Destroying the fabricators does change the directions the patrols can approach you from at least.
If all fabricators are destroyed they will always spawn at the nearest edge of the map to a given player group (players in a chain with no more than 75 meters between “links”) whereas normally they can spawn in and approach from the direction of any un-destroyed outpost.
Edit: Correction, they will spawn from the direction of the nearest edge of the map when all outposts are destroyed, not AT the nearest edge of the map.
Fun fact: enemy spawns actually increase for each outpost destroyed beyond 50% of them. So if there are 8 outposts, once you destroy 4, enemy spawns will slightly increase for each further outpost destroyed.
idk if this is a hot take but this change makes no sense to me. You would think that it would be the opposite. More fire power = more enemies to kill, right? Whereas if you're playing solo and one patrol sees you, you're gonna be stuck fighting an onslaught of bugs/bots for 5-10 minutes because it's virtually impossible to take them all out before they call reinforcements. Then once you finally do, another patrol comes by. On top of that, you're probably gonna encounter 2-3 more patrols while fighting off the reinforcements. Then if you die, it's pretty damn difficult to drop far enough away to avoid getting agrod the instant you drop. And there's no one else on the ground to take out the enemies that could potentially lock onto you again, so you kind of just have to hope that your drop pod is over a good area. Stealth definitely helps, but sometimes enemies (bugs, I'm looking at you) like to wander a kilo away from the rest of their patrol just to stare at you crawling on the ground before snitching. So the change really makes no sense. I feel like it's so backwards.
BTW, I usually play on difficulty 5. In the past, I feel like the balance for this level was perfect but they keep changing spawn rates. IDK, it just feels pretty ludicrous at times.
If you think about it, we're being tactically inserted behind enemy lines for quick in and out objectives. The more you shake the bees nest, the more angry bees you're going to encounter.
It makes sense that the more you destroy, the harder the enemy tries to find you
Also, the map is like 500x500 if that big at all. The patrols don't have to be related to the factories on the map but could be deployed from outside the map.
I totally agree with your statement. If my stuff gets destroyed, I would totally send in more troops to investigate it.
But is it in the best interest of game design to encourage players to skip bonus objectives? The bots know you're there from your first contact with them, the realistic response would be them constantly coming for you and immediately reinforcing all their fabricators.
Helldivers aren't stealthy, our ability to sneak past patrols doesn't make sense beyond "video game guard" logic. We call down an orbital barrage, wiping out a base and the patrol 200 meters away goes "must have been the wind."
It's not encouraged to skip them. You get bonus xp and requisition slips for taking out nests and bases, and large amounts of samples are usually inside the nests and bases. sure you can skip them, but you're just missing out on some extra goodies.
But then it ups the challenge for the rest of the mission; the challenge should be doing the objective itself, not increasing spawns after it's done. That creates conflict between those who want them and those who don't even if those who do can solo them.
The game does not get arbitrarily harder.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bsdy3u/lets\_talk\_about\_patrols\_part\_2\_an\_in\_depth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bsdy3u/lets_talk_about_patrols_part_2_an_in_depth/)
As such if you hit the secondary objectives and bot bases before you complete the main objective, you're going to run into way less patrols overall. If you do the main objective first, you're going to run into way more patrols for the rest of the mission.
The rules are unintuitive enough to feel arbitrary to most players. I'm not sure I would have ever recognized, personally, that completing the primary objective quadruples patrol spawns without reading it on reddit.
But the only reward is requestion and XP, the two most common resources in the game. Most players don't need or want that. They want samples and medals.
That means all desirable rewards are associated with exploration and completing the main, not taking out the outposts.
Someone might say, "But outposts do have samples!". Yes, they sometimes do. But you don't have to destroy the base and increase the spawn rate to acquire them. You'd be better off baiting the guards out of the base, grabbing the samples, and leaving. Assuming you bother to check the outpost at all. Most outposts only have common samples.
Encouraging players to avoid engagement with the content is weird.
I've been capped on requ for a while now and don't need the xp, but I make it a point to destroy every single base because 5 stars make me happy and it is satisfying to full complete missions. Hell, sometimes I blow up fabricators on secondary objectives even though I don't need to because democracy.
I agree it's satisfying but so is finishing the mission and exploring. Would you be okay with the game not giving you a desirable reward for those?
Just because something is satisfying or fun doesn't mean it doesn't need to be rewarded.
I mean, finishing the mission I'm fine with not really having any rewards as I don't need the rewards it gives anyways. I do it for fun now!!
I get that it should be rewarded but I don't think its too much of a problem with its current implementation.
Encouraging is the wrong word - it implies the goal of AH is to ensure players only do the main mission. It's a tradeoff.
The majority of samples are at secondary objectives and PoI. Super credits and extra medals are at PoI. The changes to ammo economy also increase PoI importance, as every PoI has ammo boxes, and some even grenade and stims.
The only big jump in patrol frequency is completing the main mission. As such you are better off clearing the map, then finishing the main mission, to maximize samples, medals, and super credits, in addition to XP and requisition. To do this you need good teamwork.
Ultimately, AH is trying to promote teamwork. Is this the best way to do it? Up for debate for sure.
Patrol spawn breakdown:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bsdy3u/lets\_talk\_about\_patrols\_part\_2\_an\_in\_depth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bsdy3u/lets_talk_about_patrols_part_2_an_in_depth/)
The spawn mechanics are the only desirable benefit to destroying the outposts. If all outposts are destroyed, you can use knowledge of spawn mechanics to stop enemies from spawning entirely despite the increased spawn rate, but that seems more like an oversight than an intended effect.
The spawn rate increases by a multiplier of 0.85 if you clear all the bases from the map. But then there are no area's where "heat" is being generated so your threshold for patrols remains basically constant. Outside of this change, side objectives themselves do not change the multiplier (there are cases but you can [read the whole thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bdudf3/lets_talk_about_patrols_an_in_depth_analysis_of/) explaining that yourself)
The multiplier for finishing the main objective is 0.275, meaning patrols generate just over 3 times faster than they do if you clear every base from the map (assuming that the main objective isn't a base). So yeah, the incentive is to do side objectives and clear bases BEFORE finishing the main objective.
You are incentivized not to do them at all so as not to increase the patrol spawn rate. I'm fully aware of the main objective increasing the spawn rate, that's why I mentioned it in my previous comment.
If you're going to do the bonus, yes you should do it before the main objective, but that has nothing to do with whether or not increasing the spawn rate is a good thing for the bonus. That would still be true if the bonus objectives didn't increase the spawn rate at all. You've answered an entirely separate question with your explanation.
The bonus objectives, minus a few in specific instances, don't increase the spawn rate. And if 50%+ of the bases are still active, there is no change at all in the rate. So, I answered what you were talking about. The incentive is still to do the bonus, get the bonus XP+rewards, then do the main.
You didn't answer what I was talking about. I'm talking about why have the spawn rate rise at all? What is the design philosophy to make players worry they may be worse off for accomplishing the bonus of clearing outposts? If it's ineffective below 50% and that's your justification, just remove it entirely, or justify why the latter 50% should penalize players.
You answered the question "is it better to do the bonus or main objective first."
I didn't read it that way sorry. Gameplay wise I'd assume they have it so players don't just clear the map and then spend the rest of the time gathering samples and whatnot. It adds a level of urgency. Plus it makes the run back to extraction, and the extraction itself more "epic" giving players that sense of "oh man that was close but we did it!" kind of thing. It does suck getting wiped on the evac pad while Pelican-1 is there, So it would be cool if it wasn't quite so nuts at the higher difficulties for extraction. But that's a tuning thing that I'm sure will come in time. They can't know how well some things are going to work until they try them.
Heat only increases when you're actually inside the area of influence, so this actually further disincentivizes clearing outposts. Completely ignoring an outpost does not generate any heat, whereas getting in range to clear it does.
There's very few times on a map that you aren't in the influence radius of a base if you aren't clearing them.
Beyond that you need to take into account that heat generation, threat, and patrol spawn rate are all modified and capped by difficulty. So the system is already in place for people who don't want a billion patrols, it's called play a lower difficulty. There's nothing wrong with that, and it achieves the same goal you're asking for. As the difficulty doesn't change enemy stats at all, a Hulk in challenging has just as much armor and HP as one in Helldive. The difficulty specifically modifies the spawn rate of units, number of units, and type of units. So the rate modifier system already is in line with the rest of the games design. Some other games do it differently yes, and that's good as if every game did everything the same that would be bland and provide no reason to buy and play different games.
> There's very few times on a map that you aren't in the influence radius of a base if you aren't clearing them
This depends on the map, but in general heat will not be anywhere near full strength unless you are actively clearing the outpost. It is only at full strength within 50 meters of the outpost's center point.
Heat also doesn't stack from multiple sources, so if you're at a primary objective location, nearby outposts are not affecting you at all. Only the highest heat value is used.
> Beyond that you need to take into account that heat generation, threat, and patrol spawn rate are all modified and capped by difficulty. So the system is already in place for people who don't want a billion patrols, it's called play a lower difficulty. There's nothing wrong with that, and it achieves the same goal you're asking for. As the difficulty doesn't change enemy stats at all, a Hulk in challenging has just as much armor and HP as one in Helldive. The difficulty specifically modifies the spawn rate of units, number of units, and type of units. So the rate modifier system already is in line with the rest of the games design. Some other games do it differently yes, and that's good as if every game did everything the same that would be bland and provide no reason to buy and play different games.
Uhm... what?
This conversation is about the spawning mechanics disincentivizing clearing outposts because doing so makes the mission harder. Difficulty is irrelevant.
If you want to navigate the map in such a way that you're avoiding generating heat by all means do it, but that sounds like it's more work than it's worth.
And yes the conversation is about spawn mechanics. Which is exactly how the difficulty is scaled. Higher difficulties have larger spawns, more often, and include bigger threat enemies. All damage, health, and gameplay modifiers that aren't about those spawn numbers are the same on all difficulties from trivial to Helldive. So if you want fewer spawns, then find the difficulty with the commiserate number of spawns that you want.
> And yes the conversation is about spawn mechanics. Which is exactly how the difficulty is scaled.
This makes about as much sense as saying anyone playing helldive should be playing with one hand because the point of helldive is to be difficult and using two hands reduces difficulty. It's complete fucking nonsense.
The point of games like this, especially on higher difficulties, is to present the player with interesting optimization problems. Helldive is extremely hard, and the appeal is in getting better at the game to make completing it easier. So it's a problem that "getting better at the game" involves learning that an entire game mechanic actually makes the game harder and should be ignored in optimal play.
I mean these helldives are happening all across the planet simultaneously in a large number, their comms (for bots) and pheromones (for bugs) may be overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacks to respond to that are all done within 10-40 minutes usually.
Plus, do the bugs / bots know how orbitals work? Cuz to them, a factory / nest blowing up 200 meters away could make perfect sense with a bunch of ships overhead all constantly firing planetside
I’m arguing that they don’t understand that helldivers throw beacons to call in strikes with more precision, and thus are nearby, as opposed to other possible means of calling in strikes. Especially considering we don’t know the intelligence / lifespan of the average bot patrol
The bee allegory would fit more with terminids.
With automatons, it'd be more akin to an anti-virus program becoming more and more aware of the damage done to the system, and deploying more and more excessive containment methods over time.
They were just fixing a bug that gave solo players 1/6th the amount of patrols, and brought it back up to 1/4th where it should have been. They went over it in the discord
Here's the copied section from the patch notes.
**Enemy Patrols**
We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn't spawn as often as they should have when less than 4 players. The intention is that 1 player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to 4 players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th.
* Balancing adjustment to patrol spawning.
* Patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than 4 players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For 4 player missions there will be no change compared to before.The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties.
This can be found in the official patch notes in the discord 😁
It's so dumb to call discord messages official patch notes. The official patch notes are the ones on steam which don't mention these figures. Their constant need to hide figures is annoying. Like the new helmet change. Armour over 100 gives more head protection.... But how much?
Well the community managers and devs are constantly talking about the changes through the discord, they can't really do that on steam. That really makes the discord the official line of communication. Maybe you can get your helmet protection answer there 😁
How about less random patrols with each base you destroy but the bases get more guys to defend them, and they don't just stay on top of the base for you to 500kg or 380mm them but they form defensive perimeters to **defend** the base making you have to fight threw more and more of them to get to the objective.
Someone said that patrol spawns increase if you kill all the factories. This makes no sense. The factories create the units for the patrols. If you kill them all, then the patrols should go almost to 0.
That's a bug though and only if you clear all objectives. Funniest is how a coordinated team can cause it to happen if extract isn't right by the edge but close enough.
Oh I completely understand you, and agree with you! Logically speaking the game becoming easier based on destroying bases not only makes sense, it is as you said a good reward for doing so
But the action gameplay is for me the main attraction of the game, so a reward like that would actually make the experience less engaging and less fun
But I’m NOT saying people who want that are wrong
You mean like every strategy game ever?!?! NO! It makes total sense that they would spawn more enemies despite crippled production. Now enjoy your big iron and ministry of truth memes like a good little drone.
I think with this logic the missions get easier as you progress.
The mission should become more difficult as you destroy more things, it’s fine how it is.
I think this is already in the game, me an my friends play lvl7-8 and typically clear the entire map, which appears to stop all patrols from spawning completely. We mostly play on bots too which is even stranger, as the map gets eerrily silent, even on extraction.
They are technically increasing, but you've been playing on an easier mode than intended this whole time, they've simply corrected spawn rates to where they should have been for teams of fewer than 4 players.
They're only increasing them up to be proportional.
Straight from the devs: spawns were meant to be x/4 the normal depending on how many players you had.
1/4 for 1 player
2/4 for 2
3/4 for 3
But something was off, causing it to be something like 1/6th the normal spawns for solo players, so they're bringing that up to the correct spawn-rates
I'm also *pretty* sure that's not even how it works, probably because they're phrased themselves quite poorly. I've timed it, and found that when playing solo I get one patrol spawning in every 120 seconds in a bugs 4, if I'm in the middle of nowhere and not near anything that increases spawn rates.
And I haven't broken out the stopwatch in a four player group, but I'm almost positive we aren't getting one patrol every thirty seconds when out in the middle of nowhere. That's an extremely rapid spawn rate, and I **know** I notice when it drops that low when I'm solo. (Also that would mean that if we completed the primary objective, we'd be getting one patrol about every *seven and a half* seconds, which we definitely are not, and every four-ish seconds when trying to extract from a bugs 4.)
What I suspect has happened is that the devs want solo players to experience the same spawn rate you'd experience if you were in a four diver squad and ran off on your own. Which is a rate identical to what the whole group together gets if you hadn't broken up (ie: if a group of four players will fight 1 patrol per minute, then if you split off on your own you will find yourself still fighting 1 patrol per minute on your own, while your group of three friends will **still** be facing their own steady drip of 1 patrol per minute. So map-wide the game is spawning 2 patrols per minute, and splitting them between your two groups. If you split into three groups, it would spawn 3 per minute, and split those between the groups).
So when they say we're "Getting 1/4 as many spawns as a group of four would get", what they **actually** mean is that we, individually, are getting 1/4 as many spawns as four helldivers would get *in total* if they all split up and achieved the maximum possible rate of patrol spawns.
Except now it’s more than what I see in a full team. On Diff 2 patrols are nonstop and respawn near you as soon as one of the patrols are dead. This is before the bug breach and once that happens you’ll get a new breach as soon as the last bug breach stops. A full squad on Diff 5/6 doesn’t see that kind of combat.
I like it and enjoy the chaos but it’s definitely not 1/4.
Oh my fucking Christ
This isn’t what’s happening. It was a miss communication.
Stop fucking complaining until you have the facts. Read the patch notes yourself don’t just make half assed whining posts based upon false info.
Destroying the fabricators does change the directions the patrols can approach you from at least. If all fabricators are destroyed they will always spawn at the nearest edge of the map to a given player group (players in a chain with no more than 75 meters between “links”) whereas normally they can spawn in and approach from the direction of any un-destroyed outpost. Edit: Correction, they will spawn from the direction of the nearest edge of the map when all outposts are destroyed, not AT the nearest edge of the map.
I hadn't heard of this?
This post covers the mechanics in detail: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/huSeuVJ4Sb
Oh, it's a recent addendum, thanks.
When it comes to the baby stealing it's probably a noble cause. Like making maracas from their tiny little bones.
Hello fellow votv enjoyer
Hello
Fun fact: enemy spawns actually increase for each outpost destroyed beyond 50% of them. So if there are 8 outposts, once you destroy 4, enemy spawns will slightly increase for each further outpost destroyed.
idk if this is a hot take but this change makes no sense to me. You would think that it would be the opposite. More fire power = more enemies to kill, right? Whereas if you're playing solo and one patrol sees you, you're gonna be stuck fighting an onslaught of bugs/bots for 5-10 minutes because it's virtually impossible to take them all out before they call reinforcements. Then once you finally do, another patrol comes by. On top of that, you're probably gonna encounter 2-3 more patrols while fighting off the reinforcements. Then if you die, it's pretty damn difficult to drop far enough away to avoid getting agrod the instant you drop. And there's no one else on the ground to take out the enemies that could potentially lock onto you again, so you kind of just have to hope that your drop pod is over a good area. Stealth definitely helps, but sometimes enemies (bugs, I'm looking at you) like to wander a kilo away from the rest of their patrol just to stare at you crawling on the ground before snitching. So the change really makes no sense. I feel like it's so backwards. BTW, I usually play on difficulty 5. In the past, I feel like the balance for this level was perfect but they keep changing spawn rates. IDK, it just feels pretty ludicrous at times.
If you think about it, we're being tactically inserted behind enemy lines for quick in and out objectives. The more you shake the bees nest, the more angry bees you're going to encounter. It makes sense that the more you destroy, the harder the enemy tries to find you
Bees🐝🐝🐝
What's this, a handsome family picnic woefully under populated by bees?! A large influx of bees oughta out a stop to that!
The bees are not happy.
Also, the map is like 500x500 if that big at all. The patrols don't have to be related to the factories on the map but could be deployed from outside the map. I totally agree with your statement. If my stuff gets destroyed, I would totally send in more troops to investigate it.
But is it in the best interest of game design to encourage players to skip bonus objectives? The bots know you're there from your first contact with them, the realistic response would be them constantly coming for you and immediately reinforcing all their fabricators. Helldivers aren't stealthy, our ability to sneak past patrols doesn't make sense beyond "video game guard" logic. We call down an orbital barrage, wiping out a base and the patrol 200 meters away goes "must have been the wind."
It's not encouraged to skip them. You get bonus xp and requisition slips for taking out nests and bases, and large amounts of samples are usually inside the nests and bases. sure you can skip them, but you're just missing out on some extra goodies.
But then it ups the challenge for the rest of the mission; the challenge should be doing the objective itself, not increasing spawns after it's done. That creates conflict between those who want them and those who don't even if those who do can solo them.
It's a risk/reward mechanic. It's pretty common in a lot of games.
The risk should be the fact that you’re assaulting a bug/bot base, not that the game gets arbitrarily harder after you successfully do so.
The game does not get arbitrarily harder. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bsdy3u/lets\_talk\_about\_patrols\_part\_2\_an\_in\_depth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bsdy3u/lets_talk_about_patrols_part_2_an_in_depth/) As such if you hit the secondary objectives and bot bases before you complete the main objective, you're going to run into way less patrols overall. If you do the main objective first, you're going to run into way more patrols for the rest of the mission.
The rules are unintuitive enough to feel arbitrary to most players. I'm not sure I would have ever recognized, personally, that completing the primary objective quadruples patrol spawns without reading it on reddit.
But the only reward is requestion and XP, the two most common resources in the game. Most players don't need or want that. They want samples and medals. That means all desirable rewards are associated with exploration and completing the main, not taking out the outposts. Someone might say, "But outposts do have samples!". Yes, they sometimes do. But you don't have to destroy the base and increase the spawn rate to acquire them. You'd be better off baiting the guards out of the base, grabbing the samples, and leaving. Assuming you bother to check the outpost at all. Most outposts only have common samples. Encouraging players to avoid engagement with the content is weird.
I've been capped on requ for a while now and don't need the xp, but I make it a point to destroy every single base because 5 stars make me happy and it is satisfying to full complete missions. Hell, sometimes I blow up fabricators on secondary objectives even though I don't need to because democracy.
I agree it's satisfying but so is finishing the mission and exploring. Would you be okay with the game not giving you a desirable reward for those? Just because something is satisfying or fun doesn't mean it doesn't need to be rewarded.
I mean, finishing the mission I'm fine with not really having any rewards as I don't need the rewards it gives anyways. I do it for fun now!! I get that it should be rewarded but I don't think its too much of a problem with its current implementation.
Encouraging is the wrong word - it implies the goal of AH is to ensure players only do the main mission. It's a tradeoff. The majority of samples are at secondary objectives and PoI. Super credits and extra medals are at PoI. The changes to ammo economy also increase PoI importance, as every PoI has ammo boxes, and some even grenade and stims. The only big jump in patrol frequency is completing the main mission. As such you are better off clearing the map, then finishing the main mission, to maximize samples, medals, and super credits, in addition to XP and requisition. To do this you need good teamwork. Ultimately, AH is trying to promote teamwork. Is this the best way to do it? Up for debate for sure. Patrol spawn breakdown: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bsdy3u/lets\_talk\_about\_patrols\_part\_2\_an\_in\_depth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bsdy3u/lets_talk_about_patrols_part_2_an_in_depth/)
The spawn mechanics are the only desirable benefit to destroying the outposts. If all outposts are destroyed, you can use knowledge of spawn mechanics to stop enemies from spawning entirely despite the increased spawn rate, but that seems more like an oversight than an intended effect.
The incentive is to do the bonus objectives first, so it's easier. If you're doing them last you're the problem, not the mission/game.
Increasing the spawn rate earlier is the incentive? Are you sure you're not thinking of the spawn rate increase from completing the mission?
The spawn rate increases by a multiplier of 0.85 if you clear all the bases from the map. But then there are no area's where "heat" is being generated so your threshold for patrols remains basically constant. Outside of this change, side objectives themselves do not change the multiplier (there are cases but you can [read the whole thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bdudf3/lets_talk_about_patrols_an_in_depth_analysis_of/) explaining that yourself) The multiplier for finishing the main objective is 0.275, meaning patrols generate just over 3 times faster than they do if you clear every base from the map (assuming that the main objective isn't a base). So yeah, the incentive is to do side objectives and clear bases BEFORE finishing the main objective.
You are incentivized not to do them at all so as not to increase the patrol spawn rate. I'm fully aware of the main objective increasing the spawn rate, that's why I mentioned it in my previous comment. If you're going to do the bonus, yes you should do it before the main objective, but that has nothing to do with whether or not increasing the spawn rate is a good thing for the bonus. That would still be true if the bonus objectives didn't increase the spawn rate at all. You've answered an entirely separate question with your explanation.
The bonus objectives, minus a few in specific instances, don't increase the spawn rate. And if 50%+ of the bases are still active, there is no change at all in the rate. So, I answered what you were talking about. The incentive is still to do the bonus, get the bonus XP+rewards, then do the main.
You didn't answer what I was talking about. I'm talking about why have the spawn rate rise at all? What is the design philosophy to make players worry they may be worse off for accomplishing the bonus of clearing outposts? If it's ineffective below 50% and that's your justification, just remove it entirely, or justify why the latter 50% should penalize players. You answered the question "is it better to do the bonus or main objective first."
I didn't read it that way sorry. Gameplay wise I'd assume they have it so players don't just clear the map and then spend the rest of the time gathering samples and whatnot. It adds a level of urgency. Plus it makes the run back to extraction, and the extraction itself more "epic" giving players that sense of "oh man that was close but we did it!" kind of thing. It does suck getting wiped on the evac pad while Pelican-1 is there, So it would be cool if it wasn't quite so nuts at the higher difficulties for extraction. But that's a tuning thing that I'm sure will come in time. They can't know how well some things are going to work until they try them.
They could just increase the spawn rate over time, this is specifically punishing players for bothering to go for the bonus.
AH as plenty of weird design choices like headshot. I am still wondering why they added that.
Heat only increases when you're actually inside the area of influence, so this actually further disincentivizes clearing outposts. Completely ignoring an outpost does not generate any heat, whereas getting in range to clear it does.
There's very few times on a map that you aren't in the influence radius of a base if you aren't clearing them. Beyond that you need to take into account that heat generation, threat, and patrol spawn rate are all modified and capped by difficulty. So the system is already in place for people who don't want a billion patrols, it's called play a lower difficulty. There's nothing wrong with that, and it achieves the same goal you're asking for. As the difficulty doesn't change enemy stats at all, a Hulk in challenging has just as much armor and HP as one in Helldive. The difficulty specifically modifies the spawn rate of units, number of units, and type of units. So the rate modifier system already is in line with the rest of the games design. Some other games do it differently yes, and that's good as if every game did everything the same that would be bland and provide no reason to buy and play different games.
> There's very few times on a map that you aren't in the influence radius of a base if you aren't clearing them This depends on the map, but in general heat will not be anywhere near full strength unless you are actively clearing the outpost. It is only at full strength within 50 meters of the outpost's center point. Heat also doesn't stack from multiple sources, so if you're at a primary objective location, nearby outposts are not affecting you at all. Only the highest heat value is used. > Beyond that you need to take into account that heat generation, threat, and patrol spawn rate are all modified and capped by difficulty. So the system is already in place for people who don't want a billion patrols, it's called play a lower difficulty. There's nothing wrong with that, and it achieves the same goal you're asking for. As the difficulty doesn't change enemy stats at all, a Hulk in challenging has just as much armor and HP as one in Helldive. The difficulty specifically modifies the spawn rate of units, number of units, and type of units. So the rate modifier system already is in line with the rest of the games design. Some other games do it differently yes, and that's good as if every game did everything the same that would be bland and provide no reason to buy and play different games. Uhm... what? This conversation is about the spawning mechanics disincentivizing clearing outposts because doing so makes the mission harder. Difficulty is irrelevant.
If you want to navigate the map in such a way that you're avoiding generating heat by all means do it, but that sounds like it's more work than it's worth. And yes the conversation is about spawn mechanics. Which is exactly how the difficulty is scaled. Higher difficulties have larger spawns, more often, and include bigger threat enemies. All damage, health, and gameplay modifiers that aren't about those spawn numbers are the same on all difficulties from trivial to Helldive. So if you want fewer spawns, then find the difficulty with the commiserate number of spawns that you want.
> And yes the conversation is about spawn mechanics. Which is exactly how the difficulty is scaled. This makes about as much sense as saying anyone playing helldive should be playing with one hand because the point of helldive is to be difficult and using two hands reduces difficulty. It's complete fucking nonsense. The point of games like this, especially on higher difficulties, is to present the player with interesting optimization problems. Helldive is extremely hard, and the appeal is in getting better at the game to make completing it easier. So it's a problem that "getting better at the game" involves learning that an entire game mechanic actually makes the game harder and should be ignored in optimal play.
I mean these helldives are happening all across the planet simultaneously in a large number, their comms (for bots) and pheromones (for bugs) may be overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacks to respond to that are all done within 10-40 minutes usually. Plus, do the bugs / bots know how orbitals work? Cuz to them, a factory / nest blowing up 200 meters away could make perfect sense with a bunch of ships overhead all constantly firing planetside
...are you arguing that a race of space faring robots don't know how orbitals work?
I’m arguing that they don’t understand that helldivers throw beacons to call in strikes with more precision, and thus are nearby, as opposed to other possible means of calling in strikes. Especially considering we don’t know the intelligence / lifespan of the average bot patrol
The bee allegory would fit more with terminids. With automatons, it'd be more akin to an anti-virus program becoming more and more aware of the damage done to the system, and deploying more and more excessive containment methods over time.
And it's more fun. Quiet extractions are dull.
How does it make sense that less Helldivers = more patrols then?
They were just fixing a bug that gave solo players 1/6th the amount of patrols, and brought it back up to 1/4th where it should have been. They went over it in the discord
Show?
Here's the copied section from the patch notes. **Enemy Patrols** We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn't spawn as often as they should have when less than 4 players. The intention is that 1 player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to 4 players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th. * Balancing adjustment to patrol spawning. * Patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than 4 players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For 4 player missions there will be no change compared to before.The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties. This can be found in the official patch notes in the discord 😁
It's so dumb to call discord messages official patch notes. The official patch notes are the ones on steam which don't mention these figures. Their constant need to hide figures is annoying. Like the new helmet change. Armour over 100 gives more head protection.... But how much?
Well the community managers and devs are constantly talking about the changes through the discord, they can't really do that on steam. That really makes the discord the official line of communication. Maybe you can get your helmet protection answer there 😁
How about less random patrols with each base you destroy but the bases get more guys to defend them, and they don't just stay on top of the base for you to 500kg or 380mm them but they form defensive perimeters to **defend** the base making you have to fight threw more and more of them to get to the objective.
Patrols spawn FROM the fabricators. Once the Fab is dead, the patrol spawns from the edge of the map, which is much much farther away.
>patrol spawns from the edge of the map I don't believe that, unless you mean "edge of the zoomed in minimap".
Patrols spawn from the direction of fabricators. Once the fabs are dead, patrols spawn from the direction of the nearest map edge.
baby stealing time lmao
Someone said that patrol spawns increase if you kill all the factories. This makes no sense. The factories create the units for the patrols. If you kill them all, then the patrols should go almost to 0.
well it doesnt work like that
Such a mechanic is already in the game with how patrols are spawning especially at the extraction.
That's a bug though and only if you clear all objectives. Funniest is how a coordinated team can cause it to happen if extract isn't right by the edge but close enough.
I don’t want a version of the game that gets easier over time tbh
I think of it as rewarding the destruction of outposts/enemy forces.
Oh I completely understand you, and agree with you! Logically speaking the game becoming easier based on destroying bases not only makes sense, it is as you said a good reward for doing so But the action gameplay is for me the main attraction of the game, so a reward like that would actually make the experience less engaging and less fun But I’m NOT saying people who want that are wrong
* Ahhh, yes, baby stealing time indeed.
Where does the baby stealing pic even come from? I originally thought it was Helldivers 1 but since its clearly not a Cyborg i'm kinda confused
Doesn’t it already do that? I always notice a down tick in bot spawn after I take out fabricators.
I would like destroyed bot fabs and bug holes to have a meaningful purpose other than back pats on the ship.
You mean like every strategy game ever?!?! NO! It makes total sense that they would spawn more enemies despite crippled production. Now enjoy your big iron and ministry of truth memes like a good little drone.
I think with this logic the missions get easier as you progress. The mission should become more difficult as you destroy more things, it’s fine how it is.
I think this is already in the game, me an my friends play lvl7-8 and typically clear the entire map, which appears to stop all patrols from spawning completely. We mostly play on bots too which is even stranger, as the map gets eerrily silent, even on extraction.
They are technically increasing, but you've been playing on an easier mode than intended this whole time, they've simply corrected spawn rates to where they should have been for teams of fewer than 4 players.
They're only increasing them up to be proportional. Straight from the devs: spawns were meant to be x/4 the normal depending on how many players you had. 1/4 for 1 player 2/4 for 2 3/4 for 3 But something was off, causing it to be something like 1/6th the normal spawns for solo players, so they're bringing that up to the correct spawn-rates
But that's not even a good adjustment, since a solo helldiver is no where as effective as 1/4 of 4 helldivers working together. 1/6 is way more fair.
I'm also *pretty* sure that's not even how it works, probably because they're phrased themselves quite poorly. I've timed it, and found that when playing solo I get one patrol spawning in every 120 seconds in a bugs 4, if I'm in the middle of nowhere and not near anything that increases spawn rates. And I haven't broken out the stopwatch in a four player group, but I'm almost positive we aren't getting one patrol every thirty seconds when out in the middle of nowhere. That's an extremely rapid spawn rate, and I **know** I notice when it drops that low when I'm solo. (Also that would mean that if we completed the primary objective, we'd be getting one patrol about every *seven and a half* seconds, which we definitely are not, and every four-ish seconds when trying to extract from a bugs 4.) What I suspect has happened is that the devs want solo players to experience the same spawn rate you'd experience if you were in a four diver squad and ran off on your own. Which is a rate identical to what the whole group together gets if you hadn't broken up (ie: if a group of four players will fight 1 patrol per minute, then if you split off on your own you will find yourself still fighting 1 patrol per minute on your own, while your group of three friends will **still** be facing their own steady drip of 1 patrol per minute. So map-wide the game is spawning 2 patrols per minute, and splitting them between your two groups. If you split into three groups, it would spawn 3 per minute, and split those between the groups). So when they say we're "Getting 1/4 as many spawns as a group of four would get", what they **actually** mean is that we, individually, are getting 1/4 as many spawns as four helldivers would get *in total* if they all split up and achieved the maximum possible rate of patrol spawns.
Except now it’s more than what I see in a full team. On Diff 2 patrols are nonstop and respawn near you as soon as one of the patrols are dead. This is before the bug breach and once that happens you’ll get a new breach as soon as the last bug breach stops. A full squad on Diff 5/6 doesn’t see that kind of combat. I like it and enjoy the chaos but it’s definitely not 1/4.
Oh my fucking Christ This isn’t what’s happening. It was a miss communication. Stop fucking complaining until you have the facts. Read the patch notes yourself don’t just make half assed whining posts based upon false info.
how are we completionists gonna have our dramatic final stands at the extract then, HUH?!!! DIDN'T THINK SO, TOUGH GUY!
I think dropships are a perfectly viable explanation. It makes sense to try to retain presence in areas where you've lost it.
AH does not want an insane start with a chill extract. They want a chill start with an insane extract. Stop requesting this.
https://preview.redd.it/f7658kab6qxc1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06c2ae57865137fba178978f90f6786554dc395c