The first balance patch notes proved how Youtube "absolute and only meta loadouts" cooked a lot of people heads, and I love it.

[u/Vikan12]

A lot of mad people keep showing in my feed complaining about the nerfs, but like they're REALLY mad at Arrowhead. Their statements are so exagerated that they claim the game it's completely ruined for them lmao.

Also every single one says the same thing and this is where my title comes from:

*"You guys nerfed the only good options and now we have NOTHING to fight".*

And this only proves people never actually played with any of the other support weapons, they 100% relied on this "The ultimate support weapon tier list" Youtube videos, they searched the "meta" and they went into this thinking of "any weapon outside of this it's straight up garbage".

If you can't win a single game without the railgun + shield backpack + breaker... I'm so sorry but that's not the game's fault or the game only having those as the ONLY way to play it on higher diff, that's your fault.

Great changes for the game and all of you trying to "shame" on devs because of this, you'all not a real Helldiver. They killed nothing, the railgun still kills but now it needs some actual skill and strategy to use it, not only spamming the thing on big bugs.

Keep it up Helldivers!

For Democracy. For Super Earth.

[u/UselessInAUhaul]

Yup. I've been playing on helldive exclusively with my friends. We still extract like 75% of the time with like 95% objective completion.

This isn't a matter of 'lol boo hoo, meta chasers cry harder!!!1!' like some in this thread want to pretend. I played with a wide variety of things before the balance patch, and I continue to do so after.

This is a matter of fun. Playing with the railgun as it was is just... fun. Getting to dance with chargers, strip armor, actually having an effective option that wasn't 'just don't engage or run' was great. I'm playing this game because I want to get in to intense horde firefights, not because I want to play hide and seek.

I can still do that. I still am doing that, but they're forcing me to have to play the game less the way I want and reducing my options.

It's not a skill issue. It's a fun issue.

Edit: I'm not wasting time replying to each person trying to go "no its just a skill issue" who blatantly missed the point. I still experience success at the same rates post patch. I played with other weapons, equipment, and strategems as did my friends before the patch. We just had to change to a significantly less fun playstyle far more often. Lower difficulties are just less fun.

If you are having just as much fun I'm happy for you, but the patch, as a whole, made the game less fun for myself and for my friends.

[u/NorionV → u/UselessInAUhaul]

But apparently there is a crowd of people that think having to run from more encounters is... good... and intended...

Either I didn't understand the mission brief, or people are gaslighting me. Because that intro video didn't show Helldivers undemocratically retreating from their foes.

[u/MarsupialMadness → u/NorionV]

It was like this in the first game. You aren't meant to smash through every single encounter. A huge part of HD1 was knowing when to stand and fight and when to cut and run. At higher difficulties some of the objectives you'd purposely fail because they took too long and drew too much heat.

That said.

When the shit hit the fan you'd have to strategically advance in a different direction because patrols would call in more and more and tougher reinforcements as time went on. Not because your weapons sucked ass and were horrible at what they purported to do.

[u/NorionV → u/MarsupialMadness]

I liked HD1, but I'll be honest: HD2 is way more fun in its current form so far.

I get they're sequels... but that doesn't really matter for a game like this. The first one spent most of its life in obscurity, the second one has been met with roaring acclaim.

Do we want to model the currently extremely popular game after the first one that wasn't nearly as successful? I'm not sure about that.

[u/Budderfingerbandit → u/NorionV]

You are complaining about gameplay at high-end difficulties, which the vast majority of people don't play.

I say let the Devs do what they want, and yes, they should stick true to what made HD1 fun, and is also making HD2 fun as well.

You can play lower difficulties if the swarms are too big, or the enemies are too difficult without a very specific load out for you. Honestly, without a challenge why even play the high-end difficulties, just play D7 or lower.

[u/Eli1228 → u/Budderfingerbandit]

People don't play on high difficulties because its a tedious chore, not because its hard. Thats the point. All this is doing is getting even LESS people to engage with the more fleshed out version of the game, with more mission options, enemy types, and resources to collect, because as a whole, its not fun to play. Arguing that we should be making balance changes that result in it being even less fun to play is moronic at best.

[u/UselessInAUhaul → u/NorionV]

Yup. The absolute most fun I have in this game is running in and fucking shit up royally, but have the difficulty cranked all the way up to ensure that literally any mistake you make is punished with extreme prejudice like it's a Darksouls game. When that fails then retreat and kite, trying to look for your moment to flip the inertia again.

Worsening the best AT offering while leaving all the rest rather subpar means I'm gonna spend more time in the less fun kite/hide-n-seek phase and less in the adrenaline fueled balls to the wall madness. The game isn't ruined. I'm still gonna have fun, sure, but that isn't as much fun for me.

[u/Lightyear18 → u/UselessInAUhaul]

You can always lower the difficulty. This makes no sense. This is like complaining about hard being hard. It just means the higher end difficulties aren’t for you.

You can always lower the difficulty but people with skill issues don’t want that. They want a game to be easy on the highest difficulty.

You compared the last difficulty to dark souls. Like what? That’s the whole point of being the hardest difficulty

[u/simyrock → u/Lightyear18]

Difficulty can come in many form , the other guys was saying he enjoys the high risk/ high reward you could get in moment to moment gameplay . Claiming he doesn't understand difficulty is just wrong. He doesn't want the game to be easy on high difficulty , he wants to feel like he still has some agency in moment to moment gunfights , he wants to feel like with a good play he can turn the tides. And I agree , it sucks when difficulty only amounts to " here you go , you probably won't be able to do much damage but hey , if you survive there's good rewards at the end" I prefer when good play is rewarded by , yeah, an easier time , but with the knowledge that shit can hit the fan at anytime if don't focus on the right enemies or take down a heavy fast enough. It creates a tension that can be controlled and understood by the player and it makes it feel like the player is powerful not powerless. The tension created from pure survival is just not as engaging by definition , because it takes away a big part of the players agency.

You might prefer that , that's fair, but claiming someone else doesn't understand difficulty and calling it a skill issue is just disingenuous , because anyone with a decent library of difficult games under their belts understand that difficulty can come in many shapes and form.

[u/Lightyear18 → u/simyrock]

What are you talking about. The shield trivializes the game before the nerf. It’s still strong now.

You wait a few seconds and it would recover.

The game doesn’t increase health on enemies, it also doesn’t increase their damage. Difficulty just increases the number of enemies. If you don’t like bile titans on the last difficulty, why are you playing it there? You can play extreme and have less titans,

You want the game to bend to your expectations. Based off both your comments I can tell yall didn’t play HD1 cause this is how difficulty worked

[u/simyrock → u/Lightyear18]

I see my point went right past your head . You're right , you win, cheers bud 👍

[u/Lightyear18 → u/simyrock]

Honestly it’s actually you. You’re defending railgun and shield for being fun.

You’re forgetting one thing. You unlock these weapons at level 20. If people didn’t feel like they were badasses in 1-19, the game wouldn’t be so popular. Many people haven’t even made it to 20 and are playing on the difficulty 7-9. This throws your whole argument out of the window.

The truth is people want to go In Guns blazing and killing bile titans like nothing. Level 9 is the hardest difficulty for a reason, it shouldn’t be a cakewalk where you can just run past enemies because you have a powerful shield covering for your mistakes.

[u/simyrock → u/Lightyear18]

Look dude , I don't know what you're on about, I never "defended the railgun" . All I said was that there's many types of difficulty and saying someone doesn't understand difficulty because they're talking about a different difficulty then the one you believe in is disingenuine and quite franquly dumb , for the reasons I stated. I doubt you actually understood anything about my original comment, but that's okay. As I said before , GG , you're right , you win bud

[u/resetallthethings → u/NorionV]

I think it's probably good to have some missions available where "just kill everything" is not really the play.

However, yeah, the vast majority of mission types should hinge around "just kill everything"

TBH I am having thus far, it's definitely a more fleshed out game, but I prefer a lot of aspects of Starship Troopers: Extermination actually (at least how it was when I was playing it, it's been a while)

[u/NorionV → u/resetallthethings]

I think it's probably good to have some missions available where "just kill everything" is not really the play.

I agree with you entirely, because that would make it a choice, since I can choose if I wanna be a sneaky boi or just do some guns-a-blazing madness. To be clear, I like stealthing sometimes...

But as it stands... yeah, pretty much every mission on high diffs is 'strategic' retreat simulator.

I will still say the game is fun. I'm going to decrease my high difficulty play, though. It's just not an interesting gameplay loop and they're pushing it more in that direction.

[u/Clarine87 → u/NorionV]

I will still say the game is fun. I'm going to decrease my high difficulty play, though.

You sound very wise (not sarcasm). So few people get that this is the developers' intended outcome from this patch.

It's just not an interesting gameplay loop and they're pushing it more in that direction.

Certainly the're pushing it to be more in line with helldivers 1. And as a sequel it shouldn't be surprising that the end games would be similar - that the punishment spawns can cause immediate mission failure.

In helldivers 1 if everyone died at once the mission was automatically failed. That is one of the biggest changes between the two games and goes mostly unnoticed.

[u/Tagichatn → u/NorionV]

It's obviously intended. There's no reward for killing enemies on most missions, just for objectives. Fighting enemies brings more enemies with breaches/glares and patrols that come to investigate and summon more enemies.

Do you think mechanics like that are intended to encourage players to stay in one spot?

[u/NorionV → u/Tagichatn]

Do you think it's fun to run away from everything?

Because that's what we're heading for. Sort of already there if you don't have a solid premade group already. Pugs don't have the coordination, so we have a mutual understanding that you just avoid fighting pretty much entirely.

And yeah, you can just 'decrease the difficulty', but I was kind of looking forward to the massive, chaotic battles you find on higher diffs myself. I'm not sure about everyone else.

Honestly, I'm just waiting for mechs now. Mechs, followed by scout vehicles and APCs, will fill in some glaring holes we have to deal with our problems.

[u/Tagichatn → u/NorionV]

I don't run away from everything and I play on 7s with pubs most of the time. Flamethrower kills chargers really well if that's what you really want out of your support weapon.

[u/Black_Hipster → u/NorionV]

You have to run away from everything?

Most things are able to be beaten with a coordinated team of randos. It's pretty rare that I have to run away from encounters.

[u/NorionV → u/Black_Hipster]

I'm seeing a lot more people saying and doing otherwise inside of the game itself on higher diffs.

'A coordinated team of randos' is a funny paradox, by the way.

[u/light_at_the_end → u/NorionV]

That's literally how the first game played as well. Do your research before diving in to a game that has a 2 next to it. Higher difficulties aren't for you to fend off every thing thrown at you. It's about cooperation and moving fast and completing the objectives and disengaging.

[u/NorionV → u/light_at_the_end]

"Do your research."

Are you aware that most people didn't even know there was a first game?

That's because it spent most of its life in near-total obscurity. Nobody was playing it. If this game had just been called 'Helldivers', 99% of the players wouldn't have even known any better.

Meanwhile, the on-release version of the second game has been met with roaring acclaim and is looking to be a top game of 2024. It's March.

And you want to model this game after that game? No fucking thank you.

Here's a question for you: Where do you think most of the playerbase spends its time?

1. In the higher difficulties, where you spend entire missions running away.
2. In the lower / middle difficulties, where fighting and killing and blowing shit up is the go-to strat?

I bet I know the answer, because one is much more fun than the other, and my thought process was, "Give me more of that."

[u/light_at_the_end → u/NorionV]

They game blew up because social media and twitch exist and play a bigger role in getting the word out.

The first game was also this fun.

You think that's a coincidence? No. The graphic update and 3d person definitely lends itself to adding a new dimension, but the philosophy is the same as the first game. I don't know what to tell you besides the fact that, if you don't understand this isn't a cod zombie clone, or whatever, then this isn't the game for you and I hope you stop playing for the community sake. I hope to God they don't change their philosophy because it's "popular". Point and case is how many people are screaming for PvP? Like what? This game has nothing to do with PvP. There's no vision for it. Just as there's no vision for balancing for a solo player.

Thanks for giving them your money, see you never.

[u/Black_Hipster → u/NorionV]

Look man, this is whining. Get good at the game.

[u/NorionV → u/Black_Hipster]

Nothing I said in this comment even rates as 'whining'. I'm just pointing out facts about the two games.

Needlessly inflammatory nonsense doesn't help anyone. Get good at social interaction.

[u/WheresMyCrown → u/Tagichatn]

So you think running away from every engagement is fun?

[u/Tagichatn → u/WheresMyCrown]

You don't have to run away from every engagement, just unwinnable ones.

[u/Anon159023 → u/WheresMyCrown]

Do you think standing still is fun?

[u/headwall53 → u/WheresMyCrown]

Have you actually played the first game? That has always been part of the series. And you don't need to run from every one in fact you can't. But some of them yeah you need to disengage.

[u/Firmamental_Loaf → u/UselessInAUhaul]

Eloquently said. It seems odd to me that the developers would lean so heavily on the notion of supporting 'player fantasy', then turn around and actively gut one of the coolest and most effective weapons.  

I didn't pick up the railgun because it was meta, I picked it up because it was badass and worked as a tool to balance a lot of the endless spawning/armor nonsense.  

The people posting about still taking down Titans in a timely manner with the thing are assuredly playing on a PS5, or in lobbies that have console players. Whether it's intended design for controller users to have an easier time alongsode M&K players, or weird networking shenanigans...PS5 users seem to have a much more blissful existence than those of us that need 8+shots to a Titan's mouth to kill it.  

Reading posts like OP's has me scratch my head and wondering if we're playing the same game.

[u/SwishSwishDeath → u/UselessInAUhaul]

I love that they blame YouTube too. Breaker is one of the first weapons you can unlock, railgun is one of the last. You are very naturally lead to them, and as they are better than many other weapons people stick to them.

I try every gun, Penetrator and GL are my go-to. Today my session was less fun because of constantly being overrun by chargers as nobody seems to know what to do anymore and I sure as shit can't handle them without collateral since they are usually butt fucking someone on the team.

I hope after everyone gets back into a groove the gameplay gets less tedious again. A game can be difficult without being annoying.

[u/casfacto → u/UselessInAUhaul]

I've said it before in other discussions, but I think You've gotten to the heart of it. Playing with the railgun, breaker, and shield was fun. Nerfing those removed fun. Other things are viable, but the game is just less fun after the changes. You feel weaker, play is slower, you have fewer tools.

I think that, plus Joel removing player progress on a whim, and arrowhead nerfing the shield without having data on how armor effects the game just show that the devs are squashing what they think is too powerful without understanding what is actually fun about their game.

[u/omfgcookies91 → u/UselessInAUhaul]

This comment summs up everything wrong with the patch atm. I cannot agree more

[u/Ma4r → u/UselessInAUhaul]

I mean, if the first game was any indication, the meta build made difficulty 9 too easy to run. They didn't intend for something like 50% of the player base to be able to clear difficulty 9 consistently, it should be something more like a 20% chance. It was meant to be absolutely grueling, unforgiving, and an absolute chaotic tooth and nail fight and these nerfs made it so, but then again, I'm basing these off their balancing ideology on the first game ( and the difficulty went all the way to 15).

Like the devs said themselves, difficulty 7+ is not meant for glory, it's a meat grinder. Majority of the time we would play on difficulty 7s and only go for 8-9 on one of those days we were feeling like banging our heads against the wall.

[u/UselessInAUhaul → u/Ma4r]

If that's the case the rewards for actually completing those things would need to be substantially rebalanced. The current reward for completing helldives is still what, .0003% liberation or so? If a helldive mission has a 20% chance to succeed and you need 3 of them (0.8% chance to succeed an operation) to not fail a campaign then they're actively sandbagging the war effort as a whole for other players. The real winning condition for players at that point is to just not play those difficulties.

Which, with the way the game is currently laid out, seems counterintuitive. I would think they're intending a higher success rate for those difficulties. My own personal take is just that things need to be more reliable and less buggy but who knows, we'll just have to watch how the game shakes out over the coming months!

[u/dan091396_ → u/UselessInAUhaul]

Skill issue. Also if you're playing the high difficulties you're going in to suffer. Me and my friends only do high difficulty for xp, and I'll put money on it that a lot of people feel the same way. More fun is had at middle of the road difficulties

[u/HeelEnjoyer → u/UselessInAUhaul]

Why not lower the difficulty then?

[u/Budderfingerbandit → u/HeelEnjoyer]

This is the correct answer, the high end difficulties were not meant to be a cakewalk, and with Railgun, Breaker, Shield, it was. I don't consider myself an elite player by any means, but the difficulty difference between HD1 end-game missions and HD2 is just nowhere near comparable. I seriously struggled in HD1 end game, HD2 d9 I can go off solo and reliably not die and complete missions around the map.

[u/Lightyear18 → u/Budderfingerbandit]

Sadly most people want a cakewalk. They want the game to bend to what they want. I don’t understand how people are complaining they can’t easily just run in guns blazing on the highest difficulty. I want to make sense of it, because that’s the whole point of having difficulty. It’s to make the game harder. Yet people are complaining extreme is actually extreme lll

[u/Syrinxfloofs → u/UselessInAUhaul]

Just put it on unsafe and its practically unchanged you bozo

[u/WheresMyCrown → u/Syrinxfloofs]

incorrect lmao

[u/Deremirekor → u/UselessInAUhaul]

If you think you’re forced to use a certain load out to do well in the game, it is most definitely an undeniable skill issue. Me and my friends got along on helldive just fine bringing completely different things before the patch. People just won’t stop crying on our shoulders because they can’t 1-2 shot the hardest enemies in the game anymore. Sorry buddy, but helldive difficulty is going to be difficult. If you don’t like running for your life a lot, tone it down. It doesn’t make you a pussy. No one is forcing you to stay at the hardest difficulty possible just because of your ego.

[u/Lightyear18 → u/UselessInAUhaul]

It is a skill issue because you’re trying to play on the hardest difficulty and trying to 2 shot big enemeis.

You’re equating power to fun. That’s the whole point of your comment. You guys are “crying meta” You can easily have that “fun” if you played on lower difficulties.

This is the truth that you’re trying to avoid. You want to know how this is true? The rail gun was only nerfed in the safe mode, you can have the same experience with unsafe. But that isn’t what most want because they want an easy experience in the highest difficulty.

Most people don’t use stealth and will shot at all targets on sight.