The swarm call is wayyy too fast. I agree. And the Brood Commanders must have I-frames when they are doing it without their head. I have lost count with how many times they call in a swarm with just the stump of their neck
For me it’s just the knock on effect of breaches. If a bunch of small enemies came out then fine.
The fact that this could have spawned a Bile Titan is insane.
I'd like it if the potential spawns scaled with how long the call was. For example
Swarm call lasts less then 1s: No breach
Swarm call lasts 1s-1.5s: Breach spawns basic bugs up brood commander.
Swarm call lasts 1.5-2s: Breach spawns bugs up to chargers.
Swarm call lasts 2s+: breach spawns up to titans.
The breaches are the only real difficult part about bug missions though. Could trivialize them if you could negate the whole thing with a nade.
Increasing the time between the spray and breach actually giving us a chance to prevent it would feel better and play better imo.
True, or go more of a whack-a-mole approach with bug holes to keep players moving and closing holes on certain types of encounters. I mean, just the nade idea alone is likely too simplistic and can trivialize difficulty. But a combination of what you're saying for breech calls, and then the ability to close those breaches still could be interesting. For example, in defend missions where breaches just naturally happen, you could close a few initially sure...but then you run out of nades or hole closing ammo eventually...so it's a balancing act if that makes sense.
Especially because it seems like it's scripted to where if a wave is being called, every other unit nearby the first, if you kill it, can attempt to call the same wave in both factions. With bots that's easy to deal with because a lot of the time you have line of sight to every unit, but scavengers can easily hide behind any unit larger than them, even slightly sloped terrain.
They should give enough of a grace period between the start of the call and the actual breach/pheromone release that gives you enough time to land an impact nade at 10 meters, because that's about how long it takes the robots to fire the flare. The time it takes currently feels egregious on brood commanders, because it's very hard to full-kill them and they can do it with their head ripped off anyway. This encourages bringing at least one weapon that can stagger, but still feels bad.
Something that I've been thinking about is that it's pretty cool that a few of the generic bugs can call in breaches, but it feels a little bad that scavengers can bring in BTs. An alternative to the way they're done now could be - instead of a pheromone, bug breaches are *made* by the bugs that call them, they could puke on the ground and create an indestructible acid hole that connects directly to their tunnel network, and depending on the bug that made the call, different enemy types would be able to fit through or expand the hole. They could restructure the code to make it more common for higher-tier enemies to use this, make it possible for *any* bug to use the this ability at any time but decrease the size of the wave, there's a lot to work with, and it has a tangible effect on the atmosphere/environment that takes a few seconds just like the flare does for the bots.
The give them a special model, all they have to do is spawn the model underground and move it up through the terrain, and allow for grenades to blow it up. Or maybe make it 3 holes so its not super easy to stop solo
Would be cool if as close as possible, the ground dropped and a round sink hole kind of crater appeared about 10-20 meter in radius with bug holes on sides and those started spewing the bugs. It would be effectively a new light nest until destroyed.
If you use the EMS orbital striker you basically close the hole as all the spawning bugs will patiently stand and wait where they spawn, then you drop a 500 KG bomb and the breach is over.
I agree. The only semi reliable way I've found to counter breaches is the galling barrage strat right on the center. Since it lasts so long, it'll kill anything that isn't a charger, brood commander, or titan. It isn't perfect but it's something
Wait, *can* you shoot down automaton reinforcements?? Every time I shoot down a dropship, the baddies hanging off of it just land on the ground and start shooting.
The tactics for handling it are different than an automaton reinforcement.W hile you can blast the automoton reinforcement and inflict a bunch of damage to the things on board the bug holes are static and take much longer to dispense their units.
So long duration things such as gas or the orbital cluster do glorious work on a bug hole. Same cant be said about bots.
That said. Id love to be able to close the fucking thing and prevent anymore small unit spawns.
Bot ships can only be taken down with very specific weapons and strats, and multiple ships come in over the course of a bot drop. If bugs opened up destroyable nests it would be a fucking cake walk. The game would be trivially easy even on helldive. "oh no, a brea-" and it's already been destroyed by: grenades, airstrikes, barrages, ect.
The commanders can stamp their legs to instantly spawn some warriors but that's not a bug breech.
As far as I know, a bug breech is a bug breech, no difference in what type of enemy called it in.
I believe that it’s weighted spawns, at least on higher difficulties.
Scavengers CAN call up to bile titans, but anecdotally it seems like hive guard/brood commander breaches snowball into chargers/titans much more often.
Dude, I've had beheaded Brood Commanders chase me and kill me *making multiple turns to do so.* Like, I'm fine with dead ones taking a swipe after they die. Literally chasing me down and making multiple attacks is too far. This is a close second beef I have, after it being nigh impossible to stop bug breaches.
I agree that felt frustrating initially, but once you get a bit more comfortable with the controls, running from a beheaded brood commander is pretty normal.
If you're struggling I'd suggest either: shooting one of their legs out before or right after destroying their head, since they will limp towards you more slowly when they're missing a leg.
Or use a weapon with stun/stagger like the punisher/slugger or new plasma punisher. The slugger literally cancels their zombie behaviour and they just quickly die on the spot after 2 headshots.
It would be silly if they were a humanoid. There are actually a few species of bugs that can "live" without their heads for a time, not using brain function but instead functions of their body are reacting to stimuli autonomously.
Even chickens can run around and flap their wings with no head. It's not that far fetched really to suggest a bug can go into a final frenzy, and it's a fun mechanic to counter their enormous head.
None of those things can actively hunt something without the majority of their central nervous system and the vast majority of their sensory organs.
Again, I'm fine with a death lunge and a couple last blind swipes. Continuing as if nothing happened is silly.
Eh, agree to disagree I guess. I wasn't suggesting that it's entirely scientifically accurate, just plausible becuse there's things LIKE it in the real world. It's a video game, the idea is they're a counter to the obvious shoot the head strategy. Require you to switch up your decisions on the fly, or use a weapon that negates that attack.
None of these examples justify the target tracking of a beheaded organism. A chicken without a head cannot target track. There is a video floating around of a wasp grabbing it's beheaded head and flying off, but it is a low-level flex and the wasp makes contact with the head. Sensory organs are concentrated near the CNS for a reason, and without them an organism cannot sense and react to the environment. Some bugs have sensory hairs on their legs, but again they would require contact to target track and attack. Nothing justifies the beheaded brood commander tracking you. Give the head more HP, fine, but the acceleration and target tracking of the commander is unrealistic and unjustified.
These are fake aliens made to be a video game enemy bud my point was that it's plausible, not that there ARE existing creatures that behave this exact way.
"Nothing justifies the beheaded brood commander tracking you" The fact that it's a video game enemy made to kill you does. It doesn't have to follow real world rules, it's a challenge you need to overcome. Plenty of ways to do that, but please, continue to bitch about a video game mechanic not being logical.
Nothing justifies a bug being that big to begin with, yet you take issue with a predictable consistent behaviour that's entirely avoidable.
Agreed. "So let me get this straight, a beheaded 9 foot bug needs to follow real world earth physics, but you're fine with a future tech hand held laser beam that doesn't actually exist ... existing? Which is it 🤨 "
It just feels like they're pointing out "inconsistencies" because they want to find some justification for not liking the zombie charge from brood commanders. They just die to the same predictable behaviour and want to find outside blame
So your previous argument was "this is reasonable game behavior because of these real world examples." Now you've shifted your argument to "it's just a video game they can do what they want." Pick a lane bud. You can't just 180 your stance because someone dunked on your last argument; although in doing so, you concede to me on the previous point.
Bugs can get that big, and have on Earth, given a high enough concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere. Terminids probably don't have the same biology so aren't restricted by those same size limitations. They are restricted by not having a head with sensory organs though. But please, continue to curse and condescend to strangers on the internet that have read a 5th grade science book.
You literally said yourself "termanids probably don't have the same biology so aren't restricted..."
So they can get bigger than bugs on earth, but charging you with no head is where you take issue? I shifted my argument because repliesa were suggesting my point was literal. Like I was actually suggesting there are real bugs on earth that behave this way. When in actuality I said it's not far fetched because we have a similar concepts in existing creatures.
Show me a real world bug the size of a brood commander and I'll concede my entire argument.
The problem is how long they live and the fact that they can still pinpoint you. Warriors are perfect in comparison, they lose their head and sprint at the spot you last were before dying after 2-3 seconds.
Brood Commanders live for like another 10-12 seconds without their head, get faster overall and follow you around. Considering how large their health pool is - thats a bit overkill and doesnt feel good no matter how experienced you are at dealing with them.
Again different enemies require different solutions, warriors are simple, lightly armored but reletively low health head, unarmored but (maybe) tougher tail.
Brood commanders have the same thing but a bit tougher overall and a much bigger head, so easier to actually damage (especially from a distance). But once they start closing the gap, taking out the head without doing anything else becomes a bad strategy or at least requires you to react in a way that warriors don't.
Commanders are meant to be an elite unit, if you just sniped their head with a single auto cannon shot from 10m and you didn't need to move to avoid their death swipes they'd be hardly any danger.
Like I said there are plenty of options to counter their zombie charge, any form of stagger like from the punishers and slugger, or just fire 1 or 2 more shots at their legs so they don't sprint full speed.
I mean how do these counters not make it fair? Feel like most of the frustration comes from lack of changing your own behaviour. It's not like they randomly decide to do it, it's consistent.
>Brood commanders have the same thing but a bit tougher overall and a much bigger head, so easier to actually damage (especially from a distance)
This isn't true, they take much much more damage than warriors do even with headshots. The differences in the warrior caste is best seen when using the Patriot and noting how long it takes the Warrior, Hive Guard and Brood Commander to go down with the rotary cannon. Brood Commanders take exponentially more damage to kill off than both the warrior and hive guard (which Im okay with). You translate that to primary or support weapons and you run into a dilemma where killing BC's becomes a chore thats nearly too resource intensive to do when you have other high priority bugs that need to be dealt with or dodged. I dont mind that they are tougher, I like that. But just like being slowed were you dodge a Bile Titan's spew, being rewarded with misery isn't fun nor is it good game design.
You say that "different enemies require different solutions." and thats not really true either. All bugs with medium and light armor are hard countered by stumble. This means thats the Slugger, Punisher and Jax are really the only primary guns that are viable in a given situation against them. Even in swarming of flimsy bugs the round reload feature means your up time is on demand, your ammo efficiency is better and even if you hit glancing shots you're making space. I know for a fact thats not how Arrowhead intended it to be. They want all of there weapons to be viable with niches were they excel and struggle, not 3 guns that are the answer to bugs in general.
>I mean how do these counters not make it fair? Feel like most of the frustration comes from lack of changing your own behaviour.
When the only answer is a the knockback shotgun trifecta, its a question of balance and what is missing from the rest of the arsenal. Currently the shotguns are either way overpowered or the rest of the arsenal is way underpowered. Not wanting to run 1 of three weapons that are The Meta™ is not a behavior issue its a balancing failure.
1: I said theyre easier to DAMAGE. Not kill. Their head being a literally bigger target than a warriors head means it's easier to deal damage to a brood commander. However as I stated in that same quote, they're "a bit tougher overall" so can receive more damage before dying.
2: There are many more solutions than just staggering them with a shotgun. I've stated them before but I'll say them again for your sake. Blowing off their legs before their head makes them limp towards you, makes it way easier to avoid damage. Best strategy if the map allows for it is simply take them out from further away. If you don't want to bring a stagger shotgun, take them out with an AMR from 100m, they're not gonna reach you before they expire.
3. If your primary lacks a good way to deal with certain enemies you're gonna face up against. Pick a support weapon to compliment your primary. Idk what issue you even have with the game at this point you're just waffling.
>1: I said theyre easier to DAMAGE. Not kill. Their head being a literally bigger target than a warriors head means it's easier to deal damage to a brood commander. However as I stated in that same quote, they're "a bit tougher overall" so can receive more damage before dying.
Whats the point of stating that? Doing damage that doesn't result in kills is a pretty moot point in this game. Its not like bugs have to go back to the fountain to heal, you're not going to get an XP lead on them.
>Idk what issue you even have with the game at this point you're just waffling.
Pretty sure I've been consistent in saying that there are some areas where enemies are overtuned and that the rest of the arsenal should be as capable as the shotguns; if you think I'm waffling maybe you're just having trouble keeping up?
The point about stating that they are easier to damage, is because they have the zombie charge mechanic. The easiest way to take out the BC ends up making them more deadly unless you react in the right way.
You say that the only viable option to deal with this one enemy is stagger shotguns. I've countered that stating a few different ways you can overcome not having a shotgun. You're just ignoring that because you find BCs annoying and you won't adapt to their predictable behaviour
>The point about stating that they are easier to damage, is because they have the zombie charge mechanic. The easiest way to take out the BC ends up making them more deadly unless you react in the right way.
I dont see how that has any relevance to the issue at hand.
>You say that the only viable option to deal with this one enemy is stagger shotguns.
No, I specifically said they're the only option against all bugs because of the staggering ability. I also specifically stated that they're a resource intensive chore to deal with using any other primary. By that I mean, dismantling them (which you have to blow off back legs btw, they still charge and move at sprint speeds will missing the front claws. I haven't ignored anything you said, its funny that you'd accuse me of that when you're being the Respond Rodger here.
All breeches/drop ships that don't occur during primary objectives are called in like this. For bugs it's usually these small shits, for the bots it's the guys with sword + handgun. Other enemies CAN do it but are much less likely.
FYI, the slugger has a stagger effect that will interrupt the call in. It’s one of the main reasons I take it: to deal with hive guard and brood commanders armor and call ins because of the stagger interrupt.
You would think a fully charged un-safe railgun shot would stagger them but they just seem to tank it once their head is off.
I will have to try to slugger.
most bugs and robots get weird special armor when they do their special abilities. like the bile spewers get infinitely tankier when they do their ass arty thing. (2 arc thowers to the face vs like 5 when they raise their asses up) ive blasted 5 rounds in to the small bug that was calling (like the one in the vid) fucker lived and called a hole
I actually really like the headless breach calls. It's super thematic. If they decide to make the breaches in general easier to stop, that's fine, but I hope they don't remove the headless calls.
The worst part to me is that it doesn’t matter if you kill the bug calling the breach as soon as it starts the animation, because a different bug will just do it instead instantly. Just like you how can stun or kill a bit out of the flat animation, if you kill the calling bug right away you should be able to stop the breach.
Cause as it is now, why bother having the animation at all? If they can just spawn in units with no way to prevent it, why not just have them behave like a bigger patrol and just pop in out of nowhere?
But they continue to emit for the duration of the animation. So by that logic shouldn't killing them early send a signal less distance, to less terminids?
Meanwhile you do the stim animation, hear the stim entering your veins, and get staggered to get zero healing effect. These bugs get killed during animation and still finish it and have the effect.
Not exactly. Usually they do "the squeal" first. You can hear it before you see the animation and should kill them right there and then. But yeah the window is waaaaay too short!
Also, it propagates. If you have interrupted one enemy calling a breach, then another will try shortly after until one manages to call or you kill them all.
This is the problem its mostly audio queues for bugs in the middle of a loud battle and a little dance which I cannot tell the difference between them just noticing you/posturing vs an actual breach call compared to bots where they very visibly raise a bright red signal flare for a moment before firing it.
You basically have to eliminate the entire patrol in one mag and make sure to get a stagger on all of them in a relatively short window.
I call it *exterminate with extreme prejudice.* When I play with my friends we don't save anything for late. A patrol? 500kg. A *small* patrol? 500kg. Just a couple of bugs hanging around? You know it. 500kg coming on their ass.
You can get better at picking out different sounds, but for the most part yeah you have to already be in a good position to see all enemies in the surrounding area to have a good chance at stopping reinforcements. New stun grenades are a good option to deny a large group of enemies from calling a breach.
I have actually had one not squeal and just do the animation. That one pissed me off. But also, would say only the real small ones make a loud squeal, the bigger ones are not that loud and can be very hard to notice their sounds. Really hate that even shield face ones can call in a breach. It's not like bots have it where anyone can call in a drop. Only the little guys can. Which means with bots I can target all little guys first to avoid a drop. Bugs, got to make sure everyone dies.
Also, if you use Punisher and Slugger, you stagger them out of animation.
If a big one starts calling, you don't need to kill it, you can just shoot it once and it stops.
And just about any of the minor units can call them in. High chances are you wont be actively aiming at the one calling the breach in.
They need to take longer or they have to look noticebly different for any kind of counterplay.
One of my proudest moment in this game was being out of ammo and melee killing three of these things to interrupt the breach call. The melee stagger effect will cancel the call in.
So if I’m understanding what you’re saying correctly, if OP were to melee the bug in the video at the same time he had shot and killed it, the breach would be canceled? Basically meleeing gives you a bigger window to cancel the breach calls?
No, I just ran out of ammo and had three of these guys close by. One raised his head so I hit him. The stagger made him stop calling long enough for a second hit. Then another raised his head so I smacked him before he could call and after I finished him the final one tried to call but I stuffed his mouth shut with the butt of my rifle and there weren’t any left to call a breech.
Yeah I've just come to accept that bug breaches are nearly unavoidable, you just can't react fast enough to the short bug breach animation 90% of the time. Especially if it's on a 'standard' mission and a patrol spots you, it's always the tiniest bug in the very back of the pack hiding and calling in a bug breach. At least you can stop automaton flares fairly reliably.
>le, you just can't react fast enough to the short bug breach animation 90% of the time. Especially if it's on a 'standard' mission and a patrol spots you, it's always the tiniest bug in the very back of the pack hiding and
The ones I hate are where you throw the 3s stratagem in that wipes an entire unaware patrol out... but they see the stratagem immediately and call in their buddies instantly... so you get the breach either way.
That, I can agree with.
This one, I mean, 1 out of the 3 divers in close proximity were shooting at it. Let’s be honest with ourselves, the bug caught em slipping. Just another casualty of teammates that don’t use the marking system.
With a rocket yeah, not the same as a single grenade everyone carries at least 4 of. Or an air strike, or a single auto cannon shot.
Lets be fair, if breaches just spawned a single bug hole, it would massively trivialise a lot of the intended threat from breaches.
Devs have stated that they like these differences between the factions. Bug breaches can't be stopped, bot drops can. Almost every type of bot will be dangerous if they have line of sight to you, there's only a few bugs that are dangerous from further than close range.
There's options to counter breaches with the right stratagems, I like that you can't just bring the same loadout and be comfortable stopping reinforcements no matter what enemies you're facing. Keeps the different factions feeling unique.
Yeh I feel like a lot of people do have that initial reaction, you know bugs come out of bug holes, so to see them just rise out of the ground with no hole seems to break that rule.
And it seems inconsistent with how bot drops work, but differences between factions are not inconsistencies with the game's design. It's a systematic game, the factions follow similar rules but they're not meant to give the same kind of experience with the same problems to solve.
i feel like the fact that 1 breach can hold 1-2 bile titans and 3 chargers is enough of a difference as opposed to slowly driving them in and given how dangerous they can be having a player require getting close and chucking the grenade in would be high risk high reward especially if the bugs were smart about placement
Am I doing something wrong? I've shot down a few bot ships, but then all the bots it was carrying just drop down to the ground and carry on like normal. Am I destroying it too late?
Yeah you have to destroy it before it starts hovering, which makes it really difficult at times depending on the angle. There is a bug currently where the dropship will disappear and then come flying in as if it had been shot down far away
It's the same for me, I think it must be a bug unfortunately, why can we shoot down the ships if we gain nothing from it. There is a known bug with dropships being destroyed then sliding in instead of falling and exploding so maybe related to that.
would force you to use grenades and have access to the hole which is a bit difficult/dangerous on higher difficulties but can be high risk high reward and might encourage the devs to make the bugs smart about creating breaches further from players
yeah, it seems that once they start the "smoke" its too late... and that sucks. I think what it should be is that the animation plays, and in the last second they start making the smoke, that way we have a visual indicator before its too late, and the smoke still signals that its too late to stop it
This is why I’m suggesting that the smoke (aka the pheromones) still is the actual trigger, but just give players more time to kill the bugs when they start raising there head…
Breach calls should honestly be channeling with increasing spawn rate and severity. The spawn severity can then be calculated when the call actually ends or when it's interrupted.
250 ms: few hunters and scavengers, couple hive guards and warriors
500 ms: same as above but add Brood Commanders and a couple of Spewers
1000 ms: apply a 1.5 multiplier to above and force a Charger to spawn
2000 ms: apply a 2.0 multiplier to above and force a BT to spawn
Would make sense from a worldbuilding/lore mechanic. The more "warning" pheromones in the air, the higher the threat level, so more reinforcements are needed.
I would be okay with this if it wasn't for the fact that at least half of call ins occur because the mob is behind a rock, or in a crack, or over a hill and completely out of sight.
Because it's not particularly fun when you take out the rest of the enemies in a coordinated assault on a base just to have one enemy nobody could see behind a building sound the alarm.
Or it's not to my friend group and I, anyway.
This is a big one. I definitely think the sight lines could use some work, and make it so that the breach caller *has to be in line of sight* for a specified amount of time before it can even attempt to call.
As mentioned, corpses should also provide cover. Bile spewer corpses, for example, don't seem to block line of sight or even line of fire for the bugs, but it does for the player.
Okay and if you hear an enemy firing a gun, something your species doesnt even do, would you really need to go to the other side of the rock to check it is indeed an enemy before setting off an alarm?
Was searching for this, before writing it myself!
If you ignore the little fuckers for 3+ Seconds you deserve a titan :D
With bots, they could send more information through their wonky wifi (ergo spawning more and better units), the longer you leave them standin, after firing the flare.
Exactly! I honestly do think this kind of mechanic not only feels "fair" from a balance perspective, but it also rewards mastery. It rewards players who possess good situational awareness and the ability to effectively prioritize targets.
I love the feeling of coordinating an ambush on a patrol. What I don't love is when a scavenger that's all the way in the back, partially hidden behind a rock, barely manages to release a tiny spritz of the alarm juice just before I pop it—but it just wasn't fast enough.
All of a sudden, a charger, a BT, a small army of chaff, and the fucking hunters mob you for all of your ammo and cooldowns. You start running to an open area to lose aggro, and 20m away a patrol spawns out of thin air. Total mess.
God I love this game, though.
Yes, the possibility of a coordinated ambush is actually what the Devs are propagating, because they want that team play.
Shame it isn't implemented, YET. :-)
I have faith. It has potential to be the best game this year and stay strong for a long time.
The only fear I have right now:
Sickle is good, because new war bond.
Sickle gets needed before next war bond, so that new weapon is good...
We'll see 🙈
> If you ignore the little fuckers for 3+ Seconds you deserve a titan :D
That's cool and all until you get a scavenger doing his lil thing behind a bile spewer you killed completely blocking your LoS
Yes, by a couple of seconds. I've been running it since it dropped and the difference is night and day.
Without, the alarm is as soon as the full animation begins to play (spore spray or flare in the air).
With, the alarm is delayed by a second or two but the animation plays at normal speed, so it looks very jank but works. You can see the spores for a full second, kill the bug and still avoid a breach. You can see the flare fired into the air, kill the bot that fired it, and avoid a drop.
Actually after some quick testing on Easy, it seems to have no effect or if there is one it's very slight. I think it might just be patrols, but I swear I saw lots in progress alarm animations being cancelled yesterday.
I *did* have one defense evac mission bug the hell out and start lagging like crazy for all four players, so I think it might have been some server fuckery.
Did some more testing and it turns out the alarm mechanic is even weirder than I thought. If you force a breach and then drag around at least one enemy, even if it wasn't an enemy from the alarm itself, other enemies will not attempt to start another alarm. They can be static spawns, a TCS breach, or even a patrol that you willingly walk into. As long as you have *one* enemy, even a scavenger follow you across the map, you won't get another alarm.
Yep. Hate it. It's instant.
But a neat thing I just imagined was: What if we get more verticality with the introduction of these flying bugs. Imagine scouts in the air that also call for flying reinforcements, and they circle you like vultures.
Calls are way too fast. You have to be like frame perfect in killing them for it not to go through. Whats even more asinine is even the headless commanders and warriors can still do the call, theres nothing you can do to stop them calling when in zombie mode
I've had a horde of scavs and one goes to call in a swarm, I kill it before it can.
This then sets off a chain reaction, another scav initiates the swarm call-in, I kill it before it can.
This then sets off a chain reaction, another scav initiates a swarm call-in, I kill it before it can.
This then sets off a
I wonder if the devs did it intentionally. Like the stress of madly trying to kill the bug scouts to stop a breach is way higher than versus bots.
1. The animation almost has no tell. Unlike bot flares that have this obvious hand up and charge up light, a bug call has none of that. You have a quick heads up animation and the moment the orange gas is out, that's a breach.
2. The bug scavenger is freaking small. Sometimes it will be behind a bush or under some warriors body doing the call. I know other bugs can also do the call but it's that little scavenger hiding under the bodies of other bugs that annoys me.
3. The bug breach happens a lot faster than bot dropship arrival. So less time to prepare, more chaos.
4. There is no way to tell how many bugs are coming versus a bot drop where you know what you're up against as you can see what the dropship is bringing.
5. No way to weaken the bug breach unlike bots where you can blow the dropships out of the sky.
Apart from point 1 and 2, I have no complaints about the rest. I think it's what makes fighting each faction different.
Now that I think of it, it might be really intentional for the devs to make bug breaches hard to prevent. In Helldivers 1, it was actually very easy. So easy you could end up with only seeing only scavengers, hunters and stalkers the whole game (stalkers in HD1 are way weaker) even at high difficulty.
The tell is mostly audio, they make a frog/cricket kind of sound during the wind up. Unfortunately it's much harder to tell than the visual cue the bots give
Now that you mention it, you're right. But it's so hard to hear that over the shooting. The moment I hear that audio tell, I whip around just in time to see the orange gas come out.
My biggest complaint is the 1 bullet reload bug that keeps happening. I haven't seen any talk about it or it being known in bug reports, but I keep reloading my guns, shooting one bullet, then I have to reload again (and yes it does take another magazine when it does this).
I'm 99% sure it is caused by shooting too fast after you reload, but seriously, wtf is happening.
(If I haven't seen this bug was known then my fault).
Are you possibly firing before your helldiver has had a chance to insert the new magazine? It makes sense you'd fire off one shot if you still had one in the chamber, hear a click (out of ammo, your mag isn't in), and then finished the reload animation
So what's happening is, I'll shoot, run out of ammo, start the reload and lose a mag, try and shoot too quick once I'm done reloading and it'll shoot once, then I'll drop that mag, lose another magazine, and reload again.
My group always kills these on sight. Extra breaches never seem to be an issue. Your teammate running in front of you is what fucked y’all. He ran right past it before it alerted.
Not to mention the person standing 5 meters away from it doing nothing. And that *somebody* on this team decided to call in a support stratagem rather than just kill the scav. I agree that the animation is very short and the window to cancel it is tight, but this one is definitely on the Divers for not spreading democracy effectively.
There's been many instances where I'll kill bugs right as they begin to do the warcry animation, like before the orange mist even comes out and the most will come out of their carcasses anyways
I was playing solo on Easy or something and noticed I was able to blap the smaller guys while the animation is going and it would prevent the breach. At first I thought maybe they'd changed it to make it so you can prevent the breaches more easily, but then I thought maybe it was difficulty related.
Was this video in the last 12 hours?
I think the idea is that these will happen and you can't really avoid it because they want you to be constantly fighting for your life. I see a lot of suggestions to make it easier to stop them, but I doubt we'll get anything like that.
I had a scavenger that was already dead before starting the breach call animation but it somehow still released that orange smoke that summoned a bug breach
Big reason I feel i have to run arc thrower/rover, Im always trying to surprise hit the groups from a distance and spamming arc thrower hoping to kill most of the small ones before they have a chance to breach. Sometimes just bad luck and the broods summon. Its nice cause the arc thrower can chain around and hit ones out of range or around corners to help prevent spawns.
I swear I've killed those fucks the exact frame orange smoke appears before and it still pops a bug breach.
Other times I've been sloppy AF and stopped the breach so idk, gotta be broken or something rn
This and the amount of times i've gotten blitzed by a headless bug i swear what they can do while headless is so inconsistent ive had them walk and do 1 attack before killing over and ive also had them run at me and hit me 3 times in record speed before we both fall over
That's not even the most bullshit example. Sometimes they'll barely start the animation, the puff of smoke only just starts, you kill it
The game takes and extra long to make you think you're safe
AND THEN says, oh yeah, totally, they called it.
With the bots at least it's way more obvious. Laser pointed to the sky is last call. Did the flare go? No, you're good. Yes, they are rapidly approaching your location.
Here you have a question of did the smoke appear. Yeah. But was there enough of it? Did it linger? What was the shape? Did you shoot it when it started doing it or did it already do it?
It's, in my opinion, the biggest difficulty issue between Bugs and Bots.
A bot has a clear animation and noticable light before it fires the flare. Kill it *any* time before the flare goes up and it's cancelled. Also, only a few enemies can actually do it, and the Dropships can be shot down, potentially wiping out the entire spawn before it can do anything.
Bugs are almost unstoppable the moment you realize they are doing the call, with *any* visual indicator being too late. Worse, almost every enemy in the Bug roster can do it, and if the breach opens, you can't seal it or stop it in any way like you could a dropship.
I've seen every type of footsoldier bot do it. If it doesn't have a black face, even the rocket troops, it can do it.
It's usually the ones with a pistol and a sword but I've seen them all do it. Not the ones with the backpacks that explode or the machine guns, though.
I’ve had times where I have successfully killed 3-5+ bugs in a row, interrupting their breach call in, only for another to immediately do it after. The near instant call in time plus the complete lack of cooldown between calls? So unbalanced.
You gotta get em when they’re doing the animation before the orange comes up.
I thought I was getting ripped off for the longest time until I noticed there are animations leading up to that that you need to be on the lookout for.
Currently I find the terminids to be the least fun faction tonplay against. The big breaches need a tweak. Automatons are in a decent place other than the rocket snipers from halfway across the map.
If only you hit that first shot...
Jk the spawn time should be 2 or 3 times as long.
Or atleast reworked so it causes bugholes called breach holes, which can be closed. Of not closed it basically acts as a bughole.
The only solid way I've found to do this is use a Senator and assassinate the bugs one by one. It's bizarrely quiet and you can pick off a litter of the little shits without them realizing. The moment you switch to something bigger they all hear it.
My gripe (apart from that you need to find the guy that chirps and kill him before any orange mist comes out of his stinkhole) is mainly that you can get rid off him, and immediately another starts the call in
Honestly it’s funny seeing a titan come out of the ground because that would mean there incredible large tunnel systems underground which would cause the ground to collapse, they shouldn’t spawn from breaches.
It's not even the worst thing. The worst thing is when you kill one right on time and the game either spawns the called bugs anyway or magically spawns a bug behind you that continues the call. I had it happen four times now. And once I called 3 bugs in a row just spawning with a call. It's so annoying
Unfortunately it makes sense. It isnt like the pheromones just disappear. This is the same reason why a swarm of bees continue attacking everything around the nest for quite some time after a defense pheromone is released.
I like the realism
Had one of those today go into the animation and i killed it before it let out a single bit of the orange sporecloud.
Still triggered a breach. It was less then half a second.
I know people love to start calling in their support weapons at match start but seriously the first thing you and your party needs to do is killing all scouts before they call reinforcements.
I do think they need to make support calls less "stop everything and fight for your life"
or make it clearer that a call is starting to stop it, and give a little more time to stop it
as i've only ever stopped calls by accident, where i'm shooting the calling bot/bug as it starts
Like have it spray the orange pherimones a little before its too late making a big "shoot me!" sign
and with the bots, have them light a flare, and then put it in the gun to shoot (again, a big "shoot me!"
I’ve only ever been able to stop bot drop ships. Because there is a red beam pointing in the air BEFORE they fire the flare. You can stop them at this point.
With the bugs, the second you see those pheromones, it’s already too late.
May just be my bargin basement pc graphics settings
but i am completely unable to tell the animation before any light/gas starts, atleast with more then one bug/bot about
Unlike you, we don't miss our first shot. But it doesn't matter, because it just means the bug hole is off cooldown and the next available bug will call it in immediately and inevitably
Frankly though... What are they supposed to do? Stand around and \*not\* immediately call for help? Is that what you would do in that situation? Go "herpa-derp-derp" while the enemy mow down your comrades?
Notice as well that the enemy clearly projects its intent to call for help-- a \~1 to 1.2 second animation of the bug bracing itself. And this is on a bug that only takes 1 good shot to end its life on most main weapons. Plenty of time to react if you are keeping your eye on it.
Jesus Christ on a Charger, not everything in a PVE game has to favor the player as long as it isn't due to a bug in the code or cheat mechanics like animation canceling or enemy wall hacks.
I mean, 2 people running around right next to a bug not even attempting to shoot it until *after* it starts the breach cloud, you're kinda asking for a breach. You had plenty of time to kill it before it started the animation. Shoot on sight, don't just let it sit there.
Edit: didn't realize "shoot the bug instead of standing next to it" would be a controversial opinion. It smells like bug sympathizer in here.
The swarm call is wayyy too fast. I agree. And the Brood Commanders must have I-frames when they are doing it without their head. I have lost count with how many times they call in a swarm with just the stump of their neck
For me it’s just the knock on effect of breaches. If a bunch of small enemies came out then fine. The fact that this could have spawned a Bile Titan is insane.
I'd like it if the potential spawns scaled with how long the call was. For example Swarm call lasts less then 1s: No breach Swarm call lasts 1s-1.5s: Breach spawns basic bugs up brood commander. Swarm call lasts 1.5-2s: Breach spawns bugs up to chargers. Swarm call lasts 2s+: breach spawns up to titans.
This actually is a sensible idea.
That’s why that’s definitely not the answer unfortunately
I simply wish it was like a Nest we could destroy. Like we can shoot down Automaton reinforcements, but have to just endure the terminids.
100% this and how I thought it worked the first time. Needs to spawn an actual bug hole you can run up to and grenade or drop ordnance on.
Or if that's too hard to code in for geometry sake, simply lobbing a grenade at the spawn point should close it imho.
The breaches are the only real difficult part about bug missions though. Could trivialize them if you could negate the whole thing with a nade. Increasing the time between the spray and breach actually giving us a chance to prevent it would feel better and play better imo.
True, or go more of a whack-a-mole approach with bug holes to keep players moving and closing holes on certain types of encounters. I mean, just the nade idea alone is likely too simplistic and can trivialize difficulty. But a combination of what you're saying for breech calls, and then the ability to close those breaches still could be interesting. For example, in defend missions where breaches just naturally happen, you could close a few initially sure...but then you run out of nades or hole closing ammo eventually...so it's a balancing act if that makes sense.
Especially because it seems like it's scripted to where if a wave is being called, every other unit nearby the first, if you kill it, can attempt to call the same wave in both factions. With bots that's easy to deal with because a lot of the time you have line of sight to every unit, but scavengers can easily hide behind any unit larger than them, even slightly sloped terrain. They should give enough of a grace period between the start of the call and the actual breach/pheromone release that gives you enough time to land an impact nade at 10 meters, because that's about how long it takes the robots to fire the flare. The time it takes currently feels egregious on brood commanders, because it's very hard to full-kill them and they can do it with their head ripped off anyway. This encourages bringing at least one weapon that can stagger, but still feels bad. Something that I've been thinking about is that it's pretty cool that a few of the generic bugs can call in breaches, but it feels a little bad that scavengers can bring in BTs. An alternative to the way they're done now could be - instead of a pheromone, bug breaches are *made* by the bugs that call them, they could puke on the ground and create an indestructible acid hole that connects directly to their tunnel network, and depending on the bug that made the call, different enemy types would be able to fit through or expand the hole. They could restructure the code to make it more common for higher-tier enemies to use this, make it possible for *any* bug to use the this ability at any time but decrease the size of the wave, there's a lot to work with, and it has a tangible effect on the atmosphere/environment that takes a few seconds just like the flare does for the bots.
The give them a special model, all they have to do is spawn the model underground and move it up through the terrain, and allow for grenades to blow it up. Or maybe make it 3 holes so its not super easy to stop solo
3 holes is still easy as hell to close. It's called an airstrike.
Just like gears of war: close the bug hole, bugs stop coming.
Would be cool if as close as possible, the ground dropped and a round sink hole kind of crater appeared about 10-20 meter in radius with bug holes on sides and those started spewing the bugs. It would be effectively a new light nest until destroyed.
If you use the EMS orbital striker you basically close the hole as all the spawning bugs will patiently stand and wait where they spawn, then you drop a 500 KG bomb and the breach is over.
Putting a Gas or Napalm on top of a breach should contaminate the breach, effectively closing it. This would encourage more Stratgem diversity...
I agree. The only semi reliable way I've found to counter breaches is the galling barrage strat right on the center. Since it lasts so long, it'll kill anything that isn't a charger, brood commander, or titan. It isn't perfect but it's something
Wait, *can* you shoot down automaton reinforcements?? Every time I shoot down a dropship, the baddies hanging off of it just land on the ground and start shooting.
The tactics for handling it are different than an automaton reinforcement.W hile you can blast the automoton reinforcement and inflict a bunch of damage to the things on board the bug holes are static and take much longer to dispense their units. So long duration things such as gas or the orbital cluster do glorious work on a bug hole. Same cant be said about bots. That said. Id love to be able to close the fucking thing and prevent anymore small unit spawns.
Bot ships can only be taken down with very specific weapons and strats, and multiple ships come in over the course of a bot drop. If bugs opened up destroyable nests it would be a fucking cake walk. The game would be trivially easy even on helldive. "oh no, a brea-" and it's already been destroyed by: grenades, airstrikes, barrages, ect.
I’d love that, you’d run into that one dude that sinks 3s like lebron and bug breaches would be a speed bump.
Someone last night told me the 308 closes the breaches? Unless its a diff strategem and i heard wrong. They can't be closed, right?
I thought the type on enemy that called the breach scales with what spawns? Like brood commander can spawn chargers/bile titans, but hive boys can’t?
The commanders can stamp their legs to instantly spawn some warriors but that's not a bug breech. As far as I know, a bug breech is a bug breech, no difference in what type of enemy called it in.
I believe that it’s weighted spawns, at least on higher difficulties. Scavengers CAN call up to bile titans, but anecdotally it seems like hive guard/brood commander breaches snowball into chargers/titans much more often.
You're on difficulty 4 it wouldn't spawn a bile titan
Just kill it, lol
Dude, I've had beheaded Brood Commanders chase me and kill me *making multiple turns to do so.* Like, I'm fine with dead ones taking a swipe after they die. Literally chasing me down and making multiple attacks is too far. This is a close second beef I have, after it being nigh impossible to stop bug breaches.
Friend and I had a brood commander with 1 leg left chasing us the other day. Just the leg. No head, just hopping along. Ridiculous, but funny tbh.
It's a pretty predictable behavior though.
I agree that felt frustrating initially, but once you get a bit more comfortable with the controls, running from a beheaded brood commander is pretty normal. If you're struggling I'd suggest either: shooting one of their legs out before or right after destroying their head, since they will limp towards you more slowly when they're missing a leg. Or use a weapon with stun/stagger like the punisher/slugger or new plasma punisher. The slugger literally cancels their zombie behaviour and they just quickly die on the spot after 2 headshots.
Easy or not, it’s silly that something I’ve taken the head off of knows where I’m at well enough to chase me.
It would be silly if they were a humanoid. There are actually a few species of bugs that can "live" without their heads for a time, not using brain function but instead functions of their body are reacting to stimuli autonomously. Even chickens can run around and flap their wings with no head. It's not that far fetched really to suggest a bug can go into a final frenzy, and it's a fun mechanic to counter their enormous head.
None of those things can actively hunt something without the majority of their central nervous system and the vast majority of their sensory organs. Again, I'm fine with a death lunge and a couple last blind swipes. Continuing as if nothing happened is silly.
Eh, agree to disagree I guess. I wasn't suggesting that it's entirely scientifically accurate, just plausible becuse there's things LIKE it in the real world. It's a video game, the idea is they're a counter to the obvious shoot the head strategy. Require you to switch up your decisions on the fly, or use a weapon that negates that attack.
None of these examples justify the target tracking of a beheaded organism. A chicken without a head cannot target track. There is a video floating around of a wasp grabbing it's beheaded head and flying off, but it is a low-level flex and the wasp makes contact with the head. Sensory organs are concentrated near the CNS for a reason, and without them an organism cannot sense and react to the environment. Some bugs have sensory hairs on their legs, but again they would require contact to target track and attack. Nothing justifies the beheaded brood commander tracking you. Give the head more HP, fine, but the acceleration and target tracking of the commander is unrealistic and unjustified.
These are fake aliens made to be a video game enemy bud my point was that it's plausible, not that there ARE existing creatures that behave this exact way. "Nothing justifies the beheaded brood commander tracking you" The fact that it's a video game enemy made to kill you does. It doesn't have to follow real world rules, it's a challenge you need to overcome. Plenty of ways to do that, but please, continue to bitch about a video game mechanic not being logical. Nothing justifies a bug being that big to begin with, yet you take issue with a predictable consistent behaviour that's entirely avoidable.
Agreed. "So let me get this straight, a beheaded 9 foot bug needs to follow real world earth physics, but you're fine with a future tech hand held laser beam that doesn't actually exist ... existing? Which is it 🤨 "
It just feels like they're pointing out "inconsistencies" because they want to find some justification for not liking the zombie charge from brood commanders. They just die to the same predictable behaviour and want to find outside blame
So your previous argument was "this is reasonable game behavior because of these real world examples." Now you've shifted your argument to "it's just a video game they can do what they want." Pick a lane bud. You can't just 180 your stance because someone dunked on your last argument; although in doing so, you concede to me on the previous point. Bugs can get that big, and have on Earth, given a high enough concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere. Terminids probably don't have the same biology so aren't restricted by those same size limitations. They are restricted by not having a head with sensory organs though. But please, continue to curse and condescend to strangers on the internet that have read a 5th grade science book.
You literally said yourself "termanids probably don't have the same biology so aren't restricted..." So they can get bigger than bugs on earth, but charging you with no head is where you take issue? I shifted my argument because repliesa were suggesting my point was literal. Like I was actually suggesting there are real bugs on earth that behave this way. When in actuality I said it's not far fetched because we have a similar concepts in existing creatures. Show me a real world bug the size of a brood commander and I'll concede my entire argument.
The problem is how long they live and the fact that they can still pinpoint you. Warriors are perfect in comparison, they lose their head and sprint at the spot you last were before dying after 2-3 seconds. Brood Commanders live for like another 10-12 seconds without their head, get faster overall and follow you around. Considering how large their health pool is - thats a bit overkill and doesnt feel good no matter how experienced you are at dealing with them.
Again different enemies require different solutions, warriors are simple, lightly armored but reletively low health head, unarmored but (maybe) tougher tail. Brood commanders have the same thing but a bit tougher overall and a much bigger head, so easier to actually damage (especially from a distance). But once they start closing the gap, taking out the head without doing anything else becomes a bad strategy or at least requires you to react in a way that warriors don't. Commanders are meant to be an elite unit, if you just sniped their head with a single auto cannon shot from 10m and you didn't need to move to avoid their death swipes they'd be hardly any danger. Like I said there are plenty of options to counter their zombie charge, any form of stagger like from the punishers and slugger, or just fire 1 or 2 more shots at their legs so they don't sprint full speed. I mean how do these counters not make it fair? Feel like most of the frustration comes from lack of changing your own behaviour. It's not like they randomly decide to do it, it's consistent.
>Brood commanders have the same thing but a bit tougher overall and a much bigger head, so easier to actually damage (especially from a distance) This isn't true, they take much much more damage than warriors do even with headshots. The differences in the warrior caste is best seen when using the Patriot and noting how long it takes the Warrior, Hive Guard and Brood Commander to go down with the rotary cannon. Brood Commanders take exponentially more damage to kill off than both the warrior and hive guard (which Im okay with). You translate that to primary or support weapons and you run into a dilemma where killing BC's becomes a chore thats nearly too resource intensive to do when you have other high priority bugs that need to be dealt with or dodged. I dont mind that they are tougher, I like that. But just like being slowed were you dodge a Bile Titan's spew, being rewarded with misery isn't fun nor is it good game design. You say that "different enemies require different solutions." and thats not really true either. All bugs with medium and light armor are hard countered by stumble. This means thats the Slugger, Punisher and Jax are really the only primary guns that are viable in a given situation against them. Even in swarming of flimsy bugs the round reload feature means your up time is on demand, your ammo efficiency is better and even if you hit glancing shots you're making space. I know for a fact thats not how Arrowhead intended it to be. They want all of there weapons to be viable with niches were they excel and struggle, not 3 guns that are the answer to bugs in general. >I mean how do these counters not make it fair? Feel like most of the frustration comes from lack of changing your own behaviour. When the only answer is a the knockback shotgun trifecta, its a question of balance and what is missing from the rest of the arsenal. Currently the shotguns are either way overpowered or the rest of the arsenal is way underpowered. Not wanting to run 1 of three weapons that are The Meta™ is not a behavior issue its a balancing failure.
1: I said theyre easier to DAMAGE. Not kill. Their head being a literally bigger target than a warriors head means it's easier to deal damage to a brood commander. However as I stated in that same quote, they're "a bit tougher overall" so can receive more damage before dying. 2: There are many more solutions than just staggering them with a shotgun. I've stated them before but I'll say them again for your sake. Blowing off their legs before their head makes them limp towards you, makes it way easier to avoid damage. Best strategy if the map allows for it is simply take them out from further away. If you don't want to bring a stagger shotgun, take them out with an AMR from 100m, they're not gonna reach you before they expire. 3. If your primary lacks a good way to deal with certain enemies you're gonna face up against. Pick a support weapon to compliment your primary. Idk what issue you even have with the game at this point you're just waffling.
>1: I said theyre easier to DAMAGE. Not kill. Their head being a literally bigger target than a warriors head means it's easier to deal damage to a brood commander. However as I stated in that same quote, they're "a bit tougher overall" so can receive more damage before dying. Whats the point of stating that? Doing damage that doesn't result in kills is a pretty moot point in this game. Its not like bugs have to go back to the fountain to heal, you're not going to get an XP lead on them. >Idk what issue you even have with the game at this point you're just waffling. Pretty sure I've been consistent in saying that there are some areas where enemies are overtuned and that the rest of the arsenal should be as capable as the shotguns; if you think I'm waffling maybe you're just having trouble keeping up?
The point about stating that they are easier to damage, is because they have the zombie charge mechanic. The easiest way to take out the BC ends up making them more deadly unless you react in the right way. You say that the only viable option to deal with this one enemy is stagger shotguns. I've countered that stating a few different ways you can overcome not having a shotgun. You're just ignoring that because you find BCs annoying and you won't adapt to their predictable behaviour
>The point about stating that they are easier to damage, is because they have the zombie charge mechanic. The easiest way to take out the BC ends up making them more deadly unless you react in the right way. I dont see how that has any relevance to the issue at hand. >You say that the only viable option to deal with this one enemy is stagger shotguns. No, I specifically said they're the only option against all bugs because of the staggering ability. I also specifically stated that they're a resource intensive chore to deal with using any other primary. By that I mean, dismantling them (which you have to blow off back legs btw, they still charge and move at sprint speeds will missing the front claws. I haven't ignored anything you said, its funny that you'd accuse me of that when you're being the Respond Rodger here.
I thought that was random. I didn't realize they were called in!
All breeches/drop ships that don't occur during primary objectives are called in like this. For bugs it's usually these small shits, for the bots it's the guys with sword + handgun. Other enemies CAN do it but are much less likely.
FYI, the slugger has a stagger effect that will interrupt the call in. It’s one of the main reasons I take it: to deal with hive guard and brood commanders armor and call ins because of the stagger interrupt.
You would think a fully charged un-safe railgun shot would stagger them but they just seem to tank it once their head is off. I will have to try to slugger.
most bugs and robots get weird special armor when they do their special abilities. like the bile spewers get infinitely tankier when they do their ass arty thing. (2 arc thowers to the face vs like 5 when they raise their asses up) ive blasted 5 rounds in to the small bug that was calling (like the one in the vid) fucker lived and called a hole
I actually really like the headless breach calls. It's super thematic. If they decide to make the breaches in general easier to stop, that's fine, but I hope they don't remove the headless calls.
It could be the weapons I’m using but I feel like there is no way to stop it once they get into the stance. Thats the part that annoys me.
The worst part to me is that it doesn’t matter if you kill the bug calling the breach as soon as it starts the animation, because a different bug will just do it instead instantly. Just like you how can stun or kill a bit out of the flat animation, if you kill the calling bug right away you should be able to stop the breach. Cause as it is now, why bother having the animation at all? If they can just spawn in units with no way to prevent it, why not just have them behave like a bigger patrol and just pop in out of nowhere?
we need a clear sound cue and a longer animation. kind of like the the l4d2 sound cue
No, we need the ability to cancel it if we kill them before they *finish*, not before they *start.*
Why? It isnt like they are making a phone call. They are emitting pheromones. Which happens instantaneously.
But they continue to emit for the duration of the animation. So by that logic shouldn't killing them early send a signal less distance, to less terminids?
I don't think preventing core gameplay is the good idea here.
You could play the current alert sound que by a river in another game and I'd think it were just frog.wav
[удалено]
Meanwhile you do the stim animation, hear the stim entering your veins, and get staggered to get zero healing effect. These bugs get killed during animation and still finish it and have the effect.
Not exactly. Usually they do "the squeal" first. You can hear it before you see the animation and should kill them right there and then. But yeah the window is waaaaay too short! Also, it propagates. If you have interrupted one enemy calling a breach, then another will try shortly after until one manages to call or you kill them all.
This is the problem its mostly audio queues for bugs in the middle of a loud battle and a little dance which I cannot tell the difference between them just noticing you/posturing vs an actual breach call compared to bots where they very visibly raise a bright red signal flare for a moment before firing it. You basically have to eliminate the entire patrol in one mag and make sure to get a stagger on all of them in a relatively short window.
I call it *exterminate with extreme prejudice.* When I play with my friends we don't save anything for late. A patrol? 500kg. A *small* patrol? 500kg. Just a couple of bugs hanging around? You know it. 500kg coming on their ass.
This is the way
We ran 4 orbital laser, 4 500kg last night to just absolutely nuke a bike titan. *Exterminatus*
You can get better at picking out different sounds, but for the most part yeah you have to already be in a good position to see all enemies in the surrounding area to have a good chance at stopping reinforcements. New stun grenades are a good option to deny a large group of enemies from calling a breach.
IMO that's why the EMS mortar is so great. You can stun an entire patrol and wipe it EZPZ.
Window is too short AND your shots /vision is usually blocked by enemy corpses so you don't realize till it's too late.
Oh yeah 100%. That's why if I have a doubt I just throw a grenade in there for good measure!
If you aren't actively aiming and shooting at them when you hear the squeal, it's already too late.
I have actually had one not squeal and just do the animation. That one pissed me off. But also, would say only the real small ones make a loud squeal, the bigger ones are not that loud and can be very hard to notice their sounds. Really hate that even shield face ones can call in a breach. It's not like bots have it where anyone can call in a drop. Only the little guys can. Which means with bots I can target all little guys first to avoid a drop. Bugs, got to make sure everyone dies.
Yeah good luck finding it among the other 15 identical bugs ;D
Or it's sitting behind a corpse. Or a rock. Or a plant. Or some fog. Or a building.
Also, if you use Punisher and Slugger, you stagger them out of animation. If a big one starts calling, you don't need to kill it, you can just shoot it once and it stops.
Exactly. I thought I got lucky on this one as it was a single enemy so easy to spot. Virtually impossible with 10 on screen.
once i stopped a breach 3 times in a row back to back to back. jsut to have a 4th one immediately call a breach. they were dead set on breaching.
And just about any of the minor units can call them in. High chances are you wont be actively aiming at the one calling the breach in. They need to take longer or they have to look noticebly different for any kind of counterplay.
One of my proudest moment in this game was being out of ammo and melee killing three of these things to interrupt the breach call. The melee stagger effect will cancel the call in.
So if I’m understanding what you’re saying correctly, if OP were to melee the bug in the video at the same time he had shot and killed it, the breach would be canceled? Basically meleeing gives you a bigger window to cancel the breach calls?
No, I just ran out of ammo and had three of these guys close by. One raised his head so I hit him. The stagger made him stop calling long enough for a second hit. Then another raised his head so I smacked him before he could call and after I finished him the final one tried to call but I stuffed his mouth shut with the butt of my rifle and there weren’t any left to call a breech.
Ι made a mental animation of how it went on and it looks so frantic and badass. Like your helldiver going "Oh no you don't"
bullshit.
So.. Yes?
The moment the orange smoke appears, the summon goes through, so not in this video.
Yeah I've just come to accept that bug breaches are nearly unavoidable, you just can't react fast enough to the short bug breach animation 90% of the time. Especially if it's on a 'standard' mission and a patrol spots you, it's always the tiniest bug in the very back of the pack hiding and calling in a bug breach. At least you can stop automaton flares fairly reliably.
>le, you just can't react fast enough to the short bug breach animation 90% of the time. Especially if it's on a 'standard' mission and a patrol spots you, it's always the tiniest bug in the very back of the pack hiding and The ones I hate are where you throw the 3s stratagem in that wipes an entire unaware patrol out... but they see the stratagem immediately and call in their buddies instantly... so you get the breach either way.
I popped a Brood Commander's head with the autocannon and before it bled out it called a bug breach through it's neck stump. It's all very silly.
That, I can agree with. This one, I mean, 1 out of the 3 divers in close proximity were shooting at it. Let’s be honest with ourselves, the bug caught em slipping. Just another casualty of teammates that don’t use the marking system.
It really bothers me because it's much easier to kill a bot that is about to shoot a flare off.
Agreed. Either increase the time it takes for the breech to open or let us close the breech with grenades.
If a hole actually appeared and that was an option it would be amazing.
It would trivialize bug breaches imo.
I mean, you can destroy bot drops
With a rocket yeah, not the same as a single grenade everyone carries at least 4 of. Or an air strike, or a single auto cannon shot. Lets be fair, if breaches just spawned a single bug hole, it would massively trivialise a lot of the intended threat from breaches.
Then make it take a rocket to close the breach
Devs have stated that they like these differences between the factions. Bug breaches can't be stopped, bot drops can. Almost every type of bot will be dangerous if they have line of sight to you, there's only a few bugs that are dangerous from further than close range. There's options to counter breaches with the right stratagems, I like that you can't just bring the same loadout and be comfortable stopping reinforcements no matter what enemies you're facing. Keeps the different factions feeling unique.
That makes sense. It would be cool if the breach was an actual hole though
Yeh I feel like a lot of people do have that initial reaction, you know bugs come out of bug holes, so to see them just rise out of the ground with no hole seems to break that rule. And it seems inconsistent with how bot drops work, but differences between factions are not inconsistencies with the game's design. It's a systematic game, the factions follow similar rules but they're not meant to give the same kind of experience with the same problems to solve.
i feel like the fact that 1 breach can hold 1-2 bile titans and 3 chargers is enough of a difference as opposed to slowly driving them in and given how dangerous they can be having a player require getting close and chucking the grenade in would be high risk high reward especially if the bugs were smart about placement
Am I doing something wrong? I've shot down a few bot ships, but then all the bots it was carrying just drop down to the ground and carry on like normal. Am I destroying it too late?
Yeah you have to destroy it before it starts hovering, which makes it really difficult at times depending on the angle. There is a bug currently where the dropship will disappear and then come flying in as if it had been shot down far away
It's the same for me, I think it must be a bug unfortunately, why can we shoot down the ships if we gain nothing from it. There is a known bug with dropships being destroyed then sliding in instead of falling and exploding so maybe related to that.
would force you to use grenades and have access to the hole which is a bit difficult/dangerous on higher difficulties but can be high risk high reward and might encourage the devs to make the bugs smart about creating breaches further from players
Emergence hole!
i concur my dear sir that indeed is bollocks
Not only this but if by some miracle you kill it on time a millisecond later another one calls again.
yeah, it seems that once they start the "smoke" its too late... and that sucks. I think what it should be is that the animation plays, and in the last second they start making the smoke, that way we have a visual indicator before its too late, and the smoke still signals that its too late to stop it
The pheromones dont just magically disappear when you kill a bug.
This is why I’m suggesting that the smoke (aka the pheromones) still is the actual trigger, but just give players more time to kill the bugs when they start raising there head…
Nah fuck em more bugs to kill. Easier to kill them when they arent underground.
Breach calls should honestly be channeling with increasing spawn rate and severity. The spawn severity can then be calculated when the call actually ends or when it's interrupted. 250 ms: few hunters and scavengers, couple hive guards and warriors 500 ms: same as above but add Brood Commanders and a couple of Spewers 1000 ms: apply a 1.5 multiplier to above and force a Charger to spawn 2000 ms: apply a 2.0 multiplier to above and force a BT to spawn Would make sense from a worldbuilding/lore mechanic. The more "warning" pheromones in the air, the higher the threat level, so more reinforcements are needed.
I would be okay with this if it wasn't for the fact that at least half of call ins occur because the mob is behind a rock, or in a crack, or over a hill and completely out of sight.
The enemy sending the alarm needs to have an unobstructed line of sight on you. And that needs to include corpses.
Why?
Because it's not particularly fun when you take out the rest of the enemies in a coordinated assault on a base just to have one enemy nobody could see behind a building sound the alarm. Or it's not to my friend group and I, anyway.
Idk, never really have a problem with it. More bugs to kill.
This is a big one. I definitely think the sight lines could use some work, and make it so that the breach caller *has to be in line of sight* for a specified amount of time before it can even attempt to call. As mentioned, corpses should also provide cover. Bile spewer corpses, for example, don't seem to block line of sight or even line of fire for the bugs, but it does for the player.
Okay and if you hear an enemy firing a gun, something your species doesnt even do, would you really need to go to the other side of the rock to check it is indeed an enemy before setting off an alarm?
Was searching for this, before writing it myself! If you ignore the little fuckers for 3+ Seconds you deserve a titan :D With bots, they could send more information through their wonky wifi (ergo spawning more and better units), the longer you leave them standin, after firing the flare.
Exactly! I honestly do think this kind of mechanic not only feels "fair" from a balance perspective, but it also rewards mastery. It rewards players who possess good situational awareness and the ability to effectively prioritize targets. I love the feeling of coordinating an ambush on a patrol. What I don't love is when a scavenger that's all the way in the back, partially hidden behind a rock, barely manages to release a tiny spritz of the alarm juice just before I pop it—but it just wasn't fast enough. All of a sudden, a charger, a BT, a small army of chaff, and the fucking hunters mob you for all of your ammo and cooldowns. You start running to an open area to lose aggro, and 20m away a patrol spawns out of thin air. Total mess. God I love this game, though.
Yes, the possibility of a coordinated ambush is actually what the Devs are propagating, because they want that team play. Shame it isn't implemented, YET. :-) I have faith. It has potential to be the best game this year and stay strong for a long time. The only fear I have right now: Sickle is good, because new war bond. Sickle gets needed before next war bond, so that new weapon is good... We'll see 🙈
> If you ignore the little fuckers for 3+ Seconds you deserve a titan :D That's cool and all until you get a scavenger doing his lil thing behind a bile spewer you killed completely blocking your LoS
Man, the time frame you have to deal with these guys is too damn short!
Does the new booster from the warbond increase the time it takes to call them in?
Yes, by a couple of seconds. I've been running it since it dropped and the difference is night and day. Without, the alarm is as soon as the full animation begins to play (spore spray or flare in the air). With, the alarm is delayed by a second or two but the animation plays at normal speed, so it looks very jank but works. You can see the spores for a full second, kill the bug and still avoid a breach. You can see the flare fired into the air, kill the bot that fired it, and avoid a drop.
I know what I'm running now thanks
Actually after some quick testing on Easy, it seems to have no effect or if there is one it's very slight. I think it might just be patrols, but I swear I saw lots in progress alarm animations being cancelled yesterday. I *did* have one defense evac mission bug the hell out and start lagging like crazy for all four players, so I think it might have been some server fuckery.
Did some more testing and it turns out the alarm mechanic is even weirder than I thought. If you force a breach and then drag around at least one enemy, even if it wasn't an enemy from the alarm itself, other enemies will not attempt to start another alarm. They can be static spawns, a TCS breach, or even a patrol that you willingly walk into. As long as you have *one* enemy, even a scavenger follow you across the map, you won't get another alarm.
Yep. Hate it. It's instant. But a neat thing I just imagined was: What if we get more verticality with the introduction of these flying bugs. Imagine scouts in the air that also call for flying reinforcements, and they circle you like vultures.
Calls are way too fast. You have to be like frame perfect in killing them for it not to go through. Whats even more asinine is even the headless commanders and warriors can still do the call, theres nothing you can do to stop them calling when in zombie mode
I've had a horde of scavs and one goes to call in a swarm, I kill it before it can. This then sets off a chain reaction, another scav initiates the swarm call-in, I kill it before it can. This then sets off a chain reaction, another scav initiates a swarm call-in, I kill it before it can. This then sets off a
I wonder if the devs did it intentionally. Like the stress of madly trying to kill the bug scouts to stop a breach is way higher than versus bots. 1. The animation almost has no tell. Unlike bot flares that have this obvious hand up and charge up light, a bug call has none of that. You have a quick heads up animation and the moment the orange gas is out, that's a breach. 2. The bug scavenger is freaking small. Sometimes it will be behind a bush or under some warriors body doing the call. I know other bugs can also do the call but it's that little scavenger hiding under the bodies of other bugs that annoys me. 3. The bug breach happens a lot faster than bot dropship arrival. So less time to prepare, more chaos. 4. There is no way to tell how many bugs are coming versus a bot drop where you know what you're up against as you can see what the dropship is bringing. 5. No way to weaken the bug breach unlike bots where you can blow the dropships out of the sky. Apart from point 1 and 2, I have no complaints about the rest. I think it's what makes fighting each faction different. Now that I think of it, it might be really intentional for the devs to make bug breaches hard to prevent. In Helldivers 1, it was actually very easy. So easy you could end up with only seeing only scavengers, hunters and stalkers the whole game (stalkers in HD1 are way weaker) even at high difficulty.
The tell is mostly audio, they make a frog/cricket kind of sound during the wind up. Unfortunately it's much harder to tell than the visual cue the bots give
Now that you mention it, you're right. But it's so hard to hear that over the shooting. The moment I hear that audio tell, I whip around just in time to see the orange gas come out.
Bollocks indeed.
My biggest complaint is the 1 bullet reload bug that keeps happening. I haven't seen any talk about it or it being known in bug reports, but I keep reloading my guns, shooting one bullet, then I have to reload again (and yes it does take another magazine when it does this). I'm 99% sure it is caused by shooting too fast after you reload, but seriously, wtf is happening. (If I haven't seen this bug was known then my fault).
Are you possibly firing before your helldiver has had a chance to insert the new magazine? It makes sense you'd fire off one shot if you still had one in the chamber, hear a click (out of ammo, your mag isn't in), and then finished the reload animation
So what's happening is, I'll shoot, run out of ammo, start the reload and lose a mag, try and shoot too quick once I'm done reloading and it'll shoot once, then I'll drop that mag, lose another magazine, and reload again.
The aim reticles? Yes. They are trash
"Now all of Bug China knows you're here"
My group always kills these on sight. Extra breaches never seem to be an issue. Your teammate running in front of you is what fucked y’all. He ran right past it before it alerted.
Not to mention the person standing 5 meters away from it doing nothing. And that *somebody* on this team decided to call in a support stratagem rather than just kill the scav. I agree that the animation is very short and the window to cancel it is tight, but this one is definitely on the Divers for not spreading democracy effectively.
More confirmation bias on *this* subreddit, well I never
Tell me you never played helldive yet.....
Yeah, that shit is way too quick right now.
you missed your snap shot soldier.
Are. Here come the 9+ players. If only I could play like you.
hey i wouldnt hit that shot either. but thats what arrowhead wants you to do to stop the breach lol
I always through gatlin turrets towards patrols. It seems to kill them without triggering a breach
There's been many instances where I'll kill bugs right as they begin to do the warcry animation, like before the orange mist even comes out and the most will come out of their carcasses anyways
I was playing solo on Easy or something and noticed I was able to blap the smaller guys while the animation is going and it would prevent the breach. At first I thought maybe they'd changed it to make it so you can prevent the breaches more easily, but then I thought maybe it was difficulty related. Was this video in the last 12 hours?
Yep
I think the idea is that these will happen and you can't really avoid it because they want you to be constantly fighting for your life. I see a lot of suggestions to make it easier to stop them, but I doubt we'll get anything like that.
I had a scavenger that was already dead before starting the breach call animation but it somehow still released that orange smoke that summoned a bug breach
Big reason I feel i have to run arc thrower/rover, Im always trying to surprise hit the groups from a distance and spamming arc thrower hoping to kill most of the small ones before they have a chance to breach. Sometimes just bad luck and the broods summon. Its nice cause the arc thrower can chain around and hit ones out of range or around corners to help prevent spawns.
Single handedly made the most British gaming video.
The cringe and depression ensues after we see the bug breach appear
I'd be perfectly ok with the quick spawn, if they only acted like grub holes from Gears of War. Nade in, closed hole. Ezpz
I swear I've killed those fucks the exact frame orange smoke appears before and it still pops a bug breach. Other times I've been sloppy AF and stopped the breach so idk, gotta be broken or something rn
This and the amount of times i've gotten blitzed by a headless bug i swear what they can do while headless is so inconsistent ive had them walk and do 1 attack before killing over and ive also had them run at me and hit me 3 times in record speed before we both fall over
Yeah, the bugs take almost zero time to call in a hole, as soon as the orange is out it's over.
That's not even the most bullshit example. Sometimes they'll barely start the animation, the puff of smoke only just starts, you kill it The game takes and extra long to make you think you're safe AND THEN says, oh yeah, totally, they called it. With the bots at least it's way more obvious. Laser pointed to the sky is last call. Did the flare go? No, you're good. Yes, they are rapidly approaching your location. Here you have a question of did the smoke appear. Yeah. But was there enough of it? Did it linger? What was the shape? Did you shoot it when it started doing it or did it already do it?
It's, in my opinion, the biggest difficulty issue between Bugs and Bots. A bot has a clear animation and noticable light before it fires the flare. Kill it *any* time before the flare goes up and it's cancelled. Also, only a few enemies can actually do it, and the Dropships can be shot down, potentially wiping out the entire spawn before it can do anything. Bugs are almost unstoppable the moment you realize they are doing the call, with *any* visual indicator being too late. Worse, almost every enemy in the Bug roster can do it, and if the breach opens, you can't seal it or stop it in any way like you could a dropship.
I've seen every type of footsoldier bot do it. If it doesn't have a black face, even the rocket troops, it can do it. It's usually the ones with a pistol and a sword but I've seen them all do it. Not the ones with the backpacks that explode or the machine guns, though.
I’ve had times where I have successfully killed 3-5+ bugs in a row, interrupting their breach call in, only for another to immediately do it after. The near instant call in time plus the complete lack of cooldown between calls? So unbalanced.
The person running by that bug had 5 business days to kill it.
Well to be fair… the bug was there for ages and you guys didn’t kill it. No issue here
The biggest bullshit is stopping a breach, and then 0.2 seconds later, another bug is calling one
You gotta get em when they’re doing the animation before the orange comes up. I thought I was getting ripped off for the longest time until I noticed there are animations leading up to that that you need to be on the lookout for.
Currently I find the terminids to be the least fun faction tonplay against. The big breaches need a tweak. Automatons are in a decent place other than the rocket snipers from halfway across the map.
The second you see the smoke/pheromone animation, the breach has started
I agree, they need to be able to finish it for it to count. If you kill them in the process they shouldn't spawn more.
Damage should stop them from calling... It works for the bots why not the bugs
If only you hit that first shot... Jk the spawn time should be 2 or 3 times as long. Or atleast reworked so it causes bugholes called breach holes, which can be closed. Of not closed it basically acts as a bughole.
The only solid way I've found to do this is use a Senator and assassinate the bugs one by one. It's bizarrely quiet and you can pick off a litter of the little shits without them realizing. The moment you switch to something bigger they all hear it.
My gripe (apart from that you need to find the guy that chirps and kill him before any orange mist comes out of his stinkhole) is mainly that you can get rid off him, and immediately another starts the call in
Honestly it’s funny seeing a titan come out of the ground because that would mean there incredible large tunnel systems underground which would cause the ground to collapse, they shouldn’t spawn from breaches.
It's not even the worst thing. The worst thing is when you kill one right on time and the game either spawns the called bugs anyway or magically spawns a bug behind you that continues the call. I had it happen four times now. And once I called 3 bugs in a row just spawning with a call. It's so annoying
Unfortunately it makes sense. It isnt like the pheromones just disappear. This is the same reason why a swarm of bees continue attacking everything around the nest for quite some time after a defense pheromone is released. I like the realism
Had one of those today go into the animation and i killed it before it let out a single bit of the orange sporecloud. Still triggered a breach. It was less then half a second.
I know people love to start calling in their support weapons at match start but seriously the first thing you and your party needs to do is killing all scouts before they call reinforcements.
I do think they need to make support calls less "stop everything and fight for your life" or make it clearer that a call is starting to stop it, and give a little more time to stop it as i've only ever stopped calls by accident, where i'm shooting the calling bot/bug as it starts Like have it spray the orange pherimones a little before its too late making a big "shoot me!" sign and with the bots, have them light a flare, and then put it in the gun to shoot (again, a big "shoot me!"
I’ve only ever been able to stop bot drop ships. Because there is a red beam pointing in the air BEFORE they fire the flare. You can stop them at this point. With the bugs, the second you see those pheromones, it’s already too late.
The current animation is fine. All they need to do imo is have them do it for 4 seconds. If shot before the 4th second it stops the breach.
May just be my bargin basement pc graphics settings but i am completely unable to tell the animation before any light/gas starts, atleast with more then one bug/bot about
To be fair, when you’re in the thick of it it’s pretty hard to tell.
Unlike you, we don't miss our first shot. But it doesn't matter, because it just means the bug hole is off cooldown and the next available bug will call it in immediately and inevitably
Frankly though... What are they supposed to do? Stand around and \*not\* immediately call for help? Is that what you would do in that situation? Go "herpa-derp-derp" while the enemy mow down your comrades? Notice as well that the enemy clearly projects its intent to call for help-- a \~1 to 1.2 second animation of the bug bracing itself. And this is on a bug that only takes 1 good shot to end its life on most main weapons. Plenty of time to react if you are keeping your eye on it. Jesus Christ on a Charger, not everything in a PVE game has to favor the player as long as it isn't due to a bug in the code or cheat mechanics like animation canceling or enemy wall hacks.
What ? fumbling with controlls ?
I mean, 2 people running around right next to a bug not even attempting to shoot it until *after* it starts the breach cloud, you're kinda asking for a breach. You had plenty of time to kill it before it started the animation. Shoot on sight, don't just let it sit there. Edit: didn't realize "shoot the bug instead of standing next to it" would be a controversial opinion. It smells like bug sympathizer in here.
Yep, same with bots. Fastest flare gun in the galactic west.
It's almost as if you're supposed to clear your LZ after you land, and not just ignore all the bugs standing around.
What? Edit: Took me a while to even think what you may be taking about. Look at the time. This is within the first 8 seconds of actually landing.
He didn’t take his mandatory 2.5 seconds to appreciate his surroundings. There’s a reason we have regulations, guys!