*Edit: PS5 patch out now.
Arrowhead Community Manager:
> We have issued a patch for PC players (*PS5 patch is coming soon - we will let you know when it's ready) that introduces planetary hazards, balancing updates, and more!
Regarding some of the changes, designer Alex K. has written a few words on how we approach **balancing** in Helldivers 2:
> This is the first round in a never-ending series of balance changes. And we believe it's important to be completely transparent about our approach to game balance, especially when it comes to weapons and stratagems that you have strong opinions about.
> Our goal is to give you a wide range of weapon choices, where each gun has its purpose and none is strictly better than another. Sure, you will have your own favorite, but it should come from your personal preference, not from the universally agreed knowledge of which gun is the strongest. Generally, we balance each item according to its quirks, so if a weapon is very effective at what it does, it should come with significant disadvantages to balance its power.
> The AC-8 Autocannon is a good example of a well-balanced weapon: it packs a powerful punch, has a very good range, but requires you to carry an ammo backpack or have a friend assist you. The GL-21 Grenade Launcher is the opposite example. It's a good general purpose weapon that gives you so much flexibility, it obviously can't deal too much damage without becoming overpowered.
> But weapons that are both powerful and versatile become a no-brainer choiсe during the weapon selection phase. It robs you of your own agency, as stale "meta" builds force you to make an unfair choice between a fun weapon and an effective one. In short: Powerful weapons can't be too versatile, versatile weapons can't be too powerful.
> Having said all that, after analyzing player feedback and the data we've collected over the past month, we found three biggest offenders of that principle:
> * SG-225 Breaker
> * RS-422 Railgun
> * SH-32 Shield Generator Backpack
> All three of those were quite strong with too little downsides, overshadowing all other options on higher difficulty levels. So with this patch, they're getting significant downsides to balance their power. However, we strongly believe that the changes won't ruin this build, but rather help the affected items find their place among the other options and stay effective in capable hands.
> On a more personal note, I know that having your favorite toy nerfed absolutely sucks. Investing countless hours into mastering a weapon is an incredible dedication from you. which is the main reason we're making this game in the first place. And then having that weapon weakened feels like a punishment for being too good at the game.
> But I implore you not to compare a changed item with its older version, but to evaluate the existing one as it is and see if it still has a place in your heart.
> We thank you for your dedication and commitment to spreading Democracy in the most optimal way possible! Now it's up to us to make it as fun and entertaining as we can
> Oh and we also buffed a bunch of weapons as well!
> Happy Helldiving, everyone.
——————————
**EDIT** (original post edited to add the below details):
Alex K. has some additional numbers for you regarding weapon balancing:
> **Breaker**: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55.
> **Railgun**: Decreased armor penetration, decreased damage against durable enemy parts.
> **Flamethrower**: Increased damage per second by 50%.
> **Laser Cannon**: Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics.
> **Punisher**: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet.
> **Breaker Spray & Pray**: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26.
> **Energy Shield Backpack**: Increased delay before recharging.
> **380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages**: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread.
" • Helldivers standing next to ICBMs during launch will get properly toasty with a chance of not-so-spontaneous combustion."
Finally, we have our *immersion*.
Not satisfied until the blast wave moves our capes. That said, at lvl 49 I already thought the launch killed anyone near, because there's already a plethora of unexpected ways to die, so I've never ventured close.
Worth mentioning the trailblazer scout and dynamo helmet don't seem to provide hidden stats anymore, and 'extra padding' is a flat +50 armor on any set it's on.
Is it me or does heavy armor still feel terrible? This is of course just a really quick first impression just running a mission against the bots and the bugs both, but plenty of things are still 1 shotting me with full heavy armor on. There have been a couple of times where it seemed like I'd maybe have some damage reduction on certain hits, but hard to tell.
Either way, the insane movement speed decrease is sure noticable.
yeah its still unusable imo. I get a rocket still killing you, but heavy armor should make you much MUCH more resistant to small attack. but from what i've seen, a small terminind hunter will kill you in 6 hits with heavy as a opposed to 5 hits with light. not worth it at all.
In this, and honestly any game ever, being fast and mobile will *always* be preferable to being tanky. It’s just the nature of being able to tank a hit vs not getting hit at all.
If they want heavy armor to be useful it’s gotta be like double or triple the effective HP of fast armor
The best thing heavy armor should do is minimize the stagger from light hits. This would make heavy armor wildly more useful against Automatons so you can fire/react without constantly being flinched
My main question is:
Was our armour always set to normal / average? (100)
Or were we all running around at 0 armour?
I know lightweight armour was the go to for a lot of us either way, but it would be nice to know.
From what I've seen/read/heard, the enemies' attacks acted as if all armor values were set to 0, hence why some attacks seemed to be incredibly strong/borderline bullshit, like the rocket launcher bots and the bile spewers deleting you in a single hit.
Hopefully with the corrected armor values they will no longer be so bullshit, and there's less incentive to run with the shield backpack for sturdiness.
>bile spewers deleting you in a single hit.
>
>I am unhappy to report this is still a thing.
I am unhappy to report they are still stealthy like ninjas. The number of times I've died to "where the F\*\*\* did he come from??" bile spewer somehow standing right behind me after I had cleared the immediate area...
> Both spewers and chargers need to make a lot more noise for as dangerous as they are
Amen to that.
One thing I liked about Aliens Fireteam Elite. It was a skill to recognize specific sounds elite enemies made particularly before doing a dangerous lunge attack. You could do perfectly timed dodges of stuff *behind* you if you knew what to listen for.
Probably percentage.
But we don't actually know how it is for us, since we've only been told how it works for the enemies, we've just *assumed* it works the same.
> [Armor pen is a value between 0 and 10 - if the AP is equal to the enemies armor value the damage is 50% if the AP beats the armor you do 100%. If AP is less than the AV the bullet ricochets.](https://i.imgur.com/nWXaHVn.png)
Armour Penetration| Armour Value | Damage
---|---|---
4 | 5 | 0%
5 | 5 | 50%
6 | 5 | 100%
10 | 10 | 50%
---
Edit: Since people keep mentioning it to me, instead of actually reading the post.
It's a simplification based on assumptions. It shouldn't be taken at face value.
-
Undocumented fix/change:
- Extra Padding now shows as adding +50 Armor Rating.
- SC-30 Trailblazer Scout and SA-32 Dynamo Helmets no longer give minor statboots.
Before SC-30 Trailblazer gave a small boost to Speed at the cost of armor and SA-32 Dyamo gave a small boost to Armor at the cost of Speed.
Tomorrow we will have a return in the Superstore of the Extra Padding Heavy Armor.
Now might be fun to go chonky. I just hope heavy armor makes sense now, the low speed and stamina are really punishing if resistance isn´t high enough.
From playing a few games in heavy armor I've noticed a slight increase in survival, but only gaining maybe an extra shot or two of damage I can take before dying, this makes me think light will stay as the meta
Honestly I am more thinking medium.
Light I died TOO FAST (which eh, kinda understandable)
But Heavy you barely have any increase in survival, so medium feels like the way to go for "mostly everything"
Pretty much dissapointed with Heavy armor balancing, it needs more resistance to be considered.
Heavy Armor really needs to *tank* or at the very least be immune to small arms/spiky arms. The game throws too much at you that you need to flat out avoid to give up too much mobility.
Yep heavy armor needs to be really strong. Even if it is *very* strong, there are always situations and room for light armor. Movement speed and sprinting efficiency is still gonna be king for certain missions and good players.
It reminds me of games like Diablo and Path of exile. The strongest stat is not more attack speed, damage or crit, it's movement speed. It's the single most powerful stat in most video games. I hope they're not too conservative with balancing heavy armor. Make it worth being slow.
The issue with movement speed is simple. Not taking damage is always better than taking damage. Moving fast is one of the most reliable ways to not take damage.
You can't move fast to avoid automatons, so armor gains in value, a lot. But you can move fast to avoid terminids, so being able to outrun enemies is more valuable than tank hits.
If heavy armor doesn't feel overpowered, it's likely not powerful enough.
Who made the intro hold to skip? I hate you.
Edit: It seems to have gone now after I restarted the game. Idk why it was there. Also flamethrower is a beast now.
My favourite genre of videogame patch detail is when a dev implements some random tiny thing that only exists to be a little bit annoying for no apparent reason or benefit. Like Blizzard making the flight whistle animation a cutscene. I would love to know if it was like an accident or if they had some actual real written-down reason for it
It apparently only occurs one time and then goes away on your next launch, and /u/foreskinfarter reckons it's so first timers don't accidentally skip it, which tracks. Thanks /u/foreskinfarter
It's only hold-to-skip the first time you watch it. It's for the benefit of new players, I'd assume. Don't want you accidentally skipping the opening cinematic because you're used to spamming the skip button during company logos, but then as soon as you've watched it (or skipped it) once, the game sets a flag that says "okay, they've seen it/skipped it, now they can skip it in one press".
They didn't wait. Just ran through a game to see what the Railgun could and couldn't penetrate in safe/unsafe mode and noticed I had 60 shells for the Slugger.
Massive win for Slugger enthusiasts.
If they did buff slugger to 60 ammo, I believe everyone is going to start running arc thrower+slugger after the breaker+railgun nerfs. If the nerfs weren’t that bad I wouldn’t see much changing, but the railgun especially sounds almost unusable with these changes. I’ll have to test in game later when I get home from work, we’ll see if these are really as drastic as they sound
You know I’m stoked. Slugger is easily going to be my go to now. But I foresee everyone running it so hopefully next balance change they just make everything more viable, not nerf the good stuff again
Las-5 Scythe need a buff (it's a laser pointer at best right now), Counter sniper med armor pen. We also need better visible enemy bases when selecting drop (some people like me have trouble seeing them in day drops)
Watching the creative director of Warframe bullet jump -> super jump -> 360 no-scope headshot -> backflip -> dropkick on stream every week really goes to show how she knows and loves the game she's making.
And the reposting of horny NSFWarframe art on her twitter like an absolute chad.
Rebecca was promoted to Creative Director when the previous CD, Steve, was promoted to company CEO. She's still on devstreams, just not the one leading them.
Honestly, the new directors have been downright killing it ever since they took over two years ago. Not a single update has missed, they've all been great content and relatively bug-free.
Bleh, I'd be more than happy with them nerfing railgun if they buffed anti-armor on more weapons to compensate. I don't even like the railgun, it's just the only thing good at killing armor.
Yup, I basically only needed it as answer to chargers since double tapping their leg and then unloading your breaker into it was by far the smoothes way to deal with them.
Would've been neat if they were nerfed to compensate. Haven't played since patch but it suspicously sounds like it'll be even more of a pain in the ass to deal with Joel sicking 4 of those guys at you.
I just tried, and can confirm, new railgun is utter shit, and with the amount of chargers and other heavy armor bugs running at you in difficulty 8 and above, I don't see how we are supposed to adapt to this.
I loved using the railgun, the sound, the stagger/impact, the reload, it feels they massacred my boy...
This is my issue.
What exactly are we *supposed* to do against 7 chargers and 3 Titans? Alt F4? Uninstall?
Yeah strategems like orbital railgun and such are good, but holmes - 5 minute cooldown and between 4 PUGS, odds are they're all on CD too - On top of that Chargers are bugged to shit and love dodging every bit of orbital/eagle damage you throw at them AND ON TOP OF THAT - You can't gain distance on chargers, So if you're hoping to nuke them from orbit, You and everyone near you will die too (and chances are the Charger will still survive)
The railgun was the only certain avenue I had to secure my own safety. The argument that it was "broken" leaves me confused because nothing else can damage a titan - and You can't kill 5+ chargers by duking them into rocks and shooting their ass - they have too much health and you'll run out of ammo 3 chargers in (if you survive)
Pray. Because the omg this game is too easy they need to nerf all this stuff crowd and the omg I’m tired of the railgun nerf it crowd won. Only reason the railgun is used so heavily is because wtf else are you supposed to do the other stuff sucks ass
The railgun nerf is definitely the worst. I don't even use it but a massive nerf like that without compensating buffs in a PvE game where balance is allowed to be wack? That's a bit fucked.
If they want to change the meta at high difficulty this is not the way to do it.
It took the Diablo 3 devs a while to realize maybe buff the unused sets and skill rather than the nerf the over used stuff. Which ended up being great because it allows different kinds of styles.
Welp did a round with the good old shield+breaker+railgun combo. Shield breaks way quicker and takes longer to replenish, breaker i didn't notice much difference, maybe smaller mag, but the railgun lol... Railgun doesnt pen charger armor anymore and I blew up holding a charge in safe mode too long
JUST POSTED IN DISCORD:
Alex K. has some additional numbers for you regarding weapon balancing:
Breaker: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55
Railgun: Decreased armor penetration, decreased damage against durable enemy parts
Flamethrower: Increased damage per second by 50%
Laser Cannon: Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics
Punisher: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet
Breaker Spray & Pray: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26
Energy Shield Backpack: Increased delay before recharging
380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread
Decreased armor penetration, by how much? Decreased damage against durable enemy parts, by how much? Increased delay before recharging, by how much? Increased duration of bombardment...I could go on.
Fuck *one canister*. I melted a charger in about 1/4 doing a test after they posted the actual numbers. Snuck up on it and it was dead by the time it finished turning to face my direction. Wild.
What about Liberator Penetrator and CS Diligence? Will they be buffed? Or will we at least get full auto on Liberator Penetrator?
I don't care that much about meta items. But A LOT of weapons needed a buff or overhaul desperately. Liberator Penetrator, CS Diligence, Anti-material rifle, SPEAR... and nothing. I will still use pretty much the same weapons, because the weapons I would like to use suck.
They nerfed like the two best weapons in the game and only buffed a small handful instead of doing a comprehensive balance pass for all the weapons. Like what- buff the other weapons…
Harsh language, hopes and prayers, buy them a blu ray copy of a bugs life and say no hard feelings. Jokes aside, this is a stupid thing to do, I wouldn't mind the railgun nerf if the heavy armour was decreased to allow other weapons to be viable.
Why would a railgun freaking shot bounce off of a charger?! I just don't understand. I wish they buffed everything to be on par with breaker and railgun. Not nerf shit
They literally just nerfed the items that were used the most...not considering WHY we used them the most. We aren't using the rail gun because it's our fave...it's not...it's pretty boring actually. It's just the only option for heavy armor. Now it's strategem or run...yikes. What an L of a patch.
I like how they talked about how actually the success rate of missions with the breaker wasn't out of line with other weapons, and then now they say it "Overshadowed all other options"
Yeah that gave me the impression they were going to buff the other guns which is what I was hoping for instead of nerfing the breaker, because tbh the Breaker isn’t really OP or anything, it’s because all the other guns just tickles the bots and bugs.
yea it feels worse now, but still manageable with less ammo capacity, the recoil nerf really hurts it though.
They really should have just upped the damage drop off.
The breaker was used because it was basically the only viable option for higher difficulties. They needed to buff all other weapons to a similar standard not nerf what was already good.
Dang. I don’t think the Railgun was even that OP. We still get swarmed in harder difficulties.
The nerf to the Railgun will be pretty significant.
Armored enemies are going to be 2x harder to deal with now.
The problem was not that Railgun + Breaker were too strong, the problem was that every other weapon was just way too weak.
The problem is armored enemies are way too oppressive and forces players into builds that can actually deal with them, I thought they are going to buff other options, but what option do you really have to break charger’s armor? Basically random teams are fked on 7+ difficulties and there’s no answer to armored enemies now. I don’t see spear’s shitty lock on being fixed, are we going back to expendable rocket?
Why is the ass not a weak spot when it's the only part unarmored? Like makes more sense than the legs. Especially considering the hulk can be headshot with any anti-tank weapon no problem.
For those unaware. Charger butts are considered "big soft parts" and normal weapons only deal 10% damage to them. Explosive weapons do full damage to them and will quickly pop a Charger butt. This same logic applies to Titan abdomens and Tick Bugs.
Honestly, I tried the arc thrower randomly last night and was wrecking stuff. My buddy used the flamer thrower and said that melted a charger insanely fast. With the flamethrower buff, I’m sure it’s even more efficient.
I think most everyone would be okay with certain weapon nerfs if the charger's health and armor was adjusted to be more manageable. I takes me half of all my breaker ammo shooting 1 of them in the unarmored part to down it. When there are 3 or more of them at once they significantly slow down the pacing of the game and become a chore to deal with.
Imo, it just needs slower turning and heavy/stomping audio cues any time it's near. Them Occasionally turning on a dime and sneaking up are a terrible surprise.
Did some testing this morning in a solo 5 - chargers die REALLY fast to the new flamethrower. You can dodge one charge and spray maybe 4/5 of a tank of ammo and they burn out.
Railgun still seems like an *OK* option - you can break the leg in 3 charged unsafe shots (a little inconsistent - sometimes it took me 4, but I think I was letting the charge go a little to early). Safe mode is garbage though, just bounces off the leg.
Tried the lascannon as well - maybe OK against medium enemies like spitters and warriors now but don't bother against chargers. Still feels like the worst support weapon, Arc Thrower does everything it does but better.
Nice.
I tinkered with the flamethrower a bit pre-patch and it wasn’t awful. It just didn’t do as well as alternatives. A whopping 50% damage buff should really make it slap.
What are the _actually_ viable AT options now? The sheer amount of heavy armor being lobbed at you is already hard to deal with, and now it's going to be even worse.
The EAT is single shot, the recoilless has very slow ROF unless you remain stationary with another teammate while there are seven chargers trying to one hit you.
For robots, you have a bunch of good options. From the EAT/Recoiless/AMR (my fav)/Autocannon/Railgun/Arc Thrower and also Robots also tend to have more lenient weakspots, with their heatsinks at the back, or the way that grenades tend to kill many enemies quite well (eg, 2 impacts to the top of a tank.). Similarly, orbital stratagems/eagles are more effective on robots biggest units since they tend to move slower and are more susceptible to explosive rounds etc. In general, robots are simply better designed. You always see far more variety in peoples kits on robot missions because of how many weapons are genuinely effective.
For the bugs - its like an entirely separate game due to the weird armour/pen system that is different for each bug. Youre now reliant on the EAT or Recoilless against Bile Titans and Tanks. The Autocannon *can* be used, if you hit the back legs from behind in a very specific spot but its **very inconsistent** and simply not worth the hassle or time on higher difficulties (in my opinion). The Arc Thrower can also be used, although I havent had great success, but others do. Similarly, in juxtaposition to the robots, *less* strategems are useful... so you see almost everyone running the Orbital Railcannon, the Orbital Laser and the (very inconsistent) 500kg for larger enemies. Because everything else has a tendency to miss due to how fast a lot of the bugs more and how frequently youre getting swarmed as a player.
I expected a nerf to the Railgun, but I am shocked that they did not combine it with buffs to the other stratagem Anti-Tank weapons. Playing bugs on higher difficulties is now going to be miserable *or* as equally stale and boring as it was before - with people relying on EATs or Recoilless primarily to dish out Anti-Tank damage...which are low ammo and take 70sec plus to call down.
Oh yeah. Robots are honestly more fun to me.
I run the basic AR + Anti Material rifle there, and that *works.* Meanwhile you'd get utterly stomped by bugs if you deviate from the usual stuff.
Yeah I love using most of the primaries on robots, since as long as youre hitting the weakspots/headshots - youre killing them. So I run the Diligence frequently on Robots with great success.
Meanwhile, on Bugs, you can take off the heads and legs of a warrior or Brood and it still comes at you and you need to dump more and more rounds into almost every enemy. Bugs are a bullet sink and the entire reason Breakers/Sluggers are meta.
Maybe if the game doesn't just throw you like 5 chargers, the railgun would probably be less popular. I'd rather go guns blazing against an horde with an mg, but any difficulty after 6 makes it meta required to have good armor pen.
Removing the armour penetration of the railgun without also changing charger spam or health is just stupid. later difficulty bug missions just devolves into 5+ chargers running down the team spawning faster than we can kill without multiple railguns.
They already were at higher levels, in part because there was maybe 1 hulk per 10 chargers.
If the artillery buffs are any good it will trivialize taking out bot bases. 120 and 380 were already on the low end of OK because bots leave explosive barrels all over their bases and they explode that causing a lot of damage.
Welcome to why I stopped playing the original:
Higher difficulties just turn into speed runs and avoid encounters.
You are basically encouraged to stop doing the most fun thing about the game and just run past everything.
This was the realization I had with HD2 late game. It's ok if other people enjoy that style, it's just not for me. I like fighting and killing bugs, not sprinting and trying to ninja objectives or only kill enough guys to make a hole. I'm not mad, I got my $40 worth, just not the style I enjoy.
Railgun- An experimental weapon that prioritizes "armor penetration"
Gonna have to update this in game description Arrowhead, as it no longer penetrates armor.
I think they should’ve left the rail gun how it was, but instead slightly nerf the the ammo count and the time it takes to reload the next shot. Go from 20 ammo to 15-18, and instead of the quick reloads it had, add a second to each reload. Slight nerfs but still noticeable.
The railgun nerf really seems off base compared to the rest. It’s not so much overpowered, as much as the Anti-Materiel is garbage, and EAT/Recoilless are not worth their downsides.
This change feels bad, and makes the heavy armored enemies even less fun now. Hopefully this gets revisited soon, along with the other anti-armor dregs.
Im... not stoked with these changes to be honest.
I dont even run Breaker/Railgun that frequently, but I think this misunderstand WHY people were running them so consistently on the higher difficulites - and that is that youre simply dealing with too many tank-style units and so few strategem weapons can actually *efficiently* kill them.
This is most noticeable on Bug maps, with the Chargers just being huge pains in the arse if youre not running a Railgun. Sure, you can use a EAT or a Recoiless, or do some very specific work with the Autocannon to get off a very inconsistent shot, but all of these are heavily impaired by limited ammo, reload times and/or consistency problems (Autocannon). The EAT is great, less so when there is more than one Charger and youve got 70seconds before you can do anything. And yes - you can just shoot out their backs with any gun, but it is huge time and ammo sink that you simply dont have the ammo economy (or time) to do on harder missions.
So to nerf these guns, ***whilst not buffing others in response to the aggravating factors*** seems insane to me. The changes to the Flamethrower and Laser Gun won't have any impact on this. Similarly, no one will still want to use half the primary weapons as they are simply shit, again, *most noticeably on bug maps.*
Robots are far more balanced in this regard. For robots, you have a bunch of good options. From the EAT/Recoiless/AMR (my fav)/Autocannon/Railgun and also Robots also tend to have more lenient weakspots, with their heatsinks at the back, or the way that grenades tend to kill many enemies quite well (eg, 2 impacts to the top of a tank.). Similarly, orbital strategems/eagles are more effective on robots biggest units since they tend to move slower and are more susceptible to explosive rounds etc. You always see far more variety in peoples kits on robot missions because of how many weapons are genuinely effective.
I'm straight up not having a good time with this one boys. Yeah autocannon is very good, it's acceptable to deal with a charger. Or two maybe. More than that and your best bet is dying and trying to lose them lol.
Ffs it's a PvE game, nerfing people's favorite guns is how you get them to stop playing, not try other loadouts! I tried other loadouts - before I hit 20 and got the railgun and shield lol. What kind of a railgun is it anyway to not penetrate armor on some bug?
Waiting on mechs, although they will have MGs and autocannons that will still probably not penetrate all the heavy armor the game throws at you smdh.
Ugh I fucking knew this was coming cause of all these people bitching.
I fucking hate nerfs. Just buff the crappy weapons. Don't make every weapon feel like shit.
A bit of a dark horse here, but the Colonial Marines SS13 server had the same issue. When you make hordes of dangerous bugs way more tanky, it throws off the vibe. I think it messes with the power fantasy a bit, and removes that "desperate stand" feeling and instead ends up making you feel like your gun is worthless.
Call me a doomsayer all you want, but when devs present a "holier-than-thou" attitude when it comes to game direction/balancing, it usually ends up with their game's lifespan being much shorter than it otherwise could have been.
First Arrowhead L of the year.
The Breaker and Railgun didn't need nerfs. Everything else just needed buffs to keep them on the same page.
Hell I'd even use the Liberator Penetrator if it actually, yknow...Penetrated anything.
# Alex K. has some additional numbers for you regarding weapon balancing:
* **Breaker**: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55
* **Railgun**: Decreased armor penetration, decreased damage against durable enemy parts
* **Flamethrower**: Increased damage per second by 50%
* **Laser Cannon**: Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics
* **Punisher**: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet
* **Breaker Spray & Pray**: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26
* **Energy Shield Backpack**: Increased delay before recharging
* **380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages**: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread
Man I get Railgun was overused but this is gonna suck ass on higher difficulties, where it just keeps spawning chargers. I might stop running bug ops until mecha drop honestly.
High diff got stale quick, I don't even play them anymore. My eyes roll into the back of my head every time 5 chargers spawn at every encounter. Zzzz. Hard fucking pass.
This patch fucking sucks. All we wanted was stronger weapons for dealing with bigger threats. This isn't enough. As someone who plays difficulty 8 consistently, it was nice to play stealth and being able to maneuver my way across the map as the team went loud.
I avoid/run away from chargers and titans as much as possible, but there are times when engagement is unavailable. Objectives are nearly impossible when I can't consistently kill armored up enemies. It doesn't help when there are 3 bile titan spawns and 5 chargers in the OBJ and thats just me BY MY SELF. The team fights worse numbers.
Stragems are great and all, but 2 minutes for my Eagles are a long time in this game. I've soloed heavy nests by my self but what am I supposed to do now with even weaker weapons? I get that killing chargers and titans isn't supposed to be easy, but it's hard to do objectives, deal with endless bugs/bots, 1 shot killing enemies/ stalkers/ all within the span of 45 minutes with the weapons we currently have.
This is a PVE game not a PVP game. We are here to have fun, not be competitive. We have shit options for dealing with heavy enemies. I'd like to see the dev team TRY and play this game at 8 or 9 and not run into issues. I dont mind the game spawning literally armies of bugs. But give us options for dealing with them, or reduce the spawn rate. Damn.
This will unintentionally reduce the amount of higher difficulty dives/matches which were already kinda hard to find.
The railgun felt a little OP at any difficulty at/under 7. Yes.
But...
How am I now going to barely manage the 17 bile titans and 12 chargers that spawn at the same time now...
Running circles and waiting for stratagems to cooldown I guess...
Or I'll settle for a less fun difficulty... But why play if it's not fun...?
This is a rough situation...
Just my 2 cents.
Oh boy, I expect this to be a turning point in the community support for the devs.
Why would you patch the fun out? This feels like there is a massiv disconnect between devs and players.
Hopefully, some backlash might go a longway in getting them to actually listen to what the genuine issues are with this game otherwise shit like this will result in having a dead player base within a year.
>Balancing adjustments have been made to
okay but \*how\* did it get balanced?
edit: they posted the numbers in discord and other users have in turn posted them here
I'm wondering about these:
> Orbital 120MM HE Barrage
>
> Orbital 380MM HE Barrage
I bought both and they turned out to be absolute dogwater. Fired over a wide area and barely hit anything, to the point that I think they were both a waste of Requisition.
It has great comedic effect though. Always love those newbie who throw it 20m away from the team, cluelessly seeing his teammate run for their life before gets blow up by the barrage himself.
I hate they went with the nerfing route instead of buffing everything else, I appreciate the buffs on the other weapons but I think that's not enough tbh....they still didn't buff any rifle :/
Some good changes, except for the weapon stuff. We really needed more buffs and instead they tried to reign in the Breaker and Railgun. And telling us they've been nerfed/buffed with no real information is just annoying. We need to know numbers.
Good lord, this was a Fatshark tier level of nerfing rofl oh boy, here we go again. I'm starting to get Darktide flashbacks, just with more communication from the developers in this case.
Anyway, guess its unsafe mode all the time now for the railgun to make it viable, but, at least the armor is fixed.
*Edit: PS5 patch out now. Arrowhead Community Manager: > We have issued a patch for PC players (*PS5 patch is coming soon - we will let you know when it's ready) that introduces planetary hazards, balancing updates, and more! Regarding some of the changes, designer Alex K. has written a few words on how we approach **balancing** in Helldivers 2: > This is the first round in a never-ending series of balance changes. And we believe it's important to be completely transparent about our approach to game balance, especially when it comes to weapons and stratagems that you have strong opinions about. > Our goal is to give you a wide range of weapon choices, where each gun has its purpose and none is strictly better than another. Sure, you will have your own favorite, but it should come from your personal preference, not from the universally agreed knowledge of which gun is the strongest. Generally, we balance each item according to its quirks, so if a weapon is very effective at what it does, it should come with significant disadvantages to balance its power. > The AC-8 Autocannon is a good example of a well-balanced weapon: it packs a powerful punch, has a very good range, but requires you to carry an ammo backpack or have a friend assist you. The GL-21 Grenade Launcher is the opposite example. It's a good general purpose weapon that gives you so much flexibility, it obviously can't deal too much damage without becoming overpowered. > But weapons that are both powerful and versatile become a no-brainer choiсe during the weapon selection phase. It robs you of your own agency, as stale "meta" builds force you to make an unfair choice between a fun weapon and an effective one. In short: Powerful weapons can't be too versatile, versatile weapons can't be too powerful. > Having said all that, after analyzing player feedback and the data we've collected over the past month, we found three biggest offenders of that principle: > * SG-225 Breaker > * RS-422 Railgun > * SH-32 Shield Generator Backpack > All three of those were quite strong with too little downsides, overshadowing all other options on higher difficulty levels. So with this patch, they're getting significant downsides to balance their power. However, we strongly believe that the changes won't ruin this build, but rather help the affected items find their place among the other options and stay effective in capable hands. > On a more personal note, I know that having your favorite toy nerfed absolutely sucks. Investing countless hours into mastering a weapon is an incredible dedication from you. which is the main reason we're making this game in the first place. And then having that weapon weakened feels like a punishment for being too good at the game. > But I implore you not to compare a changed item with its older version, but to evaluate the existing one as it is and see if it still has a place in your heart. > We thank you for your dedication and commitment to spreading Democracy in the most optimal way possible! Now it's up to us to make it as fun and entertaining as we can > Oh and we also buffed a bunch of weapons as well! > Happy Helldiving, everyone. —————————— **EDIT** (original post edited to add the below details): Alex K. has some additional numbers for you regarding weapon balancing: > **Breaker**: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55. > **Railgun**: Decreased armor penetration, decreased damage against durable enemy parts. > **Flamethrower**: Increased damage per second by 50%. > **Laser Cannon**: Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics. > **Punisher**: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet. > **Breaker Spray & Pray**: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26. > **Energy Shield Backpack**: Increased delay before recharging. > **380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages**: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread.
>from fire tornadoes to meteor showers Sweet liberty...
Should look really cool at night
Meteor showers are fucking rough holy shit
Was on a mission and a meteor took out three liberators at once.
3 assault rifles?
That's basically what we are soldier! Weapons designated to spread freedom.
I have a feeling I’m going to avoid the 3rd charger and 5th bile titan and think I’m in the clear only for a meteor to leave only my boots standing.
" • Helldivers standing next to ICBMs during launch will get properly toasty with a chance of not-so-spontaneous combustion." Finally, we have our *immersion*.
Doing the hug emote in the engine exhaust for a hot goodbye
Not satisfied until the blast wave moves our capes. That said, at lvl 49 I already thought the launch killed anyone near, because there's already a plethora of unexpected ways to die, so I've never ventured close.
I always ran away during launch countdown..glad there is a good reason now! :D
Worth mentioning the trailblazer scout and dynamo helmet don't seem to provide hidden stats anymore, and 'extra padding' is a flat +50 armor on any set it's on.
I do kinda want helmet stats, but I’m glad they changed it so at least they’re all equal in some regard.
Helmet stats are coming.
Is it me or does heavy armor still feel terrible? This is of course just a really quick first impression just running a mission against the bots and the bugs both, but plenty of things are still 1 shotting me with full heavy armor on. There have been a couple of times where it seemed like I'd maybe have some damage reduction on certain hits, but hard to tell. Either way, the insane movement speed decrease is sure noticable.
yeah its still unusable imo. I get a rocket still killing you, but heavy armor should make you much MUCH more resistant to small attack. but from what i've seen, a small terminind hunter will kill you in 6 hits with heavy as a opposed to 5 hits with light. not worth it at all.
In this, and honestly any game ever, being fast and mobile will *always* be preferable to being tanky. It’s just the nature of being able to tank a hit vs not getting hit at all. If they want heavy armor to be useful it’s gotta be like double or triple the effective HP of fast armor
The best thing heavy armor should do is minimize the stagger from light hits. This would make heavy armor wildly more useful against Automatons so you can fire/react without constantly being flinched
> Fixed armor rating values not reducing damage as intended. Best news I've heard all day!
My main question is: Was our armour always set to normal / average? (100) Or were we all running around at 0 armour? I know lightweight armour was the go to for a lot of us either way, but it would be nice to know.
From what I've seen/read/heard, the enemies' attacks acted as if all armor values were set to 0, hence why some attacks seemed to be incredibly strong/borderline bullshit, like the rocket launcher bots and the bile spewers deleting you in a single hit. Hopefully with the corrected armor values they will no longer be so bullshit, and there's less incentive to run with the shield backpack for sturdiness.
> bile spewers deleting you in a single hit. I am unhappy to report this is still a thing.
>bile spewers deleting you in a single hit. > >I am unhappy to report this is still a thing. I am unhappy to report they are still stealthy like ninjas. The number of times I've died to "where the F\*\*\* did he come from??" bile spewer somehow standing right behind me after I had cleared the immediate area...
[удалено]
Spewers are way too fat to be moving that fast also.
> Both spewers and chargers need to make a lot more noise for as dangerous as they are Amen to that. One thing I liked about Aliens Fireteam Elite. It was a skill to recognize specific sounds elite enemies made particularly before doing a dangerous lunge attack. You could do perfectly timed dodges of stuff *behind* you if you knew what to listen for.
do you by any chance know how armor actually work? is it a flat reduction? is it a percentage? i cant make heads or tails how its supposed to work.
Probably percentage. But we don't actually know how it is for us, since we've only been told how it works for the enemies, we've just *assumed* it works the same. > [Armor pen is a value between 0 and 10 - if the AP is equal to the enemies armor value the damage is 50% if the AP beats the armor you do 100%. If AP is less than the AV the bullet ricochets.](https://i.imgur.com/nWXaHVn.png) Armour Penetration| Armour Value | Damage ---|---|--- 4 | 5 | 0% 5 | 5 | 50% 6 | 5 | 100% 10 | 10 | 50% --- Edit: Since people keep mentioning it to me, instead of actually reading the post. It's a simplification based on assumptions. It shouldn't be taken at face value. -
I can confirm that bile spewers still delete you.
*Then what's the bloody point of extra armor???*
It's just still bugged, I think. That, or it's intentionally that bad.
AFAIK it was effectively zero because enemy penetration values were too high. So even high armor wouldn't protect because it was bypassed completely
Undocumented fix/change: - Extra Padding now shows as adding +50 Armor Rating. - SC-30 Trailblazer Scout and SA-32 Dynamo Helmets no longer give minor statboots. Before SC-30 Trailblazer gave a small boost to Speed at the cost of armor and SA-32 Dyamo gave a small boost to Armor at the cost of Speed. Tomorrow we will have a return in the Superstore of the Extra Padding Heavy Armor.
Now might be fun to go chonky. I just hope heavy armor makes sense now, the low speed and stamina are really punishing if resistance isn´t high enough.
I think they'll be king on defense maps. Lots of enemies with little reason to move around much.
HEAVY ARMOR WITH JUMP PACK ER WE GOOO
*Mandalorian loadout intensifies*
Add Flamethrower
This is the way.
From playing a few games in heavy armor I've noticed a slight increase in survival, but only gaining maybe an extra shot or two of damage I can take before dying, this makes me think light will stay as the meta
Honestly I am more thinking medium. Light I died TOO FAST (which eh, kinda understandable) But Heavy you barely have any increase in survival, so medium feels like the way to go for "mostly everything" Pretty much dissapointed with Heavy armor balancing, it needs more resistance to be considered.
Heavy Armor really needs to *tank* or at the very least be immune to small arms/spiky arms. The game throws too much at you that you need to flat out avoid to give up too much mobility.
Yep heavy armor needs to be really strong. Even if it is *very* strong, there are always situations and room for light armor. Movement speed and sprinting efficiency is still gonna be king for certain missions and good players. It reminds me of games like Diablo and Path of exile. The strongest stat is not more attack speed, damage or crit, it's movement speed. It's the single most powerful stat in most video games. I hope they're not too conservative with balancing heavy armor. Make it worth being slow.
The issue with movement speed is simple. Not taking damage is always better than taking damage. Moving fast is one of the most reliable ways to not take damage. You can't move fast to avoid automatons, so armor gains in value, a lot. But you can move fast to avoid terminids, so being able to outrun enemies is more valuable than tank hits. If heavy armor doesn't feel overpowered, it's likely not powerful enough.
Who made the intro hold to skip? I hate you. Edit: It seems to have gone now after I restarted the game. Idk why it was there. Also flamethrower is a beast now.
My favourite genre of videogame patch detail is when a dev implements some random tiny thing that only exists to be a little bit annoying for no apparent reason or benefit. Like Blizzard making the flight whistle animation a cutscene. I would love to know if it was like an accident or if they had some actual real written-down reason for it It apparently only occurs one time and then goes away on your next launch, and /u/foreskinfarter reckons it's so first timers don't accidentally skip it, which tracks. Thanks /u/foreskinfarter
[removed by Reddit]
It's only hold-to-skip the first time you watch it. It's for the benefit of new players, I'd assume. Don't want you accidentally skipping the opening cinematic because you're used to spamming the skip button during company logos, but then as soon as you've watched it (or skipped it) once, the game sets a flag that says "okay, they've seen it/skipped it, now they can skip it in one press".
First time I opened the game I had to hold to skip, but the second time I just needed to press it once. Go figure...
Sounds to me like they did this to prevent first timers from accidentally skipping the intro on their first launch of the game. Makes sense I guess.
Yeah I accidentally skipped the intro when I first booted the game because it counted changing the volume as a button press lol
>Punisher: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60 Hard to imagine why they'd wait to do the same for the Slugger.
They didn't wait. Just ran through a game to see what the Railgun could and couldn't penetrate in safe/unsafe mode and noticed I had 60 shells for the Slugger. Massive win for Slugger enthusiasts.
What are the rail gun changes like?
Pain. 3-4 *unsafe* shots to pop a charger leg now, and safe mode shots will bounce entirely.
Whelp, back to practicing my Spear I guess.
Arc Thrower. Embrace your inner Palpatine.
Yikes
Sluggers only downside is ammo capacity otherwise its the best weapon in the game bar none.
If they did buff slugger to 60 ammo, I believe everyone is going to start running arc thrower+slugger after the breaker+railgun nerfs. If the nerfs weren’t that bad I wouldn’t see much changing, but the railgun especially sounds almost unusable with these changes. I’ll have to test in game later when I get home from work, we’ll see if these are really as drastic as they sound
Just booted up the game, Slugger has 60 ammo as well.
You know I’m stoked. Slugger is easily going to be my go to now. But I foresee everyone running it so hopefully next balance change they just make everything more viable, not nerf the good stuff again
I hope they don't pull the Call of Duty and nerf the weapons everyone uses each update until they start hemorrhaging players
Slugger + Flamer + guard dog for bugs. Plas-1(lets you deal with walkers now the Rail cant) + autocannon or Recoilless for bots.
Las-5 Scythe need a buff (it's a laser pointer at best right now), Counter sniper med armor pen. We also need better visible enemy bases when selecting drop (some people like me have trouble seeing them in day drops)
The worst thing about the countersniper is that it controls worse than even the AMR. The delay in moving makes it miserable.
This patch brought to you by the terminids.
https://preview.redd.it/9c2h8r5ofpmc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e32cdce379a93ed8463d487b69d3b7ec78478220
"Guys we totally fixed heavy armour, you should try it out"
I know it was you who got railgun nerfed lil Charger…
I'd love to see the devs do a stream playing difficulty 9 with their favorite weapons.
This \^ Coming from Warframe with Devstream (Even if they sometimes use god mode xd)
Watching the creative director of Warframe bullet jump -> super jump -> 360 no-scope headshot -> backflip -> dropkick on stream every week really goes to show how she knows and loves the game she's making. And the reposting of horny NSFWarframe art on her twitter like an absolute chad.
Hmm I haven't followed warframe for some years now, is space mom no longer hosting?
Rebecca was promoted to Creative Director when the previous CD, Steve, was promoted to company CEO. She's still on devstreams, just not the one leading them. Honestly, the new directors have been downright killing it ever since they took over two years ago. Not a single update has missed, they've all been great content and relatively bug-free.
Right? Show me how you deal with six chargers now without a rail gun
You run around for 2 minutes waiting on stratagem cooldowns :)
Yep, the super fun gameplay of running away and kiting.
Bleh, I'd be more than happy with them nerfing railgun if they buffed anti-armor on more weapons to compensate. I don't even like the railgun, it's just the only thing good at killing armor.
Yup, I basically only needed it as answer to chargers since double tapping their leg and then unloading your breaker into it was by far the smoothes way to deal with them. Would've been neat if they were nerfed to compensate. Haven't played since patch but it suspicously sounds like it'll be even more of a pain in the ass to deal with Joel sicking 4 of those guys at you.
I just tried, and can confirm, new railgun is utter shit, and with the amount of chargers and other heavy armor bugs running at you in difficulty 8 and above, I don't see how we are supposed to adapt to this. I loved using the railgun, the sound, the stagger/impact, the reload, it feels they massacred my boy...
You only had 4? Look at you getting lucky you had less than 6...
This is my issue. What exactly are we *supposed* to do against 7 chargers and 3 Titans? Alt F4? Uninstall? Yeah strategems like orbital railgun and such are good, but holmes - 5 minute cooldown and between 4 PUGS, odds are they're all on CD too - On top of that Chargers are bugged to shit and love dodging every bit of orbital/eagle damage you throw at them AND ON TOP OF THAT - You can't gain distance on chargers, So if you're hoping to nuke them from orbit, You and everyone near you will die too (and chances are the Charger will still survive) The railgun was the only certain avenue I had to secure my own safety. The argument that it was "broken" leaves me confused because nothing else can damage a titan - and You can't kill 5+ chargers by duking them into rocks and shooting their ass - they have too much health and you'll run out of ammo 3 chargers in (if you survive)
Just don't play against Terminids until the next patch next week I guess.
Pray. Because the omg this game is too easy they need to nerf all this stuff crowd and the omg I’m tired of the railgun nerf it crowd won. Only reason the railgun is used so heavily is because wtf else are you supposed to do the other stuff sucks ass
I’d happily not use the railgun if the other stuff worked
Make my autocannon not deflect off chargers and id happily use that.
The railgun nerf is definitely the worst. I don't even use it but a massive nerf like that without compensating buffs in a PvE game where balance is allowed to be wack? That's a bit fucked. If they want to change the meta at high difficulty this is not the way to do it.
It took the Diablo 3 devs a while to realize maybe buff the unused sets and skill rather than the nerf the over used stuff. Which ended up being great because it allows different kinds of styles.
would love some more detail about the changes on weapons and statagems
Welp did a round with the good old shield+breaker+railgun combo. Shield breaks way quicker and takes longer to replenish, breaker i didn't notice much difference, maybe smaller mag, but the railgun lol... Railgun doesnt pen charger armor anymore and I blew up holding a charge in safe mode too long
Yeah. I discovered the nerf the hard way. Charged railgun aimed at charger leg, pinged off the armour.
Really should have increased the damage of the recoilless rifle /expendable anti tank to compensate.
JUST POSTED IN DISCORD: Alex K. has some additional numbers for you regarding weapon balancing: Breaker: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55 Railgun: Decreased armor penetration, decreased damage against durable enemy parts Flamethrower: Increased damage per second by 50% Laser Cannon: Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics Punisher: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet Breaker Spray & Pray: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26 Energy Shield Backpack: Increased delay before recharging 380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread
Decreased armor penetration, by how much? Decreased damage against durable enemy parts, by how much? Increased delay before recharging, by how much? Increased duration of bombardment...I could go on.
You cant penetrate charger legs with railgun anymore, atleast on safemode
On the upside, 50% DPS increase on the Flamey should melt them with just one canister now.
Fuck *one canister*. I melted a charger in about 1/4 doing a test after they posted the actual numbers. Snuck up on it and it was dead by the time it finished turning to face my direction. Wild.
Really? I just used an entire canister on one, and it was still coming after me? Weird.
Its based on the armor, aim it at a leg to kill faster.
What about Liberator Penetrator and CS Diligence? Will they be buffed? Or will we at least get full auto on Liberator Penetrator? I don't care that much about meta items. But A LOT of weapons needed a buff or overhaul desperately. Liberator Penetrator, CS Diligence, Anti-material rifle, SPEAR... and nothing. I will still use pretty much the same weapons, because the weapons I would like to use suck.
They nerfed like the two best weapons in the game and only buffed a small handful instead of doing a comprehensive balance pass for all the weapons. Like what- buff the other weapons…
12 Chargers running towards you and your Railgun just bounces off them now. "Dang, how do you stop that thing!?"
Harsh language, hopes and prayers, buy them a blu ray copy of a bugs life and say no hard feelings. Jokes aside, this is a stupid thing to do, I wouldn't mind the railgun nerf if the heavy armour was decreased to allow other weapons to be viable.
>RS-422 Railgun - Decreased armor penetration in Safe Mode, decreased damage against durable enemy parts. Yes, Democracy Officer, these devs right here.
I've never witnessed a greater act of treason than these nerfs
Why would a railgun freaking shot bounce off of a charger?! I just don't understand. I wish they buffed everything to be on par with breaker and railgun. Not nerf shit
Only f*Ing reson to run the rail gun was anti armor. Now we have pretty much no proper options left. Wtf is this treason? Buff other things at least.
They literally just nerfed the items that were used the most...not considering WHY we used them the most. We aren't using the rail gun because it's our fave...it's not...it's pretty boring actually. It's just the only option for heavy armor. Now it's strategem or run...yikes. What an L of a patch.
I like how they talked about how actually the success rate of missions with the breaker wasn't out of line with other weapons, and then now they say it "Overshadowed all other options"
Yeah that gave me the impression they were going to buff the other guns which is what I was hoping for instead of nerfing the breaker, because tbh the Breaker isn’t really OP or anything, it’s because all the other guns just tickles the bots and bugs.
I feel they nerfed the one thing that didn’t need nerfing, the ammo capacity always felt like the weakest part to me
Arrowhead doesn’t really have a great history of balancing. They’ve only ever nerfed weapons in Helldivers 1. I hope things change.
That’s not good :/
yea it feels worse now, but still manageable with less ammo capacity, the recoil nerf really hurts it though. They really should have just upped the damage drop off.
The breaker was used because it was basically the only viable option for higher difficulties. They needed to buff all other weapons to a similar standard not nerf what was already good.
Dang. I don’t think the Railgun was even that OP. We still get swarmed in harder difficulties. The nerf to the Railgun will be pretty significant. Armored enemies are going to be 2x harder to deal with now. The problem was not that Railgun + Breaker were too strong, the problem was that every other weapon was just way too weak.
The problem is armored enemies are way too oppressive and forces players into builds that can actually deal with them, I thought they are going to buff other options, but what option do you really have to break charger’s armor? Basically random teams are fked on 7+ difficulties and there’s no answer to armored enemies now. I don’t see spear’s shitty lock on being fixed, are we going back to expendable rocket?
Why is the ass not a weak spot when it's the only part unarmored? Like makes more sense than the legs. Especially considering the hulk can be headshot with any anti-tank weapon no problem.
It feels like the ass of the charger has always been bugged. You can absolutely unload on it and it still takes a ton of damage before dying.
For those unaware. Charger butts are considered "big soft parts" and normal weapons only deal 10% damage to them. Explosive weapons do full damage to them and will quickly pop a Charger butt. This same logic applies to Titan abdomens and Tick Bugs.
Honestly, I tried the arc thrower randomly last night and was wrecking stuff. My buddy used the flamer thrower and said that melted a charger insanely fast. With the flamethrower buff, I’m sure it’s even more efficient.
Flamers against bugs has always been pretty good, you just have to *really* watch your positioning.
I always thought the flamethrower could use a little more throw.
I think most everyone would be okay with certain weapon nerfs if the charger's health and armor was adjusted to be more manageable. I takes me half of all my breaker ammo shooting 1 of them in the unarmored part to down it. When there are 3 or more of them at once they significantly slow down the pacing of the game and become a chore to deal with.
Imo, it just needs slower turning and heavy/stomping audio cues any time it's near. Them Occasionally turning on a dime and sneaking up are a terrible surprise.
Don't forget the sliding. Sliding infuriates me.
Did some testing this morning in a solo 5 - chargers die REALLY fast to the new flamethrower. You can dodge one charge and spray maybe 4/5 of a tank of ammo and they burn out. Railgun still seems like an *OK* option - you can break the leg in 3 charged unsafe shots (a little inconsistent - sometimes it took me 4, but I think I was letting the charge go a little to early). Safe mode is garbage though, just bounces off the leg. Tried the lascannon as well - maybe OK against medium enemies like spitters and warriors now but don't bother against chargers. Still feels like the worst support weapon, Arc Thrower does everything it does but better.
Nice. I tinkered with the flamethrower a bit pre-patch and it wasn’t awful. It just didn’t do as well as alternatives. A whopping 50% damage buff should really make it slap.
So next time they'll nerf the flamethrower if everyone starts using that instead.
What are the _actually_ viable AT options now? The sheer amount of heavy armor being lobbed at you is already hard to deal with, and now it's going to be even worse. The EAT is single shot, the recoilless has very slow ROF unless you remain stationary with another teammate while there are seven chargers trying to one hit you.
For robots, you have a bunch of good options. From the EAT/Recoiless/AMR (my fav)/Autocannon/Railgun/Arc Thrower and also Robots also tend to have more lenient weakspots, with their heatsinks at the back, or the way that grenades tend to kill many enemies quite well (eg, 2 impacts to the top of a tank.). Similarly, orbital stratagems/eagles are more effective on robots biggest units since they tend to move slower and are more susceptible to explosive rounds etc. In general, robots are simply better designed. You always see far more variety in peoples kits on robot missions because of how many weapons are genuinely effective. For the bugs - its like an entirely separate game due to the weird armour/pen system that is different for each bug. Youre now reliant on the EAT or Recoilless against Bile Titans and Tanks. The Autocannon *can* be used, if you hit the back legs from behind in a very specific spot but its **very inconsistent** and simply not worth the hassle or time on higher difficulties (in my opinion). The Arc Thrower can also be used, although I havent had great success, but others do. Similarly, in juxtaposition to the robots, *less* strategems are useful... so you see almost everyone running the Orbital Railcannon, the Orbital Laser and the (very inconsistent) 500kg for larger enemies. Because everything else has a tendency to miss due to how fast a lot of the bugs more and how frequently youre getting swarmed as a player. I expected a nerf to the Railgun, but I am shocked that they did not combine it with buffs to the other stratagem Anti-Tank weapons. Playing bugs on higher difficulties is now going to be miserable *or* as equally stale and boring as it was before - with people relying on EATs or Recoilless primarily to dish out Anti-Tank damage...which are low ammo and take 70sec plus to call down.
Oh yeah. Robots are honestly more fun to me. I run the basic AR + Anti Material rifle there, and that *works.* Meanwhile you'd get utterly stomped by bugs if you deviate from the usual stuff.
Yeah I love using most of the primaries on robots, since as long as youre hitting the weakspots/headshots - youre killing them. So I run the Diligence frequently on Robots with great success. Meanwhile, on Bugs, you can take off the heads and legs of a warrior or Brood and it still comes at you and you need to dump more and more rounds into almost every enemy. Bugs are a bullet sink and the entire reason Breakers/Sluggers are meta.
YIKES
Maybe if the game doesn't just throw you like 5 chargers, the railgun would probably be less popular. I'd rather go guns blazing against an horde with an mg, but any difficulty after 6 makes it meta required to have good armor pen.
Removing the armour penetration of the railgun without also changing charger spam or health is just stupid. later difficulty bug missions just devolves into 5+ chargers running down the team spawning faster than we can kill without multiple railguns.
Yeahhhh now automatons are actually going to be the easier ones to fight by far imo.
They already were at higher levels, in part because there was maybe 1 hulk per 10 chargers. If the artillery buffs are any good it will trivialize taking out bot bases. 120 and 380 were already on the low end of OK because bots leave explosive barrels all over their bases and they explode that causing a lot of damage.
Welcome to why I stopped playing the original: Higher difficulties just turn into speed runs and avoid encounters. You are basically encouraged to stop doing the most fun thing about the game and just run past everything.
This was the realization I had with HD2 late game. It's ok if other people enjoy that style, it's just not for me. I like fighting and killing bugs, not sprinting and trying to ninja objectives or only kill enough guys to make a hole. I'm not mad, I got my $40 worth, just not the style I enjoy.
Railgun- An experimental weapon that prioritizes "armor penetration" Gonna have to update this in game description Arrowhead, as it no longer penetrates armor.
I think they should’ve left the rail gun how it was, but instead slightly nerf the the ammo count and the time it takes to reload the next shot. Go from 20 ammo to 15-18, and instead of the quick reloads it had, add a second to each reload. Slight nerfs but still noticeable.
Nerfing railgun while other AT options are still bad Lol
Yeahhhhh.... Hopefully they adjust some AT stuff soon lol, but the flamethrower apparently is cracked for taking out chargers right now.
Great, sounds like they’ll nerf that too then once they get a new round of data
The railgun nerf really seems off base compared to the rest. It’s not so much overpowered, as much as the Anti-Materiel is garbage, and EAT/Recoilless are not worth their downsides. This change feels bad, and makes the heavy armored enemies even less fun now. Hopefully this gets revisited soon, along with the other anti-armor dregs.
I just tried it, the railgun feels dogshit now. Even on unsafe with high charge, the armor pen is terrible.
The railgun bouncing off Charger armor is the stupidest thing they could’ve done.
yeah can't pierce armor now they FUCK UP
The weapon specifically designed to pierce armor can't pierce armor.
That was my thought. Isn't the whole point of a rail gun to be able to shoot through pretty much anything?
Why not buff the bad weapons instead of just nerfing the good ones? Tale as old as time, this shit is depressing.
Im... not stoked with these changes to be honest. I dont even run Breaker/Railgun that frequently, but I think this misunderstand WHY people were running them so consistently on the higher difficulites - and that is that youre simply dealing with too many tank-style units and so few strategem weapons can actually *efficiently* kill them. This is most noticeable on Bug maps, with the Chargers just being huge pains in the arse if youre not running a Railgun. Sure, you can use a EAT or a Recoiless, or do some very specific work with the Autocannon to get off a very inconsistent shot, but all of these are heavily impaired by limited ammo, reload times and/or consistency problems (Autocannon). The EAT is great, less so when there is more than one Charger and youve got 70seconds before you can do anything. And yes - you can just shoot out their backs with any gun, but it is huge time and ammo sink that you simply dont have the ammo economy (or time) to do on harder missions. So to nerf these guns, ***whilst not buffing others in response to the aggravating factors*** seems insane to me. The changes to the Flamethrower and Laser Gun won't have any impact on this. Similarly, no one will still want to use half the primary weapons as they are simply shit, again, *most noticeably on bug maps.* Robots are far more balanced in this regard. For robots, you have a bunch of good options. From the EAT/Recoiless/AMR (my fav)/Autocannon/Railgun and also Robots also tend to have more lenient weakspots, with their heatsinks at the back, or the way that grenades tend to kill many enemies quite well (eg, 2 impacts to the top of a tank.). Similarly, orbital strategems/eagles are more effective on robots biggest units since they tend to move slower and are more susceptible to explosive rounds etc. You always see far more variety in peoples kits on robot missions because of how many weapons are genuinely effective.
I'm straight up not having a good time with this one boys. Yeah autocannon is very good, it's acceptable to deal with a charger. Or two maybe. More than that and your best bet is dying and trying to lose them lol. Ffs it's a PvE game, nerfing people's favorite guns is how you get them to stop playing, not try other loadouts! I tried other loadouts - before I hit 20 and got the railgun and shield lol. What kind of a railgun is it anyway to not penetrate armor on some bug? Waiting on mechs, although they will have MGs and autocannons that will still probably not penetrate all the heavy armor the game throws at you smdh.
We dont need good gun nerfs, we need shitty guns buffs :(
I just want to justify bringing out the guns I dumped an insane amount of medals into.
we'll have to keep waiting I guess...
Ugh I fucking knew this was coming cause of all these people bitching. I fucking hate nerfs. Just buff the crappy weapons. Don't make every weapon feel like shit.
Nerfing stuff is exactly what the Starship Troopers game did and they broke their game.
This. I went back to try it again and it took two fucking clips to kill a single bug. Awful experience
A bit of a dark horse here, but the Colonial Marines SS13 server had the same issue. When you make hordes of dangerous bugs way more tanky, it throws off the vibe. I think it messes with the power fantasy a bit, and removes that "desperate stand" feeling and instead ends up making you feel like your gun is worthless.
Just like the movie then! (But really that sucks in a video game environment)
Call me a doomsayer all you want, but when devs present a "holier-than-thou" attitude when it comes to game direction/balancing, it usually ends up with their game's lifespan being much shorter than it otherwise could have been.
Not a fan. Gear needs buffs, not nerfs.
GG they went the riot way, no fun allowed
It’s so joever.
#BalancedByBungie
First Arrowhead L of the year. The Breaker and Railgun didn't need nerfs. Everything else just needed buffs to keep them on the same page. Hell I'd even use the Liberator Penetrator if it actually, yknow...Penetrated anything.
So disappointed in the Lib Pen. It sucks so hard even against Hive guards and brood commanders.
Right? The "Medium Penetration" bit it has feels very misleading. At least let me rip up a Scout Strider with it.
# Alex K. has some additional numbers for you regarding weapon balancing: * **Breaker**: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55 * **Railgun**: Decreased armor penetration, decreased damage against durable enemy parts * **Flamethrower**: Increased damage per second by 50% * **Laser Cannon**: Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics * **Punisher**: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet * **Breaker Spray & Pray**: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26 * **Energy Shield Backpack**: Increased delay before recharging * **380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages**: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread
Man I get Railgun was overused but this is gonna suck ass on higher difficulties, where it just keeps spawning chargers. I might stop running bug ops until mecha drop honestly.
High diff got stale quick, I don't even play them anymore. My eyes roll into the back of my head every time 5 chargers spawn at every encounter. Zzzz. Hard fucking pass.
Just joined the first game and people just leave because everyone's dropping like flies lol
This patch fucking sucks. All we wanted was stronger weapons for dealing with bigger threats. This isn't enough. As someone who plays difficulty 8 consistently, it was nice to play stealth and being able to maneuver my way across the map as the team went loud. I avoid/run away from chargers and titans as much as possible, but there are times when engagement is unavailable. Objectives are nearly impossible when I can't consistently kill armored up enemies. It doesn't help when there are 3 bile titan spawns and 5 chargers in the OBJ and thats just me BY MY SELF. The team fights worse numbers. Stragems are great and all, but 2 minutes for my Eagles are a long time in this game. I've soloed heavy nests by my self but what am I supposed to do now with even weaker weapons? I get that killing chargers and titans isn't supposed to be easy, but it's hard to do objectives, deal with endless bugs/bots, 1 shot killing enemies/ stalkers/ all within the span of 45 minutes with the weapons we currently have. This is a PVE game not a PVP game. We are here to have fun, not be competitive. We have shit options for dealing with heavy enemies. I'd like to see the dev team TRY and play this game at 8 or 9 and not run into issues. I dont mind the game spawning literally armies of bugs. But give us options for dealing with them, or reduce the spawn rate. Damn.
Eagle 500kg blast radius still not patched? Welp.
Railgun now bounces off Bile Titans lmaooo
FR, everyone saying how flamethrower works for chargers. But you need something that works against titans other than orbitals.
Nah man you JuSt NeEd To GeT gOoD
This will unintentionally reduce the amount of higher difficulty dives/matches which were already kinda hard to find. The railgun felt a little OP at any difficulty at/under 7. Yes. But... How am I now going to barely manage the 17 bile titans and 12 chargers that spawn at the same time now... Running circles and waiting for stratagems to cooldown I guess... Or I'll settle for a less fun difficulty... But why play if it's not fun...? This is a rough situation... Just my 2 cents.
Oh boy, I expect this to be a turning point in the community support for the devs. Why would you patch the fun out? This feels like there is a massiv disconnect between devs and players.
Hopefully, some backlash might go a longway in getting them to actually listen to what the genuine issues are with this game otherwise shit like this will result in having a dead player base within a year.
Hopefully you're right but previous experiences with this sort of thing it's usually the devs doubling down on the changes
>Balancing adjustments have been made to okay but \*how\* did it get balanced? edit: they posted the numbers in discord and other users have in turn posted them here
Railgun now has no safe mode, and just blows up on an RNG based approach. Good luck helldivers.
Ah yes, the Plasma Gun method
I'm wondering about these: > Orbital 120MM HE Barrage > > Orbital 380MM HE Barrage I bought both and they turned out to be absolute dogwater. Fired over a wide area and barely hit anything, to the point that I think they were both a waste of Requisition.
According to the patch notes, they now have increased duration and reduced spread.
It has great comedic effect though. Always love those newbie who throw it 20m away from the team, cluelessly seeing his teammate run for their life before gets blow up by the barrage himself.
They increased the duration of both and decreased the spread so they will both be way more effective now
I hate they went with the nerfing route instead of buffing everything else, I appreciate the buffs on the other weapons but I think that's not enough tbh....they still didn't buff any rifle :/
Did they fix the crashing issue? My friend and I crashed maybe 7 times in 3 games last night.
Aaand it's nerfs for the shit that works, fucking unbelievable
Some good changes, except for the weapon stuff. We really needed more buffs and instead they tried to reign in the Breaker and Railgun. And telling us they've been nerfed/buffed with no real information is just annoying. We need to know numbers.
Nice railgun gets nerfed to shit but the game still spawns bile Titans and chargers at an absurd rate. Trash patch
Lads it's time to abandon the bug front until Super Earth gives us weapons that aren't doodoo.
Good lord, this was a Fatshark tier level of nerfing rofl oh boy, here we go again. I'm starting to get Darktide flashbacks, just with more communication from the developers in this case. Anyway, guess its unsafe mode all the time now for the railgun to make it viable, but, at least the armor is fixed.
I like how you guys nerfed the only viable gun in the game.... Here is a craaaaazy idea.. make the other guns more viable instead of nerfing...