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Helldivers 2 announced for PS5/PC! - update: 7th highest grossing Sony-published game in history, doesn't crack Top 20 without PC release


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I was able to have some fun(and some not)with the game last night.  People kept joining the game but randomly dropping out. I got pretty invested into the one mission but by the end my only other teammate would just keep killing me at random moments (on purpose). My son watched me play this morning and I got paired up with a level 30 player. I’m like a level 5 haha.  They were using the flamethrower which looked cool as hell. Hoping it’s stable this weekend to get more time in.

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It'll be interesting to see what they do with their first balance patch. They've been busy with more pressing matters, but eventually they're going to have to address some things and I'm curious to see what their approach is.

 

They definitely need to make other primaries compete with the breaker, but does that mean a buff for specific others, or just a nerf for the breaker? Same could probably be said for the rail gun.

 

They need to figure out armor penetration in general, as right now it feels like the key issue and weapons that say they penetrate armor hardly seem to.

 

They also could take a stance on the farming situation and just make those quick missions worth far less, or maybe make them worth less when done in repetition.

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5 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:
WWW.IGN.COM

Helldivers 2 is only a few weeks old and already players are kicking their teammates before games even get going because they’re not bringing so-called ‘meta’ builds and loadouts to the party.

 

I was foolishly hoping to get some context in the article to see if this was actually an issue or if they’re doing what everyone else is doing and just taking a few forum posts about how a couple jerks want to play the game and then stating there’s an issue and it’s “sparking debate” in the community. 
 

Good lord god forbid any outlet take the time to do a shred of fucking work. 

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I continue to really enjoy this game, and the more time I put into it, the more I appreciate little design decisions. Overall it isn't very well polished, it's still pretty buggy, unstable, and could use a good deal of balancing, but I think the core gameplay is great and they did a great job nudging players to do the right thing at both a macro and micro level. Things like shared resources, planetary objectives, group resupply cooldowns, etc.

 

As I've gone up the levels of difficulty it's been fun to see how your approach needs to change to both individual enemies and at a strategic level. I also really appreciate the approach to difficulty they've taken, where they just ramp up the number enemies instead of making them bullet sponges. I really feel like they've played a lot of Destiny 2 and decided to make things simplified and more player friendly.

 

As time has gone on, I've seen fewer farmers and more groups willing to complete a whole campaign. I still get bad groups from time to time, but most of the random groups I play with are pretty good, which itself is extraordinary by typical multiplayer random group standards.

 

It just feels like a game that I could play here and there for a long time, but doesn't demand a full commitment. I've put in ~30 hours, hit level 30, and I've got most everything I want unlocked. Yeah, I've still got more ship modules to upgrade, a few straggling stratagems that I doubt I'll use, and there's still a ton in the battle pass I haven't gotten, but it's mostly cosmetic. I'll play Final Fantasy and I still haven't gotten around to Baldur's Gate, but I think I'll keep dropping in a hellpod from time to time.

 

 

 

 

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Helldivers 2's galactic war is much more than a mission selector. In a short time, players have become invested in the status of their favorite planets and reacted to gains and losses in a sector's liberation. The simulated conflict playing out both in-game and on social media has become an unexpected focal point of the Helldivers 2 experience.

 

Unexpected to players, that is. To developer Arrowhead Game Studios, the war is a product of careful planning and storytelling by a specific behind-the-scenes individual pulling the strings: what Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt described to PC Gamer as Helldivers 2's "dungeon master."

 

"We have an actual person with the job title of Game Master," Pilestedt told PC Gamer in an interview today. His name is Joel, and he takes his job very seriously.

 

"We have a lot of systems built into the game where the Game Master has a lot of control over the play experience. It's something that we're continuously evolving based on what's happening in the game," Pilestedt continued. "And as part of the roadmap, there are things that we want to keep secret because we want to surprise and delight."

 

Pilestedt says Dungeons and Dragons has been a major inspiration for Arrowhead. The studio aims to replicate collaborative, reactive storytelling of tabletop gaming in Helldivers 2, acknowledging the differences between designing a campaign for a small party versus millions of players.

 

"It's the same format when you build that for millions of players, it's just that you can't get as personal with every individual. But you can still do the same twists and turns."

 

 

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In case you've not been paying attention to your Super Earth mandated briefings, Helldivers 2 players have been entrenched in a defensive war with the Automatons for a while now—and while there've been some perceived problems from the playerbase (and yours truly), I can't deny that Arrowhead has hit a bullseye on its intended goal to make a rad as hell emergent story.

 

Even this second major order has spawned countless memes, propaganda posters, and an entire "robot vietnam" planet that, like, 30,000 individual people have been glued to for almost zero tactical benefit. They just think it's neat. But it's officially over—those damned dirty robots won.

We lost the major order—so what comes next? Veld. That's it. While the war against the Automatons has been a long, drawn-out campaign, the next major order is "Hey. Go liberate a single planet." Should be simple, right? Nice breezy mission. In and out, one day at the least, get a quick 45 warbond medals. Right?

 

 

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Alright, here's the reason for the scare—courtesy of helldivers.io and a few boffins that are currently tearing their hair out on the Helldivers 2 Discord as we speak. Veld initially had a recovery rate of around 7%. That's how many percentage points an hour the bugs get on the planet, and the number players need to outpace and win that particular tug of war.

 

Initially, 80,000 souls barely made a dent at around 2% liberation rate per hour. If they wanted to skip over 7% and start making progress—well, they'd have needed around 300,000 soldiers with their boots on the ground. Though some of those predictions may have been premature. Looking at helldivers.io, those mavericks are currently pulling off a 6% liberation rate with just over half that number.

 

Fortunately, it looks like Arrowhead Games has its hand on the wheel. In literally the time it took me to write that paragraph, Veld's regen dropped to 3%, and the 180,000 souls currently squashing bugs have begun to take back the planet in record time. If the current pace continues, players will achieve victory in under 24 hours, though the needle on the current estimate is shifting all over the place. Someone is fiddling with the dials behind the scenes.

 

Considering I just watched a 7% to 3% swing happen before my very eyes, I'm sure a third shoe is about to drop. The full toll Veld is about to take on the community will become clear the moment the numbers settle, but at the moment the fireworks sure are something.

 

 

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Patch went live today including adjustments to the Breaker, Railgun, and Shield

 

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Fresh new patch notes Helldivers!

Major Updates
Planetary Hazards active
Many planets now have additional environmental challenges that will appear at random while you are deployed, from fire tornadoes to meteor showers and many more.


Balancing

Eradicate Missions
Eradicate missions now require more kills and enemies spawn more often. The time to complete the mission was previously shorter than intended and should now usually take twice as long to complete.


Primary, Secondary, & Support Weapons

-Breaker: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55
-Railgun - Decreased armor penetration in Safe Mode, decreased damage against durable enemy parts
-Flamethrower: Increased damage per second by 50%
-Laser Cannon: Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics
-Punisher: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet
-Breaker Spray & Pray: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26


Stratagems
-Energy Shield Backpack: Increased delay before recharging
-380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread


Fixes
-Fixed armor rating values not reducing damage as intended.
-Fixed certain Bug Holes (including Stalker Nests) that were unnecessarily hard to destroy.
-Fixed anti-aliasing toggle not working on PS5.
-Balanced lighting across all planets to solve cases where the game was too dark.
-Improved flashlight efficacy.
-Increased visibility during “sand rain” weather on Erata Prime.
-Updated tutorial materials and lighting.
-Improved cases where some materials could look blurry if "Lighting" graphic setting was set to "Low".
-Fixed timing issues that could occur in the “Extract E-710” primary objective.
-Changed button interaction behavior for buttons in bunker POIs. Helldivers will now let go of the button after holding it for a few seconds.
-Fixed some cases of large assets floating if the ground beneath them was blown up.
-Helldivers standing next to ICBMs during launch will get properly toasty with a chance of not-so-spontaneous combustion.
-Fixed unthrowable snowballs after ragdolling.
-Fixed being able to use grenades after drowning.
-Camera no longer locked on the player's own corpse and blocking spectator mode.
-Helldivers now take damage from fire, gas etc. generated by other players.
-Armor no longer stretches when dismembered.


Known Issues
These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.
-Game may crash after dropping several high power stratagems in succession.
-Picking up items from caches may cause characters to freeze in place for an extended period of time.
-Picking up items from bunkers and caches in quick succession may render one of the items unpickable.
-Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
-Players may be unable to select loadout or return to ship when joining a multiplayer game session via PS5 Activity Card.
-Mission objective HUD displays different numbers for client and host during some missions.
-Default armor is always shown while viewing the warbond, regardless of the armor that player has equipped.
-Text chat box display is obstructed by the cinematic letterboxing during extraction.
-Some text in the HUD/UI is missing or not displaying correctly.
-Players may experience issues when many players attempt to login and/or play at the same time:
-Login rate limiting
-Players may become disconnected during play
-Various UI issues may appear when the game interacts with servers
-Some games may not be joinable by others for a short period of time


Release Captain Carlberg out
Happy diving

 

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Oh we know lol... me and @JPDunks4 did a match earlier with two randoms. JP left me to die on the bug planet, saving himself in the process 

 

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1209596363265019965/1215049097053085747/Screenbits_2024-03-06_162721.mp4?ex=65fb55a7&is=65e8e0a7&hm=69648b4c86ccecd8f6d5707d083349d6744845fddcd47643b20a5e7a4590f05e&

 

I gladly give my life for Super Earth though

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4 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Oh we know lol... me and @JPDunks4 did a match earlier with two randoms. JP left me to die on the bug planet, saving himself in the process 

 

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1209596363265019965/1215049097053085747/Screenbits_2024-03-06_162721.mp4?ex=65fb55a7&is=65e8e0a7&hm=69648b4c86ccecd8f6d5707d083349d6744845fddcd47643b20a5e7a4590f05e&

 

I gladly give my life for Super Earth though

 

Let the Sample Carrier through!

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Unfortunately I think some toxic players are starting to enter the community; was playing with a friend last night, and had a random join us who then told my friend to kick me because I was only level 12 and they were both mid 30s. Told my friend to kick him out instead, but he didn't, and then this guy got all bent out of shape when we lost the mission. 

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1 minute ago, Brick said:

Unfortunately I think some toxic players are starting to enter the community; was playing with a friend last night, and had a random join us who then told my friend to kick me because I was only level 12 and they were both mid 30s. Told my friend to kick him out instead, but he didn't, and then this guy got all bent out of shape when we lost the mission. 

Well to be fair you were less than half their level and you lost the mission likely because you were the weak link.

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1 hour ago, Biggie said:

Well to be fair you were less than half their level and you lost the mission likely because you were the weak link.

This game doesn't exactly work like that. I'm level 37 but routinely play with people below level 20 and we complete missions on the hardest difficulties all the time. @ARZ what level was that guy we played with the other night? He was the lowest level guy in our squad and we only succeeded in completing the mission becauae he stayed alive and was able to keep reinforcing us when me (37) and another guy in our sqaud (50) kept dying. I even said after the match he was the lowest level guy in the group but did the best out of all of us. Leveling up only allows you to unlock more stuff but you can be pretty effective with the weapons you get at around level 10 or so. Game is much more about skill and teamwork than leveling.

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12 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

That's my point. Levels don't really matter in this game.


The levels actually translate to experience in game. You could have a level 50 who knows what to expect but tries to take on too much. A level 1 that doesn’t know what to expect but does what is needed for the mission. I’m glad they didn’t include RPG elements for leveling up. Would split the player base up.

 

Everyone is doing their part!

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2 hours ago, Denbowski said:


The levels actually translate to experience in game. You could have a level 50 who knows what to expect but tries to take on too much. A level 1 that doesn’t know what to expect but does what is needed for the mission. I’m glad they didn’t include RPG elements for leveling up. Would split the player base up.

 

Everyone is doing their part!

 

Agreed. They are handling progression well IMO. I played with some higher level players who were making stuff that would be insanely difficult for my normal squad, but it was a mix of A) they had better stuff and B) they knew when and how to use it. 

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23 hours ago, Brick said:

Unfortunately I think some toxic players are starting to enter the community; was playing with a friend last night, and had a random join us who then told my friend to kick me because I was only level 12 and they were both mid 30s. Told my friend to kick him out instead, but he didn't, and then this guy got all bent out of shape when we lost the mission. 

 

The toxic players have been trickling in for awhile now.  Before this last patch, people were kicking people if they did not run shield and railguns and definitely kicking if you are lower level even though that really does not play into to much. I have been kicked for being lower level and not running the meta build so  have quit playing solo.  I only play now if my friends can run a full squad.

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I haven't been playing much thanks to FF7, but man the subreddit for this game has gotten crazy over the last week. People are pissed about the nerfs and the devs are getting angry at players and it just seems like a mess. My instinct is that this is just a smaller dev not accustomed to the pressures of a larger audience. It's probably still only a small fraction of the player base that is toxic, but when you increase the raw number of players by a couple orders of magnitude, it's a lot more to deal with.

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The latest patch def increase the difficulty. At least for those missions where you just have to kill X amount of enemies. I dropped into a mission and was instantly killed by being so overwhelmed I thought maybe I was I on hard. I backed out and nope..it was medium. 

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