It's not just chargers. Bugs suck to fight, and bots rock.

[Dark Moon Felis]

Here's a short summary of my experience so far. I'm a relatively new diver, only managed to liberate at the Medium and Challenging level so far (not a lot of time to play and largely solo), so this isn't representative of all difficulties... but if these issues are here on Medium they're worse on Helldiver.

Bots:
-Are reasonably balanced in terms of speed, damage, and durability. They don't seem to have units that are simultaneously super-tanky and super-fast, big oneshotty things tend to have travel time and big windup tells (i.e., rockets you can see coming or gigantic turrets that visibly pause).
-Generally don't invalidate weaponry through sheer obscene armor thickness. You can get a ton of mileage out of an Explosive Liberator, for instance.
-Have good, visible weakspots on back AND front usually, that reward precision with quick kills and make it so you can't just hose with a Breaker. Heavy enemies tend to not turn so quickly their big weakspots become barely targetable for all but the fastest-shooting weapons.
-Can be evaded through good terrain management or simply running away, because they won't chase you forever at ludicrous speed and can't shoot through mountains.
-Actually have a timer on the ally-summoning beacon, so you can interrupt them reliably if you have a quick draw and good aim.
-Don't spawn in ridiculous numbers full of heavy units. They tend to spawn a lot of little mooks that are deadly but fragile, and one or two heavies.
-Have more interesting mechanics - turrets in the bases that are actually useful, varied structure objectives that airstrikes work nicely on, explosives, dropships I THINK you can shoot bots down from if you're quick.

*EDIT* The gigantic artillery turrets are the biggest exception I've seen. Their tracking is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, their projectile speed is so high it's just as hard to dodge at long range (>80m?) as it is at short range, and it oneshots you. The rockets on Rocket Devastators might be a bit too fast (faster than the normal rockets, and instagib fairly often from behind with little tell), but it's not nearly as bad as the big turrets, which you can't even take out without an airstrike or AT.

Bugs:
-Throw all that balance stuff out the window. They're lightning fast, deal a ton of damage that no armor seems to properly resist (unlike with guns and explosives), and are often extremely tanky. The heavies can oneshot you with bile spit or charges from point blank that can't be reliably dodged up close. The hunters stagger and swarm you, so they can just 100-0 you.
-Have absurd supertank armor very early on, and Challenging starts spamming Chargers and Spewers en masse. Most weapons are godawful because they'll either ricochet into your face, or just don't do enough DPS, or kill you with explosive damage.
-Have weakspots mainly only visible from the back, so you have to run around them (good luck if you're solo or the poor sucker with aggro), and even shooting said weakspots won't kill them half as quickly. Chargers will turn extremely quickly once they've recovered, the fat bile enemies are way faster and turn more quickly than they have any right to, hunters and stalkers will rush you down and outrun you at any speed...
-Can't be evaded unless they just didn't see you. They'll ignore smoke clouds half the time, run across the map faster than an ultralight Helldiver, and never give up until every last bug is dead.
-Have seemingly zero timer on the ally-summoning pheromones, so if you see orange it's too late and you'll get a breach in moments, faster than the dropship and probably full of warriors and hunters.
-Spawn. Endlessly. Once they spot you, they'll start coming, and they don't stop coming and [insert Smash Mouth meme here]. It's not uncommon to just keep getting patrol spawns ON a side objective.
-Have barely any interesting mechanics other than "spawn more to overwhelm you". You can't blow up giant pods of bile to nuke crowds, turrets are always in the middle of nowhere, you can't preemptively shoot breaching bugs, and structures tend to be covered by overhangs and the like so airstrikes rarely work.

I went in solo against Medium Bots twice, and had a great time. Once I lost due to getting spawnkilled repeatedly by a bunch of heavy armored bots and chicken walkers, but I was in ultralight armor so it makes sense that a missile oneshots me, and I panicked and didn't use terrain properly so it's on me. Second time, flawless 100% map completion solo, and it was challenging but fair. In contrast, Medium Bugs feel two difficulties higher, and Challenging Bugs are unplayable solo due to frequently seeing packs of two Chargers and three Bile Spewers that can all oneshot you in medium Democracy Protects armor.

TL;DR: Nerf bugs overall to be on par with the bots. The bots are a fine enemy of Democracy as things stand.

[Dark Moon Felis]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Veldaz:

Bots might be harder but they also don't constantly make the player get stun locked.

Like chargers do. I swear, that one thing is why aliens suck. They're fast and tanky and can be so on a players ass they can't even breath. Every other alien I'm fine with.

Chargers don't stunlock nearly as badly as Hunters, and a whole shot from a Breaker won't oneshot a hunter unless every pellet lands on the face, last I tried. It's only when there are 2+ Chargers that you start getting punted around like a beachball, in my experience. The problem is that that time is 'literally all the time' if you're playing above Medium.

In contrast, I haven't even seen a single Hulk on Medium, and a Heavy Devastator can at least be taken down with a handful of good headshots. That, and big bugs are a nightmare to stagger - you can briefly hitstun a Dev with an explosive headshot, but good luck stopping a Charger with anything smaller than an EAT, for some reason.

Opprinnelig skrevet av |BG|-Raveshaw:

Seems like someone should pay more attention to the Brasch Tactics Broadcasts.

It's not a question of tactics when you can't do an artillery station without new bug patrols literally spawning at the very edge of the circle, with about five second breaks in between. The bugs might actually just be, well, bugged because of the complete lack of 'cancel reinforcements' time and the apparent lack of respawn cooldown for patrols, and the absurd composition of unit packs that have twice as many heavies as the bots ever get.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Team Triss:

There's no reason hitting a Bile Spewer with a RR or an EAT should not be a OHK, no matter where you hit it. I've had quite a few that just kept right on coming.

Plus, their spit should not track half as well as it does. I die plenty to them even though I'm in midair and dodging away.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ right. That tracking is obscene. You can dodge a Dev rocket, but Liberty help you if you're within the Bile Spewer's giant forward-facing cylinder of instant death.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Veldaz:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Myth Alric:

As long as it is just one charger, you can basically dance around it forever. They really are not that good at turning.

But they can be good at running faster then the player. You can dodge a charger easily but without ammo and being cut off from others it's not going to stop being on your ass.

The charger won't remain alone forever either. At some point you're bound to stumble into a swarm. Then there's three titans, 5-10 charges, bile bugs, and swarms of smaller ones with stalkers. I'm not even speaking metaphorically.

Somehow we made it to evac. It was the starship troopers base being over run moment. That's how intense it got. The only reason I couldn't make it to evac myself was because chargers chased my down a cliff. They can even climb cliffs.

Other aliens can be persistent, but they can die easier. A charger is more persistent then a dog trying to hump my leg. I have legit been chased across entire maps. It keeps up somehow.

And this is exactly what I'm talking about. You just can't shake the damn things, ever. No amount of smoke throws these guys off, half the airstrikes won't even dent them other than a Precision flare stuck directly to the shell, and they WILL eat an entire weakspot mag without even flinching.

You'd think the bots would be the faction to have a literal Terminator that never stops following you, but no, it's the giant bulldozer bug that turns like a dime when it's not charging and can outrun an ultralight through a maze of canyons and smoke plants.

[Fractured]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Fixo:

Yet everyone says the bots are harder, what gives ? maybe you didn't find a way to counter the bugs yet ? keep going at it, climb the difficulties, it's very manageable. I for one enjoy the difficulty both faction gives in their own ways.

TL;DR: Don't Nerf anything, If anything buff enemies in Helldiver difficulty.

I've only seen people say that other people say bots are harder. Bots are far easier besides their base cannons imo. And more fun imo.

Penetrating weapons actually seem to work great against that armor type (Autocannon 1-2 shots basically everything under a hulk).

And the whole Dropship vs Bug Breach is night and day in terms of enjoyable to deal with.

[soviergn]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kashra Fall:

Bugs are awesome to fight. Bots are awesome to fight. The game is just awesome and it captures the feeling of being an invader on a planet very well. The power imbalance makes total sense with the bugs because they are bugs. They reproduce by the thousands per hatching process, you drop with 4 hell divers xD.

Bots overwhelm you over time with dropships of 8-10 at a time. But the big difference is, they are ranged primarily =P.

INVADERS? We are establishing a line of Democracy fit to make the glory of our way of life as clear as the sun.

[[STG] Dante]

that's weird because bugs seem much easier than the bots.

[Mojo Forever]

I've recently come to the revelation that the bots are much more fun and interesting to fight. Tried the bots very early on and got absolutely wasted with the little gear me and my buddy had at the time but since we're fully equipped now we're enjoying the bots so much more.

[Morehouse928]

I feel like the people who say bugs are easier than the automatons just use the same tactics when fighting bugs (ie standing out in the open and just firing wildly). If you take cover and focus on precision shots automatons are a cakewalk compared to the bugs.

But yeah, they really need to nerf chargers and stalkers in the upcoming patches (among finally fixing the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ quickplay already).

[Fractured]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Morehouse928:

I feel like the people who say bugs are easier than the automatons just use the same tactics when fighting bugs (ie standing out in the open and just firing wildly). If you take cover and focus on precision shots automatons are a cakewalk compared to the bugs.

But yeah, they really need to nerf chargers and stalkers in the upcoming patches (among finally fixing the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ quickplay already).

Chargers just need their armor torso fixed, it's currently bugged.

As for stalkers, I didn't have any issues until yesterday. So at least on the higher difficulties, they uh....don't stop spawning. So if you have something that prevents you from closing the nest quickly. More...and more....and more....and more stalkers show up. I think we ended up with probably close to 15 stalkers chasing all 4 of us down.

[mfish518]

Bugs are tough until you get the Railgun. Can kill most chargers in 3 charged up shots to the face. Bile titans in 7-8. If you have the orbital rail cannon, that will essentially one-tap most things. Bile titan will be nearly dead from it as well.

[Shadow Wizard Fluffy Gang]

Aside from their breaches being too quick sometimes (seems bugged), Terminids are just fine.
Most complaints are addressed with skilled play and understanding, like did you know you can kill a charger with 1 AT and small arms? or 2 railgun shots and small arms?

Bugs are fun because they punish bad teamplay and really highlights the power of team coordination/effort. They're soloable lower difficulties but once you get to higher levels, when people split off in several directions, the situation quickly snowballs.
It's hard to recover from, but wouldn't want it any other way. A good team turns any difficulty, including Helldive, into a cakewalk from start to finish.

[Steel]

Nursery bugs are pretty easy to kill, the ones that spit bile I mean, aim at their head. An Anti-Material Sniper rifle kills them in one or two shots there.

Half of a clip of a standard assault rifle will too.

[Kyle'Thuzad]

I think the gist of the thread is that a bunch of people don't find bugs fun to fight, and that's what should be the focus instead of what people are constituting a skill issue. Bugs aren't fun to fight. I have to play like 10x harder to do the same tier of difficulty. Doable, yes, but annoying and frustrating are more common feelings than satisfaction.

[Yourgrandma]

Bug breaches should be able to be closed like the hives would help a great deal. With the bots you're able to shoot down the ships why not be able to close the breach? Also too many items are completely useless against the bugs, like the energy shield should be able to repel bugs for a while or something.

[HeavyTeemu]

Chargers and those giant ticks that spew acid are the problem. Chargers cause massive pressure which gives more than enough time for lesser enemies to swarm you. I do feel they are bugged right now since shooting their obvious weak point (the fleshy backside) does minimal to no damage. If it's not a bug then they need to increase dmg to fleshy bits.

Acid spitters are indeed way too fast and silent so most of the time you die completely oblivious of the incoming attack. Making them slower than their slasher siblings would improve the experience a lot.

Automatons however are perfect and fair, I would not change a thing about them.

[bitcrusher]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zCWBdinF0s
Eyes on the prize, citizen! Avoid those patrols whenever possible – meaningless sacrifice doesn't earn warbonds! If those bugs force your hand, take 'em down fast and silent. Prioritize disabling their comms before they raise the alarm! Armored bugs? Strip their defenses for a quick kill, or exploit their weak points like a true trooper. Remember, a well-placed railgun blast to the bile titan's gaping maw will end its rampage!

[Sylvester Sirloin]

The main problem you are having is you are playing the game solo. The game is designed and balanced with 4 people. It does not scale down based on the players. Bugs are not meant to be intelligent and have different tactics like the automatons. Overwhelming odds is their main tactic like ants that swarm whatever they are going to take down.