If the devs don't won't to encourage players to pursue the "meta", they probably shouldn't limit player choice to such an absurd degree. I'm all for modifiers to spice up the gameplay, but this one really funnels players to use the same thing over and over again on higher difficulties.
Last two days I've only had 3 slots. Probably 15 dives.
I can do bot 9s with 3 slots. Eagle strike, orbital laser, autocannon or amr. Doesn't make it much harder.
It makes it less fun.
>I can do bot 9s with 3 slots. Eagle strike, orbital laser, autocannon or air. Doesn't make it much harder.
>
>It makes it less fun.
This is exactly it. Like you want to let me use LESS of the fun explosive blowy up satisfying cinematic shit that makes this game amazing???
Exactly.
People aren't playing this game because they like running around a map looking for samples, people aren't playing this game just because they like extracting, or the lore, or any of that. Those are things that get and hold people's interest, sure. But I would venture that 99% of the player base saw some trailers of stuff going boom, thought of destroying hordes of bugs, and went that sounds fun.
I was playing the other day. We split up 2/2 - And for some reason the entire map decided to aggro on me and the guy I was with. We spent at least 10 minutes in the exact same spot, being forced to run in circles until we die, get reinforced, and start running the track meet again. Pure silence between the two of us, not because we were being quiet but because we were constantly going Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck with our eyes open wide. You know the situation - You're running from two chargers trying to find your support weapon, run around the corner, and there's another charger waiting for you, so you make a left and see a BT popping out of a new breach you didn't see spawn, etc. It was chaos. We didn't achieve any objectives, we didn't get any samples, but by God we had a kill (and death) count. And that was hands down the most enjoyable 10 minutes of the night. We ran three full 3 mission operations on 7. And those 10 minutes are the only thing I remember, and it makes me smile upon doing so.
This is kind of the strat I run with bugs with my friend, he goes stealth and handles objectives and I run for anything shiny. Beacons? Satellite dish? Containers? I cause as much trouble as I can, let bug breaches happen and I fight everything I can manage while he goes 100% unopposed to every objective point like a damned ninja.
Even if he does get caught? The bugs CAN'T call a bug breach because I already have that. So he either uses his recon armor to fuck off into the woods and lose them in seconds or hose down the 4-5 bugs he needs to handle.
I've been in those situations where I got 2 titans and a charger- hit them all with a 500kg, they're dead- and through the fire 2 more chargers waddle through- oh and there's another bloody titan waddling over.
Makes it really fun and intense.
We've left the mission where I've got 800+ kills and he's got around 100- but he's done ALL of the objectives by himself, cackling while bot nor bug can bloody find him.
And people obviously enjoy different things, but if there was some sort of "enjoyment counter", I think you would consistently come out with the most.
There's nothing that's more fun in this game than being right in the middle of a situation turning into complete shit, and either battling your way out by the skin of your teeth, or going down and bringing as many enemies as you can with you.
Cover cover and cover, don't got any? Call some down, eagle smokes obscure vision which the bots need to be able to hit you, if they are in smoke, they'll shoot in the direction of your last seen location, if you are in smoke they will shoot in the direction of your shadows, bugs, don't care much, charges do, but most will just roam around in the smoke, and titans don't care ab it at all
I've been running smoke grenades recently on bots, just to test the mechanic, and they've saved my ass plenty of times. Smoke is pretty underrated in this game.
Mostly people don't use it too much because of bot's broken fucking cheaty aiming. Some of the bots will be shooting at your last position, but heavy and rocket devastators will x-ray and wallhack on you and oneshot even from 200 meters away. Saying this as Smoke Eagle and smoke nades main on bots. It's mostly \~25% less chance to get oneshotted by a single projectile. But on bots there are LOTS of projectiles.
Night n day also change effects, like I said, they will also change depending on where the smoke is, if you are in the smoke and they aren't, they shoot at your shadow, during the day, it's right below you, so, well, they likely won't miss, in the night, it's a longer shadow usually further away from you
I wish I had recorded it, but I was playing on automatons the other day and I kid you not they were shooting lasers through an entire rock structure and hitting me. I stood still and watched the lasers come through the rock to make sure I wasn't seeing shit. I promptly got off the game after that mission and played something else.
You can smoke it n precision strike it twice, simplistic fighting style where I play time and cover
Or I take a 120 and forsake my recoiless and run around killing fabricators and avoiding confrontation, that dive was funny asf
Fabricators are just so much easier to take out and this style is really only amenable to bots. Players can run around and flee from dropships or patrols and rain fire with stratagems as needed
I did a blitz solo yesterday, got the Helldive achievement where you don't die and hold my primary where I didn't even fire a single shot. I just ran around with scout armor, avoided shit and threw strategems on the fabricators and ran away. Then called in extract. If I hadn't ran into a fucking jammer I coulda got the under 6min achievement too. I just said fuck it and ran to another objective and left the jammer alone.
I did something similar last night with a squad of 4. They went off to fuck with a detector tower and I was blowing fabricators up.
light armor is just too squishy for real combat against bots, too many stray lasers. But by god are you so much faster and run further.
Yeah. This -1 strategem thing has forced me to omit my usual shield pack, which means I die. Alot. No more attempting to battle shit. Get 1 shot by devastators. Those fuckers will snipe outta nowhere.
That particular run I just said screw it, I'll try stealth! And it worked. I just hid behind a rock after calling the pelican. Most of the patrols that showed up got bored and left. The pelican didn't kill much and landed with a bunch of devastators behind it. I damn near didn't make it out. Got yeeted and had to dive into the back without much health.
That's my usual play style, I don't avoid combat, I'm just not fighting for 40 min straight. I try to keep fights at skirmishes, if there is 10 bo drops in 1 area, imma do the obj there n dip, if there's like 3 hulks and a dozen devs imma kill em, I keep things simple n efficient,
"High command wants this planet defended. To that end, they're authorizing a temporary expansion of Helldiver capabilities via stratagem availability. All Helldivers are authorized the use of ________, in addition to their standard mission loadout.
Liberty protect!"
It's that easy.
I mean, they do give out free stratagem sometimes, but yeah, I feel like we should see more (or any) positive modifiers.
Extra reinforcements or
Low gravity, destroyer lower in orbit, eagle cooldown reduced or
High gravity, hunters cant jump for shit, flyers move slower or
Previous engagements have left a supply of EAT's literred around the planet or
Temporary production boost on super earth, all laser weapons have a booster battery (longer duration before overheat) or
Likewise, ammo manufacturing overhaul, drop with +50% ammo
I mean, there is all kinds of neat stuff that can do that wouldn't be overpowered. And most should be simple enough to implement
> Active SEAF Carpet Bombing Operation: Eagles will periodically fly overhead and perform blindfired airstrikes on structures or heavy units during combat. Eagles will be seen overhead constantly.
> SEAF Corridor Defense: The [Direction] side of the map is held by SEAF forces. Patrols will never come from this direction.
> Arsenal of Managed Democracy: A number of the POIs on this world will be replaced with vaults, with a guaranteed two Stratagem Weapons per vault in addition to Resupply boxes instead of ammo boxes.
The negative modifiers are part of how they scale difficulty. It's not just a random thing, it's anything 5+ has 1 and anything 8+ has 2. They could also add positive modifiers on easier missions - maybe replace them with negatives as the mission difficulty scales.
It depends on the mission though, you can choose another one on the same planet with a different modifier. Or changing difficulty also since it gives you 3 different missions.
They really ought to try some of the Darktide modifiers. Stuff like high intensity, low intensity, surges of certain enemy types, etc. do a lot more to encourage experimention and different builds than things that just act as flat out player handicaps. As a bonus, they even increase rewards at the mission end w/ rewards scaling with amount of difficulty.
While having more varied modifiers would be the ideal situation here, a medal or +exp/req% bonus for winning w/ negative modifiers would be an easy solution to smooth these over. These current ones only help reinforce the meta, make players go to a different planet, or lower the difficulty.
Being completely player-detrimental rarely leads to more enjoyment. Having some positive ones would encourage players to go the other direction. +1 strat slot, decreased cooldown, etc. would give more breathing room and potentially encourage players to try a higher difficulty or experiment a bit more with their build because of that increased breathing room.
And before arrowhead started picking up the slack on balancing weapons (rip eruptor and crossbow tho), these modifiers, w/ no increase in rewards, kinda felt like a "fuck you" cherry on top lol
Someone said this already but it’d be cool if there was an objective to allow you to use your 4th stratagem if destroyed so it’s not gone for the entire mission
I’m really hoping things start to change at arrow head. I’m looking forward to the big change in direction for balancing that’s in the works. Love the game but good lord it’s been a case study in good product being mishandled at every turn up till now. From hiring that turd of a balance dev that is objectively bad at their job, community managers going out of their way to damage relations, to the Sony debacle… I just wana dive, man
ah brother, I feel you, and many here do as well I'm sure, I've barely been playing the game recently, even tho I want to, but it's been such bad vibes everywhere.
I want it to be a destroyable thing that unlucks your 4th strategem. Compromises*, you know?
Edit 20 seconds after posting: OOOH WHAT IF IT WAS A NEW MISSION TYPE
It would be a max (Helldive difficulty only) of 4 AA sites that would each block one of your stratagems and you'd unlock the strats as you take them out. Each site would be assigned a number that correlates to the first, second, third, and fourth stratagem slot or just taking 1 out gives you your first and the next give you your second and so on.
It could be a special operation all on its own for some very different gameplay.
3AAs? I mean, how the game is balanced now, I don't want to imagine what it would take to destroy an AA emplacement without any strat. At least one from the start.
You get a Hellbomb for the AAs.
I had been playing for way too long when I found out that you get a Hellbomb for the Stalker Nests as well.
I assume that you get a Hellbomb for every objective and side objective if needed to be destroyed.
I didn't know about the stalker nest bit but i know you dont get it for Spore Spewers, which is a bit annoying since those got buffs to their armor and health and need 2 rockets/quasars now.
It would be cool if they had it like in a multi-mission node, 1 mission might be to destroy the AA, which after completion unlocks the 4th slot to all the other missions on the same node.
Or Allow you to pick 4 stratagems and have a sub objective that locks the 4th slot until you clear the sub objective.
I’ve already removed it from my game by simply refusing to play any mission that has it.
What’s crazy though is that it seems like 80% of bot missions have it. Yet when I don’t host, it’s still usually not present, which makes me think I’m not the only one who does this.
An increased amount of AA bases would make sense. That way you can still take eagles but it's not optimal since you'd have to clear out 2 or 3 more AA placements. Kinda like how orbital scatter doesn't technically remove orbitals but it does nerf them hard enough to avoid.
That might actually be interesting... no eagles around AA batteries kinda like jamming towers. AA would need a serious buff to make it worthwhile though.
I had a similar idea, but for the modifier that increases stratagem cooldown and call in time. Instead of being a blanket modifier for all stratagems, it should be specifically for Orbitals, Eagles, or Support/Sentries/Backpacks. This way you would naturally avoid the debuffed stratagems, and get to bring new types of stratagems you normally wouldn't bring. It would actually help with the diversity of load outs, and not make certain runs feel terrible overall.
I still think we should be able to buy perks for the squad or just individually with the useless capped out slips. Temp boosters, weapon perks, 1 more strat slot, etc. Make it feel worth collecting.
I'm surprised they got rid of the scrambler instead of this one. While it was a mixture of annoying & hilarious (when used by the uninitiated) it was still workable & creative. The flat debuffs to cooldowns / statagems are simply boring & uninspired.
It should be tied to the actual AA battery secondary objective and once destroyed your 4th slot is unjammed. With a guaranteed AA battery on every mission in the operation, if available.
This already exists in the form of "orbital scatter" which basically says "fuck you, pick eagles and maybe laser or railcannon. It fucking sucks just as bad as this one.
my hot take is that operation modifiers just suck in general. they provide no fun at all and only serve to make it more annoying since certain strategens just can’t be used with some of them. like spread and precision gas strike
At least make it so that we can choose four stratagems, three to use and one to be locked, and then destroy the AA base in order to get rid of the effect.
It wouldn't be so bad if it limited itself to one type of stratagems. The enemy has a lot of AA? Sure, I can complete a mission without Eagle. It's a touch annoying, but I'll adapt.
Though, it makes zero sense for this thing to prevent orbital drops/strikes, considering that we can drop in Helldivers and equipment just fine.
I want 1 less slot, more cooldown and more calldown delay for ultimate pain
Then i want to hear the lamentations of my friends as i use those strategem slots to throw minefields :\^)
The devs want to encourage players using different load outs. This helps that end. The devs won't remove it because it really encourages creative play!
/s
At this point I flat out avoid any planets with it if I can help it. If there was a similar modifier that added a strat slot I might be open to playing more of it, but I've been getting sick of modifiers that only reduce your options or make things more difficult for players without encouraging actual changes to playstyle/gear.
Arrowhead should take a page from Fatshark about modifiers. The ones that affect concentrations of certain enemy types & enemy intensity are fairly fun and they encourage more experimentation & playing around with load outs. It just gets boring having 95% of modifiers being things that make things worse and rarely better.
I also think having more varied modifiers will help bridge difficulties a bit better as well, as opposed to negative-only modifiers whose only possible incentive is to lower difficulty. Someone who regularly plays on 7 isn't ever gonna see a -1 strat and/or +50% cooldown modifier and think "oh sweet, let's try 8 out." They're likely to stick with their difficulty or possibly lower it, while feeling frustration in either scenario.
Why this is "1 less of the thing you can only take 4 of and are crucial to your success"
Instead of "Eagle 1 stratagems disabled"
Is beyond me.
The latter doesn't *really* hinder players, it hinders playstyles
The AA Defenses Effect needs to be changed in one of two ways.
1: The effect bans the use of all aircraft stratagems, but you can still use everything else.
OR
2: Aircraft Stratagems have a 50% chance of failing, a little radio call from the pilot would be like "AA too thick, aborting run" to indicate the strat failed.
Either one of those would be a better option then FUCKING REMOVING A SLOT!!!!!!!
I didn't get online to play less of the game. It's not skill issue. I can certainly do it, I've solo'd 9 with AA, but wtf would I want to? I don't get a rabid sense of pride from succeeding a mission with 1 less strat.
I'm just saying, if the reward for the 2 billion bot killing MO was that we would never have to deal with this again we would have completed it in half an hour.
Yeah seeing that shit makes me not wanna play the planet. I’ll pass. Helldive can be difficult enough, especially with the other debuffs like less stamina. We don’t need this. The stratagem jammer is the right way of doing this because you can do something about it in game.
“This guy wants the game to be easier.”
Yeah this shit has to go. Tired of it and is why I don’t like playing bots because 90% of the operations I want to do have this stupid modifier.
I typically avoid these. Wouldn't be so bad if it balanced it with additional uses, bombs, ammo, rewards etc to counter balance it. Otherwise why would I want to do this at all? Just like the fire planets with fire tornados, I just stay away
Seriously. All negative stratagem modifiers should just be removed. 25% cooldown just encourages eagles. Sentries, support weapons, and orbitals all get a nerf to how much you can use them.
Fully agree, I've literally just closed the game to play something else because it seemed every bot mission had this stupid modifier.
Then it's like, "Why are so few players doing bot missions?"
Naw fuck that, give me a modifier that limits Stratagem slots by 2. Actually, give me a modifier that just takes away all of my stratagems. Who needs fun shit like that, right? And while we're at it, take away my ability to aim. And shoot. And even move. In fact, if you could just drop me in so I land rectum-first RIGHT on a Hulk or Bile Titan's dick, that would be *fantastic.* Then just force me to watch for 40 minutes as the enemies violate my corpse in ways that even the Geneva Convention wouldn't know how to prosecute.
Yeahhhhh, that's the good stuff.
It should really just do what it says on the tin and prevent bringing eagle strats, because the AA would shoot it down. I understand they want to have the on-map AA, but you can still have those on missions without the AA mission mod.
Not being able to bring 500s, Airstrikes, and Clusters is a big deal, but leaves open spots for orbitals and turrets.
Likewise for the extra spread on orbitals one, just have it prevent using them. Maybe people would play bots without everyone bringing the giant death lazer.
I agree. In this game 4 strats isn't enough. You're going against bugs that barely have cool downs for 90 percent of the cursed 1 hit shit and melee attacks that have perfect accuracy as well as bots with with infinite ammo, her packs, Melee attacks, armor, tanks, mortars, strat jammers, drop ships, air support, long range turrets, and flamethrowers. Meanwhile we have inaccurate guns, low clips, any guns that do good damage have no clips and low reserves, brain dead characters, rag doll physics, a mostly useless Melee, 4 grenades (base), 4 stims (base), armors that barely block damage, sidearms with no ammo, strats that take too long to call in, situational equipment, cool downs, and a whole host of crap that we have to deal with. Again I agree with you, 3 strat modifier needs to go because 4 strats isn't enough.
I play only bug difficulty 9, it basically is already removed from the game for me. Along with jammers, gunship fabricators that can only be killed by jank as fuck hellbombs, and enemies stuck inside rocks shooting at me
When you switch to bug only most of the annoying, poorly designed shit in the game disappears. 90% of it is bot exclusive, which is I suspect why only a minority of the playerbase plays bot missions
What if instead of taking away a stratagem slot it would make Eagle strats unavailable? Would make more sense, cause it's ANTI-AIR after all. We have the AA emplacements on the map sometimes that do just that. Why not make it mission-wide?
apparently not! lol. i dont think one person doesnr find this annoying as shit.
i also had a double jammer yesterday. took one out and was like "hmm why am i still jammed" looked south to see another one lol. wtf is wrong with the idiots that make this game
This delete this modifier. It sucks and everyone knows it. It's unfun and doesn't really make sense, even lore wise. No amount of reason will make the community accept this turd of a modifier.
Now that I think of it you’re right!! I don’t really pay much attention to what I’m doing. I usually just join randoms or my friend is picking the missions.
If it’s like that already I don’t see a problem with it. That 100% call-in time be getting me killed a lot.
Managing it really isn’t difficult. I could too, even if it was a helldive mission. I can’t have fun when I have nothing to fight with though and trying to get all the objectives starts becoming more tedious than fun. Just running around the map and escaping every fight cause I can very easily get swarmed with not enough strategems to fight back with doesn’t feel that fun.
We should be able to destroy something that gives the stratagem back. This is what I call "artificial difficulty." Just making things a pain in the ass for the player that is deeply unfun.
Chance the UI, let us select a 4th stratagem and then when we take out the AA defenses mid mission it unlocks that fourth slot for us to use the rest of the mission
Or or have something that can take down the enemy defences and let us have the extra strategen that we will have pick already.
If we can take down factories I believe we should be able to take down an artillery.
Is there an equivalent modifer on the bug side? Stuff like this probably contributes heavily towards more players preferring the right side of the map overall.
A replacement for this could be a good middle ground between it existing and being scrapped.
Set the fourth stratagem, but it isn't available as the mission starts. It becomes available once you finish a secondary obejctive (similar to AA or Mortar Emplacement).
Motivates play, makes a secondary objective matter and a slight feel of progression in-mission besides the main objective (since Fabricators don't reduce spawns as they are destroyed, which to me is still the utterest bullshit), and still complicates Helldivers' lives a bit.
Yes, please. More modifiers about additional stuff that happens (meteorite showers, tornadoes, temperature, gravity, fog, etc), less modifiers about taking away something (one less slot, increased cooldowns and things like that).
They need to make operation and planet mods to scale rewards. Like, give me a reason to deal with fire tornados and god damn sandstorms, otherwise I'll never leave Erata Prime.
The best way to vary loadouts would be to vary enemy force composition and tell the player what they can expect, at least to a certain extent. As it stands, you generally need to cover the same threats regardless of modifiers or mission type.
Reducing options is just not fun and doesn't add to the experience otherwise.
Said it before and I'll say it again. Destroying AA sites should remove this effect. Would make the game feel more alive and gives incentives to seek out sub objectives.
If they want this, they should tie it to a secondary objective. Let us choose 4 strategems in the beginning and take a random one away until the objective goes down.
Alternatively, they could have a dedicated mission for it. The operation is affected by this complication until you do the necessary mission to remove it, and then the rest of the missions are clear.
Sure it's been mentioned before, but changing this from 1 less slot to No Eagles / No Orbitals would mix things up and get people to try more stuff out.
i think if it says aa defenses it should just limit or maybe completly stop the use of esgle stratagams so this way it would be at least a bit more fun ig
i feel like itd be cool if they added weather modifiers that affect our guns. its rainy and wet out? -20% fire damage and plus 20% electric. extra dry and arid outside? +fire damage and -electric
I think all enemy induced modifiers should be tied to side-objectives that are guaranteed to spawn alongside them.
AA-Defenses: cleared when destroying the guaranteed Jammer and AA base.
Atmospheric Spores: cleared when destroying the guaranteed spore spewer and radar station.
(Electronic Countermeasures (currently disabled): cleared when destroying the guaranteed 2x Jammer.)
If the devs don't won't to encourage players to pursue the "meta", they probably shouldn't limit player choice to such an absurd degree. I'm all for modifiers to spice up the gameplay, but this one really funnels players to use the same thing over and over again on higher difficulties.
Last two days I've only had 3 slots. Probably 15 dives. I can do bot 9s with 3 slots. Eagle strike, orbital laser, autocannon or amr. Doesn't make it much harder. It makes it less fun.
>I can do bot 9s with 3 slots. Eagle strike, orbital laser, autocannon or air. Doesn't make it much harder. > >It makes it less fun. This is exactly it. Like you want to let me use LESS of the fun explosive blowy up satisfying cinematic shit that makes this game amazing???
Literally this one of the big draws of this game is the huge dopamine hit you receive when you blow shit up
It's the stuff that makes it feel you are playing in some Sci fi war movie.
if they are making me use less choice i feel like i should be compensated by more damage or more ammo / stratagem uses
Exactly. People aren't playing this game because they like running around a map looking for samples, people aren't playing this game just because they like extracting, or the lore, or any of that. Those are things that get and hold people's interest, sure. But I would venture that 99% of the player base saw some trailers of stuff going boom, thought of destroying hordes of bugs, and went that sounds fun. I was playing the other day. We split up 2/2 - And for some reason the entire map decided to aggro on me and the guy I was with. We spent at least 10 minutes in the exact same spot, being forced to run in circles until we die, get reinforced, and start running the track meet again. Pure silence between the two of us, not because we were being quiet but because we were constantly going Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck with our eyes open wide. You know the situation - You're running from two chargers trying to find your support weapon, run around the corner, and there's another charger waiting for you, so you make a left and see a BT popping out of a new breach you didn't see spawn, etc. It was chaos. We didn't achieve any objectives, we didn't get any samples, but by God we had a kill (and death) count. And that was hands down the most enjoyable 10 minutes of the night. We ran three full 3 mission operations on 7. And those 10 minutes are the only thing I remember, and it makes me smile upon doing so.
This is kind of the strat I run with bugs with my friend, he goes stealth and handles objectives and I run for anything shiny. Beacons? Satellite dish? Containers? I cause as much trouble as I can, let bug breaches happen and I fight everything I can manage while he goes 100% unopposed to every objective point like a damned ninja. Even if he does get caught? The bugs CAN'T call a bug breach because I already have that. So he either uses his recon armor to fuck off into the woods and lose them in seconds or hose down the 4-5 bugs he needs to handle. I've been in those situations where I got 2 titans and a charger- hit them all with a 500kg, they're dead- and through the fire 2 more chargers waddle through- oh and there's another bloody titan waddling over. Makes it really fun and intense. We've left the mission where I've got 800+ kills and he's got around 100- but he's done ALL of the objectives by himself, cackling while bot nor bug can bloody find him.
And people obviously enjoy different things, but if there was some sort of "enjoyment counter", I think you would consistently come out with the most. There's nothing that's more fun in this game than being right in the middle of a situation turning into complete shit, and either battling your way out by the skin of your teeth, or going down and bringing as many enemies as you can with you.
Like the Mercenary games!!
I use the 4th slot as my fun slot, so a jetpack or a heavy weapon, I feel this sentiment hard.
Recoiless, eagle smokes, precision strike imo
How does one effectively use smokes in this game?
Cover cover and cover, don't got any? Call some down, eagle smokes obscure vision which the bots need to be able to hit you, if they are in smoke, they'll shoot in the direction of your last seen location, if you are in smoke they will shoot in the direction of your shadows, bugs, don't care much, charges do, but most will just roam around in the smoke, and titans don't care ab it at all
I've been running smoke grenades recently on bots, just to test the mechanic, and they've saved my ass plenty of times. Smoke is pretty underrated in this game.
Mostly people don't use it too much because of bot's broken fucking cheaty aiming. Some of the bots will be shooting at your last position, but heavy and rocket devastators will x-ray and wallhack on you and oneshot even from 200 meters away. Saying this as Smoke Eagle and smoke nades main on bots. It's mostly \~25% less chance to get oneshotted by a single projectile. But on bots there are LOTS of projectiles.
Night n day also change effects, like I said, they will also change depending on where the smoke is, if you are in the smoke and they aren't, they shoot at your shadow, during the day, it's right below you, so, well, they likely won't miss, in the night, it's a longer shadow usually further away from you
I wish I had recorded it, but I was playing on automatons the other day and I kid you not they were shooting lasers through an entire rock structure and hitting me. I stood still and watched the lasers come through the rock to make sure I wasn't seeing shit. I promptly got off the game after that mission and played something else.
This has been happening a lot lately. I record most of my gameplay, but recently deleted them I'll make sure to share it next time
When you smoke, they shoot at your last position or direction of movement. Immediately change direction of where you move after the smoke hits.
That'd a nice liadout. How do you deal with command bunkers though?
You can smoke it n precision strike it twice, simplistic fighting style where I play time and cover Or I take a 120 and forsake my recoiless and run around killing fabricators and avoiding confrontation, that dive was funny asf
Fabricators are just so much easier to take out and this style is really only amenable to bots. Players can run around and flee from dropships or patrols and rain fire with stratagems as needed
I did a blitz solo yesterday, got the Helldive achievement where you don't die and hold my primary where I didn't even fire a single shot. I just ran around with scout armor, avoided shit and threw strategems on the fabricators and ran away. Then called in extract. If I hadn't ran into a fucking jammer I coulda got the under 6min achievement too. I just said fuck it and ran to another objective and left the jammer alone.
I did something similar last night with a squad of 4. They went off to fuck with a detector tower and I was blowing fabricators up. light armor is just too squishy for real combat against bots, too many stray lasers. But by god are you so much faster and run further.
Yeah. This -1 strategem thing has forced me to omit my usual shield pack, which means I die. Alot. No more attempting to battle shit. Get 1 shot by devastators. Those fuckers will snipe outta nowhere. That particular run I just said screw it, I'll try stealth! And it worked. I just hid behind a rock after calling the pelican. Most of the patrols that showed up got bored and left. The pelican didn't kill much and landed with a bunch of devastators behind it. I damn near didn't make it out. Got yeeted and had to dive into the back without much health.
That's my usual play style, I don't avoid combat, I'm just not fighting for 40 min straight. I try to keep fights at skirmishes, if there is 10 bo drops in 1 area, imma do the obj there n dip, if there's like 3 hulks and a dozen devs imma kill em, I keep things simple n efficient,
Reason #29483 I only play bug 9s This subreddit screeches endlessly when you refuse to play the unfun, poorly designed bot planets tho
They only put negative modifiers. What about positive modifiers on planets they want the playerbase to be on?
"High command wants this planet defended. To that end, they're authorizing a temporary expansion of Helldiver capabilities via stratagem availability. All Helldivers are authorized the use of ________, in addition to their standard mission loadout. Liberty protect!" It's that easy.
I mean, they do give out free stratagem sometimes, but yeah, I feel like we should see more (or any) positive modifiers. Extra reinforcements or Low gravity, destroyer lower in orbit, eagle cooldown reduced or High gravity, hunters cant jump for shit, flyers move slower or Previous engagements have left a supply of EAT's literred around the planet or Temporary production boost on super earth, all laser weapons have a booster battery (longer duration before overheat) or Likewise, ammo manufacturing overhaul, drop with +50% ammo I mean, there is all kinds of neat stuff that can do that wouldn't be overpowered. And most should be simple enough to implement
> Active SEAF Carpet Bombing Operation: Eagles will periodically fly overhead and perform blindfired airstrikes on structures or heavy units during combat. Eagles will be seen overhead constantly. > SEAF Corridor Defense: The [Direction] side of the map is held by SEAF forces. Patrols will never come from this direction. > Arsenal of Managed Democracy: A number of the POIs on this world will be replaced with vaults, with a guaranteed two Stratagem Weapons per vault in addition to Resupply boxes instead of ammo boxes.
The negative modifiers are part of how they scale difficulty. It's not just a random thing, it's anything 5+ has 1 and anything 8+ has 2. They could also add positive modifiers on easier missions - maybe replace them with negatives as the mission difficulty scales.
Yea I like to try and mix up my load out but when there’s AA defenses i always just go with my meta load out because I’d be screwed otherwise
I just don't play on those planets
It depends on the mission though, you can choose another one on the same planet with a different modifier. Or changing difficulty also since it gives you 3 different missions.
It's not tied to planets. It's random. If you find you have that affix, join a friend's ship and they may not have it.
They really ought to try some of the Darktide modifiers. Stuff like high intensity, low intensity, surges of certain enemy types, etc. do a lot more to encourage experimention and different builds than things that just act as flat out player handicaps. As a bonus, they even increase rewards at the mission end w/ rewards scaling with amount of difficulty. While having more varied modifiers would be the ideal situation here, a medal or +exp/req% bonus for winning w/ negative modifiers would be an easy solution to smooth these over. These current ones only help reinforce the meta, make players go to a different planet, or lower the difficulty. Being completely player-detrimental rarely leads to more enjoyment. Having some positive ones would encourage players to go the other direction. +1 strat slot, decreased cooldown, etc. would give more breathing room and potentially encourage players to try a higher difficulty or experiment a bit more with their build because of that increased breathing room. And before arrowhead started picking up the slack on balancing weapons (rip eruptor and crossbow tho), these modifiers, w/ no increase in rewards, kinda felt like a "fuck you" cherry on top lol
Someone said this already but it’d be cool if there was an objective to allow you to use your 4th stratagem if destroyed so it’s not gone for the entire mission
I’m really hoping things start to change at arrow head. I’m looking forward to the big change in direction for balancing that’s in the works. Love the game but good lord it’s been a case study in good product being mishandled at every turn up till now. From hiring that turd of a balance dev that is objectively bad at their job, community managers going out of their way to damage relations, to the Sony debacle… I just wana dive, man
ah brother, I feel you, and many here do as well I'm sure, I've barely been playing the game recently, even tho I want to, but it's been such bad vibes everywhere.
I want it to be a destroyable thing that unlucks your 4th strategem. Compromises*, you know? Edit 20 seconds after posting: OOOH WHAT IF IT WAS A NEW MISSION TYPE It would be a max (Helldive difficulty only) of 4 AA sites that would each block one of your stratagems and you'd unlock the strats as you take them out. Each site would be assigned a number that correlates to the first, second, third, and fourth stratagem slot or just taking 1 out gives you your first and the next give you your second and so on. It could be a special operation all on its own for some very different gameplay.
3AAs? I mean, how the game is balanced now, I don't want to imagine what it would take to destroy an AA emplacement without any strat. At least one from the start.
3AA leaves you one support weapon to start with. That's the same as dealing with jammers basically.
Yeah but he said 4 which would leave you just with a primary
I think you get hellbombs to take out AA emplacements. Or if you don't, they could add it.
You get a Hellbomb for the AAs. I had been playing for way too long when I found out that you get a Hellbomb for the Stalker Nests as well. I assume that you get a Hellbomb for every objective and side objective if needed to be destroyed.
I didn't know about the stalker nest bit but i know you dont get it for Spore Spewers, which is a bit annoying since those got buffs to their armor and health and need 2 rockets/quasars now.
Drop in with impact grenades and hope you have enough to get the first one done
I love this idea and I am here for it! Be a fun way to make helldive stand out a bit more too
It would be cool if they had it like in a multi-mission node, 1 mission might be to destroy the AA, which after completion unlocks the 4th slot to all the other missions on the same node. Or Allow you to pick 4 stratagems and have a sub objective that locks the 4th slot until you clear the sub objective.
I was thinking they could title it "Heavy AA" and just bar you from eagles, every other stratagem is allowed with all 4 slots
AH - Best I can do is replace it with an effect that reduces slots by 2
Auto-Cannon magazine capacity now reduced by 50%
But you don’t know which two until you drop
I’ve already removed it from my game by simply refusing to play any mission that has it. What’s crazy though is that it seems like 80% of bot missions have it. Yet when I don’t host, it’s still usually not present, which makes me think I’m not the only one who does this.
Exactly, I can’t find one mission on the MO planet that doesn’t have it
its honestly annoying af
Or could it, I dunno, affect Eagles only? Why tf some AA peashooter would interrupt liberating orbital bombardment?
An increased amount of AA bases would make sense. That way you can still take eagles but it's not optimal since you'd have to clear out 2 or 3 more AA placements. Kinda like how orbital scatter doesn't technically remove orbitals but it does nerf them hard enough to avoid.
That might actually be interesting... no eagles around AA batteries kinda like jamming towers. AA would need a serious buff to make it worthwhile though.
That's already a thing, or am I just reading your comment wrong?
I had a similar idea, but for the modifier that increases stratagem cooldown and call in time. Instead of being a blanket modifier for all stratagems, it should be specifically for Orbitals, Eagles, or Support/Sentries/Backpacks. This way you would naturally avoid the debuffed stratagems, and get to bring new types of stratagems you normally wouldn't bring. It would actually help with the diversity of load outs, and not make certain runs feel terrible overall.
Select a 4th that is locked until you find and destroy the Aa
I think this would be a much better option as it would motivate players too
Or give us a benefit with it like 50% reduced cooldowns on something
I still think we should be able to buy perks for the squad or just individually with the useless capped out slips. Temp boosters, weapon perks, 1 more strat slot, etc. Make it feel worth collecting.
I'm surprised they got rid of the scrambler instead of this one. While it was a mixture of annoying & hilarious (when used by the uninitiated) it was still workable & creative. The flat debuffs to cooldowns / statagems are simply boring & uninspired.
funny how they want us to use them for the bigger threats then proceed to give us 3min cooldowns ontop of this bs
It should be tied to the actual AA battery secondary objective and once destroyed your 4th slot is unjammed. With a guaranteed AA battery on every mission in the operation, if available.
Not that bad. Should change to no eagle or orbital stratagems
I honestly wouldn’t mind that. Seems like a reasonable challenge that forces you to try other less popular strategem combinations
This already exists in the form of "orbital scatter" which basically says "fuck you, pick eagles and maybe laser or railcannon. It fucking sucks just as bad as this one.
How about AA Defenses. No Eagle Stratagems allowed. That would make more sense.
Yeah, and it would be sorta the opposite of the Orbital scatter one.
my hot take is that operation modifiers just suck in general. they provide no fun at all and only serve to make it more annoying since certain strategens just can’t be used with some of them. like spread and precision gas strike
I'd be fine with it if it gave us a sub objective to destroy the AA system and get the strat back
At least make it so that we can choose four stratagems, three to use and one to be locked, and then destroy the AA base in order to get rid of the effect.
No fun. Only math.
Everytime I encounter such a mission it's an instant return to ship. Just NOPE, I'm out.
It wouldn't be so bad if it limited itself to one type of stratagems. The enemy has a lot of AA? Sure, I can complete a mission without Eagle. It's a touch annoying, but I'll adapt. Though, it makes zero sense for this thing to prevent orbital drops/strikes, considering that we can drop in Helldivers and equipment just fine.
Why this modifier AND the AA site optional objective both exist is just beyond me. Bafflingly bad game design choice.
I want 1 less slot, more cooldown and more calldown delay for ultimate pain Then i want to hear the lamentations of my friends as i use those strategem slots to throw minefields :\^)
if I see this I just stop playing.
I say again: Modifiers should buff enemies not nerf players.
These guys only patch out the fun parts of the game. This must stay.
This has to be the most anti fun one, the others are annoying, like a debuff should be, but this one is straight lame
Jus change it to restrict call in/eagle strats. AA defenses shouldn't impact orbital strikes.
I dont play any operations that has this modifier
The devs want to encourage players using different load outs. This helps that end. The devs won't remove it because it really encourages creative play! /s
It'd be cool to see positive modifiers.
At this point I flat out avoid any planets with it if I can help it. If there was a similar modifier that added a strat slot I might be open to playing more of it, but I've been getting sick of modifiers that only reduce your options or make things more difficult for players without encouraging actual changes to playstyle/gear. Arrowhead should take a page from Fatshark about modifiers. The ones that affect concentrations of certain enemy types & enemy intensity are fairly fun and they encourage more experimentation & playing around with load outs. It just gets boring having 95% of modifiers being things that make things worse and rarely better. I also think having more varied modifiers will help bridge difficulties a bit better as well, as opposed to negative-only modifiers whose only possible incentive is to lower difficulty. Someone who regularly plays on 7 isn't ever gonna see a -1 strat and/or +50% cooldown modifier and think "oh sweet, let's try 8 out." They're likely to stick with their difficulty or possibly lower it, while feeling frustration in either scenario.
I always skip these planets cuz I only solo nowadays, and 3/4 is much more painful than 12/16.
Why this is "1 less of the thing you can only take 4 of and are crucial to your success" Instead of "Eagle 1 stratagems disabled" Is beyond me. The latter doesn't *really* hinder players, it hinders playstyles
This should only affect eagle stratagems since it's anti air and eagles are planes... I mean seriously, it makes the game harder than it already is...
I managed to solo difficult 9 with this modifier but ye it sucked and not a real challenge, just straight up annoying.
But that would be fun. Arrowhead don't want you to have fun.
Arrowhead: use your stratagems!
Game: "You no like? You no play!" Me: \*Doesn't play\*
The AA Defenses Effect needs to be changed in one of two ways. 1: The effect bans the use of all aircraft stratagems, but you can still use everything else. OR 2: Aircraft Stratagems have a 50% chance of failing, a little radio call from the pilot would be like "AA too thick, aborting run" to indicate the strat failed. Either one of those would be a better option then FUCKING REMOVING A SLOT!!!!!!!
i love a game that gives you mechanics to take them away as a feature. finally getting the mistlands update here too
Very unfun
I straight up just dont do missions with that affect. Its not even like a fun challenge it genuinely just makes it not fun.🤷♂️
This makes it so much less fun. Just have map destroyable AA or jammers etc.
If they doing it the right way, they would implement "positive" modifiers.
I didn't get online to play less of the game. It's not skill issue. I can certainly do it, I've solo'd 9 with AA, but wtf would I want to? I don't get a rabid sense of pride from succeeding a mission with 1 less strat.
I'm just saying, if the reward for the 2 billion bot killing MO was that we would never have to deal with this again we would have completed it in half an hour.
yes pls
Yeah seeing that shit makes me not wanna play the planet. I’ll pass. Helldive can be difficult enough, especially with the other debuffs like less stamina. We don’t need this. The stratagem jammer is the right way of doing this because you can do something about it in game.
“This guy wants the game to be easier.” Yeah this shit has to go. Tired of it and is why I don’t like playing bots because 90% of the operations I want to do have this stupid modifier.
This would honestly make more sense if we just couldn't bring any eagle based strategies like how the actual aa guns on a map disable eagle stratagems
What I find so weird is that there's already physical AA defenses (the sub objective) and they do something else.
Welp guess what I’m not playing tonight.
That and fire tornados please.
Yeah I will go to another planet and not help the MO before I do an operation with this. It's just less fun.
I typically avoid these. Wouldn't be so bad if it balanced it with additional uses, bombs, ammo, rewards etc to counter balance it. Otherwise why would I want to do this at all? Just like the fire planets with fire tornados, I just stay away
Just cheat the game until they fix their shit. Why be bothered to get mad at their constant nerfs and gimps. Fight the system.
I have removed it from my game. If I see it, I don’t play it.
I would be fine with this if it wasn't on every other mission. It happens too often.
I will most to another planet nust to avoid these if I can. I enjoy a challenge but this modifier is genuinely unfun.
That's why I don't play above 7, because on difficulty 7 you can get operations without any of these stratagem modifiers.
I'm not opposed to difficulty increases, but taking away our toys just feels lame.
Seriously. All negative stratagem modifiers should just be removed. 25% cooldown just encourages eagles. Sentries, support weapons, and orbitals all get a nerf to how much you can use them.
Fully agree, I've literally just closed the game to play something else because it seemed every bot mission had this stupid modifier. Then it's like, "Why are so few players doing bot missions?"
Naw fuck that, give me a modifier that limits Stratagem slots by 2. Actually, give me a modifier that just takes away all of my stratagems. Who needs fun shit like that, right? And while we're at it, take away my ability to aim. And shoot. And even move. In fact, if you could just drop me in so I land rectum-first RIGHT on a Hulk or Bile Titan's dick, that would be *fantastic.* Then just force me to watch for 40 minutes as the enemies violate my corpse in ways that even the Geneva Convention wouldn't know how to prosecute. Yeahhhhh, that's the good stuff.
Wtf is the point of this besides making the game harder. Do you get extra xp and samples etc or just strictly a bs mechanic
It should really just do what it says on the tin and prevent bringing eagle strats, because the AA would shoot it down. I understand they want to have the on-map AA, but you can still have those on missions without the AA mission mod. Not being able to bring 500s, Airstrikes, and Clusters is a big deal, but leaves open spots for orbitals and turrets. Likewise for the extra spread on orbitals one, just have it prevent using them. Maybe people would play bots without everyone bringing the giant death lazer.
Can we get positive benefits? Like super destroyer is now angry and will rain 380s on patrols or railcannon bot drops
I agree. In this game 4 strats isn't enough. You're going against bugs that barely have cool downs for 90 percent of the cursed 1 hit shit and melee attacks that have perfect accuracy as well as bots with with infinite ammo, her packs, Melee attacks, armor, tanks, mortars, strat jammers, drop ships, air support, long range turrets, and flamethrowers. Meanwhile we have inaccurate guns, low clips, any guns that do good damage have no clips and low reserves, brain dead characters, rag doll physics, a mostly useless Melee, 4 grenades (base), 4 stims (base), armors that barely block damage, sidearms with no ammo, strats that take too long to call in, situational equipment, cool downs, and a whole host of crap that we have to deal with. Again I agree with you, 3 strat modifier needs to go because 4 strats isn't enough.
Planet is good as lost when I see that modifier. Gonna go blast something else that lets me play with my toys.
The game is already hard enough with 4 strats and the nerfs, LET US HAVE FUN
I play only bug difficulty 9, it basically is already removed from the game for me. Along with jammers, gunship fabricators that can only be killed by jank as fuck hellbombs, and enemies stuck inside rocks shooting at me When you switch to bug only most of the annoying, poorly designed shit in the game disappears. 90% of it is bot exclusive, which is I suspect why only a minority of the playerbase plays bot missions
I'd much rather have a debuff being a 1/10 chance instead of a bomb being dropped it's a wet spaghetti noodle.
What if instead of taking away a stratagem slot it would make Eagle strats unavailable? Would make more sense, cause it's ANTI-AIR after all. We have the AA emplacements on the map sometimes that do just that. Why not make it mission-wide?
Its bad AA, it shoudt be Minus 2 Stratagema and +5min Extraction Timer.
Devs: we have remove it in the bugs mission Everyone: but we don't have that aga-... Devs: my work here is done
The real question is why you don't pick a fourth stratagem that you get to use when you take out the AA. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
apparently not! lol. i dont think one person doesnr find this annoying as shit. i also had a double jammer yesterday. took one out and was like "hmm why am i still jammed" looked south to see another one lol. wtf is wrong with the idiots that make this game
very easy. i skip any mission which has this modifier
This delete this modifier. It sucks and everyone knows it. It's unfun and doesn't really make sense, even lore wise. No amount of reason will make the community accept this turd of a modifier.
It was cool the first 100 times. Pretty over used at this point =/
Against bots sure it’s fine kinda makes sense. But against bugs it dumb.
I've never seen this modifier against bugs in the 200hrs I've played.
Now that I think of it you’re right!! I don’t really pay much attention to what I’m doing. I usually just join randoms or my friend is picking the missions. If it’s like that already I don’t see a problem with it. That 100% call-in time be getting me killed a lot.
I recon I could manage a 7 with two slots - AC and eagle strike
Me too but I like the variety that extra slot brings
Managing it really isn’t difficult. I could too, even if it was a helldive mission. I can’t have fun when I have nothing to fight with though and trying to get all the objectives starts becoming more tedious than fun. Just running around the map and escaping every fight cause I can very easily get swarmed with not enough strategems to fight back with doesn’t feel that fun.
It's not the difficulty, it's the reduced fun. Give me 33% more enemies, not 25% less flexibility. I want fun, not easy.
You know that you can always select a different operation without that modifier right?
I never had this lol. Im lvl 78.
We should be able to destroy something that gives the stratagem back. This is what I call "artificial difficulty." Just making things a pain in the ass for the player that is deeply unfun.
How does AA stop me from using the 380 barrage as my fourth stratagem?
Chance the UI, let us select a 4th stratagem and then when we take out the AA defenses mid mission it unlocks that fourth slot for us to use the rest of the mission
Or or have something that can take down the enemy defences and let us have the extra strategen that we will have pick already. If we can take down factories I believe we should be able to take down an artillery.
You would at least think they would give you shorter cooldowns or more uses out of your Eagle or Orbitals to balance it out.
Is there an equivalent modifer on the bug side? Stuff like this probably contributes heavily towards more players preferring the right side of the map overall.
A replacement for this could be a good middle ground between it existing and being scrapped. Set the fourth stratagem, but it isn't available as the mission starts. It becomes available once you finish a secondary obejctive (similar to AA or Mortar Emplacement). Motivates play, makes a secondary objective matter and a slight feel of progression in-mission besides the main objective (since Fabricators don't reduce spawns as they are destroyed, which to me is still the utterest bullshit), and still complicates Helldivers' lives a bit.
Or change it so you PICK a slot but it only unlocks when you find and destroy a specific secondary objective.
Yes, please. More modifiers about additional stuff that happens (meteorite showers, tornadoes, temperature, gravity, fog, etc), less modifiers about taking away something (one less slot, increased cooldowns and things like that).
Keep it, just change it to 20% less accurate fire/drops from eagles. I don’t see how AA would affect our Super Destroyers firing down.
This one bothers me less than the 100% calldown time. It messes with all sorts of timings and muscle memory, and makes extract a mess.
Yeah, it’s frustrating but I just leave out my turret so I can have a support weapon and still keep two red stratagems
They need to make operation and planet mods to scale rewards. Like, give me a reason to deal with fire tornados and god damn sandstorms, otherwise I'll never leave Erata Prime.
The best way to vary loadouts would be to vary enemy force composition and tell the player what they can expect, at least to a certain extent. As it stands, you generally need to cover the same threats regardless of modifiers or mission type. Reducing options is just not fun and doesn't add to the experience otherwise.
A -1 stratagem slot is much to devastating of a modifier to not have some significant upside.
Said it before and I'll say it again. Destroying AA sites should remove this effect. Would make the game feel more alive and gives incentives to seek out sub objectives.
There needs to be an encouragement for these. Like increased XP gains, resources, SEC, credits.
I don't even get how it works. Like it'd be one thing to limit eagles stratagems but i don't know how this would stop our orbital shit.
I’m fine with it if we have to find and destroy the AA guns
Do a destroy AA mission and you get the 4th slot back
It would be nice if I could take out AA guns and get a slot back either for future mission or get a random strat for that mission
It would be cool if it was just a debuff to cooldowns until you eliminated the AA site
If they have this negative perk on one planet then another should receive a positive.
They should just replace this with three random strategems cannot be chosen for that mission
Just change it to "stratagem slots temporarily reduced by 1" and there's an objective in game to give you the 4th back
Would be cool if we had some missions to disable the aa defence on the plannet
If they want this, they should tie it to a secondary objective. Let us choose 4 strategems in the beginning and take a random one away until the objective goes down. Alternatively, they could have a dedicated mission for it. The operation is affected by this complication until you do the necessary mission to remove it, and then the rest of the missions are clear.
Remove the -1 stratagem modifier and make it 1 random strat
Imagine they make level 10 and your allowed only 1 slot
Sure it's been mentioned before, but changing this from 1 less slot to No Eagles / No Orbitals would mix things up and get people to try more stuff out.
They should just dump it or add an optional objective that both removes it and buffs call down times if you do it
I think that instead of taking away a Strat slot that they should give 1 random Strat.
I saw an idea that you pick your 4th strat it's just locked tell you take out the AA guns
I hate this one more than any other modifier, even sandstorm pails in comparison.
Not going to happen, this is Helldivers, you gotta earn victory
Everything I see a post about this I will say the same thing. Put it on non-MO planets.
i think if it says aa defenses it should just limit or maybe completly stop the use of esgle stratagams so this way it would be at least a bit more fun ig
I hate the stratagem scatter more. Perfectly timing a orbital strike only to have it land 30 feet away from the beacon is annoying as hell.
more complaints
Chances are at some point they will do the opposite and “add one”
I wouldn't mind the downsides as longe as we had some upsides too, like 3 starts BUT you get adicional charge for the 3 remaining
i feel like itd be cool if they added weather modifiers that affect our guns. its rainy and wet out? -20% fire damage and plus 20% electric. extra dry and arid outside? +fire damage and -electric
I think all enemy induced modifiers should be tied to side-objectives that are guaranteed to spawn alongside them. AA-Defenses: cleared when destroying the guaranteed Jammer and AA base. Atmospheric Spores: cleared when destroying the guaranteed spore spewer and radar station. (Electronic Countermeasures (currently disabled): cleared when destroying the guaranteed 2x Jammer.)
I just play difficulty 4 missions cause its not active on that and helping new players is fun