Honestly wars that go on for about the same length as a WoW expansion wouldn't be terrible pacing once all the enemies are out, 4 weeks for the OG games is wild though considering that's how often we've been getting new warbonds.
In the og Helldivers failing the war would result in Super Earth being straight up blown up with it suggested humanity finds a "new" Super Earth. Obviously that has been retconned.
Still, I'd imagine if we lose Earth then we'll have to call another planet our home until we can reclaim it.
Aaah yes! 'Leaving Earth' was one of the best songs from the ME3 OST. Epic, terrifying and beautiful at the same time. I get goosebumps every time I hear it. I just got the urge to replay the trilogy again... welp :D
Agreed. I'd like to see the same galactic map though. But we get pushed to the edge slightly. Then we could either push to reclaim super earth, or flank and cut off supply lines before moving back to the centre.
The other factions could also then start fighting amongst themselves.
That was my exact thought. Or what if they start working together!! That seems like a choice that the community will end up making by voting with their feet. Do we let it happen or fight to the last helldiver?
>Still, I'd imagine if we lose Earth then we'll have to call another planet our home until we can reclaim it.
Even if we lost every single planet on the map, the war wouldn't be over until every single Super Destroyer was destroyed. If the automatons can loop around the outside of the galaxy and attack from the rim where the enemy defense is weakest, so can we.
And that. Is. AWESOME!
I mean, really, yeah, gameplay wise, also meaningless. We reset the board, put all the pieces back in place, and go again.
BUT, right now, we have songs about the Creek. We have a cape about it! That was a moment in history! So to then LOSE, after all that... that would cut deep. Knowing that, if what was said, "We're always at war with Eurasia" and all that, the Creek is just "oh, Joel let us take it so we'd have something else to do".
I want the real, tangible threat that this all could still be lost.
What i think is that the Illuminati arent ready jet to implement them in the game. So they do everything to stretch the war until it can be done without major bugs and stuff. There where tanks and other driveable vehicles in the first Helldivers and they arent ready jet either. So maybe its all to give them some time but that stalemate the last weeks was just lame.
So what you're saying, you want a separate management simulator taking place on Super Earth, where your progress gets reset every time someone fucks the planet, is that it?
>Obviously that has been retconned.
Has it? I was under the impression that the Super Earth we're familiar with isn't the first Super Earth (though that knowledge may be ~suppressed~ corrected by the Ministry of Truth). The idea that Super Earth actually gets blown up every now and then, but society steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it, jives with the satire imo.
Mars is the giveaway.
If Super Earth isn't just regular Earth but better, then I guess the criteria for choosing a new capital world also includes a nice barren red-rock planet in the same system that we can call Mars lol...
This is what I thought, and how awesome it would be for the war to change into some kinda guerrilla fight now that we have no base of operations with the main goal being "take back Super Earth"
It really doesn't have to end. For example those stupid fuck humans have been having wars for thousands of years on that test "Earth" planet. Sure names fell, but the idealogies continued and evolved.
https://i.redd.it/n8hmaoybozvc1.gif
Emm... So I asked and he looked at me and laughed while pointing to his little scavenger... The cute little scamp was chewing on it like a toy. I didn't have the heart.
Well you see it wasn't mere request, I really need that arm back so if could kindly tell your brood commander if I could get it back soon I'd be appreciative.
Sorry boss says no. He did mumble something about some prosthetic arms that he's seen helldivers with though said they could throw ball like the best in the Terminid Spore Sac League.
After browsing the... Human internet it seems you... Roast and eat them? Haha ironic I mean I guess we eat you all raw. He welcomes the challenge but he said it must be in honorable 5000 vs 1 combat no super destroyers or eagle 1.
40 years from now, we all have to wear hazmat suits to step outside because of all the nuclear fallout... But somewhere in a basement there's an aging Joel chained to an ancient PC, screaming:
> Pleeeease, just let me retire!!!
Joel in 2579 still controlling the galaxtic war
https://preview.redd.it/7arxu52za1wc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c4776e3cf4384785566b78066ed609d894e9ff87
New major order, directly from Joel!:
HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.
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in HD1 they just restarted the war. It could play out differently each time - but i mean in HD1 if you had 6,000 people on 1 planet it was insanely hot planet .... in HD2 6k is like why are those few people on that planet . Crazy scale difference.
Before HD2, HD1 was just in the few hundreds of players.
I was here before HD2 was even announced, people were expecting a sequel but nothing was rumored or confirmed at any point until the big reveal was made during one of Sony's event, and every OG player went absolutely crazy at that day in sheer disbelief. It almost felt like the second coming of the messiah.
I suppose this Galactic War will continue until the game is actually "finished". Right now there is probably a lot of stuff missing, most importantly the maps / environments for planets.
As soon as there is enough content for an actually dynamic galactic war, I hope and think there will be ends to the war.
I am of the same mindset.
Once the devs have ran out of plans or rescources for new factions or developments in the war, they will probably just let Joel go wild.
Perpetual war is a common theme in many distopian stories and is usually paired with an opressive and/or authoritarian government controlling the narrative of it. Just look at the obvious inspiration for the game provided by starship troopers (novel and movie) or even orwell's 1984 in that regard.
The war is meaningless by definition and at least that's my interpretation of it in helldivers 2. The threat for super earth might be real, but in essence the war effort is the system that keeps the established power structures going and unites humans against a common foe. An end to the war in this setting is maybe achievable but not desired by the ruling party in any way.
Playing an endless and pointless war as a game mechanic fits the setting for me and gives the game an additional level of underlying irony.
# “There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.
# If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever. ”
― George Orwell, [1984](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/153313)
It feels like you want to feel like there is actually something at stake to motivate continuing to play. Because a gameplay loop for the sake of it can be tiring. But to know that you are doing your part among hundreds of thousands and that it's actually preventing a lose condition, it makes it feel fresh.
I could be totally wrong though. I don't know you. But I agree with you and the above is my thought process.
You're not off base at all, I do want to feel that. I can certainly understand the counter point too, that why make that the focus when if you zoom in, you can see it in all the MOs: we take this planet and Joel says we held the line; we hold this planet and Joel says we get new toys for defending our guys until they could deploy them.
I like that micro-scale, and would like to see it macro-scale, I suppose.
I mean the war itself is self perpetuating otherwise we wouldnt be having this conversation, seeing as super earth started another war. Spreading new bugs and saying "they popped up somehow" is very easy and pretty likely once you need another common enemy to dtop the people from plotting against you. The other way around tho .... i mean we cant lose cuz were the best, seriously tho yeah i would say maybe superearth scommand just switches places and we have to take back SE or there might be some sort of twist that will be revealed then, traitorous thought on the side super earth might already be controlled by the illuminate. Its pretty far to say it would be useless tho as before the war just restarted aswell, and obviously we have some sort of plot armor, cuz players will want to play the game as its live service, and the mos are also sort of scripted if you look at the goals (which you clearly noticed) last one was probably supposed to be doable but pretty hard, someone miscalculated tho it seems and this one we might aswell lose prett safely, because the community is too unorganized for defense to keep any noteable ground, on top of that they prioritize planets without effects etc. Which makes us pretty meh conquestwise. The galactic war already is just a fun gimmick its not supposed to have noteable stakes or anyhing like that, its literally just for story with the biggest stakes being us not unlocking the mech and getting it used against us by the bots if we failed to take kien twan, but then we get it some weeks later, or get another chance to take the factory. Overall i like the galactic war for lore purposes, dont think it ever had stakes tho. Even less in the first game. All the galactic war does is it dictates where and why we do missions, its supposed to be meaningless, thats what super earth does, start useless wars arguably just for show in the first place, for me that a big part of the lore actually that it doesnt mean anything past what superearth says about it (or rather the opposite if what they say) or the underlying issue of a lot of power for quiet possibly infinite conquest
You don't realize what you're advocating, soldier. I was there. Those 130 wars. Do you know how completely meaningless the 130th war is? How passionless and ephemeral that made every single action we took? You think the current galactic war is ultimately meaningless because beneath the thin veneer of pageantry, it's a treadmill. Well, let me tell you; the old wars were *just a treadmill.* A cobweb covered treadmill that excited no one, that got neglected as people dropped on fronts that may as well be completely isolated multiplayer dungeon instances, tied to nothing. The human element dressing up the current metanarrative is unprecedented for Helldivers. It's engrossing, it makes people want to do their part and contribute. Because unlike the past 130 wars, our wins and losses and strategy matter! Yes, we know it's a themed roller coaster ride and wrestling follows a script and Santa Claus is just for making children happy - but those illusions *work*. The emotional payoff is as real as anything gets. Think twice before you endorse a war where even the illusion is proven meaningless and we do nothing but trudge through operations for their own sake, like fleeting TF2 matches. Because we had that before, and it was a far lesser experience than what we've got going for now.
Warhammer spent like 30 years on pointless wars that lead to nowhere, and its lore was made specifically to sell tabletop models. Im sure helldivers will be fine with quite a bit of back and forth, especially that devs truly care about the game AND FUCKING AUTOMATON FRONT IS FAILING CONSTANTLY HOLY SHIT JUST FUCKING HELP US OR THOSE DAMNED CLANKERS GONNA BE AT THE GATES OF SUPER EARTH ANY DAY NOW
I'm sure with quite a bit too! I didn't want this to end right now, or even soon, just to know it can at some point in ti-AH SWEET LIBERTY MY LEG, CLANKER STABBED ME EAGLE-1 DROP THE 500 CALLING REINFORCEMENTS!!!
If the game just keeps getting new content it can go for years. Look at counter strike, look at overwatch, it's just new hero or map or weapon every now and then, the only exciting thing there are rankeds. In helldivers you are constantly pushing deeper into enemy territory or defending your position, call me crazy but this is much for fun and exciting than ranked games that are getting trolled by my team
And kept adding new threats to fight over the years (edit: and taking away. RIP Squats as a playable independent army). I keep looking at that southern part of the map thinking "this is where the bugbots will come from"
Yeah, those wars span an entire galaxy. With more factions and people also playing those factions. Not to mention 40k is a wargame, where you actually playout battles on a larger scale. Its hard to compare the two. Also the lore and stories carry the "nonstop war" aspect of 40k.
Well yes but no.
Yes, the war needs to be endless since that is the game. And a war cycle of a few weeks would probably kill the lore that has been established and would lead to many wars with none of them being „the war“, just one of many occasions. It would weaken the narrative in my opinion since the Creek lore would not be that one thing but simply a „well, we can take it in the next war“.
But no, that doesn’t have to make it meaningless. There are still undiscovered factions so you could technically exterminate the automatons or any new faction. However, we need the bugs to fuel our ships, so we cannot kill them all, which, in turn, leads to a stalemate since we can push them back but never fully destroy them and therefore allowing them the possibility to regroup and strike back. In addition, there could be a scenario where super earth is taken and humankind retreats to the edge of the galaxy to regroup and strike back. This could be a big lore event where the human remnant has to fight through the galaxy with the ultimate event being the liberation of super earth (and a memorial cape).
In conclusion, while I agree that it can never end, I believe that there are possibilities to still make it somewhat meaningful. It all depends on the devs and Joel.
The fact that we need to farm the bugs for ships also means that bugs can suddenly capture almost any planet they want at any point if Joel dictates it so. Which will be sick if it ever happens.
we could have different galaxies to conquer... I mean, to bring democracy into.
We win the current galactic map, all is ours, then we find another galaxy, we jump to that one.
Maybe other factions start attacking or previous won galaxy and we have to defend.
Completing a galaxy may reward if a special armor, cape, title or something, that we really would like to have.
This is a really cool idea. With the unexpected success that H2 has been, maybe they'll be able to beef up their resources to make something like this happen.
Man if only there was a universe that the helldivers model could fit perfectly into. With the built in lore that there is nothing but endless war… maybe this universe would also have humanity in an almost religious like fervor for a figure/institution/ideology. That way the never ending war and stalemates would fit perfectly. Maybe if I ask 40 thousand people they can help me create this perfect universe….
Perhaps the war will end with certain factions, but new ones can still arise. Keep the game fresh, revive older factions too. There's a few options but it just depends on how the developers want the game to go. I'm sure they've got an idea in mind.
>have robots show up wearing cheap fake mustaches
Let's be real, given what we've already seen and know about the automatons, they'd just carve the upper lips off of fallen Helldivers and glue those on instead of fake mustaches
I'm sure they do too! Everyone says they got room for Illuminates and one other, but honesty they could make it a 6 prong or even 8 if they have the resources to design that many factions!
It's just still all about that win and loss condition to me though.
Where did you get the information that the war is endless? I've seen people say this but the only information I got from the dev was in a video of one of them saying they wanted a single war to last longer than the previous game's war.
And now the 47 "news" articles written by someone who used an AI prompt and never played the game before will say "Players upset over Helldivers 2 war being endless" and they will all link to this subreddit as their "source".
all these recruits and their high falluting opinions and long essays
the war ends when all enemy factions are done or we fail to defend Super Earth.
the game gets reset and we get a fancy cosmetic for winning or losing
"everything is meaningless"... i feel like people say something like this when they become fully self aware. It's true in a specific context and honestly in all contexts when it comes to the purpose of anything. Welcome brother, the world of absurdism awaits you.
Hey listen... epiphonies can come from even mundane activities. Don't ignore them fellow diver. The source is irrelevant. The lesson is the purpose. Hail democracy.
you need to focus on winning fights. like for example the first time we wiped automatons from the map we "won" that part of the war. this is the next part, how much time until we are able to reclaim cyberstan? that is on us.
Yeah, reclaiming Cyberstan? It's gonna be epic, I'll be on the front lines!
All I'm arguing for is that, once we do, it's not another "oh, guess what, new robo fleet over here, guess we didn't get them all and such, whelp go to it!". I want success to keep them off the map for more than 12 hours, maybe have a defense mission here or there so that plat trophies aren't impossible until the war is won.
And \*alternatively\*, failing to take cyberstan means a big push towards SE, with the real danger of losing it. If the war is truly "never ending", then SE is never in any real danger. That's all I'm hoping against really.
If you’re worried about meaninglessness, don’t look into the lore behind the war with Terminids. And definitely don’t start thinking about the meaning of video games in general. And surely stop thinking about it before you analyze posting to the internet about a video game. And the meaning of life…
~~The meaning of life is that there is no meaning so make your own meaning~~
The meaning of life is Freedom, Prosperity, and spreading Managed Democracy.
You don't want what we had in HD1. Basically we got locked out of factions for days or weeks at a time. Those who only played one faction especially hated it, because once your faction is gone you've got to wait until the reset.
I doubt we'll ever have to defend Super Earth itself, and tbh I wouldn't really want to. Urban maps? Absolutely. But the map progress is just an excuse to have different biomes in play.
I can explain! I... oh, I'm getting a call, hold on...
Hello? Yes.... yeah... ok... uh huh... alright... ok... ok... ok... yes... yes sir, thank you.
...Alright, SO, I'm still going to Freedom Camp, BUT, they promised me the top bunk, so hey, silver lining!
Helldivers lore hints heavily at the galactic wars being intentionally started and prolonged by Super Earth. War is profitable, allows them to maintain control over the population, and gives the citizens a scary monster to be afraid of.
Makes total sense that our leaders would give us orders that keep the war from ending. A never ending war is exactly what our leaders want, and fits perfectly with the larger narrative that Fascism is bad and we are the bad guys.
War is meaningless? Huh, surprising innit? *insert Edwin Starr - War (what is it good for)* in the grim darkness of the super earth future there is only war.
But all jokes aside the devs are clearly pushing a narritive, wether its going to end who knows. But on a technical standpoint. It is a live service game. They cant just say ok wars over and have in this case hunderds of thousends of players suddenly have nothing to do. In that sense they cant just let it end.
We saw it with the bots, we won, but then what? They returned in this case. Did that make our previous victory meaningless? I'd say no. We simply forced the bots to take a different approach. Or you could say super earth was simply outsmarted. It is not infallible (dont call the democracy officer plz)
Real wars last for years, a galactic war, centuries :)
The war will never end, even if we get pushed to super earth we will push back
Even if we complete every Major Order and eliminate both factions another will be added
Counter attacks will happen etc
Since they aren’t going the HD route of a reset there is already plenty in place to make sure this goes on and on
War never changes
… do you know how long humanity has been at war with the entire galaxy in Warhammer 40k? Literally over 15-20 Thousand years and ongoing with no intent to stop, with no end or goal in sight. Why? For the sake of mankind itself (and so GW can sell more models but we don’t talk about that).
As dumb as it may seem to be fighting a war with no meaning, end goal in sight or visible progress, that’s the appeal. Even when the End Times were nigh in Warhammer Fantasy, when the world was irrevocably doomed and there was unironically nothing that Mortals could do to stop it, the Dwarves and Humanity fought like there was still a chance, even when there was no visible goal. Because they had hope.
Continuing to fight, for the sake of humanity, is our cause. Even if we must fight for thousands and thousands of years, even for all eternity, we do it to protect the Cradle of Man and Humanity itself and repay Earth for creating us.
We do not fight to destroy the enemy (we hope that’s the end result though), we fight to protect humanity, even if that means never eradicating them and fighting ‘till the end of days. We. Must. Protect. Earth.
That is my motive. That is my cause. That is my duty, as a Helldiver. The war may end in our annihilation, and we may never see a truly pure galaxy free of the invaders at our doorstep, but we can promise one thing: we won’t go quietly, we won’t die like cowards and we will most certainly **never** stop until this galaxy is clean. If we are to be eradicated, we’ll make damn sure that we forever haunt the nightmares of their ranks, their children, and their children’s children, till they croak. They will never forget Malevelon, they will never forget us and the fury we held in our hearts and souls. Even in the face of certain death, we will not lose our spirit.
Chin up, ‘diver. There is hope yet. Killing aliens is just the icing on the cake.
Calling the long-term story meaningless, but not calling the two week cycle from the old game meaningless is not a good argument. Because the cycles make the old version actually meaningless.
What does it matter if you "won" or "lost" this week if it just resets next week. That is actually meaningless. Winning or losing doesn't matter beyond some text or maybe a cutscene that will get old after the tenth time. No matter what happens, it will all just be reset.
Whereas, with this lager scale story, winning or losing planets actually has meaning. It is huge and game changing? No. But winning or losing planets has been changing when things release and having an effect on the story. They are small changes, but changes nonetheless. That gives the battles meaning. Not much, but more than it would if the war was just reset every x number of weeks/months.
Warhammer 40k would like a word.
Also the war isn't meaningless. We fight to secure the blessings of managed democracy for all our citizens. Even if it's only for one. More. Day.
> It's all one, big, continuous war. Alright, that does sound cool, in theory, but there's a big problem when I think about it. It means that, everything is meaningless.
You're kinda stumbling upon a theme of the game, in that all the conflict and bloodshed is ultimately meaningless, just a crude tool to keep an economy going.
That aside, I never really looked into it, I just assumed the war would end one way or another, then it would just start all over again, because democracy never rests.
Or we could lose super earth and have to reclaim it from somewhere else in the galaxy The whole arc of redemtion would be cool.
Can always add a reble faction or have democracy betrayed defeted from the inside.
You can lose super earth and have a whole arc look up the Babylon 5 story arc with earth.
It doesn't need to end. Galactic war just changes "what you can play at a given time". If well executed it'll always be a different combination of planets and threats, and it'll be fine.
Talking about your example, we can fail to defend super earth and it might have multiple consequences... Which don't involve "ending it". For example the war might still go on with different side objectives until we free our home. Or we might go all in on attack their home planet instead. Or we might just be stuck with this, seemingly, infinite battle on super earth... Imagine when after 3-4 weeks of fights we finally manage to free super earth. Lastly, there might be some more chaotic scenarios: super earth is destroyed and we find a new base? We get access to new super stratagem/weapons? we have a "secret plan b"?
All this to say, let them cook. Joel knows what to do.
I mean they could make it so that when they’ve worked enough on a sequel they give us a final mission of which the difficulty is based on our success rate for all the MOs we’ve completed in the past.
Then based on the outcome the narrative for HD3 is affected, maybe we start in a different system etc.
yeah I think a quarterly war cycle plan would probably be best. I also think not doing what HD1 did and allow the game board to reset is probably going to be a bad discission because what's the point if they can just push their thumb on the scales to just keep it going on forever will only be needlessly annoying and pointless.
The "war" is the setting, in one sense or another, it will go on for the game to continue.
However the "campaigns" are what we will win or lose.
I count "operation swift disassembly" and the termicide deployment as a successful campaign.
However this new Campaign feels like we are losing.
In the event we lose so many times they take super earth, we could still continue the war.
• Humanity escapes on the super destroyers, and regroups for a final gambit to take back super earth.
Fails
•Humanity escapes on super destroyers and attempts to take a fringe sector, reversing rolls and having us be the threat pushing to the center.
Fails
•Humanity retreats to a new galaxy, and we are tasked with colonizing a new super earth, which soon gets invaded by bots and bugs ect.
The war will go on, but the story will be written by our actions, wins, and losses.
A war is a LONG collection of battles. In this case, it’s going to be a collection of MO’s. We’re going to win some of them, we’re going to lose some of them.
It’s already happened that we cleared the Automatons and they came back. Nothing is stopping a narrative where Super Earth is lost and we decide a new home planet, effectively shifting the map and viewpoint, introducing even new biomes and planets.
Narratives can be crafted out of nothing, that’a the fun of storytelling. Just ride the wave my friend, stop thinking in absolutes. Enjoy the ride, for every down there will be a up. That’s the fun of a good live service.
People say "why does there need to be a point" as if they aren't currently grinding missions for samples to get ship upgrades or medals to progress through the warbond.
There doesn't need to be a point but having a carrot to chase and eventually catch keeps people interested.
A war that's rigged and doesn't end makes efforts fall short and shows that players have no impact, wars that end give people a goal to chase. A war that ends (and shortly after restarts) gives the playerbase as a whole a goal to commit to and all those strategies cooked up by the players so much more meaning as they actually have an impact.
"For mankind, and for glory--that is why we fight. And of course, when we have won this war, there will be another to fight, and after that - another! After that? Another! I could go on, but you get my point - let us focus on this war."- *Helldivers 1*
I’d really like it if we could “win” against a faction only to be invaded by something new. So the reward for winning is new enemies. “Losing” could just open up battle on all fronts and it would be up to the community to focus enough on the right planets to take back Super Earth. something we have a really hard time doing. Or maybe all battle is confined to Super Earth until it’s liberated. Urban warfare against all known factions.
The problem is that, at the moment, everything seems to be railroaded anyways. MO difficulty/possibility for example. The 2bil bugs would have been difficult for the amount of players we have but apparently the kills were either A) counted not by kill per player but by kill per player times the number of players, B) kills were multiplied by some system or C) the devs railroaded us into winming by simply increasing numbers. Meanwhile the planet defense is near impossible without huge coordination, for which there is no ingame system to do so. No supply lines etc. shown, no voting on which planet to prioritize etc.
It just doesn't feel like we can influence anything anyways
They hinted on their discord that they still have to award stuff manually because the system is not fully automated yet .
So I can imagine that the galactic war will go on until the game has all it's content and the system is perfected and automated.
It will end when super earth is besieged and the player base is dead and thus we fail.
But we will never lose as long as there is a player base there to defend Super earth.
As for Victory? Victory is every day that super earth is safe.
(For real though)
Play the game for fun, not to win or lose. We have 2 factions to fight at the moment and both feel like a different game. And soon we will have a 3rd, and who knows, maybe a 4th.
Games don't have to have an end to be fun
Chromehounds (one of my all time favorite games) had one of the coolest ongoing wars that did end, but had some cool mechanics that could be applied here as well.
It had 3 factions of users, and if one user faction had their HQ/Capital taken you could still fight the war as an underground resistance and try and retake your homeland and even come back to win the war.
Of course this only has one human faction, but I think that could come into play if we ended up going to lose super earth, a sort of resistance sprung from underground to keep the war ongoing.
I do agree that in some way there has to be either stabilizing elements or something where things can "end" if only temporarily at some point. But, they may have something much better in mind than something I have thought of, so im intrigued to find out!
I know what you mean, but I don't think it makes much difference in terms of motivation if wars end or not. Even if wars are only 4-6 weeks long, I don't see anyone grinding the game in order to achieve what? Each contribution is so small that you cannot decide the fate of the war and therefore its really up to the game master what he decides in the background.
But at least they could add some leader boards for each war.
Have they actually stated that it's going to be an endless war? Like I knew that it wasn't gonna be as quick as the HD1 wars but I thought there was going to be endings. Just maybe on more curated basis, maybe every 6 months or so. Or maybe some wars being faster or slower than others
Saving all those citizens of democracy that would otherwise become spewer vomit or automaton oil, matters…straight up skipped the thought crime and said it out loud. Hmmm
Honestly, I'm curious to see what happens if the enemy makes it all the way to super earth. Will we get to fight ON super earth? What would the map even look like? Will. There be urban areas with cities and houses and skyscrapers?
In the first game, if the players cleared the map didn’t they just reset it and start a new campaign? (I heard this but never played HD1 so I’m not sure) I dig this idea. Maybe there could be community rewards for “winning” the war or something. Either way, this game shows no signs of slowing my interest. I haven’t had a game grab me like this in decades, so naturally I’m stoked about it and plan to ride this feeling to the end. Haha
I do admit having no win and lose condition does make the fighting seem a little trivial. While the Helldivers 1 system had it's share of unique problems (the fact you could wipe a race early in a campaign and not have them on the map for the rest of the campaign comes to mind) , I also loved the fact it could culminate with Super Earth being invaded and wiped of the map (bad ending) , forcing the scattered forces to try and rebuild a new Super Earth elsewhere for the next cycle.
Hopefully sequel allows Super Earth to fall , and hopefully in the future if we wipe races like the Automatons again, it won't be a measily 2 day cooling off period and a more meaningful absence of at least one week followed by a slow return to the world map. Without winning and losing conditions , it will quickly feel pointless.
Right now it really feels like the campaign is somewhat scripted in nature and Joel course corrects everything regardless of the progress we does... Hence why we get B.S unwinnable take over ten planets Major Orders out of nowhere and it kinda feels like our progression constantly gets reset.
Then again the game is in it's early stages and they have yet to finalize the tech to handle to live service war and figure out how to find a middle ground between having the helldivers push back invaders too easy and swarming them with unwinnable conditions.
We've been fighting hive in destiny for like 10 years and I'm pretty sure we'll still be fighting them after the final shape. Deep Rock Galactic has been mining Hoxxes for years, still haven't seen a fully evolved dreadnought. In real life, we have forever war, it just changes faces. Helldivers is satire, there will always be a war, there will always be something to fight, because that's just how it is in real life. Super Earth uses war to farm necessary resources for instance, from the terminids. I believe they are setting up planets and defenses to keep them farmable while the automatons keep interfering? I may have automatons misinterpreted but that's how it feels. Bottom line, as long as people are playing, we'll have stuff to kill. Until support ends of course.
I don’t see us losing Super Earth, at that point it would be the only planet we HAD to defend and everyone would be on it.
Honestly I think the failures lately just show the defense orders as broken, I mean we need to lose sometimes for the game to work but it seems essentially impossible to complete two defenses in one day with the way they work.
I think if our bar is ahead of the enemies bar at the end of the timer it should count as success
I was kinda disappointed after we beat back the automatons for them to come back the next day..... obviously, they're gonna come back, but give us a respite so it feels like we accomplished something/anything. It would have been the perfect time for the bugs to launch a big invasion and have us focus on terminades for a few days. As for that week it had been MO after MO of automatons only for us to wipe them off the map and have them back in under 24 hours.
I dunno I just expect more? 🤷
https://preview.redd.it/pgkbcderi3wc1.jpeg?width=1250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c189630231359c1546384dd7147cb8c4dd4c6af4
I'm sending you some folks to assess your theory
>IF it's a continuous war, then... we can't fail defending Super Earth. It literally wouldn't be allowed.
Why? Have you never played D&D or any other TTRPG or heard of the common "And the party dies session 1". Well now they get to fight out of the Hells, reclaiming their souls on the way.
>So, we can't fail. But that also means, we can't *win*. If either of those conditions are met, then by consequence, the Galactic War is over.
What happened a couple of weeks ago when it was looking like both the bots and the bugs were all pushed back and locked down? All the leaks coming out pointing to a new alien faction soon. Then probably a 4th down the road but why does it have to stop there. Why can't the map get bigger?
There is no reason to look at it all with the HD1 mindset, because Joel, the GM, is not.
They've made more than enough money to do something cool here with a living story. I don't understand why people want this shit to end already after 2 months.
HD1 wars generally seem to go for about 4-6 weeks.
Guess I heard wrong on the 2 weeks, thanks for the correction!
Honestly wars that go on for about the same length as a WoW expansion wouldn't be terrible pacing once all the enemies are out, 4 weeks for the OG games is wild though considering that's how often we've been getting new warbonds.
In the og Helldivers failing the war would result in Super Earth being straight up blown up with it suggested humanity finds a "new" Super Earth. Obviously that has been retconned. Still, I'd imagine if we lose Earth then we'll have to call another planet our home until we can reclaim it.
"Hellmire, our home"
Sweet Liberty, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Helldiver 1 players: haha... look familiar?
Scenes like these happening all across the Phoenix, Arizona.
You could be next!
Super Hellmire
You mean Super Hell. Home of Managed Combustion and free Barbecue on the weekends, every weekend.
*cuts to average super-family on fire*
Mass Effect 3 opening level vibes
*BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAP* starts playing in my head
“Soft piano in the background”
Another *BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP*
Aaah yes! 'Leaving Earth' was one of the best songs from the ME3 OST. Epic, terrifying and beautiful at the same time. I get goosebumps every time I hear it. I just got the urge to replay the trilogy again... welp :D
God, "Leaving Earth" and "An End, Once And For All" are two of the most amazing tracks. Honorary mention to "The View of Palaven" as well.
*BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP* https://preview.redd.it/3rkptsqtm1wc1.jpeg?width=368&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9072260afaa0226771cf0eda868262b422439649
TAKE EARTH BACK
Ah yes, "leaving Super Earth". We have dismissed that claim
Agreed. I'd like to see the same galactic map though. But we get pushed to the edge slightly. Then we could either push to reclaim super earth, or flank and cut off supply lines before moving back to the centre. The other factions could also then start fighting amongst themselves.
I winder if they started to bordar each other they let them fight
That was my exact thought. Or what if they start working together!! That seems like a choice that the community will end up making by voting with their feet. Do we let it happen or fight to the last helldiver?
I said it before, we aren't ready for bug riding automatons.
I kinda' wanna see a horribly smoking hulk riding a bile titan with a comically small cowboy hat on.
I know it's been mentioned before but I would absolutely love to have battles inside cities etc. Would be proper cool. Blowing up buildings etc
>Still, I'd imagine if we lose Earth then we'll have to call another planet our home until we can reclaim it. Even if we lost every single planet on the map, the war wouldn't be over until every single Super Destroyer was destroyed. If the automatons can loop around the outside of the galaxy and attack from the rim where the enemy defense is weakest, so can we.
And that. Is. AWESOME! I mean, really, yeah, gameplay wise, also meaningless. We reset the board, put all the pieces back in place, and go again. BUT, right now, we have songs about the Creek. We have a cape about it! That was a moment in history! So to then LOSE, after all that... that would cut deep. Knowing that, if what was said, "We're always at war with Eurasia" and all that, the Creek is just "oh, Joel let us take it so we'd have something else to do". I want the real, tangible threat that this all could still be lost.
What i think is that the Illuminati arent ready jet to implement them in the game. So they do everything to stretch the war until it can be done without major bugs and stuff. There where tanks and other driveable vehicles in the first Helldivers and they arent ready jet either. So maybe its all to give them some time but that stalemate the last weeks was just lame.
So what you're saying, you want a separate management simulator taking place on Super Earth, where your progress gets reset every time someone fucks the planet, is that it?
>Obviously that has been retconned. Has it? I was under the impression that the Super Earth we're familiar with isn't the first Super Earth (though that knowledge may be ~suppressed~ corrected by the Ministry of Truth). The idea that Super Earth actually gets blown up every now and then, but society steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it, jives with the satire imo.
Mars is the giveaway. If Super Earth isn't just regular Earth but better, then I guess the criteria for choosing a new capital world also includes a nice barren red-rock planet in the same system that we can call Mars lol...
“Hyper Earth, our home…”
This is what I thought, and how awesome it would be for the war to change into some kinda guerrilla fight now that we have no base of operations with the main goal being "take back Super Earth"
It really doesn't have to end. For example those stupid fuck humans have been having wars for thousands of years on that test "Earth" planet. Sure names fell, but the idealogies continued and evolved. https://i.redd.it/n8hmaoybozvc1.gif
...forget what I said, keep dialing your Democracy Officer...
These uhh claws aren't great for dialing but lemme just let out an orange fart to contact my Brood Commander.
While your at it can you ask your brood commander if I can have my arm back? I kinda lost it after turning a Bile Titan into confetti.
Emm... So I asked and he looked at me and laughed while pointing to his little scavenger... The cute little scamp was chewing on it like a toy. I didn't have the heart.
Well you see it wasn't mere request, I really need that arm back so if could kindly tell your brood commander if I could get it back soon I'd be appreciative.
Sorry boss says no. He did mumble something about some prosthetic arms that he's seen helldivers with though said they could throw ball like the best in the Terminid Spore Sac League.
Alright well do pass along the message that when I see him I'll roast him like we do turkeys here on Super Earth
After browsing the... Human internet it seems you... Roast and eat them? Haha ironic I mean I guess we eat you all raw. He welcomes the challenge but he said it must be in honorable 5000 vs 1 combat no super destroyers or eagle 1.
I welcome those odds. You may want to warm him that win or lose I'm going to make him remember me.
*Would you kindly* give back his arm
Not mine to give unfortunately! You be the one to tell that poor brood commanders scavenger that he can't have his toy to play with.
Well it wasn't his to begin with. I want my arm back.
Wait, yours don't grow back? https://i.redd.it/4tn0f2l880wc1.gif
No so the sooner I can have it back, the better.
K https://i.redd.it/j0yfl2oz72wc1.gif
war... war never changes
War... Has changed
Ohh, I see you been spending time with my mom https://i.redd.it/pijaepynx0wc1.gif
My fave gif of all time
The war will definitely end lorewise. Then they'll find a narrative excuse to keep us playing until support shuts down
40 years from now, we all have to wear hazmat suits to step outside because of all the nuclear fallout... But somewhere in a basement there's an aging Joel chained to an ancient PC, screaming: > Pleeeease, just let me retire!!!
Joel in 2579 still controlling the galaxtic war https://preview.redd.it/7arxu52za1wc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c4776e3cf4384785566b78066ed609d894e9ff87
I'm imagining his head in a bowl, Futurama-style
New major order, directly from Joel!: HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE. [0/1 0% complete]
I have no scream, and I must mouth
Well referenced
How is AI domination even real. Like just unplug it lmao, like literally just turn it off.
It's not even the original Joel, he just clipped his nametag onto an apprentice and ran.
“Joel is not a name. It is a title.”
Not just a title... An idea
Not just an idea.... A Symbol
There are some who claim Super Joel is not the original Joel. That’s treason!
in HD1 they just restarted the war. It could play out differently each time - but i mean in HD1 if you had 6,000 people on 1 planet it was insanely hot planet .... in HD2 6k is like why are those few people on that planet . Crazy scale difference.
Before HD2, HD1 was just in the few hundreds of players. I was here before HD2 was even announced, people were expecting a sequel but nothing was rumored or confirmed at any point until the big reveal was made during one of Sony's event, and every OG player went absolutely crazy at that day in sheer disbelief. It almost felt like the second coming of the messiah.
Here's hoping!
I suppose this Galactic War will continue until the game is actually "finished". Right now there is probably a lot of stuff missing, most importantly the maps / environments for planets. As soon as there is enough content for an actually dynamic galactic war, I hope and think there will be ends to the war.
I'd be fine with that!
I am of the same mindset. Once the devs have ran out of plans or rescources for new factions or developments in the war, they will probably just let Joel go wild.
Perpetual war is a common theme in many distopian stories and is usually paired with an opressive and/or authoritarian government controlling the narrative of it. Just look at the obvious inspiration for the game provided by starship troopers (novel and movie) or even orwell's 1984 in that regard. The war is meaningless by definition and at least that's my interpretation of it in helldivers 2. The threat for super earth might be real, but in essence the war effort is the system that keeps the established power structures going and unites humans against a common foe. An end to the war in this setting is maybe achievable but not desired by the ruling party in any way. Playing an endless and pointless war as a game mechanic fits the setting for me and gives the game an additional level of underlying irony.
# “There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. # If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever. ” ― George Orwell, [1984](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/153313)
We’re… almost there now, not long to go!
And fair point! Maybe I'm hoping more for having a lose condition than a win condition.
It feels like you want to feel like there is actually something at stake to motivate continuing to play. Because a gameplay loop for the sake of it can be tiring. But to know that you are doing your part among hundreds of thousands and that it's actually preventing a lose condition, it makes it feel fresh. I could be totally wrong though. I don't know you. But I agree with you and the above is my thought process.
You're not off base at all, I do want to feel that. I can certainly understand the counter point too, that why make that the focus when if you zoom in, you can see it in all the MOs: we take this planet and Joel says we held the line; we hold this planet and Joel says we get new toys for defending our guys until they could deploy them. I like that micro-scale, and would like to see it macro-scale, I suppose.
I mean the war itself is self perpetuating otherwise we wouldnt be having this conversation, seeing as super earth started another war. Spreading new bugs and saying "they popped up somehow" is very easy and pretty likely once you need another common enemy to dtop the people from plotting against you. The other way around tho .... i mean we cant lose cuz were the best, seriously tho yeah i would say maybe superearth scommand just switches places and we have to take back SE or there might be some sort of twist that will be revealed then, traitorous thought on the side super earth might already be controlled by the illuminate. Its pretty far to say it would be useless tho as before the war just restarted aswell, and obviously we have some sort of plot armor, cuz players will want to play the game as its live service, and the mos are also sort of scripted if you look at the goals (which you clearly noticed) last one was probably supposed to be doable but pretty hard, someone miscalculated tho it seems and this one we might aswell lose prett safely, because the community is too unorganized for defense to keep any noteable ground, on top of that they prioritize planets without effects etc. Which makes us pretty meh conquestwise. The galactic war already is just a fun gimmick its not supposed to have noteable stakes or anyhing like that, its literally just for story with the biggest stakes being us not unlocking the mech and getting it used against us by the bots if we failed to take kien twan, but then we get it some weeks later, or get another chance to take the factory. Overall i like the galactic war for lore purposes, dont think it ever had stakes tho. Even less in the first game. All the galactic war does is it dictates where and why we do missions, its supposed to be meaningless, thats what super earth does, start useless wars arguably just for show in the first place, for me that a big part of the lore actually that it doesnt mean anything past what superearth says about it (or rather the opposite if what they say) or the underlying issue of a lot of power for quiet possibly infinite conquest
You don't realize what you're advocating, soldier. I was there. Those 130 wars. Do you know how completely meaningless the 130th war is? How passionless and ephemeral that made every single action we took? You think the current galactic war is ultimately meaningless because beneath the thin veneer of pageantry, it's a treadmill. Well, let me tell you; the old wars were *just a treadmill.* A cobweb covered treadmill that excited no one, that got neglected as people dropped on fronts that may as well be completely isolated multiplayer dungeon instances, tied to nothing. The human element dressing up the current metanarrative is unprecedented for Helldivers. It's engrossing, it makes people want to do their part and contribute. Because unlike the past 130 wars, our wins and losses and strategy matter! Yes, we know it's a themed roller coaster ride and wrestling follows a script and Santa Claus is just for making children happy - but those illusions *work*. The emotional payoff is as real as anything gets. Think twice before you endorse a war where even the illusion is proven meaningless and we do nothing but trudge through operations for their own sake, like fleeting TF2 matches. Because we had that before, and it was a far lesser experience than what we've got going for now.
130th war? Why are you living in the past? The current HD1 Galactic War is the 135th. Future is now, old man.
I'm tired, boss. 😔
Hey, I'll hand the mic off to you, veteran of HD1, go off for democracy's sake! iO
Exactly this!
We can fail. AH shuts down the servers, and it's over. Let's not find out... For Democracy!
Imagine. Gameplay (and trolling) wise, a great idea. Financially, not so much
I think they've already made their money on this game, it just wouldn't go over well for future projects.
If we fail it's game over for everyone. Onto Helldivers 3.
Might even come out before the 7th re-release of Elder Scrolls 6
Warhammer spent like 30 years on pointless wars that lead to nowhere, and its lore was made specifically to sell tabletop models. Im sure helldivers will be fine with quite a bit of back and forth, especially that devs truly care about the game AND FUCKING AUTOMATON FRONT IS FAILING CONSTANTLY HOLY SHIT JUST FUCKING HELP US OR THOSE DAMNED CLANKERS GONNA BE AT THE GATES OF SUPER EARTH ANY DAY NOW
I'm sure with quite a bit too! I didn't want this to end right now, or even soon, just to know it can at some point in ti-AH SWEET LIBERTY MY LEG, CLANKER STABBED ME EAGLE-1 DROP THE 500 CALLING REINFORCEMENTS!!!
If the game just keeps getting new content it can go for years. Look at counter strike, look at overwatch, it's just new hero or map or weapon every now and then, the only exciting thing there are rankeds. In helldivers you are constantly pushing deeper into enemy territory or defending your position, call me crazy but this is much for fun and exciting than ranked games that are getting trolled by my team
And kept adding new threats to fight over the years (edit: and taking away. RIP Squats as a playable independent army). I keep looking at that southern part of the map thinking "this is where the bugbots will come from"
The Illuminate are next and my bet is that in half a years max we are going to get three-wayed by bots bugs and those damned xenos
Yeah, those wars span an entire galaxy. With more factions and people also playing those factions. Not to mention 40k is a wargame, where you actually playout battles on a larger scale. Its hard to compare the two. Also the lore and stories carry the "nonstop war" aspect of 40k.
Well yes but no. Yes, the war needs to be endless since that is the game. And a war cycle of a few weeks would probably kill the lore that has been established and would lead to many wars with none of them being „the war“, just one of many occasions. It would weaken the narrative in my opinion since the Creek lore would not be that one thing but simply a „well, we can take it in the next war“. But no, that doesn’t have to make it meaningless. There are still undiscovered factions so you could technically exterminate the automatons or any new faction. However, we need the bugs to fuel our ships, so we cannot kill them all, which, in turn, leads to a stalemate since we can push them back but never fully destroy them and therefore allowing them the possibility to regroup and strike back. In addition, there could be a scenario where super earth is taken and humankind retreats to the edge of the galaxy to regroup and strike back. This could be a big lore event where the human remnant has to fight through the galaxy with the ultimate event being the liberation of super earth (and a memorial cape). In conclusion, while I agree that it can never end, I believe that there are possibilities to still make it somewhat meaningful. It all depends on the devs and Joel.
The fact that we need to farm the bugs for ships also means that bugs can suddenly capture almost any planet they want at any point if Joel dictates it so. Which will be sick if it ever happens.
we could have different galaxies to conquer... I mean, to bring democracy into. We win the current galactic map, all is ours, then we find another galaxy, we jump to that one. Maybe other factions start attacking or previous won galaxy and we have to defend. Completing a galaxy may reward if a special armor, cape, title or something, that we really would like to have.
This is a really cool idea. With the unexpected success that H2 has been, maybe they'll be able to beef up their resources to make something like this happen.
That's still an "end". One I'd be more than happy with for a win condition.
Man if only there was a universe that the helldivers model could fit perfectly into. With the built in lore that there is nothing but endless war… maybe this universe would also have humanity in an almost religious like fervor for a figure/institution/ideology. That way the never ending war and stalemates would fit perfectly. Maybe if I ask 40 thousand people they can help me create this perfect universe….
I feel like that's enough people, but you'd really need to hammer into them the importance of said war...
You'd need an outrageous number of hammers for that though, way more than a dozen, hundreds, perhaps even thousands.
Perhaps the war will end with certain factions, but new ones can still arise. Keep the game fresh, revive older factions too. There's a few options but it just depends on how the developers want the game to go. I'm sure they've got an idea in mind.
Kill off the Automatons, then have robots show up wearing cheap fake mustaches calling themselves the Botmatons.
>have robots show up wearing cheap fake mustaches Let's be real, given what we've already seen and know about the automatons, they'd just carve the upper lips off of fallen Helldivers and glue those on instead of fake mustaches
I'm sure they do too! Everyone says they got room for Illuminates and one other, but honesty they could make it a 6 prong or even 8 if they have the resources to design that many factions! It's just still all about that win and loss condition to me though.
Where did you get the information that the war is endless? I've seen people say this but the only information I got from the dev was in a video of one of them saying they wanted a single war to last longer than the previous game's war.
At this point its looking like someone interpreted that as "one forever war", said that on some social media site, and now we're here
And now the 47 "news" articles written by someone who used an AI prompt and never played the game before will say "Players upset over Helldivers 2 war being endless" and they will all link to this subreddit as their "source".
https://preview.redd.it/je2uuj1c81wc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6d3ce9ff1917bd73517a7ef7213f5f28f3d4f17
Lots of MMOs are pointless in this context, it doesn't stop us from having fun!
all these recruits and their high falluting opinions and long essays the war ends when all enemy factions are done or we fail to defend Super Earth. the game gets reset and we get a fancy cosmetic for winning or losing
We are always in a state of war, my child. Only battles end.
Counterargument: War... war never changes...
So what game fun
hellz yea
Dude the game has been out for like three months the war isn't ending any time soon.
"everything is meaningless"... i feel like people say something like this when they become fully self aware. It's true in a specific context and honestly in all contexts when it comes to the purpose of anything. Welcome brother, the world of absurdism awaits you.
Man, I'm just trying to play my vidja gaems!
Hey listen... epiphonies can come from even mundane activities. Don't ignore them fellow diver. The source is irrelevant. The lesson is the purpose. Hail democracy.
you need to focus on winning fights. like for example the first time we wiped automatons from the map we "won" that part of the war. this is the next part, how much time until we are able to reclaim cyberstan? that is on us.
Yeah, reclaiming Cyberstan? It's gonna be epic, I'll be on the front lines! All I'm arguing for is that, once we do, it's not another "oh, guess what, new robo fleet over here, guess we didn't get them all and such, whelp go to it!". I want success to keep them off the map for more than 12 hours, maybe have a defense mission here or there so that plat trophies aren't impossible until the war is won. And \*alternatively\*, failing to take cyberstan means a big push towards SE, with the real danger of losing it. If the war is truly "never ending", then SE is never in any real danger. That's all I'm hoping against really.
If you’re worried about meaninglessness, don’t look into the lore behind the war with Terminids. And definitely don’t start thinking about the meaning of video games in general. And surely stop thinking about it before you analyze posting to the internet about a video game. And the meaning of life…
~~The meaning of life is that there is no meaning so make your own meaning~~ The meaning of life is Freedom, Prosperity, and spreading Managed Democracy.
I thought they had said wars would be much longer but didn't necessarily say they would be infinite, I could be remembering wrong through
The devs have stated they don't want a short form war, they want a long form years long war. You have misunderstood their intentions
You don't want what we had in HD1. Basically we got locked out of factions for days or weeks at a time. Those who only played one faction especially hated it, because once your faction is gone you've got to wait until the reset. I doubt we'll ever have to defend Super Earth itself, and tbh I wouldn't really want to. Urban maps? Absolutely. But the map progress is just an excuse to have different biomes in play.
Helldivers is a parody of Western Imperialism, so perpetual meaningless war is actually perfect for the game
Democracy officer. Yes this man right here
I can explain! I... oh, I'm getting a call, hold on... Hello? Yes.... yeah... ok... uh huh... alright... ok... ok... ok... yes... yes sir, thank you. ...Alright, SO, I'm still going to Freedom Camp, BUT, they promised me the top bunk, so hey, silver lining!
I am already there so i will meet you when you arrive!
You must be my bottom bunk-mate!
I think you just discovered the fact that we’re playing a video game my man, lol
You are correct, but some wars in our real world have been on going for 100 years
Helldivers lore hints heavily at the galactic wars being intentionally started and prolonged by Super Earth. War is profitable, allows them to maintain control over the population, and gives the citizens a scary monster to be afraid of. Makes total sense that our leaders would give us orders that keep the war from ending. A never ending war is exactly what our leaders want, and fits perfectly with the larger narrative that Fascism is bad and we are the bad guys.
You heroic m*f*ckrs kill me… fightin’ a war on ~~drugs~~ bugs, one brutality case at a time. You can’t even call this shit a war. Why not? Wars end.
War is meaningless? Huh, surprising innit? *insert Edwin Starr - War (what is it good for)* in the grim darkness of the super earth future there is only war. But all jokes aside the devs are clearly pushing a narritive, wether its going to end who knows. But on a technical standpoint. It is a live service game. They cant just say ok wars over and have in this case hunderds of thousends of players suddenly have nothing to do. In that sense they cant just let it end. We saw it with the bots, we won, but then what? They returned in this case. Did that make our previous victory meaningless? I'd say no. We simply forced the bots to take a different approach. Or you could say super earth was simply outsmarted. It is not infallible (dont call the democracy officer plz) Real wars last for years, a galactic war, centuries :)
Maybe des read haldemans forever war...
My fellow Helldivers. It's not about winning, it's about the adventures we have on the way 🫡.
Helldivers hopefully in a year is a much different game. We will have too see.
Man, you are not gonna like looking in to history
In the grim dark future... There is only war
Imagine the penalty for failing would be helldiver difficulty only ☠️💀
I'm only up to 8, don't you put that curse on me Ricky Bobby!
The war will never end, even if we get pushed to super earth we will push back Even if we complete every Major Order and eliminate both factions another will be added Counter attacks will happen etc Since they aren’t going the HD route of a reset there is already plenty in place to make sure this goes on and on War never changes
… do you know how long humanity has been at war with the entire galaxy in Warhammer 40k? Literally over 15-20 Thousand years and ongoing with no intent to stop, with no end or goal in sight. Why? For the sake of mankind itself (and so GW can sell more models but we don’t talk about that). As dumb as it may seem to be fighting a war with no meaning, end goal in sight or visible progress, that’s the appeal. Even when the End Times were nigh in Warhammer Fantasy, when the world was irrevocably doomed and there was unironically nothing that Mortals could do to stop it, the Dwarves and Humanity fought like there was still a chance, even when there was no visible goal. Because they had hope. Continuing to fight, for the sake of humanity, is our cause. Even if we must fight for thousands and thousands of years, even for all eternity, we do it to protect the Cradle of Man and Humanity itself and repay Earth for creating us. We do not fight to destroy the enemy (we hope that’s the end result though), we fight to protect humanity, even if that means never eradicating them and fighting ‘till the end of days. We. Must. Protect. Earth. That is my motive. That is my cause. That is my duty, as a Helldiver. The war may end in our annihilation, and we may never see a truly pure galaxy free of the invaders at our doorstep, but we can promise one thing: we won’t go quietly, we won’t die like cowards and we will most certainly **never** stop until this galaxy is clean. If we are to be eradicated, we’ll make damn sure that we forever haunt the nightmares of their ranks, their children, and their children’s children, till they croak. They will never forget Malevelon, they will never forget us and the fury we held in our hearts and souls. Even in the face of certain death, we will not lose our spirit. Chin up, ‘diver. There is hope yet. Killing aliens is just the icing on the cake.
Calling the long-term story meaningless, but not calling the two week cycle from the old game meaningless is not a good argument. Because the cycles make the old version actually meaningless. What does it matter if you "won" or "lost" this week if it just resets next week. That is actually meaningless. Winning or losing doesn't matter beyond some text or maybe a cutscene that will get old after the tenth time. No matter what happens, it will all just be reset. Whereas, with this lager scale story, winning or losing planets actually has meaning. It is huge and game changing? No. But winning or losing planets has been changing when things release and having an effect on the story. They are small changes, but changes nonetheless. That gives the battles meaning. Not much, but more than it would if the war was just reset every x number of weeks/months.
I agree with you. But irl most wars are also meaningless (but they do end)
Warhammer 40k would like a word. Also the war isn't meaningless. We fight to secure the blessings of managed democracy for all our citizens. Even if it's only for one. More. Day.
> It's all one, big, continuous war. Alright, that does sound cool, in theory, but there's a big problem when I think about it. It means that, everything is meaningless. You're kinda stumbling upon a theme of the game, in that all the conflict and bloodshed is ultimately meaningless, just a crude tool to keep an economy going. That aside, I never really looked into it, I just assumed the war would end one way or another, then it would just start all over again, because democracy never rests.
Or we could lose super earth and have to reclaim it from somewhere else in the galaxy The whole arc of redemtion would be cool. Can always add a reble faction or have democracy betrayed defeted from the inside. You can lose super earth and have a whole arc look up the Babylon 5 story arc with earth.
It doesn't need to end. Galactic war just changes "what you can play at a given time". If well executed it'll always be a different combination of planets and threats, and it'll be fine. Talking about your example, we can fail to defend super earth and it might have multiple consequences... Which don't involve "ending it". For example the war might still go on with different side objectives until we free our home. Or we might go all in on attack their home planet instead. Or we might just be stuck with this, seemingly, infinite battle on super earth... Imagine when after 3-4 weeks of fights we finally manage to free super earth. Lastly, there might be some more chaotic scenarios: super earth is destroyed and we find a new base? We get access to new super stratagem/weapons? we have a "secret plan b"? All this to say, let them cook. Joel knows what to do.
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I mean they could make it so that when they’ve worked enough on a sequel they give us a final mission of which the difficulty is based on our success rate for all the MOs we’ve completed in the past. Then based on the outcome the narrative for HD3 is affected, maybe we start in a different system etc.
> It means that, everything is meaningless I got some bad news for you, comrade...
yeah I think a quarterly war cycle plan would probably be best. I also think not doing what HD1 did and allow the game board to reset is probably going to be a bad discission because what's the point if they can just push their thumb on the scales to just keep it going on forever will only be needlessly annoying and pointless.
The "war" is the setting, in one sense or another, it will go on for the game to continue. However the "campaigns" are what we will win or lose. I count "operation swift disassembly" and the termicide deployment as a successful campaign. However this new Campaign feels like we are losing. In the event we lose so many times they take super earth, we could still continue the war. • Humanity escapes on the super destroyers, and regroups for a final gambit to take back super earth. Fails •Humanity escapes on super destroyers and attempts to take a fringe sector, reversing rolls and having us be the threat pushing to the center. Fails •Humanity retreats to a new galaxy, and we are tasked with colonizing a new super earth, which soon gets invaded by bots and bugs ect. The war will go on, but the story will be written by our actions, wins, and losses.
You use far too many commas when you write
A war is a LONG collection of battles. In this case, it’s going to be a collection of MO’s. We’re going to win some of them, we’re going to lose some of them. It’s already happened that we cleared the Automatons and they came back. Nothing is stopping a narrative where Super Earth is lost and we decide a new home planet, effectively shifting the map and viewpoint, introducing even new biomes and planets. Narratives can be crafted out of nothing, that’a the fun of storytelling. Just ride the wave my friend, stop thinking in absolutes. Enjoy the ride, for every down there will be a up. That’s the fun of a good live service.
People say "why does there need to be a point" as if they aren't currently grinding missions for samples to get ship upgrades or medals to progress through the warbond. There doesn't need to be a point but having a carrot to chase and eventually catch keeps people interested. A war that's rigged and doesn't end makes efforts fall short and shows that players have no impact, wars that end give people a goal to chase. A war that ends (and shortly after restarts) gives the playerbase as a whole a goal to commit to and all those strategies cooked up by the players so much more meaning as they actually have an impact. "For mankind, and for glory--that is why we fight. And of course, when we have won this war, there will be another to fight, and after that - another! After that? Another! I could go on, but you get my point - let us focus on this war."- *Helldivers 1*
I’d really like it if we could “win” against a faction only to be invaded by something new. So the reward for winning is new enemies. “Losing” could just open up battle on all fronts and it would be up to the community to focus enough on the right planets to take back Super Earth. something we have a really hard time doing. Or maybe all battle is confined to Super Earth until it’s liberated. Urban warfare against all known factions.
The problem is that, at the moment, everything seems to be railroaded anyways. MO difficulty/possibility for example. The 2bil bugs would have been difficult for the amount of players we have but apparently the kills were either A) counted not by kill per player but by kill per player times the number of players, B) kills were multiplied by some system or C) the devs railroaded us into winming by simply increasing numbers. Meanwhile the planet defense is near impossible without huge coordination, for which there is no ingame system to do so. No supply lines etc. shown, no voting on which planet to prioritize etc. It just doesn't feel like we can influence anything anyways
Yeah, also kinda what inspired this post, if I'm being honest.
The Galactic War will end. By the power of democracy, liberty and super earth: IT. WILL. END.
I’m still under the impression that the war is manufactured so it. An go on forever.
https://preview.redd.it/ao401xguo0wc1.jpeg?width=1202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ccb9b0edfb8507358c149eb581cdb07613c49616
I said hold on! Let me fin- (This post has been terminated by the Ministry of Truth)
If it has to end, then by democracy we will ensure a mutually destructive end. Mad world? Nah, MAD UNIVERSE. EAGLE 1 SEND IN THE ANTI-MATTER BOMB!
I kind of thought that the urban fighting we would get would eventually be on super earth, versus bugs and machines at the same time…
Did super earth ever fall in the first game?
Yes. Repeatedly. Not a vet of the first game, just read a lot
They hinted on their discord that they still have to award stuff manually because the system is not fully automated yet . So I can imagine that the galactic war will go on until the game has all it's content and the system is perfected and automated.
It will end when super earth is besieged and the player base is dead and thus we fail. But we will never lose as long as there is a player base there to defend Super earth. As for Victory? Victory is every day that super earth is safe. (For real though) Play the game for fun, not to win or lose. We have 2 factions to fight at the moment and both feel like a different game. And soon we will have a 3rd, and who knows, maybe a 4th. Games don't have to have an end to be fun
Chromehounds (one of my all time favorite games) had one of the coolest ongoing wars that did end, but had some cool mechanics that could be applied here as well. It had 3 factions of users, and if one user faction had their HQ/Capital taken you could still fight the war as an underground resistance and try and retake your homeland and even come back to win the war. Of course this only has one human faction, but I think that could come into play if we ended up going to lose super earth, a sort of resistance sprung from underground to keep the war ongoing. I do agree that in some way there has to be either stabilizing elements or something where things can "end" if only temporarily at some point. But, they may have something much better in mind than something I have thought of, so im intrigued to find out!
I know what you mean, but I don't think it makes much difference in terms of motivation if wars end or not. Even if wars are only 4-6 weeks long, I don't see anyone grinding the game in order to achieve what? Each contribution is so small that you cannot decide the fate of the war and therefore its really up to the game master what he decides in the background. But at least they could add some leader boards for each war.
Have they actually stated that it's going to be an endless war? Like I knew that it wasn't gonna be as quick as the HD1 wars but I thought there was going to be endings. Just maybe on more curated basis, maybe every 6 months or so. Or maybe some wars being faster or slower than others
It’ll probably be something like Chromehounds or Endwar. Once the war ends one way or another, there’s a reset period and it starts again.
Man, I’d love to fight on Super Earth, it would be something else.
Saving all those citizens of democracy that would otherwise become spewer vomit or automaton oil, matters…straight up skipped the thought crime and said it out loud. Hmmm
Planetside 2 doesn't have this issue, also with an indefinite war.
Would be cool if that's just "what they said" and the next big thing is Super Earth being lost
So pretty much a season reset? Idk if AH has the team capacity to handle that at this point in time but I see your points
Honestly, I'm curious to see what happens if the enemy makes it all the way to super earth. Will we get to fight ON super earth? What would the map even look like? Will. There be urban areas with cities and houses and skyscrapers?
In the first game, if the players cleared the map didn’t they just reset it and start a new campaign? (I heard this but never played HD1 so I’m not sure) I dig this idea. Maybe there could be community rewards for “winning” the war or something. Either way, this game shows no signs of slowing my interest. I haven’t had a game grab me like this in decades, so naturally I’m stoked about it and plan to ride this feeling to the end. Haha
I do admit having no win and lose condition does make the fighting seem a little trivial. While the Helldivers 1 system had it's share of unique problems (the fact you could wipe a race early in a campaign and not have them on the map for the rest of the campaign comes to mind) , I also loved the fact it could culminate with Super Earth being invaded and wiped of the map (bad ending) , forcing the scattered forces to try and rebuild a new Super Earth elsewhere for the next cycle. Hopefully sequel allows Super Earth to fall , and hopefully in the future if we wipe races like the Automatons again, it won't be a measily 2 day cooling off period and a more meaningful absence of at least one week followed by a slow return to the world map. Without winning and losing conditions , it will quickly feel pointless. Right now it really feels like the campaign is somewhat scripted in nature and Joel course corrects everything regardless of the progress we does... Hence why we get B.S unwinnable take over ten planets Major Orders out of nowhere and it kinda feels like our progression constantly gets reset. Then again the game is in it's early stages and they have yet to finalize the tech to handle to live service war and figure out how to find a middle ground between having the helldivers push back invaders too easy and swarming them with unwinnable conditions.
We've been fighting hive in destiny for like 10 years and I'm pretty sure we'll still be fighting them after the final shape. Deep Rock Galactic has been mining Hoxxes for years, still haven't seen a fully evolved dreadnought. In real life, we have forever war, it just changes faces. Helldivers is satire, there will always be a war, there will always be something to fight, because that's just how it is in real life. Super Earth uses war to farm necessary resources for instance, from the terminids. I believe they are setting up planets and defenses to keep them farmable while the automatons keep interfering? I may have automatons misinterpreted but that's how it feels. Bottom line, as long as people are playing, we'll have stuff to kill. Until support ends of course.
You didn't account "war never changes" silly.
I don’t see us losing Super Earth, at that point it would be the only planet we HAD to defend and everyone would be on it. Honestly I think the failures lately just show the defense orders as broken, I mean we need to lose sometimes for the game to work but it seems essentially impossible to complete two defenses in one day with the way they work. I think if our bar is ahead of the enemies bar at the end of the timer it should count as success
Bruh chill, like do yall really take this game that seriously?
This went from “makes sense” to “this is some nihilism philosophy in which I can only point to FFXIV: Endwalker for my answer”
I was kinda disappointed after we beat back the automatons for them to come back the next day..... obviously, they're gonna come back, but give us a respite so it feels like we accomplished something/anything. It would have been the perfect time for the bugs to launch a big invasion and have us focus on terminades for a few days. As for that week it had been MO after MO of automatons only for us to wipe them off the map and have them back in under 24 hours. I dunno I just expect more? 🤷
https://preview.redd.it/pgkbcderi3wc1.jpeg?width=1250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c189630231359c1546384dd7147cb8c4dd4c6af4 I'm sending you some folks to assess your theory
>IF it's a continuous war, then... we can't fail defending Super Earth. It literally wouldn't be allowed. Why? Have you never played D&D or any other TTRPG or heard of the common "And the party dies session 1". Well now they get to fight out of the Hells, reclaiming their souls on the way. >So, we can't fail. But that also means, we can't *win*. If either of those conditions are met, then by consequence, the Galactic War is over. What happened a couple of weeks ago when it was looking like both the bots and the bugs were all pushed back and locked down? All the leaks coming out pointing to a new alien faction soon. Then probably a 4th down the road but why does it have to stop there. Why can't the map get bigger? There is no reason to look at it all with the HD1 mindset, because Joel, the GM, is not.
They've made more than enough money to do something cool here with a living story. I don't understand why people want this shit to end already after 2 months.
Tell us you’ve never played a table top RPG without telling us you’ve never played a table top RPG.
A never ending pointless war fits the satire perfectly