NPC Marines

[Nathan]

I've only played a bit, really like the game, but an obvious tiny addition immediately came into my mind.

The game evokes that large-scale war effort atmosphere featured in such games as Halo, Call of Duty (the earlier ones) and perhaps most aptly, Warhammer 40k Dawn of War, and the player role is as a helldiver, more advanced than the typical cannon fodder.

Though marines or imperial guard were always in tiny weak roles in those games, they contributed to the theme of large battles with tanks and troops on both sides, and the player as a leader, and the most likely survivor.

Some missions, like defend capital cities and finally pushing on the homeworld, could have a few scattered cannon fodder marines, like holdouts in the outskirts of the battlefield, which will follow the helldivers around, have some basic weaponry, limited dodging and grenade abilities, and sprint when the player sprints, maybe the AI could respond to "Move" & "Wait" orders, but their role would ultimately be nonessential.
Helldivers could have the option to scour maps and find few marines scattered around, they could follow you, have basic accuracy, medium range, low health and only be effective against scouts or maybe low-to medium armoured enemies, perhaps you could have the helldivers revive mechanic for them, or maybe not, not sure.
The marines could perhaps operate in a gunner role on vehicles or stationary guns.
But the point is that their efforts would only be worth so much, and they are expected to die for democracy.
They would contribute to the feeling that you are fighting in a war and joined not only by a small specialized squad, but occasionally a few npcs.
Difficulty could scale the frequency of marines found around maps, higher difficulties having less of a probability of finding any marines, easy difficulties having more marines scattered around.
Maybe a dedicated exp addition of a few minor points for each marine which manages to survive and jump into the shuttle with you. (If optional miniscule exp rewards for saving marines, then flip difficulty scaling to have more marines on harder difficulties, they'd still be hard to "protect" because of the tougher enemies.)

Anyway, that, I think, would be a small addition which could greatly add to the feeling of being part in a grand galaxy-wide war effort. The game already manages to do that to a large extent.

[Nathan]

Another cool touch would be to have in missions with activating AA objectives, have the occasional enemy bombing run (similar in threat with many other environmental obstacle, you could hear it coming, see in the map in what angle, and then use that info to dodge).
Then, with more and more AA activated, the bombing runs would decrease in frequency, and ships would occasionally crash on the map (these could also kill you though).

[TankHunter678]

I think what they could do is put in some mission types where you assist a ground assault in progress. Doing things like eliminating enemy Anti-Tank positions, Artillery positions, helping to stop an armored unit counter assault.

That way you got your commando missions (what we do now) and you got full on WAR! missions.

It would certainly be nice to see homeworlds changed to act like the galactic map, so that when you attack the home world instead of just doing one of 4 missions you need to take control of regions of the surface, eventually culminating in an assault on their primary hive/city. To really ramp up the THIS IS TOTAL WAR! finish of an enemy race for that war as you assault the streets alongside tons of marines and tanks.

[Nathan]

Originally posted by TankHunter678:

I think what they could do is put in some mission types where you assist a ground assault in progress. Doing things like eliminating enemy Anti-Tank positions, Artillery positions, helping to stop an armored unit counter assault.
That way you got your commando missions (what we do now) and you got full on WAR! missions.
It would certainly be nice to see homeworlds changed to act like the galactic map, so that when you attack the home world instead of just doing one of 4 missions you need to take control of regions of the surface, eventually culminating in an assault on their primary hive/city. To really ramp up the THIS IS TOTAL WAR! finish of an enemy race for that war as you assault the streets alongside tons of marines and tanks.

Nice, I like your suggestion better, would be really cool to drop in a mission, have an objective to meet up with the entrenched allied position, help them, and then guide them to a final push on the enemy entrenched position.

[Valhalla Awaits]

I still want to see boarding of enemy ships, and defending your own ships against enemy boardings.

[TankHunter678]

Originally posted by Valhalla Awaits:

I still want to see boarding of enemy ships, and defending your own ships against enemy boardings.

Could also have base assaults where you are in a base already setup with turrets, with a marine detachment, but gets hit by massive waves of enemies. Your objective is to protect the base until evacuation arrives.

Combined with the bugs and you got yourself a classic Starship Troopers moment.

[de.lorca]

WTF you want to give the job of cannon fodder to helldivers? how dare you the helldivers are the élite of the élite, the utimate blade that protects democratie. sugjesting them to fight next to peasants wood be the ultimate insult and an act of treason.

[TankHunter678]

Originally posted by seigneur.de.lorca:

WTF you want to give the job of cannon fodder to helldivers? how dare you the helldivers are the élite of the élite, the utimate blade that protects democratie. sugjesting them to fight next to peasants wood be the ultimate insult and an act of treason.

I believe one of the things they said was "Be a Hero, Become a Legend" in the recruitment video.

Saving the poor sods who get the short end of the stick in gear, training, and support, is one way to quickly become a majorly talked about hero.

Also, the Marines would be the cannon fodder. One could argue that right now Helldivers are the cannon fodder. Especially with how we have a just over 20% Friendly Fire casualty rate on Cyberstan. I think we should take the Helldiver's cannon fodder role and give it to the Marines.

[Crisscross]

Doubtful they'd add this sort of thing now, but I'm definitely hoping they have big plans like these for Helldivers 2 :3

I for one would like to see something that was suggested in a thread from a while back: basically large scale attack or defense missions, that basically involve the Helldivers dropping in to reinforce a friendly base that's under siege or to bolster an assault on an enemy base that's wavering. Lots of NPC allies, huge waves of enemies, fixed defenses and entrenchments, the works.

[Nathan]

Originally posted by TankHunter678:

Could also have base assaults where you are in a base already setup with turrets, with a marine detachment, but gets hit by massive waves of enemies. Your objective is to protect the base until evacuation arrives.

I think setting up turrets should be up to the helldivers, keep the tactical element of where to place them, have a short window of time before the wave arrives.

[Nathan]

Originally posted by seigneur.de.lorca:

WTF you want to give the job of cannon fodder to helldivers?

You misunderstood, I want to give the job of cannon fodder for some npc marines, quite the reverse :) Just like TankHunter678 said above.

Just played a couple of escort missions, and they have a "stay" and "follow" command, though one would need to slightly work on their AI to take cover and spread out just a bit to not shoot everyone in the back and get in the line of fire (they could step infront of the players line of fire though, as that seems fitting for the theme of the game, just not each others).
So I would see the addition of a few strategic npc marines as very feasible with little effort.

[Cosmic Castaway A90]

Originally posted by Crisscross:

Doubtful they'd add this sort of thing now, but I'm definitely hoping they have big plans like these for Helldivers 2 :3

I think it'd be fairly doable to add some of these suggestions in the current game. While the task of actually coding and designing these suggestions would take time and effort it wouldn't be the most insane task for them to accomplish. The suggestion for the various objectives and territories for the home planets would act as another menu screen, while the mission types suggested here could more than likely be coded using the same mechanics already in place (i.e. the quick action events or survival missions).

A list of suggestions should defnitely be pinned. Who knows, maybe a big expansion pack could be made, this game deserves one without a doubt.