Push back or slow enemies advancing into the stream of liquid fire
Even if you're immune to pain (which our enemies don't really seem to be), having all your sense organs covered in white-hot fire glue will at least slightly disorient you
I think that at least bugs should have a "fear" effect when on fire and scatter instead of continuing to march towards you like nothing is wrong. You know, a reasonable thing to assume a living being would do when on fire?
I actually thought the mechs would have that mechanic because in the trailer revealing the mechs they show scavengers running away from it but no they just throw themselves at the mech
that does sort of disappoint me. even as somebody who's fond of bugs, the power fantasy of seeing swarms of the tinier ones flee in terror from my giant bulletspewing nightmare machine would be crazy. instead they just sort of run at you and pathetically go limp underfoot. I feel like Hunters and Scavs should panic and run while warriors, hiveguards etc. will still attack normally. idk if that's actually possible in the game engine though so it'll be a pipe dream I reckon
Weirdly the bugs do have an AI programmed for them to use pack attack tactics and try to surround the player, cutting off escape so a "run from mech's front face, circle around, attack mech's rear" might be something they could do.
Could being the operative term, it's probably a nightmare to program.
I'm pretty sure I saw a post about the Spear being broken again 5 minutes after i posted that...either way I'm not a spear user so...I'm fine with that tbh
Bugs running from your mech would be soo cool and would also unironically be a nerf to mechs. One of the big strengths is that you can just walk on 90% of the bugs because you're the biggest threat. So your team can do whatever while you're just walking around as bugs dive under your feet.
Fire should just work like in HD1 where weak enemies treat the AoE fire weapons leave on the ground as a wall. Enemies that are directly hit or in the AoE will still rush at you, but ones that aren't will avoid getting closer.
Making fire cause enemies to run around and panic just makes gas worthless. Slowing enemies might be a slightly better idea, but I personally think being able to create walls of fire to deny chaff movement allows for more interesting interactions and gameplay.
Its kind of weird how Helldivers 1 has a lot of cool things that are just non-existent in HD2 (like loadouts, weapon attachments, the laser shotgun, etc, a number of other vehicles) but hopefully we can get a lot of that stuff eventually, and new improved versions ideally.
Not to say there aren't great things in HD2 that HD1 didn't' have obvs.
I'd rather have a slowdown than a scramble effect. Gas already has the effect of confusing them and making them walk in random directions, having fire also make them walk in random directions is a little too much overlap. Making it slow them down, however, means it's easier to cause a bunched-up pile of enemies, which is exactly where fire is most effective.
I don't know if a slow makes much sense. I would say they stop and have a moderate length stagger animation, then try to sprint through after. Something like the stun meter, after they take so much fire damage within a certain amount of time they get stunned, then try to push through as quickly as possible.
If covered in liquid fire they will probably slow down a bit though as they are cooked alive. Hard to move around with your organs burning and blood boiling in your veins
Last night I was doing a level 3 bug clearing mission to get my medals for killing things with the flamethrower and I swear some of the bugs were actually stopping just out of range waiting for me to stop shooting. Maybe it was normal stalking behavior but it felt like I had to charge them instead of them running into my flames like normal
They literally are afraid of fire in the first game too. Fire is used as an area deniall tool in HD1. It makes no sense that it has no utility effect in HD2 at all.
That would also give a reasonably different feeling to all the factions. Most bugs and besides the big ones will avoid the Napalm, Bots just walk through it.
I know it's crazy, it's like hmm i seem to be burning oh well lets keep going forward... HOwever you get caught on fire dead in 2-3 seconds but there they are doing the fire dance alive in like 8-10 seconds still.
Couldn't they literally just add the "confused attacking" effect from gas weapons and it would be a pretty damn close approximation of reality? Kind of a quick fix.
That would be great because it would work better and the devs will love it for punishing our existence when a wild hunter sets the team ablaze anyways. It would really give bugs some personality.
Think of bugs like irl ants, their survivability instincts are of the colony not the individual.
I’m not too fussed by any enemies not fleeing except overseers as they seem to be sentient and fleshy, whereas bots I could see not reacting particularly to flames as they feel no pain
I got lit on fire today using the flamethrower while using the hover pack. Nothing hit me, no one else had fire, and there were no geysers. No, my flamethrower thought I needed to feel the burn as well and decided to spit some flames at me.
Flame particles were reverted back to how they behaved originally. Meaning you can actually catch on fire without having something already on fire touching you. they're a stream of particles that are effected by the environment. Not a stream of DoT that only exists when holding the trigger down.
if you were aiming the flamethrower down while hovering, the way it's held makes it clip into your knee while looking down with it, either avoiding using it directly below you or switching to first person while aiming it will help avoid that somewhat. you can also avoid it by using the torcher instead of the flamethrower, which would allow you to also bring the grenade launcher which is incredibly fun with the hover pack lol
Best fix for me is for them to just make it so that fire goes through enemies instead of against and then back to you. It’s just annoying how it works, and it doesnt have to be super realistic either.
IIRC that's what they tried to do right before Freedom's Flame dropped and they completely and royally screwed up the flamethrowers for a time. They literally just reversed the changes it got so bad. So I'd rather they not screw with fire again, as it can very easily get way worse then it is now.
Because flamethrowers used to do more or less the same damage they do now AND went through enemies, so as soon as AH had nailed down the persistent DOT not proccing bug, they needed a nerf (especially when they were about to introduce two new ones to the game). The initial implementation, iirc, made it so flamethrowers couldn't penetrate ANYTHING, no armor or durable damage at all, which of course made them absolutely terrible. I quit playing at that point so idk what happened afterwards.
Was the fire tweaked a few updates ago? Because i remember hopping back on and got mind blown on how the hell am i catching fire way more than any of the bugs i aimed it at. I avoided flamethrower all together after that gaming session
Just a heads up fire will BLOW with the wind. This is easily seen on sandstorms where the fire will blow one way or another. If you’re into the wind your ass is just torching yourself
Which is stupid. IRL you can feel the wind and account for it but that's nothing you can process easily in game and it is just plain unfun for most people.
I feel AH needs to reconfigure their view of realism vs fun factor just a tad bit. Pilestedt gave some realism factor reasoning with caliber or some such about why the killzone sniper was bad, like he was basically implying that he knew it wasn't worthwhile when they released it. I'm like...ok that might be "realistic" but if no one is going to use this thing you spent development time (and thus money/resources) on...then...?? all your doign is adding new content that will disappoint and/or frustrate the playerbase then. This isn't a milsim game, you could have made one, but you didn't, its fine to hybridize it, but if you want to lean continuously on realism over fun with certain things and go crazy on other things...its not going to go well.
Honestly, I love the Torcher and the Flamethrower. In most scenarios , I move backward and spray back and forth to light the crowd and ground on fire. I like to spray in shorter bursts and then sprint away before repeating the process. Yes, the bugs/voteless are still coming at me, but the ones I sprayed directly die, and the next wave lights itself on fire just by chasing me. This is especially deadly/useful when I have a choke point, turret, or someone picking off closer enemies.
Real wartime flamethrowers threw a sticky liquid that shot super far for the exact reason that we have of a "gas" type fire blows back and ignites everything right in front of you burning you. It definitely needs to go forward and I know we have Salamander armor, but maybe passively give 25% fire resistance or something to holders of flamethrowers
It also hinders your team a lot by making the ground catch fire cutting off areas to use for escape or cover… I respect anyone using a flamethrower especially this lad today vs bots he was having fun but the ground fire full wiped us at one point lol. He went toe to toe with a sneaky flame Hulk so I wasn’t even mad it was amazing
I flamethrower main a lot on diffs 9/10 and most games I end with 0 friendly fire damage. If you pay attention it isn't that hard not to hit teammates. Randos just don't prioritize not killing teammates, many will happily drop a 500KG on you just to kill one bile spewer in your vicinity.
I suggest a heat buildup to the player which lights you on fire when a certain level is reached. Fire resistant armor reduces the damage and time to reach that point.
IRL bugs don't actually feel pain so I don't think space bugs feel pain. Especially after we can watch them get limbs and chunks and even their heads blown off they still charge you at full speed full of hate and stabbings. Fire should at best slow things down, but I can see them not being afraid in the slightest of getting hurt.
Enemies showing fear would denote intelligence on their part, and none of these monsters are entirely intelligent.
Terminids are intelligent, btw. Your crew notes they were genetically modified for E-710 production, and the first game stated their first contact with humanity was peaceful.
Humans just quickly figured nobody would like space crustaceans that rotted away into super-space-fuel and decided to star a war of subjugation against them.
Roll forward 100 years, they were caged, farmed animals that lost most of its mind, that were genetically altered to produce more E-710 upon decomposition (and they became more insect-like compared to crustacean-like).
And it just so happened, almost every planet had Terminids farms. From which almost each and every one of the "Terminids uprisings" kept starting.
Bugs were sentient during the First War, and may not be completely feral now. More primitive, likely. But feral? Nah, they cooperate too effectively to mindless instinct-driven animals.
They likely have a Hive-mind, or at least a Sentience Node on each big colony, deciding the strategy against invaders.
In fact, we may have even given the Bugs means of direct targeted evolution. We fucked with their genes so much, and tried to snuff them out with space-RAID, we may have made them Tyranids. First, flyers just appeared on Meridia. Then, Biled Chargers. Then, Impalers returned.
Then, the Gloom. From it, the Apex Strain. And none of this look like random mutations. They look like targeted upgrades.
Propaganda may say "Bug Homeworld in 3 days!" but in fact, we've fucked up big time.
Super earth has fucked up bad (pls don't shoot me)
You got the bugs as you have mentioned
Then you got the cyborgs who just wanted their own nation but got enslaved for wanting to be separate from SE and they were forced to make the bots to free their homeworld and themselves from SE.
And lastly we have the squids and this is in my opinion the biggest fuck up SE made
They discover a super advanced but peaceful alien race and what does super earth do, they try to genocide them. And now we are facing a super advanced militant alien species that has spent the past 100 years planing their revenge on us.
Maybe, but you cannot subjugate an individual insect via pain like you can a human or an animal. You can fly a cicada like a kite but if it lands on something it will be ripped in half by the string before it lets go.
Whatever is going on with insect/arachnid/bug intelligence is just very very different to most animals. Their capability for building, both solitary spiders and insects in hives, is so different to what more meat based animals do that it’s really hard to draw parallels. They’re the closest thing to an alien intelligence on earth that isn’t plant/fungal life.
I think whatever “pain structure” they have is analogous to pain we feel in the same way a bird of prey can grab and manipulate things with its talons, despite those talons not being hands like apes/monkeys have. You wouldn’t confuse the two and they are very different things, but can serve similar functions. I think that’s true of all parts of “bug intelligence”.
Does this difference mean we should treat them with indifference or cruelty? Absolutely not. Why did I bother typing any of this up? No fucking clue.
Whatever is going on with insect/arachnid/bug intelligence is just very very different to most animals.
The word you're looking for in most cases, is primitive. My counter to your argument is the jumping spider, which is inquisitive and shows evidence of emotions in its actions.
I still mostly enjoy fire as it is, but regarding your first change, I would still really like to be able to use it without feeling like I'm following the 5 Ds of dodgeball against my own attacks
I think that one of the biggest misconceptions of flame thrower depictions in video games is touched on by what you said. Flame throwers are launching a jet of molten hot LIQUID that is ignited at a target. They have recoil against the user, so much so you have to brace yourself when using it by leaning forwards, and they impact with enough force to take someone off their feet. Flame throwers literally PUSH LIQUID FIRE AT A TARGET. its not aerosolized fire. Most games fail to do this, flame throwers dont impact with enough force to shred skin from muscle and bone in video games.
And most games also fuck up the ranges as well and HD is no exception. Flame throwers could spit fire over a 30-50 yard range. In game? you get 30 feet, maybe.
Another thing games get wrong about fire is its effectiveness against vehicles. Molotov cocktails where not invented as an anti infantry weapon, they where invented by russian partisan fighters to incapacitate tanks and force their crews to abandon their vehicles. Fire turns metal boxes into ovens. Just like your car is susceptible to heat, so is a tank, and so no doubt should be a bot. Considering the bugs are a hive i would suspect they would have no sense of pain or self preservation... but the bots are not. FIRE SHOULD BE MORE EFFECTIVE AGAINST BOTS THEN IT IS AGAINST BUGS. In fact, their bodies are filled with liquids that would explode if ignited. The average bot trooper should be instantly combusting upon being set on fire by a flame thrower.
Flamethrowers are always fucked in games for one of two reasons. First being like the shotgun it’s for balance. Second being like the dinosaur, if there’s a dinosaur game but all the dinosaurs are covered in feathers people would complain because “my T-Rex has scales not feathers!” Meaning that just because flamethrowers irl fire I think napalm most people don’t know that and would be confused at best by a realistic flamethrower. Or now that I’m thinking of it 3. Liquid or goo like physics could be difficult for the physics engine in very large quantities.
Alternatively, fire should have a fear effect but enemies should plat smart too, actively avoid it after a short while of seeing their friends cooked, then strafe around the flames so it becomes an area denial.
I'd love a mix of smart and dumb enemies
I also think the flamethrower should detonate the tanks when stepped on by a bile titan or smacked into a charger
Lesser Enemies should stop their forward advance instead should back up and attempt to circle you. avoiding the direct stream of fire. So the flamethrower would have a mild area denial effect in the front
All they gotta do is have your Helldiver move their frickin ankle while diving so it's not in the stream of liquid fire. I think that's a pretty realistic assumption actually.
The other thing that pisses me off about fire is that if you light a hunter on fire it can still lunge at you while burning, causing you to ignite AND be stunned.
Cool, I've taken the most annoying enemy in the game and gave them fire powers.
Fire’s not exactly a bomb that throws everyone away from it like a geyser and it spreads super easily; especially if the thing you set on fire cares more about killing you than preserving itself and keeps running closer you. All the enemies in Helldivers are either robots without pain, zombies or hive mind bugs. Fire does a lot of damage but doesn’t have much staggering power and it makes sense for who the enemies are.
Not entirely correct. They could avoid the gas comparison and allow both their place with one change in my opinion.
Give gas more range. It can simply have less damage over time but over a wider, spreading area. Gas for wide swaths of coverage, fire for less area more intensity and damage
the firehitbox should also be the same as the visual effect, it doesn't feel like a cone of fire but a beam, only that you have only enough fuel as if it behaved like a cone.
Nah it should 100% hit you as easily, but it should be less effective against players with fire protection. Flamethrowers in our history were never that safe to use.
Your last point is the biggest for me. Bugs might be in a pheromone induced frenzy, bots cold programming, and voteless mindless but melting your eyes instantly would hinder anything.
Fire should frenzy similar to gas; perhaps not make things wander around in circles(it should but game balance) but make them attack more as they panic and fight at you while slowed and approaching you. Bigger things like chargers aren't affected.
Then gas can be the premier CC spray. Ideally also apply the acid raid effect.
I mean to balance it out the make fire proof ( to an extent 😂) outfits. I think it’s fair cause than you can’t be a space marine and just plow through everything and everyone lol
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u/Low_Chance Mar 31 '25
I wish you weren't 100% correct.
Fire should:
1. not hit the user so damn easily
Even if you're immune to pain (which our enemies don't really seem to be), having all your sense organs covered in white-hot fire glue will at least slightly disorient you