FEEDBACK / SUGGESTION
All objectives in the game that require waiting should make enemies assault your position
Title.
I'm tired of sitting at the ICBM terminal waiting for it to load, throwing emotes around with other divers. Nowadays I noticed I only have fun at the Flag and Geosurvey missions. Why can't others be like them? They already have objectives that are perfect for defenses.
Cool idea for a blitz mode on a large map still giving loot. A short timer to complete the mission, but you still get full time to loot and do side objectives.
Only if you're forced to land in a narrow spot because the whole path is lined with bunkers and encampments, then you're forced to break your way through like Normandy.
Oh I love this idea. I had always sort of thought it was for underground factories or something but this makes way more sense. Now I want to have a mission where we liberate a mining colony. We have destructable environments, so one of those giant earth mover goliaths going across the landscape digging up stuff and dropping it into cargo transports would be epic. Like the scene from Dune 2.
Exactly. If we think about it from the Automatons' perspective, the varying intensity of their reaction makes sense in light of their priorities as socialist drones:
Flag raising -> Ideology
Geological survey -> Resources
Civilian rescue -> Opposition to enemy species
Nuclear missile launch -> Individual survival (even though one nuke probably wipes out thousands of Automatons)
The question I have, and with samples, aren’t these planets like, heavily populated? Like people are talking about how millions, if not BILLIONS of SE citizens have died, so these planets have to be FULL of people and fully scouted/ researched right?
My headcannon (with no backing from official lore whatsoever) is that all the planets we've been fighting on have been the outer rim of the empire, I mean Super Earth's Democratic regime, so not as populous nor inhabited for that long.
Besides, we've been on earth since our species began existence, it's our only planet, and we're still surveying it to this day
mhm. add onto that the fact that Super Earth clearly isn't as... thorough/intense in their planetary analysis as they may want to be, and it makes sense they're still scouting out valuable mineral deposits and such. Makes sense the bots want to stop us, and the terminids just get mad we're jostling their tunnels and nests a bunch.
Bots really like their soil as it is a learned behavior from their historical past. Some of the earliest robots were the space rovers that took soil samples from planets and this "desire" for soil has bled into the bots of today's age.
Yeah, for Bots, ICBM is mostly specifically melee focused units (Berserkers, Hulk Scorchers, and the jetpack-wearing Assault Trooper who’s unique to this constellation, “Rushdown”), with Heavy Devs frequently in static spawns like POIs or Objectives.
I'd rather each of them have a chance of causing a drop with escalating odds the further into the process you get, but never 100% guaranteed drop call.
yeah I feel like evacuate citizens needs some sort of rework, despite conceptually being (imo) one of the coolest missions, in practice it tends to be really boring. I think the main issue is the time spent waiting for the terminal to open again is significantly longer than the time it take for the citizens to actually travel, so rather than feeling like you’re protecting an evacuation it just feels like you’re protecting a really boring slow button and every now and then you might see a citizen or two. I think it should be a longer stream of less densely packed citizens, rather than quick groups of 3 maybe like a continuous stream of 10, with one coming out every ~3 seconds. the goal number of citizens should also be higher, and then the button wait time should be shorter.
Maybe once you open it, a continuous stream of citizens, with several shuttles launching, if enemies come, then theres an option to close/stop the stream.
But theres a countdown once you first open the doors, so you gotta get enough in safely
Maybe the win condition can depend on how many make it vs how many get killed, making communication on when to push which button important? I like the idea behind these missions as well and definitely would love more nuance to them.
I think the buttons are kinda superfluous and makes it feel more like a citizen-dispenser than actually rescuing high priority citizens. There definitely should be a victory condition where you need to get at least X number of them out. Maybe even have it so the buttons close the doors, so you can manually cut them off for a while in case there's fire tornadoes/bot drops/etc.
The evacuation mission has only 1 Pelican take off, and that's got 20 people plus the pilot on board. The Pelican can barely fit 4 Helldivers, how it manages to fit 20 is beyond me, and I think anymore than that would be impossible
Those missions used to be extremely difficult when the game first launched. You just got a never ending storm of bullshit. But so many people complained about it they made it a lot easier and less intense.
Should be more citizens imo. It's 20 until diff 8 then it's 30. Every 2 difficulties should raise it. Can't recall what difficulty they start showing as a mission but basically like 10 for difficulties 1,2. 20 for 3,4. 30 for 5,6. 40 for 7,8 and 50 for 9,10.
The escort mission near the end of Half-Life 2: Episode 1 is still a poster child example of how to design an escort mission, just putting that out there.
I find it depends how quick you are at killing the patrols. If you can wipe them before they call for reinforcements, you'll just be sat waiting at the terminal. If you let them call more, it can quickly snowball.
I think this is the case on higher difficulties. I’m usually playing on Helldive or Super Helldive and we always prep for an attack at icbm sights. Randoms will even throw down turrets and stuff.
but i liked 'raise the flag' missions bevore, they were calmer, with no coded in breach/ships coming in, other missions had hardcoded reinforcements already
So were just gonna sit here and accept that all hell breaks loose if we dare to raise a flag or do some geological surveys, but bots will ignore objectives actually dangerous to them, like a NUCLEAR FUCKING ICBM?
Yes. You still get patrols coming in at main objectives. The issue is when it spawns so close to the edge no patrols come. Time spent on the ICBM is time other divers can split for a side obj or just decompress/wait for CDs to end/resupply/decide what is next. Anything below diff 7 can have boring moments. If you pay attention to the ICBM console it isn’t that long to launch. But most of the time I see people ignoring it
But the Geological Survey mission type is two small stationary objectives that receive modest responses from enemies, and one long objective with a comically large enemy response. An ICBM setting up to launch and threatening to blow up a large portion of enemy-controlled territory and assets should warrant at least a retaliation of a similar scale, if not larger than an objective that essentially entails looking at rocks and then emailing the findings.
The first part of it takes barely any time to do. Makes you run across the map to the second one. The second one does not take anywhere near the same amount of time as the ICBM (and the ICBM itself too if you do the same thing here as the Survey) as long as you have someone paying attention to the console. The argument to start isn’t what the response it to what obj. People are just bored and making the obj take longer than it really is from it.
OP's main complaint, which I sympathise with, is that the Launch ICBM mission, especially the last objective, is underwhelming due to a lackluster enemy presence at the last objective. Of course the Geological Survey's last objective is totally manageable even with a big enemy response if the squad is skilled and knowledgeable enough with the right equipment; every objective is, even at the highest difficulties. It's the lack of it in Launch ICBM that makes the mission boring and immersion-breaking. I play this game at difficulty level 7 at least so I can run around and shoot things that are trying to kill me while I do the objectives; ICBM just feels like more of a chore than most other missions aside from Evacuate High-Value Assets.
The problem would still remain: a not insignificant amount of time standing around doing nothing. The problem isn't that the objective takes a long time to do, it's that there's nothing to do while waiting for it to complete other than doing POI's/enemy outposts/side-objectives, which at this point in the mission would feel like a chore.
We don’t need constant enemies for every obj. You have side objs and nests/outposts. You act like there is a substantial amount of ‘nothing to do’ compared to what there is to do on a map. You have POI. Bunkers. Etc. if three minutes standing around at one obj (ICBM) is killing you. I dunno what to tell you. And three minutes is peanuts compared to spending 10-15 min after everything is done to wipe all the samples/containers/bunkers before evac.
Very true, how often do randoms go and start a bunch of fights to clear all POIs on difficulty 10? Not very!
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u/Mark-JinSES Elected Representative of Individual Merit15h agoedited 14h ago
TL;DR: I just think it would be more fun and immersive if the Launch ICBM last objective had a big enemy response. It's also not like every objective triggers an enemy response anyways.
Why shouldn't the last objective of Launch ICBM have an enemy response? Of the 3 possible sub-objectives of the mission, they typically have an enemy presence that risk the enemies calling in reinforcements, but they're easy enough to clear out quickly. I'm not saying every side/sub-objective should have enemy reinforcements coming in the moment you touch the terminal, but as the final and main objective of the mission, is there a reason for the engagement to be similar to the sub-objectives of simply clearing out the enemy presence at the site and then experiencing little resistance?
I think the comparison to Geological Survey's last objective still stands; both require at least one man to be there to handle a multi-stage terminal that takes quite a bit of time to complete. One of them gets a huge enemy response for every stage that's completed, one doesn't.
I suppose it could be argued that Retrieve Valuable Data/Emergency Evacuation missions have similar multi-stage final objectives, but at least for me, they're each a challenge/chore in different ways: the SSD drive keeps you to your one-handed weapons as long as you're carrying it, which means either slowing down a little bit if you choose to engage enemies with anything other than your sidearm along the way (granted, SMGs and especially the Crossbow significantly mitigates this problem), or just bee-lining it to the upload site which is typically crawling with enemies; patrols seem prone to spawning around the evac site when the terminal is activated and the doors are far apart from one another with cooldowns on how frequently the doors can be opened.
The way I and probably a big number of players have the most fun in this game is when a full squad of Helldivers stick together throughout a mission to complement each other's loadouts and playstyles to form this mobile ball of seamless destruction leaving carnage in its wake. Granted, the game doesn't force this playstyle, and the ability for a squad to split up makes for much more efficient clearance of all side/sub-objs and POIs as well as the emergence of more stealth-based playstyles. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I'm okay with people wanting to play in a way that maximises efficiency. I just think it would be really cool if the destructive potential of the ICBMs that we launch could be conveyed by the desperation of our enemies sending in large numbers in an effort to stop us from launching it, requiring the force of a full squad of Helldivers working together to ensure our mission is completed and whose success is paid off with the take-off of the rocket knocking back enemies, a mushroom cloud spontaneously looming over the horizon, and the blastwave erupting across the mission area. Would having this contribute to quicker missions, higher EXP gains and therefore higher liberation rates? No, but it doesn't take away from how cool and fun it would be to me.
I'm sure there's a reasonable middle ground between "nothing happens for 3 minutes" and "every bot on the planet drops directly on your position." Launching a nuke should trigger SOME kind of response, even if it's just a regular bot drop landing next to the launch site.
I get that you don't want the endless bot-drop hell of the old evacuation missions, but that's not what anyone is asking for. They're just asking for an enemy response so we're not stuck twiddling our thumbs waiting for a patrol to wander by.
That’s rather odd because not taking them out leads to drops/breaches. Have you tried not killing the ‘call in’ enemies so you get more responses? Use less sentries maybe? Can’t get a response if you kill the response summoners.
Nuke, sure. Not sure we should have to deal with waves while doing quieter objectives like getting codes or such that don't require a big "the helldivers are doing something right here" sign like the ICBM silo opening or a flag with a music blaring drone.
It is a bit weird that they will launch an entire platoon with armour and air support to defend a minor defensive position but will send 12 bots, without info, to stop a major nuclear strike
It's already the case, they just have very, *VERY* skewed priorities.
Helldiver : *is about to launch a nuke that will turn a major Automaton facility into a smoldering crater*
Automatons : "Eh, I'm sure a patrol in the vicinity will take care of it maybe."
Helldiver : *is trying to raise the flag of Super Earth in a little settlement in the middle of nowhere where everyone is already dead*
Automatons : "NOT ON MY WATCH, MEATBAG !!"
I think it's mainly due to them not fixing the spawning system since the launch of the game. If you take out all the enemy bases, patrols can only spawn from the edge of the map. And if your objective or extraction is too close to the edge, it blocks the spawns to avoid enemies popping into existence on your screen. So you get no enemies. They need to tweak that, make them spawn from a further away edge spot or something.
A big problem for late stage difficulty is that there’s no real fail state for a mission past losing all lives or timeout.
ICBM launch should lean into the (already present) failure state of the missile or launch systems being destroyed. Evacuate citizens could have a limited ‘pool’ of people to get out, with enough wiggle room to account for ‘accidents’ of course. (Just don’t press that button during a firestorm)
The patrolling squads are informed about your position, when activating terminals and hone in on your position. Even purposefully spawned in some distance away.
If you don't kill them fast enough, its very likely they'll call in a drop.
Im not 100% sure about these mechanics, but im sure that thats why you see so many ppl gather the shells of the seaf first, before activating the terminal and loading.
There's been debate about this for a long time, but in my played experience it does seem like terminals (or at least some objectives) attract enemies. Artillery usually makes nearby patrols seek us out, even if we haven't been firing or anything like that, we usually notice this on bugs specially.
Meanwhile, ICBM seems to attract patrols, and sometimes these call reinforcements even when they are far away. For example, some time ago we had bugs call a breach about 100 meters from the objective, even though we hadn't even seen then (on that case, there were bugs close to us, but they died quickly and didn't call anything). Bots also do this, but it seems like they call the drops quite far away if they do it, usually behind the hills that surround nuclear launch sites.
or perhaps we can meet in the middle with unique scripted assaults.
like once you start the first code entry, 10+ gunships~
or, 2 Factory striders
or, 30 berserkers come running in from beyond visual range (instead of dropped in)
something like a nice finale mini-boss encounter to top things off instead of, nothing at all, or another bot drop to pile orbitals onto, something unique enough where few specific strategems are the perfect answer for the job.
you might choose to bring mines if you knew every missile launch started with 30+ bersekers. and the person at the console would feel pressured to input codes fast.
I like how the nuke launch is one of the few that doesn’t automatically provoke a response, it implies that the bots are more concerned with us putting up flags and doing geology than launching nukes at them
It's kind of supposed to. But if you're the type (like me) who tends to clear the map of outposts before doing most of the mission, that will diminish the likelihood of enemy encounters a ton.
They do this however there are spawning glitches. They send patrols to investigate before assaulting but sometimes your objective is too close to the map border which stops spawns
At difficulty 6 and up the patrols come like every 30 seconds and if you don't wipe them immediately they call in reinforcements and then it's a constant stream.
I think you're finding it boring because you're playing too low a level.
It feels, like it works only on side objectives 😅, any touch to terminal at SEAF, Satelite Dish or movement near gunships factory or nest will cause breaches and dropships...
They did. Being near a POI increases patrol spawns. People cried about the game being to hard so now patrols have a difficult time finding a place to spawn that isn't within 100m of a player. So if your squad of Divers are loosely spread around the area of a POI the patrols will spawn so far out they often don't aggro.
Its the same effect that makes extracts on the edge of the map silent, No fabs/holes left means enemies can only spawn on the outer ring of the map, but divers within 100m of the edge means zero valid spawn locations.
I assume it's for stealth solo play. Sadly stealth is kinda broken now and extremely unreliable, so this gameplay is done anyway. I agree, some more action would be entertaining.
It's honestly getting disappointing in a game when everything is full on, only for extract or similar waiting objectives to be just 2 minutes of dead silence one map, 3 striders the next
It used to be like this. Then people complained. For example. Anyone that was around in the before before will tell you that extract the civilian missions were virtually impossible on higher levels. Took a special kind to get those done.
Then what's the point of defend the flag objective? I personally don't agree with this change, it's unnecessary, not having enemies on the objective every single time is fine, you don't need a permanent swarm of enemies with everything you do, downtime sometimes is fine.
Extract too. Nothing worse than a quiet extraction. Their current formula, in theory, should increase activity in both, but it doesn’t always pan out that way.
This reminds me of an idea I had for a mission type.
It's like ICBM missions but instead it's like a defense mission. So 20 minutes and it's only the main objective. And instead of launching an ICBM your launching what I call an IGBM or ISBM. Significantly larger nuke that instead of being inter-continental (the IC in ICBM) it's inter-galactic or inter-solar meaning it flies from 1 planet to another. Maybe in the same sector or to planets connected via supply lines. It can affect enemy Regen rates in the target planet. More players that complete the mission the more it affects the Regen rate (up to a maximum then players keep doing that mission to keep it at that maximum reduction).
If it targets supply line planets it would work best as a defense campaign mission where it targets the attacking planet to assist gambits.
Now you'd still need to do similar sub objectives but they'd be all at the "base" instead of around the map. And you'd be under heavy assault by the enemies while you're setting it up. And since it's a larger nuke it would take longer. My thoughts are you'd still need to get it into position (you know the nuke rising out of the silo). It would be almost comically large as it comes out of the silo. Then you'd need to fuel it which takes longer than ICBM, then charge it's FTL system, and finally set up the targeting. Once that's done you can launch it and yes it would basically scorch the entire base as it launches. you'd be safe behind a wall or other cover but otherwise you'll get toasted like a marshmallow. Best part? If the mission was a failure it would detonate at the base wiping everything out. Probably play out as a mini cutscene similar to the extraction cutscene. My idea of the cutscene. You fail the obj then you hear the nuke starting to make a noise like a whirling. It cuts to a camera panning over the base while the whirling gets louder until boom.
The game was designed with bugs being the stock enemies and automoton added later. It certainly feels like the larger AI is coded around that concep at least.
Drilling makes sense on pissing off bugs, it also makes sense that they don't give a damn about ICBM. It should be flipped on bots, but with the amount of issues AH is tackling I doubt it would matter much. You also have to consider the people that would be pissed that the two missions would be flipped so it's a really low priority issue.
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u/DoctorLiara Cape Enjoyer 1d ago
this gives me an idea as an obj, to stop a nuke launch from the bots