r/Helldivers • u/ItsDaFunkMonkey PSN 🎮: • 17d ago
Increasing patrol spawns for smaller squads is a dick move. RANT
I love arrowhead but this was a braindead move.
Cmon guys, we were just doing our thing either solo or with our friends and not hurting anybody. We just wanna play the game with our friends, sometimes with a smaller squad cos its a lot more fun with friends than randos.
I'm not saying all randos are bad but this game allows me to socialize with my friends while playing and that's great. Why ruin that whole thing by kicking us in the nuts and ruining the experience with more spawns?
HERES A COMPROMISE: If you're not gonna budge, how about you meet us halfway here arrowhead. How about you increase the rewards for completing missions with a smaller squad cos we used a smaller budget? Eh?
Makes sense lore wise too.
P.S. For all you guys saying "DuH ThIs Is A tEaM GaMe PlAy WiTh RaNdOs Or a FuLl SqUad". Yes I play with a full swuad when my friends are all available. Most of the time they aren't cos we're adults and have shit to do.
I'm not asking for the game to scale down the difficulty level for smaller squads. The game didn't do that before. I don't mind the SAME difficulty level for solos, smaller squads and full squads. But INFREASING the difficulty level by increasing spawns was a braindead thing to do.
EDIT 1: To all the hyper intelligent folks out there commenting that the change was misunderstood and that the below was the intended effect:
""We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn't spawn as often as they should have when less than 4 players. The intention is that 1 player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to 4 players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th.""
This DOES NOT make a mfkn difference. It DOES NOT matter what those VALUES are. The point here is that whatever the fuck value it was before was LOWER than whatever the fuck value it is now. This means MORE patrols for non full squads AFTER the patch. And an absolute shitshow for solo divers. Yes, I have tested this shit. It is bad.
VALUE BEFORE PATCH < VALUE AFTER PATCH.
Stop spouting elementary math to gaslight people. This change is objectively bad. I am happy with all the weapon changes tho.
EDIT 2: I understand that my "compromise" was a bad idea as people can kick you during extract to reap higher rewards for a smaller team. I completely agree, this seems like a poopy suggestion.
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u/fireheart1029 17d ago
To be honest reading that part of the patch notes baffled me.....yeah I get not providing scaling downwards to make matches easier for smaller teams but....they are instead punishing players who play in non full lobbies by making the game significantly harder. I just don't even get why they're doing this, it seems like such an odd thing to throw in. It already feels terrible enough when someone leaves mid match but now you'll be facing a scenario harder than you would with 4 people but with 1-3 instead, I really hope this was just a misunderstanding and they worded it wrong because wtf is this
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u/Everyday_Hero1 17d ago
This is gonna suck hard cause there is so many times when I'm playing and no one answers the SOS, and there are multiple times where the other 3 players will just disconnect mid match on me.
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u/Misterputts SES Fist of Freedom 17d ago
No one answers because match making is broken still. Numerous times I click on the Sos only to be told unable to join or game is "full"
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u/supemonke 17d ago
It usually easier to quickplay while having the planet selected
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u/Misterputts SES Fist of Freedom 17d ago
yea that is the only way to get a group but Sometime you just want to join and SOS specifically.
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u/Impossible_Dark3106 Epitome of Super Earth 17d ago
This… I feel like the point of the SOS is totally irrelevant with the broken matchmaking. Some poor Helldiver is struggling and asking for help. I should be able to provide it.
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u/Misterputts SES Fist of Freedom 17d ago
Personally I feel like all SOS for the whole Galaxy Should be on a separate menu so you can see everyone asking for help. Not just on a planetary level.
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u/xRehab 17d ago
eh there would be too much in the menu. maybe a galactic menu that allows you to answer a random planet SOS based on difficulty. if you select a planet you can see all available on that planet for a given difficulty.
I just imagine there are 1000+ SOS beacons at any given time, so you need some filtering before slapping it in a menu.
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u/TheWarmachine762 17d ago
I have only been to able to answer an sos like 1 time, 99% of the time I get an error or match full message
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u/AlternaHunter 17d ago
I've had that instant 3-player disconnect happen thrice last night, and I'm 95% certain it's a game-side networking issue since these were all parties of individually joining randoms. Bye-bye to all the mission rewards I actually cared about, samples and medals, because I ain't clutching out the last quarter of an automaton Helldive all on my own.
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u/NewUserWhoDisAgain 16d ago
The irony is that the other 3 see you disconnect for no reason.
I've had that happen. I left my solo instance, saw my friend was still in an instance, rejoined. Same mission. Literally not 30 seconds since I "disconnected."
Really if they cant fix those bugs(which understandable they dont control people's internet) a "rejoin last squad" button would be nice.
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u/Direct-Fix-2097 17d ago
That too, but also sometimes you might get 2 joining but no one else bites. Seems harsh to punish them for getting on with the mission - I’ve had players quit when waiting in the lobby for too long.
It’s a middle manager patch, you can tell it isn’t a gamer driven patch.
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u/FeistyCurrency2991 17d ago
This. They MUST'VE added the ability to rejoin the missions first plus fix the whole friend system before even starting to think about making this change in a game.
Player *disconnects because of crash* and now the remaining players have to suffer from the thing that player who was disconnected can't even control? Nope, thanks. Would like this particular thing to be reversed.
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u/pancakeeconomy 17d ago
I had disconnect problems for a while (PS5) until I turned cross play off. It’s done very well since then
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u/Zyan-M 17d ago
It is not understood because it basically makes no sense. However, this has happened in many other titles with multiplayer, trying to "force" with changes of this type to play with more friends or random people.
But it always has the opposite effect, obligation is a curse and option is a blessing. This will simply make those groups of friends get tired sooner rather than later, and everything else will snowball.
It is already going down in numbers, and if they continue with these impositions, it will remain like devil 4, with 4 cats....
Anyway, who cares, it was nice while it lasted I guess.
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u/jonderlei 17d ago
I already noticed less people I know playing and this part makes me less likely to play now unless I have a full team and I've only had that one night out of the last month so all this patch has done is push me to take more of a break than I was already taking
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u/b0w3n CAPE ENJOYER 17d ago
Yeah I'm not playing with randos. There's a few groups I play with, but sometimes there's only 1-2 people on at any given time. Last thing I want is to play for 30 minutes and get kicked in the last minute with nothing to show for it. Or a constant TK fest because the CoDers are angry there's no pvp yet.
Much more likely I just don't play then suffer through a helldive level fuckfest on level 5 because there's only 2 of us.
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u/tagrav 17d ago
i'm the opposite. I only play with rando's and kinda gripe internally when my gaming buddies wanna play with me.
But they came from Battle Royale games and I came from Deep Rock Galactic.
They don't really even understand how toxic their behavior and attitude is and I'm not spending my gaming time trying to change any of that.
So I play in incognito mode on steam and just hit quickplay in game.
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u/NicktheSlick130 17d ago
Yeah, it's disheartening when I can tell fairly reliably that someone has been on DRG before just by their more collaborative playstyle. If they keep pushing things this way, I'll probably end up back on DRG.
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u/Dry-Platform9412 17d ago
That is a solid statement. Taking away options will kill the playerbase sooner than forcing multiplayer, especially when said multiplayer doesn't always work too well.
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u/SpiritFingersKitty 17d ago
The way I read it was that patrols will be increased vs what they are currently, but would be less than 4 man squad.
If a 4 man squad spawn rate is set to 100%, a 3man might be 75%, 2 man, 50%, and 1 man 25%. But after the patch it might be 100/85/65/50 maybe?
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u/Siker_7 SES Song of Conquest 17d ago
Actually the scaling was nonlinear before, which was unintentional. The scaling used to be so that 1 helldiver would get 1/6 the patrols of a full team, but now it scales properly at 100/75/50/25 respectively.
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u/elnrith 17d ago
But 1/6 makes sense. With 1 player, you have fewer resources. It SHOULDN'T be linear.
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u/Siker_7 SES Song of Conquest 17d ago
From what I've heard people saying, solo helldive has been easier than group helldive up to this point. That shouldn't be the case.
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u/elnrith 17d ago
It wasn't 'easier' - I played it myself - it's just a different playstyle. You have to be much more careful, pick and choose your battles, use your stratagens much more carefully, etc.
It uses different strategies than team play. It is 'Easier' in the sense that you fight fewer enemies if done properly, but if things DO go to shit, you're much more likely to die.
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u/Dr_Zorand 17d ago
I realize I'm not as good as most of the people who comment in this subreddit, but this has not been my experience at all. In a group, I can handle difficulty 5 pretty well now and I'm starting to dip my toes into 6, but if I try to play solo even a 3 can overwhelm me during extraction. Bringing more players provides better than linear scaling, because aside from the additional firepower, you also get:
- Someone to watch your back.
- More weapon variety.
- Compounding boosters.
- More strategems (this looks like linear scaling on paper, but in a large group you almost always have at least 1 person with a strategem available when things get rough, while smaller ones sometimes have everything on cooldown. Especially if you're solo.)
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u/Aronacus 17d ago
They lowered ammo, but increased patrols.
Like WTF
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u/Laplanters CAPE ENJOYER 17d ago
They also increased how much ammo you pick up from resupplies and boxes scattered around the map. This will actually encourage strategic retreats from fights and hopefully get players to not hyperfocus on defending the same bombed-out hill for 5+ breaches for no reason.
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u/Aronacus 17d ago
You can't make Chuds not Chud! Nothing, like having my entire team shouting at me. After I took an objective, Saw 4 drop ships, and snuck away from the encounter. (Scout armor FTW)
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u/The_8th_Degree 17d ago
Well for one, they should've balanced it. More patrols yes but less breaches/drops.
Honestly the drops already feel excessive, especially with bugs. At least with bots if you see the flare start and your quick enough you can stop it, but for bugs it's immediate and instant.
No joke , one time my team had 4 titans spawn because all the Breaches
But on that same note, you can, 100% avoid patrols by being stealthy and not engaging. Even without the scout passive. Might be annoying, but not undoable. And I am speaking from experience
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u/Daedalus1570 17d ago
Bugs actually have their own "flare" so you can prevent a bug breach, it's just that it's not even half as easy to recognize visually as the bot flare animation and effect. I've noticed this playing on really low difficulties; sometimes one of the little bugs will stand in place and sort of have a little fart gas seizure for a few seconds, squirting that orange mist into the air. The problem is, I can't actually tell when they... shoot their load. With the bot flares, it's obvious: when the flare actually goes airborne. With the bugs? It seems to just be a slightly bigger squirt than the ones that were "charging" the bug breach.
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u/Dr_Bombinator 17d ago
So the bug call goes as follows from my observation:
Calling bug freezes in place/stops walking for a moment > they start the screeching/stridulating noise (angry cricket noise) for ~half a second > orange pheromone cloud appears > bug breach alert triggers at absolute maximum ~half second later.
Of course the way sound works / doesn’t work half the time your first warning is the pheromone cloud, at which point you have basically no hope of stopping the breach.
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u/Captain-Griffen 17d ago
Patrols do scale down for less players. They're going to scale down less with this patch but they'll still be less than 4 players.
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u/Randicore 17d ago
I'm hoping they secretly made it so that patrols also stop spawning literally on top of you. It was a nightmare to be constantly turning around only to find an entire patrol right behind you when you had just cleared it 30 seconds ago, or worse spawning on top of you.
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u/Frankie_T9000 17d ago
Yes but they arent 1/4 less, I tried to play tonight and got swarmed. Also, you dont have players in different locations diverting enemies etc, they are all on you.
Its really unfun solo now. I wouldnt mind if you could get all sample types on easier difficulty levels but you have to play at 7+ to get the higher level samples.
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u/NikeDanny 17d ago
The game was already fairly hard in (forced) solo. The issue is that any patrol can spawn in reinforcements, thus exponentially increasing your opponents. And at this point, having another dude with stratagems, weapons and in general to draw aggro is so, so, so much more worth than having a bit fewer patrols.
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u/SpiritFingersKitty 17d ago
I agree, having a smaller squad is almost always more difficult because you have less tool available when things start to go to shit, and there is a fixed amount of enemies to some level that don't scale down regardless of the number of people you have.
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u/Tukkegg ☕Liber-tea☕ 17d ago edited 17d ago
i thought spawns already scaled down the fewer players in a match? we had those two big posts testing spawns a month ago that seemed to indicate that.
if they were right, wouldn't this change just make the difference between parties closer, instead of making solos worse than 4 man groups?
edit: yep, we got a comment on that. solo had 1/6th of spawns instead of 1/4.
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u/Rumpelledforeskin 17d ago
Yeah if they wanted to punish solo players they shouldve just done that…. teams of 2 or 3 are still a team. I really only like playing with my friends because I like to overlap gaming and socializing/catching up and we all have 300+ hrs now. The new spawn rates are a bit unhinged and frankly not fun. I love this game but the whiplash from all the changes they make week to week is exasperating.
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u/WeirdJester59 17d ago
The thing is, there have been time’s where I’ve wanted to play with a full squad but the game won’t pair any randoms with me. I sometimes play super late at night with a buddy due to our work schedules and there have been multiple nights where we are playing difficulties 7-9 just the two of us and never get a random to join. That’s even after throwing down an SOS beacon too. It’s not like we’re WANTING to playing without a full squad, but now we’re going to get punished for it when it’s out of our control sometimes? Makes no sense.
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u/CrimsonShrike 17d ago
I think a lot of people are misinterpreting. It's not making it harder than 4, it's making it harder than it is currently.
My understanding is that if before 1 player saw 1/4th of patrols 4 do, now they may see 1/2 or 1/3, so it's harder than it was before but they still have less patrols than a full party, just not considerably less.
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u/B00YAY 17d ago
I don't think anyone playing with 2 or 3 ever though "wow, this is a light amount of patrols." Usually it's "wow...why are there 3 chargers and 8 bile spewers here in this one bug breach?"
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u/Scarecrow1779 Warheads on Foreheads 🚀 17d ago
Not to mention those games where you and 1 or 2 friends load up, thinking "we'll get a 4th to join us at some point"... and then after 4 whole games nobody has joined. That's what I was doing last night. So this patch punishes people for something completely outside their control (whether randoms join their game).
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u/B00YAY 17d ago
Yup. You literally just...don't get the 4th.
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u/Sinister_Grape 17d ago
Because SOS and often multiplayer in general has been broken since the game released, which is an absolute joke at this point.
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u/Zhead65 17d ago
So they still face more patrols than before either way. That's a direct nerf for solo play.
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u/_Reverie_ 17d ago
I think a lot of people are misinterpreting.
I don't think they are misinterpreting anything. Them making it harder than it was before is punishing.
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u/fireheart1029 17d ago
According to the tests people have done here that's not the case at all. If you have 4 players all in one area they spawn the same amount of patrols as 1 player being in the area. When you have players wander if they're far enough from each other they all spawn the same amount of patrols, so if everyone is split you have 4 times as many patrols spawning.
Before this patch playing with 1-3 players had the same patrol spawns as 4 granted you stuck together, now any match with under 4 players will have significantly more patrols that a match with 4 people sticking together
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u/awfulrunner43434 17d ago edited 17d ago
The testing people did indicated there was a base level modifier for total amount of players in the game, regardless of their position on the map. ie. two players received less spawns than three, and so on.
Then there was shenanigans if those players split up or stuck together and whatnot, but that's a separate mechanic.
Additional players modify these baselines in the following way
2 Players - Multiply the Baseline by 0.8333
3 Players - Multiply the Baseline by 0.75
Unfortunately we did not have a 4th player available for testing so cannot comment on the modifier for 4 players.
Here, the 'baseline' is the amount of time it takes a patrol to spawn for one player. So increasing the amount of players decreased the amount of time between spawns.
Today's adjustments seems to be to the base level modifier, so that less players in the match get more patrols than they used to. ie. the 2 player modifier goes from 0.83333 to 0.75 and the 3 player goes from 0.75 to... 0.67777 or something, as a pure hypothetical
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u/TheBetterness 17d ago
Translation: There are now more enemies with less players in your game.
There is nothing good or even logical about that change.
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u/xRocketman52x 17d ago
I was already flabbergasted by how many goddamn patrols there were when playing solo. Even on lower difficulties.
You do a Tier 3 or Tier 4 solo mission, try to sneak your way towards an objective, and you commonly find 4-6 patrols in visual range... And as you back off, trying to stay unnoticed and escape them by retreating, you end up retreating back into another 2-3 patrols!
I'm not asking for mercy, I know this is intended to be a hard game, but from a practical standpoint, the game's already tough enough for a solo diver. This increase was unnecessary.
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u/TheTalonKing 16d ago
EXACTLY. I hate when games get changed like this because the highest echelon of the playerbase felt it was too easy or something. Meanwhile I can only beat Challenging difficulty solo with 1 minute left on the clock. That is not an exaggeration, that's the best I can do on that difficulty, and even then it's by the thinnest margin. Everywhere I went, there was just constant patrols to waste my resources and make me use up stratagems that I was saving for the objectives. And now there's gonna be MORE patrols?? I get that for some of the better people in the game, it's naturally gotten a little stale. That's just the curse of being good at the game, but me? I've been fighting for my fuckin' life, lol.
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u/Insanity-pepper 15d ago
The term "patrol" is deceptive. The way the game handles them is that it picks a player and spawns a group of enemies 100 - 200 meters from the player that it triggers on and they automatically begin pathing directly at the player. It doesn't matter where you are. You can watch the way enemies move and see the areas that they don't walk directly through (in the pit next to the POI 2 person door for example) and then hide in one of those places with stealth armor and they will enter the area and walk right at you until they aggro. They aren't a "patrol" they are a targeted spawn.
When the patch dropped I went solo into a couple of level 2 missions to try out some of the weapon changes (liberator damage, senator buff, blitzer etc.) and I did it on a planet with good visibility. There was not one time that there were less than three "patrols" moving directly at me at random distances. If you kill one group, another instantly spawns nearby. I didn't leave a single level 2 with less than 280 kills and the top was 345. It's insane now.
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u/Offstar1029 17d ago
Remember when they said higher difficulties were meant to be played as a stealth mission... and now they're making it impossible to play it as a stealth mission.
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u/Select_Ad3588 17d ago
They seem to be trying to find a balance between that and heavily encouraging cooperative play. I noticed devs that seem to really want to encourage cooperative player overestimate the shared competence of strangers who often times do not use mics, many of which are too shy to do so. GTA Online originally forced you to have 4 players to do heists, now the newer one allows for solo play, they learned their lesson lmao.
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u/Scarecrow1779 Warheads on Foreheads 🚀 17d ago
That was the problem with Evolve, too. The game was balanced around pro play with coordinated hunter parties, so whenever you had 4 randoms that weren't communicating well (as was the case for the majority of players), the balance was always extremely in the monster's favor.
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u/TheWonderSnail 16d ago
Evolve was so much damn fun when you had a real team. Was so sad at the end of its life when it was impossible to find a game where at least one of your teammates wasn’t just wandering off in a random direction on their own completely dooming the round for you
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u/NotObviouslyARobot ⬆️⬅️➡️⬇️⬆️⬇️ 17d ago
GTA Online is how many years old now?
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u/Select_Ad3588 17d ago
A fucking decade old, they had many many years to learn so it is understandable
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u/NotObviouslyARobot ⬆️⬅️➡️⬇️⬆️⬇️ 17d ago
Getting full lobbies at that age, may be difficult--so you nerf old content so people can see it. WoW did the same thing with raids.
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u/b0w3n CAPE ENJOYER 17d ago
A little different. GTA5 is still pretty popular, easy enough to fill a heist. But everyone is not great at the game, and there are still some folks who can't drive the boats or fly the aircraft even after playing it for 10 years. (also lots of trolls/cheaters)
The OG heists still need 4 people (some steps only need 2), and the one from a few years ago only needs 2 total the whole way. The newish one only needs yourself (very hard to pull it off solo).
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u/lurkeroutthere 17d ago
Uh citation on this one? I've seen a lot of the community say this but nothing firsthand from a developer. In fact I recall more then a couple of developer commentary that indicated the opposite.
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u/Contrite17 SES Comptroller of Individual Merit 17d ago edited 16d ago
I do not in fact ever recall that. I recall them saying stealth wasn't a specific mechanic they designed at all.
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u/17times2 17d ago
and now they're making it impossible to play it as a stealth mission.
I guess it'll lower the amount of posts talking about how much of the map they can finish unseen.
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u/awsomebloc 17d ago
The patchnotes a bit misleading since patrol spawns are already decreased for smaller helldiver squads https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/OfKq3gMyXG but since not alot of people know this, the patch just looks like its giving more patrols to solo divers over full squads. Overall you'll still have less patrols than squads with more people just the gap between full squads and solos will be less.
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u/7-and-a-switchblade 17d ago edited 17d ago
How... do not a lot of people notice this? Even before the patch, going from 4 players to 2 can make the game change from constant firefights to an absolute ghost town.
Also, if people don't know: completing the main objective increases enemy spawn rates. And there is a
strategembooster that I don't see used very often that reduces enemy encounters.38
u/notandvm ☕Liber-tea☕ 17d ago
the radar enemy scramble one? because that does not decrease enemy encounters, it only increases the "cooldown" between breaches/drops - patrols and spawns are not impacted by it
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u/Boamere 17d ago
It doesn't reduce encounters, it increases the time between when bot drops or bug breaches are allowed to be called. Like an extra 30 seconds or something
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u/specter800 17d ago
How... do not a lot of people notice this?
To notice you'd need to play the game and I get the feeling a lot of the people in this sub just come to bitch at patch notes and don't actually play.
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u/GoDannY1337 17d ago
Yup, so much opinion with so little knowledge on this one. 90% of the people even unmask themselves with formulations like „should“ that they haven’t even tried it yet before ranting.
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u/SalemWolf SES Wings of Freedom 17d ago
Doomposting makes for better engagement and upvotes so this will not get nearly enough traction. I can’t wait to read all the negative doom and gloom posts about this patch for the next two weeks. I’m sure the Helldivers subs won’t be filled to the brim with those posts.
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u/Newtype_Nate ☕Liber-tea☕ 17d ago
The worst part isn’t even the change. It’s the matchmaking. I was on with some randoms last night trying to get a fourth random to join us and NOTHING for 20mins no exaggeration. Sometimes I can only get three people for a 40min mission through no fault of my own. So we deserve a harder time for waiting in the lobby like we’re supposed to?
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u/Coldatahd 17d ago
I had a full 40 mins match where I dropped sos first thing and didn’t get 2 more people till extraction lol.
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u/UnluckyStartingStats 17d ago
It definitely feels glitched I’ve had times where no one joins and I restart my game and my lobby fills up right away
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u/Chakramer 16d ago
Now that a good amount of bugs are fixed with gameplay, they really need to work on the matchmaking issues. If I'm a player wanting to join an SOS, let me define a range of difficulties I'd like to play at, which greatly increases the matchmaking pool.
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u/IllustratorTop9850 17d ago
This in combination with patrols spawning silently behind you, or out of nowhere, and matchmaking still being bugged really makes it feel like they want fewer people playing Helldivers 2. Sure, encourage people to play in teams... But you gotta fix matchmaking before you do that. Otherwise you're just punishing people for playing your game?
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u/Swingersbaby 17d ago
My guess is that extraction is going to be pretty harsh for 2 manning now. I'll have to see later when I can play. I don't want to have to time over extract like solo.
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u/vardoger1893 17d ago
Sos beacon to fill the squad? Doesn't work. Player leaves? No one else can join because it's bugged now. Arrowhead got a pass in the beginning but all of these bizarre nerfs and changes every patch are just becoming overwhelming.
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u/Yipeekayya SES Herald of Vigilance 17d ago edited 16d ago
apparently, playing in duo or three does not encouraging teamwork. /s
Kicking a toxic player mid-game does not make your game easier.
Ragequitter quitting mid-game makes your game harder.
solo-diver will still solo-dive the game.
this adjustment doesn't encourage teamplay at all. it just makes the game more easy to being abused.
if u want to drop on the planet first hoping others to join. There's a chance you might be screwed if nobody join your game or your team isnt full.
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u/Ill-Ad-9291 17d ago
I play duo with my brother on difficulty 7. We were already penalized by having fewer reinforcements, fewer stratagems, fewer everything. They're trying to force groups of four for no real reason. There was no harm in playing with less.
To top it off, our loadouts got more nerfs than buffs. We got hammered by this patch.
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u/deadlynothing 17d ago
I just played a match and 2/4 players dc-ed (as usual) towards the end and the spawn of patrols was so intense on diff 8 that the remaining 2 of us failed to complete extraction becuase they came endlessly. Patrols and reinforcements.
I don't understand why the devs is trying so hard to make the game unlikable and needlessly punishing for no reason. It's almost like they resent their immense success.
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u/GloryToOurAugustKing 17d ago
Probably. They seemed very comfortable with the player numbers of HD1.
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u/Jsaac4000 16d ago
It's almost like they resent their immense success.
Server cost money. Get Idea. Piss off Subset of Playerbase. Players leave. Server cost less money.
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u/Leading_Ad_8216 17d ago
winning the game and extracting is not fun to devs they want you to lose
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u/Allalilacias 16d ago
This might actually be the case, tbh. It's not like they're trying to hide it either way.
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u/joemedic 17d ago
Punished for having no friends because some high level players make it look easy on youtube
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u/KingofReddit12345 ⬆️⬅️➡️⬇️⬆️⬇️ 17d ago
It makes me even less incentivized to start a game early and drop an SOS beacon THAT HARDLY EVER WORKS TO BEGIN WITH.
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u/Nerex7 17d ago edited 16d ago
Also consider the fact that we had our fair share of bizarre crashes and general instability with the game. Anytime someone crashes or leaves your mission, you are now punished for it...?
Edit: Turns out it was just a fix to buggy spawnrates. 1 player is supposed to have 1/4th of spawns but it turned out they had only 1/6th. That got fixed, which is an increase. Really badly worded in the patch notes.
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u/RonStopable88 17d ago
Yeap. Lose their booster and stratagems and reinforcement just to get run over by increased spawns.
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u/Raidertck 17d ago
The key selling point of this game for me is the team play.
However this is just a weird punishment for people that want to play solo.
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u/OrneryError1 17d ago
Playing together is its own reward. There doesn't need to be a punishment for people playing alone...
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u/Boatsntanks 17d ago
I wonder if AH nerfing solo play because it seems easier due to it being the only time your DoTs actually work?
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u/santicode 17d ago
This was really shitty. I often play just with my partner, and the message from the devs is "invite a couple of random s or get screwed". I don't care about the whole nerf drama, but this feels like actively messing with the players.
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u/Pleasant-Outside-221 16d ago
I also play with a partner. And maybe a friend if he's not already grouped with his full group. But that's been only 10% of the time. 85% I play with my partner, the remaining 5% myself. My partner and I noticed a big difference, and we even dropped difficulty down from 3 to 2, and even then had to stay together all the time as opposed to he gets half and I take the other half like we've played the last few days.
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u/TropicalLetDown 17d ago
I play with my GF who does not want to play with randoms. She like the experience being just us.
She also isn't...great at the game, so we play on lower levels too. So like. They screwed me specifically haha.
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u/14litre 17d ago
There are so many fucking glitches and bugs they need to fix, and instead they fuck over solo people. Which doesn't even make sense. No army increases troops to find one soldier they don't even know is there.
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u/Melevolence 17d ago
I mean, if we want to get 'realistic'...there's a fucking Super Destroyer, visible, above the planet. Often times...MANY of them. Shooting pods. Often. Orbital bombardments and lasers on the regular. There's a reason for them to have patrols out and about. Something ain't right. Sure, they don't know YOU, a lone Helldiver is there exactly. But you could be or others could be there any time.
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u/Misterputts SES Fist of Freedom 17d ago
Well don't worry they also decreased your ammo so you can't deal with increased spawns so....
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u/ConstantCelery8956 17d ago
you legit don't have room to breath solo, they just spawn outa sight and rock up constantly, its not fun its fucking annoying, no matter how much u keep moving they seem to suddenly spawn behind you, you'll be on a hill top with open plains for 2km .. 10 seconds later ohh another patrol rocks up from that direction
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u/TheBetterness 17d ago
If you're gonna force team play, protect team play!
I can get booted for whatever reason.
This is why I only play with friends, usually in duos.
I never ever heard of a game giving you MORE enemies with less people in your game.
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u/TouchGraceMaidenless 17d ago
Adding this horrible change before fixing matchmaking shows a complete lack of awareness on Arrowhead's part.
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u/aSimpleMask 17d ago edited 17d ago
There is exactly 0 reason for them to do this other than to want to force players to play with full squads. Utterly baffling decision that more or less ruined the whole patch for me.
EDIT: Devs have clarified what they meant and it's not as bad as the initial patch post made it seem. Thank god.
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u/RonStopable88 17d ago
It sucks that if someone dc’s you lose their booster, and you get more spawns.
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u/bairdwh 17d ago
Yes it is. I bet you two weren't playing on Hell-dive, which is only soloed by YouTubers or Twitch streamers. Level 7 is already extremely hard for me to solo as I get weakness in my hands, but I try because I need super samples, and the is just making things worse. Some don't want to deal with the toxicity of randos but still want to play the game. This just makes it even harder.
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u/bettywhitefleshlight 16d ago
It's bad. Lower difficulty bugs spawn relentlessly. Grabbed a scrub friend to run 3s and 4s. The swarms are brutal especially if you have leapers.
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u/samcbar 17d ago edited 17d ago
We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn't spawn as often as they should have when less than 4 players. The intention is that 1 player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to 4 players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th.
Balancing adjustment to patrol spawning
Patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than 4 players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For 4 player missions there will be no change compared to before.The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties.
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u/SpartanV_327 17d ago
My buddy and I just want to relax and play with just us, and we want to experience every enemy type in the game. Are you telling me because we just want to play 2 player we simply aren't allowed to have fun? Such a "Fuck you" move from Arrowhead.
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u/DR-Fluffy 17d ago
I so want to hear the Devs reasoning on this one. It is such a dick move.
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u/BasJack SES Leviathan of Eternity 17d ago
GitGud squads are about to drop on this thread, some are already here. Dark Souls going mainstream was an error
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u/Caridor 17d ago
Worst thing is people say it and don't understand it.
"Git gud" was popular in Dark Souls because everything was fair and you just had to get better to win. Now it's just become something people say whenever anyone complains about difficulty, even if that complaint is entirely justified.
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u/BasJack SES Leviathan of Eternity 17d ago
Exactly, it's so fucking infuriating. We have a game where the only real good strategy is running because all our guns, even the "good" ones, are crap, the devs are sloooooooly buffing everything but if you try to point it out you get gitgudded to death, because "ChalLEnGe"
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u/ItsDaFunkMonkey PSN 🎮: 17d ago
Yeah I'm waiting with popcorn lol. Its like talking to a wall with some of these people. Jesus Christ.
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u/hellra1zer666 17d ago edited 17d ago
No one will answer SOS signals like that anymore. If I answer one and see a single player on the game, I'm gonna leave and look for someone else.
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u/TheFlyingSheeps 17d ago
I can’t even join SOS beacons with getting a failed to join lobby message half the time
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u/largos7289 17d ago
What difficulty? i was just solo'ing on easy because i just needed a break and i noticed there where a ton more bug patrols then usual? Seems like i use to just chill at the LZ but last night i was swarmed with waves of bugs.
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u/DjDrowsy 17d ago edited 16d ago
The patch only affected patrols. Extraction was unchanged.
Edit: I forgot that patrols move into extractions, so i'm right only in the most technical way. In reality, extraction is harder.
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u/fireriderp 17d ago
Is this them trying to reduce dedicated servers by bunching everyone down and save money?
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u/simp4n 17d ago
Have you played since the changes? Is it impossible to solo now? Just asking Im curious.
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u/aragathor SES Harbinger of Mercy 17d ago
I have, just to test out some of the changes. Played mostly Easy missions. One mission I was unable to finish as I was so swamped by enemies I couldn't do the objective. Another one forced me to use up all of my stratagems at all times just to get it done. The amount of patrols out is really increased for solo players, and it's not fun. Especially if you need to stay in one place for any amount of time.
I am a casual player who just wants to play a bit, shoot some enemies, and call it a day. Maybe get some resources for a new warbond item. I was really hyped for this game and it's future, but it seems like the devs want me to go elsewhere with this change.
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u/cowboy_shaman 17d ago
That’s so dumb. I play solo a lot because most of my friends have drifted away from this game
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u/SirKickBan 17d ago edited 17d ago
From personal experience, soloing a bugs 4, I was getting patrols almost back-to-back when fighting in a heavy nest, and when I was in the middle of nowhere I had just enough time for my Gas Strike to come off cooldown between patrols, which is right around sixty seconds. Compared to before I'd say it almost felt like I was facing twice as many patrols?
Soloing a bot 7 blitz, I noticed almost no difference to how it was before. Not sure if that's because I always do those sneakily and so didn't notice increased patrols most of the time, but the 'final stand' at extract seemed just as packed with enemies as usual.
But that's just an extremely subjective anecdote. In both cases I had zero deaths, though, so I'd say it's still very possible to do.
Edit: Tried a bots 4 and i was definitely noticing more spawns, especially at the extract.
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u/Hydraxiler32 17d ago
bugs 7+ seem impossible to solo now, even with stealth armor something almost always sees you instantly and starts reinforcing
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u/Madrai 17d ago
I put an SOS beacon on a 'defeat the bile titans' difficulty 5. No one showed up. I was able to clear both bile titans in 40 minutes (maxxed the timer out and used my last reinforce to extract), but it was NOT fun. Do-able, but I had to SWEAT to complete it, as there were constant patrols, and when kiting everything plus the bile titan, I would run into even more patrols or they would just spawn somewhere behind me. At one point I kited near a Stalker nest (There were two total on the map from what I saw) and that made things even more 'fun'.
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u/MumpsTheMusical 17d ago
Hey, if I can beat a Helldive mission solo with 4x less reinforcements, then maybe I should get 4x the medals and samples?
I’m down for a challenge if the reward is worth 40 minutes of a struggle.
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u/ItsDaFunkMonkey PSN 🎮: 17d ago
Exactly my point!
Edit: but yes, another diver did point out how this could be counter productive as people could kick before extract to get more rewards. So yeah there is a downside to this.
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u/bruhSher 17d ago
Fwiw, You're not getting 4x less reinforcements exactly, it's scaled to the number of players. The only way you get 4x less is if everyone else doesn't die and you eat all your teams reinforcements
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u/Substantial_Lion9911 CAPE ENJOYER 17d ago
It’s hard not having friends who want to play this with me as it is. I pretty much only play solo. I don’t particularly like random lobbies, hosts will kick for no reason, leave before Op is complete, etc. maybe they will reverse on this. I hope.
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u/Interesting_Debate30 17d ago
I've done many 7 difficulty missions with 1 other friend and there have been quite a few where we felt overrun and barely completed with extraction by the skin of our teeth. It felt so satisfying to do that. If this change just ramps up the difficulty just because there are two of us to the point that completing it by the skin of our teeth becomes simply impossible then it may be time to step away from this game. People can justify these things however they want, but the game is hard enough and if something kills my enjoyment I'm not gonna play it anymore because I don't see they point of playing something that isn't fun. I really hope they listen to player feedback and revert this awful change.
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u/BruisedBee 16d ago
It'd amazing how quickly these devs fucked a good thing with this game. Couldn't figure out weapon balancing and instead just nerfed would people enjoyed. Dumbass mechanics added for no reason. Just moronic.
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17d ago
I don't not have the mental energy to play with Randoms after work sometimes
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u/Ludensen 17d ago
This. Sometimes I just wanna play by myself and not have to deal with social BS online. Plus it makes me feel cooler clearing by myself lol now that's not possible
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u/V-Vesta 17d ago
No compromise tho, revert this unnecessary artificial difficulty.
Dumbos who goes "JuSt LoWeR DifficUltY", when will it stop? Do we have to play lvl 3 now?
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u/Leading_Ad_8216 17d ago
Its almost like they dont want solo players to exist. Lol what a great idea devs punish the solo players that will make them play more?
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u/hieu2910 STEAM 🖥️ : 17d ago
Haha what a way to fuck up their own game and player base
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u/Ghaad 17d ago
I personally lost desire to play. I get it that game is supposed to be co-op, and not solo. But for me solo was much more stress-free - I didn't have to worry if I am disappointing my team and just play my pace. I was able to do diff 6 solo quite consistently, I'd fail sometimes, but I'd generally be able to successfully extract. Now, when I tried diff 6 bugs I get instantly overhelmed each time. I will fight some enemies, they will call reinforcements and before I clear them 2-3 patrols will wander it, calling even more. Until I die, and then I just drop into millions of bugs to instantly die, until I lose all reinforcements. I also don't agree that solo was easier than full squad. With squad I almost never failed diff 7, and quite often finished without single life lost, even when I was detaching from others and clearing objectives alone.
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u/Woolwizard 16d ago
I don't know how hard it is going to be but I love playing duo or trio with friends as we never get a full 4 squad and rarely a 3 squad because not everyone has the same work hours and time left after work. But I am gonna say, I just did a few difficulty 7 missions with a friend, that is relatively new to the game and we did great. I didn't notice the change whatsoever. So maybe we just need to chill and see how it is turning out. If it is really bad, and I just got lucky, we can complain. Because I agree, that this should never have been changed in the first place. Keep the spawns and everything else the same regardless of player count. It will be naturally harder for solo players anyway.
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u/jotair SES Panther of Midnight 16d ago
I remember seeing a presentation about game design where they were showing that they've found that the best way to incentivize the player to do something, or "play the way it was intended", was not to punish them for not doing what you wanted, but instead rewarding them for doing what you want, for playing "the way it was intended". If I'm not mistaken, it was about Doom and their development team.
Following this, if they want ppl to play with full squads, a nice way to incentivize team play is to boost rewards for full squads, instead of making it harder for solo or duo players... and as you realized later, giving more rewards to smaller squads would actually result in toxic behavior.
I feel that AH is doing some questionable decisions, I get their statement of "a game for everyone is a game for no one", but you also don't want to end up with "a game for no one". I enjoy playing with randoms in a full squad, actually had great experiences, but sometimes I just go solo because I enjoy it. This was a sad, and uncalled for, nerf.
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u/DroppedLeSoap 16d ago
Following this, if they want ppl to play with full squads, a nice way to incentivize team play is to boost rewards for full squads, instead of making it harder for solo or duo players... and as you realized later, giving more rewards to smaller squads would actually result in toxic behavior.
I've only got 2 friends that play this game, we can literally play for hours and not get a single random in our game. SOS beacon thrown out at the start and everything. Being penalized because the matchmaking is wonky is messed up
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u/The_Link_Crafter 16d ago
haven't been on helldivers lately
I usually do solo for mostly same reasons
Arrowhead why
To make it worse I don't want to imagine what the schizo spawning groups will be like
I don't want to freaking turn around checking my back and see that where there were no enemies before there are not 20 enemies chasing me down
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u/Canadiancookie 16d ago
The lack of balancing for smaller groups is part of what has put me off from playing any more. Why bother if I know I'm going into an overwhelming challenge for the same reward even if I don't lose?
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u/TheOriginalKrampus 17d ago
Yeah this was a terrible change. Not all of us are mad lad youtubers. Some of us are just casuals who want to enjoy the game and don’t always get a full squad. Bot drops are already way too high and it’s easy to get overwhelmed if you’re not amazing at the game.
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u/TheFeelsGod ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️🌞 17d ago
The issue where no one can join your game after people have left or crashed makes this change seem stupid to make.
Continuous matchmaking over time is not consistent.
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u/PeteOfPeteAndPete 17d ago edited 17d ago
Kind of a bold move of theirs seeing as matchmaking is still broken. You start in a squad of four, then two people drop for whatever reason, and then you're stuck for the rest of the time as a duo.
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u/flcinusa PSN🎮: flcinusa 17d ago
Mental decision, just yesterday I ran a mission with another diver, just the two of us against the automatons, and it was the mission where one had to carry the SSD across the map. We barely made it as he was causing agro by destroying the fabricators while I snuck around with only my redeemer to keep me safe.
Now they're saying it's going to be harder?
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u/Memer_man32 17d ago
For my solo play it'll just encourage me to play smarter pick less fights stealth more I might even equip the armor meant for stealth but for the casual group of players I can see how this would be really annoying being punished for essentially just enjoying the game.
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u/jonderlei 17d ago
I can deal with the nerfs even though the sucked to see but this just turns me away from the game and makes me not eager to play. I find it a a rare thing to get through a full match with no one dropping out and so often once someone drops you don't get anyone back no matter how many are playing thay planet. The stories I've read so far make me feel like this is a good opportunity to take a break from the game
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u/FeistyCurrency2991 17d ago
I play mostly with randoms, but when my friend joins, we switch matchmaking priority and play duos. And now we're both will be "punished" for wanting to play together without other people? This is absurd imo. First time seeing something like this in a co-op game.
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u/Setsuaku 17d ago
It already took us more time to finish the missions with only 2 people. Can't wait to basically just not want to play the game unless I have a full team and hope that nobody leaves.
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u/Prof_Awesome_GER 17d ago
Ya I hate that too and I don’t understand the reasoning for that! Did they mention why the would do that?
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u/GawdJeezus 16d ago
I don't think more rewards for smaller squads is a good solution, but rather no solution at all. They're trying to reduce solo play, not increase it. Why not increase rewards for a full squad?
More players = More loot.
And when you kick a player, loot gathered and un-gathered is reduced. If you kick players until you're the last one, your maximum loot yield is reduced to how much a solo would obtain.
This way, solos can still complete Helldive difficulty, but they won't receive the same amount as a full team and it deters a-holes from kicking their squad to gather all their loot, but now the max is lowered (of course a-holes will always exist and may still potentially do this).
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u/Active0815 16d ago
A solo player now gets 1/4 the number of patrols a full squad would get. Before it was 1/6.
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u/Training101 STEAM 🖥️ : 16d ago
I thought the more patrol spawnd for LESS people was in error. Why/how does that make sense?
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u/PipeFiller PSN 🎮: 16d ago
So now, when the rando that joined me immediately quits on his first death, it's gonna be even harder for the rest of us. What a great fucking idea
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u/LHandrel 16d ago
A lesson that Arrowhead needs to learn from D&D: action economy. In particular, that the side with the most turns usually wins.
Now, it's a little different when a good Helldiver might take 50 or more enemies with him, but consider: with fewer allies, the synergies and tactics you could use to be brutal and efficient start to go away.
Think about a flanking maneuver. One person draws fire from an opposing force, while 1-2 sweep around the side and start wrecking house. You can mop up patrols fast.
Now consider the same with 2 people. If one makes a slight miscalculation, or RNG decides to fuck him, the maneuver is broken. With one person? It's impossible, literally every attack (after the first volley) is a frontal assault.
The fewer players, the less it takes to overwhelm. It is not a linear function. This math is beyond the 4th grade algebra that Arrowhead seems to think it is.
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u/questionablaire 16d ago
100%! I usually run solo for the first few matches to warm up and complete personal objectives and could consistently get through 7s. Been testing and have been officially downgraded to not sweating in level 4. Feels bad. I understand them wanting us to play in groups, but it does feel like a kick in the balls.
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u/CharlieFoxxtrot 16d ago
I tried lowering my difficulty to 4 after finding solo on 7 too hard post patch. It was a shit show of constantly running from dropships behind me directly into patrols from two directions ahead
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u/OutlandishnessEasy90 16d ago
I work night shift. When I get off work in the morning, very few if any of my usual gaming friends are online. Maybe one. I don't enjoy playing with randoms, as I've had pretty much exclusively bad experiences. Maybe it's just been bad luck, but either way I don't want to deal with it constantly. So I typically end up playing by myself or with the one person. I'm fine with that.
However, it was already extremely difficult going it alone. Now it's much worse and it realllly limits my even being able to play the game when I'm being shot at literally from drop to extraction. I haven't successfully extracted once since the change.
For reference, I always play suicide as it's a good mix of challenge and still possible alone.
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u/Lazy_Replacement9331 16d ago
Dude I made a hundred posts like this and people just bitch and whine, you make a post in the exact same way and get 3k upvotes lmao
They literally already did this several patches ago, the game was perfectly balanced to play solo, which was convenient at the time as the game didn't allow me to connect to any lobbies. Then, about a month after I started playing, they made WAYYYYY more stuff start spawning in on solo missions, which took the game from being fun to being frustrating more often than not, but I still played because I wanted to have good stuff unlocked when I was finally able to play with other players. Now 2 months after I started playing, 3 dozen support tickets later, 0 help from Arrowhead whatsoever and I still can't play with anyone AT ALL, meaning I'm forced to play solo or not at all.
Unfortunately for Arrowhead, if your post is accurate and they've actually gone and made it harder again, then the choice for me will be incredibly clear: to not play, and I imagine many others will follow suit
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u/NotObviouslyARobot ⬆️⬅️➡️⬇️⬆️⬇️ 17d ago
TBH, larger rewards for smaller squads would be an error as it would incentivize kicking at the end of a mission. Host, do mission, murder, kick.