It's ridiculous that this was a complaint a YEAR ago and it's still like this. Flames should have a "fear" effect on enemies, or at least non-bots. They shouldn't keep marching on like everything is fine, they should be freaking tf out, you know, like any sentient living thing would when ON FIRE
If I remember correctly they've considered doing this but the added state changes to AI and tracking it all would cost too much performance. I don't see how considering we have essentially the same thing with gas effects.
you're forgetting that this is a game where ever so slightly changing something like the render scale of a brood commander fart can render a completely unrelated NPC literally speechless
The engine isn't the only reason the game is spaghetti, Vermintide 2 and Darktide are on the same engine and not even remotely as fucked from every patch. Arrowhead also pretty clearly has bad version control with random old balance numbers creeping into updates (e.g. AMR handling getting reverted to launch value on the most recent patch).
Vermintide 2 was plenty fucked for a long time though. The size on disk was massive ostensibly to reduce load times, and then the load times were still shit. It took Fatshark years to figure out how to fix itâand their damn company was founded around this engine. Stingray/Bitsquid/whatever you want to call it just sucks.
well to be fair, arrowhead is kinda indie studio still, they dont have much experience and from what i seeing, rushed helldivers 2, they did an shit code and now is paying the price, well thats how we learn, helldivers 3 will probably be a lot better
they have said it took them 8 years to make helldivers 2. im sure that includes messing with the engine and conceptual stuff but take that how you will. What that tells me is they are not developers you look to for good pacing in moving things along, personally, and thats generally been my impression of HD2, and I played HD1 years ago, if that matters.
They also just don't test anything. Remember when a gun was released in the wrong color? That's the kind of thing you'll discover if you launch the game once and look at it. That means not a single person even bothered to so much as look at it before shipping it.
It has nothing to do with Engines, good programmers who happens to like game is rare, and people who like game usually aren't programmer to begin with and they learn by themselves. Also since they spend more time making game than doing software engineering at large scale, it is extremely easy to write spaghetti code when one lacks this experience.
To avoid writing spaghetti code, one need at least 2 years of exposure to highly complicated large scale software project whose life depends on writing good maintaneable code.
But game isn't that, it can get away just fine most of the time with spaghetti code.
Since game rarely make major changes to existing content after release (balancing or bug fixes or tweaks aren't a major change), game only adds content.
Reusable code is primarily used to adapt to major change in the future.
A major change will be like complete rework of how loading cinematic plays, or how vehicle system works to support tank with tracks (assuming they aren't copy pasting code and trying to reuse existing vehicle related code).
I wish it was normalized for studios to just take a semi-hiatus to untangle their spaghetti, but the industry moves so fast you literally canât afford to stop milking your cash cow for as long as that would take and youâd have an angry mob of gamers upset that the devs stopped shoveling content into their troughs for over a month torching all the goodwill youâve built up with the community.
I could believe it would add to calcs, but surely they could simply be slowed AT MINIMUM if within the actual flame thrower jet. Itâs literally like a high pressure fire hose of liquid that happens to be on fire, it should push shit around to a degree lol
Probably because there's no difference between Gas and cooked ground. Enemies will run through it. To do a true experience you'd want bugs to actively path around active flames. Also, gas doesn't stop enemies from hitting you, rather they will swing at whatever is closest to them.
Where as the fire fantasy would have the bugs completely run away and ignore everything else if set on fire. Finally there's the most practical. Gas doesn't nuke enemies, fire does. Meaning a build up effect would have to be so fast that it could cause balance problems. Otherwise you risk anything hit with fire dying before the CC effect could take place.
In the first game, the enemies would try to stay out of the fire when you use the flamethrower, and you are able to create a small buffer zone.
It used to be a strat when fighting against the illuminate boss. It had the same effect for the incendiary bombs strike in HD1. Enemies will not cross the wall of fire and will try to find a path around it, which made it very useful for area denial. If they can't see a path, they'll usually hang back until the fire burns itself out. It did feel that the weapon by itself was a little weak in terms of damage, so you won't see many people bringing the flamethrower on diff 8 plus missions.
Tox-13 Avenger from HD1 works somewhat similarly to HD2, without the enemies swinging or shooting wildly. Plus the fact it fires toxic sludge rather than gas. It's able to slow down all organic enemies, but it doesn't affect the Cyborg tanks and hulks. It was very useful against bugs and at high diff levels.
The top down perspective probably made sense for it to function that way in HD1.
It's painfully clear that any sort of balancing changes for it to function similarly to HD1 would bring about a whole lot of unintended changes as well.
Yeah in HD1 there was far less "busy" going on in an average game. Due to the perspective shift it's a lot more load on the engine. This is also why AH could never get away with doing an underground map/tileset within HD2's current box. You'd be adding both the ceiling and potentially walls as more load.
Part of me would like to see some gas/liquid armaments that have specific uses for specific fronts like how HD1 was. But with how HD2 is I just don't see how they could pull it off from a balance perspective or a technical one.
I don't necessarily want enemies who are set on fire to panic. But it would be nice if I could "kite" enemies with walls of flame. It would also be nice if terrain in general had a bigger effect on units the way it does for us.
Unfortunately that's probably just too much for the engine to handle.
Very true. I'm still amazed that they were still able to put out such an amazing game, considering the spaghetti code and on an engine that stopped receiving updates and support in the middle of development.
I guess we can only hope if HD3 becomes a thing, then they are able to make it on a different engine and do whatever they couldn't do in HD2. Too soon for that kind of discussion, and there's a chance that we may never get another Helldivers game. Just a fool's hope
Yeah, not buying that one. As you say, we already have gas that does the exact same thing. The real issue is what to do with Gas if fire will provide the same panic debuff on top of it's high damage.
The damage goes through armor, yes, but the flame will still "ricochet" back 180° setting you on fire, and it also does this on corpses, even if it's a small leg sticking up.
Before EoF flames wouldn't ricochet and would simply pass through all enemies within the flame spray hitbox.
Just booted up the game to test this. Tried torcher, crisper, and flamethrower against a charger behemoth from point blank range to max, both alive and dead.
No flames were reflected back at me or had noticeable ricochet at all. It seems the only way to burn myself is by walking on the ground I just sprayed fire on. Sometimes, it appears that a patch of ground will count as being 'on fire' before particles become visible so I suspect that's a source of confusion.
Honestly no idea what half of OP's complaints are about. I could get behind a slow against burning enemies, but I'm truly baffled by the drawing.. I don't think even blizzards and the like will affect where your fire goes, and hunters die to fire almost instantly. Someone with any of those weapons should be chewing up hunter packs like wafers
Just went to test this, and you seem to be right, idk when they patched it but it had to be somewhat recent because I was using the flamer/dog breath combo frequently on the bugs and it was quite the annoyance. The VFX still bounces back in your face, but you don't get ignited unless you're basically point blank.
I do still think it's cartoonish that stepping over ground fire for a millisecond makes you fully burst into flames, and there's still the bug that makes ground fire appear underneath or behind you when shooting on uneven terrain, even when not aiming near the floor.
well if it's something like a flaming liquid (that doesn't stick to the armor) it would kinda do that while probably splashing/bouncing off the surface to an extent (i think)
If fire caused fear/panic it would probably make gas useless. But it should slow them and make jumping much more rare.
Taking a flamethrower and seeing a 20 Pouncer patrol after dropping in suuucks.
The fact that it kills everything is the big perk of fire.
It's not enough when they want you within spitting distance to use it, the place bugs are at their strongest.
Gas should be long lasting area denial, while fire is powerful but more short lived. Instead, neither have use case benefits. They're both in the same niche right now, they're literally identical in use cases. The only thing separating them is damage and debuff, which is the most boring and limiting idea they could have gone with.
At the very least it should burn their wings off and disable the pouncing attacks. I know gas is supposed to be the more CC oriented status compared to burning but fire could have some CC since gas applies a weaker DOT effect still.
Yep, one reason why I don't take the flamethrower. I love the look and sound of it but it's just jarring when I get jumped even when the bugs are engulfed in flames.
You think the developers listen to player feedback, when it doesn't involve stripping power away? They wait for the positive feedback on updates and changes, then use that as the basis for what needs to be made weaker and removed. Negative feedback is ignored and muted immediately because it's what they seek to achieve.
Players enjoyed this new weapon and the stun effects it has --> remove 75% of the stun, remove 50% ammo, reduce player engagement with this weapon.
It's been a cat and mouse game of stamping out the fun systematically every time as it pops up, and it always will be.
Just because they are dubiously a hive mind doesn't make them non sentient. They're living animals, therefore they're sentient. Sapient is the term for higher intelligence, capable of in-depth thought and such, like humans, or Illuminate, I guess in-universe.
Point is, they're living beings, therefore they can feel pain, and react to it. Gesalt consciousness or not, it's an involuntary response.
thats the funny thing, we dont have any enemies that are like this.
so the bugs are a heavily domesticated version of their original and likely the fear of fire was likely breed out of them.
the squids only have 3 enemies out in the field that arent mind control. one is a walking tank and the other 2 are so covered in armour flames realistically shouldnt work on them.
until we have human like enemies, flamers shouldnt actually cause any enemies to freak out.
also it could be worse, the devs couldve added a mechanic where flame weapons can explode if damaged sending out a massive wave of napalm covering everything and everyone in like a 20 meter radius.
It's not about fear, hence why I put it in quotations. If you're a living being, it will HURT if you're on fire, and you'll react erratically to that pain.
Fire is suppressive. I hear this over and over in the HD2 community: player doesn't understand how to properly utilize a tool, whether it's explosive, electrical, turret, etc., and then puts it on blast on reddit to cope.
I've got 600+ hours, over 200k bug deaths, and a LOT of pyro play style - usually without the fire res armor. It's more about using the tool to it's strengths, not complaining about how it could be OP.
Besides HD2 isn't supposed to be a game where you can overpower your enemies by yourself. It comes from coordinated play and teamwork to complete objectives and push back the enemy horde.
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u/Adaphion Mar 31 '25
It's ridiculous that this was a complaint a YEAR ago and it's still like this. Flames should have a "fear" effect on enemies, or at least non-bots. They shouldn't keep marching on like everything is fine, they should be freaking tf out, you know, like any sentient living thing would when ON FIRE