There's no point to killing nests/fabricators

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Don't get me wrong, there's always a point to fight for Democracy by killing even more bots and bugs and earning more patriotism stars. I'm not disputing that at all!

But in terms of rewards and gameplay it's not only pointless, but it also hurts you. You'd think destroying nests/fabricators would actually reduce the number of enemies you find in the missions, but it's actually the opposite. Destroying these structures actually makes more enemies show up. So not only are you taking more time to do this side objective, ticking down the timer and making the enemies more intense, but more enemies are showing up as a result of your actions, and you're probably triggering encounters as you go loud and start shooting at enemies.

This is completely moronic from a design standpoint. Once you hit lvl 50 it's pointless to break nests/factories since you don't need the XP, but even if you do the payout compared to secondary objectives is actually really bad. You're always better off doing main + whatever secondaries you can find and forgetting nests unless they're directly in the way. This really needs to change. The rewards are fine, it's whatever. They can be crap, but rewards should really be a secondary benefit below reducing the number of enemies you have to deal with later in the mission.

I propose they change it around and rather than increasing enemies, destroying nests should reduce enemies. I don't mean to make the game easier, because they can simply change how threat levels work. They can change the amount of hate over time by increasing how severe of an impact time spent in the level has on enemies, and then add the ability to lower this by taking the time to quickly eliminate spawners as you move through the level. The assumption should be normal gameplay where you clear spawners is preferable, and taking too long doing nothing in the level or playing too safe/stealthy really hurts you later.

Anyone have a comment on this? It seems like a no-brainer to me. I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned much sooner. The rewards just aren't worth it for what the mechanic does.

TL;DR: Title. Change this!

[Anticitizen 1]

Yeah, outside of Blitz missions, it's actively counter-productive.

[Dracon]

Nah, thats not how it works at all.
The game infact is random in how patrols spawn and such
Often times if its light throughout the mission, chances are its going to spawn heavy near the end when you extract.
And other times its heavy right from the start.
Its quite random.

[Yig]

What ive been saying from the start. 4 mins on a 40 mins missions =10xp, thats the same amount of xp as a medium nest/fab, I see people running across the map for a nest/fab, taking 4 mins or more and risk losing their samples and everything. The only reason to do them is samples and only if youre doing great on the mission/lives already.

The most efficient way to play on higher difficulties is to run to the main objectives, get the minor points of interest, maybe a few annoying nest/fabs if its on the way there and then extract. Youll cover most of the map already just doing the main objectives most of the time.

[Babyfaced Beauty]

You do it for challenge and fun.

It does get relegated to last in priority now, however, if you have 25 mins to spare, its usually another thing to do before evac. You see how many people just hang around the pelican and refusing to board to either everything is killed or they have expended all their stratagems. Game is fun, and putting in more things to do is more fun. Fabricators especially.

[Shining_Darkness]

Originally posted by Dracon:

Nah, thats not how it works at all.
The game infact is random in how patrols spawn and such
Often times if its light throughout the mission, chances are its going to spawn heavy near the end when you extract.
And other times its heavy right from the start.
Its quite random.

Someone is not in the loop. Three guys made a very in-depth dive into exactly how the patrol spawning system works.

Killing 50% of nests/fabricators drastically increases spawn rate of patrols by decreasing the interval they spawn at. If you remove ALL of them the increased rate is merely reverted. Same goes for secondary objectives those are more forgiving since they only increase the spawn rate until the objective is completed. Primary objectives, but not their preliminary steps, also drastically increase the rate (they quadruple spawns) the ONLY "random" patrol spawn mechanic is related to player deaths, sometimes when a player dies a patrol will spawn outside of their spawn timer. This is the only part of patrol spawning not non well-documented.

When players spawn-in for the first time, sometimes the game thinks this is because of player death and it can spawn a patrol immediately rather than according to the base rate, because it can spawn one patrol per instance on a player group defined as a string of players within 75m of at least one other player and patrols can spawn 75m away from any given player, this can lead to up to 4 patrols immediately spawning close by if the players don't drop right next to each other, hearing the drops the players obviously just spawned, and come to investigate. This is why sometimes things are hot immediately and sometimes not.

[Armos]

Originally posted by Dracon:

And other times its heavy right from the start.

Yeah, this is how it is for me most of the time. Team wiping early on due to intense pressure right after spawn, but smooth sailing after it settles down, with an almost empty extraction zone.

[adobo]

And not get all the mission stars? Sounds like quitter talk or worse, UNDEMOCRATIC.

[esilva9]

You would think destroying nests and factories would reduce the numbers of patrols and reinforcements on the map but it seems to be the opposite and if you destroy all a drop or breach is basically a severe punitive attack. its like they matter little to war effort especially since they don't actually cause an effect on the global mission,

[shadain597]

Ugh, just had a team of idiots fail their way through everything on the map except the main objective. We barely finished the objective as we ran out of time and then died. Sure, we got a few medals for completion, but I would rather leave 1-2 bases behind and instead extract with all of the samples.

[Babyfaced Beauty]

Originally posted by esilva9:

You would think destroying nests and factories would reduce the numbers of patrols and reinforcements on the map but it seems to be the opposite and if you destroy all a drop or breach is basically a severe punitive attack. its like they matter little to war effort especially since they don't actually cause an effect on the global mission,

The data obtained by a few randoms, and they even went against some things an actual game Dev commented on, lol.

I wouldn't trust all internet sources if I were you, I'd do my own research, play the game and look out for patterns and discrepancies myself if I were you.

Destroying bug nests requires time to pass. You can leave all the bug nests up and try to extract with little time remaining and see how bad the spawn rates can get.

Different planets and missions also have different spawn rates, and types of enemies spawned.

Depending on mission modifiers, your spawn rates are also adjusted accordingly.

WIth the right stratagem loadouts, even insane massive spawns can be dealt with easily, so long as you have chosen appropriate stratagems.

[TOAN732]

An interesting fix would to change how impact works based on difficulty.

The amount of stars you get on each mission determine the impact of that mission on the liberation %. So, if you skip all the sides and just do the primary, you'll liberate the planet less than if you took the time to do the sides. I'd imagine the Helldive mission full 5 stars would give 10 impact to the planet and a Challenging mission 3 stars max to give 6 impact.

With that you can skip all the nests/fabs, but you'd probably only get 2 stars for doing just the primaries on a Helldive mission for LESS than a full 3 stars Challenging mission impact.

Gives a reason to fully clear the map for maximum stars.

[Ethanol]

There is, every time I see anyone who's not Lv 50, I must and will destroy every single nest and factory on the map.

Support Democracy, most importantly, support your fellow helldivers level up.

[Squishy]

Spawns should decrease the more nests and fabricators are destroyed. Reward us for busting our asses. Make the game and the concept make sense. It's bass ackwards design to make spawns more frequent the more spawners you destroy.

[Dasmortas]

I agree if clear fab/nest it should have impact on the battlefield

[Squishy]

Originally posted by BabyBeauty:

Originally posted by esilva9:

You would think destroying nests and factories would reduce the numbers of patrols and reinforcements on the map but it seems to be the opposite and if you destroy all a drop or breach is basically a severe punitive attack. its like they matter little to war effort especially since they don't actually cause an effect on the global mission,

The data obtained by a few randoms, and they even went against some things an actual game Dev commented on, lol.

I wouldn't trust all internet sources if I were you, I'd do my own research, play the game and look out for patterns and discrepancies myself if I were you.

Destroying bug nests requires time to pass. You can leave all the bug nests up and try to extract with little time remaining and see how bad the spawn rates can get.

Different planets and missions also have different spawn rates, and types of enemies spawned.

Depending on mission modifiers, your spawn rates are also adjusted accordingly.

WIth the right stratagem loadouts, even insane massive spawns can be dealt with easily, so long as you have chosen appropriate stratagems.

You can't even trust the devs in the first place. They've been wrong about so much of their game with countless instances of evidence on YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, Discord and whatever other forum on the internet that proves they're wrong. Hell, playing the game yourself is more than enough to see most of what the devs say isn't true. You can't trust anybody. That leaves us with a game in development hell and a slowly but surely bleeding player-base due to the lack of trust and loss of interest.