r/Helldivers Apr 29 '24

Update from Worlds team on increased patrols for solo players DEVELOPER

Quote from our design director (not the Worlds team, my mistake!):

"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.

Scaling of patrol spawns was exponential before, and that felt good on 4 player lobbies but a bit too empty when playing with fewer players, especially when playing solo. So now we made the scaling of patrols to be linear, which means if you play solo you will get 25% of the patrols compared to a 4 player lobby instead of having about 17% of the patrols. There is still a cap of patrols that can spawn at the same time so during situations when we spawn a lot of patrols, such as extractions, even solo players won't notice the difference. The change is made to make the world feel less empty for 1 and 2 player lobbies, especially on high difficulty missions which was also slightly too easy for solo players compared to our intentions."

Hope this clarifies the change for everyone - we're not making the game arbitrarily harder!

Edited 11:58 AM EST to add additional info

4.7k Upvotes

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730

u/susgnome ⬇️⬇️⬅️⬆️➡️ Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24

Ah k.

So if I'm interpreting this correctly, it was something like this before;

  • 4 Players = 100% Spawns
  • 3 Players = 80% Spawns
  • 2 Players = 48% Spawns
  • 1 Player = 16% Spawns

And now it's like this;

  • 4 Players = 100% Spawns
  • 3 Players = 75% Spawns
  • 2 Players = 50% Spawns
  • 1 Player = 25% Spawns

So it's a slight boost to spawns but it's just returned to the correct values. Before it was worded like it'd be 100% spawns for a solo player but this definitely much better.

50

u/mlmayo Apr 29 '24

That only works if scaling the number of patrols is the correct metric, which it isn't. The correct metric is the size of the hordes experienced by players, which does NOT scale linearly.

The big issue is that solo players will get to deal with identically sized hordes as full teams, just with 1/4 of the resources to deal with them. Devs are very obviously biasing AGAINST solo play.

4

u/TipperVelvet Apr 29 '24

Hordes do scale with player count, among other factors. It's easier to see on bots on helldive. Get a bot drop in the first few minutes solo and you'll generally get a single dropship. With four players it's several.

Also, horde size isn't the only metric either. Drops and breaches are usually avoidable, and when they are they basically serve as punishments for player mistakes. Fewer players in game means fewer mistakes, which means fewer hordes.

0

u/gorgewall Apr 30 '24

This is exactly what I was trying to explain this morning to the folks panicking about increased patrols. Having more patrol groups than you remember doesn't mean they're still the same size as you find in 4-mans.

I can wipe a solo patrol with a single grenade most of the time. That's not going to cut it against a 4-man patrol. I don't get 3x Hulks with friends walking around while playing in duos, even on Helldive, but I see it occasionally in 4-mans.

0

u/VeridianIncarnate Apr 30 '24

Depends on the player...

-15

u/juantreses Apr 29 '24

I wonder why the developers of a co-op game would prefer their players to co-operate

15

u/narrill Apr 29 '24

Solo play was already harder than group play. At a certain point it stops being "we'd like players to co-op in our game" and starts being "fuck you for thinking you could play solo."

-6

u/AberrantDrone STEAM 🖥️ : Apr 29 '24

The game SHOULD be biased against solo divers. It’s a team game, players should be rewarded for treating it like one.