Helldivers 2

[Yaayuh!]

This has become yet another game with constant nerf/buff/nerf cycles driven by an obsession with metrics. Decisions aren't based on if anyone is actually having fun, but instead what the metrics and algorithms say.

It's a PVE game. What does it matter if players feel a bit overpowered at times if they are having fun? Obviously no-one wants things to be totally out of whack or open to exploits. But the constant tinkering, then drop more poorly tested content and repeat the cycle all over again, so tedious.

Most of the weapons and abilities in the game aren't worth the loadout slot. Players tend to stick to a small subset until they get nerfed, move on to whatever might have got buffed until it becomes too popular, then that gets nerfed. A constant merry-go-round.

So many games have made this mistake of ridiculous cycles of nerfs and changes for the sake of changes. Was hoping this one might be different, but nope. Same old.

100% agree.
This happens too often.

 

[MoNkeE]

My take: the small subset of players who are happy to drop with the same meta load outs time and time and time and time and time again, are the minority compared to those who prefer to use different load outs just so that the game feels varied and exciting.

I like dropping with random guns so that I get a very different experience sometimes - but without the buff/nerf cycle, many of those guns are unbalanced and make the game much harder.

It’s not about everything in the game being bad, it’s about everything in the game being balanced. What’s good against the bots SHOULDNT be good against the bugs. What’s good against a trooper shouldn’t be good against a devastator. What’s good against a devastator, shouldn’t be good against Hulks. There should be an emphasis on synergy in the squad.

 

[Matmulder]

My take: the small subset of players who are happy to drop with the same meta load outs time and time and time and time and time again, are the minority compared to those who prefer to use different load outs just so that the game feels varied and exciting.

They'll never win. If they don't change it, people will moan about the broken weapons and lack of variety. If they do change it, people will moan about the 'meta' weapons being broken and/or not as viable.

Thor @ Pirate Software made a good point about this...the only real way to keep people happy is to never nerf good weapons, only buff the bad. I'm not sure how viable this is for a game like HD2...but it makes sense.

 

[Rroff]

There should be an emphasis on synergy in the squad.

Which is great if you are playing with people you know, but doesn't really, and can't really, work with randoms. And sometimes you get someone who just wants to have fun with something esoteric which might mean yourself going meta and somewhat carrying the squad *shrugs*

Speaking more in general but I feel it becoming relevant to this one, a game should never have a bunch of ultimately pretty **** weapons/equipment with sometimes 1-2 totally overpowered ones which become the meta, The Division sadly was very guilty of this. It is possible to have weapons be able to bring something to the fight in different ways without a weapon having to be either generic muck or totally OP.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

They'll never win. If they don't change it, people will moan about the broken weapons and lack of variety. If they do change it, people will moan about the 'meta' weapons being broken and/or not as viable.

Thor @ Pirate Software made a good point about this...the only real way to keep people happy is to never nerf good weapons, only buff the bad. I'm not sure how viable this is for a game like HD2...but it makes sense.

I guess if they do that they’re worried about people reaching level/item caps too quickly, but it’s PvE, so it does seem a little extreme.

Regardless, I’m having a blast. Back on the termanid planets, enjoy them far more than bot planets tbh. The bots need balancing more than our weapons do.

 

[Rroff]

They'll never win. If they don't change it, people will moan about the broken weapons and lack of variety. If they do change it, people will moan about the 'meta' weapons being broken and/or not as viable.

Thor @ Pirate Software made a good point about this...the only real way to keep people happy is to never nerf good weapons, only buff the bad. I'm not sure how viable this is for a game like HD2...but it makes sense.

Devs get very scared of "power creep" it almost seems to paralyse them against doing anything but nerfs and as above far too much these days leans on "metrics and algorithms" rather than whether people are actually having fun.

You don't even need to make other weapons necessarily more powerful, but give them some relevance or broader relevance or their own specific traits, etc.

 

[MoNkeE]

It can exactly work with randoms. I can clearly see what equipment my teammates are choosing and tailor my choices around that. As can they.

Devs can’t just endlessly buff weapons, as it ends up making the enemies super squishy by the time the balance is done. Then they have to buff the enemies, which makes it feel like the weapons have been nerfed.

This is one of the most closely supported games I’ve seen in a long time, makes some people appear very entitled with how critical and condemning they are of every change they don’t agree with.

 

[Rroff]

Screw using Quasar to take out bile titans I guess this is the new meta

HELLDIVERS 2 Bile Titan Flings Charger onto Other Bile Titan

www.youtube.com

 

[Rroff]

It can exactly work with randoms. I can clearly see what equipment my teammates are choosing and tailor my choices around that. As can they.

How often does that really work in reality? especially when you often get people joining and leaving throughout the game including at the ready screen.

 

[MoNkeE]

Whinge whinge whinge

 

[Cern]

It’s not about everything in the game being bad, it’s about everything in the game being balanced. What’s good against the bots SHOULDNT be good against the bugs. What’s good against a trooper shouldn’t be good against a devastator. What’s good against a devastator, shouldn’t be good against Hulks. There should be an emphasis on synergy in the squad.

You can't micro manage things down to this level of detail in a game like this. Players have limited loadouts, they can't have a 'weapon for this' and a 'weapon for that'. Sure, in an ideal situation you have 4 players who synergise their loadouts. In reality, synergy in PUGs, yeah right good luck with that most of the time. Sure, you can look at loadouts in the lobby. But then someone leaves and someone else comes in, or someone leaves mid game (or gets kicked) and a replacement pops in. Synergy? Lol.

True balance in a game with so many weapons, so many enemy types, so many skills, so much potential chaos ... and PUGs .... just not possible. Devs need to accept this and stop trying to micro manage the game. Fix the bugs and crashes, fix the big ticket balance issues and just let everything else be, see how things pan out over a reasonable time period and then adjust if absolutely necessary. Stop endlessly tinkering.

It's meant to be a fun PVE game, not some highly tuned Esports shooter.

 

[Rroff]

Whinge whinge whinge

So what you were saying wasn't really very realistic then.

 

[MoNkeE]

Ofc it is. Even when a new person joins an on-going game, they can choose their loadout whilst seeing their teammates. It’s just absolutely clear from many many many of your posts that you revel in misery. You cant persuade anyone with those levels of apathy, so why bother

 

[Rroff]

Ofc it is. Even when a new person joins an on-going game, they can choose their loadout whilst seeing their teammates. It’s just absolutely clear from many many many of your posts that you revel in misery. You cant persuade anyone with those levels of apathy, so why bother

Again something which doesn't really happen with random players, more often than not people join with their favourite/flavour of the patch meta load out whether it has synergy with the rest of the players or not and at that point it is too late for other players to adapt their setup.

Given several posters in this thread are saying the same thing and many are saying the same on places like the Steam Discussions I think it safe to say it goes beyond whatever my personal position might be.

 

[MoNkeE]

I just see it as a vocal minority.

People want to see balance because they don’t want their enjoyment of the game hindered by meta chasers one tapping enemies with OP weapons or easily completing missions that should feel like a challenge.

For every person you see complaining about the quaser nerf, you see more saying “about time” or “saw that coming a mile off”.

Ultimately my point is, I think the devs are tweaking the game with overall player enjoyment at the core of their decision making process, and that the criticism in this thread is largely (largely, because calling out the bugs is fair) overly critical imo. And the suggestion that “everything should be buffed and nothing nerfed” is just the epitome of shortsightedness.

 

[Rroff]

I just see it as a vocal minority.

People want to see balance because they don’t want their enjoyment of the game hindered by meta chasers one tapping enemies with OP weapons or easily completing missions that should feel like a challenge.

For every person you see complaining about the quaser nerf, you see more saying “about time” or “saw that coming a mile off”.

Ultimately my point is, I think the devs are tweaking the game with overall player enjoyment at the core of their decision making process, and that the criticism in this thread is largely (largely, because calling out the bugs is fair) overly critical imo. And the suggestion that “everything should be buffed and nothing nerfed” is just the epitome of shortsightedness.

You've clearly not actually read my posts and just been triggered by me having an opinion.

I've not at all complained about things being balanced but the approach to balance, which the developer unfortunately seems to be leaning towards with it with recent changes which doesn't have to be the way balancing is done.

 

[Rroff]

On another note interesting to see the complaints about the changes towards difficulty and solo play - I've not really noticed it having much impact until you've run down about half the clock or so - doesn't really kick in to any meaningful extent IMO until the timer goes red - but if you are running down the clock even on trivial interestingly it goes a bit nuts now if solo. If you don't hang around it isn't really any more difficult to before.

EDIT: Though I'd imagine if you've got say a couple of friends who just want to jump in for a laugh as a duo it can be more impactful which would suck a bit even if you can mitigate that by lowering the difficulty.

 

[Cern]

On another note interesting to see the complaints about the changes towards difficulty and solo play - I've not really noticed it having much impact until you've run down about half the clock or so - doesn't really kick in to any meaningful extent IMO until the timer goes red - but if you are running down the clock even on trivial interestingly it goes a bit nuts now if solo. If you don't hang around it isn't really any more difficult to before.

EDIT: Though I'd imagine if you've got say a couple of friends who just want to jump in for a laugh as a duo it can be more impactful which would suck a bit even if you can mitigate that by lowering the difficulty.

Have the devs said what the reasoning is for this change? I've played a lot with a friend as duo and we were already frustrated by how the game hit you with too many patrols and spawns, especially if cleared some bases / nests. But rather than improve this, they've actually intentionally made it worse. Why?

 

[Rroff]

Have the devs said what the reasoning is for this change? I've played a lot with a friend as duo and we were already frustrated by how the game hit you with too many patrols and spawns, especially if cleared some bases / nests. But rather than improve this, they've actually intentionally made it worse. Why?

I've not seen any reasoning, but I mostly stay away from Discord and the devs are more active on there with info than elsewhere.

EDIT: Apparently a quote from the Discord info:

Quote From Discord
"Scaling of patrol spawns was exponential before, and that felt good on four player lobbies, but a bit too empty when playing with fewer players, especially when playing solo.

Now we've made the scaling of patrols to be linear, which means that if you play solo you will get 25 % of the patrols compared to a four player lobby, instead of having about 17 % of the patrols.

There is still a cap on patrols that may spawn at the same time, so during situations when we spawn a lot of patrols (such as extractions) even solo players won't notice the difference.

The change is made to make the world feel less empty for one and two player lobbies, especially on high difficulty missions - which was also slightly too easy for solo players compared to our intentions."

Have to say I've not really noticed that - playing solo, duo as well as full squad the world has always felt about appropriately populated - sure it doesn't go quite as nuts if you are running down the clock as it can with a full squad but it certainly didn't feel empty. Personally doesn't really bother me I'm reasonably experienced at managing large enemy numbers and at least competent at playing stuff like Doom slaughter maps so...

 

[VincentHanna]

Only had the game threee days, so still learning.

I had a really weird thing happen earlier.

I was on a ship of an experienced player and we had just done 3 successful missions on the 'Extreme' difficulty.

He must have joined a match in progress, as suddenly I was dropping in a pod and landed right next to a shuttle craft that was ready to take off. My team-mate wasn't present in the game and both players were on the landing pad. In the confusion, I just boarded the shuttle and then the other two players promptly died.

They had done every objective possible and me, who literally hadn't fired a shot messed up their end-game and got loads of XP and Republic points for doing nothing. Whoops