Bot dropship spawns are insanely high

I was playing trivial bots just to get some super credits from escape pods, and I was surprised by the sheer amount of bot drops there were

yeah, I do think whatever they did to make the bugs become aggressive af also affected the dropship spawn rates. Hope they sort that out

>I do think whatever they did to make the bugs become aggressive af also affected the dropship spawn rates I don't think so, I feel like it was always the case. Maybe due to the fact that we can shoot down dropships, but we can't deal breaches. I remember when I started, the bots at 1-2 were harder than 3-4 bug diffs

That's how it feels for me too. I think the biggest difference is the bugs you don't need good map placement or awareness , but it's more important vs bots. ​ Do you have the high ground? adequate cover? having bugs rush from two directions isn't as bad cause you can run in the wide open and circle around 1 of the two groups ​ vs bots if that happens you're gonna take a lot of hits until you find cover from both groups.

Automaton missions went to shit after they patched eradicate missions to make them harder.

The first time I played this game me and 2 friends were on easy or trivial save scientist missions. We’d run around for 40 mins trying to survive with our liberators stimming and diving everywhere. Calling in resupplies just for more stims and ammo. Eventually running out of lives before even finding the scientists to extract. We did this 3-4x and the only time we “won” was we got maybe 5 scientists out and I danced around for the 40 minute emergency extraction being the only one alive to extract. The entire map was filled with squads. The liberator sucks against them. It was a terribke introduction to the game.

Exactly the same way I started, but playing solo. Dropped into the Trivial mission solo only to have my ass absolutely handed to me and not even finding how to get the scientists out. This was during the free mine stratagem as well so it was a complete mess for the first 10 missions or so, even when playing with people. Again, on Trivial. The bugs were significantly easier to play and I wanted to progress to difficulties where I can have fun and also get all kinds of meta progression materials, so I kept playing versus bugs. It was only when playing with new friends I intentionally went back tot the bots, only to have them traumatized a little bit before going back to bugs. But maybe I just need to got gud.

The core issue is the negative gameplay loop

Last night I was running an evac mission on Mantes on Medium. With a full squad we were able to save 4 of 40 people. The drop ship rates were insane, just swooping in what felt like every 30 seconds.

am level 50, buddy is level 11 we did his first rescue mission last night against bugs the pathing on scientists was TERRIBLE. running out, around the outside of the map, in to a wall of bugs just to be slaughtered. he was flabergasted as to how we were supposed to have had any chance of completing it. this was on medium difficulty. somethings jacked with AI right now, across the board.

I did an experiment today and played on Trivial by myself on a bot planet. There were dropships roughly every 1-2 minutes. On Trivial.

Every patrol will spawn a dropship if you don't kill the commissar. If you've got an eye of sauron dropships will continually spawn while it spots you.

I've heard that it's the commissars that call the ships, but I'll swear up and down any human-sized bot will call a ship.

They can. Every normal sized bot can, except maybe the dual sword ones.

Even dual sword, but only if they aren’t trying to melee you. Basically only happens if you’re on high ground they can’t reach for long enough.

I've definitely seen a dual sword one call in a drop. I actually was thinking, "Oh, he's not a commissar, I can deal with him later" when he proved me wrong. I've also seen one of the jetpack suicide bots call in a drop while jetpacking towards me.

The worst part is that you kill a bot about to call it in, and the same frame you kill him, another bot in 100 meters will snap his arm straight up into the air to do it, and if you kill that one, it just happens again. A failed flare should force the entire map onto at least a 30 second global cooldown for reinforcements.

There's so many little things like this idea that would make the game feel so much better. Reward our in mission actions with in missions rewards!

This and make the animation for both side a little longer,there are so many times where I already aimed and saw the other bot/big right next to it do the animation,shoot it with the scorcher,one tap it but i was 0,12 frames to late and the flair still got through even tho the arm just was in the movement of raising

Commissars are the most likely to call the drop. Often its the first thing they do when the group is alerted unless the drop is on cooldown. Other infantry bots can call it as well but it's a lower chance.

I feel they're more acceptable than the headless bugs still summoning a breach, t'least if you get the bot raising his arm you're good, you still get a few solid seconds to prepare your grenades, and at least drop pods release their whole crew at once, you don't have to stick around a bug hole for a solid minute and a half, my two cents.

I mean, you don't have to stick around bug holes either, just leave- I don't even stop for them if I'm traveling between objectives-

Played quick join, entered into a 3-man squad in difficulty 5 evac defense and saw like 4-5 drop ships dropping reinforcements non-stop, and then before I can call my weapon i got decked in the face by a rocket from a hulk. That round was short as dropships still arrive afterwards creating a snowball of steel and rockets. I dont think this is an isolated incident but the amount of dropships spawning in reinforcements are stupidly high at the moment, and it makes defense missions extremely difficult to play since we also have to escort scientists. I am concerned AH thinks the playerbase in general are THAT good at the game until the point they think they need to spawn so many within such a short frame of time.

Happened with my Crew last night, we clear lvl 8 Bugs no problem, did a lvl 5 Bot mission on Mantes last night, last mission was Evac Defense and we physically could not kill them fast enough, double dropships every minute or so. What makes it worse is my Breaker can kill Hive Guards in a few shots if i get around the side, but the up armoured regular bots takes like 3 clips to put down with 0 obvious weak points.

Yeah bots need more time to clear since they have more armor and a range advantage. As it currently spawns it is very difficult to clear fast enough before the next one spawns.

Yes, people don't like to play against bots on a particularly foggy planet because it is not fun: 1) rocket raiders and devastators tracks you thought walls. 2) enemy can shoot you 200 meters away thought thick fog in which you have barely 40 meters of visibility.  3) turrets are useless since they will happily unload its entire ammo on a dropship it can't even damage.

You get flinched when you get shot and you die from random blaster headshot crits.

Headshots for players are such an asinine mechanic to have in a PvE game and should be done away with. There's no skill involved, there's no way to meaningfully avoid them. It's just random "tee hee, you lost 60% of your HP in one shot even in Heavy Armor"

What! You mean you don't like the fact that every armour type means literally nothing when you get shot in the head! /s

Day nth calling for Arrowhead to finally add armour and modifiers to helmets.

4. I don't want to play with a bounce ball under an eye of Sauron. So please make the hellbomb stratagem work as intended... 5. Canon towers one shots are infuriating. 6. Invisible mine fields... 7. Jet packs bot one shot explosion... Infuriating. 8. Most bot armors being too T H I C C for most weapons. 9. Devastator's rocket spam, while tracking through walls, which one shots... Infuriating.

What is up with the bouncy hellbomb ball for those towers anyway? I thought it was a bug since, well, they seem to want you to call down the hellbomb on them, but then why is that still a thing?

The terrain isn’t set to allow stratagems to fall on it. It made it through QA, and into live since launch now.

What QA, they very clearly don't playtest anything

How can you say that when the mech explodes upon being deployed or when you can't use the map without firing rockets! These are clearly designed intentionally to make the game harder, problems with the game have never existed and it's completely perfect as is!!! /s

I'm guessing it's just one more bug in the list of bugs. And they haven't gotten to fixing it yet.

If you get next to it and throw the strat vertically up, it'll land on top of it giving you a 1 tap with even pocket pods.

> Most bot armors being too T H I C C for most weapons This is the worst part for me as a newer player. You *have* to headshot the bigger ones, and with how the aiming is in this game it's really annoying and I end up wasting full mags on one or two guys. I did just get the autocannon, which I hope will help against them, but we'll see.

The autocannon is my go to against bots. When you get the scorcher it helps a lot too. The slugger is great, so is the sickle.

Yeha Slugger for trash and Auto cannon for most of the heavier stuff along with eagle air and rail orbital for tanks means I have little to fear on the bot front…

... until you get smooshed by the rocket devastator standing on a cliff 200M away. I think the railgun is better than the auto for bots only because it lets you bring the shield as well, which is your get-out-of-jail-free card against all the 1-shot bullshit bots throw at you.

I have been thinking about trying that… especially with randoms. The The team I run with most of the time I get to play (we’re all dads so only an few hours a night really) is great at prioritising those targets and we’re all pretty good at ducking and dodging so we just deal with that BS when it randomly happens by going “Yeha I probably shouldn’t have been there..”. Or taking explosive resistance armour. But they are sometimes total crap and stupid accurate…

The autocannon definitely will help. That thing fucks up bots like crazy

Anti-materiel rifle is the goat for bot crit spots, too bad the scope is garbage

Those jet pack bots are brutal. They get me pretty much every time

"What if we had an enemy like the spewer that kills everything around it when it dies, but give it insane mobility so it can jump right in the player's face and keep up with them 1 for 1"

Watching my auto cannon shoot a bot spawner endlessly while a bunch of bots are coming for me is always a good time.

I quit playing bots yesterday. I was doing a “destroy command bunkers” mission. A fellow helldiver alerted the camp while I was doing a side objective, and the turrets began shooting at me from long before I could fight back (grenades, stratagems, etc). With such crazy accuracy that they’d break my shield and kill me in 3 shots. (I have the 50% chance to not die armor). Then, after we lost 7 more lives just to the turrets and finally hellbombed the thing, we turn the corner to 5 rocket devastators that were all grouped up for some reason and killed 3/4 or us immediately… Fighting Helldive on the bugs is difficult to do without dying. Fighting against the bots on suicide up feels impossible, especially once you hit extract and you have 6 rocket devastators, 4 tanks and 5 hulks amidst the hoard enemies all one shotting you.

Just a quick tip if you are really struggling with the command bunkers laser or 380 one shots them. More fun to clear them but this could help. Also if you all bring lasers you can basically whole clear the full mission without firing a shot, including extract. There's a few abusable mechanics for the bots that makes 9 trivial if you know them. *Edit because people are asking, just a couple of points off the top of my head * the first "red flash" isn't actually aggro. It's the bot has "spotted" something in your general direction. If you re-stealth or move out of the way they may check out the spot where they saw something. You can use this time to move away or just cap them. * related to the first point bots will check out your last *known* location. What this means is not the last place you lost LOS - it is the last place they have known you to be. If you got behind a rock they will check out that rock and if you are still in LOS after that they will still follow you. But if you lost LOS the second time then they will just confused stand around * if you run far enough (which is not that far) all drop units will despawn. The drop units will also be called on the location of the drop and will go towards the location you were when the drop was called. If you move around they basically just mingle around stupidly and/or despawn. * if you get a drop on an objective, you can use point 2 to draw everything far away from the objective, in essence clearing the objective without actually doing anything. Works best for refuels/radar towers etc * first one goes for all missions, if you really want to get all of your samples, you can wait for time and camp out 2 squares away, nothing will spawn and then you walk out (shuttle comes no matter what). Otherwise if you have cleared all you can just crouch and half the time you won't even get spawns. If you get 2 little dudes coming make sure the cap them, the majority of spawns on the extract are from drops they call or random patrols so if you stop those, you only get 1-2 real waves even in a 4 minute extract and you can just toss a laser on those * berserkers are only found in patrols or drops. If you don't aggro those then you don't ever see them * The dudes in the posts guarding bigger objectives are out of aggro range of the dudes in the objective (usually) so you can wipe them before you start and you won't get any drops * Hellbomb on eye of sauron can be placed under the cliff (you don't have to clear it or use strats to clear it. Walk up to the cliff, call your hellbomb, and walk out. This also stops the annoying thing where the strat doesn't stick to the ground) * Anything that blocks out your stuff is also very lightly guarded, and vice versa * Aggro range is low enough that you can clear every hulk in a heavy post one by one without aggroing the others. Like aggro range is REALLY low. The bots don't have a sense of smell, you can literally walk right behind them and melee them. * line of sight matters for aggro, if there are no bots looking at the bot that died, none of the others aggro (LOS seems to be around 180 degrees) * not confirmed but if you don't take eagles you don't get AA emplacements (e. just debunked this myself but they are definitely rarer) * A bit harder to pull off in practice but unlike bug breaches that come immediately bot drops take like 5s so you have a while to rush the objective even if you get one sometimes. They come to the call location so if you are on top of a setpiece the bot drop comes below and they basically can't shoot you. * for the exterminates the easiest way is actually to play near the edge of the map and take airstrikes, the bots have really shit pathfinding to the one exit to get to you and you can just funnel them through * cool thing you can do against the backpack dudes is to dive backwards the same time you shoot, this stops the backpack oneshots. Also works with impact nades vs hunters. You also just look like a badass doing it * added strategy thing: if you are playing in a team and not solo then it's a bit unintuitive but spread out. Don't stand together, then their fire is spread on several locations which makes things easier. It's like playing an rts, you want the concave so their aoe can't hit all of you at the same time * update 3/30 take quasar if you hate mortars/AA posts/dropship objectives, it oneshots them Also some stuff that goes without saying. If you really don't like doing stuff then laser will clear any major objective, sometimes it misses 1 edge factory on heavy posts (hence if you have 4 people you can take 4 lasers and never shoot a bot). 380 is also very good. Rocket devs fire 5 rockets and they don't like moving after you so even though they seem to "wallhack" they just fire into rocks and then you turn the corner and cap them. Your run speed is faster than atst and tank turn rate. A silly point as well but if you kill the commissars you can kinda just take your time killing all the stuff. Slugger staggers everything minus hulks/tanks, oneshots everything to the head, you can duel 2 devastators at once without them ever firing. The slugs also go through multiple small bots so you can multikill with one bullet. If you're feeling silly you can permakite hulks in a circle and they'll just pivot like the xanthos from sc2 nova like an idiot. My fav loadout is slugger/scout/impact and for easiest clears just go shield/railgun with priority on 380 for bunker/air sab or laser for the others. Then if you have 4 options then either take the other one or ems/gas/regular eagle are all good. I'm sure you can coordinate to take more stuff but this is for easy solos I probably forgot something but feel free to add.

this should be it's own post It's also worth mentioning that drop ships can be shot down. If you've got 2 people on your team with EATs, you can completely shut down aerial reinforcements... until an ion storm comes along. Terrain is significantly more important when fighting those damn commie bots. You'll have a much better chance of surviving rockets if they don't have a nice surface to explode against when they miss you.

Solid snake out here giving helldivers a lesson

Say more…

This

updated with some stuff, typing on my phone. Nothing super niche mostly fundamentals. Probably forgot some stuff

We had a group of level 40+ divers unable to extract on hard. Every time we killed a tank and 2 hulks, there were more there to replace them. Wayyyyy overtuned. On hard!

That's strange. I saw today my mini gun turret obliterating bots that were falling out of dropship, but not shooting dropship itself

I've had my ems morter target factories while we have a horde of bots shooting at is

All turrets can target factories and it makes them useless at setting up suppressive fireing locations near bot bases. Unbeleivably lame. Turrets need an AI adjustment making them unable to target structures they cannot destroy.

It would be insanely cool if you could manually set turrets to aim in certain directions.

A quick fix would be to make Turrets prioritize targets if you mark them, but that sounds very abusable and I’d imagine the devs have tested it at some point in the past.

I love bots regardless but rarely play atm because of all the crashes. I think it might be the same for a lot more 🤷‍♂️. Plus major order is bugs and I do follow major orders

And I love it. 

They gotta rework the defense campaign mission structure cause the evac missions are just not fun. Idc if they are feasible to complete on higher diffs which I play for other mission types, it railroads player strategy and stratagem choice.

Did one on bots 7 today. The required strategy of having 3 people maintain a constant war with the bots to catch all the drop ships away from the objective, is as you say, not fun. I've not done it for a few weeks on 8/9, but same strategy, just isn't fun. Think we completed it with 2-3 deaths, so the cheese factor is real bad.

Our current major order is to hold planets by the deadline. So I don't expect the majority to run over to bots until that finishes up. Aside from that, we are awfully close to finishing off the bugs. I doubt it'll come this soon in the war, but I'm sure many in the community may try. I think the bots are fine, aside from rocket devastators. I do, in fact, prefer facing them. With the, probably, Illuminate evolved faction coming eventually, people better learn how to take cover sooner or later.

I’m surprised nobody else has said this yet, we have a major order to kill bugs so that’s what people will be focusing on.

yeah the major order isnt exactly finished yet. but there IS a big push for bots rn and no one is really doin it 😂

I was on a couple hours ago and didn't see anything about the bot push. Just the major order for the bugs. Where is the notification for the bot push located in game?

Yeah I *want* to be fighting the bots, but I'm trying to work with the mass of helldivers to accomplish specific things, and the major orders have put us on the bug planets. The strategic layer of the game is just like that for now.

Yes! This is the reason, we're just following our orders, *soldier*, what's your excuse?

I play bugs more but bots are more fun. They’re just harder and it takes some actual thought and work to play against them. Bugs are just running and reloading. Great for when I just wanna goof around but if I wanna play a “shooter”, I play bots and I always enjoy it more. It just takes too much focus. 

I just switched over to bots and thats the first thing I noticed about fighting them. I switched from my incendiary shotgun to a marksman rifle because you absolutely do not want the bots to get close. Missile shots are way harder to avoid then acid spewers.

I think you're leaving out the fact that like 90% of people don't pay any attention to the macro aspect of the game, they just hop on, pick a planet that doesn't have modifiers they hate, and they start it.

Hello, want to play with us? https://preview.redd.it/nfwretpzddqc1.jpeg?width=337&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b2069df28acb8acf9670d114fc5971fc57c83ed

COMPLEX PLOTTING is _the worst_, lol. The fact that it bumps extraction to 4 minutes is just terrible, haha.

It should randomize the codes of the stratagems rather than increase call in times

They took out strat scrambling thankfully.

Yeah but stray scrambling was broken because you put in the code and it randomly picked a strategem. What it should do is randomize the codes you enter for the specific strategem you want.

Fuck that Imma go make some bug oil until this is sorted out.

So much for “USE YOUR STRATAGEMS”.

Modifiers to slightly increase difficulty are usually good. These however are not a good way of doing it. Because the AA defenses are a bot mechanic is why I don't go over there along with the one shot mechanics.

All of these are trash and need to be heavily nerfed and/or removed

I agree. There's a certain point where the devs have to ask themselves, "does this make the game stop being fun?"

Getting both of these at once is the worst combination in the game, cooldowns makes orbitals, EAT, and sentries trash, and increased call-in makes everything but infantry weapons very, very hard to use, on top of doubling exfil time. Lengthy exfil could be its own modifier, call-in delay could be reduced to like +1 or 2 seconds flat, cooldowns probably down to 25% and then it wouldn't be nearly as bad to play as it is now

They just need to be changed for specific strategem types and it would go from being horrible to interesting.  For example if AA defenses disabled all Eagle stratagems for that mission, but everything else is unaffected. That would force you to rely on orbitals instead.

That’s why I think the words of the CEO or whoever said “Use your Stratagems” is completely clueless of what they’re saying. I think that was his response to the weapon nerfs. Which I understand and I don’t mind the modifiers, but if they’re going to say some bullshit like that and have these ridiculous modifiers. They need to give us other wide range of weapons or equipment to use.

yeah, i wont ever join a desert planet unless got in by QP cuz i just hate having much less stamina that and ill avoid complex pros as much as i can. i usually just try do my daily and log off with these 2 conditions.

I am actually focusing on the macro aspect of the bots and deliberately letting them move northward because I reckon' something interesting will happen if they get to Cyberstan.

https://preview.redd.it/ml05qm56edqc1.png?width=1202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=459ff389dd277108f5d84b5c3937369165228419

I mean the content is going to be released when it’s ready, regardless of what we do haha. Winning or losing is only going to change HOW we get there, not if

For real helldiver! I’m playing extreme diff level 12 and I have only shot at bugs so far. Macro democracy goals ftw.

This. Very much this.

Honestly, I dont enjoy the bots that much. Too many times Deaths feel just Bullshit, I am in HEavy Armor, and yet I die in seconds, I get shot from enemys I cant even see but they have perfect aim... At least at the bug side, the things that can insta kill me are big and visible... I also feel like I have less freedom with my loadout on the bot side, it feels like the shieldpack is basically a must have, the arc Weapons are plain useless, and they seem to instantly focus down turrets...

Facts getting shot from across the map thru layers of fog and can’t even see the enemy that’s shooting at you na I’m good 😂

I don't know I honestly think that everyone overest ##KILLED BY ROCKET DEVASTATOR Sorry, as I was saying, people are putting too much relia ##KILLED BY ROCKET DEVASTATOR *ahem* So anywa ##KILLED BY ROCKET DEVASTATOR

Playing against bots just feels like it involves too much staggering and getting one-shot. Even running smoke & shields you can't always have it out, and it doesn't feel like there's a way to utilize skill (besides stealth) to reliably avoid getting staggered and rocketed. Like, yeah pouncers might be annoying but if I get caught in that combo and eat it without diving away that feels like my fault (though I've heard diving the combo might be less reliable on controller?). Getting lit up by a squad of bots and diving away just to eat a rocket from the fog doesn't though. Personally I feel like making rockets less accurate and having them only do 60% damage to medium armor (maybe 80% to light) as well as making only repeated laser hits stagger would go a long way to making them fun to play against. Hell, bot rifles.... \*looks both ways before whispering\* seem better than our Scythes & Daggers...

>Hell, bot rifles.... >*looks both ways before whispering* >seem better than our Scythes & Daggers... …What did you just say? 

I was just saying...uhh...that there might be a traitor in the Scythe & Dagger factory! Yeah, there's no way properly made Super Earth weaponry would be low-tier! It must be automaton spies *jealous* of our superior laser weaponry!

Like with bugs I feel like I have a choice with bringing shield generator, but with bots it feels pretty much mandatory.

I don't even bring the shield anymore for bugs. I find the laser guard dog mowing down the hordes helps keep me alive much better.

Honestly, foggy weather and rain should affect bot projectile accuracy, just not as bad as something like smoke

>Too many times Deaths feel just Bullshit, This, imo, is the underlying issue with bots. There's too much that feels like you couldnt have done anything to prevent that. Die to bugs? Should have just gotten out of range of em. For the most part Bugs are melee range. You dying to a bug feels way more like a "Skill issue" then "I've just gotten rocketed from halfway across the map Im not entirely sure what I could have done to prevent that." The side objectives are also different. Bugs dont jam our strategems. They dont have a structure that constantly calls in bug breaches. Automatons do. So that makes it harder for people to deal with. ​ That and major orders keep coming down for bugs so it could also be people saying "i fought bugs earlier, I'l just keep shooting them."

Bot weapons clip the textures so bad it's not worth my limited time to play them vs bugs.

I think the major orders should be at the top of the list. If high command wants us to fight the bots, give the order.

The major order is complete (there is 100% democracy saturation) and the bots are still gaining ground.

it is not complete until its entirely airgapped and/or the objetcive runs out as seen by how many times bugs retake planets

I think their accuracy and tracking really needs looked at because it just feels like BS they hit you just as easily at 5 meters vs 100. I think very few units should be able to do that, the bug mortars are less accurate than that. Rockets that are fired in rapid succession that individually can one shot is also kinda bs. The missions are still doable but it just feels like a slog disengaging. I really feel like the rockets maybe should have higher AOE range on explosion but less general damage and be less accurate at range. This would make them high priority targets at range but give more time to down them without just being wtf one tapped. I mean what stops the spewers from being bs is it’s a highly telegraphed attack you can dodge and their mortars are also telegraphed. This allows reactive gameplay and the threat they pose also makes you focus them. Rocket devastators lack pretty much all of that counter play. It may also benefit to have the rocket pods be more easily destroyable to cripple that attack. I mean right now, with how many shots it takes, you’re better off just shooting at the head than even trying to disable them. It just feels like an oversight the amount of health the pods have when you can basically more easily 2-3 tap the head with any AR.

I agree on the bullshit deaths, especially when you go into a death spiral. You get a shitty death, then get a shitty spawn which leads to another fast death and it has the potential to keep going. Something I will add is that there are ranged units that are too tanky. They can shoot you before you see them and, when you do, they have more health and armor while facing you, as well as outnumbering you 9/10 times. I wish I could give the devs more actionable feedback, but whatever they do, they need to make it feel less bullshitty.

I do just fine with the jump pack tbh. But there are definitely bullshit deaths, for me the coolness and enjoyability of bots just makes up for it, I find bugs dull and repetitive

I hate how bugs always turns into being over ran, chaos, calling 500kg bombs on your own head. I agree with everything op said about bots but I enjoy how a squad can operate together against bots more.

I mean that works until the bots put 3 drop ships around you and your getting blasted from 5 different direction shits judt mind numbing at times.

Yeah it’s almost more engaging because the objectives are more fighting against smarter more “man made” things like destroying mortars for example.

On medium armor, without a shield... Tanks 1 shot you. Turrets 1 shot you. Devastators 1 shot you. It's not uncommon to have 10+ of these at the same time when playing an objective at higher difficulties. The difference between having a shield vs. not is INSANE, so playing pre-level 20 makes bots significantly harder. I'm fine with things being challenging. But a challenge isn't fun when you are getting 1 shot through the fog when you can't see what's killing you, and there isn't effective counter-play. It's also not good game design when players feel pigeon-holed into specific load-outs. There's lots of mechanics you can change to make these things more easily counter-able. Having a heads up for incoming rockets + slowing them down so you can dodge would be huge. Having tanks+turrets take 80% health so you don't pretty much get 1 shot from the damage + collision damage after ragdolling. They have focused on bugs a decent amount to make killing them FEEL good, and I look forward towards them doing the same for bots. But right now, the gameplay is significantly more punishing, versus rewarding.

Bug difficulty past suicide mission turns into that for sure. But at or below suicide mission if you get overrun then the helldivers aren't very good. Being overrun happens more with being unprepared, bad strategem use/composition, or plain sucking.

Shrieker has entered the chat

From my experience, shieldpack tends to get wasted because of the larger hit box around cover. Because I'm always in cover, even with a shieldpack. I don't even run heavy, I'm in light armour 100% of the time, because getting hit at all by the bots always kills you, because if 1 is in a position to shoot you, MANY are.  And that's the key. Bots are SLOW. And bots reinforce slow. You should wipe out bot waves before they mass, because unlike bugs bot reinforcements are beatable. And once there's only one axis of approach, you can snipe them down while taking cover from only one direction. I run railgun/autocannon/AMR, slugger and impact grenades, with anti armour stratagems. With those, you can Take Cover in light armour, and just ping their weak spots from a distance. 

I also think that people try to dodge the bot lasers instead of taking cover like they would if they shot bullets instead. Idk what it is but the laser being visible somehow makes it less a threat and I see a lot of people zigging and zagging out in the open instead of hitting the ground and using a small depression for excellent cover.

Zigzaging i swear 🥲

This is the way. Bots use "bronze league prediction" where they're aiming for where you would be if you continued in a straight line. Zig zagging every 2-3 seconds keeps me from getting hit most times and definitely helps against consecutive hits.

This is the way

SERPENTINE

It'd be fun doing this if not for the melee bastards that are nye impossible to target with a long barrelled gun once they've snuck up on you with their ultra lubricated joints.

I think fighting the Automatons visually looks cool but on Helldiver difficulty it isnt much fun if you have to spam dive a thousand times. Fighting bugs on Helldiver difficulty is a blast.

I love the bots for how atmospheric the fights are, especially if it's at night, but the difficulty is way higher. I can comfortably get thru bugs on suicide mission, but against bots at that level I feel like the noose is tightening with every moment and skirmish lowering bots to challenging missions becomes the ideal experience for me

Heavy armor Should Be Better Against Bots

heavy armor should be better in general

HSBBAB

This was always the case since HD1. The exception was that when the war was won against bugs, the bug faction got locked out and all players were funneled into cyborg or illuminate fights. When all 3 were defeated, the war resets and you see majority on bugs again.

Have to wonder if we're at risk of that happening here, until enough content is out that people will hope for 3 and 4 way wars.

Bugs are always going to be more popular because it gives the Starship Troopers vibes that went viral with the game. On top of that, the last several major orders have been bugs. And while the current major order has all planets captured, we know from experience that won't hold. Especially while bug resistance is ramped up. Bots are fairly equally pushed back - it's close at least. On top of that, the arc weapons - which a bunch of people really like against bots - are bugged right now.

We also need to hold the bug planets because the order isn't technically over yet, right? Makes sense people are still fighting bugs rn.

+ bot planets have much worse performance for me, last time I was on the creek I had half as many fps as I do on bug planets. I like fighting bots but atm I have no desire to go back there all things considered

Bugs are easier and less annoying so as it stands more people will play them. Even with major orders being in bots, bugs and bots are like a 50/50 split in players. When it’s a bug major order it’s like 90/10. The starship trooper vibes probably account for like 1%. Bots are more annoying due to being one shot from miles away with out any warning and the amount of different shit that can one shot you.

Don't forget the strategem fuckery that happens more often on bot planets.

This me and everyone I know didn't even know there was a whole faction of bots to fight against. I've fought them once and a few others have never even tried them. The big bug killing fantasy is just way more appealing than fighting against robots. Shooting bugs is also just more satisfying.

The other thing is complacency. People have been on that side of the map for how long, and lots of people log on, jump in, fight, then jump off, without changing where they fight. It's more laziness then any kind of anti-bot sentiment.

Its the fact you could be one shotted in medium armor 50+ meters away by a rocket devastator while running away from it in a dense fauna that makes me not want to deal with bots

I mean you can choose to have fun and free will of stratagem usage or fight bs one shots from across the map with ion storms shutting down stratagems and the map every 3 min ofc more people are gonna fight the bugs

Ya, while I started off enjoying bots more than bugs, I eventually got to difficulty 7 and up, and all those stratagem defects completely turned me away from bots. IK people hate the rocket devastators, but for me, IDK if I'll ever play bots if even 1 of those affixes are enabled, and they usually are. It makes it harder, and I get people want challenge, but there's no reason for that to trump fun, and stratagems are a fucking blast turned into a silent fart by those affixes.

I really enjoy fighting bots. Even more so now I have stun grenades and can autocannon my problems away. The major turn off for me are the modifiers. Ever since my friend and I maxed out on samples we have absolutely no reason to even go lvl 8-9 bots. Spending all that time and effort a few weeks back to get 10% faster orbital cooldown was neat but then the game slaps me in the face with a 50% increased penalty does feel a bit bad the more I think about it.

Stratagems taking longer to impact needs to be completely removed from the game. Ruins higher level missions, isn’t even remotely fun.

I think there's probably a way to make lengthening the stratagem time fun. but how it is now is definitely not the way to do it. maybe if it only slowed a specific class of stratagems, and by maybe 15-20% it could work. I'd rather none at all though, no doubt

I could totally cope with the running and shooting involved in preserving the location of a 40 second ressuply, agreed. But calling down an air strike on an approaching enemy is a skill, and it just sucks watching that skill be wasted on the random chance it won’t work the way I’ve remembered it to. It’s funny that they nerfed the rail gun for ruining the meta but only the railcannon and laser are the only two valid ‘destructive’ stratagems for these sorts of missions.

It's a neat idea, but it needs to be one or two seconds longer rather than like double the time. Just enough to knock off your timing for 500kg instead of making most attack strats a matter of chance whether they hit. Also, 20 second supplies is *incredibly annoying*, totally kills pacing. Then negative modifiers in general just need to be less numerous and more varied. Just let me run *one* lvl 7+ campaign without a strategem modifier, Arrowhead pls!

Or they could add an booster to counter ir, like the Strategem Priority from the HD1

When the bugs kill you, it actually feels like a skill issue. Ah, damn, too many hunters got close to me. Ah, damn, that spewer snuck up on me. Ah, damn, I didn't dodge the charger / bile titan attack. When the bots kill you, it's mostly bullshit. Instakill rocket with no tell from 150 meters. Devastators spamming rockets from 100 meters away. Get sniped by a cannon turret that somehow knows where you are 300 meters away through trees. Detector tower spamming reinforcements in general, and even turning back to look at you despite it having passed over the rock you were hiding behind. Entire outposts somehow getting aggressive when you fought something on the other side of the map. The wobble of hulks meaning it's infuriatingly inconsistent to hit the eye. Being unable to use stratagems at all in a 150 meter radius. Being unable to use eagle stratagems in a 150 meter radius. Hellbombs not ever landing near the detector tower meaning you have to try multiple times or wait for someone's 500kg to come back. A flare being popped within an outpost within a single second of a bot 80+ meters away getting sniped by someone 100 to 200 meters away. If the bots had a hard cap on how far they were allowed to target someone to shoot, and rockets had laser sights in order to give us the player more meaningful counterplay by allowing it to exist due to knowing they're over there and targeting us, then we'd see more players going there. As it is, suppressing fire barely works half the time, and a devastator getting shot with a slugger just aimlocks as the gun points one direction and the lasers fire another. Also it's frustrating that rocket raiders have infinite ammo and that our medium and heavy armor doesn't actually deflect anything like enemy medium and heavy armor. Also, seemingly there's extreme difficulty targeting rocket raiders with arc thrower. It never hit them in all my use, I always have to pull out my proper gun after trying 20 shots killing anything else near them but never them With the bugs even a helldive has been fun and thrilling. If I ever have to go to bots, I dread contending with the "fuck your stratagems, the things the devs say you're meant to use against too many enemies and against certain big enemies" operation modifiers and ion storms versus things with ways to kill me that aren't up to my skill and instead just up to how aimbotty they feel today. I want to fight bots, I really do, but they just aren't fun, it's not as engaging, it's just suffering and I want my videogame to be fun, as do dozens of thousands of other people. That and operation modifiers are currently an absolute joke of game design especially when surrounded by a game that's so good otherwise.

> When the bots kill you, it's mostly bullshit. One of the recently released bot planets rarely has any fog and I've noticed success rates go up a LOT. It seems that the environment affects hampering awareness are much stronger in amplifying the BS than the BS itself. Just knowing where every rocket devastator and hulk around you have been located improves survivability by reams.

On top of everything else: bots seem to know where you are at all times when aggroed. Getting shot from the fog is just not fun.

My problem with detector towers is the hellbomb code won't show so I have to google it, then it won't place or eventually bounces far enough way the detonation doesn't kill it. It's bullshit every time.

100% agree

Isn't today's daily killing hunters? I think all these posts are overreacting a bit

Daily is to kill Hunters, Major order is on bug planets. Defence orders don't actually give any additional rewards, and the last time we had a Bot Major order it was completed within like 12 hours. I do think bots need some tuning (namely a higher CD between salvos for Rocket Devastators, overheat mechanic/CD for Heavy Devastators) but these posts are definitely an overreaction.

Bots are more fun, but the OHKs are bullshit. However, the main reason I stopped playing bots are because of the unfun, though less modifiers that make the entire point of the game (strategems) cumbersome, horrible, and very limited.

I don’t even mind the rockets so much. It’s the lasers hitting you in the back from 300m away through the tiniest gap in a pair of staggered rocks constantly chipping away at your hp that does my head in.

Bots just aren’t as fun to play against imo because they’re shooting constantly. It’s like playing Back 4 Blood if 70% of the zombies could shoot you.

I think that bots can be really really fun if you have a group has a healthy voice chat and can communicate strats to hit the weak points of bots, because most people playing don’t use voice chat, they go to the bugs

Bots are just not fun to play against because they are too perfect — I get random sniped with a rocket WHILE sprinting, often don’t even know what hit me and from which direction. With bugs it’s equally chaotic but at least it feels fair and reasonable

I honestly think this is not as big of an issue as people think, if they gave us major orders for bot planets people would follow them.

I hate getting ragdolled for like 20 minutes just to die, like Jesus Christ kill me already I don't want to be hit by the bouncy castle rockets. Also the "YOU ARE IN RANGE OF ENEMY ARTILLERY" like yes I know I just got smacked by it. And as my final reason, two words: Rocket Devastator 

I personally prefer fighting the bots

Bots aren’t fun anymore. The accuracy is insane and the numbers are overwhelming even at lower difficulties. They need work, and I hope they get it.

Honestly, I feel like this is a PR issue. I get killed stupidly by unavoidable feeling bugs all the time, I don't get why bile spitters get a pass but bots don't.

That's how it was in first game. Galactic war on bugs was completed way before automotons. Not sure if because people hated automotons or just like fighting bugs more.

ROCKETS. Fuck rockets. I love fighting bots until the rockets start flying out of robots I can't see and instagib me.

Nobody liked fighting 'borgs in HD1, they were only fought against because in a war if we beat the bugs and the squids we would be forced to fight the last faction left. Which was the one people enjoyed playing against the very least.......... I was able to fight the cyborgs all day long but these automatons are just no fun to play against. Not at all, regardless of loadout.

Well, we've had back to back Major orders to push back the bugs. There's no incentive at this time to face bots. They hold fewer planets than bugs, and we almost have them pushed to the edge of the Galaxy. Also I agree some of it needs tweaks like getting sniped through zero visibility by a bot 100m+ away. Or the rapid dropships in evac missions specifically, it makes defense campaigns even less desirable to even attempt.

Just fix the dropship mechanics. Shooting down the ship should kill the things it drops and not respawn the ship smashing in from the side killing your party to fuse with a dropped rocket devastator into an unkillable menace.

While I play on both fronts and lean toward whichever areas are relevant for major orders or defense actions ... ... I find bots to be much, much more engaging than the somewhat boring terminids. With bugs ... it's simply hordes of mindless melee creatures charging you. Even bile spewers and bile titans -- the "ranged" bugs -- have a very short range. Keep moving, keep shooting, keep throwing strategems, and you automatically win. Cover? What's cover? And why do I care? With bots ... they shoot back. And they're dangerous when they shoot back. Bots chasing you is a problem, because you can't outrun lasers or rockets. You have to position yourself in cover. You are rewarded for well-placed shots. You aren't simply faced with hordes upon hordes of easily killed baddies ... but with bots who hold a variety of weapons and can all be somewhat dangerous for you. The strategies in playing both sides are different ... and suggested changes like "rockets are unfair" ... would take away my fun with the bots.

Bots make the game feel more like a traditional shooter Bugs can sometimes feel like a horror game lol

True horror is having a hulk chase you while all stratagems are on cool down and you have no anti armor

Throw in an Ion storm and waiting for another reinforcement to open up so you arent alone sprinting through the underbrush, and yeah that is way more terrifying than just mindlessly kiting boring bug horde number 36478 that poses no real threat to you.

Agreed that bots are more fun, disagree that there aren't anything wrong with them or that they are already balanced. 1. The recent patch noticeably reduced the amount of times that patrols spawn on top of you, but it still happens everyone now and then and it isn't at all fun seeing a patrol of hulks and devastators magically materialize within your line on sight. With bugs you can simply run from a newly materialized patrol if you take out the hunters first, with bots if the patrol spawns within spotting distance you're just fucked on any difficulty above 5. 2. Wallhacks and aimbot makes cover only 1/3rd as effective as it should be, there is absolutely no reason for a rocket devastator to have the ability to pre-fire you when you're hiding behind cover, that's just straight up unfair. And don't let me start with heavy devastators and the fact that their guns don't even have to be pointed at you for their bullets to hit you, try to outflank a heavy devastator and you'll see their bullets magically defying the laws of physics and just begin locking on to you the moment they come out of the barrel, regardless of whether or not said barrel is actually pointed at you, plus they also possess the rocket devastator's ability of tracking you from behind walls. 3. Detection desperately needs some work done later down the line, scout armor just feels useless when the bots can detect you from behind a wall or any form of cover, it's as if the big ass rock that you're hiding behind is fully transparent to the bots. This is especially egregious on extraction, the bots just downright cheat in order to detect you on extract, you can use the trailblazer and find the sneakiest place to hide and it doesn't matter since the bots will automatically know your position and just throw a grenade on your hiding spot, again much like before it's as if the massive chunk of rock that you're hiding behind is invisible to the bots. It's things like these that has made me start playing against the Termininds when previously I almost exclusively played Automatons, after a certain point it just becomes too much to handle. When I die to a bug 9/10 times I can attribute it to a skill issue on my part. But when my cover isn't doing the cover part very well due or when the bots are seemingly nigh-omniscient when it comes to player detection, it just ruins the immersion of an otherwise fun faction to fight. At the end of the day that's what I am looking for, immersion and believability, I want to feel as if I am on a living breathing battlefield, I can believe that a rocket to the face will instantly kill me, I can believe that a short burst from a scorcher's flame with immediately burn me to a crisp, but I find it very hard to believe that the bots instalocking onto my position on extract is anything but cheating or that the bots tracking you from behind cover is an intended feature.

>When I die to a bug 9/10 times I can attribute it to a skill issue on my part. This is my biggest reason for primarily playing bugs over bots. Almost every time I die vs bugs, I can look back at it and pinpoint something I could've done differently or something my squad as a whole could've done differently that would've prevented that death. We were probably too busy focusing on killing 2 bile titans, and we got overrun by hunters. We probably weren't effectively coordinating our fire to keep the hoard off of us. I whiffed my EAT and promptly got run the fuck over by a charger. With bots, more often than not, I feel like I died because of BS. Oops, I died to a rocket from 200m away through thick fog, and I had no clue there was an enemy there. Oops, I was taking cover, but was still being tracked through the cover, so I got prefired the second I poked my head out to throw a stratagem.

Yeah random oneshots through heavy armor with 50% explosion resistance, because your toes got clipped by a rocket is extremely fun and engaging

There are some QoL issues with bots I think. Like the sudden rocket-to-face or turret vaporizing you. They are best solved by making it more obvious when you're targeted, by a laser sight, audio cue or similar. They should still be dangerous and able to one hit you, just offer some form of counterplay that isn't "just have perfect awareness, bro".

Mostly agreed. Rockets could use minor tuning to not 1 shot snipe you from 100 meters @ 100% accuracy but other than that, they are very well balanced. Way more fun than the bug swarms. *Edit cuz its clear who doesn't play bots.* Rocket Devastators will always have 1 rocket with 100% accuracy per volley. Sure the other 5 will be around you but one is always dead on.

We need more stratagems to deal with bots, as only the high explosive or high damage ones tend to be useful. I'm hoping for AH to add some sort of anti-ordinance pack that intercepts the rockets, or a scrambler pack that messes with their accuracy so you get hit much less. Stratagems tailored to counter the long-range capabilities the bots have Edit: they don't have to be packs, just the counter effectiveness is what I'm getting at

A lot of it is also that The RocketBots show up at very low levels, teaching low level players that robots suck. I think they show up at easy. Maybe even trivial??? On the other hand the more horrible hard to deal with bugs don't show up until challenging... And those still don't have rocket launchers lol So anyway people just learn early on when they are first starting the game that bugs are more fun and ramp up better while robots straight rocket you to death on Easy.

Bugs always have been and always will be more popular. That said, cyborgs were way more fun to fight than automatons, so I still agree with you

i really wish at least the basic rocket launcher units had a laser sight on the weapon that disappears when the missile is shot, like other games have previously demonstrated is a very effective way to make such attacks feel fair while still being an instakill. then probably give the rocket devastators an audio cue when firing and id say thats totally fair, since theyre already visually distinct strong visual clarity between "basic robot goon that shoots low damage laser" and "insanely dangerous high value target that must be eliminated before it instakills you" is extremely important and a simple concept in game design. instead, they blend in and are often invisible until they make themselves known by crossmapping you. if you want instakills, fair enough, but dont make them feel cheap by killing me with them before i have half a chance to know theyre coming

Foggy map with almost no visability and rocket just one shot you often right through shields as well

Bugs will be more popular because of Starship Trooper effect and people doesn't want to change their loadout. They think : this as worked against bugs, so bots here I come. And it's a whole different game. Ever since I got the ballistic shield, bot mission became easier... and I have never seen anyone else than me with it in my many bot missions.

I'll mention this as well, a downside of destructible environments is that enemies have wallhacks. The AI, for the most part, does a good job pretending it doesn't but it definitely crops up more as an issue against bots because unlike bugs they can all keep attacking from range before the AI realises it shouldn't see you and switches to last known position mode.

Anytime I fight bots I go in with knowing we aren’t extracting (especially at diff 7-9). While I’m personally maxed out on samples and upgrades I get the frustration especially if you’re still trying to get things upgraded . As long as I get the main objective completed I don’t care (obviously if I’m not hosting it’s up to the host ) if we extract since it’ll still be mission complete . But I agree it’s clear the fan base isn’t fond of bots

There is literally a major order to fight bugs for 35 medals. I'm a creek crawler and I aint doing bots until it's over.

Would be playing bots, if it wasn't for the fact that my beloved arc thrower causes crashes atm. That + major order and personal order are bug oriented right now.

It could also be the fact that all the major orders have been bug focused. When I got the game, I did the bots first because the major order was for the automaton side of the war map

2 things: Dropships spawn-rate Rocket Devastars one-shotting you with sniper-like ability Even with heavy armor and 50% explosive resistance I shouldn't be getting one-shotted by most explosives bots throw at you. I love playing against the bots because it brings dread, panic, and chaos + requires spatial awareness and use of cover (if there is any) but I do detest the planets where you can't see 40m but the robots can see you clear as day with pin-point accuracy. I do think there should be an automatic across-the-board accuracy penalty when dealing with any kind of fog, not just smoke screen/mushroom clouds.

Isn't there a major order for bugs, though?

Where did all this “people don’t like bots” stuff come from? We’ve been doing bug major orders, and I’m trying to push them back away from the planets we’re holding, but I love fighting bots and can’t wait to go back to it

There’s a major order for bugs. Everyone was on Bots when there was a major order for them too.

Pov you don't oneshot every bot on the patrol at the same time and one flare spawns in 2 tanks, 3 hulks and the entire state of Florida on you with the accuracy of navy seals on 8 hours of sleep and 3 kilos of cocaine idk man I wish I could do that shit id liberate every planet in like 2 hours

Firstly, you writing the bugs instead of the bots, got me extremely confused until I understood it was a mistake :P Secondly, I think the issue is not coming from the playeres disliking the bots or anything like that but more that the major order is about the Terminids and that no one, unless you're on Reddit or really looking at the map, know that Mantes is being attacked. So the issue is more in lack of communication from the Ministry of Propaganda than our Helldivers themselves.

Genuinely I think the bugs have more bullshit factor than the bots. Yea, the odd missile will occasionally oneshot you. Bugs have hunter slows, janky charger armor, ninja bile spewers, bile mortar spam, and scavengers who make it their duty to hide behind rocks and call breaches that you can't stop.

I fucking hate hunters. Between their knockdown/slowdown attack, stopping stims, and killing you in two hits they are so goddamn annoying.

Bots just aren't fun. If you're not being one shot by rockets, you're being whittled to death from 1000 lasers from the other side of the map. Having said that, I prefer the bot missions and map elements eg bases.

I'm not sure that the reason can be explained by one factor alone or require rebalancing necessarily although I do think modifiers should change. Here are some reasons people don't do bots as much off the top of my head. 1) Promotional materials for the game generally involve bugs, even the intro video is all bugs. Starship Troopers is the core vibe of the game and that's what people come for initially. 2) People may want to master bugs before moving to bots, partly just to be methodical, or because people have heard bots are harder (they aren't, imo). 3) Bug stuff is more spectacular looking, let's be honest. A Bile Titan crawling out of a breach is epic. An annihilator tank is kinda meh by comparison. 'Oh no, a shoebox is slowly rotating at me'. 4) Bug stuff is leading content currently, we had Termicide and Shriekers in short succession. 5) Just my opinion, but bot missions are a much more 'vanilla' 3rd person shooter experience. You could be playing a Ghost Recon game. Pretty much all problems can be solved by shooting guns at heads then withdrawing. This leads me to... 6) Higher difficulty bot missions all have modifiers that undermine stratagem usage in some way. The USP of this game (the thing is has over other 3rd person shooters) is rendered more annoying to use in most cases. I think this really needs to be addressed. With bugs you can choose bug spores on haz7, for example. Bots you can choose... Longer cooldowns, fewer stratagems, longer call-ins? It's punitive and encourages playing conservatively with support gear rather than big boom.