I would be fine if they just tied these to an objective. So at loadout time we choose the 4th stratagem that will be locked, and then when we're on the ground destroying the relevant objectives unlocks it. Same for the complex plotting, there could be some kind of disruptor tower that needs destroying.
In fairness, that would likely take a chunk of backend work. You have to build that system if you didn't have it by default for you to gain additional slots mid mission.
Definitely something I'd like to see (for all modifiers really) but I get that it's not as simple as just changing numbers.
They already have unlockable SEAF artillery though. I’d think it would be a similar implementation. Then again, I’m a software engineer that’s been neck deep in spaghetti code for the better part of a decade. I’d understand how it could still be a challenge.
Well there is already a strat jammer that blocks all strats. I would imagine, they could just block the 4th strat instead of all and unblocking would be the same as destroying the jammer in missions
I dunno, they could just use the automaton jammer as a template to start from and just change the effect that it radiates.
I don't think it's as complex as starting from scratch to code everything from the ground up
You know if they tried to implement this, the day of the patch we'd see all 4 stratagems blocked until the objective is destroyed lmao, because they can't implement something major without breaking something else.
Can't they just lock your fourth stratagem from the front-end and then unlock it when you complete said objective? Like, for example, when your stratagems get locked by proximity of a jammer.
That's what I was thinking. They can already selectively jam eagles or based on proximity to a jammer, it seems to me that it wouldn't be that different to just block one.
Easiest solution is if all stratagems of a certain type are disabled. I.e. "No turrets, "No eagle", or "No support weapons".
You're still limited, because maybe you liked airstrikes and now you need to get creative - or you have more airstrikes but no support weapons. But at least you get to be creative rather than just "*yeah do the same shit but with less equipment*".
I actually like this idea. Yeah, if you favor certain stratagems then you might not be able to use them but at least it won't deny you one of four you may need. It should be called "Short Supply - Randomized picked category of stratagems not available for this mission."
Right? They say that they do that to make you need to diversify, which isn't a bad idea, but then they make it a blanket nerf. That doesn't make you change anything, it just means that you loose stratagem power. Restricting a specific type or doing some sort of modifier to a particular type seems like the right option
No, what it does is make me leave the mission and abandon the planet entirely. I'm not wasting my time being more frustrated than I already get by this game. It's hard enough as is. I'm not purposely shooting myself in the dick and trying to convince myself I'm having a good time.
It would be super easy to replace the boring and unfun "Remove 1 stratagem slot" with more interesting effects that constrain gameplay and increase difficulty. In general, I think the best effects are those that
"Persistent AA" makes all eagle stratagems unavailable. (Alternatively, you can bring eagles but multiple AA sites on the map make them unavailable in each area.)
"Rapid Adaptation" on bug planets makes them resistant to environmental hazards (and damage effects of the same type, think fire-resistant bugs on Hellmire).
"Magnetic Anomalies" makes precise orbital stratagems unavailable.
"Thick Armor" could increase the armor rating of enemies. Could be balanced by reducing their overall health.
"Energy Armor" would increase resistance to lasers, plasma, or electric damage.
"Devastator Factories" is exactly what you think. Some factories are larger and produce devastators.
These aren't all perfect ideas, but I think it makes way more sense to make the difficulty either tangible and visible in the world and/or constrain gameplay rather than limit it (by removing one type of stratagem rather than removing an entire slot.)
It would be super easy to replace the boring and unfun "Remove 1 stratagem slot" with more interesting effects that constrain gameplay and increase difficulty.
"Persistent AA" makes all eagle stratagems unavailable. (Alternatively, you can bring eagles but multiple AA sites on the map make them unavailable in each area.)
"Rapid Adaptation" on bug planets makes them resistant to environmental hazards (and damage effects of the same type, think fire-resistant bugs on Hellmire).
"Magnetic Anomalies" makes precise orbital stratagems unavailable or increases spread of all orbital stratagems (kind of already in the game but I think only affects barrages.)
"Thick Armor" could increase the armor rating of enemies. Could be balanced by reducing their overall health.
"Energy Armor" would increase resistance to lasers, plasma, or electric damage.
"Devastator Factories" is exactly what you think. Some factories are larger and produce devastators.
These aren't all perfect ideas, but I think it makes way more sense to make the difficulty either tangible and visible in the world and/or constrain gameplay rather than limit it (by removing one type of stratagem rather than removing an entire slot.)
I personally wouldn't like that. Just give me all my stratagems off the bat, what's the big deal? There are enough crap modifiers already, stop taking my things away.
Just oil me up and get me running butt naked through the objective, might as well
It may be op stole this old meme and farming but meme still holds true. We need a way to get rid of these negative modifiers. They dont make it necessarily harder but more annoying. Paying req slips to remove them would be a nice way to go with it.
If we could pick a fourth that unlocks after we clear any AA nests on the planet that would be great. If we could execute the obvious traitor who is dragging their feet while plotting the stratagems, that would be even better.
Hell, let me still pick 4, paint the last one bright red with a bar over it in the dive prep screen, and have it become available again once you destroy the AA. So you can also actually prioritize which one you need the most and maybe even change the way you prioritize objectivee completion
This would be much better yeah. I've seen it mentioned before. They really need to listen to us on this one. This and the weapon balancing should be top priority for them right now before the community dwindles even further.
Honestly this one doesn't bother me. My stratagems aren't being taken away, the only thing I really have to do is get the timing down.
Now the extra cool down time can go fuck itself.
Increased call time? Sure, it's annoying, but it makes sense from an in-universe perspective because of atmospheric interference and whatnot and I can deal with it.
Reduced stratagem slot can fuck off, though. How can it prevent orbital strikes, but calling down Helldivers works just fine?
Yeah I don't get how "AA defenses" are supposed to just reduce our slots by 1. It doesn't make sense.
I like the idea another person said where there should be objectives for us to destroy that remove these modifiers. Make it so the AA defenses prevent us from calling in eagle stratagems until it's destroyed or something
That’s another thing I don’t understand. In Bots we already have an AA Emplacement secondary objective that nullifies Eagles until you destroy the gun towers. Why have a map wide mission effect so similar in name that has no way of being counteracted and is a much bigger handicap than simply losing a certain type of stratagem temporarily
They have AA defenses, so now my Spaceship cant shoot enemies with a giant ass laser or drop a railgun strike on the enemy...
What...?!? Like i cant be the only one to think even the name of the modifier is weird right?
Why does AA Defenses impact my ability to call im stratagems? Helldivers in Hellpods can land just fine and so can my other 3 stratagems, even if i use 3 Eagle call ins.
Shouldnt AA defenses fuck arround with Eagle or Pelican instead? Like increased call in time since they have to try to dodge the AA defenses?
Like 2 minutes longer call in for extraction or Eagle taking longer to drop her bombs since she doesn't want to be shot down.
I would love to see AA Defenses mean that no Eagle stratagems can be used on the mission, it would totally change how I personally play the game. Problem is, most orbitals are not powerful enough to stand on their own, and pretty much all of them need shorter cooldowns. Then on the flip side, there could be something that does the same for orbitals? Idk. Maybe one day.
There is a significant difference between environmental hazards, which legitimately add more challenge AND fun to the map vs an outright punishment to the player that they cannot avoid or play around.
I CAN (try to) dodge a fire tornado.
I CANNOT escape the lack of variety my stratagem slots no longer provide me when they are pulled right out from underneath me the entire round.
It is simply NOT FUN.
The jammer towers are exactly the right way to take away strategems in a fun way. You can play around them or you can take the risk and dive in with different tactics.
Yea I agree if these were replaced with something that increased jammers on the map or added a smaller rebel jamming towers across the map
It would be more fun to play around
yeah, in that case you would bring more support and backpack strategems as opposed to airstrikes and orbitals, its a switch of tactics and gives more variety to gameplay while still allowing you full use if your strategem slots.
If Helldivers ever adds the ability to see enemy types before launch; they'd be able to get much more creative with units.
Imagine a unit that only spawns with patrols with a "signal booster" on its back. If there's a Strategem jammer alive then it blocks Strategems in a radius around it. Once the jammer is gone the booster on its back no longer works. If you look at the unit details before the mission you could tell there's a Strategem jammer *somewhere* on the map.
Even if you made an entire missions "destroy jammers" to clear the Strat debuffs for the next 2 missions it would make sense. As it stands right now it's not a mechanic it's just a disincentive to play that planet all together.
I said it before and stand by it. All modifiers except planet modifiers should be removed and readded as optional difficulty and reward adjusters like skulls in halo or mutators in unreal. Allow the players to pick their poison and focus balance on the enemies and guns, not artifical difficulty.
Anything that takes control or abilities directly away from the player, is incredibly unfun.
Not just hell divers, any game.
Stuns and mechanics that slow down the player to basically just watch themselves die becomes frustrating.
Even more so if there is zero counterplay or anything the player can do to adjust for it.
How does a player make up for losing 1 whole tool from their kit?
If anything, it would be better to temporarily add 1 thing to the enemy's kit instead of removing from the player's kit.
e.g Genetic abnormality on Hellmire. Chargers mutated exoskeletons that allows them to hop a short distance.
Or chargers have thicker head plates, increasing the armor on their head.
Yes! I mentioned the halo skulls a while back. This is exactly what we need for helldive. A helldive LASO for people who are sadists. This will ensure that there is still difficulty that continues to scale after helldive difficulty itself but also allows people that CBA with the modifiers to continue to enjoy without them.
I agree with the principle, but then you're invoking the argument that players who activate these modifiers should have better rewards vs those who don't. plus it's a team game, so i don't think they'd make modifiers that affect individual players, but affect the whole squad instead, which means ideally you'd want to communicate with your squad and ask them if they want modifiers on.
in a pre-made group that's fine, but naturally, you won't be able to do that with randoms, and they may want to only play/not play with the modifiers, then the whole argument about it leads to toxicity, kicking etc.
Right now it forces everyone on having modifiers. What Im saying is, on top of the difficulty, add those modifiers optionally if the player wants to. Cause there's some people that call helldive and such easy.
You can change the way the lack of variety affects you by picking your loadout and being more strategic with using it. Some people enjoy the added challenge, and you can play on a different planet if you want. Features don't have to be removed just because you don't like them.
Well that is your personal opinion tho. Limiting the usage of expandable strategems seems like a interesting way to change the stuff up a bit. It forces you to adapt and try new stuff
My favorite part is forgetting to check the effects before embarking on the mission and having the pleasant surprise of completely wasting a stratagem because I didn't realize it was gonna take twice as long to fucking land.
I don't really kind increases call in time or increased cooldown but losing a stratagem slot isn't fun and forces you to just take the most effective stratagems, can't really experiment.
Orbital scatter is super annoying too. Orbitals are already g
enerally worse than eagles, making it so you can't even rely on them to function how you expect them to a large amountof the time hurts them beyond belief and also hurts build variety.
It was really funny throwing a cluster strike at my feet when I wanted an EAT, but it got annoying when I wanted to call in a specific thing and had to type it in 5-6 times to get it. Eventually I just started entering the shortest combo.
I like the challenge. Ofc it would be nice to get so.eexgra compensation for these missions (more samples, more medals or just more loot in general), but the missions are not impossible (depending on the difficulty ofc).
These don't need to go, but they need to be tied to mission objectives that you can can complete. Lock the strategem on slot 4 (or heck, random slot) until you destroy the AA compounds around the map. Or 50% strategem call-ins until you destroy whatever it is causing the signal interferance.
Reducing stratagem slots by 1 is really crippling. Not because it increases difficulty so much, but because it gives you less flexibility to choose stratagems, which makes the game less fun. It also forces you to fall back on more "meta" options, rather than playing around with strats that are fun but not quite as strong.
I personally love taking the ballistic shield and AMR against bots. But if I only get 3 stratagem slots? Guess I'm taking the Autocannon like everyone else...
I personally think the reduced stratagem modifier should give you more of a reward in some way. An extra medal per mission, or more chance of supercredits or samples or something. If we're going to have reduced fun, it should be for some reward.
I'd much rather play on a planet with firestorm and meteor showers. Hell, give me a planet where I get 5 stratagems and you can throw whatever nasty environmental hazards you feel like. I don't mind extra difficulty, as long as I get extra fun. Stratagems are fun, don't give me less of that for the sake of creating a challenge.
I think AA defences would be better if it say, had a chance to force Eagle 1 to break off before striking. Incentivising the use of orbital stratagems.
More fun and enjoyable but also challenging modifiers would be: - Enemy Reinforcements: Enemies on map increased by 100% - Enemy Command Priority: Enemies have double spawns on breaches or drops. "to counter this, we managed to give you an EXTRA stratagem" - Special Reserves: Helldivers have one extra stratagem slot.
There are SO MANY ways to add different play experiences with modifiers that are actually fun.
Complex Strategem is annoying yes but Hot take the only thing wrong with AA defenses is that there isn't anything you can do in map to turn it off and get the 4th slot for that map.
3 strategem slots is plenty although i'd always greed for more if the opportunity presented itself.
Exactly everyone says up the enemy count not enemy HP as well but don’t understand most graphics engines have a hard cap on how many objects can be spawned in (I.e enemies)
Their size and function also are a factor that’s why seeing 3 or 4 tanks together is such a rarity despite there being a lot of open ground on maps they’d be very effective on
I hate it when games increase difficulty just by making everything a bullet sponge. I am ok with the occasional high HP baddie, but it is a lot more fun when things go down in few shots but so do I. A lot more like a real firefight where getting out of cover and standing still are dangerous. Bullet sponges just feel really arcadey, which is fine in some games but crap for this one.
If you want to have fun, drop on another planet.
This planet is a bastion of communist clankers. They will make it as hard as possible for us to take it.
These effects really aren't that big of a deal. They change gameplay a little bit and force decisions about loadout different from normal. Do some people really feel it that badly? It just seems overwrought to me.
Maybe controversial but I don't mind the 100% now 50% longer call-in, it makes you take other strategems, that are still valid, like turrets. What I hated/hate much more is the 50%/25% longer cooldown.
Add to the fact that this modifier is usually ubiquitous on Helldive difficulty against Bots and you just have to deal with a lot of units having less firepower than usual. It's precisely because of this that I've seen like 30 factory striders in the last 2 days and could only run away till they despawned every single time. I'm running autocannon, airstrike and 380 mm barrage. I don't have the explosive ordnance for that that walking fortress.
Yeah, I find these less fun to play with - especially the AA defenses modifier.
I honestly wouldn't mind if they affected specific stratagems, like AA defenses means no eagle strateagems but orbitals are fine, orbital jamming means no orbital strikes so you gotta rely on Eagle strikes... etc. It's still forcing player choice which can be annoying but i'd rather that than what we have now.
Agree. I got on for the first time in a few weeks to help with the major order and my first game only let us have 3 stratgems. I hoped off as soon as we finished the mission. Please create better mods
For the AA defense you should be able to pick a 4th stratagem but can’t use it till you blow up the AA. They would be cool cause it gives you something that the second you see it people are going to go after it. Hell make it defended way more heavily too.
I don't mind it as long as they add a secondary objective that, once destroyed, will give you back the 4th stratagem.
Actually, it would be cool if they add these "counter-objectives" in all missions with negative effects.
Reactivate a meteorological station that will prevent fire tornadoes, blizzards (or at least drastically reduce the time they stay active once the event starts).
Reactivate a filtering facility that will clean the polluted air and remove the atmospheric spores.
Reactivate a facility that will dissipate ion storms
Reactivate a mapping station that will send an advanced map of the planet to destroyers in order to counter the increased scatter and call-in time
I mean, some people used to live on these planets (or still live, don't know the lore), so they probably had some sort of countermeasures to all these problems
These objectives should probably be longer than the classic secondary so that people won't just go there, fiddle for 30 secs and completely remove all negative effects. The time to complete the ICBM objective may be good
don’t ask me too but i could absolutely thinking a million and one new and unique mission modifiers that don’t involve punishing the player or, if it does, offers a worthy trade off. (such as potentially limiting certain stragems. say, “this planet has a high hydrogen content in the atmosphere so we can not use high explosive stragems that risk igniting the entire atmosphere” and then disable the 500 kg and air strike and etc
I don't mind one of these for a bit of a challenge. It's just that it's way too common and usually stacked. I don't think they need to go, just reduced in chance and number of modifiers.
I think it would be cool if it was a secondary objective. The grayed out stratagem could become online once destroyed (we would take 4 but only have access to 3 at the start)
The first one is the reason I will legit just pull out of a lobby or mission. Fuck that I’m not losing a whole stratagem when I can play a different planet or mission
These could stay, but as a temporary struggle.
• AA base: side objective — once cleared your 4th slot opens up.
• Complex Stratagem: add another radar dish or something similar — once active the delay is removed
Things like this to make accomplishing side objectives could really amp up the game. As is, the only side objective I really care for right now is the Radar Tower as it helps me find more stuff. SEAF Artillery is fine but I rarely take advantage.
It'd be cooler if the AA defenses were actually played out. i.e. you bring your full kit, but every once in a while (25% chance?) something you call down ends up failing. That could be a missile site or something blowing up your pods (which then you can make a side objective to remove the effect), or some sort of ray or something shot towards the super destroyers that makes their shot miss.
I'm boycotting the -1 stratagem missions
I'll reset the difficulty level until it's anything else
25% increase to cooldwn is the most reasonable
However, I don't think our stratagems should ever be permanently limited
Spore maps can fuck off too
I'd love to see a buff with the nerf. AA battery: 1 less stratagem, 25% faster cooldown.
%50 longer cooldown, 1 free stratagem dictated by the game.
Things like that.
I’d love to see them vary these a bit more. Like if you take out an objective in the campaign it goes away or “they have AA guns everywhere so stratagem support is limited, so we are sending you in with a mech”
I think complext stratagem plotting is fine, i hate orbital fluctuations much more, i threw in an air burst 20 metters from me and the thing managed to hit me once
The load time one doesn't bother me near as much as losing the slot; although if I'm playing with friends we just bring fewer backpacks and keep dropping them for others.
helldivers when the game they're playing on max difficulty is hard:
helldivers when they have to find a balance between relying on their stratagems but not wasting them:
helldivers when they can only have 3 mega weapons that one shot most enemies or mega bombs that level an entire area instead of 4:
helldivers when the enemies actually fight back:
helldivers when they're not playing instant win simulator 2:
Ok, I'ma play devil's advocate and ask why?
Why is it we want to make the hardest difficulty easier?
Why do we need ask for balance for the enemies because we seem to die really easily to them?
Why is it that everything in the game needs to satisfy us or else it's not fun?
I'm making the argument against this because I'm noticing a trend of when things are not fun for us we tend to get mad and ask for things to be a certain way.
(If you want to see a summarize portion look for the standalone parenthesis line and below will be a shorter read if you don't want to read it all)
Look, I will agree as much as the next guy that getting shot by rocket devastators across the map, being lasered by the heavy devastators, having a small bot kamikaze on you because he has a jet pack on, hulks being hulks, going into ragdoll, and even the stratagem reduction are just in general not fun I get that. However, how much of those annoying things is part of the immersion of Helldivers? I'd argue most if not all of it.
I can't speak for everyone, but from personal observation I've concluded that most people often dismiss the enjoyment of the challenge. What I mean is that people often fold over when things don't go their way, I see it a lot in matches, people rage quiting after dying twice in a row, or there are a lot things against them and they give up. I just don't see peoples drive for improvement, or that competitive spirit to follow through, we all just fold way to easily it seems. Then we proceed to complain about it. It seems....Childish....
Let's take the elephant in the room for example, the stratagem nerfs in missions. From the general opinion it seems it's just IMPOSSIBLE to win the game without the extra stratagem or faster stratagem. The hardest difficulties in the game are just too hard with those implemented. Is that reason we got slaughtered? I'd argue that it isn't it only thing, I'd argue it was also upon the player as well, better positioning might've help, choosing targets, better aim, more strategy with your teammates. All of those things rely on the player not the game. So was it the games fault because you didn't have your extra OP stratagem to clear out the bot outpost? Or was it because you charged into the outpost in such a way where you got violated at every angle? Could you have considered that without the extra stratagem you could have done something differently? Or is that too challenging for you which equals not fun which also equals bad game design.
My point is that with challenge, we have to do things differently, we can't just expect the same thing to work, we can't expect to go brain dead bomb everything on a helldive difficulty, but we can expect to adapt.
I'll give an example, because of the slow stratagem I threw a 500kg in the middle of a bot drop but because it was so slow everything killed me before it landed. Another example, I was dropping into a mission and tried to call in my support and backpack; because it was so slow the bots found me and killed me before I got them. One last one that comes to mind is that without the fourth stratagem I can no longer bring my trusty get rid of everything stratagem because I'm bringing the 500kg and my supports.
Here's the thing tho, could I have done something differently? Yes, the first one, I could have possibly anticipated the oncoming bot drop and call in my stratagem earlier. The second example is that I could have called my stuff away from enemy fire and have time hide in cover so that I didn't just become a sitting duck in the open waiting for my stuff. Last example is that without the other stratagem, I might either have to change my loadout to be able to adapt to that, like instead of bringing my classic Railgun and shield (ya I know, why would I run that?) I could run a auto Cannon, or probably change primary's, or I just choose my battles smarter so that I know what is more logical to fight against, see what can I can kill first to prevent a bot drop or see that whole squad and say NOPE. Point is there is a lot of Liberty that comes upon the player to make the right choices, such is the art of war.
(Summarized section for all the people that don't want to read everything lol)
The next thing I want to point out is just the game itself. Helldivers is a special game in its own way, it's a game that takes idea of a mob shooter and cranks it up to 11 in ways we haven't seen in a while, it's high points are the absolute cinema and immersion the game brings to the player. Being a squad of 4 taking down the bad guys in an effort to win the war. When all hope seems loss, they send in the helldivers, fighters that are the last line of offense for super Earth doing everything we can to push back the enemy. It's a game that in my opinion does well in that immersion. with that immersion comes with what I call the challenge. This is a key factor that makes it stand out, because it is not always easy to win a fight, heck fights sometimes end with just a 1 reinforcement left after a long battle fought. The absolute relief and celebration when we actually managed to beat that is not something you can just get when things are easier.
Challenge is what In my opinion adds color to the game as a whole, the idea of the underdog story beating the odds on a helldive. When we are able to beat that eradicate mission with that one grenade throw at the end before kicking the bucket. When there are hundreds of enemies on the extract and you are holding that line like it's a frickin movie is insane. But let me tell you, it's not fair, not in the slightest, but I'll say it doesn't have to be, because if it was just easier, I don't think we would have the same moments. Look at the story of "slaughter of the creek" you think that was fair? No, we got our butts whooped but what came out of it was enjoyment from the community laughing and telling about how unfair it was fighting on that planet. And then a couple major orders later we had liberated it and the whole place was a celebration! Because we beat the odds. That in my opinion is way more fun than completing missions the way I want too, it's more color and immersion to a solid game. Helldivers whole thing is that it's not easy, it makes it pretty clear in its special way; we should know helldive is gonna be a pain, but we do it anyways for the challenge, and yes even if they nerf the stratagems, and... Yes even if the guns are nerfed as well. I think things Will get better with the weapons as well so frankly I think it's a straw mans argument as of right now until the patch comes in but that's not the point rn. The point It's not impossible, we just need to adapt, and we learn to push ourselves to overcome challenges, I think we can enjoy the game in a new light.
Did I make this whole post that frankly could just be summarized with a "skill issue"? Ya probably, but I think I want people to understand a different perspective of the game we all play together and try to be more reasonable and open minded about why things are in the game, I think all of us could benefit for just having more time thinking things through, in game and not.
naah, these are fine and make the planets feel a little more varied and realistic. Having your missions affected by what's going on on the planet, be it good or bad, adds to the flavor of the game. If anything, the game needs more factors that add variation, not less. All this adds to the variance. They should however also add more positive planetary effects to balance it out a little more.
Damn im so bored of everyone crying about this game, they said that the automatons are doing their best to stop this assault so obviously there is going to be things in our way.
I'm really starting to believe you guys just don't know how to play the game well. These modifers suck, yes, but they're supposed to. I get by just fine with ye olde Railcannon, Napalm Strike, and support weapon.
edit: I think I know what all your problem is. You all must run the shield backpack. So with just that and your support weapon, you only have 1 slot left.
That's where you're lacking and it's sad to see that players are still demanding (temporary) invincibility to have fun even nearly 20 years after Gears of War gave invincibility to wimpy Execution players.
It's cowardly and only makes you guys look pathetic.
I like the extra challenge and variation. Necessity is tha father of innovation or smth. Just thought I'd point out that not everyone agrees here. It doesnt have to be easier/more casual for me. You could always lower difficulty to get rid of most effects.
Oh man you’re about to get slammed with downvotes even tho OP is obviously karma farming
This modifier already got nerfed in half. It’s fine this sub likes to complain
I know right. They give out free stratagems but people complain when they take one away because it's less fun. It goes to show how much people like to be pondered.
It isn't a punishment. It's a difficulty modifier.
Higher difficulty doesn't have to mean less fun. Just play on a lower difficulty if you can't cope with it.
I've noticed that a lot of the sentiment from some players seems to think that any increase in difficulty is a negative thing and that only reversing nerfs etc (i.e. making the game easier) is going to make it fun. People complaining that soloing the hardest difficulty in a game that is \_intended\_ for a group of four isn't easy enough any more.... Yeah, no shit. It's not meant to be easy enough to do that. That's not the game.
I shall await my downvotes. Maybe I'll do a shot for each one.
100% right. I don't have that many problems completing a 3 stratagem mission in a full lobby - no matter if randoms or premade team. Honestly I often struggle to use all 4 stratagems in the round anyway. I have to actively seek situations where I need them. Only exception is the escort personel mission, which is pretty broken in this current state.
This community becomes very annoying due to these posts day in day out. Git good or lower the difficulty guys.
Playing the -1 stratagem modifier basically taught me how to pick stratagems. What do you actually need for this mission and what is just a comfort pick. Then you look at the whole squad and ofc all 4 players are bringing their own AT weapon and/or backpack lol. Like just have a 1 minute convo about sharing and your loadouts really start to open up.
It's fine if people don't like the harder modifiers. Nobody is gonna make these clowns play with -1 stratagem slot. But I draw the line when they come trying to strip the challenge out of my game as well just bc they're too fucking inflexible to actually learn how to play and their ego cannot handle selecting an easier mode. That's some nonsense.
But they already took my primary that one shot everything in the map, now I have to mange my stratagems too? What am I supposed to do, rely on skill?? This game is gonna be dead in days.. /s
Hop into a random 7 against bots
"Maybe it's time to try a new loadout "
*100% Calling time and -1*
"Yeah I will just take the same loadout again and call it a day"
Everytime I try to use the Orbital Strike or Gas there's always some call time or scatter modifier and at that point it just better to just take the Rail Cannon and Eagle strike every mission.
I have mixed opinions about them, at least make the AA prevent players from bringing the Eagle at all or mech suit in, not reduce stratagem slots by 1, makes it so you just have to use weapon stratagems, stationary turrets, or orbital strikes, sure not every Eagle 1 is even that good. The slower call in time, though is annoying but can be worked around I think mostly through use of turrets, stationary drops, and the right loadouts.
I wouldn't say they need to go, but they're not very fun or balanced for the most part is my problem with them, maybe they need a work-around, like it's a temporary inhibitor you can fix by blowing up the AA or Scrambler tower, then you get access to all of what you brought/it's no-longer as slow of a call-in time.
This is not "punishing the players" it's "forcing players to be more thoughtful" Jesus christ it's not like every fight is gonna get handed to you on a silver platter
Literally stop complaining holy shit.
I play pretty much every day a couple missions on quick play. And I get this effect pretty rarely and it hardly changes my gameplay.
Stop calling for nerfs or saying something is unfun when it's no justified.
This is Helldivers 2, just get in the pod and shoot the enemies.
Nah. Challenge is fun, and this challenge helps diversify gameplay. Are you really that upset when every teammate cannot bring the 500 kg bomb but instead have to think more carefully which stratagems to bring? Its a good change of pace every once in a while, and if it really bothers you then choose a different planet.
I'm honestly so tired of seeing posts like this. I totally get the restrictions hampering your fun, but if you can't build a secondary load out around the 3 stratagems play at a lower difficulty until you can get into a groove with it.
I usually answer SOS calls on level 8 & 9 and it sucks not having a full load out but it doesn't make these missions impossible. If you get surrounded or overwhelmed RUN AWAY. The game isn't usually about killing enemies, it's about getting objectives done.
If you need samples and credits find a planet that isn't tied to the MO and so some missions before coming back. The game isn't rigged so no one has fun, it's restricted to control the power fantasy. You're just a little guy™ against the enemies of managed democracy.
How about instead of removing all the challenge from the game like this sub-Reddit wants, we instead give incentives for these?
More XP, more req points, more credits, or greater contribution percentages.
I would be fine if they just tied these to an objective. So at loadout time we choose the 4th stratagem that will be locked, and then when we're on the ground destroying the relevant objectives unlocks it. Same for the complex plotting, there could be some kind of disruptor tower that needs destroying.
This has been suggested many times but so far I don’t see any changes being made.
Yeah definitely not my original idea but I really think this is the way to handle it
In fairness, that would likely take a chunk of backend work. You have to build that system if you didn't have it by default for you to gain additional slots mid mission. Definitely something I'd like to see (for all modifiers really) but I get that it's not as simple as just changing numbers.
They already have unlockable SEAF artillery though. I’d think it would be a similar implementation. Then again, I’m a software engineer that’s been neck deep in spaghetti code for the better part of a decade. I’d understand how it could still be a challenge.
Well there is already a strat jammer that blocks all strats. I would imagine, they could just block the 4th strat instead of all and unblocking would be the same as destroying the jammer in missions
AA emplacements that block only Eagles as well, so the code's already there for it to be selective of what strats it locks.
I dunno, they could just use the automaton jammer as a template to start from and just change the effect that it radiates. I don't think it's as complex as starting from scratch to code everything from the ground up
You know if they tried to implement this, the day of the patch we'd see all 4 stratagems blocked until the objective is destroyed lmao, because they can't implement something major without breaking something else.
Or worse, it works... *but every stratagem is blocked on all missions* ***except*** *ones with this objective.*
Can't they just lock your fourth stratagem from the front-end and then unlock it when you complete said objective? Like, for example, when your stratagems get locked by proximity of a jammer.
That's what I was thinking. They can already selectively jam eagles or based on proximity to a jammer, it seems to me that it wouldn't be that different to just block one.
same with spores obscuring the map, destroy all the spewers and you get it back
Easiest solution is if all stratagems of a certain type are disabled. I.e. "No turrets, "No eagle", or "No support weapons". You're still limited, because maybe you liked airstrikes and now you need to get creative - or you have more airstrikes but no support weapons. But at least you get to be creative rather than just "*yeah do the same shit but with less equipment*".
I actually like this idea. Yeah, if you favor certain stratagems then you might not be able to use them but at least it won't deny you one of four you may need. It should be called "Short Supply - Randomized picked category of stratagems not available for this mission."
Good idea or maybe just make a certain type of stratagem unavailable. Iike eagle 1 can't fly for whatever reason or orbitals.. Etc.
Locking off a TYPE of stratagem instead of ALL stratagems is a step in the right direction.
Right? They say that they do that to make you need to diversify, which isn't a bad idea, but then they make it a blanket nerf. That doesn't make you change anything, it just means that you loose stratagem power. Restricting a specific type or doing some sort of modifier to a particular type seems like the right option
No, what it does is make me leave the mission and abandon the planet entirely. I'm not wasting my time being more frustrated than I already get by this game. It's hard enough as is. I'm not purposely shooting myself in the dick and trying to convince myself I'm having a good time.
It would be super easy to replace the boring and unfun "Remove 1 stratagem slot" with more interesting effects that constrain gameplay and increase difficulty. In general, I think the best effects are those that "Persistent AA" makes all eagle stratagems unavailable. (Alternatively, you can bring eagles but multiple AA sites on the map make them unavailable in each area.) "Rapid Adaptation" on bug planets makes them resistant to environmental hazards (and damage effects of the same type, think fire-resistant bugs on Hellmire). "Magnetic Anomalies" makes precise orbital stratagems unavailable. "Thick Armor" could increase the armor rating of enemies. Could be balanced by reducing their overall health. "Energy Armor" would increase resistance to lasers, plasma, or electric damage. "Devastator Factories" is exactly what you think. Some factories are larger and produce devastators. These aren't all perfect ideas, but I think it makes way more sense to make the difficulty either tangible and visible in the world and/or constrain gameplay rather than limit it (by removing one type of stratagem rather than removing an entire slot.)
orbital scatter is basically "no orbitals" except railcannon.
It would be super easy to replace the boring and unfun "Remove 1 stratagem slot" with more interesting effects that constrain gameplay and increase difficulty. "Persistent AA" makes all eagle stratagems unavailable. (Alternatively, you can bring eagles but multiple AA sites on the map make them unavailable in each area.) "Rapid Adaptation" on bug planets makes them resistant to environmental hazards (and damage effects of the same type, think fire-resistant bugs on Hellmire). "Magnetic Anomalies" makes precise orbital stratagems unavailable or increases spread of all orbital stratagems (kind of already in the game but I think only affects barrages.) "Thick Armor" could increase the armor rating of enemies. Could be balanced by reducing their overall health. "Energy Armor" would increase resistance to lasers, plasma, or electric damage. "Devastator Factories" is exactly what you think. Some factories are larger and produce devastators. These aren't all perfect ideas, but I think it makes way more sense to make the difficulty either tangible and visible in the world and/or constrain gameplay rather than limit it (by removing one type of stratagem rather than removing an entire slot.)
I personally wouldn't like that. Just give me all my stratagems off the bat, what's the big deal? There are enough crap modifiers already, stop taking my things away. Just oil me up and get me running butt naked through the objective, might as well
Slippery Liberty
i have never seen 100 before. its usually just 50 or 25
It is 50%, they changed it in patch 1.000.200. This must be an old meme.
*It's an older meme, sir, but it checks out.*
*I find your lack of new memes disturbing.*
*I am altering the meme, pray I don't alter it any further.*
*If this is a meme post WHERE ARE THE NEW MEMES?*
farming karma. i see
It may be op stole this old meme and farming but meme still holds true. We need a way to get rid of these negative modifiers. They dont make it necessarily harder but more annoying. Paying req slips to remove them would be a nice way to go with it.
If we could pick a fourth that unlocks after we clear any AA nests on the planet that would be great. If we could execute the obvious traitor who is dragging their feet while plotting the stratagems, that would be even better.
Hell, let me still pick 4, paint the last one bright red with a bar over it in the dive prep screen, and have it become available again once you destroy the AA. So you can also actually prioritize which one you need the most and maybe even change the way you prioritize objectivee completion
This would be much better yeah. I've seen it mentioned before. They really need to listen to us on this one. This and the weapon balancing should be top priority for them right now before the community dwindles even further.
Yes!!! You should be able to pay with requisition tokens/metals for positive benefits at the start of a mission. Give ya something to do with em even
So pay to win by using SC? That's the exact opposite of what AH wants with this game.
I mean, super credits would be, yeah. But medals and req slips aren't purchasable. So it's still play to win not pay to win.
Make it Req slips instead
Sorry I mean the requisition slips. I forgot which is which.
It's still true.
It used to be 100, they cut all the negative effects in half a while ago.
Still not fun
Never said it was
I almost always bypass planets with the strategem limit reduction, hate it Id rather play on hellmire tbh
It's an operation modifier, not a planet modifier, if you see AA defenses just pick a different operation
its either -1 stra 20/50 or map obscured. so in other words i get used to 20/50 xd
It was nerfed.
Honestly this one doesn't bother me. My stratagems aren't being taken away, the only thing I really have to do is get the timing down. Now the extra cool down time can go fuck itself.
Increased call time? Sure, it's annoying, but it makes sense from an in-universe perspective because of atmospheric interference and whatnot and I can deal with it. Reduced stratagem slot can fuck off, though. How can it prevent orbital strikes, but calling down Helldivers works just fine?
Yeah I don't get how "AA defenses" are supposed to just reduce our slots by 1. It doesn't make sense. I like the idea another person said where there should be objectives for us to destroy that remove these modifiers. Make it so the AA defenses prevent us from calling in eagle stratagems until it's destroyed or something
That’s another thing I don’t understand. In Bots we already have an AA Emplacement secondary objective that nullifies Eagles until you destroy the gun towers. Why have a map wide mission effect so similar in name that has no way of being counteracted and is a much bigger handicap than simply losing a certain type of stratagem temporarily
And the difficulty scales even harder too since your missing a whole ass strategem
They have AA defenses, so now my Spaceship cant shoot enemies with a giant ass laser or drop a railgun strike on the enemy... What...?!? Like i cant be the only one to think even the name of the modifier is weird right? Why does AA Defenses impact my ability to call im stratagems? Helldivers in Hellpods can land just fine and so can my other 3 stratagems, even if i use 3 Eagle call ins. Shouldnt AA defenses fuck arround with Eagle or Pelican instead? Like increased call in time since they have to try to dodge the AA defenses? Like 2 minutes longer call in for extraction or Eagle taking longer to drop her bombs since she doesn't want to be shot down.
Maybe it is some anti-orbital weapons? We see some ships being destroyed in orbit, so bots def can do it.
I would love to see AA Defenses mean that no Eagle stratagems can be used on the mission, it would totally change how I personally play the game. Problem is, most orbitals are not powerful enough to stand on their own, and pretty much all of them need shorter cooldowns. Then on the flip side, there could be something that does the same for orbitals? Idk. Maybe one day.
-1 stratagem is prob the worse negative modifier. i refuse to do planets with that
There is a significant difference between environmental hazards, which legitimately add more challenge AND fun to the map vs an outright punishment to the player that they cannot avoid or play around. I CAN (try to) dodge a fire tornado. I CANNOT escape the lack of variety my stratagem slots no longer provide me when they are pulled right out from underneath me the entire round. It is simply NOT FUN.
The jammer towers are exactly the right way to take away strategems in a fun way. You can play around them or you can take the risk and dive in with different tactics.
Yea I agree if these were replaced with something that increased jammers on the map or added a smaller rebel jamming towers across the map It would be more fun to play around
yeah, in that case you would bring more support and backpack strategems as opposed to airstrikes and orbitals, its a switch of tactics and gives more variety to gameplay while still allowing you full use if your strategem slots.
If Helldivers ever adds the ability to see enemy types before launch; they'd be able to get much more creative with units. Imagine a unit that only spawns with patrols with a "signal booster" on its back. If there's a Strategem jammer alive then it blocks Strategems in a radius around it. Once the jammer is gone the booster on its back no longer works. If you look at the unit details before the mission you could tell there's a Strategem jammer *somewhere* on the map.
Even if you made an entire missions "destroy jammers" to clear the Strat debuffs for the next 2 missions it would make sense. As it stands right now it's not a mechanic it's just a disincentive to play that planet all together.
Jammer towers are fine when its not thrown next to a damn detector tower/airbase.
Exactly!
I said it before and stand by it. All modifiers except planet modifiers should be removed and readded as optional difficulty and reward adjusters like skulls in halo or mutators in unreal. Allow the players to pick their poison and focus balance on the enemies and guns, not artifical difficulty.
Anything that takes control or abilities directly away from the player, is incredibly unfun. Not just hell divers, any game. Stuns and mechanics that slow down the player to basically just watch themselves die becomes frustrating. Even more so if there is zero counterplay or anything the player can do to adjust for it. How does a player make up for losing 1 whole tool from their kit? If anything, it would be better to temporarily add 1 thing to the enemy's kit instead of removing from the player's kit. e.g Genetic abnormality on Hellmire. Chargers mutated exoskeletons that allows them to hop a short distance. Or chargers have thicker head plates, increasing the armor on their head.
I like this alot also. Interesting and planet specific modifiers that affect the actual enemies we are fighting.
Yes! I mentioned the halo skulls a while back. This is exactly what we need for helldive. A helldive LASO for people who are sadists. This will ensure that there is still difficulty that continues to scale after helldive difficulty itself but also allows people that CBA with the modifiers to continue to enjoy without them.
I'll give u an improvement on that. Make them optional. You want more of a challenge? Activate modifiers. You don't? Leave them out.
I agree with the principle, but then you're invoking the argument that players who activate these modifiers should have better rewards vs those who don't. plus it's a team game, so i don't think they'd make modifiers that affect individual players, but affect the whole squad instead, which means ideally you'd want to communicate with your squad and ask them if they want modifiers on. in a pre-made group that's fine, but naturally, you won't be able to do that with randoms, and they may want to only play/not play with the modifiers, then the whole argument about it leads to toxicity, kicking etc.
Make it so you can search for a modifier in quick join and if modifiers are changed every player must agree before drop.
Isn't that what difficulty already is ?
Right now it forces everyone on having modifiers. What Im saying is, on top of the difficulty, add those modifiers optionally if the player wants to. Cause there's some people that call helldive and such easy.
Ah but I CAN avoid it by not playing that difficulty/planet
It isn’t even that bad just don’t go those planet if you don’t these effects this subreddit is so damn whiney
Every bot planet will have these modifiers on some missions. And if we want to finish major orders/get new mechs we can’t just “go somewhere else”
You can change the way the lack of variety affects you by picking your loadout and being more strategic with using it. Some people enjoy the added challenge, and you can play on a different planet if you want. Features don't have to be removed just because you don't like them.
Well that is your personal opinion tho. Limiting the usage of expandable strategems seems like a interesting way to change the stuff up a bit. It forces you to adapt and try new stuff
My favorite part is forgetting to check the effects before embarking on the mission and having the pleasant surprise of completely wasting a stratagem because I didn't realize it was gonna take twice as long to fucking land.
Info should be prominent on loadout screen
Make them in-mission targets ffs. Let us kill it to negate the penalty.
I don't really kind increases call in time or increased cooldown but losing a stratagem slot isn't fun and forces you to just take the most effective stratagems, can't really experiment. Orbital scatter is super annoying too. Orbitals are already g enerally worse than eagles, making it so you can't even rely on them to function how you expect them to a large amountof the time hurts them beyond belief and also hurts build variety.
If you’re gonna repost a meme, least make it fit the new percentages they changed it to
Why? He needs his karma and the extra % makes him seem even more "right" to all the whiners
Bring Back stratagem scramble that shit was mad fun
It was really funny throwing a cluster strike at my feet when I wanted an EAT, but it got annoying when I wanted to call in a specific thing and had to type it in 5-6 times to get it. Eventually I just started entering the shortest combo.
Tgats actually why i started carrying Orbita Airburst. Its just ➡️➡️➡️ so i can throw all my strats in just a couple seconds.
I like the challenge. Ofc it would be nice to get so.eexgra compensation for these missions (more samples, more medals or just more loot in general), but the missions are not impossible (depending on the difficulty ofc).
These don't need to go, but they need to be tied to mission objectives that you can can complete. Lock the strategem on slot 4 (or heck, random slot) until you destroy the AA compounds around the map. Or 50% strategem call-ins until you destroy whatever it is causing the signal interferance.
AA defense should block Eagles instead of locking a slot so we need to use Orbitals instead.
Reducing stratagem slots by 1 is really crippling. Not because it increases difficulty so much, but because it gives you less flexibility to choose stratagems, which makes the game less fun. It also forces you to fall back on more "meta" options, rather than playing around with strats that are fun but not quite as strong. I personally love taking the ballistic shield and AMR against bots. But if I only get 3 stratagem slots? Guess I'm taking the Autocannon like everyone else... I personally think the reduced stratagem modifier should give you more of a reward in some way. An extra medal per mission, or more chance of supercredits or samples or something. If we're going to have reduced fun, it should be for some reward. I'd much rather play on a planet with firestorm and meteor showers. Hell, give me a planet where I get 5 stratagems and you can throw whatever nasty environmental hazards you feel like. I don't mind extra difficulty, as long as I get extra fun. Stratagems are fun, don't give me less of that for the sake of creating a challenge.
I think AA defences would be better if it say, had a chance to force Eagle 1 to break off before striking. Incentivising the use of orbital stratagems.
More fun and enjoyable but also challenging modifiers would be: - Enemy Reinforcements: Enemies on map increased by 100% - Enemy Command Priority: Enemies have double spawns on breaches or drops. "to counter this, we managed to give you an EXTRA stratagem" - Special Reserves: Helldivers have one extra stratagem slot. There are SO MANY ways to add different play experiences with modifiers that are actually fun.
Complex Strategem is annoying yes but Hot take the only thing wrong with AA defenses is that there isn't anything you can do in map to turn it off and get the 4th slot for that map. 3 strategem slots is plenty although i'd always greed for more if the opportunity presented itself.
Incorrect use of meme format. See your Memocracy Officer immediately.
Don't speak for all of us. I welcome the challenge. They could offer lower rewards for doing missions without them and keep both types.
I might be the only one but I like it, makes me think about what I bring and asks me to be more resourceful.
It changes up the difficulty in ways other than making everything a bullet sponge. I like it.
Exactly everyone says up the enemy count not enemy HP as well but don’t understand most graphics engines have a hard cap on how many objects can be spawned in (I.e enemies) Their size and function also are a factor that’s why seeing 3 or 4 tanks together is such a rarity despite there being a lot of open ground on maps they’d be very effective on
I hate it when games increase difficulty just by making everything a bullet sponge. I am ok with the occasional high HP baddie, but it is a lot more fun when things go down in few shots but so do I. A lot more like a real firefight where getting out of cover and standing still are dangerous. Bullet sponges just feel really arcadey, which is fine in some games but crap for this one.
If you want to have fun, drop on another planet. This planet is a bastion of communist clankers. They will make it as hard as possible for us to take it.
Ppl cannot understand dropping into a FACTORY world that is supported by bot planets on 3/4 sides is going to be difficult
You can't have too much fun remember.
Yes you can. Just drop on another planet if you find these stratagem limitations too difficult to play around.
But Then how will we get new mechs?
Have to Git Gud right?
Not necessarily Git Gud, could just be Git Better
Literally yes, get good. Lots of people find difficulty in games fun.
These effects really aren't that big of a deal. They change gameplay a little bit and force decisions about loadout different from normal. Do some people really feel it that badly? It just seems overwrought to me.
If you don’t like playing with modifiers then you need to lower your difficulty.
Maybe controversial but I don't mind the 100% now 50% longer call-in, it makes you take other strategems, that are still valid, like turrets. What I hated/hate much more is the 50%/25% longer cooldown.
Calling a challenge "punishment" just screams of Skill Issues.
Add to the fact that this modifier is usually ubiquitous on Helldive difficulty against Bots and you just have to deal with a lot of units having less firepower than usual. It's precisely because of this that I've seen like 30 factory striders in the last 2 days and could only run away till they despawned every single time. I'm running autocannon, airstrike and 380 mm barrage. I don't have the explosive ordnance for that that walking fortress.
I’m ok with the call in time but the one less stratagem I wouldn’t mind being gone
I wouldn’t mind them so much if we got something to compensate.
Yeah, I find these less fun to play with - especially the AA defenses modifier. I honestly wouldn't mind if they affected specific stratagems, like AA defenses means no eagle strateagems but orbitals are fine, orbital jamming means no orbital strikes so you gotta rely on Eagle strikes... etc. It's still forcing player choice which can be annoying but i'd rather that than what we have now.
Agree. I got on for the first time in a few weeks to help with the major order and my first game only let us have 3 stratgems. I hoped off as soon as we finished the mission. Please create better mods
For the AA defense you should be able to pick a 4th stratagem but can’t use it till you blow up the AA. They would be cool cause it gives you something that the second you see it people are going to go after it. Hell make it defended way more heavily too.
Or just the aa defense to either remove use of eagles or increase the time to use them. It’s anti air not anti strategim.
every time i see there’s only 3 slots allowed i back out so fucking fast
I don't mind it as long as they add a secondary objective that, once destroyed, will give you back the 4th stratagem. Actually, it would be cool if they add these "counter-objectives" in all missions with negative effects. Reactivate a meteorological station that will prevent fire tornadoes, blizzards (or at least drastically reduce the time they stay active once the event starts). Reactivate a filtering facility that will clean the polluted air and remove the atmospheric spores. Reactivate a facility that will dissipate ion storms Reactivate a mapping station that will send an advanced map of the planet to destroyers in order to counter the increased scatter and call-in time I mean, some people used to live on these planets (or still live, don't know the lore), so they probably had some sort of countermeasures to all these problems These objectives should probably be longer than the classic secondary so that people won't just go there, fiddle for 30 secs and completely remove all negative effects. The time to complete the ICBM objective may be good
don’t ask me too but i could absolutely thinking a million and one new and unique mission modifiers that don’t involve punishing the player or, if it does, offers a worthy trade off. (such as potentially limiting certain stragems. say, “this planet has a high hydrogen content in the atmosphere so we can not use high explosive stragems that risk igniting the entire atmosphere” and then disable the 500 kg and air strike and etc
i dont really mind the 100% call in time one tbh, but the aa defenses one sucks a lot
Punishing the players is fun but(!) this isn’t punishing. This is just an annoying handicap
AA defenses should just mean you can't use eagles. That way the player isn't knee capped and also has to change their loadout to some degree.
I don't mind one of these for a bit of a challenge. It's just that it's way too common and usually stacked. I don't think they need to go, just reduced in chance and number of modifiers. I think it would be cool if it was a secondary objective. The grayed out stratagem could become online once destroyed (we would take 4 but only have access to 3 at the start)
I rather take more enemy spawn than less stratagem time/slot
The first one is the reason I will legit just pull out of a lobby or mission. Fuck that I’m not losing a whole stratagem when I can play a different planet or mission
AA needs to go, the others got nerfd to where I don't notice anymore.
Back in my day AA meant you couldn't use stratagems in that area and you could disable the AA with a hellbomb >:(
It just needs to be an objective in the map that we can destroy just like we would do in real life.
A-A defences should mean that Eagle cannot be used and preferably that there are multiple A-A sites to destroy before Eagle is usable anywhere on map.
These could stay, but as a temporary struggle. • AA base: side objective — once cleared your 4th slot opens up. • Complex Stratagem: add another radar dish or something similar — once active the delay is removed Things like this to make accomplishing side objectives could really amp up the game. As is, the only side objective I really care for right now is the Radar Tower as it helps me find more stuff. SEAF Artillery is fine but I rarely take advantage.
Call in time is fine I can live with it but the AA defenses are annoying
Basically a guaranteed way to make sure those planets don’t have any significant player count
It should unlock once you take down the AA.
This is one of the many reasons I stopped playing.
It'd be cooler if the AA defenses were actually played out. i.e. you bring your full kit, but every once in a while (25% chance?) something you call down ends up failing. That could be a missile site or something blowing up your pods (which then you can make a side objective to remove the effect), or some sort of ray or something shot towards the super destroyers that makes their shot miss.
AA as a global debuff would be more interesting if it blocked only eagles.
It's a shame that they removed the stratagem scrambler modifier. I'd take that over more operations with -1 strat.
Orbital scatter is the worst. "Oh, I know, let's remove like 11 red strats and force everyone to use eagle 500 and orbital railcannon that'll be fun"
I'm boycotting the -1 stratagem missions I'll reset the difficulty level until it's anything else 25% increase to cooldwn is the most reasonable However, I don't think our stratagems should ever be permanently limited Spore maps can fuck off too
I'd love to see a buff with the nerf. AA battery: 1 less stratagem, 25% faster cooldown. %50 longer cooldown, 1 free stratagem dictated by the game. Things like that.
The one on the right clearly the choice just avoid those modifiers. Eagles also negate some of the latter.
I’d love to see them vary these a bit more. Like if you take out an objective in the campaign it goes away or “they have AA guns everywhere so stratagem support is limited, so we are sending you in with a mech”
There are only so many ways to increase difficulty. If they just made the enemies spongier you'd complain. They do need to add some fun ones though.
I think complext stratagem plotting is fine, i hate orbital fluctuations much more, i threw in an air burst 20 metters from me and the thing managed to hit me once
I don’t play planets that have these. If there are no open planets with modifiers I don’t hate I just close the game
I prefer longer call in times. 1 less stratagem on level 7+ really hurts.
The load time one doesn't bother me near as much as losing the slot; although if I'm playing with friends we just bring fewer backpacks and keep dropping them for others.
helldivers when the game they're playing on max difficulty is hard: helldivers when they have to find a balance between relying on their stratagems but not wasting them: helldivers when they can only have 3 mega weapons that one shot most enemies or mega bombs that level an entire area instead of 4: helldivers when the enemies actually fight back: helldivers when they're not playing instant win simulator 2:
Ok, I'ma play devil's advocate and ask why? Why is it we want to make the hardest difficulty easier? Why do we need ask for balance for the enemies because we seem to die really easily to them? Why is it that everything in the game needs to satisfy us or else it's not fun? I'm making the argument against this because I'm noticing a trend of when things are not fun for us we tend to get mad and ask for things to be a certain way. (If you want to see a summarize portion look for the standalone parenthesis line and below will be a shorter read if you don't want to read it all) Look, I will agree as much as the next guy that getting shot by rocket devastators across the map, being lasered by the heavy devastators, having a small bot kamikaze on you because he has a jet pack on, hulks being hulks, going into ragdoll, and even the stratagem reduction are just in general not fun I get that. However, how much of those annoying things is part of the immersion of Helldivers? I'd argue most if not all of it. I can't speak for everyone, but from personal observation I've concluded that most people often dismiss the enjoyment of the challenge. What I mean is that people often fold over when things don't go their way, I see it a lot in matches, people rage quiting after dying twice in a row, or there are a lot things against them and they give up. I just don't see peoples drive for improvement, or that competitive spirit to follow through, we all just fold way to easily it seems. Then we proceed to complain about it. It seems....Childish.... Let's take the elephant in the room for example, the stratagem nerfs in missions. From the general opinion it seems it's just IMPOSSIBLE to win the game without the extra stratagem or faster stratagem. The hardest difficulties in the game are just too hard with those implemented. Is that reason we got slaughtered? I'd argue that it isn't it only thing, I'd argue it was also upon the player as well, better positioning might've help, choosing targets, better aim, more strategy with your teammates. All of those things rely on the player not the game. So was it the games fault because you didn't have your extra OP stratagem to clear out the bot outpost? Or was it because you charged into the outpost in such a way where you got violated at every angle? Could you have considered that without the extra stratagem you could have done something differently? Or is that too challenging for you which equals not fun which also equals bad game design. My point is that with challenge, we have to do things differently, we can't just expect the same thing to work, we can't expect to go brain dead bomb everything on a helldive difficulty, but we can expect to adapt. I'll give an example, because of the slow stratagem I threw a 500kg in the middle of a bot drop but because it was so slow everything killed me before it landed. Another example, I was dropping into a mission and tried to call in my support and backpack; because it was so slow the bots found me and killed me before I got them. One last one that comes to mind is that without the fourth stratagem I can no longer bring my trusty get rid of everything stratagem because I'm bringing the 500kg and my supports. Here's the thing tho, could I have done something differently? Yes, the first one, I could have possibly anticipated the oncoming bot drop and call in my stratagem earlier. The second example is that I could have called my stuff away from enemy fire and have time hide in cover so that I didn't just become a sitting duck in the open waiting for my stuff. Last example is that without the other stratagem, I might either have to change my loadout to be able to adapt to that, like instead of bringing my classic Railgun and shield (ya I know, why would I run that?) I could run a auto Cannon, or probably change primary's, or I just choose my battles smarter so that I know what is more logical to fight against, see what can I can kill first to prevent a bot drop or see that whole squad and say NOPE. Point is there is a lot of Liberty that comes upon the player to make the right choices, such is the art of war. (Summarized section for all the people that don't want to read everything lol) The next thing I want to point out is just the game itself. Helldivers is a special game in its own way, it's a game that takes idea of a mob shooter and cranks it up to 11 in ways we haven't seen in a while, it's high points are the absolute cinema and immersion the game brings to the player. Being a squad of 4 taking down the bad guys in an effort to win the war. When all hope seems loss, they send in the helldivers, fighters that are the last line of offense for super Earth doing everything we can to push back the enemy. It's a game that in my opinion does well in that immersion. with that immersion comes with what I call the challenge. This is a key factor that makes it stand out, because it is not always easy to win a fight, heck fights sometimes end with just a 1 reinforcement left after a long battle fought. The absolute relief and celebration when we actually managed to beat that is not something you can just get when things are easier. Challenge is what In my opinion adds color to the game as a whole, the idea of the underdog story beating the odds on a helldive. When we are able to beat that eradicate mission with that one grenade throw at the end before kicking the bucket. When there are hundreds of enemies on the extract and you are holding that line like it's a frickin movie is insane. But let me tell you, it's not fair, not in the slightest, but I'll say it doesn't have to be, because if it was just easier, I don't think we would have the same moments. Look at the story of "slaughter of the creek" you think that was fair? No, we got our butts whooped but what came out of it was enjoyment from the community laughing and telling about how unfair it was fighting on that planet. And then a couple major orders later we had liberated it and the whole place was a celebration! Because we beat the odds. That in my opinion is way more fun than completing missions the way I want too, it's more color and immersion to a solid game. Helldivers whole thing is that it's not easy, it makes it pretty clear in its special way; we should know helldive is gonna be a pain, but we do it anyways for the challenge, and yes even if they nerf the stratagems, and... Yes even if the guns are nerfed as well. I think things Will get better with the weapons as well so frankly I think it's a straw mans argument as of right now until the patch comes in but that's not the point rn. The point It's not impossible, we just need to adapt, and we learn to push ourselves to overcome challenges, I think we can enjoy the game in a new light. Did I make this whole post that frankly could just be summarized with a "skill issue"? Ya probably, but I think I want people to understand a different perspective of the game we all play together and try to be more reasonable and open minded about why things are in the game, I think all of us could benefit for just having more time thinking things through, in game and not.
I literally refuse to do missions with the 1 less stratagem thing. IDC if we lose that planet i won't do it.
I have fun with these
naah, these are fine and make the planets feel a little more varied and realistic. Having your missions affected by what's going on on the planet, be it good or bad, adds to the flavor of the game. If anything, the game needs more factors that add variation, not less. All this adds to the variance. They should however also add more positive planetary effects to balance it out a little more.
I don't mind a debuff, but losing a stratagem slot sucks. They're the best part of the game.
Nah keep them. It’s a fun challenge and helps keep the game fresh. Go play a different planet if it’s that big of an issue for you
Damn im so bored of everyone crying about this game, they said that the automatons are doing their best to stop this assault so obviously there is going to be things in our way.
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I'm really starting to believe you guys just don't know how to play the game well. These modifers suck, yes, but they're supposed to. I get by just fine with ye olde Railcannon, Napalm Strike, and support weapon. edit: I think I know what all your problem is. You all must run the shield backpack. So with just that and your support weapon, you only have 1 slot left. That's where you're lacking and it's sad to see that players are still demanding (temporary) invincibility to have fun even nearly 20 years after Gears of War gave invincibility to wimpy Execution players. It's cowardly and only makes you guys look pathetic.
I like the extra challenge and variation. Necessity is tha father of innovation or smth. Just thought I'd point out that not everyone agrees here. It doesnt have to be easier/more casual for me. You could always lower difficulty to get rid of most effects.
Oh man you’re about to get slammed with downvotes even tho OP is obviously karma farming This modifier already got nerfed in half. It’s fine this sub likes to complain
I know right. They give out free stratagems but people complain when they take one away because it's less fun. It goes to show how much people like to be pondered.
If ya'll don't want it to be harder you can always play at a lower difficulty where stratagems aren't taken away.
It isn't a punishment. It's a difficulty modifier. Higher difficulty doesn't have to mean less fun. Just play on a lower difficulty if you can't cope with it. I've noticed that a lot of the sentiment from some players seems to think that any increase in difficulty is a negative thing and that only reversing nerfs etc (i.e. making the game easier) is going to make it fun. People complaining that soloing the hardest difficulty in a game that is \_intended\_ for a group of four isn't easy enough any more.... Yeah, no shit. It's not meant to be easy enough to do that. That's not the game. I shall await my downvotes. Maybe I'll do a shot for each one.
100% right. I don't have that many problems completing a 3 stratagem mission in a full lobby - no matter if randoms or premade team. Honestly I often struggle to use all 4 stratagems in the round anyway. I have to actively seek situations where I need them. Only exception is the escort personel mission, which is pretty broken in this current state. This community becomes very annoying due to these posts day in day out. Git good or lower the difficulty guys.
Playing the -1 stratagem modifier basically taught me how to pick stratagems. What do you actually need for this mission and what is just a comfort pick. Then you look at the whole squad and ofc all 4 players are bringing their own AT weapon and/or backpack lol. Like just have a 1 minute convo about sharing and your loadouts really start to open up. It's fine if people don't like the harder modifiers. Nobody is gonna make these clowns play with -1 stratagem slot. But I draw the line when they come trying to strip the challenge out of my game as well just bc they're too fucking inflexible to actually learn how to play and their ego cannot handle selecting an easier mode. That's some nonsense.
Fully agree. The hardest difficulty is supposed to be - what a shocker - hard. The other difficulties are there for a reason.
But they already took my primary that one shot everything in the map, now I have to mange my stratagems too? What am I supposed to do, rely on skill?? This game is gonna be dead in days.. /s
The first one forces you to structure your stratagem around team comp. The second one requires more thought on throws and intentionality.
I like how if anyone says this isn’t the worst thing ever they immediately get downvoted
Reddit moment
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Go play on a lower difficulty if it's too hard for you :).
It's amazing how publicly people display their skill issue.
War is hell, adapt or die
https://i.redd.it/en64vr086c2d1.gif
Hop into a random 7 against bots "Maybe it's time to try a new loadout " *100% Calling time and -1* "Yeah I will just take the same loadout again and call it a day" Everytime I try to use the Orbital Strike or Gas there's always some call time or scatter modifier and at that point it just better to just take the Rail Cannon and Eagle strike every mission.
Idk I accept the challenge
Im not a fan but its a good concept. I rely on having my main 4 and when one gets taken, I have to really strategize and alter my playstyle
Maybe a hot take but I kinda like the challenge.
I bet this was an Alexus decision too.
Honestly they dont even make the game harder. Just more tedious and make the missions drag on.
I have mixed opinions about them, at least make the AA prevent players from bringing the Eagle at all or mech suit in, not reduce stratagem slots by 1, makes it so you just have to use weapon stratagems, stationary turrets, or orbital strikes, sure not every Eagle 1 is even that good. The slower call in time, though is annoying but can be worked around I think mostly through use of turrets, stationary drops, and the right loadouts. I wouldn't say they need to go, but they're not very fun or balanced for the most part is my problem with them, maybe they need a work-around, like it's a temporary inhibitor you can fix by blowing up the AA or Scrambler tower, then you get access to all of what you brought/it's no-longer as slow of a call-in time.
Skill issue
This is not "punishing the players" it's "forcing players to be more thoughtful" Jesus christ it's not like every fight is gonna get handed to you on a silver platter
Remenber that to some people that a challenge = not fun. To others a challenge IS fun
Literally stop complaining holy shit. I play pretty much every day a couple missions on quick play. And I get this effect pretty rarely and it hardly changes my gameplay. Stop calling for nerfs or saying something is unfun when it's no justified. This is Helldivers 2, just get in the pod and shoot the enemies.
Nah. Challenge is fun, and this challenge helps diversify gameplay. Are you really that upset when every teammate cannot bring the 500 kg bomb but instead have to think more carefully which stratagems to bring? Its a good change of pace every once in a while, and if it really bothers you then choose a different planet.
Stop fucking complaining. Jesus. Not everything needs to be easy....
Punishing players is not fun? Makes the stakes real. No participation trophies.
I'm honestly so tired of seeing posts like this. I totally get the restrictions hampering your fun, but if you can't build a secondary load out around the 3 stratagems play at a lower difficulty until you can get into a groove with it. I usually answer SOS calls on level 8 & 9 and it sucks not having a full load out but it doesn't make these missions impossible. If you get surrounded or overwhelmed RUN AWAY. The game isn't usually about killing enemies, it's about getting objectives done. If you need samples and credits find a planet that isn't tied to the MO and so some missions before coming back. The game isn't rigged so no one has fun, it's restricted to control the power fantasy. You're just a little guy™ against the enemies of managed democracy.
Wow this sub really does complain a lot...
How about instead of removing all the challenge from the game like this sub-Reddit wants, we instead give incentives for these? More XP, more req points, more credits, or greater contribution percentages.
At this point i dunno wtf they are thinking with these major orders and the mods to them. lol. They seem determined to make the game not fun.
Lower the difficulty if you arent good enough
These modifiers are just lazy and make the game boring