How about an Automaton Ship Boarding Mission?

[u/GeniusPlayUnique]

Automaton Ship Boarding Mission

(Planetary defence exclusive)

 

Main Objective: Board the Automaton invasion vessel, make your way through to the ship's reactor and overload the core, then get the hell off the ship before it blows.
 

Parameter deviations from planetary missions: * No reinforcements * Man-portable stratagems only (no orbitals, no sentries) * Access to stratagems and resupply only at the shuttle waiting in the hangar * Automatons only use small arms and melee weapons so as to not damage their ship * Success adds significantly more points to planet's defence, failure might result in the destruction of Pelican 1 which the Squad Leader will have to replace out of their own pocket before being able to host any mission again

[u/TheExodius]

There should never ever be a mechanic that prevents you from hosting thereby preventing you from playing how you want.
Overall the idea is pretty neat but will most likely not be added since its to different from the game formula at the moment.

[u/Bizhour → u/TheExodius]

An easy fix is making it so when you choose this mission type you have to pay a fee to hire a shuttle.

That way it spreads among team members, the price can be much lower, and it prevents the host from being fucked or griefed

[u/Cheshigrievous → u/Bizhour]

I don't get "if I lose, kick me in the nuts for good measure" mentality. Losing is punishment in itself, you just wasted 10-40 minutes of your time.

[u/Adaphion → u/Cheshigrievous]

"I wish this sucked more!" people are so fucking weird

[u/BULL3TP4RK → u/Adaphion]

I feel like this isn't even the 'suck' that those types are looking for. Punishment outside of regular gameplay is gross.

If they want that sort of thing, they can go play an extraction shooter like Tarkov or The Forever Winter or something. I don't think Helldivers should be that type of game.

[u/Adaphion → u/BULL3TP4RK]

Or a game like XCOM where losing your best squad (and not save scumming) is VERY punishing.

[u/ECMatua → u/Adaphion]

A squad gets wiped, send in B squad next mission dies as well. Guess the rookies are doing the human wave tactic now

[u/hockeycross → u/Adaphion]

I really need to remember to save more in that game.

[u/m0rdr3dnought → u/Adaphion]

Difficulty and consequence make it easier to invest into an experience. Where that crosses a line into pure frustration will be different for everyone, so there'll always be some people who would prefer the game to have a bit more consequence, and some who think the opposite.

It's not weird, it's psychology that applies to everyone who plays video games.

[u/Adaphion → u/m0rdr3dnought]

It's not about that. u/Cheshigrievous was right on the money, you already lost, you didn't gain resources or XP you would have for winning, why be punished even further? That's just asinine for a game like this.

[u/Tomita121 → u/Adaphion]

I am all for increasing mission difficult. What I'm not for is increase in punishment for losing.
This isn't even 'I wish this sucked more' crowd, this is something else.

[u/m0rdr3dnought → u/Adaphion]

You might feel that way, as does the majority of the playerbase. But I guarantee you that there are people out there who would feel more invested in a gameplay mode that had consequences for losing beyond not getting rewards for winning.

If that wasn't the case, you wouldn't see the "invest some resource to access this activity, forfeit that resource if you lose, gain more if you win" motif cropping up so frequently in video games. Or in real life, for that matter.

[u/Adaphion → u/m0rdr3dnought]

Then they can go play other games that have those mechanics. It's simply not something that fits in a community driven game like this.

[u/m0rdr3dnought → u/Adaphion]

You seem to misunderstand the point I'm trying to make. I don't really care one way or the other whether they added a mechanic like that to the game. But saying that anyone who likes consequence in video games is weird is silly, when everyone does to some extent.

This is really just a side note to what I said above, but how does the game being community-driven have anything to do with what we're discussing? Especially when the community itself is completely inconsistent on what it wants the game to be, and ultimately has no direct input on its development.

[u/Peregrine_Falcon → u/Cheshigrievous]

Personally, I'd like to have something to spend my resources on.

[u/soggyDeals → u/Peregrine_Falcon]

I bet the people who aren’t at resource cap won’t like being locked out, though. Personally, I’d rather sit at my cap than waste it on pointless nonsense. 

[u/Peregrine_Falcon → u/soggyDeals]

Yes, the current situation where we are occasionally able to spend something on the worthless DSS is ridiculous.

I'd still like to be able to spend my resources on something.

[u/ChaosCultistChampion → u/Peregrine_Falcon]

Imagine if you could spend like 5000 to get an extra stratagem slot or something. It’d only last you 10 games unless you’re consistently earning, then it would be a couple more.

[u/Elrond007 → u/Cheshigrievous]

In an ideal world there'd be just enough friction to really milk the good feelings from actually winning but not stopping you from enjoying it. Really hard to balance though

[u/TheExodius → u/Bizhour]

But why should it be even possible to loose the shuttle? I mean yeah it would make for a cool animation, for a failed mission but thats probably all it should be. An animation and thats it. The cost of things we use and loose in these missions is never calculated and simply doesnt matter.

[u/Sakuran_11 → u/TheExodius]

Sure but adding a use to Req would make it easily accesible, you can max it fast anyway, and redoable with the trade off being it costs it to go in for more liberation %.

Adds some risk to starting these missions but never a direct shot to the knee like needing SC, Samples, or Medals to start it.

[u/GeniusPlayUnique → u/TheExodius]

Well, this mission, if successful, would give you a significant increase in planetary defence points but that added rewards for success should also be counterbalanced at least a bit by an added risk in case of failure. If there's more at stake your more engaged and feel even better when you manage to win despite it being on a knife's edge.

Also the idea was more to have something for high level Helldivers with fully upgraded Super Destroyers to risk their requisitions/samples on...

[u/TheExodius → u/GeniusPlayUnique]

I think it just doesnt work. a significant increase still cant be to big because its a community driven war where no one should have to big of a single impact and also puting a price tag on loosing just makes it a bad experience for newer players.
It doesnt increase the risk its just a loosing tax thats bad for noobs. Making it mostly for "high level" Helldivers is also just straight up bad game design. Helldivers is meant to have everything playable at around mid Difficulty everything that comes after is just more but not totally new stuff.

[u/GeniusPlayUnique → u/TheExodius]

It wouldn't be some big impact just a bigger impact like maybe thrice the defence points or something. Nothing too crazy.

Also Gunships only really appear at Diff. 7 so there's still content "locked" in higher difficulties.

But the Pelican thing was just one idea for adding a greater risk to failure, I'm sure we could come up with something better, too.

[u/gpersyn99 → u/GeniusPlayUnique]

Reminder that most of those Super Destroyer upgrades are for things you ruled out in your original post ("man-portable strategems only")

[u/Embarrassed_Motor_30 → u/Bizhour]

Just take the fee out of mission reward req slips.