Don't fall for this meme game

[Xdiespa]

I was roped into getting this by my friends who wouldn't stop yapping about it (and it's too late to refund). Lo and behold, it got old extremely fast and for the same reasons of another of their fan favorites: Deep Rock Galactic. Many games have rabid fanbases, but it is more appropriate to say these have attracted a certain bad creed: people who won't leave their comfort zone of FPS and third person shooters, but in the need to feel like they're doing something else, will fall for obtuse and unfun mechanics that gets them addicted. Like MMO players, they start ignoring them or consider it a mark of valor to be able to live with them. But you yourself don't have to, because there's plenty good shooters without all this bad crap attached.

The media uses clickbait to generate interest, but success and feel good stories are also their main sources of engagement. What matters is that you get involved, talk about the product and spend some money on it. Memers who think they're fighting the system and triple A by playing the honest underdog alternative, have fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

No one mentions that this game plays like a grindy MMO in bouts of one hour. Hello Helldivers, you just deployed to Durotar and you must rush between poorly marked objectives on your map to click on buttons and gather materials, remember to stay as long as you can. You are made to believe this is gonna be fun like L4D2, and instead you realize it's 20 years later and all games must have scavenging and other padding like The Division. It's been said that Helldivers 2 takes much from The Phantom Pain, but it also purposedly ignores that the MGS games prize speed over grind.

Your ebin vids on discord will tell you it's a horde shooter with a Starship Troopers theme, and it would be true, if it wasn't submerged by a slew of bad ideas passing for simulation. Remember when Alien Swarm had reloads that discarded ammo still in magazines? That's cute, how about we also block the reloading process during any movement that isn't walking and running: imagine how fun will it be, to tell people who are getting stunlocked and unable to fight back, to git gud! Sometimes you reach a Zen moment of clarity, and realize that no matter how many times you press it, the quick button for grenades or medkits just won't work because, we are one with the universe.

It will make you wonder why in the world these features are even there (had they been evident in the tutorial, I would have refunded on the spot), with the answer being somewhere in between "because we're desperate to make it appear more complex" and "because the pain gets people addicted". We used to joke that MMOs were like jobs: and if Deep Rock Galactic taught me anything (wait, it's taboo to criticize that game, don't!!), is that you can make people play as space garbage collectors and it will still give them the strongest sense of camaraderie. There's a reason if everyone was a hero or a bounty hunter in old games: because a videogame about jobs isn't attractive to people who haven't gotten addicted yet.

Final blow: you didn't like Helldivers 1 because it followed the same philosophy, turning a very simple shooter into something artificially slower and cumbersome. But when you do something unneeded and unfun like that, eventually you'll start feeling rewarded by it. And you will still be a tool. The memes and bells and whistles that made you believe this was gonna be different, were just marketing.

[Alliesaurus]

I'll never understand these kinda posts, what kinda new, groundbreaking gameplay were u expecting in a Starship Troopers inspired mmo coop shooter?

[Kurteous]

. . .

What.

[Rager]

I got my money worth.

I got good at it, had laughs with friends, and this was a good game to play while waiting on Dragon Dogma 2. It also wet my whistle for the new EDF coming out.


Overall, this game made me love EDF more.

[BTGbullseye]

tl;dr

[Vespertellino]

kay

[Majorita]

OP's post is kind of a rambling post with only a few concrete criticisms beyond saying "I just don't like it" but likening it to an MMO and a job is probably not inaccurate, as well as the mentions of like all the stupid crap tacked onto it.

I played UT'99 again recently just as a palate cleanser and, I mean... it's so stark to go back to a 'real' FPS, a 'real' video game where there's literally no mechanics to it other than the video game itself. You just shoot people. There's no crafting or gathering or medal farming or credit spending, you just shoot people.

Do you remember when video games started to gain 'RPG elements'? Do you remember when video games started to be billed that way? The FPS with 'RPG elements' or whatever? Nowadays everything has 'RPG elements' because we have persistent stats and accounts and accounts for your accounts...

I do kind of agree that the game is sort of a big time-waster, deliberately so, and it wants to eat as much of your time as possible but not in a way where it feels earned... if that makes any sense, like I agree there's no reason for points of interest to ever not be marked. You have a literal spaceship with imaging of the ground, enough to give you a minimap and all, so there's no reason it's not all marked always. I assume maybe this is so they can sell you a booster as part of a battle pass at some point.

But anyway yeah basically I kind of agree with the spirit of most of this post even though I still don't hate the game, because I think it has some good points even though it has a lot of problems...

[Deadoon]

You don't even own the game, yet you are claiming it is too late for a refund?

Troll.

[Cloud Kicker]

I think I can just summarize this post with;

OP has never learned to enjoy cameraderie and is probably too much of a hipster to enjoy something that is popular. OP delves into how the media latches onto something and how this creates a mindless snowball effect and I think OP critiques the Helldivers universe for being the helldivers universe, where if you do not like said universe you are not going to like it.

Now because OP has played the game for too long OP can no longer refund the game.

I feel sorry for you OP. I have the complete oposite problem. This game is so good that I have pushed laundry day forwards too far and now I am running out of clean socks.

[[Asgard] Thor]

Whoa that's a lot of words, too bad I'm not gonna read them.

[ACEsino]

that sucks

they should make some kind of site that lets you check how a game looks before buying it

[Katitoff]

If you are not coop shooter fan, why would you buy a coop shooter?

[Nistrega]

Troll post block and move on.

[Majorita]

Originally posted by Katitoff:

If you are not coop shooter fan, why would you buy a coop shooter?

He mentions L4D2 as a game that is GOOD, and Alien Swarm too so I assume he prefers co-op shooters that aren't masquerading as grinding simulators.

[IndianaJones]

Originally posted by Xdiespa:

You are made to believe this is gonna be fun like L4D2, and instead you realize it's 20 years later and all games must have scavenging and other padding like The Division. It's been said that Helldivers 2 takes much from The Phantom Pain, but it also purposedly ignores that the MGS games prize speed over grind.

I hear you, I'm gonna drop this crappy game as soon as they release The First Descendant or John Carpenter's Toxic Commando. You know, the real and good co-op games.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2074920/The_First_Descendant/

[Majorita]

I actually understand too the frustration that comes from, being roped into a game with friends. You like your friends, you wanna play with them, in my case I was asked point blank "Come play Helldivers 2 with us?" and it's like okay that's a $60 AUD purchase, but fine I'll do it, sure. I like my friends.

I doubt they'll ever see this post but if they do it was fun, I had fun playing with you guys and I don't regret it.

BUT at the same time I can imagine being a bit disappointed if you bought this game because your friends asked you to join them and you're like, this better not be another one of those grindy MMO POS type games, this better really blow me away, and you end up disappointed because Helldivers 2 has a lot of problems and it's a grindy MMO POS type game. Some people like that, but I know there are some people who increasingly are tired of it.

So I kinda get a lot of the bitterness in OP's post.

Let me put it like this. If I had not been asked point blank to buy Helldivers 2 and play it with friends, I would never have bought this game. Not so much because nothing about it appeals to me, several things do, but the baggage (medals, super credits, samples, upgrades, battle passes, microtransactions, the very narrow meta, etc.) really drags the game down and I knew that this game would have all of those things just by looking at it, and I turned out to be right. So, to reiterate, I would have not bought and played it, if my friends had not asked me to.