How do players feel about the Dev vision?

[shnappy]

This isn't an anti railgun nerf rant. I understand devs have stated they want primary weapons to be weak and the game to be "hard". I like hard games. I don't mind working for a win. But I like to be efficient and engaged too. I find it hard (pun) to get a good mix of those feelings on difficulty 7+. I know they stated looking at spawn rates and armor etc and I am really hoping some changes are made there.

While my two friends (sometimes theres a 3rd) work the primary objectives I usually cover the rest of the map doing the side objectives/pois and finding most of the samples. I usually have to jump over to help on objectives as well because they get bogged down (they have quite a bit less time in the game as me). Meanwhile im just zipping around ignoring all the bugs i can and running from ones who do aggro me because fighting them is just such a massive time sink. And that is the major issue I have.

Using weapons and stratagems feels good (ignoring the underwhelming power aspect). I enjoy clearing off the random patrol or stuff on a POI. Thats why I usually do that stuff while they are busy fighting the constant breaches and dying lol. But fighting all the bugs and seeing fun explosions and shooting fun weapons is like the most wasteful thing to do in the game at higher difficulties. At the same time, higher difficulties are the only ones that feel remotely challenging and rewarding.

Given the stated reasons behind the latest set of changes to the game I am worried that they devs may forget the game is also supposed to be fun in their quest to force their idea of a hard game on us. How long till they just make us move super slow, make enemies auto detect us, make enemies super speedy, etc because players have avoided their idea of "hard" by just running from the bugs. Find myself spending a lot less time in game recently, and never solo joining anymore and it sucks cause the game is good at its core.

[Luciole]

Following their vision for now . We will see how it goes along the way.

[capybaras are cool]

i think they know more about making fun video games than a bunch of people whining on forums

[MILKIE]

I think its good that the devs are chasing their own vision instead of catering to what players want, not every game needs to appeal to everyone. Where I think they messed up though was not set the expectation of what Hell Dive - 9 should feel like, doing a Hell Dive in HD1 was just as stressful as it is in HD2 but I think they under-tuned it and now everyone views Hell Dives as the standard and not the challenge mode.

Additionally, I think they spawn WAY too many elites for the anti-armour options we have now, Im fine with the difficulty that a Hell Dive provides, but id rather that difficulty come from the sheer number of enemies, and their support units (like automaton artillery) instead of being swamped with armoured opponents that take an entire magazine to drop. Even if the difficulty is the same, it just doesn't FEEL nice.

I think impossible or suicide mission should feel like the old Hell Dive, and Hell Dive should stay the same with rewards tweaked to reflect the adjusted difficulties.

[pRaX]

Imho and I think that's actually what they want, the squad should never be able to split without getting punished for it.
Shouldn't be able to solo much. Especially not on the higher difficulties.
Emphasis should be put on teamplay and lonewolf(ing) disregarded.
But I think they haven't put enough effort in making sticking together worthwhile either.
Something like a cohesion buff when sticking somewhat close to eachother, giving damage reduction or something. Iirc Darktide has something similar to that.

Anyways, there is lots of things they could do without ruining fun for one part of the playerbase.
But we got lonewolfs, powerfantasy cravers, main character syndrome afflicted, co-op enjoyers etc.
Problem is, the hype attracted so many people, some group(s) has to give.
A game for everyone is a game for no one.

Imho they gotta make a decision eventually or this will only get worse.

[pi73r]

Skill issue. I can easily do difficulty 7 solo. With any semi decent team diff 8 is rather easy. Diff 9 is obviously meant to be somewhat challenging (still it's easy with actually good team).
Yes if you aggro all the bugs on the map it can get intensive like it's supposed to.

[Redeyeflight]

I kind of feel like this game was all set up to be something really special.

Total fun focus.
Call down ridiculous artillery and equipment from your personal space fortress to rain death down on hordes of insects and robots.
Add very, very strong audio and visual composition to that and you have yourself a rare product.

In fact I think the audio visual composition has been carrying the game play elements.

If they deviate from what was on the tin, and try to give players that were expecting a tongue in cheek power fantasy fun experience a dark gritty hard mode souls like were the player is nothing but another body to feed the enemy...

I think it will quickly loose popularity.

[shnappy]

Originally posted by MILKIE:

Additionally, I think they spawn WAY too many elites for the anti-armour options we have now, Im fine with the difficulty that a Hell Dive provides, but id rather that difficulty come from the sheer number of enemies, and their support units (like automaton artillery) instead of being swamped with armoured opponents that take an entire magazine to drop. Even if the difficulty is the same, it just doesn't FEEL nice.

This is basically what I meant about fighting in general. It's fun to shoot and kill and drop bombs. I love blowin parts off bugs and robots. Then you see you spent 5 minutes runnin in circles, everything on CD for the next 5 minutes, final mags, and theres more enemies than you started with. Instead of wasting 5 minutes I just run away and have my 2 minutes of fun at extract. Ill drop an orbital or 500kg on the random bile titan or charger that are actually a bother..otherwise ima just dip.

[shnappy]

Originally posted by pi73r:

Skill issue. I can easily do difficulty 7 solo. With any semi decent team diff 8 is rather easy. Diff 9 is obviously meant to be somewhat challenging (still it's easy with actually good team).
Yes if you aggro all the bugs on the map it can get intensive like it's supposed to.

Thank you for showing you didn't read the post at all lol. I can solo a 7 I can play 9 with randos. All of that is beside the point.

[Sid]

Their vision is inconsistent and at times delusional. Doesn't help that they proudly state that they barely play their game and believe stats tell the whole story.

Not that I'm against the recent balance, I think they're the correct steps ( except the new patrol/spawn systems ) but at the wrong time.

[Dani]

Originally posted by Redeyeflight:

I kind of feel like this game was all set up to be something really special.

Total fun focus.
Call down ridiculous artillery and equipment from your personal space fortress to rain death down on hordes of insects and robots.
Add very, very strong audio and visual composition to that and you have yourself a rare product.

In fact I think the audio visual composition has been carrying the game play elements.

If they deviate from what was on the tin, and try to give players that were expecting a tongue in cheek power fantasy fun experience a dark gritty hard mode souls like were the player is nothing but another body to feed the enemy...

I think it will quickly loose popularity.

I dont know why anyone got the idea it was just going to be a mindless horde shooter.

[scrafty the kobold]

i think they have a good idea for weapon balancing but with how the spawn rates on bigger enemies are on higher difficulty they need to be a bit more powerful to keep up. the load out weapons are strong enough to take out most of the smaller enemies easily but alot of the drop weapons cant keep up with bigger boys, especially automatons. also the mech is way way to fragile for how few you get. they get one tapped in automaton missions from across the map constantly by any explosive. hopefully they give it an armor buff in the future

[Hawk]

Originally posted by capybaras are cool:

i think they know more about making fun video games than a bunch of people whining on forums

Not if they never play a single game in their lives, not if they play on trivial (which is what they do).

As far as trusting the plan, no, we'll see but this is not a good look any way you look at it, the timing of the nerfs to coincide with the mechs and a DLC drop next week, not buffing any other weapons besides 3 or 5 (barely noticeable some of them) while buffing every single enemy in the game, buffing their spawn count, buffing armor values and giving us zero anti-armor capabilities beyond a flame thrower and a slow reload recoilless rifle. I reserve judgement, they have my $60 now but they won't get a penny more unless they fix their screw ups, period. Running around in circles is NOT fun in the slightest, I have zero desire to play a racing game in the form of a human being. It's a joke to say that it takes any skill to do nothing but kite enemies for 40+ minutes, that's not a game, it's a waste of time and it is NOT what I paid them for, period.

I was having fun, not using meta weapons and gear; ever since that patch I have hated playing this game every second of it, & it is grindy to a fault.

[Easy, bro]

Well, after patch i have teammates with much more variance in their equipment and it's bring me joy instead of 3 teammates with shields and railguns.

[Furia]

Diablo 4 like.

[nakama7777]

This post hits the nail on the head. I don't mind changes, and indeed, H2 suffered from a stuck meta with shield and railgun, and the chances to the railgun make it a more skill based weapon but...what about plain old fun. Not tryharding, just having a blast, blowing ♥♥♥♥ up and having fun with ur mates? The latest patch countered that a bit imo as solo and duo is not really possible in 7+ atm without being a sweatlord. Remember when games were all about having fun?