd be fine, but until then its a death sentence if you get caught off guard. I one trick the blue preorder armor, but thats mainly cause people like it, its exclusive, and extra padding medium while not the best, you can take a beating still.

[@imjustsaiyan7450]

It's gonna create a bit of a problem with those of us that have stuck it out at helldive, because we've kind of got used to it now. I expect a hulk to jump out from behind every rock to BBQ me now, and if there are 4 or less devastators gunning for me at any one time I don't really view it as particularly consequential. Once they tone it back down, and if they stop nerfing the guns, we're going to be steamrolling this crap.

[@anstorner]

I dont mind the extra enemies, but what i do mind is weapons not being able to keep up with the enemies, both primaries and support weapons, either because of low ammo and reload speed (HMG and Adjudicator), or not being powerful enough, or very valuable stratagems being butchered by modifiers like Precision Orbital or cooldowns. Also if they make enemies dont follow you if they dont know where you are like before the railgun nerf it would help alot without needing to lower the amount of enemies overall

[@kaybuck8192]

You've been fairly consistent that what you're after is more dynamic difficulty. This is broadly good and the bones of the system are already in place with mission/operation modifiers. Just need to extend those modifiers to cover things like patrol spawn rate, unit composition, enemy accuracy etc. And maybe make it easier to find missions with the modifiers you're after!

[@coltpython6]

I'd prefer patrols go back the way they were, but add more difficulties. If I recall correctly, Helldivers 1 had 15 difficulties, with the highest being 'Inner Circle of Hell'.

[@Drunken_Hamster]

What you said about accuracy might work for bots, but for bugs, they're melee enemies. Their power comes from numbers. So bugs still need to be reverted. Both in spawning and pathing. Bots need to have reverted pathing and accuracy, if not spawning, too.

[@victorwaterfall1457]

6:26 Oh man. Every time i get a machine gun volley coming at me through the rock by a clipped devastator, i really want to know the name of balancing team lead 😆

[@Overdrive-19]

maybe they could buff the extra padding armor perk with more flinch resistance. I think that would not only be quite fitting, but also be a well needed buff for that armor perk.