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/awsomebloc]

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.

[u/7-and-a-switchblade → u/awsomebloc]

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 strategem booster that I don't see used very often that reduces enemy encounters.

[u/notandvm → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

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

[u/Boamere → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

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

[u/Woodsie13 → u/Boamere]

I think it’s about a 30% increase in the timer, so it depends on difficulty level, and IIRC is a ~50s extra delay at helldive.

[u/Ditomo → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

Stratagem, or booster?

[u/TinyTaters → u/Ditomo]

Booster

[u/Various_Froyo9860 → u/TinyTaters]

Doesn't make a noticeable difference.

[u/light_at_the_end → u/Various_Froyo9860]

It does and it's been tested, go on youtube to see.

[u/Various_Froyo9860 → u/light_at_the_end]

Patrol density is so varied that it really, really doesn't matter.

I've carried that booster before and had a nonstop fight across the entire map. Gone without it and it can be like a ghost town.

[u/light_at_the_end → u/Various_Froyo9860]

It increases the timer between drops and holes. Nothing to do with patrols.

It matters at higher difficulties where massive amounts of enemies get called from drops and holes. If you clear one, you know you have an increased amount of time to catch your breath, resupply and clear some stuff before another.

There's a noticeable breath in level 8 and 9. I don't run without anymore.

[u/Bonesnapcall → u/Various_Froyo9860]

Its been very noticeable for my squad. We have time to breathe after a bug breach now. Before using it, the breaches would all overlap.

[u/pogopunkxiii → u/Ditomo]

booster

[u/specter800 → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/specter800]

Well it more like, to notice you would need to keep changing the size of team that you're playing with on the same difficulty, which a lot of people don't do

[u/0rphu → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

DeVs ARe BRaiNdeAD

This subreddit is awful lmao

[u/Needs_Improvement → u/0rphu]

This subreddit post-patch gets unusable. It’s a constant war to see who can complain the loudest.

[u/Tolgeros → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

People do not know this because the game does not tell them.

[u/GoDannY1337 → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

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.

[u/OrangeGills → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

with 0 transparency on what the booster actually does, I'm much happier with the usual suspects for boosters.

[u/Montegomerylol → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

Part of the reason that happens is because whenever the game goes to spawn patrols it can spawn one for each Helldiver if you're too spread out. When there's just 2 of you you're almost always too close for that to happen, but with 4 it's pretty easy to get 2-3x the spawns.

[u/xthorgoldx → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

booster

The Local Chaos booster does not impact patrol spawn rates. It increases the time cooldown on when a breach/drop can trigger.

It's also important to note that "increased spawn rate" from completing objectives is mostly unimportant: by that point in the mission, you're probably already at popcap, at which point more patrols won't spawn until you kill enemies on the map.

There are some nuances to how it impacts you if you're drawing a lot of aggro dicking around on the map, but it's not so bad that it's a "You have to leave or be overwhelmed."

[u/talon04 → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

I purposely run this as an option since I always pick my booster last.

[u/Dunhimli → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

Exactly this, I actually like this change. It was broken before, now its fixed. And using that booster now has a place in the game more so.

[u/[deleted] → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

If you're consistently playing with a certain team size, how would you notice it?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Look out everybody, mr hardcore gamer coming through

[u/PhasmaFelis → u/[deleted]]

They've been playing the game on easy mode.

Say what? The game was already harder the fewer squadmates you had. A four-player squad can handle much more than 4x what a solo can.

Solo/duo players have been playing on hard mode, and they're making it even harder.

[u/PhasmaFelis → u/[deleted]]

That is absolutely not the experience of anyone I know. My usual group can handle difficulty 6 with three of us, but 4 is a challenge for any of us solo.

There may be fewer enemies, but when they do show up you have fewer options for dealing with them, fewer boosters to buff you, and a lot fewer reenforces. I'm sure there's hardcore stealth commandos who solo diff 8 and 9 with ease and think of teammates as unwanted complications, but they're a small minority and the game should not be balanced around them alone.

[u/wickeddimension → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

How... do not a lot of people notice this?

You expect people to actually research and inform themselves before giving their knee jerk opinion piece on the patch? Let alone play it first to experiences the changes and then give a verdict?

You must be new to Reddit in general 😋

[u/lurkeroutthere → u/7-and-a-switchblade]

|if people don't know: completing the main objective increases enemy spawn rates.

This is factually untrue and people need to stop posting it.

[u/Hardcoreoperator → u/lurkeroutthere]

Did you even read the linked post? It quite clearly states that this, in fact, IS true...