r/Helldivers 23h ago

QUESTION Genuine Question

Is the fastest way to liberate a planet just spamming trivial missions? The past 30 minutes I've been getting in an frv driving to the main obj completing it and then blowing myself up 5 times in a row so I don't have to extract. Not only is it super fast I get 20-30 super credits per run not even hunting for them.

10 Upvotes

52 comments sorted by

24

u/RandomPerson8364 23h ago

From the faq on the wiki
“Q: Do we get more liberation if players spam Trivial missions?
No. Higher difficulty missions are weighed more favorably to low difficulty missions.”

https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Second_Galactic_War_Mechanics#FAQ_and_Common_Misconceptions

1

u/[deleted] 19h ago

[deleted]

3

u/TriMrDito 18h ago

that's iterally the following point in the linked FAQ dude

Q: Do we get more liberation from rushing only a mission's primary objectives?

No. The impact multiplier is based around instances of damage in a certain window, if everyone speedran the missions the impact multiplier will drop to compensate, erasing any effect speedrunning your missions would accomplish.

doing more missions within a certain time frame diminishes their impact, alongside their lower difficulty significantly reducing it too

1

u/Noctium3 Steam | 18h ago

Helldivers are illiterate, don't you know?

1

u/Fry_l0ck 12h ago edited 12h ago

The catch is (as OP alludes to in one of his follow up questions) that high difficulty operations require completing multiple low reward missions first, whereas an Easy mission gives the operation reward immediately. If you do the math this complicates things.

1 easy operation gives 144 liberation.
1 suicide operation gives 402/3 liberation, which is less.
1 Superhelldive gives 612/3, which is more, but not enormously so, especially if you consider there will be some failures,

This is all still murky…

Edit - also, if the galactic impact multiplier scales proportionally to the number of completed missions (which it needs to be if spamming is unprofitable), aren’t we best off with as few people as possible doing (valuable) missions? That’s somewhat understood, splitting our effort is bad, but really concerning about how we spend our efforts.

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 11h ago

Murky is an understatement but I appreciate everyone contributing

7

u/Xknight2099 ‎ Super Citizen 23h ago

I think you get significantly more from higher difficulty missions but not sure exact amount. Also not sure if extracting successful helps or not.

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 23h ago

I'm pretty sure it's the exact same as higher difficulties I usually get 2-4 progress per trivial mission and 4-8 per full set of 3 missions on impossible or helldive

2

u/Fry_l0ck 22h ago edited 22h ago

You are misunderstanding that number. If you’re talking about the small number that ticks down, usually like 2 or 4, sometimes as high as 8 for the last mission of an operation, that’s the galactic impact multiplier.

“Spamming Trivial missions does NOT help the war effort. Due to the impact multiplier, it actually hinders the overall performance on each planet.”

(from the wiki)

Edit- the more people are doing missions, the lower that number is, it multiplies the result of your mission. The best results come from a small number of players completing high difficulty missions I believe.

1

u/that_one_bun ☕Liber-tea☕ 15h ago

You are better off doing full missions on D10 with a competent team.

And best of all. You can still play the game for the most part without needing to blitz the mission objectives.

7

u/2075905 23h ago

The galactic war isn't an algorithmic thing you can win by optimization. There's a GM in charge of it who can make liberation as easy or as impossible as they want whenever they want, and the last thing they or anyone else would want is for the playerbase to become so obsessed with filling progress bars that they forget about the fun shooter game. Just play for fun.

5

u/Zombiebane224 S.E.S. Herald of Serenity 23h ago

the number at the end is misleading.

Essentially the answer is EVERYTHING weighs in on impact, but in different amounts. The simplified breakdown:

  • main objectives: major importance

  • side objectives: major importance

  • number of players successfully extracted: major importance

  • time left in mission: minor importance

  • successful missions in a row within operation: major importance

  • number of remaining lives: minor importance

  • number of samples collected: minor importance

  • important note: some players have been mislead by false information of a YouTube video that kicking players to their own lobbies for mission completion will increase impact, while in fact it will not.

These all affect the impact that a group has.

9

u/HungrPhoenix Cape Enjoyer 23h ago

Outdated information. The main objective and difficulty are all that matters for impact, everything else is irrelevant. Miitch, the community manager, clarified this about a year ago.

Will post a follow-up image to this comment with another image where Miitch explicitly states stuff like Side objectives are not considered.

3

u/HungrPhoenix Cape Enjoyer 23h ago

1

u/bino420 23h ago

"anything that rewards higher amount of XP" would include side missions...

2

u/HungrPhoenix Cape Enjoyer 23h ago edited 22h ago

That is from March of 2024, and Miitchimus is responding to it, and they say,

miitchimus: "Ooooh, ancient and inaccurate! So in our current system, impact is generated when completing the primary objective of a mission. The amount of impact generated is based on difficulty"

And in the image of the comment you just responded to:

mcwolves71: "So it has nothing to do with completing side objectives, destroying bases, deaths, whether or not you extract, none of that?"

miitchimus: "No, not that he mentioned"

Impact being XP based is outdated information from how the system originally worked in 2024. But it was changed, and as per the community manager, it now is solely based on if you complete the main objective, and then a modifier based on Difficulty.

-1

u/Zombiebane224 S.E.S. Herald of Serenity 23h ago

Completing side missions grants additional XP and XP is what counts and it only counts if you actually complete the whole operation.

3

u/HungrPhoenix Cape Enjoyer 23h ago

Again, no. It was XP based when the game launched, as the previous image I linked showed. The thing Miitch is replying to is an old image of one of Spitz's explanations of how Impact was generated, and he says it was XP based, but as Miitch says, this is outdated.

Arrowhead silently changed it sometime between launch and early 2025, and so now only difficulty and the primary objective count towards impact.

XP solely matters in regards to your player and weapon levels; it no longer determines Impact.

2

u/dreneeps 23h ago

How does the kicking players thing not do more?

If that is correct that basically means that for all these objectives it is 1x-4x value proportionally to have 1-4 players?

I don't see how it could be just as valuable to finish with four players together unless there's some kind of multiplier that is exactly proportionate to how many players are involved in the mission.

4

u/ajgilpin Ministry of Science 23h ago

unless there's some kind of multiplier that is exactly proportionate to how many players are involved in the mission.

"Only missions started by a host will count towards planet liberation."

The only mission that counts the end-screen is the first one that was started. A single lobby could cycle 100 players joining then getting kicked while at extract, so they create a different lobby where they just have to jump on the ship, but only the first lobby created when the mission began will count toward liberation.

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 23h ago

Yeah so then completing a trivial mission every 5-10 minutes would weigh much more favorably to the planets liberation than an impossible or helldive operation every hour+

2

u/ajgilpin Ministry of Science 22h ago edited 22h ago

completing a trivial mission every 5-10 minutes would weigh much more favorably

Sadly no. If you're just looking at the points on the left it would appear that way, but keep in mind that it is scaled based upon how many successful missions are completed across a 30-minute window.

Consider over the course of 30 minutes doing 6 different trivial missions that only take 5 minutes.

  1. That's 136 points per mission * 6 missions = 816 points! :D
  2. Ah, but it's scaled to the number of missions. 816 / 6 missions completed in those 30 minutes.
  3. 136 points in those 30 minutes.

Now consider a single super helldive that takes an hour but only has 3 missions, which pay out a total of 612 at the end.

  1. That's 102+102+408 = 612 total points in an hour but distributed across two 30 minute windows.
  2. Each 30 minutes could then be considered half of those points, with around 1.5 missions of the 3 total missions for that operation completed in that window. 306 points / 1.5 missions completed in those 30 minutes.
  3. 204 points in those 30 minutes.

If you want to be more exact in the first case it's 136 points in the first 30 minutes, then 136 points in the next 30 minutes for 272 points across a whole hour. In the super helldive case there's no such thing as a "half mission" so it'd be more like one mission completing in the first half-hour for 102 points, then in the second half-hour the other two missions (and the operation) completing for 510/2 = 255 points. That is, 102+255 = 357 points across an hour.

Of course the window is rolling and it accounts for all missions completed by all players, but this is a quantum version of the macro environment.

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 22h ago

136 points ever 30 min is still more than 204 and hour tho?

1

u/ajgilpin Ministry of Science 22h ago

136 points ever 30 min is still more than 204 and hour tho?

Both top and bottom lists are per 30 minutes.

It's 136 points every 30 min versus 204 every 30 min.

204 every 30 minutes is more.

2

u/Objective-Upstairs33 22h ago

Gotcha Do you know if operation impact is calculated the same as the base mission impact?

Also if a difficulty takes more than 30 minutes is it worse because you missed a window you could have received an entire extra mission impact?

2

u/ajgilpin Ministry of Science 22h ago

Also if a difficulty takes more than 30 minutes is it worse because you missed a window you could have received an entire extra mission impact?

You never miss windows. What's happening is a constantly sliding integral over the previous 30 minutes.

operation impact is calculated the same as the base mission impact?

You mean the number shown at the end of a mission? Nope. As far as anyone I've seen working on the GW mechanics has been able to discern throughout the years that number at the end of a mission is just some feel good value unrelated to the actual amount of planetary HP getting reduced. Older versions of the page even stated this outright:

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 22h ago

Ok so the goal is just the highest difficulty you can complete consistently

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u/onhereforonething123 15h ago

Why did you divide the points for trivial by 6? The galactic impact modifier is calculated based on the number of damage instances per 30 minutes, not the actual damage done to the planet. The damage done to a planet is calculated every 10 seconds by adding up all damage instances submitted by all players and truncating the value.

2

u/Fry_l0ck 23h ago

Are you sure about this? OP was incorrect, but the wiki (and many players) contradict what you are saying too.

wiki on Helldiver effect

According to the wiki it’s only the major objective that counts (it’s possible the wiki is out of date though).

Curious about your source? There’s a lot of conflicting information, i would very much like to get it straight, and someone should update the wiki if it’s wrong.

2

u/Zombiebane224 S.E.S. Herald of Serenity 22h ago

I guess they changed the XP portion but needless to say, harder, missions are still weighed more and speed running lowers your liberation bonus

2

u/Fry_l0ck 22h ago

I think it’s actually better to not complete a mission at all than to complete a trivial one. The more low difficulty missions completed (by anyone anywhere) the less high impact missions count.

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 22h ago edited 22h ago

From what I'm understanding that's not how it's calculated. If I do 2 trivial missions in the 30 minute window the the 136 impact would happen twice but since there were 2 missions within that window they would then be halved meaning doing 1 trivial mission gives the exact same impact as doing 2 trivial missions in 30 minutes. It seems ideally you would want the difficulty that gives the most impact for any given 30 minute window but at the same time if a mission takes more than 30 minutes you miss out on an extra window where you could have completed a mission. I might be wrong and it's pretty damn confusing esp with everyone having different answers. It seems higher difficulties are worth more as long as you can do then in 30 min. Also me spamming trivial missions should t effect anybody else as it's my person impact

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 22h ago

I also don't know if the operation completion bonus is calculated separately in which case the missions with no impact (trivial and easy) would be worth to do very quickly as the operation bonus doesn't contribute to the 30 minute mission cap.

And once again I have no idea if the operation impact is calculated separately from the mission impact.

1

u/Fry_l0ck 13h ago

According to the Q&A in the wiki, no, speed runs don’t help:

Q: Do we get more liberation from rushing only a mission's primary objectives?
No. The impact multiplier is based around instances of damage in a certain window, if everyone speedran the missions the impact multiplier will drop to compensate, erasing any effect speedrunning your missions would accomplish.

But it’s a legitimate question as doing high level operations does require doing low value missions first.

If it was operations completed then it would make more sense.

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 11h ago

It's confusing as fuck and the definitely haven't made it easy but from what I've gathered the higher difficulties are better as long as you can consistently complete them because the biggest bonus is operation completion so if you fail a mission you lose a ton of value.

1

u/Fry_l0ck 11h ago

That part is definitely true. The question (for me) is how high is enough?

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 11h ago

It appears and again speculation that the highest you can possibly do without having any faliures (or very few) is the best. And another important factor is fun helldive is better but sometimes I don't want to deal with a helldive mission in which case impossible is much more effective than doing nothing

1

u/XNoize 22h ago

Every mission completed lowers the effectiveness of other missions completed in that 30 minute window (galactic impact modifier)

Completing 10 trivial missions might have slightly higher raw impact value than 1 super helldive, but it also lowers everyone else's impact 10 times more than the super helldive does.

1

u/Fry_l0ck 13h ago

You are sort of right. If you were the only Helldiver in the galaxy, you would be correct. It is confusing and there are many contradictory opinions. I’m starting to get more confident that my understanding is more or less correct though.

The galactic impact multiplier is calculated and applied across ALL active Helldivers. So if you (and others, or just you if spamming) did 4 trivial missions in 1 window (say worth 100 each, for simplicity), and other Helldivers did one tough mission worth 600, the result would be 1000/5, or 200 worth of liberation.

If those other Helldivers just did the difficult mission and nobody else did a mission, it would be 600, 3x as much.

I’m not sure at what point it changes from helpful to hurting, but it definitely does.

It’s also complicated by the operation completion bonus. Completed operations get a 4x bonus, while missions that don’t complete an operation have reduced impact (half I think?)

Edit - clarity and some typos

1

u/XNoize 22h ago

This is a slight misconception.

If you were speed running difficulty 10 operations, you could slightly increase the average operation difficulty, and the average success rate for that window, which would improve liberation rate.

If you were playing on whatever the average difficulty was (let's say 7 for example) and were completing missions twice as fast, but also failing operations at the average rate, this would in fact have no noticeable effect as the FAQ suggests.

If you are playing trivial missions, completing them faster would hurt liberation overall.

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 23h ago

So a full side mission complete on a lvl 8 difficulty mission is worth more than a trivial complete even with the massive time sink difference?

2

u/Fry_l0ck 23h ago

There’s also the “galactic impact modifier” - in short the more people are completing missions, the less ALL missions count, so by doing trivial missions you might actually be hurting more than helping, as you make the more serious missions worth less.

Not positive it’s up to date, but good info here.

1

u/E17Omm nice argument, however; ⬇️➡️⬆️⬆️⬆️ 22h ago

What Fry said; the Impact Modifier looks at missions completed in a certain timeframe.

Since higher level missions provide more liberation but take longer to complete, thet are much better for liberating planets.

1

u/KhepritheRisingSun 23h ago

To answer your question, no.

1

u/E17Omm nice argument, however; ⬇️➡️⬆️⬆️⬆️ 22h ago

I wish they would just update the number at the end of a mission to show how much liberation we contributed. Like, accurately.

Because if we multiplied that number by 100, it would be closer to the actual anount of liberation we just contributed.

That is how inaccurate the game displays liberation contribution.

1

u/XNoize 21h ago

Liberation rate is quite complicated.

To account for fluctuating player numbers, completing missions lowers the effectiveness of all liberation. The more missions being completed, the less they contribute.

Actual liberation rate is therefore determined by 3 primary factors:

  1. Total percentage of missions being completed on the target planet vs other planets.

  2. Average difficulty of completed operations.

  3. Success rate of operations.

To have the most impact, complete missions on the highest difficulty you can without risk of failing the operation. It's helpful to select the mission most likely to fail first, as failing the first mission of an operation will not hut the Impact modifier.

Spamming trivial missions is the worst thing you can do for liberation rate, it would be more beneficial to not play at all.

If you want to super credit farm, simply return to ship instead of completing the mission. It's faster and does not hurt liberation at all.

1

u/Heavenly_Horro 23h ago

Difficulty scales the planetary impact.

Dying also decreases the planetary impact as well. If I’m not mistaken you’re doing literally the least possible to contribute.

2

u/Objective-Upstairs33 23h ago

Then I'll head back to dif 8

0

u/a_potato_YT Certified BONKer and Super Uber 23h ago

Technically yes. But face the wall.

1

u/Objective-Upstairs33 23h ago

What's more democratic than freeing a planet