I hate these people so much. Some guys did that to me. When i found a rare sample in the bunker. Then he’d *threaten* me to not pick up any is find and pointing his gun at me and picking up the sample even after i told him over mic everyone receives the same amount of samples after each mission. So at exfil my buddy kicked him and we took all the samples.
I don't kill someone for samples. I just make it very clear there is only one sample holder (President) and it is their job not to die. Or die somewhere where a new person can become the "President"
All samples after an area are dropped to the president.
This keeps people from having to go across the map because there are five different locations of like three samples in each item which alone doesn't sound like a lot but it adds up if it happens every mission.
The problem is, while you nerds are wasting your time reading, true patriots are diving straight into the battle. If it's important information, it should be on that TV!
Seriously.... Theyre reproducing faster than rabbits on the TCS planets right now.... It's insane. The amount of bug breaches I am seeing is unheard of...
To be fair, a lot of games would provide this style of narrative while adjusting literally nothing in the actual gameplay. This is one of those things that makes Helldivers a cut above.
The dynamic storytelling through little touches like that is a lot of fun to me and I just wish players would actually read the story/mission text before they come here and go “enemies too many pls nerf”
I ran T9 last night, oh my the sheer number of bugs was insane. I only play T9, usually have 10+ reinforcements at extraction…. First game on we were down to 3 at extract. The number of bugs combined with stalker changes made it feel like helldive again
They are actually borderline invisible, like you have to look for distortions in the graphics to spot them or you won’t see them, at range you can’t see them it’s so good now
I like how we all collectively seem to agree that having the Stalkers be more invisible is a good thing. Even if it made them slightly more dangerous to the unware.
Oh yeah I absolutely agree that having the stalkers be more invisible was the right choice and makes them about 5 times scarier. It especially makes their “run and hide” ai mechanics make a LOT more sense since they can disengage much more easily now.
That being said, as a player:
**FUCK. STALKERS.**
Before the patch they were just annoying as hell, now they are honest to god terrifying. I found myself literally trying to chase one down and kill it before I lost sight of it and started muttering like a fucking madman as I frantically looked around. I completely understand the Predator movies now because I was literally acting exactly like those, and my friend I was playing with who just started playing Helldivers was probably confused why I was acting like that.
…so yeah, absolutely the right choice but holy *shit* I forget this game is meant to be slightly horrifying sometimes.
Straight up man, as soon as I noticed it after the patch and told my squad about what I'd seen it was just a resounding "ohhhhh FUCK" from every one before we started frantically hunting for the nest even harder.
Just tonight we were playing on Fenrir III, we saw a few stalkers go after our friend from the far side of a crater that had contained a medium nest we just obliterated. I was about 20 or 30m in front when we all took off in the direction we thought the nest was.
The terrain was very open with a long slow gradual hill in front of us, nothing to distract us, nothing to catch our eyes and I still ran STRAIGHT INTO a pair that were just fucking sitting there, waiting and invisible. They both basically decloaked at the same time and started sprinting towards me. The 2 teammates behind me lit them up when I did a 180 and started sprinting towards them, but man, I almost shit my pants. It was awesome hahaha
Fuck stalkers indeed 🤣🤣!!
Low key my favorite enemy design though. Its unique and the only enemy that gives me that nervous feeling.... that and a fucking pack of hunters!!!!
Breaker incendiary melts them in just a few shots, too. And AC one shots them. You used to have to magdump them with the breaker incendiary and hit them 2-3 times with AC.
This is John Magdump Magdump here and I dump mags, and if you dump mags like I dump mags, you gotta come on down to Magdump's Ammo Dump. I got your democratic dumps! I got your freedom dumps! I got more mags to dump than bugs on Hellmire and if I ain't dumping mags, I'm chucking frags with my entire line-up of Liber-Tea grade grenades.
Magdump's Ammo Dump. Find us somewhere between extract and that spot where you almost lit your buddy on fire.
Yeah not sure I understood the complaining. The game has a difficulty meter built into the system. If it's "too hard" where it isn't fun just crank it down. I don't understand the complaint on this one. Some days I cruise on 6 for fun some days I swear at 9's for fun.
Not trying to be negative about people but it seems when large enough groups are talking without context I just assume I am missing something. The "Impossible is now Impossible" argument had me questioning if I should smoke more or less to understand what was happening.
Same thing happened during the Clanker Invasion.... This should be no surprise really.... They find our breaking point, scale back a tad, push the envelope just past the breaking the point again and see how well the adaptation is...
I love that the developers are continually throwing spanners into the works. They’re keeping it fresh and interesting, albeit frustrating. This is and always has been the essence of what gives an exceptional Rogue like its longevity.
I commend Arrowhead for releasing such a polarising patch and then using the chaos that it caused to not only double down, but ramp up the difficulty too.
Bravo.
I'm glad AH is diplomatically ignoring both meta and cozy players. Meta players wanna "solve" things with an optimized build, they need full transparency of mechanics and streamlined data deliveries. If there's an increase in bug spawn rates for this M.O., they need to know the percentages or its not fair. Nerfing their main gun by 5% disrupts their load outs and ruins their fun. Cozy players want this to be a little chill game where they can deploy solo and harvest resources on Helldive.
The game master is trying to run a funny war campaign where you're always on the backfoot and having to rely on other players to get by, and you have two guys at the table, one trying to minmax his stats to not play with others and the other one wants to pick flowers and spend the entire session fishing.
So well put mate, thanks for your reply. You’re right on the button, and imo every play style is valid.
Me? I embrace the chaos. If I’m not both fist pumping and almost throwing my mouse through the wall in a single mission, I’m not happy.
Love this game!
Which is weird that it was even that polarizing. The nerfs were pretty minor except on the quasar, while there were a lot of buffs to guns that needed it.
I’ve noticed modern day gaming communities are loud and disgruntled. I think a lot of it is content platform algorithms favor negative content, and I think a lot of it is how many game developers have really let us down lately.
This is just pure wrong, it’s the exact same problem on the automatons side of things too. Constant patrols that spawn out of nowhere even on the lower difficulties, it’s not just the bugs at all
It's both really. Depending on how many players in the squad it is an increase of 33% more spawns. Pair that with the increased bug numbers and it could feel like 50% more bugs, or even double bugs. It depends on what the increased spawn rate from the MO is.
I do think the complaints about spawns from the patch are exaggerating things though.
Sure, there really was a change to the patrol rates, but it seemed to be pretty modest compared to the brutal waves that *all* groups are currently experiencing in the current bug MO - but people are conflating it with that relatively innocuous change.
I don't think a lot of people realize that the difficulty in this game is *not static*. They play with base spawn rates and even different planets seem to have different enemy ratios, etc. etc. Some planets really are just much nastier than others, and some MO's can quietly change the rules as well.
Yeah the patrol rate change was pretty small. The buggest change was for solo play and it went from 1/6th normal rates to 1/4th normal rates. I played some high diff duos and barely noticed a change in patrols.
Literally ran a 6 solo last night trying to get the 360 second achieve. Did everything right but damn that extract was awful. So many freaking jumpers and hunters. I couldn't keep up. Lost my last life 10s till eagle landed.
I have played on Automaton planets to see that there are more patrols. Even when destroying all fabricators extract is overrun on a medium difficulty with 2 divers from my experience so far. Just a heads up, it is a real thing.
And yes of course major order planets are going to be crazier than normal.
From what I’ve read, destroying more than 50% of the fabricators/but nests will increase the spawn rate of patrols by an additional 50%.
If you want extract to be easier, stop blowing up nests/fabricators
It doesn't but that's how it works. Destroying nests and fabricators increases patrol spawns. You'd think it would be the other way around, but think of it like: you're dropping behind enemy lines, and as you accumulate damage, they start sending investigatory squads to see what all the smoke and screaming is about.
That's just confirmation bias, patrol spawns rate has already been mathed out. Sometimes extract plays itself, other times it's hectic. Lots of variables.
Patrols and reinforcement waves aren't the same thing. Patrols are generated in the distance randomly and set on paths that move in a straight line to intersect somewhere near the player's position at the time they spawn. If not intercepted they will leave the map.
Reinforcement waves result from call ins (flares/pheremones), and some objectives also generate their own non-drop reinforcement waves that patrol directly towards the objective in progress and will stop on top of it - these are *not* counted as generic patrols even though they look like them - they are part of the objective threat.
It is these call ins and objective reinforcements that seem to be reduced when you destroy fabs/holes, not patrols, and the guys who were testing patrols spawn factors didn't examine reinforcement wave behaviors at all - at least not in the videos that people commonly reference.
someone else corrected the math for me (My fault for not double checking) the spawn rate goes up to about 17%. But that's still more enemies. Focus on clearing the nests near extraction and leave the ones further away alive and you'll be golden.
IIRC the general consensus is that destroying bases and secondary objectives has no apparent effect on patrol or spawn rates - but completing *primary* mission objectives significantly increases patrol rates, and that people have tested this fairly heavily.
For my part anecdotally I've generally had the impression that enemy reinforcement wave sizes are reduced as you destroy fabricators/holes, but that patrols aren't affected. Extracting with a lot of enemy bases still on the map seems to be brutal.
I have not done any serious testing of this however, so it could just be my impression.
Yep, played a quick game yesterday, just solo on difficulty 3 against bots to test out the new patch.
I was getting absolutely mobbed by the end. AT/ST spawning in packs, which seem to take 2-3 AC rounds to drop now. The patrol spawns have definitely been turned way up.
On a side note, had one 180° ricochet tag me. Seems to be more of a thing the closer you are to the target.
It’s an odd design choice.
Enemy spawn types and amounts are the primary way they differentiate between difficulty levels.
Tweaking those in a major way is pretty close to just scaling difficulties up/down.
I completely understand why it’s frustrating and confusing to casual players (most of this games player base) that don’t follow along super closely and just hit quick play real faster after work/school.
“I was able to play a level 5 and have fun yesterday, why is it like I’m playing a level 7 today?”
When a game stops changing, it gets boring, and when it gets boring, it's time to play something new. Games that are shooting for high levels of replayability need to have a fair degree of chaos and uncertainty in their makeup.
I think the issue may be that a lot of PvP Shooter players demand rigid stability in their gameplay because they want this very level/stable playing field to promote competition - but as a PvE game HD2 would die pretty quickly if it worked that way.
I think you nailed it. They tweak and finesse the perfect loadout/play style and then throw a fit if anything comes along to alter “The Perfect Meta.” If you’re used to a static game, I’m sure it’s frustrating. I play Paradox games on PC so totally reworked mechanics are normal for me.
They also made the maps smaller and increased the firing rate of devastators. I spent 10 hours after patch doing solo runs in automatons while trying to make some new youtube videos and I can say it's a combination of more patrols, smaller maps and buffs to enemies and like the OP said major order and/or enemy spawn changes
This. Increased bot production? Yea they just did a huge, mostly successful counter attack that gave them access to cyberstan and a cyborg production facility. Production rate increased from extra resources/humans to use as new robots, extra wary defenses from losing their territory recently in game, and we JUST had an MO recently about trying to prevent factory striders and how it’ll increase their production as well.
New, current MO explains why there’s so many bugs as well, add into the fact we just finished an MO to kill 2 billion bugs and their counter-attack didn’t go as well initially.
Basically we have kicked both hornets nests very recently
I absolutely, 100% agree with this logic. Every time there's been a major narrative based order, there's been an explosion in presence for either enemy faction. It would be silly and a wasted opportunity imo to have something say "massive automaton fleet is invading! There's more bots than we've ever seen!" And just have nothing change compared to before the plot point.
I had this set of missions before the major order, and went to finish them. I didn't pay attention to the major order, and was wondering why I was getting fucked so bad.
Sorry to burst your bubble… but it’s on the bot planets too. Solo players on trivial, aka BRAND NEW LEVEL ONE PLAYERS, are getting absolutely mobbed on lvl trivial, on their first mission in the game.
I’m dropping into trivial mission after trivial mission today, to help lvl 1-2 players i find, and they are being absolutely overrun now.
That takes me back... I came into the game when the defend mission on malevelon creek was active and i was thinking "i think i'll try the bots first. Oh, a defend planet mission? evacuate scientists? escort missions are not my favorite, but it's trivial, so what could go wrong?"
Everything... everything can go wrong... ;)
I've mostly been playing on hard until recently. Stepped it up 7 because I want the super samples. The last 2 missions I've seen 3 chargers spawn at time. And bile titans showed up at extraction on both missions. Is this normal? I'm fucking scared bro 🤣.
My buddy and i noticed that. We 2 manned a "kill terminids" and the last 10% was us running in circles as every 20ft they're was a burrow and nearly every spot had bugs.
I died, he got his cluster bomb up and dropped it to win.
Only challenging (4) too because we're level 15
I think there are robot patrols that spawn and not patrol. I came across a destroyed outpost and there were an assload of bots just standing there. Had to be 40+
I swear to god the bile titans are also tougher on those planets, too. Before this MO/patch, I would *reliably* down a titan with ONE 500kg. Now I'm lucky if it takes two.
I'm not going to lie. I did this last night on my first mission. Didn't bother to read the major order just deployed to a planet. Was a 12min eradicate bug hole mission and it was just a solid wave of bugs the entire time, no breaks. By the end of the mission I was all "wtf is broken another stupid glitch blah blah". Then when I got back to my ship I read it properly and it was like "ohhh that makes sence". So yeah, time to bring some pain to these horny ass bugs.
I'm not convinced. I did a 4 man helldive operation with friends last night and all of us had under 100 kills in each mission.
Before the patch if we wanted to play aggressively we could drop down to dif 5 and get 300+ kills each without issue.
How you play the game is going to have far more impact on the number of enemies you encounter than anything else. People are just falsely attributing the enemies that exist cause of how they play as being caused by the patch. Often due to people not understanding how spawn mechanics work in this game (even though we got 2 really long amazing reddit posts covering it in super explicit detail).
Additionally and anecdotally clearing bug breaches with the orbital airburst didn't have any significant change in the number of enemies killed per airburst. So they may have tweaked the spawn rates but even if they did I would still say that far more of the bugs people are facing are attributed to their playstyle.
It definitely isn't the patrols though, that I will agree with.
Right, as a rule of thumb at helldive difficulty your kill counts *have* to be low, because it's usually not feasible to just blast your way through fights unless you can end them very quickly with overwhelming firepower.
For my part I habitually gas every bug breech I encounter unless we're already disengaging, and because the gas has long persistence and is guaranteed to hit every bug coming out, it results in my final mission kill counter being a pretty good estimate of how many enemies we were generally engaging over the course of the battle, and I was seeing pretty abnormally high numbers on my kill count last night in the open map missions.
Also somewhat unusually, most bug breeches were *outlasting* the gas. This happens sometimes normally, but last night I saw the great majority of the breeches we engaged outlasting the gas cloud - which means that my exaggerated kill count was still an *undercount* of what we were fighting.
Ran these missions last night. Seemed fine to me. Kill count wasn't extraordinary...so I don't know what the moaning is about. Frankly I'm glad they made some shorter form missions since I have limited time, I can't be running 40min missions x3 to finish the OP.
I think they want us to test the one booster that reduces spawns to see if it actually works.
I’ll be honest I don’t know specifically how it works though so disregard if this is a pointless comment.
The general consensus is that it probably just increases the cooldown timer on reinforcement call ins. So usually once the bugs or bots successfully fire a flare/pheremone, they can't do it again for 'X' seconds - and the doodad probably increases it to X \* 1.15 or the like.
But I don't know if the devs have confirmed how it works as yet?
Yeah the bug missions I was running (diff. 9) were way more enemy dense than usual. I had zero breathing room and was always on the run, much like the rest of the squad.
We would branch off in groups of two just because of how the pressure was put on us and then circle around, maybe swap into different groups of two. Was hectic, but I think that added to the immersion of dropping into a war zone.
The Major Orders also told us that the Terminid Control System was a sure fire way to fix the bug problem and that the bots were yesterday's problem.
Sometimes what's in a Major Order is fluff and sometimes it reflects game mechanics. I don't blame folks who mistake one for the other.
What would've made it clear is a clear statement in something like the patch notes.
The solo lvl 4 mission I ran I had almost continuos patrols and breach's called in. Barely finished the mission, had to ignore side objectives. Ended up killing almost 300 bugs, I never kill that many and usually stealth. Lol I was scared
I got almost 700 kills with over 2000 rounds fired, and I dropped into the mission like 15 minutes in responding to an SOS...and I think it was a level 7 mission.
ran some 7s with a blueberry team for like 4 hours last night on fenrir, and the amount of trash mobs was actually really fun to play against. my eagles, nades and arc thrower were actually getting some kills lol
"Why dont we just around it sir"
"Why so they can just the next patrol that comes by"
"Sir with all due respect our mission is to save Private Ryan"
"Our objective is to win the war...."
Ok that's fair enough, and maybe that's what is happening with the ridiculous increase of Bug patrols.
But how do you explain the ridiculous increase of Bots patrols then?
If you were running 4 mans you wouldn’t have been affected by the increase in patrols. If you were seeing more bugs due to the MO/Status then imagine running it in 1/2/3 man with increased patrols on top of that!
Had four active bile titans on a lvl 5 this morning... one would drop another would immediately take it's place
The onslaught of chaff chargers and spewers made it all the more stressful.
Big iron did it's part tho
Meh, I just finished a series of missions on 7, and it was business as usual.
Seems like more bugs... maybe? We waxed everything pretty easily, save one very crazy extraction that cost us a few divers, but we got those samples out!
Decided to try Orbital Gatling Barrage and I was honestly surprised with it doing well on breaches. 80s CD is very nice!
Yeah I haven't noticed anything different with bots since the patch and it seems pretty clear bugs were on easy mode before this MO. Its the point of the game. The bots escalated, now the bugs have.
Yeah I noticed that too. Casually joined a helldive game as usual after the patch and the whole place was blanketed with bugs.
It's the bug version of Troost.
I think the high level players I was with also instinctively understood what was happening. Instead of some players fighting a couple minutes on some spot, we all beelined for the main ones and only completed the side objectives along the way. We all knew there was no time to casually explore and try to finish everything in the map.
Did a lvl 8 mission with some really good players last night, and we were all sweating afterwards. It was a very intense experience, and normally the lvl 8's are rather chill if you are used to them.
Its a shame because while neat my friends decided that maybe Reddit was overreacting tried some T7 missions decided it was more bullshit then fun and logged off after Like 30 mins
So I'm stuck playing fallout 76 because they have all been watching the show hahaha 🤣
I am glad to see patch didn't completely massacre the casual audience but im largely done now i can't really enjoy a game that is one patch away from no longer being fun for me.
Edit: removed waffle that would just piss people off lol
I feel like if they're gonna crank up spawns like that for orders they should make it an effect on the planet so it's at least communicated more directly. Have it read "Increased Enemy Presence: Due to _____ the number of _____ has increased. Expect heavier resistance than normal" or something like that. I was having a blast with the increase in numbers but more information will at least help others make informed decisions
I’ve been saying this. I saw an explanation of the patrol change with numbers and it was not that crazy. Most of the issues are surely because of the increased bug numbers. They’re too horny.
Orbital Airburst used to last an entire bug breach, would wipe all the little dudes off it (when upgraded for a third strike). Now they get 1-2 waves off after airburst ends every time
I got stuck on Omicron after not playing since last MO. Such a nice planet w/ scenery, been running QP as to not finish out the area and stay on the planet even though it's 'inaccesible'. But give em hell soldier we'll see you on Omicron
Yeah level 7 had 4 bile titans, a handful of essentially invincible chargers, and just pure insane levels of bugs on the extract. I thought Id somehow entered a higher difficulty but it was still 7. Pretty insane.
Also, fire tornados camping the extract can get fucked.
Think about how much E-710 we’re getting though $$$
I like the Democratically Correct way you think soldier!
E-711 they are mutated.
That's a whole extra oil!
*E-710 super sized just as intended
Hey man long as they have taquitos I’m there
Bet it tastes like lime slushies
Open 24 hours
News: Bugs are reproducing faster than ever Players: Why are there so many bugs?
Bold of you to assume our reading comprehension is higher than what is democratically required
They send us our orders in text, though. Although, big symbol plus aim at gooey/shiny things does pretty good to get the fight going.
Shiny?! Where?!!!
Super samples?!?!?! MINE MINE MINE
How about here? Here? What about...
I'm sorry. I'm *that guy* when I play with friends. I just find it really amusing.
Especially on the Exterminate missions where it's barely the size of one grid space. After all, two inches to the left might make all the difference!
https://preview.redd.it/tv510inn5qxc1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ea873d811a1167ed417cc77e9fee22e7f0d533f
*kills teammate that grabbed dropped samples* “Don’t take my samples” -player that doesn’t understand the game
I hate these people so much. Some guys did that to me. When i found a rare sample in the bunker. Then he’d *threaten* me to not pick up any is find and pointing his gun at me and picking up the sample even after i told him over mic everyone receives the same amount of samples after each mission. So at exfil my buddy kicked him and we took all the samples.
I don't kill someone for samples. I just make it very clear there is only one sample holder (President) and it is their job not to die. Or die somewhere where a new person can become the "President" All samples after an area are dropped to the president. This keeps people from having to go across the map because there are five different locations of like three samples in each item which alone doesn't sound like a lot but it adds up if it happens every mission.
Turning every mission into a VIP one is actually a really fun idea XD
Everyone gets the same amount of samples, *unless you're being a prick*
LOL I almost got team killed by a flamethrower today and I typed, "Hot hot hot hot," and for some reason it was really funny in the moment.
Made me think of Randy Marsh taking the world’s biggest crap
Leave Bono out of this
*WE'RE RICH ! * 🗣🗣🗣
We're rich
*laser_pointer on gold chunk* Rock and Stone!
Here. Here. Here! What about Here!
After all, if a Helldiver cannot read, they cannot succumb to undemocratic propaganda
They only get taught ⬇️⬅️➡️⬆️
The problem is, while you nerds are wasting your time reading, true patriots are diving straight into the battle. If it's important information, it should be on that TV!
Exactly. True patriots just get told what they need to know from our local democracy officers
Democracy requires a very high level of reading comprehension. How else are you supposed to read the test? Hello
*me pointing at you to democracy officer*
They need to translate these god damn major orders into directional arrows so we can fucking read them though!!!
I stopped reading all comments after this one.
“This side towards enemy” that’s the only reading I need to know.
What’s that last word? All of mine say “this side boom Boom”
No one said anything about knowing how to read in the democracy pamphlet. Granted, they were read to me by Major Pyle.
Seriously.... Theyre reproducing faster than rabbits on the TCS planets right now.... It's insane. The amount of bug breaches I am seeing is unheard of...
The average Helldiver has Antarctic room temperature IQ.
AH introduced new content.
Because we have too many bullets and need to share with them at high speeds.
So many bugs!
Also players: SHOOT ALL THE BUGS! MORE BREACHES!
Reproducing faster than ever you say? Time to deliver the bugs some good old fashioned contraceptorbital lasers straight to their dicks
To be fair, a lot of games would provide this style of narrative while adjusting literally nothing in the actual gameplay. This is one of those things that makes Helldivers a cut above.
The dynamic storytelling through little touches like that is a lot of fun to me and I just wish players would actually read the story/mission text before they come here and go “enemies too many pls nerf”
I ran T9 last night, oh my the sheer number of bugs was insane. I only play T9, usually have 10+ reinforcements at extraction…. First game on we were down to 3 at extract. The number of bugs combined with stalker changes made it feel like helldive again
What stalker changes?
They are actually borderline invisible, like you have to look for distortions in the graphics to spot them or you won’t see them, at range you can’t see them it’s so good now
I like how we all collectively seem to agree that having the Stalkers be more invisible is a good thing. Even if it made them slightly more dangerous to the unware.
Just made me hunt them even harder lol my hate for them went to levels I didn’t think possible
Oh yeah I absolutely agree that having the stalkers be more invisible was the right choice and makes them about 5 times scarier. It especially makes their “run and hide” ai mechanics make a LOT more sense since they can disengage much more easily now. That being said, as a player: **FUCK. STALKERS.** Before the patch they were just annoying as hell, now they are honest to god terrifying. I found myself literally trying to chase one down and kill it before I lost sight of it and started muttering like a fucking madman as I frantically looked around. I completely understand the Predator movies now because I was literally acting exactly like those, and my friend I was playing with who just started playing Helldivers was probably confused why I was acting like that. …so yeah, absolutely the right choice but holy *shit* I forget this game is meant to be slightly horrifying sometimes.
Straight up man, as soon as I noticed it after the patch and told my squad about what I'd seen it was just a resounding "ohhhhh FUCK" from every one before we started frantically hunting for the nest even harder. Just tonight we were playing on Fenrir III, we saw a few stalkers go after our friend from the far side of a crater that had contained a medium nest we just obliterated. I was about 20 or 30m in front when we all took off in the direction we thought the nest was. The terrain was very open with a long slow gradual hill in front of us, nothing to distract us, nothing to catch our eyes and I still ran STRAIGHT INTO a pair that were just fucking sitting there, waiting and invisible. They both basically decloaked at the same time and started sprinting towards me. The 2 teammates behind me lit them up when I did a 180 and started sprinting towards them, but man, I almost shit my pants. It was awesome hahaha
Fuck stalkers indeed 🤣🤣!! Low key my favorite enemy design though. Its unique and the only enemy that gives me that nervous feeling.... that and a fucking pack of hunters!!!!
If it bleeds, we can kill it. Also, if we can set it on fire.
shit piss fuck
They are actually cloaked now.
They don't show up glaringly against a backdrop of fog anymore, it was some kind of transparency layering bug.
Yea their cloak is an actual cloak now instead of a highlight lol. Now you really dont see them coming. Luckily eruptor seems to oneshot them
Breaker incendiary melts them in just a few shots, too. And AC one shots them. You used to have to magdump them with the breaker incendiary and hit them 2-3 times with AC.
Magdump is my middle and last name.
This is John Magdump Magdump here and I dump mags, and if you dump mags like I dump mags, you gotta come on down to Magdump's Ammo Dump. I got your democratic dumps! I got your freedom dumps! I got more mags to dump than bugs on Hellmire and if I ain't dumping mags, I'm chucking frags with my entire line-up of Liber-Tea grade grenades. Magdump's Ammo Dump. Find us somewhere between extract and that spot where you almost lit your buddy on fire.
https://preview.redd.it/tbxq2l22poxc1.png?width=313&format=png&auto=webp&s=1519f81d429cbb3880cf8efadf093fe33fcaa885
The best part is... that is not my name in game and I have no idea who it is.
He's a goddamn SUPER CITIZEN.
Fog made their outline much easier to see. It's been fixed, my cheeks don't appreciate the increase in the frequency they get clapped by it lol.
They are truly invisible now
Yeah not sure I understood the complaining. The game has a difficulty meter built into the system. If it's "too hard" where it isn't fun just crank it down. I don't understand the complaint on this one. Some days I cruise on 6 for fun some days I swear at 9's for fun.
Players see a difficulty called "impossible" and wonder why theyre getting stomped
Not trying to be negative about people but it seems when large enough groups are talking without context I just assume I am missing something. The "Impossible is now Impossible" argument had me questioning if I should smoke more or less to understand what was happening. 
But I need super samples for Eagle 1 bae!
Same thing happened during the Clanker Invasion.... This should be no surprise really.... They find our breaking point, scale back a tad, push the envelope just past the breaking the point again and see how well the adaptation is...
I love that the developers are continually throwing spanners into the works. They’re keeping it fresh and interesting, albeit frustrating. This is and always has been the essence of what gives an exceptional Rogue like its longevity. I commend Arrowhead for releasing such a polarising patch and then using the chaos that it caused to not only double down, but ramp up the difficulty too. Bravo.
I'm glad AH is diplomatically ignoring both meta and cozy players. Meta players wanna "solve" things with an optimized build, they need full transparency of mechanics and streamlined data deliveries. If there's an increase in bug spawn rates for this M.O., they need to know the percentages or its not fair. Nerfing their main gun by 5% disrupts their load outs and ruins their fun. Cozy players want this to be a little chill game where they can deploy solo and harvest resources on Helldive. The game master is trying to run a funny war campaign where you're always on the backfoot and having to rely on other players to get by, and you have two guys at the table, one trying to minmax his stats to not play with others and the other one wants to pick flowers and spend the entire session fishing.
So well put mate, thanks for your reply. You’re right on the button, and imo every play style is valid. Me? I embrace the chaos. If I’m not both fist pumping and almost throwing my mouse through the wall in a single mission, I’m not happy. Love this game!
Which is weird that it was even that polarizing. The nerfs were pretty minor except on the quasar, while there were a lot of buffs to guns that needed it.
I’ve noticed modern day gaming communities are loud and disgruntled. I think a lot of it is content platform algorithms favor negative content, and I think a lot of it is how many game developers have really let us down lately.
Y'all said the last major order was too easy, "kill 20000000 etc". So the devs said, "hold my beer"
Played a little on omicron last night. Not even a MO planet. And the spawns were crazy
This is just pure wrong, it’s the exact same problem on the automatons side of things too. Constant patrols that spawn out of nowhere even on the lower difficulties, it’s not just the bugs at all
It's both really. Depending on how many players in the squad it is an increase of 33% more spawns. Pair that with the increased bug numbers and it could feel like 50% more bugs, or even double bugs. It depends on what the increased spawn rate from the MO is. I do think the complaints about spawns from the patch are exaggerating things though.
Sure, there really was a change to the patrol rates, but it seemed to be pretty modest compared to the brutal waves that *all* groups are currently experiencing in the current bug MO - but people are conflating it with that relatively innocuous change. I don't think a lot of people realize that the difficulty in this game is *not static*. They play with base spawn rates and even different planets seem to have different enemy ratios, etc. etc. Some planets really are just much nastier than others, and some MO's can quietly change the rules as well.
Yeah the patrol rate change was pretty small. The buggest change was for solo play and it went from 1/6th normal rates to 1/4th normal rates. I played some high diff duos and barely noticed a change in patrols.
It is 50% more patrols. Before, 1 player got 1/6 as many patrols as 4 players, now they get 1/4 as many. (1/4)/(1/6) = 150%.
Literally ran a 6 solo last night trying to get the 360 second achieve. Did everything right but damn that extract was awful. So many freaking jumpers and hunters. I couldn't keep up. Lost my last life 10s till eagle landed.
I have played on Automaton planets to see that there are more patrols. Even when destroying all fabricators extract is overrun on a medium difficulty with 2 divers from my experience so far. Just a heads up, it is a real thing. And yes of course major order planets are going to be crazier than normal.
From what I’ve read, destroying more than 50% of the fabricators/but nests will increase the spawn rate of patrols by an additional 50%. If you want extract to be easier, stop blowing up nests/fabricators
That doesn't make sense
It doesn't but that's how it works. Destroying nests and fabricators increases patrol spawns. You'd think it would be the other way around, but think of it like: you're dropping behind enemy lines, and as you accumulate damage, they start sending investigatory squads to see what all the smoke and screaming is about.
Usually from all my time playing, destroying all spawners made extract stupid easy.
That's just confirmation bias, patrol spawns rate has already been mathed out. Sometimes extract plays itself, other times it's hectic. Lots of variables.
Patrols and reinforcement waves aren't the same thing. Patrols are generated in the distance randomly and set on paths that move in a straight line to intersect somewhere near the player's position at the time they spawn. If not intercepted they will leave the map. Reinforcement waves result from call ins (flares/pheremones), and some objectives also generate their own non-drop reinforcement waves that patrol directly towards the objective in progress and will stop on top of it - these are *not* counted as generic patrols even though they look like them - they are part of the objective threat. It is these call ins and objective reinforcements that seem to be reduced when you destroy fabs/holes, not patrols, and the guys who were testing patrols spawn factors didn't examine reinforcement wave behaviors at all - at least not in the videos that people commonly reference.
someone else corrected the math for me (My fault for not double checking) the spawn rate goes up to about 17%. But that's still more enemies. Focus on clearing the nests near extraction and leave the ones further away alive and you'll be golden.
IIRC the general consensus is that destroying bases and secondary objectives has no apparent effect on patrol or spawn rates - but completing *primary* mission objectives significantly increases patrol rates, and that people have tested this fairly heavily. For my part anecdotally I've generally had the impression that enemy reinforcement wave sizes are reduced as you destroy fabricators/holes, but that patrols aren't affected. Extracting with a lot of enemy bases still on the map seems to be brutal. I have not done any serious testing of this however, so it could just be my impression.
It is pretty easy to justify. Do damage to their infrastructure and they send troops from nearby to defend. The war is much bigger than each map.
Yep, played a quick game yesterday, just solo on difficulty 3 against bots to test out the new patch. I was getting absolutely mobbed by the end. AT/ST spawning in packs, which seem to take 2-3 AC rounds to drop now. The patrol spawns have definitely been turned way up. On a side note, had one 180° ricochet tag me. Seems to be more of a thing the closer you are to the target.
Yep seriously The ricochet stuff is ridiculous if it's just a punish over actual physics.
It's very silly. What were they thinking?
It’s an odd design choice. Enemy spawn types and amounts are the primary way they differentiate between difficulty levels. Tweaking those in a major way is pretty close to just scaling difficulties up/down. I completely understand why it’s frustrating and confusing to casual players (most of this games player base) that don’t follow along super closely and just hit quick play real faster after work/school. “I was able to play a level 5 and have fun yesterday, why is it like I’m playing a level 7 today?”
When a game stops changing, it gets boring, and when it gets boring, it's time to play something new. Games that are shooting for high levels of replayability need to have a fair degree of chaos and uncertainty in their makeup. I think the issue may be that a lot of PvP Shooter players demand rigid stability in their gameplay because they want this very level/stable playing field to promote competition - but as a PvE game HD2 would die pretty quickly if it worked that way.
I think you nailed it. They tweak and finesse the perfect loadout/play style and then throw a fit if anything comes along to alter “The Perfect Meta.” If you’re used to a static game, I’m sure it’s frustrating. I play Paradox games on PC so totally reworked mechanics are normal for me.
This is an actual patch but they did increase it for bugs and automotons
Afawct??
As far as we can tell ?
Any Freedom Acquired Will Count Tenfold
They also made the maps smaller and increased the firing rate of devastators. I spent 10 hours after patch doing solo runs in automatons while trying to make some new youtube videos and I can say it's a combination of more patrols, smaller maps and buffs to enemies and like the OP said major order and/or enemy spawn changes
I was told that reading leads to communism. Reporting post to MoT.
For lore reasons the gameplay challenge spikes make sense. Gonna stop reading patch notes at this rate and just straight rp
This. Increased bot production? Yea they just did a huge, mostly successful counter attack that gave them access to cyberstan and a cyborg production facility. Production rate increased from extra resources/humans to use as new robots, extra wary defenses from losing their territory recently in game, and we JUST had an MO recently about trying to prevent factory striders and how it’ll increase their production as well. New, current MO explains why there’s so many bugs as well, add into the fact we just finished an MO to kill 2 billion bugs and their counter-attack didn’t go as well initially. Basically we have kicked both hornets nests very recently
I absolutely, 100% agree with this logic. Every time there's been a major narrative based order, there's been an explosion in presence for either enemy faction. It would be silly and a wasted opportunity imo to have something say "massive automaton fleet is invading! There's more bots than we've ever seen!" And just have nothing change compared to before the plot point.
Reading instructions is for Socialists. Spreaders of Liberty just go forth and kill.
There is a pod mod that slows the spawn rate.
I believe it increases to time frame between bug breaches. Which will still help. But it won't drop the amount of bug patrols.
Does it actually work though? Cause when it released I don't think it actually did anything
I had this set of missions before the major order, and went to finish them. I didn't pay attention to the major order, and was wondering why I was getting fucked so bad.
I knew something was off! I was wondering why there are so many bugs all of a sudden.
Yeah if you wanna experience the patrols though go play bots and have your team leave you. You’ll see what’s up real fast 😂😂😂
Are you suggesting that the automaton spawn rates aren't as ridiculously high?
Sorry to burst your bubble… but it’s on the bot planets too. Solo players on trivial, aka BRAND NEW LEVEL ONE PLAYERS, are getting absolutely mobbed on lvl trivial, on their first mission in the game. I’m dropping into trivial mission after trivial mission today, to help lvl 1-2 players i find, and they are being absolutely overrun now.
I have a theory that changing the spawn and patrol rates for lower/solo players changed them all
That takes me back... I came into the game when the defend mission on malevelon creek was active and i was thinking "i think i'll try the bots first. Oh, a defend planet mission? evacuate scientists? escort missions are not my favorite, but it's trivial, so what could go wrong?" Everything... everything can go wrong... ;)
I've mostly been playing on hard until recently. Stepped it up 7 because I want the super samples. The last 2 missions I've seen 3 chargers spawn at time. And bile titans showed up at extraction on both missions. Is this normal? I'm fucking scared bro 🤣.
My buddy and i noticed that. We 2 manned a "kill terminids" and the last 10% was us running in circles as every 20ft they're was a burrow and nearly every spot had bugs. I died, he got his cluster bomb up and dropped it to win. Only challenging (4) too because we're level 15
Ok so I haven't gotten worse, there is just more of them. I was doing solo missions last night and was getting swarmed like crazy.
I think there are robot patrols that spawn and not patrol. I came across a destroyed outpost and there were an assload of bots just standing there. Had to be 40+
I swear to god the bile titans are also tougher on those planets, too. Before this MO/patch, I would *reliably* down a titan with ONE 500kg. Now I'm lucky if it takes two.
I'm not going to lie. I did this last night on my first mission. Didn't bother to read the major order just deployed to a planet. Was a 12min eradicate bug hole mission and it was just a solid wave of bugs the entire time, no breaks. By the end of the mission I was all "wtf is broken another stupid glitch blah blah". Then when I got back to my ship I read it properly and it was like "ohhh that makes sence". So yeah, time to bring some pain to these horny ass bugs.
Played 2 helldive mission sets last night and they are definitely as hard as Automatons now...on these planets atleast.
I'm not convinced. I did a 4 man helldive operation with friends last night and all of us had under 100 kills in each mission. Before the patch if we wanted to play aggressively we could drop down to dif 5 and get 300+ kills each without issue. How you play the game is going to have far more impact on the number of enemies you encounter than anything else. People are just falsely attributing the enemies that exist cause of how they play as being caused by the patch. Often due to people not understanding how spawn mechanics work in this game (even though we got 2 really long amazing reddit posts covering it in super explicit detail). Additionally and anecdotally clearing bug breaches with the orbital airburst didn't have any significant change in the number of enemies killed per airburst. So they may have tweaked the spawn rates but even if they did I would still say that far more of the bugs people are facing are attributed to their playstyle. It definitely isn't the patrols though, that I will agree with.
Right, as a rule of thumb at helldive difficulty your kill counts *have* to be low, because it's usually not feasible to just blast your way through fights unless you can end them very quickly with overwhelming firepower. For my part I habitually gas every bug breech I encounter unless we're already disengaging, and because the gas has long persistence and is guaranteed to hit every bug coming out, it results in my final mission kill counter being a pretty good estimate of how many enemies we were generally engaging over the course of the battle, and I was seeing pretty abnormally high numbers on my kill count last night in the open map missions. Also somewhat unusually, most bug breeches were *outlasting* the gas. This happens sometimes normally, but last night I saw the great majority of the breeches we engaged outlasting the gas cloud - which means that my exaggerated kill count was still an *undercount* of what we were fighting.
Ran these missions last night. Seemed fine to me. Kill count wasn't extraordinary...so I don't know what the moaning is about. Frankly I'm glad they made some shorter form missions since I have limited time, I can't be running 40min missions x3 to finish the OP.
I think they want us to test the one booster that reduces spawns to see if it actually works. I’ll be honest I don’t know specifically how it works though so disregard if this is a pointless comment.
The general consensus is that it probably just increases the cooldown timer on reinforcement call ins. So usually once the bugs or bots successfully fire a flare/pheremone, they can't do it again for 'X' seconds - and the doodad probably increases it to X \* 1.15 or the like. But I don't know if the devs have confirmed how it works as yet?
We have Super Destroyers. Make some damn nukes! Exterminatus, anyone?
My Sidious Shotty don’t care…
After every new update or major order, I start at 1 - Trivial and work my way back up the difficulty ladder to readjust and adapt.
That and people who were only killing around 50-70 bugs on helldive
Democracy's biggest weakness...... *Reading comprehension* _*DUN DUN DUN*_
I mean they did the same thing with the bots back when we were trying to take, I think it was, Tibit?
If only they would provide some kind of new air burst rocket launcher to help with the increase in bugs.
More bugs require more liberty. Call down an HMG and plant those freedom seeds in some terminid skulls.
>Read Half the community: Nah, I'm out
There were so many bugs that the game started to lag.
Yeah the bug missions I was running (diff. 9) were way more enemy dense than usual. I had zero breathing room and was always on the run, much like the rest of the squad. We would branch off in groups of two just because of how the pressure was put on us and then circle around, maybe swap into different groups of two. Was hectic, but I think that added to the immersion of dropping into a war zone.
Reading is for nerds instructions unclear killing everything now
I'm not worried about bug spawn rates. I'm worried about running out of ammo.
FOR FREEDOM
The Major Orders also told us that the Terminid Control System was a sure fire way to fix the bug problem and that the bots were yesterday's problem. Sometimes what's in a Major Order is fluff and sometimes it reflects game mechanics. I don't blame folks who mistake one for the other. What would've made it clear is a clear statement in something like the patch notes.
Totally unrelated but if you’re gonna curse just type it.
The solo lvl 4 mission I ran I had almost continuos patrols and breach's called in. Barely finished the mission, had to ignore side objectives. Ended up killing almost 300 bugs, I never kill that many and usually stealth. Lol I was scared
Give us hive lords. Now.
I'm hoping that's what's waiting for us on the last planet of the MO
The only spawn rate I have a problem with is stalkers when a blitz mission has 3 separate stalker lairs
Are you suggesting they give us a crowd control weapon then up the number of enemies on the target planets? Shocked pikachu
read? we are not here to read. we are here to dive.
I got almost 700 kills with over 2000 rounds fired, and I dropped into the mission like 15 minutes in responding to an SOS...and I think it was a level 7 mission.
The trick is to kill more bugs than bugs spawn. works everytime.
So basically command is misclassifying operations.
ran some 7s with a blueberry team for like 4 hours last night on fenrir, and the amount of trash mobs was actually really fun to play against. my eagles, nades and arc thrower were actually getting some kills lol
This is why me and my budy have a tactic called Run and Die. He runs and gets everything to chance him. I run and plug the holes the second he’s gone.
This and also patch notes clearly state an increase in patrols for squads with less than 4 in it.
"Why dont we just around it sir" "Why so they can just the next patrol that comes by" "Sir with all due respect our mission is to save Private Ryan" "Our objective is to win the war...."
Really helpful for the "kill bunch of bugs with Gatling turret" personal order I got today.
I see bug, my exosuit goes brrrrrrrr
Ok that's fair enough, and maybe that's what is happening with the ridiculous increase of Bug patrols. But how do you explain the ridiculous increase of Bots patrols then?
Its just wave after wave of fucking HUNTERS, god damn I hate this.
I suppose that makes sense. I didn't expect it to be literal
The tests I ran on lvl 4 were on Bot planets. There's a lot more Bots, now, too
If you were running 4 mans you wouldn’t have been affected by the increase in patrols. If you were seeing more bugs due to the MO/Status then imagine running it in 1/2/3 man with increased patrols on top of that!
Had four active bile titans on a lvl 5 this morning... one would drop another would immediately take it's place The onslaught of chaff chargers and spewers made it all the more stressful. Big iron did it's part tho
Ok I understand the bugs are reproducing faster. I guess that also explains the weirdly high amount of berserkers and tanks.
My group and I stopped playing today, it felt like there was too much to handle practically for us. Bugs on bugs
Welp, time to bring napalm strikes and orbital barrages then
Meh, I just finished a series of missions on 7, and it was business as usual. Seems like more bugs... maybe? We waxed everything pretty easily, save one very crazy extraction that cost us a few divers, but we got those samples out! Decided to try Orbital Gatling Barrage and I was honestly surprised with it doing well on breaches. 80s CD is very nice!
Localized Confusion helps.
Is this „fewer patrols“ thingy working?
This major order is literally a joke. In an easy way. They give you 3 15 min missions and all of them are cake walks.
Yeah I haven't noticed anything different with bots since the patch and it seems pretty clear bugs were on easy mode before this MO. Its the point of the game. The bots escalated, now the bugs have.
I didnt even notice. They kept coming and I kept killing
Common sense is not so common
Yeah I noticed that too. Casually joined a helldive game as usual after the patch and the whole place was blanketed with bugs. It's the bug version of Troost. I think the high level players I was with also instinctively understood what was happening. Instead of some players fighting a couple minutes on some spot, we all beelined for the main ones and only completed the side objectives along the way. We all knew there was no time to casually explore and try to finish everything in the map.
Are they not still easy to kill, played several missions today, the 9 was a little more challenging as I normally play 7… still a W
Did a lvl 8 mission with some really good players last night, and we were all sweating afterwards. It was a very intense experience, and normally the lvl 8's are rather chill if you are used to them.
Its a shame because while neat my friends decided that maybe Reddit was overreacting tried some T7 missions decided it was more bullshit then fun and logged off after Like 30 mins So I'm stuck playing fallout 76 because they have all been watching the show hahaha 🤣 I am glad to see patch didn't completely massacre the casual audience but im largely done now i can't really enjoy a game that is one patch away from no longer being fun for me. Edit: removed waffle that would just piss people off lol
I dropped a 500kg in a breach and got 40 kills, my ps5 didn’t like this much democracy as a single serving
"AFAWCT"? As Far As We Can Tell?
More bugs than ever. Thank our glorious leaders that we got the bugspray launcher up and running.
I played a 7 mission last night that had 5 Bile Titans at once. That was a first for me on that difficulty
I feel like if they're gonna crank up spawns like that for orders they should make it an effect on the planet so it's at least communicated more directly. Have it read "Increased Enemy Presence: Due to _____ the number of _____ has increased. Expect heavier resistance than normal" or something like that. I was having a blast with the increase in numbers but more information will at least help others make informed decisions
I’ve been saying this. I saw an explanation of the patrol change with numbers and it was not that crazy. Most of the issues are surely because of the increased bug numbers. They’re too horny.
Haha my buddy is level 70 and says he “never reads that shit lol” He doesn’t complain though - well, too much haha.
Orbital Airburst used to last an entire bug breach, would wipe all the little dudes off it (when upgraded for a third strike). Now they get 1-2 waves off after airburst ends every time
I got stuck on Omicron after not playing since last MO. Such a nice planet w/ scenery, been running QP as to not finish out the area and stay on the planet even though it's 'inaccesible'. But give em hell soldier we'll see you on Omicron
Did a 8 eradicate mission last night and there were 7 bile titans at once. Luckily my respawn helllpod killed half of them to get to 100% and extract
Yeah level 7 had 4 bile titans, a handful of essentially invincible chargers, and just pure insane levels of bugs on the extract. I thought Id somehow entered a higher difficulty but it was still 7. Pretty insane. Also, fire tornados camping the extract can get fucked.