Used to solo difficulty 6-7, now I'm barely completing objectives on difficulty 4

[bluetrazyn]

40 minute mission, kill bile titan. Killed the titan no problem. However, less than 20 minutes into the mission, I get attacked by two random patrols which spawn bug breaches that contained a charger EACH. Went from zero enemies in my immediate vicinity to three chargers in less than 45 seconds.

Now, I'm sure skill is a factor here. Avoiding patrols is a skill, situational awareness is a skill. However, it's clear that the game just decided to spawn two large patrols and have them walk towards me, rather than me being clueless and overly aggressive. That's not a fun or fair mechanic to fight.

Kill count also suggests enemies are spawning at more than double the rate. On difficulty 4 pre patch I rarely cracked 200 kills solo on difficulty 4 fighting the bugs. After around 25 minutes, my kill count was into the 400s, and it probably would have cracked 500 if I had survived long enough.

It's... not fun. Which is a pain for me to say, because Helldivers 2 is fundamentally a fun game to me from the start. It's sad to see such a great foundation trip over it's own feet so often.

[stratakarius]

You know, I just got my backside handed to me on a bug extermination quest on Medium difficulty and was wondering the same thing. Normally i'd sneak a solo medium in before I hopped off but this one was super brutal. I mean normally something like that for me is hard doing it solo, but doable. This was insanity. I started off doing challenging and quickly felt that wasn't going to work so I dropped it down... Sure as heck didn't feel medium.

Anyways, rant over. I feel you though.

[Dmformom]

Originally posted by stratakarius:

You know, I just got my backside handed to me on a bug extermination quest on Medium difficulty and was wondering the same thing. Normally i'd sneak a solo medium in before I hopped off but this one was super brutal. I mean normally something like that for me is hard doing it solo, but doable. This was insanity. I started off doing challenging and quickly felt that wasn't going to work so I dropped it down... Sure as heck didn't feel medium.

Anyways, rant over. I feel you though.

"kill all enemies" missions got the objective doubled and spawns were also increased (probably double?)

[C4NNED]

It's not a skill factor. Your not a bad player. It's just this game isn't balanced and geared around solo play.... So changes will affect your difficulty even more.

[Dmformom]

Originally posted by bluetrazyn:

40 minute mission, kill bile titan. Killed the titan no problem. However, less than 20 minutes into the mission, I get attacked by two random patrols which spawn bug breaches that contained a charger EACH. Went from zero enemies in my immediate vicinity to three chargers in less than 45 seconds.

Now, I'm sure skill is a factor here. Avoiding patrols is a skill, situational awareness is a skill. However, it's clear that the game just decided to spawn two large patrols and have them walk towards me, rather than me being clueless and overly aggressive. That's not a fun or fair mechanic to fight.

Kill count also suggests enemies are spawning at more than double the rate. On difficulty 4 pre patch I rarely cracked 200 kills solo on difficulty 4 fighting the bugs. After around 25 minutes, my kill count was into the 400s, and it probably would have cracked 500 if I had survived long enough.

It's... not fun. Which is a pain for me to say, because Helldivers 2 is fundamentally a fun game to me from the start. It's sad to see such a great foundation trip over it's own feet so often.

You can pretty easily solo anything up to diff 8 with the right loadout as long as you're playing smart and avoiding patrols, light armor helps a lot. I have noticed that after the main obj gets completed patrols seem to get hella ramped up, to the point I'm sitting still for 3 minutes while 4 patrols pass by.

3 chargers isn't very tough with the right equipment, an orbital laser will usually deal with 2 maybe 3 chargers if they're close enough together and you're shooting them during it, 500kg can wipe out the swarm and let you easily deal with the damaged chargers. Eagle airstrike if you get good rng can insta kill a charger or two, cluster bomb can again kill a swarm and let you deal with chargers. Oh and with the laser cannon buff it can also destroy chargers, so it's pretty easy to deal with all that

[Dmformom]

Originally posted by C4NNED:

It's not a skill factor. Your not a bad player. It's just this game isn't balanced around solo play....

It's definitely not made to be played solo, but it's doable and not all that difficult

[bluetrazyn]

C4NNED I would normally agree with you except that I could easily solo 4 last week pre patch, and if I got fully dialed in and tried 100% I could beat difficulty 6 solo too. Now 4 feels... excessive. Especially the multiple large patrols spawning within spitting distance less than halfway through a mission. That feels cheap and contrived no matter what skill level or difficulty you're on.

[ChickensofDeath (The Lasher)]

The highest difficulties should not be playable solo

[BlemishedHaloTTV]

I mean I still solo 9. Withouth the railgun. Railry tho since it is hard. But do able with a lot of elbow grease.

[tracker947.gv]

Originally posted by Dmformom:

Originally posted by bluetrazyn:

40 minute mission, kill bile titan. Killed the titan no problem. However, less than 20 minutes into the mission, I get attacked by two random patrols which spawn bug breaches that contained a charger EACH. Went from zero enemies in my immediate vicinity to three chargers in less than 45 seconds.

Now, I'm sure skill is a factor here. Avoiding patrols is a skill, situational awareness is a skill. However, it's clear that the game just decided to spawn two large patrols and have them walk towards me, rather than me being clueless and overly aggressive. That's not a fun or fair mechanic to fight.

Kill count also suggests enemies are spawning at more than double the rate. On difficulty 4 pre patch I rarely cracked 200 kills solo on difficulty 4 fighting the bugs. After around 25 minutes, my kill count was into the 400s, and it probably would have cracked 500 if I had survived long enough.

It's... not fun. Which is a pain for me to say, because Helldivers 2 is fundamentally a fun game to me from the start. It's sad to see such a great foundation trip over it's own feet so often.

You can pretty easily solo anything up to diff 8 with the right loadout as long as you're playing smart and avoiding patrols, light armor helps a lot. I have noticed that after the main obj gets completed patrols seem to get hella ramped up, to the point I'm sitting still for 3 minutes while 4 patrols pass by.

3 chargers isn't very tough with the right equipment, an orbital laser will usually deal with 2 maybe 3 chargers if they're close enough together and you're shooting them during it, 500kg can wipe out the swarm and let you easily deal with the damaged chargers. Eagle airstrike if you get good rng can insta kill a charger or two, cluster bomb can again kill a swarm and let you deal with chargers. Oh and with the laser cannon buff it can also destroy chargers, so it's pretty easy to deal with all that

500KG is not optimal against swarms, and it is also sup-optimal against chargers. It has a deceptively small AoE. It's best used against Bile Titans and buildings, but it will work if you are desperate in a pinch. The Orbital Cluster is superior when dealing with a summoned wave, and Cluster Bombs will dilute the cooldown of your 500KG bomb if you are using it for Bile Titans. The Orbital Laser is good but the cooldown is brutal.

[bluetrazyn]

ChickensofDeath, that seems rather... arbitrary. It should be super hard, sure, but this isn't GTFO, this isn't a "you don't have friends online? guess half the game is locked off for you then" kind of game.

[Dmformom]

Originally posted by tracker947.gv:

Originally posted by Dmformom:

You can pretty easily solo anything up to diff 8 with the right loadout as long as you're playing smart and avoiding patrols, light armor helps a lot. I have noticed that after the main obj gets completed patrols seem to get hella ramped up, to the point I'm sitting still for 3 minutes while 4 patrols pass by.

3 chargers isn't very tough with the right equipment, an orbital laser will usually deal with 2 maybe 3 chargers if they're close enough together and you're shooting them during it, 500kg can wipe out the swarm and let you easily deal with the damaged chargers. Eagle airstrike if you get good rng can insta kill a charger or two, cluster bomb can again kill a swarm and let you deal with chargers. Oh and with the laser cannon buff it can also destroy chargers, so it's pretty easy to deal with all that

500KG is not optimal against swarms, and it is also sup-optimal against chargers. It has a deceptively small AoE. It's best used against Bile Titans and buildings, but it will work if you are desperate in a pinch. The Orbital Cluster is superior when dealing with a summoned wave, and Cluster Bombs will dilute the cooldown of your 500KG bomb if you are using it for Bile Titans. The Orbital Laser is good but the cooldown is brutal.

Against bugs the 500kg is definitely good against swarms, and especially on the low difficulty he's having trouble on he's not gonna run into many bile titans, if any apart from the quest obj. The cooldown for eagles after you use one is only like, 12 seconds or something so that's not really something to consider unless you're only running eagles

[Dmformom]

Originally posted by bluetrazyn:

ChickensofDeath, that seems rather... arbitrary. It should be super hard, sure, but this isn't GTFO, this isn't a "you don't have friends online? guess the whole endgame is locked off for you then" kind of game.

Quickplay is there for a reason

[C4NNED]

Originally posted by Dmformom:

Originally posted by C4NNED:

It's not a skill factor. Your not a bad player. It's just this game isn't balanced around solo play....

It's definitely not made to be played solo, but it's doable and not all that difficult

Yup it's doable.. It's just those tweaks and balance patches that come in will affect you 2 to 3 fold because everything is balanced around 4 players.

[tracker947.gv]

Originally posted by Dmformom:

Originally posted by tracker947.gv:

500KG is not optimal against swarms, and it is also sup-optimal against chargers. It has a deceptively small AoE. It's best used against Bile Titans and buildings, but it will work if you are desperate in a pinch. The Orbital Cluster is superior when dealing with a summoned wave, and Cluster Bombs will dilute the cooldown of your 500KG bomb if you are using it for Bile Titans. The Orbital Laser is good but the cooldown is brutal.

Against bugs the 500kg is definitely good against swarms, and especially on the low difficulty he's having trouble on he's not gonna run into many bile titans, if any apart from the quest obj. The cooldown for eagles after you use one is only like, 12 seconds or something so that's not really something to consider unless you're only running eagles

The 500KG bomb is most certainly sub optimal for add clear, especially against bugs, and especially with the enemy density he is reporting. If he isn't seeing Bile Titans, and he is trying to be as efficient as possible, he should bring something else. Even the minigun turret is superior, although more difficult to use.

[tracker947.gv]

Originally posted by C4NNED:

Originally posted by Dmformom:

It's definitely not made to be played solo, but it's doable and not all that difficult

Yup it's doable.. It's just those tweaks and balance patches that come in will affect you 2 to 3 fold because everything is balanced around 4 players.

The game was quite comfortable for solo clear, even without the meta, up to difficulty 7 before. It wasn't until difficulty 8 that it truly started to demand blood, sweat, and tears.