Why so much hate for the Illuminates?

[Gold♥Shield]

Personally, they are the easiest race to solo. The observers die in one shot when cloaked and the roaming snipers are an absolute joke. I think the last time I shot one to death was four planets ago - the rest get beaten to death because they just stand there. The only drawback to the Illuminates are the snipers vs your turrets. I've been able to trick the AI on a few maps by throwing the turrets really far away from where I'll be defending, but it seems there's always one or two snipers who will spawn close enough to me but also be in range to shoot the turrets out of my line of sight.

Bugs are not as hard, but really annoying with the non-stop onslaught of the detector bugs. They are easy to kill, but they eat up your ammo fast.

Then there's my least favorite - the Cyborgs. Not only do the maps have those silly anti-Strategem parts, but the objectives are usually inside those bubbles. Still, the worst part of the Cyborgs are those (everyone knows what's coming) ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dogs. I recently unlocked the Justice which has made them easier to deal with since I was only using the Scythe prior, but they are still just the worst thing to encounter, and on the harder planets, you encounter them all the time.

So, what's your opinion on the races?

[† Zacrriel †]

Cause...

...they can generate walls...

[BlackjackGT]

I enjoy fighting Cyborgs the most, Bugs second, and I mostly filter out the Illuminates on the multiplayer filters screen unless it's an event type thing going on. And I'm not saying that just to disagree, I've felt that way since I first played the PS Vita version in spring 2015.

Some of it has nothing to do with technical considerations. I mean, the Bugs are just more akin to the source material (Star Ship troopers) or maybe the Aliens movies franchise.

And GOD I wish 20th Century Fox would shove a bunch of money in front of Arrowhead and ask for a Colonial Space Marines-Aliens-Predators twin-stick shooter on top of the Helldivers game engine tech, but that's besides the point. :)

The Cyborgs are heavy military, and I enjoy battling that.

Illuminates?

• I don't enjoy all the stealth stuff because my Guard Dog drone becomes useless (can't see stealthed enemies), and turrets essentially become useless 'stealth sniper' fodder
  
• I hate the constant energy fencing stuff and seeing myself and squadmates get crushed or disintegrated by them. I hate feeling like I have to bring a jump pack to deal with fencing.
  
• I hate dealing with Obelisks. Actually I hate dealing with most Illuminates.

I get why the faction's there, it's to push us to try different tactics and stuff, "use a different" muscle, if you will, I just never had much fun with them. I'd liken it to RTSs I played in the 1990s where I might enjoy battling two of the three factions and really just hate dealing with the third one.

If we have an event going on, and the campaign funnels down the Illuminates, I'll join in. I recall one frustration in 2015 when I played on Vita was sometimes the campaign funneled to Illuminates and it just seemed liked the mass player base was so disappointed (because most love Bugs the most), that it was harder for me to find any games to join.

I don't think it's really that the masses can't figure out a way to be effective against Illuminates, I think it's more that a lot of us don't enjoy fighting them as much as the other factions. Or that figuring out the best loadouts to deal with them often means leaving favorites on our ship. :D

Like any game-related opinion/question, we'll never find consensus among Helldivers' players on anything. Well, OK, other than we would love MORE Helldivers or a Helldivers sequel. We have consensus on that I'm sure! :)

Still, I think this is still a great thread idea for getting some chat going , so I hope people pop up with more compelling comments than I am, I'm just burned out from work at the moment.

[Vamandrac]

I honestly do not find any of the enemies "hard" anymore, but I am going assume most do not like the Illum because of their snipers, mind control, and walls. All of them are very easy to counter by paying attention and bringing the correct gear.

[jajomba]

actually, illums are fun to fight against. Because, ye know, you dont have to bring any AT weapons and you can use almost anything you want against em (like mg-94, dum-dum, obliterator) which is pretty refreshing after you've played lotsa games full of trident-boys carrying same loadouts over n over. But yeah, illums is the easiest faction tho.

[Cockpuncher]

My bet is that people don't like them because fight with illuminates is faster than with other races and might be too fast for some people. And alarms sometimes get crazy, when you don't notice another hidden spotter and get quickly surrounded by new enemies.

On the other hand, when you get accustomed to increased pace, illuminates are very straightforward (you can always take lasers + close air support + stratagem priority for easy-mode) and quite boring compared to others.

Personally I prefer cyborgs because they offer diverse, interesting combat with soft and hard targets, but illuminates come second (especially when team choses non-easy-mode setups). Bugs are quite boring, at least unless pack of brood commanders jump out of nowhere ;).

[Gold♥Shield]

I'm wondering if the hatred for Illuminates comes from people playing with lowered graphical settings. I read a few negative reviews on various sites saying they are impossible to see (100% invisible - not cloaked) and the same with the assassin bugs. The ones that listed their specs or had them available were pretty bad, so I'm wondering if the graphics have anything to do with being able to detect certain enemies.

Been playing with everything maxed at 2k resolution and I have no issues seeing anything coming at me from any distance.

[LarvaLounge]

Yeah, I don't have any trouble seeing the cloaked enemies. And I like bringing the Obliterator along for Illuminates cause it's a fun weapon but just doesn't cut the mustard against the other highly armored foes. It wrecks Illuminates though.

For those Cyborg Dogs, wear the Shield.... it tames them quite nicely, until some other enemy drops your shield... then watch out, dogs are coming!!!

[Gold♥Shield]

I haven't unlocked the shield generator just yet. That and the Shredder Missiles are the only ones I think we are missing and since I don't own any of the DLC packs, I'm stuck with normal weapons and strategems.

So far, my biggest complaint with the Cyborgs is how many units walk around that detect you. Even with a fully upgraded Justice, it's hard to take down all four of the detector units before one of them sees you, and if a tank rolls by, you might was well just start running away because it's an instant detection. I've been able to one-shot the tanks only two times and that's only after it sees me.

[BlackjackGT]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=785175971

[Odraco6]

Well, I dont hate illuminates that much anymore. They do have annoing things, but not having to hug our anti-armor stuff all the time is nice change of pace. I enjoy fighting the cyborgs the most as they have highest variety of units:tanks, infantry, heavy infantry and melee units. Most bugs look similar (tank, behemot and impaler for example) so fighting them can get dull at times.
But what annoing stuff illuminate have:

Obelisks
One hit kill to EVERYTHING! Vehicles, defend objects, shielded helldivers...Though it is possible to not get instakilled against them while in vehicle but still...Oh and they can really mess up our team too! What is more they are nearly unkillable when they are transporting (I think I got achievement of killing them while they are "cocooned" with hellbomb and when I try to fire them with eats or recoilless, shots have no effect when their power core is not visible).

Mind control:
That reverse control effect can be death sentence.Expesially if you dont see yourself getting with and assume everything is normal. And when it wears off you can get suprised AGAIN! Sometimes it is just better to take cover and drag their ineffective fire away from other players.
And it also reverses your strategem codes making it nearly impossible to call certain long-coded strategems in a heated situation.

Speed reduction
Lesser evil than mind control but can still get you killed.

[WC?]

Originally posted by BlackjackGT:

I enjoy fighting Cyborgs the most, Bugs second, and I mostly filter out the Illuminates on the multiplayer filters screen unless it's an event type thing going on. And I'm not saying that just to disagree, I've felt that way since I first played the PS Vita version in spring 2015.

Some of it has nothing to do with technical considerations. I mean, the Bugs are just more akin to the source material (Star Ship troopers) or maybe the Aliens movies franchise.

And GOD I wish 20th Century Fox would shove a bunch of money in front of Arrowhead and ask for a Colonial Space Marines-Aliens-Predators twin-stick shooter on top of the Helldivers game engine tech, but that's besides the point. :)

The Cyborgs are heavy military, and I enjoy battling that.

Illuminates?

• I don't enjoy all the stealth stuff because my Guard Dog drone becomes useless (can't see stealthed enemies), and turrets essentially become useless 'stealth sniper' fodder
  
• I hate the constant energy fencing stuff and seeing myself and squadmates get crushed or disintegrated by them. I hate feeling like I have to bring a jump pack to deal with fencing.
  
• I hate dealing with Obelisks. Actually I hate dealing with most Illuminates.

I get why the faction's there, it's to push us to try different tactics and stuff, "use a different" muscle, if you will, I just never had much fun with them. I'd liken it to RTSs I played in the 1990s where I might enjoy battling two of the three factions and really just hate dealing with the third one.

If we have an event going on, and the campaign funnels down the Illuminates, I'll join in. I recall one frustration in 2015 when I played on Vita was sometimes the campaign funneled to Illuminates and it just seemed liked the mass player base was so disappointed (because most love Bugs the most), that it was harder for me to find any games to join.

I don't think it's really that the masses can't figure out a way to be effective against Illuminates, I think it's more that a lot of us don't enjoy fighting them as much as the other factions. Or that figuring out the best loadouts to deal with them often means leaving favorites on our ship. :D

Like any game-related opinion/question, we'll never find consensus among Helldivers' players on anything. Well, OK, other than we would love MORE Helldivers or a Helldivers sequel. We have consensus on that I'm sure! :)

Still, I think this is still a great thread idea for getting some chat going , so I hope people pop up with more compelling comments than I am, I'm just burned out from work at the moment.

man blackjack... you and your wall of text posts...

[Cockpuncher]

Originally posted by POTATO:

man blackjack... you and your wall of text posts...

At least well formatted ;). Rare these days...

[WC?]

Originally posted by Cockpuncher:

Originally posted by POTATO:

man blackjack... you and your wall of text posts...

At least well formatted ;). Rare these days...

lol yah he does a good job of that.

[Gold♥Shield]

I don't think you understand what a wall of text actually is.

[WC?]

Originally posted by Gold♥Shield:

I don't think you understand what a wall of text actually is.

It was an exaggeration. It was a joke because blackjack tends to make lots of well formatted long posts around here.