Helldivers 2 (PS5/PC)

[Tobal]

Still getting alot of fails when joining a mission but if i keep hitting the quickplay button it'll get through after 2 or 3 minutes of trying. Not gotten anyone to join me on my ship or in field using quickplay. Also can't load the warbond screen if i stay on hosts ship in quickplay...

So after few games on Medium and it's good, the freedom on some mission types to make it easier by doing the secondary missions or taking out roaming sentries and outlying nests feels like playing MGV along with how smooth movement and shooting can be.

Not sure how much i like the upgrading system, weapons come as they are, no mods or better versions so that's some depth gone but it does make it easier for me to recommend it to my friends that don't have the time to grind. The ship upgrade stuff seems really grindy, after 7 games i still haven't picked up enough to lock any additional upgrades to boost the few stratagems i've bought. As for the warbonds (season pass) it seems to be the only way to get armour and unlock weapon types, and i have no idea how armour ratings effect real gameplay, what does 124 def, 514 speed even mean in real terms, does def effect only melee damage, does it reduce acid attacks, friendly fire? I'll assume the free warbonds will just be there forever which how it unlocks basic weapons with the paid only refreshing every few months.

Only few things that need to improvement (aside from the quickplay problems), choice on joining a ship or on going into the field using quickplay, with the way time is rewarded and it effects how long your support ship stays in orbit, and you can see the teams loadout so you can balance/adjust before drop, it just seem real stupid to even have the on field sos be a thing. And a fire range so you can test your loadouts before going into a live game.

As for bellends, only came across 1 in 7 games, a player afk dying over and over after dropping into the hosts game at the start, thankfully no full on griefing from friend fire, just a few accidents.

[fishbowlhead]

I’ve found it’s still a pain still to get a game but once your in the team tends to stick together for ages which is good.

[hudson]

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[fishbowlhead]

And it’s completely offline now

[Tobal]

It is pay to win, even if it's a co-op game and ultimately means nothing, if you can buy better weapons right away and be 'better' than people who would need to play and win 100 odd games to get something similar, it is the very definition of it.

Anyway a busy sunday evening on the servers means the matching making not working at all for me, bravo.

[hudson]

It's a PvE game tho. Those items in the battle pass type warbond still need the player to gain medals to get the stuff. The premium path doesn't have weapons that are better just different but still balanced.

[Tobal]

looked into the bond stuff, a revolver and 2 elemental guns only found in the paid warbond, seems you still have to grind medals anyway to get them but still... to the average/casual player even if you grind countless hours to get the basic warbonds 750sc (estimated 35/40 hours, only getting enough unlocks to open the next level of bond) and find another 250 (20sc at a time) in-game pods you then get the premium warbond for 'free' then you're in for another huge amount of medal grinding to unlock them.

Balancing is not locking something like incendiary ammo using guns away behind paywall (they can only be found here) along with a huge grind and 6 shooter revolver which sounds fun and unique (as mentioned in the twit not that useful).

Only other useful information i found is warbond tracks will stay forever including the paid one.

[hudson]

Been having log on issues tonight. Seems the patching is possibly causing a wack-a-mole effect. Fix something for some people break stuff for others.

[fishbowlhead]

Year apparently they are increasing the servers massively to help with the load and it’s all been offline.

Apparently though streamers get special treatment as they have all been kept online, really poor show Arrowhead.

[Lebowski]

Had another couple of nights on this and settled into a rhythm with it to maximise our rewards and make it a bit less grindy, we've been exploring the maps more and trying to hit all the secondary objectives, to maximise our rewards, pulling the map up at the start of a mission and coordinating where you want to hit first and then working your way around to avoid back tracking is how we start out. We've also been actively seeking out samples so we can do the ship upgrades.

As a game, it really rewards you for not just hitting the main objectives and completing all the side stuff too. By sealing all the bug holes and clearing out nests you often come across bunkers full of guns and ammo, downed weapon system that you can work together to get working again or cool little easter eggs, the maps really are packed full of pick-ups and Easter eggs so feel really alive and worth exploring. The different biomes stop things getting boring too, the ice planets being my fave as trudging through that deep snow and diving on to frozen lakes to skid forward like a human sledge make traversal pretty fun.

Things can still go wrong mind you we had one mission where we got overrun by massive bugs and just legged it out of there as our respawns were getting low, and we would have lost a ton of stuff if we had persisted, This hilarious Benny hill chase ensued with us baiting and dropping air strikes as we legged it to the extraction point. It's still making us laugh regularly, one of our team was standing a bit too near the drop ship when it landed and got roasted alive by the thrusters.

Another thing thats excellent is the mission end screen, which gives you a run donw of how everyone has done, thing's like most kills, most deaths' weapon accuracy, the stats that will get you the most stick is, Damage to friendly's and accidents* a badly placed grenade got me 3000 friendly damage and 3 accidents one round

*friendly players killed

[QualityChimp]

So... it sounds like this game has a lot of big bugs...

[Neon Ignition]

Died for the first time last night, in two of the matches played. First was heading to a map marker with an objective on it and sat there was a bomb, nothing else was around so after lots of group aimless wandering I assumed the point was to blow it up - the radius was much wider than I expected and I took out the entire team

Second was a later game and I got a bit too far astray dealing with eggs. Two of the team dropped out of the game so when things kicked off I ended up getting overswarmed and had to wait till the other player revived me. Managed to make my way back to the objective (loading missiles) and complete it before getting swarmed again.

Broadly though in a typical game Easy is very easy so tonight I'll step into Medium.

[Lebowski]

It is pay to win, even if it's a co-op game and ultimately means nothing, if you can buy better weapons right away and be 'better' than people who would need to play and win 100 odd games to get something similar, it is the very definition of it.

It's not pay to win as you don't have to spend a penny on it to unlock all the weapons,

If you complete the free banner you will have unlocked ten lots of premium currency equalling 1000 credits and can get the premium banner for free.

Also, if you unlock the premium pass straight away you still need to play the game and get medals to unlock the rewards in there, the weapons are not better in the premium pass but just variations and reskins of the standard weapons so theirs no advantage to rushing into unlocking stuff from their as if you did you would be behind on the free banner unlocks.

[Tobal]

It's not pay to win as you don't have to spend a penny on it to unlock all the weapons,

If you complete the free banner you will have unlocked ten lots of premium currency equalling 1000 credits and can get the premium banner for free.

Also, if you unlock the premium pass straight away you still need to play the game and get medals to unlock the rewards in there, the weapons are not better in the premium pass but just variations and reskins of the standard weapons so theirs no advantage to rushing into unlocking stuff from their as if you did you would be behind on the free banner unlocks.

read my post further down.

There is only 750sc in the bond, estimated time to get that and the extra 250sc is about 35-40 hours. The Variations are 'just' elemental ammo using guns you can't find elsewhere, does it matter that the fire spitting Breaker Shotgun isn't better than the completely broken base Breaker Shotgun due how damage drop off isn't thing in this game. Also means can't use your SC in the rotating armour store, which i just looked at the first armour comes with stats you can't get either pass (how useful Max def with "higher armour rating" perk means, who knows).

[Lebowski]

The thing is you can't pay your way to an advantage you still need to play the game to unlock the stuff on the premium tier and it's not inherently better just different, I've got That explosive round riffle you mention it has a slower rate of fire so isn't putting out more DPS it's just a different style of play. I've put three nights in and so far, my super credits seem to go up quite a bit through normal play according to the developer's discord, players are expected to earn 10-40 Super Credits per hour thats nowhere near 35 to 40 hours even on their worst estimates. You can find them in the wild and get them post game as rewards. So If you play enough to unlock all the free tier, you will easy have enough to also get the premium stuff for free and no doubt a ton of free skins too.

Coming from destiny it feels like such a generous system compared to the **** show that game has become, for example it has no way to earn premium currency has weapons that are only available via its battle pass, has pre-order weapons and has guns locked behind paid content like its dungeons and raids. It has pvp too and these weapons can massively effect gameplay with raid weapons like the Vex Mythoclast being meta in pvp for a good 6 months.