Endless Hordes in New Patch?

[Mr. Tiddle Widdles]

Just ran a full team in two different Helldive missions back to back and the strangest occurrence happened in both of them.

The team managed to complete the objective and return the extract point but on doing so the game began throwing massive and endless hordes of bots on the extract point that made it near impossible to extract.

The first time it happened I was forced to fight for about four minutes, calling in the team when I could, and fending off hordes that had about six or seven Hulks and endless waves of Devastator units rolling in.

There wasn't a single person that could even get to the beacon to call in extraction due to how dense the enemies were and the fact that their spawning was endless. I could literally see them spawning in the fog, their red lights popping into existence before rolling in with bands of twenty or more.

That mission ended in a full team wipe, though we succeeded in the objectives.

The second time around the same thing happened again but we managed to extract due to the location of the beacon having been in a tight funnel near some rough terrain that allowed us to chain stun them with grenades and obliterate them with artillery.

But even then I saw them pop in to existence, with a squad or two full of Devastators dropping in one every ten seconds or there about. Then of course the spawning caused a build up of Hulks to come running in and almost kill us all before we could even get to the extract Pelican.

This has never happened to me before, but now that the new patch has dropped and there was a particular mention of "Increased enemy patrols for teams less than four players" that drew my attention.

Have the morons at Arrowhead Studio ruined the patch and somehow caused this new increase to happen no matter what? Because our entire team was full and this happened twice in a row.

Has this happened to someone else? Or is this a strange coincidence?

[Mr. Tiddle Widdles]

Originally posted by Sin:

I jumped in a 5 solo to see how some of the changes looked. (really wanted to try the blitzer) And ended up with a sea of mobs a couple different times, def much more than i usually bump into especially on a 5. Didn't see how they showed up.

One time i was clearing a POI and turned around to a LARGE mob of bugs. Pats are normally 12-ish (give or take). this was more like 50. Another i was cleaning up a breach and turned around to the same thing when i fell back to reload.

Ended the run with nearly 500 kills when i normally end a 5 solo in the low 200s to maybe 250 max. Nothing bigger than a charger spawned but it was far more mobs than i usually see.

The extraction rush looked more like a 7 or 8 than a 5, but once again nothing bigger than a charger so it was NBD. Obviously it's very different than a 9 but it was still a noticable increase.

That's an unusual number, considering me running on Helldive usually ends with around 290 kills.

To have almost double that at half the difficulty level? That's not right, something's off about that.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by 󠀡󠀡PSC󠀡󠀡:

Oh well, guess it's time to nerf the Railgun again!

When in doubt, nerf the Railgun.

[Ryan Gosling (literally me)]

lol glad i uninstalled this trash game

[Sokaku]

Originally posted by Sin:

I jumped in a 5 solo to see how some of the changes looked. (really wanted to try the blitzer) And ended up with a sea of mobs a couple different times, def much more than i usually bump into especially on a 5. Didn't see how they showed up.

One time i was clearing a POI and turned around to a LARGE mob of bugs. Pats are normally 12-ish (give or take). this was more like 50. Another i was cleaning up a breach and turned around to the same thing when i fell back to reload.

Ended the run with nearly 500 kills when i normally end a 5 solo in the low 200s to maybe 250 max. Nothing bigger than a charger spawned but it was far more mobs than i usually see.

The extraction rush looked more like a 7 or 8 than a 5, but once again nothing bigger than a charger so it was NBD. Obviously it's very different than a 9 but it was still a noticable increase.

This pretty much sums up what I was seeing on 3-5's. 5 was seriously not fun solo, as it seems that spawns might be getting doubled-up or more. Even on 3 there aren't spawns on POIs, the only guard spawns are on objectives but so often I was getting 2 distinct blobs of red on the radar, 2x fresh patrols spawning in before they stretch out in a line. Prior to the patch difficulty 6 felt out of whack considering I can do 7 in a group without too much issue but 6 in a group or solo more often than not goes nuts. I'm almost afraid to join a 6 game now.

Honestly, with the lack of quality of their patching process, I don't think anyone can trust what the developers say such as that 4-player squads should see no difference. They have made changes to how patrols are spawning in, cannot tell us exactly how those changes were implemented. So back to the drawing board running games to try and figure out how to complete missions without getting absolutely butt-reamed by happy hordes of hoppy hungry Hunters blipping into existence right behind you.

[Smaug]

Originally posted by Sokaku:

Honestly, with the lack of quality of their patching process, I don't think anyone can trust what the developers say such as that 4-player squads should see no difference. They have made changes to how patrols are spawning in, cannot tell us exactly how those changes were implemented

It's especially galling to read that 4 players shouldn't notice any difference when it's immediately apparent that something has changed the first time you play a match at any difficulty (as far as I can tell) since the patch.

It feels like the devs don't playtest anything and are commenting about noticeable differences from their place behind the code, like "I altered this code, but it shouldn't change anything downstream, just this one bit of the game. Oh what's that? Players are noticing huge differences in the gameplay? Well, that seems odd, lemme go back to the code"

[Mr. Tiddle Widdles]

Originally posted by Smaug:

Originally posted by Sokaku:

Honestly, with the lack of quality of their patching process, I don't think anyone can trust what the developers say such as that 4-player squads should see no difference. They have made changes to how patrols are spawning in, cannot tell us exactly how those changes were implemented

It's especially galling to read that 4 players shouldn't notice any difference when it's immediately apparent that something has changed the first time you play a match at any difficulty (as far as I can tell) since the patch.

It feels like the devs don't playtest anything and are commenting about noticeable differences from their place behind the code, like "I altered this code, but it shouldn't change anything downstream, just this one bit of the game. Oh what's that? Players are noticing huge differences in the gameplay? Well, that seems odd, lemme go back to the code"

That's more or less how it seems to be going over there, at this point I'm beginning to think Arrowhead should give me the power to direct patches, buffs and nerfs, because I don't think it's even possible to ruin this more than they have been.

Then again, they shouldn't be directing patches, buffs and nerfs to begin with, since the developer team couldn't even complete a level six difficulty mission, and had gotten wiped out.

Don't wanna be a bastard about it and shout "skill issue" but at the same time I'm not too sure someone that can't play the game should determine what gets changed when it comes to the player tools in the game.

Maybe they should come back when they can complete a deathless Helldive? Then maybe their approach to balancing wouldn't be so moronic when they actually have the skill set to play the game they made.

Ya' know?

Their numbers and data sheets from what they have been monitoring from the player-base doesn't equate to experience in using the tools before adjusting them, which is the reason I think they're so bloody stupid about it.

[Sleepy_Walker]

I have experienced it before. Whenever I see a squad hanging out on extract, just poking about or standing guard, I know it is going to be a rough one.

[weirdkid5]

It depends on how many outposts you destroyed. Destroying more than half the outposts causes spawns to increase, as does completing the main objectives. Being near the extract for a long period of time also increases spawn rate. On Helldive, it can go down to as little as 15-20 seconds per patrol spawn.

There is an exploit you can use, however. If all outposts are gone, patrols will walk towards the edge of the map as long as there isn't a player near the edge. So, if you have someone near the edge, but still within 75m of the other players at extract, no patrols will spawn.

Someone did a breakdown of how patrols behave and operate on Reddit and it has a near 100% accuracy with how they work.

[Themcabel]

Something is definitively happening, had 3 terminid mission in helldive back to back,
where patrol keeps on spawning non-stop from start to finish,
never saw that many terminid before the patch, it was insane…
I even got multiple x100 kill with airstrike without trying.
And by the end of the mission most of my squad just decided to leave since we got something like 5-6 bile titan and hundred of terminid following each of us at different area of the map.
Worst part we actually all tried to not attack new patrol or run, but it didn't matter they keep coming.
Actually insane...
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3235735778

[Mr. Tiddle Widdles]

Originally posted by Themcabel:

Something is definitively happening, had 3 terminid mission in helldive back to back,
where patrol keeps on spawning non-stop from start to finish,
never saw that many terminid before the patch, it was insane…
I even got multiple x100 kill with airstrike without trying.
And by the end of the mission most of my squad just decided to leave since we got something like 5-6 bile titan and hundred of terminid following each of us at different area of the map.
Worst part we actually all tried to not attack new patrol or run, but it didn't matter they keep coming.
Actually insane...
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3235735778

Then it seems that somehow Arrowhead have ruined their new change to the patrol spawning.

For some reason it's possible for full teams to have a massive increase in their patrol spawns, forming massive hordes on the mission end.

[Themcabel]

Originally posted by Mr. Tiddle Widdles:

Originally posted by Themcabel:

Something is definitively happening, had 3 terminid mission in helldive back to back,
where patrol keeps on spawning non-stop from start to finish,
never saw that many terminid before the patch, it was insane…
I even got multiple x100 kill with airstrike without trying.
And by the end of the mission most of my squad just decided to leave since we got something like 5-6 bile titan and hundred of terminid following each of us at different area of the map.
Worst part we actually all tried to not attack new patrol or run, but it didn't matter they keep coming.
Actually insane...
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3235735778

Then it seems that somehow Arrowhead have ruined their new change to the patrol spawning.

For some reason it's possible for full teams to have a massive increase in their patrol spawns, forming massive hordes on the mission end.

Now that I think about it…
It kind of feel like before the first Termicid Tower event, when they patched the amount of armored enemy you could encounter because everyone told them they were too many of them.
At that time, I did have the same amount of terminids… It would not surprise me if they rolled back this change in secret.
After all, they did stealth nerf the ping,
we could reveal objective not discovered by using the ping on the mini-map on an area that could have them…
Not anymore.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Smaug:

It's especially galling to read that 4 players shouldn't notice any difference when it's immediately apparent that something has changed the first time you play a match at any difficulty (as far as I can tell) since the patch.

To be fair, Helldivers' patrol spawn system is a black box. It was prone to ridiculous, inexplicable behaviour even before the changes. I've had games where barely anything spawned. We spent most of our time walking point-to-point and camping Alert spawns. Then the next mission over, we get an alert before we're out of our pods, then spend the next 20 minutes in a never-ending firefight regardless of what we do.

I'm not saying there weren't spawn changes for 4 players. I'm saying that the system is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ inconsistent that it's genuinely hard to tell. I honestly don't know what's new behaviour, what's the game bugging out and breaking down, and what's intended behaviour that I just don't understand. This is what happens when developers go out of their way to keep players from learning the game.

[Sin]

Something in one of the posts got me thinking.. It really does feel like they are running things through a spreadsheet to determine changes rather than doing any actual playtesting.