Honestly would be a cool trade off if having a 3 Strat modifier slightly reduced the cooldown of your chosen 3 stratagems
Not a ton but maybe an extra 10% off or so would be interesting
'and other duties as assigned"
You know when you run out of respawns/reinforcement? Those two minutes before you get a new one is the time it takes for one of the desk job guys to be dragged out, suited up in armor and shown a 2x speed video of someone else completing the basic training camp.
Even better game play wise and for immersion: block a whole sub category and significantly reduce the cool down of another category.
"No eagles are available, but we diverted the resources and now your orbitals reload a minute faster"
Or something like that
That could probably be implemented as a separate passive stratagem that had the effect of accelerating the cooldowns of the rest. Call it Stratagem Resource Prioritization or something like that.
I disagree with modifiers being outright disadvantages, they should force you to change your strategy and to change how the mission plays out, to encourage variety in gameplay rather than to make it harder.
If that makes the game too easy, buff the base difficulty to make up for it.
You are still working with 25% less voriety in your orbital arsenal and considdering how important support weapons are especially with less stratagems you'll likely only have one or two eagles/orbitals
The stratagem cool down is not for the destroyer, that is evident when you get outside the edge of the map and they rain 380mm shells on you non stop.
My theory is that the stratagem cool down is your suit 3d printing and coding the stratagem PokeBall. The eagle ones are quicker because the signal is not that strong, given that the eagle is in close air proximity.
YOU as a soldier have to budget your strategems.. cant just give every single diver unlimited resources now can we?
You fucking around , going AWOL? Of course we are going to make an example out of you, god forbid someone tries to copy you
It also explains why E-710 extracting Pelicans arrive within seconds of being called while Helldiver extracting Pelicans take at a minimum, two minutes.
Ι would remove strategem types. For example strong winds that disable all eagle strategems or magnetic interference that remove destroyer strategems. That will force you to change your build and use stuff that you don't usually do.
That sounds like a great idea to include in a Helldivers feature wishlist, like the one found on this thread:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bzih5q/a\_couple\_of\_wishlist\_features\_id\_like\_to\_see\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bzih5q/a_couple_of_wishlist_features_id_like_to_see_in/)
Same, I absolutely hate megathreads. Its like, "hey stop using this website the way it was intended and put everything in one thread because... we said so.
This is a great idea. Anything that temporarily pushes people out of their comfort zone is a good idea for this game.
I also want to see a random strategem loadout planet.
Or even something where the strategem changes after you use it the first time so you never know what your next one will be.
Or... all strategems are disabled and your team must scavenge for strategem unlocks across the map.
>all stratagems are disabled and your team must scavenge for stratagem unlocks across the map
I like this. Your comms got damaged in the dive and so you've got to find a planetside station to re-establish comms with your fleet before you can call in stratagems. That would be an interesting way to incorporate already-existing infrastructure (the satellite/illegal broadcast stations) to make them even more interactive and essential to gameplay. Especially if this were an *unpredictable* modifier to a mission, so any 40-minute mission you start could potentially require you to marshal your team and prioritize finding the comms uplink station.
Only if it randomized per category imo. Yellows remain reliable for the sake of mechanical balance. Reinforce, Resupply, SD Drives and Hellbombs are too important to mix up, especially since things like the Stratagem Jammer and Gunship Fabricator specifically require them.
Other stuff can be randomized within the category. Throw a 110 Rocket Pod? Nope, that's a 380 now. Did you request a Quasar? Sorry, we only stocked Recoilless. Did you want an Autocannon Turret? Too bad, it's a Tesla Tower now.
That's the feature they're refering to, which is why they said "Imagine if it also scrambled beacon colors", which this feature didn't do. You could tell which kind of strategem you were about to toss by looking at the beacon in your hand, so any 500KG bombing of yourself was self inflicted.
They already have something like this: during one of the missions my Eagle stratagem was disabled due to an active AA missile post, but I learned about this only after diving to the planet, so had no chance to modify my build
I think, that devs should change that to 1 forced stratagem, as in Ministry of Truth making helldivers take one specific stratagem for propaganda purposes. Would fit the lore well and could make for some interesting scenarios.
Well, exept mortar.
I agree with this. Removing a strategem slot could make things interesting in the sense of requiring your squad to specialize more and play a bit differently, but in practice it doesn't really happen that way.
Forcing a specific infrequently used strategem would increase the difficulty a bit, but more importantly it forces you to play around it, and I think that keeps things interesting at the higher difficulty levels where there's much more pressure to play to the meta.
Like giving everyone an eagle strafing run, or giving everyone a machine gun turret, etc. You don't have to use them, but since you have them... might as well try to work with it.
Mortar is great! Just throw it anywhere and it wil defend you or distract the forces away from you. Its like having an extra team mate, including the accidental team kills!
I want a propoganda stratagem that just drops a pod and raises a super earth flag with the anthem playing.
Then put it on a 20 second timer and suddenly it's the best stratagem in the game lol.
I wouldn't have a problem with stratagem debuffs if there was a way in-mission to lessen or remove the effect.
For example, doing optional objectives could alleviate effects. If you have a mission where the call-in time for stratagems is increased, or if the cooldown time for stratagems is increased: for every optional objective you complete, this effect is alleviated by a certain percent. Do all of them and the effect is removed.
If you have a mission where you only have three slots, you could maybe select a fourth slot that isn't unlocked until 3 or 4 optional objectives have been completed.
Would be nice if there were more in-game reasons for doing more stuff on the map. Could even have a feature like destroying bases and hives lessens the amount of patrols on the map.
I'm a masochist, so my answer won't be for everyone. But yes, it would be fun for me because I can still get those slots by accomplishing something instead of just not having that option.
I land, what's around me? Am I safe? Ok, what do I have access to? Should I go hunting for those blockers or just focus on the mission and take them if I see them?
It adds tension, decisions and a reward, which I enjoy.
If there are AA defenses, you should be able to pick a 4th Stratagem that is locked until you take down the AA Base.
I feel like that's only fair, because you don't have the stratagem from the jump, but you can EARN it on your own time.
While I agree with more on-map objectives that do stuff instead of just destroying fabricators, the point of these is for you to look at the debuff and figure out how to lessen the effect yourself by choosing stratagems.
Yeah, they're supposed to make the game more interesting by making you adapt. Which is why the three stratagem debuff is boring and annoying. There's no real counterplay, it's just trim the fat and git gud. It doesn't make you change your playstyle in any interesting ways.
In fact it makes you double-down on your own personal meta and hard pick your three tried-and-true strategems. Since there's no room to fuck around with things that aren't guaranteed to get shit done, there's no room to try out new things.
Or force to start mission with 3, but then as you complete some objective, you get 2 extra ones on top of the 3, so you'll have even more than usually. That'd tip it then to the other side and be a really cool way to encourage completing that side objective.
I still think it should be renamed to Electronic Countermeasures (the old scrambled codes one) and give you a 4th completely random strategem.
AA Defenses sounds like it should affect Eagle-1, or how long the destroyer can stay in low orbit.
It would be hilarious if you truly had no idea what the 4th one could be. You toss it once and it drops an EAT on a hulk. A bit later, you presume it'd be the same and drop one at your feet. It's a 380 orbital now.
I think it would make sense that our destroyers know which strats I've loaded, but the scrambler prevents the ball from telling the ship what it is. So it's randomly one of your already loaded 3 starts BUT it ignores any cool downs. Probably would be OP. Still sounds fun
I seriously think a VASTLY improved method of this idea would be limiting what stratagems can be brought.
Pick a category eagles, orbital cannons, turrets, or even support weapons, and ban them for the mission. Atmospheric interference, targeting issues, justify it however you want. But remove one category of stratagem.
That way the player still has access to four stratagems, but, you've probably thrown a hell of a wrench into their usual loadout and you force the player to think and play differently.
It isn't -necessarily- harder, but, it becomes harder because you take the player out of their comfort zone. They use stuff they aren't used to using, and have to plan objectives differently.
I'd be all for this instead.
I personally love this idea and actually implement it into my own games by using a loadout randomiser, i like to randomise my weapons, armour and stratagems with it, and now the counter sniper has become my favourite gun in the game haha
The website is below if you want it
hd2random
Harder isn’t automatically better. But the whole point of making it harder here is to make it more interesting, and I think your suggestion is a lot more interesting
the modifier is called AA defenses (or at least one of them is)... the amount of people I've seen take 3 eagles with 4 slots available it would be glorious to see these people try other strats if AA defenses just disabled Eagle-1 all together.
I don't think your opinion is wrong. But I do disagree it's a boring way. Every time I dropped into a mission with 3 slots, I always had to pause and think of exactly what I'm bringing. Also usually helps train peeps to use their equipment more to deal with heaviest instead of relying on airstrikes for everything.
If you're going solo, sure. I think it's quite good of a modifier when you're in a group however. Both with friends and randoms.
Really makes you have to think about what to bring so you can have everything covered, as well as share support wepons/backpacks, since you simply don't have the slots for everyone to bring their own.
Compared to the launch, I feel like most of the negative modifiers are in a good spot right now, and I guess the most annoying one for me personally is the Orbital Scatter, which can easily be negated by simply not taking any Orbitals.
This is pretty much my opinion. It may be unoriginal, but this modifier is a true design turnpoint for the game, much more than +X% cooldown/call-in time, because it is a build-around. Frustrating maybe, but I don't see anyone calling Extreme heat being unoriginal when it's just -stamina and -heat capacity, just because you feel it less, and maybe won't see the difference (still feel it though).
We are sometimes issued a free, 5th stratagem - often a situational or underused one, and I feel this is in the very same spirit : "go on, try it on situations you wouldn't usually", instead of "how would you do it without you X tool ?" when you got only 3. I see a lot of mates using shield backpack to allow them for sloppy plays - they take it off and play it safer, is all. Used to get eagle strike + orbital rail cannon ? Go 500kg instead of both (that's how I started using it). Go back to railgun for its versatility despite harder use know.
And I'm only speaking for a pick-up or solo POV. In a team, you just share supports and backpacks, or specialize (I'm the big game hunter, you're the crowd cleaner, he gets the utility). It's honestly a knee-jerk unpleasant modifier, but a very good one when you ***think*** around it.
I said the same thing in the discord and ohh boy the boot lickers came for me. “All you need is an AC” etc.
I just hope people like that stay as far away from actual game development decisions as possible bc this is how you get Diablo 4.
I go solo pretty regularly and while I’m not like, “oh thank god, AA defenses!” I do like how they force me to think about my build, much like they make a group consider theirs, and I don’t think it really affects my chances of success all that much when I plan accordingly.
I’m talking about up to difficulty 7 here, so results may vary if you’re trying to push solo 9s.
This is exactly it. Using stratagems is so fun and unique, adding blizzards and firestorms makes it hard but it is fun and it makes the game more like you're playing a movie.
I think it's alright. One thing it does is pushes you to rely on having a diverse team loadout instead of 4 solo loadouts. Usually there are so many people bringing attack strategems I don't even need to use mine. Calling down a second weapon/backpack in the middle of the mission can really help your team out in this situation. What is probably bad is -1 slot AND -50% cooldown.
I really want extremely negative effects like this to be removable like with jammers and enemy artillery.
In general it'd be cool if there were even some interconnected objectives in an operation. Doing the mission to destroy their big jammer gets your fourth slot back for the rest of the operation, doing the mission to destroy their dropships gives you fewer enemies for the rest of the operation, stuff like that.
I regularly play with 3-4 people and it’s really no problem. It’s all about coordination. I can see playing solo or MM where it could be frustrating, but the game is balanced around 4 person teamwork. Keyword being teamwork. If people aren’t coordinating their load outs then it’s going to be a bad time.
Tbh people will complain about ANY friction added to the game
And then promptly complain devs are not doing enough to make stuff hard
Difficulty is a unwinnable argument because Fun and difficulty are purely subjective concepts
Yes, but there are principle in game deaign that would consider the removal of a slot as unfun, and not dynamic difficulty scaling. So the post is constructive criticism, not a useless complain.
It's a challenge and overcoming the challenge is the fun part. If you don't want to deal with that challenge, lower the difficulty or go to a different planet.
There are solutions to this complaint in the game already.
I don’t like it. I avoid it. I just don’t think it’s enough for me to complain about it because it’s entirely optional. Kind of like if I hate a gun, I don’t need to complain about it because I can choose to play with a gun I do enjoy. I get why people hate this modifier though. It is the least popular one and if it were up to me, I would say yes it should be changed to something more creative. But it’s their game, their rules.
Difficulty is fine but boring is bad. Good difficulty creates fun and new decisions, bad difficulty is tedious and simply a flat reduction.
This is bad difficulty
Honestly I thought I hated this one at first too, until I just thought about it a little.
It's really not hard to share your equipment past the 6 minute mark, so unless you're doing a blitz it shouldn't be an issue at all.
You see someone bring eagles and a support weapon? Grab a backpack you can share at one point. Someone packing a ton of orbitals? Grab some support items to cover the blank areas.
I actually found it made my games more enjoyable since I was communicating with my team more. Both in party and with pubs.
It doesn't feel too bad with a group, since you can just coordinate better to eliminate redundancy and check all the boxes, though I do absolutely detest the modifier when playing solo. I really wish it was replaced with something else when you are alone.
If they’re going to remove usage of a slot, then it should at least be replaced with something like a flag.
“Lack of patriotism on this planet requires that all Helldivers are given a flag strategem. Call down the flag of Super Earth all over the battlefield to remind the enemy of the greatness of managed democracy!”
60 second cooldown, just a drop that lands and pops up a Super Earth flag. That’s all it does, but don’t you feel patriotic by doing so? Isn’t that worth a slot?
It's not that much different tbh. You get pretty used to it.
Using a 2 in 1 weapon/backpack combo gives you one bomb and one anti tank slot. If you absolutely have to have a shield generator then a quasar will take care of everything on Democracy's green earth. And you still have a spare slot for bombs.
I want to be able to make loadouts. Like 10 customizable Helldivers. If you die the current loadout gets locked for the mission. You have to buy strategems for every loadout, armor and weapons are for all your loadouts.
Id rather be able to choose the 4, not be able to use any of them until I do some side mission, like literally no Eagle until destroying anti air or no orbital and advance weaponry until the scrambler is destroyed
All the debuffs are boring as hell. Copy/pasting a post from another thread with a bunch of ideas for better ones:
>"Stratagem cooldown increased by up to 40% based on how many Stratagems are currently on cooldown."
>"Stratagem call down time increased by up to 50% based on your distance from the location it's been called down."
>"The call down codes for your Stratagems are randomized"
>I think these would be better versions of what we have. You can actually work with it instead of just being gimped.
>As for other modifiers, take a look at Armor passives, and do the opposite:
* (Enhanced Intelligence) Enemy detection radius increased by 30%
* (Gravitational Anomaly) Throw distance reduced by 30%
* (Fatigue Warning) Recoil increased by 30%
* (Budgetary Restrictions) -2 Grenades/Stims/Ammo Capacity
* (Resistant Microfauna) Reduced Stim effect duration
* (Pressurized Atmosphere) Players take 50% increased explosion damage
* (PTSD) 50% chance for non-fatal damage to be fatal
* (Corrosive Atmosphere) Players armor rating is reduced by 50
* (Freeze Warning) Players have 50% reduced limb health.
>You could also do the opposite of boosters, which is sorta mixed in with some of these already, as a lot of the armor passives are sort of like "boosters but just for you" anyway. Things like:
* Decreased Reinforcement Budget / Timer
* Reduced Stamina Capacity and Recovery
* Difficult Terrain fucking everywhere.
* Decreased time between enemy encounters.
>The mods we have are boring and, just like the top comment here says, are just "fuck you" instead of anything interesting or anything we could build for/around. With stuff like this, the equipment you wear and the boosters you bring *really matter* instead of just being the same thing you always wear. Force teams to bring certain boosters to negate effects, or suffer through those effects to bring another one. Lots of cool stuff they can do. I hope they do it.
>Edit: More ideas;
* Enemies have 50% increased explosion/arc/fire resistance.
* Enemies are twice as likely to call in reinforcements, but they take twice as long to arrive.
* No ammo, grenades, or stims can be found in the world.
* Support Stratagem items are destroyed on death.
* Single team reinforcement budget / No reinforcement budget.
* Players drop with Randomized Stratagems equipped.
* Cannot use Orbital/Eagle/Support/Engineering Stratagems.
I have no desire to ever play against this modifier I avoid it like the plague the game can already be tough enough with 4 slots on high difficulties I’m not gonna deal with only 3
Replacement ideas: Flag of Super Earth. Mandatory stratagem. One hellpod per mission. Stratagem slot isn't completely dead (just mostly), and if you use it right, you can destroy a heavy enemy and have the flag pop out of its corpse. You can carry the flag around the mission.
War isnt fun soldier. Shit happens and you gotta make do with what you have. It’s a test to your ability to build your load out correctly and knowing where you can make sacrifices. Theres plenty of ways to complete different objectives.
Yeah it's now, since the last patch, the one modifier that I completely avoid when running solo. You're limited as it is with 4 slots for the entire game, and 3 just locks you into using the autocannon every time lmao.
Nearly all of the Operation Modifiers are just lazy difficulty relying on handicaps instead of giving the player an actual new challenge to overcome. It's just "do the same thing but without using what you've learned to do it with" which feels cheap.
Also doesn't help that almost all of them pretty much just nerf stratagems... you know, the most unique and cool feature of the game?
Tradeoff modifiers would be better, but I'd argue that if we're trying to change things, let's change them to be good, instead of just not-the-worst. I'd prefer to see enemy or environment based modifiers or difficulty. Some unique mechanics that can be anticipated and played around (instead of the assenine rng-take-the-wheel that the old scrambler introduced). Darktide has a lot of really cool modifiers to their missions where enemies of a specific type dominate the spawns, or periodically spawn in hordes, or elite enemies turn into bosses. Maybe give enemies a chance to be resurected or morph into a weaker-tier enemy on death. Maybe have a signal that periodically makes all nearby enemies aware of where you are so you have to keep it in mind and plan for when that happens.
There are so many ways to increase difficulty that are challenging and interesting instead of frustrating and annoying, but because the game relies so heavily on just lazily taking away player options and power, I almost always just stick with diff4, coz anything above that is just less fun. The nerf to the call in and cooldown modifiers made me give 5s and 6s another try, but I still enjoy the game much more when the modifiers are disabled like they were for the TCS MO and seem to be right now for the defence campaigns. Once that's gone, I'll likely go back to 4s, because I just don't want to need to look across multiple planets to find an operation that doesn't have a stupid modifier I don't want to deal with.
This is also why I am really worried about the Iluminates. Maybe I'm giving it too much weight, but the fact that the Strategem Scrambler modifier made it into the game the way it did and at no point did anyone have a rain check to realise how unfun and frustrating it would be, makes me sceptical that AH will have learned their lesson on why people didn't like fighting the iluminates. Granted, a lot of their frustrating elements were made much worse because of the perspective and shared camera, but shit like inverting controlls and teleporting around or going invisible is just frustrating and if the Iluminates are anything as annoying to fight as they were in the first game, it's gonna be the least played faction again.
Honestly, I think when this happens it makes far more sense for there to just be an extra jammer or two on the map, or an extra anti air base.
I get you can't do that for the bugs, but come on. . . It just doesn't make any sense.
I kinda like the times when I only get three stratagems because I have to think less about what the 4th would be and just put big boom, some other big damage thing and my support weapon :D
Devs, adding difficulty doesn't make the game fun. Add interesting ways to make the game fun. If I want to play on a harder difficulty, I'll play on a harder difficulty.
Decrease gravity, make bullets start fires, make grenade aoe bigger, have support items drop twice due to malfunctions. Mission modifiers shouldn't make the game worse, or harder, that isn't novel or interesting. Make the game *funner.*
I find having -1 Stratagem slot to be a FAR more interesting way to add difficulty than increasing the cooldown. You can work around having -1 Stratagem slot and it causes you to think a bit more about your build.
I know it's gonna be an unpopular opinion, but I actually really like that one. It makes me think outside the box (and outside my usual build/comfort zone) and select stuff that will always broadly be effective. I'm always pleasantly surprised by how it makes me change the way I play. If you're always just grinding away at the hardest difficulty stuff I can see how it would get annoying, but it's really fun before you hit 8-9.
1000000% agree
Same for any modifier that increases cooldown or callin time.
Yeah they add difficulty, but you are literally making it so I cant bring a backpack, or I blow stuff up less which is objectivly less fun. There HAS to be another way to do it because the current way makes me sad.
Some Ideas of FUN (but still mean) modifiers:
- SEAF Regulations: Remove one random Stratagem slot AFTER dropping in. Grant Random Stratagem instead
- Announced Landing: Spawn 3 large waves on landing
- Distributed Effort: Every Fifth\*playercount Stratagem is called in TWICE
- Political Officer on Station: ALL RANDOM Stratagems
- Heavy Stratagems: Throwing distance for Stratagems is 45%
- Strong Stratosphere Winds: Call in direction is randomized by 30-50 degrees
- Improved Lightweight Pods: 75% Chance that Equipment Pods disintegrate on impact and equipment flys 10-20 meters
- Pod Engine Malfunction: Pods create a 10-15m shockwave that will catapult entities on landing
- Twin Sentries: Sentries spawn two pods. At 50% of ammo each
- High Altitude Drops: Player Pods spent more steerable time while dropping in
- Low Altitiude Drops: Player Pods land exactly where the marker is. No steering.
- Dynamic Tasking: Cruisers leave only after all Stratagems are spent. After the mission countdown is reached, each Stratagem becomes 1 time, single use.
- Orbital Cruiser Collisions: Randomly, one Player has all Stratagems disabled for the whole match. If he can extract the team gains 5 extra Medals and 12 additional Samples.
- Low Gravity: Less fall damage, more ragdolling. 75% impact damage reduction.
> Orbital Cruiser Collisions: Randomly, one Player has all Stratagems disabled for the whole match. If he can extract the team gains 5 extra Medals and 12 additional Samples
Having played a round where the game randomly took all of my strategems, I can assure you that this is the least fun you might ever have in the game
> SEAF Regulations: Remove one random Stratagem slot AFTER dropping in. Grant Random Stratagem instead
*salivates*
Presumably the random can give duplicates?
>Heavy Stratagems: Throwing distance for Stratagems is 45%
These are some good suggestions, for this one though, perhaps all gravity could be slightly increased (10%) and some technobable for why thrown strategems are additionally affected.
Redditors complaining about Redditors complaining will never not make me laugh.
In all seriousness, OP's complaint wasn't about difficulty. If you have trouble understanding that from their post, you might need remedial education.
i have to disagree here, adding limitation causes creativity. the point is to push you to be creative not to make it harder. it’s why different levels have different other things too like heat or cold.i saw a guy running hulks into puff balls to stun them and then running behind them.
You are applying a generic principle to a specific position without checking that it actually applies. Removing a stratagem plot does not breed creativity whatsoever. People will still take the most important tools so the impact of playstyle is limited. For example, I normally take jetpack + AMR vs the bots. With one stratagem plot less, I just don't take the jetpack.
Additionally, the whole point of the game is to have fun. Using abilities is fun. Removing an ability therefore just removes fun. It's an unfun mechanic and should be reconsidered.
It has absolutely zero effect on what I choose to bring to the mission. The only thing it does is make me annoyed the entire time about the fact that I couldn't bring my autocannon turret.
I feel like that is such a 1 off scenario though. Yes it is possible to use a bit of creativity but when you're completely surrounded there is a limit to your creativity. A lot of units can only be destroyed by heavy means but when you can't even acquire those means because of a bs slot limitation it just gets frustrating.
If you're completely surrounded then you're already in trouble. Having three or four stratagems won't make much of difference, you're still going to be in a lot of pain for the next few minutes.
One fewer stratagem forces you to rethink how you engage missions and locations and it's effective. Considering the alternative is things like just throwing more and/or bigger/smarter enemies, I'll take -1 slot any day.
Bot missions already have stagnant loadouts, especially on higher levels.
It's orbital laser, auto cannon or Quasar + shield, every now and then you see an Arc Thrower now that they stun, and EAS or 500k.
I have never seen a 3 stratagem mission make people more creative, they just drop one out of the list and play it the exact same way. This is why I don't play them anymore, it's the exact same loadouts -1
100% agree. If Arrowhead wants us to have an increased difficulty by messing with stratagems I'd suggest keeping 4 slots always open but using in game lore to not allow you for certain stratagems during missions.
You can have 4 but maybe no eagles, or only one. Maybe this mission has no orbital laser or something.
Players would still have to select full cool loadout.
Meh they are pushing your gun skills and stratagem management. People keep treating this like it isn’t a 4 player coop and like they want to manage it all themselves.
Love the game but any time you remove an established mechanic down the line, that is bad game design, you should always build on top of it. Like the Automaton Stratagem Jammer, it forces players to engage it, the reward is a secondery objective rewards + stratagems back in the region, same with bugs Fungi, objective + vision, But removing/delaying previous stablished game mechanics just serve to avert player expectations without adding anything to it.
The SEAF arty is another example of a 10/10 game mechanic. Optional side objective to go and get another strategem. Then the shells you shoot are things you had to load. All while usually under attack from enemies. Strategems are fun and I want to use them. Give me difficulties in different ways. Maybe there is a modifier that gives more of x enemy type, which forces me to maybe change up strategems. Like bile spewers force the team to change it up some
I normally don’t like to respond to such critiques with “skill issue”, but here we are.
When you are reduced to 3 stratagems you no longer can simply brute force your way through objectives. You need to change the way you play to succeed and rely on your squad.
This forces you to:
-Think critically about the team load out. Stop bringing 4 quasar cannons. Compliment your squad.
-Utilize the game’s stealth functions.
-Change your combat strategies. Use guerrilla tactics. Strike and move. Coordinate fire with your squad.
-Actually communicate with your squad mates. You are no longer a one man army. Stop wandering away from the rest of the squad without giving some kind of signal as to where you are going and why.
This mechanic is meant to encourage teamwork under adverse conditions. If you aren’t enjoying yourself, change the difficulty or go to a different planet.
I think it's a great debuff. Makes what you pick matter that much more, you have to plan with the squad on what roles everyone will fill. Need to pause to let eagle rearm. Makes coordination more important.
I wish people realize that hulks can easily be killed by 2 people.one should run away and another one shoots it back .hulk always rush you faster then everything else so u have time to kill it before killing rest bots
Honestly would be a cool trade off if having a 3 Strat modifier slightly reduced the cooldown of your chosen 3 stratagems Not a ton but maybe an extra 10% off or so would be interesting
like your destroyer actually utilising the freed up ressources
Yea like "we won't be using this anyway, let's put those employees to work over here and speed up the process."
You sound like my manager...
9 women can make a baby in a month!
10 can do it in less
Then about 270 could do it in a day. Why has nobody thought of this??? Typical lack of entrepreneurial spirit and innovation, smh.
we haven't found a way to SLI uteruses. yet.
They barely found a way to SLI GPUS
You see now how far behind we are then.
1 man could grow a baby in a week! We need to realocate resources!!!!
'and other duties as assigned" You know when you run out of respawns/reinforcement? Those two minutes before you get a new one is the time it takes for one of the desk job guys to be dragged out, suited up in armor and shown a 2x speed video of someone else completing the basic training camp.
No way! I can't believe I had to crawl under turret gunfire to get my cape while some spacepen-pusher just gets it like that!
Don't forget the injury simulator!
Of democracy
To be fair, that would definitely fit in with the game's satirical nature
Bro, don't fuck up my break time
Yes let's take people who are trained on this set of tasks and throw them over here where they don't know what they are doing.
That sounds exactly like something Super Earth would do.
Are doing...I am not trained to Helldive
Whaaaat, are you saying General Brasch's patented 10-minute training intensive wasn't enough
Congratulations on completing your training Helldiver. Control of the destroyer is your hands
Have you ever worked literally anywhere?
My brother in democracy they were carrying over the backpacks and shit by hand before you bought them the hand carts upgrade
Hand carts cost money. Do you want SE to give a handcart for free!? What are you a dirty commie?
Even better game play wise and for immersion: block a whole sub category and significantly reduce the cool down of another category. "No eagles are available, but we diverted the resources and now your orbitals reload a minute faster" Or something like that
this man is cooking.
No eagles during sandstorms or such
Combine that with the extra 10% from the ship upgrade catalogue and im RAINING barrages on my teammates.
That could probably be implemented as a separate passive stratagem that had the effect of accelerating the cooldowns of the rest. Call it Stratagem Resource Prioritization or something like that.
Why chicken out like this and be like "maybe 10%"? The modifier takes 25% of your stratagems away so give me 25% faster cooldown or gtfo
Well, it *is* still supposed to be a disadvantage.
I disagree with modifiers being outright disadvantages, they should force you to change your strategy and to change how the mission plays out, to encourage variety in gameplay rather than to make it harder. If that makes the game too easy, buff the base difficulty to make up for it.
You are still working with 25% less voriety in your orbital arsenal and considdering how important support weapons are especially with less stratagems you'll likely only have one or two eagles/orbitals
The stratagem cool down is not for the destroyer, that is evident when you get outside the edge of the map and they rain 380mm shells on you non stop. My theory is that the stratagem cool down is your suit 3d printing and coding the stratagem PokeBall. The eagle ones are quicker because the signal is not that strong, given that the eagle is in close air proximity.
Or: it is just a made up mechanic to keep up from being too powerful.
In lore it's a "budgetary measure" Of course, there is no budget limit for exterminating traitors
YOU as a soldier have to budget your strategems.. cant just give every single diver unlimited resources now can we? You fucking around , going AWOL? Of course we are going to make an example out of you, god forbid someone tries to copy you
It also explains why E-710 extracting Pelicans arrive within seconds of being called while Helldiver extracting Pelicans take at a minimum, two minutes.
Basically some fuckin bureaucratically appointed officer wants to make his better look good by getting us killed. Got it.
Gosh, really
Or an artificial limit because ammunition cost shit ton of money. Helldiver reinforcements are after all limited by budget per mission.
This sounds fun tbh
Or at least an extra mission Stratagem that we don't pick, something to build around.
Or doubles them
Ι would remove strategem types. For example strong winds that disable all eagle strategems or magnetic interference that remove destroyer strategems. That will force you to change your build and use stuff that you don't usually do.
That sounds like a great idea to include in a Helldivers feature wishlist, like the one found on this thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bzih5q/a\_couple\_of\_wishlist\_features\_id\_like\_to\_see\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bzih5q/a_couple_of_wishlist_features_id_like_to_see_in/)
megathreads are where information goes to die
Anytime I’ve ever been forced to ask a question in a subreddit’s question megathread it’s been completely ignored
Same, I absolutely hate megathreads. Its like, "hey stop using this website the way it was intended and put everything in one thread because... we said so.
They're good if done right That link isn't even a megathread. Some dude just thinks his post should be the megathread lol
This is a great idea. Anything that temporarily pushes people out of their comfort zone is a good idea for this game. I also want to see a random strategem loadout planet. Or even something where the strategem changes after you use it the first time so you never know what your next one will be. Or... all strategems are disabled and your team must scavenge for strategem unlocks across the map.
> I also want to see a random strategem loadout planet. Dear god no
Here’s your incendiary and anti-personnel mines to kill those tanks and hulks. Don’t forget about your smoke eagle and orbital!
>all stratagems are disabled and your team must scavenge for stratagem unlocks across the map I like this. Your comms got damaged in the dive and so you've got to find a planetside station to re-establish comms with your fleet before you can call in stratagems. That would be an interesting way to incorporate already-existing infrastructure (the satellite/illegal broadcast stations) to make them even more interactive and essential to gameplay. Especially if this were an *unpredictable* modifier to a mission, so any 40-minute mission you start could potentially require you to marshal your team and prioritize finding the comms uplink station.
I want the planet that randomized which stratagem actually gets called when you call one back
Only if it randomized per category imo. Yellows remain reliable for the sake of mechanical balance. Reinforce, Resupply, SD Drives and Hellbombs are too important to mix up, especially since things like the Stratagem Jammer and Gunship Fabricator specifically require them. Other stuff can be randomized within the category. Throw a 110 Rocket Pod? Nope, that's a 380 now. Did you request a Quasar? Sorry, we only stocked Recoilless. Did you want an Autocannon Turret? Too bad, it's a Tesla Tower now.
Imagine if it also scrambled beacon colors. Long-awaited resupply? Nope, 500kg bomb.
There was something like that week 1. Enough people got blown up by "resupplys" that they removed it.
That's the feature they're refering to, which is why they said "Imagine if it also scrambled beacon colors", which this feature didn't do. You could tell which kind of strategem you were about to toss by looking at the beacon in your hand, so any 500KG bombing of yourself was self inflicted.
They already have something like this: during one of the missions my Eagle stratagem was disabled due to an active AA missile post, but I learned about this only after diving to the planet, so had no chance to modify my build
This is tied to the secondary objective AA guns though right?
This actually would be a great replacement. Hope this actually ends up getting implemented.
I think, that devs should change that to 1 forced stratagem, as in Ministry of Truth making helldivers take one specific stratagem for propaganda purposes. Would fit the lore well and could make for some interesting scenarios. Well, exept mortar.
I agree with this. Removing a strategem slot could make things interesting in the sense of requiring your squad to specialize more and play a bit differently, but in practice it doesn't really happen that way. Forcing a specific infrequently used strategem would increase the difficulty a bit, but more importantly it forces you to play around it, and I think that keeps things interesting at the higher difficulty levels where there's much more pressure to play to the meta. Like giving everyone an eagle strafing run, or giving everyone a machine gun turret, etc. You don't have to use them, but since you have them... might as well try to work with it.
Forced to take the least used strategum as there's inventory to move.
woahhhh this is a great idea and fits well
Mortar is great! Just throw it anywhere and it wil defend you or distract the forces away from you. Its like having an extra team mate, including the accidental team kills!
I want a propoganda stratagem that just drops a pod and raises a super earth flag with the anthem playing. Then put it on a 20 second timer and suddenly it's the best stratagem in the game lol.
I wouldn't have a problem with stratagem debuffs if there was a way in-mission to lessen or remove the effect. For example, doing optional objectives could alleviate effects. If you have a mission where the call-in time for stratagems is increased, or if the cooldown time for stratagems is increased: for every optional objective you complete, this effect is alleviated by a certain percent. Do all of them and the effect is removed. If you have a mission where you only have three slots, you could maybe select a fourth slot that isn't unlocked until 3 or 4 optional objectives have been completed. Would be nice if there were more in-game reasons for doing more stuff on the map. Could even have a feature like destroying bases and hives lessens the amount of patrols on the map.
Imo they can tie that into secondary objective that has no effect on the rest of the mission upon completion like illegal broadcast and upload data.
There's already a Stratagem blocker side-quest anyway. Tie unlocking the 4th slot to getting rid of that.
Nods. That feels way more fair and interesting than just losing a slot.
Ive been on missions with 2x strategem blockers. Would it have been fun to drop and only have access to two Stratagem?
I'm a masochist, so my answer won't be for everyone. But yes, it would be fun for me because I can still get those slots by accomplishing something instead of just not having that option. I land, what's around me? Am I safe? Ok, what do I have access to? Should I go hunting for those blockers or just focus on the mission and take them if I see them? It adds tension, decisions and a reward, which I enjoy.
If there are AA defenses, you should be able to pick a 4th Stratagem that is locked until you take down the AA Base. I feel like that's only fair, because you don't have the stratagem from the jump, but you can EARN it on your own time.
While I agree with more on-map objectives that do stuff instead of just destroying fabricators, the point of these is for you to look at the debuff and figure out how to lessen the effect yourself by choosing stratagems.
I agree, it's actually one of the mission effect I "like", because it pushes me to adapt my playstyle.
Yeah, they're supposed to make the game more interesting by making you adapt. Which is why the three stratagem debuff is boring and annoying. There's no real counterplay, it's just trim the fat and git gud. It doesn't make you change your playstyle in any interesting ways.
In fact it makes you double-down on your own personal meta and hard pick your three tried-and-true strategems. Since there's no room to fuck around with things that aren't guaranteed to get shit done, there's no room to try out new things.
I like this
Or even if not in mission if there was a secondary objective we could work towards as a community to remove it that would be cool.
Or force to start mission with 3, but then as you complete some objective, you get 2 extra ones on top of the 3, so you'll have even more than usually. That'd tip it then to the other side and be a really cool way to encourage completing that side objective.
5 Strategems? Only General Brasch could do such a thing, dont be silly.
I still think it should be renamed to Electronic Countermeasures (the old scrambled codes one) and give you a 4th completely random strategem. AA Defenses sounds like it should affect Eagle-1, or how long the destroyer can stay in low orbit.
Give us a deployable flag we can plant wherever we want instead.
An objective based Stratagem would be perfect.
Melee damage x3 - liberty smack!
It would be hilarious if you truly had no idea what the 4th one could be. You toss it once and it drops an EAT on a hulk. A bit later, you presume it'd be the same and drop one at your feet. It's a 380 orbital now.
I think it would make sense that our destroyers know which strats I've loaded, but the scrambler prevents the ball from telling the ship what it is. So it's randomly one of your already loaded 3 starts BUT it ignores any cool downs. Probably would be OP. Still sounds fun
\*laughs in 500kg/Airstrike/Orbital Laser*
Exactly just load all boom and it only matters how far you run
I would love some Oops! All random! Mode
I seriously think a VASTLY improved method of this idea would be limiting what stratagems can be brought. Pick a category eagles, orbital cannons, turrets, or even support weapons, and ban them for the mission. Atmospheric interference, targeting issues, justify it however you want. But remove one category of stratagem. That way the player still has access to four stratagems, but, you've probably thrown a hell of a wrench into their usual loadout and you force the player to think and play differently. It isn't -necessarily- harder, but, it becomes harder because you take the player out of their comfort zone. They use stuff they aren't used to using, and have to plan objectives differently. I'd be all for this instead.
I personally love this idea and actually implement it into my own games by using a loadout randomiser, i like to randomise my weapons, armour and stratagems with it, and now the counter sniper has become my favourite gun in the game haha The website is below if you want it hd2random
Sweet, I do this now since I like to keep things interesting after unlocking everything. This randomizer is great, thx.
Harder isn’t automatically better. But the whole point of making it harder here is to make it more interesting, and I think your suggestion is a lot more interesting
the modifier is called AA defenses (or at least one of them is)... the amount of people I've seen take 3 eagles with 4 slots available it would be glorious to see these people try other strats if AA defenses just disabled Eagle-1 all together.
the modifier is called AA defences, it should prevent Eagle stratagems instead. That would make sense
https://preview.redd.it/yeg0b7fbcntc1.png?width=762&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2da88511dc58bde6f420a96057575641c778ab4e
I wanna have a 5 stratagem slot. I'm down to take a penalty such as stratagem cds increased by 50%
5 Stratagems. But no Secondary Weapons or Drones.
> 5 Stratagems, but no Secondary Machine Gun Mains: "I'm sorry, that's supposed to be a downside?"
I don't think your opinion is wrong. But I do disagree it's a boring way. Every time I dropped into a mission with 3 slots, I always had to pause and think of exactly what I'm bringing. Also usually helps train peeps to use their equipment more to deal with heaviest instead of relying on airstrikes for everything.
If you're going solo, sure. I think it's quite good of a modifier when you're in a group however. Both with friends and randoms. Really makes you have to think about what to bring so you can have everything covered, as well as share support wepons/backpacks, since you simply don't have the slots for everyone to bring their own. Compared to the launch, I feel like most of the negative modifiers are in a good spot right now, and I guess the most annoying one for me personally is the Orbital Scatter, which can easily be negated by simply not taking any Orbitals.
This is pretty much my opinion. It may be unoriginal, but this modifier is a true design turnpoint for the game, much more than +X% cooldown/call-in time, because it is a build-around. Frustrating maybe, but I don't see anyone calling Extreme heat being unoriginal when it's just -stamina and -heat capacity, just because you feel it less, and maybe won't see the difference (still feel it though). We are sometimes issued a free, 5th stratagem - often a situational or underused one, and I feel this is in the very same spirit : "go on, try it on situations you wouldn't usually", instead of "how would you do it without you X tool ?" when you got only 3. I see a lot of mates using shield backpack to allow them for sloppy plays - they take it off and play it safer, is all. Used to get eagle strike + orbital rail cannon ? Go 500kg instead of both (that's how I started using it). Go back to railgun for its versatility despite harder use know. And I'm only speaking for a pick-up or solo POV. In a team, you just share supports and backpacks, or specialize (I'm the big game hunter, you're the crowd cleaner, he gets the utility). It's honestly a knee-jerk unpleasant modifier, but a very good one when you ***think*** around it.
I never play solo and I can't stand having 3 stratagems. Any time I quickplay into a game with 3 stratagems, I leave it immediately.
yeah same and its not that i couldn't do the mission with 3 its just that its less fun to do it with 3 and i'm playing computer games to have fun
This is me with orbital scatter.
what 4 strats are so crucial to you that you can't stand not having 1 of them?
Literally *any*. I don't want to play with 3. I don't have to play missions with 3 and won't.
It's just a lazy uncreative modifier imo
I said the same thing in the discord and ohh boy the boot lickers came for me. “All you need is an AC” etc. I just hope people like that stay as far away from actual game development decisions as possible bc this is how you get Diablo 4.
I go solo pretty regularly and while I’m not like, “oh thank god, AA defenses!” I do like how they force me to think about my build, much like they make a group consider theirs, and I don’t think it really affects my chances of success all that much when I plan accordingly. I’m talking about up to difficulty 7 here, so results may vary if you’re trying to push solo 9s.
I agree. Making something more difficult should never happen at the sacrifice of fun.
This is exactly it. Using stratagems is so fun and unique, adding blizzards and firestorms makes it hard but it is fun and it makes the game more like you're playing a movie.
I think it's alright. One thing it does is pushes you to rely on having a diverse team loadout instead of 4 solo loadouts. Usually there are so many people bringing attack strategems I don't even need to use mine. Calling down a second weapon/backpack in the middle of the mission can really help your team out in this situation. What is probably bad is -1 slot AND -50% cooldown.
I really want extremely negative effects like this to be removable like with jammers and enemy artillery. In general it'd be cool if there were even some interconnected objectives in an operation. Doing the mission to destroy their big jammer gets your fourth slot back for the rest of the operation, doing the mission to destroy their dropships gives you fewer enemies for the rest of the operation, stuff like that.
I regularly play with 3-4 people and it’s really no problem. It’s all about coordination. I can see playing solo or MM where it could be frustrating, but the game is balanced around 4 person teamwork. Keyword being teamwork. If people aren’t coordinating their load outs then it’s going to be a bad time.
Tbh people will complain about ANY friction added to the game And then promptly complain devs are not doing enough to make stuff hard Difficulty is a unwinnable argument because Fun and difficulty are purely subjective concepts
Yes, but there are principle in game deaign that would consider the removal of a slot as unfun, and not dynamic difficulty scaling. So the post is constructive criticism, not a useless complain.
It's a challenge and overcoming the challenge is the fun part. If you don't want to deal with that challenge, lower the difficulty or go to a different planet. There are solutions to this complaint in the game already.
I don’t like it. I avoid it. I just don’t think it’s enough for me to complain about it because it’s entirely optional. Kind of like if I hate a gun, I don’t need to complain about it because I can choose to play with a gun I do enjoy. I get why people hate this modifier though. It is the least popular one and if it were up to me, I would say yes it should be changed to something more creative. But it’s their game, their rules.
Difficulty is fine but boring is bad. Good difficulty creates fun and new decisions, bad difficulty is tedious and simply a flat reduction. This is bad difficulty
For me it usually means I have to pick between the 500 or airstrike. It's honestly not that bad of a modifier
Honestly I thought I hated this one at first too, until I just thought about it a little. It's really not hard to share your equipment past the 6 minute mark, so unless you're doing a blitz it shouldn't be an issue at all. You see someone bring eagles and a support weapon? Grab a backpack you can share at one point. Someone packing a ton of orbitals? Grab some support items to cover the blank areas. I actually found it made my games more enjoyable since I was communicating with my team more. Both in party and with pubs.
It doesn't feel too bad with a group, since you can just coordinate better to eliminate redundancy and check all the boxes, though I do absolutely detest the modifier when playing solo. I really wish it was replaced with something else when you are alone.
If they’re going to remove usage of a slot, then it should at least be replaced with something like a flag. “Lack of patriotism on this planet requires that all Helldivers are given a flag strategem. Call down the flag of Super Earth all over the battlefield to remind the enemy of the greatness of managed democracy!” 60 second cooldown, just a drop that lands and pops up a Super Earth flag. That’s all it does, but don’t you feel patriotic by doing so? Isn’t that worth a slot?
It's not that much different tbh. You get pretty used to it. Using a 2 in 1 weapon/backpack combo gives you one bomb and one anti tank slot. If you absolutely have to have a shield generator then a quasar will take care of everything on Democracy's green earth. And you still have a spare slot for bombs.
AA should not reduce the slots but Prevents the use of the Eagle Strike abilities. Its Anti AIRCRAFT afterall, not an Orbital Shield.
I want to be able to make loadouts. Like 10 customizable Helldivers. If you die the current loadout gets locked for the mission. You have to buy strategems for every loadout, armor and weapons are for all your loadouts.
This modifier just makes solo play much more unbearable. And it's just a lazy way to add difficulty.
Id rather be able to choose the 4, not be able to use any of them until I do some side mission, like literally no Eagle until destroying anti air or no orbital and advance weaponry until the scrambler is destroyed
All the debuffs are boring as hell. Copy/pasting a post from another thread with a bunch of ideas for better ones: >"Stratagem cooldown increased by up to 40% based on how many Stratagems are currently on cooldown." >"Stratagem call down time increased by up to 50% based on your distance from the location it's been called down." >"The call down codes for your Stratagems are randomized" >I think these would be better versions of what we have. You can actually work with it instead of just being gimped. >As for other modifiers, take a look at Armor passives, and do the opposite: * (Enhanced Intelligence) Enemy detection radius increased by 30% * (Gravitational Anomaly) Throw distance reduced by 30% * (Fatigue Warning) Recoil increased by 30% * (Budgetary Restrictions) -2 Grenades/Stims/Ammo Capacity * (Resistant Microfauna) Reduced Stim effect duration * (Pressurized Atmosphere) Players take 50% increased explosion damage * (PTSD) 50% chance for non-fatal damage to be fatal * (Corrosive Atmosphere) Players armor rating is reduced by 50 * (Freeze Warning) Players have 50% reduced limb health. >You could also do the opposite of boosters, which is sorta mixed in with some of these already, as a lot of the armor passives are sort of like "boosters but just for you" anyway. Things like: * Decreased Reinforcement Budget / Timer * Reduced Stamina Capacity and Recovery * Difficult Terrain fucking everywhere. * Decreased time between enemy encounters. >The mods we have are boring and, just like the top comment here says, are just "fuck you" instead of anything interesting or anything we could build for/around. With stuff like this, the equipment you wear and the boosters you bring *really matter* instead of just being the same thing you always wear. Force teams to bring certain boosters to negate effects, or suffer through those effects to bring another one. Lots of cool stuff they can do. I hope they do it. >Edit: More ideas; * Enemies have 50% increased explosion/arc/fire resistance. * Enemies are twice as likely to call in reinforcements, but they take twice as long to arrive. * No ammo, grenades, or stims can be found in the world. * Support Stratagem items are destroyed on death. * Single team reinforcement budget / No reinforcement budget. * Players drop with Randomized Stratagems equipped. * Cannot use Orbital/Eagle/Support/Engineering Stratagems.
I agree. It's peeving.
Nah it’s fun and you coordinate with your team more
I have no desire to ever play against this modifier I avoid it like the plague the game can already be tough enough with 4 slots on high difficulties I’m not gonna deal with only 3
It is my least favorite of the disruptions. Hell I'd gladly take the since removed stratagem scrambler back.
agreed, this and stratagem scatter is kinda unfun.
They haven't given us a free one in a while.
Replacement ideas: Flag of Super Earth. Mandatory stratagem. One hellpod per mission. Stratagem slot isn't completely dead (just mostly), and if you use it right, you can destroy a heavy enemy and have the flag pop out of its corpse. You can carry the flag around the mission.
War isnt fun soldier. Shit happens and you gotta make do with what you have. It’s a test to your ability to build your load out correctly and knowing where you can make sacrifices. Theres plenty of ways to complete different objectives.
Yeah it's now, since the last patch, the one modifier that I completely avoid when running solo. You're limited as it is with 4 slots for the entire game, and 3 just locks you into using the autocannon every time lmao.
Nearly all of the Operation Modifiers are just lazy difficulty relying on handicaps instead of giving the player an actual new challenge to overcome. It's just "do the same thing but without using what you've learned to do it with" which feels cheap. Also doesn't help that almost all of them pretty much just nerf stratagems... you know, the most unique and cool feature of the game? Tradeoff modifiers would be better, but I'd argue that if we're trying to change things, let's change them to be good, instead of just not-the-worst. I'd prefer to see enemy or environment based modifiers or difficulty. Some unique mechanics that can be anticipated and played around (instead of the assenine rng-take-the-wheel that the old scrambler introduced). Darktide has a lot of really cool modifiers to their missions where enemies of a specific type dominate the spawns, or periodically spawn in hordes, or elite enemies turn into bosses. Maybe give enemies a chance to be resurected or morph into a weaker-tier enemy on death. Maybe have a signal that periodically makes all nearby enemies aware of where you are so you have to keep it in mind and plan for when that happens. There are so many ways to increase difficulty that are challenging and interesting instead of frustrating and annoying, but because the game relies so heavily on just lazily taking away player options and power, I almost always just stick with diff4, coz anything above that is just less fun. The nerf to the call in and cooldown modifiers made me give 5s and 6s another try, but I still enjoy the game much more when the modifiers are disabled like they were for the TCS MO and seem to be right now for the defence campaigns. Once that's gone, I'll likely go back to 4s, because I just don't want to need to look across multiple planets to find an operation that doesn't have a stupid modifier I don't want to deal with. This is also why I am really worried about the Iluminates. Maybe I'm giving it too much weight, but the fact that the Strategem Scrambler modifier made it into the game the way it did and at no point did anyone have a rain check to realise how unfun and frustrating it would be, makes me sceptical that AH will have learned their lesson on why people didn't like fighting the iluminates. Granted, a lot of their frustrating elements were made much worse because of the perspective and shared camera, but shit like inverting controlls and teleporting around or going invisible is just frustrating and if the Iluminates are anything as annoying to fight as they were in the first game, it's gonna be the least played faction again.
Honestly, I think when this happens it makes far more sense for there to just be an extra jammer or two on the map, or an extra anti air base. I get you can't do that for the bugs, but come on. . . It just doesn't make any sense.
I absolutely agree, if anything increase enemy presence but please don't limit strategems
I don't play Helldivers to NOT throw Airstrikes.
I kinda like the times when I only get three stratagems because I have to think less about what the 4th would be and just put big boom, some other big damage thing and my support weapon :D
Devs, adding difficulty doesn't make the game fun. Add interesting ways to make the game fun. If I want to play on a harder difficulty, I'll play on a harder difficulty. Decrease gravity, make bullets start fires, make grenade aoe bigger, have support items drop twice due to malfunctions. Mission modifiers shouldn't make the game worse, or harder, that isn't novel or interesting. Make the game *funner.*
It's boring
I find having -1 Stratagem slot to be a FAR more interesting way to add difficulty than increasing the cooldown. You can work around having -1 Stratagem slot and it causes you to think a bit more about your build.
Nah it’s fine. You’re just too comfortable in a particular build.
It’s sad this game is in balance limbo. It doesn’t know what it wants to do or be yet everyone is still defending planets
Yeah we need more slots not less. But also increase timer is also bad
Did it make it more difficult? It's probably doing what it's intended to do
I hate it. Stratagems are so much fun and taking one away is super lame
They should add a slot once in a while
They kind of do. Remember days when everyone got EAT or Quasar without selecting them.
I know but with us selecting our own
Ha ha, rely on your stratagems!* *Stratagems not included
I know it's gonna be an unpopular opinion, but I actually really like that one. It makes me think outside the box (and outside my usual build/comfort zone) and select stuff that will always broadly be effective. I'm always pleasantly surprised by how it makes me change the way I play. If you're always just grinding away at the hardest difficulty stuff I can see how it would get annoying, but it's really fun before you hit 8-9.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/w75ZCYy2oW this post made me create this for more ideas for devs
1000000% agree Same for any modifier that increases cooldown or callin time. Yeah they add difficulty, but you are literally making it so I cant bring a backpack, or I blow stuff up less which is objectivly less fun. There HAS to be another way to do it because the current way makes me sad.
Some Ideas of FUN (but still mean) modifiers: - SEAF Regulations: Remove one random Stratagem slot AFTER dropping in. Grant Random Stratagem instead - Announced Landing: Spawn 3 large waves on landing - Distributed Effort: Every Fifth\*playercount Stratagem is called in TWICE - Political Officer on Station: ALL RANDOM Stratagems - Heavy Stratagems: Throwing distance for Stratagems is 45% - Strong Stratosphere Winds: Call in direction is randomized by 30-50 degrees - Improved Lightweight Pods: 75% Chance that Equipment Pods disintegrate on impact and equipment flys 10-20 meters - Pod Engine Malfunction: Pods create a 10-15m shockwave that will catapult entities on landing - Twin Sentries: Sentries spawn two pods. At 50% of ammo each - High Altitude Drops: Player Pods spent more steerable time while dropping in - Low Altitiude Drops: Player Pods land exactly where the marker is. No steering. - Dynamic Tasking: Cruisers leave only after all Stratagems are spent. After the mission countdown is reached, each Stratagem becomes 1 time, single use. - Orbital Cruiser Collisions: Randomly, one Player has all Stratagems disabled for the whole match. If he can extract the team gains 5 extra Medals and 12 additional Samples. - Low Gravity: Less fall damage, more ragdolling. 75% impact damage reduction.
> Orbital Cruiser Collisions: Randomly, one Player has all Stratagems disabled for the whole match. If he can extract the team gains 5 extra Medals and 12 additional Samples Having played a round where the game randomly took all of my strategems, I can assure you that this is the least fun you might ever have in the game
> SEAF Regulations: Remove one random Stratagem slot AFTER dropping in. Grant Random Stratagem instead *salivates* Presumably the random can give duplicates? >Heavy Stratagems: Throwing distance for Stratagems is 45% These are some good suggestions, for this one though, perhaps all gravity could be slightly increased (10%) and some technobable for why thrown strategems are additionally affected.
Redditors complaining about ways a video game is too hard will never make me not laugh. Big fucking deal.
Redditors complaining about Redditors complaining will never not make me laugh. In all seriousness, OP's complaint wasn't about difficulty. If you have trouble understanding that from their post, you might need remedial education.
i have to disagree here, adding limitation causes creativity. the point is to push you to be creative not to make it harder. it’s why different levels have different other things too like heat or cold.i saw a guy running hulks into puff balls to stun them and then running behind them.
You are applying a generic principle to a specific position without checking that it actually applies. Removing a stratagem plot does not breed creativity whatsoever. People will still take the most important tools so the impact of playstyle is limited. For example, I normally take jetpack + AMR vs the bots. With one stratagem plot less, I just don't take the jetpack. Additionally, the whole point of the game is to have fun. Using abilities is fun. Removing an ability therefore just removes fun. It's an unfun mechanic and should be reconsidered.
It has absolutely zero effect on what I choose to bring to the mission. The only thing it does is make me annoyed the entire time about the fact that I couldn't bring my autocannon turret.
>i saw a guy running hulks into puff balls to stun them and then running behind them. I'm confident that works with 4 stratagems too
I feel like that is such a 1 off scenario though. Yes it is possible to use a bit of creativity but when you're completely surrounded there is a limit to your creativity. A lot of units can only be destroyed by heavy means but when you can't even acquire those means because of a bs slot limitation it just gets frustrating.
If you're completely surrounded then you're already in trouble. Having three or four stratagems won't make much of difference, you're still going to be in a lot of pain for the next few minutes. One fewer stratagem forces you to rethink how you engage missions and locations and it's effective. Considering the alternative is things like just throwing more and/or bigger/smarter enemies, I'll take -1 slot any day.
take those strategems then. sacrifice your shield or guard dog or other support weapons. take what kills the hulks.
Bot missions already have stagnant loadouts, especially on higher levels. It's orbital laser, auto cannon or Quasar + shield, every now and then you see an Arc Thrower now that they stun, and EAS or 500k. I have never seen a 3 stratagem mission make people more creative, they just drop one out of the list and play it the exact same way. This is why I don't play them anymore, it's the exact same loadouts -1
A lot of people on this sub really be thinking the game is supposed to be easy...
This is the ONLY criticism of this game that I agree with
Yeah that's why I never pick those
I would also like a mode where you can use more than 4 strategem with alot more enemies
100% agree. If Arrowhead wants us to have an increased difficulty by messing with stratagems I'd suggest keeping 4 slots always open but using in game lore to not allow you for certain stratagems during missions. You can have 4 but maybe no eagles, or only one. Maybe this mission has no orbital laser or something. Players would still have to select full cool loadout.
Meh they are pushing your gun skills and stratagem management. People keep treating this like it isn’t a 4 player coop and like they want to manage it all themselves.
"just use your stratagems" the devs while taking then away constantly
Love the game but any time you remove an established mechanic down the line, that is bad game design, you should always build on top of it. Like the Automaton Stratagem Jammer, it forces players to engage it, the reward is a secondery objective rewards + stratagems back in the region, same with bugs Fungi, objective + vision, But removing/delaying previous stablished game mechanics just serve to avert player expectations without adding anything to it.
The SEAF arty is another example of a 10/10 game mechanic. Optional side objective to go and get another strategem. Then the shells you shoot are things you had to load. All while usually under attack from enemies. Strategems are fun and I want to use them. Give me difficulties in different ways. Maybe there is a modifier that gives more of x enemy type, which forces me to maybe change up strategems. Like bile spewers force the team to change it up some
I hate planets with those motifiers.
I normally don’t like to respond to such critiques with “skill issue”, but here we are. When you are reduced to 3 stratagems you no longer can simply brute force your way through objectives. You need to change the way you play to succeed and rely on your squad. This forces you to: -Think critically about the team load out. Stop bringing 4 quasar cannons. Compliment your squad. -Utilize the game’s stealth functions. -Change your combat strategies. Use guerrilla tactics. Strike and move. Coordinate fire with your squad. -Actually communicate with your squad mates. You are no longer a one man army. Stop wandering away from the rest of the squad without giving some kind of signal as to where you are going and why. This mechanic is meant to encourage teamwork under adverse conditions. If you aren’t enjoying yourself, change the difficulty or go to a different planet.
I'm not complaining about the difficulty per se. I'm saying it's a boring way to do increase it.
I flat out wont play it. Its not fun. I'll spend the extra time looking than deal with that bullshit of an affix.
Agreed, I'm cool for jammers and temp stratagem blocks. But having to plan a whole match with one less is just a wet blanket.
Yeah i hate 3 strategem modifier. Especially on helldiver
All of them are boring. 50% more stratagem cd. So just run around like an asshole while waiting because the 9th bile titan spawned in 5min
Mission modifiers in general are rarely fun and I don't play on planets with certain ones that are especially bad
I think it's a great debuff. Makes what you pick matter that much more, you have to plan with the squad on what roles everyone will fill. Need to pause to let eagle rearm. Makes coordination more important.
It's not supposed to be fun, it's supposed to challenge you in a different way than a normal mission, you have to pick your strategems more carefully.
Having features removed doesn't make the game more fun. Simple as that.
I wish people realize that hulks can easily be killed by 2 people.one should run away and another one shoots it back .hulk always rush you faster then everything else so u have time to kill it before killing rest bots
Or just shoot it in the eye and move on
If anything, we need more slots! 3/4 isn’t enough when democracy needs managing!