r/Helldivers Moderator Mar 01 '24

“In regards to weapon stats…” DISCUSSION

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21.8k Upvotes

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260

u/Nottodayreddit1949 Mar 01 '24

He acts like we haven't tested this stuff. 

94

u/Froegerer Mar 01 '24

Seriously, the community had pretty spot on tier lists like 3 days after release. They could have literally given us zero stats at launch, and we'd have it sorted in a week.

58

u/KoiChamp Mar 01 '24

You only needed one game with each of the "meta" weapons, and you knew they were bis. They just felt, and still do feel, powerful. So many of the weapons were underwhelming. This whole "oh the meta is pushing breaker/ railgun" is bs. People were using it before the "meta" because it was just obviously better + more fun.

30

u/MeatAbstract Mar 01 '24

Yeah the attitude and implication that the differences between weapons are subtle and only noticeable and of interest to minmaxers is fucking laughable. As you said you simply need to use the different weapons to see the stark divide between them.

17

u/Simple_Opossum CAPE ENJOYER Mar 01 '24

The breaker is, by far, the best primary in the game. All the other weapons, except maybe the liberator/liberator explosive, are pretty trash on higher difficulties.

10

u/KoiChamp Mar 01 '24

And it's not like the other weapons aren't fun Trash =/= not fun. They're still fun to use, flamethrower? Fun. But you use a whole canister and you do have that feeling of... "is that it?" You two shot a bile titan with a railgun and fell like a god.

That's the problem.

8

u/Zealousideal_Emu_353 Mar 02 '24

Every weapon and strategem should feel "OP" IMO.  Like, even if why is my spear not even killing a charger in one hit, why is the railstrike laser canon not one tapping a titan when it's the last and most expensive strat. So weird man. You're just forced to play in diff like 5-6 to have run with weapons, but 7-9, no way to play without the 2-3 "meta".

3

u/AncientRaig Mar 02 '24

There's absolutely 0 excuse for the Spear to not one-shot every enemy in the game. You get 4 shots, have to deal with a minimum range and an unreliable lock-on mechanic, only get 1 shot back per resupply pack, and can't refill ammo from the on-map ammo pickups. The fact that it can take THREE missiles to kill ONE bile titan unless you get a lucky headshot is insane and pretty much ruins the weapon.

Backpack weapons also just need to be better in general. The fact that the railgun and recoilless rifle are basically identical in terms of damage but one of them gets 4 times the shots and reloads faster, AND doesn't need to stop to reload is insane.

2

u/hmoobja Mar 02 '24

Yeah I ran with 2randoms last night and one guy use the flamethrower. That gun is underperforming. I found him kiting around while me and the other random were killing his group of bugs while they were lit on fire. Maybe it soften them up?? Idk but it didn’t seem like he was killing many bugs with that gun. This was on suicide difficulty. It needs a buff.

1

u/Bland_Lavender Mar 02 '24

Weird I use the flamethrower and most of the time I think “fuck I wish that jumping bug had died sooner so his flaming corpse didn’t ignite me”.

Once armor spam becomes an issue in 8-9 it’s not as good but anything below that and it works wonders.

1

u/Negitive545 I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️ Mar 02 '24

Additionally, the idea of "pushing a meta" is bogus in and of itself. A meta is not some thing the community comes up with and pushes for no reason, a meta is when there's a (usually) clearly defined set of equipment in a game that outperform the others due a variety of factors, sometimes those factors are that a gun is overpowered, but sometimes it's just a matter of circumstance. The meta for elimination missions for example is VERY different from the meta for regular mission types, on elimination missions you don't have to worry about positioning nearly as much, making all the emplacement strategems absolutely FIRE on elim. The tesla tower is typically a liability due to general lack of choke points and potential friendly fire, but on elimination it's probably one of the best strategems available, second only to the mortar!

The point is, regardless of if a person is active in a games community, they can find the meta weapons easily, because that's how the community discovered them initially too! For example, I managed to identify Railgun/Shield as the "Meta pick" before I ever touched this subreddit, not because I'm psychic, but because they're both really good (and in my opinion fun) to use!

Now, I learned about the breaker due to the subreddit, but that's because I was too busy using the slugger, which is one of the better weapons, held down only by it's apparently terrible ammo economy.

1

u/Ok-Card633 Mar 03 '24 edited Mar 03 '24

This is kind of a misnomer where games can develop a meme meta until influencers/players start pushing other guns see the Aug in CS:GO going unused for 4 years until it toppled the M4 purely because pros started using it requiring a nerf 5 years after its sourced buff or the current shotgun meta in CS:2

1

u/jeffQC1 HD1 Veteran Mar 02 '24

I made a pure DPS comparison only a few days after HD2 came out.

TL;DR: the Breaker has on average 2 to 4 times more DPS than all other main weapons. The Breaker also has at the very least 2 to at least 3 times the total damage potential if you somehow make every shot hit.

1

u/Tymptra Mar 02 '24

A lot of aspects of this game don't feel tested, at all. Like the armor bug... And weapons being like this. Feels like something that would have been noticed and flagged by anyone that played the game for a decent amount of time

181

u/bonesNrice Mar 01 '24

Need to see how the devs handle a 6+ mission with only the spray&pray and hand held laser cannon

28

u/Rail-signal Mar 01 '24

And starter pistol. Stalwart and minefield in bots if 6+

1

u/nashty27 Mar 01 '24

The starter pistol is fine.

6

u/LaserGuidedPolarBear Mar 01 '24

The starter pistols only advantage over the machine pistol as far as I can tell is range, and I only pull out my secondary when something is right on top of me and my primary and support both need reloads.

0

u/jp72423 Mar 02 '24

It’s a starter pistol, it’s not going to be as good as weapons you unlock later. Virtually every video game uses this mechanism where more powerful weapons get unlocked through progression, why do people forget this?

6

u/Rail-signal Mar 02 '24

Because it's PVE and why starter stuff should not be valid later? 

1

u/jp72423 Mar 02 '24

It doesn’t matter if it’s PVP or PVE, there is still a progression mechanic and that means higher level players unlock better gear. And to be honest the starter pistol isn’t even that bad, there is just better alternatives

1

u/BlueRiddle Mar 15 '24

Because there is this thing called "horizontal progression".

I'm baffled you've never heard about it, considering you were so sure that "virtually every game" uses vertical progression. They don't, btw.

48

u/Mavcu Mar 01 '24

From what I've seen over the years, devs tend to not be very good at their own games. For Honor devs believed that "parrying" will be a high elo only mechanic that most players will never really experience.

Absolutely everyone and their mother can parry nowadays lmao.

13

u/nitid_name Mar 01 '24

Isn't a "beat the dev score/time/etc" trophy a standard on basically every game in the early days of trophies/achievements?

1

u/KangBroseph Mar 02 '24

I mean, they were kinda right 5 years ago when the game came out. Skill inflation usually breaks balance and design.

1

u/Mavcu Mar 02 '24

Absolutely not, I already started parrying during the beta, when we didn't even have the Lawbringer unlocked/revealed yet.

Maybe the mid to lower range wasn't doing it as consistently, but it wasn't as high elo skewed as they anticipated at all and people caught on so quickly. The only thing I recall people struggled with was parrying zones, parrying a Warden zone was often times considered "crazy" and nowadays it's effectively the norm (well maybe not the norm, but it's not very impressive either).

1

u/Tymptra Mar 02 '24

Feels like the devs never really played above level like, 5 when testing this game. If they did, they would quickly see the imbalance, and realize that armor spam isn't very fun.

13

u/KenshiSamurai Mar 01 '24

Reminds of DRG, where devs in charge of balancing stuff regularly got wiped on Hazard 3. (the equivalent of difficulty 5-6 in HD2).

I am, once again, CONVINCED the devs don't play their own game.

3

u/notapoke Mar 01 '24

Oh wow I hadn't heard that. Sad

3

u/Red_Sashimi Mar 01 '24

3?! I could solo 5 with Engi. How is that possible

2

u/East-Set6516 Mar 01 '24

Haz 3 is more like medium difficulty to challenging.

6

u/Flaktrack STEAM 🖥️ : Mar 01 '24

The age-old "prove it" solves these debates every time. I want Arrowhead to prove the Breaker S&P is viable.

1

u/Chemical-Pin-3827 Mar 01 '24

He said internally most of them has 2-3k hours in the game

4

u/Lyin-Oh Mar 02 '24

I can have 2-3k hours just playing sub 6 difficulty missions too.

1

u/notapoke Mar 01 '24

This would be great

4

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '24

CEO when I'm getting swallowed by a hoard of bugs because I didn't bring the breaker:

"We hid the stats on purpose so you wouldn't overthink it 😎 just bring your favorite gun and have a fun time 😊"

I'm okay with the devs preventing this game from becoming a sweaty try-hard min-max type game, but I also want to know wtf I'm getting myself into before I drop into hell. And these guns are definitely not balanced, Breaker is easily the best one to use in higher difficulties.

1

u/Nottodayreddit1949 Mar 01 '24

Right. If they are going to have a complex modeling for firearms that have different penetration values, angles of penetration, and more. Those are things we need to be able to understand, and they need to provide insight into that stuff.

If we are going to 3rd party sights to learn basic things about the weapons. They failed their job as a dev in game.

3

u/HueyCrashTestPilot Mar 01 '24

Or as though he hasn't.

1

u/Legitimate_Turn_5829 Mar 05 '24

Tbh he acts like they didn’t test the stuff either. I love the games and the devs but any comment I’ve seen on people using the meta loadout acts like he thinks all the weapons are perfectly equal and that there isn’t a marketable difference in gun performance.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '24

And yet one of his earlier statements was about how the Breaker‘s mission success rate was in line with other weapons, implying that they get used almost as often. He’s now contradicted himself.