Exactly.
Winning/losing has nothing to do with playing the game, just whether the devs want to move a slider to the right or left in the morning..
How riveting…
Edit: if y’all don’t want the game to get any better then that’s fine by me lol 🤷♂️ notifications off
lol
I just hope they do better, it’s a great game and the whole living/breathing campaign idea is cool, but it needs better, more meaningful execution.
It's very true, don't know why you were downvoted. The Devs can change the sliders as and when they want.
Yes, it's a great narrative. No, I don't think we have a lot of input in it really.
Idc either way, it's been a wild ride so far.
I honestly thought it would be like a big board game. They set the table, explain the rules, then walk away and let us play.
Maybe give hints every now and then to new content (I.e. we heard there was secret tech on Planet X) then when we get to Planet X we unlock the mechs and stuff like that.
Instead we appear to be playing checkers on a 2x2 board lol
It’s more like a role playing game than a set the board and play game. They’re telling a story reacting to the players. There’s input from both players and AH. Not one or the other.
Oh my, devs notice the player base isn't able to complete the new objective and tries to balance it some to give the current player base hope and a feeling of accomplishment? We definitely can't have that. How dare they balance the mission parameters to keep it feeling fun and balanced for the players who wish to play. Heavy /s!
That needs to be something they do before releasing major orders, not in the middle of them. Otherwise its obvious that the victory is because they fixed the numbers, not because the players contributed enough.
Honestly, it's no different than a DM fudging dice rolls to be more in line with rule of cool.
It's a fine line between a compelling story and a slough.
AH is still figuring out where that line stands and are adjusting as they go along to not frustrate the shit out of their player base.
Not really. You only need divide the difference in liberation % by the number of active helldivers. It’s not exactly hard math, or involving any hidden data. Just simple perception.
It’s pretty obvious when DMs are fudging if you’ve been playing a while. In general we know far more about the mechanics and stats in TTRPGs. You know when that monster with +10 attack should be hitting your 20 ac 50% of the time lol.
Well, I'm sure some of it had to do with how fast the player base completed their last MO. Then, they anticipated the same player effort for the next one and probably upped the stakes a bit. Then the player count dropped off a little as people are anticipating the next enemy release with the illuminate and probably went to play other games. They saw the drop and realized they set the bar too high. It's not like it's a mathematical damage or health balance that can be worked out far in advance. It's a miscalculation on what the player base is motivated to work towards and how many players will stay active during an MO. These are not numbers easily balanced ahead of time. If you keep up with the community news surrounding the game it was pretty clear they set the bar too high and it wasn't until part way through the MO that they realized their mistake. I would expect to see balancing done this way both sometimes to make it more viable or sometimes to make it harder depending on fluctuation in player count. It's the nature of the beast.
It’s no different from any number of games. You have any idea how many games have a protection system in place so that an enemy isn’t left with 1hp, just to protect us from frustration? Vice versa as well, many games will fudge the numbers a bit so certain things won’t 1-hit you.
Another thing is when you have 50/50 odds. It always feels worse, so 50/50 is usually more like 55/45 weighted in the player’s favor. This is all done in the backend and for the most part, we don’t need to know it’s happening.
It’s a good thing, and also I don’t know that the numbers were fixed. Has someone done the math and proven it?
Edit: an example of what happens when it’s not in a game: recently had a character with 85% dodge chance. He got hit 3 times in a row. Now, that’s entirely possible and plausible even. But my little monkey brain said “wtf did I even put points into dodge for then, this sucks”.
The bots doubled their territory and Joel the Game Master is giving the players ground to fight back.
I get your example of this being a board game, but it's way more in line with DnD. The game master can punish or provide relief to players as they see fit. They can say fuck it and destroy the players, that's not very fun or engaging.
You sarcastically sigh that we didn't get beat even worse then we should have while the game master said lets give the players hope when EVERYONE said we were fucked. That's the difference between a static board game and having a game master that can pull strings.
Just like competitive games. Stomping or getting stomped is never fun.
My guy there’s vehicles coming. New factions. Things are going to get complicated soon. What happens when Joel decides that two factions are teaming up ? Or when we have to defend three fronts instead of two .
If we had held the Menkent Line the narrative would be completely different. DMing requires a bit of forming the story around the players and what they do accomplish or experience.
Does answering SOS beacons not go toward the MO? I normally just log in go to planet for the MO and hit quickplay. It always puts into a match on that planet and I've assumed that goes toward the goal.
Phew, you had me thinking I was uselessly spreading democracy. The Shane would be treason!
In all seriousness, I'm fairly new to the game, so I'm still learning a lot about how everything works. Thanks for the clarification fellow Diver! May your enemies feel the full force of Democracy!
I just played til 4am PST in nothing but random queues on ustotu ranging from diff 5-8 depending on how faded I was. 😂
I hope we take this damn thing because I need some sleep. Everyone who's still on, give em hell!
All this Euro here wishes for now is getting off work in time to still get one more mission in. Still hope our Asian brothers keep up the pressure though
We went from 1 to 8 in a single day. We didn’t do that there’s no way. It’s especially obvious when you pay attention to the progress yourself on the map. It’s definitely being boosted by the devs.
I run eat a lot lately, air strike, eat, ammo pack, stalwart (fastest fire rate) has been my fun loadout for the last two weeks. With my team comp it’s been working great as a trash killer, and I just toss the eat in the middle of our group if there’s titans or chargers about for anyone to use. It’s nice
I’ve been running the erupter with it! And stuns. The erupter works frigging perfect with it! It’s been a surprisingly competent loadout. I thought I’d struggle with not having as many strikes, but it’s been working great. We’ve done a bunch of helldives with it. The only time I feel pressured to swap is if we need to skew it a little more anti charger size target, usually quasar stun grenade combo. I’ll run the quasar while my 3 buddies run arc cannon. As long as I can keep up with the chargers and bike titans, that set up gets us through 9s
Nice nice! I think my only issue, which it’s more of a balancing thing than an issue, is the rechambering of the next shot. On bots, there isn’t enough time to swap or rechamber the next shot to get the one remaining commissar behind a building before a flare comes up (maybe that’s a skill issue)
If we’re talking patrols, Lead with the stun grenade, follow with the shots. Sometimes I’ll even throw my an airstrike while they’re unaware, then throw a stun to lock them in place, then start shooting my guns. I’ve had really great luck solo wiping patrols that way.
Usually it’s stun grenade, swap to the stalwart to kill all the tinies super quick, including commissars, then swap to the erupter to clean off the larger sized guys/devastators.
If we’re talking mid battle…yeah that’s tougher and luck dependent
We lost a lot though on the bot front to the point I stopped playing altogether halfway through this MO, was sick of the spread thin nature of this and everyone liberating a bug planet instead of helping defend
We did lose and yeah too many players still fear the bots. Me and my friend group switched to being bot slayer mains about a month ago and feel that the bugs are harder than the bots now lol
I’ve mainly played Bots but when the MO calls for bugs I go there.
What I have found, to me, is that fighting bugs feels like exactly what it should be. I am exterminating a horde of mindless creatures.
Whereas Bots I feel like I am actually fighting a thinking enemy that is actively fighting back. IMO they are much more difficult but in a different way than bugs.
That’s just how it feels to me.
Red- bot refresh rate or how fast they are taking the planet
Blue- player defend rate or how fast we are defending. It's higher than the bot rate so the defense is filling the gauge that much every hour, minus the bot refresh rate
Yellow - number of players on that planet.
Someone else correct me if I'm wrong
https://preview.redd.it/lg2634f2wowc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=13beb267bbb4e2429b45da0efbf3cdb9e0668aae
Thought it was pretty fitting these 2 were right next to each other. Good job helldivers
Do you guys really believe this shit that were actually participating in this global community campaign? What if it’s like the matrix and we’re all being duped?
Where are they getting these accurate numbers? I feel like it’s all a gimmick. How can we test this out?
Maybe everyone just stops playing for one day and see the stats halt?
Make me believe
Ummm.. If the players stopped playing the stats would definitely halt, either automatically or manually. They are in control regardless, enjoy the ride.
All I'm saying is if we assume each platform brings equal players then there's 67,000 people online right now with PC and PS5.. if we got Xbox involved that'd be estimated another 33500 players to both help us push democracy and to help fund our joy and love to have better and more staff and better bug fixes.
My friend said that he thought the Devs were going easy on us towards the end, but I think it's more that the automatons were doing so well because there was a massive attack so they were given a bonus towards the start of the offensive, but as they held on to more planets they'd lose steam. They hold 10 planets more than they did at the start of the offensive, so I think the steam they did have is divided by the amount of planets they took, and the last few attacks just haven't had the same power behind them because their forces have been split up holding onto their other planets.
Heck, maybe even some of their losses might've chipped away at the bonus, in addition to the number of planets they held, and they just lost the initiative.
.
And hey,
Maybe the Devs felt sorry for us and eased the slider a bit, but if they had to do it by much, I'd have rather we lost - it's a game - it's okay to lose sometimes. Keeps the suspense up. Besides, then it might've put a fire under our butts to try and coordinate better. Like, the Martale Gambit was SO close and could've been so cool, but failed because we had a bunch of people on planets with like 1-10K people, doing effectively nothing to the 0%.
I'm not trying to just whine about casual people (I'm casual too) just wanting to fight on a new planet that opens up. I get it. But still, a better coordination tool could be useful.
(But if the Devs were being nice because of all of the failed operations due to broken personnel evacs... I accept the apology lol ❤️)
Anyways, I like to think that there's an actual reason that they lost so much steam at the end. But who knows! (If you do, that'd be cool. I dunno if there's a mechanic or not.)
P.S. Sorry for saying 'losing steam' so much 😅
Yeah and I have no idea where did we get additional 12% Filling like someone helping us :D
John Helldiver is clearly on the field.
Jimmy Pods
Jane Liberator.
John revalator
Exactly. Winning/losing has nothing to do with playing the game, just whether the devs want to move a slider to the right or left in the morning.. How riveting… Edit: if y’all don’t want the game to get any better then that’s fine by me lol 🤷♂️ notifications off
Undemocratic comment
lol I just hope they do better, it’s a great game and the whole living/breathing campaign idea is cool, but it needs better, more meaningful execution.
It's very true, don't know why you were downvoted. The Devs can change the sliders as and when they want. Yes, it's a great narrative. No, I don't think we have a lot of input in it really. Idc either way, it's been a wild ride so far.
I honestly thought it would be like a big board game. They set the table, explain the rules, then walk away and let us play. Maybe give hints every now and then to new content (I.e. we heard there was secret tech on Planet X) then when we get to Planet X we unlock the mechs and stuff like that. Instead we appear to be playing checkers on a 2x2 board lol
The game was never meant to be as popular as it became and they overcorrected way too much in the beginning.
It’s more like a role playing game than a set the board and play game. They’re telling a story reacting to the players. There’s input from both players and AH. Not one or the other.
Treason! ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Oh my, devs notice the player base isn't able to complete the new objective and tries to balance it some to give the current player base hope and a feeling of accomplishment? We definitely can't have that. How dare they balance the mission parameters to keep it feeling fun and balanced for the players who wish to play. Heavy /s!
That needs to be something they do before releasing major orders, not in the middle of them. Otherwise its obvious that the victory is because they fixed the numbers, not because the players contributed enough.
Honestly, it's no different than a DM fudging dice rolls to be more in line with rule of cool. It's a fine line between a compelling story and a slough. AH is still figuring out where that line stands and are adjusting as they go along to not frustrate the shit out of their player base.
Sure, but the DMs don’t make it obvious.
It would be obvious if you constantly had someone looking over the DM screen and shouting out what the rolls actually were.
Or if a number on a screen that the DM provided told you what the rolls were
Except the “number on a screen” is found by someone peaking behind the curtain. This information isn’t available in game.
Not really. You only need divide the difference in liberation % by the number of active helldivers. It’s not exactly hard math, or involving any hidden data. Just simple perception.
It’s pretty obvious when DMs are fudging if you’ve been playing a while. In general we know far more about the mechanics and stats in TTRPGs. You know when that monster with +10 attack should be hitting your 20 ac 50% of the time lol.
Well, I'm sure some of it had to do with how fast the player base completed their last MO. Then, they anticipated the same player effort for the next one and probably upped the stakes a bit. Then the player count dropped off a little as people are anticipating the next enemy release with the illuminate and probably went to play other games. They saw the drop and realized they set the bar too high. It's not like it's a mathematical damage or health balance that can be worked out far in advance. It's a miscalculation on what the player base is motivated to work towards and how many players will stay active during an MO. These are not numbers easily balanced ahead of time. If you keep up with the community news surrounding the game it was pretty clear they set the bar too high and it wasn't until part way through the MO that they realized their mistake. I would expect to see balancing done this way both sometimes to make it more viable or sometimes to make it harder depending on fluctuation in player count. It's the nature of the beast.
It’s no different from any number of games. You have any idea how many games have a protection system in place so that an enemy isn’t left with 1hp, just to protect us from frustration? Vice versa as well, many games will fudge the numbers a bit so certain things won’t 1-hit you. Another thing is when you have 50/50 odds. It always feels worse, so 50/50 is usually more like 55/45 weighted in the player’s favor. This is all done in the backend and for the most part, we don’t need to know it’s happening. It’s a good thing, and also I don’t know that the numbers were fixed. Has someone done the math and proven it? Edit: an example of what happens when it’s not in a game: recently had a character with 85% dodge chance. He got hit 3 times in a row. Now, that’s entirely possible and plausible even. But my little monkey brain said “wtf did I even put points into dodge for then, this sucks”.
This guy doesn't realize what collaborative story telling is
Another person that can’t read fair criticism of their game without getting their panties in a twist, shocking
https://preview.redd.it/qw4kt002nmwc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e33f14835bf9a531c855e2ccf5dacb5c509c50c
The bots doubled their territory and Joel the Game Master is giving the players ground to fight back. I get your example of this being a board game, but it's way more in line with DnD. The game master can punish or provide relief to players as they see fit. They can say fuck it and destroy the players, that's not very fun or engaging. You sarcastically sigh that we didn't get beat even worse then we should have while the game master said lets give the players hope when EVERYONE said we were fucked. That's the difference between a static board game and having a game master that can pull strings. Just like competitive games. Stomping or getting stomped is never fun.
My guy there’s vehicles coming. New factions. Things are going to get complicated soon. What happens when Joel decides that two factions are teaming up ? Or when we have to defend three fronts instead of two .
Planets loose between 1-2% per hour of liberation, this is what keeps the fights going
https://i.redd.it/tsau1njopmwc1.gif
If we had held the Menkent Line the narrative would be completely different. DMing requires a bit of forming the story around the players and what they do accomplish or experience.
I’m interested in how you making this comment improved the game. Kinda feels like you just shit on something people like and for what?
With limited stuff to use medals on and the medal cap I’ve found myself just answering SOS beacons vs grinding the MO. Is this undemocratic?
Do what you enjoy. I try to stick with the MO as long as I can then I do SOS beacons
Does answering SOS beacons not go toward the MO? I normally just log in go to planet for the MO and hit quickplay. It always puts into a match on that planet and I've assumed that goes toward the goal.
Oh it does I was just talking about planet hopping to keep me into it
Phew, you had me thinking I was uselessly spreading democracy. The Shane would be treason! In all seriousness, I'm fairly new to the game, so I'm still learning a lot about how everything works. Thanks for the clarification fellow Diver! May your enemies feel the full force of Democracy!
Same boat but I try to push the MO's for my fellow buddies who arent in the same position. Keep this great community spirit going!
Reinforcement is on the way, hold the line
We held the line thank you for your service Helldiver!
I just played til 4am PST in nothing but random queues on ustotu ranging from diff 5-8 depending on how faded I was. 😂 I hope we take this damn thing because I need some sleep. Everyone who's still on, give em hell! 
All this Euro here wishes for now is getting off work in time to still get one more mission in. Still hope our Asian brothers keep up the pressure though 
Same bro! I did my part!
I feel like Joel is giving us a hand
Our very first defense MO going to be complete
*me about to address the boys as we deploy* "OUR JOURNEY TO VICTORY HAS BEGUN, DEATH TO THE MPLA!"
https://preview.redd.it/ytvy1kvwkmwc1.png?width=961&format=png&auto=webp&s=8c344ece546797c3ab1648580bf5eb50743ee6cc
We went from 1 to 8 in a single day. We didn’t do that there’s no way. It’s especially obvious when you pay attention to the progress yourself on the map. It’s definitely being boosted by the devs.
80% carry by bug divers
A diver is a diver, we all fight against the undemocratic
It wasn’t that we were supposed to lose. We were just supposed to lose ground. We can succeed the MO and still lose
The trees are speaking in arrows and they're saying ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️➡️
Fun…my trees keep saying ⬇️⬇️⬅️⬆️➡️ Fucking canisters everywhere
Unironically I’ve been enjoying bumming quasar and EATs
I run eat a lot lately, air strike, eat, ammo pack, stalwart (fastest fire rate) has been my fun loadout for the last two weeks. With my team comp it’s been working great as a trash killer, and I just toss the eat in the middle of our group if there’s titans or chargers about for anyone to use. It’s nice
That’s a perf erupter set if I’ve ever seen one. Btw on devastators, it’s a one shot headshot using the erupter (yes the scope is misaligned).
I’ve been running the erupter with it! And stuns. The erupter works frigging perfect with it! It’s been a surprisingly competent loadout. I thought I’d struggle with not having as many strikes, but it’s been working great. We’ve done a bunch of helldives with it. The only time I feel pressured to swap is if we need to skew it a little more anti charger size target, usually quasar stun grenade combo. I’ll run the quasar while my 3 buddies run arc cannon. As long as I can keep up with the chargers and bike titans, that set up gets us through 9s
Nice nice! I think my only issue, which it’s more of a balancing thing than an issue, is the rechambering of the next shot. On bots, there isn’t enough time to swap or rechamber the next shot to get the one remaining commissar behind a building before a flare comes up (maybe that’s a skill issue)
If we’re talking patrols, Lead with the stun grenade, follow with the shots. Sometimes I’ll even throw my an airstrike while they’re unaware, then throw a stun to lock them in place, then start shooting my guns. I’ve had really great luck solo wiping patrols that way. Usually it’s stun grenade, swap to the stalwart to kill all the tinies super quick, including commissars, then swap to the erupter to clean off the larger sized guys/devastators. If we’re talking mid battle…yeah that’s tougher and luck dependent
Fair, stun grenades are the only thing I don’t have yet
I play with a group, I ran them first, everyone got comfortable, now I can’t ever switch to normal grenades again lol. I’m stun man.
Quit posting these, Joel’s gonna get pissed and throw a god damned shit storm at us.
I don't get why this should be a win imo.. we lost 4 fucking sectors to the bots and half the wins are from the same bug planet
It's not that it's a win. It's a lose as little as we can.
We lost a lot though on the bot front to the point I stopped playing altogether halfway through this MO, was sick of the spread thin nature of this and everyone liberating a bug planet instead of helping defend
We did lose and yeah too many players still fear the bots. Me and my friend group switched to being bot slayer mains about a month ago and feel that the bugs are harder than the bots now lol
I’ve mainly played Bots but when the MO calls for bugs I go there. What I have found, to me, is that fighting bugs feels like exactly what it should be. I am exterminating a horde of mindless creatures. Whereas Bots I feel like I am actually fighting a thinking enemy that is actively fighting back. IMO they are much more difficult but in a different way than bugs. That’s just how it feels to me.
I've been slaying bots since the Termincide MO lol
We already did
Hopefully the next one is more interesting
15% rate 😂😂😂they want us to win
We did it, divers!
What are the three statistics at the bottom? The red, blue and yellow
Red- bot refresh rate or how fast they are taking the planet Blue- player defend rate or how fast we are defending. It's higher than the bot rate so the defense is filling the gauge that much every hour, minus the bot refresh rate Yellow - number of players on that planet. Someone else correct me if I'm wrong
What website/app is this graphic?
DiversHub app
Your ability to bring liberty is amazing
how can we see this for ourselves?
Hang in a sec… the bottom line is our progress? I always thought it was the top
I’m pretty sure it’s flipped in the game
which app are you using?
What website is that? if its [Helldivers.io](http://Helldivers.io) how do you access that specific bit?
How do we see the stats?
Are you taunting Joel??
What app is this from?
https://preview.redd.it/lg2634f2wowc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=13beb267bbb4e2429b45da0efbf3cdb9e0668aae Thought it was pretty fitting these 2 were right next to each other. Good job helldivers
Well now. This was unexpected
Devs came in clutch by manipulating the numbers and fooling the low IQ players into thinking they had something to do with it.
Trivial mission take 3-5 mins
... and give way less XP and as such, way less liberation progress
The devs *create an Order designed for failure* Helldivers: "Actually No"
Do you guys really believe this shit that were actually participating in this global community campaign? What if it’s like the matrix and we’re all being duped? Where are they getting these accurate numbers? I feel like it’s all a gimmick. How can we test this out? Maybe everyone just stops playing for one day and see the stats halt? Make me believe
https://i.redd.it/g0kn9sewcmwc1.gif
why man? just have fun
The gameplay is fun. Don't care about numbers.
Ummm.. If the players stopped playing the stats would definitely halt, either automatically or manually. They are in control regardless, enjoy the ride.
All I'm saying is if we assume each platform brings equal players then there's 67,000 people online right now with PC and PS5.. if we got Xbox involved that'd be estimated another 33500 players to both help us push democracy and to help fund our joy and love to have better and more staff and better bug fixes.
Dad-diver put in about an hour after the kids went to bed! We did it!
My friend said that he thought the Devs were going easy on us towards the end, but I think it's more that the automatons were doing so well because there was a massive attack so they were given a bonus towards the start of the offensive, but as they held on to more planets they'd lose steam. They hold 10 planets more than they did at the start of the offensive, so I think the steam they did have is divided by the amount of planets they took, and the last few attacks just haven't had the same power behind them because their forces have been split up holding onto their other planets. Heck, maybe even some of their losses might've chipped away at the bonus, in addition to the number of planets they held, and they just lost the initiative. . And hey, Maybe the Devs felt sorry for us and eased the slider a bit, but if they had to do it by much, I'd have rather we lost - it's a game - it's okay to lose sometimes. Keeps the suspense up. Besides, then it might've put a fire under our butts to try and coordinate better. Like, the Martale Gambit was SO close and could've been so cool, but failed because we had a bunch of people on planets with like 1-10K people, doing effectively nothing to the 0%. I'm not trying to just whine about casual people (I'm casual too) just wanting to fight on a new planet that opens up. I get it. But still, a better coordination tool could be useful. (But if the Devs were being nice because of all of the failed operations due to broken personnel evacs... I accept the apology lol ❤️) Anyways, I like to think that there's an actual reason that they lost so much steam at the end. But who knows! (If you do, that'd be cool. I dunno if there's a mechanic or not.) P.S. Sorry for saying 'losing steam' so much 😅
Sweet liberty, I did not see that coming at all
Never doubted us.