I didn’t mind the bug spawns that could happen on the drill. It’s different and a unique challenge. Plus the flamethrower worked very well for it.
@herosupport16064 сағат бұрын
well the current build suggests that the game balance has been antagonistic to the players, they fix the cross platform bug that made the railgun op but fail to revert it back to its original state after the fix. then they nerf weapons like the arc thrower and buff the hulk with stager resistance making the changes invalid. then they buff the scout striders explosive resistance making arrowhead liars and false advertisers with the polar patriates warbond the purifier cannot one shot the scout striders. they also buffed the strafing speed of the flying bots has if they were not already enough of a pain to deal with. also all the liberators have the same lower receiver same barrel caliber but don't use the same 45 round magazine when AH claims to care about realism. and then there is the two submachine guns that make the liberators obsolete. I'm not a fan of them gutting the Eruptor. I like your point on the devs not playing at the highest difficulty and that they should find people who do play it to help them.
@JebblesJunior3 сағат бұрын
The only one I've got real issue with is the strider change because jesus fuck who thought that was a good plan. Otherwise, I feel those nerfs were vastly outnumbered with buffs. The railgun is finding its place again, hulks aren't supposed to get stun locked, the purifier makes me depressed so point again there. Gunship strafe went up, but their numbers went down overall, liberators seem to vary between themselves to feel "unique" but I don't see much difference between any.
@xMikeDezzyx4215 сағат бұрын
Finally someone who actually understands it. I feel like the shotguns are ruining the game because they're instant gratification weapons. Most people who main shotguns with guard dogs are not good once you take those crutches away.
@GGBlaster5 сағат бұрын
Part of me wonders if a firing range for player weapon testing would be a good addition to the game. It won’t always be as informative as stress testing on a mission, no, but it can provide useful information about how it feels to use certain weapons or to fight certain enemy units.
@JebblesJunior4 сағат бұрын
I've mentioned that before, maybe I drop some more attention towards it in future.
@rdubayoo5 сағат бұрын
For all the complaining about the railgun, I've found that it's the easiest weapon to headshot a Hulk with. It also destroys Striders and Devastators with ease.
@jalontf25 сағат бұрын
Slightly off-topic, but sort of on-topic question We know bot accuracy gets negatively affected by suppressing fire. Does the fire of sentries count towards that? Cuz if so I feel there's a meta to be had there
@JebblesJunior4 сағат бұрын
I'm not entirely positive. I think most turrets effective against bots will either kill all targets, or lock into a dev shield and burn all ammo if it's small arms fire.
@therandomcommenter66296 сағат бұрын
My biggest problem is that people's complaints about weapons not being "good" are skewed because people have miscategorized helldivers as some form of power fantasy now obviously yeah "spreading managed democracy fighting bugs and Bots in glorious battle for humanity" seems like a Power fantasy setting but it is not the whole idea of the game is that you are that stormtrooper the insignificant grunt fighting for the evil empire that instantly gets domed by either the hero or "good guy" soldiers you are not the space marine you are the guardsmen people have been built up by decades of being the protagonist and when they shoot an enemy that enemy dies in one hit to every say at least 10 hits for their protagonist to die and that being the failure condition and they have to reset people have to learn in this game that dying is normal very *very* normal and you're probably thinking "what's this got to do with the weapons being shit" and my response is well everything far too many people are trying to hold a position by themselves with their "shit" weapon trying to fight off an endless horde as a one or two man army and are getting mad when they inevitably get overwhelmed and then when they die they see the death screen and they think "this is bullshit" because gaming has conditioned them that seeing the death screen is the failure condition so much of the community hate on the game would disappear if people could understand that their helldiver is not important and neither are the many other helldivers that reinforce they are a finite resource like ammo and grenades nothing more the only reason to keep them alive is because they haven't served their usefulness yet if you can clear the way for an objective by sacrificing yourself then that is succeeding which comes into the next part so many people don't understand what the actual win condition for a mission is everyone thinks if they didn't make it to extraction then they lost or that the game is bulshit that it "didn't let you" extracting exists for two things a flimsy 50 extra xp Per diver and samples nothing more as soon as the mission is completed and you unlock extraction you have won the mission you did it hooray everything pass that point doesn't matter the game is not about your four dudes going in getting the mission done getting all the samples and then making it to extraction it's about sending as many bodies as the budget allows as sacrificial pawns literal cannon fodder which is what they are described as in order to get the mission done if you're the last helldiver alive in the mission the only thing that matters is pushing that button to launch the ICBM or throwing that one grenade into the bug hole hell diving into the bug hole with the grenade and it is intended that way especially on the highest difficulties samples of all kinds are in fact meant to be locked behind skill in order to get permanent upgrades it is an optional thing for going above and beyond obviously that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to get them entirely but people treat optional bonus things you can get by extracting as if they are actually required which they are not but I'm getting off topic let me backtrack to my original point helldivers 2 is not a power fantasy it never has been and it never was all the way up to it's predecessor helldivers has always been a hard strategic four-player co-op team game people be bitching about level 9 helldive being too hard tell that to the helldivers 1 level 15 i mean heck there were sometimes in the original game where they would legitimately give your squad 99 reinforcements the weapons are not meant to clear entire sections of the map worth of enemies to make you feel like a badass it is meant to make you be able to kill enough that together as the four of you you can clear a path to the objective die multiple times while getting there do the objective and depending on how many lives you lost and or your skill level and teamwork maybe make it to extraction with a couple samples and let's go to teamwork helldivers is a co-op game you are not meant to be able to do it alone because of this all complaints from solo players while shouldn't be completely and utterly ignored the truth is that they are not important or relevant because while the game let's you do it it doesn't restrict you to not doing it it not meant to be done that way and that's not just me telling you to get gud it is simply the fact that co-op games are arrowheads entire thing so if you're playing single player in the multiplayer game you're not going to have a good time no matter what and this also comes into the teamwork aspect people say the balancing is off but a significant portion of people complaining are basing that on what they can do as a single player when that was never the intention for example bile Titans are heavily armoured right not when your buddy gets you to lead them into a position where they can blow off the bile Titans armor with an EAT or a recoilless rifle and then firing into the gooey inside it should only take around a mag or two to take the thing down no 500s required( and yes that sophisticated teamwork probably will require you to use your mic it's a co-op game stop trying to play single player) my final point on the balancing is that people are expecting a *fair fight* on hell dive and the other hardest difficulties which is just silly in my opinion whenever the balance is done it will be done on the medium normal difficulty and considering that there are currently 9 levels of difficulty that normal difficulty is either level 4 or level 5 let that sink in everything above that is overachieving
@epsilon13724 сағат бұрын
Bro with all due respect, PLEASE use punctuation
@therandomcommenter66294 сағат бұрын
@@epsilon1372 it's a fucking KZread comments section bro with all due respect get off my ass this is not a college essay the average comment looks something like this "ez gg no ree skibidi drizzler 🔥🔥🔥🗣️🗣️🗣️"
@ironbadger89856 сағат бұрын
I made this same balance argument when the rail gun nerf happened and thats the day I learned that there's a lot of cod players in HD2. The loadouts in this game are about sacrifice. You get some things and can do some things very well, but you don't get everything and you'll always have weaknesses.
@aggressivefox4546 сағат бұрын
If I have to hear someone say “why would you nerf weapons in a pve game” one more time I’m going to lose it. You nerf weapons, even in a pve game, so there is meaningful gameplay variety with meaningful gameplay challenges!
@IRMentat7 сағат бұрын
overall, the SLOG of playing should be optional not enforced on players via constant nerfs of popular items, ever-buffed enemies and idiots saying "it's supposed to be hard" when 3-4 enemy types have sub-second 1-taps/combo-kills/AoE-juggles/cross-map-stim-taxes that have ZERO counterplay (and near-zero visual/audio/environment warning) beyond "bring a p-shield and/or a 4-stack to trivialise the current issues through "immunity and orders of magnitude more firepower". This is NOT a "difficulty" enemy-formation issue, it's that since the railgun got nerfed months ago the devs have been steadily (and seemingly semi-accidentally) turning the gameplay of anyone not running in a 4-stack into an endless sequence of: "Patrol" (player-tracking pop-mobs that used to spawn UNDER your character) spawns in aggro range outside of the camera LoS (flanking) patrol calls breach-drop instantly, if not already on a cooldown form prior engagements/spotting combined units run at you while aim-botting many obnoxious abilities. player(s) forced to fight not surrounded (vs aim-bots that usually results in a rocket/MG-burst to the face, vs bugs that's wither a hunter-pack up the ass or spitter sneak-shoes closing from behind to melt you) you fight, reposition/rotate, gain a measure of control then a new patrol spawns in behind you add in a few "anchor" or stray enemies and that pattern can end up going on form 10-15 seconds into a drop to the next 40+ minutes and only intensified whenever anywhere near an objective and more so after the objectives and nests/factories on-map have been taken out and you are headed out.
@JebblesJunior6 сағат бұрын
There's more at hand than difficulty here, yes. However, most of the problems stated are a result of not knowing what you're doing. Apart from one shots that is, you'll get no argument from me that anything short of a tank should instant kill. Also, ragdolling saps the enjoyment out of life itself as well.
@SnackZaddy7 сағат бұрын
Auto cannon is the goat and I won't be convinced otherwise. Tricky to aim, has a reload gimmick, requires a backpack. And in return you get a gun with a big magazine, and enough firepower to obliterate huge waves of enemies.
@IRMentat7 сағат бұрын
next week is supposedly the next patch. it's going to make or break the direction of the game. we have been hit by too many enemy buffs with simultaneous fun/popular primary nerfs (they were not even over-performing weapons, just ones that were popular in a specific circumstance/sandbox-snapshot). IMO ALL nerfs should be rolled-back as a minimum. then also boost the buffs to the weapons that got pitty-points to their stats, ideally also universally reduce the recoil/handling negativity in most weapons, they are light squad weapons not 10 foot long solid bars of depleted uranium. Thats including that earlygame breaker nerf (railgun nerf has been rolled back already it's just SEVERELY underperforming against ATAT-sub-weapons, gunships and turrets/radiators, 45 seconds of dedicated non-stop weakpoint hits is way too much for a single unit), it was popular at mid levels for dealing with mid-level threats, 3 more in the mag's not going to suddenly make it more popular than the incen-breaker that can kill most of the trivial units with but a scratch. all anti-fun including planetary punitive-passives should be rolled back or made player-selected-mofifiers (for more income/challenge/kudos/progression-points), same for enemy spawn-rates, formation, drop/breach volume and weather/map-hporizon-visibility.
@JebblesJunior7 сағат бұрын
Rolling back all nerfs and buffing everything is certainly one of the takes of all time.
@IRMentat5 сағат бұрын
@@JebblesJunior every nerf has been in the aid of a sandbox or short-term bump in progression based popularity that no longer exists. the eruptor was hit but it was a 2-second refire weapon with the lowest DPS in the game, a slow projectile and real threat of self-delete. now it's also the lowest damage per ammo-load in the game (less even than the lib-pen/counter-sniper) xbow AoE size was bizzarely nerfed despite most people already thinking it to be sub-par (worst AoE-pen, low total ammo, low ammo per mag and then the devs also took away 1/3 of it's ammo and added worse handling), what was the point in nerfing it? slugger got butchered (lowered damage, removed object-break, removed stagger), then JAR got a +100 damage (later trimmed to 75) a week later, meanwhile the DMR are still functionally useless as JAR does the job they were meant to and better despite the slugger being nerfed to protect the DMR. . . no clue thy the purifier projectile isn't med-pen. breaker lost 3 ammo because of it's mid-progression usefulness, then devs buffed fire, buffed incen-breaker DD (keeping it's 26? in the mag) so alight graze kills things that a full-spread from the breaker could not. the entire liberator/AR line remain sub-par to the defender series, for the sake of a scope you have ~15% less total-damage available in the best direct matchup (tenderiser) AND more recoil. Taken into consideration, that's not many actual nerfs, but what was the reason for ANY of them given the current state of play? Every feature removal has just taken away a side-grade to become a sub-par variant of a type-leader defender (full-auto), JAR (DMR/semi-auto), puni-plas/scorcher(med-pen AoE, less efficiency, more reliability), incen-breaker (chaff crowd-clear, as 1/2 the shotguns have a PvP game CoF) weirdly by comparison the secondaries are almost perfectly balanced. in terms of support weapons, railgun's already been rolled back, ATAT/turret/gunships are just over-tuned against it. quaso-nerf i'd mind less ig they hadn't kept the 3 second charge-up (at least give us a second less to have to avoid getting ragdolled). by the numbers the GL is a primary weapon taking up a strat-slot. arcgun is a weird one, i don't know why it has literally unlimited ammo, i'd have made it run on an overheat system, bnut it barely staggers now, targets corpses 35M is too-low to deal with many enemy types and it's current RoF can best be described as "sluggish". HMG red-dot is STILL upside-down a month after release and 75 ammo is pitiful given it's only dealing 100 med 2 to the LMG's 80 med1. the LMG is mostly-OK i'd just add an extra magazine laser-pointer changes i honestly can't quantify, i just want it to get a red-dot and flash-hider (maybe 2+ seconds extra on the magazine timer) again, that's really not many nerfs and in terms of buffs spear's still worthless just give is a TOW system instead. RR could use a reload-buff (or for team-reloads to use your own backpack instead of having other people carry your ammo for you on their own backs which is outright dumb visually and thematically, MG teams in WW2 had the ammo on the back of everyone in the squad and any prolonged fight they would dump their tin of ammo next to the gun not into the pack of the support-gunner). "durable" damage in general is a farce, most weapons deal 10% vs durable so headshots are beyond a requirement in most cases.
@ConspiciousCultist7 сағат бұрын
Seeing you purposely bait that cannon turret to destroy the detector tower was pretty funny. Honestly, I hate PvP games because I quickly become a metaslave because I hate getting my butt kicked with impunity. I can obsess over the meta to the point that I just simply do not find the game fun anymore and I'm down to 1-3 options. Other games, like WoW, had their magic stripped out by high end players reducing it to the end-game for me. I like Helldivers 2 because it's forgiving unless I'm determined to become an eruptor main. All the stratagems have their place (although smoke is a meme) and I don't really have strong feelings about my teammate's loadouts because them simply being there is already a bigger boon than rambo'ing through the bots and bugs alone. Balance talks make me a little nervous because the high end players, with a few exceptions, can be spreadsheet snivveling hypernerds that will optimize the fun out of a game given a chance. On the other end developers probably aren't playing their own game after work after spending 8+ hours, 5-7 days a week, and a few sleepless nights on it and can be a little out of touch with the playerbase as a result. The only egregious area imo is the primaries and they all can feel really samey. I'm truly only down to a few options at the end of the day: JAR-5 Dominator (my beloved), AP round liberator, sniper rifle, or streetsweeper shotgun. That said, I do not see why they wouldn't improve on this and they already demonstrated they're taking it way slower with the updates.
@JebblesJunior7 сағат бұрын
The god forsaken thing refused to shoot me. I was irritated. I think something we'll be able to parse out as this game continues will be who wants best for it, or who wants best for themselves.
@epsilon13727 сағат бұрын
thanks. its so hard to go onto reddit for fun discussions when people tale extremes for either side. im glad you, despite being a small youtuber, have a really healthy, thought-out, and balanced take. thanks man
@ClaraCleary20058 сағат бұрын
As someone who would regularly take the pre buff Scythe and full stock loadout into solo helldives for fun, with way too much time on my hands I would gladly help arrowhead if they ever wanted to try your balancing suggestion.
@cyberretard21929 сағат бұрын
My biggest disapointment on Arrowhead's balancing was the Eruptor. Pre buff it was the goat, many people used it on bugs for its splash damage. Yet I primarily used ot against bots. It could eliminate groups of small enemies in a couple of shots, it was accurate enough to easily target the armoured enemies and best of all - it could (still can) destroy nests and factories, which is an extremely useful feature. People complained about dying too much from their own "shrapnel" while shooting the enemies up close. Which, I mean, no bs, Sherlock, explosives is not the best option for CQB, and they were using it against the wrong kind of enemies anyway. But still, even while I was using this gun up close I only died because of the explosion radius point-blank, not a single time from shrapnell. But developers listened, turning one of the most underutilized guns in the game into an unusable trash. I really miss the old eruptor...
@GuardianTactician9 сағат бұрын
I play with randoms fairly often. Most people are around my skill level. We know what kind of gun to use to take down anything in 1-2 shots, but not everyone has that type of weapon because someone had to choose the exterminator role to kill hordes of weaker enemies. Then there are the casual players who know enough to point their gun at the enemy and pull the trigger. They'll waste magazine after magazine shooting heavy armor targets. I watched them mag dumping liberator rounds into the body armor of a regular devastator. Then one of them gets the brilliant idea to try doing a grenade jump into the nuclear missile silo, killing himself and two squadmates when we have zero reinforcements left. I survived, because I dove out of there. The game should be fun for these people too.
@j.l.64159 сағат бұрын
If bots had 'veternecy' like the halo wars star system it would be more engaging. Stars over their heads and the more stars the more accurate they are. Compared to being headshot mutliple times in a row by a hulk or heavy deva or even an MG trooper.
@sekkuar10 сағат бұрын
Damn you're pretty good with the AMR I can never hit the Hulk's eye with it. (But I have no problem with the AC for some reason)
@JebblesJunior9 сағат бұрын
It's got a terrible reticle, so that's understandable.
@Vadim_Ibragimov10 сағат бұрын
I'm mostly ok with current balance. The only things that I would buff are erupror, slugger, crossbow and this plasma gun from the new warbond. However, I would also nerf the incendiary breaker. Just a little bit. Because now this gun is op as fuck and requires absolutely no skill
@josephwilson627210 сағат бұрын
Thank you. Amazing take.
@The_fastfreddy11 сағат бұрын
I'm kinda curious about what you'd have to say about enemy balancing now, and also how it compares to player balancing
@nicholasgulla466611 сағат бұрын
They announced the next patch would be sometime next week on their discord. Hopefully it’s a good one
@HarryVoyager11 сағат бұрын
7:58 Why hello Heavy Machine Gun. Fancy meeting you here...
@ObliviousNaga11 сағат бұрын
This game has so many moving parts that balance is not as simple as "make number bigger". Every enemy faction and enemy type has their own unique attributes. Every weapon behaves against those enemies differently to an extent and usually fulfills a role. Do those roles fall away when the enemy theyre meant for show up less on higher difficulties. Should those enemies show up on higher difficulties. Idk man. I dont envy the devs of this game.
@borun100011 сағат бұрын
Good video, i liked your kind approach to teach what balance is. A fair thought though, if the devs didnt nerf and only buff (Non Meta) / or nerf the enemys with desperatly needed weakspots - which happend with the charger for example. Wouldnt we have this discussion now - that balancing was done wrong in the first time by nerfing and not adding weakspots? Example: the BTs weakspot should be the mouth, but i heard it was changed while spitting which makes it quite inpossible to hit it for me. If outrunning isnt a option and to make it spit isnt either, what to do there? Just inconsistent 500kgs that somehow only kill consistent at direct impact now? Or those darn spitters that are impossible to hear neither possible to outrun, all this enemy buff did was me doing 360 checks every some seconds in a fight to throw my impacts to just deal with it. Wasnt there was more harm than adding skill to headshot em? Btw their speed is way too high with that thickk ass they have.
@JebblesJunior8 сағат бұрын
The hitbox isn't changed, it's worse, it rescinds into the body when it tilts back.
@somepeople335511 сағат бұрын
I love this thank you. I stopped subbing/listening to Helldivers creators because everyone is crying right now. I love this game and just want to listen to other people that do too. Balance does feel like an issue but it’s hard to want to engage with a community that feels primarily negative…
@westwind42911 сағат бұрын
I used to be a game dev specializing in balance. (Very different genre, turn-based RPG instead of skill-based shooter, but many principles still apply.) This is a great, level-headed take, and right on pretty much every count. To me the biggest problem is the lack of ways to effectively deal with heavy armor, basically requiring a ton of specialized antitank stratagems and support weapons from most members of the party, especially on the bugs. You called out the BTs and that's exactly right, though it's not just their armor, but the _quantity_ of them that spawn which demand your attention with the insistence of a toddler who wants -- no, NEEDS -- to show you what they pulled out of their nose. If they spawned like factory striders, it'd be much more manageable.
@JebblesJunior9 сағат бұрын
I have a feeling the nose reference was due to a prior experience.
@HarryVoyager11 сағат бұрын
I remember all of the Tribes mods from back in the day. The was one, I think it was called Ultra, or something like that? It basically made all of the armors fly forever, and all of the guns into hoses of death. It wasn't that it wasn't fun to play for a little while, but it wasn't fun to play for long, because, with everyone being eggshells wielding hammers, it really came down to who saw who first, then splat. It did not even really matter what weapon of armor you brought because everything went splat together. That experience stuck with me.
@declanpollock247511 сағат бұрын
finally, someone who doesn't pour gasoline onto the controversy fire.
@irfkaptan11 сағат бұрын
The game sucks more and more i play it. If this patch doesn’t make this awful meta loop and bug fest not the slightest better i uninstall it legitimately
@Malidictus12 сағат бұрын
On the flip side, I disagree with your central premise. You're conflating "challenge" with "satisfaction". There's no challenge in playing Viscera Cleanup Detail. There's no challenge in playing Car Mechanic Simulator. Hell, there's no challenge playing Warframe, given the sorry state of that game's balance. And yet those still manage to be fun. "Challenge" is not a prerequisite to compelling gameplay. It's simply a tool for modifying player behaviour. The reason for "challenging" content isn't so you can brag about your high score. It's to encourage you to use a broader range of your available tools, and interact with as much of the game's sum total of systems as is reasonable. The way Helldivers 2 does challenge isn't conducive to satisfaction. Quite the opposite - it's stifling. The game is made up almost entirely of gear checks. Choosing my loadout is effectively a checklist. I need something anti-tank, I need something anti-horde, I need something anti-medium, I need something explosive, etc. By the time I've ticked every box on the list, my build has already been chosen for me. I have maybe A Strategem slot to play around with, if that. Yes, it makes the game harder, but it also makes it dumber. Literally, it dumbs down what could have been skill expression into simply picking the "correct" tool. Exactly like Warframe. Balance is important. Challenge isn't.
@JebblesJunior7 сағат бұрын
Challenge is a key component in Helldivers, the issue is execution. Take the dark matter missions, figuring out how to do that pre-patch was insane, but satisfying once you were able to. The challenge adds to the feeling of reward. The problem is that they've allowed so much of the game to fall into a routine, which gets boring. They need to implement a way that the challenge isn't directly tied to enemy density. I see this being possible through a greater degree of mission variables. As for the necessary weapons, I've never really felt I NEEDED to bring something, but that's because as I said Helldive has gotten to a point of routine for me. It's a weird day if there's a loss regardless of weapon choice, but there's never any thinking required. It feels dry.
@IntrusiveThot42012 сағат бұрын
Never heard of you before but I'm really liking this! Notes as I listen along: 1) what guns would you consider "high skill ceiling" right now? I don't know if we really *have* any of those. I've done solo deathless full clear helldives with just about everything, and I have one or two heretical takes (purifier only needs small buffs to be excellent and it's already relatively functional), but none of the guns really feel "hard" to get the most out of. Besides Diligence Countersniper in pressure situations where it's either "headshot these 6 devastators RIGHT NOW or get chain staggered". That's a high skill ceiling situation lmao. 2) YES. ENEMY ISSUES. YES. STOP PIGEONHOLING US INTO AP6 ROCKET LAUNCHERS ARROWHEAD THANK YOU I LOVE YOU. (bots have this issue WAYYYY less than bugs) 3) "some people who only care about punching down on the game for clicks" *stares directly into OhDough's soul* Great video! subbed
@JebblesJunior8 сағат бұрын
As of right now the only one that comes to mind is the counter sniper in regard to semi-higher skill paired with a decent enough payoff for that skill. If they implemented changes to where the railgun would do next to no general damage but obliterate weak points that exist on all enemies.
@aggressivefox4546 сағат бұрын
I feel like the arc weapons have a learning curve to them. You need to learn what situations create a “misfire” where the weapon doesn’t actually shoot a shot (like when you have a dead body in the way, you’re standing too close to a plant, or you are too close behind cover). Also avoiding friendly fire can be pretty tough with arc weapons. Also I think the flamethrower can take some skill. Positioning is crucial, especially when hunters are involved. Hunters die quite quickly in the fire but they almost always try to flank you so you have to pre fire where you think they will jump or have a strong enough position where you can cover all paths they can get through. Plus killing chargers and bile titans with the flamethrower can be quite risky, but can be done really efficiently with practice. Side note: I watched an OkDough video a bit ago and the sheer ragebait that goes on in that channel is annoying.
@Malidictus12 сағат бұрын
"Nothing is necessarily dominant" is a good way of putting it, yes. People often phrase this as "everything is good" or "everything is viable", etc. Having weapons, abilities, tools, etc. that some people don't like isn't bad. Players feeling like they HAVE to use specific tools that they don't like, on the other hand, is.
@Darkwater188612 сағат бұрын
Learned how to use Eruptor well. NERFED
@Themightyfrogg10 сағат бұрын
People need to start recognizing nerfs for what they are. Incompetence, Laziness, and Uncreative
@JebblesJunior8 сағат бұрын
That one was born out of an absolute failure deciding breakpoints.
@Darkwater18868 сағат бұрын
@@JebblesJunior it think they were just upset we learned how to use the shrapnel to well AND the ricochets update made team killing WAY to easy.
@JebblesJunior6 сағат бұрын
@@Darkwater1886 They took shrapnel away due to team killing without understanding the impact it had upon the breakpoints of the weapon.
@NthnLikeCodeine12 сағат бұрын
Love this game but some things just make no sense: Why does an autocannon round bounce off a hulk? Why does it seem to do the same amount of damage as an hmg or amr when it is a backpack only weapon? Why are Bile Titan crit spots so dam unreliable and why does shooting a rocket down its throat while it’s spewing do less damage than normal?why does it take so many shots to take down a gunship with an hmg as opposed to other weapons supposedly of “similar caliber”? Etc..
@JebblesJunior7 сағат бұрын
AC rounds bounce off the body, but destroy the heat pack, arms, and legs better than any weapon. Similar armor penetration doesn't mean similar damage upon breaking that threshold.
@YLR22212 сағат бұрын
Balancing the weapons/strategems around bugs is never going to work well. So I hope they just give most weapons a temporary buff in this next patch, just so it's less frustrating to deal with some of the bullshit enemies (bile titans, devastators, etc). Then they can take their sweet time to resolve these issues and do the fine tuning of the weapons afterwards. I mean just imagine a BT with a med pen weakpoint in its joints, you could disable a leg with your primary weapon, slow the mf down and suddenly its much easier and consistent to hit it with a 500kg to finish it off.
@JebblesJunior7 сағат бұрын
I think more open communication would help as well. They could make better announcements.
@Mr_ViPR13 сағат бұрын
I really like the idea of adding more viable weak points on powerful enemies. Also I personally feel the devs needs to be a bit more aware of breakpoints and how they affect game feel. 5 extra damage doesn’t seem like a lot, but if it can push a weapon from a 4 shot kill to a 3 shot then it becomes significantly more impactful and makes it feel like a substantial difference. Conversely an extra bit of damage that doesn’t save me any shots anywhere noticeable feels bad. This is particularly important on slow powerful weapons like the crossbow where ammo is scarce and each shot is precious.
@Brokentwobutton9 сағат бұрын
The most terrible thing about titans is that we can't even slow them down. Making rear or middle(do they have 6 legs?) legs destroyable to slow them and bring their thorax into closer range, while also exposing their backs to some extent, would make fighting them a lot more fun. If I'm fighting one from the rear, I try to destroy the bile sac and drop a rocket pod, but from their sides, having any impact besides a stratagem feels impossible. A good side/rear target to slow movement would be great for helping your team and feeling shared accomplishment.
@josephburchanowski46367 сағат бұрын
Thing is that there are a lot of enemies with a lot of different body parts with a lot of breakpoints, and also damage fall off which means certain breakpoints only change at certain ranges. The Diligence Counter sniper when it was at 128 damage could already one headshot devastators. But at range that dropped to a 2 shot. The increase to 140 damage allowed it to headshot from much further ranges. "This is particularly important on slow powerful weapons like the crossbow where ammo is scarce and each shot is precious." Crossbow has a lot of problems. I don't know why they said they were changing the role to be better against medium threats, when all of its stats seem to imply you shouldn't be using it against medium threats. It's splash damage is pen 2; meaning most medium enemies take half damage from it (note that the scorcher splash is pen 3). And while its direct damage is 270 at pen 3; it only has 50 durable damage (doesn't matter much on some threats, matters for body of brood commanders, spewers, devastator chests, and factor strider miniguns).
@gouhgog013 сағат бұрын
According to the official discord, the balance patch should drop on the second week of june (next week), I really hope it will make things better I love this game and I want it to get out of this "low" phase. Also an interesting thing about balance : the end users are the better at finding flaws than the developpers, however the devs are better at finding solutions to these flaws than the users
@joea1213 сағат бұрын
My biggest issues with balance are: 1. When certain gear feels mandatory all the time at high levels (e.g. the 500kg on Terminid helldives), and 2. when certain items don't even have a niche and are useless based on current balance (e.g. the orbital ems strike). I'm fine with certain weapons or strategems being a stepping stone for players still leveling up (such as the machine gun sentry which is totally obsolete once the player unlocks the gatling sentry). But why ever take the orbital ems strike when stun grenades can be unlocked fairly quickly (2nd page of the Cutting Edge Warbond), they both stun the same enemies and the stun grenades can be spammed and are not on a cooldown? Also, excuse me for believing that I should reasonably expect a Bile Titan to be briefly stunned by an electromagnetic blast fired from an ORBITAL SUPER DESTROYER.
@GnarledStaff11 сағат бұрын
I feel like I need to take the autocannon because few other weapons can handle medium enemies from the distances I engage them at. Its also nearly as effective as antitank which makes it more effective because antitank weapons other than quasar have no ammo. Autocannon is not the optimal weapon… but its a better generalist. It does better than most options in most scenarios other than “horde of light enemies”… and hordes have light and medium enemies so its still more effective most of the time because “horde of lights” doesnt happen as much in higher difficulties. And an eagle airstrike is often the right tool for when it does. This is my kit. If I want to change it significantly , I’ll have to drop down several difficulty levels and slowly assemble a new way of playing. I don’t feel like I have versatility in the options available to me because there are only 1-2 clear options for each role that I need. I know other people use other kits but I would have to relearn the game if I did so… which is why so many people get upset when the weapons they use get nerfed out of the role they used them in. Those nerfs mean people have to restart the game from a lower difficulty because the mix of heavy and medium enemies is extremely punishing if you cannot counter them.
@GnarledStaff11 сағат бұрын
To rephrase: every match I bring autocannon, eagle airstrike, orbital Laser and EAT. Whenever I switch any of these up I feel I am missing vital functionality. (I can switch laser for railcannon though). Its not that I can’t play without any of these stratagems, its that I do not have a lot of options to switch up these roles. The AC lets me take out medium enemies easier from short to long range, and is a good backup for bots but vital if we get a bile spewer mission. I could use the AMR but its not as effective at short ranges which is where bugs spawn. Grenade launcher doesnt work at long ranges, etc. Eagle is used for groups. I could swap it out I guess but the quick refresh time makes it reliable. I also use other on buildings and bugholes so it always has utility. Orbital laser can kill heavies, or deal with large, powerful groups and it is an ass-saver when the squad is overwhelmed. I can take orbital railcannon if I just need to kill heavies but then I only uave the eagle to deal with large groups, and that only works when they are clumped. EATs are for dropships and chargers. Sometimes bile titans. I can go without them but whenever I do I regret it because theres no teammate to take out the heavies.
@Brokentwobutton9 сағат бұрын
I think there's more variance than that, but that's how I feel. I honestly like precision orbital and rocket pods more than 500/rail cannon. I like pretty much all of the high use eagles and short cooldown orbitals, but smoke and EMS really do lack at their intended uses. There's at least 6-8 great primaries. The secondaries all feel like upgrades in different areas. Senator feels good everywhere if you aren't already running something like Jar/Scorcher. Give different stuff a shot with strategems. I know it's hard to not take Airstrike, but laser, rail cannon, 500, and EAT aren't requirements. They fill gaps. If you run Recoilless, Queso, or Spear, try taking Gas, Clusterbomb, Strafing Run, Napalm. Bug's big weak spot is getting gas and fire dropped on their breaches.
@Brokentwobutton9 сағат бұрын
@@GnarledStaff@GnarledStaff orbital laser pays for it's ease of use with it's limited uses, huge cooldown, and time to kill. I know it's a great reset button sometimes, but you can learn skill shots and have so much more up time with instant-kill and DoT strats. Rocket Pods is basically 1.5x the power of Rail Cannon and also deals with tanks/towers. A lot of people sleep on rly powerful strats bc they have to be timed/aimed, but the enemies are easy to manipulate into predictable behavior. Likewise, I think you might be surprised at how much difference there is playing with an HMG, Flamethrower, AMR, Railgun, or Las-98 when you can confidently drop 1-2 biles a minute with strats. Those weapons absolutely own mid sized and small units, including hulks, gunships, chargers, and spewers. HMG with pods, rail cannon, and air strike or prec orbital is one of my favorites vs bots. Just take Fortitude and lower the fire rate at range. Max it up close to melt legs off everything, but fabs. Laser is great, but I think more than 1-2/team lowers team power on full length missions, where a lot of ppl think it is OP/mandatory. Autocannon is definitely the best generalist support weapon. There are a lot of really good generalist support weapons, if you can reliably drop titans with strats and EATs. 1-2 people with laser, and 1-2 with EATs is awesome. I've just personally found, that team variety makes the game more fun. It just takes learning those kill methods that make various builds work.
@JebblesJunior6 сағат бұрын
I feel like this grazes something I mentioned in the video. That being the feeling of necessity towards certain stratagems like the 500 due to enemy type. If bile titans weren't so janked you likely wouldn't feel the "need" for those 500s. As for the rest I think it's a matter of framing. It takes a minute for most people to get 1k credits for a warbond. Also, I'm surprised you didn't see it the other way around. The machine gun is useless compared to the gatling wholesale. With the EMS strike at least you get to have other grenades.
@MrBlbll13 сағат бұрын
Tried the autocannon exosuit in a blitz bug difficulty 4, got stalkers and spewers, quite good vacation would recommend
@atlaslee868113 сағат бұрын
Thoughtful/insightful take as usual. I’m hoping for balanced enemies and stronger firepower in the future. BUT If we get illuminate with some full energy shield or F U heavy armor all around, I can guarantee that other KZread people will be crying and complaining. I’m looking to you JJ for the first take on how to quit b!tching and get to spilling squid ink. Railgun nerfs , terrible AMR sights; you never stop dropping real knowledge. The streets of Super Earth need you!
@damianfleece6913 сағат бұрын
my main problem with the game right now is the patrols they "fixed". I do wish they would get some of the weapons i used to love squared away again... crossbow i'm looking at you. however, i got so angry on my stream Friday night because i was getting a patrol like every minute and someone in my chat was saying even more than that. to me that is what needs to be fixed. i don't always have the opportunity to play with others in the game and i solo it, they have made that very hard to do. i agree with all your points here, good video as usual brother.
@JebblesJunior13 сағат бұрын
They really need to knock out that patrol bug because it's downright painful for some solos.
@damianfleece6913 сағат бұрын
@@JebblesJunior yes sir. i was beside myself. couldn't even extract. don't get me wrong, i love this game but they do need to fix some of the things that they have "fixed" already, lol.
@IRMentat5 сағат бұрын
@@JebblesJunior ideally we need player/host/leader controls over spawn rates/volumes, weather/visibility and enemy variety/formations (hunters/brood/spitters or walk-jump/devastators/zerkers). the map "difficulty" has less of an impact on the actual challenge provided now than the arbitrary numbers the devs keep messing with/up in terms of spawn rates/distances/volume/positions. hell i play on suicidal as a break from the swarms of hunters i have to slog through on medium//challenging. or run in a 4-stack to switch my brain off and face-roll some maps (depending on the RNG of PuG players that is)
@ursulcx29913 сағат бұрын
I'm feeling a bit of joy seeing a skilled player show off what can be done with my favourite build if you master it. I've ran pretty much the same loadout you showcase here and got some ok result for a lil casual and seeing what could be is motivating.
@tomyorke341213 сағат бұрын
More then a few youtubers who play this seem to have the idea just because its a PVE game every weapon should be crazy in power and if you dont believe that your "Smoked beyond belief" As they put it. The amount of child like moans about the rail gun and so on. I am very glad you seem to understand balance go's both ways even in a PVE game.
@IRMentat6 сағат бұрын
railgun nerfs were rolled back btw, it's as strong or stronger now than it was in that "minor patch" that nerfed it and tripled the breach/drop enemy numbers. issue now is that it's somehow "weaker" than med-pen weapons against the enemies that were introduced since it's initial nerf as those enemies were artificially over-tuned to meet a "balance requirement" that no longer exists in the game given even as they were applied. a direct comparison. AMR/AC/laser-pointer/railgun are broadly analogous, let6s compare a few TTK, 1-4 shot devastators, same for walkers, brood, spitters, hunters, hulks, mg-nests and commanders. So far so side-grade, benefits and detriments to all. Now. "Oh look a gunship" first 3 can merc it in 3-4 seconds and a few engine hits railgun takes 45+ seconds (8+ consecutive weakpoint shots with ZERO downtime) for that same kill, for an unlimited-spawn enemy that spawns out of a "destructible via hellbomb-only" building (and those gunships shoot out hellbombs and rocket-spam helldivers) same for turrets/radiators (not to mention AA/mortar sub-objectives) a few hits vs almost a minute of sustained fire to the weakpoints. same for the ATAT sub-weapons. Railgun is basically a no-go for actually killing the ATAT (it takes almost 2 minutes while AMR/AC/laser can mag-dump it in ~15 seconds) charger it's finally got an advantage (the heavy-pen pays off, the rest have to pop the balloon on the rear-end), yay. titan. . . . . arguments can be made for the railgun/ac, kinda. They can technically kill them, eventually. then you have object-/factory/hole destruction and the AC takes that particular crown, AMR has the scope/no-pack, laser-pointer has the hitscan n heat-ammo-value, railgun has a potential explosion next to your head for a weapon that's providing similar performance 3/4 the time with 1/3 the ammo-load. as mentioned in the video, it's not a railgun issue, (especially now), it's that the environment in which it's now operating under (the one that most peoples play 4-7 of 9) is one in which it's got 3-4 scenarios where it's functionally "unusable" despite it's direct competition having very fair requrements for a quick-kill and seemingly there's zero reason for that to be the case.
@GutsEnjoyer13 сағат бұрын
how the hell did youtube tag this as an overwatch video
@JebblesJunior13 сағат бұрын
I said the magic word once apparently.
@Observer2983013 сағат бұрын
I once met an interesting take on balance, postulating that the issue in HD2 is not in individual guns, but on a conceptual level of Optimal versus Non-Optimal Time to Kill enemies. In most shooters, the difference between the two is not significant, taking a headshot to kill an enemy (Optimal) vs. 2-3 torso shots (Non-Optimal) to do the same. In HD2 the difference is colossal when it comes to fighting anything that is not the basic enemy, when it comes to Bots. It takes 3 shots to the face to kill an average devastator with a Liberator Penetrator, whereas shooting them in the body will take an entire clip to kill one. At this point, Optimal Killing becomes mandatory, which automatically hurts most guns - since most guns are capable of killing stuff efficiently ONLY if shooting the face. And the reason why current 'Meta Guns' are those who defy this trend. Weapons like punisher plasma, scorcher, jar-5 and the like are so popular because you don't need to hit weakspots with them and still kill armored enemies in a reasonable timeframe. So unless they do massive changes to how Durable Damage works, and make most guns rewarding when not just shooting tiny faces, it wouldn't matter how many bullets a primary weapon has in the mag, or how much damage it deals per shot, since it will still take forever to kill a meaningful enemy when not shooting directly at a weakspot.
@JebblesJunior13 сағат бұрын
I think in this regard I'm quite biased because of my inclination towards precision. Coming from game like wildlands, I consider headshots to be the standard way of taking out enemies. So, I admit, my biases in regard to preferring weak points as opposed to accuracy by volume definitely sways my outlook upon balance.
@GnarledStaff11 сағат бұрын
This is a great comment. It explains why the basic automatic weapons feel bad as well as why I don’t enjoy bugs. Automatic weapons feel bad because their purpose is to hit suboptimal locations. A burst of automatic fire (from a primary weapon) at an enemies torso is basically worthless outside of the weakest of enemies which means they are designed to not be effective for the purpose they are used for. Durability damage feels backwards. I think if they gave light pen weapons extra damage, that would help. I’m thinking light penetration should act like hollow points and antipersonnel ammo, ripping up bug abdomens- which means big abdomens should be treated as soft spots, not building material. It may also help if weapons did a little bit of damage above their armor piercing level. Because light pen weapons doing literally nothing to medium enemies just feels bad. In higher difficulties where medium enemies are a significant part of the horde rather than scattered in like minibosses, weapons that cannot deal with both feel really bad to use. I find myself using the slugger because time to kill for each enemy is a reasonable 1-4 shots (guestimate), or the diligence for bots because time to kill can be 1-2 shot to the head if I am aiming well that day. But slowly taking out each limb doesnt even register as an option against bots because the time to kill is way higher than switching to single shot and trying to hit them in the head a few times. Or at least, thats what my brain tells me. Actual time to kill may be less, but involves reloading once or twice which feels longer and feels unsustainable. **Time to kill for a devastator with an effective weapon is less than time to destroy for a devastators limb with a less effective weapon** My issue with bugs is that I don’t have an obvious weak point for them. They might have weak points where I could kill them with a light pen weapon- but its not obvious enough for me to see it. Abdomens require what feels like most of a mag, and the medium enemies come in groups that spawn on the players so there is no way for 1 person to effectively handle a group with a light penetrating weapon. And there are not enough grenades and stratagems to handle the amount of groups that get thrown at us. In short, a machine gun is not a good weapon for the average player as it can’t handle groups of enemies past difficulty 4 or so.
@josephburchanowski46368 сағат бұрын
Durable damage isn't much of an issue outside of brood commanders and spewers, while it does exist on the Devastators chest, the fact that it is armor 3 and high health is a bigger factor (with a few exceptions). The Jar Dominator takes 5 shots to Devastator chest. (275x0.6 + 90x0.4)x0.5 = 100.5 vs the 425 hp of the chest. Even if the Jar Dominator only had a 10% durability damage, equivalent to the base ARs and marksmen rifles; it would still be 5 shots to the chest. (275x0.6 + 27x0.4)x0.5 = 87; 87x5 = 435. What makes the Jar Dominator so effective is its really high damage. The liberator pen actually has basically the same durability % as the Jar Dominator, but the Jar Dominator does more damage than 6 liberator pen bullets. This isn't much of a problem as you can adjust damage breakpoints such that the Jar Dominator wastes a lot of its extra damage against light targets. But even when wasting over half the damage, you still have more effective damage per mag with the Jar Dominator compared to the liberator pen. Lib pen can kill 10 devastators with headshots. Jar Dominator can kill 15 with headshots. Lib pen can (allegedly) kill 10 hunters with body shots, the Dominator can kill 15. The lib pen's magazine size is way too low for the damage it does. Specifically with devastators there is also the issue of multiple body parts close together with high health. The gut is the lowest health at 350, it is the best spot to target after the head (to improve automatics slightly they could reduce its hp by 60 or so if they wanted to). But below that we have 2 hips at 500 health, sandwiched between armor 2 pelvis and legs each at 500 hp. Basically 6 different hp pools all right next to each other. As long as you hit the same part, you can take it out with 2 shots with the Jar Dominator. But you'd need to hit the same part 12 times (8 for gut) with the liberator pen to take it out; hit a different part and you are just increasing the shots to kill. I don't see why they can't just fuse the hip, pelvis, and other hip into one part at the very least.
@SkoomaMaster12414 сағат бұрын
this is pretty much why i find bots a bit more fun to fight than bugs, because you have more meaningful albeit harder to hit weak points that can be dealt with using a wider variety of weapons, granted you have the aim (or stun grenades) to do so: laser cannon, HMG, AMR, railgun, etc which i would just not bother with against bugs because they won't deal with a single charger in a reasonable amount of time (when you're often being chased by at least half a dozen every minute). can you use make them work? yes, of course; can you do the exact same, and more, even better with less effort with a couple of very select stratagems? also yes
@JebblesJunior13 сағат бұрын
I always delineate bugs from bots by saying this. Would you prefer to win through volume of fire, or by precision? Nothing wrong with either choice, that's just a matter of preference.
@Arcterran14 сағат бұрын
My two cents on this discussion "Listening to community" Yes and no. From what i've seen, Players are generally good at high level feelings towards things but are usually kind of bad when it comes to low level solutions. The textbook example is the new Killer Instinct, Jago was an overpowered character, players chalked it up to a healing factor and several seemingy problematic moves in his kit and were ticked off about it. The devs took a look and found out the real problem was Jago had no bad matchups and found nerfing one potent midrange move was all it really took. Players were furious at first until a couple weeks later people were winning more games against Jago and found he was in a much better spot balance wise. Key lesson, Listen to em to identify pain points but verify on your own end and be ready to stand by a potentially controversial choice that's good for the game. Honestly with the exception of the railgun and eruptor nerfs, that seems to be the case with pretty much the rest of the nerfs when you sit down and see how they work today. I also need to stress that in any software, GAMES ESPECIALLY everything links into eachother and any change has potential unintended consequenses. see the Eruptor's recent shrapnel removal/AOE buff, that was intended to be a saftey buff but instead it mega nerfed it because the shrapnel gave more firepower than what the devs expected and the AoE buff was insufficient to cover the loss of shrapnel. In defense of the bile titan you can at least remove the breath weapon by shooting the stomach out, as the dedicated swarm clear I find myself often targeting that to make my AT brothers lives easier but yeah its still an awkward weak point target. (I agree with the gunship so much though!) Overall, I take the opinion that while balance isnt perfect, its better than the old days of "Railgun, backpack shield, breaker or else you get screwed/kicked" from launch and has been generally been heading in the right direction (The railgun nerf was premature only because of heavy spawn rates, no charger headshot kills, and nobody wanted to backpack load an RR, which i'm still of the opinion its underrated, but that's all corrected now, though personally I wish rails were better vs gunships and vents). I agree with your assessment of balance where every gun and strategem has its poace and reason to take over others. We arent there yet but we've come a long way since then. One last point, I think theres a disconnect between some players, the devs, and other players on what the game should be. Some see it as a power fantasy horde shooter, others see it as a hardcore near milsim experience, others treat it as an MMO endgame raid, and others see it as almost a party game. Theres truth in all of these, but I think one helpful discussion to have because how you view the game will alter your view of how things should be balanced. (My bias for the record is leaning towards the second one) /two cents on the matter
@guldcat161913 сағат бұрын
This is the best possible post relating to this topic. The customer is always right in matters of taste... But they're basically always wrong about everything else. "This feels bad" is extremely valuable player feedback. I don't need you to tell me why it feels bad: you don't know anything useful and, even if you did, you're only going to know it from your very narrow perspective. But the fact that you keep having a bad experience tells me that there is some kind of friction point and I should investigate. AHs problem is they don't investigate. They don't really have any idea why the game feels bad to play at times. I recall people complaining about, I think, assault rifles in a game being underpowered and feeling trash to play. The fix? They tweaked the sound design. Complaints disappeared. The gun suddenly felt good to play and felt effective. The only actual difference is that it sounded like a pea shooter before but now it sounds like an absolute beater.
@JebblesJunior13 сағат бұрын
I try to convey as often as I can when the topic is at hand, the games difficulties are supposed to be accurate. My big problem currently is there's no difficulty increase apart from piling on more enemies instead of encouraging problem solving.
@williamking33113 сағат бұрын
Okay, this comment is god-like! It basically says everything I've been saying about balancing in video games, FOR YEARS! I do agree that there is some kind of identity problem going on, I'm more inclined to like 2 and 3 over 1 and 4. But making it a little more casual can't hurt.
@Arcterran13 сағат бұрын
@@JebblesJunior In complete fairness there is (from light to medium to heavy enemies, to side objectives to operation modifiers, bigger and more complicated maps are all introduced at different levels) but it doesnt scale well into higher difficulties and isnt always implimented gracefully (Strategem scrambler anyone?)
@GnarledStaff11 сағат бұрын
It is a well known fact that users are great at identifying problem/pain points but absolutely terrible at identifying solutions.
Пікірлер
I didn’t mind the bug spawns that could happen on the drill. It’s different and a unique challenge. Plus the flamethrower worked very well for it.
well the current build suggests that the game balance has been antagonistic to the players, they fix the cross platform bug that made the railgun op but fail to revert it back to its original state after the fix. then they nerf weapons like the arc thrower and buff the hulk with stager resistance making the changes invalid. then they buff the scout striders explosive resistance making arrowhead liars and false advertisers with the polar patriates warbond the purifier cannot one shot the scout striders. they also buffed the strafing speed of the flying bots has if they were not already enough of a pain to deal with. also all the liberators have the same lower receiver same barrel caliber but don't use the same 45 round magazine when AH claims to care about realism. and then there is the two submachine guns that make the liberators obsolete. I'm not a fan of them gutting the Eruptor. I like your point on the devs not playing at the highest difficulty and that they should find people who do play it to help them.
The only one I've got real issue with is the strider change because jesus fuck who thought that was a good plan. Otherwise, I feel those nerfs were vastly outnumbered with buffs. The railgun is finding its place again, hulks aren't supposed to get stun locked, the purifier makes me depressed so point again there. Gunship strafe went up, but their numbers went down overall, liberators seem to vary between themselves to feel "unique" but I don't see much difference between any.
Finally someone who actually understands it. I feel like the shotguns are ruining the game because they're instant gratification weapons. Most people who main shotguns with guard dogs are not good once you take those crutches away.
Part of me wonders if a firing range for player weapon testing would be a good addition to the game. It won’t always be as informative as stress testing on a mission, no, but it can provide useful information about how it feels to use certain weapons or to fight certain enemy units.
I've mentioned that before, maybe I drop some more attention towards it in future.
For all the complaining about the railgun, I've found that it's the easiest weapon to headshot a Hulk with. It also destroys Striders and Devastators with ease.
Slightly off-topic, but sort of on-topic question We know bot accuracy gets negatively affected by suppressing fire. Does the fire of sentries count towards that? Cuz if so I feel there's a meta to be had there
I'm not entirely positive. I think most turrets effective against bots will either kill all targets, or lock into a dev shield and burn all ammo if it's small arms fire.
My biggest problem is that people's complaints about weapons not being "good" are skewed because people have miscategorized helldivers as some form of power fantasy now obviously yeah "spreading managed democracy fighting bugs and Bots in glorious battle for humanity" seems like a Power fantasy setting but it is not the whole idea of the game is that you are that stormtrooper the insignificant grunt fighting for the evil empire that instantly gets domed by either the hero or "good guy" soldiers you are not the space marine you are the guardsmen people have been built up by decades of being the protagonist and when they shoot an enemy that enemy dies in one hit to every say at least 10 hits for their protagonist to die and that being the failure condition and they have to reset people have to learn in this game that dying is normal very *very* normal and you're probably thinking "what's this got to do with the weapons being shit" and my response is well everything far too many people are trying to hold a position by themselves with their "shit" weapon trying to fight off an endless horde as a one or two man army and are getting mad when they inevitably get overwhelmed and then when they die they see the death screen and they think "this is bullshit" because gaming has conditioned them that seeing the death screen is the failure condition so much of the community hate on the game would disappear if people could understand that their helldiver is not important and neither are the many other helldivers that reinforce they are a finite resource like ammo and grenades nothing more the only reason to keep them alive is because they haven't served their usefulness yet if you can clear the way for an objective by sacrificing yourself then that is succeeding which comes into the next part so many people don't understand what the actual win condition for a mission is everyone thinks if they didn't make it to extraction then they lost or that the game is bulshit that it "didn't let you" extracting exists for two things a flimsy 50 extra xp Per diver and samples nothing more as soon as the mission is completed and you unlock extraction you have won the mission you did it hooray everything pass that point doesn't matter the game is not about your four dudes going in getting the mission done getting all the samples and then making it to extraction it's about sending as many bodies as the budget allows as sacrificial pawns literal cannon fodder which is what they are described as in order to get the mission done if you're the last helldiver alive in the mission the only thing that matters is pushing that button to launch the ICBM or throwing that one grenade into the bug hole hell diving into the bug hole with the grenade and it is intended that way especially on the highest difficulties samples of all kinds are in fact meant to be locked behind skill in order to get permanent upgrades it is an optional thing for going above and beyond obviously that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to get them entirely but people treat optional bonus things you can get by extracting as if they are actually required which they are not but I'm getting off topic let me backtrack to my original point helldivers 2 is not a power fantasy it never has been and it never was all the way up to it's predecessor helldivers has always been a hard strategic four-player co-op team game people be bitching about level 9 helldive being too hard tell that to the helldivers 1 level 15 i mean heck there were sometimes in the original game where they would legitimately give your squad 99 reinforcements the weapons are not meant to clear entire sections of the map worth of enemies to make you feel like a badass it is meant to make you be able to kill enough that together as the four of you you can clear a path to the objective die multiple times while getting there do the objective and depending on how many lives you lost and or your skill level and teamwork maybe make it to extraction with a couple samples and let's go to teamwork helldivers is a co-op game you are not meant to be able to do it alone because of this all complaints from solo players while shouldn't be completely and utterly ignored the truth is that they are not important or relevant because while the game let's you do it it doesn't restrict you to not doing it it not meant to be done that way and that's not just me telling you to get gud it is simply the fact that co-op games are arrowheads entire thing so if you're playing single player in the multiplayer game you're not going to have a good time no matter what and this also comes into the teamwork aspect people say the balancing is off but a significant portion of people complaining are basing that on what they can do as a single player when that was never the intention for example bile Titans are heavily armoured right not when your buddy gets you to lead them into a position where they can blow off the bile Titans armor with an EAT or a recoilless rifle and then firing into the gooey inside it should only take around a mag or two to take the thing down no 500s required( and yes that sophisticated teamwork probably will require you to use your mic it's a co-op game stop trying to play single player) my final point on the balancing is that people are expecting a *fair fight* on hell dive and the other hardest difficulties which is just silly in my opinion whenever the balance is done it will be done on the medium normal difficulty and considering that there are currently 9 levels of difficulty that normal difficulty is either level 4 or level 5 let that sink in everything above that is overachieving
Bro with all due respect, PLEASE use punctuation
@@epsilon1372 it's a fucking KZread comments section bro with all due respect get off my ass this is not a college essay the average comment looks something like this "ez gg no ree skibidi drizzler 🔥🔥🔥🗣️🗣️🗣️"
I made this same balance argument when the rail gun nerf happened and thats the day I learned that there's a lot of cod players in HD2. The loadouts in this game are about sacrifice. You get some things and can do some things very well, but you don't get everything and you'll always have weaknesses.
If I have to hear someone say “why would you nerf weapons in a pve game” one more time I’m going to lose it. You nerf weapons, even in a pve game, so there is meaningful gameplay variety with meaningful gameplay challenges!
overall, the SLOG of playing should be optional not enforced on players via constant nerfs of popular items, ever-buffed enemies and idiots saying "it's supposed to be hard" when 3-4 enemy types have sub-second 1-taps/combo-kills/AoE-juggles/cross-map-stim-taxes that have ZERO counterplay (and near-zero visual/audio/environment warning) beyond "bring a p-shield and/or a 4-stack to trivialise the current issues through "immunity and orders of magnitude more firepower". This is NOT a "difficulty" enemy-formation issue, it's that since the railgun got nerfed months ago the devs have been steadily (and seemingly semi-accidentally) turning the gameplay of anyone not running in a 4-stack into an endless sequence of: "Patrol" (player-tracking pop-mobs that used to spawn UNDER your character) spawns in aggro range outside of the camera LoS (flanking) patrol calls breach-drop instantly, if not already on a cooldown form prior engagements/spotting combined units run at you while aim-botting many obnoxious abilities. player(s) forced to fight not surrounded (vs aim-bots that usually results in a rocket/MG-burst to the face, vs bugs that's wither a hunter-pack up the ass or spitter sneak-shoes closing from behind to melt you) you fight, reposition/rotate, gain a measure of control then a new patrol spawns in behind you add in a few "anchor" or stray enemies and that pattern can end up going on form 10-15 seconds into a drop to the next 40+ minutes and only intensified whenever anywhere near an objective and more so after the objectives and nests/factories on-map have been taken out and you are headed out.
There's more at hand than difficulty here, yes. However, most of the problems stated are a result of not knowing what you're doing. Apart from one shots that is, you'll get no argument from me that anything short of a tank should instant kill. Also, ragdolling saps the enjoyment out of life itself as well.
Auto cannon is the goat and I won't be convinced otherwise. Tricky to aim, has a reload gimmick, requires a backpack. And in return you get a gun with a big magazine, and enough firepower to obliterate huge waves of enemies.
next week is supposedly the next patch. it's going to make or break the direction of the game. we have been hit by too many enemy buffs with simultaneous fun/popular primary nerfs (they were not even over-performing weapons, just ones that were popular in a specific circumstance/sandbox-snapshot). IMO ALL nerfs should be rolled-back as a minimum. then also boost the buffs to the weapons that got pitty-points to their stats, ideally also universally reduce the recoil/handling negativity in most weapons, they are light squad weapons not 10 foot long solid bars of depleted uranium. Thats including that earlygame breaker nerf (railgun nerf has been rolled back already it's just SEVERELY underperforming against ATAT-sub-weapons, gunships and turrets/radiators, 45 seconds of dedicated non-stop weakpoint hits is way too much for a single unit), it was popular at mid levels for dealing with mid-level threats, 3 more in the mag's not going to suddenly make it more popular than the incen-breaker that can kill most of the trivial units with but a scratch. all anti-fun including planetary punitive-passives should be rolled back or made player-selected-mofifiers (for more income/challenge/kudos/progression-points), same for enemy spawn-rates, formation, drop/breach volume and weather/map-hporizon-visibility.
Rolling back all nerfs and buffing everything is certainly one of the takes of all time.
@@JebblesJunior every nerf has been in the aid of a sandbox or short-term bump in progression based popularity that no longer exists. the eruptor was hit but it was a 2-second refire weapon with the lowest DPS in the game, a slow projectile and real threat of self-delete. now it's also the lowest damage per ammo-load in the game (less even than the lib-pen/counter-sniper) xbow AoE size was bizzarely nerfed despite most people already thinking it to be sub-par (worst AoE-pen, low total ammo, low ammo per mag and then the devs also took away 1/3 of it's ammo and added worse handling), what was the point in nerfing it? slugger got butchered (lowered damage, removed object-break, removed stagger), then JAR got a +100 damage (later trimmed to 75) a week later, meanwhile the DMR are still functionally useless as JAR does the job they were meant to and better despite the slugger being nerfed to protect the DMR. . . no clue thy the purifier projectile isn't med-pen. breaker lost 3 ammo because of it's mid-progression usefulness, then devs buffed fire, buffed incen-breaker DD (keeping it's 26? in the mag) so alight graze kills things that a full-spread from the breaker could not. the entire liberator/AR line remain sub-par to the defender series, for the sake of a scope you have ~15% less total-damage available in the best direct matchup (tenderiser) AND more recoil. Taken into consideration, that's not many actual nerfs, but what was the reason for ANY of them given the current state of play? Every feature removal has just taken away a side-grade to become a sub-par variant of a type-leader defender (full-auto), JAR (DMR/semi-auto), puni-plas/scorcher(med-pen AoE, less efficiency, more reliability), incen-breaker (chaff crowd-clear, as 1/2 the shotguns have a PvP game CoF) weirdly by comparison the secondaries are almost perfectly balanced. in terms of support weapons, railgun's already been rolled back, ATAT/turret/gunships are just over-tuned against it. quaso-nerf i'd mind less ig they hadn't kept the 3 second charge-up (at least give us a second less to have to avoid getting ragdolled). by the numbers the GL is a primary weapon taking up a strat-slot. arcgun is a weird one, i don't know why it has literally unlimited ammo, i'd have made it run on an overheat system, bnut it barely staggers now, targets corpses 35M is too-low to deal with many enemy types and it's current RoF can best be described as "sluggish". HMG red-dot is STILL upside-down a month after release and 75 ammo is pitiful given it's only dealing 100 med 2 to the LMG's 80 med1. the LMG is mostly-OK i'd just add an extra magazine laser-pointer changes i honestly can't quantify, i just want it to get a red-dot and flash-hider (maybe 2+ seconds extra on the magazine timer) again, that's really not many nerfs and in terms of buffs spear's still worthless just give is a TOW system instead. RR could use a reload-buff (or for team-reloads to use your own backpack instead of having other people carry your ammo for you on their own backs which is outright dumb visually and thematically, MG teams in WW2 had the ammo on the back of everyone in the squad and any prolonged fight they would dump their tin of ammo next to the gun not into the pack of the support-gunner). "durable" damage in general is a farce, most weapons deal 10% vs durable so headshots are beyond a requirement in most cases.
Seeing you purposely bait that cannon turret to destroy the detector tower was pretty funny. Honestly, I hate PvP games because I quickly become a metaslave because I hate getting my butt kicked with impunity. I can obsess over the meta to the point that I just simply do not find the game fun anymore and I'm down to 1-3 options. Other games, like WoW, had their magic stripped out by high end players reducing it to the end-game for me. I like Helldivers 2 because it's forgiving unless I'm determined to become an eruptor main. All the stratagems have their place (although smoke is a meme) and I don't really have strong feelings about my teammate's loadouts because them simply being there is already a bigger boon than rambo'ing through the bots and bugs alone. Balance talks make me a little nervous because the high end players, with a few exceptions, can be spreadsheet snivveling hypernerds that will optimize the fun out of a game given a chance. On the other end developers probably aren't playing their own game after work after spending 8+ hours, 5-7 days a week, and a few sleepless nights on it and can be a little out of touch with the playerbase as a result. The only egregious area imo is the primaries and they all can feel really samey. I'm truly only down to a few options at the end of the day: JAR-5 Dominator (my beloved), AP round liberator, sniper rifle, or streetsweeper shotgun. That said, I do not see why they wouldn't improve on this and they already demonstrated they're taking it way slower with the updates.
The god forsaken thing refused to shoot me. I was irritated. I think something we'll be able to parse out as this game continues will be who wants best for it, or who wants best for themselves.
thanks. its so hard to go onto reddit for fun discussions when people tale extremes for either side. im glad you, despite being a small youtuber, have a really healthy, thought-out, and balanced take. thanks man
As someone who would regularly take the pre buff Scythe and full stock loadout into solo helldives for fun, with way too much time on my hands I would gladly help arrowhead if they ever wanted to try your balancing suggestion.
My biggest disapointment on Arrowhead's balancing was the Eruptor. Pre buff it was the goat, many people used it on bugs for its splash damage. Yet I primarily used ot against bots. It could eliminate groups of small enemies in a couple of shots, it was accurate enough to easily target the armoured enemies and best of all - it could (still can) destroy nests and factories, which is an extremely useful feature. People complained about dying too much from their own "shrapnel" while shooting the enemies up close. Which, I mean, no bs, Sherlock, explosives is not the best option for CQB, and they were using it against the wrong kind of enemies anyway. But still, even while I was using this gun up close I only died because of the explosion radius point-blank, not a single time from shrapnell. But developers listened, turning one of the most underutilized guns in the game into an unusable trash. I really miss the old eruptor...
I play with randoms fairly often. Most people are around my skill level. We know what kind of gun to use to take down anything in 1-2 shots, but not everyone has that type of weapon because someone had to choose the exterminator role to kill hordes of weaker enemies. Then there are the casual players who know enough to point their gun at the enemy and pull the trigger. They'll waste magazine after magazine shooting heavy armor targets. I watched them mag dumping liberator rounds into the body armor of a regular devastator. Then one of them gets the brilliant idea to try doing a grenade jump into the nuclear missile silo, killing himself and two squadmates when we have zero reinforcements left. I survived, because I dove out of there. The game should be fun for these people too.
If bots had 'veternecy' like the halo wars star system it would be more engaging. Stars over their heads and the more stars the more accurate they are. Compared to being headshot mutliple times in a row by a hulk or heavy deva or even an MG trooper.
Damn you're pretty good with the AMR I can never hit the Hulk's eye with it. (But I have no problem with the AC for some reason)
It's got a terrible reticle, so that's understandable.
I'm mostly ok with current balance. The only things that I would buff are erupror, slugger, crossbow and this plasma gun from the new warbond. However, I would also nerf the incendiary breaker. Just a little bit. Because now this gun is op as fuck and requires absolutely no skill
Thank you. Amazing take.
I'm kinda curious about what you'd have to say about enemy balancing now, and also how it compares to player balancing
They announced the next patch would be sometime next week on their discord. Hopefully it’s a good one
7:58 Why hello Heavy Machine Gun. Fancy meeting you here...
This game has so many moving parts that balance is not as simple as "make number bigger". Every enemy faction and enemy type has their own unique attributes. Every weapon behaves against those enemies differently to an extent and usually fulfills a role. Do those roles fall away when the enemy theyre meant for show up less on higher difficulties. Should those enemies show up on higher difficulties. Idk man. I dont envy the devs of this game.
Good video, i liked your kind approach to teach what balance is. A fair thought though, if the devs didnt nerf and only buff (Non Meta) / or nerf the enemys with desperatly needed weakspots - which happend with the charger for example. Wouldnt we have this discussion now - that balancing was done wrong in the first time by nerfing and not adding weakspots? Example: the BTs weakspot should be the mouth, but i heard it was changed while spitting which makes it quite inpossible to hit it for me. If outrunning isnt a option and to make it spit isnt either, what to do there? Just inconsistent 500kgs that somehow only kill consistent at direct impact now? Or those darn spitters that are impossible to hear neither possible to outrun, all this enemy buff did was me doing 360 checks every some seconds in a fight to throw my impacts to just deal with it. Wasnt there was more harm than adding skill to headshot em? Btw their speed is way too high with that thickk ass they have.
The hitbox isn't changed, it's worse, it rescinds into the body when it tilts back.
I love this thank you. I stopped subbing/listening to Helldivers creators because everyone is crying right now. I love this game and just want to listen to other people that do too. Balance does feel like an issue but it’s hard to want to engage with a community that feels primarily negative…
I used to be a game dev specializing in balance. (Very different genre, turn-based RPG instead of skill-based shooter, but many principles still apply.) This is a great, level-headed take, and right on pretty much every count. To me the biggest problem is the lack of ways to effectively deal with heavy armor, basically requiring a ton of specialized antitank stratagems and support weapons from most members of the party, especially on the bugs. You called out the BTs and that's exactly right, though it's not just their armor, but the _quantity_ of them that spawn which demand your attention with the insistence of a toddler who wants -- no, NEEDS -- to show you what they pulled out of their nose. If they spawned like factory striders, it'd be much more manageable.
I have a feeling the nose reference was due to a prior experience.
I remember all of the Tribes mods from back in the day. The was one, I think it was called Ultra, or something like that? It basically made all of the armors fly forever, and all of the guns into hoses of death. It wasn't that it wasn't fun to play for a little while, but it wasn't fun to play for long, because, with everyone being eggshells wielding hammers, it really came down to who saw who first, then splat. It did not even really matter what weapon of armor you brought because everything went splat together. That experience stuck with me.
finally, someone who doesn't pour gasoline onto the controversy fire.
The game sucks more and more i play it. If this patch doesn’t make this awful meta loop and bug fest not the slightest better i uninstall it legitimately
On the flip side, I disagree with your central premise. You're conflating "challenge" with "satisfaction". There's no challenge in playing Viscera Cleanup Detail. There's no challenge in playing Car Mechanic Simulator. Hell, there's no challenge playing Warframe, given the sorry state of that game's balance. And yet those still manage to be fun. "Challenge" is not a prerequisite to compelling gameplay. It's simply a tool for modifying player behaviour. The reason for "challenging" content isn't so you can brag about your high score. It's to encourage you to use a broader range of your available tools, and interact with as much of the game's sum total of systems as is reasonable. The way Helldivers 2 does challenge isn't conducive to satisfaction. Quite the opposite - it's stifling. The game is made up almost entirely of gear checks. Choosing my loadout is effectively a checklist. I need something anti-tank, I need something anti-horde, I need something anti-medium, I need something explosive, etc. By the time I've ticked every box on the list, my build has already been chosen for me. I have maybe A Strategem slot to play around with, if that. Yes, it makes the game harder, but it also makes it dumber. Literally, it dumbs down what could have been skill expression into simply picking the "correct" tool. Exactly like Warframe. Balance is important. Challenge isn't.
Challenge is a key component in Helldivers, the issue is execution. Take the dark matter missions, figuring out how to do that pre-patch was insane, but satisfying once you were able to. The challenge adds to the feeling of reward. The problem is that they've allowed so much of the game to fall into a routine, which gets boring. They need to implement a way that the challenge isn't directly tied to enemy density. I see this being possible through a greater degree of mission variables. As for the necessary weapons, I've never really felt I NEEDED to bring something, but that's because as I said Helldive has gotten to a point of routine for me. It's a weird day if there's a loss regardless of weapon choice, but there's never any thinking required. It feels dry.
Never heard of you before but I'm really liking this! Notes as I listen along: 1) what guns would you consider "high skill ceiling" right now? I don't know if we really *have* any of those. I've done solo deathless full clear helldives with just about everything, and I have one or two heretical takes (purifier only needs small buffs to be excellent and it's already relatively functional), but none of the guns really feel "hard" to get the most out of. Besides Diligence Countersniper in pressure situations where it's either "headshot these 6 devastators RIGHT NOW or get chain staggered". That's a high skill ceiling situation lmao. 2) YES. ENEMY ISSUES. YES. STOP PIGEONHOLING US INTO AP6 ROCKET LAUNCHERS ARROWHEAD THANK YOU I LOVE YOU. (bots have this issue WAYYYY less than bugs) 3) "some people who only care about punching down on the game for clicks" *stares directly into OhDough's soul* Great video! subbed
As of right now the only one that comes to mind is the counter sniper in regard to semi-higher skill paired with a decent enough payoff for that skill. If they implemented changes to where the railgun would do next to no general damage but obliterate weak points that exist on all enemies.
I feel like the arc weapons have a learning curve to them. You need to learn what situations create a “misfire” where the weapon doesn’t actually shoot a shot (like when you have a dead body in the way, you’re standing too close to a plant, or you are too close behind cover). Also avoiding friendly fire can be pretty tough with arc weapons. Also I think the flamethrower can take some skill. Positioning is crucial, especially when hunters are involved. Hunters die quite quickly in the fire but they almost always try to flank you so you have to pre fire where you think they will jump or have a strong enough position where you can cover all paths they can get through. Plus killing chargers and bile titans with the flamethrower can be quite risky, but can be done really efficiently with practice. Side note: I watched an OkDough video a bit ago and the sheer ragebait that goes on in that channel is annoying.
"Nothing is necessarily dominant" is a good way of putting it, yes. People often phrase this as "everything is good" or "everything is viable", etc. Having weapons, abilities, tools, etc. that some people don't like isn't bad. Players feeling like they HAVE to use specific tools that they don't like, on the other hand, is.
Learned how to use Eruptor well. NERFED
People need to start recognizing nerfs for what they are. Incompetence, Laziness, and Uncreative
That one was born out of an absolute failure deciding breakpoints.
@@JebblesJunior it think they were just upset we learned how to use the shrapnel to well AND the ricochets update made team killing WAY to easy.
@@Darkwater1886 They took shrapnel away due to team killing without understanding the impact it had upon the breakpoints of the weapon.
Love this game but some things just make no sense: Why does an autocannon round bounce off a hulk? Why does it seem to do the same amount of damage as an hmg or amr when it is a backpack only weapon? Why are Bile Titan crit spots so dam unreliable and why does shooting a rocket down its throat while it’s spewing do less damage than normal?why does it take so many shots to take down a gunship with an hmg as opposed to other weapons supposedly of “similar caliber”? Etc..
AC rounds bounce off the body, but destroy the heat pack, arms, and legs better than any weapon. Similar armor penetration doesn't mean similar damage upon breaking that threshold.
Balancing the weapons/strategems around bugs is never going to work well. So I hope they just give most weapons a temporary buff in this next patch, just so it's less frustrating to deal with some of the bullshit enemies (bile titans, devastators, etc). Then they can take their sweet time to resolve these issues and do the fine tuning of the weapons afterwards. I mean just imagine a BT with a med pen weakpoint in its joints, you could disable a leg with your primary weapon, slow the mf down and suddenly its much easier and consistent to hit it with a 500kg to finish it off.
I think more open communication would help as well. They could make better announcements.
I really like the idea of adding more viable weak points on powerful enemies. Also I personally feel the devs needs to be a bit more aware of breakpoints and how they affect game feel. 5 extra damage doesn’t seem like a lot, but if it can push a weapon from a 4 shot kill to a 3 shot then it becomes significantly more impactful and makes it feel like a substantial difference. Conversely an extra bit of damage that doesn’t save me any shots anywhere noticeable feels bad. This is particularly important on slow powerful weapons like the crossbow where ammo is scarce and each shot is precious.
The most terrible thing about titans is that we can't even slow them down. Making rear or middle(do they have 6 legs?) legs destroyable to slow them and bring their thorax into closer range, while also exposing their backs to some extent, would make fighting them a lot more fun. If I'm fighting one from the rear, I try to destroy the bile sac and drop a rocket pod, but from their sides, having any impact besides a stratagem feels impossible. A good side/rear target to slow movement would be great for helping your team and feeling shared accomplishment.
Thing is that there are a lot of enemies with a lot of different body parts with a lot of breakpoints, and also damage fall off which means certain breakpoints only change at certain ranges. The Diligence Counter sniper when it was at 128 damage could already one headshot devastators. But at range that dropped to a 2 shot. The increase to 140 damage allowed it to headshot from much further ranges. "This is particularly important on slow powerful weapons like the crossbow where ammo is scarce and each shot is precious." Crossbow has a lot of problems. I don't know why they said they were changing the role to be better against medium threats, when all of its stats seem to imply you shouldn't be using it against medium threats. It's splash damage is pen 2; meaning most medium enemies take half damage from it (note that the scorcher splash is pen 3). And while its direct damage is 270 at pen 3; it only has 50 durable damage (doesn't matter much on some threats, matters for body of brood commanders, spewers, devastator chests, and factor strider miniguns).
According to the official discord, the balance patch should drop on the second week of june (next week), I really hope it will make things better I love this game and I want it to get out of this "low" phase. Also an interesting thing about balance : the end users are the better at finding flaws than the developpers, however the devs are better at finding solutions to these flaws than the users
My biggest issues with balance are: 1. When certain gear feels mandatory all the time at high levels (e.g. the 500kg on Terminid helldives), and 2. when certain items don't even have a niche and are useless based on current balance (e.g. the orbital ems strike). I'm fine with certain weapons or strategems being a stepping stone for players still leveling up (such as the machine gun sentry which is totally obsolete once the player unlocks the gatling sentry). But why ever take the orbital ems strike when stun grenades can be unlocked fairly quickly (2nd page of the Cutting Edge Warbond), they both stun the same enemies and the stun grenades can be spammed and are not on a cooldown? Also, excuse me for believing that I should reasonably expect a Bile Titan to be briefly stunned by an electromagnetic blast fired from an ORBITAL SUPER DESTROYER.
I feel like I need to take the autocannon because few other weapons can handle medium enemies from the distances I engage them at. Its also nearly as effective as antitank which makes it more effective because antitank weapons other than quasar have no ammo. Autocannon is not the optimal weapon… but its a better generalist. It does better than most options in most scenarios other than “horde of light enemies”… and hordes have light and medium enemies so its still more effective most of the time because “horde of lights” doesnt happen as much in higher difficulties. And an eagle airstrike is often the right tool for when it does. This is my kit. If I want to change it significantly , I’ll have to drop down several difficulty levels and slowly assemble a new way of playing. I don’t feel like I have versatility in the options available to me because there are only 1-2 clear options for each role that I need. I know other people use other kits but I would have to relearn the game if I did so… which is why so many people get upset when the weapons they use get nerfed out of the role they used them in. Those nerfs mean people have to restart the game from a lower difficulty because the mix of heavy and medium enemies is extremely punishing if you cannot counter them.
To rephrase: every match I bring autocannon, eagle airstrike, orbital Laser and EAT. Whenever I switch any of these up I feel I am missing vital functionality. (I can switch laser for railcannon though). Its not that I can’t play without any of these stratagems, its that I do not have a lot of options to switch up these roles. The AC lets me take out medium enemies easier from short to long range, and is a good backup for bots but vital if we get a bile spewer mission. I could use the AMR but its not as effective at short ranges which is where bugs spawn. Grenade launcher doesnt work at long ranges, etc. Eagle is used for groups. I could swap it out I guess but the quick refresh time makes it reliable. I also use other on buildings and bugholes so it always has utility. Orbital laser can kill heavies, or deal with large, powerful groups and it is an ass-saver when the squad is overwhelmed. I can take orbital railcannon if I just need to kill heavies but then I only uave the eagle to deal with large groups, and that only works when they are clumped. EATs are for dropships and chargers. Sometimes bile titans. I can go without them but whenever I do I regret it because theres no teammate to take out the heavies.
I think there's more variance than that, but that's how I feel. I honestly like precision orbital and rocket pods more than 500/rail cannon. I like pretty much all of the high use eagles and short cooldown orbitals, but smoke and EMS really do lack at their intended uses. There's at least 6-8 great primaries. The secondaries all feel like upgrades in different areas. Senator feels good everywhere if you aren't already running something like Jar/Scorcher. Give different stuff a shot with strategems. I know it's hard to not take Airstrike, but laser, rail cannon, 500, and EAT aren't requirements. They fill gaps. If you run Recoilless, Queso, or Spear, try taking Gas, Clusterbomb, Strafing Run, Napalm. Bug's big weak spot is getting gas and fire dropped on their breaches.
@@GnarledStaff@GnarledStaff orbital laser pays for it's ease of use with it's limited uses, huge cooldown, and time to kill. I know it's a great reset button sometimes, but you can learn skill shots and have so much more up time with instant-kill and DoT strats. Rocket Pods is basically 1.5x the power of Rail Cannon and also deals with tanks/towers. A lot of people sleep on rly powerful strats bc they have to be timed/aimed, but the enemies are easy to manipulate into predictable behavior. Likewise, I think you might be surprised at how much difference there is playing with an HMG, Flamethrower, AMR, Railgun, or Las-98 when you can confidently drop 1-2 biles a minute with strats. Those weapons absolutely own mid sized and small units, including hulks, gunships, chargers, and spewers. HMG with pods, rail cannon, and air strike or prec orbital is one of my favorites vs bots. Just take Fortitude and lower the fire rate at range. Max it up close to melt legs off everything, but fabs. Laser is great, but I think more than 1-2/team lowers team power on full length missions, where a lot of ppl think it is OP/mandatory. Autocannon is definitely the best generalist support weapon. There are a lot of really good generalist support weapons, if you can reliably drop titans with strats and EATs. 1-2 people with laser, and 1-2 with EATs is awesome. I've just personally found, that team variety makes the game more fun. It just takes learning those kill methods that make various builds work.
I feel like this grazes something I mentioned in the video. That being the feeling of necessity towards certain stratagems like the 500 due to enemy type. If bile titans weren't so janked you likely wouldn't feel the "need" for those 500s. As for the rest I think it's a matter of framing. It takes a minute for most people to get 1k credits for a warbond. Also, I'm surprised you didn't see it the other way around. The machine gun is useless compared to the gatling wholesale. With the EMS strike at least you get to have other grenades.
Tried the autocannon exosuit in a blitz bug difficulty 4, got stalkers and spewers, quite good vacation would recommend
Thoughtful/insightful take as usual. I’m hoping for balanced enemies and stronger firepower in the future. BUT If we get illuminate with some full energy shield or F U heavy armor all around, I can guarantee that other KZread people will be crying and complaining. I’m looking to you JJ for the first take on how to quit b!tching and get to spilling squid ink. Railgun nerfs , terrible AMR sights; you never stop dropping real knowledge. The streets of Super Earth need you!
my main problem with the game right now is the patrols they "fixed". I do wish they would get some of the weapons i used to love squared away again... crossbow i'm looking at you. however, i got so angry on my stream Friday night because i was getting a patrol like every minute and someone in my chat was saying even more than that. to me that is what needs to be fixed. i don't always have the opportunity to play with others in the game and i solo it, they have made that very hard to do. i agree with all your points here, good video as usual brother.
They really need to knock out that patrol bug because it's downright painful for some solos.
@@JebblesJunior yes sir. i was beside myself. couldn't even extract. don't get me wrong, i love this game but they do need to fix some of the things that they have "fixed" already, lol.
@@JebblesJunior ideally we need player/host/leader controls over spawn rates/volumes, weather/visibility and enemy variety/formations (hunters/brood/spitters or walk-jump/devastators/zerkers). the map "difficulty" has less of an impact on the actual challenge provided now than the arbitrary numbers the devs keep messing with/up in terms of spawn rates/distances/volume/positions. hell i play on suicidal as a break from the swarms of hunters i have to slog through on medium//challenging. or run in a 4-stack to switch my brain off and face-roll some maps (depending on the RNG of PuG players that is)
I'm feeling a bit of joy seeing a skilled player show off what can be done with my favourite build if you master it. I've ran pretty much the same loadout you showcase here and got some ok result for a lil casual and seeing what could be is motivating.
More then a few youtubers who play this seem to have the idea just because its a PVE game every weapon should be crazy in power and if you dont believe that your "Smoked beyond belief" As they put it. The amount of child like moans about the rail gun and so on. I am very glad you seem to understand balance go's both ways even in a PVE game.
railgun nerfs were rolled back btw, it's as strong or stronger now than it was in that "minor patch" that nerfed it and tripled the breach/drop enemy numbers. issue now is that it's somehow "weaker" than med-pen weapons against the enemies that were introduced since it's initial nerf as those enemies were artificially over-tuned to meet a "balance requirement" that no longer exists in the game given even as they were applied. a direct comparison. AMR/AC/laser-pointer/railgun are broadly analogous, let6s compare a few TTK, 1-4 shot devastators, same for walkers, brood, spitters, hunters, hulks, mg-nests and commanders. So far so side-grade, benefits and detriments to all. Now. "Oh look a gunship" first 3 can merc it in 3-4 seconds and a few engine hits railgun takes 45+ seconds (8+ consecutive weakpoint shots with ZERO downtime) for that same kill, for an unlimited-spawn enemy that spawns out of a "destructible via hellbomb-only" building (and those gunships shoot out hellbombs and rocket-spam helldivers) same for turrets/radiators (not to mention AA/mortar sub-objectives) a few hits vs almost a minute of sustained fire to the weakpoints. same for the ATAT sub-weapons. Railgun is basically a no-go for actually killing the ATAT (it takes almost 2 minutes while AMR/AC/laser can mag-dump it in ~15 seconds) charger it's finally got an advantage (the heavy-pen pays off, the rest have to pop the balloon on the rear-end), yay. titan. . . . . arguments can be made for the railgun/ac, kinda. They can technically kill them, eventually. then you have object-/factory/hole destruction and the AC takes that particular crown, AMR has the scope/no-pack, laser-pointer has the hitscan n heat-ammo-value, railgun has a potential explosion next to your head for a weapon that's providing similar performance 3/4 the time with 1/3 the ammo-load. as mentioned in the video, it's not a railgun issue, (especially now), it's that the environment in which it's now operating under (the one that most peoples play 4-7 of 9) is one in which it's got 3-4 scenarios where it's functionally "unusable" despite it's direct competition having very fair requrements for a quick-kill and seemingly there's zero reason for that to be the case.
how the hell did youtube tag this as an overwatch video
I said the magic word once apparently.
I once met an interesting take on balance, postulating that the issue in HD2 is not in individual guns, but on a conceptual level of Optimal versus Non-Optimal Time to Kill enemies. In most shooters, the difference between the two is not significant, taking a headshot to kill an enemy (Optimal) vs. 2-3 torso shots (Non-Optimal) to do the same. In HD2 the difference is colossal when it comes to fighting anything that is not the basic enemy, when it comes to Bots. It takes 3 shots to the face to kill an average devastator with a Liberator Penetrator, whereas shooting them in the body will take an entire clip to kill one. At this point, Optimal Killing becomes mandatory, which automatically hurts most guns - since most guns are capable of killing stuff efficiently ONLY if shooting the face. And the reason why current 'Meta Guns' are those who defy this trend. Weapons like punisher plasma, scorcher, jar-5 and the like are so popular because you don't need to hit weakspots with them and still kill armored enemies in a reasonable timeframe. So unless they do massive changes to how Durable Damage works, and make most guns rewarding when not just shooting tiny faces, it wouldn't matter how many bullets a primary weapon has in the mag, or how much damage it deals per shot, since it will still take forever to kill a meaningful enemy when not shooting directly at a weakspot.
I think in this regard I'm quite biased because of my inclination towards precision. Coming from game like wildlands, I consider headshots to be the standard way of taking out enemies. So, I admit, my biases in regard to preferring weak points as opposed to accuracy by volume definitely sways my outlook upon balance.
This is a great comment. It explains why the basic automatic weapons feel bad as well as why I don’t enjoy bugs. Automatic weapons feel bad because their purpose is to hit suboptimal locations. A burst of automatic fire (from a primary weapon) at an enemies torso is basically worthless outside of the weakest of enemies which means they are designed to not be effective for the purpose they are used for. Durability damage feels backwards. I think if they gave light pen weapons extra damage, that would help. I’m thinking light penetration should act like hollow points and antipersonnel ammo, ripping up bug abdomens- which means big abdomens should be treated as soft spots, not building material. It may also help if weapons did a little bit of damage above their armor piercing level. Because light pen weapons doing literally nothing to medium enemies just feels bad. In higher difficulties where medium enemies are a significant part of the horde rather than scattered in like minibosses, weapons that cannot deal with both feel really bad to use. I find myself using the slugger because time to kill for each enemy is a reasonable 1-4 shots (guestimate), or the diligence for bots because time to kill can be 1-2 shot to the head if I am aiming well that day. But slowly taking out each limb doesnt even register as an option against bots because the time to kill is way higher than switching to single shot and trying to hit them in the head a few times. Or at least, thats what my brain tells me. Actual time to kill may be less, but involves reloading once or twice which feels longer and feels unsustainable. **Time to kill for a devastator with an effective weapon is less than time to destroy for a devastators limb with a less effective weapon** My issue with bugs is that I don’t have an obvious weak point for them. They might have weak points where I could kill them with a light pen weapon- but its not obvious enough for me to see it. Abdomens require what feels like most of a mag, and the medium enemies come in groups that spawn on the players so there is no way for 1 person to effectively handle a group with a light penetrating weapon. And there are not enough grenades and stratagems to handle the amount of groups that get thrown at us. In short, a machine gun is not a good weapon for the average player as it can’t handle groups of enemies past difficulty 4 or so.
Durable damage isn't much of an issue outside of brood commanders and spewers, while it does exist on the Devastators chest, the fact that it is armor 3 and high health is a bigger factor (with a few exceptions). The Jar Dominator takes 5 shots to Devastator chest. (275x0.6 + 90x0.4)x0.5 = 100.5 vs the 425 hp of the chest. Even if the Jar Dominator only had a 10% durability damage, equivalent to the base ARs and marksmen rifles; it would still be 5 shots to the chest. (275x0.6 + 27x0.4)x0.5 = 87; 87x5 = 435. What makes the Jar Dominator so effective is its really high damage. The liberator pen actually has basically the same durability % as the Jar Dominator, but the Jar Dominator does more damage than 6 liberator pen bullets. This isn't much of a problem as you can adjust damage breakpoints such that the Jar Dominator wastes a lot of its extra damage against light targets. But even when wasting over half the damage, you still have more effective damage per mag with the Jar Dominator compared to the liberator pen. Lib pen can kill 10 devastators with headshots. Jar Dominator can kill 15 with headshots. Lib pen can (allegedly) kill 10 hunters with body shots, the Dominator can kill 15. The lib pen's magazine size is way too low for the damage it does. Specifically with devastators there is also the issue of multiple body parts close together with high health. The gut is the lowest health at 350, it is the best spot to target after the head (to improve automatics slightly they could reduce its hp by 60 or so if they wanted to). But below that we have 2 hips at 500 health, sandwiched between armor 2 pelvis and legs each at 500 hp. Basically 6 different hp pools all right next to each other. As long as you hit the same part, you can take it out with 2 shots with the Jar Dominator. But you'd need to hit the same part 12 times (8 for gut) with the liberator pen to take it out; hit a different part and you are just increasing the shots to kill. I don't see why they can't just fuse the hip, pelvis, and other hip into one part at the very least.
this is pretty much why i find bots a bit more fun to fight than bugs, because you have more meaningful albeit harder to hit weak points that can be dealt with using a wider variety of weapons, granted you have the aim (or stun grenades) to do so: laser cannon, HMG, AMR, railgun, etc which i would just not bother with against bugs because they won't deal with a single charger in a reasonable amount of time (when you're often being chased by at least half a dozen every minute). can you use make them work? yes, of course; can you do the exact same, and more, even better with less effort with a couple of very select stratagems? also yes
I always delineate bugs from bots by saying this. Would you prefer to win through volume of fire, or by precision? Nothing wrong with either choice, that's just a matter of preference.
My two cents on this discussion "Listening to community" Yes and no. From what i've seen, Players are generally good at high level feelings towards things but are usually kind of bad when it comes to low level solutions. The textbook example is the new Killer Instinct, Jago was an overpowered character, players chalked it up to a healing factor and several seemingy problematic moves in his kit and were ticked off about it. The devs took a look and found out the real problem was Jago had no bad matchups and found nerfing one potent midrange move was all it really took. Players were furious at first until a couple weeks later people were winning more games against Jago and found he was in a much better spot balance wise. Key lesson, Listen to em to identify pain points but verify on your own end and be ready to stand by a potentially controversial choice that's good for the game. Honestly with the exception of the railgun and eruptor nerfs, that seems to be the case with pretty much the rest of the nerfs when you sit down and see how they work today. I also need to stress that in any software, GAMES ESPECIALLY everything links into eachother and any change has potential unintended consequenses. see the Eruptor's recent shrapnel removal/AOE buff, that was intended to be a saftey buff but instead it mega nerfed it because the shrapnel gave more firepower than what the devs expected and the AoE buff was insufficient to cover the loss of shrapnel. In defense of the bile titan you can at least remove the breath weapon by shooting the stomach out, as the dedicated swarm clear I find myself often targeting that to make my AT brothers lives easier but yeah its still an awkward weak point target. (I agree with the gunship so much though!) Overall, I take the opinion that while balance isnt perfect, its better than the old days of "Railgun, backpack shield, breaker or else you get screwed/kicked" from launch and has been generally been heading in the right direction (The railgun nerf was premature only because of heavy spawn rates, no charger headshot kills, and nobody wanted to backpack load an RR, which i'm still of the opinion its underrated, but that's all corrected now, though personally I wish rails were better vs gunships and vents). I agree with your assessment of balance where every gun and strategem has its poace and reason to take over others. We arent there yet but we've come a long way since then. One last point, I think theres a disconnect between some players, the devs, and other players on what the game should be. Some see it as a power fantasy horde shooter, others see it as a hardcore near milsim experience, others treat it as an MMO endgame raid, and others see it as almost a party game. Theres truth in all of these, but I think one helpful discussion to have because how you view the game will alter your view of how things should be balanced. (My bias for the record is leaning towards the second one) /two cents on the matter
This is the best possible post relating to this topic. The customer is always right in matters of taste... But they're basically always wrong about everything else. "This feels bad" is extremely valuable player feedback. I don't need you to tell me why it feels bad: you don't know anything useful and, even if you did, you're only going to know it from your very narrow perspective. But the fact that you keep having a bad experience tells me that there is some kind of friction point and I should investigate. AHs problem is they don't investigate. They don't really have any idea why the game feels bad to play at times. I recall people complaining about, I think, assault rifles in a game being underpowered and feeling trash to play. The fix? They tweaked the sound design. Complaints disappeared. The gun suddenly felt good to play and felt effective. The only actual difference is that it sounded like a pea shooter before but now it sounds like an absolute beater.
I try to convey as often as I can when the topic is at hand, the games difficulties are supposed to be accurate. My big problem currently is there's no difficulty increase apart from piling on more enemies instead of encouraging problem solving.
Okay, this comment is god-like! It basically says everything I've been saying about balancing in video games, FOR YEARS! I do agree that there is some kind of identity problem going on, I'm more inclined to like 2 and 3 over 1 and 4. But making it a little more casual can't hurt.
@@JebblesJunior In complete fairness there is (from light to medium to heavy enemies, to side objectives to operation modifiers, bigger and more complicated maps are all introduced at different levels) but it doesnt scale well into higher difficulties and isnt always implimented gracefully (Strategem scrambler anyone?)
It is a well known fact that users are great at identifying problem/pain points but absolutely terrible at identifying solutions.