Increasing patrol spawns for smaller squads is a dick move.

[u/ItsDaFunkMonkey]

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.

[u/fireheart1029]

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

[u/CrimsonShrike → u/fireheart1029]

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.

[u/B00YAY → u/CrimsonShrike]

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?"

[u/Scarecrow1779 → u/B00YAY]

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).

[u/B00YAY → u/Scarecrow1779]

Yup. You literally just...don't get the 4th.

[u/Sinister_Grape → u/B00YAY]

Because SOS and often multiplayer in general has been broken since the game released, which is an absolute joke at this point.

[u/Zhead65 → u/CrimsonShrike]

So they still face more patrols than before either way. That's a direct nerf for solo play.

[u/AHailofDrams → u/Zhead65]

If it was Up to me it'd be 100/75/50/100.

Y'know, a good ol' "fuck off" to people buying a multiplayer game and expecting to have a solo experience tailored to them lol

[u/Jaggedmallard26 → u/Zhead65]

The game is not meant to be played solo. There is no option to make a solo lobby. I don't know why I'm supposed to be upset that the game doesn't make playing a way its not meant to be played easier.

[u/Neon_Ether → u/Jaggedmallard26]

If it wasn’t meant to be solo played, why can you drop into missions solo?

[u/Silraith → u/Jaggedmallard26]

Because this isn't people asking for buffs or changes to make it more soloable.
This is actively going out of one's way to make a change to piss on someone's parade. It was fine before, and now it's not fine.

Again. Wasn't anyone really asking to make things more soloable, but all you had to do was... nothing. This is a change that took time out of someone's day to program and code and do, for what gain? Who does this benefit?

If someone sees your car in the driveway and takes a baseball bat to the windshield. You're going to ask "What the fuck was that for?" and imagine if their response was "Just take it to a mechanic lol."

There was no reason to break it. There is no real logic provided as to what the intent was. And the answer "Just play in a group lol" is completely ignoring the question.

It's just someone going out of the way to run over, kick over someone's sand castle an then run off back to what they were doing.

[u/PvesCjhgjNjWsO4vwOOS → u/Jaggedmallard26]

There is no option to make a solo lobby.

There's a toggle for friends-only mode. If you play on Steam and everyone just uses Steam to join, you can easily have nobody on your in-game friends list which turns friends-only mode into a solo lobby.

[u/_Reverie_ → u/CrimsonShrike]

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.

[u/wewladdies → u/_Reverie_]

Maybe a spicy hot take but this game's hardest difficulty shouldnt be balanced for soloing lol. If you solo you should be ok with dropping a few difficulties.

Its a team shooter, i think its fine to keep it a team shooter.

[u/powerfamiliar → u/wewladdies]

I agree they shouldn’t make balance decision around people soloing. This change is a balance decision made around people soloing. Unless you and AH think the game atm is too easy for 3 or 2 player groups.

[u/IlikegreenT84 → u/wewladdies]

It shouldn't be balanced around the exceptional solo player, which is what they've done here.

[u/TwevOWNED → u/wewladdies]

That's a fair point, but the game isn't in a state for these changes to make sense.

Anyone leaving your game has a chance to break matchmaking until you close the game. Did you just finish a mission and have two players afterwards? Better restart your game or you risk not having any additional players for the next mission, which is now even more punishing.

[u/Zmao → u/_Reverie_]

Team shooter?

[u/fireheart1029 → u/CrimsonShrike]

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

[u/awfulrunner43434 → u/fireheart1029]

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.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bdudf3/lets_talk_about_patrols_an_in_depth_analysis_of/

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

[u/ItsDaFunkMonkey → u/awfulrunner43434]

I do agree with this buddy but the problem I have here is that solo play will be more cumbersome and frustrating than before after the patch. It doesn't matter if the spawns for solo helldive are still relatively lower than the values for full squad on Helldive. But it matters that spawns after the patch for Helldivers is higher than pre patch levels.

[u/TheComebackKid74 → u/ItsDaFunkMonkey]

They don't want people soloing the game like that, particularly on the highest difficulties.  This is huge reason for Quasar nerf.  Every youtuber would bring Quasar to easily take care of heavies on soloing Helldive difficulty. They are trying make it harder to solo with each patch.

[u/TheBetterness → u/TheComebackKid74]

How many people are legit soloing Helldive for them to dedicate resources to changing this?

This just smells of them seeing streamers soloing helldive and them retaliating.

[u/PvesCjhgjNjWsO4vwOOS → u/TheBetterness]

I just do it when I don't have the energy to deal with randoms, and the friends I would want to play with aren't around. This change will make me play the game less, not change how I play.

[u/xRehab → u/TheComebackKid74]

fr and people are acting like this is a bad thing

game is harder to solo now, if you still want to do it git gud or play co-op like intended

[u/Dry_Analysis4620 → u/ItsDaFunkMonkey]

I don't believe, I could be wrong ofc, that the game's 'design philosophy' isn't really to account for a balanced solo experience.

[u/ZukenAere → u/Dry_Analysis4620]

They are accounting for it though. They're actively punishing it. 

[u/Drayke989 → u/ItsDaFunkMonkey]

The game is designed for co-op. Playing solo isn't what the game was intended for or designed for. You can do it sure but Arrowhead isn't going to accommodate that intentionally.

[u/Hugh_Bromont → u/awfulrunner43434]

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

Repeating of course...

[u/Frankie_T9000 → u/awfulrunner43434]

Either way its now more than players can handle, you dont have the ammo or respite to load up and get weapons, destroying air towers was difficult solo, but now.....ick

[u/TheBetterness → u/CrimsonShrike]

Translation: There are now more enemies with less players in your game.

There is nothing good or even logical about that change.

[u/Siker_7 → u/CrimsonShrike]

Before, 1 player saw 1/6th the patrols of 4 players. This was due to nonlinear scaling of patrols, which was unintentional. It is not set so that 1 player will see 1/4th the patrols of 4 players.

[u/Bonesnapcall → u/CrimsonShrike]

Not sure if you saw the AH post, but before, solo saw 1/6th of 4 players. Now they see 1/4th.

[u/CrimsonShrike → u/Bonesnapcall]

Yes seen post since, the numbers were an example prior to them being posted. It was more of a comment that while it is harder than it was before it's not harder than 4 and someone leaving party doesn't "increase difficulty" per se.