Helldivers 2 is bad Helldivers game

[BlackNyasher]

It could sound harsh but i didn't mean it a bad game, but... It just worse than Helldivers 1 in aspects that made 1 so great:

So first of all... Visualy game fails to look like "Helldivers" as you look at 99% of players who dressed whatever but not canonical "black+yellow" color-schemed armor. Other armor usullay have some very little "piece of helldivers" in it like a little skull on the belt or little winged skull somewhere nobody will ever look at, but mostly it looks taken from some Destiny or Call of duty and mixed in UE5 to get H2. In H1 most of the suits and hats been sharing the same grey-black armor and black uniform colors, even if you could find some coats and suits lacking any yellow in them you could see there still used the same color scheme as black+yellow armors, so it still barely different from the promo-arts and trailers featuring canonical heldivers, which is not the case in H2... Also weapon is sharing the same problem - H1 had it's guns painted the same scheme as armor looking like it belongs to the same universe and the same military formation, while in H2 it... again looking like taken from some other game, especially due to the fact it aint looking any futuristic at all.

Music, since old composer isn't here anymore, while original game followed the ideas of heroism and overcoming first of all ("Become more than you are"), in H2 suddenly trying to stimulate some PTSD-horror vibes in battle ("Only miracle will save you"), and as you call for evacuation even more suddenly switches to super-agent or spy action theme, while in gameplay it is the part where most deaths and failures happening and it doesn't make sense to sound as it sounds instead of sounding more, well, horrific or heroic (only for my taste ofc). But this is understandable and tolerable due to the direction game took in H2, which is the biggest problem of H2...

Well, idea of the game now is not "Become more than you are" as it was in H1 where you always knew and could see where you can do better and how you could avoid dying there and there, and even what could you do more as you arleady bleeding on the ground, surrounded and about to die (not to mention you been actually learning new stratagems because you needed to use them alot)... Now Arrowhead introduced random unavoidable insta-kills (hello rockets in face from across the map), eternity-long cooldowns with no way to duplicate stratagems, and player-stunlocks (god i hate it) and so made the idea of constantly dying the main "fun" feature, and the main measure of player's skill now is his accuracy with the railgun since most of the enemies now are shameless bullet and rocket sponges (i swear this bug charger have more HP than bile titan) leaving no room for teamplay since, well, railgun is better than recoiles-rifle team or dude full of explosive stratagems, and if you didn't pick the railgun there is a great chance to be kicked after first mission...

I am not even talking about weapon balance since even perfect one will not cure the lack of idea other than "learn to aim weakspot fast", opposite to "learn to think fast" and "think of new ways for helping your team" since thinking is not what the game is about currently... Yea, you still need to walk and dive right directions, use stims in time and throw stratagem and even not to kill teammate with it, but it is about accuracy first and only of all while stratagem is to buy you more time for aiming weakspots... Yea, stealth also, but it doesn't matter since it will be in vain if you fail the evacuation (which you most likely do if you not a cybersportsman from Apex Legends or CoDWarzone, taking aim on next weakspot's red dot faster than your railgun reloads). And to strengthen my point i will just mention now how absurdly a lot of debuffs for stratagems missions are having (especially this genious one that cuts 1/4 of fun from the game by locking 1/4 of stratagem slots)

And this is shame since i was very impressed with the game and how much fun fighting cyborgs and bugs can be first hours... before same borgs and bugs became "little annoyance that disturbing my aiming at boss's weakspots through the whole 40 minutes of mission nonstop".

Just compare and try to see if anything of Helldivers left in new game...
https://www.youtube.com/live/o5kHMK8QK5Q?si=XbNdkaZ6Y-L0mcO8&t=165

And i barely have ideas how to cure the Helldivers 2 formula... Maybe boosting rocketlaunchers to kill minibosses in one hit, flamethrowers to paralize enemies and emplacements to not die from one rocket will make the trick (alltogether with removing this awkwardly long cooldowns from stratagems and debuffs affecting it), but it seems like there mostly will be more new "railguns" to aim at weakspots for all the lifetime of the game, since this is what newcomers love.

[Con.RoXP]

The only part I have strong feelings on is the armor colors and I 100% completely agree. Anything not black+ yellow simply feels wrong and soulless and it doesn't remind me of Helldivers at all.

[Bill Waggoner]

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

It could sound harsh but i didn't mean it a bad game, but... It just worse than Helldivers 1 in aspects that made 1 so great:

So first of all... Visualy game fails to look like "Helldivers" as you look at 99% of players who dressed whatever but not canonical "black+yellow" color-schemed armor. Other armor usullay have some very little "piece of helldivers" in it like a little skull on the belt or little winged skull somewhere nobody will ever look at, but mostly it looks taken from some Destiny or Call of duty and mixed in UE5 to get H2. In H1 most of the suits and hats been sharing the same grey-black armor and black uniform colors, even if you could find some coats and suits lacking any yellow in them you could see there still used the same color scheme as black+yellow armors, so it still barely different from the promo-arts and trailers featuring canonical heldivers, which is not the case in H2... Also weapon is sharing the same problem - H1 had it's guns painted the same scheme as armor looking like it belongs to the same universe and the same military formation, while in H2 it... again looking like taken from some other game, especially due to the fact it aint looking any futuristic at all.

Music, since old composer isn't here anymore, while original game followed the ideas of heroism and overcoming first of all ("Become more than you are"), in H2 suddenly trying to stimulate some PTSD-horror vibes in battle ("Only miracle will save you"), and as you call for evacuation even more suddenly switches to super-agent or spy action theme, while in gameplay it is the part where most deaths and failures happening and it doesn't make sense to sound as it sounds instead of sounding more, well, horrific or heroic (only for my taste ofc). But this is understandable and tolerable due to the direction game took in H2, which is the biggest problem of H2...

Well, idea of the game now is not "Become more than you are" as it was in H1 where you always knew and could see where you can do better and how you could avoid dying there and there, and even what could you do more as you arleady bleeding on the ground, surrounded and about to die (not to mention you been actually learning new stratagems because you needed to use them alot)... Now Arrowhead introduced random unavoidable insta-kills (hello rockets in face from across the map), eternity-long cooldowns with no way to duplicate stratagems, and player-stunlocks (god i hate it) and so made the idea of constantly dying the main "fun" feature, and the main measure of player's skill now is his accuracy with the railgun since most of the enemies now are shameless bullet and rocket sponges (i swear this bug charger have more HP than bile titan) leaving no room for teamplay since, well, railgun is better than recoiles-rifle team or dude full of explosive stratagems, and if you didn't pick the railgun there is a great chance to be kicked after first mission...

I am not even talking about weapon balance since even perfect one will not cure the lack of idea other than "learn to aim weakspot fast", opposite to "learn to think fast" and "think of new ways for helping your team" since thinking is not what the game is about currently... Yea, you still need to walk and dive right directions, use stims in time and throw stratagem and even not to kill teammate with it, but it is about accuracy first and only of all while stratagem is to buy you more time for aiming weakspots... Yea, stealth also, but it doesn't matter since it will be in vain if you fail the evacuation (which you most likely do if you not a cybersportsman from Apex Legends or CoDWarzone, taking aim on next weakspot's red dot faster than your railgun reloads). And to strengthen my point i will just mention now how absurdly a lot of debuffs for stratagems missions are having (especially this genious one that cuts 1/4 of fun from the game by locking 1/4 of stratagem slots)

And this is shame since i was very impressed with the game and how much fun fighting cyborgs and bugs can be first hours... before same borgs and bugs became "little annoyance that disturbing my aiming at boss's weakspots through the whole 40 minutes of mission nonstop".

Just compare and try to see if anything of Helldivers left in new game...
https://www.youtube.com/live/o5kHMK8QK5Q?si=XbNdkaZ6Y-L0mcO8&t=165

And i barely have ideas how to cure the Helldivers 2 formula... Maybe boosting rocketlaunchers to kill minibosses in one hit, flamethrowers to paralize enemies and emplacements to not die from one rocket will make the trick (alltogether with removing this awkwardly long cooldowns from stratagems and debuffs affecting it), but it seems like there mostly will be more new "railguns" to aim at weakspots for all the lifetime of the game, since this is what newcomers love.

k

[Ghost from warp]

I can agree with weapon balance, it does not exist right now.

[Slicer [OSL)]

weapon balance yes.
the rest just no except picking your own color would be cool.
why did it sell so well? exactly, democracy

[BlackNyasher]

Originally posted by Slicer AUT:

weapon balance yes.
the rest just no except picking your own color would be cool.
why did it sell so well? exactly, democracy

It sell well because humanity is starwing for something that aint piece of ♥♥♥♥ claiming to be "AAAA-game"

[Vespertellino]

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

Originally posted by Free:

hmm yes...complain the game is bad but play anyway

hmm yes such "bad" ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Simply researching to prove myself right or wrong there and there :V

Pal, your "research" is 10hrs longer than me just enjoying the game from the start
Looks like it's alright huh

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

So first of all... Visualy game fails to look like "Helldivers" as you look at 99% of players who dressed whatever but not canonical "black+yellow" color-schemed armor.

Yeah, and that was a bad thing. The original Helldivers was honestly quite ugly, from an art direction point of view. All the armour sets looked the same, with the same awful "black and gold" colour scheme. At that point, you may as well not bother with customisation - especially since the point of view and graphical fidelity meant the details weren't visible anyway.

Not only does Helldivers 2 have far greater visual variety, but the overall art style is superior, as well. At least to me, anyway. I like the look of the guns and especially the armour sets. Just because it's different doesn't make it worse.

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

Now Arrowhead introduced random unavoidable insta-kills (hello rockets in face from across the map), eternity-long cooldowns with no way to duplicate stratagems, and player-stunlocks (god i hate it) and so made the idea of constantly dying the main "fun" feature

This isn't new. Helldivers was full of absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ one-shots. IFVs could one-shot you from off-screen. Cyborg Dogs could knock you down and kill you before you got up, armour be damned. Illuminate snipers could snipe you from offscreen, Obelisks could kill you with their shield walls. Bugs were even worse. That one bug which burrows tentacles underground could one-shot you from off-screen before you even knew it was there.

Helldivers has always been excessively cheap, and that's not a good thing. I'm just as critical of one-shots in this game as I was in the prequel.

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

but it is about accuracy first and only of all while stratagem is to buy you more time for aiming weakspots... Yea, stealth also, but it doesn't matter since it will be in vain if you fail the evacuation (which you most likely do if you not a cybersportsman from Apex Legends or CoDWarzone, taking aim on next weakspot's red dot faster than your railgun reloads).

This isn't even remotely true. While Helldivers does reward accuracy here or there, the most popular weapon is an auto-shotgun. More to the point - accurate weak point hits aren't going to cut it against enemies with no weak points (like the Bile Titan), enemies with armoured weak points (like the IFV) or enemies with all of the above. Weapon choice and strategem choice makes far more of a difference than precision aim. As does knowing the Byzantine mechanics behind each individual enemy's design.

To treat Strategems as buying you time to use your guns is... very backwards, in my opinion. Strategems are your most powerful weapon. They are how you wipe out large groups of enemies, take out heavy targets, set up defences, etc. When I asked for advise on killing Bile Titans with weapons, a majority of the advise I got back was "Don't. Kill them with Strategems, Instead."

Sure, balance is all over the place, but you can still find a few Strategems which work well and stick to those.

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

Just compare and try to see if anything of Helldivers left in new game...
https://www.youtube.com/live/o5kHMK8QK5Q?si=XbNdkaZ6Y-L0mcO8&t=165

Again - just because Helldivers 2 is different from Helldivers 1 doesn't make it worse. The original isn't some holy relic which can never be criticised. It was chock full of absolutely absurd instances of bad design and bad ideas. If anything, I wish Arrowhead had shed more of the original game, because they carried over some of its worst aspects. Hopefully that gets addressed over time.

[Slicer [OSL)]

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

Originally posted by Slicer AUT:

weapon balance yes.
the rest just no except picking your own color would be cool.
why did it sell so well? exactly, democracy

It sell well because humanity is starwing for something that aint piece of ♥♥♥♥ claiming to be "AAAA-game" :microraptor:

the AAAA thing got me xD
nice shot man

[NaRf]

Sure...

[BlackNyasher]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

This isn't new. Helldivers was full of absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ one-shots. IFVs could one-shot you from off-screen. Cyborg Dogs could knock you down and kill you before you got up, armour be damned. Illuminate snipers could snipe you from offscreen, Obelisks could kill you with their shield walls. Bugs were even worse. That one bug which burrows tentacles underground could one-shot you from off-screen before you even knew it was there.

You didn't got what i mean, first Helldivers ofc had weapon that kills you with one shot, but with one little detail - all you mentioned gives you second or two (or three) to jump or simply walk out the way to survive, literally screaming for you to jump off (instances when dogs even have a chance to kill you with no chance to do something, not to mention it actually happen, are rarer than once in 10 missions), while the only instance when Helldivers 2 gives you such a luxury are acid spiting bugs, and still it doesn't guarantee you will not get randomly headshoted in the end of your jump, i am not even talking about randomly appearing bug behind you and killing you before you notice, or this acid artillery shot landing directly on top of your head in the middle of nowhere. Such randomness simply isn't present in any scenario in Helldivers 1, 90% of deaths are slow reaction/failure/missclick, the rest 10% are situations you managed to end up without any option to deal with it.

Originally posted by Malidictus:

This isn't even remotely true. While Helldivers does reward accuracy here or there, the most popular weapon is an auto-shotgun. More to the point - accurate weak point hits aren't going to cut it against enemies with no weak points (like the Bile Titan), enemies with armoured weak points (like the IFV) or enemies with all of the above. Weapon choice and strategem choice makes far more of a difference than precision aim. As does knowing the Byzantine mechanics behind each individual enemy's design.

To treat Strategems as buying you time to use your guns is... very backwards, in my opinion. Strategems are your most powerful weapon. They are how you wipe out large groups of enemies, take out heavy targets, set up defences, etc. When I asked for advise on killing Bile Titans with weapons, a majority of the advise I got back was "Don't. Kill them with Strategems, Instead."

Even at difficulty 7 there is already a lot of "headshots" to do against cyborgs (but pretty doable without railgun/autocannon), and most of the waves can be cleared with couple of stratagems... But at level 8 and 9 it is absolute neceserity to have railgun-autocannon for headshoting or you will end up spending 50% of mission time running between objectives and another 50% running from dude with flamethrower because your stratagem have only 1 second window to hit him after he dropped from the plane or otherwise he will be chasing you to the end of the world absolutely undamaged (yea, and don't forget there is at least 4 planes every wave which are comming faster than your stratagems reload so whole your squad have to show the miracle of coordination and luck to kill most of the airdrop with stratagems... just to face one more wave of the very same robots you just killed, but this time you have to deal with them with your bare hands or railguns).

And with bugs whole mission is about running away from bile titans and dropping orbital railguns on them while shooting their heads with hand railguns, while also shooting charger's front leg and sometimes paying atention to smaller bugs. Yea, you clearing good ammount of smaller bugs with orbital- and air-strikes, but this is still a routine distracting you from such important headshoting bile titan and legshoting charger.

...And then there is an evacuation stage which multiplies all said above to the point of absurd and unplayability.

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Again - just because Helldivers 2 is different from Helldivers 1 doesn't make it worse. The original isn't some holy relic which can never be criticised. It was chock full of absolutely absurd instances of bad design and bad ideas. If anything, I wish Arrowhead had shed more of the original game, because they carried over some of its worst aspects. Hopefully that gets addressed over time.

They barely carried any aspect, if any but stratagems. Could call it "Helldivers - FPS" instead and then i could have nothing to say against it, but since they called it "2" - then they declaring it as a game for the fans of "1", while it not in aspects i mentioned in my first message.

[EggTBD]

I never played the first Helldivers but I'm having a blast on this one so far.

[BaconX]

Ain't reading all the dribble for a jester farm, but uh, go ahead and take this L from me.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

But at level 8 and 9 it is absolute neceserity to have railgun-autocannon for headshoting

Possible. Difficulty 7 is the highest one actually HAS to play in order to progress. As far as I'm concerned, difficulties over that are entirely optional and should be only for those who actually enjoy them. I personally don't, for pretty much the reasons you mention. Which is no different from Helldivers 1.

I completed Bug mission at Difficulty 15: Inner Circle of Hell in Helldivers, because the game locked the disposable LMG Strategem behind it. Obviously, I had to have help from the Helldivers discord, but I did it. Wasn't any fun, I don't want to do it again. Frankly, I don't particularly enjoy Difficulty 7 in Helldivers 2, either, but the same reason applies. Arrowhead decided to lock Super Samples behind Difficulty 7, so that's what I'm doing.

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

And with bugs whole mission is about running away from bile titans and dropping orbital railguns on them while shooting their heads with hand railguns, while also shooting charger's front leg and sometimes paying atention to smaller bugs.

I can't speak to difficulty 9, but that's what I used to do on Difficulty 7, yes. It's exceptionally boring, though, so I've been trying different approaches. Turns out a fully-upgraded Autocannon Sentry can do a lot of work against a Bile Titan, and EAT-17 rockets aren't terrible against them. It's not exactly "meta" but it's more interesting than mag-dumping into bullet sponges.

Supposedly there's an issue with Bile Titans being a lot easier to take down with a PS5 host than with a PC host so they may not be working correctly at present (certain seem to take WAAAY too much damage to take down). Me personally, though - I tend to use 500KG bombs or 110mm Rocket strikes. They give me multiple charges and a shorter cooldown than the Railcannon Strike while being honestly about as effective. Which is to say they're a roll of the dice.

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

They barely carried any aspect, if any but stratagems. Could call it "Helldivers - FPS" instead and then i could have nothing to say against it, but since they called it "2" - then they declaring it as a game for the fans of "1", while it not in aspects i mentioned in my first message.

I beg to differ. Arrowhead carried over most of the absolute worst aspects from the original Helldivers. They retained the Alert system which disincentivises fighting (you know, the fun part) in favour of sneaking and running away. That's probably the game's single biggest flaw, because it turns combat (again, the fun part) into a failure state. A "clean run" is one where the players engage in combat as little as possible.

They also carried over the awful lock-and-key design behind enemy armour. Either you bring anti-tank weapons or you GTFO. Except it's even worse in Helldivers 2, since anti-tank weapons suck donkey this time around. This right here means that at least one part of my build is decided for me, thus artificially limiting build variety. Crew Weapons made a comeback, despite being awful in Helldivers, but here they're even worse due to the slower crew reload and the "sticky" stance of the loader.

I'd argue that both of the above aspects are as characteristic of Helldivers as "Democracy" or "capes". Then again, Arrowhead did improve on a lot of other awful aspects from Helldivers.

Ammo is now free Strategem, rather than a mandatory Strategem further eating into our limited slots. Objectives can no longer be failed. The worse that can happen is players fail to make progress and get ground down in combat. Means failure feels a lot less "cheap". Speaking of which, limited Reinforcements and a full-squad reinforce makes the rest of the really cheap, stupid deaths feel a lot less frustrating. If I accidentally kill myself and two other team-mates with a fumbled Rumbler shot, that's not an instant game over. Simultaneously, it keeps missions from getting dragged out into perpetual death spirals, as well.

Even purely in terms of gameplay, Helldivers 2 feels like a far more professional, designed game than the "let's throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks" approach of Helldivers 1. I hope Arrowhead have enough wisdom to iterate on their product, rather than digging heels on "their vision".

[Sharkle_Bunwich]

Originally posted by BlackNyasher:

Other armor usullay have some very little "piece of helldivers" in it like a little skull on the belt or little winged skull somewhere nobody will ever look at, but mostly it looks taken from some Destiny or Call of duty and mixed in UE5 to get H2.

HD2 is on the same engine as HD1 but modified, lmao.

[Dr. Phoenix]

This topic cant be real.
Must be to farm jester awards