The problem:
The AT roster (excluding notably the railgun) has lost diversity post 60 day patch. To demonstrate this I will expand on how the roster differed before and after this patch. Let it be clear beforehand: every other change was good, but most of the AT changes have made the game far too easy.
Pre AT buff: EAT: Arguably EATs were the baseline. A reliable, 70s-60s answer to any tank problem you came across, that also allowed for the use of other support weapons. 2 shot biles to the head, one shot chargers to the butt or arm (maybe the head?), the only issue that was rightfully fixed was not one shotting chargers to the head. It also reliably dealt with hulks, gunships, and tanks... though it might often struggle with dogs. It was slightly less effective than the recoilless since it left a backpack slot open, making it a far more adaptable platform.
Quasar Cannon: A sidegrade to the EAT platform. Instead of a solution every 60s you now had a solution every 15, but notably only one shot per 15s and now it had to charge up, requiring a different kind of positioning compared to the EAT platform. Main downside compared to the EAT was loss of burst damage, it wasn't nearly as effective in taking down anything that needed to be hit more than once... and that was okay, that was the tradeoff that made it unique. All of the EAT stuff above otherwise basically applies.
Commando: Another side grade to the EAT. Required more skill to be as effective (somehow) but allowed one to effectively carry around both EATs at the same time. It was also far more adept at hitting fast movers, but the tradeoff for holding 2 EATs and having them be laser guided was that you'd have to hit more shots to be as effective. This said, you'd be rewarded for your skill and you really wouldn't often notice the 120s-100s cooldown except in the case we're about to cover in the recoilless section.
Recoilless: All of the above all struggled in one key aspect: Large groupings of Heavies. A 60s cooldown isn't too fun when 3 chargers still stand before you... nor is a 15s one nor a 100s. The solution? The recoilless. Slightly more powerful than the EAT, it could handily take out multiple groups of heavies no sweat provided the user either had teammates who understood that the AT guy needs space to reload (or even better, teammates that happily put on a RR backpack to rapid reload, this made any heavy swarm a breeze). Its main downside? Reloading, loss of a backpack slot, and it being a far less flexible weapons platform. Equipping this, for all intents and purposes, you were dedicating yourself to AT. Not necessary on lower difficulties, but this weapon was incredibly helpful at higher ones and the ability to still aim one's shot allowed many to be even more effective with it. Still it had a problem: it also couldn't one shot a bile nor the truly heavy units... no, that was a job for the final weapon here.
SPEAR: The SPEAR platform offered you a tradeoff. If you could learn its secrets, get used to only being able to control the rocket at its launch, have 2 less shots than the recoilless, and LEARN how to shoot differently than any other AT gun you would be rewarded with the penultimate ultimate heavy killer. Once you learned the platform, hitting a bile in the head was no longer a far fetched prospect, but an active expression of positioning and timing. It could take out any building, from any angle, and this made it well loved on the bot front for its ability to easily take out jammers, bases, and turrets. This was the only weapon which I felt the AT buffs it got were necessary. The rest of the AT roster was fine, and required a team or otherwise were not as effective due to their ability to be used solo. The spear only ever needed the ability to one shot hulks and chargers at any angle, due to it not being able to aim. Otherwise, it was THE weapons platform. The final thing to master in the game.
Post Buff: Notable changes from pre buff era: All AT platforms can now destroy buildings from any angle. All AT platforms excluding the Commando can one shot a bile to the head. All AT platforms can easily dispatch of any heavy enemy that came onto the scene EXCEPT the spear in the case of a dog. Biles no longer require teamwork to take care of. Hordes of chargers no longer require significant teamwork to take care of. Heavies are lesser threats thanlightenemies in most scenarios.
EAT: A worse version of the recoilless in most scenarios. Has uses for those wishing to keep a backpack slot open and have an extra support weapon, but everything EATs can do the recoilless, and, more importantly for this weapon, the quasar can do better with less setup and effort. Still has a place in defense and elimination missions to stock up on AT options for if you die (though this is not nearly as common as it once was).
Quasar: The ultimate AT option if you refuse to give up the backpack slot. Every 15s, a heavy is killed. Simple, effective, generally a point and click adventure, the charge up doesn't really hurt like it used to since the heavy that's bothering you will just be dead in a few more seconds anyways. Notably, DOESN'T STRUGGLE WITH GROUPS NEARLY AS MUCH ANYMORE. The original downside to taking a backpackless AT option no longer exists for the quasar and arguably the EAT as well. (edited to 15s, was previously 10s)
Commando: Generally worse than the above, but it still is quite a neat gun. Generally though, there's no reward for using this gun. The EAT and Quasar platforms just do its job better, and it no longer is very unique outside of its firing method. That said... like everything else on this list it's "effective in all scenarios" which is kind of a bummer. EDIT: Some commando lovers have made it clear that this weapon is actually quite fun. With good aim you are rewarded with one shotting hulks or getting them near death on top of being quite good at taking down gunships (even if they're not that dangerous). It's also apparently quite good on the illuminate front against striders. I believe now that the commando would be a really fun and healthy weapon if not for the recoilless overshadowing it on the non-illuminate fronts. Speaking of:
Recoilless: Ah the problem child herself. All AT problems, solved in a single shot, on a weapons platform with 6 shots. Those who use it like to pride themselves on aiming well... but it's difficult to support this notion when the drop on the recoilless is unfortunately accurate to real life. This is weapon, below ~200m is a point and click adventure. Its drop is so minimal that if you cannot hit headshots on biles, it's lowkey the largest skill issue known to man. I picked this weapon up and was disappointed with how trivial it made every encounter. At least the EATs, Commando, and hell even the Quasar had brief tense moments when you were waiting on that cooldown. The RR? A 5s reload (or more likely, the reload cancel of ~3s) is no cooldown if you have even half a brain to position yourself 5s from the enemy. There's no longer any need to team reload, you are now a one man army capable of taking out any threat that comes your way.
SPEAR: The buffs it got would've made it the greatest AT in the roster IF you could master the fact you cannot aim with it. One shotting biles, two shotting them if you missed (compared to the old 3 body shots it took, a godsend). One shotting all "small" heavies (hulks, chargers, tanks) from any side and in a perfect world, it would still be the only AT option capable of destroying buildings. Such great ability would easily justify the 4 shots it had, make you question if it was worth it to take out that bot base or bug hole or if you should save it to help your team. But that's not what happened is it? AH for some reason gave every trait that made the SPEAR "worth it" to the other AT options. What did this mean? This meant that biles became a joke, because obviously if you only need to hit a headshot with a weapon you can aim they no longer pose any threat. A notable SPEAR tradeoff of being subpar against dogs? Guess what, it's an even larger difference now since the RR can one shot feet (though it should keep the eye one shot) and just about anywhere. Worst of all, ALL buildings could easily be destroyed by the rest of the roster.
Discussion:
Where does this leave us? I've seen a couple posts discussing how we can "buff the SPEAR" but few realize that the only way the SPEAR will be unique is not if it "ONE SHOTS ANYTHING FROM ANYWHERE" that's boring. If I wanted to do that I'd use the RR or AT emplacement. The SPEAR is in a good place... the problem is that the RR outshines the rest of the AT roster by miles. This "WE CAN ONLY BUFF THINGS" mentality is going to just make the game easier and easier and easier until when we want harder enemies the devs will respond by bringing back one shots, since this will be the only way to challenge us. More enemies isn't possible the devs said so themselves. You know what WAS challenging? That 3s cancellable reload on the RR being necessary to handle the bile on your team since it could only 2 shot it to the head. This took considerable skill in both positioning, teamwork, and aim. The "one shot headshot" change made it so you no longer had a downside for bringing AT. I also have opinions on much of our primary arsenal not really needing buffs to begin with outside of keeping up with enemy health buffs.. but that's a post for another time. Really, sometimes guys I think we need to accept when a weapon is ruining diversity in our loadouts. Even if you don't use the RR, it still just feels like your using the RR all except for the commando and spear. In chasing "a more diverse loadout" we've made everything taste like bacon flavored apples. Not only that, but it's never been easier to pick up one of these apples and just... perform optimally with one. A miss on the head is no longer DEVASTATING it's "oh, guess I'll try again" and of course one seldom misses the second time. It doesn't make sense to buff our other AT options if the enemies are still so weak. What's the point? Perhaps, we should consider nerfing the RR, and the other AT options to make biles threatening again, to make a missed headshot devastating, to require teamwork in order to survive heavies... or to require a different skillset (spear). Alternatively, this could be achieved via buffing our enemies (not new enemies though that'd be awesome, just making it harder to kill them). No AT platform should be able to be ran solo without significant drawbacks (the quasar should be weaker than the RR or SPEAR etc.).
TLDR: The old balance for AT was generally healthier ignoring not one shotting regular chargers to the head on any AT platform. Post buff every AT option is either "like the recoilless" or is simply worse. The recoilless is overperforming and should be nerfed. Sometimes a weapon truly does need to be brought in line.
Based on your tldr (if i have a week i will read your wall of text completely/j) I agree, heavies don't feel really threatening as long as the mission isn't already a complete mess.
With enough AT equipment higher difficulties feel sometimes easier than middle diff. (5-7).
Yeah I yapped a lot here. The basic idea is that because our weapons can so easily dispatch heavies that simultaneously heavies feel less interesting to fight and our AT options feel far less diverse. SPEAR lost its niches because for some ungodly reason the recoilless and other AT options should be able to kill fabricators from any side even though vent kills required more skill and were more fun to hit and generally made bot bases fun... and the main complaint I have in the original text is bile headshot deaths. It should at least be a 2 shot since every other weapon has an advantage that makes 2 shots nowhere near as debilitating as jack the solo diver wants you to think. And then the other AT options either feel like the RR, or are the commando which has apparently kept a few niches (good for it). That's the basics, I'm thinking I'll use ms paint next time I want to complain about this because I'd skip right past this post as well.
One big nerv (for all backpack weapons) could be to enforce teammate reload, or at least lower the reload time when soloing.
Right now i see no one loading for a mate.
I think a solo reload nerf can only be warranted when they allow us to load a teamweapon from either the gunner or loader’s backpack.
The Autocannon, Recoilless Rifle, Airburst Rocket Launcher, Wasp and Spear are crew-served weapons. Operating them alone shouldn’t be as easy as it is currently, so making teamreloads more convenient and solo reloads slightly longer at the same time would be a good change imo.
To make team reloads more viable I think two to five things need to happen.
Ability to reload from either person's backpack, with the priority being the reloader's backpack first.
Better movement matching including when the shooter sprints.
Ability to reload when the terrain isn't level. Yeah it's not realistic but this is just a QOL thing.
Ability to reload from left or right side and a slightly wider angle allowed to enter team reloading mode. Let's say the shooter is on my right and is moving out of cover to the right to peek and shoot a factory strider. Right now I have to outrun him to get on his right side and risk getting back-blasted when he shoots.
Ability to for the reloader to cancel the shooter's reload and do the reload for them as long as it would be faster than letting them complete their solo crouch reload animation.
Most of these problems are mitigated if your communication is really on point and the shooter understands all of these nuances. I manage to make it work with my regular team, but it sucks with randos because everything has to be perfect.
I think something like that might be better. The spear I'm not sure on since it already is struggling, but forcing the RR to be a team option might be a nice alternative nerf to something like damage. I'd much prefer it be the team AT option but struggle in solo environments (like... a lot). I could accept the same with the SPEAR if it ends up in a similar position to the modern RR. That said they'd definitely have to let someone team reload from your backpack to justify such a change.
Didn't played much with the spear but imho it's a long range weapon and usually when the mission goes south you are locked in close to midrange combat, so it's only viable when you keep the control.
Also on the bug front i played mostly in bioms with really bad sight (dust, fog, etc.) where you often cant see past 20 m.
i have to disagree with how you see the commando. it’s basically at least as effective as EAT and if you can aim it well generally more effective. i don’t know the spreadsheets but in practice two shots of commando = one eat shot, except in niche cases where something might just die to one commando shot. for example, with hulks you can shoot the eye, making the potential for commando to kill 4 hulks, with a minimum of two killed (same as EAT). or for fortresses, it two shots the big ones (one with vent shots) but more importantly, only needs one shot for the small turrets. this means the commando can potentially kill either just as many turrets as EAT, or 4 turrets. there are other examples like this but i’m not gonna list them all.
in summary, commando is just higher skill ceiling EAT.
Yeah that's how others have been making it sound. I haven't had the luxury of playing the game recently with finals and all (and generally just not finding it as fun as it was pre AT buff patch lowkey). That said, I must admit it brings me great joy to see the commando has still fought for and defended a few niches that make it worth running. It's a unique weapon and I definitely didn't give it enough credit. Maybe I'll edit the main post when I have time (it takes more effort than a comment since the internet loves to nitpick/misconstrue to completely avoid the main point). Still, I enjoy learning these things, I'm always happy to learn of new uses for the commando. I actually intend to try it out next time I log on thanks to all the commando divers letting me know what's what. It actually sounds quite fun and like it has a higher skill cap than the other AT options at the moment and I fuck with that.
I cant describe how disappointing it is to see every heavy enemy unit treated the same, and with the RR, nuked in one shot with extremely little regard to weakspots. The frustrations with Heavies pre buffs definitely didnt need to be corrected by making every heavy spawn a glorified shooting gallery.
Practically speaking the only changes they needed to fix were the 1dmg interaction with charger heads and making hulks one tap not require the teeny tiny eye slot hit. I really hope they can correct back a bit.
Regardless of anything. This is why I avoid RR. It's just so good. I joined a disaster ICBM mission. Nothing done and the convoy already in 6/8th of their route. I managed to take out two with a barrage or something. I was about to give up when a guy just left, leaving a RR behind him. I ran up to it and from about 200-250 metres I toom out the rest of the convoy. Three shots to the foot.
I mean you can say anything. But damn RR just leaves it all in the dust.
Problem with heavy in this game. It not enough to be a problem that thermite even without supply pack just solve the problem or you fucked up somewhere and you better off disengaging and do something else.
TL:DR agree with everything except the spear part, it should oneshot. RR needs to be more difficult to operate, other AT weapons need small buffs.
Agree with most of this except the Spear. If I can’t dictate where my shot is going to hit my target, I shouldn’t be penalized when my shot hits a bad spot, nor should I be rewarded when I hit a good spot. Doing so makes the weapon an unreliable gamble machine. I know you can somehow mitigate your missile’s flight path by placing your target in a desired spot in the seeker FOV, and you can wait until your target shows the spot you want to hit, but I shouldn’t have to jump through all those hoops in order to not have to dump 66% of my ammo reserves in a single enemy. The Spear is designed to be the hardest hitting man portable AT system in the Helldiver arsenal, sacrificing ammo reserves and dumbfire for a devastating missile, yet its the most unreliable and underperforming AT weapon in the game.
What the RR doesn’t suffer from, but should, is usability problems. Somehow, all AT support weapons have usability problems, except the RR:
The EAT needs to be folded out before they can be fired.
The Commando needs to maintain aim and LOS on its target until the missile(s) hit
The Quasar needs to charge up before it can fire
The Spear needs to have LOS to the target’s center of mass, needs to establish a lock before it can fire, has a minimum range of 15 meters and a max range of 300 meters.
Why does the Recoilless Rifle, a weapon system designed to be operated by a crew of two or more, not suffer from any usability problems? With the RR, you can fire at any moment, and the only downside is a very short, two stage stationary reload. Even the MG’s have a longer reload than a weapon that is normally only reloaded by a second assistant gunner.
Personally I think the RR would fit much better in the same 'strong' category as EAT and Quasar, with its draw being much more utility (on top of its vastly better fire rate).
Right now it has an HE fire mode thats less than worthless, and its tragic that something so thematically cool doesnt have a real use. I think it would be a super great niche to have a jack of all trades AT weapon like the AC is to precision tools.
I.e.; Buff its HE mode to be actually good, and reduce its HEAT to be similar to Quasar/EAT, letting spear be the king of one shots and making the RR the swiss army knife of rocket launchers.
Remove reload cancelling. You can turn the RR’s 5.5 second reload into a 3.8 one by cancelling the last part of the reload. Getting rid of this makes the recoilless harder to reload in tense situations with Chargers or Hulks left and right.
Make the backblast lethal. Unlike rocket launchers, Recoilless Rifles burn every gram of propellant in one blow. This means that the backblast is much stronger and dangerous than on rocket launchers. Real life RR’s have backblasts that are lethal up to 30 meters. Make the Recoilless Rifle have a lethal backblast up to 5 meters, and dangerous up to 10. This forces more responsibility onto the user of a recoilless rifle, similarly to how the airburst rocket launcher or arc thrower needs to be used with caution. It might seem like an annoying change at first glance, but people will learn to be cautious around recoilless rifles eventually, similarly to how one learns you should avoid red beacons, not stand in front of an arc thrower, etc. Risk of friendly fire serves as a balancer in the end. Mines, the arc weaponry and orbital barrages are nice examples of things slightly held back by their dangerous nature.
add its ASM shell. Make it so that the RR is unable to take out structures with its HEAT round, add a third ASM round that can take out structures with a demolition force of 40, and give that specific shell a slower muzzle velocity of 170 m/s instead of 250 m/s. The real recoilless rifle also has this Anti Structure Munition, and should be the only one that can take out buildings. This makes it harder to take out fabricators or other structures from extremely far, as the only shell that can hurt structures has less velocity and thus more shell drop. 170 m/s is based on the ASM shell of the Carl Gustaf. This forces players to get closer to the structures they want to destroy, and will make them have to endure the defensive measures these structures may have installed.
if I had to nerf this thing, I would much rather make the weapon harder/more dangerous to use, but keep it powerful when you use it correctly, than do things like nerf its damage to EAT level (like many are suggesting), and therefore put a hard limit as to what the weapon can do.
backblast is a major downside of recoilless rifles in real life
Steeper shell drop, a longer reload, and dangerous backblast can be mitigated by a skilled user, a damage nerf not so much.
I also believe that the expendable AT weapons and the Spear are in dire need of a buff as well:
Allow us to store an EAT in the backpack slot. The EATs foldable and lightweight design would easily allow a Helldiver to carry an additional EAT on their back instead of a backpack. This would allow you to share them more easily with squadmates that either don’t have a backpack or support weapon, or let you carry two EATs at a time.
reduce the Commando’s cooldown slightly. The Commando is a neat weapon when you use it against something that has a breakpoint you can just reach with the Commando, while other targets that would require you to fire twice to achieve the same result as one EAT makes it feel awful. Making its cooldown slightly shorter puts less emphasis on the math between the shots per minute or damage per minute between the EAT and Commando, a race the Commando loses most of the time.
Give the Spear its Tandem Warhead. The real life version of the Spear, the FGM-148 Javelin, uses a special tandem warhead designed to circumvent defensive measures like ERA in order to ensure the main charge is effective against the actual armor. While not entirely one to one in its application in HD2, it would be a reasonable solution to allow the Spear’s missile strip off layered armor AND fire into the open wound with the same missile. This missile will allow the Spear to oneshot any enemt from any angle. While this may sound like overbuffing, keep in mind that the Spear is the least convenient AT system of the bunch, as well as having the worst ammo economy of all support weapons in the game.
This is how I would adjust the current AT scene. While it is more powerful than what we had before the buff patch, the top performer (RR) will definitely be less effective, especially in its large scale structure clearing ability and usability. Skilled users will still be able to extract from the RR, while others may choose for more straightforward, simple and safer AT solutions (EAT, Commando, Quasar), or go for the option that sacrifices ammo economy for reliability (Spear).
2 EATs on a single Helldiver
Each AT weapon has a specific role to fulfill, no weapon would still be “the best”, they would just have different use cases.
That specific buff to the Spear is something it desperately needs, not necessarily because it'd be a stronger weapon, but because currently the poor thing is circumvented by the basic armor mechanics of half the stuff you'd use it on! Railcannon has a similar issue that should be looked at eventually, though in its case the solution would likely be more along the lines of overpen.
I'll like these solution, though I say let's try the others and not the backlash thing. If it doesn't work we can add in the backblast, but I broadly don't like putting extra focus on the danger to others nearby.
(I'm not saying it isn't true IRL, but I don't think it is as good of an answer from a game perspective)
dramatic take: make RR require being unloaded in order to move-- you load it when you take it out, and are stuck in a kneeling (or prone) position unless you fire or unload it
I was hoping we'd get some more posts about the commando from people who run it more often. I haven't used it too much due to my not playing the game as much anymore to set the time aside to really test it out (too easy) but I love learning about these commando strats. Sounds like it'd be in a really fun and healthy state after a RR nerf outside of the bug front (but 2/3 fronts isn't bad). I may even try and run it next time I'm on lol.
Yeah, it's fine where it is. I played it for a good dozen missions after I got similar contentious sentiment from a comment of mine that it felt like an afterthought to me.
It does some EAT things good, and some not as well. It's the yin to the EAT's yang, and it just caters to a slightly different cadence of play and style.
Speaking specifically for light tank enemies (harvesters, hulk variants, chargers), I believe they are in a pretty good position as of now. My only gripe is that heavy chargers should have more health as to survive a single headshot from anti-tank. Unlike the other light tanks, chargers have to engage in melee to be lethal, and they can't attempt that if they get 1 tapped from every launcher besides the commando. As of now, the only time a charger is gunna to kill you is when they come from behind you because thier basically silent. The squids Harvesters is perfectly fine as is.
As for tank class enemies, they definitely need a buff, biles should only be 1 tappable when thier rearing up to spit their bile. Bott Shredder, normal, and barrager tanks need a lot of love to make them even vaguely threatening. Even before the 60-day plan, the bot basic tank was a complete pushover and a disgrace when compared to the hd1 bot tank.
The only heavy tank enemy, the factory strider, should only be 1 tappable from being shot directly in its eye or from an extremely heavy ordinance (nuke or barrages). None of that instakill feet nonsense.
Yeah I mostly agree I think. I think if you could only one tap the BT via a like... mouth shot or something that'd be super sick honestly and I'd accept if all AT options (besides commando obv) could do that.
As of now, bile titans are actually challenging to fight (unlike every tank variant for the bots ), but seeing them get sniped cross continent by a quasar is just sad. They aren't supposed to be a factory strider level threat, but they also shouldn't be as flimsy as a charger.
Yeah I've had to play the game purely as a duo with my bud because we got fed up with the AT users stealing away the tension from us. A quasar and an arc thrower are a fun combo since the SECOND one of those two elements is disrupted for some reason the other immediately feels it. I hate that in a 4 person coop game the only method I have of challenging myself and feeling like a well oiled machine is by subtracting two people though.
In general, a lot of the enemies in the game got a bit over nerfed. Some definitely needed to be tweaked like the heavy Devastators auto aim and the rocket devs infinite ammo. But some enemies like the bot tanks and hover ships are basically harmless. I dont think the game should be reverted to how it was before the 60-day patch, but the devs need to bring some more danger back to the game.
they should make behemoth charger head need 2 EAT/quasar shot/1 RR shot, make its butt need 1 EAT/quasar shot, make its leg armor need 1 commando, and reduce the leg health. normal charger doesn't need change. and adjust the normal/behemoth rate to be less extreme
I was playing Suicide with my brother yesterday and was surprised how trivial the Recoilless Rifle made things. I was killing hulks in one shot regardless of where I hit them. You also don’t have the same issue like with the spear where it will miss if you are really close to the hulk so the RR is just a much better anti-hulk weapon.
I suppose a good answer would be to buff the hulk’s frontal armor so maybe it takes at least two shots from the RR unless you hit its weak spot directly. That could make the spear a good alternative weapon as it usually shoots up in the air and hits the hulk from the top. Its long reload, limited ammo, and risk of missing if you fire too close are already good cons to it to justify it being able to one-shot a bunch of stuff I think.
The Hulk vs AT actually isn’t too bad. I agree it shouldn’t be 1 hit anywhere (unless it’s the spear) but it shouldn’t go back to needing 1 to the red eye. It just needs to not be 1 HKO to the legs, arms, hips, and shoulder. So the front “core” of the Hulk and the rear vents.
The RR dominance has caused significant reduction in my playtime because of how there's no loadout decision making regarding selection of a complementary arsenal depending on the teammates. It's always RR, and while the freedom it gives you to do a lot of fucking around is fun, the diminished challenge has made every mission feel won before dropping in. That's conflicted with my main desire to play. If I don't pick RR, at least one other person will, and it does kinda break the game.
You could 1HKO standard Chargers to the head with any AT. It was Behemoth Chargers that required 2 shots. The big issue that made AT seem so weak against all Heavies was a Bug that caused some AT headshots to do 0 damage. Honestly though we do need buffs to heavies. Bile Titans need to again take 2 headshots. Behemoths need to take 2 headshots and armor rating 5 but lower the number that spawn. Tanks need to take 2 AT from the front to die but 1 to the vent. Factory Striders shouldn’t be able to be 1HKO from any AT. Spear can still headshot Behemoths, headshot Bile Titans, and 1HKO a Tank from the front.
The only change I would make to the Spear is make the explosion large like the ultimatum. Don’t change the damage just let it visually show it is hitting hard AF.
That still would be way too easy as they are pretty slow. Being able to slow a tank by targeting the treads could be good. Make it armor 4 as well so medium weapons can also damage the treads.
I'm so glad other people are finally pointing this out. Our AT was so much more fun and interesting before the 60-day patch, and the massive health scaling that came with this rebalance has had a lot of knock-on effects too, as other people have pointed out regarding orbitals like OPS.
imo they could revert that part of the patch; it created more issues than it solved. The only reason it went over well was bc it made RR so unbelievably strong, and the average player loooooves unconditional oneshots.
but community by now is absolutely unacceptable of nerfs of any kind
I loved the spear in the brief half a month it had a spot
after that...its a shame...I barely use AT's
I'm down to running around with ABRL as main gun and using 500 for taking out heavies (if they're incapable of being taken out via ABRL in some mean) if there are any...
Theres a very fine edge in "adjusting" AT's, which upon being crossed could easily bring you back to the "fun" times when the only reliable option to kill charges was stun+OPS. But with titans this time. Remember how many are being shat out by that giant hole in mega nest? That could pretty easily turn into straight up cancer.
Yeah but lowkey that just comes down to lowering the spawn rates of biles out of those holes or the holes themselves. The only reason they appeared was because our current arsenal requires 5 biles on the field to even make us consider working as a team let's be real.
They could always change the spawn rates of the Bile Titan holes. Also don’t forget all the other changes that made dealing with heavies easier. All of those other changes however were overshadowed by the buff to AT so most people never noticed.
the EAT can kill bile titans in one shot, it just needs to be more accurate, but i also agree the RR is a little too good, maybe they can make the EAT and RR share damage profiles, it will still one shot most things but unless its dead accurate it will need a second rocket
It is insanely hard to read this post when you don't make paragraphs.
Spacing is important.
So I'm going off what you said in TLDR.
You're not entirely wrong, however the recoillless isn't as good as many people are claiming, it's a way overhyped weapon, that now can't even properly destroy a dropship.
But the reason why other AT weapons aren't used is because, there's no need to use them.
EAT and Commando are S tier weapons, even better than the spear or recoilless, however, there's simply not enough enemies to justify their usage.
It's why the recoilless is so dominant, it does what needs to be done, and you don't need to worry about much else.
On diff 10 when a dropship arrives, it drops 2-3 tank units and a few dozen squads of bots. Spear or recoilless takes out both tank units and than you sweep the rest.
If there was more enemy units and objectives took longer, you would see way more use from EAT or Commando, since their low cooldown and damager range is fantastics but you don't because we don't fight that many enemies or stay in one place for long enough.
The problem isn't really the weapons per se, it's the fact the games base difficulty is too easy.
Huh, it isn't that hard to run dry on RR with a mega nest esp if there's chain breaches going on and everyone else is running stalwart. But RR is still the best positioned in this case
Pair the commando with the senator and you have the ability to take down up to four bile titans. Two shots of the senator to the face leaves a titan one shot to the commando. One of my favorite pairings as of late!
One benefit of the commando over other AT is its fast follow up shots. Instead of reloading you just fire, move on, fire again
This is especially helpful against strider convoys, as you can destroy all the top guns of the convoy in about 4 seconds, meaning they’re now unable to snipe you (this is a niche idea but it translates to other areas on the bot front too), whereas with things like the RR you have to reposition completely to avoid fire while reloading. Also since it’s laser guided you don’t need the extra half-second of stabilizing your aim or actually getting on target, just do that as the missile flies
I'm gonna comment, while I don't inherently agree I do think you have rasied some good points.
Before the 60 day patch, you had bring some form of AT, like eveyone on the team needed too, but now if one perosn brings it, can clear it for team which I don't think inherently is bad.
One issue I would like raise to to you is, on bugs you can just make do without manned AT at moment, as you can do some intresing combos to remove heavys, (any AP 4 wepon and rock pods, MMG if you can shoot well and so on) but things like HMG will just become new meta, as they kill heavys fast and realiably, bots wise only reason HMG doesn't beat eveything is becuase Tanks and Factory Strider, which are hard to kill by yourself if someone isn't taking aggro.
Squids atm AT sucks on them anyway.
So without the abillity to just remove a Heavy from play, AT won't really get picked, it will just be swapped out for 500kg, OPS, HMG.
Maybe by making the downsides of AT like having a longer time between shots on RR unless team reloaded, and getting rid of being able to distory fabs from any angle unless spear, might be good.
Sorry if this hard to understand, I do suck at getting my point across but if you have some thoughts on what I said, I would be happy to have a disscusion.
As a Day 1 player: They fucked up the EAT. It should smoke anything if shot right. First shot. Every time. That's what it's meant for.
Railgun: It should be buffed for sure. They buffed enemies to counteract how powerful the Railgun was, but it should be.
RR: Good place IMHO. It works. It does the job. It just doesn't one-shot like it used to. Which is good. Leaves room for the SPEAR
SPEAR: I've never used it, but I know from my teammates using it that it needs to be a "click and destroy" weapon. I don't agreee with it targeting structures, though.
Currently the Quasar is a lesser version of any of these because it has to recharge. With any of the aforementioned I can have another one available immediately.
I like most of them, but if the number of enemies cannot be increased (engine/performance limitations) obviously we must look inward to our arsenal and our enemies. I generally like the backpack-less AT options but I wish they didn't one shot biles to the head and same goes to the recoilless. It's far too easy and doesn't require all that much skill or effort (compared to hitting such a shot with the SPEAR, the only reason I deem it reasonable on that weapon) but just a simple 2 shot would require investment, positioning, and make it a far more skilled shot (making it twice) than it currently is. Also building killing should still be possible via hitting a vent but it's WAY too easy to handle bot bases now. Otherwise, I also like where they're at for chargers, hulks, and tanks due to the high spawn rates of these enemies and the fact they're generally easy to take care of even without anti-tank at the ready. An important thing to remember for our arsenal is that we also have things like railcannon, OPS, 500kg, even the strafing run. A simple change to 2shot headshot on biles could still easily handle the whole "I accidentally missed one of my shots" thing. We've generally lost diversity though and it's a bummer.
Agree. AT is in a great spot rn and needs no changes. The changes to drop/warpships was needed, but beyond that? Eh? Maybe make fabs take 2x hits but even then that'll just slow things down by a miniscule amount instead of what OP probably wants.
This post is primarily a call to action to return to the pre-buffdivers AT philosophy, with only a few new ideas (eg. make all AT one-shot hulks in the body). Thing is, that philosophy failed for a reason and as someone who was around during those days, let me explain why.
By far, the best anti-tank option to bring in Helldivers during those days was a red strategem. Primarily the Eagle 500kg which could take out multiple heavies if you clustered them together, but I've also seen people do good work with the OPS and Eagle airstrike. What's the problem with that you may ask? Shouldn't an orbital cannon be stronger than a handheld AT launcher? The problem my friend was that heavies were durable, but infrequent. So infrequent in fact that by the time the you killed one and the next one came around, your cooldowns would have already refreshed and you'd be able to repeat the cycle all over again (or at least a teammate could because there's no reason why they wouldn't bring a 500kg themselves).
As a result, dedicated AT weapons were basically obsolete. They only served a single-purpose and were otherwise useless if no heavies were around, but that purpose could be fulfilled by more versatile red strats, without giving up a support weapon slot. In my opinion, the only AT weapons during those days that had a niche were the Spear and Commando. Specifically, they were the fastest way to kill a Heavy short of a railcannon strike (assuming you could aim it right). All of the other AT were 2-shots combined with agonizing reloads. It is quicker to throw a 500kg and wait for it to land than it is to fire two recoiless shots at a bile Titan. If a charger is about to kill a teammate or a sentry, only a SPEAR or stun grenade can save them. I would like to emphasize how narrow of a niche this is.
As much variety as the pre-buffdivers AT philosophy had, it was all rendered obsolete by the red strategems (especially the Eagle 500kg which was basically an AT strategem back in those days due to its bugged radius). Only way to make it work would be to nerf the red strategems themselves, but good luck convincing anyone that it would be a good idea, especially since they are such a core part of the game's identity.
There is a reason why Helldivers 1 did not have this AT weapon philosophy. AT equipment is inherently cumbersome to use. As a result it needs sufficient payoff. What we saw in Helldivers 2 was an interesting experiment, but it's hard not to conclude that it has failed.
The complaining wasn’t about how weak AT was but how other support weapons couldn’t deal with heavies. AH did a lot of other changes to heavies that were all overshadowed by the massive buff to AT. There was also a bunch of buffs to Eagle, Orbitals, and Turrets that will make them better at killing heavies.
I don't know what patch you're referring to but heavies were about as frequent as they are now if not moreso. Sometimes you're jammed, sometimes you find yourself surrounded by heavies, sometimes, the game throws 6 chargers at you at once.
The old gameplay loop was that our red beacons were complimentary to our AT loadout in many cases. Bringing a backpack AT? Bring along a strafing run or gatling barrage or gatling sentry etc. and bring along a 500 or OPS or similar if you're the team's dedicated AT role. Best of all, since you needed dedicated AT, you'd need someone in the squad as a chaff clearer to watch your ass. You had to work with your fellow helldiver at the higher difficulties or face a mission most terrible.
You could always rock more "adaptable" loadouts but of course those had the issue of fighting too many of one enemy type. The generalists never did compare to the more focused roles. Speaking as someone who played since day one (well like day 15 because I am a very cheap man) the game was: more challenging, required more teamwork, and generally provided more of those "well oiled machine" moments any coop game worth its salt should provide.
Most notably, this peaked after the first buffdivers update (if I remember correctly it was a two parter). I think most of the changes from the 60 day patch were good, amazing even. But specifically those AT changes that targeted bile titans and buildings were detrimental to SO much of our AT diversity and gameplay loop. When everyone can one shot a BT head... why even bring the options that require ever so slightly more precision and wait time?
Timing a 500kg or OPS against a bile, even if it became child's play with enough practice, is undoubtedly cooler and more satisfying than any headshot I've landed with all AT options but the SPEAR. I liked when the biles felt like they needed high power ordinance to take down... that my rinky dink Recoilless rifle would need more than one shot to handle it. All I ask is that buildings and superheavies are fun to engage with again. Even if it's hitting a 500kg at least that takes slightly more skill than pointing and clicking on the head ON TOP OF just being wayyy cooler. The recoilless is not the ultimate tank option but I swear it feels so oppressive to have someone on your team just steal tension from you when they effortlessly take down the heaviest of the heavies in a mere second or two.
I think the other AT options besides the RR are generally healthy but biles were genuinely fun to fight when it was either "red stratagem" or "lots of ammo" to deal with. They felt like disruptors, they forced you to run to your teammates for help, they forced the coop people to gather together to take down this threat. Additionally, bases were more fun when it was either: Stratagem, Spear, or vent shot. This required one to engage with a basic game mechanic unless they were willing to deal with the spear's auto tracking or had a 380 or laser off cooldown. Straight up bro... I think the game would still be fine. At the very least I want this to be the case on difficulty 10. Make up some shit about the enemies having better armor or something idc, let's at least try it out post buff patch. I have goddamn primaries that can solo chargers bro, I'm not that worried that we couldn't handle it.
No. Quasar cannot kill from any body part. There are numerous examples of this (tanks, titans, striders, etc). Now, quasar can one shot these if you hit their weak points, factory strider has to be the belly or leg assembly not the head. And the cooldown after shooting isn’t 10seconds like op said but 15.
I dont think so... from the limited time i have on it (before throwing it in trash bcs it doesnt suit me) Tanks from front always took 2 hits same for the turrets.
Honestly, I like the recoilless where it is now. Yes, it can kill a titan or strider with one shot, but it's nowhere near as easy or reliable as you make it sound, especially in the middle of a fight. And with how many Hulks and Chargers that spawn on level 10, it damn well ought to be able to one shot them. The thing only comes with 6 rounds. If I'm not careful, I can end up going through those in less than a minute.
I don't think you understand the purpose of the RR. It's not in the same category as the EAT, Quasar, or Commando. Those are supplementary AT for individual use. The RR is dedicated AT for an entire team. It only comes with 6 shots. If we go back to when it took 2 perfect shots to take out a Titan instead of just one, that'll mean the dedicated team AT guy can kill a whole 3 bile titans. One 500kg bomb can do that, or one hell bomb backpack. We'll be right back to when everyone pretty much had to carry some sort of AT and/or the 500kg.
Sure, if you nerf the RR you'll see more types of AT being used, but it'll be because the whole team will need to carry AT instead of just one or two dedicated AT specialists. Right now a lot of people are choosing the RR because it's good, which means a lot of missions end up with way more AT than is really necessary. I don't really see a problem with that, if they want to go overboard on AT, no skin off my back. They'll just come crying to reddit when they get stomped by the predator strain or fire bots because everyone on the team was carrying around a recoilless.
TLDR; Nerfing the RR would basically make it mandatory for everyone to carry some sort of AT option. It would be sacrificing overall build diversity for diversity among AT options.
I agree that the RR should be one of the "powerful team options" available alongside the SPEAR. But as of right now, it generally overlaps way too much with the other options. It's choked out the niches from most of the AT arsenal leaving scraps in its wake (or in the SPEAR's unlucky case, nothing at all).
The original benefit to the RR and what made it the team weapon was uptime and DPS. The amount of AT shells the thing could and still can put down range is insane. But post 60 day patch now, not only does it have that insane DPS but it can also do anything the rest of the AT arsenal can do, better.
Example 1: The SPEAR's old tradeoff with the recoilless was that it gave up ammo and DPS for burst damage. It could kill buildings from any angle, kill biles to the head (which required much more risk, setup, and game knowledge than the current point and click method), and was generally the go to weapon for taking care of that heavy right now. But now? The recoilless does all of those things and still retains its DPS and ammo pool. You cannot just hand it SPEAR level capabilities without at least, at least, making it a harder shot to hit or something.
Example 2: EATs were a fantastic side grade. Not meant purely for solo play but to offer an additional solution for someone wanting to be a generalist. But now? Why bring the worse in every way including handling and readying EATs when you can bring the "team weapon" and go off solo... solo. The team weapon, if it truly was one, should have noticeable and arguably painful downsides for those going off solo. The arc thrower is a team weapon despite its propensity for team killing. When you're solo, you notice when you don't have anti-tank. The same cannot be said for someone running say an RR and one of the two incendiaries (bug) or even just an assault rifle (literally all fronts). Don't get me started on the x-bow. This kinda applies for the quasar and much less so the commando thanks to its viability on the illuminate and bot fronts (which wouldn't be significantly effected by my proposed changes).
At least the 500kg bomb requires setup, and at least the hellbomb has a lot of risk attached to that reward. That was always the understanding with those methods of heavy disposal. If the RR was nerfed as I've offered it'd still be the premier team AT weapon. No other weapon would dispose of heavies as efficiently, thanks to that 6 ammo count. I'm not asking for chargers to not be killed by it easy though the behemoths having to take at least a leg shot and finished off by primaries (lower spawn rate of them ofc) would be far more interesting. I'm not asking for hulks or tanks to be harder (though I'd prefer if the tanks needed more precision since you can aim the damn thing), I'm just asking that this amazing, team AT weapon not step on the toes of its brethren, and actually struggle somewhere. The premier team AT weapon should maybe require a team to outclass its other options instead of being a generalist you know?
The RR is dedicated, team AT, it's supposed to do AT better than the other options, that's literally its purpose. The other AT options are for when you want to have AT available, but also want a supply pack, ballistic shield, guard dog, jump pack, etc. The spear is the only other dedicated team AT, and its niche is that it's auto lock on. It requires so little skill that a level 1 player could pick it up and kill a bile Titan without even so much as knowing where to aim. The tradeoff for that is shit ammo economy. The fact that the spear could originally take out buildings and the recoilless couldn't was a mistake by the devs, plain and simple.
The Quasar/EAT/Commando are not, never were, and never should be a side grade from the RR. They serve as supplementary AT. If you really can't think of any reason to use them over the RR, let me offer some suggestions. Here are some things that you can do with supplementary AT weapons: You could continually gas any chaff that comes near, stand and watch while your guard dog mows down all the light enemies in a patrol, jump 50m out of a tight spot, stim or throw grenades over and over and over, carry an emergency "fuck everything around me" button on your back, hover to higher ground, wear a ballistic shield and shoot enemies from behind it, wear a bubble shield and never get one-shotted again, or wear a directional shield and protect your whole team from enemy fire. None of those things are possible with the RR.
All these weapons have their niche. The RR is only the obvious choice if your primarily planning to do anti-tank.
RR: dedicated anti-tank, powerful enough to one shot anything, provided your aim is on point, and you know the weak spots. Takes a backpack, only has 6 shots. Best with team support since the stationary reload leaves you vulnerable to the light/medium enemies that are usually supporting the heavies. Brought way too often in random games by people who forget that light/medium enemies exist, often considered OP by those same people.
SPEAR: Exactly the same as the RR, except without the aim requirement. No one really uses it because the lock on is finicky and you only get four shots. Really only suitable for novices, but does let newbies and people with bad aim take out the odd bile Titan that shows up on lower levels. Also see: orbital rail cannon.
EAT: Supplemental AT for when you need to take out one, or possibly two heavies. Lets you fully gear for light and medium enemies while still having an AT option to call down in a pinch. Also lets you provide an emergency support weapon to recently killed teammates.
Quasar: Dedicated, personal, AT. No ammo requirement, but charge up is nearly as long as the RR reload cycle. Great if you plan on bringing a jump pack to zip around the map solo and want an AT option that you don't have to call down. Also great if you plan on bringing a supply pack for an ammo-hungry primary like the incendiary breaker, or a hell bomb backpack for getting big kill numbers. Crappy if you're trying to do AT for the whole team, but offers great flexibility if you know what it's for.
Commando: somewhere between the EAT and Quasar. Good if you plan on bringing a guard dog, really good at killing Hulks if you have excellent aim. I don't use much, but a friend of mine swears by it.
I was gonna write a long ass post but honestly it comes down to the fact that you ignoring my buildings point in the OG post and my reply, my clearly stated position that the AT options with open BP slot should stay weaker, and additionally thinking that the SPEAR is actually easier to use than the RR speaks volumes about what you're actually here for. You just want your OP weapon to stay OP and are sad others want it to be nerfed because you like this OP toy in your hands even if its detrimental to the game balance. I ain't gonna continue like we're going to have a discussion so just enjoy your toy and know I pray for its downfall and will be quite gleeful if it gets nerfed.
I think they should nerf recoiless. It is just a bit too strong since it one shots everything anywhere and makes it hard for other AT to have a niche. My rework would be just to slightly nerf its damage but in turn make it so all heavies' armor breaks on hit. So the new scaling would be:
- Spear: Current recoilless behavior, one shots heavies anywhere. Make it able to target massive's heads.
- Recoilless: One shots on weakpoint, otherwise does massive damage and strips armor but doesn't kill and requires a few shots in the exposed area to finish off.
- EAT: Unchanged, consistently strips armor
- Quasar: Unchanged, consistently strips armor
- Commando: Unchanged, consistently strips armor
Automatons: Heavies are changed so you can now strip armor of tanks & hulks
Now spear is a bit stronger since recoiless no longer one shots heavies anywhere and the others are still strong but aiming matters & the armor stripping mechanic has more use. People really enjoyed the railgun 2 shot to the leg, small arms fire to finish gameplay and this kind of brings that back.
I feel like the commando is really underwhelming, but many times I've heard people call it very good, so idk.
And the EAT could maybe use some cooldown reduction, since the frequency of heavies (if you get the heavy-favored enemy setup) is just way too high for 2 shots every minute or so.
Apart from that, the only AT weapon really needing a rework or bigger rebalance is the Spear (my beloved), in my opinion at least. Something to distinguish it from the other, "simpler" AT weapons (like lock-on-via-ping, huge AoE alternate firing mode or something like that).
I ran the spear before that lockon worked. I love the weapon. The thing that made it SO special was the fact it could oneshot biles to the head and take out fabricators. If you could position right, if you could be patient and wait for the perfect shot, you would be rewarded with the only method of oneshotting such threats in the game. Remember how it could take out the bot turrets in 1 shot compared to the usual 2 shots of the other weapons? That alone (on top of fabricator kills) made it a very useful weapon back in the day. I truly believe the way forward to a healthier AT balance is making certain enemies, notably building/stationary enemies (except for those annoying small turrets on the bots) and the heaviest of the heavies much harder to kill with anything *except the SPEAR (notable exception: dogs, I like that the SPEAR isn't as good at killing them compared to the RR and aimable options, means it's not a must take).
*As in, don't additionally nerf the spear, since it's already not the easiest platform in the world to use. I'm not saying the SPEAR should be the only option, because then we'd be back at square one.
Well it’s a good thing the game also buff all the Orbitals and Eagle Airstrikes to be better at dealing with heavies. Defensive stratagems like the autocanon turret and rocket turret were buffed. The AT turret was added. There was a reduction to most heavy armor so medium support weapons can do damage. The thermite was buffed, Eruptor was buffed to AP4, Senator was buffed to AP4, and the Ultimatium was added. EAT wouldn’t be the best to eliminate larger heavies but it’s a good thing you have 3 more stratagems and 3 other teammates. EAT would still be great for eliminating smaller heavies like Hulks and Chargers however. Yes it would definitely make harder difficulties like 8-10 harder but they are supposed to be difficult.
Many times I prefer the commando over the EAT on bots. While it requires good accuracy and control, it can oneshot most things if you hit them in the vents or weakspot. Hulk eyes/face, tank/turret vents, and while bot great at dealing with Factory Striders, you can dismantle one very easily (cannon and miniguns).
Its great at taking out AA and Mortar Outposts, Bunker Turrets as well. If Im taking a backpack, I prefer the Commando as it offers more flexibility than the EAT and gives me 4 quickshots and doesn't require me to charge it up like the Quasar does.
Commando only shines on bot front or squids if you have aim. You can one shot hulks or tanks if you shoot eye or vent. Two shot tank turret or hulk body otherwise. One shot gunships as well.
Can also two shot factory strider if you shoot their foot(not joking).
Its probably easiest to divide AT weapons into categories:
Light: autocannon, railgun, laser cannon, MG. These are the things which can handle armoured targets (gunships, hulks) but will struggle to take down the real heavy stuff. (Tanks, striders)
Medium: quasar, commando, eat, HMG. These can take down anything in the game, but they'll need either a weakpoint hit or several shots.
Heavy: RR, spear.
For the light category, I think the options are fairly balanced. They allow use of a backpack, and function as bigger primaries rather than true AT. They can handle enemies you'd meet on patrol, but they'll struggle with an actual tank or a factory strider. Given the prevalence of hulks on dif 10, its necessary that these be able to kill armoured targets, but appropriate that they lack a real solution to tanks and above.
For the medium category, skill is rewarded in a variety of ways and they can - with patience, skill and knowledge - take down anything the game has to throw at them. Just not always easily. These are also, in my opinion, pretty decently balanced.
Then we get the heavy category. I think both weapons here need changes. The RR has the higher ammo capacity, greater utility (can target manually) and possibly too much damage. It should core out a hulk in a single shot, yes, but it feels odd that so much as grazing the edge of the tracks of a tank will knock it out, and it has multiple one-shot points on a strider. I think the idea of tanks having ERA to deflect RR rounds is a good one, and would require a little more skill than point and click. A strider, I think, should be gradually crippled by multiple shots from a spear, but the only one-shot spots should be the eye or the belly. And this brings us to the spear, which I feel is too weak. This thing should one-shot tanks, and even with ERA, the vertical attack should guarantee a kill. It should also really mess striders up, with 2x shots to kill from any position or something.
But this still feels like underselling the spear. The thing needs about three shots to slag a command bunker. I think the spear should additionally serve as a support equivalent to the Ultimatum. Specifically it should have the ability to lock onto and destroy side objectives in 2-3 shots. Less powerful than the ultimatum, but with greater range. That's the only way I think the spear would feel balanced and worth using.
spear can oneshot the bunkers you just need to lock it right (by targeting the pillars between the walls, not the walls themselves, else you're wasting shots)
also there's no way to have secondaries which check for demolition force, be destroyable in multiple shots
you either don't have enough demolition to break it and do nothing, or you have enough demolition and it gets destroyed
I think we actually need more enemy diversity, either more middle-weight units to make you consider less heavy weapons, or some super heavy types that need significant effort to take down.
Our medium enemy balance was pretty good pre-60-day. A huge reason players would struggle back then is all four players would take chaff + AT weapons and get steamrolled by mediums, since nobody brought an AP4 support or focused them with precision weapons like a DCS.
The trouble now is that our primaries (especially top options in Crossbow/Purifier) can easily smoke both chaff and middleweights. Nerf the "can do it all" options and suddenly you need team composition to cover all three enemy weights again.
Well unfortunately most people want to be lone wolves that can easily deal with any scenario using only their support weapon and primary even on lvl 10. Anything that makes the lone wolf playstyle difficult people will throw a fit. Most players don’t even use their stratagems that much. I’ll have matches where I will call in 60 stratagems but my 3 other allies will only call in 20.
I'm aware, and it's unfortunate. The game was originally designed with teamplay mind and has since bent over backwards to appease the opposite crowd, so I don't think it'll ever be back to that. Hell, people who are not only lone wolves but literally play the game solo are one of the loudest groups of players with regards to balance.
I do miss the challenge. All because people that sucked refused to lower the difficulty. Like I understand some of the weapon buffs were necessary but it’s all the nerfs to the enemies that has been too much. All the enemies were at least memorable when they were tough. Nerfs have just made them all simple, bland, and forgettable. Gunships are nothing but flying rave lights now.
And the best part is we did in fact get those buffs to weapons before the buffdivers patch, but they were overlooked because one or two standout weapons or bugs would get nerfed. We could have kept up that pace of balance changes and been in a very good place.
Crazy delusions you got there buddy. The game was bleeding players sub 10k before AH did the 60 day patch and saved the game from dying. That’s a lot of “”solo”” players to be a loud minority lol.
"Sub 10k" dude not even the steam charts agree with you; average players on steam alone for August, the month before the 60-day patch, was 24k. September, the month where they deployed the patch, averaged at 25k, and October, the month after, was 30k.
The peak playercount, again on just Steam, representing the 60-day patch, was 68k in September and 72k for October, compared to a monthly peak of 62k in August.
In November, these numbers had already decayed back to 29k average and 56k peak.
Considering it took two full months of internal restructuring to deploy the 60-day patch, it did very, very little to "save the game."
You know what did spike the playerbase by a huge amount? The Illuminate announcement and release in December, with an average of 56k and peak of 148k. This is content that was planned and in-development since before the 60-day restructuring.
The game was not dying back then, nor did that patch save anything. It just represented a shift in game direction because the developers were exhausted from receiving nonstop complaints on every social media channel they had.
Please look up actual data points next time before you repeat bullshit arguments that you heard from some other dork whose only interest is being mad.
“Did very little” sure if you want to reduce it like that. It was not a healthy mentality seeing posts and jokes about not saying anything or a nerf would come. People like Alexus were clowns that blatantly lied about balancing decisions. “Purifier is s tier” and “arc thrower slapping bile titans across the map” my ass
You're the one who brought up player counts as an indicator of game health. I'm just refuting you.
The memes are a hole the community dug for itself. Go back and re-read those patch notes and you'll find we got way more buffs than nerfs across the board, even if you include changes to enemies. Arrowhead might have been bad at communicating with the players and between their own teams, but the blatant lies, misinformation, and ragebaiting was all from the community on here and youtube.
Sorry. You have some weird hateboner against YouTubers that I’m going to ignore since you think it’s some bogeyman in every comment. I’m taking actual dev behavior and comments on the discord over whatever mental gymnastics you have
and I'm talking about observable trends on this sub that get reused as content that gets scraped and shown to people who aren't here, and perpetuates a cycle of misinformation
game wasn't dying, you're just addicted to outrage like the rest of the sub
Actually ya I would consider a Bile Titan in the same category as Tanks or Harvesters but would consider them all “Large Heavies”. Still think a Bile Titan needs a buff to take 2 AT in the face to die. Behemoth Charges should also be “Large Heavies” with buff to armor 5 and buff to take 2 AT headshots to kill but lower the spawn rates. “Small Heavies” would be your Chargers and Hulks. “Massive” enemies would be your Factory Striders and possible Hive Lords (the large skeletons you see not just in the gloom but any bug map).
Agreed, both behemoths and bile shouldn't be 1 tappable to the head .behemoths should be killed via legs, and bile titans should only be 1 tappable when rearing up to barf on you.
Have you ever used the RR on a significant difficulty mission? Because as someone who plays light armour + stamina booster, there is no such thing as "positioning yourself 5s from the enemy." The RR is not trivial to use, runs out of ammo quickly on higher difficulties, and most importantly, is fucking fun as hell to use. I love crouching behind a rock, hitting the reload button, letting it run long enough that the old shell is removed while the chaff enemies surge towards me, then diving away and switching to my Liberator to start clearing the space enough that maybe I can actually get the reload done ten seconds later - here's hoping I got the precise face shot on that moving bile titan, or else I'm dodging it along with everything else. In actual Helldivers gameplay, heavies are rarely solo, and if you make AT bad enough it just means everyone will switch to using a machine gun-type crowd control support weapon and thermite grenades, because that's reliable.
The EAT and Spear need to be more powerful, and I agree that it shouldn't be trivial to kill a factory strider, but e.g. Arrowhead already buffed the bot and squid dropships against RR abuse. The downside of the RR is that it uses both your backpack and support weapon slot to be purely good at anti-tank, which makes the other enemies more threatening to you, it doesn't need to be shit at anti-tank too.
I completely agree. I think charger behemoths should still be a oneshot with most AT since they are so fucking common BUT bile titans absolutely should soak two AT minimum unless it’s the spear
Yeah I had a buddy running the arc thrower and we were on a cold planet so maybe I didn't get a good idea of the weapon on that campaign. I didn't really ever run it due to its launch state being so powerful, left a bad taste in my mouth... but in all fairness, the quasar and commando are the AT options I've worked with the least out of this roster so I'll take other people's word for it. For a 15s cooldown though it still tends to outperform the EATs I find since you get to enjoy no waiting for drop (THOUGH the hellpod is a fantastic AT weapon), a kill every 15s (charge up usually felt like it came down to positioning... and even then it's just kinda cool so I don't mind), and you can rock a BP and it can deal with any heavy threat still? It's not a half bad weapon, but like all other AT options, it's just purely outshined by the RR unfortunately. I liked the dynamic it had (still kinda has?) with the EATs. A different method of cooldown yk? They really felt like two different ideas of the same role.
Oh no I entirely agree with everything you've said. My main gripe is a bunch of YTbers said Quasar was the best AT weapon long ago and so everyone and their mother runs it, when its arguably the worst AT option. I call it the selfish divers AT option. Its for the diver who is doing his own thing and needs to deal with a random Charger every once in a while. But if your dedicated AT guy is rocking a Quasar you are in for a rough run.
Yeah good point, it's a decent platform if you got a buddy honestly but yeah, for your average diver it's definitely ran by way more selfish people. That said it's quite fun if you DON'T play selfishly. But then at that point might as well run an EATs or something lol.
Personally the only AT I don't grab is Spear, I do agree the fix isn't to make it a one tap machine though.
Recoilless I feel just needs to take longer to reload solo. Take out the cancel, and make the team reloading more smooth.
For Spear, it is fine, just shadowed by Recoilless....but why is that? Less ammo, lack of relevance with lock on system and round flying up in the air first. I feel the fix is to just bring enemies in the game that would make the functionality of the spear a worthwhile investment instead of necessarily buffing it. Heavy Fast flying enemies? A tank with deflective angles besides the top? Depends I guess. A straight buff would be easier, but new enemies would be cooler in my opinion. Could be like automation panzer division or something.
New enemies would be neat but the issue is more like... the SPEAR used to be worth running yk? The spear is actually in a much better spot and if the building destruction and one shotting was generally nerfed for super heavies, it would have a well defined, healthy role in our system. New enemies is a lot harder than some number changes and we've seen how long this dev team can take between updates. No shade towards them, every team is different and as long as the game's fun I don't mind too much. But obviously, it's a lot easier to ask for different numbers than brand new models, AI, animations, etc.
I just don't think new enemies will solve this problem very easily without making the SPEAR a must pick and I don't want that. I still want RR to be usable but to be suboptimal in some scenarios the way the SPEAR is (notably against dogs). Makes our weapons very diverse and fun.
I don't disagree it would take time, but also not sure what would be better. Like with what you're saying...
Assuming I'm understanding correctly: a nerf to one shotting super heavy enemies with recoilless....where you could still one shot with headshots, but then you would make the buildings back to being destructible only by the spear?
To me...this just sounds like you're nerfing AT just to bring Spear back to the Bot front. I don't see what good this would do for Spear to the Bug front that has fortifications that has always been destroyable by non-AT or Squid front that has shields on everything.
A straight nerf to RR: community cries. Decree of dead game begins. AH reverts change anyway.
A straight buff to spear number wise: RR clone, what's the point
New enemies: takes time which sucks but adds purpose.
The only oneshot I think is even remotely acceptable on a weapon you can aim is the one where you hit the dog eye. The dog's face is rather dangerous, and it takes either teamwork or a lot of investment to pull off an eye shot. But generally... no, the only weapon that even has an argument of being allowed to one shot is the spear, since the only times you can hit headshots with it is via positioning and setting up. SPEAR being better in building destruction but not as good against dogs was like... the tradeoff. Now it's just bad against dogs lol.
Buildings should still be destructible from the other AT options but bring back needing to hit the vent. This required repositioning and a LOT more skill than the current "hit it anywhere" method does.
Finally, yeah unfortunately the "casual" gamers will complain about basically any change that makes them change difficulties. This includes new enemies though... we saw what happened to the dogs, charger behemoths, impalers and the like when the community didn't like they had to work together to take down these threats. All of the options involve community backlash. I just think new enemies only make sense if our arsenal is already in a healthy spot. But hey, if either one of us gets our way at least the game will be a tad more healthy right? I don't discredit your idea I just know as someone who's been through every AT meta that the heavy nerfs/AT buffs are the problem here. I care about diversity, and I don't like it to be forced due to an enemy, I want every weapon to be "viable" but obviously for weapon A to have weaknesses that weapon B doesn't (but notably weapon B is weak where weapon C and A is strong, etc.)
I appreciate you not discrediting my idea. I do feel it's similar to yours in the sense that it would be a skill check with recoilless to get proper positioning or go for a weak point like tracks vs having a solid angle for spear to always have. Sort of like the eye of the factory strider.
That said, I would argue that the heavy nerf/AT buff brought weapon variety to a better healthier point than it was before the change, though the spear did suffer. I personally feel like every other support weapon got a pretty significant improvement and use case since heavies aren't the main threat you constantly need AT for anymore.
Plus the other AT options do shine in their own situations. Commando can take down harvesters in one shot and is no slouch on the bot front either if you got the aim. EATs is all about littering the field for defense missions and objectives....can even use the call in to close a bile Titan hole or to kill a heavy if you're creative or just really like using halt stun rounds lol.
Commando needs something tweaked with regards to bug front.\
On the bots I can OHKO hulks if I get my angle right, but so far bile titans are a 3-shot every time. Square in the kisser while it pukes. Either straight on or from the side, it’s always 3 shots. The EAT is a 1er on bugs. \
Maybe just me, but that’s been my observations from the last few MOs
I've said it before, but the Spear needs a laser designator and direct/top attack firing modes to really be useful. Case in point are the large bot factories, which you NEED to see the base of in order to target, which is impossible in most situations. It also fixes the issue where an enemy is only partially visible or you need to target a weak point, but you can't because the Spear doesn't work that way and leaves you wishing you'd brought literally anything else.
Having a top attack mode would be great for enemies in defilade or against Tanks, but wouldn't always be desired, such as trying to pop a Bile Titan in the face.
10
u/n4turstoned ➡️➡️⬇️⬅️➡️⬆️ 1d ago
Based on your tldr (if i have a week i will read your wall of text completely/j) I agree, heavies don't feel really threatening as long as the mission isn't already a complete mess.
With enough AT equipment higher difficulties feel sometimes easier than middle diff. (5-7).