Helldivers 2 (PS5/PC)

[fishbowlhead]

7 is fine really, it’s about right. 8 & 9 are just absolutely nuts. I dropped into a friends game (diff 8) to finish off the squad of 4 and we’re all immediately running for our lives with 4 bike titans, 6 chargers and an absolute hoard on our tails.

it took all 8 500kg bombs, 20 eagle clusters and all other strays just to thin the landing site out, it was absolutely carnage and im surprised the engine held up under all that going on screen.

[fishbowlhead]

Every time I host in this the game crashes without fail, they seriously need to look at the PS5 glitches now and get this stable, PC seems to be getting all the attention.

[Tobal]

it has been pretty unstable for the last 2 weeks to point i've not finished a single campaign, almost 100% chance the next 2nd mission with crash or network error resulting in no rewards.

So many things to fix

Resetting your loadout every time you log in
New player tutorial pops up everytime to you log in (can be helped by turning of all help hints)
Joining mid mission, to be able to see mission, map and planet conditions
Fix Heavy armour to be useful for loss of regen and speed
Fix audio for elite heavy unit (bugs with silent Bile Titans, Chargers, spewers)
Fix the Spear lock on time and types of lock on
The many Water problems, falling in to pools unable to get out or drown
Better warning for incoming or trained automon Rocket hell
Pickup animation problems resulting in that john wayne waddle which holsters your guns (100% repeatable with the ballistic shield)

then they can look at sorting out the weak main weapons like the DMRs

[Tobal]

new stratagems Heavy Machine Gun and Quasar cannon.

HMG, not had a chance to use in real combat, Toost planet has -1 stratagem on it so im taking shield, 110mm eagle rockets and the Quasar (formally Autocannon). 75 mag, scope only MG, can clock up to 1200rpm, have to see how it deals with medium types and heavy weak points.

Quasar, infinite EAT... however the charge up is long at 4 seconds and cooldown about 7-10 seconds so it's not gonna cut mustard against packs of mediums (spewers, royal guards, stalkers, automons striders and the bulker ones, specially those rocket backpack sods. Good for sniping nests and drop ship engines.

[Tobal]

Stepped up to doing rank 7 automons, twice now i come across this meta (all 3 other players) of not bringing back weapon and loading up with only (of 3 slots available) shield, random eagle and orbital, but i don't like it, 3 players doing nothing in-between 2/3 minutes long cooldowns and ion storms.

I learned not to use the shield now, with the -50% explosion armour which was in the storefront earlier this week making a huge difference, which lets me take the autocannon to be an allrounder.

[fishbowlhead]

The minus 1 stratagem slot on the bots this weekend is just so unfun, I’ve gone back to bugs until the effect is gone.

Quasar cannon is brilliant, heavy machine gun needs another 2 clips to be useful as it burns through ammunition to quickly, but it is definitely effective.

[Neon Ignition]

I've been dabbling with Level 8 difficulty missions, the biggest shift seems to come from how much the team you're with is willing to be methodical. Systematically working your way from point to point means the missions still feel possible but as soon as someone goes rogue and kicks off more enemy waves things soon get out of hand. Extraction tends to be the most taxing moment but the XP gains win or lose make it worthwhile.

[Tobal]

I definitely pulled my weight for max rewards and 3/3 super samples.

[fishbowlhead]

Ahahahahaha, I had the exact same situation last night, directly dropped in the last 10 seconds of extraction, I made sure to kill 1 stalker before I dived into the dropship for absolutely max rewards, bit embarrassing really seeing 1 kill on the ship stats.

[Tobal]

I've seen what has been added to todays patch for the automons... flying gunships (with rockets) and AT-AT like 4 legged walking huge ass tanks, the automon front is a hellzone.

[Neon Ignition]

The game is really getting in the way of me playing other things

After popping on last night just to see if anything had updated I ended up being matched with a team who were all playing the game properly. We worked through multiple missions at Level 8 which saw me easily through to unlocking Level 9 difficulty and scoring some ultra rare specs. I settled into taking the 500KG bomb to clear large enemy groups or Titans out coupled with the Orbital Laser which also does a good, prolonged job of clearing out numbers. Thirdly I still use the Machine Gun, typically reserved for when ammo and health stems are running low and then the final slot to the mech, I tend not to use it at all until Extraction is called and then use it to hold the line.

Now to see what the final difficulty is like

[Neon Ignition]

I've seen what has been added to todays patch for the automons... flying gunships (with rockets) and AT-AT like 4 legged walking huge ass tanks, the automon front is a hellzone.

I've just stopped playing their missions completely, last night they were about a day or two away from being pushed completely out of the game so if they end up recapturing sectors it's one of the things where it feels like the playerbase progress ends up being undermined and the will to push on particular fronts will wear off. There needs to be a sense of community progress, even if it's temporary.

[Tobal]

Well that was on the playerbase i like that the devs can throw spanners into the Major Order war front and add little bits of story in the ingame dispatches and social media, the Automons launched counter offensive to the supply line planets and it worked, the playerbase reacted slowly, they couldn't decide on an 'all in' to push the final 10% for the MO or defend the supply planet so we got neither and lost, then the MO changed. 20k Creekers and 100k bug babies not joining in the MO doesn't help either.

It feels organic that the automons would put up massive resistance and pull trump cards when almost down to a single system with an arms race between Super Earth and them while it's going on, progression coming in new weapons, free stratagems on MO planets and getting to fight new dangerous enemies.

[fishbowlhead]

Hmmmm, dominator damage increase from 200 to 300, thats a decent buff.
Anti material rifle damage increase by 30%, that's definitely going to make it viable.

Oh crap, the bots have massive walkers & arial gun ships now

[fishbowlhead]

Someone team killed me on purpose last night as I was getting on the extraction drop ship (after I covered their escape), absolutely enraged me after I carried these clowns the whole mission, directed them to objectives, watched them burn through all the reinforcements and i didn’t die once. Joke was on them, i had ALL the samples on me as they killed me so they got nothing (20 of each).

I will only be hosting from now on, also I’ve noticed pc players are either really nice and friendly playing with their pals, to total griefing arseholes that need a slap, there doesn’t seem any middle ground, PS players have all be fine so far.

Sigh.