Galactic War is Demoralizing

[Lionitus]

I am nearly burned out on the game. Or rather, the strategic/story/galactic map portion of the game. The raw game play is fun, but hard to enjoy when I feel I am sabotaging the story and other player's enjoyment/progression. Shall I list the ways I find the strategic game-play frustrating/demoralizing to participate in?
1) We make little to no progress outside of Major Orders.
2) The Galactic War system penalizes the entire player based for some players diving on planets they prefer to play on rather than the couple of MO planets.
3) The Devs frequently put their thumbs on the scales to make MO's tighter/out right losses compared to they would have otherwise should have been.
4) The current liberation systems sucks, in that by me participating in the war, I decrease the value of every other player's liberation.
5) Even when we WIN Major Orders, we some how end up with less territory. We have less territory now than at any other point in the galactic war, and the same is approximately true for the last several months of Major Orders.
6) I, as an individual player, have 0.00000000000000000000000001% impact on the galactic war.
7) The system allows for SOME level of strategic planning and coordination, yet the game completely lacks any kind of internal global communication outside of incredibly rare Strategic Update advice to coordinated the 40-80k players. Attempts to communicate on every available social media platform fail to reach even 25% of the player base.
8) With three fronts, and an unchanged liberation power, it is EVEN HARDER to maintain capture rate on planets, even with an MO, due to more and more planets being able to be dived on.
9) Even IF we capture planets, even for MO's, it is a GUARANTEE that with in the next 2 days, 4+ level 30 attacks will be launched to take another planet (See Devs putting their thumbs on the scale).
10) From experience, it seems any actions preformed outside of American peak times are even more uncoordinated than American players, resulting in massive ground losses between 12am and 5pm EST (Such as the SHEER number of illuminate attacks that went from sure things at 10pm, to some how lost by the time I wake up).
11) Major Order losses now risk blowing up entire planets, removing them from playable rotation for likely months if not forever, while victories result in a few medals, and more territory losses.

Simply put, at the current stage of the game, there is no winning in the grand scale of things. This will likely be my last MO until the tempo of the galactic war changes, and/or a rework comes to the liberation system that doesn't penalize the MO players for 20-30% of the player base diving planets and systems they prefer (Or penalize MO players for diving planets they prefer WITHIN the MO, see the current Illuminate V Bot dive which is on track to have BOTH be losses).

[Maj. Crimes]

The galactic war will ever only run along the rails that the devs have set. Best to not have any illusions about that.

The rest of the complaints seem like Main Character Syndrome. You are just one of many, a tiny cog in the machine. When you view your actions isolated, they naturally do not matter.

Edit: If you wanna see when a truly player controller system look at Eve Online. You would probably find that far more demoralizing.

[Lionitus]

Originally posted by Maj. Crimes:

The rest of the complaints seem like Main Character Syndrome. You are just one of many, a tiny cog in the machine. When you view your actions isolated, they naturally do not matter.

My counter point to main character syndrome is Fox Hole, another MMO game that is basically WW2 but every aspect of warfare and production is player controlled. Maybe it is different because wars are typically 2-4k players per server over 80k, but in Foxhole I feel I CAN make a difference be it fighting, playing a medic/builder, scraping and production, ect. (and they have FAR better internal communication so you can actually coordinate plans).

In Foxhole, even if I only produce 100 scrap, that is 100 scrap that would NOT exist if I didn't mine it. Meanwhile in Helldivers, partly thanks to the incredibly confusing liberation system and 0 official explanation, I have no idea if me playing DOES anything.

EDIT: Also, further counter to main character syndrome. It isn't that I have very little impact. It is that, based on my understanding of the current liberation system, my contribution to the galactic war ACTIVELY DIMINISHES other player's contributions. So I not only have next to 0 impact, I could very well be having NEGATIVE impact in the game's story.

And with the railroaded story, we ARE free to LOOSE any major order, it is only a problem if we want to WIN a major order the Dev's intended us to fail or struggle heavily with (if we are finding it a bit too easy given initial starting conditions).

[LewdestRoadCone]

tbf its not called cakedivers.

[rmdashf]

I'm quickly losing interest as well, but surprisingly it's because the player base. Once you get to the "end-game" and want to run pub HD10s, you get in with lots of 100+ players that can't even complete a single objective solo or partner'd and you end up clearing the entire map yourself so what's the point of the other players? And if you don't have friends who play then you're doomed to play solo forever or carry other groups which just isn't fun or efficient. You need to clear each difficulty SOLO before you can move up, not get carried into HD10s and leech for eternity.

[Mason]

The GW is an engagement scheme that the devs modify to match their update cycle, getting invested in it is stupid, having it determine the faction you fight because you feel a sense of duty just means you've been programmed to think the overworld is something you can meaningfully influence instead of playing HD2 for fun. Get a grip, play what you want against who you want, when you want. Don't let the fake war marketing scheme make you play things reluctantly that's just silly.

Also when all the factions are fleshed out they'll add endgame scenarios like the first game, then reset the entire thing. We just don't have it now b/c live service model.

[Commancho]

Originally posted by rmdashf:

I'm quickly losing interest as well, but surprisingly it's because the player base. Once you get to the "end-game" and want to run pub HD10s, you get in with lots of 100+ players that can't even complete a single objective solo or partner'd and you end up clearing the entire map yourself so what's the point of the other players? And if you don't have friends who play then you're doomed to play solo forever or carry other groups which just isn't fun or efficient. You need to clear each difficulty SOLO before you can move up, not get carried into HD10s and leech for eternity.

The same. Besides, wasting 25+ mins in pugs to clear all the side objectives-every-effin-time is tiring. My friends play in diffrent hours and its hard to hook up and to make own squad. So here I'm capturing a SE's flag with one guy, while the rest of the team is busy running with artillery missiles and bringing egg to the objective because "more bugs to kill".

[Andy]

Originally posted by Mason:

The GW is an engagement scheme that the devs modify to match their update cycle, getting invested in it is stupid

Seems like a pretty bad engagement scheme if it demoralizes and burns out players, and that's a problem for a live service model.

[Ryan Gosling (literally me)]

i havent paid attention to the map in many months. the only thing that caught my interest was the black hole because i foolishly believed AH were going to release the full squid roster.

[Adhock]

That's war in a nutshell goober.

The frontlines have more or less stabilized where they are which requires hard concentrated pushes for breakthroughs.

The enemy has the advantage of being a unified cohesive force working in concert from a top down hierarchy like a traditional fighting force.

The Player Base is a chaotic mess with no real organization.

Originally posted by Lionitus:

It is that, based on my understanding of the current liberation system, my contribution to the galactic war ACTIVELY DIMINISHES other player's contributions. So I not only have next to 0 impact, I could very well be having NEGATIVE impact in the game's story.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CHRIST. HAVE YOU NOT READ A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ THING I'VE WRITTEN ON LIBERATION? THIS IS ENTIRELY INCORRECT YET AGAIN!

I have written out the entire mechanics of Liberation THREE TIMES including how to best maximize Liberation gains.

[CoffeeFlavored]

Just ignore the MO and treat this game like Left 4 Dead. Play for a while, and leave for other games.
After resting a bit, you'll have something new to enjoy like new warbonds and stratagems.

[Ryan Gosling (literally me)]

Originally posted by Adhock:

That's war in a nutshell goober.

The frontlines have more or less stabilized where they are which requires hard concentrated pushes for breakthroughs.

The enemy has the advantage of being a unified cohesive force working in concert from a top down hierarchy like a traditional fighting force.

The Player Base is a chaotic mess with no real organization.

Originally posted by Lionitus:

It is that, based on my understanding of the current liberation system, my contribution to the galactic war ACTIVELY DIMINISHES other player's contributions. So I not only have next to 0 impact, I could very well be having NEGATIVE impact in the game's story.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CHRIST. HAVE YOU NOT READ A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ THING I'VE WRITTEN ON LIBERATION? THIS IS ENTIRELY INCORRECT YET AGAIN!

I have written out the entire mechanics of Liberation THREE TIMES including how to best maximize Liberation gains.

galactic map can be safely ignored as its been proven over and over its meaningless.

[Cheez3]

as a 140 level helldiver I couldn't care less about MO's lmao.

if I feel playing bots, I will go and deploy with bots, If I want to squish bugs, I go play bugs.
nothing is stopping u helldiver.

bugdivers already do this, why not us too.

[RNG Enjoyer]

Xd who even cares about the war thing? It takes 50 IQ to figure out it's only for looks or else autists will harass devs for turning off content.

[Ryan Gosling (literally me)]

Originally posted by RNG Enjoyer:

Xd who even cares about the war thing? It takes 50 IQ to figure out it's only for looks or else autists will harass devs for turning off content.

as an autist idgaf about the map. i realised very early it was all BS.

[Lionitus]

Originally posted by Adhock:

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CHRIST. HAVE YOU NOT READ A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ THING I'VE WRITTEN ON LIBERATION? THIS IS ENTIRELY INCORRECT YET AGAIN!

I have written out the entire mechanics of Liberation THREE TIMES including how to best maximize Liberation gains.

A) Can you not curse out EVERYONE you reply to? If you're going to be an a**hole on the forum, just don't use the forum. These passive aggressive replies help no one and make you seem like a complete ♥♥♥♥, and you seem to use them CONSTANTLY despite (or perhaps because) you are a regular contributor.
B) I have read your previous descriptions, but CLEARLY you nor the devs have done a good enough job explaining it.

If the liberation rate is throttled back with more players, I don't see how me joining in and biffing a level 8 campaign with 30 deaths isn't lowering the impact of people preforming level 10 missions flawlessly, or at the very least having 0 impact.