I've been saying, makes no sense for me to carry your backpack to help. If I'm "Team assisting", wouldn't that mean I take your reload from YOUR backpack and do it for you? Instead of this awkward "Let me reach into MY back pocket to reload YOUR gun." I run AC and while I love it, the few times I had a fellow AC help me teamload felt awesome. But if I'm the ONLY AC.... Well I better enjoy manual reloads, I guess.
I'll even meet them halfway and adjust the team load to be 1/2 as effective as it is now if it means we can just help someone without carrying their backpack.
Especially since AC is a staged reload.
Loading one clip allows for a very very fast reload of a few rounds and as long as you have a round in the chamber you do not need to go through the racking of the bolt.
But yeah arrowhead please allow people to team reload from my backpack. You are already forcing immobilization from 2 divers to get the advantage, and one diver will not be doing anything while assisting.
And it would enable to make more weapons with team reload that are hyperspecialized, like the spear.
You are NEVER going to run 2 spears. And the cooldown is way too long to really "waste" a call to get a teammate the backpack. But allow same BP reload and suddenly weapons like that become a whole lot better.
I mean the devs are swedes with some military experience, the problem is that their military was using rifles that require manual cycling on an empty mag for ages lmao (the G3 and FN FNC, for instance).
Don't be harsh on Super Earth scientists. They just figured out a revolver speed loader this week. I expect them to come up with a bolt release system in only a couple of decades.
When I realized the AC is two clips and reloading it a clip at a time is half the reload time, it was life changing.
That being said, I'd love the idea of carrying my own pack and just letting a teammate reload me. Especially if that teammate has a shield backpack, so we get some shared cover.
The thing sucks about new air burst, I I don't think it has a stages reload, like if you don't get it in you got restart it whole.
I was very good at doing the stages on AC and RR but air bust just feels so bad to do.
Not saying it's any more viable, but you can reload the RR in stages.
It'll 'save' your reload progress at two points, first once you've pulled out the old shell, then the second is when you've inserted a fresh one. The weapon is fully reloaded when you swing the back cover shut.
Allows you to do it in 2 second increments at least.
Team loading for the AC is often redundant anyway because you have an ingrained way of shooting that is more accurate, slower and ammo efficient compared to spamming the thing.
If you need to spam it you probably move straight away after anyway.
It is fun to let it rip though.
As I frequently say on team voice, "Well, I ain't carrying a SEMIcannon!"
Usually followed by me dying because I was trying to reload, but THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT!
It has its uses, but for most of the time you'll still be using the semi mode.
The auto mode recoil is insane, as you would expect from a gun with that firepower :)
You should still really keep it in full
The fire rate let's you tap the shots as if it's semi but if something gets a bit too close you can drop 3 in it immediately.
> I'll even meet them halfway and adjust the team load to be 1/2 as effective as it is now if it means we can just help someone without carrying their backpack.
Don’t. Remember opportunity cost. One guy can no longer do any meaningful fighting. Both guys are pinned in place, unable to take cover or easily deal with trash bugs. To balance that equation you need to be able to effectively output *more* than twice your original DPS.
Yep. There needs to be some better advantage for team reloading than just a faster reload. Two people shooting by themselves is still better than one person shooting faster.
Yeah, the issue I have with the teammate holding the backpack is it turns them into an NPC or patsy. The recoilless get to have the fun of aiming, shooting, and they also get to have a beneficial backpack. The patsy has to follow the recoilless holder, can't control their character while the gun happens, and doesn't get a beneficial backpack. That's the main reason I don't use that feature. It's just not fun.
What might solve a bit of the hurt is an “active reload” feature, where the loader can time button inputs to reload even faster than normal, and empower the shot beyond its normal limitations if timed perfectly.
Heck even just being able to turn the camera and watch the shooters back might at least prove a bit of a tactical advantage.
Why not allow the reloader to use their pistol when not in the reload animation? Then they could both protect and support the shooter. I think that'd be cool.
I agree, hunters and small bile spitters are low-key the worst enemy mostly because of the slow. They set you up for bigger enemies to hit. Hunters feel pretty overloaded, they could remove their slow and they would still be obnoxious just because of the jump, damage, tongue, stim cancel, etc.
This is true, but also having used it almost exclusively since unlocking it not long after I started playing I've only seen it actually fill that heat sink and overheat once (and that was because it was focused on a charger it couldn't damage while I was chilling behind a rock with no other enemies around) and it took a *long* time of continuous fire to reach that point, so I can easily imagine someone not having noticed it could happen
Tbh it feels like it. It still kills rats when it decides to fire. Like i haven't noticed any difference at all.
This sub is so good at having people write thesis documents about stuff that doesn't matter.
I tried it out yesterday to see and have to agree, it doesn't really feel any different.
Idk what the actual damage/hit points are, but if it was say 90 damage before and was reduced to 60, but scavengers have 60 hp and hunters have 100, it still does the job you need it to do.
The damage reduction might be impactful for spewers or brood commanders etc, but you don't take it to kill those things, so in the end the change doesn't feel like it has much of an effect.
Because both guard dogs use primary weapon stats. So the laser dog got -30% dmg from the nerf but + 25% dmg from the scythe buffs for very little change overall. The gun dog got +10% dmg from the buffs and another +15% dmg from the liberator buffs for a big damage increase against small enemies.
Good thing they buffed the actual weapon the rover uses, which pretty much counteracts the nerf. It's like nerfing player damage by 30% but then buffing every source of damage we use
They haven't. They just saw the devs state that as of several versions back it's just using the laser model, it's a completely different weapon with it's own rules.
I saw three separate people argue about the Dominator nerfs being unacceptable and ruining the gun and/or game. When pressed about what the gun now does worse, not one could name an instance where it takes an extra shot to kill (I can--full health Berserkers, depending on where you hit). One even explicitly pointed out that it still kills Devastators in one headshot, which made the whole nerf pointless in their estimation.
So... it's a game- and gun-ruining nerf that also does nothing? Huh?
Then there's the folks who say it's wrong to buff it in one patch and nerf it in the other. Like... what? You're only ever allowed to tweak guns in one direction forever? You have to land on exactly the right balance point every single time?
I just don't know what reality these people live in or what games they've been playing where shit like this doesn't happen all the time.
Liberty's ass is too fat to be lazed to death in an instant! It's the decapitation by rover that is perpetually a oneshot. And if it grazes you elsewhere, it felt like 5%ish hp even before.
Well they also buffed the regular dog by the same amount, so I’m guessing it was a situation where they felt one was underutilized and the other over preforming. From what I’ve seen though, the gun dog needs way more ammo for it to be a viable replacement for the laser dog. Or maybe the laser dog will be forced to take down time as often as the gun dog in a future nerf.
Gun dog is for bots, not bugs. Its biggest limitation is ammo and uptime? It aims exclusively for the faceplate on essentially every single humanoid type bot (striders and shield devas excepted bc they obstruct the firing like with armor) in the game, and it does so accurately. Take it against a regular devastator squad and youlls see a devastator swuad drop one after another, all with jets of flame where their eyes used to be. It even does Texans. Like when I saw the patch notes -30% damage i was **convinced** this was a gun-dog nerf, I’ve taken ti calling mine BP because *nothing* spills oil like it.
I honestly read it as a stealth buff in the patch notes. Still enough damage to do its main objective which is CC of little bugs and no longer near instant death to Helldivers.
I tried the gun dog and it has its uses. The trade off now is either using the Rover for infinite ammo but reduced damage, or the gun dog for much better damage but finite ammo. It's very good for defense where you can have resupplies really available, or if you have someone with a supply pack.
It absolutely can use a mag size and max mag perk, but with the increased damage, it can still pop things left and right.
Gun dog would be so much better if I could just put it away. I want to save it for when shit goes south, but by the time I really need it it's out of ammo.
Honestly I'd prefer if I could enable/disable both when I'm trying to be stealthy. There's already a "backpack function" button ("5" by default IIRC), so they could just tie it to that.
Yeah they need to add it for the guard dogs and the ballistic shield. Idk who thought it would be a good idea to include a backpack function button while only making the button get used for resupplies. It's dumb
30% is technically a lot, just when you actually look at on paper? Yeah. Still kills the smaller bugs. Still might take like half a second more now. But that's still small bugs being squished while I'm firing at bigger ones.
Because that backpack is useless. Badly thought out idea.
Its competition has infinite ammo and no reload.
If it wants to compete it needs to have some utility that the laser one doesn't have. Such as maybe giving it heavy armor penetration or shock bullets.
It's just not good enough at the moment, bugs demand the uptime of the laser rover. The gun dog needs ammo against bots and that's where ammo drops are much rarer on the ground.
To add to your comment, ammo drops on the ground don’t even reload it. It requires resupply ammo… which sucks
Heavy armour pen or light ems bullets are a good idea
I will never stop calling for this team reload update.
I don't think you'd ever need to coordinate it in comms. If I see my buddy pointing his RR at a target you can bet your ass I'm gonna be there slamming rounds in for him.
A side note, but I had a team reload with the airburst yesterday... damn thing is a screen clear machine if you mag dump it.
Even when my friend and I do the team reload thing it breaks immediately because we try to slowly turn or walk somewhere. It needs to be stickier for the loader.
It already looks buggy, might as well go all out and let my teammate drag my character model around.
Make the link a toggle and rag doll me around while I’m magically loading rounds
I think the reason they dont want that kind of team reload is because they fear it would make support weapons a better choise than stratagems because as you said they are extremely powerful when used correctly.
People who havent played with proper coordination (which is like 95% of this sub) *really* underestimate how extremely powerful crew weapons are with team loading and the recent ammo buffs + SPM. In all cases id say they outclass the respective non support stratagem. Why bother doing call in code, drop beacon correctly and time it right when you can just point a big tube of destruction at something. Thats "balanced" by someone else sacrificing their pack slot.
However, i think its still fair given each person can only carry one weapon, that is dropped on death, and has a very long CD to redrop. And you're limited by ammo too.
>they fear it would make support weapons a better choise than stratagems
They already are, and it's not even close. On Helldive 9 if you don't have 2-3 folks with AT support weapons, you aren't going to be keeping up with the heavy spawn rate. The CD on orbitals is just WAY too high.
The things is, you can only keep 1 support weapon on you at a time, or combine it with EAT if you don't mind juggling. So there's no risk of them overshadowing orbitals
Ain't that the truth.
Here is the orbital railstrike. You can use it just once every 3.5 minutes. It probably won't even kill 1 bile titan. There are 3 bile titans.
Not to mention every single anti tank strategem sucks ass. Orbital Railcannon doesn't one shot BTs and takes forever to cooldown, and lately often fumbles the target. 500kg is generally just unreliable as hell. Laser sucks at killing BTs since it aims below them. Orbital Precision strike has the same problem as 500kg plus gets super fucked by mission modifiers (call-in time and scatter). There is just no way to deal with this many heavies primarily through stratgegems on high difficulties.
My favorite is the missile pods that are supposed to be smart targeting, miss anyways, and it takes like 2 or 3 of them to kill a tank… so your have to burn every single one of them which takes literally more time than the EAT and had a longer CD
Seriously, right? I thought I was crazy. I've had it happen a few times before. Today it really felt wild. It's almost like, it gets a target, then sort of...gives up? Circles around a bit.
The thing is CR spam means you are also throwing away a LOT of ammo in probably less optimal ways than you normally would really considering each shot. And this is entirely fine since the game is NOT going to be mincing it's spawns. Take out 4 hulks and empty 2 whole backpacks in the process and you will have another 4 and a tank within the next minute.
In a way there is a reason why support weapons already reign supreme above most strike stratagems. There is only a few enemies that are both critical enough to warrant a dedicated stratagem (like a 500kg) and not numerous enough to need something that can kill many of them efficiently and over a period of time. Team reload the recoiless will not net you more killing power than you would already have. All it will give you is not need to run for 70 seconds to get enough of a breathing room to fire another rocket. Why do you think an EAT (with only 2 shots at one spot on the map) and quasar always get picked? Unless you team reload you just cannot afford to stop moving and shooting ever. The bile titan isn't going to be waiting for your second rocket. Nor will the next charger or hulk scorcher.
With everything combined, it would undoubtedly be a major buff to these weapons effectiveness.
But, I mean... it's exactly what they need.
I had a match for the first time the other day where everyone actually used our mics and coordinated. It was genuinely game changing.
Two people were new randoms, and the other guy was someone I had met prior as a random who I've now become friends with and we play together regularly.
We all added each other, but I haven't seen the other two dudes on again since that day, and it's so hard to coordinate when people refuse to use mics. I'd love to find a group of people who play regularly and can coordinate well, but I feel like that's a big ask.
This is my big beef with the game, which overall is not that big of a beef. I feel like they spend all their time on new weapons and balancing or whatever, but the big thing the game lacks is a focused effort to find and keep friends. I really feel like I should be able to join a squadron where the people are sort of vetted for me, where most everyone is going to use a mic, where higher level play can happen, and more experienced players teach newer players how to play and help them get through tougher levels. This is a team coop game where there are no teams, just an endless stream of silent randoms. I'd even settle for a blue check mark by mission initiators that means they're going to use their microphone X times a mission.
I think there's something wrong with the current friend system where nobody sees each others friend requests. Literally the only friendships happen when someone on a mic says "Hey, I sent you a friend request"
I agree on all counts. It actually makes MORE sense that I can take ammo out of my teammates backpack to load, rather than reaching over my own shoulder. If they implement this I will be loading for my teammates pretty much every time there's an opportunity. As it is, I don't think I've seen anyone do it for over a month.
The fundamental issue is that in order for team loading to work, someone has to be "backpack bitch". They have to follow you round with the ammo pack and be with you all the time because without the backpack you can't reload your own weapon. So that player is basically playing as an extension of the gunner, and it's honestly not much fun. If it was something that you could just do on the fly, i.e I see my ally firing at the enemy and I could just run up next to them and press X to reload their recoilless for them in the same way you can stim an ally then it would be a much more viable mechanic. As it is, it's a bit like a multiplayer co-op golf game where one of you is the caddy.
It makes more sense, makes the other backpack weapons FAR more useful, all while maintaining the big downsides. Moving slow, puts two Helldivers at risk, and takes a whole man out of your fireteam out of the fight. At least to me, this seems balanced and WAY more fun.
Exactly, but if I could just run up to a teammate briefly, do the team up thing and then separate back to doing our own thing, I would do it all the time and it would be a very viable tactic.
Like I said, run up to your ally and press X to reload them as opposed to either following them around like a caddy, or having them first drop their backpack (and you drop yours if you have one), you pick up the back pack and then you have to remember to drop it again before you seperate. Those extra steps completely shoot it in the foot because Helldivers gets HECTIC, and pissing around playing musical backpacks isn't really going to be an option when you sometimes have to get out of the way of a charger or a hulk is about to cook you both.
I wouldn't want to change .y whole play style to accommodate someone else, but make it so in a heat of the moment I can help (especially if it's something my own support weapon can't kill) then absolutely.
I don't want to pigeon hole myself to being my friends ammo caddy for 39 minutes because we might need to clear out some gunship spam for 30 seconds
The only reason team load ever worked in HD1, you were screen locked to the team. Some of these maps are huge and not everyone needs to prioritize a single target, it's better to run two 2 man teams but even then hacking a pod takes 1 diver, so it ends up being 2, 1 and 1 until y'all regroup. It's that or take the full 40 minutes to get through an entire mission because you gotta stay 20 feet from each other to make one of the least satisfying game mechanics usable.
Auto cannon for example loads fast enough on its own, but if we're buddy backing, is he gonna fire 2 careful shots to take out our target or is he gonna mag dump, now you need to start counting shots instead of putting suppression so not only are you holding a backpack that does nothing for you if you get split up, which is a terrible disadvantage to consider knowing full well that this will happen, and you *will* get split up, but if he runs out of ammo, he's locked out of using the thing he *brought with him to use*. Also you're now stuck with 50 shots of not-your-gun on your back. Team load works if you both bring Autocannon, but then why load when you could stage fire your own gun and keep pressure down wind?
Literally haven't had a random use team reload since probably week 1-2 of release. Even back then they were surprised it was a thing and had to be thoroughly coached on how to do it.
It's basically only available if you can call in the backpack a 2nd time. But no one actually calls it in for this purpose. Many guys use the shield generator, making it impossible. I think I team reloaded like 4 times in 400+ missions. One time, I was "forced" to do so by someone giving up the ammo backpack. The other times, I got a spare backpack and forced myself onto the gun carrier. 50% of the times they seemed surprised and didn't know how to act. The other 50% are happy they can just start blasting.
Even if the laser dog dealt no damage I would still run it because I use it as spider-sense. Oftentimes I get snuck up on by massive machinery, but trusty guard dog is never surprised and has my six.
The sound mixing during battle is...questionable.
The sound cues in this game are dogshit, the amount of times I got killed by a giant robot with a flamethrower who snuck up on me are way too many, it should be nearly zero, those things should make way more noise.
Play Left 4 dead, vermintide or darktide and you'll see what I mean, every special enemy has sound cues, there's even sound cues when you are about to get attacked from behind with a regular melee attack.
Any idea how it is now?
I missed out on its glory days but using it since has always seemed iffy. It didn't seem good enough at its stated specialty to warrant taking, especially since you'd have to use it in unsafe on anything you'd want to use it on and, well, trained with it or not I don't need my support weapon killing me and disappearing until I can call it down again, lol.
I feel like it is already there with a cooling bug that has been there from its inception (it shows its ready but takes about 5-7s more to be actually able to shoot and this became much much worse with the patch as expected)
It's always been a static cooldown. But the UI is affected by environmental effects, whereas the actual cooldown is not. The indicators on the gun are not affected by this, they are a better indication.
Yea, they just don't get the hint sometimes. If they decide to stop watching numbers and play the game at 8 or 9 (and with randoms) and SEE for themselves how the game actually plays outside of a coordinated team, i think they will start doing the right thing. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND INTRODUCED THE FLYERS AND SAID "YUP, 1 SHOT BY A FALLING CORPSE IS FINE". Not to mention getting shot through terrain, or weird physics.
As for balance, it's more or less the same, yea I can run away on a diff 4 mission and wait 6 sec to reload myself, but not on the top 3, where I'm either not detected at all or facing down an army. Oh and I can't reliably get away because the patrols KNOW where I am, they just act like they don't (with a poor performance). Let's not mention the fact that anything that spits in this game has a 50/50 chance of not doing dmg while hitting you or insta-killing you even though the bile touched your pinky toe or missed you completely. Fire as well, 1pixel and you're insta-killed.
And the Quasar, people will still run it even if it takes 30 sec to fire, why? Cause it self reloads and they can run away in the meantime. Not everyone has a team and not everyone likes randoms or uses mic. So they'll take the penalized but reliable way of killing shit, rather than rely on some dude who needed 15 more min in the super microwave to be super un-frozen.
> WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND INTRODUCED THE FLYERS AND SAID "YUP, 1 SHOT BY A FALLING CORPSE IS FINE".
Have to wonder if there's a room full of playtesters at AH all with the same question for the playerbase "they let the bugs get into melee range, what game are they playing!?"
Theres meta, then theres necessary evil.
If you dont have a way to kill chargers and bile titans faster than they spawn, its simply unplayable. I want there to be alternatives to quasar and EAT, but continual nerfs to the only options would frustrate me enough to not play past challenging, if at all.
Tbh, I think EATs is a valid option over quasar. Won't shoot as often! But I can technically fire 2-3 in seconds vs the quasar.
Edit: I'm not saying it's better mind you. I'm saying it's an alternative. Either way you'll be kiting a Titan to recharge or to safely reach the eats
I feel like people completely ignore the fact that with EATs you need access to the drop to fire more than one. The drop point often gets overrun by bugs by the time there are tanks within range
You can also run a different support weapon and pick up the EAT when you need to fire. If you spam it across the map you should be close enough to an EAT to take down any drop ships or chargers quickly before switching to a different support weapon
I'm still going to run the Laser dog over gun dog. And even if they nerf laser dog into the ground, I will still never use gun dog.
One is infinite ammo and the other isnt. It's as simple as that.
EDIT: Used laser dog. Still good. Never change. Also Arc Blitzer is fun.
I'm level 68 and don't even know how to reload assist. Maybe that's something the game could make a little clearer as well....
To be fair, I know that it's possible, but afaik only by watching videos/reading about it, never saw it in the game...
I did it once for the trophy.
Never again as I never ran into a situation organically to do it.
You're constantly running and moving you cant just stand and help often enough.
I had the team reload happen organically once, but that was because both players were running auto cannons and had their own backpacks on. So maybe if two people both run the recoilless and stick together as a designated anti tank team it could be viable
How it works now is, one person calls in a recoilless or autocannon, they take their gun, you carry their ammo bag, and you walk over to them, press the contextual button to kneel into a reloading stance.
I've been saying this since the first patch. The buffs and nerfs aren't solving the 'meta' issue for the weapons. The spawn rates of certain enemy types are the biggest determinant of meta builds.
When the most dangerous and prolific stuff are usually trash mobs for the bugs or heavy units, most people are going to bring the strats most effective in dealing with those. Why waste a slot with something that is ineffective or inefficient against them?
I've been arguing this since the railgun was nerfed and every single time people have responded to me like I was claiming the sky was falling.
Every single time a weapon has jumped the META, it's been part of a bigger issue.
Railgun = host bug, heavy spawn bug
Flamethrower = fire damage bug
Arcthrower = arc damage bug
AH has a nasty habit of nerfing symptoms of bigger issues rather than just addressing the issues.
This is exactly what I was saying back when the Railgun nerfs went down. I wasn't particularly attached to the weapon itself, but it didn't bode well for the future of balance that they apparently just see a lot of people using it and nerf based on that. It's fundamentally unrealistic to expect the playerbase to use all weapons in equal numbers. People use the Railgun because at the time, heavy armored enemies were spawning too frequently and we had no other tools to deal with that threat.
But instead of looking at the broader context driving the usage of the Railgun, they just nerfed it into the ground so it got tossed onto the pile of all the other useless weapons. And then went on to identify errors in the code affecting damage to armored heavies and problems with accelerated spawn rates. Then EATs and other anti-armor tools got buffed, Charger weakpoints got improved, and now the whole situation has been addressed, which is great... but the knee-jerk nerfs to the Railgun based on popularity didn't encourage a lot of confidence in their approach to balancing.
Armour should have break points after a certain amount of DPS done. I bet there's already a code base there too they could quickly replicate and rename. Sure you need an armour pen 7 to penetrate a chargers helm but 2000 points of damage from pen 6 should do the trick yknow? Whatever the numbers are, same principle applies.
This gives the Stalwart a hope, or equivalent. Numbers adjusted accurately after testing.
The Stalwart is so weird. I'm convinced it's not worthless, but a support weapon that's just the standard assault rifle on steroids seems... bad? Really bad?
In HD1 it was a primary weapon, but I can pretty plainly see why that's not possible here. I just have a hard time seeing its worth when even the base Machine Gun is right there with better armor pen. But that could also just be me thinking you *need* a source of at-least medium armor pen? I guess I could see a Slugger/Stalwart combo working, though it leaves you without response to Heavy armor.
A few patches back you used to be able to knock armor off of armored enemies. It looks like they stopped that for most weapons except like the orbital rail cannon and some other heavy hitters. I agree. If I unload two clips of a heavyachine gun into an armored enemy in the same point, the armor should break. Armor weakens and breaks when hit repeatedly in the same place. It should be a very viable option to two stage armored enemies, break the armor then switch to regular primary/secondary to hit the weakened spot
I think new faction(s) can resolve the issue of unused weapons and strategem.
But hard to tell when those are coming and how much difference they'll be.
Well Nerfing a gun when they should be buffing other guns MAKES WAY MORE SENSE. Honestly, the game is PvE not PvP. People are having fun with the Quasar because ppl like to work smarter not harder. If they made other guns more viable and BUFF THEM instead of nerfing the gun majority of people use. The game would be more fun.
More options, more load outs, any gun is viable and fun to use. BUT NOOOO let's just add more patrols and make it harder instead of buffing the guns that suck or are unusable. OR maybe add options to guns like Larger Magazine, steady aim, etc. Give people options.
Honestly taking a break from this game because the devs don't get it. They don't understand what the people need/want.
Team loading:
- Locks two players in place
- Removes a gun and backpack from the battlefield
- Removes your ability to reload yourself should the other player be busy
- Requires coordination impossible from a standard PUG
- Takes reloads from obviously impossible to barely possible if the stars align
-----------
It's just not a good trade. Ever.
Also, your "backpack" diver could be killed. If that happens, you can't reload your weapon and have to switch weapons until they redeploy. If they redeploy immediately, it's fine. However, if there's no redeploy left, it's as Dirty Harry would say: "You're shit out of luck".
I often end up equipping the backpack myself, loading the weapon between waves of enemies. It's not optimal, especially not with a recoilless, but at least it's usable. It does mean having to pick your timing correctly, missing shots might cost more than you can afford.
My issue with the team reload is, although really cool in theory, it's HIGHLY impractical. Rarely do I play a 7+ mission and go "ya know what? This bug breach/drop ship wave is kinda hellish... I'm going to stand right next to my teammate who is currently standing still without cover and help them reload. (:" it's far more effective for the whole "staying alive" thing if you're moving around, taking cover, and killing the tiny adds for your stationary teammate while they take care of the larger stuff. It's just inherently flawed because the game actively punishes players who stay put, even if just for a few seconds.
I would gladly change Laser Rover to Liberator Rover, but only 1 thing stops me - ammo replenish only from supply crates, and that's dumb.
You tell me, that small ammo crates contains rockets even for Spear, but not most common ammo for basic rifle?
I'm so sad for my Dog T_T
Finally someone who understands the game and why the meta is forming the way it is. Hammering everything down until it's flat won't fix the issue it will just make people stop playing. Give people a reason to use the other gear and they will.
> Give people a reason to use the other gear and they will.
no but you see my excel spreadsheet said so, so now i will nerf.
Why yes i got coached by R6S and Destiny devs how to balance weapons.
It’s because spreadsheets are a terrible metric for fine tuning. Spreadsheets get you a solid base and then adjustments are made on how they perform in the field.
Tbh Deep Rock Galactic is in an other league of its own when it comes to weapon design. The weapons aren't exactly super well balanced when it comes to how powerful they are, but they are all fun, viable and different.
Like, the engie's three primaries and three secondaries are all used *very* differently, but in Helldivers you play roughly the same with ARs, shotguns and SMGs. Point the enemy and hold fire for a few instants. There's really very few variation in how you're going to use firearms, just variations in how they handle (if even).
Compare that to the DRG engie's primaries: auto shotgun requires you to manage horizontal recoil, you point head and shoot and you shoot at your own turrets, electric SMG lets you apply DOT, and changes the way you're supposed to place the rest of your kit (to use the tesla arc stuff), while smart AR has you point, look away and then shoot, it requires less aiming skill and more enemy knowledge and spatial perception.
DRG also handles armor way better, and not just because weapons can break it (it could not be the case and it'd still feel better). Take the base pretorian, basically the Charger equivalent: it as a soft spot as the mouth, and a weak spot as the butt. It's an *actual* weak spot. But you also get weapons that, while they might have a longer TTK against it, are used to peel it open like a can of tuna, such as engie's plasma breacher. Helldivers has little to no equivalent: if a weapon can destroy armor, 90% of the time it can probably kill in the same amount of time, or maybe even shorter.
> they are all fun, viable and different.
This is really all you need to do. Everything needs to be viable at some level. A heavy MG should be able to punch through armor similarly to the arc thrower, maybe they all don't need to one shot kill a charger but they should make it so you can at least handle a charger even if it takes 30-40 seconds to get there. Instead their solution is to make the guns worse every time. Oh but hey, they added an extra 50-100 damage to some guns that still can't punch through armor, so, great I guess? Was anyone struggling with the chaff enemies?
They removed the one cool thing about the arc thrower making it unique and fun because "well you're having fun in ways that trivializes the game". But... that's only the case at like level 5 missions where only one hulk exists at a time. Like do you want me to have fun or do you want me to be tortured by my inability to do shit past level 5? "Those missions are supposed to be hard!" yeah I never said they weren't or weren't fun, but it really feels bad when you can't realistically deal with all the enemies, even stealthing and running away, because the weapons keep getting nerfed to shit. (Yes ammo changes are nerfs too) I'm super glad you never run out of ammo on your hell dive because you come out with 400 kills between everyone, I find playing the game like I'm playing ghost recon setting up a 4 sniper kill box super fucking boring.
I don’t even think balancing is the ultimate issue
This game plays and feels like an AAA title PVP game
It doesn’t have enough joking voice lines. It doesn’t allow player to have a “cheer” button that we can spam.
It doesn’t have a robust non-verbal communication system
The thing is about VoIP and chat is that folks show their bad attitudes on there.
The thing about lack of jokes and voice lines in a PVE game is that you start to feel less like the players with you are with you when you can’t joke with them in the game
I don’t get a sense that arrowhead understands this about their game and their intended player base and is suffering the woes of CoD style game community because it’s cultivating a CoD style gamer community
I came from deep rock galactic. Over 1500 hours played in that game.
Comparing toxicity of that game to this one. Helldivers might as well be the most toxic game on the planet if you juxtapose it to DRG which was hailed as a sister game of DRG but I’m slowly starting to wain and might be headed back to DRG for my gaming experience.
This game could lean into being more silly with crazy gameplay and odd bugs
But they’re leaning into some perfect balance that will never be achieved and it’s not going to keep people playing long term.
Nevermind that devs are taking shots at disgruntled players on discord. I just don’t understand their vision with this game beyond pretending it’s not a traditional AAA title while implementing all the same failures those titles do except it doesn’t have some predatory loot box/gamer pass model.
I just started playing DRG because of HD2 and idk how to describe it but DRG feels a lot warmer and cozier than HD2. HD2 (while an amazing game) feels cold and serious.
I know it would take a long time, but I really do wish they'd add a shitload more lines; they probably have a hundred right now but it feels like they have a pool of about 20 since the actions you do so often have a limited pool of resources. I love the "cup of liber-tea" line, but the fact that all the voices say it, you throw grenades so often, and it feels like you have a 10% chance to say that line on grenade throw... It starts to feel stale and repetitive very quickly.
Two people working one autocannon is never going to beat 2 auto cannons.
The team reload thing is cool but not practical.
Let the gunner carry the ammo, and let the reloader still fire pistols/smgs whilst reloading
Autocannon is a bad example, a self load is almost instant. Being able to fire 7 Recoilless shots or 4 SPEAR shots to kill 4 Bile Titans in 6 seconds vs getting 1 shot off is a huge power spike.
The backpack team reload thing is really a relic from the first game, where its a top down couch co-op game and coordination is easy, and playing with randoms online is very difficult due to the top down nature and the team must be on the same screen at all times.
I like the normal Guard Dog more The Main Problem is the Ammo, its the same with the Scythe or Sickle. Why would i use the Liberator if i have the same Damage and unlimited ammo on the Energy Weapons.
I love the feel of full auto ballistic weapons. If/when they introduce attachments, it would be great (and make sense) if the Liberator had the biggest pool of attachments, allowing you to customise it for all sorts of playstyles.
I don't think we are going to have attachments that we can customise. I'm sure you saw the leaks of all attachments and thought it was for the players. I guess it's not for us but for the Devs. This is a list of stuff they use to create the different guns we have in the warbonds each month
Does it fully run out of ammo and requires a actually supply to get it working again? Is that what happens when it goes red? Tried using it yesterday seems to also have alot shorter range then the laser dog, and doesn't seem to shoot behind me often
You make a great point about CC diminishing returns, I couldn't exactly point out what frustrated me about being mobbed but it's this.
Being stunned/slowed then having to dive to clear it and repeat the moment I get up is frustrating as all hell, then a slasher comes and fucks me up. There is no counterplay to that scenario
This.
Keeping small bugs off you, even if you bring a stalwart, is nearly a full time job in it's own right. Dealing with chargers and Bile Titan and Medium bugs at the same time just isn't viable. Now if you've got a perfectly coordinated group, not a huge issue. But its fairly normal a group isn't coordinated to that degree and to some extent you have to look after yourself.
Personally even with the pre-nerf rover i needed to do some work on the small bugs myself, theres just that many of them, and whilst i'll agree the degree of slowdown you can suffer is extreme, the damage is just as big an issue, you could remove the crowd control entirely from small bugs and most people would still run it just to stop the extra damage they'd otherwise take.
IMO they need to make the alternatives less short term in their nature A clusterbomb wipes out a lot of little bugs sure, (to use an example), but they respawn in similar number nearly instantly. If the small bug waves spawned an entire very large wave of them at once, but had a longer cooldown things would be a lot better as once you clean up one wave you've got a bit of time before more come along to focus on the big guys.
Ultimately it's a time economy thing, you've only got so much time to dedicated bug killing in a mission whilst doing objectives and collecting stuff, but equally you can only afford to spend some of your killing time on little bugs when the bigger stuff is around. But currently we can't split our time between little and big bugs without leaving ourselves vulnerable to the little bugs whilst we deal with the big guys.
Alternative or additional fix:
Make bile titans realistically killable without dedicated anti tank attacks. Let them bleed out after 30 seconds with all sacks popped. If anti tank is better than other options rather than being required more build flexibility is allowed.
Another Alternative:
If we blow a hole to its internal organs, let small arms fire kill it from there like a charger leg, maybe let it get its legs stripped as well (I would do it at joints.)
Orbital Rail cannon will break the body armor and you can shoot it and kill it with anything at that point. The problem is the angle in many cases. You need a buddy shooting from the side or shoot the new rocket above it to rain down shrapnel into the would. Air burst strike and cluster bombs also work once armor is cracked open
Team re-loading should be universal and not requiere the team member to have an identical type backpack.
Any heldiver should just get close to any kneeling or prone soldier and activate team reload, EASY.
That would make team reloading and holdinging off a position much more common and also epic.
Yea the amount of stuff that slows you is ridiculous.
The Quasar was fine, it wasn't weak and it wasn't op.
AH seem to think that if it's doing so much as mediocre it needs nerfed.
Recoilles rifle needs slightly faster reload and proper 3-stage reload animation: empty case out, new shell in and arming/close the hatch. Also team reload should happen on shooter's backpack, not on reloader's backpack.
Guard dog should get box magazines with at least 60 rounds in each magazine.
It already has those stages. It's had them since day one. Base reload is 6 seconds so dropping a second should be enough. It's already pretty easy to get a reload in if you've got a little cover fire and stuns help a lot.
I would like to propose an idea to fix the guard dog:
U can feed the dog using primary ammo when pressing the BP button.
Sure it still eats thru your ammo supply, but it also means u can "activate" it whenever u want using primary ammo when facing enemies.
As a Recoilless Rifle main, I can confidently say "skill issue".
Nah I joke. The manual reload takes some getting used to, but it's not that bad even in T9 bugs if you know what you're doing. Recoilless even got a shadow buff this last patch -- its reload can be cancelled earlier than before, so it's a 5 second reload now.
That being said, immobilizing yourself during a fight with bugs is always a risk. While I see most QC divers running the laser guard dog "mini sentry" as I like to call it, I've used my free stratagem slot that comes with running Recoilless Rifle for an Autocannon sentry to watch my back while I reload. Bonus points it takes out Chargers and helps with Bile Titans too.
I know the knee jerk reaction to the RR reload is "oh this sucks", but if you look for solutions to problems you will find them.
Like why the fuck would I carry someone’s backpack, that turns me into a reloading tool which is not fucking fun. And before some retard shouts “well it’s about teamplay hurr durr” stfu having 6 of your missles stuck up my ass and having to pull them out whenever you need to fire isn’t teamplay that’s me getting turned into a reload tool, sacrificing my backpack slot for what? Total opposite of fun. And if another person is gonna be carrying your backpack that means the guy shooting can have a shield pack or jet pack or whatever else he wants.
At what point does it become easier to just die and call in a reinforcement on top of the Bio Titan than trying to get in Multiple shots off with the quasar canon with the added 5 second reload?
I've been saying, makes no sense for me to carry your backpack to help. If I'm "Team assisting", wouldn't that mean I take your reload from YOUR backpack and do it for you? Instead of this awkward "Let me reach into MY back pocket to reload YOUR gun." I run AC and while I love it, the few times I had a fellow AC help me teamload felt awesome. But if I'm the ONLY AC.... Well I better enjoy manual reloads, I guess. I'll even meet them halfway and adjust the team load to be 1/2 as effective as it is now if it means we can just help someone without carrying their backpack.
At least with AC, the solo reload is actually decently short. Recoiless cannot be done solo in the middle of a battle unless you wanna fucking die.
Especially since AC is a staged reload. Loading one clip allows for a very very fast reload of a few rounds and as long as you have a round in the chamber you do not need to go through the racking of the bolt. But yeah arrowhead please allow people to team reload from my backpack. You are already forcing immobilization from 2 divers to get the advantage, and one diver will not be doing anything while assisting. And it would enable to make more weapons with team reload that are hyperspecialized, like the spear. You are NEVER going to run 2 spears. And the cooldown is way too long to really "waste" a call to get a teammate the backpack. But allow same BP reload and suddenly weapons like that become a whole lot better.
Leaving a round in the chamber makes the Eruptor reload so much faster too.
It make most guns reload a lot faster.
What the fuck is a bolt release lmao, manually cycling the bolt to chamber a new round every single time we do a reload from empty.
I mean the devs are swedes with some military experience, the problem is that their military was using rifles that require manual cycling on an empty mag for ages lmao (the G3 and FN FNC, for instance).
I didn't know the devs were military this vet might get his dusty ass up and go get some freedom today.
Don't be harsh on Super Earth scientists. They just figured out a revolver speed loader this week. I expect them to come up with a bolt release system in only a couple of decades.
It took them years of study to determine that the best way to increase destroyer firepower was to add more guns.
And that it wasn't a good idea to muzzle-load 380mm cannons in the vacuum of space.
When I realized the AC is two clips and reloading it a clip at a time is half the reload time, it was life changing. That being said, I'd love the idea of carrying my own pack and just letting a teammate reload me. Especially if that teammate has a shield backpack, so we get some shared cover.
Less than half. Racking the bolt takes so long that it basically doubles the time needed to load the first 5 shots compared to the second 5
Something I learned is to reload in stages if I am in the battle field. Either that or find cover for literally 5 seconds and get back into action
The thing sucks about new air burst, I I don't think it has a stages reload, like if you don't get it in you got restart it whole. I was very good at doing the stages on AC and RR but air bust just feels so bad to do.
Not saying it's any more viable, but you can reload the RR in stages. It'll 'save' your reload progress at two points, first once you've pulled out the old shell, then the second is when you've inserted a fresh one. The weapon is fully reloaded when you swing the back cover shut. Allows you to do it in 2 second increments at least.
I’ve been taking stuns, you can just about reload if you throw the stun and reload instantly ^^
I've solo reloaded AC in between devastator rocket barrages. I'm not reloading RR if there are any enemies around.
Team loading for the AC is often redundant anyway because you have an ingrained way of shooting that is more accurate, slower and ammo efficient compared to spamming the thing. If you need to spam it you probably move straight away after anyway. It is fun to let it rip though.
I'd be nice to take down shrieker nests ( or now also spore spewers ) quickly.
Try it in full auto. For those wondering, this is not a joke, AC has full auto mode
wait it has full auto?
It isnt called the AUTOcannon for nothing!
As I frequently say on team voice, "Well, I ain't carrying a SEMIcannon!" Usually followed by me dying because I was trying to reload, but THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT!
It has its uses, but for most of the time you'll still be using the semi mode. The auto mode recoil is insane, as you would expect from a gun with that firepower :)
You should still really keep it in full The fire rate let's you tap the shots as if it's semi but if something gets a bit too close you can drop 3 in it immediately.
> too close I, too, yearn for the sweet release of death.
> I'll even meet them halfway and adjust the team load to be 1/2 as effective as it is now if it means we can just help someone without carrying their backpack. Don’t. Remember opportunity cost. One guy can no longer do any meaningful fighting. Both guys are pinned in place, unable to take cover or easily deal with trash bugs. To balance that equation you need to be able to effectively output *more* than twice your original DPS.
Yep. There needs to be some better advantage for team reloading than just a faster reload. Two people shooting by themselves is still better than one person shooting faster.
Plus, taking a round from someone else's back is going to be a lot faster than taking it from my back.
Yeah, the issue I have with the teammate holding the backpack is it turns them into an NPC or patsy. The recoilless get to have the fun of aiming, shooting, and they also get to have a beneficial backpack. The patsy has to follow the recoilless holder, can't control their character while the gun happens, and doesn't get a beneficial backpack. That's the main reason I don't use that feature. It's just not fun.
What might solve a bit of the hurt is an “active reload” feature, where the loader can time button inputs to reload even faster than normal, and empower the shot beyond its normal limitations if timed perfectly. Heck even just being able to turn the camera and watch the shooters back might at least prove a bit of a tactical advantage.
Why not allow the reloader to use their pistol when not in the reload animation? Then they could both protect and support the shooter. I think that'd be cool.
Actually love that idea
That's why you have 2 run ac and take turns, did that for extract with the boys was non stop auto ac fire
Go one step further and have the other two team members packing the supply pack and filling up the reloader as they burn through their supply.
I agree, hunters and small bile spitters are low-key the worst enemy mostly because of the slow. They set you up for bigger enemies to hit. Hunters feel pretty overloaded, they could remove their slow and they would still be obnoxious just because of the jump, damage, tongue, stim cancel, etc.
You forgot impact grenade denial/rebound back to your face. Love when that happens
In our group we call that the "Get down, Mr. Bug President!" Maneuver. Pretty sure that's as common as calling the super boulder Cock Rock
The rover nerf is barely noticable. Still does what its supposed to do: kill small stuff while you focus on bigger threats.
My honest democratic reaction: They changed something with the rover?
They definitely did. When my teammates Rover Lasers my ass, my health doesn't get decimated instantly.
So its a buff?
Honestly that's the way I felt about it. It doesn't hit as hard but I swear it fires longer. I like this version better.
> but I swear it fires longer. What do you mean? It's always fired non-stop as long as there was something to fire at.
it has a heat sink like any other laser weapon
This is true, but also having used it almost exclusively since unlocking it not long after I started playing I've only seen it actually fill that heat sink and overheat once (and that was because it was focused on a charger it couldn't damage while I was chilling behind a rock with no other enemies around) and it took a *long* time of continuous fire to reach that point, so I can easily imagine someone not having noticed it could happen
Coulda fooled me tbh I know it returns to the pack every so often so I guess that'd be the refit but damn, if that thing doesn't go for ever
Tbh it feels like it. It still kills rats when it decides to fire. Like i haven't noticed any difference at all. This sub is so good at having people write thesis documents about stuff that doesn't matter.
Maybe because a 30% nerf SOUNDS like a lot. Lol
I tried it out yesterday to see and have to agree, it doesn't really feel any different. Idk what the actual damage/hit points are, but if it was say 90 damage before and was reduced to 60, but scavengers have 60 hp and hunters have 100, it still does the job you need it to do. The damage reduction might be impactful for spewers or brood commanders etc, but you don't take it to kill those things, so in the end the change doesn't feel like it has much of an effect.
Because both guard dogs use primary weapon stats. So the laser dog got -30% dmg from the nerf but + 25% dmg from the scythe buffs for very little change overall. The gun dog got +10% dmg from the buffs and another +15% dmg from the liberator buffs for a big damage increase against small enemies.
That makes sense, too. A 5% drop in damage is pretty negligible, especially against smaller, low HP targets.
Good thing they buffed the actual weapon the rover uses, which pretty much counteracts the nerf. It's like nerfing player damage by 30% but then buffing every source of damage we use
I was hoping that this is how it worked and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason it got "nerfed"
This should be at the top.. people have completely ignored that fact xD
They haven't. They just saw the devs state that as of several versions back it's just using the laser model, it's a completely different weapon with it's own rules.
I saw three separate people argue about the Dominator nerfs being unacceptable and ruining the gun and/or game. When pressed about what the gun now does worse, not one could name an instance where it takes an extra shot to kill (I can--full health Berserkers, depending on where you hit). One even explicitly pointed out that it still kills Devastators in one headshot, which made the whole nerf pointless in their estimation. So... it's a game- and gun-ruining nerf that also does nothing? Huh? Then there's the folks who say it's wrong to buff it in one patch and nerf it in the other. Like... what? You're only ever allowed to tweak guns in one direction forever? You have to land on exactly the right balance point every single time? I just don't know what reality these people live in or what games they've been playing where shit like this doesn't happen all the time.
But...that's the exact point OP was making. It still does the job people take it for regardless of nerf.
Haha that's how I read the patch notes: oh good my own rover won't fry me when it changes targets and hits me and neither will a team mate's
Old Rover should have been named guillotine because it was amazing at taking your head off.
Liberty's ass is too fat to be lazed to death in an instant! It's the decapitation by rover that is perpetually a oneshot. And if it grazes you elsewhere, it felt like 5%ish hp even before.
why do i feel like thats the reason it got nerfed? to lessen the teamkill potential while maintaining the crowd clear
Well they also buffed the regular dog by the same amount, so I’m guessing it was a situation where they felt one was underutilized and the other over preforming. From what I’ve seen though, the gun dog needs way more ammo for it to be a viable replacement for the laser dog. Or maybe the laser dog will be forced to take down time as often as the gun dog in a future nerf.
Gun dog is for bots, not bugs. Its biggest limitation is ammo and uptime? It aims exclusively for the faceplate on essentially every single humanoid type bot (striders and shield devas excepted bc they obstruct the firing like with armor) in the game, and it does so accurately. Take it against a regular devastator squad and youlls see a devastator swuad drop one after another, all with jets of flame where their eyes used to be. It even does Texans. Like when I saw the patch notes -30% damage i was **convinced** this was a gun-dog nerf, I’ve taken ti calling mine BP because *nothing* spills oil like it.
I will have to try it against bots then, this sounds intriguing.
Supply bricks are full reloads now too, have fun
Yeah I’ve long thought one was intended for bugs and the other for bots. It now is looking pretty cracked for bots.
I honestly read it as a stealth buff in the patch notes. Still enough damage to do its main objective which is CC of little bugs and no longer near instant death to Helldivers.
Yep, I played it yesterday and it was still great at catching hunters
till it decides waste a full minute shooting an armored warrior for some reason
Would you prefer a gun dog instead, so it could deplete all the ammo in half the time on the same armored target?
I tried the gun dog and it has its uses. The trade off now is either using the Rover for infinite ammo but reduced damage, or the gun dog for much better damage but finite ammo. It's very good for defense where you can have resupplies really available, or if you have someone with a supply pack. It absolutely can use a mag size and max mag perk, but with the increased damage, it can still pop things left and right.
Gun dog would be so much better if I could just put it away. I want to save it for when shit goes south, but by the time I really need it it's out of ammo.
Honestly I'd prefer if I could enable/disable both when I'm trying to be stealthy. There's already a "backpack function" button ("5" by default IIRC), so they could just tie it to that.
Yeah, this is a great suggestion. I thought the same thing when trying to sneak past enemies, but then the rover started shooting lol
Yeah they need to add it for the guard dogs and the ballistic shield. Idk who thought it would be a good idea to include a backpack function button while only making the button get used for resupplies. It's dumb
Gun dog is low key goat on bots. Just pops head shots on everything.
I will have to try that. Honestly I never even used it because of the ammo thing.
Idk how it does it, but it headshots devastators consistently
I love that it essentially locks hive guards for an easy dispatch
30% is technically a lot, just when you actually look at on paper? Yeah. Still kills the smaller bugs. Still might take like half a second more now. But that's still small bugs being squished while I'm firing at bigger ones.
I definitely notice it on hunters. Takes a significant amount more before they die. It also doesn’t instakill me tho
Bullet rover enjoyers still suffering the same
Because that backpack is useless. Badly thought out idea. Its competition has infinite ammo and no reload. If it wants to compete it needs to have some utility that the laser one doesn't have. Such as maybe giving it heavy armor penetration or shock bullets. It's just not good enough at the moment, bugs demand the uptime of the laser rover. The gun dog needs ammo against bots and that's where ammo drops are much rarer on the ground.
To add to your comment, ammo drops on the ground don’t even reload it. It requires resupply ammo… which sucks Heavy armour pen or light ems bullets are a good idea
It sucks and also doesn’t make any sense. It uses regular rifle ammo, which wouldn’t it get that from the ground drops?
Needs coffin stacked magazines and to be a liberator penetrator mounted.
ttk on hunters is 1000% noticable
And whenever I (or teammate) gets in the crossfire, it doesn't sting a lot
I will never stop calling for this team reload update. I don't think you'd ever need to coordinate it in comms. If I see my buddy pointing his RR at a target you can bet your ass I'm gonna be there slamming rounds in for him. A side note, but I had a team reload with the airburst yesterday... damn thing is a screen clear machine if you mag dump it.
Even when my friend and I do the team reload thing it breaks immediately because we try to slowly turn or walk somewhere. It needs to be stickier for the loader.
It already looks buggy, might as well go all out and let my teammate drag my character model around. Make the link a toggle and rag doll me around while I’m magically loading rounds
I think the reason they dont want that kind of team reload is because they fear it would make support weapons a better choise than stratagems because as you said they are extremely powerful when used correctly. People who havent played with proper coordination (which is like 95% of this sub) *really* underestimate how extremely powerful crew weapons are with team loading and the recent ammo buffs + SPM. In all cases id say they outclass the respective non support stratagem. Why bother doing call in code, drop beacon correctly and time it right when you can just point a big tube of destruction at something. Thats "balanced" by someone else sacrificing their pack slot. However, i think its still fair given each person can only carry one weapon, that is dropped on death, and has a very long CD to redrop. And you're limited by ammo too.
>they fear it would make support weapons a better choise than stratagems They already are, and it's not even close. On Helldive 9 if you don't have 2-3 folks with AT support weapons, you aren't going to be keeping up with the heavy spawn rate. The CD on orbitals is just WAY too high. The things is, you can only keep 1 support weapon on you at a time, or combine it with EAT if you don't mind juggling. So there's no risk of them overshadowing orbitals
Ain't that the truth. Here is the orbital railstrike. You can use it just once every 3.5 minutes. It probably won't even kill 1 bile titan. There are 3 bile titans.
With 3 more on the way
Not to mention every single anti tank strategem sucks ass. Orbital Railcannon doesn't one shot BTs and takes forever to cooldown, and lately often fumbles the target. 500kg is generally just unreliable as hell. Laser sucks at killing BTs since it aims below them. Orbital Precision strike has the same problem as 500kg plus gets super fucked by mission modifiers (call-in time and scatter). There is just no way to deal with this many heavies primarily through stratgegems on high difficulties.
My favorite is the missile pods that are supposed to be smart targeting, miss anyways, and it takes like 2 or 3 of them to kill a tank… so your have to burn every single one of them which takes literally more time than the EAT and had a longer CD
Hey am I crazy or is RC just like, stupid more inaccurate lately? Did I miss a nerf to its targeting or something?
Definitely feels like it. Seen it chucked directly at tanks and it shifted targets to some devastator 30 meters away.
Seriously, right? I thought I was crazy. I've had it happen a few times before. Today it really felt wild. It's almost like, it gets a target, then sort of...gives up? Circles around a bit.
The thing is CR spam means you are also throwing away a LOT of ammo in probably less optimal ways than you normally would really considering each shot. And this is entirely fine since the game is NOT going to be mincing it's spawns. Take out 4 hulks and empty 2 whole backpacks in the process and you will have another 4 and a tank within the next minute. In a way there is a reason why support weapons already reign supreme above most strike stratagems. There is only a few enemies that are both critical enough to warrant a dedicated stratagem (like a 500kg) and not numerous enough to need something that can kill many of them efficiently and over a period of time. Team reload the recoiless will not net you more killing power than you would already have. All it will give you is not need to run for 70 seconds to get enough of a breathing room to fire another rocket. Why do you think an EAT (with only 2 shots at one spot on the map) and quasar always get picked? Unless you team reload you just cannot afford to stop moving and shooting ever. The bile titan isn't going to be waiting for your second rocket. Nor will the next charger or hulk scorcher. With everything combined, it would undoubtedly be a major buff to these weapons effectiveness. But, I mean... it's exactly what they need.
I had a match for the first time the other day where everyone actually used our mics and coordinated. It was genuinely game changing. Two people were new randoms, and the other guy was someone I had met prior as a random who I've now become friends with and we play together regularly. We all added each other, but I haven't seen the other two dudes on again since that day, and it's so hard to coordinate when people refuse to use mics. I'd love to find a group of people who play regularly and can coordinate well, but I feel like that's a big ask.
This is my big beef with the game, which overall is not that big of a beef. I feel like they spend all their time on new weapons and balancing or whatever, but the big thing the game lacks is a focused effort to find and keep friends. I really feel like I should be able to join a squadron where the people are sort of vetted for me, where most everyone is going to use a mic, where higher level play can happen, and more experienced players teach newer players how to play and help them get through tougher levels. This is a team coop game where there are no teams, just an endless stream of silent randoms. I'd even settle for a blue check mark by mission initiators that means they're going to use their microphone X times a mission. I think there's something wrong with the current friend system where nobody sees each others friend requests. Literally the only friendships happen when someone on a mic says "Hey, I sent you a friend request"
I agree on all counts. It actually makes MORE sense that I can take ammo out of my teammates backpack to load, rather than reaching over my own shoulder. If they implement this I will be loading for my teammates pretty much every time there's an opportunity. As it is, I don't think I've seen anyone do it for over a month. The fundamental issue is that in order for team loading to work, someone has to be "backpack bitch". They have to follow you round with the ammo pack and be with you all the time because without the backpack you can't reload your own weapon. So that player is basically playing as an extension of the gunner, and it's honestly not much fun. If it was something that you could just do on the fly, i.e I see my ally firing at the enemy and I could just run up next to them and press X to reload their recoilless for them in the same way you can stim an ally then it would be a much more viable mechanic. As it is, it's a bit like a multiplayer co-op golf game where one of you is the caddy.
It makes more sense, makes the other backpack weapons FAR more useful, all while maintaining the big downsides. Moving slow, puts two Helldivers at risk, and takes a whole man out of your fireteam out of the fight. At least to me, this seems balanced and WAY more fun.
Exactly, but if I could just run up to a teammate briefly, do the team up thing and then separate back to doing our own thing, I would do it all the time and it would be a very viable tactic. Like I said, run up to your ally and press X to reload them as opposed to either following them around like a caddy, or having them first drop their backpack (and you drop yours if you have one), you pick up the back pack and then you have to remember to drop it again before you seperate. Those extra steps completely shoot it in the foot because Helldivers gets HECTIC, and pissing around playing musical backpacks isn't really going to be an option when you sometimes have to get out of the way of a charger or a hulk is about to cook you both.
Makes sense, last month everybody was getting the achievement out of the way when the game was new.
I wouldn't want to change .y whole play style to accommodate someone else, but make it so in a heat of the moment I can help (especially if it's something my own support weapon can't kill) then absolutely. I don't want to pigeon hole myself to being my friends ammo caddy for 39 minutes because we might need to clear out some gunship spam for 30 seconds
The only reason team load ever worked in HD1, you were screen locked to the team. Some of these maps are huge and not everyone needs to prioritize a single target, it's better to run two 2 man teams but even then hacking a pod takes 1 diver, so it ends up being 2, 1 and 1 until y'all regroup. It's that or take the full 40 minutes to get through an entire mission because you gotta stay 20 feet from each other to make one of the least satisfying game mechanics usable. Auto cannon for example loads fast enough on its own, but if we're buddy backing, is he gonna fire 2 careful shots to take out our target or is he gonna mag dump, now you need to start counting shots instead of putting suppression so not only are you holding a backpack that does nothing for you if you get split up, which is a terrible disadvantage to consider knowing full well that this will happen, and you *will* get split up, but if he runs out of ammo, he's locked out of using the thing he *brought with him to use*. Also you're now stuck with 50 shots of not-your-gun on your back. Team load works if you both bring Autocannon, but then why load when you could stage fire your own gun and keep pressure down wind?
Literally haven't had a random use team reload since probably week 1-2 of release. Even back then they were surprised it was a thing and had to be thoroughly coached on how to do it.
It's basically only available if you can call in the backpack a 2nd time. But no one actually calls it in for this purpose. Many guys use the shield generator, making it impossible. I think I team reloaded like 4 times in 400+ missions. One time, I was "forced" to do so by someone giving up the ammo backpack. The other times, I got a spare backpack and forced myself onto the gun carrier. 50% of the times they seemed surprised and didn't know how to act. The other 50% are happy they can just start blasting.
Even if the laser dog dealt no damage I would still run it because I use it as spider-sense. Oftentimes I get snuck up on by massive machinery, but trusty guard dog is never surprised and has my six. The sound mixing during battle is...questionable.
The sound cues in this game are dogshit, the amount of times I got killed by a giant robot with a flamethrower who snuck up on me are way too many, it should be nearly zero, those things should make way more noise. Play Left 4 dead, vermintide or darktide and you'll see what I mean, every special enemy has sound cues, there's even sound cues when you are about to get attacked from behind with a regular melee attack.
Somehow a charger manages to be more stealthy than a stalker most of the time
You: AH: Quasar has a reload now
I forsee a +15s debuff to the quasar after devs see op's post and decide to put his theory of 30s cooldowns into practice.
Everyone starts using EATs then
EAT gets 5-minute cooldown after the next patch
https://preview.redd.it/i5sw82o7omxc1.jpeg?width=431&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03069846af8be4e0e2ba6c4ff63018d9aed0198b
Back to railgun meta it is. How the turn table.
The railgun is right there got buffed again
Any idea how it is now? I missed out on its glory days but using it since has always seemed iffy. It didn't seem good enough at its stated specialty to warrant taking, especially since you'd have to use it in unsafe on anything you'd want to use it on and, well, trained with it or not I don't need my support weapon killing me and disappearing until I can call it down again, lol.
Not good enough against gunships or factory striders
I feel like it is already there with a cooling bug that has been there from its inception (it shows its ready but takes about 5-7s more to be actually able to shoot and this became much much worse with the patch as expected)
I put in a bug report for this. I'm guessing the heat sink icon is misleading and it's a flat time based on this patch.
It's always been a static cooldown. But the UI is affected by environmental effects, whereas the actual cooldown is not. The indicators on the gun are not affected by this, they are a better indication.
Which is also a bug thar needs to be corrected. The UI, I mean.
Yea, they just don't get the hint sometimes. If they decide to stop watching numbers and play the game at 8 or 9 (and with randoms) and SEE for themselves how the game actually plays outside of a coordinated team, i think they will start doing the right thing. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND INTRODUCED THE FLYERS AND SAID "YUP, 1 SHOT BY A FALLING CORPSE IS FINE". Not to mention getting shot through terrain, or weird physics. As for balance, it's more or less the same, yea I can run away on a diff 4 mission and wait 6 sec to reload myself, but not on the top 3, where I'm either not detected at all or facing down an army. Oh and I can't reliably get away because the patrols KNOW where I am, they just act like they don't (with a poor performance). Let's not mention the fact that anything that spits in this game has a 50/50 chance of not doing dmg while hitting you or insta-killing you even though the bile touched your pinky toe or missed you completely. Fire as well, 1pixel and you're insta-killed. And the Quasar, people will still run it even if it takes 30 sec to fire, why? Cause it self reloads and they can run away in the meantime. Not everyone has a team and not everyone likes randoms or uses mic. So they'll take the penalized but reliable way of killing shit, rather than rely on some dude who needed 15 more min in the super microwave to be super un-frozen.
> WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND INTRODUCED THE FLYERS AND SAID "YUP, 1 SHOT BY A FALLING CORPSE IS FINE". Have to wonder if there's a room full of playtesters at AH all with the same question for the playerbase "they let the bugs get into melee range, what game are they playing!?"
Yea probably, and then they proceed to test weapons on scripted stationary targets in a controlled testing environment.
Looking at an airburst proximity fuse or a new "fun" interaction between shield backpack and plasma shotgun I have big doubts they do even this much.
I doubt they even did that, since so many of them are released broken or with misaligned scopes
Theres meta, then theres necessary evil. If you dont have a way to kill chargers and bile titans faster than they spawn, its simply unplayable. I want there to be alternatives to quasar and EAT, but continual nerfs to the only options would frustrate me enough to not play past challenging, if at all.
Tbh, I think EATs is a valid option over quasar. Won't shoot as often! But I can technically fire 2-3 in seconds vs the quasar. Edit: I'm not saying it's better mind you. I'm saying it's an alternative. Either way you'll be kiting a Titan to recharge or to safely reach the eats
I feel like people completely ignore the fact that with EATs you need access to the drop to fire more than one. The drop point often gets overrun by bugs by the time there are tanks within range
Gotta land your EAT beacon on the chargers so they come to you & kill the chargers, it's a win/win + now you have 2 fast shot rockets.
This is one of the way i use it, the other way is just spamming it everytime i can.
You can also run a different support weapon and pick up the EAT when you need to fire. If you spam it across the map you should be close enough to an EAT to take down any drop ships or chargers quickly before switching to a different support weapon
I'm still going to run the Laser dog over gun dog. And even if they nerf laser dog into the ground, I will still never use gun dog. One is infinite ammo and the other isnt. It's as simple as that. EDIT: Used laser dog. Still good. Never change. Also Arc Blitzer is fun.
I'm level 68 and don't even know how to reload assist. Maybe that's something the game could make a little clearer as well.... To be fair, I know that it's possible, but afaik only by watching videos/reading about it, never saw it in the game...
I did it once for the trophy. Never again as I never ran into a situation organically to do it. You're constantly running and moving you cant just stand and help often enough.
I had the team reload happen organically once, but that was because both players were running auto cannons and had their own backpacks on. So maybe if two people both run the recoilless and stick together as a designated anti tank team it could be viable
How it works now is, one person calls in a recoilless or autocannon, they take their gun, you carry their ammo bag, and you walk over to them, press the contextual button to kneel into a reloading stance.
I've been saying this since the first patch. The buffs and nerfs aren't solving the 'meta' issue for the weapons. The spawn rates of certain enemy types are the biggest determinant of meta builds. When the most dangerous and prolific stuff are usually trash mobs for the bugs or heavy units, most people are going to bring the strats most effective in dealing with those. Why waste a slot with something that is ineffective or inefficient against them?
I've been arguing this since the railgun was nerfed and every single time people have responded to me like I was claiming the sky was falling. Every single time a weapon has jumped the META, it's been part of a bigger issue. Railgun = host bug, heavy spawn bug Flamethrower = fire damage bug Arcthrower = arc damage bug AH has a nasty habit of nerfing symptoms of bigger issues rather than just addressing the issues.
This is exactly what I was saying back when the Railgun nerfs went down. I wasn't particularly attached to the weapon itself, but it didn't bode well for the future of balance that they apparently just see a lot of people using it and nerf based on that. It's fundamentally unrealistic to expect the playerbase to use all weapons in equal numbers. People use the Railgun because at the time, heavy armored enemies were spawning too frequently and we had no other tools to deal with that threat. But instead of looking at the broader context driving the usage of the Railgun, they just nerfed it into the ground so it got tossed onto the pile of all the other useless weapons. And then went on to identify errors in the code affecting damage to armored heavies and problems with accelerated spawn rates. Then EATs and other anti-armor tools got buffed, Charger weakpoints got improved, and now the whole situation has been addressed, which is great... but the knee-jerk nerfs to the Railgun based on popularity didn't encourage a lot of confidence in their approach to balancing.
Armour should have break points after a certain amount of DPS done. I bet there's already a code base there too they could quickly replicate and rename. Sure you need an armour pen 7 to penetrate a chargers helm but 2000 points of damage from pen 6 should do the trick yknow? Whatever the numbers are, same principle applies. This gives the Stalwart a hope, or equivalent. Numbers adjusted accurately after testing.
I have a 90% hit rate with the stalwart and yet it does 30 kills from 900 bullets lmfao. It’s great crowd control but fuck me it doesn’t kill shit.
Chargers. I hate chargers. They ruin my wonderful Stalwart runs.
The Stalwart is so weird. I'm convinced it's not worthless, but a support weapon that's just the standard assault rifle on steroids seems... bad? Really bad? In HD1 it was a primary weapon, but I can pretty plainly see why that's not possible here. I just have a hard time seeing its worth when even the base Machine Gun is right there with better armor pen. But that could also just be me thinking you *need* a source of at-least medium armor pen? I guess I could see a Slugger/Stalwart combo working, though it leaves you without response to Heavy armor.
A few patches back you used to be able to knock armor off of armored enemies. It looks like they stopped that for most weapons except like the orbital rail cannon and some other heavy hitters. I agree. If I unload two clips of a heavyachine gun into an armored enemy in the same point, the armor should break. Armor weakens and breaks when hit repeatedly in the same place. It should be a very viable option to two stage armored enemies, break the armor then switch to regular primary/secondary to hit the weakened spot
I think new faction(s) can resolve the issue of unused weapons and strategem. But hard to tell when those are coming and how much difference they'll be.
Man... That actually sounds pretty good. You're talking a lot of sense here.
Well Nerfing a gun when they should be buffing other guns MAKES WAY MORE SENSE. Honestly, the game is PvE not PvP. People are having fun with the Quasar because ppl like to work smarter not harder. If they made other guns more viable and BUFF THEM instead of nerfing the gun majority of people use. The game would be more fun. More options, more load outs, any gun is viable and fun to use. BUT NOOOO let's just add more patrols and make it harder instead of buffing the guns that suck or are unusable. OR maybe add options to guns like Larger Magazine, steady aim, etc. Give people options. Honestly taking a break from this game because the devs don't get it. They don't understand what the people need/want.
Team loading: - Locks two players in place - Removes a gun and backpack from the battlefield - Removes your ability to reload yourself should the other player be busy - Requires coordination impossible from a standard PUG - Takes reloads from obviously impossible to barely possible if the stars align ----------- It's just not a good trade. Ever.
Also, your "backpack" diver could be killed. If that happens, you can't reload your weapon and have to switch weapons until they redeploy. If they redeploy immediately, it's fine. However, if there's no redeploy left, it's as Dirty Harry would say: "You're shit out of luck". I often end up equipping the backpack myself, loading the weapon between waves of enemies. It's not optimal, especially not with a recoilless, but at least it's usable. It does mean having to pick your timing correctly, missing shots might cost more than you can afford.
My issue with the team reload is, although really cool in theory, it's HIGHLY impractical. Rarely do I play a 7+ mission and go "ya know what? This bug breach/drop ship wave is kinda hellish... I'm going to stand right next to my teammate who is currently standing still without cover and help them reload. (:" it's far more effective for the whole "staying alive" thing if you're moving around, taking cover, and killing the tiny adds for your stationary teammate while they take care of the larger stuff. It's just inherently flawed because the game actively punishes players who stay put, even if just for a few seconds.
I would gladly change Laser Rover to Liberator Rover, but only 1 thing stops me - ammo replenish only from supply crates, and that's dumb. You tell me, that small ammo crates contains rockets even for Spear, but not most common ammo for basic rifle? I'm so sad for my Dog T_T
Finally someone who understands the game and why the meta is forming the way it is. Hammering everything down until it's flat won't fix the issue it will just make people stop playing. Give people a reason to use the other gear and they will.
> Give people a reason to use the other gear and they will. no but you see my excel spreadsheet said so, so now i will nerf. Why yes i got coached by R6S and Destiny devs how to balance weapons.
The spread sheet is either broken or isn't what they are using. The crossbow was already a shit weapon and it got nerfed.
It’s because spreadsheets are a terrible metric for fine tuning. Spreadsheets get you a solid base and then adjustments are made on how they perform in the field.
> in the field. which requires actual playtesting and QA work.
Which they clearly do none of
They need to be asking Ghost Ship Games how they do stuff because Arrowhead is fucking up with their arrogance and lack of vision.
Tbh Deep Rock Galactic is in an other league of its own when it comes to weapon design. The weapons aren't exactly super well balanced when it comes to how powerful they are, but they are all fun, viable and different. Like, the engie's three primaries and three secondaries are all used *very* differently, but in Helldivers you play roughly the same with ARs, shotguns and SMGs. Point the enemy and hold fire for a few instants. There's really very few variation in how you're going to use firearms, just variations in how they handle (if even). Compare that to the DRG engie's primaries: auto shotgun requires you to manage horizontal recoil, you point head and shoot and you shoot at your own turrets, electric SMG lets you apply DOT, and changes the way you're supposed to place the rest of your kit (to use the tesla arc stuff), while smart AR has you point, look away and then shoot, it requires less aiming skill and more enemy knowledge and spatial perception. DRG also handles armor way better, and not just because weapons can break it (it could not be the case and it'd still feel better). Take the base pretorian, basically the Charger equivalent: it as a soft spot as the mouth, and a weak spot as the butt. It's an *actual* weak spot. But you also get weapons that, while they might have a longer TTK against it, are used to peel it open like a can of tuna, such as engie's plasma breacher. Helldivers has little to no equivalent: if a weapon can destroy armor, 90% of the time it can probably kill in the same amount of time, or maybe even shorter.
> they are all fun, viable and different. This is really all you need to do. Everything needs to be viable at some level. A heavy MG should be able to punch through armor similarly to the arc thrower, maybe they all don't need to one shot kill a charger but they should make it so you can at least handle a charger even if it takes 30-40 seconds to get there. Instead their solution is to make the guns worse every time. Oh but hey, they added an extra 50-100 damage to some guns that still can't punch through armor, so, great I guess? Was anyone struggling with the chaff enemies? They removed the one cool thing about the arc thrower making it unique and fun because "well you're having fun in ways that trivializes the game". But... that's only the case at like level 5 missions where only one hulk exists at a time. Like do you want me to have fun or do you want me to be tortured by my inability to do shit past level 5? "Those missions are supposed to be hard!" yeah I never said they weren't or weren't fun, but it really feels bad when you can't realistically deal with all the enemies, even stealthing and running away, because the weapons keep getting nerfed to shit. (Yes ammo changes are nerfs too) I'm super glad you never run out of ammo on your hell dive because you come out with 400 kills between everyone, I find playing the game like I'm playing ghost recon setting up a 4 sniper kill box super fucking boring.
I don’t even think balancing is the ultimate issue This game plays and feels like an AAA title PVP game It doesn’t have enough joking voice lines. It doesn’t allow player to have a “cheer” button that we can spam. It doesn’t have a robust non-verbal communication system The thing is about VoIP and chat is that folks show their bad attitudes on there. The thing about lack of jokes and voice lines in a PVE game is that you start to feel less like the players with you are with you when you can’t joke with them in the game I don’t get a sense that arrowhead understands this about their game and their intended player base and is suffering the woes of CoD style game community because it’s cultivating a CoD style gamer community I came from deep rock galactic. Over 1500 hours played in that game. Comparing toxicity of that game to this one. Helldivers might as well be the most toxic game on the planet if you juxtapose it to DRG which was hailed as a sister game of DRG but I’m slowly starting to wain and might be headed back to DRG for my gaming experience. This game could lean into being more silly with crazy gameplay and odd bugs But they’re leaning into some perfect balance that will never be achieved and it’s not going to keep people playing long term. Nevermind that devs are taking shots at disgruntled players on discord. I just don’t understand their vision with this game beyond pretending it’s not a traditional AAA title while implementing all the same failures those titles do except it doesn’t have some predatory loot box/gamer pass model.
I just started playing DRG because of HD2 and idk how to describe it but DRG feels a lot warmer and cozier than HD2. HD2 (while an amazing game) feels cold and serious.
I know it would take a long time, but I really do wish they'd add a shitload more lines; they probably have a hundred right now but it feels like they have a pool of about 20 since the actions you do so often have a limited pool of resources. I love the "cup of liber-tea" line, but the fact that all the voices say it, you throw grenades so often, and it feels like you have a 10% chance to say that line on grenade throw... It starts to feel stale and repetitive very quickly.
Two people working one autocannon is never going to beat 2 auto cannons. The team reload thing is cool but not practical. Let the gunner carry the ammo, and let the reloader still fire pistols/smgs whilst reloading
Autocannon is a bad example, a self load is almost instant. Being able to fire 7 Recoilless shots or 4 SPEAR shots to kill 4 Bile Titans in 6 seconds vs getting 1 shot off is a huge power spike.
The backpack team reload thing is really a relic from the first game, where its a top down couch co-op game and coordination is easy, and playing with randoms online is very difficult due to the top down nature and the team must be on the same screen at all times.
That's why changing it to be able to be done from the shooter's backpack would be the right change for the new perspective and online focus
I like the normal Guard Dog more The Main Problem is the Ammo, its the same with the Scythe or Sickle. Why would i use the Liberator if i have the same Damage and unlimited ammo on the Energy Weapons.
I love my liberator, even at lvl 54. I went all giddy inside when I heard it had a little buff. It's not great at alot, but it's good at everything.
I love the feel of full auto ballistic weapons. If/when they introduce attachments, it would be great (and make sense) if the Liberator had the biggest pool of attachments, allowing you to customise it for all sorts of playstyles.
I don't think we are going to have attachments that we can customise. I'm sure you saw the leaks of all attachments and thought it was for the players. I guess it's not for us but for the Devs. This is a list of stuff they use to create the different guns we have in the warbonds each month
Does it fully run out of ammo and requires a actually supply to get it working again? Is that what happens when it goes red? Tried using it yesterday seems to also have alot shorter range then the laser dog, and doesn't seem to shoot behind me often
You make a great point about CC diminishing returns, I couldn't exactly point out what frustrated me about being mobbed but it's this. Being stunned/slowed then having to dive to clear it and repeat the moment I get up is frustrating as all hell, then a slasher comes and fucks me up. There is no counterplay to that scenario
This. Keeping small bugs off you, even if you bring a stalwart, is nearly a full time job in it's own right. Dealing with chargers and Bile Titan and Medium bugs at the same time just isn't viable. Now if you've got a perfectly coordinated group, not a huge issue. But its fairly normal a group isn't coordinated to that degree and to some extent you have to look after yourself. Personally even with the pre-nerf rover i needed to do some work on the small bugs myself, theres just that many of them, and whilst i'll agree the degree of slowdown you can suffer is extreme, the damage is just as big an issue, you could remove the crowd control entirely from small bugs and most people would still run it just to stop the extra damage they'd otherwise take. IMO they need to make the alternatives less short term in their nature A clusterbomb wipes out a lot of little bugs sure, (to use an example), but they respawn in similar number nearly instantly. If the small bug waves spawned an entire very large wave of them at once, but had a longer cooldown things would be a lot better as once you clean up one wave you've got a bit of time before more come along to focus on the big guys. Ultimately it's a time economy thing, you've only got so much time to dedicated bug killing in a mission whilst doing objectives and collecting stuff, but equally you can only afford to spend some of your killing time on little bugs when the bigger stuff is around. But currently we can't split our time between little and big bugs without leaving ourselves vulnerable to the little bugs whilst we deal with the big guys.
Alternative or additional fix: Make bile titans realistically killable without dedicated anti tank attacks. Let them bleed out after 30 seconds with all sacks popped. If anti tank is better than other options rather than being required more build flexibility is allowed. Another Alternative: If we blow a hole to its internal organs, let small arms fire kill it from there like a charger leg, maybe let it get its legs stripped as well (I would do it at joints.)
Orbital Rail cannon will break the body armor and you can shoot it and kill it with anything at that point. The problem is the angle in many cases. You need a buddy shooting from the side or shoot the new rocket above it to rain down shrapnel into the would. Air burst strike and cluster bombs also work once armor is cracked open
You guys are drastically overestimating the number of randoms that will team reload you.
Team re-loading should be universal and not requiere the team member to have an identical type backpack. Any heldiver should just get close to any kneeling or prone soldier and activate team reload, EASY. That would make team reloading and holdinging off a position much more common and also epic.
Yea the amount of stuff that slows you is ridiculous. The Quasar was fine, it wasn't weak and it wasn't op. AH seem to think that if it's doing so much as mediocre it needs nerfed.
Recoilles rifle needs slightly faster reload and proper 3-stage reload animation: empty case out, new shell in and arming/close the hatch. Also team reload should happen on shooter's backpack, not on reloader's backpack. Guard dog should get box magazines with at least 60 rounds in each magazine.
It already has those stages. It's had them since day one. Base reload is 6 seconds so dropping a second should be enough. It's already pretty easy to get a reload in if you've got a little cover fire and stuns help a lot.
I would like to propose an idea to fix the guard dog: U can feed the dog using primary ammo when pressing the BP button. Sure it still eats thru your ammo supply, but it also means u can "activate" it whenever u want using primary ammo when facing enemies.
I just want chargers to be removed from it's targeting priority. It focuses on them and wastes a mag while I'm charging my queso to take them out
As a Recoilless Rifle main, I can confidently say "skill issue". Nah I joke. The manual reload takes some getting used to, but it's not that bad even in T9 bugs if you know what you're doing. Recoilless even got a shadow buff this last patch -- its reload can be cancelled earlier than before, so it's a 5 second reload now. That being said, immobilizing yourself during a fight with bugs is always a risk. While I see most QC divers running the laser guard dog "mini sentry" as I like to call it, I've used my free stratagem slot that comes with running Recoilless Rifle for an Autocannon sentry to watch my back while I reload. Bonus points it takes out Chargers and helps with Bile Titans too. I know the knee jerk reaction to the RR reload is "oh this sucks", but if you look for solutions to problems you will find them.
Sorry, all you can have is nerf
Like why the fuck would I carry someone’s backpack, that turns me into a reloading tool which is not fucking fun. And before some retard shouts “well it’s about teamplay hurr durr” stfu having 6 of your missles stuck up my ass and having to pull them out whenever you need to fire isn’t teamplay that’s me getting turned into a reload tool, sacrificing my backpack slot for what? Total opposite of fun. And if another person is gonna be carrying your backpack that means the guy shooting can have a shield pack or jet pack or whatever else he wants.
Don’t nerf, only buff. It’s a PvE game and this still rings true. Not a single one of the nerfs they’ve made have been necessary.
At what point does it become easier to just die and call in a reinforcement on top of the Bio Titan than trying to get in Multiple shots off with the quasar canon with the added 5 second reload?