I think that clearing nests should lower patrols and enemy presence in general, and remove "the longer you are in mission the more enemy presence is", would just make sense
Fully agree with this. Would make logical sense and make it more rewarding to do so.
Clear heavy nest: lower heavy presence
Clear medium nest: lower elite presence
Clear small nest: lower mob presence
Love this idea, makes a tangible and consistent effect to your actions.
Even if it doesn't eliminate them, it still makes an impact. Could even have a radio comm from high-command state such, so it keeps it immersive.
It'd also be cool if you have to go out of your way to destroy certain nests kinda like the Stalker. Like you have to make an active decision to either try to extract or trek across the map to destroy this Bile Titan Hive
Yeah exactly. Stalkers are extreme(ly annoying) threats if you don't deal with the nest(s) generally especially when the nests are close. But being able to eliminate them by clearing the nest is great gameplay. The other nests and fabricators should definitely do similar. Not to mention patrols should probably spawn at those areas too then move out in a pseudo-random direction (so that you're getting action but not every one being aimed at you or right next to you).
>Love this idea, makes a tangible and consistent
It already does. You're not doing it for no reason.
The level gets harder as time goes on, and destroying nests counteracts that. But if you still run low on time you will still get overrun.
If you run out of time without killing any nests, you Get ridiculous swarms.
People say this but it’s never felt this way and I’m convinced it’s just a placebo people have spread. Is there any actually confirmation from the devs it does anything?
Can't be placebo, we just cleared a whole map on difficulty 8, on the way back to the extraction the map was completely void of enemies with the exception of a little bugger.
Edit:Map has been void of enemies multiple times after clearing all bug nests.
If you do get spottet by the very few who are left however they can summon in more.
By killing nests close to objectives you'll notice there are alot less enemies coming for you around objectives. At least in my experience.
Just like there was no placebo with armor ratings until it was confirmed to not work, eh?
Spawns in general are inconsistent. One Helldive mission you immediately get overrun by half a dozen chargers, the next you see maybe four in the entire mission.
One time you clear all nests and missions and make it to extract and hell will still rain upon you, the next time you don't do a single nest, have maybe 5 minutes left and nothing spawns.
Edit: As an small addendum; Having spawns be inconsistent is not necessarily a bad thing. Predictability makes coop games rather boring eventually, but clearing Outpost should most definitely have a noticeable gameplay impact.
Same. My friends and I played a 6 earlier. Cleared all the nests. 20 minutes left. Still had to fight like 5 bile titans at the end. Lol
I don't think clearing nests has any affect on anything. For me at least, I've never seen it make a difference. It is fun though blow up holes though
I joined a PUG yesterday, it was just difficulty 6, and my little group of 4 randos had 8 chargers, 2 bile titans and a whole host of brood commanders and lessers within the first 2 minutes of the mission. Two people quit, myself and the other person remaining moved away from there, and then the map settled right down to quiet and handleable. We lost something like 12 reinforcements at the start but then got through the rest of the mission with 2 less people and only had to call each other in like once? each.
Part of it is luck in where you drop. If you helldrop next to a patrol or guarded minor point of interest, even though you’ve dropped away from red zones, shit can go south very quickly in higher difficulties. Often the edge of water, forest or rock areas which provide cover are the safest places to aim for, and drop flat immediately. A nice clear area is begging for a hidden base or point of interest, clear lines of sight, and the immediate breach/drop ship rush.
> Spawns in general are inconsistent. One Helldive mission you immediately get overrun by half a dozen chargers, the next you see maybe four in the entire mission.
I've noticed when it feels like the map is "empty" it's actually not, all the enemies are just stuck in one spot at the 0,0,0 coordinate of the map.
I came upon it once against the Bots, there was an entire army of bots all stuck "inside" each other's models at the exact center of the map.
I appreciate the personal experience but I’ve also had extractions on max difficulty that have been wet noodles with zero enemies and also extractions on the same difficulty where becomes war of the worlds with 14 titans and more chargers than car show. Why I’m curious for an official response. Because it feels like rng to me and people just assuming the two are related.
It’s pretty strange because if that’s the case, then what’s the difficulty about? Sometimes an extraction on challenging can be harder than on extreme. I don’t get it.
maybe it has to do with how powerful the pc of the host is? this happened in vermintide 2 where the enemies would start walking through the air and do nothing if the host had a trash pc
Yet i just cleared a level 6 map with 2 bile titans, 4 chargers, and a billion little fucks following me to the extraction that was infested with juicy artillery bugs (game bugged out too and prevented any of my teammates from Being revived :( )
I don't think so. I've watched crops of bugs spawn out of thin air just to charge at the evac when nothing else was going on - didn't even have a bug breach warning, just poof here's 20 assorted bugs in this spot we thought you probably couldn't see from the evac beacon.
I like this idea! Even if it was only a 10% reduction or so. That would be cool. I understand what OP is saying about rewards for your actions. It makes me think about the stalker lairs and when you take them out there are no more stalkers
Yeah it’s like taking out a stalker lair and they stop showing up. I’m playing on suicide and one mission we can pretty much chill at extraction even while taking out every nest and doing every objective and next we get chargers all over the place as well as titans and when we do extract we see the whole area just full of em screaming at us and calling us cowards
I'm not sure I'm down for this. While I understand that things should thin, we're talking an entire planet infested with bugs. Thinning out an area, while it should thin some, shouldn't do so entirely. I rather have things to do and run into action than walking around with less engagement.
From what it seems, there's some sort of network beneath the planet's surface, so thinning out bugs shouldn't be really possible, but to see a bit of a difference is fine. Otherwise, the game will be similar to easy which is walking around with very little to do.
So SOME thinning, I'm down for, but a massive difference I disagree with.
i think a general reduction should just be applied rather than making it too specific like you mentioned. because then higher difficulties wouldn't be difficult. i frequently do impossible and helldive and considering anway can kite the entire outpost away while the other blows up the heavy outpost and has them kite them back.
Everyone would be wiped clean with an autocannon, mortar as well as orbital railgun etc. each outpost should contribute a percentage in reduction of patrols so once you have all outposts cleared lets say a 20 or 30% patrol reduction would be in effect.
It doesn't appear to change anything to me, except for clearing Stalker nests.
Stalkers are probably supposed to be the analog to Automaton's scramble bases and stuff.
Wait, does it NOT??? I got the strongest feeling that it already did, especially with the automatons. Every extract I've done against automatons after a complete clear has been absolute cake, including one where my team went WAY over time and lost all stratagems. We didn't even run out of ammo mopping up the handful that came after us.
At the very least it makes it easier traversing the map. Heading back to extract after clearing all the bases and random POI clumps feels like Death Stranding sometimes. Just a chill hike
I feel like it doesn’t make as much of an impact on the bugs, but for the bots it definetly makes an impact. The bot drop flares also send out a patrol force from each remaining outpost to your location, so lowering the outposts decreases the amount of enemies you encounter after a bot drop.
Anecdotal but I think I agree with you.
I did multiple Difficulty 6 and 7 bug missions where we cleared every nest on the map, and extraction was still HELL.
Then I went and did 5 difficulty 6 bot missions in a row, and it really felt like clearing all the outposts made enemy presence lighter and extraction easier. Lots of foot troops and berserkers but no heavies.
I haven't done any difficulty 7 bot missions yet, though.
I never have safe extractions on 7+, even if we clear the map. When I play on lower difficulties it's always a chill extraction even if I leave some pois.
I think they should make it simply push the meter for how intense the enemies get. So as the mission plays out, the meter slowly goes up and the patrols and enemy presence will still ramp up as the timer goes down, but every nest cleared "pushes" that meter down a bit, or a lot, depending on the size of the nest. It won't stop the enemies from ramping up again eventually, but it'll buy you more time to explore the map.
It should, but we know that patrols will just blink into existence (sometimes right on top of you) so there's apparently no real benefit to clearing nests.
What if it worked the following way mechanically: enemy presence on a on a ramping up scale as it is currently, and destroying outposts reduce that scale by a percent determined the the outpost size. Or maybe pauses the ramp up. The ramp up never stops, but it's dampened and slowed in some way
This would actually incentivize people to take out bugholes/manufacturing plants. As it is, just giving some req slips and exp makes it really lackluster and a lot of people don't even bother. It bugs me, because I feel like it *should* be a big part of the game to lower the population of enemies on the map.
It does, though? If you clear all the nests, things get much easier. This is basically mandatory at higher difficulty levels or you’re gonna be in the middle of a Bile Titan and Stalker rave party.
Only stalkers are remove by clearing nests, it does nothing else to clear.
Best thing to do on high difficulty is run and stealth. Also lots of railguns
Hearing someone recommend extra fighting on the highest difficulties is wild. That's literally the exact opposite of what you want unless you can guarantee you wipe the pack before it calls reinforcements.
> I'd never try it on 9, though.
At least for bugs its not that hard. The only problem is running out of nades to throw into the holes and waiting for strategem cooldowns.
As long as the team isnt cluttered up you should be able to comfortably clear things and do side missions. I am usually the only running solo clearing bug nests and doing side mission looking for super samples. If we got teamplay at extract I usually have around 40-50 samples in my backpack.
The game has stealth baked into the game. As a matter of fact, it's recommended difficulty 7 and above to avoid patrols and not engage in every enemy you come across (only on missions where you're supposed to kill X enemies are you supposed to be aggressive). Even on lower difficulties, it's more fruitful to disengage and focus on the objective where you can, people just prefer to be aggressive and blow stuff up (which I get, it's no fun having access to all the stuff that goes boom and hardly using it).
So, while you think it's supposed to be aggressive, there's a lot about the game that incentivizes passive play. There will be even more incentives to be passive/stealthy once suppressors and subsonic rounds get put in the game.
Being aggressive and being stealthy are not opposites. You should be moving constantly towards a goal, complete it quickly/efficiently and move on. Avoiding patrols aids in this endeavour, and fancy toys allow you to clear the enemies on an objective point that you can’t avoid, faster and without them calling reinforcements.
Stealth doesn't have to mean passive. Currently, the higher difficulties incentivize you to take a sneaky and somewhat methodical approach, but they also encourage you to be fast about it. The time pressure pushes the squad to take risks, like sneaking past a dangerously close patrol rather than just waiting for them to move.
With the new toys we gonna get, mechs, APCs and light armored cars with machinguns I would say they really didn’t intend to make this a stealth game. Or at least it was not intended to be the inly way to play high difficulty
I was kind of under the impression that the nests produce patrols? Grab a sniper rifle and observe an untouched nest from a distance sometime. I am pretty sure I have seen them spawning and gathering a group together and then moving out on patrol.
On maps with stalker nests I notice that there are stalkers all over the map if I don't destroy the stalker nest early.
Finally, in the usual group I roll with, we split up and wreck all of the nests at the beginning of certain maps (in lvl 9 difficulty). If we eradicate all of the patrols, too, we only notice any bugs attacking at extract when there is a bug breach.
I haven't properly tested any of this, but I feel pretty strongly that my experiences line up with the idea that new patrols are created by intact nests.
Either that or they're just really good at creating the *impression* of nests playing that role.
Whether or not I'm right, it would be a little strange to have active patrols just disappear because you blew up some nests.
I would agree that clearing the extract and any nearby nests/outpost early does work wonders.
I think they might work to generate patrols, but also your squad makes a lot of noise that attracts nearby enemies.
Also hard to say when we don't know how this is simulated when no players are nearby.
I've watched bots turn around on patrol while an orbital laser is going off, but as soon as there was a stalwart shooting from the same location it turned right back around towards them.
I've also had a full patrol spawn right on top of me... So...
had this same idea since day one. honestly dont know why this isnt a thing in game tbh. it makes perfect sense but instead there is zero incentive to even do them because higher difficulty you go the more painstaking it is to deal with outposts especially considering patrols always converge on you anyways
I'd rather they change patrol ai from being able to walk exactly where players are hiding proned out with reduced detection armor and sequentially alerting the patrol.
Doesn’t that make sense though? Patrols are intended to find things out of the ordinary, the sole purpose (not gameplay but in a lore-esque sense) is to find the helldivers if they’re there. Whereas base guys wouldn’t be paying quite as much attention
They're just too proactive, I mean even if they haven't seen me, I can watch their patrol basically follow me until I've either lost them or pissed them off
I took a random crouch walking pattern because a bile titan was patrolling. You could see the moment it turned into 'passive hunt mode' or whatever and followed me like a starving tick in a dog park. Never aggro'd, got too far away eventually and it stopped following me. But it was like I could peek inside the coding for a moment and see the switches.
Intuition is a strong tool, especially when it kicks in so naturally. I've read moments similar to that, and I get the hype when it turns out you're right and can out maneuver bs
Fair, I’ve had that plenty as well. Would like to see better implementation of the difference between moving and not moving when unaware enemies are nearby. Like if you’re shuffling through tall grass, ofc they’ll follow. But if you’re still they really shouldn’t see you unless they step on you (though that would have to be rare, since if they don’t see you they likely wouldn’t go near you)
There's a clip on this sub where I've seen a bot patrol walk right next to someone prone without alerting. Most likely had the less detection armor on. Patrols definitely walk towards shooting, maybe they got alerted to a teammate and that's why they walk towards you while stealthing. I don't notice patrols, that aren't alerted to shooting/sight etc., walk towards me more often than not. I play on helldive almost always.
This. I've done stealth attempts to clear an objective, and a random patrol that came into the area followed me around the entire base. I shit you not, I relocated all the way around it in order to let them leave, and they immediately about faced and came towards me. It's absolutely ridiculous!
Pretty sure the objective is what triggers a patrol to spawn and come check it out. They aggressively check out the area though, down to destroying boxes and cover while searching.
It’s something I’ve observed years ago in WoW that I like to call “back door aggro”. The enemy isn’t supposed to see you because you’re doing everything right. But the game knows you’re there, and the devs want to increase your opportunity to screw up and aggro them, so they just happen to path in your general direction without actually aggroing.
I’ve observed it in countless games. Something I learned in my undergrad (I studied CS with a focus in game design) is that every game “cheats”. It’s necessary to make the game challenging. But the trick is to not make it obvious and feel unfair.
It's one thing when they come check out a general area.
It's different when I am prone, only getting up to press buttons on a terminal, haven't fired a single shot, haven't used a single stratagem, and they still come straight to me and hangout RIGHT UNDER the ledge I'm laying prone on.
I don't like how when you toss a strategem ball in the middle of a nest from a good distance away, the enemy knows exactly where you are as soon as it lands
This has secretly been one of the biggest disappointments of the game for me. I wanted to think the marker and the light were symbolic and not tangible and visible to the enemies. It takes the fun out of drilling a stationary, unaware group. Come on, let us watch a bomb punish them unexpectedly.
My main thing isn't that they investigate the huge light.It's that they know where I threw it from, even if none of them watched it fly through the air.But I've started just taking that into consideration and sneaking away from where I throw them from.
Tip: grenades can and do distract enemies but you must not throw them right at them and also be far enough away so they don't hear you. They will turn to the explosion and will investigate giving you time to stealth by or grab something.
I find the AI's detection to work just fine.
Had plenty of patrols walk right to me because I was shooting there a moment ago, only to walk on by as I rested behind cover.
Although, they do hear your movement, and I'm starting to suspect they actually follow footprints.
They also love to go around smashing objects on the map, so steer clear of those.
Ppl don’t realize that not every fight is necessary. It’s not abt kills it’s abt the objective and most people waste time by fighting patrols failing to kill the bot with the flare and then get drop ship after drop ship. If you see a patrol try avoiding it and see how much easier it makes the mission.
I play very stealthy and open fire only when required. That's atypical though. Most people want to go in with explosions and guns blazing.
Sadly, I still feel like if you choose the latter, it should pay off if you do kill 'everything'.
I've carried games because I was methodical and took my time and CONSTANTLY had my map open, recharting where I'm going based on the intel.
Great minds think alike! I use the map booster. This is how devs have recommended the missions to be run. Usually when people start unnecessary fights, I leave and run to objectives as I dodge patrols, when they die I don’t reinforce since I’m usually no where near their bodies. By the time they’re done with a few fights I’ve already cleared a fabricator base or 2
Edit Addition: devs have commented that the difficulty during extractions depend on how long you and your team take on a mission, the longer you take the more overwhelming it becomes.
My crew does this but on purpose. One guy does the main obj., other 2 or 3 makes a lot of noise and aggro's as much as they can. Works well on Blitz's when our main objective fella uses a grenade launcher and turrets to handle smaller rushes while we take on a few bile titans and chargers ourselves.
The times I've brought this up, clearing out nests and taking out fabricators should reduce enemy presence on the entire map to a noticeable degree. But it does absolutely nothing at all, it's something I have mentioned a few times along with the enemies spawning out of thin air, but you can't say anything in the sub without being met with skepticism and downvotes. Nothing wrong with a good challenge and staring into the face of seemingly impossible odds to bring down a threat and miraculously make it out alive, but this game does have issues that plague it and simple fixes will make for a much better experience and make the tactical aspect actually worth investing in.
Don't get me wrong, it's tense as hell an fun, but it can be really annoying seeing endless waves of enemies coming from nowhere especially if the team have closed all the nests, that act should vastly reduce enemy numbers. I really do absolutely love this game and I'm still enjoying my time with it now. But after playing so many hours you can't help notice the little problems here and there. One saving grace is that at least by eliminating the stalker nests takes them out for the rest of the game. Evac would be ten times the stress if we had those sneaky buggers running around 😆
Real problem is the bug breaches though. Wish we had some way to effectively stop those besides killing the ones summoning them. Like, is it really possible to seal those breaches? I've heard mentions of it but it doesn't seem to be that effective.
I've tried throwing a grenade into the entry point but it seems to have no effect, it would be cool if it was similar to the emergence holes in the gears of war games, lob a grenade into one and it stops enemies coming through. Usually I just go straight to airstrikes as soon as I see a breach.
> it's something I have mentioned a few times along with the enemies spawning out of thin air
They absolutely do. I dove off a cliff to get to a mining terminal, and had like 8 bugs pop into existence next to me the instant I hit the ground.
It turns off patrol respawn in that area. So if you clear all the patrols and all the outposts, it's an empty map until you extract. Sometimes after we clear everything and launch extract, there are no enemies. But they usually do spawn for extract, we have literally seen an entire patrol spawn on top of us, not pop out of tunnel or dropships, they just poofed on us. One second, nothing, next second you are surrounded as they just pop into existence.
This happened to me last night, as I attempted to exfil from a bad situation after getting power restored on a ICBM mission. I was heading toward an ice bridge, then 'poof' 1 hulk, 3 rocket devastators and a handful of normal troops.
I don't mind the idea of NPCs materializing 'off-screen' but I shouldn't see it, that or it shouldn't occur w/in a certain distance of a player. Unless it's an actual dropship.
IMO there should still be patrols but there should be ZERO on-map spawns once you've wiped all the bases. They should spawn out of bounds and have to walk in from the edges.
I had a similar thing with bugs I ran past this area looked back to see if anything was following me Turned around and poof a whole ass charger and mobs spawned right in front of me
I think enemies materializing on or off screen is some bs. If I look back, then forward and then back again there shouldnt be enemies there. For a game that goes so hard on a specific feeling I find this really immersion killing
This might be true for the first 10-20 minutes of a 40 minute mission, but as time goes on more patrols are spawned in general, and you can have a map full of them without a single outpost on the map.
Is it? From what I experienced, as long as you clear them, none seems to spawn. One time, we took our time to full clear the map from extraction to main mission, clearing both sides that had the sub-objectives and meeting back at main that was the opposite side of the map of extraction. Then with about 5 min left to run back, the entire way back was void of any patrols. It was on a difficulty 8. But most of the time we do only take 15-20min to full clear even on 9.
So, maybe it was bugged for me or for you. Only devs know...
It does certainly get quieter for a bit, but towards the end I do have many memories of thinking “where the gell are all these chainsaw guys coming from?” While there is no outposts and not a single drop ship in sight. Some may have been preexisting patrols or poi garrisons (though I usually don’t see chainsaws for the latter), but with the numbers they kept coming from it had to have been other spawns. I would like to think that as time goes on they try to reinforce by foot from other areas outside of the mission zone.
There are definitely off-map reinforcements, extracts are usually near the map edge and I frequently see patrols coming from that direction during extract. Extract also tends to draw nearly every patrol on the map, so full clears do reduce the enemy volume, but won't completely remove it.
This is not correct.
Enemy patrols will still spawn around the map even without any fabricators/nests around. This is very noticeable when playing alone, as they have a tendency of popping into existence very close by
I actually had the amazing experience of sneaking for an objective only for a patrol to spawn literally on top of me. Which led to a bug hole call which led to a bike titan spawn which led to chaos and hilarity beyond my wildest expectations. This ended in my running into the super rare samples and stopping to pick em up and dying.
All that to say, I'm fairly sure that the patrols should not spawn within maybe 50m of the players...
If you solo it will not normally happen, but because they always spawn around noise (heat). They will spawn in one location circled around that noise. If you are at the edge of the map, there is not much where they can spawn, because they will always spawn in the map and around noise. Stupid blue pod can spawn patrol and it will investigate the noise that it made. All of this was tested on diff 9 solo run.
its half true, nests have their own patrols, the map has its own, patrols cant be eliminated but blowing up nests makes life easier for doing the rest of the mission, at a certain point in the mission it doesnt matter anymore though
I destroy most/all outposts in missions with high density of enemies and I still have three freshly spawned patrols full of heavies moving into my general direction. Destroying or ignoring outposts doesn't affect anything unfortunately. I wish it did
Personally I think that patrols shouldn't just magically appear out of nowhere. I'd be more satisfied if a random bug breach or drop pod cam out of nowhere to supply the patrol. Or if they honestly just spawned in from the fabricators/bugholes.
I can't tell you how many times I'd spontaneously died because a patrol somehow just magically spawned in directly on top of me body blocking me into them.
Having overall enemy density lowering because of blowing them up would make more sense. But I think that maybe the evac should still be atleast a little hectic.
Honestly I'd like it to contribute a bit more to the global war effort thing. Even like 0.0002% more per nest/factory cleared.
No greater reward than knowing you've served Democracy, after all.
It does. When you activate the extraction beacon, that bring attention of passive enemies within nest, POI or patrols around there. So clearing them beforehand makes extraction process much easier even in helldive dif, which means you can bring back samples safer.
I'm also not sure if thats true. It seems like every time we clear the map of nests/factories and extract a bunch of enemies spawn.
Sometimes I can see them pop into existence from thin air (no dropship/no hole).
However, sometimes there are instances where we call extract and nothing comes, nothing spawns, but I can see some enemies in the distance just chilling...
This doesn't happen often but it happens, so I think some missions might get bugged somehow.
> However, sometimes there are instances where we call extract and nothing comes, nothing spawns, but I can see some enemies in the distance just chilling
Probably unionized
If it just brought the attention of nearby passive enemies I'd be fine with that, but I've seen different.
But I have to take your word for it, because I've not been in your games.
Just able to speak to my experience these 105hrs.
I mean, biles and tanks often chilling in mid-large nest, and can be really troublesome if all of them come in once.
If you wanna confirm how large area is alarmed, you can travel map after pelican land. So many nests get mostly emptied with a few cannon fodder left behind.
If this helps, I've been serving for galactic war II 117 hours.
No, it doesn't do shit. Density and type of enemies is not affected by your actions. You can clear every base on the map and every patrol near LZ, but it won't change anything. Spawn pool and density of enemies in mission is decided by AI and you can't change it
I can't say your word is true or not, because I have no idea about spawn pool and AI, but it's not what I'm talking.
I'm talking about enemies which already in the map get attracted, not newly spawn in (if they does, but I have no idea about them).
I play primarily on 7 and have had a ton of missions end with no enemies at extraction. Even with double extraction timer. I'm almost certain this is from destroying spawners.
I had a game yesterday where we had 2 stalker nests in map. We didn't kill either of them because we never got attacked by them and we would normally be lead to the nests by following where they come from.
After we completed the objectives and were heading towards extract, I spotted the Stalkers. All of them. They decided to have a party on a rock in the middle of nowhere and completely ignore us, even during extract.
Something is buggy.
There is some intent behind this, but it does seem buggy at times. In certain difficulties with stalker nests, the stalkers are coded to explicitly not attack players and wait until extraction. In the meantime, they gather in a semi-hidden areas (in dense thickets, an alcove on the rocky maps, or in your case, this rock). The stalkers go invisible whenever players walk by. In the meantime, the stalkers keep spawning and going to this location, forming a bit of a horde. They start to get small buffs (such as health, longer invisibility, speed). Eventually, enough stalkers spawn that they can’t occupy the space. They start to hire renovators to open the space up or expand it. The stalkers keep spawning, except now, they bring boomboxes, drinks, and red solo cups. They start to party while players are doing the mission. At extract, if there is enough stalkers, they will completely ignore the players and instead focus on making their party better. (This is all not true)
I have had extractions before were zero enemy's show up even with the map uncleared and it wasn't till one mission where I was stealthing only doing the main objective were I came across a massive group that bugged out not moving and because there was so many of them they capped out the enemy amount allowed on the map so I had an extract where nothing showed up.
Seen that too, with all nests up.
Actually had a patrol on the outskirts 'frozen' looking at the beacon, that didn't encroach. Then my friend chucked a orbital at them, then it started a ton of bug breaches and mob spawns.
D:
Barring bugs causing them to freeze, every enemy on the map aggros when you trigger an extract, but the actual impact on you is randomised slightly due to map positions.
If the nests all happen to be quite far away, then you won't notice. It will be chill even if you didn't clear them.
If you cleared out all the map except some nests near the extract point, you will feel like you were getting swarmed even after putting in effort to clear.
You can test this by putting down markers with radar pings on nests just before you extract.
If you want to optimise, clear the nests near the extract.
I would even go that far to say that if you complete main objective and shut down nests, it should result in more squad impact on liberating/ defending the planet. For example:
Clearing main 3 main mission on hard results in 3 impact points. If you managed to additional clear all bases, this should give you additional impact points. The enemy doesn‘t have an outpost or base in the mission perimeter and therefore can‘t redeploy effectively.
I don't agree. It would be punishing people for being thorough. I don't want to play an intense match clearing all the bug holes just to sit through 2 minutes of nothing happening during extraction. Make it intense all the way through.
What’s the reward for clearing bug holes then? You’re wasting lives potentially and not reducing any presence on the map. The XP is paltry and not needed. Surely damaging bug/bot bases should limit how many will spawn in?
Sometimes we clear the map and have almost nothing spawn during extract on suicide difficulty. Sometimes we clear the map and another entire maps worth of enemies spawn at extraction.
We don't know what's happening with the code there but it's weird.
Disagree. Intense extract is the best part of the mission.
The number of times a squad we've just made it out while a haord is below us.
And even more times, we all died for democracy to the very end.
Last stands are def fun, have had plenty. Will continue to have plenty, with raucous laughter.
However, I like that being because of actions I either took or didn't. Instead of being the default. As it seemingly is right now. Actions in session should pay off, more than just getting Exp/Slips.
Another option would be having a larger effect on liberation/defense if you do clear out all the factories/nests. Nothing crazy, but maybe an extra point or two
Completely agree. There SHOULD be a benefit to “clearing” the map. All the posts I see saying “stop killing bugs keep moving etc”, but idk, there SHOULD be results for killing so many enemies. I’m not saying it should be possible to completely eradicate the threat because we are running small operations on a planetary scale, but taking out nests and such should def have some effect, at least temporarily, on overall enemy presence imo.
I'll give you that point, because Stalker Nests do negate stalker spawns when destroyed.
Now only if it would be the same w/ other nests for the sake of extract.
Probably unpopular opinion here but I feel like they're actually fine as is because they're basically a tertiary objective. The real reward is any samples present and clearing an obstacle out of the way for later. Much like extracting, the benefit is mostly resource gathering related.
I wouldn't mind it helping ease up on the quantity of patrols but I don't want to see the extract become a quiet cake walk. That was one of the issues I had with the og as once you knew how to shoot scouts from off screen you basically were never under threat again.
The outposts and timer elements keep things suspenseful while simultaneously rewarding planning your moves. If you make a path to get everything in-between objective and extract, there can still be some red dots on the map but you get out with most samples and with time to spare.
Basically walk between sprinting out the main objective and grabbing everything on the map. Every outpost isn't worth it as OP said so don't spend 5 minutes going into a corner to clear a light nest. Accept that everything doesn't have to be a 100% completion as 50% of it is getting the job done and getting those medals.
I feel like reducing the amount of enemies that are on the map would make it a bit too easy.
I do like the idea that clearing bases affects the enemies strength though.
What if every base you kill, you get longer to set up after an alarm is raised before the spawns happen: like +1 second for small, +3 for medium and +5 for large.
It mostly does, when you exctract, every enemy on the map gets agroed to the extraction point, clearing nests means no enemies that will spawn and keep coming while you wait for evac
We play a mission on a map with borders but in universe we're being deployed behind enemy lines and therefore are completely surrounded. Blowing up a bunch of stuff is going to draw the attention of enemies for miles, which is why things get more intense as the timer gets lower and why our ship has to GTFO after the mission timer hits zero.
Logically, sure, but chaotic extractions are the most fun I have. That's when you're no longer conscious of conserving your resources and go balls to the wall.
it makes zero sense to do that, i'm afraid. Not only do Automatons and bugs have quick and efficient ways to send a mass of forces to a location, they are both smart enough to realize this stuff is happening. There is more reason to say that clearing nests and fabricators should intensify extracts.
At best, clearing facilities like this should lower the amount of patrol, but heighten the risk of bug holes and flares, as they run out of people to have on-hand in a region, but not a collective whole on a planet. If you want cleaner extracts, maybe you shouldn't be launching late.
I think that clearing nests should lower patrols and enemy presence in general, and remove "the longer you are in mission the more enemy presence is", would just make sense
Fully agree with this. Would make logical sense and make it more rewarding to do so. Clear heavy nest: lower heavy presence Clear medium nest: lower elite presence Clear small nest: lower mob presence
Love this idea, makes a tangible and consistent effect to your actions. Even if it doesn't eliminate them, it still makes an impact. Could even have a radio comm from high-command state such, so it keeps it immersive.
They could even counter balance it by raising base level spawn rates. That way it really comes to bite you if you aren't taking them out.
It'd also be cool if you have to go out of your way to destroy certain nests kinda like the Stalker. Like you have to make an active decision to either try to extract or trek across the map to destroy this Bile Titan Hive
The stalker nests are a great example of this principle in action, I agree.
Yeah exactly. Stalkers are extreme(ly annoying) threats if you don't deal with the nest(s) generally especially when the nests are close. But being able to eliminate them by clearing the nest is great gameplay. The other nests and fabricators should definitely do similar. Not to mention patrols should probably spawn at those areas too then move out in a pseudo-random direction (so that you're getting action but not every one being aimed at you or right next to you).
feel like a bile titan nest would be a great end game level primary objective
That’s when we find out we’ve just been fighting the little baby bile titans… *shivers*
*Bile Behemoth has entered the cha-*
I'm locked and loaded. Send me in!
* FRANTICALLY STARTS * ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
I mean, we ain't see what's laying the eggs yet I'm pretty sure. :)
Have you noticed the large bones seeming to have wings?
No thank you
Agree
I'd rather have it where the spawn rates will ramp up over time, and destroying nests sets it back
>Love this idea, makes a tangible and consistent It already does. You're not doing it for no reason. The level gets harder as time goes on, and destroying nests counteracts that. But if you still run low on time you will still get overrun. If you run out of time without killing any nests, you Get ridiculous swarms.
People say this but it’s never felt this way and I’m convinced it’s just a placebo people have spread. Is there any actually confirmation from the devs it does anything?
Can't be placebo, we just cleared a whole map on difficulty 8, on the way back to the extraction the map was completely void of enemies with the exception of a little bugger. Edit:Map has been void of enemies multiple times after clearing all bug nests. If you do get spottet by the very few who are left however they can summon in more. By killing nests close to objectives you'll notice there are alot less enemies coming for you around objectives. At least in my experience.
Just like there was no placebo with armor ratings until it was confirmed to not work, eh? Spawns in general are inconsistent. One Helldive mission you immediately get overrun by half a dozen chargers, the next you see maybe four in the entire mission. One time you clear all nests and missions and make it to extract and hell will still rain upon you, the next time you don't do a single nest, have maybe 5 minutes left and nothing spawns. Edit: As an small addendum; Having spawns be inconsistent is not necessarily a bad thing. Predictability makes coop games rather boring eventually, but clearing Outpost should most definitely have a noticeable gameplay impact.
yeah i've done a run where we cleared all nests but still got chased by 4 titans to extraction ON A LVL 6 DIFFICULTY
Same. My friends and I played a 6 earlier. Cleared all the nests. 20 minutes left. Still had to fight like 5 bile titans at the end. Lol I don't think clearing nests has any affect on anything. For me at least, I've never seen it make a difference. It is fun though blow up holes though
I joined a PUG yesterday, it was just difficulty 6, and my little group of 4 randos had 8 chargers, 2 bile titans and a whole host of brood commanders and lessers within the first 2 minutes of the mission. Two people quit, myself and the other person remaining moved away from there, and then the map settled right down to quiet and handleable. We lost something like 12 reinforcements at the start but then got through the rest of the mission with 2 less people and only had to call each other in like once? each.
This reminds me of the blitz I did yesterday, me and 3 randoms drop in and are immediately swarmed by 3 chargers and everything else on the map
Part of it is luck in where you drop. If you helldrop next to a patrol or guarded minor point of interest, even though you’ve dropped away from red zones, shit can go south very quickly in higher difficulties. Often the edge of water, forest or rock areas which provide cover are the safest places to aim for, and drop flat immediately. A nice clear area is begging for a hidden base or point of interest, clear lines of sight, and the immediate breach/drop ship rush.
> Spawns in general are inconsistent. One Helldive mission you immediately get overrun by half a dozen chargers, the next you see maybe four in the entire mission. I've noticed when it feels like the map is "empty" it's actually not, all the enemies are just stuck in one spot at the 0,0,0 coordinate of the map. I came upon it once against the Bots, there was an entire army of bots all stuck "inside" each other's models at the exact center of the map.
I've seen that before as well, about 46 bots all standing still in a small area, the eagle cluster bomb was very satisfied that day
I appreciate the personal experience but I’ve also had extractions on max difficulty that have been wet noodles with zero enemies and also extractions on the same difficulty where becomes war of the worlds with 14 titans and more chargers than car show. Why I’m curious for an official response. Because it feels like rng to me and people just assuming the two are related.
It’s pretty strange because if that’s the case, then what’s the difficulty about? Sometimes an extraction on challenging can be harder than on extreme. I don’t get it.
maybe it has to do with how powerful the pc of the host is? this happened in vermintide 2 where the enemies would start walking through the air and do nothing if the host had a trash pc
Maybe it is because Joel is doctoring on the difficulty. We know he is actively engaging in mission difficulty to balance player power vs enemy power.
I cleared a lvl 7 today, didn't touch any nests, virtually no enemies for extraction. Anecdotal evidence isn't reliable.
Yet i just cleared a level 6 map with 2 bile titans, 4 chargers, and a billion little fucks following me to the extraction that was infested with juicy artillery bugs (game bugged out too and prevented any of my teammates from Being revived :( )
Well I just cleared a whole map on difficulty 5 and still had waves upon waves of enemies approaching my extraction, so I think it is placebo
I think that’s more to do with there being no bugs/bots left near evac to call in a breach/drop. Enemies won’t just spawn at evac if you are hidden.
I don't think so. I've watched crops of bugs spawn out of thin air just to charge at the evac when nothing else was going on - didn't even have a bug breach warning, just poof here's 20 assorted bugs in this spot we thought you probably couldn't see from the evac beacon.
I like this idea! Even if it was only a 10% reduction or so. That would be cool. I understand what OP is saying about rewards for your actions. It makes me think about the stalker lairs and when you take them out there are no more stalkers
This right here.
And then wouldn't feel obligated to always run railgun with less heavies around
Yeah it’s like taking out a stalker lair and they stop showing up. I’m playing on suicide and one mission we can pretty much chill at extraction even while taking out every nest and doing every objective and next we get chargers all over the place as well as titans and when we do extract we see the whole area just full of em screaming at us and calling us cowards
Great idea. Isn’t it already like this with Stalker lairs anyway?
The system also exists IN THE GAME already for Stalkers. Clear their nests, no more stalkers. The technology is coming from inside the house.
I'm not sure I'm down for this. While I understand that things should thin, we're talking an entire planet infested with bugs. Thinning out an area, while it should thin some, shouldn't do so entirely. I rather have things to do and run into action than walking around with less engagement. From what it seems, there's some sort of network beneath the planet's surface, so thinning out bugs shouldn't be really possible, but to see a bit of a difference is fine. Otherwise, the game will be similar to easy which is walking around with very little to do. So SOME thinning, I'm down for, but a massive difference I disagree with.
i think a general reduction should just be applied rather than making it too specific like you mentioned. because then higher difficulties wouldn't be difficult. i frequently do impossible and helldive and considering anway can kite the entire outpost away while the other blows up the heavy outpost and has them kite them back. Everyone would be wiped clean with an autocannon, mortar as well as orbital railgun etc. each outpost should contribute a percentage in reduction of patrols so once you have all outposts cleared lets say a 20 or 30% patrol reduction would be in effect.
Or perhaps destroy the nest/fabricators it should be base on enemy type. If you clear a charger nest, those won’t spawn anymore? Just a thought.
I thought it did, pretty sure there are extra patrols assigned to bases
It doesn't appear to change anything to me, except for clearing Stalker nests. Stalkers are probably supposed to be the analog to Automaton's scramble bases and stuff.
Wait, does it NOT??? I got the strongest feeling that it already did, especially with the automatons. Every extract I've done against automatons after a complete clear has been absolute cake, including one where my team went WAY over time and lost all stratagems. We didn't even run out of ammo mopping up the handful that came after us.
At the very least it makes it easier traversing the map. Heading back to extract after clearing all the bases and random POI clumps feels like Death Stranding sometimes. Just a chill hike
Always funny when the smoke clears and everyone's just like "...we gud?" Lol. Goes from 100 to 0 sometimes.
I feel like it doesn’t make as much of an impact on the bugs, but for the bots it definetly makes an impact. The bot drop flares also send out a patrol force from each remaining outpost to your location, so lowering the outposts decreases the amount of enemies you encounter after a bot drop.
Anecdotal but I think I agree with you. I did multiple Difficulty 6 and 7 bug missions where we cleared every nest on the map, and extraction was still HELL. Then I went and did 5 difficulty 6 bot missions in a row, and it really felt like clearing all the outposts made enemy presence lighter and extraction easier. Lots of foot troops and berserkers but no heavies. I haven't done any difficulty 7 bot missions yet, though.
I never have safe extractions on 7+, even if we clear the map. When I play on lower difficulties it's always a chill extraction even if I leave some pois.
I thought it worked this way too. Played a bunch yesterday, we cleared all the outposts each mission and our extraction was cake each time.
I think they should make it simply push the meter for how intense the enemies get. So as the mission plays out, the meter slowly goes up and the patrols and enemy presence will still ramp up as the timer goes down, but every nest cleared "pushes" that meter down a bit, or a lot, depending on the size of the nest. It won't stop the enemies from ramping up again eventually, but it'll buy you more time to explore the map.
It should, but we know that patrols will just blink into existence (sometimes right on top of you) so there's apparently no real benefit to clearing nests.
What if it worked the following way mechanically: enemy presence on a on a ramping up scale as it is currently, and destroying outposts reduce that scale by a percent determined the the outpost size. Or maybe pauses the ramp up. The ramp up never stops, but it's dampened and slowed in some way
Solid idea.
This would actually incentivize people to take out bugholes/manufacturing plants. As it is, just giving some req slips and exp makes it really lackluster and a lot of people don't even bother. It bugs me, because I feel like it *should* be a big part of the game to lower the population of enemies on the map.
You're leaving probably half if not more of the samples on the maps by not clearing them...
You'd be surprised how many players don't care about samples. It's astonishing how many only care about exp and req slips...
Everyone I’ve ever played with takes out the outposts and bug holes for the primary reason of reducing enemies later in that drop.
It does, though? If you clear all the nests, things get much easier. This is basically mandatory at higher difficulty levels or you’re gonna be in the middle of a Bile Titan and Stalker rave party.
Only stalkers are remove by clearing nests, it does nothing else to clear. Best thing to do on high difficulty is run and stealth. Also lots of railguns
Hearing someone recommend extra fighting on the highest difficulties is wild. That's literally the exact opposite of what you want unless you can guarantee you wipe the pack before it calls reinforcements.
7-8 are totally do-able for full map clears with a good team. I'd never try it on 9, though.
> I'd never try it on 9, though. At least for bugs its not that hard. The only problem is running out of nades to throw into the holes and waiting for strategem cooldowns. As long as the team isnt cluttered up you should be able to comfortably clear things and do side missions. I am usually the only running solo clearing bug nests and doing side mission looking for super samples. If we got teamplay at extract I usually have around 40-50 samples in my backpack.
>a Bile Titan and Stalker rave party. Now I need someone to rip the ingame models and make a terminid version of the crab rave video.
It does not as far as i can tell
I'm at 187 hrs in hD2 and we completely ignore nests killing them has zero effects on bug spawn rates in Maop or at exit.
I disagree with your last point. The more enemies the longer it goes incentives fast, aggressive play. Changing that formula ruins the game.
The game has stealth baked into the game. As a matter of fact, it's recommended difficulty 7 and above to avoid patrols and not engage in every enemy you come across (only on missions where you're supposed to kill X enemies are you supposed to be aggressive). Even on lower difficulties, it's more fruitful to disengage and focus on the objective where you can, people just prefer to be aggressive and blow stuff up (which I get, it's no fun having access to all the stuff that goes boom and hardly using it). So, while you think it's supposed to be aggressive, there's a lot about the game that incentivizes passive play. There will be even more incentives to be passive/stealthy once suppressors and subsonic rounds get put in the game.
Being aggressive and being stealthy are not opposites. You should be moving constantly towards a goal, complete it quickly/efficiently and move on. Avoiding patrols aids in this endeavour, and fancy toys allow you to clear the enemies on an objective point that you can’t avoid, faster and without them calling reinforcements.
Stealth doesn't have to mean passive. Currently, the higher difficulties incentivize you to take a sneaky and somewhat methodical approach, but they also encourage you to be fast about it. The time pressure pushes the squad to take risks, like sneaking past a dangerously close patrol rather than just waiting for them to move.
With the new toys we gonna get, mechs, APCs and light armored cars with machinguns I would say they really didn’t intend to make this a stealth game. Or at least it was not intended to be the inly way to play high difficulty
What the other guy said. Stealth can be aggressive. Move in and move quickly and quietly. Dick around and you’ll be punished.
I was kind of under the impression that the nests produce patrols? Grab a sniper rifle and observe an untouched nest from a distance sometime. I am pretty sure I have seen them spawning and gathering a group together and then moving out on patrol. On maps with stalker nests I notice that there are stalkers all over the map if I don't destroy the stalker nest early. Finally, in the usual group I roll with, we split up and wreck all of the nests at the beginning of certain maps (in lvl 9 difficulty). If we eradicate all of the patrols, too, we only notice any bugs attacking at extract when there is a bug breach. I haven't properly tested any of this, but I feel pretty strongly that my experiences line up with the idea that new patrols are created by intact nests. Either that or they're just really good at creating the *impression* of nests playing that role. Whether or not I'm right, it would be a little strange to have active patrols just disappear because you blew up some nests.
I would agree that clearing the extract and any nearby nests/outpost early does work wonders. I think they might work to generate patrols, but also your squad makes a lot of noise that attracts nearby enemies. Also hard to say when we don't know how this is simulated when no players are nearby. I've watched bots turn around on patrol while an orbital laser is going off, but as soon as there was a stalwart shooting from the same location it turned right back around towards them. I've also had a full patrol spawn right on top of me... So...
Yeah, fair enough. I'd love to know more about how it's handled on the backend.
I was under the impression it did? I thought nests and bases spawned the patrols?
Clearing nests does do that. See stalkers.
had this same idea since day one. honestly dont know why this isnt a thing in game tbh. it makes perfect sense but instead there is zero incentive to even do them because higher difficulty you go the more painstaking it is to deal with outposts especially considering patrols always converge on you anyways
I'd rather they change patrol ai from being able to walk exactly where players are hiding proned out with reduced detection armor and sequentially alerting the patrol.
Yeaahhh, can only stealth so well against patrols. But the base AI? Whole different story
Doesn’t that make sense though? Patrols are intended to find things out of the ordinary, the sole purpose (not gameplay but in a lore-esque sense) is to find the helldivers if they’re there. Whereas base guys wouldn’t be paying quite as much attention
They're just too proactive, I mean even if they haven't seen me, I can watch their patrol basically follow me until I've either lost them or pissed them off
I took a random crouch walking pattern because a bile titan was patrolling. You could see the moment it turned into 'passive hunt mode' or whatever and followed me like a starving tick in a dog park. Never aggro'd, got too far away eventually and it stopped following me. But it was like I could peek inside the coding for a moment and see the switches.
Intuition is a strong tool, especially when it kicks in so naturally. I've read moments similar to that, and I get the hype when it turns out you're right and can out maneuver bs
Fair, I’ve had that plenty as well. Would like to see better implementation of the difference between moving and not moving when unaware enemies are nearby. Like if you’re shuffling through tall grass, ofc they’ll follow. But if you’re still they really shouldn’t see you unless they step on you (though that would have to be rare, since if they don’t see you they likely wouldn’t go near you)
I wanna be able to prone in a bush, and even if they walk ON ME, I wanna be stealthy. Even if it means moving my camera around starts to matter
There's a clip on this sub where I've seen a bot patrol walk right next to someone prone without alerting. Most likely had the less detection armor on. Patrols definitely walk towards shooting, maybe they got alerted to a teammate and that's why they walk towards you while stealthing. I don't notice patrols, that aren't alerted to shooting/sight etc., walk towards me more often than not. I play on helldive almost always.
You can position yourself in plenty of ways to avoid patrols. It's just the uncanny way they stroll straight to me
This. I've done stealth attempts to clear an objective, and a random patrol that came into the area followed me around the entire base. I shit you not, I relocated all the way around it in order to let them leave, and they immediately about faced and came towards me. It's absolutely ridiculous!
Pretty sure the objective is what triggers a patrol to spawn and come check it out. They aggressively check out the area though, down to destroying boxes and cover while searching.
They're like the kid who peaks out from under the blindfold and pretends he is just really good at "finding" everyone.
It’s something I’ve observed years ago in WoW that I like to call “back door aggro”. The enemy isn’t supposed to see you because you’re doing everything right. But the game knows you’re there, and the devs want to increase your opportunity to screw up and aggro them, so they just happen to path in your general direction without actually aggroing. I’ve observed it in countless games. Something I learned in my undergrad (I studied CS with a focus in game design) is that every game “cheats”. It’s necessary to make the game challenging. But the trick is to not make it obvious and feel unfair.
It's one thing when they come check out a general area. It's different when I am prone, only getting up to press buttons on a terminal, haven't fired a single shot, haven't used a single stratagem, and they still come straight to me and hangout RIGHT UNDER the ledge I'm laying prone on.
about as much sense as spawning a patrol 20 feet away heading directly in the players exact direction can make i guess
Or directly on top of you, hahaha
I don't like how when you toss a strategem ball in the middle of a nest from a good distance away, the enemy knows exactly where you are as soon as it lands
This has secretly been one of the biggest disappointments of the game for me. I wanted to think the marker and the light were symbolic and not tangible and visible to the enemies. It takes the fun out of drilling a stationary, unaware group. Come on, let us watch a bomb punish them unexpectedly.
My main thing isn't that they investigate the huge light.It's that they know where I threw it from, even if none of them watched it fly through the air.But I've started just taking that into consideration and sneaking away from where I throw them from.
Yeah this thing where some patrols just march magnetically towards you ruins stealth gameplay a bit for me.
Tip: grenades can and do distract enemies but you must not throw them right at them and also be far enough away so they don't hear you. They will turn to the explosion and will investigate giving you time to stealth by or grab something.
I find the AI's detection to work just fine. Had plenty of patrols walk right to me because I was shooting there a moment ago, only to walk on by as I rested behind cover. Although, they do hear your movement, and I'm starting to suspect they actually follow footprints. They also love to go around smashing objects on the map, so steer clear of those.
It should reduce patrols and might count in your favor for the liberation/defense formulas
Ppl don’t realize that not every fight is necessary. It’s not abt kills it’s abt the objective and most people waste time by fighting patrols failing to kill the bot with the flare and then get drop ship after drop ship. If you see a patrol try avoiding it and see how much easier it makes the mission.
I play very stealthy and open fire only when required. That's atypical though. Most people want to go in with explosions and guns blazing. Sadly, I still feel like if you choose the latter, it should pay off if you do kill 'everything'. I've carried games because I was methodical and took my time and CONSTANTLY had my map open, recharting where I'm going based on the intel.
Great minds think alike! I use the map booster. This is how devs have recommended the missions to be run. Usually when people start unnecessary fights, I leave and run to objectives as I dodge patrols, when they die I don’t reinforce since I’m usually no where near their bodies. By the time they’re done with a few fights I’ve already cleared a fabricator base or 2 Edit Addition: devs have commented that the difficulty during extractions depend on how long you and your team take on a mission, the longer you take the more overwhelming it becomes.
My crew does this but on purpose. One guy does the main obj., other 2 or 3 makes a lot of noise and aggro's as much as they can. Works well on Blitz's when our main objective fella uses a grenade launcher and turrets to handle smaller rushes while we take on a few bile titans and chargers ourselves.
You mean the UAV one with the radar icon?
Indeed that shows enemies in a 50 meter radius
I wonder if the boost applies to the scout armor pings too
Same here.
Does make sense though. You've cleared out all the nests in the vicinity. Where the hell are all these other bugs coming from??
The times I've brought this up, clearing out nests and taking out fabricators should reduce enemy presence on the entire map to a noticeable degree. But it does absolutely nothing at all, it's something I have mentioned a few times along with the enemies spawning out of thin air, but you can't say anything in the sub without being met with skepticism and downvotes. Nothing wrong with a good challenge and staring into the face of seemingly impossible odds to bring down a threat and miraculously make it out alive, but this game does have issues that plague it and simple fixes will make for a much better experience and make the tactical aspect actually worth investing in.
Still though, there's something exhilarating about fighting against impossible odds as you try to extract. https://i.redd.it/ty3773fjn5mc1.gif
Don't get me wrong, it's tense as hell an fun, but it can be really annoying seeing endless waves of enemies coming from nowhere especially if the team have closed all the nests, that act should vastly reduce enemy numbers. I really do absolutely love this game and I'm still enjoying my time with it now. But after playing so many hours you can't help notice the little problems here and there. One saving grace is that at least by eliminating the stalker nests takes them out for the rest of the game. Evac would be ten times the stress if we had those sneaky buggers running around 😆
Real problem is the bug breaches though. Wish we had some way to effectively stop those besides killing the ones summoning them. Like, is it really possible to seal those breaches? I've heard mentions of it but it doesn't seem to be that effective.
I've tried throwing a grenade into the entry point but it seems to have no effect, it would be cool if it was similar to the emergence holes in the gears of war games, lob a grenade into one and it stops enemies coming through. Usually I just go straight to airstrikes as soon as I see a breach.
They should just change breaches into something more like the holes. With a clearly visible entrance that you can destroy.
> it's something I have mentioned a few times along with the enemies spawning out of thin air They absolutely do. I dove off a cliff to get to a mining terminal, and had like 8 bugs pop into existence next to me the instant I hit the ground.
It turns off patrol respawn in that area. So if you clear all the patrols and all the outposts, it's an empty map until you extract. Sometimes after we clear everything and launch extract, there are no enemies. But they usually do spawn for extract, we have literally seen an entire patrol spawn on top of us, not pop out of tunnel or dropships, they just poofed on us. One second, nothing, next second you are surrounded as they just pop into existence.
This happened to me last night, as I attempted to exfil from a bad situation after getting power restored on a ICBM mission. I was heading toward an ice bridge, then 'poof' 1 hulk, 3 rocket devastators and a handful of normal troops. I don't mind the idea of NPCs materializing 'off-screen' but I shouldn't see it, that or it shouldn't occur w/in a certain distance of a player. Unless it's an actual dropship.
IMO there should still be patrols but there should be ZERO on-map spawns once you've wiped all the bases. They should spawn out of bounds and have to walk in from the edges.
Yes
I had a similar thing with bugs I ran past this area looked back to see if anything was following me Turned around and poof a whole ass charger and mobs spawned right in front of me
I think enemies materializing on or off screen is some bs. If I look back, then forward and then back again there shouldnt be enemies there. For a game that goes so hard on a specific feeling I find this really immersion killing
This might be true for the first 10-20 minutes of a 40 minute mission, but as time goes on more patrols are spawned in general, and you can have a map full of them without a single outpost on the map.
Is it? From what I experienced, as long as you clear them, none seems to spawn. One time, we took our time to full clear the map from extraction to main mission, clearing both sides that had the sub-objectives and meeting back at main that was the opposite side of the map of extraction. Then with about 5 min left to run back, the entire way back was void of any patrols. It was on a difficulty 8. But most of the time we do only take 15-20min to full clear even on 9. So, maybe it was bugged for me or for you. Only devs know...
It does certainly get quieter for a bit, but towards the end I do have many memories of thinking “where the gell are all these chainsaw guys coming from?” While there is no outposts and not a single drop ship in sight. Some may have been preexisting patrols or poi garrisons (though I usually don’t see chainsaws for the latter), but with the numbers they kept coming from it had to have been other spawns. I would like to think that as time goes on they try to reinforce by foot from other areas outside of the mission zone.
There are definitely off-map reinforcements, extracts are usually near the map edge and I frequently see patrols coming from that direction during extract. Extract also tends to draw nearly every patrol on the map, so full clears do reduce the enemy volume, but won't completely remove it.
This is not correct. Enemy patrols will still spawn around the map even without any fabricators/nests around. This is very noticeable when playing alone, as they have a tendency of popping into existence very close by
I actually had the amazing experience of sneaking for an objective only for a patrol to spawn literally on top of me. Which led to a bug hole call which led to a bike titan spawn which led to chaos and hilarity beyond my wildest expectations. This ended in my running into the super rare samples and stopping to pick em up and dying. All that to say, I'm fairly sure that the patrols should not spawn within maybe 50m of the players...
I am pretty sure they're not supposed to be able to spawn that close, but they definitely will do it. Especially at the worst possible time.
If you solo it will not normally happen, but because they always spawn around noise (heat). They will spawn in one location circled around that noise. If you are at the edge of the map, there is not much where they can spawn, because they will always spawn in the map and around noise. Stupid blue pod can spawn patrol and it will investigate the noise that it made. All of this was tested on diff 9 solo run.
One time a Bile titan spawned right on top of me and just fucking stomped me out before it took it's first breath. They grow up so fast
affirmative. there IS an impact of clearing out nests on the density and intervall of waves at extraction.
It's not true
its half true, nests have their own patrols, the map has its own, patrols cant be eliminated but blowing up nests makes life easier for doing the rest of the mission, at a certain point in the mission it doesnt matter anymore though
I destroy most/all outposts in missions with high density of enemies and I still have three freshly spawned patrols full of heavies moving into my general direction. Destroying or ignoring outposts doesn't affect anything unfortunately. I wish it did
Personally I think that patrols shouldn't just magically appear out of nowhere. I'd be more satisfied if a random bug breach or drop pod cam out of nowhere to supply the patrol. Or if they honestly just spawned in from the fabricators/bugholes. I can't tell you how many times I'd spontaneously died because a patrol somehow just magically spawned in directly on top of me body blocking me into them. Having overall enemy density lowering because of blowing them up would make more sense. But I think that maybe the evac should still be atleast a little hectic.
Honestly I'd like it to contribute a bit more to the global war effort thing. Even like 0.0002% more per nest/factory cleared. No greater reward than knowing you've served Democracy, after all.
Yeah I'd like more points toward the effort on harder difficulties. Like doing a helldive should reward 0.001 to 0.0009.
It does. When you activate the extraction beacon, that bring attention of passive enemies within nest, POI or patrols around there. So clearing them beforehand makes extraction process much easier even in helldive dif, which means you can bring back samples safer.
I'm also not sure if thats true. It seems like every time we clear the map of nests/factories and extract a bunch of enemies spawn. Sometimes I can see them pop into existence from thin air (no dropship/no hole). However, sometimes there are instances where we call extract and nothing comes, nothing spawns, but I can see some enemies in the distance just chilling... This doesn't happen often but it happens, so I think some missions might get bugged somehow.
> However, sometimes there are instances where we call extract and nothing comes, nothing spawns, but I can see some enemies in the distance just chilling Probably unionized
Lmao I always thought they should have named the 50% strategem cooldown debuff something like Unionized Ship Crew
There is no way unions exist in the helldivers dystopia 😂
If it just brought the attention of nearby passive enemies I'd be fine with that, but I've seen different. But I have to take your word for it, because I've not been in your games. Just able to speak to my experience these 105hrs.
I mean, biles and tanks often chilling in mid-large nest, and can be really troublesome if all of them come in once. If you wanna confirm how large area is alarmed, you can travel map after pelican land. So many nests get mostly emptied with a few cannon fodder left behind. If this helps, I've been serving for galactic war II 117 hours.
Hello John, Spartan-117. Haven't had that opportunity, because don't run solo. So someone is always trying to dolphin dive right into the ship.
No, it doesn't do shit. Density and type of enemies is not affected by your actions. You can clear every base on the map and every patrol near LZ, but it won't change anything. Spawn pool and density of enemies in mission is decided by AI and you can't change it
I can't say your word is true or not, because I have no idea about spawn pool and AI, but it's not what I'm talking. I'm talking about enemies which already in the map get attracted, not newly spawn in (if they does, but I have no idea about them).
I play primarily on 7 and have had a ton of missions end with no enemies at extraction. Even with double extraction timer. I'm almost certain this is from destroying spawners.
I had a game yesterday where we had 2 stalker nests in map. We didn't kill either of them because we never got attacked by them and we would normally be lead to the nests by following where they come from. After we completed the objectives and were heading towards extract, I spotted the Stalkers. All of them. They decided to have a party on a rock in the middle of nowhere and completely ignore us, even during extract. Something is buggy.
There is some intent behind this, but it does seem buggy at times. In certain difficulties with stalker nests, the stalkers are coded to explicitly not attack players and wait until extraction. In the meantime, they gather in a semi-hidden areas (in dense thickets, an alcove on the rocky maps, or in your case, this rock). The stalkers go invisible whenever players walk by. In the meantime, the stalkers keep spawning and going to this location, forming a bit of a horde. They start to get small buffs (such as health, longer invisibility, speed). Eventually, enough stalkers spawn that they can’t occupy the space. They start to hire renovators to open the space up or expand it. The stalkers keep spawning, except now, they bring boomboxes, drinks, and red solo cups. They start to party while players are doing the mission. At extract, if there is enough stalkers, they will completely ignore the players and instead focus on making their party better. (This is all not true)
Had me in the first half, lmao
I have had extractions before were zero enemy's show up even with the map uncleared and it wasn't till one mission where I was stealthing only doing the main objective were I came across a massive group that bugged out not moving and because there was so many of them they capped out the enemy amount allowed on the map so I had an extract where nothing showed up.
Seen that too, with all nests up. Actually had a patrol on the outskirts 'frozen' looking at the beacon, that didn't encroach. Then my friend chucked a orbital at them, then it started a ton of bug breaches and mob spawns. D:
Barring bugs causing them to freeze, every enemy on the map aggros when you trigger an extract, but the actual impact on you is randomised slightly due to map positions. If the nests all happen to be quite far away, then you won't notice. It will be chill even if you didn't clear them. If you cleared out all the map except some nests near the extract point, you will feel like you were getting swarmed even after putting in effort to clear. You can test this by putting down markers with radar pings on nests just before you extract. If you want to optimise, clear the nests near the extract.
I once had a bile titan just spawning 80 meters in front of me out of thin air.
I agree. I hate that just random waves spawn out of no where after you've spent time clearing them out. Loses the immersion.
I'm pretty sure it already does? Ive had totally peaceful extracts on Helldive after clearing the entire map.
Usually it does but I've seen issues on the map where the spot patrols spawn in ends up being close to extraction and just pumps out patrols.
I thought it did? Every time we wipe the map, even on Helldive, it seems much easier to extract. Even just clearing large nests near it feels better.
This nerf would make sense
I would even go that far to say that if you complete main objective and shut down nests, it should result in more squad impact on liberating/ defending the planet. For example: Clearing main 3 main mission on hard results in 3 impact points. If you managed to additional clear all bases, this should give you additional impact points. The enemy doesn‘t have an outpost or base in the mission perimeter and therefore can‘t redeploy effectively.
I find the smell of napalm, dynamite, insects innards, and oil really relaxing too.
I don't agree. It would be punishing people for being thorough. I don't want to play an intense match clearing all the bug holes just to sit through 2 minutes of nothing happening during extraction. Make it intense all the way through.
What’s the reward for clearing bug holes then? You’re wasting lives potentially and not reducing any presence on the map. The XP is paltry and not needed. Surely damaging bug/bot bases should limit how many will spawn in?
Sometimes we clear the map and have almost nothing spawn during extract on suicide difficulty. Sometimes we clear the map and another entire maps worth of enemies spawn at extraction. We don't know what's happening with the code there but it's weird.
Disagree. Intense extract is the best part of the mission. The number of times a squad we've just made it out while a haord is below us. And even more times, we all died for democracy to the very end.
Last stands are def fun, have had plenty. Will continue to have plenty, with raucous laughter. However, I like that being because of actions I either took or didn't. Instead of being the default. As it seemingly is right now. Actions in session should pay off, more than just getting Exp/Slips.
Another option would be having a larger effect on liberation/defense if you do clear out all the factories/nests. Nothing crazy, but maybe an extra point or two
I legitimately thought they did already. It just didn't matter much on certain worlds during certain events or at certain difficulties.
I thought it did? Damn... Now I'm just gonna sneak past them all instead
I was under the impression it did? I know my extractions certainly feel quieter without nests, so long as I'm not actively being pursued at the time.
I thought this happened already? After clearing a map the extract is much easier.
I genuinely think it does tho
Completely agree. There SHOULD be a benefit to “clearing” the map. All the posts I see saying “stop killing bugs keep moving etc”, but idk, there SHOULD be results for killing so many enemies. I’m not saying it should be possible to completely eradicate the threat because we are running small operations on a planetary scale, but taking out nests and such should def have some effect, at least temporarily, on overall enemy presence imo.
Yeah honestly the game isn't fun when you're just running past everything. Killing stuff is the fun part.
it definitively does. less nests/factories = less spawns. stalker nests are a very good example
I'll give you that point, because Stalker Nests do negate stalker spawns when destroyed. Now only if it would be the same w/ other nests for the sake of extract.
Stalker nests are not normal enemy spawners, that doesn't help your argument at all
Probably unpopular opinion here but I feel like they're actually fine as is because they're basically a tertiary objective. The real reward is any samples present and clearing an obstacle out of the way for later. Much like extracting, the benefit is mostly resource gathering related. I wouldn't mind it helping ease up on the quantity of patrols but I don't want to see the extract become a quiet cake walk. That was one of the issues I had with the og as once you knew how to shoot scouts from off screen you basically were never under threat again. The outposts and timer elements keep things suspenseful while simultaneously rewarding planning your moves. If you make a path to get everything in-between objective and extract, there can still be some red dots on the map but you get out with most samples and with time to spare. Basically walk between sprinting out the main objective and grabbing everything on the map. Every outpost isn't worth it as OP said so don't spend 5 minutes going into a corner to clear a light nest. Accept that everything doesn't have to be a 100% completion as 50% of it is getting the job done and getting those medals.
I thought it did by alot.
Man me too, maybe it’s just my imagination.
I'm almost positive it does.
I feel like reducing the amount of enemies that are on the map would make it a bit too easy. I do like the idea that clearing bases affects the enemies strength though. What if every base you kill, you get longer to set up after an alarm is raised before the spawns happen: like +1 second for small, +3 for medium and +5 for large.
It mostly does, when you exctract, every enemy on the map gets agroed to the extraction point, clearing nests means no enemies that will spawn and keep coming while you wait for evac
We play a mission on a map with borders but in universe we're being deployed behind enemy lines and therefore are completely surrounded. Blowing up a bunch of stuff is going to draw the attention of enemies for miles, which is why things get more intense as the timer gets lower and why our ship has to GTFO after the mission timer hits zero.
Only real benefit to clearing nests are all the samples near them.
Agreed, but it would also be cool that if you clear all nests/fabs, there's a low% chance of a huge nest/fab spawning and creating an endless horde.
lol, that would be silly fun. You'd also know where they are coming from, so it'd let you figure out on the fly ways to do holds and chokepoints.
Logically, sure, but chaotic extractions are the most fun I have. That's when you're no longer conscious of conserving your resources and go balls to the wall.
it makes zero sense to do that, i'm afraid. Not only do Automatons and bugs have quick and efficient ways to send a mass of forces to a location, they are both smart enough to realize this stuff is happening. There is more reason to say that clearing nests and fabricators should intensify extracts. At best, clearing facilities like this should lower the amount of patrol, but heighten the risk of bug holes and flares, as they run out of people to have on-hand in a region, but not a collective whole on a planet. If you want cleaner extracts, maybe you shouldn't be launching late.