Reasons you keep failing/dying on 10s in PUGs

[BattleCry1791]

I'm a 150 with over 1k hours in game and have completed 1933 of 1958 missions. I have 1 person my friends list, and I maybe play with them once a week.
Since making 150, all I do is look for sub level 80s running 10s and try to help them complete the mission and score the supers. I usually play 3 games daily.

If you just enjoy the game and don't care too much about completing the objectives, then this post isn't for you. If you do want to progress through the game and are struggling, this post is designed to help you, though it may make you feel dumb. Just remember, I'm helping.

Top reasons why you keep dying or failing the mission on 10s (8s and above really)

1) You chose bad drop points

Never land directly next to an obj. Find a nice spot away from the red. You're going to get a breach or bot drop as soon as you engage (or get engaged), so might as well not add a heavy nest or mega fortress into the mix.

It's not uncommon to see multiple deaths in the first three minutes of an instance because no one had a chance to grab their support weapons and packs because the squad was dropped in the center of a map next to a major spawn point.

Note: If you still need Super Samples, they are almost always somewhere the game does not normally lead you. Read that again. Where ever there is a large spot of nothing on the map, is almost a sure sign that that there is something, you just have to find it.

2) You keep fighting from the center of the map

Your drop in should be on the outskirts of the map and you should figure out a path that's clockwise or counter clockwise and work the edges (if the planet type allows for it). Only go to the middle of the map if you need to, and only once you've cleared a retreat path.
The idea is to prevent from getting hit from 360 degrees of fire. Do whatever you can to keep from getting hit by 360 degrees of fire. If you attack from the edges, you limit your vulnerability. It sometimes means living with traitor countdowns more than you'd like, but it keeps you alive. You can't defend democracy if you're dead.

3) You brought the wrong load out.

It's a 10. Granted they're easier than they used to be, but it is the hardest part of the game.

If playing with friends or a group that you know can handle it, bring what you want, but for PUGs, the concept of "I like it so I'm running it" will simply leave one less diver to defend democracy multiple times over and possibly lead to a wipe.

Bring DPS. Leaves your cars, jet packs, and anything that can't kill mediums and heavies on the Super Destroyer. That means leave the Cluster bomb at home. If it can't break medium and heavy armor, then it had better be able to stun like an Arc Blitzer, Purifier, Punisher Plasma, or a Cookout. On a 10, the majority of your bots and bugs are armored.

For wide open maps, even ones that have you tied to control points - leave the minefields at home, especially against bugs. they're great for defense missions, especially when layered, but they don't have enough direct force applications to be super viable. Mostly they TK your teammates when they are running for their lives. Against bugs, you want clean ground. Same for the squids.

Bring something for the heavy spam. Especially if you're running a PUG. Quasars keep you on the move, but any of the missile launching support weapons can work. If you can't live through 3 bile titans and 5 chargers occupying the same area as you by yourself, you need to step down from 10s.

4) You stopped moving.
Whether its bots, bugs, or squids, you cannot stand still. Ever. If you aren't fighting, you should be checking your environment - all the time. Even if you are fighting, and you find yourself shooting in one direction for more than 3 or 5 seconds, you should check your other 270 degrees while you reload and retreat, or if you're reloading from cover.
This goes triple if you're near other divers and all four of you are shooting in one direction.

If you're reloading a recoiless or spear, you should be 360 in your view while your diver is in the loading animation.

5) As a squad leader, and you're running PUGs, you may not be watching the team like you should. If you have someone dying repeatedly, you have every right to kick them. There's 3 other people in that instance that aren't dying needlessly trying to complete the objectives. They count too. If I see someone dying constantly, to the point where they alone are responsible for taking up half the team's reinforcements, I kick with impunity.

It's your squad, your rules. You can control how the instance plays out.

6) You're playing with the sound off
And that's on you. I can always tell when people are playing with their sound off - they die all the time. The game gives you verbal signs of what's about to happen, use them.

Summation:
If you're dying all the time, or you're failing missions in PUGs, it may not because you're bad at the game, it may be just be your approach to the game needs some tweaking.
Just remember, dying isn't just a stat, when you die, there's a strong chance you may not be able to recover your gear, so you're not at full strength and it increases the chance you will die again.

Best of luck
-BC

[Sweedumz]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Albinosaurus:

No, it's takes like this that ruin the community. Not everyone IS level 150, they have a right to play how they like, and clearing it doesn't take the full 45 each time if you're not stupid about it. Get some decent players and go 2x2 and you can get it done in like 20m. Not that hard. People with this attitude are actually toxic and should be forced to keep CrossPlay enabled.

You are ruining the game. Running around maps for 3/4s of an hour is not fun. Yes it takes that long. Ops take over 2 hours, if they finish at all because the host just leaves. This sample junkie madness is what lead to kicking culture and the robotic "circle the map" way that people are playing the game. Splitting into 2x2 is not viable at D10.

I am certain you get as many samples or more per hour if you just do half the map and then leave. I've seen so many of these 45 minutes runs run out the timer, lose the destroyers and then fail to extract. All your time wasted. Shorter missions where people focus on objectives and extraction rarely go fubar.

And how many samples could you possibly need. I am constantly maxed out over 50 levels ago. There is nothing to buy. You don't even need super credits really. You are caught in a cycle of trained addiction instead of just having fun with the game. It's a tragedy how many players think collecting these special coins is important or that a "season pass" is something aspiration or to be expected in a video game. This is the toxic element. Mentally septic.

[Albinosaurus]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Sweedumz:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Albinosaurus:

No, it's takes like this that ruin the community. Not everyone IS level 150, they have a right to play how they like, and clearing it doesn't take the full 45 each time if you're not stupid about it. Get some decent players and go 2x2 and you can get it done in like 20m. Not that hard. People with this attitude are actually toxic and should be forced to keep CrossPlay enabled.

You are ruining the game. Running around maps for 3/4s of an hour is not fun. Yes it takes that long. Ops take over 2 hours, if they finish at all because the host just leaves. This sample junkie madness is what lead to kicking culture and the robotic "circle the map" way that people are playing the game. Splitting into 2x2 is not viable at D10.

I am certain you get as many samples or more per hour if you just do half the map and then leave. I've seen so many of these 45 minutes runs run out the timer, lose the destroyers and then fail to extract. All your time wasted. Shorter missions where people focus on objectives and extraction rarely go fubar.

And how many samples could you possibly need. I am constantly maxed out over 50 levels ago. There is nothing to buy. You don't even need super credits really. You are caught in a cycle of trained addiction instead of just having fun with the game. It's a tragedy how many players think collecting these special coins is important or that a "season pass" is something aspiration or to be expected in a video game. This is the toxic element. Mentally septic.

Oh, I'll have to tell my buddies that going 2x2 on D10 "isn't viable" so we have to stop doing it. Utter. Skill. Issue. You get the most samples from D10, straight up. You can't make excuses around it. We also do it about 20m like I said. Just because you can't, doesn't mean everyone else can't. It just sounds like you can't handle D10--which is fine--but don't pretend it's impossible. It's not.

I could grant you that having to collect the "special coins" is kind of dumb in a paid-for game, but that's the game. Deal with it or play something else. Besides, excess samples can be dumped into the MO nonsense if you care about that, and what's "fun" isn't just YOLOing the main objective--that's the minimum.

[Sweedumz]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Albinosaurus:

and what's "fun" isn't just YOLOing the main objective--that's the minimum.

It's THRILLING. An endless flow of content. Try it sometime.

[Albinosaurus]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Sweedumz:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Albinosaurus:

and what's "fun" isn't just YOLOing the main objective--that's the minimum.

It's THRILLING. An endless flow of content. Try it sometime.

Why would doing the bare minimum be "thrilling?" I think gacha games might be more your speed, tbh.

[Welbert Asker]

people who wanted to learn the game already have.

the rest are not even going to listen to someone else to get better because they see it as a form of submission and admission of their own inferiority.

in short, you wasted your time making this guide. it's not a bad guide, a bit on the surface level with few specifics. but I am willing to bet it will not help anyone.

my personal rule of thumb is to have fun. I could clear entire map without moving from a good vintage point using AT emplacement, so nearly all of these advises fall off completely in this scenario.

[Wolfguarde]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Merdoc:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Baylock:

3 and 4 directly contradict one another.

By following 4, your load out is irrelevant. That bears saying a second time because this is the hardest part for some people to conceptualize. It. Is. Irrelevant.

You do not need to built for heavy armour pen. The fastest **single unit** killing threats may be heavies for bots, but for bugs they may as well not exist.

As much as Creek Crawling has me viewing bugs as significantly more annoying than bots, the fact of the matter is you nailed it with the header on 4.

Bugs are reliant on two tactics, and you're advocating, with 3, to shoot yourself in the foot by optimizing for the weaker of their two tactics. By focusing on heavies, you are prioritizing their useless units. Yes, Chargers and Bile Titans outrun you in a straight line, but they are trivial to simply juke. Titan vomit is easy to dodge and outside of that, neither unit can touch you unless you are severely hampered in mobility or you want them to touch you. Therein lies their true threat: the small bug horde.

In keeping with 4, you shall bring light armour. Anything else is death; what you cannot run from, you must shoot, and if you can no longer run from anything, you must shoot everything which isn't feasible, because it forces you to stop, violating the golden rule of 4.

The small bugs are your actual threat. They corral and distract you for the purposes of getting heavies the opening they need to kill you. If you clear them out, the heavies are utterly useless. Sure it may be a bit tricky to dodge and weave two or more chargers, but with no chaff to corral you, you have all the room in the world. With a few large mesas Bile Titans are hysterically easy to inflict "Musta been the wind" syndrome on.
You only need light pen, but at least one reliable source of medium is good to expidite hive guard kills in a pinch. Also does wonder for impalers, and if you've got no chaff around you and you *really* want to shoot everything, a solo charger can simply be shot in the butt until it dies with ease: it cannot hit you unless you allow it. Just juke the Bile Titan, but it can also be killed if it is isolated just the same as the charger, albeit its legs will get in the way of its belly a bit more.


For bots, medium pen is all you need. Bring a Quasar if you really want, but the only two units that can outpace you on Bots are jetpack bots which are exclusively light, and gunships, which can be killed with an MG-43 with ease. The only real 'need' for heavy pen is to reliably do some damage to far off turrets that are facing you, but you can use strats for that if you maintain trigger discipline and remember the tenant of anything that is not in your way or will not immediately be in your way isn't worth shooting. (Because it's just going to drag more things your way.)

But yes, follow 4. Never stop moving, and never shoot anything you don't absolutely need to. Every second you're not shooting something, unless actively hunting for samples or otherwise needing UI elements for interactables, keep that map up. Knowledge is half the battle and any patrol you can see, is a patrol you can avoid, and any patrol you avoid is a patrol that can't call in reinforcements- it's a a shot saved, and a shot you cannot possibly miss, because you didn't take it.

This is the crux of Super Helldive survival. Objectives and POIs first, everything else second. Indeed, you can't spread democracy if you're dead- and you run a significantly reduced chance of dying if you don't pick a fight with every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing that moves! Remember, you're a god at Helldivers 2 until you're not, and that's when you died because you got cocky and picked an avoidable fight. If it's not Exterminate, you don't need to shoot on sight (except for MO progression, but we're all pieces of a machine, you don't need to kill absolutely everything, remember that. We all do our part.)


Edit: Forgot to mention the entire reason I bothered replying. Take the Jump Pack. It directly ties into 4 and can get you out of sticky situations in a way the shield can't. (It is also a vital anti-PUG tool to get you away from them when they inevitably decide to shoot everything, get in over their head, panic, and chase you down to make it your problem. This is your mantra: The pugs are going to eat all the lives. You cannot die. The objective comes first. You cannot die. The one responsible for the objective is you. You cannot die. Do not rely on pugs to do your job. You cannot die.

The first layer on the survivability onion is don't be there. The second is don't be seen. The jump pack functions for the third layer: don't be targeted. You can't be shot as a sitting duck in the middle of a horde if you can vault the horde and break Line-of-Sight, allowing you to disengage and reestablish stealth, which is your armour.

I hate that light armor running playstyle you advocate. It leads to people aggroing tons of patrols, not clearing objectives properly, not gathering samples or bunkers and just going off alone. I don't get bogged down and die on a hill repeatedly, but just running constantly is really annoying on a basic level. Especially if everyone on the team is doing it. boring.

If everyone in the team is doing it, then they're doing it wrong.

The entire point of scout armour is having the stealth to drop aggro when needed and the speed to peel enemies off your party when you're not avoiding them. You only need one person running scout gear in a party.

There's nothing wrong with lone wolfing to get objectives done, as long as you're not conflating that with also pulling everything in sight to sacrifice yourself for a full aggro reset once everything's out of render range of your squad.

[Albinosaurus]

If you are communicating with your team in voice and aren't carrying gear/samples that you care about, it's sometimes helpful in a huge fight to have one player try to hold off as many as possible while the rest of the team breaks off to drop aggro (by just getting far enough away). Absolutely worth spending 1 reinforcement rather than chewing through a dozen to win a fight that nets you nothing.

[BattleCry1791]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Doyle216:

Początkowo opublikowane przez BattleCry1791:

It's not a point farm, just a bunch of points you missed.

Anyone that doesn't believe squad lead has implications on game play shouldn't be giving anyone advice about this game.

In my initial draft of this post, I had included something about the main reason why people die a lot in HD2 - a lack of intellect. I guess, just for you, I should have left it in.

Ouch, my pride. You sure got me good.
But please pray tell, what "implications" does squad lead have? What does squad lead "imply" on game play? I really want to hear this one.

The squad lead has the ability to use the kick option to influence how the instance plays out. As but one example:

As it is my mission to help lower rank players, I usually don't host. But I host if I'm on a medal hunt. One one such occasion all three of my teammates were on mic and we had one lower rank, somewhere 30 to 50. They were dying at a pretty constant rate.
When we got down to 5 re enforcement, I told him, if he dies again in (I want to say "the next 3 mins"), I'd have to kick him.

He didn't die for the rest of the match and the instance ran far smoother.

The kick ability, once used, will straighten up the remaining members of the team. Sometimes they even thank you. Just because you join my squad doesn't mean you deserve to be there.

If you are setting WPs as the lead, most of the team should be following. If they are not, you have the ability to get rid of them and find someone who will.

I regularly give direction as host, both in text and on mic and it's often followed. When it isn't, I get a new player. Pretty simple really.

when you have someone that is TKing everyone unintentionally, you can make everyone's experience much better, simply by exercising the kick option.

The fact that you don't understand that says far more about you, than it does about me.

[BattleCry1791]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Sweedumz:

Początkowo opublikowane przez BattleCry1791:

you should figure out a path that's clockwise or counter clockwise and work the edges (

No. No. No. No. NO!

Stop doing this. Stop touring maps for 45 minutes per missions. This is ruining the game. I don't care if you have some fetish for clearing everything. Whoever first gave this circling the map advise should be tarred and feathered and all maps from now on should have massive cracks and breaks to force players to stop doing this.

Wasting everyones time. There is no point to clearing maps if you're already level 150 and playing D10s. Buy a warbond if you want it so much.

Most of my instances take around 25 to 30 mins. I'm usually playing with lower ranked players who need samples.

On the occasions I'm hosting and have three other 150s, it takes maybe 20.

If you don't like that playstyle, fine, get some friends and go wipe till you can't stand it.

My playstyle will keep players from wiping the map. That's the point of the post.

Incidentally, I have all the warrbonds and haven't spent a dime on this game past the initial purchase and the first "new dude" pack they came out with. Probably because I complete the map and have over 5k SCs. And I just play 3 a day for the most part.

Arrowhead can't put out content fast enough to drain my SC bank.

[BattleCry1791]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Merdoc:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Baylock:

tripe

I hate that light armor running playstyle you advocate. It leads to people aggroing tons of patrols, not clearing objectives properly, not gathering samples or bunkers and just going off alone. I don't get bogged down and die on a hill repeatedly, but just running constantly is really annoying on a basic level. Especially if everyone on the team is doing it. boring.

It is a problematic play style especially if they are playing the objectives, because it forces everyone else coming up behind them to fight everything they just pulled.

If you see a patrol moving along, they don't always have to be engaged, but once they are engaged, or if they engage you, they need to go. Less bot drops and bug holes that way.

[BattleCry1791]

Początkowo opublikowane przez 76561198072136533:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Sweedumz:

tripe

Oh, I'll have to tell my buddies that going 2x2 on D10 "isn't viable" so we have to stop doing it. Utter. Skill. Issue. You get the most samples from D10, straight up. You can't make excuses around it. We also do it about 20m like I said. Just because you can't, doesn't mean everyone else can't. It just sounds like you can't handle D10--which is fine--but don't pretend it's impossible. It's not.

I could grant you that having to collect the "special coins" is kind of dumb in a paid-for game, but that's the game. Deal with it or play something else. Besides, excess samples can be dumped into the MO nonsense if you care about that, and what's "fun" isn't just YOLOing the main objective--that's the minimum.

Roughly 1/3rd of all my lower rank rando missions I run turn into 2x2s on D10s.
If we have a 100+ and two lower ranks, I'll pair the lower with me and the 100+ and it works just fine. Anyone who thinks it can't be done has a pretty horrible case of self projecting their own lack of skills.

[Baylock]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Merdoc:

I hate that light armor running playstyle you advocate. It leads to people aggroing tons of patrols, not clearing objectives properly, not gathering samples or bunkers and just going off alone. I don't get bogged down and die on a hill repeatedly, but just running constantly is really annoying on a basic level. Especially if everyone on the team is doing it. boring.

It doesn't.

It leads to:
-people not aggroing anything (they're too fast, can avoid patrols easily)
-people clearing objectives quickly in different locations (they can avoid aggro going in and so only have to clear garrison troops for objs that don't auto-reinforce)
-Lots of samples (they are quick and can visit every POI on their way without breaking a sweat)
-All bunkers found (and we mark them on the map if alone for later, we have this thing called chat "Bunker at [two digit ID])

It also lets me intentionally cause a breach on my end which COMPLETELY prevents you from being breached while mine is running.

[Baylock]

Początkowo opublikowane przez BattleCry1791:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Merdoc:

I hate that light armor running playstyle you advocate. It leads to people aggroing tons of patrols, not clearing objectives properly, not gathering samples or bunkers and just going off alone. I don't get bogged down and die on a hill repeatedly, but just running constantly is really annoying on a basic level. Especially if everyone on the team is doing it. boring.

It is a problematic play style especially if they are playing the objectives, because it forces everyone else coming up behind them to fight everything they just pulled.

If you see a patrol moving along, they don't always have to be engaged, but once they are engaged, or if they engage you, they need to go. Less bot drops and bug holes that way.

Uh, if you're light armour running, you're not triggering patrols and there's nothing behind you for the others to 'fight through' :|

Unless you're doing so with the same stupid "I have to fight everything" mindset, but then you're not doing what I'm advocating (because Merdoc likes to put words in people's mouths)