A theory on "Escalation of Freedom"

[Cadwell]

(disclaimer i am not trying to create more negativity, it's just a theory on the devs's throught process for Escalation of Freedom, would appreciate constructive feedback)

My theory is : Arrowhead tried to appease to the tryhard Helldivers with "Escalation of Freedom" , and ended up shooting themselves in the foot as result.

Think about it, what they added did not introduce variety in the sligtest and only added artificial methods to increase difficulty.

-what type of novelty do the Armored Strider Scout and Tank Rocket Battery add? They don't.

It's just more rockets and ragdoll, and you deal with them same as any armored enemy.
You do not approach them in any clever way!

-Super Helldives only spawn more and more enemies, and Fortresses are only ever found in such difficulty, alongside the new enemies.

-the new charger is just "regular charger but has flatulence issues" once more artificially influencing difficulty by reducing line of sight.

-the nerf to the Fire Breaker was also due to artifically inflating difficulty. Reducing mags in a game when the enemies seems to have infinite resources and spawn infinitely is a bad move.

(which tbh, for claiming they are going for a "military sim" approach with some aspects, but the enemy doesn't play to the same rules, or has MORE ways to be hindered, seems kind of shortsighted)

TL:DR none of the changes they added increased difficulty in a smart way or introduced variety in a meaningful way, it's just more mental damage.

[The Roach]

Everything else they've done has been stupid, so why not this?

[Cadwell]

Originally posted by Endy:

Everything else they've done has been stupid, so why not this?

At least a couple of positive things were added, credit where credit is due.

-explosive crossbow being one handed is a huge improvement as now you can wield the ballistic shield
-reduced cooldown on the 120 mm barrage is also good, as now it's much more viable.

My biggest complaint, is that Escalation of Freedom didn't innovate anything, it doesn't add new situations nor missions that force us to use different stratagems or get creative.

The game feels the same.

And i wouldn't bring this up if the update wasn't advertised as a such a game-changer.

[adobo]

If they were appeasing the tryhards "i only play at max difficulty", they would have buffed everything so that everything but the max difficulty is easy mode.

[Kortek]

Originally posted by Cadwell:

(disclaimer i am not trying to create more negativity, it's just a theory on the devs's throught process for Escalation of Freedom, would appreciate constructive feedback)

My theory is : Arrowhead tried to appease to the tryhard Helldivers with "Escalation of Freedom" , and ended up shooting themselves in the foot as result.

Think about it, what they added did not introduce variety in the sligtest and only added artificial methods to increase difficulty.

-what type of novelty do the Armored Strider Scout and Tank Rocket Battery add? They don't.

It's just more rockets and ragdoll, and you deal with them same as any armored enemy.
You do not approach them in any clever way!

-Super Helldives only spawn more and more enemies, and Fortresses are only ever found in such difficulty, alongside the new enemies.

-the new charger is just "regular charger but has flatulence issues" once more artificially influencing difficulty by reducing line of sight.

-the nerf to the Fire Breaker was also due to artifically inflating difficulty. Reducing mags in a game when the enemies seems to have infinite resources and spawn infinitely is a bad move.

(which tbh, for claiming they are going for a "military sim" approach with some aspects, but the enemy doesn't play to the same rules, or has MORE ways to be hindered, seems kind of shortsighted)

TL:DR none of the changes they added increased difficulty in a smart way or introduced variety in a meaningful way, it's just more mental damage.

Targeting veteran players in a game with premium currency that can be gained for free by playing makes no sense since the vets are not going to spend more money on the game because they most likely have a stash of supper credits anyway.

[DtHouse]

Originally posted by Kortek:

Originally posted by Cadwell:

(disclaimer i am not trying to create more negativity, it's just a theory on the devs's throught process for Escalation of Freedom, would appreciate constructive feedback)

My theory is : Arrowhead tried to appease to the tryhard Helldivers with "Escalation of Freedom" , and ended up shooting themselves in the foot as result.

Think about it, what they added did not introduce variety in the sligtest and only added artificial methods to increase difficulty.

-what type of novelty do the Armored Strider Scout and Tank Rocket Battery add? They don't.

It's just more rockets and ragdoll, and you deal with them same as any armored enemy.
You do not approach them in any clever way!

-Super Helldives only spawn more and more enemies, and Fortresses are only ever found in such difficulty, alongside the new enemies.

-the new charger is just "regular charger but has flatulence issues" once more artificially influencing difficulty by reducing line of sight.

-the nerf to the Fire Breaker was also due to artifically inflating difficulty. Reducing mags in a game when the enemies seems to have infinite resources and spawn infinitely is a bad move.

(which tbh, for claiming they are going for a "military sim" approach with some aspects, but the enemy doesn't play to the same rules, or has MORE ways to be hindered, seems kind of shortsighted)

TL:DR none of the changes they added increased difficulty in a smart way or introduced variety in a meaningful way, it's just more mental damage.

Targeting veteran players in a game with premium currency that can be gained for free by playing makes no sense since the vets are not going to spend more money on the game because they most likely have a stash of supper credits anyway.

I don't know you, but since this "upgrade" i wasn't able to find 1 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ super credits in all the mission i did. So, as veteran, i thinks Jordany CEO simply try to cut this free things off and moving on a real pay to play system with the next warbond. Until now we only got re-skin of most weapons and few adds. For me, they can go to hell before i would give them more money, they lost my wallet

[Aethrys]

Spore charger forces you to interact with low visibility by not being a static objective you can blow up from across the map without having to deal with it ever.

[Kortek]

Originally posted by DtHouse:

Originally posted by Kortek:

Targeting veteran players in a game with premium currency that can be gained for free by playing makes no sense since the vets are not going to spend more money on the game because they most likely have a stash of supper credits anyway.

I don't know you, but since this "upgrade" i wasn't able to find 1 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ super credits in all the mission i did. So, as veteran, i thinks Jordany CEO simply try to cut this free things off and moving on a real pay to play system with the next warbond. Until now we only got re-skin of most weapons and few adds. For me, they can go to hell before i would give them more money, they lost my wallet

The SCs are still spawning, althought not as much on higher diffs due to the samples and other stuff I guess.

[_Synt3rax_]

Just did a diff 2 Mission to test some stuff and the Electro thrower still feels terrible, still seemingly searches it own targets instead of the one right in front of me.
Some mobs seem to be still a 1 hit kill when they hit you.
Impact Nades still need to be thrown in holes with pinpoint Accuracy to be effective in any way.
Clusterbombs and others still deal 0 Damage because the Bug they should kill take no Damage because they stand on Terrain 1cm Higher than the impact.
As far as i can tell they didnt listen at all to the Community.

[Footman]

Not to mention the creatures get boosted. AH Logic is Zombie Math is More Challenging and More Fun.

[Foxador]

My main issue with this patch is as follows. They hyped up the hell out of this patch to the max including making a whole dev video that did their best to make it sound super amazing, but if you listen to the video all it does is talk about how they've made all the enemies stronger

So the scales of balance, as if they cared about that beforehand, continues to keep tilting more and more into the favor of the enemies. The helldiver's get nerf after nerf after nerf while the enemies get buff after buff. Anytime we complain about a certain feature or enemy that we don't like AH either makes them even stronger (new rocket 🚀/ ragdoll enemies) or they give the feature we hate to the enemies (spore charger)

You can't just keep making the enemies be stronger and stronger without giving something back to the players. Their whole battle against "meta" weapons is BS and petty. Anytime you nerf the meta players will just find a new meta. You can't just keep trying to control the meta as that's beyond your control. Look into the reason as to why it's the meta instead as there's always a reason as to why it's being used more.

AH also doesn't know what type of game they want to have. They want this game to be a super serious hardcore milsim while also having super silly goat simulator physics and a bleak satire

[mauz_225]

wow

[Cadwell]

Originally posted by Foxador:

My main issue with this patch is as follows. They hyped up the hell out of this patch to the max including making a whole dev video that did their best to make it sound super amazing, but if you listen to the video all it does is talk about how they've made all the enemies stronger

So the scales of balance, as if they cared about that beforehand, continues to keep tilting more and more into the favor of the enemies. The helldiver's get nerf after nerf after nerf while the enemies get buff after buff. Anytime we complain about a certain feature or enemy that we don't like AH either makes them even stronger (new rocket 🚀/ ragdoll enemies) or they give the feature we hate to the enemies (spore charger)

You can't just keep making the enemies be stronger and stronger without giving something back to the players. Their whole battle against "meta" weapons is BS and petty. Anytime you nerf the meta players will just find a new meta. You can't just keep trying to control the meta as that's beyond your control. Look into the reason as to why it's the meta instead as there's always a reason as to why it's being used more.

AH also doesn't know what type of game they want to have. They want this game to be a super serious hardcore milsim while also having super silly goat simulator physics and a bleak satire

I get it that us Helldivers are the underdogs and they want us to rely on stratagems and such, in addition to "bring the right tool" for the job, but what irritates me is that they seem to want us to stay in the "underdog" territory, and this destroys any sense of progression!

If they want to "demolish" the META" as you put it, they should...

A) give us enemies that need better tacticts to be defeated or have complex behaviours! the Incendiary Breaker was the overall best weapon for the Terminids because it was flexible!

B) give ALL weapons a reason to be used over the other beside AP, different effects and such! Give variety to the players in the way of how they approach the enemies. Should i burn it? Should i slow it down? Should i freeze it? (when they add such effect) and so on!

Moreover, i do agree that getting ragdolled constantly doesn't make sense.
At best we should explode without the appropriate armor.

[Koala 4peace]

Originally posted by Cadwell:

-reduced cooldown on the 120 mm barrage is also good, as now it's much more viable.

What actually make the 120mm barrage more viable is the fact that bombs drop way faster, in my opinion. Now the probability of the first barrage dropping where the enemies would be, and the second barrage where the enemies were, is far less likely. Because, boy, was that the normal thing to happen...

The cooldown reduction is also welcome, of course. And not to forget that the walking barrage bombardment is more "dense", and thus far more destructive.

You know, it's funny that people ask for the less useful things to be buffed but when is done they complain because the buff "what no one uses".

[Kyle the Karrot]

I agree. The devs are really struggling to make the game fun for both the diff 5 mains and the "diff 10 is too easy lol" crowd. Balancing a game for such a diverse community is very difficult, if you make the game harder you make the casuals mad and the sweats happy. If you make the game easier you make the casuals happy and the sweats mad. It's honestly an extremely difficult situation and Escalation of freedom was probably a good intentioned step in the wrong direction.

[Kyle the Karrot]

Originally posted by _Synt3rax_:

Impact Nades still need to be thrown in holes with pinpoint Accuracy to be effective in any way.
Clusterbombs and others still deal 0 Damage because the Bug they should kill take no Damage because they stand on Terrain 1cm Higher than the impact.
As far as i can tell they didnt listen at all to the Community.

Not to cherry pick your post, but impact nades aren't exactly meant for destroying structures and cluster bomb is kinda a mid stratagem to begin with. Not tryna be mean, just advice to improve your gameplay :)