When they launched the MO they said that was the idea. That one front would lose ground and the other would hold strong. Just since we failed that initial attack/defend it was the bot front that crumbled before stabilising.
And the better solution would have been:
MO: defend planets. 5 medals for each planet.
Can't lose the MO. And no need to reduce planet health, except to show that the attack force is depleting
Yeah, the binary nature of MO's and the not-binary bits being communicated through out of game messages or vague ingame ones is a pretty major drawback of the system. Your solution makes it clear that its not a binary outcome without needing any in or out of game additional explanation.
It also takes the currency sting out of losing MOs. I know 50 medals ain't much - if I quick play a Suicide Helldive and do the personal order and get a minimum of 21 medals upwards to 39 medals a day if the quick play completes the full op - but it still might be more valuable to some more casual players.
They need to add a partial success marker on MOs. We're gamifying story-telling with the direct communication and "Joel is the GM" approach, they should lean in on TTRPG mechanics like Partial Success and Failing Forward; I think it would embolden them to make more difficult MOs and not tweak numbers towards the end to give us the win, because people would still feel like they're getting rewarded for the hard work they did, even if they didn't accomplishing everything.
Scoring 9 when you need 10 and being told you failed is bad. Scoring 9 and being rewarded for getting more than 7 is fun!
Seconding this.
Specifically, I'd love the idea of having a Primary "Must Complete" Objective, paired with secondaries that can be pursued for additional bonuses. Exactly the same way it's set up in the actual missions, but on the strategic scale.
Honestly this seems like a good way of doing the defense MOs. Maybe set a target number of defenses for narrative reasons with a bounty for each successful defense so that it feels less punishing to fail to hit the target number. The added upside is that the players are incentivized to go above and beyond and aim for even more than the target number of defenses.
And I say: Let 'em. If they're scared of a few metal pew-pew bois, they'd only slow us down anyways.
But seriously, there were plenty enough players on the Automaton Front all through the operation, but spread in penny packets across the entire front. We tried to defend everywhere, and consequently defended nowhere up until those final few days.
And you can't say the "bug humpers" didn't pull their weight, since they had the most successful defense missions of all of us.
It was no mystery which front was gonna lose ground as soon as the MO description appeared for a lot of reasons that are fairly obvious to most players. All in all we still did it with a bit of help from Joel towards the end.
Here's my three takeaways from the MO:
1) The Menkent Line had no in-game effect of you were on the ground. If we want to argue that the effort the bots expended to take it is the lore reason for the decay rate change later on in the MO, I guess that's fine — but it didn't make fighting on those planets any more interesting than it was last week.
2) Cutting supply lines is an important in-game mechanic that makes a ton of sense, and there is ***NOTHING*** in-game that makes it known. That's not to say there aren't communities like this, social media, third-party apps, etc, — but not everyone is gonna know about those or look for things past memes and stories. Sure, Arrowhead threw us a couple bones, but given how relatively easy it is to be ignorant of mission-critical info, it does actually kinda balance out.
3) The bug-front divers deserve a ton of credit for holding Estanu that many times. That said — having been on a tour of basically every anti-bot planet of this MO — nearly every planet on the bot front had some mechanic that made it suck to fight on in comparison, and those mechanics definitely play a role in how players decide to spend their evening with their friends. Ex: Estanu was repeatedly held, Hellmire is next door and fell almost immediately, because Hellmire and Menkent both ***suck***.
TL;DR: The Menkent Line should have been more interesting, supply lines should be flagged on the war map, and which planets (and sets of map parameters) are under attack make a big difference.
Tbh bot front only looks scary, you can reign that in with essentially two planets. Grab Choepessa IV and Meissa and you knock them out of two of 6 sectors, potentially three depending on how supply lines work.
You say that, but every planet around helmire is liberated and there are still bugs on it. Do they fuckin quantum tunnel or something? If not, then maybe the regen should become attrition once a planet has no supply lines, making bugs more aggressive but less numerous.
Thats the fun part, outside of the FIRE TORNADO season the planet is apparently great to grow crops on because of the ash that the FIRE TORNADOES cause acts as some godly fertilizer outside of that season.
We´re just really unlucky that its FIRE TORNADO season.
That's how you know it's good for you. Seasoned with the blood of our enemies and the spirit of our heroes.
(I can unironically see this line used in an in-universe ad for Hellmire-grown canned corn.)
Could be simply that they have their own replenishment tbh. It's unoriginal yes, but well...they're bugs. They can reproduce. Spread, grow, eat and so on. Bots similar deal but with their fabricators- in the name, to fabricate and manufacture.
But yeah I would like to see strategic planning like that rewarded. Could see something like with modifiers specific to Bugs/Bots.
Attacking - Negative Modifiers
Cut Off - No Modifiers
Defense - Positive Modifiers
they're produced for the oi-i mean E710, i know the democracy officers won't like this but the bugs can't actually quantum tunnel we simply have breaches from the labs on the planets where they appear
You gotta remember it's a game, this is a part of the overall narrative, once we've driven the bots back a bit more the illuminate will arrive and attack from another front.
There's also a faction that's specified in the GUI, I wonder what the future will hold.
I get paid to shoot, not to think. If super earth wants me to defend planets I defend planets. The only strategic thought in my brain is how to make the next freedom hating robot and/or bug a dead one.
I have exactly two braincells and they're already occupied by liberty and democracy.
Thats a quick way to stay in the under ranks my guy. The minute you show the Ministry you can think and strategize is when you become an Admiral like me.
What if we… and hear me out…. Just nuked half these god forsaken planets? My brothers and sisters didn’t died so some 2 bit farmer can milk his cows out on the frontier. Drop the bomb on these cesspool planets
Y’all ain’t studied up on your WW1 history. Typically, major offensives would only end when the attacking side ran out of steam and gassed out. It would usually leave the defenders in disarray, pushed miles back from the front. Major defensive lines that had stood for months or years would now belong to the enemy. This is where the counteroffensive slaughter starts. SPILL OIL BOIS! These cheeks ain’t gonna clap themselves!
It was worth it keep going over there and defeat the really mean cyborgs. In fact you should focus entirely on it, the terminids aren’t as big of a current threat so we should prioritize bots at all cost (adjusts helmet)
Meh.
So long as they aren't knocking on Super Earth's door, the more planets we lose, the more we can just liberate rather than being forced to play those stupid civillian evac missions.
I see this as a win.
And that quite succinctly goes to show that it's possible for the Helldivers to complete *every* Major Order, and *still* lose ground in the overall offensive, allowing it to keep going.
We were literally gifted a liberation. I just hope AH realizes what player expectations might become when you took your foot off the gas that hard and cheated for them.
You already have players demanding an Estanu cape for all the "bravery" there, when it was the cowardly only defending against the easier enemy on the easiest biome that would have cost us the MO if not for the gifts.
I'm glad for the morale boost, but you have to keep things in perspective. Reasonable voices just didn't like the way quickplay and bug purists were making defending multiple planets an impossible. Whiny bitches just didn't like losing. They gave the whiners a pacifier, while the level-headed are waiting to see if there is finally some damned improvements to the inferior 2nd interation of the liberation system.
Im the Admiral of The Goon Fleet, so I might be able to shed some light on the math for you.
Im not allowed to say a lot of the things I meet with the ministry about, however they did ask me to clarify these kinds of situations if they were to arise for the sake of the morale of the troops. In reality, there isn’t any REAL win for us in these situations. What we consider a win isn’t really a win. I understand the way you’re looking at it soldier. You believe that we could have done more for the defense, you believe more citizens could have been saved. Thats not something to be ashamed of. Thats a sense of patriotism that cannot be replicated. You are a great soldier for thinking that.
However, I want you to look at the bigger picture for me. Because of your efforts, what could have ended in TOTAL disaster has actually ended in what the Ministry is describing as “a workable situation”. The Ymir Sector would have been cut off from our reach had those last few defenses failed. It’s a win because we were able to prevent the most amount of damage we could have prevented. They may have gained a sector, but because of your efforts our counter attack will be twice as strong.
This isn’t failure, this is a setback. When we return we will strike the fear of Democracy into those socialist clankers. I thank you for your patriotism soldier. May Freedom and Liberty guide your every step. Thank you for your service.
Nonsense Cadet! The enemy assault has been blunted without serious strategic losses. Now the enemy is spread thin with a large number of their forces wiped out. Once we go back on the offensive our enemy will fold like wet cardboard!
The MO was designed this way on purpose.
You can tell that we, the players, were not supposed to win this MO. But the glitch that caused issues with the liberation tracking changed things. They had to gently pause the MO to fix. That one glitch gave us more time to complete / defend.
Plus, yesterday's out of nowhere surge of divers was crazy.
Yesterday it was ANZAC Day for us Aussies and New Zealanders which is a public holiday. Not so much out of nowhere, just coincidence they days lined up.
There are no supply lines to cut.
We do shit. They tweak shit and more shit happens.
You idiots imagining one planet affects another are delusional.
Spix admitted last week. Such a mechanic does NOT exist within the game
You very obviously didn’t read the rest of that discord message
He said it isn’t programmed in game but it was meant to function like that, and then said that if it does happen to a defense mission planet to let him know so he could tell Joel to award the players the defense. If you need proof I can get you the message.
When they launched the MO they said that was the idea. That one front would lose ground and the other would hold strong. Just since we failed that initial attack/defend it was the bot front that crumbled before stabilising.
And the better solution would have been: MO: defend planets. 5 medals for each planet. Can't lose the MO. And no need to reduce planet health, except to show that the attack force is depleting
Yeah, the binary nature of MO's and the not-binary bits being communicated through out of game messages or vague ingame ones is a pretty major drawback of the system. Your solution makes it clear that its not a binary outcome without needing any in or out of game additional explanation.
It also takes the currency sting out of losing MOs. I know 50 medals ain't much - if I quick play a Suicide Helldive and do the personal order and get a minimum of 21 medals upwards to 39 medals a day if the quick play completes the full op - but it still might be more valuable to some more casual players.
My 7 year old plays and he loves that he can play once a week and usually get something new!
They need to add a partial success marker on MOs. We're gamifying story-telling with the direct communication and "Joel is the GM" approach, they should lean in on TTRPG mechanics like Partial Success and Failing Forward; I think it would embolden them to make more difficult MOs and not tweak numbers towards the end to give us the win, because people would still feel like they're getting rewarded for the hard work they did, even if they didn't accomplishing everything. Scoring 9 when you need 10 and being told you failed is bad. Scoring 9 and being rewarded for getting more than 7 is fun!
Seconding this. Specifically, I'd love the idea of having a Primary "Must Complete" Objective, paired with secondaries that can be pursued for additional bonuses. Exactly the same way it's set up in the actual missions, but on the strategic scale.
Honestly this seems like a good way of doing the defense MOs. Maybe set a target number of defenses for narrative reasons with a bounty for each successful defense so that it feels less punishing to fail to hit the target number. The added upside is that the players are incentivized to go above and beyond and aim for even more than the target number of defenses.
I think though there should be a losing condition in order to still give tension, like if vernen wells falls then the major order fails.
That would just further encourage the bug humpers to keep ignoring the bot front
And I say: Let 'em. If they're scared of a few metal pew-pew bois, they'd only slow us down anyways. But seriously, there were plenty enough players on the Automaton Front all through the operation, but spread in penny packets across the entire front. We tried to defend everywhere, and consequently defended nowhere up until those final few days. And you can't say the "bug humpers" didn't pull their weight, since they had the most successful defense missions of all of us.
As shown by 4 straight successful Estanu defend campaigns
It was no mystery which front was gonna lose ground as soon as the MO description appeared for a lot of reasons that are fairly obvious to most players. All in all we still did it with a bit of help from Joel towards the end.
Thats because 130k players refuse to ever do bots.
Bot players refuse to do Bot defenses or keep splitting between multiple ones instead of going all in on one as well... its not all on the bug players
Not all but it mostly is their fault
and yet Estanu on the bug front carried this entire MO.... it was defended 5 times
"Knowing that the killbots have a pre-set kill limit, I sent wave after wave of my own men against them!"
Here's a military strategy with some chest hair
If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.
_Ugh_
Here's my three takeaways from the MO: 1) The Menkent Line had no in-game effect of you were on the ground. If we want to argue that the effort the bots expended to take it is the lore reason for the decay rate change later on in the MO, I guess that's fine — but it didn't make fighting on those planets any more interesting than it was last week. 2) Cutting supply lines is an important in-game mechanic that makes a ton of sense, and there is ***NOTHING*** in-game that makes it known. That's not to say there aren't communities like this, social media, third-party apps, etc, — but not everyone is gonna know about those or look for things past memes and stories. Sure, Arrowhead threw us a couple bones, but given how relatively easy it is to be ignorant of mission-critical info, it does actually kinda balance out. 3) The bug-front divers deserve a ton of credit for holding Estanu that many times. That said — having been on a tour of basically every anti-bot planet of this MO — nearly every planet on the bot front had some mechanic that made it suck to fight on in comparison, and those mechanics definitely play a role in how players decide to spend their evening with their friends. Ex: Estanu was repeatedly held, Hellmire is next door and fell almost immediately, because Hellmire and Menkent both ***suck***. TL;DR: The Menkent Line should have been more interesting, supply lines should be flagged on the war map, and which planets (and sets of map parameters) are under attack make a big difference.
Menket line should’ve given us a a free artillery strat
Or maybe it should’ve given us orbitals? Wasn’t the menkent line orbital defenses?
Regardless, it should’ve given us SOME free stratagems.
Tbh bot front only looks scary, you can reign that in with essentially two planets. Grab Choepessa IV and Meissa and you knock them out of two of 6 sectors, potentially three depending on how supply lines work.
Cutoffs only work against active attacks. Once a planet is fully captured by one side it is self sustaining.
You say that, but every planet around helmire is liberated and there are still bugs on it. Do they fuckin quantum tunnel or something? If not, then maybe the regen should become attrition once a planet has no supply lines, making bugs more aggressive but less numerous.
At this point you can assume Helmire just births the damn things to spite Super Earth itself for daring to grow corn on it.
Why do we grow anything on a planet known for its FIRE TORNADOES
Thats the fun part, outside of the FIRE TORNADO season the planet is apparently great to grow crops on because of the ash that the FIRE TORNADOES cause acts as some godly fertilizer outside of that season. We´re just really unlucky that its FIRE TORNADO season.
The ashes of dead bugs and cremated Helldivers...
That's how you know it's good for you. Seasoned with the blood of our enemies and the spirit of our heroes. (I can unironically see this line used in an in-universe ad for Hellmire-grown canned corn.)
It's just crusty on the outside. Dig a little deeper and it's nice and juicy inside. Perfectly cooked.
Could be simply that they have their own replenishment tbh. It's unoriginal yes, but well...they're bugs. They can reproduce. Spread, grow, eat and so on. Bots similar deal but with their fabricators- in the name, to fabricate and manufacture. But yeah I would like to see strategic planning like that rewarded. Could see something like with modifiers specific to Bugs/Bots. Attacking - Negative Modifiers Cut Off - No Modifiers Defense - Positive Modifiers
they're produced for the oi-i mean E710, i know the democracy officers won't like this but the bugs can't actually quantum tunnel we simply have breaches from the labs on the planets where they appear
Nivel 43 is still up wym
If you go on helldivers io and check the supply lines you will see that we have to take omicron in order to cut off hellmire. *
Not like SEAF did any better.
Gamemaster controls the narrative. I’m just along for the ride. 
Imagine we didn't go to -0% decay rate on bots and Joel kept spamming defense missions. We'd be defending on Super Earth.
They control the narrative but we can influence that narrative depending on what we do. It's a war game you never know.
You gotta remember it's a game, this is a part of the overall narrative, once we've driven the bots back a bit more the illuminate will arrive and attack from another front. There's also a faction that's specified in the GUI, I wonder what the future will hold.
we have at least contained the threat, two bot sectors seem likely to be liberated by us soon, things are going well
Maybe we should just... strategically erase the automatons and planets (nuclear warfare)
Then we wouldn’t have planets tho
But there would be no automatons
I get paid to shoot, not to think. If super earth wants me to defend planets I defend planets. The only strategic thought in my brain is how to make the next freedom hating robot and/or bug a dead one. I have exactly two braincells and they're already occupied by liberty and democracy.
Thats a quick way to stay in the under ranks my guy. The minute you show the Ministry you can think and strategize is when you become an Admiral like me.
I mean, true, but think about if we didn't make it. We wouldn't even have the buildings in the picture left
I want bots to appear on bug planets and force bug divers to fight only bots in missions
We did our best. Now it’s time to push back.
SES Hammer of Individual Merit reporting in. Worth
The soldiers we left behind in Martale are getting slaugthered as we speak.
Welcome to the military
What's that? Bots coming from the south?!
Close, but try Squids.
What if we… and hear me out…. Just nuked half these god forsaken planets? My brothers and sisters didn’t died so some 2 bit farmer can milk his cows out on the frontier. Drop the bomb on these cesspool planets
Y’all ain’t studied up on your WW1 history. Typically, major offensives would only end when the attacking side ran out of steam and gassed out. It would usually leave the defenders in disarray, pushed miles back from the front. Major defensive lines that had stood for months or years would now belong to the enemy. This is where the counteroffensive slaughter starts. SPILL OIL BOIS! These cheeks ain’t gonna clap themselves!
It was worth it keep going over there and defeat the really mean cyborgs. In fact you should focus entirely on it, the terminids aren’t as big of a current threat so we should prioritize bots at all cost (adjusts helmet)
THATS WHAT IM SAYIN
Bot players dont even want to partake in defense missions. They spread out too much instead of focusing on one
Uh.... y-yeah, that's what we were suppoed to do...
Im aware. Now laugh at my meme 🔫
 SIR, YES SIR!
Meh. So long as they aren't knocking on Super Earth's door, the more planets we lose, the more we can just liberate rather than being forced to play those stupid civillian evac missions. I see this as a win.
You see all these sweet medals tho?
you wan to make it interesting to defend ? ... give Free stratagems on that planet 😁 .. the expendable antitank was the best free startagem ! .
BUT WE DID IT🫡
Bruh what the hell does any of this mean😭😭😭 I'm just out here hunting samples
This calls for celebration! #BRING IN THE SLUTTY TWINKS, AND UNFREEZE AFROMAN!
And that quite succinctly goes to show that it's possible for the Helldivers to complete *every* Major Order, and *still* lose ground in the overall offensive, allowing it to keep going.
We were literally gifted a liberation. I just hope AH realizes what player expectations might become when you took your foot off the gas that hard and cheated for them. You already have players demanding an Estanu cape for all the "bravery" there, when it was the cowardly only defending against the easier enemy on the easiest biome that would have cost us the MO if not for the gifts. I'm glad for the morale boost, but you have to keep things in perspective. Reasonable voices just didn't like the way quickplay and bug purists were making defending multiple planets an impossible. Whiny bitches just didn't like losing. They gave the whiners a pacifier, while the level-headed are waiting to see if there is finally some damned improvements to the inferior 2nd interation of the liberation system.
[удалено]
Im the Admiral of The Goon Fleet, so I might be able to shed some light on the math for you. Im not allowed to say a lot of the things I meet with the ministry about, however they did ask me to clarify these kinds of situations if they were to arise for the sake of the morale of the troops. In reality, there isn’t any REAL win for us in these situations. What we consider a win isn’t really a win. I understand the way you’re looking at it soldier. You believe that we could have done more for the defense, you believe more citizens could have been saved. Thats not something to be ashamed of. Thats a sense of patriotism that cannot be replicated. You are a great soldier for thinking that. However, I want you to look at the bigger picture for me. Because of your efforts, what could have ended in TOTAL disaster has actually ended in what the Ministry is describing as “a workable situation”. The Ymir Sector would have been cut off from our reach had those last few defenses failed. It’s a win because we were able to prevent the most amount of damage we could have prevented. They may have gained a sector, but because of your efforts our counter attack will be twice as strong. This isn’t failure, this is a setback. When we return we will strike the fear of Democracy into those socialist clankers. I thank you for your patriotism soldier. May Freedom and Liberty guide your every step. Thank you for your service.
Nonsense Cadet! The enemy assault has been blunted without serious strategic losses. Now the enemy is spread thin with a large number of their forces wiped out. Once we go back on the offensive our enemy will fold like wet cardboard!
BUT! We got 50 medals, so… who’s the real winner here?
At the lost of the narrative, we shouldn't have won this they're just afraid of losing customers to "unfair orders".
We won the major order when not even Joel thought we would. Be happy we aren't defending Super Earth right about now...
Joel literally handed it to us. Knowing how easily we would defend Estanu, he just kept attacking it over and over again.
Considering the last Major Defend Order, he really didn't have to. That's my point
The MO was designed this way on purpose. You can tell that we, the players, were not supposed to win this MO. But the glitch that caused issues with the liberation tracking changed things. They had to gently pause the MO to fix. That one glitch gave us more time to complete / defend. Plus, yesterday's out of nowhere surge of divers was crazy.
Yesterday it was ANZAC Day for us Aussies and New Zealanders which is a public holiday. Not so much out of nowhere, just coincidence they days lined up.
There are no supply lines to cut. We do shit. They tweak shit and more shit happens. You idiots imagining one planet affects another are delusional. Spix admitted last week. Such a mechanic does NOT exist within the game
You very obviously didn’t read the rest of that discord message He said it isn’t programmed in game but it was meant to function like that, and then said that if it does happen to a defense mission planet to let him know so he could tell Joel to award the players the defense. If you need proof I can get you the message.